Several Saint Peter’s Faculty Members Accepted into Prestigious FRN Program

After a rigorous and highly competitive application process, seven faculty members from Saint Peter’s College gained acceptance into the Faculty Resource Network’s summer program at New York University, to be held from June 11 to June 15 at NYU’s Washington Square campus.

“I attended the program last summer,” said Assistant Professor of Business Administration Mary Kate Naatus, who recently received word that she will be returning to the FRN program in June. “My seminar was called Doing Business in Asia, and it was a great experience.  I met faculty from institutions around the country and internationally, and heard from experts on Japan, China and Southeast Asia.”

Open to an aggregation of over 50 member-driven colleges and universities around the country, the Faculty Resource Network (FRN) at NYU sponsors a variety of lectures, conferences and enrichment seminars designed to bolster faculty development and teaching initiatives with the most up-to-date information in their fields of study. Selected members of the College community will partake in a week-long intensive summer program with seminars such as Interactive Technologies for Teaching and Learning; People Power: Revolts in the Arab World; Summer Scholar-in-Residence; Practicing Critical and Creative Thinking; and The 1960s: Politics, Race and Law. The faculty will then bring the knowledge they gain from the program back to Saint Peter’s, a facet that will undoubtedly strengthen student learning experiences, a large factor in Associate Professor of Economics Matthew Fung’s interest in attending the FRN program.

“I am very excited about my acceptance by NYU’s Faculty Resource Network to participate in their summer 2012 seminar on Practicing Critical and Creative Thinking,” he said. “I often serve as faculty advisor to students writing an honors thesis or a research paper as the academic component of their internship experience, and in some courses I teach, I require students to write a research paper.  If I can help them cultivate their capacity for thinking critically and creatively, I can better train them to do research, to think more carefully, frequently, and with greater sophistication, and to better express their thoughts in more effective writing.”

He added, “But to be able to help them effectively, I have to improve my own ability to engage in critical and creative thinking.  That is why I am so eager to participate in the seminar.”

Congratulations to the following faculty on this prestigious opportunity for professional enhancement, not only for themselves, but for the College community as a whole: Mary Kate Naatus, assistant professor of business administration; John Wrynn, professor of history; Karl Alorbi, assistant professor of business administration; Matthew Fung, associate professor of economics; Ilona MacNamara, associate librarian; Anna Brown, associate professor of political science; Louis Ruvolo, lecturer of business administration.

 “I am extremely pleased that so many from our faculty were accepted into this program,” said Director of Faculty Development and Chairperson of the Sociology and Urban Studies Department David Surrey, Ph.D., who informed the College’s staff about the FRN summer program and coordinated the application process for them. “All of the Saint Peter’s community will benefit from what they bring back from their various seminars.”

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