• Research masters
  Four faculty selected LAS Master Teachers.
  

• For four faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, involving undergraduate students in the research process is vitally important.
  
  As a result, the four have been chosen as LAS Master Teachers for 2001-02. The Master Teacher program recognizes teachers who have a reputation for using unique methods to enhance student learning. This year's awards recognize individuals who have been successful in involving Iowa State undergraduates in research situations.
  
  The four LAS Master Teachers, who will plan teaching methods seminars and in-class demonstrations throughout the academic year, are:
  
  Paul Canfield, professor of physics and astronomy. Canfield fully involves undergraduates in areas of his research group and has served as a mentor for the honors program since 1997.
  Many of his students have published papers in top academic journals and after graduating from Iowa State have been accepted into top graduate programs.
  
  "Paul's incorporation of undergraduates in research has been exemplary over the years and his style of mentoring is highly interactive and stimulating," said Alan Goldman, professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. "He engages students like no one else I have ever seen."
  
  Jeffrey Prater, professor of music, has included a large number of undergraduate music students to assist him with his work as a composer, researcher and teacher in the Department of Music. As part of his research program in pedagogy of music theory, Prater has taught ten undergraduate seminars entitled "Analysis for Performance."
  
  In these seminars, small student groups come together to study the historical background and performance practice, and provide musical analyses for single works or groups of works which they intend to perform.
  
  Prater's seminars typically culminate in highly professional full-length lecture recitals, where the students creatively report on their research and perform works before public audiences. Several of these performances have received critical acclaim at regional and national meetings of the College Music Society.
  
  On three occasions, Prater has presented the papers at national and regional conferences after which the undergraduate students then presented abridged versions of their lecture recitals for the critical professional conference audiences.
  
  "In every case the session audiences could scarcely believe that the performer-lecturers were 'only' undergraduates," said Sue Haug, associate professor and head of the Department of Music. "Dr. Prater's seminars have proven time and again that undergraduate music students can professionally collaborate with and greatly enhance a faculty member's research program."
  
  Valerie Sheares, assistant professor of chemistry, has mentored 14 undergraduates and two high school students in her five years at Iowa State. She employs three different techniques for recruiting undergraduates including working with the Ronald McNair Scholarship Fund for minority students and the Women in Science and Engineering Program.
  
  Sheares also gives research presentations to freshman chemistry classes, in which she not only teaches the freshmen about her research area, but also about the benefits of doing research as an undergraduate.
  
  One of the unconventional ways Sheares works with undergraduate students is taking many of her researchers to national American Chemical Society meetings to present posters.
  
  "But she doesn't allow them to present posters in the undergraduate research sessions," said Pat Thiel, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry. "Instead, they give full research posters in regular sessions."
  
  "They love it," Sheares says. "Imagine the self-esteem they must have after such an experience, (going) toe-to-toe with faculty and graduate students alike."
  
  David Wallace, associate professor of English, has worked with undergraduate students as part of his research about diversity, identity and literacy for ten years. A former Iowa State undergraduate student and Wallace designed and conducted a set of case studies that examined what it's like to be black on a predominately white university on campus.
  
  In a current project, Wallace and Nancy Evans, associate professor of educational leadership, will bring together a team of undergraduate students to undertake a climate assessment of the Iowa State community with regard to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Transsexual (LGBT) students.
  
  "They will train the student participants to take field notes and write case reports," said Charles Kostelnick, professor and chair of the Department of English. "The students will be true collaborators in the project."

From the left, Valerie Sheares, Paul Canfield, Jeffrey Prater, David Wallace.

Around LAS
October 1-14, 2001