Apply to be a 2026-27 TEK Faculty Fellow
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 6, 2026) — Transdisciplinary Educational approaches to advance Kentucky (TEK) has released the application for the fourth cohort of its Faculty Fellows program. The program is designed to support faculty in developing new transdisciplinary courses and teaching existing courses with a more explicit focus on essential employability skills. The overall goal of TEK is to expand students’ access to transdisciplinary educational approaches for the development of transferable skills.
A transdisciplinary approach involves teams with members representing multiple viewpoints that share a conceptual framework to identify questions and address 21st century problems. Together, people from various backgrounds and with different experiences answer big questions, each bringing their informed and unique perspective. This approach is collaborative, leverages a wide range of campus expertise and includes alumni and other community-based and workforce experts throughout every phase of a process.
Faculty Learning Communities have been established for TEK Faculty Fellows to support faculty professional development. The program, offered in collaboration with the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching, aims to build cohorts of faculty — representing a wide range of disciplines in teaching and learning environments at UK — who are interested in creating transdisciplinary experiences for students.
“The TEK Faculty Fellows program provides a space to think intentionally about what we are doing in the classroom and how we can help students develop their skills and talk about them,” said Sarah Vos, Ph.D., assistant professor in the College of Public Health’s Department of Health Management and Policy and former TEK faculty fellow. “It’s helped me intentionally talk to my students about why we do what we do and how it relates to their futures in the workforce. In addition, I’ve been able to redesign assignments that help my students focus on those skills in context. And the students love it when they see how what we do in the classroom relates to their future in the workforce.”
Download the full call for applications or for more information on the TEK Faculty Fellows program.
You can learn more about TEK Faculty Fellows at one of the two Q&A sessions offered. Q&A sessions will be 3 p.m. Thursday, March 26, and 4 p.m Monday, March 30, via Zoom. Register to sign up and receive the Zoom link.
Apply online for the fourth cohort of TEK Faculty Fellows for the 2026-27 academic year.
The deadline to apply for the TEK Faculty Fellows program is 5 p.m. Monday, April 6. Questions can be emailed to Jennifer Osterhage, Ph.D., director of TEK, at jennifer.osterhage@uky.edu.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.