Teaching by Example: A Case for Peer Workshops about Pedagogy and Technology

Many institutions and their information technology (IT) professionals expend significant time and resources encouraging faculty members to integrate targeted technologies into their pedagogies. To further some technology initiatives, IT professionals should consider working with department chairs and others to identify faculty members who can serve as technology liaisons to their home departments; these liaisons can encourage the integration of technology through workshops and other methods that target the pedagogical concerns of their specific fields. Because they understand the disciplinary norms and can speak to their colleagues about the concrete educational needs that technologies can help them meet, such technologically savvy instructors (hereafter referred to simply as faculty peers) may interest their colleagues in using technology. In return, IT can introduce the faculty peers, especially those who are new and untenured, to the range of technologies and resources supported on campus. Cultivating mutually beneficial relationships between IT and specific faculty peers can enhance the profiles of the latter on campus, while simultaneously demonstrating the usefulness of the technologies that the institution supports. In this article, I explain why faculty peers can be particularly effective at leading technology workshops, how they can efficiently develop workshop materials, and what incentives may motivate their service. Teaching Colleagues through Shared Discours

“Do not kill them, lest my people forget”: Changes in Attitudes Towards Jews in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century England

This essay supports Paul Hyams’ thesis that while attitudes toward Jews over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries certainly cooled, they did so less dramatically or inevitably than the 1290 expulsion might suggest if imagined as a culmination of policy. Chronicled hostility, alongside which the Jewish ‘blood libel’ myth developed as justification, appears to have increased with perceived Jewish economic status. Their status after their impoverishment decreased as royal policy perpetuated longstanding social divisions that largely originated from neither religious nor economic cleavages, only cultural ones. The treatment of the Jews in the period may simultaneously be understood as one of English identity consolidation in the post-Conquest period, as Jews first coexisted with Anglo-Saxons after the Norman invasion. Since economic reasoning alone does not explain the treatment of the Jews in the latter half of the thirteenth century, this essay also examines instances of anti-Jewish violence and successive Plantagenet king’s policies targeting the Jews and understands them as indicators or constructions of religious and national alterity

Staging Charleston: The Spoleto Festival U.S.A.

The Spoleto Festival U.S.A. is a seventeen day international arts festival held annually in Charleston, South Carolina. While the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. perpetuates many of the cultural practices of the hegemonic community of Charleston, it also participates in negotiations of culture on the contemporary global stage. The Festival and the City rely on one another to constitute an identity that is consumable for a tourist and/or festival audience, and this relationship became even more urgent after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Hurricane Hugo serves as a peripeteia of the self-fashioning and self-reflexive narrative shaped by the Charleston elite since the 18th century, and the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. serves as the agent of its denouement. This function of the festival impulse in the contemporary urban setting of Charleston, South Carolina will be the focus of this dissertation, which will examine the relationship between the "placedness" of the historical city and the "placelessness" of the festival atmosphere. This study will identify the features of the festival impulse that engage history, memory, and community and negotiate the territory between "place" and "space". It will compare the historical imaginary of the city with its contemporary identity as an international tourist destination and identify the strategies employed by the festival to destabilize homogenous worldviews and remap the geography of memory in Charleston's past and present

Where Virtual Well-Being Becomes Reality

Strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, specifically quarantine and social distancing protocols, have exposed a troubling paradox: mandated isolation meant to save lives has inadvertently contributed to a decline in America’s well-being. Prolonged isolation due to more remote work and decentralized workplaces has been associated with widespread loneliness and diminished physical and mental health, with effects compounded by limited face-to-face access to social support systems. While remote communication technologies (e.g., video chat) can connect individuals with colleagues and social networks, remote technologies might have limited effectiveness in business and social contexts. This study uses Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Theory to explain and understand how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread within an organization. The research question is, “What factors may increase the likelihood of adopting a virtual world technology for workplace well-being?” This study contributes to the business and academic sectors to further understand the potential of this innovative positive technology to increase social connection and create a sense of well-being and community for both remote and office-based employees

Leading Departments with Contingent and Tenure-Eligible Faculty: Strategies and Solutions

Leadership and communication strategies for leading departments that include both contingent and tenure-eligible faculty through three case studies, dealing with 1) voting rights and other claims upon resources; 2) a lack of career milestones, making contingent faculty feel “stuck”; and 3) ways to value contributions of contingent faculty

Are You Ready for a Crisis? Communication and Continuity in the Aftermath

Institutions of higher education face numerous crises from natural disasters to mass shootings to sexual abuse scandals. Our interactive workshop will engage participants in planning, negotiating, and recovering from a variety of institutional crises. Participants will develop concrete plans for crisis preparation and recovery, including retrospective sensemaking

Teaching by example: A case for peer workshops about pedagogy and technology

Many institutions and their information technology (IT) professionals expend significant time and resources encouraging faculty members to integrate targeted technologies into their pedagogies. To further some technology initiatives, IT professionals should consider working with department chairs and others to identify faculty members who can serve as technology liaisons to their home departments; these liaisons can encourage the integration of technology through workshops and other methods that target the pedagogical concerns of their specific fields. Because they understand the disciplinary norms and can speak to their colleagues about the concrete educational needs that technologies can help them meet, such technologically savvy instructors (hereafter referred to simply as faculty peers) may interest their colleagues in using technology. In return, IT can introduce the faculty peers, especially those who are new and untenured, to the range of technologies and resources supported on campus. Cultivating mutually beneficial relationships between IT and specific faculty peers can enhance the profiles of the latter on campus, while simultaneously demonstrating the usefulness of the technologies that the institution supports. In this article, I explain why faculty peers can be particularly effective at leading technology workshops, how they can efficiently develop workshop materials, and what incentives may motivate their service

Recommendations for services for people with living with chronic breathlessness in advanced disease: results of a transparent expert consultation

Chronic breathlessness is highly distressing for people with advanced disease and their informal carers, yet health services for this group remain highly heterogeneous. We aimed to generate evidence-based stakeholder-endorsed recommendations for practice, policy and research concerning services for people with advanced disease and chronic breathlessness. We used transparent expert consultation, comprising modified nominal group technique during a stakeholder workshop, and an online consensus survey. Stakeholders, representing multiple specialities and professions, and patient/carers were invited to participate. Thirty-seven participants attended the stakeholder workshop and generated 34 separate recommendations, rated by 74 online survey respondents. Seven recommendations had strong agreement and high levels of consensus. Stakeholders agreed services should be person-centred and flexible, should cut across multiple disciplines and providers and should prioritize breathlessness management in its own right. They advocated for wide geographical coverage and access to expert care, supported through skills-sharing among professionals. They also recommended recognition of informal carers and their role by clinicians and policymakers. Overall, stakeholders' recommendations reflect the need for improved access to person-centred, multi-professional care and support for carers to provide or access breathlessness management interventions. Future research should test the optimal models of care and educational strategies to meet these recommendations