The Texas Wesleyan University Era
(1990s to 2000s)
History of the Era
Between this period of time, science literacy or the general knowledge and understanding of scientific processes rose with students gaining the fundamental understanding of big concepts within the scientific world. Concepts such as atoms, the periodic table of elements, evolution, genes, and physics. Students within these decades have a better understanding of the nature of science, scientific terms and concepts, and the interaction of science with society. However, with the greater wealth of knowledge that scientists have discovered, within schools, there can a negative attitude to science topics formed when students feel like they are struggling against difficult scientific areas and feel like they are going nowhere. This gave way to "popularizers of science" intended for younger audiences of students to expose them to the fun aspects of science and so it wouldn't be as intimidating as perceived. Such populizers such as Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Michio Kaku reigned during this period as they appeared on television and inspired many children to appreciate and understand different difficult concepts of science application in an easily digestible format. This creates a complicated attitude towards science, while many college students within this era can fondly remember these figures teaching them science the STEM field is still very intimidating and met with hesitation.
Pictured from left to right: Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku
Pictures accredited to their Wikipedia pages.
Professor Spotlight: Dr. Mary Anne Clark
Dr. Mary Anne Clark has been a professor at Texas Wesleyan since 1979 will be retiring in 2021. Her near 50-year experience at Texas Wesleyan University creates a legacy of academic excellence, she not only taught in the biology department but experimented with classes within the Humanities discipline, the Honors Program, and non-major genetics courses. She encourages others to experiment with different academic pursuits to find something you find interesting.
She is a distinguished science figure within the Texas Wesleyan community where she has many awards for her educational abilities such as the Engaging Educator Award (2015), BOT Award for Scholarship (2013), BOT Award for Excellence in Teaching (2008), and the Earl Brown Distinguished Faculty Award (2010).
Her research into "Genome Island" in the program Second Life is her most popular study of how virtual environments can be used for teaching. During this era, she had the struggle of having widely accessible hardware available to run the larger programs needed for the virtual platforms.
When asked about what she would want to say to any students reading this, she quoted the former dean "Science is the next best thing to recess." This means having fun not only in science but all aspects of life. She says that there is no better place than a university to explore different aspects of life and of the world. So go out and try things you've never even heard of before and experiment, you might have some fun while doing so.
