Five Questions with Jane Monaco
Jane Monaco always asks, “What will this mean for students?”
Name: Jane Monaco
Position: Clinical associate professor and director of undergraduate studies, Department of Biostatistics
Time at the Gillings School: I became a student here in 1996 and joined the faculty soon after graduating. I’ve been on the faculty for about 15 years.
Jane (right) pauses with her three children during a hike on the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand.
What I do at UNC Gillings (and why I love it): I focus on teaching and administration. In particular, I love teaching and advising undergraduate students and leading classes for online and non-major students. I’ve been teaching online for more than 10 years now, and I like it because most of the students also work full-time and can draw on that experience. They’re able to appreciate that biostatistics has a practical, applied purpose – they’re in class specifically to learn how biostatistics can inform their own discipline. Because of my teaching experience, I’m currently part of the team working to develop a quantitative course for the new MPH Core.
What I love most about my job is working with students. Our undergraduates are exceptionally talented and hardworking – they are every teacher’s dream! They enter the School with stellar backgrounds and such an eagerness to learn.
I think innovation in teaching means: that you try new things and recognize when something is working well for students. Sometimes, the innovation actually comes from the students, which is especially meaningful. A lot of innovative things actually draw on something old-school; for example, I use a tablet as part of my teaching and am able to annotate with a stylus, in real time, on top of whatever PowerPoint presentation we’re looking at. This is an innovative way of re-creating something as old as teaching itself: helping students understand a concept by drawing them a picture.
I have used Poll Everywhere to gets students’ feedback and keep them engaged during class. I sometimes ask them to present their answers to homework problems in front of the whole class using a document camera – that can start great discussions about what worked and what didn’t. On tests, I often ask students to approach problems from two angles: First, show me the technical solution. Second, explain it like you’re talking to your grandmother. I firmly believe that you don’t really understand a concept until you can communicate it to someone else in plain language.
At the end of the day, I think of myself as an advocate for students. When proposals or questions arise and I’m asked for my opinion, I always think, “What will this mean for students?”
[Editor’s note: Jane’s commitment to teaching has been recognized with the 2013 McGavran Excellence in Teaching Award as well as Teaching Innovation Awards in 2015 and 2017.]
To start a conversation with me: ask about my family! I have three kids who are 16, 18 and 22 years old. Between sports, homework, church and extracurriculars, our house is always busy.
Also, I love to travel. We take advantage of school breaks to take family vacations every year. For the 2017 Christmas holiday, my husband planned a trip for us to New Zealand and Fiji. (For the record, we don’t take a big trip like that every year!) It was wonderful, though – I got to see my kids in an entirely different environment, and we got off the beaten trail and stayed active with hiking, kayaking, snorkeling, boating and even a helicopter ride. We definitely enjoyed experiencing a different part of the world together.
The first job I ever had: was working in a small women’s clothing store in Hickory, North Carolina. That city was a special place to grow up, with real family values. After graduating high school, I pretty quickly moved into teaching jobs. As an undergraduate at N.C. State, I taught Calculus I during the academic semesters and spent summers working with the Duke University Talent Identification Program.
My perfect day: would be spent with my family, including our dogs! We have one Golden Retriever who is 12 years old and another who is just six months. I’d like a day where I didn’t have to plan a single thing – not meals or transportation or anything! Let’s call it an “all-inclusive” family day.
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