Seminar Series – Anthony E. Butterfield, Ph.D.

Tony Butterfield, Ph.D.

Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/22/2021
9:35 am - 10:30 am

Categories


Anthony E. Butterfield, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
University of Utah

Title: Manageable Teaching Cheat Codes for New & Aspiring Faculty

Abstract: The paths that lead to a faculty position are filled with many valuable challenges and life lessons. This training focuses heavily on producing talented researchers, but to be a successful professor we are also expected to excel in areas of teaching and service.

In this talk I hope to give new and aspiring faculty the teaching and service “cheat codes” that I wish I had to help prepare for my career in academia. This talk will focus on employing small, manageable steps in teaching and service that I have found to have valuable impact. Several key areas in both teaching and service will be addressed.

  1. Incorporating evidence-based pedagogy. A wealth of research exists on how to most effectively educate engineering students, but what can you do on a time and resource budget?
  2. Fostering an inclusive classroom and department. How can you easily establish a healthy classroom environment that will foster learning for everyone?
  3. Engaging our communities. How can you efficiently attract a diverse and talented student body and strengthen departmental research programs?
  4. Being a human professor. Every faculty is faced with the type of human crises that I would have never anticipated as a new PhD, and our instinct to be “professorial” may be exactly the wrong response.

Bio: Dr. Anthony Butterfield is an Associate Professor (Lecturer) in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah, where he has taught for ten years. As teaching faculty, Dr. Butterfield’s research has focused on engineering education, centering around project-based active learning and makerspaces, particularly as applied to first-year students; retention of underrepresented groups; and STEM community outreach and citizen scientist efforts. Dr. Butterfield has received multiple teaching awards from the department up to the national level, including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE) 2017 Award for Innovation in Chemical Engineering Education, NOGLSTP’s GLBT Educator of the Year Award, and ASEE’s Robert G. Quinn Award. Dr. Butterflied is the incoming chair of the American Society of Engineering Educators’ Chemical Engineering Division. He is also a member of and an incoming chair for the AIChE Societal Impact Operating Counsel and the chair of AIChE’s LGBTQ+ & Allies Initiative.