Category: teaching

The American Academy of Religion awarded one of its highest honors to Carolyn Medine:

Medine, a University of Georgia professor in the department of religion and the Institute for African American Studies, has been selected to receive the 2013 Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Academy of Religion.

The professional society for scholarship and teaching in the field of religion, the AAR has more 10,000 members who teach in about 1,000 colleges, universities, seminaries and schools in North America and abroad. The award, announced on the AAR website, will be formally presented at the academy's annual meeting in November.

"I'm very humbled by this award," Medine said. "So many important teachers of religion have won this award that I feel honored, and a bit unworthy, to be included among them."

Medine teaches courses focused on how literature and art relate to religious experience, particularly Southern and African-American women's religious experience, within the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She has written extensively on the work of Toni Morrison and Harper Lee.

An important honor by her peers for Dr. Medine and one that brings great distinction to the Franklin College and UGA. Congratulations to Dr. Medine for bringing great instruction to her students.

The First-Year Odyssey program has been an important innovation in teaching but also in introducing freshman to the university setting. The FYO now has a new director:

Melissa Harshman, an associate professor in the University of Georgia's Lamar Dodd School of Art, has been named faculty director of the First-Year Odyssey Seminar program. Through the program, small-group academic seminars taught by tenured and tenure-track faculty are offered to all incoming freshmen. Harshman follows Tim Foutz, who served as director in the founding year of the program from 2011-12.

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"The First Year Odyssey program not only allows freshmen to work with some of the most distinguished faculty on campus, but also introduces them to the myriad of exciting opportunities at the University of Georgia," said Harshman. "I'm delighted to be leading such an auspicious program."

My own bias aside(!), it's important to have an art professor and artist rotate into this position. A lot of what we do at the university is preparing people to be active citizens, critical thinkers and leaders, if they are so inclined. The arts are a crucial aspect of the university experience as preparation for an engaged citizenry - what one contributes to them as well as what one receives. 

Congratulations to the program and to Harshman.

Sociology professor and department head William Finlay is currently featured in the Focus on Faculty on the UGA homepage:

A few highlights/insights on Finlay's perspective on teaching:

What interests you about your field?

I enjoy its diversity and the sheer range of human behaviors and institutions that one can examine and explain as a sociologist. It remains as fascinating a discipline to me now as it did when I took my first undergraduate sociology class nearly 40 years ago.

What are some highlights of your career at UGA?

Becoming a Meigs professor, receiving an award from one of the sections of the American Sociological Association for my first book, and starting a study-abroad program in South Africa.

How does your research or scholarship inspire your teaching, and vice versa?

For me, they've also gone hand in hand. My current research project is a direct outgrowth of a class I have been teaching – I often get ideas for research from teaching. And when I'm working on my research, I often think about how I would present the findings to students, which I find to be a good way of forcing myself to make the argument as clear and interesting as possible.

What do you hope students gain from their classroom experience with you?

A set of concepts and ideas for understanding the world around them, whether they are at home, at work or visiting unfamiliar places. I like to think of sociology as a kind of toolkit that we can use to explain human behavior and I hope that my students take some of these tools with them.

Be sure and read the whole thing.

Image: University of Georgia. Finlay, right, with students.

Leading-edge research and delivery format brings together faculty from across campus:

Using a combination of 3-D models and animations, a group of researchers, educators and digital artists at the University of Georgia have published the iBook "Cell Signaling: An Introduction" to help students understand the dynamic molecular world of cells.

The cell signaling iBook is the first in a suite of complementary materials designed to help students learn about how the nervous system works. Released in August through Apple's iTunes textbook store and designed for the iPad, the interactive book includes picture galleries, a dozen 3-D rotatable models of molecules and proteins, more than 50 animations and 80 self-assessment items.

The production of the iBook was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health through a Small Business Innovative Research grant awarded to UGA startup company IS3D LLC, titled "Stimulating Young Neuroscientists And Physiologists in Science Education (SYNAPSE)."

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IS3D is a partnership of seven UGA faculty and staff members: Moore; Tom Robertson, associate professor of physiology and pharmacology; Dr. Scott Brown, professor of small animal medicine, and Dr. Cynthia Ward, professor of small animal medicine, in the College of Veterinary Medicine; instructional designer Flint Buchanan in the Office of Online Learning; Mike Hussey, associate professor of theatre and film studies, in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; and Casey O'Donnell, a telecommunications professor formerly in the Grady College of Journalism who recently moved to Michigan State University.

Bravo to our faculty for continuing to find innovative ways to work together, and to federal agencies for their creative funding arrangements in tough budgetary environments. Perhaps never (in peace time) have extramural resources been as scarce and continually shrinking as they are now. A society clamors for solutions to complex problems, research allocations, and especially those focused on building new teaching tools, are crucial investments in the future.

The Franklin College’s Department of Microbiology recently hired two senior faculty members, both of whom bring an impressive record of research and teaching to UGA.

