Teaching Initiatives

The demand by students for the popular breadth courses has significantly increased, to the extent that the Department is not able to keep up. Increased enrollment has occurred despite a loss of one FTE by retirement during this planning period. The demand is reflected in Table 1 which shows a surge beginning in 1996 in undergraduate enrollment and Instructional Activity Index, respectively, beginning in 1996. This change is well above the average increase for the Faculty, which is also shown in Table 1. The plan to involve more graduate and undergraduate students in the use of the DDO has been an overwhelming success. Some of our AST 299Y students and all of our AST 325H students now conduct observations with the 1.88m telescope as part of their training and course work. They will enjoy even more frequent use of the planned new telescopes and instruments in the St. George Undergraduate Observatory (§ 4.3). Recently, a large consortium of our graduate students has conducted exciting research with the 1.88m telescope entirely outside the scope of their theses, culminating in important publications in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal. Finally, the Department has initiated new instructional methods via its Web page with the help of Educational Initiative Grants from the Dean. Particularly noteworthy is the use of animation as a teaching tool for AST 210H. Other initiatives involve public education. The graduate students have introduced bi-weekly tours and lectures on the St. George Campus. The DDO has doubled the number of late evening tours in the summer and has introduced a successful regular Fall lecture series for the public.