Thirty-Fourth DATC Junto

Folsom Stadium, Room 367 | Thursday, October 1, 2009 from 1:00 to 2:30

Erica Brandon

I have attached two readings for Thursday’s talk. I thought it would be nice to re-visit what exactly the Junto is all about, and so I have dug up some information about the original Juntos led by Ben Franklin. I’ve also included an interesting blog that Mark found, related to Ben Franklin’s thoughts on education.

Thirty-Second DATC Junto

Folsom Stadium, Room 367 | Thursday, May 7, 2009 from 12:30 to 2:00

It's been a while (or at least it seems that way). Let’s do the following readings for the May DATC Junto. The topic is “Whither the University?”
I thought we could discuss how universities are arranged, how they interact with technologies, and whether or not a new model for universities is needed to respond to our current economic and political situations. I’d like to spend part of our time wrestling with the question, “how would you rearrange CU,” so come prepared to engage in that activity. Here are the readings:

• Taylor, Mark C., End the University as We Know It, NYTimes, April 26, 2009
• Henry Etzkowitza, Andrew Websterb, Christiane Gebhardtc and Branca Regina Cantisano Terra, The future of the university and the university of the future: evolution of ivory tower to entrepreneurial paradigm
• Egol, Morton, The Future of Higher Education

Twenty-Seventh DATC Junto

Folsom Stadium, Room 367 | Tuesday, September 2, 2008 from 1:00 to 2:30

For Tuesday’s Junto, which is in the area of faculty culture, I’d like to have us read a couple of pieces on the nature of science and the scientific method. Each of these essays deal with an article submitted by Alan Sokal in which he attempted to highlight the gap between science and the humanities when he published an article titled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity."

First we have an analysis by Sokal on why he published his paper in the journal, Social Text. The article we're reading is Transgressing the Boundaries: An Afterword.

Next we have an essay by Harvey Blume, Missing Links: From C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" to Alan Sokal's hoax, taking stock of the fault lines between the arts and sciences on how Sokal’s article relates to the concept of the two cultures that C.P. Snow addressed in his essay in 1958. If you’re curious, you can find an electronic copy of Snow's essay within Chinook, but here is a one-page overview.

And finally we have an essay by Paul Grobstein, Revisiting Science in Culture: Science as Story Telling and Story Revising that reacts to Sokal’s article and articulates an approach to science as story telling.

I hope in our discussion, we can shed light on the cultures faculty members operate in. I am less interested in synthesizing the dialog among Snow, Sokal, Grobstein, and Blume. I'd rather use these three readings as a launching pad for discussions covering our role within the academy and how our understanding of the various types of inquiry within the academy shape DATC work. But if a discussion about the debate among the authors is of interest to you, we can go down that path.

Here are some questions I had as I read these essays.

• Is science a way of thinking that cuts across disciplines? Can the scientific method be applied to English? To Art? To Philosophy? To DATC work?
• Is it useful to for scientific inquiry and humanistic inquiry to engage with one another? Can a creative synthesis emerge from them? What would happen if we brought together a professor of English with a Professor of Biology? Could they converse productively? Does educational technology provide a common ground for them to have a discussion? For example could discussions about clickers bring together Physicists and Philosophers? Could one faculty member be a scientist and a humanist at the same time?
• Is science merely a series of rhetorical conventions and norms of speaking? Is it storytelling? Is all inquiry story telling? If science is only a story, why do we get in airplanes?
• Does the academy consist of a series of gulfs between major areas of inquiry? Science vs. humanities, science vs. social science, science vs. art, technology vs science, etc.? Is there a gulf between educational technology and technology? Is there a gulf between educational technology and faculty development?
• Is art a third culture distinct from science and the humanities? Is it useful to distinguish social sciences from science?
• Is science poetic?
• Are poems scientific?
• Is DATC work a science? An art? Can good DATC work be taught? Is there a poetry inherent in DATC work?
• What happens when there are cracks in scientific knowledge? In humanistic knowledge? Does technology play a role in either? What happens when there are cracks in DATC knowledge?
• Is it OK to be wrong in science? Is it OK to be wrong in humanities? Is it OK to be wrong as a DATC?

In 2004 the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (FTEP) hosted a panel discussion on C.P. Snow's, The Two Cultures.

Please join us in Folsom Stadium, Room 367 from 11:00 to 12:30 on Tuesday, September 2nd, for this Junto.

Twenty-Sixth DATC Junto

Folsom Stadium, Room 367 | Tuesday, August 5, 2008 from 1:00 to 2:30

Women in Engineering - Why are they still underrepresented?

