Updates on Our Center & Fellows
SEP 2023 | “Bilingual and bicultural students have a broader perspective of society.” Interview with Jessica Retis
[Jessica] Retis finds the possibility of leading groups of teachers interesting since it can facilitate and coordinate a pedagogical perspective that she prefers to think of as “understanding of reality” rather than as critical. This explains why she has not only sought out bicultural teaching, but also undertaken a transition towards the digital world of a career that was designed for the press.
To do this, she sought subsidies, such as CUES, the acronym for Center for University Education Scholarship, that would allow her to implement a master's program as well as research projects such as her work on the pedagogy of bilingual journalism in the United States, in which she is preparing a report entitled Bilingual Journalism Education in the United States: Development, Implementation and Assessment.
JUN 2023 | CUES announces 2023 distinguished fellows
The Center for University Education Scholarship has announced its sixth cohort of distinguished fellows. This year's fellows will focus on topics including public service in the borderlands region, quantitative environmental science and using cybersecurity datasets in course design.
"The 2023 fellows have raised the bar on what scholarship of teaching and learning can be on our campus and for our community," said Guadalupe Lozano, CUES director and endowed chair. "Their projects reflect genuine commitment to students and to research on teaching and learning, validating the promise of CUES' newest effort, our SOTL signature workshop series."
NOV 2022 | CUES Director quoted in "Small Teaching" by nationally renowned author James Lang
Guadalupe Lozano, CUES Director and Endowed Chair, was quoted in the second edition of James Lang's book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning.
Dr. Lozano's quote (pg. 175), which comes from an essay written for The Conversation, highlights the value and importance of viewing incoming students from an asset-based perspective:
“there are two views to take with incoming students—a deficit view or an asset view. The first sees students’ weaknesses: what they lack. An asset view sees their strengths: what students bring to the table in terms of their culture, identity and knowledge.” (Lozano 2020)
SEP 2022 | CUES announces fifth fellowship cohort, second Spanning Boundaries team
The Center for University Education Scholarship has announced this year's distinguished fellows. The three members of the fellowship program's fifth cohort will take on topics including personalized adaptive learning, the impact of personalized reading formats and how video production might improve student engagement.
The center also announced its second Spanning Boundaries Challenge team. The theme for this year's challenge is civic engagement and service learning. The grant funds multidisciplinary collaborations addressing educational grand challenges for up to $100,000 over two years. This year's project will be funded for two years.
JUL 2022 | Dr. Caitlyn Hall and Team Awarded 2022 CUES Spanning Boundaries Grant
W.A. Franke Honors College Assistant Professor of Practice, Dr. Caitlyn Hall, is an environmental engineer with a passion for interdisciplinary thinking and community-focused science. She and her team of faculty and staff from across the University of Arizona were recently awarded the 2022 CUES Spanning Boundaries grant for their project, Community Stories of Sustainability and Resilience: Sonoran Desert and Baja Regions.
JUN 2022 | School of Art’s Nicole Antebi selected for the CUES 2022 Spanning Boundaries Team
School of Art’s Nicole Antebi has been selected for the Center for University Education Scholarship (CUES) 2022 Spanning Boundaries Team. Faculty and staff from Biosphere 2, CAPLA and the W.A. Franke Honors College will engage students, faculty and Borderland communities in community-driven research around sustainable food and water solutions.
MAY 2022 | CUES Fellow Appointed Director of UArizona School of Journalism
Professor Jessica Retis, a globally recognized scholar in Latinx media and bilingual journalism, has been appointed director of the University of Arizona School of Journalism, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences announced today. Retis, director of the school’s Bilingual Journalism master’s program, will take over duties from Interim Director Michael McKisson on July 1.
“I want to thank Dr. Retis for her willingness to take on this role,” College of SBS Dean JP Jones said in a statement to faculty and staff. “I'm pleased that the School of Journalism will continue to be in excellent hands moving forward.”
MAY 2022 | CUES Fellow Receives SBS Lower Division Undergraduate Teaching Award
This award recognizes superior and innovative teaching in lower-division undergraduate courses.
Diana Daly teaches the popular general education course ESOC 150B1: “Social Media and Ourselves.” In the course, students construct and share their stories of identity and technology.
