Winter Institute 2013 Registration

An increasing number of our students work and travel in the local community or in communities far from campus to conduct ethnographic research or participate in community-based learning internships. As a result, students are generating, presenting, exhibiting, publishing, or otherwise publicly displaying images (video or photographic) of the people with whom they interact. Laska Jimsen, Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Carleton College, will lead a discussion about the complex ethical and creative issues that arise from this type of student (and faculty) work. As part of this session, we will also watch the award-winning documentary, “Stranger with a Camera.”

During lunch take some time to play in the Digital Sandbox. Stationed around the room you will find displays of emerging and other interesting technology applications to explore. Information Technology staff will be on hand to answer your questions about these technologies and speak about integrating technology into your teaching and scholarship more generally.

Lunch Table with Jill Breit, Executive Director of TAUNY
(Traditional Arts of Upstate New York)

Jill would like to talk with faculty interested in developing collaborative projects that take advantage of the expertise of TAUNY or that encourage students to do work with TAUNY. Join the table to learn more about TAUNY and to begin to think with Jill about possible projects.

The graduation requirements for students entering St. Lawrence in Fall 2013 and later require that students take diversity courses with more clearly defined learning goals than those now in effect. These learning goals are:
a) a capacity for critical self-reflection on social location designed to locate their multiple identities as active members of the United States and/or global community and to recognize that differential perspectives on knowledge and power derive from particular social locations; and
b) a recognition of diversity within and among groups and an awareness that these differences affect individuals’ life chances, behavior, and ways of knowing; and
c) an understanding of the dynamics of power and justice within and/or among groups or societies and an ability to reflect on their responsibilities toward others as citizens at the local, national, and global scales.

All courses currently approved for diversity (DIV) credit will need to be submitted to the Academic Affairs Committee for approval under the new learning goals, and faculty members may be designing new courses to achieve these learning goals. In this session, Eve Stoddard, Director of the Teagle Diversity Grant, and Mary Jane Smith, Teagle Diversity Grant Committee Member, will review the new learning goals, discuss how these goals were developed, how you might implement them in courses that will be approved for Diversity credit, and how you might assess student learning.

With a new curriculum and recently adopted communication skills goals for the FYP/FYS [February 2011], it is increasingly important for instructors to identify students with inadequate writing skills and for us to work together to address their needs in a timely manner. In this workshop, Rebecca Daniels, Associate Dean of the First Year, Kirk Fuoss, Director of the Rhetoric and Communication Program, Karen Gibson, Director of the WORD Studio, and Evelyn Jennings, Associate Dean for Academic Advising Programs, will review the communication skills goals. They will then lead a norming session for an assessment rubric using Clickers and sample FYS papers. This activity is designed to stimulate a discussion of writing assessment, and we hope that participants will leave with a stronger sense of how students’ writing should look at the end of their first year of college and how we can work together to improve the results.

Following the norming session, presenters will share the results of recent efforts to identify students who have weaker writing abilities from within the FYP and FYS, explain the new tool used to identify them, and collaborate on plans to work with these students.

During lunch take some time to play in the Digital Sandbox. Stationed around the room you will find displays of emerging and other interesting technology applications to explore. Information Technology staff will be on hand to answer your questions about these technologies and speak about integrating technology into your teaching and scholarship more generally.

Evelyn Jennings, Associate Dean for Academic Advising Programs, and Carolyn Filippi, University Registrar, will review the new graduation requirements of the new curriculum and answer questions faculty have about the new curriculum. They will also discuss advising for the new integrative learning component and share hints about using the communication tools in APR. Participants will be encouraged to discuss advising strategies to help students explore and fulfill the new curriculum and to better understand the new curriculum as advisors.

Another new requirement for classes entering after this academic year, is that students must complete at least one unit that meets the learning goals of environmental literacy courses. The Academic Affairs Committee will approve courses for EL credit. The learning goals, met through multiple opportunities and classroom instruction, are for students to develop:
a) A recognition of the consequences of human activities on natural systems; and/or
b) An awareness of the cultural, economic and political forces that affect environmental policies; and/or
c) An understanding of natural systems and/or the impacts they can have on the environment, human life, health and welfare.
Join Carrie Johns, Environmental Studies, as she leads us in a discussion of what these learning goals mean and how they could be implemented in courses (through materials, assignments, experiences, etc.).