Joining

We could definitely use all the help we could get and we'd eagerly welcome any individuals who are motivated to donate their time and energy to help this project. While we're terming the developers of this project as faculty and staff in analogy to our educational role, it is worth clarifying the backgrounds we are hoping for in people who want to join.

First off, we should stress that it is in no way necessary (or even necessarily preferable) for volunteers to be teachers, professors, lecturers, or other members of the Academy (as it might be termed). It's really only important that you have a desire to teach and a certain level of proficiency or knowledge in the area you want to teach. This is meant to be a collaborative project, though, so it's not required that you have expertise in every area involved in teaching or preparing course materials or other matters. Contribute in the areas and to the degree that you feel comfortable and hopefully others will gradually complement your work. For example, you might have some great ideas about new approaches or angles to teaching a certain subject, but difficulty preparing cohesive, cogent notes and course materials. We'll happily accept rough drafts, counting on future volunteers who are adept editors, proofreaders, maybe even illustrators (scientific or otherwise), when that is called for. Even if you're not interested at all in preparing course material, but you'd be excited to use pre-existing material and serve as a lecturer or a recitation instructor in support of a class. Even if you're not interested in the educaitonal aspects at all, hopefully you'd be excited by some behind-the-scenes working groups on information technology perhaps or the more obvious development of social activities for students. It's even possible for you to simultaneously contribute in certain areas as a member of the staff and also take different courses as a student.

The few requirements that we have are simple and intuitive:

All faculty and staff should have the inner drive to improve our world and our civilization through education for all.
All faculty and staff are held to a similar standard of ethics as applies to our student body.

To indicate your interest in joining the Free University Project, please send us an email, describing your interests, background, and other pertinent information.