Crosby Library
Theater at Assos, Turkey
• A faculty member in human physiology is studying the
lab course, are emerging across campus: Gonzaga’s nursing
most effective ways to help students develop scientific
students run a health fair for the homeless. Philosophy students
writing skills—looking for strategies that will foster
in Professor Erik Schmidt’s ethics courses find compelling
their abilities to ’think like scientists in order to be able
new contexts for learning when he draws material from other
to write like scientists.“
disciplines, economics, game theory and Shakespeare.
“There is a great deal to be gained by looking closely at one’s
Psychology students become their own case studies in a research
own practice as a teacher,” Hutchings said. “Faculty are
course titled Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. Or they use their
trained to ask questions and gather evidence as scholars and
knowledge of Freud, Jung, Skinner and others to analyze a
researchers in their disciplines. The scholarship of teaching
contemporary event or issue – and then find and explore a related
and learning invites them to bring those same skills and habits
social justice element. ”It has been fascinating (and engaging)
to their teaching. What many find, especially when they work
to see what the students choose and how they engage with
collaboratively with others engaged in such work, is that
the theorists’ words to explore the topics and the social justice
treating their teaching and their students’ learning as a topic
elements,” said Professor Nancy Worsham.
for systematic inquiry yields significant new insights. Those
Study abroad opportunities also are increasingly designed with
insights, in turn, are a catalyst for trying new things and for
innovative academic vigor. In a new summer program, Gonzaga-
ongoing improvement.”
in-Turkey, course offerings encompassed classical civilizations,
This work at Gonzaga is grounded in a strong academic
religious studies and broadcast studies. Students immersed
foundation. Gonzaga faculty have undergone multi-year
themselves in the battlefields, mountaintop ruins, temples and
processes to develop baccalaureate learning goals and
early Christian churches of ancient Turkey, capturing what they
incorporate them into their teaching. Other complex multi-
had learned through digital storytelling.
year projects include the development of systematic student
“I find learning about history fascinating, but it’s something else
assessments and the revision of Gonzaga’s core curriculum.
to actually learn at the site itself,” said student Geoff Melder.
Creative ways of deepening student learning, such as the phage
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Gonzaga-in-Turkey students