Philosophy and Practice of Service
I see the service faculty perform on campus as a bridge between students and administrators. It is necessary and important work which ensures the resources students need in order to be successful are present and provided by the College’s offices and staff. It is the unenumerated work we do outside of the classroom that allows us to be engaging in our lectures, run effective departments, and propel our students on to greatness. Since starting my employment at Agnes Scott College in 2015, I have engaged in this service not only as an alumna with pride in my institution, but also with the belief that we can always be and do better. Because my position has not been a tenured-track one, the service I have done at the College has been by my own initiative. In it, I have worked to provide our students with the best possible educational experience and chance of post-graduation success.
My philosophy of service centers on our students, their advancement, and the uniqueness of their backgrounds and needs. Being in the STEM field gives me the possibility to have a direct impact on narrowing the diversity and gender gap in the scientific workforce by providing our students with access to the tools and research experiences necessary to compete with others who have had the upper hand in educational opportunities. This impact requires service work outside of the classroom, which comes in many forms – from direct student success interactions to ‘behind the scenes’ work on behalf of the department and college.
Student Success
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The most immediate and obvious impact of my service work comes from my direct interactions with students outside of the classroom. I have been formally advising our majors for three years while our department has been in transition with the departure of many senior faculty. Talking formally or informally with our majors about their ideas for their future is so inspiring and reaffirming about the work we do as faculty. Regularly, these conversations result in requests for letters of recommendation for summer research, which I am able to provide with much more effectiveness because of my better understanding of the student’s strengths and end goals. Additionally I have been teaching physics labs in the post baccalaureate pre medical program, exposing me to many would-be medical school applicants. Lab work is incredibly important for these students so I am often writing committee letters for them as well. For both groups of students I am well-positioned to speak to their problem-solving and critical thinking skills because of the direct observation I have of their work in the lab.
One important aspect of service we can do as faculty is as simple as being present on campus with our doors open. It seems like a simple thing, but it is time and energy spent in service to our students. Yes, office hours are an important, structured, scheduled time for discussing course work, but being present for informal mentoring with students and discussions with colleagues builds strong relationships and a cohesion that increases general morale. Along the same lines, at the end of each semester I plan a gathering in the observatory for our students, or really anyone who took a course in our department, to celebrate a job well done and thank our department workers for their contributions. It allows fellowship and further builds community across class years, which is important when we think about growing our major to be more representative of the student body as a whole.
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Service to the Department and Profession
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A major component of the service that I do for the College is administrating the department’s lab spaces in Bullock and Bradley. Before I was hired, the department did not have a lab manager so the management fell to whomever was teaching that day. It was chaotic, unorganized, and the lab content was out of step with current pedagogy. Equipment would sit in disrepair, materials ran out of supply, and technology would be discovered inoperable during the lab. Since my hiring, I have updated the learning outcomes and standardized our Physics 102/103/502/503 labs with rubrics for consistency so that any faculty member can step in and teach in the lab space. I review the content for the labs each year for cohesion with the lecture material. Additionally, since I am so familiar with all of the equipment in the department, I also set up and test demonstration equipment for faculty throughout the semester.
Over the past three years I have interviewed and hired graduate assistants who can help implement the rubrics I have created after one-on-one weekly meetings with me. In previous years, I trained and supervised undergraduate lab assistants who would work during the lab times assisting students directly. After some pedagogy research targeting effective calculus-based physics labs, I connected with the Cornell Physics Education Research Lab and implemented their inquiry-based physics lab materials into our Physics 202/203 labs in 2018. This required a major shift in the way we considered the learning outcomes of lab relative to lecture. I took notes for improvements each year, implemented them, and iterated until reaching a course I am proud of. For the first three years after implementing this new lab approach, I employed the Cornell assessment tool with our students, which consistently showed increased comprehension about how to design and carry out a physics experiment. Their assessment results contributed to the Cornell pedagogy research in physics. The work I did to reconfigure the Physics 202/203 labs has enabled them to be handed off to other faculty members but still be taught in the inquiry-based style that has been shown to be more effective.
We run six physics labs per week in the same lab space so the equipment suffers a large amount of wear and tear. Throughout the semester I test and repair our equipment so it can be put back into circulation right away, keeping all lab stations operational. Before the beginning of each semester I take an inventory of our single-use equipment, as well as any new demo requests from faculty, and order any items I am not able to build or repurpose from our current materials.
Each semester I also act as an administrator on behalf of the department. This work includes organizing our department’s course schedule so that scheduling does not interfere with courses in other departments that are likely to be taken in the same semester. I have to strike a delicate balance while curating students’ schedules so that they have the correct math preparation and stay on track with the physics sequence – all while managing Summit, language requirements, other sciences, and minor courses. Additionally, I contribute regularly to our department meetings and attend faculty meetings in order to relay important information to those who are not able to attend. Periodically, we have documents required by the College for accreditation or assessment initiatives that I review and help edit, as well as many job advertisements due to the past several years of hiring.
