Graduate School expands Associates in Teaching program
The Associates in Teaching (AT) program, launched this fall to give advanced PhD students an in-depth, creative teaching experience, will grow in 2011–2012, Dean Thomas Pollard has announced. Associates in Teaching work with a cooperating faculty member to conceptualize a new undergraduate course or redesign, plan, and deliver an existing one. ATs play significant roles in both planning and teaching a course.
During the 2011–2012 academic year, the Graduate School will fund at least 12 new courses for ATs, divided equally among the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Each department was encouraged to propose one applicant, and nominations were due March 1. Successful applicants will be notified during the first week in April.
Doctoral student teaches at UN climate change conference
A delegation of Yale students, staff, and faculty took part in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP16) in late 2010 in Cancun, Mexico. One member of the group was second-year doctoral student Kristin Pene (FES). Motivated by a strong interest in environmental education, she partnered with the international art organization, “ARTPORT making waves,” to teach local children about the vulnerability of island nations to climate change–induced sea level rise.
During the conference Pene presented a curriculum unit she had created to over 100 students at the International American School of Cancun. She coordinated her educational programming with ARTPORT making waves’s La Isla Hundida (the Drowned Island) project, which aimed to heighten children’s understanding of environmental challenges. After teaching about how thermal expansion and deglaciation are driving the rise in sea level, she helped students craft miniature paper islands which they then sank in clear water containers to symbolize—and vividly demonstrate—the threat of rising sea levels.
Kristin attended COP16 as both a Yale Climate and Energy Institute Fellow and a member of the UN Diplomacy Practicum, working as NGO liaison for the Republic of Maldives.
Alumna named Professor of the Year
Frances Pilch ’71PhD (international relations), professor of political science at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado and division chief for international relations and national security studies, was named Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Pilch was chosen from more than 300 outstanding educators who were nominated for the honor. A native of West Point, New York, she earned her bachelor’s in political science at the University of Connecticut and her graduate degrees from Yale. She has taught at the academy since 1998 and currently serves as deputy head of the political science department. Her most recent book is Space and Defense Policy (Routledge 2009), coedited with Damon Coletta.
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