USD Biology Professor Arietta Fleming-Davies Named a QUBES Mentor

Assistant Professor of Biology Arrieta Fleming-Davies The QUBES Project has been honored as a QUBES Mentors for the Spring 2019 semester. Established in 2014, QUBES is dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of undergraduate biology education with a particular focus on including more quantitative concepts and skills.

The mentors are recognized for providing essential professional development and guidance for
participants in semester-long Faculty Mentoring Networks (FMNs) offered through QUBES.

FMNs bring together faculty from across the country and around the world—and across academic
disciplines—to work together via an online platform to find better approaches and materials for
teaching quantitative biology.

Fleming-Davies was recognized for her Biology Students Math Attitudes and Anxiety Program (BIOMAAP). 

Participants in each FMN worked together to plan and implement educational reforms in the classroom.

According to Jeremy M. Wojdak, PhD, QUBES Director of Professional Development and Professor
of Biology at Radford University, “FMNs provide an important bridge between pedagogical theory
and classroom practice, providing support and guidance to faculty just when they need it. An
effective and dedicated mentor really ensures the success of an FMN.”

QUBES FMN Manager Deborah L. Rook, PhD, added, “these mentors really stepped up to guide
more than 100 faculty through the often challenging process of developing, adapting, and using
new educational materials in the classroom.”

Beyond guiding their own FMNs, the mentors also served as a resource for each other and worked
with the QUBES team to improve the faculty development model for the future.

In addition to FMNs, QUBES provides a cyberinfrastructure and associated social infrastructure to
support collaborations between producers and consumers of educational reform resources.

QUBES emphasizes practices that promote scholarly teaching practices, including the use of
evidence based pedagogies, thoughtful reflection on implementation results, and sharing
outcomes with the community.

About the University of San Diego

Strengthened by the Catholic intellectual tradition, we confront humanity’s challenges by fostering peace, working for justice and leading with love. With more than 8,000 students from 75 countries and 44 states, USD is the youngest independent institution on the U.S. News & World Report list of top 100 universities in the United States. USD’s eight academic divisions include the College of Arts and Sciences, the Knauss School of Business, the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, the School of Law, the School of Leadership and Education Sciences, the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science, the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, and the Division of Professional and Continuing Education. In 2021, USD was named a “Laudato Si’ University” by the Vatican with a seven-year commitment to address humanity’s urgent challenges by working together to take care of our common home.