2026-2027 CTL Fellows
Cheyenne Brindle, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Chemistry can be a scary addition to a student’s schedule, particularly if that student views themselves as definitively “not” a scientist. My CTL project involves refining and expanding on a laboratory project that I will pioneer next semester as part of a new course: Food Chemistry. This project will involve student designed experiments on food preparation employing the scientific method. The goal of this project is to make connections between students’ everyday lives and the logic of scientific thinking, experimentation, and analysis. I am excited to help students see themselves as scientists in the kitchen and to apply concepts from class to their everyday experiences.
Samuel Catlin, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
“Re-Thinking College-Level Holocaust Studies for the Present”
This project aims to develop and implement pedagogical strategies for effective instruction about the Holocaust in a contemporary moment that has rendered this subject matter especially difficult to teach, in addition to the perennial challenges the topic poses for pedagogy. These new and recurring challenges are: (1) the need for a trauma-informed pedagogy that nevertheless facilitates direct engagement with psychologically distressing subject matter; (2) declining student background knowledge of the subject matter; and (3) a rapidly changing political context in the United States, within which Holocaust education has become overtly politicized and ideologically contested, as well as instrumentalized by a larger project of state repression. In the fall term of the fellowship, I will construct the syllabus for a new course, RELG 237: Interpreting the Holocaust, with the specific intention of formulating effective approaches to these three pedagogical problem areas. I will then implement these approaches by teaching RELG 237 in the Spring 2027 semester with ongoing support from the CTL Fellows.
Robert Cotto, Director, OCB Campus & Community Engagement
“Remaking Accessible Course Materials with Universal Design for Learning “
In addition to related course materials, the syllabus is at the core of learning new knowledge and skills in courses at the college and university level. Academics remake and revise their syllabi and materials typically with changes in academic literature, student interests, and other priorities. This project will revise and remake a more accessible syllabus and course materials with principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for a course in Urban Studies. To accomplish this project, the author will utilize the Tulane University Accessible Syllabus and W3C Web Accessibility frameworks. This project will have several phases including some form of a checklist and/or tips for other professors on using UDL for revisions of syllabi and course materials to make them more accessible for students.
Sidra Hamidi, Assistant Professor of Political Science
“Simulating the UN: Active Learning and Global Politics”
Active learning outcomes can be difficult to achieve in classes about the “high politics” of diplomacy, war, and international crises. Students often feel removed and alienated from the global processes in which their lives are embedded. This project will address the challenges of teaching international relations by developing a UN Security Council (UNSC) simulation which allows students to embody and enact different global perspectives. The simulation will require students to represent different members of the UNSC and address a mock international crisis that reflects the stakes of global politics today.
Adam Hill, Associate Professor of Chemistry
“Developing the Strategies for (Optionally) AI-Supported Coding in Physical Chemistry“
Physical Chemistry’s reputation as the most daunting courses in chemists’ training has long stemmed from its heavy reliance on multivariable calculus and abstract derivations. I have previously addressed this by introducing Python coding into Physical Chemistry I and II (CHEM-309/310) at Trinity, allowing students to engage authentically with thermodynamics, kinetics, and quantum mechanics through data fitting and visualization—the tools professional physical chemists actually use. The rapid advancement of AI coding tools (such as Claude Code and Copilot) requires reassessment of that strategy; rather than ignoring AI use or banning it outright, I propose developing a pedagogy that incorporates AI-assisted coding as an optional pathway. Students will complete foundational coding instruction regardless of which path they choose, then opt into either an AI-assisted approach (learning prompt engineering and critical evaluation of model outputs) or a traditional coding track with more advanced instruction. By studying both groups, I aim to develop assignment structures and teaching strategies that equip students to think rigorously as scientists in a world where AI really can write good code. Developing fair and equitablequestions/assignments will seek improve student engagement with either approach and, depending on how many students opt into each path, potentially provide insights into the pros and cons of employing each strategy to learn the underlying chemical concepts. Sharing those assignment structure strategies can inform the work of my colleagues across campus who seek to incorporate coding assignments into quantitative courses.
Mushahid Hussain, Visiting Assistant Professor of Urban Studies
“Building Knowledge Communities in the Classroom: Teaching Urban Theory in the Age of AI”
My project aims to transform the student engagement and assessment components of my course URST/SOCL 221 – City and Society. The course offers a systematic exploration of two centuries of social thought in which ‘the city’ and urban life emerge as distinct objects of theorization and empirical study. Following the literary critic Raymond Williams, the course is organized around the basic premise that the complex and changing socio-spatial representations of human habitation – based on a foundational distinction between the city and the countryside – continue to inform our sense of history, culture, and politics. Currently, the course is designed as a series of lectures in which students read and discuss primary theoretical texts alongside a companion textbook. These readings are supplemented by research articles, documentaries, and other multimedia sources that illustrate how the ideas and concepts we discuss each week appear in research and policy contexts. Modes of assessment include short writing assignments and weekly student-led discussions, a film review for the mid-terms, and a take-home final exam where students respond to several essay-type questions that assess critical thinking, interpretation, and analytical writing skills. I want to improve the ‘what’ and ‘how’ components of this course by reconsidering the delivery of course materials and how students demonstratecomprehension of them, including student engagement through group discussions. I also want to reexamine the ‘why’ by assigning a literature review for the final assessment, where students are encouraged to identify their interests in current urban theoretical conversations, and are genuinely motivated by the prospect of participating in them. This involves exposing students to the limits of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for literature research and reviews through self-assessing activities and assignments.
Benjamin Pokross, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
“Spatial Approaches to Teaching American Literature“
My project focuses on integrating maps and cartography into my American literature classes. Teaching 17th and 18th-century literature, I often find that students are unfamiliar with the geographies of early America, defaulting to the way the US is organized now. By incorporating maps in a systematic and intentional way, I hope to help my students understand more clearly what this continent looked like hundreds of years ago. But this project goes beyond simply using maps in class to thinking more broadly about forms of visual and spatial understanding that are just as important as the traditional “close reading” practices of literary studies. How do we “read” maps? What are the particular ways that maps communicate? By assigning maps as course readings and inviting students to design their own maps as class projects, I hope to create accessible and engaging pathways to understanding early American literature and developing cartographic literacy.
Evan Turiano, Visiting Assistant Professor of Public Policy & Law
“Investigating Legal Briefs as a Universal Design for Learning-Friendly Final Assessment”
At CTL, I will investigate best practices for using various forms of legal briefs as cumulative writing projects in my Public Policy and Law courses. I believe that this genre—with its predetermined format, established conventions, and explicit goals and audience—fits well within the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) by keeping my assessment of student learning focused on the student’s ability to clearly articulate their research and understanding. In my limited experience, legal brief assignments have the potential to both appeal to students and achieve my pedagogical goals. Because they respond to real, ongoing cases, they align with John Bean’s approach of establishing meaningful stakes within disciplinary writing. Additionally, because the formal conventions of legal briefs enable multiple interrelated arguments, they lend themselves well to the type of interdisciplinary inquiry that I encourage in my classes. Finally, because the form and structure are predetermined, students often feel freed from the stumbling blocks of unspoken essay conventions or the burden of essay “rules” they’ve picked up along the way. I encourage them to focus carefully on writing and revising, but with the explicit goal of clearly articulating their point and persuading a judge. In the CTL Fellows Program, I hope to learn how to more intentionally apply UDL practices to my assignments, to scaffold my legal brief assignments across the semester, and work on focusing the assessment more carefully on my learning goals.
