Dr. Grote is an effective mentor, educator, and advisor with experience in pre-college student outreach.  In her 15 years as a university professor, Dr. Grote has taught 12 different courses related to groundwater, field hydrology, surface water, physical geology, geophysics, engineering geology, and professional development.  Despite teaching some of the most challenging courses in her program, she always receives favorable teaching evaluations and won the MS&T Dean’s educator award in 2019.  She is very active in research and has mentored 48 undergraduate researchers, most of whom have served as co-authors at professional conference presentations or for journal articles.  She has also graduated four MS and two PhD students and is currently mentoring two MS and five PhD students. Grote also advises many of the students in her department, helping them both to succeed academically and find jobs they enjoy after graduation; in 2020, Grote advised 102 students. She is very aware of career opportunities in the geosciences and regularly teaches professional development courses in which she helps students to understand and prepare for different career options.  She is also active in pre-college outreach and has led MS&T summer programs for high-school students interested in geoscience careers and for girls interested in environmental careers. Grote is the leader of the Student Committee and the Vice-President of Committees for the Environmental and Engineering Geophysics Society.

Dr. Borrok has a strong track record of mentoring undergraduate and graduate students and participating in innovative educational and outreach initiatives.  Borrok has mentored 4 undergraduate researchers and has graduated 16 graduate students (mostly MS-degrees).  The vast majority of Borrok’s journal publications (61 with more than 2500 citations and an h-index of 26) include student authors. Two of Borrok’s former undergraduate students received NSF graduate research fellowship awards. Borrok has served as a long-time mentor for the Geological Society of America’s On To the Future (OTF) program for increasing diversity in the geosciences. While at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Borrok brokered a partnership between the city and university to establish a geology museum in downtown Lafayette. This museum served as an educational an outreach hub for the School of Geosciences at UL Lafayette and hundreds of K-12 students and teachers visited the museum and associated geoscience educational displays annually.

Dr. Schwartze has extensive knowledge regarding K-12 education and pedagogy. She has been involved in teacher education for 19 years as an elementary teacher, middle school teacher, and college professor. During the last 3 and a half years as an assistant teaching professor at Missouri S&T she has taught courses on elementary and middle level methods for teaching math, science, reading, language arts, history, and STEM. She is a Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Launch Lead Teacher and has trained 32 preservice teachers in PLTW Launch. Along with teaching she is also an academic advisor for the elementary education preservice teachers, which currently is approximately 22 students. She guides them through their coursework and helps them successfully complete the requirements for teacher education. She also helps guide them in finding future employment and figuring out what options are available for continuing education. Schwartze previously worked on a grant that explored Science education in rural K-12 schools. During that grant she provided professional development to the K-12 teachers on ways to use assessment in their math and science classrooms.

Dr. Kania-Gosche is professor and founding chair of the education department at Missouri S&T.  She currently serves as president of the Missouri Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and has worked on statewide assessment instruments including the student teacher evaluation rubric and first year teacher and principal survey.  She helped revise the Missouri Educator Preparation Program Annual Performance Report to a standard-based model for program improvement, a unique model in the nation.  She taught English in a rural high school before pursuing her PhD in Educational Studies.  In her previous role as associate dean at Lindenwood University, she created a successful partnership program where teacher education students were paid for yearlong student teaching in K-12 schools and created a center for educational technology integration.  At Missouri S&T, Kania-Gosche regularly presents to faculty on campus about formative assessment, and she is a trained site visitor for both national accrediting agencies in education (CAEP and AAQEP).  Kania-Gosche teaches courses in reading in the content area and assessment for undergraduates in teacher education.