Cassling Award

Lisa Bowers, Associate Professor OF Biology

Professor Lisa Bowers teaches a course in Microbiology, the natural history and human impact of viruses and bacteria. Typically, microbiology is an information-dense course with rather high-pressure expectations. Lisa has sought ways to inject a more gentle, slow-paced, and creative way for students to interact with microbes, tapping their artistic sides and allowing them to breathe and relax. The result was a gallery of exquisite (and uniquely unusual) artworks rendered on petri dish canvases and using microbial cultures as their medium. Designing this low stake yet engaging exercise allowed students to be in the lab without pressure or expectations. Students could explore, become more engaged, and revel in their creative curiosity while learning basic cell-husbandry and microbial cell biology—a genuinely positive, a-typical science laboratory experience.

Brian Borovsky, Professor of Physics
Physics Department Inclusivity Workshops (TEAM-UP)

Prof. Borovsky developed and led a series of workshops for students and faculty to increase inclusivity by educating the Physics community on a wider range of topics including stereotype threat, imposter syndrome, microaggressions and implicit bias. These workshops were inspired and guided by the work of the American Institute of Physics’ National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy (TEAM-UP) and have helped students genuinely feel they are welcomed and contributing members of a more inclusive Physics community. The workshops have also led to curricular improvements in the first-year lab experience. These have been shown to degrade students’ sense of belonging within their physics community, particularly when they are from traditionally underrepresented demographic groups in physics. In addition, the workshop highlighted the persistent problem of racial and gender-based microaggressions. Finally, it provided a safe opportunity for students and faculty to discuss problematic peer-to-peer interactions in the physics department, based on real-life scenarios submitted anonymously by students in the Fall of 2020. The workshops culminated in an exercise to identify the shared values and community norms that the department endorsed as guiding their interactions day to day. Brian started the work and continues to shepherd the department along a productive, sustainable path to establish inclusivity and community as first principles of St. Olaf Physics with equal status to the conservation of momentum and energy.

Peter Gittins, Assistant Professors of Chemistry

Over the past two years, Peter Gittins has single-handedly and sustainably revolutionized our approach to organic chemistry at St. Olaf College, specifically in what we call the “synthesis labs” — CHEM 253 and 254. Using an “ungrading” scheme, introduction of (not so simple) Google Docs-based electronic notebook system, and a complete reconfiguration of our first-semester organic lab weekly program that focuses on individualized student skill building took enormous effort. Pete, as lab director, was the designer and implementer of all these significant changes. Initially, Pete took this mammoth project on simply with the intent to give students a valid in-person laboratory experience during the pandemic times. But the results have been far more significant. After now two iterations, our findings include

1. Electronic notebooks with ungrading are hugely successful,
2. Student efficiency in the lab in some cases has doubled, with experiments that used to be allotted three hours now taking 90 minutes,
3. Individual student accountability has improved substantially, and
4. The social atmosphere in lab is completely changed from a stressful time-critical environment to a relatively relaxed, far more pedagogically successful experience.

Hannah Ryan, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History

In spring 2022, Prof. Ryan led her Art Now class (Art 280) in an Acquisitions Project, a high-impact learning experience aligned with Academic Civic Engagement at the college. For this innovative project, students in the course researched artists whose work was in keeping with the Flaten Art Museum’s collecting policies. This assignment is a fantastic experience for the students in the class–they talk with actual gallery owners and artists and propose which artworks to buy. A student vote decides in conjunction with Prof. Ryan and the director of the Flaten Museum. This innovative assignment provides students real-world experience with the contemporary art world and economic market. The class unfolds as the students do their research and make their proposals. It requires both Prof. Ryan and the students to be engaged and flexible. The assignment results increase the diversity of the college’s art collection.

Bill Sonnega, Associate Professor of Theater

In the spring of 2021-22, Bill Sonnega taught a new Media, Democracy, and the Global Village course while leading the Global Semester. In the course, 17 students operated as a film production company–with writers, directors, editors, researchers, and directors of photography–and spent nearly four months producing a 37-minute documentary, Worth the Fight, on the status of democracy in Ecuador, Jordan, and the Czech Republic. The film includes interviews with academics, politicians, religious leaders, artists, activists, and others and premiered on campus on October 21, 2022. Few students had any film background. The project employed documentary filmmaking as a pedagogical alternative to conventional research papers where challenging on-camera interviews, storytelling ethics, and public-facing deliverables developed relevant real-world skills. Through this, students acquired much higher-level communication, cooperation, and collaboration abilities than is typical in academic group projects.

