The grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education [FIPSE] is designed to support cooperative work between U.S. and European Community schools. With the grant, Samford faculty will be paired with Maastricht faculty to develop 16 interdisciplinary PBL problems.

Project director is Dr. David W. Chapman, Samford arts and sciences dean.

Sample problem topics from the first year include "Forms of Democracy," "Ethical Dilemmas" and "Problems of Political Integration."

Second-year topics will include "Mass Media and Culture" and "Visual Culture.'

The project is an outgrowth of Samford’s work in PBL funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1998, Samford received a $1 million grant from Pew to explore the uses of PBL in undergraduate education. A follow-up grant of $750,000 in 1999 was awarded to support documentation and review of teaching using PBL course portfolios.

As part of the original Pew grant, five Samford faculty visited Maastricht in 1999, and three Maastricht faculty led a workshop at Samford later the same year. Wim Gijselaers of Maastricht was a keynote speaker at an international PBL conference hosted by Samford in the fall of 2000.