Jane Rongerude, assistant professor of community and regional planning, is one of 12 Iowa State University faculty, staff and students selected for the 2017 Women Impacting ISU calendar. She was recognized at a reception Wednesday, Jan. 11. Rongerude was selected for successfully integrating teaching, research and community outreach to become a leader on campus in the area of team-based learning pedagogy and in fulfilling the university’s land-grant mission.

Rongerude heads a campus-wide initiative to create active classrooms and expand their use of team-based learning (TBL), which engages students in research and provides opportunities for shared inquiry, mutual exchange of information and development of shared knowledge. She has led efforts to develop an easy-to-use evaluation tool for peer assessment and group feedback for TBL courses and to develop a survey instrument for evaluating student motivation and beliefs about learning. She has mentored other Iowa State faculty in implementing team-based learning with their students.

Rongerude is a strong example of the ways in which faculty can embrace the land-grant mission by building connections between teaching, research and outreach. She developed a multi-year relationship with the City of Des Moines through which her students have worked with city officials, community groups and residents to assess, plan and propose recommendations to improve quality of life in underserved and distressed neighborhoods. She also is involved with the university’s ISU 4U Promise program and STEM Neighborhoods Project.