Susan Huehn, Associate Professor of Practice In nursing
Mary Beth Kuehn, Associate Professor of Nursing

During the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, students experienced increased social isolation and loneliness due to disrupted social connections. In response, the nursing department created a new two-pronged approach to focus on nursing student retention and resilience. At the beginning of the nursing curriculum, new students (mentees) participated in either weekly Positive Psychology Seminar emphasizing resilience or formal mentoring sessions. Junior and senior nursing student mentors discussed the Transition to Nursing, Stress Management, Program Success, and Professional Development with their mentees to increase their quality of life. New students exhibited a significant resilience increase from the positive psychology and formal mentoring program. In addition, mentees identified that the mentoring program helped them connect to the nursing program/peers and their future nursing role and promote their mental health. This innovation highlights the adaptability and leadership of the nursing faculty to retain new nursing students.

Jeremy Loebach, Associate Professor of Psychology

In his Sensation and Perception course, Prof. Loebach reexamined how and why we test. Loebach moved from having formal in-class exams to having moodle-based learning checks every two weeks to implement test theory. Test theory assumes that testing is not mere evaluation but an active part of learning. Content retrieval practice via testing produces significantly better understanding and retention overall. After students take the test (closed book), students can revisit their exam and consult any resources to figure out what they got wrong, why it was wrong, and how it should be changed to be correct. Finally, They can retake these for 50% more points than their first attempt. The goal was to increase the likelihood that students would figure out what was wrong and how to make it right (teaching them from their mistakes) and to reduce the stakes so that students would be free to fail (since it was really difficult to fail). This change in testing approach improves student learning, teaches them that mistakes are learning opportunities, and gives them the freedom to self-correct. It also reduces student stress around testing, lowers the stakes, and allows me to prevent most requests for extensions.

Jonathan O’Conner, Associate Professor of Romance Languages-Spanish

Jonathan developed a course for beginning the Spanish major that focuses on race and gender in Latin America, offering students an alternative to the equivalent course focused on Spain, which was the only option for all majors. Linked to that effort, he designed and led workshops for all faculty in Spanish to think about equity and inclusion in our general education language sequence in Spanish and then led the collaborative course revision for our intermediate Spanish 231 course. The workshops included readings on changing Spanish curricula in the United States and texts on equity and inclusion, such as an excerpt from the book Ungrading. A focus of these efforts has been assessing and addressing gaps in the cultures and voices represented in our Spanish curriculum and providing a more supportive, equitable, and inclusive experience for students taking our courses. As a program, we were aware of changing demographics and achievement gaps. As a result, Spanish 231 now includes a wider variety of perspectives than in the past. In addition, we have created materials that provide more explicit support and onboarding for students to help ease the transition between beginning and intermediate levels.

Emily Carroll, Assistant Professor of Nursing
Mary Beth Kuehn, Associate Professor of Nursing

For the Fall 2020 medical-surgical and public health nursing courses, 3 faculty members collaborated to offer students simulated experiences of caring for COVID-19 patients both in the acute care and community settings. This was an entirely new simulation developed in a matter of weeks before the start of term in response to the needs of the senior nursing students mid-pandemic. These simulations wove together interdisciplinary care of a seriously ill patient with COVID-19 in the hospital as well as the subsequent contact tracing in the community by public health nurses. The contact tracing simulations highlighted social determinants of health and the massive structural health inequalities brought by COVID-19.

Amanda Randall, Associate Professor of German

In response to challenges during the shift to remote learning in spring 2020, Professor Randall developed an all-new project-based curriculum and assessment design for German 231 a&b and German 232 a&b for the 2020-21 academic year. This innovation is based on best-practices in integrated performance assessment (IPA) and the ACTFL World Readiness Standards for language instruction. In this model, course units no longer culminated in summative written essay exams and/or formal presentations, but rather the major assessments were strategically spread across each unit as integrated, carefully scaffolded four-part project sets requiring application of text (written and audio-visual) interpretation, connection and critical reflection, integrated with language learning in all modes (reading, writing, speaking and listening). Projects required both individual and group work, and always included creative components and a high level of student agency.

Tesfa Wondemagegnehu, Assistant Professor of Music

Determined to sustain student participation and community in choir during the pandemic, Professor Wondemagegnehu worked with IT and others to locate and innovate with available technology. He was able to secure hardware and software to build instructional videos to allow students from campus and beyond to make music together. These innovative tools allowed him to ultimately release a virtual video performance of the composition “Love Is”. This performance was disseminated widely in an attempt to raise funds and awareness for the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. 

