Resident Earns University Of Maryland Presidential Award
Newtown resident Monica Sava Bruenn, PhD, learned recently that she is a recipient of a Presidential Award from the University of Maryland, where she teaches online.
Dr Bruenn is the program chair for the master of science in management with specialization in the health care administration, Department of Health Care for the University of Maryland University College.
According to the university, the school’s presidential awards are given annually to faculty and staff members in recognition of “extraordinary accomplishments and performance.”
“The awards go to individuals who have made distinctive contributions to [University of Maryland University College] throughout their careers, through regular and active involvement in programs, activities, and projects that demonstrate a commitment to the university as a whole,” according to the university’s website.
Dr Bruenn said this week that she has been teaching at the University of Maryland since she started graduate school; roughly 15 years ago she began teaching exclusively online.
“They threw me right into a class. The first day I had to teach,” said Dr Bruenn, smiling at the roughly 24-year-old memory.
Dr Bruenn grew up in Yonkers and attended Fordham University for her undergraduate studies. She also had other jobs during her career, often working multiple jobs at once. Her first job, Dr Bruenn said, was with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a mathematician. Following NASA she worked at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I taught face to face up until the time my daughter was born,” said Dr Bruenn.
Dr Bruenn and her husband Paul Bruenn live on a horse farm in town, and her daughters, Mallory and Michaella Bolesta, attend Newtown High School. The family moved to town from Bridgewater 14 months ago.
When teaching, Dr Bruenn said she tries to make her students feel at ease, especially because she said she teaches the more “quantitative type classes.”
Anything that makes her students less intimidated is a “good idea,” Dr Bruenn said.
“Math anxiety is very real, so it has always been a challenge to make everybody feel comfortable and ask questions,” said Dr Bruenn.
Creating that atmosphere is easier “face to face,” but Dr Bruenn said she has learned techniques for her online classes too.
“I can actually do more online with my students right now than I can do in a classroom,” said Dr Bruenn, who recalled that when she started teaching online, her background in computer programing was needed in order to teach the class. Now, she said, it is more “point, click.”
Even five years ago, Dr Bruenn said, teaching online was different. Now her students can see her with a camera, and she can pull up anything she wants them to see from the Internet.
“I can pull up things like statistical software and show them how to run stuff, problems, pull up the classroom itself, and show them how to walk through the classroom,” Dr Bruenn said. “Unless you walk into a face-to-face classroom with a SmartBoard or something like that, you can’t do what I can do online.”
No Limitations
Dr Bruenn said she does miss the “face-to-face interaction with the students” and her colleagues, but she has adapted to teaching online. She speaks with her students once a week using a camera, and she is also available for her students by phone. Her students can also use their e-mail to contact her with questions.
Especially with math or statistic questions, Dr Bruenn said she prefers her students to contact her quickly to help control the level of anxiety that can build up if they wait to speak to their instructor.
Decreasing student anxiety while teaching online, Dr Bruenn, said has been “interesting” over the years.
“I’ll e-mail the students, I’ll watch the students, I’ll watch their grades... I have them do things in discussion areas where I will ask them questions, I have little sections in my classroom that are also social areas, where they can post pictures of their pets, so that they feel like human beings versus a number,“ said Dr Bruenn. “I get to know them. I know when they are getting married, when they are sick, when they are going to have a baby.”
That approach to teaching, Dr Bruenn said, makes a huge difference. When her students know she cares, she said they do better.
She still hears from students from roughly 25 years ago that say she has impacted their lives. With health care and education, Dr Bruenn said, people enter the fields to help others.
One of the things the university crew asked her when filming at her house, she said, was who inspired her. And, easily, Dr Bruenn said it was her grandmother Lucia Gianfelice and her grandfather Pasquale Sava, both of whom she described as inspiring her drive to learn and her compassion for others.
“When I get this award,” she said, “my grandparents will be there.”
Similar to the way her grandparents influenced her, Dr Bruenn said she wants to influence people to know they have no limitations.
“They can do whatever they want,” said Dr Bruenn. “ I teach my students to very much think for themselves, make their own decisions, and not let any limitations [be put] on them. I help them get whatever jobs or internships they want to go for. I want to be that person, if they don’t have somebody to support them, to be there to support them.”
Dr Bruenn said she is teaching two courses right now, and she also oversees a number of healthcare core courses and management, research methods, and statistics courses.
“I’m responsible for eight courses right now,” said Dr Bruenn.
About three weeks ago Dr Bruenn said she learned about her award, and then the school sent people up to video her in her home. The video will be used for an award ceremony. Her two dogs, two cats, and two horses were also filmed.
“One of the things they chose me for was respect,” said Dr Bruenn, adding that respect is a core value for the university.
Over her years of teaching Dr Bruenn said she has used her skills to work with different departments at the university and worked to help students at different levels. Her work has included designing and teaching a doctorate level course, chairing dissertations at the doctoral level, and redesigning courses in the healthcare department.
“Whoever needs me, I... help,” said Dr Bruenn.
The university is also undergoing changes, according to Dr Bruenn, and she is working to help coordinate those changes, which include changing the number of required credits and working toward not using text books.
“I have great faculty, so I am very lucky,” said Dr Bruenn, after explaining her management roles with the university, “And I have great teaching assistants that have been with me for easily over 15 years. Again, lucky that way. I work with really nice people.”
Dr Bruenn also stressed the opportunities online courses offer people.
“Online is a flexible way, a real way, for them to get their degree,” she said, adding that the University of Maryland is accredited and that a degree earned online is the same as a degree earned attending college face to face. “It enables that person who works 50 hours a week, the single mom who can’t find a time to go to school, this gives them a way to get their degree. I don’t think enough people realize that these exist and that these schools are accredited. They would open so many doors for so many people.”
Many of her students, she said, take advantage of the flexibility offered by online courses.