With support from the Center for University Education and Scholarship (CUES), Diana launched the iVoices Media Lab in 2020 with the goal of channeling student narratives into curricula around technology. She is also executive producer of the podcast Social Media and Ourselves, which records students’ own experiences and reflections to supplement and disrupt current scholarly understanding of social media.
MAR 2022 | CUES Supported Fulbright Scholar Arrives at UAI, Chile, to Delve into COIL Methodology
In 2010 Megan Baker had the opportunity to come to the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI) as an undergraduate student from the University of Arizona, as part of a study abroad program between both institutions. After 12 years, Megan returns to Viña del Mar, this time as a doctoral student and Fulbright scholar to work and delve into the COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) teaching methodology.
The project that Megan Baker is developing together with her supervisor John Pollard at the University of Arizona is called “ The future of Gen Ed: big ideas, interdisciplinary thinking, and informed decision making ” and one of the great topics that they are working on is COIL in the Honors College of the same university: “ we are exploring students who are learning collaboratively and online in international classrooms. ”
MAR 2022 | CUES Fellow Nominated for AEJMC Standing Committee on Research
Congratulations to CUES Distinguished Fellow, Jessica Retis on her nomination to run for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Standing Committee on Research!
JUN 2021 | CUES Announces its Fourth Cohort of Distinguished Fellows
The four members of the fourth cohort of Center for University Education Scholarship fellows are setting their sights on addressing topics including bilingual journalism, climate change, augmented clinical simulations and Indigenous language preservation.
"The fellowship program is the primary mechanism we have to enhance the learning experience at the University of Arizona and beyond by funding projects that center on scholarship and innovation in teaching learning and assessment," CUES director Guada Lozano, said. "Funding fellows at the level we do through private funds is rare. We're a gem in that sense."
JUL 2020 | CUES Announces 'Spanning Boundaries' Winner and 2020 Fellows
Year 2020 marked the debut of the themed Spanning Boundaries Challenge grant competition. The awarded team will tackle a promising multidisciplinary project: Developing Socially-Aware Quantitative Intuition. Overall, this year's selected projects reflect the University of Arizona's goal of inclusive excellence at a critical time:
"Long-standing inequities exacerbated by the current pandemic and civic unrest have more widely crystallized the need for an intentional focus on equity," CUES director Guada Lozano, said. "I am proud that, in various ways, this year's CUES grantees are poised to enhance equity and diversity through three CUES Distinguished Fellowships and the first-ever CUES Spanning Boundaries Challenge grant."
FEB 2020 | Carter Awarded CUES Distinguished Fellowship
In Bryan Carter’s virtual classroom, online education is moving toward a more immersive and interactive future.
This semester, Carter, director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Digital Humanities and an associate professor of Africana Studies, is launching a three-phase project to transform online teaching and learning, using 360-degree video broadcasting to give students an immersive virtual experience that brings the curriculum to life.
What that means for students in Carter’s Introduction to African-American Literature class (AFAS 160) is a range of experiences, from a virtual office-hours conversation, to walking through Paris in the footsteps of expatriate writers like James Baldwin and Richard Wright, or stepping inside virtually recreated landmarks of the Harlem Renaissance.
FEB 2020 | New CUES Program is a Unique Opportunity for Authentic Faculty Collaboration
Developing 21st century skills, enhancing students' quantitative intuition and building students' capacity for public scholarship are examples of overarching themes in education, "grand challenges" if you will. Such themes cut across disciplinary boundaries and attention to them can critically enhance the value of today's university education. But how exactly might such themes contribute to particular institutional goals or support faculty pursuits at the University of Arizona? How might they enable novel insights of value in the quickly evolving landscape of higher education?
DEC 2019 | CUES Taking Preproposals for 'Spanning Boundaries Challenge'
The Center for University Education Scholarship is accepting pre-proposals from interdisciplinary faculty teams for a new program designed to address challenges impacting University education.
The Spanning Boundaries Challenge is the newest program within CUES, whose mission is to support scholarship and innovation in University teaching and learning practices. The winning team will receive up to $100,000 for two years starting in the fall of 2020.
SEP 2019 | Building Community and Keeping Students' Attention: Teaching and Learning Scholar Offers Advice to UA Faculty
A nationally recognized scholar on teaching and learning gave UA faculty advice on stoking students' curiosity, fostering community in the classroom, building patterns and structure in teaching routines and more during presentations on campus last week.
