2024 James Flack Norris Awardees Announced
Adam Johnson, Barbara Reisner, and Joanne Stewart to receive the 2024 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry
Drs. Johnson, Reisner and Stewart are being recognized for their creation and ongoing leadership within the Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists (IONiC). This cohort of chemistry educators have not only established a valuable repository of inorganic chemistry content that is free to use (Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource (VIPEr) website) but they also have built a “community of practice” that is supportive, engaged and dedicated to improving student learning. Their efforts have broken down silos of teaching and learning in inorganic chemistry to make teaching a community-based endeavor where faculty can engage with and support each other through workshops, webinars, research symposia, a community chat and the VIPEr website. This concept has allowed participating faculty to expand their networks beyond the walls of individual institutions across the country and worldwide.
The committee acknowledges the contributions of all members of the extensive IONiC team, whose dedication has ensured its success over many years. The ongoing professional growth of participants in the program ultimately enhances learning outcomes for students and advances the broader field of inorganic chemistry.
With the support of a National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (NSF-IUSE) grant, the IONiC leaders developed the VIPEr Fellows program, which was an innovative study that examined the impact of the community on faculty change as Fellows tested and refined their foundation level inorganic chemistry courses. Three cohorts of twenty faculty were selected from institutions across the country and have infused insights from evidence-based classroom practices, which are now being shared with the chemistry community.
Due to the great success of their efforts, this community of practice model is now being applied beyond the inorganic subdiscipline and is having a positive impact on the larger chemistry teaching community. They continue to support the sharing of this model. IONiC has been supported by a diverse array of funding organizations including: the Mellon Foundation Inter-Institutional Initiative and The Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges (AALAC), the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Directions Initiative, The National Science Foundation through the NSF-CCLI, NSF-TUES, NSF-IUSE programs, the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry, Harvey Mudd College, James Madison University, and Hope College.
The James Flack-Norris Award is the first national award to recognize outstanding achievement in the teaching of chemistry. Established in 1950 by the Northeastern Regional Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) to honor the memory of James Flack Norris, Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a teacher of great repute, the award recognizes dedicated teachers of chemistry at any level whose efforts have had a wide-ranging effect on chemical education. This year’s award celebrates these three champions of chemistry education representing the IONiC team who have developed a community that supports faculty change and enables the advancement of student-centered active learning approaches for teaching in the chemical sciences.
