Ouachita Stories

Dr. Nathan Reyna, associate professor of biology at Ouachita Baptist University, has been accepted into the competitive national residency Biology Scholars Program.

“Dr. Reyna is a dedicated teacher and this recognition is well-deserved,” said Dr. Tim Knight, dean of Ouachita’s J.D. Patterson School of Natural Sciences. “He is constantly trying new ideas, especially in lab, and this benefits the Ouachita student’s tremendously.”

The program, funded in part by the National Science Foundation and sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology, is a model for transforming undergraduate biology education. According to its website, biologyscholars.org, its mission is “to empower biologists to be leaders in science education reform and catalyze professional societies to sustain undergraduate education reform.”

This program typically accepts only 15 to 20 participants each year. The application process includes a series of essays, examples of current teaching practices and participation in summer workshops related to class development.

“The actual application process took a few weeks,” Reyna noted, “but you could say it took several years to develop the material that allowed me to be accepted into the program.”

The yearlong program begins with a weeklong trip to the American Society for Microbiology national office in Washington, D.C. After that, Reyna will conduct video conferences using a genetics class and a synthetic biology lab as his case studies. “My hope is to develop new teaching material and ideas that will make these better classes,” he explained.

“My plan is to use the information developed and learned from this program in all of my classes at OBU,” he added. “My goal is to make OBU the best university possible and make sure our students are well prepared when they graduate. I am very competitive, and I want to see every student at OBU excel in the future.”

For more information, contact Dr. Nathan Reyna at [email protected] or (870) 245-5240.

 

By Clair Childers