Teaching Summary

Department of Microbiology Undergraduate Coordinator

Jim Brown is the Undergraduate Coordinator in the Department of Microbiology. As such, he is responsible for organizing undergraduate advising, orientation, undergraduate paperwork, and serves as the chair of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. The Undergraduate Coordinator serves as the liason between undergraduate students and advisors in Microbiology, and the the CALS/NCSU Administration.

Outstanding Teacher Awards

Jim Brown’s teaching has been recognized by an Outstanding Teacher Award, which makes him a member of the NCSU Academy of Outstanding Teachers.  Prior awardees from the Department of Microbiology are Prof. Gerry Luginbuhl (1980) and Prof. Gerald Elkan (1972). Jim has also been selected to receive the 2005 Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award. Want to know more? See a copy of Jim's OTA Teaching Portfolio

MB 103 : Introductory Topics in Microbiology

Introductory Topics in Microbiology is for freshmen and transfer microbiology majors in their first year at North Carolina State University. The course provides basic instruction in computing, academic policies, and study skills related to reading, comprehending, and discussing scientific information in general and microbiology in particular. Semester # students Course rating Instructor rating Comments Fall 2007 31 4.2 out of 5 4.6 out of 5 First time taught Want to know more? Visit the MB 103 course web site

MB 451 : Microbial Diversity

Microbial Diversity is a senior-level, undergraduate laboratory course modeled after the Woods Hole course and the American Society of Microbiology recommendations. This course includes direct experience with molecular phylogenetic analysis, in combination with complementary traditional analyses of microbial diversity, as the focus of the course. The format for the lab section of the course is "project oriented"; instead of a series of discrete laboratory exercises, the students carry a series of experiments in parallel throughout the semester. The students perform a series of classical enrichments and isolations (starting from environmental samples collected by the students), carrying them from week to week as the semester progresses. One of these isolations is quickly completed, and serves as the starting material for a series of modern molecular biology experiments, in which the student purify DNA, amplify the ribosomal DNA by PCR, and have a portion of this gene sequenced. This sequence information is the starting point for a computationally intensive term project in which they perform a detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis of the organism they isolated. The class meets 4 times each week: twice for 50 minute lectures (also available on-line), once for a 50 minute free-ranging discussion session, and once for a 3 hour lab (there are 3 lab sections of up to 24 students each).

The course is rated highly by the faculty and students in the department. These summary data below are averages from student evaluations:

Just for fun, here are the best and worst student comments I've had for the course.

Want to know more? Go to the Microbial Diversity course web site

MB 810R : Microbiology Journal Club

Microbiology journal club meets on alternating Mondays, starting Aug 28th, at 9:10 - 10:00am in the Trailer D of the Air Quality Research Labs, 1509 Varsity Drive, next to Flex labs. Although anyone can participate, graduate students get 1 graduate credit for participating by registering for MB 810R. The topic previously changed from semester-to-semester, but we have recently decided to forego a specific topic in favor of allowing the students to choose papers as they wish. The student assigned for each journal club date chooses the paper for discussion, and is the primary leader of the days discussion. This person can, if they wish, identify some aspect of the paper with which they are not particularly well-versed (a method, analysis, historical context, potential use, whatever), and recruit another person to explain or lead the discussion on this particular subtopic. Want to know more? Go to the Microbiology Journal Club web site

BCH 751 : Biological Macromolecules

This course was taught in Spring semester of 2002 and 2005 as "The RNA World". The course is organized by Paul Agris, and team-taught by members and associate members of the Biochemistry department. My contribution is a 2 week, 5 lecture section on the prediction of RNA structure, and working with groups of students that choose this section for their team project. Want to know more? Go to the BCH 751 web site for Dr. Brown's section

BCH 810R : RNA Biology Journal Club

The NCSU RNA Biology Group traditionally has a journal club that alternates with Microbiology Journal Club (every other week). I was the organizer of this journal club. This has been replaced by monthly CBI/RNA Biology Group Research Meetings (Frist Tuesdays).

MB/BCH/BS 493 : Undergraduate Research

Students in undergraduate research in my lab spend 1 or 2 (or more) semesters learning experimental molecular biology and performing experiments and analyses. The students are under the instruction of a graduate student, an experienced undergraduate student, or the PI, but generally work on their own research project. Students present their work in lab meetings, and prepare a brief written research summary. This experience is indispensable for students that will seek employment in laboratory science and for those that will seek admission to a graduate program. Students get credit under a variety of course designations, or work in the lab on a volunteer basis. This lists also includes a few students who did traditional independent studies with me.

MB 670/870 : Laboratory Rotations

Graduate students in their first semester generally spend 1 month each in 3 or 4 labs to 'learn the ropes' in the department, and to gain the experience needed to make an informed decision on a permanent research advisor. Rotation students in my lab are under the instruction of a graduate student or postdoc, but generally work on their own research project.

MB 686/886 : Teaching Experience

These students have been teaching assistants for MB409/451 (Microbial Diversity) and have participated fully in developing, preparing, and teaching the lab portion of this course.

MB 695/895 : Graduate Microbiology Research

These students were mentored as graduate students in my lab:

MB 621/821 : Instrumentation

Instrumentation was a required course for all incoming graduate students, designed to teach the students how to safely and effectively use the facilities of the department and university. This course was team taught by many of the faculty of the department, and was organized by Prof. Paul Bishop. My contribution to this course was a lecture on sequence analysis facilities, given every year, reviewing on-line programs such as the NCBI web site, NCSU facilities such as UWGCG, and local programs including MacVector and BioEdit. The course has been defunct for several years - I participated from 1994 - 2003.

MB 801 : Microbiology Seminar

The Department strongly encourages graduate students to attend the Department of Microbiology seminar series throughout their degree program. Two credits (two semesters) are required of all graduate students. In the years 1994/1995, 1999/2000 and 2003/2004, I was responsible for organizing the Microbiology seminar series, and for the graduate students taking this for course credit.

Want to know more? Go to the Microbiology Seminar web site