Alden Adolph, Assistant Professor of Physics, Director of Engineering Studies

Building on expertise in creating online videos gained through work on a To Include Is To Excel grant last summer, Alden collaborated with colleague Amy Kolan to create a set of worksheets for the introductory course in electricity and magnetism. These worksheets incorporated problems, conceptual questions, videos of demonstrations, and computational exercises. Coupled with pre-class videos that Alden had prepared, these exercises are extremely flexible pedagogically. They can be used in either a “self-paced” or a group discussion format. They are designed to both make sure that a student has a good conceptual hold on the material as well as to ferret out common misconceptions. The exercises, which emphasize the conceptual over the mathematical, also make the course more accessible to those students who do not have a privileged high school education.

Eric Cole, Professor of Biology

Built a basement laboratory. Served as one of two “Lab Avatars”. Networked microscopes using digital cameras, laptops and ZOOM so that remote students could share the view during live microscope sessions. Used I-phones with Zoom/ tripod to share benchwork as well. Remote students researched detailed protocols followed by “Lab Avatars”. Remote students watched as bench work was conducted. Arranged 9 nationally known scientists to drop in on virtual lab meetings to share their research. Coordinated with U.Colorado microscopy center to train students in remote 3-D modeling of electron micrographs and arranged students to present work at a virtual conference in July. Eric’s microscopes have enhanced the capabilities of his colleagues’ teaching in the sciences in a remote/hybrid teaching environment.

Rehanna Kheshgi, Assistant Professor of Music – Ethnomusicology; Gamelan

1. Created an online Javenses Gamelan Studio, so that students could continue to learn and practice Gamelan techniques in their own homes, even when they did not have the instrument with them. 2. shifted to a labor-based grading contract system and is offering a Workgroup on this type of grading system that is more equitable for students, this July. Instead of evaluating quality of submitted work, it focuses assessment on the time and effort students invest in learning. It develops a relationship between professor and student of faculty feedback on student work and frequent student self-assessment.

Melissa Mendez, Visiting Assistant Professor of Social Work and Family Studies

Used FlipGrid to connect students in Intro to Social Work course with St Olaf social work alumni to learn how COVID-19 was impacting their roles and practice. Used simple supported tech creatively to engage potential social workers in course content in a personal, highly relevant way, connecting class content to historical moment of pandemic and laying ground for possible future mentors. Class drew on accessible college resources and used multi-modal forms of delivery.

Christina Spiker, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Art History and Asian Studies

An early adopter of Panopto, Christina shared her models with faculty, discovered additional capabilities of the software unknown to IT, now promoted for faculty use. Offered both group and individual support to colleagues in both her departments. Christina’s panopto videos integrate a wide variety of resources and are exemplary in keeping students on track and engaged in their learning. She is also co-facilitator of a July working group.

Sean Ward, Visiting Assistant Professor of English

Following the college’s shift to remote instruction, Sean replaced the final exam with a critical/creative assignment, a “remediation exercise.” Each student’s task was to take one scene from a novel on the syllabus and “translate” it into another literary (or broader artistic) form. Some students turned novelistic prose into free-verse poems and short-film scripts. A number of them painted pivotal scenes from The Scarlet Letter to render Hawthorne’s descriptive language visually. A few got even more creative. One student cross-stitched a linked set of images from Leslie Marmon Silko’s symbol-rich novel Ceremony. Another wrote a series of outrageous—but formally precise—doctor’s notes from the perspective of Dr. Matthew O’Connor (a character in Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood), quite possibly the world’s most unorthodox physician. After completing their translations, each student wrote a 500-word essay reflecting on how and why they decided to make the formal choices they made. They also reflected on what those decisions taught them about the differences between novels and the other media they moved between. Professor Ward created this assignment to facilitate critical inquiry about literary and artistic forms during a time of intense media saturation and to give his students the freedom to link course themes with their own interests and experiences. His goal was to get each student to think about the unique affordances—and limitations—of distinctive media, and to create a final assignment that bridged students’ imaginative and analytical faculties. In addition to ensuring that each student remained in contact with him about their work and their newly complicated lives, the project allowed students to create something meaningful, to attend to a single assignment with prolonged, if sometimes interrupted and incomplete, focus as they struggled to adjust to an altered mode of learning and an altered world.