The Provost's Awards Lecture Series is intended to honor and showcase the recipients of the Provost's Awards and provide them an opportunity to present, share and discuss their work with the campus. Another goal of this series is to raise the level of academic and intellectual discourse among our colleagues, and to further enrich connections with others across campus.

All lectures are held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Henry Madden Library, Room 2206 (Second Floor).

Thursday, Nov. 8

2017-2018 – Promising New Faculty
Qin Fan, Department of Economics

“Opportunities and Challenges for Local and Regional Economic Development: the Synergy of Teaching, Research, and Service”

Human capital — represented by the share of college graduates — and the quality of life in a community were found to significantly contribute to economic growth. Dr. Qin Fan and her co-authors are also learning that human capital and quality of life are mutually reinforcing. Larger share of college graduates and better amenity and quality of life factors — air quality, open space views, pleasant climate, and coast, for example — give economic growth an additional boost. Dr. Fan will specifically discuss how her experience working with students and being involved in community service shape her research agenda and how she incorporates her research into the classroom and engages her students in community service supporting community economic development.

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2016-2017 - Promising New Faculty
Alison Mandaville, Department of English

“Comics in the Classroom: Valley Water Voices”

Comics are a great teaching tool. Dr. Alison Mandaville will discuss — and show — why comics strategies work so well across disciplines to engage students, support learning, and foster critical thinking. Dr. Mandaville will share a student research project assignment, "Valley Water Voices," in which students read about and researched the role of water in the Central Valley community and then presented their work in comics form. She will also discuss how this assignment could be adjusted to any discipline, from engineering to English.

Visit the Provost's Awards Lecture Series for a full schedule.