Author Archives: Jonathan Nyquist

At the time of this post (3/12/2020) not a single Temple University student, staff or faculty member has tested positive for the coronavirus.  Yet next Monday Temple University switches to online-only instruction in and effort to encourage “social distancing.”  No … Continue reading →

This spring I signed up for a CAT book group to discuss “Teaching What You Don’t Know” by Therese Huston. The basic premise of the book is that faculty often find themselves teaching a course outside their subject expertise. Maybe … Continue reading →

One my goals for GenEd is to create online dashboards that provide easy access to data on enrollment trends, grading patterns, waitlists, section sizes and databased information to department chairs, course coordinators, and dean’s office personnel. My weapon of choice … Continue reading →

This October GenEd held its first ever course fair in the main atrium of the newly completed Charles library. Faculty and student helpers from across the university shared information with incoming students about exciting GenEd offerings in their departments, including … Continue reading →

Roughly five years ago, to permit Temple to offer fully online undergraduate degrees, online GenEd classes were created for each of the GenEd areas. Fast forward to today and nearly 10% of the credit hours taught in GenEd are online. … Continue reading →

For the annual GenEd Faculty Assembly this year, the GenEd office partnered with the Career Center to gather faculty, former students and employers together to discuss the connections between the skills student develop in their GenEd classes and the needs … Continue reading →

“Broadening Participation and Engagement of Underrepresented Minorities in the Geosciences Through a Near Surface Geophysics Field Experience.” This is a title of the a poster Dr. Kristina Keating will in December, 2019 at the AGU meeting in San Francisco. The … Continue reading →

When you think about it, the most common grading scheme used at American colleges and universities doesn’t make a lot of sense. On a 4.0 grade scale a C is worth 2.0 points, a C+ is 2.33, a B- is … Continue reading →

What is the future of general education (GenEd)? This questions was the subject of a one-day leadership conference organized by Inside Higher Education that I attended in Washington DC on April 17. A nice summary of the conference can be … Continue reading →

This month I attended the 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Conference here in Philadelphia. This two-day event included an academic think tank, designed directly for dean, directors, faculty, and Diversity and Inclusion practitioners. The think tank was subdivided into groups, each … Continue reading →