Top of the class

Jamie L. Mansell, CPH ’04, ’12  

Associate dean for undergraduate studies and associate professor of instruction 
College of Public Health,
Health and Rehabilitation Sciences 
Areas of focus: Sexual harassment in athletic training education, cultural competency in athletic training and athletic training programmatic assessment
Years at Temple: 22  

Inspiration for teaching

When people ask why I’ve been at Temple so long, I always say it’s the students we have. Temple to me embodies Philadelphia, which I love. Our students are strong advocates and leaders. They want to push forward and do great things. Seeing their drive, grit and determination and what they’re able to do once they leave us drives me to want to be better. If they’re striving to constantly be better, then we as educators need to constantly be better as well. 

Proudest accomplishment

We launched an entry to practice master’s degree and the first fully online doctoral degree in athletic training in 2016. We were ahead of the curve. The success of these programs is the legacy of the athletic training faculty. 

Memorable moment

I teach some of our leadership and cultural humility content for athletic training. Back when I taught undergraduate students, I had them do a diversity wheel activity in which they wrote five ways they see themselves and five ways they think others see them. A Black male student raised his hand and asked if I meant how other people see him or how society sees him. I told him to answer in whatever way felt most comfortable. When it came time for students to discuss what they wrote on their cards, I asked if he was comfortable sharing. He had strong, powerful words about the way he felt society sees him as a Black male. The other students told him they’d never see him that way and said he was great. He responded, “Yes, but if you saw me walking down the street in what I’m wearing, you’d probably cross the street.” That was such a powerful learning moment for the students. The students who were in that class still talk about it. They wrote to me that it was their most powerful moment in a class. It was the first time they heard from a student who experiences the world differently than they do. It shaped the way those students interact with their patients and how I interact with my students. It led me to even more deeply embrace cultural humility and commit to making sure our students hear about those experiences when they’re in the classroom so that they can be better when they’re clinicians and when they’re moving around society. 

Anjali Vaidya

Professor and attending cardiologist
Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Areas of focus: Cardiology, pulmonary hypertension, right heart failure
Years at Temple: 8

Inspiration for research and care

I am inspired by my brave and vulnerable patients (and their families) with pulmonary hypertension and all forms of heart failure who suffer from severe shortness of breath and other life-limiting symptoms. They motivate me to provide and teach compassionate, expert and life-saving care and contribute clinical research to advance the medical field and better serve patients around the world.

Proudest accomplishment

My proudest professional moments are when my clinical team provides exceptional care to our patients, many of whom have traveled from across the United States to Temple Cardiology to receive life-saving treatments. I am honored to co-lead this team—Temple Cardiology’s nationally accredited Pulmonary Hypertension Association Center of Comprehensive Care—and proud to have integrated three of Temple University’s major medical training programs (internal medicine, cardiology and pulmonary hypertension) into it.

Memorable moment

As a cardiologist, a meaningful experience during my tenure at Temple has been the opportunity to cultivate and mentor the careers of young female physicians in my specialty—a field that is 85% men—and help increase the women in our medicine training program who now pursue cardiology for their specialty careers. When I arrived, very few did, and only 25% of our cardiology fellows were women. Since then, with mentorship, role modeling and collegiality among my colleagues, the culture has transformed such that droves of talented female physicians are choosing Temple Cardiology for their career fellowship training (now 60% women).   

Laura Zaylea

Associate professor of instruction
Klein College of Media and Communication,
Media Studies and Production
Areas of focus: Media production, emergent media storytelling, interactive video, postproduction, producing for narrative
Years at Temple: 12

Inspiration for teaching

I love the range of storytelling strategies and technologies that I get to teach. Two of those classes—Producing and Directing and Emergent Media Production—often meet back-to-back on Mondays and Wednesdays. At noon, I’ll be talking with my Producing and Directing students about designing filming strategies for their TV pilot episodes. When we talk about filming strategies, we’re talking about techniques for filming and editing that have existed for over a century. Then, at 2 p.m., I’ll walk across the hall to teach Emergent Media Production, and we’ll be exploring storytelling technologies so new that the main program we’re using is still in beta. The creative conventions for these technologies are still emerging. There are fewer examples to draw from, but there is a lot of room for creative exploration. I love Temple because I get to teach creative storytelling in both traditional and new media forms. And while these classes may seem wildly different from the outside, they’re similar in that they both give students a vehicle for designing and sharing original stories. It’s seeing what students do with these storytelling forms—what stories they tell and why and how they tell them—that inspires me in my teaching practice.

