undergraduate teaching

U.S. News & World Report ranks �ƴ��ɸ��̳ #1 for Teaching, #2 for Innovation

msk23@calvin.edu — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 12:18:42 +0000

U.S. News & World Report ranks �ƴ��ɸ��̳ #1 for Teaching, #2 for Innovation msk23@calvin.edu Tue, 09/24/2024 - 08:18

U.S. News & World Report released its 2025 Best Colleges Guidebook today and lists �ƴ��ɸ��̳ as the best university for undergraduate teaching and as the second most innovative school in its Regional Universities Midwest category.

“While our professors are leading scholars in their fields, they take seriously their number one priority of equipping students for not only their first job, but also preparing them for a lifetime of service to God’s kingdom in every sector and sphere of society,” said Greg Elzinga, interim president. “So, it is validating to have that long-held commitment to innovative teaching validated by a well-respected industry evaluator like U.S. News & World Report.”

The digital news and information company released the report online today, which helps prospective students and their families evaluate 1,500 U.S. four-year bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities based on up to 19 measures of academic quality and graduate outcomes. These include such things as first-year retention rates, graduation rates, strength of faculty, and graduate indebtedness.

�ƴ��ɸ��̳ moved up in several categories from 2024 to 2025, while maintaining its fourth overall ranking. Among universities in the Regional Universities (Midwest) category, Calvin ranks:

An Elite Engineering Program

In addition, the university’s engineering program is in the Top 50 of the “Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs” list (#44), which considers all non-doctorate-granting institutions. And this isn’t the first time the program has received national attention.

This past summer, the Fiske Guide to Colleges shortlisted Calvin’s engineering program as one of 16 institutions on its “Small Colleges and Universities Strong in Engineering” category. And this past spring, USA Today highlighted a class project at Calvin that led to engineering students discovering a pathway for the university to move its carbon neutrality target date up nearly a quarter century.

Note: In fall 2025, Calvin is expanding its program to include aerospace engineering.

In addition to the U.S. News & World Report rankings, �ƴ��ɸ��̳ also receives high overall marks from several other leading ranking guidebooks, including Fiske Guide to Colleges, Forbes, Money, Niche, Princeton Review, Washington Monthly, and the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education, to name a sampling.

�ƴ��ɸ��̳

Founded in 1876, �ƴ��ɸ��̳ is a top-ranked, liberal arts institution that equips its 3,600 students from 48 U.S. states, 66 countries, and five Canadian provinces to think deeply, to act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world. Calvin offers 100+ majors and programs, including a growing portfolio of graduate-level offerings. Calvin students engage in intensive internships, community-based service learning, and significant research that results in publishing and presenting alongside world-class faculty. The university’s 400-acre campus is in the vibrant city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Discover more at www.calvin.edu.

About U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report is the global leader in quality rankings that empower consumers, business leaders and policy officials to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives and communities. A multifaceted digital media company with Education, Health, Money, Travel, Cars, Real Estate, News and 360 Reviews platforms, U.S. News provides rankings, independent reporting, data journalism, consumer advice and U.S. News Live events. More than 40 million people visit USNews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Tue, 09/24/2024 - 12:00

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Heading to NASA to Become a Better Teacher

msk23@calvin.edu — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:58:47 +0000

Heading to NASA to Become a Better Teacher msk23@calvin.edu Wed, 09/18/2024 - 07:58

For the past 24 years, the latter 15 at Calvin, Herb Fynewever’s primary role has been teaching. But, this fall, the chemistry professor is on a different mission—going beyond his usual surroundings on a journey of discovery.

“I love teaching at Calvin. I love teaching first-year students, and I get a lot of energy from those students,” said Fynewever. “I know you can get into a rut even when you’re doing something you love. It’s great to get out and do something different, learn something new, and breathe new life into your passions, so I’m grateful to Calvin for letting me do that.

Exploring New Terrain

Fynewever was selected as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow for NASA in Washington, D.C. As part of his fellowship, he’ll be tasked with writing the next strategic plan for The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program.

As a scientist, what excites Fynewever most is understanding the interaction between science and government.

“I’ve been really curious about this interaction between science and government, and I have a deep personal interest in policy,” said Fynewever. “If we don’t have an educated public and policymakers, then even if we get the science right, we don’t necessarily get policies that align with the evidence of science. I really wanted to get a job in the government temporarily so that I could understand a bit more of how it all works.”

Deepening His Understanding

While Fynewever is taking on the posture of a student this year, he’s most excited about how he can take what he’s learning and directly apply it when he returns to his teaching role next year.

“I can read about it in the newspaper and listen to congressional hearings,” said Fynewever, “but actually being in D.C. for a year and meeting with people who work in the government, getting to know them, meeting scientists who work in the government, seeing how it all fits together, that will help me when teaching my classes about these issues.”

Fynewever can see it being especially helpful in his “Chemistry and Public Policy” and his “Science and Society” courses.

“In my chemistry and public policy course, for example, I have students read primary literature in science and legislation and I have them watch congressional hearings, among other things, but it’ll be so much better when I can say to them, ‘when I was in D.C. this is how I saw this working.’”

Enhancing the Learning Environment

For Fynewever, it’s all about providing his students with a greater depth of learning, so that they can be the best possible citizens.

“We need an interdisciplinary approach to advance the kingdom. From Scripture, we are all given different gifts and to follow our vocation is to be faithful to the gifting that we have,” said Fynewever. “So, some of us are gifted to be scientists, to know how to collect evidence from general revelation, to learn about God’s creation. But that evidence only gets you so far. You then need to think about what we do with the evidence, that’s where I feel policymakers have an important role to play. They then take that evidence and use their gifts to determine what the appropriate, data-informed policy is. And now, what shall we do as Christians, what shall we do as humans to care for creation given what scientists have told us about it?”

Prepared to Succeed, Preparing Others to do the Same

While Fynewever’s experience is sure to benefit his future students, the fact he was selected to write the strategic plan for this major government outfit also speaks volumes to the benefit of a Calvin education.

“I think part of what’s contributed to my success is when I was taking classes at Calvin I spent a lot of time in the core curriculum learning how to write, how to discern, taking philosophy and history classes. But even in my science classes, writing well was a requirement and part of the curriculum was writing formal lab reports and getting lots of feedback,” said Fynewever. “At larger state universities, it’s just not possible to have that kind of hands-on training in technical writing, because it’s so labor intensive and when you don’t have the liberal arts values, core curriculum, small student-to-professor ratio, there’s no way to get the detailed feedback that I did as a student at Calvin.”

And Fynewever said that foundational work has allowed him to build up a competitive resume’ that is full of publications, a number of which he has co-authored with his Calvin students.

“I think part of what gave me a leg up for this position is my publication track record and seeing it’s in science education and I’m active in contributing to the literature,” said Fynewever. “They probably thought, oh he knows how to write, how to synthesize data, so this would be a good person to take data from all the stakeholders and come up with a plan to go with this data.”

And those are skills he learned at Calvin and ones he is excited to continue to impart when he returns from his latest mission.

“This is a new opportunity to learn, so I can come back re-energized with fresh insights,” said Fynewever.

Wed, 09/18/2024 - 12:00