Naima Shifa | Faculty

Building Connections

The biggest part of my teaching is building connections with my students and creating a community in my classroom. So students know – right away – that they can approach me. I also want students to feel confident that it’s okay to make a mistake. It actually helps them to learn to put more effort into the subject. 

My teaching is interdisciplinary; I teach math and my research interest is public health. My students are from every discipline. If you're interested in math, I will show you how to use it in real-life situations. That is my goal. So I think that the interdisciplinary approach at DePauw is a strength and makes us different from others. You can be a math person, but you can also see the beauty of math in any discipline.

The interdisciplinary approach also helps students connect with the world around them and think critically about the society they live in. It gives them the tools to be successful human beings.