The John Hyde Teaching Fellowship

The Hyde Teaching Fellowship is awarded to senior members of the faculty to honor the foundation upon which Williams College is built—a liberal arts teaching college devoted to undergraduate education. It encourages and supports versatility in teaching as well as the careful development of courses that promote broad-based learning. Examples might include courses which link to several areas within the college curriculum, and thus present ways of learning from a number of disciplines; courses which add a new area of focus to a department’s or program’s offerings; or courses intentionally directed at students whose primary interests may lie elsewhere. The Hyde Fellowship also encourages faculty members to stretch beyond their specific areas of expertise in order to teach broadly within their own discipline.

Fellows will be appointed for a term of three years. This is a period of focused attention on teaching and is therefore normally scheduled to include at least five semesters of active service with a full teaching load. Mini-sabbatical semesters can be included within the term of fellowship but are not considered part of the fellowship.

The fellowship provides an annual stipend of $10,000 (or $5,000 during a year including a mini-sabbatical) plus modest funding for curricular or co-curricular programming (e.g., invited speakers, class field trips, experiential education modules, and instructional technology). If the faculty member so wishes, the fellowship can count as their institutional service for part or all of the three-year term.

Eligibility:  Tenured members of the faculty and Senior Lecturers, from all departments and programs. Divisional rotation is desirable.

Proposals:  For fellowships to begin in fall 2024, please submit a statement of interest to the Dean of the Faculty by January 5, 2024.  It should outline a three-year plan for teaching starting in the fall of 2024 and include goals for the fellowship period.   For example:

  • Why is this fellowship opportunity attractive to you, personally, at this time?
  • How would you use the fellowship period to enhance or augment teaching in your department or program (or in other departments or programs)?
  • What kinds of students would your fellowship affect most directly?
  • What are the potential long-term gains of your fellowship?

While a detailed budget is not required at the proposal stage, a rough sketch of anticipated expenses (if any) should be included.

Note:  John M. Hyde ’52, Brown Professor of History, Emeritus, was a member of the faculty from 1959-1995. In addition to his dedication to teaching, he was influential in the education of students beyond the classroom, with a focus on the residential life system (phasing out fraternities) early in his career and later serving as the Dean of the College from 1967-1970. He was awarded the Rogerson Cup, the college’s highest award for alumni service, in 2002. John Hyde or a member of his family has been continuously active at Williams for nearly 200 years. In 1821 his great-great-grandfather helped found the Society of Alumni, considered the world’s oldest.

Fellowship History

  • 2016-20     Rónadh Cox (Geosciences)
  • 2017-20     Steven Gerrard (Philosophy)
  • 2020-23     W. Anthony Sheppard (Music)
  • 2021-22     Matt Carter (Biology)
  • 2023-26     Kate Stroud (Psychology)