Jorge C. Escalante-Semerena comes to UGA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his work focuses on a number of areas that impact human health. Among his interests are the use of vitamin B12 derivatives for cancer therapy and the modification of bacterial proteins to study aging.

“Given his expertise in bacteria from the human gut, he will greatly strengthen the microbiology components of the obesity and infectious disease initiatives at UGA,” said microbiology Professor and former Department Head Willam “Barny” Whitman. “We anticipate strong collaborations with researchers in the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Chemistry, as well as potential collaborations with departments such as Animal and Dairy Sciences, Crop and Soil Sciences, and Infectious Diseases.”

Escalante-Semerena is the recipient of an NIH MERIT award, which will provide continuous support for his research until 2020.  These awards are exceptionally rare and awarded to less than 5% of NIH funded investigators.  They are highly prized, even in the country's top-ranked medical schools, because they represent  an unusual level of trust in the investigator by the agency.

Students and faculty at the University are fortunate in the extent to which UGA has embraced the importance of study abroad. An international academic experience intertwines crucial cultural elements with instruction in ways that are otherwise inaccessible for students, but also builds richness into the undergraduate experience that directly supports the well-rounded liberal arts education we speak and write about so often. Whether it is a music conservatory in Alessandria, Italy or a research vessel off the coast of Antarctica, UGA has established a vast network of study abroad programs from which students can choose - programs full of eye-opening experiences that will help them to chart their own course in life.

And nowhere is the variety of offerings more diverse than in, of course, the Franklin College. All seven continents, by my count. 

Image: World map, included in the Doncker sea atlas, 1659 edition (created by Doncker, Hendrick, 1626-1699), acquired by the Australian Government in 1909, as part of the Petherick Collection of the National Library of Australia.

The Cantrell Lecture Series in the department of mathematics brings UCLA professor and director of Applied Mathematics Andrea Bertozzi to campus on Wednesday April 25 for an interesting lecture:

The Mathematics of Crime

There is an extensive applied mathematics literature developed for problems in the biological and physical sciences. Our understanding of social science problems from a mathematical standpoint is less developed, but also presents some very interesting problems, especially for young researchers. This lecture uses crime as a case study for using applied mathematical techniques in a social science application and covers a variety of mathematical methods that are applicable to such problems. We will review recent work on agent based models, methods in linear and nonlinear partial differential equations, variational methods for inverse problems and statistical point process models. From an application standpoint we will look at problems in residential burglaries and gang crimes. 

Sounds provocative. So much cultural programming has moved in this direction already (e.g., all the CSI shows) that it seems somehow easy to accept. It's great to see this application of mathematics taken in the direction of teaching.

Wednesday, April 25

3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Zell B. Miller Learning Center (SLC/MLC)

Room 102

Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics Sybilla Beckmann Kazez received a Teaching Excellence Award from the University System of Georgia Board of Regents:

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences professor was chosen for the award that goes to one faculty member annually from research institutions in the university system. Awards also are given to one faculty member from the system's regional and state universities and one from the system's two-year and state colleges.

Beckmann Kazez is nationally recognized for her innovative approach to preparing elementary school mathematics teachers. Through her book Mathematics for Elementary Teachers and involvement in national and professional organizations, she has led substantial reform in mathematics education.

Because we're going to re-publish one of her articles in the annual school of art newsletter, I've been following the writing of Hofstra University art professor Laurie Fendrich a little closer than usual. She's a terrific writer, and her blog posts for the Chronicle's Brainstorm blog are a must. Last week, for instance, when relating a story about her preparations for delivering a lecture on Picasso, she inadvertently (though, of course, not at all) shares a nugget about lecturing to first-year students:

Professors lecturing to first-year college students need to resist the impulse to show off. Expertise is fine, but it needs to be kept in check; otherwise, whatever it is you truly want to convey ends up smothered by obscure asides and references that impress only those already in the know.

When I had finally finished writing my lecture, I felt not success, but regret. After spending two weeks happily submerged in Picasso, I realized I hadn’t thought about him in such a serious way for a long time, and probably won’t do so again anytime in the near future.

I would assume it's quite easy for faculty to forget this from time to time, and as much as students benefit from elevated conversations - lectures that fly over their heads are likely of no utility whatsoever. It's a reminder of what a fine line you walk in front of the classroom everyday. The power that is there - and the massive responsibility that comes with it.

In the nation, that is. And among the three from UGA are two from Franklin College, according to the Princeton Review and RateMyProfessors.com:

John Knox, an associate professor of geography; Audrey Haynes, an associate professor of political science; and Charles Kutal, a chemistry professor and associate dean of the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, are listed among The Best 300 Professors, which was released April 3.

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The Best 300 Professors, which is the first comprehensive guidebook to America's top undergraduate professors, is unusual in that it started based on data collected from undergraduate students. It relies heavily on the opinions they give about the professors they learn from daily.

"The students are in the classroom," Knox said. "They make their opinions known on this site [RateMyProfessors.com], and, to my knowledge, the Princeton Review is the first to use this national rating system."