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Gerard Dumancas, Ph.D.

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 EXCELLENCE IN The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

 This award is designed to recognize the efforts of faculty who strive for excellence in teaching and who practice teaching as a form of scholarship. The recipient of this year’s award is Dr. Gerard Dumancas.  

Dr. Dumancas came to the University in January of 2022 from Louisiana University at Alexandria where he was an Associate Professor of Chemistry.

In additions to his skills as an educator and researcher, as the Principal Investigator of an NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship award, Gerard also transferred this grant to the University when he arrived in 51做厙. This substantial Noyce Grant is entitled, “Recruiting, Preparing, and Retaining STEM Educators to Serve in High-Need Schools in Central Louisiana,” and is now being directed towards a vital need in Pennsylvania; helping to prepare future STEM educators in Northeastern PA. This grant involves collaborative work between our Education and STEM department, together with partner area high school to provide funding to provide scholarships, stipends, and programmatic support to recruit and prepare STEM majors and professionals to become K-12 teachers. The program seeks to increase the number of K-12 teachers with strong STEM content knowledge who teach in high-need school districts.

Gerard also serves as a Community-Based Learning Faculty Fellow where he is collaborating with the Lackawanna River Conservation Association and is combining research and teaching by implementing novel analytical chemistry experiments for use in his lab classes.

Dr. Dumancas also currently serves the University as a Faculty Fellow in the Office of Education Assessment. In addition, he is a Faculty Fellow in the First Year Residential Communities where he implements the Appreciative Advising Model and guides students through an intentional, collaborative process of asking generative, open-ended questions to help students optimize their educational experiences and goals.

Gerard is also serving as the faculty lead for a Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation grant. This LSAMP program takes a comprehensive approach to student development and retention. Particular emphasis is placed on transforming undergraduate STEM education through innovative, evidence-based recruitment and retention strategies, and relevant educational experiences in support of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines. The program requires significant coordination of partnerships between the institutions of higher learning in our region, and Dr. Dumancas has led these efforts.

In addition to participating in these projects, since coming to the University two years ago, Dr. Dumancas has published over 30 papers with colleagues and students in high-impact journals.

 

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