 Proudest accomplishment

One thing that makes me feel proud as a teacher—and that I love about teaching—is when students bring in wildly different assignments inspired by the same assignment prompt. Then I know things are going well because my goal is to design assignments that invite students to make the projects their own. For example, students in Emergent Media Production work with augmented reality (AR) storytelling. I ask them to create an AR book, which is a physical booklet that when viewed through a smartphone triggers additional media content through the device. I tell the class that they can create a book or they can design any other “intentional object” to augment. They have taken this prompt and created so many things: AR menus, cookbooks, posters, T-shirts, magazines, resumes. I love seeing the range of creative approaches.

 Designing a lesson plan is a creative act; it’s designing an experience that students will have. It’s not just content delivery but also time management, performance, emotional intelligence, flexibility and group dynamics. A lot of different things come together to shape the learning experience. I try to create learning environments that are safe and inclusive so that students feel invited to take creative risks and to design assignments that are structured and clear so that they know both what is expected and also where they can make an assignment their own. The students are not trying to make what they think I want to see; they are making work that has meaning for them. They are exploring and finding their own unique voice. These moments make me feel proud as a teacher because I know students are feeling freedom and inspiration and are manifesting meaningful projects.

Memorable moment

In my first year at Temple, I was assigned to teach a large lecture class and an asynchronous online class. I had been teaching at another university before, but I had never taught in these modalities. I remember the first time I realized I could use social media in the large lecture class: I asked a question, projected the social media feed on the big screen, and students from all around the lecture hall posted their answers and thoughts. It happened so quickly. The whole energy in the room changed, and I suddenly felt so much more connected to the students. This experience made me realize that teaching itself is a creative practice, and there are tools and strategies that can be used to foster engagement and build community. I started attending more workshops and programs through the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, and these experiences encouraged me to think about not just what I was teaching but how I was teaching. Since then, I have taught in many teaching modalities and styles—studio production, lecture/lab, hybrid, study away, synchronous online, co-teaching—and it’s exciting to explore how each form can be used to create different types of learning activities and to benefit students in different ways. It’s exciting to see teaching itself as a creative act.

Quaiser D. Abdullah, CLA ’03, EDU ’07, ’17 

Assistant professor of instruction 
Klein College of Media and Communication, 
Communication and Social Influence 
Areas of focus: Conflict resolution and communication management religion (Islam), identity formation and management leadership development and communication 
Years at Temple: 20  

Inspiration for teaching

Change. The prospect of change. The hope for change. The growth that comes with change. This is what drives and inspires. Whether it is a new concept or competence on how to communicate more effectively, manage conflict more productively or look at society more critically, these all have a role to play in engaging each other with greater intention or contributing to society with greater impact.

Proudest accomplishment

This service award. Service is a core component of my identity. It brings fulfillment and satisfaction, so receiving the service award from my peers is significant for me.  

Memorable moment

One semester, I had a student in my class who took their own life. I realized that my approach to teaching needed to acknowledge and account for the fact that students are human, under stress and are doing the best that they can—even if it is not what we would like to see them doing at the moment. I learned to ask myself more critical questions about how I teach, why I teach the way I do and what is the impact of that teaching. My classroom culture shifted and focused on the students: their learning, their growth and their transformation.  

Susan B. Dickey 

(Photo courtesy of Susan Dickey)
Associate professor emeritus 
College of Public Health, 
Nursing 
Areas of focus: Pediatric nursing, obstetrical neonatal practice 
Years at Temple: 43 

Inspiration for teaching

The thing that drives me the most in my professional role is the students. For them, I love the doing of and the teaching of nursing. I never looked back on my decision to become a nurse, and I am still active in the profession, despite retirement, with three professional papers underway. 

