Fall 2015
Dr. Tammy Berberi, Associate Professor or French, University of Minnesota-Morris
Thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the aspirations and identities of young people with disabilities have evolved quite a lot, yet access has not kept up with this sense of opportunity — in higher ed or elsewhere. Nationwide, people with disabilities have lower rates of educational attainment and higher rates of attrition than other populations, despite legal protections and a support staff dedicated to access. Higher rates of un- and under employment have resulted in systemic poverty, phenomena that reinforce the social stigma surrounding disability and may prevent students from seeking support.
Advances in medicine will not fix these inequities, but education will. What can we do, in our classrooms and on campus, to foster a sense of belonging for students with disabilities? To bring about a fuller understanding of ourselves? Speaking from that “sometimes scarred and potholed place where rubber meets the road,” Dr. Berberi will offer stories, classroom strategies, and materials for building relationships and instilling in students pride, resilience, and a sense of genuine accomplishment that can sustain them here at St. Olaf and long after graduation.
Tammy Berberi is Associate Professor of French at UMinn-Morris, and was DIrector of their Honors Program from 2011-2015. She earned a B.A. in French and Italian (cum laude) from Colorado College, an M.A. in Romance Languages from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a Ph.D. in French Literature from the University of Indiana-Bloomington. Her research is in 19th and 20th century French literature and modern French Social and Cultural History, and also in disability studies, assistive technology, and inclusive education. Recent publications include:
“A Seat at the Table: On Being Human in the Beauty and the Beast Tradition,” co-authored with Viktor Berberi in Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability. Ed. Johnson Cheu. McFarland Publishers, 2013. 195-207.
“A Rhapsodist at Mid-Century: Refiguring Disability in the Poetry of Tristan Corbière,” Journal of
Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 3.1 (2009) 51-66.
Edited collection, Worlds Apart? Disability and Foreign Language Learning. Co-editors: Elizabeth Hamilton and Ian Sutherland, Yale University Press, 2008. xiv + 268 pp.
Christopher Johnstone, Director of International Initiatives and Relations, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota
Co-sponsor: Academic Civic Engagement
The concept of academic civic engagement includes the idea of “community” and the learning that can happen in community contexts. This presentation will consider various understandings of “community” and its complex meanings. Christopher Johnstone will begin with reflections on recent student projects in Cameroon and Kenya, drawing connections to literature from service learning and inclusive education to help find solutions to challenging community engagement dilemmas. Participants will engage in small- and large-group conversations about the community-based elements of learning and research abroad courses.
Christopher Johnstone is an Assistant Professor of Comparative and International Development Education. He earned a B.S. in special education from SUNY-Plattsburgh, an M.S. in special education from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in comparative and international development education from the University of Minnesota, In his research he explores operationalizations of inclusiveness as they relate to both international development, education, and campus internationalization. He has worked on education or development-related projects on every continent except Antarctica, but has primarily focused his research in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. His current projects include studies of livelihoods (Kenya and Tanzania), disability identity (India), and equity issues in internationalization (University of Minnesota).
Brian Borovsky, Physics; Donna McMillan, Psychology; Bill Sonnega, Media Studies/Theater; Anne Walter, Biology
Last year (2014-15) marked the initiation of the Course FTE Awards for Innovation and Exploration, where up to four courses annually are competitively awarded to further curricular innovation. Join four awardees who will share the varied ways they used the curricular space created by this FTE to provide new opportunities to support their students through Directed Undergraduate Research (DUR), internship seminars, enhancing collaborations across programs, and creating new courses.
(The next round of applications for FTE Awards is due Monday, November 9th).
Jamie Schillinger, Mara Benjamin, and Jason Ripley, Religion
How do we help students develop reading skills that are both critical and creative? How do we help students interrogate texts and topics that some invest with authoritative or sacred status? Join members of the Religion Department (Mara Benjamin, Jason Ripley, and Jamie Schillinger) to reflect on strategies employed in REL 121 courses and how they compare with strategies employed in classes across the curriculum.
