Session Proposal: Build Black Lives Matter Resources

Emilye Crosby, Professor of History, proposes a workshop for building a set of Black Lives Matter information and teaching-related materials that could be used as an introduction for interested people; a starting place for organizations looking for study or discussion material; and/or as a resource for faculty looking for ways to build the subject into their classes. She would start things off by sharing some of the materials she’s used and talking about her experience teaching Black Lives Matter.

Together, participants will look to share and consolidate their work in a Google doc to serve as a public resource, following the example of The Election Clapback syllabus.

Session Proposal: Digital Tools and Projects

Joe Cope, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Inquiry, Discovery, and Development proposes a group show-and-tell session in which participants share examples of digital tools or projects that they have incorporated into classes or projects. The aim of this session is to share information about tools that faculty have successfully used in class projects (e.g. story maps, timelines, analytical tools, etc.) or projects that rely on a digital component (e.g. group blogging, website creation, etc.). One option for presentations would be a lightning round format – presentations of no more than 5 minutes designed to provide a quick overview of different types of tools that may be of interest to others in the group – followed by a group discussion and brainstorming of ways to link digital work across the curriculum.

Session Proposal: “Real life” across the curriculum

(Beth McCoy, Distinguished Teaching Professor of English) While meeting last semester with faculty, students expressed that they wanted instructors throughout all the disciplines to make room in their courses for conversation about “real-life” issues, especially those related to justice and power.

Given training, course content demands, and just plain time, however, many instructors may feel that making such room is impossible.

But technology and cross-disciplinary collaboration can help not just to begin to honor students’ desires, but also to fulfill College values,  imagine possibilities for meeting GLOBEand deepen student and faculty engagement with important conversations.

We’ll center our brainstorming around a brief piece by Alondra Nelson on Black Panthers’ engagement with science, politics, and medicine. From there, let’s imagine how technology, public writing, and collaboration might open up possibilities within and across the disciplines, and in STEM not the least. (We can even “build” a certificate in public writing/communication!)