Bingham Fund
for Excellence in Teaching at Transylvania
Since 1987, the Bingham Fund for Excellence in Teaching has invested nearly $30 million to develop, identify, promote and reward excellent classroom teaching at Transylvania.
Bingham Fund
The fund supports faculty awards and provides financial support to develop teaching initiatives — including the creation of a digital learning program to provide encouragement and professional assistance to faculty in the use of digital technologies in classroom teaching — ongoing faculty development, and faculty and student research through the David and Betty Jones Faculty Development Fund.
Bingham Center for Teaching Excellence
The Bingham Center serves as a central location for faculty mentoring and pedagogical advancement while fostering a culture of evidence-based excellence in teaching and learning. The center and its staff champion innovative teaching methods well suited to a liberal arts education with the primary goal of enhancing student learning.
Bingham Endowed Chairs
Beginning in 2024, up to three faculty members will be selected each year as a Bingham Endowed Chair. Based on a rigorous application process by an external committee of excellent peer teachers, these five-year endowed chairs recognize professors whose outstanding and innovative teaching demonstrates Transylvania’s commitment to the very best student educational experience.
I have immense appreciation for the outstanding teaching done by Transylvania faculty and profound respect for the Bingham awards, which encourage and reward that teaching excellence.
John K. Roth, professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College
The Bingham program is perhaps unique in American higher education. Many colleges and universities insist that teaching excellence is central to their mission. Often, however, we don’t really discuss specifically and honestly what exactly constitutes ‘excellent teaching’ and how to achieve it. What the Bingham program has done is create a sophisticated mechanism, involving extensive consultation with and examination by professors from other liberal arts institutions, to evaluate classroom instruction at the university.
Jonathan Berkey, professor of history at Davidson College
