Lisa Smith

Lisa Smith has been with the Chemistry Department at North Hennepin Community College since 2008. She has worked on initiatives that include First Year Experience, Closing the Achievement Gap, and most recently became the Institutional Assessment Coordinator. Motivated to improve the student pass rate, Lisa took a successful STEM mentoring model she had worked on at the University of Minnesota and applied it to North Hennepin Community College. The program impacted 93 of 113 students to help them pass general chemistry and biology. It has been a huge success, and she is tweaking the program all the time to meet the needs of the students. She holds a Masters degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, has completed graduate-level education courses in Course Design for Adult Learners, Assessment, and Learning Theory and Instructional Strategies, as well as participated in a year-long NSF funded program doing Chemical Educational Research. Her most recent accomplishments include publishing an institution-specific First Year Experience textbook, being awarded Educator of the Year from Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, and Innovation of the Year from North Hennepin Community College. Her research interests include the utilization of predictive measures for student success, and the investigation and development of self-confidence and meta-cognitive skills of introductory and general chemistry students.