The UDL Institute gives you dedicated time to rethink part of your course. The ADI Grant gives you the support—and a $1,500 stipend—to implement what you designed, collect feedback on how it works, and refine it.

You’ll work one-on-one with a member of the ADI team throughout the process: from planning your interventions through teaching with them and reflecting on the results.

What the Grant Involves

The grant is structured as a supported implementation cycle. Here’s how it unfolds after the UDL Institute:

1. Opt in and set the stage

At the end of the UDL Institute, you’ll complete a short survey that includes the option to opt in to grant activities. You’ll describe the course interventions you began during the institute; this sets the foundation for the work ahead.

2. Plan with your ADI partner

You’ll be paired with a member of the ADI team who knows your teaching context. Together, you’ll determine which interventions to implement and how to approach them. At least one planning consultation is required, but most participants find they want more.

3. Implement and gather feedback

With your ADI partner’s support, you’ll put your intervention into practice during your next teaching term. The ADI team will help you collect student feedback and reflect on what’s working along the way.

4. Refine and share

Drawing on your own reflections and student feedback, you’ll refine the course materials, activities, or assessments you changed. You’ll create a brief artifact and narrative capturing what you did and what you learned. This resource will help interested colleagues, too.

Time Commitment

• Consultations and implementation work 5–10 hours

• Artifact creation and narrative 1–3 hours

The work is spread across a full term. Most of the hours are spent on implementation, not on separate deliverables.

Who’s Eligible

The grant is open to any Dartmouth faculty member or staff educator who has completed a UDL Institute or the self-paced workbook. 

You don’t need to be planning a brand-new course. The grant is designed for redesigning elements of courses you’re already teaching or co-curricular programs you’re already running.

What Past Grantees Have Done

Since the initiative launched, nearly 70 Dartmouth faculty and staff have completed grant projects across departments including Biological Sciences, Environmental Studies, German Studies, Writing and Rhetoric, and Italian. More are currently in progress.

The grant supports a wide range of course redesign projects. Here are a few examples from Dartmouth colleagues:

• Kathy Cottingham  —  Professor of Biological Sciences: Created guidelines to give students a more transparent understanding of the purpose behind their biostatistics projects to more readily understand assignments. 
• Morgan Peach  — Lecturer in Environmental Studies: Developed a universally designed group project that scaffolded team-based goal setting and iterative development, supporting learners who face barriers related to executive functioning.
• Heidi Denzel  —  Senior Lecturer of German Studies: Replaced course exams with a portfolio project as part of a broader initiative to support learner wellness in the German language program.
• Brian O’Connor  —  Senior Lecturer, Institute for Writing and Rhetoric: Designed scaffolding for a term-long research paper to support students who identified as less confident in their preparedness for college-level reading, writing, and research.

Our workbook, Practicing UDL in Higher Education, shares even more Dartmouth faculty case studies. 

Have Questions?

Reach out to our program manager, Carly Lesoski. They can walk you through how the grant works and help you figure out whether now is the right time to apply.

About the Accessible Dartmouth Initiative

ADI is a collaboration between the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, Student Accessibility Services, and Learning Design & Innovation. The initiative supports faculty and staff educators in incorporating Universal Design for Learning into Dartmouth courses and co-curricular programs—with the goal of better meeting the needs of all students, including neurodiverse students, first-generation college students, international students, English language learners, and others.