The department has been through a major transition over the last four years as every tenured faculty member has departed from the College leaving me as the second longest serving member of the department. This has resulted in an unusual increase in responsibility for my role, both formally or informally. I have been an official and unofficial member of hiring committees for post doctoral positions, visiting positions, and our two most recent tenured-track hirings. I invested a tremendous amount of time reviewing materials, interviews, and hosting campus visits. I am very appreciative to have been included in the conversations surrounding the direction of the department’s future, as well as learning more about the process through which these decisions are made.
Perhaps it is unusual for faculty to do physical labor, but in my administration of our lab spaces I have provided physical service to the department and College through organizing our work areas to be more efficient and useful for faculty and students. Our department oversees the Bradley Observatory, which encompasses many areas used by other departments at the College. Throughout the last 30 years there are areas that have changed function with the department’s research needs and have become collection points for materials, experiments, and equipment left behind by departing faculty. Recently, I have become the one to organize or repurpose rooms in an effort to make space for new faculty and use our resources more efficiently. This is an ongoing process that I am spearheading in the observatory and the Bullock Science Center as we make decisions about the direction of research equipment in the department.​
Service to the College
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There is often a strong overlap between my service to the department and to the College, given the heavily integrated nature of the Physics and Astronomy Department to the life of the College as a whole. The Beck telescope has been an enormous asset to the College and recently was in need of immediate and overdue servicing. It is coming up on its centennial. It is an amazing piece of history to have on campus and an important resource for our students. It attracts visits from prospective students as well as community members and donors. Unfortunately, the telescope is in desperate need of refurbishment. Originally, we were told the project of restoration would cost upwards of $50,000. I creatively brainstormed with a visiting faculty member, Alexandra Yep, over two months this spring. Together, we were able to lower the costs to less than $10,000. The project was completed in less than two weeks thanks to creative thinking, a tremendous amount of Dr. Yep’s elbow grease, and money from various small funds available to the department. This was an unexpected and extraordinary feat that would not have been accomplished without our initiative. The next goal that I have set is to secure long-term funding so that the telescope can continue to be operational for another hundred years.
What can be classified as more college-wide service contributions have been labors of love. I informally initiated a ‘Women in STEM’ tea gathering each month after the pandemic in order to reconnect with colleagues and rebuild some of the community that had been lost on campus due to the shutdown. These meetings gave space for truly busy people on campus to take a breath, connect and decompress with colleagues about daily events from their work and personal lives.
As a result of my interest in AI, I have engaged the wider college community through presentations and a workshop with the CTL, as well as at the faculty retreat in August 2023. My hope is to have a broader dialogue on AI in education and how we can move the College as a whole to consider the bigger implications of its use by students. I am currently assisting Casey Long, Head of Research & Instruction Services at McCain Library, on curating a faculty resource page on AI.
I am also committed to SUMMIT and to our mission of educating our students in a global context. I have co-led two Global trips focused on marine biology and one Journeys trip focused on marronage communities, all requiring international travel with students to Jamaica and Honduras. Building on my own international travel and global learning, I can support both seasoned and novice travelers. Through traveling with students, I have been able to share my passion for learning and experience the learning process with them. The growth our students exhibit during these trips is incredible to witness and I wholeheartedly believe it is one of the most important educational processes they can explore during their time at the College.​​
Direction of Future Service
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My path in service continues to point towards increasing our students’ preparation and opportunities post Agnes. There are several directions that I see my service contributing to in the future.
First, I would like to intentionally integrate and scaffold basic coding into the Physics major to be more consistent with national physics pedagogy by introducing it into our calculus-based physics lab and introductory astronomy sequence. Using Python, or any programming language, to solve problems is a critical skill for research and graduate school across the sciences, but also coding skills are relevant in all aspects of the technical workforce. Teaching students the logical foundations of coding is beneficial in careers in every industry.
Next, I will continue to push for pathways that lead to offering a Physics Advanced Lab course. Currently we only offer our majors three semesters of lab work, all at the introductory level. Those wanting to continue in the discipline have to travel to Emory University or Georgia Tech to gain experience with more professional materials and experiments. An advanced lab is a core requirement of most Physics majors across the country. With my role managing lab equipment and spaces, we would be well-positioned to have an advanced lab again with strategic investment and planning.
Additionally, I would like to be more involved with the NASA ANCR program on campus. I have attended a majority of the meetings over the past year, and I feel very strongly about the goals of the program being an alumna myself. The benefits of this amazing partnership could really elevate our majors’ future prospects and as one of the longest-standing members of the department, it would be natural for me to maintain alumnae connections with our graduating majors.
Finally, I plan to continue my passion project on AI in education. AI will continue to grow in relevance, especially in education with the work we ask our students to do. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for how to address its use, but that is a part of the intrigue for me as someone who is interested in pedagogy in science. The College employs some of the smartest and most creative people in higher education, and I would like to tap into that pool of knowledge to build additional resources for those who feel daunted by AI’s intricacies and future implications in our world so that we are able to help our students prepare to live in it.​