Challenging Calls for Civility

In conjunction with her article When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt writes about civility codes and free speech for Academe Blog

When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not

In this essay, I argue that the debate on free speech as pushed by the conservative right is a strategic apparatus to undermine the various diversity initiatives on college and university campuses. While supporters of the right wing extremists around the globe have pushed for various modes of exclusions (social, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual), here in the United States, such exclusions are most evident in the collapse of academic freedom and the rise of civility codes as students and educators use the platform of free speech to promote various forms of injustices and exclusions. Our neoliberal college and universities and their administrators, I argue, are caught in this precarious and tenuous conflict of protecting academic freedom against the pressures from the outside (the political right) to stage ideas and ideologies that are harmful for the public good in the name of “free speech.

In the Name of Merit: Racial Violence in the Academy

Racial violence in the academy is enacted upon faculty of color, particularly women, in multiple disciplines. This essay attempts to both expose and suggest that everyday systemic racism has become a pervasive and normalizing feature within disciplines that continue to privilege white and Eurocentric forms of knowledge-making while devaluing others. Furthermore, attempts to challenge such supremacies are immediately countered by calls and charges of incivility. This is an essay about the costs of unmasking norms of civility as it bears upon constructions of both whiteness and meritocracy

Academic Prioritization or Killing the Liberal Arts?

Dr. Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, professor of English at Linfield College, laments the downsizing of liberal arts and humanities programs and departments by college administrators bent on promoting more job-oriented disciplines. This essay originally appeared as part of Conditionally Accepted, a career advice blog for Inside Higher Ed providing news, information, personal stories, and resources for scholars who are, at best, conditionally accepted in academe. Conditionally Accepted is an anti-racist, pro-feminist, pro-queer, anti-transphobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-xenophobic online community

The Pandemic, India’s Lockdown and the Fear of the Indian-Americans

Journal #9 from Media Rise's Quarantined Across Borders Collection by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt. From India. Quarantined in United States (Portland, Oregon).This essay narrates the fear and anxiety faced by the Indian-Americans (NRI’s) about their parents and the elderly living in India as they navigate the ramifications of the lockdown in both India and the U.S.Media Rise Publications. Quarantined Across Borders Collection. Edited by Dr Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian

The Pandemic, India’s Lockdown and the Fear of the Indian-Americans

Journal #9 from Media Rise's Quarantined Across Borders Collection by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt. From India. Quarantined in United States (Portland, Oregon).This essay narrates the fear and anxiety faced by the Indian-Americans (NRI’s) about their parents and the elderly living in India as they navigate the ramifications of the lockdown in both India and the U.S.Media Rise Publications. Quarantined Across Borders Collection. Edited by Dr Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian

Exploring Creativity

Six professors share their views of the creative process in a liberal arts environment

Encapsulation of a Concanavalin A/dendrimer glucose sensing assay within microporated poly (ethylene glycol) microspheres

Proper management of diabetes requires the frequent measurement of a patient’s blood glucose level. To create a long-term, minimally-invasive sensor that is sensitive to physiological concentrations of glucose a fluorescent glucose sensing assay using a competitive binding approach between fluorescently tagged Concanavalin-A (Con-A) and glycodendrimer is being developed. Until now, the essential step of effectively encapsulating this aggregative sensing assay while allowing a reversible response has yet to be reported. In this paper, a microporation technique is described in which microspheres are synthesized in a manner that creates fluid-filled pores within a poly (ethylene glycol) hydrogel. This dual-nature technique creates hydrophilic, biocompatible microcapsules in which the aggregative binding kinetics of the sensing assay within the pores are not constrained by spatial fixation in the hydrogel matrix. Confocal images displaying the localization of pockets filled with the assay within the polymeric matrix are presented in this paper. In addition, fluorescent responses to varying glucose concentrations, leaching studies, and long-term functionality of the encapsulated assay are demonstrated. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the Con-A/glycodendrimer assay has been shown to be reversible and repeatable within hydrogel spheres, including the display of functionality up to fourteen days under ambient conditions

Depth-resolved imaging and detection of micro-retroreflectors within biological tissue using Optical Coherence Tomography

A new approach to in vivo biosensor design is introduced, based on the use of an implantable micron-sized retroreflector-based platform and non-invasive imaging of its surface reflectivity by Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). The possibility of using OCT for the depth-resolved imaging and detection of micro-retroreflectors in highly turbid media, including tissue, is demonstrated. The maximum imaging depth for the detection of the micro-retroreflector-based platform within the surrounding media was found to be 0.91 mm for porcine tissue and 1.65 mm for whole milk. With further development, it may be possible to utilize OCT and micro-retroreflectors as a tool for continuous monitoring of analytes in the subcutaneous tissue

A fluorescence lifetime-based fibre-optic glucose sensor using glucose/galactose-binding protein

Alternative, non-electrochemistry-based technologies for continuous glucose monitoring are needed for eventual use in diabetes mellitus. As part of a programme investigating fluorescent glucose sensors, we have developed fibre-optic biosensors using glucose/galactose binding protein (GBP) labelled with the environmentally sensitive fluorophore, Badan. GBP-Badan was attached via an oligohistidine-tag to the surface of Ni-nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA)-functionalized agarose or polystyrene beads. Fluorescence lifetime increased in response to glucose, observed by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy of the GBP-Badan-beads. Either GBP-Badan agarose or polystyrene beads were loaded into a porous chamber at the end of a multimode optical fibre. Fluorescence lifetime responses were recorded using pulsed laser excitation, high speed photodiode detection and time-correlated single-photon counting. The maximal response was at 100 mM glucose with an apparent K-d of 13 mM (agarose) and 20 mM (polystyrene), and good working-day stability was demonstrated. We conclude that fluorescence lifetime fibre-optic glucose sensors based on GBP-Badan are suitable for development as clinical glucose monitors