Mathematics professor Peter Tannenbaum was granted the award for his proposed multidisciplinary course on Census 2000.
by Kim Watkins
The New College for Instructional Innovation recently announced its awards for the 1999-2000 academic year. (See box below for list of recipients.)
Funded by the university's Plan for Excellence, the college makes it possible for award recipients to develop new courses or modify existing course curricula.
One of the awards is being presented to Candice Skrapec, criminology professor, and Tom Breen, professor of psychology, for their course on the biopsychosocial determinants of violent criminal behavior. Skrapec said that the study of violent behavior lacked any kind of integration with other disciplines. Skrapec hopes for a new way of thinking about behavior.
"We have not been effective as a society in dealing with violent behavior. The question is why? [The answer is] we've been approaching it the wrong way. We've been too simplistic," said Skrapec.
Two other recipients are math professor Peter Tannenbaum and communications professor Sally Tannenbaum. Their new, multidisciplinary Census 2000 course will integrate an academic study of historical, social and economical aspects of the census. The course will include a fieldwork component - students will work with community partners to help with census counting activities. Potential community partners include the City of Fresno, NAACP and Poverello House.
Peter Tannenbaum believes the class is important because of a drastic census under-count in Fresno County. According to Tannenbaum, the 1990 Census missed 25,000 people in Fresno County. "The under-count represents $1,000 per person per year that Fresno County lost in funding from the federal government," Tannenbaum said.
A total of six courses received awards for the 1999-2000 academic year. An important part of the program is dissemination of results. Recipients of the awards are expected to share the results of their instructional experiments with colleagues in writing and at the annual Conference on Excellence in Teaching and Learning.
The New College for Instructional Innovation was created to foster and reward the "scholarship of teaching" as defined by the Faculty Scholar Blue Ribbon Committee and adopted by the Academic Senate. It provides assigned time on a competitive basis for faculty to experiment with new teaching approaches. An additional call for proposals is expected to be distributed fall 1999 for spring 2000.
For more information, call Ethelynda Harding, director of the Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, at ext. 8-2819.
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