Professor Will Conley presented as 2016 My Last Lecture Award Recipient

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Please join us in congratulating 2016 My Last Lecture Award Recipient:

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Professor Will Conley, UCLA Department of Mathematics

More than 50 years ago, the “My Last Lecture” award was established to honor a UCLA professor who is an inspiration to students. Every year, the Alumni Scholars Club asks students from all over campus to vote for their favorite professor, the one whose teaching has inspired them the most. These notable UCLA professors were given the chance to put all of their life lessons and advice for students into one “last lecture.”

The Alumni Scholars Club (ASC) hosted this year’s ceremony on Tuesday May 17th at the De Neve Auditorium. On this day Professor Conley not only received his award, but also gave an inspiring lecture on the question posed to the original lecturers more than 50 years ago:  What would you tell your audience if you had but one lecture to give – your last lecture on this earth?

Congrats, Will, and thank you for your inspirational teaching!

To see past recipients of this award and watch their lectures, please see the UCLA Alumni website here.

Professors Frank Laski and Jamie Lloyd-Smith are the 2016 Distinguished Teaching Award Winners

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CEILS  is proud to share the news that two faculty members from the Division of Life Sciences are recipients of the 2016 Distinguished Teaching Award, awarded by the Academic Senate Committee on Teaching: Dr. Frank Laski (MCDB and the LS Core) and Dr. Jamie Lloyd-Smith (EEB).

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Frank and Jamie are among six award recipients this year, in a large field of nominees with extraordinary records in the classroom, which is a testimony to their accomplishments as teachers, mentors, and colleagues. The Distinguished Teaching Award honors individuals who bring respect and admiration to the scholarship of teaching.

 

Congratulations, Frank and Jamie!

UCLA Climate Scientists Aradhna Tripati and Alex Hall featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

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Watch the video here (warning: includes bleeped profanity!)

Tripati and Hall were among 6 climate scientists featured in Kimmel’s late night show. Jimmy takes a moment to talk about climate change and the confusing political argument that has emerged around it. NASA says that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that the warming we are experiencing is very likely due to human activity.

New Report: Building a Better Future STEM Faculty: How Teaching Development Programs Can Improve Undergraduate Education

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View Full Report
View a summary article with key take-aways

The Longitudinal Study of Future STEM Scholars was conducted by a team led by Dr. Mark Connolly at the University of Wisconsin. It examined the effects of teaching-focused professional development programs used by STEM doctoral students with academic aspirations (future STEM faculty). Over 2,000 doctoral students from three research universities (ASU, UW, UW), were surveyed 3 times over 5 years.

Tama Hasson and Michael Alfaro Among the Winners for the 2016 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards

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The Academic Senate and its Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity (CODEO) have announced the recipients of the 2015-2016 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Awards. Each year, CODEO honors one undergraduate student, one graduate student, one staff and four faculty members for their contributions to furthering a diverse, impartial, and inclusive environment at UCLA.

 

alfaroFaculty Student Development DEI Award Recipients: Professor Michael Alfaro, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is this year’s Faculty Student Development DEI Award recipient. In the Spring of 2014, Professor Alfaro was one of the campus leaders who was tasked with developing a proposal to establish a diversity course requirement for undergraduate students in the College of Letters and Science. The proposal articulated the goals of the diversity requirement at UCLA as well as set criteria for courses satisfying the requirement, including numerous community-based courses. His leadership in this area contributed to the successful passage of the diversity requirement. Professor Alfaro also chaired the Diversity Implementation Committee that was charged with developing a process for syllabi evaluation, determining demand, and existing capacity for the new requirement and identifying additional resources required to mount the requirement for Fall 2015. He currently chairs both the Diversity Initiative Steering Committee and the Diversity Requirement ad hoc Committee.

 

hassonStaff Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award Recipient: Tama Hasson, the Academic Director of the Program for Excellence in Education and Research in the Sciences (PEERS), is this year’s Staff DEI Award recipient. She has personally worked with and mentored more than 1000 students through a variety of programs at UCLA, all of which emphasize the success of students from underserved backgrounds. Dr. Hasson also played a leading role in the development of the curriculum that prepares these students to succeed in majors where they often are not successful. Since arriving at UCLA she has obtained at least 10 grants to support underserved and minority students to achieve educational and research excellence.

A Nobel Laureate’s Education Plea: Revolutionize Teaching

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by NPRed

This short audio piece discusses the efforts of Professor of Physics at Stanford University, Carl Weiman to raise awareness of the importance of using a scientific and data-driven approach to understanding the impact of different styles of teaching, specifically traditional lecture compared to more active learning classroom pedagogies. The story also touches on some of the supports needed at the institutional level to support changes in the classroom.

Awareness Reduces Racial Bias by Devin G. Pope, Joseph Price, and Justin Wolfers

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View full paper

Abstract: Can raising awareness of racial bias subsequently reduce that bias? We address this question by exploiting the widespread media attention highlighting racial bias among professional basketball referees that occurred in May 2007 following the release of an academic study. Using new data, we confirm that racial bias persisted in the years after the study’s original sample, but prior to the media coverage. Subsequent to the media coverage though, the bias completely disappeared. We examine potential mechanisms that may have produced this result and find that the most likely explanation is that upon becoming aware of their biases, individual referees changed their decision-making process. These results suggest that raising awareness of even subtle forms of bias can bring about meaningful change.

Communicating Chemistry: Framework for Sharing Science: A Practical Evidence-Based Guide

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View and Download Free PDF

A growing body of evidence indicates that, increasingly, the public is engaging with science in a wide range of informal environments, which can be any setting outside of school such as community-based programs, festivals, libraries, or home. Yet undergraduate and graduate schools often don’t prepare scientists for public communication.

This practical guide is intended for any chemist – that is, any professional who works in chemistry-related activities, whether research, manufacturing or policy – who wishes to improve their informal communications with the public. At the heart of this guide is a framework, which was presented in the report Effective Chemistry Communication in Informal Environments and is based on the best available empirical evidence from the research literature on informal learning, science communication, and chemistry education. The framework consists of five elements which can be applied broadly to any science communication event in an informal setting.