Faculty News
Allen Bertsche (Spanish) and Amanda Makula (Library) were part of a panel at the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) Information Fluency in the Disciplines workshop in New Orleans, LA, on March 5. Their talk focused on the integration of library research instruction in the Senior Inquiry in Spanish program at Augustana. The conference was funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
On February 15, 2010, Deborah Bracke, Letania Ferreira, Jane Simonsen, and Lina Zhou presented their 'Teaching Observation Group' at the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) National Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. They described how faculty members from different disciplines, cultures, and educational backgrounds can broaden the context of teaching and learning. The presenters were joined by three of their students. Lauren Jerzyk, Julie Jordan, and Krystal Marquez shared a unique perspective about the possibilities that exist when Professors invite other Professors into the classroom to examine instructional practices.
Lori Scott (Biology), co-founder and director of the newly formed Microbial Genome Annotation Network, was awarded a 5-year, $500,000 Research Coordination Network-Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE) grant from the National Science Foundation to support the recruitment and training of network members, and the development of educational resources in the field of microbial genome annotation. The co-founders of the network, who represent diverse 2-year and 4-year academic institutions across the country, have partnered with the Department of Energy-Joint Genome Institute's Adopt a Genome project and its allied program the Genome Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea (GEBA) project to provide undergraduates with authentic research opportunities utilizing the latest online bioinformatics tools. From Augustana, Kristin Douglas, Stephanie Fuhr, Jason Koontz, Tim Muir, Jason Singer, and Dara Wegman-Geedey have joined Lori and colleagues from St. Ambrose Univ. and Black Hawk and Scott Community Colleges in adopting the bacterial genome Meiothermus ruber. The goal is to integrate the annotation of the M. ruber genome throughout their respective biology curricula.