UST awards 12 Bush grants in fall of 2005
The UST Bush Foundation Program Grant on inquiry-based learning and faculty/student collaboration congratulates faculty who have received funding for J-term and spring projects which will enhance the quality of undergraduate education at St. Thomas.
Two Dissemination Grants were given to support undergraduate research conferences:
· Greg Robinson-Riegler (Psychology) for the department to host the Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference, in which 250 student explain their research projects via posters and oral presentations.
· Carol Bruess (Communication Studies) for the department to sponsor the 15th annual Undergraduate Communication Research Conference. The conference brings together 130 students and faculty from colleges and universities of the Upper Midwest.
Two more Dissemination Grants were given in support of faculty and students to attend conferences to present the results of their collaborative research:
· Lisa Waldner (Sociology), with five of her students, was funded for travel to the Upper Midwest Sociological Society meeting in Nebraska. They will present their research on gay skinheads and gender differences in study-abroad programs.
· Tom Ippoliti (Chemistry) received travel funding for seven students to present their work at the American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta. These projects evolved from the Chemistry faculty’s research groups: Tom Ippoliti’s group synthesized new organic molecules; Tony Borgerding’s team built a probe to extract analytes; Bill Ojala’s group studied new solid materials using special isomers; and Tom Marsh’s students developed a molecular scaffold from G-DNA.
One grant was given to design instruction that promotes higher-level thinking skills in an Entry-Level Course Grant:
· Carole Bagley (Quantitative Methods and Computer Science) will re-design the course called Software Design Using Java (QMCS 230), to have students solve problems in a collaborative setting, rather than the traditional individual lab work and assignments. Her project is based on evidence that programmers are more productive in teams.
Several grants were awarded Other Course Grants for re-designing courses to be inquiry-based:
· Lynda McDonnell (Journalism) and Ellen Kennedy (Service-Learning) will change the capstone Advanced Reporting course (JOMC 410) from a textbook-based course into one that applies principles to real community reporting. Students will interview neighborhood leaders and residents to find out what they want to know about their community.
· Sunil Mohanty (Finance) will develop cases for the Financial Intermediaries course (FINC 430) which demonstrate how a bank manager creates value to its shareholders. Student teams will analyze real-world bank risk and return data and evaluate the performance of a commercial bank.
· Sergey Barabanov (Finance) will change the Investments course (FINC 325) from one that uses textbook-based, stand-alone assignments into a whole-semester project where students are assigned a real public firm and have to incorporate most of the course material in their analysis of that firm.
· German Pliego (Quantitative Methods and Computer Science) was funded to travel to Perú to attend the University of Delaware’s Problem-Based Learning workshops. He is combining his Bush grant with sabbatical leave in order to revise the Statistics I course (QMSC 220) from recipe- and derivation-based teaching into a problem-based course that emphasizes more data and concepts in problem-solving processes.
· Tony Borgerding (Chemistry) was given a grant to change the Instrumental Analysis course (CHEM 320) from one in which students memorize advantages and disadvantages of various lab instruments, into a course in which students investigate how instruments generate signals. Students write faux-grant proposals. The best one is “funded” as a semester-long project. Lectures, discussions, and lab exercises will be adapted to the pace and structure of the investigation, reflecting the essence of inquiry-based learning.
· Tony Steyermark (Biology) received an award to change the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology II course (BIOL 350) from a lecture-based course into one that is case-based. Students investigate problems given in the cases, then work together to ‘solve’ the case. Tony reports from past experiences in other courses that students say they learn more in this way than from lecture-and-textbook materials.
· Cherzad Shakiban (Mathematics) and Jeff Jalkio (Engineering) received funding to develop a new section of the Linear Algebra/Differential Equations course (MATH 210) to better show students how the math they’re learning applies to engineering. Problems will be drawn from real engineering situations, and students will work in collaborative groups.
Descriptions of all UST Bush-funded programs are given at: www.stthomas.edu/bushgrant. UST’s Bush Foundation grant stems from Archibald Bush, a founder of the 3M corporation. UST graciously acknowledges their support.