As faculty committed to excellent teaching, we are constantly engaged in thinking about how we can best educate our students in meaningful and creative ways. Unfortunately, we do not often have the opportunity to share the interesting things we are doing in our courses with other faculty, even within our departments.This CILA Lunch will provide a time and space for faculty to share experiences and engage in conversation around teaching ideas and practices. There will be no formal presentations – please come ready to briefly share one thing you have been doing or have tried in your teaching that worked (or didn’t work) – for example, a particular assignment, a classroom technique, a way to manage a discussion – or even just the kernel of an idea that you are excited about, and we can all learn from the lively conversation that “pops” up as a result.
Kathy Glampe, ASC; Jodi Malmgren and Helene MacCallum, IOS; Doug Casson, Political Science; Paul Jackson, Chemistry and Environmental Studies
Join us to learn about effective advising strategies for off-campus study: a four year-planning tool, the “5Fs” of off-campus study, how to respond to common student questions and concerns, and tips from faculty and staff advisors. Share your own insights and strategies for advising students to foster their interest in off-campus study. Our emphasis will be on motivating students and helping them to plan how to incorporate off-campus study into their St. Olaf education.
Carlo Veltri, Psychology. Co-sponsor: Center for Multicultural and International Engagement
Microaggressions have become a hot topic in recent years on college campuses. A quick internet search reveals a wide variety of claims and counter-claims about the importance and impact of microaggressions. In some respects, microaggressions are very similar to any other kind of rude interaction or interpersonal slight. In other respects, they are much different, but how and why? In this facilitated discussion session, we will review and discuss the psychological research examining racial microaggressions. How can we understand the context and manner in which racial microaggressions are different from other kinds of hurtful interpersonal interaction? What are the implications of microaggressions for our classroom settings, and what do some of our students think about microaggressions at St. Olaf?
For more information:
1) Sue et al. (2007) outlines a taxonomy of microaggressions and some broader theoretical issues.
2) Short video describing “Microaggressions in Everyday Life.” (Sue)
William David Hart, Professor of Religious Studies, Macalester College.
Co-sponsors: Race & Ethnic Studies, Africa & the Americas, President’s Office of Institutional Diversity, Institute for Freedom & Community, Center for Multicultural & International Engagement (CMIE), Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts (CILA)
In this presentation, Hart explores techniques that he uses when teaching emotionally-charged topics. Among other things, he address techniques of stage-setting, emotion-defusing analogies, and self-referential examples to combat student defensiveness and resistance.
William David Hart, holder of the Margaret W. Harmon Chair at Macalester College, researches the intersection of religion, ethics, and politics. His current projects include a comparative analysis of human sacrifice in religion and statecrft and associations among religion, slavery, race, criminality, and animality. He teaches courses on these topics and on similar themes in work of writers such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, August Wilson, and Octavia Butler. Hart is the author of Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture(Cambridge, 2000), Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis (Palgrave, 2008), and Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion.
Spring 2016
Lisa Moore, Social Work & Family Studies; Amy Kolan, Physics; Ben Gottfried, Instructional Technology; Kasia Gonnerman, Research & Instruction, St. Olaf Libraries
With the DiSCO (Digital Scholarship Center at St. Olaf) gearing up for its official grand opening the week of February 29, now is the time to consider how it can support your creative use of technology in teaching, learning, and research.
Lisa Moore and Amy Kolan will share their experience using DiSCO resources for course assignments in podcast creation and instructional video production. (See examples of student work below.) Ben Gottfried and Kasia Gonnerman will highlight various DiSCO offerings, including spaces, software, equipment, services and programming.
We hope to generate a fruitful conversation to stimulate ideas of how to incorporate DiSCO resources in your work, and to solicit suggestions for programming you’d find helpful in your academic endeavors.
