UTA Faculty Partner with Libraries, Receive THECB Grants for OER Projects

The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries congratulates Dr. Kimberly Breuer from the UTA Department of History and Dr. Molly Wiant Cummins from the UTA Department of Communications on their receipt of grant funds from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB).

These funds, totaling $10,000, will support both professors’ work to modify and implement Open Educational Resources (OER) in their classrooms.

“We are thankful to Drs. Breuer and Cummins for their ongoing commitment to open education and celebrate their grant awards from THECB,” said Michelle Reed, UTA Libraries Director of OER. “Their projects will have a huge impact on affordability and student success at UTA.”

Replacing traditional textbooks with equally rigorous OER makes a Maverick education more accessible while lowering the overall cost for students. Since 2017, UTA Libraries has awarded 27 of its own CARES OER grants, resulting in the development of open educational resources for an estimated total cost savings of $229,085. This doesn’t account for the cost savings generated by outside OER grants like THECB.

Dr. Breuer, Associate Professor of Instruction in the UTA History department, regularly teaches the US history core curriculum surveys, lower division World Civilizations I and II, and Historical Methods. Her proposal requested funds to modify an existing OER developed for use in Technology and Science in American Society II, a new core curriculum course which partially fulfills the requirement in US History. It will be taught for the first time in the Spring 2021 semester.

Dr. Cummins, Fundamentals of Public Speaking Course Coordinator for the UTA Communications department, has been teaching foundational Communications for the better part of a decade. Her application requested funds to implement an existing OER textbook, the fourth edition of Exploring Public Speaking by Tucker, Barton, Burger, Drye, Hunsicker, Mendes, and LeHew, for a minimum of two years followed by evaluation. The estimated total cost savings of this implementation is approximately $173,500 in the first year of use.

Learn more about UTA Libraries’ OER initiatives on our website.