Please join in congratulating Djuro for this well-earned achievement! Djuro has excelled as a teacher and as Head TA, a position that he was specially chosen for this year. Every week, Djuro helps oversee the learning of more than 1400 students and several dozen TAs. Great job Djuro!
Posts filed under Teaching
Prof. Pompano co-organizes New Faces in Chemistry Workshop
In July and August, 2021, the UVA Department of Chemistry faculty mobilized to put together a brand new, virtual workshop for future faculty in the chemical sciences, titled New Faces in Chemistry: A Future Faculty Workshop. Co-organized by Prof. Rebecca Pompano and Prof. Marcos Pires, the 5-day workshop sought to level the playing field for future faculty applicants from diverse backgrounds. Recognizing that the application process is opaque to many trainees, and that this can reduce the diversity of the application pool for highly competitive faculty positions, we established this workshop to share critical information on making a competitive faculty job application. The workshop was open to all, and was targeted it especially to those from underrepresented backgrounds (women, URM, first-gen, LGBTQ, and self-identified diversity). Approximately 50 participants attended the workshop each day from across the USA and around the world.
Faculty from across the entire Chemistry department pitched in to share their advice, expertise, and tips, on topics including: how to choose what positions to apply to; preparation of a strong cover letter, CV, research statement, diversity statement, and teaching statement; planning to fund your lab via grant writing; and preparation for strong interview and negotiation of startup.
We were fortunate to draw on the depth of resources previously created by the UVA PhD Plus program, provided by Sonali Mujamdar, PhD.
Next, in Phase II of the workshop that commenced in August, Chemistry faculty are volunteering their time to provide 1-on-1 feedback for participants on elements of their faculty job application. Approximately half of the workshop participants signed up for Phase II of the workshop. Feedback from this program has been very positive.
New Faces in Chemistry : A Future Faculty Workshop
July 12 – 16, 2021
Virtually at the Univ of Virginia
We hope to see many of our participants go on to exciting faculty careers across the country, and perhaps even here at UVA one day!
Prof. Pompano contributes to article on active learning in remote courses
Prof. Pompano co-authored a paper with Prof. and Chair Jill Venton on how active learning helps engage students during remote courses. The article includes many tips and lessons learned from Prof. Pompano’s Analytical courses, which were offered remotely in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The article is part of a series organized by Analytical Bioanalytical Chemistry on teaching during the pandemic. We hope that it is helpful!
Active Learning for Analytical Chemistry workshop
I was very fortunate to be selected to participate in the NSF-funded Active Learning for Analytical Chemistry workshop, organized by Tom Wenzel of Bates College. Thirty faculty from all over the country met at beautiful Indiana University Bloomington and worked for four days on developing course materials to better engage their students. Many thanks to the facilitators and organizers for sharing their experiences and advice, and to the NSF Education division for funding the workshop. I look forward to applying these activities to my Analytical Chem course this fall.
