Donaghey College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Dr. Mark Baillie is an assistant professor of chemistry in the School of Physical Sciences at UA Little Rock. Baillie has been praised for teaching, service, and research and scholarship.
Baillie has focused much of his career on the science of teaching. There are numerous examples of his efforts, but one example is the drastic reduction of DFW rates in his general chemistry class. His class has less than half the DFW rate observed in traditional classes, but students perform at the same level on the nationally normed exams in the class showing there has not been a reduction in class standards. There are also several examples of Baillie’s service.
Baillie brought expertise from the National Institute on Scientific Teaching and with this expertise has provided Mobile Institutes on Scientific Teaching (MoSI) workshops to UA Little Rock faculty and graduate students. Over the past four years, he has trained 87 faculty members and 18 graduate students. The focus of these workshops is fostering a more engaging learning environment for students through the use of evidence-based practices and active learning. Baillie also co-founded the university’s first Learning Assistant (LA) program in the Chemistry department with the School of Physical Sciences. This program uses students to serve as peer mentors and active learning collaborators. It has also been replicated in other units across campus.
Baillie’s primary scholarship has been on teaching and learning. He led an interdisciplinary team that was awarded a prestigious $2 million NSF grant to promote active learning in STEM classrooms at the university. Overall, he has co-published four peer-reviewed articles since his time at UA Little Rock.
Baillie received a Ph.D in chemistry from Emory University and a B.S. in chemistry from Bucknell University.