Amy Kolan’s students’ work can be found at https://wp.stolaf.edu/physics/fall-2015-classical-mechanics-phys-374-final-projects/
Located on the fourth floor of Rolvaag Library, the DiSCO brings together the resources and services of the Media Lab with new opportunities for students and faculty to create and collaborate in one innovative space. The DiSCO features collaborative study spaces, computers equipped with media production and design software, a lab for large-format and 3D printing and scanning, and audio and video recording rooms. Learn more at pages.stolaf.edu/disco
Peter Balaam, Associate Professor of English, Carleton; Mary Trull, Professor of English, St. Olaf; Baird Jarman, Associate Professor of Art History, Carleton; Nancy Thompson, Professor of Art and Art History, St. Olaf; Greg Marfleet, Professor of Political Science, Carleton
The Mellon “Broadening the Bridge” grant intended to promote collaboration between Carleton and St. Olaf colleges is now two years old. Integrating library services is one thing, but what kinds of innovations are faculty developing within the colleges’ academic programs? This session will offer three examples of Bridge-broadening curricular collaboration: ways of sharing courses, confronting disparate calendars, logistics vs. payoffs, who benefits, why bother, directions for future curricular partnerships.
Jane Becker Nelson, Flaten Art Museum; Louis Epstein, Music; Jon Naito, English
Flaten Art Museum is a rich resource for teaching and learning at St. Olaf. How can you make the museum and its collection an extension of your classroom? This session features two examples of faculty–museum collaborations that put student curators in contact with Flaten Art Museum’s collection. Discover how to access the art collection digitally and physically, practical pedagogical tools for object-based learning, assignment ideas, and what students and faculty have to gain.
Mark Kingwell
Co-sponsored: The Institute for Freedom and Community
Are you a faculty member interested in communicating with a broader public audience? Join us for an informal conversation with Mark Kingwell, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, author of two National Magazine Awards, and a contributing editor at Harper’s. Prof. Kingwell will share his thoughts and experiences as an distinguished critic, magazine journalist, and public lecturer who has enjoyed success in moving between the academic and non-academic worlds.
i) TEDtalk: What is an expectation?: Mark Kingwell at TEDxInstitutLeRosey
ii) Essay: The League of Extraordinary Assholes: There’s a jerk in every room. Is it you?
iii) Professor Kingwell’s biosketch
Jonathan Haidt, Social Psychologist and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind.
Co-sponsored: The Institute for Freedom and Community
How are concepts like trigger warnings and fear of microaggressions transforming our classrooms and our students? Does it benefit the people it is supposed to help? What exactly are students learning when they spend four years or more in a community that policies unintentional slights, places warning labels on works of classic literature, and in many other ways conveys the sense that words can be forms of violence that require strict control by campus authorities…?
i) Essay: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
ii) Video: Jonathan Haidt on Coddling U. vs. Strengthening U.
ii) Professor Haidt’s biosketch
Irve Dell, Art and Art History; Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, English; Tim Howe, History; Sian Muir, Management Studies; Sherry Saterstrom, Dance
An artist, dance, entrepreneur, historian and poet walk into a classroom and then–..” CILA presents a conversation with faculty members of the Creative Learning Community, who will share their experiences of developing the CLC’s cross-disciplinary, team-taught curriculum focused on innovative thinking and doing. How did the program engage students in interactive, playful problem-solving? What impactful practices and insights did the co-pilots discover?
Sharon Lane-Getaz, MSCS, CIR Director 2016-17; Paul Roback, MSCS, Statistics Program Director; with past CIR domain experts Doug Beussman, Chemistry; Cindy Book, Exercise Science; Ashley Hodgson, Economics; and Ryan Sheppard, Sociology & Anthropology
The Center for Interdisciplinary Research (CIR) was established at St. Olaf in 2004, and it has become a national model for collaborative undergraduate research involving data-driven research questions. More than 250 St. Olaf students have been involved in more than 85 projects over 12 years of activity, working with domain experts from all over the College: from Education to Biology to Political Science to Psychology to History to Admissions to Linguistics and more.
In this session, we will describe the philosophy and practical workings of the CIR, and then hear from St. Olaf faculty members who have collaborated with the CIR – what their project was, what they gained from the collaboration, and what advice they have for someone considering such a collaboration. We will also turn our conversation to various models for successful, sustainable, collaborative undergraduate research of all kinds at St. Olaf.