UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The deadline for Penn State’s Privacy Pedagogy for Open Inquiry and Student Expression (POISE) Project applications, open to all University instructors, has been extended to Thursday, Sept. 11. POISE, a Provost Endorsement Program, aims to enhance campus climates for open inquiry and free expression with a purposeful emphasis on the experience of identity- and viewpoint-diverse students by considering student privacy in learning design.
All cohort participants will explore intellectual privacy and its relationship to learning, inquiry and expression. Participating instructors will implement privacy pedagogy practices by critically evaluating educational technology and redesigning select course materials. The 2025-26 POISE Project pilot instructor cohort will run throughout the 2025-26 academic year with in-person workshops in September 2025 and May 2026.
The POISE Project cohort will participate in a kick-off in-person workshop in September, a synchronous online workshop in October and a culminating in-person workshop in May 2026. Cohort participants will also engage in learning design consultations and other faculty development activities to create their chosen course materials using privacy pedagogy conventions and will evaluate the effectiveness of privacy pedagogy in improving the dynamic for open discussion in their courses. Cohort members who complete the POISE Project program will be eligible for Provost Endorsement.
Penn State instructors who are interested in enhancing the campus climate for inquiry and expression by piloting privacy pedagogy elements in their spring 2026 courses are invited to apply. Participant travel to in-person events is supported by the EOPC grant, totaling $11,685 and supplemented by $4,066 from the University Libraries.
In addition to facilitating the instructor cohort, the POISE Project team will create an original faculty development curriculum on privacy pedagogy that is open licensed for reuse.
Additional information about the POISE Project is available from Teaching and Learning with Technology or by contacting Reference and Instruction Librarian Sarah Hartman-Caverly at smh767@psu.edu.