• Why is there a need to get women in science and engineering? by Laura Hintz
• Female Undergraduate Enrollment by Major, Fall 2008
• Undergraduate BS Engineering Degrees Awarded to Women

Thirteenth DATC Junto

Meeting Logistics: Tue, 1 May 2007 at ATLAS 320

As the spring semester comes to a close, we look toward the summer as a time to reflect on the past year and consider what we could do better for the upcoming year. For this junto, let’s talk about helping faculty with this process in considering course redesign.

Readings:

• Charlesworth, D. & McKinney, W.J. (2005). Pedagogical implications of technology: Toward a more critical stance of instructional technology. Issues in Information Systems. Vol. VI, No. 1: 121-126. Available at: http://www.iacis.org/iis/2005_IIS/PDFs/Charlesworth_McKinney.pdf.
• McCauley Jugovich, S, & Reeves, B. (2006). IT and educational technology: What’s pedagogy got to do with IT? EDUCAUSE Quarterly, No. 4: 58-60. Available at: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0649.pdf.

Questions for your consideration:

1. How might we better promote ourselves to faculty as teachers of pedagogy and not just trainers of technology?
2. As Laura brought up in the last junto, we’re beyond the issue of faculty adoption of technology. Subsequently, how do we encourage faculty to reconsider the way they teach, and possibly incorporate new technologies, to improve student learning?
3. How can we help faculty learn to improve their teaching and adopt good practices?
4. What can we do to motivate faculty to take advantage of faculty development/learning opportunities such as FTEP (Faculty Teaching Excellence Program) and other available CU resources?

Tenth DATC Junto

Meeting Logistics: Tue, 6 February 2007 in UMC 404

Thanks to Kimberly and Laura, there will be a screening of Declining by Degrees, the film that will serve as the basis for our next Junto, from 11-1p this coming Monday, February 5 in Telecom 215.

The documentary examines the challenges today's university faces, even suggesting that more interactive teaching (in this case, clickers) might help retain students and thus revenue streams.

Since I want to leave some time for us to talk about how things are going for us in our own positions, especially in light of the CULearn launch, I will keep questions short and sweet:

1. If the university (thus, ITS) had more money, how do you think it would best be spent?
2. Is technology antithetical to more personal contact between faculty and students—something the documentary suggests as an improvment?

Eighth Junto: Our Past, Our Future

Meeting Logistics: Tue, 5 December 2006; UMC 404

One of the most exciting yet unsettling aspects of the DACTC position is that there is no legacy of analogous positions to draw from when it comes to imagining our future.

Indeed, our positions were only envisioned in 1998 as part of the inaugural IT Strategic Plan:

...These distributed support staff members must have a unique combination of IT knowledge, technical skills, and abilities. They must not only understand users' disciplines/functions and possess knowledge of all appropriate technologies, but also have a core set of service competencies including clear communication, teamwork, facilitation, and creative thinking skills.

Compare our short history in academia to that of librarians, and it's readily apparent that we're the new kids on the block. Compare our roles within the university, however, and it's much harder to find discernible differences.

But, there is one glaring difference in how we're viewed by the university: librarians here at CU-Boulder have faculty status while we have administrative status.

Enter this month's readings:

Faculty Status for Librarians in Higher Education (PDF); Libraries and the Academy; by Danielle Bodrero Hoggan

SUMMARY: Examines pros and cons of librarians obtaining faculty status

Wearing Our Own Clothes: Librarians as Faculty (PDF); The Journal of Academic Librarianship, May 1994; by Janet Swan Hill

SUMMARY: Rehearses CU-Boulder case of librarians lobbying for faculty status

Though I've toyed with the idea of lobbying for our own faculty status, the Hoggan article has dissuaded me a bit (at least in the short-term).

For Junto Consideration:

• What do you think about DACTC faculty status? [Weigh in using poll at right]
• If you're for it, how would your position change for the better? For the worse?
• If you're against it, does the faculty career model give you ideas for re-envisioning your position: teaching, publishing, or going on sabbaticals?

First Junto, Friday 4/7/06 @ 8am in UMC 335

So, without further ado, here are the theme, reading, and questions I've chosen for the world premier of the DATC Junto:

Reading: Confessions about Time and Stress

Professor Clayton Lewis (CU-B) offers an "insider" view of life as a faculty member. As the title indicates, the tone of the article is highly informal (confessional). The confessions are offered to new faculty as a nine-step guide to becoming an effective, well-rounded faculty member in higher education.

Questions:

Does the reading make you re-think your approach to your job? Why?

Are there aspects of faculty culture that you'd like to explore further?