Proudest accomplishment

My status as an associate professor at Temple enabled me to be nominated by the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association for an appointment to the American Nurses Association Center for Ethics and Human Rights Advisory Board in 2000. I served for eight years (two terms) on this body, chairing it from 2004 to 2006. It informed our practice as well as my teaching and scholarship then and now and generated several papers, position statements and presentations at the regional, national and international levels. I have also co-authored several papers and position statements for the International Society of Nurses in Genetics.  

 Memorable moment

The most impressive time frame rather than singular event that I recall over my 43 years was during the initial lockdown period in the COVID-19 pandemic and the response among our nursing students, both undergraduate and in the doctor of nursing practice program. All humans were new to pandemic conditions. The bravery of our student nurses was impressive, astonishing and awe-inspiring, regardless of whether they were pre- or post-bachelor of nursing’s classes from March 2020 to successfully complete the semester. All seniors graduated, and many of them worked in hospitals as externs during lockdown, although all clinical rotations were canceled for their protection. The grad students who were already BSNs were mostly working in hospitals and carried on despite many having young children and elderly family at home before vaccine availability and with unknown risk to self and family. I was so thrilled to meet with them via Zoom and hear about their amazing experiences. They are the true heroes of the pandemic.  

Susan M. Chialastri, CEHD ’74, DEN ’87, ’09 

(Photo courtesy of Susan Chialastri)
Associate professor and periodontist 
Kornberg School of Dentistry, 
Periodontology and Oral Implantology
Years at Temple: 54 

Inspiration for teaching

More than anything else, it’s the students. I think of the responsibility I have toward them. They’re putting an enormous amount of trust in me, hoping that they’ll learn something useful for their professional and personal development. It’s a priority for me that students recognize the relevance and usefulness of their classroom learning in the clinical settings. This includes integrating examples that are current and of interest to my students as well as discussing real-world challenges and relevance of clinical dentistry and how periodontics is important to their success in private practice. I also try to motivate students more toward critical thinking and application of evidence-based principles in their treatment planning and delivery of the best care for their patients.  

 I am really proud of so many of my students for being active in their local and state dental societies and community programs after graduation. Many of them go on to advanced training in various specialties. Seeing them succeed always keeps me inspired.  

I’m grateful for being able to be in the classroom and in the clinic and learn from my students and for being connected to so many fantastic educators at the dental school and within the university.

Several teachers over the years have had a profound effect on my decision to work in education. It seems that during each phase of my education, there was a teacher who positively influenced me, and over the years I have incorporated bits of each of them into my philosophy of teaching. They saw potential in me, and each of them established a connection with their students. I wanted to become a teacher to incorporate my students’ interests in my curriculum and presentations and make the lessons more engaging and to engage with them on a personal level. Sitting chairside with the students is my greatest joy. It’s the feeling you get from helping others or leading them through something and teaching them a new skill or an easier way to accomplish a procedure.  

Proudest accomplishment

It probably wasn’t a single moment but more of a very long journey from being a first-year dental hygiene student in 1970, through dental school, specialty training and my most recent position as chair of the Periodontology and Oral Implantology Department. I walk past the old dental hygiene clinic 54 years later, and I hope that my hygiene instructors are proud of me. I still mention them to my students, since they had a profound effect on the periodontist and teacher that I have become.

Memorable moment

I have received numerous teaching awards over the years that were certainly a great honor and memorable, but I think the first time I was selected by a class to be the faculty speaker at their graduation was the most memorable. Standing on the stage at the Academy of Music was awe-inspiring. Having seen many performances there over the years, I thought that I would be nervous, but I was exhilarated. I wanted to do the best job for the students to represent them and to inspire them as they moved on in their dental careers. Each time I was chosen, I had the same warm feeling trying to speak to each class as the unique and special group they were.