Making a Difference in the Peace Corps
Mammography Pioneer Sees Eye to Eye with Patients
Innovative Lectures Engage Students' Interest
Challenging Conventional Wisdom
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Innovative Lectures Engage Students' Interest
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Claire Ross Cronmiller '74 |
When Claire Ross Cronmiller '74 arrived at the University of Virginia in 1990, her first teaching assignment was an introductory biology course. She was shocked to find about 475 students in her class. As a graduate teaching assistant at Princeton University, where she earned her Ph.D. degree, "Most of my teaching had been in lab courses," recalls Cronmiller, now a professor of biology at U. Virginia. Now, she would have to navigate the huge lecture hall's sea of blank stares.
Cronmiller realized that if she wanted to forge a connection with her students, "I had to do something crazy," she says. By risking the possibility that the class might laugh at rather than with her, she explains, she would show them that "I have a human side," which she hoped would make her more approachable.
Creative Teaching Tools
Cronmiller's first effort involved a skit to demonstrate the importance of chromosome pairing in meiosis (the development of gametes). Groups of students portrayed dividing chromosomes as they moved through meiosis. Omitting pairing in the first run-through led to chaos, while restoring it in the encore produced perfect chromosome movements. "I'm convinced that when you see something, it makes a stronger impact than when you're just listening to someone talk about it," Cronmiller says.
Inspired by a children's science book packaged with a musical audiotape, Cronmiller added songs to her lectures. She first created a rap about "Hermann Muller, fly guy," the Nobelist who coined terminology to classify mutations. She also penned a song about "mapping genetic loci," sung to the tune of Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca," and "The Complementation Song" (sample lyric: "How many genes does it take to explain/The phenotype of a trait?"), which parodies Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."
Cronmiller says, "If I'm willing to make a fool of myself to explain these concepts, the students have to recognize how important they are. I want the students to understand and appreciate the science."
Reaching Out to Students
The large U. Virginia campus, Cronmiller notes, is "a very different culture from the intimate environment at Bryn Mawr — and I think that's a shame. The students don't interact much on a personal level with faculty unless they work in a lab." At Bryn Mawr, "we knew our professors on an informal basis."
At Virginia, Cronmiller is working to create that small-college ambiance. For her large lecture course each year, she invites the whole class to brunch at her home. About 40 to 50 usually attend, she says. "The first year, I told them that space was limited, and I asked them to RSVP," she says. But she stopped requiring advance notice "when I realized I was never going to get full participation. The students aren't used to that kind of situation. Many of them have told me it was the first time they had ever been invited to a faculty member's house."
Other personal touches also aim to break down student-teacher barriers. When she doesn't travel at Thanksgiving, Cronmiller invites students who are in town to join her for holiday dinner. At test times, "I have shown up at libraries where I know students hang out, to hold informal tutoring sessions," she says. And teaching doesn't stop when Cronmiller goes home at night; she says she will answer e-mails at all times of the day.
Cronmiller, who was named the university's Cavaliers' Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2003-05 and received the 2005-06 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award from the national Society for College Science Teachers, participates in a mentoring program run by Virginia 's Office of African-American Affairs. In addition to advising these students, she invites them to sporting and cultural events. She and the students both benefit from these relaxed student-faculty relationships, which often lead to correspondence that continues long after the students have graduated.
Developmental Biology Research
Cronmiller originally entered Bryn Mawr intending to major in German literature, but got hooked on biology. In her second year, she took a developmental biology course taught by the passionate Jane Oppenheimer, and "it was a no-brainer after that," she says. "When I advise students now, I tell them, 'Don't come in with such preconceived notions that you aren't free to discover where your true talents are.'" She deepened her interest in developmental biology and genetics at Philadelphia's Institute for Cancer Research (now the Fox Chase Cancer Center), where she worked with Dr. Beatrice Mintz for six years before graduate school.
Today, her research focuses on formation and maturation of the ovarian follicle in the fruit fly, Drosophila. Her research uses Drosophila oogenesis as a model to study tissue morphogenesis, i.e., development of form. Cronmiller and her students are using genetic and pharmacological approaches to study how the nervous system regulates the ovary via hormone signaling. They discovered the nervous-system link when they fed flies neurostimulatory drugs, like cocaine, and found that the ovaries had major follicle structural defects. Now they are investigating not only the normal regulation of follicle formation, but also the cellular effects of cocaine on development.
While she loves doing research, Cronmiller says she finds her pedagogical role especially gratifying and stimulating. "The students challenge us," she says. "And that's a good thing."
Barbara Spector writes on science and technology as well as business topics. She is the editor-in-chief of Family Business magazine and former editor of The Scientist.