(Posted December 13, 2010)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Two Juniata College professors have been named Teagle Scholars by the Teagle Foundation and will work with faculty from other colleges and universities on teaching and assessment issues.

Jerry Kruse, associate professor of information technology, was named a Teagle Teaching and Learning Scholar as part of the Council for Aid to Education's Collegiate Learning Assessment Project. Kruse is one of five scholars who will oversee Performance Task Academies at college and university campuses across the country. Over the next two years, he also will participate in the association's Critical Think Tank, an interdisciplinary group asked to formulate new ways to use performance tasks to improve students' critical thinking skills.

Kruse has used "performance tasks," which are problems or projects based on a real-world scenario, in his Quantitative Methods course at the college.

Jay Hosler, associate professor of biology, was named a Teagle Scholar by the Center for Inquiry at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind. As a Teagle Scholar, Hosler will travel to various college and university campuses as a workshop facilitator working on institutional assessment or make campus visits to colleges or universities currently faced with assessment issues.

Hosler's appointment as a Teagle Scholar has no time limitation. He is "on call" to participate in workshops or visits.

Kruse joined the Juniata faculty as an assistant professor in 1999. He earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois and went on to earn a master's degree and doctorate in applied mathematics from Brown University. He is a member of numerous honor societies including Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, Golden Key, and Phi Eta Sigma. He was promoted to associate professor in 2005.
Before starting his career in higher education, Kruse served as software engineer for Compaq Computer Corporation in the Mathematics Library Group, where he developed high-performance numerical routines. He also worked for the DuPont Company in such positions as database administrator, information center analyst, and data center supervisor.

In addition to his career as a researcher and biologist, Hosler has a thriving career as a cartoonist and graphic novelist. He has published two previous biology graphic novels, "Clan Apis," about the life cycle of the honeybee, and "The Sandwalk Adventures," which told the story of a follicle mite living in the eyebrow of Charles Darwin.

In 2006, Hosler received a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a college biology textbook in comic book format. He was also a writer, artist and consultant for a new line of educational comics from Harcourt Achieve's LYNX line. He wrote and drew two comics "Zoo Break" and "UFO" for the 10-comic line.

Hosler came to Juniata in 1999 from Ohio State University's Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory where he was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow. At Juniata he received the Gibbel Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2005. He was promoted to associate professor in 2006.


He earned a bachelor's degree in 1989 from DePauw University. Hosler earned his doctorate in 1995 in biological sciences from the University of Notre Dame.

The Teagle Foundation was founded in 1944 by Walter teagle, longtime president and later chairman of the board of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Exxon, now Exxon-Mobil). The foundation provides leadership for liberal education, marshalling the intellectual and financial resources necessary to ensure that today's students have access to challenging, wide-ranging, and enriching college educations.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.