UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Tammy VanDeGrift

2020 Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching: Tammy VanDeGrift

The Committee on Teaching and Scholarship is pleased to announce that the 2020 Teaching Award winner is Tammy VanDeGrift, Shiley School of Engineering. She has been a champion of continuous improvement in teaching and student learning throughout her 15-year career at the University of Portland. Her focus on pedagogical approaches is not solely for her own teaching, but is a passion she shared by initiating Teaching and Learning Lunches and Teaching Circles within the Shiley School of Engineering, and as a generous mentor to many faculty across campus. VanDeGrift was in the first cohort of the UP REFLECT STEM Innovation project, where one peer observer noted, “Tammy is the living embodiment of an exemplary teacher, advancing student learning through skilled content organization that enables active engagement in the classroom.”

VanDeGrift’s students express appreciation for the care she takes to create a positive learning environment tuned to their needs, and the lengths she goes to help them discern their interests and connect content to “real life” applications. Comments such as the following are indicative of the types of responses in her course evaluations: “Dr. VanDeGrift always has some way of teaching that always stays with the student. She upholds participation in a manner that isn’t filled with pressure which can be a really comfortable classroom experience. It was easy to learn hard topics thanks to the schedule and strategies used in this course.” Another colleague writes that, “She cares that her students not only learn computer science, but that all students learn and learn to be computer scientists with an understanding of their broader role in society.”

Education is also a key theme in VanDeGrift’s research, where she has made valuable contributions to her profession. She has over fifty peer-reviewed publications; many of these are related to computer science education and engineering education, including topics of student advising, retention, and diversity.

Please join in congratulating Tammy VanDeGrift on this latest honor!

2018-2019 Excellence in Service Award: Nominations Needed

The Committee on Committees is accepting faculty nominations for the 2018-2019 Excellence in Service Award. The committee will accept nominations until noon on Friday, January 25, 2019 and should be submitted to the Committee’s Moodle site. Submission of supporting materials by nominees will be due by noon on Friday, March 22, 2019. Visit the Academic Senate resource pages for information regarding the award, criteria, and application process. Contact Tammy VanDeGrift (vandegri@up.edu), chair of Committee on Committees, for questions and more information.

Nominations Needed: 2017-2018 Excellence in Service Award

The Committee on Committees is accepting faculty nominations for the 2017-2018 Excellence in Service Award. The nomination and application process follows the timeline of the Teaching & Scholarship Committee’s faculty awards for teaching and scholarship. The Committee on Committees will accept nominations until noon on Friday, January 26, on the Committee on Committee’s Moodle site -> Service Award. Self-nominations and nominations from colleagues are welcome. Submission of supporting materials by nominees are due by noon on Friday, March 16. Visit the Academic Senate resources pages for information regarding the nomination process, award criteria, and supporting materials that will be needed by the Committee. Contact the CoC Chair, Tammy VanDeGrift (vandegri@up.edu), for more information.

New Tech Talk Podcasts

staff & faculty portraits

This week from the Teaching and Learning Collaborative: Shiley School of Engineering professors Tammy VanDeGrift and Niki Schulz appeared on the UP Tech Talk podcast to discuss their experiences using instructional media to “flip” the classroom and create active learning opportunities during class sessions. Go to the TLC blog to stream, download, or subscribe to the podcast, or offer your own take on the flipped classroom model and active learning.

Contact Maria Erb, information services, at erb@up.edu, or Ben Kahn, information services, at kahn@up.edu.

Student Kevin Bastien Accepted for National Fellowship

bastienKevin Bastien, a junior computer science major and Entrepreneur Scholar, has been accepted to the prestigious NCIIA/Epicenter Engineering University Innovation Fellows program, according to Peter Rachor, Franz Center. His application was supported by Rachor, Tammy Vandegrift, Sharon Jones, and Robin Anderson.

Bastien’s fellowship is seen as an opportunity for UP to have a member of this national group on campus in support of entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives within the Franz Center for Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation. It will also support increased focus on entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation within the Pamplin School of Business, the Shiley School of Engineering, and campus-wide.

The University Innovation Fellows program is run by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), a National Science Foundation-funded partnership between Stanford University and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). Learn more about the students’ accomplishments and activities here (http://tinyurl.com/luqtf2h). For more information contact Rachor at 7782 or rachor@up.edu.

New National Science Foundation Grant

The University of Portland has been awarded $446,307 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to increase retention in engineering and computer science with a focus on at-risk first year and sophomore students. The University of Portland is the only Oregon university and one of nine universities and colleges nationwide to receive NSF grants as part of a public-private partnership called Graduate 10K+.

The NSF works in partnership with Intel and General Electric (GE) to stimulate comprehensive action at universities and colleges to help increase the annual number of new graduates in engineering and computer science by 10,000. This effort is funded with $10 million in donations from Intel and the GE Foundation as well as a generous personal donation from Mark Gallogly.

Shiley School of Engineering dean Sharon Jones was the principal investigator of the national grant, with co-principal investigator Tammy VanDeGrift, engineering. Engineering and computer science are fields in which industry leaders lament an inadequate supply of graduates with the knowledge and skills needed in business and industry, and they are fields in which women and minorities are chronically underrepresented. Engineering and computer science are also part of a general trend in which many undergraduates pursuing majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields leave them entirely during their first two years in college.

Graduate 10K+ projects will operate for five years. Each of the projects has identified factors that can derail would-be engineers and computer scientists in their first or second year of undergraduate study and taken a targeted approach to addressing those factors. Other schools receiving Graduate 10K+ grants were California State University Monterey Bay, Cornell University, Merrimack College, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Syracuse University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas-Pan American, University of Washington, and Washington State University.

For more information contact the Shiley School of Engineering at 7314 or spir@up.edu.