UGA Columns March 26, 2018

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UGA entrepreneurship program helps students turn ideas into reality CAMPUS NEWS

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Dance department to give its spring concert, ‘Change in Motion,’ April 5-7 Vol. 45, No. 29

March 26, 2018

www.columns.uga.edu

UGA GUIDE

4&5

University recognized for its international collaboration efforts

By Sam Fahmy

sfahmy@uga.edu

From left: Patricia Richards, Santanu Chatterjee and Michael Marshall have been named Meigs Teaching Professors.

‘Best of the best’

Three UGA faculty members honored as Meigs Professors By Camie Williams camiew@uga.edu

The University of Georgia has honored three faculty members with its highest recognition for excellence in instruction, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship. “At a university with an unrivaled commitment to student success, Meigs Professors are the best of the best,” said Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Pamela Whitten, whose office sponsors the award. “They educate and inspire University of Georgia students to achieve their full potential.” The 2018 Meigs Professors are Santanu Chatterjee, associate professor of economics and director of the full-time master’s in business administration and master of science in business analytics programs in the Terry College of Business;

Michael Marshall, professor of art in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; and Patricia Richards, professor of sociology and women’s studies in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Chatterjee has partnered with financial technology corporations in Atlanta to provide students with meaningful experiential and project-based learning opportunities to prepare them for jobs in the rapidly growing FinTech sector of the economy. Since assuming the role of director of the Full-Time MBA Program for the Terry College in August of 2014, Chatterjee has worked to expand interdisciplinary offerings through the creation of five new dual-degree programs. Chatterjee has received the George P. Swift Award for Outstanding Teaching in Undergraduate Economics three times and also has been named

Outstanding Teacher for the Terry College of Business. Marshall has taught every course in the photography curriculum of the Lamar Dodd School of Art, redesigning the program of study to integrate new technology and the medium’s changing role in visual culture. He utilizes servicelearning to hone students’ skills while engaging the concerns of Georgia communities and the environment. As associate director of curriculum for the art school, Marshall has placed the needs of students at the forefront of curriculum development with new programming emphasizing ideation and interdisciplinary practice. Marshall received the 2017 Honored Educator Award from the Society for Photographic Education Southeast Chapter as well as the Sustainability Outstanding Faculty Award and the 2015 Service-Learning Teaching See MEIGS on page 8

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

The University of Georgia is one of eight universities nationwide to be recognized for its exemplary international programs and partnerships by NAFSA, the world’s largest nonprofit association dedicated to international education. The university’s network of partnerships within the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais has received NAFSA’s 2018 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award, which is named after the late Illinois senator who was a strong advocate for international education and

cross-cultural learning. “The University of Georgia is a global enterprise, with reach and impact that span the world,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead, “and I want to congratulate the faculty at UGA whose dedication to international research and collaboration is being recognized by this significant award.” UGA has long considered Brazil a strategically important country based on the quality of its higher education system, and the UGA-Minas Gerais partnership was launched in 2015 after a datadriven analysis of research activity revealed that an outsized portion

See COLLABORATION on page 8

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Education grant project aims to enhance teacher’s toolbox By Kristen Morales kmorales@uga.edu

As a graduate student in educational psychology, Laine Bradshaw developed a psychometric method to assess students’ comprehension of key concepts. Now, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, she is able to apply her work to classrooms, combining research with practice. The $1.4 million grant, “Diagnostic Inventories of Cognition in Education,” investigates a new way to create an assessment to figure out which misconceptions students have based on which incorrect answers they pick—information that is typically disregarded in assessments. The aim of the assessment is to give teachers a useful resource to understand where their students are

struggling and address the root of the problem. Bradshaw, an associate professor in the University of Georgia College of Education’s educational psychology department, and her research team are working to develop data science tools that will allow students to take an online assessment and determine the probability that they have a particular misconception. The tools analyze patterns of student responses to pick up on specific types of reasoning students show across a set of meaningful problems. The bits of reasoning are smaller than what is typically assessed in schools. The purpose of assessing these specific bits of reasoning, Bradshaw said, is to give feedback to teachers and students that’s not easy to see during typical classroom activities. See TOOLBOX on page 8

GRADUATE SCHOOL

UGA to develop peer faculty mentoring program CNN political analyst will give By Tracy N. Coley tcoley@uga.edu

The University of Georgia is moving forward with plans to create a new faculty mentorship program and introduce tools to allow a common course evaluation. The plans stem from the final report of the President’s Task Force on Student Learning and Success, which included 12 recommendations to enhance the undergraduate learning environment at UGA. A working group comprised of six members of the UGA Teaching Academy, a longstanding community of faculty devoted to promoting teaching excellence, will develop proposals for the

new initiative. Academy members William Vencill, who serves as the university’s associate vice president for instruction, and Marisa Pagnattaro, associate dean for research and graduate programs in the UGA Terry College of Business, will co-chair the working group. The focus of the faculty mentorship program will be on expanding peer evaluation across campus to further promote teaching excellence, support faculty growth and development, and measure student learning in the classroom. The working group will develop a framework for faculty leaders both to assess existing evaluation processes and to pilot new peer evaluation methods specific to their

Task Force on Student Learning and Success READ THE REPORT: president.uga.edu/report

school or college. “Developing a collaborative process for peer mentoring and evaluation is essential to the professional growth of our faculty as instructors,” said Vencill. “Facultyto-faculty guidance through the mentoring and evaluation process will fundamentally and positively change instruction across all schools and colleges. Administrators and pedagogy See MENTORING on page 8

Mary Frances Early Lecture

By Kristen Cameron kcam@uga.edu

Bakari Sellers, CNN political analyst and attorney, will deliver the 18th annual Mary Frances Early Lecture April 2 at 3 p.m. in Mahler Hall of the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel. He will speak on “Education, Civil Rights and Equality: Cornerstones for Our Future.” Open free to the public, the lecture will be followed with a reception. The Mary Frances Early Lecture honors the first AfricanAmerican student to earn a degree

Bakari Sellers

from UGA and her legacy at the university. Early graduated with a master’s degree in music education in 1962 and completed her specialist in education

degree in 1967. The lecture series recognizes Early’s dedication toward making UGA an institution of higher learning for all people. It also strives to demonstrate the progress that has

See LECTURE on page 8


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