On April 14 and 15, Jeffrey McClurken, chair and professor of History and American Studies, visited fellow COPLAC school Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. McClurken was the plenary speaker for Truman’s Student Research Conference, presenting on “Students as Digitally Enabled Scholars: Undergraduate Research in the Information Age.” He also presented to TSU’s Library and Information Technology units, and led a discussion in a seminar on the Politics and Literature of War.
Rao Presents at Summit
P. Anand Rao, associate professor of communication and director of the Speaking Intensive Program and the Speaking Center, presented as an invited speaker at the Future of Health Technology Institute’s Summit on May 5, 2014. The meeting was held at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The Future of Health Technology Institute is an MIT think tank that supports research on health care developments. Rao’s talk was titled “Persuasive Health Communications” and was on a program that included researchers and speakers from MIT’s Media Lab, the Whitehead Institute, and Harvard Medical School.
Usler Presents at Association of Collegiate Computing Services
Ray Usler, Director of IT Security and ISO, presented “Security Challenges 2014” at the Association of Collegiate Computing Services of Virginia Conference on March 13, 2014 in Charlottesville, Va.
Allyson Moerman to Participate in Senior Leadership Seminar
Allyson Moerman, Associate Vice President for Finance and Controller, has accepted an invitation to participate in the Virginia Network for Woman in Higher Education 2014-2015 Senior Leadership Seminar. The mission of the American Council on Education Women’s Network is to identify, develop, advance, and support women in higher education at the national, state, and local levels. Participants include administrators from public and private sectors, two-year and four-year institutions, and a wide-variety of functional roles. The Senior Leadership Seminar focuses on three core areas: personal development, professional development and trends in higher education.
Jim Groom Talks UMW Domains
Since early March of 2014 Jim Groom has delivered numerous invited presentations about the work the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies (DTLT) has been doing with Domain of One’s Own.
On March 6 Groom delivered a featured session at the 2014 Digital Media Learning Conference in Boston, Mass. focused around the theme of Connected Practices. The presentation was titled “Domain of One’s Own: Notes from the Trailing Edge,” and it delves into the question of why higher ed has turned its back on the web for teaching and learning, an invention it in many ways made possible. Here’s an extended post framing the thinking behind this presentation, and there is also an archived video of this presentation below (the Domain of One’s Own discussion starts at minute 32:00).
On March 14 Groom was invited to deliver the keynote presentation at UMW’s 4th annual EdTech Conference titled “Reclaim Learning: A Domain of One’s Own.” This presentation examined a decade’s worth of experimentation and development at the University of Mary Washington that has resulted in a series of innovative projects such as UMW Blogs, ds106, and Domain of One’s Own. The presentation examined the common denominator of these edtech projects: they operate from a shared ethos of supporting an open environment for teaching and learning online by helping faculty and students alike exert control over the digital spaces they learn, teach, and live in.
On March 28 Groom was invited to keynote the Baruch College’s 17th Annual Teaching and Technology Conference. The presentation was titled “Domain in the Afterglow Or, What we Can Learn about Digital Identity from Geocities” and it explored the development of web publishing at universities during the mid-90s as well as the emergence of one of the earlier social media sites: Geocities. The presentation explores how higher ed turned away from the open web as platform at the turn of the millennium in exchange for coherence, security, and ease-of-use, the issue remains what was lost in that sacrifice. You can see the slide below and read more about the pesentation on Jim Groom’s blog here.
On April 10 Groom delivered the keynote presentation at the Sloan-C Emerging Technologies Conference titled “Domains in the Afterglow” that was a further tightening of the talk delivered at Baruch College almost two weeks earlier. The focal point being how can universities more broadly support an infrastructure beyond the learning management system that enables digital literacy and creates a student-centric technology ecosystem. Below is a video of the talk, and here is a trail of the Twitter conversation that resulted from this presentation. You can read more about this presentation on Jim Groom’s blog here.
More recently, on April 26 and 27 Jim Groom was invited down to Emory University, along with Tim Owens and Martha Burtis, to discuss Domain of One’s Own with representatives from various colleges in the Atlanta region at the Domain Incubator. This was a conference inspired by the work happening at UMW, and the two-day intensive program was dedicated to sharing the work UMW and Emory (who is running a pilot of Domains this year) have been doing over the last year. The keynote presentation Groom delivered was titled “Domain of One’s Own: a Problem of Coherence” and you can see the video below. The talk, which relies heavily on the ideas and words of Jon Udell, explores the deeper cultural implications of Domain of One’s Own by taking a broader view of the idea of coherent personal digital archives as something we will all need in the near future.
Farnsworth Gives Lecture
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, delivered a lecture entitled, “The Global President: Public Diplomacy During the Obama and Bush Presidencies,” to the DACOR (Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired) Organization at the DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C. on May 6. The group consists of former U.S. ambassadors, foreign service officers, and military attaches as well as former USAID and CIA officers.
The talk drew on Farnsworth’s co-authored book, “The Global President: International Media and the U.S. Government,” which was published by Rowman & Littlefield last fall.
McAllister’s Article Selected for Republication
Marie E. McAllister, Profesor of English, has had an article chosen for republication in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, vol. 271 (2013). Entitled “‘Only to Sink Deeper’: Venereal Disease in Sense and Sensibility,” the article first appeared in Eighteenth-Century Fiction 17.1 (2004): 87-110.
Professors Elected Co-Chairs of AAC&U PKAL D.C. Regional Network
Suzanne Sumner
Debra Hydorn
Professors Debra Hydorn and Suzanne Sumner (mathematics) were elected co-chairs of the new D.C. regional network of the American Association’s Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL). Hydorn and Sumner are both members of PKAL’s Faculty for the 21st Century (F21) Network. The goals for the network are to continue the work of PKAL toward improving STEM education for all students and providing faculty development and leadership opportunities for STEM educators. The D.C. regional network is planning on holding two meetings each year. The first meeting is planned for Fall 2104 in the D.C. area. The second meeting will be held at JMU in the spring of 2015.
Zhao Publishes Article
Xiaofeng Zhao, associate professor of the College of Business, has published a journal article as lead author, “Measuring the variance of customer waiting time in service operations” in Management Decision.
Marcus Kahn Named UMW Men’s Basketball Coach
Marcus Kahn.
Photo courtesy of Cabrini College.
Highly successful Cabrini College head coach Marcus Kahn has been named as the new head men’s basketball coach at the University of Mary Washington, pending final Board of Visitors approval, according to Director of Athletics Ken Tyler.
Kahn led Cabrini College to a 153-27 record in six seasons, including five consecutive Colonial States Athletic Conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances, including a run to the NCAA Championship game in 2011-12. His mark of 131-19 over the past five years has been the best record in all of NCAA Division III.
For more information about Kahn’s new position at UMW, visit http://www.umweagles.com/sports/mbkb/2013-14/releases/kahn.