1997 Lilly Teaching Fellows Named
Six untenured faculty — who are already distinguished scholars and teachers — have been named UW–Madison’s 1997-98 Lilly Teaching Fellows.
The program, established nationwide by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. in 1974 and at UW–Madison in 1992, offers one-year grants to promising assistant professors to either develop a new undergraduate course or redesign an existing one. Each fellow will work with an established mentor in the field and participate in meetings on educational issues.
Under the auspices of the College of Letters and Science, fellows receive a one-course release from teaching duties, either in fall or spring, and a $1,000 stipend for the purchase of course materials.
“The Lilly program fits in very well with our emphasis on enriching undergraduate education and encouraging interdisciplinary teaching,” says Phillip Certain, L&S dean. “And not only will the students benefit; the Lilly Teaching Fellows will serve as role models for other young faculty as well. We’re extremely excited to be have this program to enhance teaching expertise on this campus.”
The 1997-98 Lilly Teaching Fellows are:
Caitilyn Allen | Stephen Kantrowitz | Grazia Menechella
Paul Milewski | Lawrence Shapiro | J. Randolph Valentine
Caitilyn Allen
Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology and Women’s Studies
The history and current status of women and minorities in several scientific disciplines will be the focus of Allen’s new course, Women and Minorities in Science. Allen says a primary aim will be to improve retention of women and minority students who have expressed an interest in science. She says the course probably will include survival skills, strategies for success, and interactions with successful women and minority scientists.
Allen has been on the faculty since 1992. In Plant Pathology, she teaches the courses Plants, Parasites and People; Special Topics for Women in Science and Engineering; and Plant Pathogenesis. In Women’s Studies, she teaches Biology and Gender.
Stephen Kantrowitz
Assistant Professor of History
Mentor: Paul Boyer, Merle Curti Professor of History
Using a broad range of literary texts, Kantrowitz’s new course, Reading Slavery, Writing Freedom: Literature and American Histories, will look at how 19th century Americans interpreted the issue of slavery. Kantrowitz says he envisions the course as an upper-level seminar exploring how various 19th century Americans portrayed the conflict between slavery and freedoms. He says he plans to use group discussions, an email forum, and a variety of writing and reading assignments to allow students to examine the issues.
Kantrowitz joined the faculty in 1995. Classes he has taught include The Civil War Era, 1848-1877; The American South, 1793-1906; Race and Gender in the 19th Century South; and Topics in the History of Race in North America.
Grazia Menechella
Assistant Professor of French and Italian
Mentor: Elaine Marks, Germaine Bree Professor of French, professor of Women’s Studies
Menechella will redesign Modern Italian Culture, a course required for Italian majors, to focus on “Italian-ness” in terms of culture and politics. Her redesign will follow how the concept has evolved from the unification of Italy in 1870 to the present, including Fascism, the economic boom of the 1960s, and the threat of terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s. She says she intends to incorporate media, legal and electronic discourses into the class.
Menechella has been on the faculty since 1995. She has taught a number of introductory and advanced language and literature classes for the Department of French and Italian.
Paul Milewski
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Mentor: Jean-Marc Vanden-Broeck, professor of mathematics
Milewski says he will design Introduction to Applied Dynamical Systems and Chaos as an interdisciplinary exploration of the math and application of dynamical systems and chaos theory. The new class will draw on the fields of medicine, engineering, biology, physics, ecology, economics, and atmospheric and oceanic sciences to illustrate the application of theory. Milewski predicts his students’ diverse backgrounds will enhance the instructional impact of the course.
In his two years on the mathematics faculty here, Milewski has taught algebra and trigonometry, dynamical systems, linear mathematics, finite difference schemes and applied mathematics.
Lawrence Shapiro
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Mentor: Malcolm Forster, professor of philosophy
Shapiro’s new course will examine the sciences of artificial intelligence and life, making these sciences objects of philosophical scrutiny themselves and considering how they reflect philosophical debate on life, consciousness, knowledge and intelligence. The use of instructional technology promises to be central to the new class; Shapiro says issues to be considered might include the goals of artificial intelligence and artificial life, the relationships between the two and more.
Since joining the faculty in 1993, Shapiro has taught Introduction to Philosophy, Philosophy of the Mind, Philosophy of Biology and seminars in Conceptual Issues of Cognitive Science, Foundations of Cognitive Science, Qualia, and Representations of Cognitive Psychology.
J. Randolph Valentine
Assistant professor of linguistics and American Indian studies
Mentor: Frank Salomon, professor of anthropology
Valentine will rework a second semester course in Ojibwe, organizing the class around traditional Ojibwe textual materials he is collecting. Contemporary writers — including Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor, Basil Johnston and Jack Forbes — have drawn from this framework. Valentine says he would like to redesign computer tools he has developed to further students’ access to the Ojibwe language.
Valentine has been a faculty member since 1995. He has taught Ojibwe language classes, Ojibwe Narrative Tradition, linguistic methods and more.