A sense of wonder: Transformative teaching at UND
For Teacher Appreciation Week, celebrate innovative and creative teaching at UND, says Randi Tanglen, vice provost for Faculty Affairs
Top image: ‘1904 Junior Law Class’; source: UND photo archives. Bottom image: Craig Carlson, associate professor of aviation, interacts with students in one of his aviation courses at UND. Color photo by Nichole Dumlao of UND.
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This special issue of UND TODAY is dedicated to transformative teaching at the University of North Dakota. Inspiring a “sense of wonder” is part of UND’s vision statement and central to the faculty role at UND. As UND’s research prominence increases, Faculty Affairs aims to highlight and share stories of innovative and creative teaching at the institution.
This issue of UND TODAY shows that UND is “T1” as well as “R1” — top tier in teaching and educational experiences as well as in research classification. (Credit for the “T1” quote goes to Dr. Pat O’Neill, associate dean in Nistler College of Business & Public Administration.)
This past week at UND, various Teacher Appreciation Week events took place, including a donuts and iced coffee bar sponsored by the Alumni Association & Foundation, a Stress Relief day in the Faculty Affairs office and an open house in the Teaching Transformation & Development Academy or TTaDA. In preparation for this week, Faculty Affairs also provided the opportunity for students to write thank-you notes to their professors, with more than 600 grateful students writing thank-you notes that faculty will receive through campus mail.
‘Thank you for all you do’
The idea for this celebration of teaching originated from the research of faculty fellows in Faculty Affairs, Ashley Fansher (Criminal Justice) and Krista Lynn Minnotte (Sociology). Fansher organized the week’s activities, and two student interns from Strategic Communication, Alexis May and Nichole Dumlao, wrote feature stories on the creative, innovative and transformative teaching happening at UND. These stories are a big part of this issue of UND TODAY.
In addition, this issue also includes stories about the faculty recognized for teaching excellence at UND’s Founders Day Awards, as well as reflections from UND leaders on teachers from their past who made a difference.
While attempting to represent diverse academic disciplines and faculty experiences, we were unable to be comprehensive and acknowledge the omission of clinical faculty — I’m thinking especially of our clinical faculty in Nursing (thank you for all you do!) — in this issue. These absences should not be interpreted as undervaluing their work, and we hope to highlight the work of a wide array of faculty in future teaching-focused issues of UND TODAY.
All of our faculty contribute significantly to UND’s teaching mission through designing cutting edge curricula and courses, preparing for classes and lectures, supervising clinical experiences and labs, grading assignments, papers, and exams and meeting with students during office hours.
And as I know from many years in the classroom, good teaching goes well beyond these required aspects of the job. Caring about individual students and their learning requires a level of emotional investment that those outside the profession don’t always fully understand.
As we educate the whole student, we do so with our whole selves.
Despite recent national headlines criticizing higher education and professors, we know UND proves the pundits wrong. As this issue of UND TODAY suggests, the dedicated teaching of UND faculty remains impactful and meaningful to our students, the mission of UND and the state of North Dakota.
About the author:
Randi Tanglen is vice provost for Faculty Affairs at UND.