James Lang, a professor of English and director of the D'Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, was brought to campus by the Center for University Education Scholarship. His presentations, given Thursday and Friday, were designed to help faculty start the semester off right and gain skills to be more effective teachers, especially with distracted students.
JUN 2019 | UA Cross Fertilizing Academic Disciplines
Three professors – a scientist, a sociologist and a humanist – walk into the same classroom…
That may sound like the start of a joke, but it isn’t. It is exactly what is happening in a new general education course being test-driven at the University of Arizona.
The project is part of the university-wide CUES (Center for University Education Scholarship) project in the honors college that will inform the UA Strategic Initiative 1.2A Design a new Gen Ed curriculum. Three professors – one each from the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities – are cooperatively teaching a diverse group of mainly freshmen students who, like their professors, come from across the intellectual spectrum.
JUN 2019 | CUES Fellows Explore Ways to Transform Teaching and Learning
The Center for University Education Scholarship has welcomed a new class of Distinguished Fellows – and a new director.
This cohort, the center's second, is the first under CUES' new director, Guadalupe Lozano, who took the position about a year ago. Debra Tomanek, professor emerita of molecular and cellular biology, led the center after it was established in late 2016.
Lozano has been on the faculty in the Department of Mathematics since 2009, and is an associate research scientist and associate research professor. She is also director of external relations and evaluation for the School of Mathematical Sciences.
MAR 2018 | Inaugural CUES Fellows AIM to Revolutionize Teaching and Learning
Six UA faculty members will explore ways to revolutionize teaching and learning across an array of disciplines as the inaugural cohort of the Center for University Education Scholarship's Distinguished Fellows.
The fellows, and their projects, were announced in late January.
The center, known as CUES, was established in late 2016 with a $3 million gift from a donor who asked not to be identified. The center aims to provide resources for all faculty to explore evidence-based teaching and learning.
NOV 2017 | CUES Seminar - 'Using Research to Improve University Science Teaching'
The Center for University Education Scholarship (CUES), the UA Learning Initiative, and the Department of Physics are pleased to invite you to attend "Using Research to Improve University Science Teaching," featuring Dr. Carl Wieman, Nobel Laureate, Professor of Physics and Education at Stanford University, and author of "Improving How Universities Teach Science."
In the past few decades, there has been great progress in research on teaching and learning. When the findings from this research have been applied in university classrooms, dramatic improvements in learning have been seen compared to traditional lecture instruction, particularly on tests that capture how well the student is able to make decisions like an expert in the subject. In this seminar, the Science Education Initiative will be highlighted to show how to achieve widespread adoption of these improved teaching methods in science departments at major research universities.
MAY 2017 | Learning Instead of Grades: Metacognition is Key
The Center for University Education Scholarship (CUES) presents an interactive workshop titled "Get Students to Focus on Learning Instead of Grades: Metacognition is the Key!" by Saundra McGuire.
Description: 21st Century students come to college with widely varying academic skills, approaches to learning and motivation levels. Faculty often lament that students are focused on achieving high grades, but are not willing to invest much time or effort in learning. This session will focus on the importance of helping students acquire simple, but effective learning strategies based on cognitive science principles. We will engage in interactive reflection activities that will allow attendees to experience strategies that significantly improve learning while transforming student attitudes about the meaning of learning.
FEB 2017 | UA Center Devoted to Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
The University of Arizona has established the Center for University Education Scholarship, which will create and advance knowledge related to innovative teaching and effective student learning.
The center, known as CUES, was created with a gift of more than $3 million from a donor who wanted to see real change in how teaching and learning "happen on the ground," said Provost Andrew Comrie. The donor has asked not to be identified.
FEB 2017 | UA at 'Forefront' of Innovation in Teaching and Learning, Expert Says
Improving student learning doesn't require a dramatic overhaul, and some tactics can be immediately applied in any undergraduate course, an expert on memory and learning said during a symposium held by the University of Arizona on Friday.
Mark McDaniel, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning and Education at Washington University in St. Louis, was the keynote speaker at "Learning Better," which was held by the newly created UA Center for University Education Scholarship.