
New Books in Education
1,231 episodes — Page 17 of 25
Ep 49From the Military to Academia: A Discussion with Maurice Wilson
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: Maurice Wilson’s journey from the military to higher education, how he has pursued his dual interests in aviation and creative writing, and a discussion of his chapter in Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers. Our guest is: Maurice Wilson, who considers himself the “Robin Hood” of academic literacy. Maurice develops and implements a comprehensive training program curriculum for writing center consultants at a large urban university. He is the administrator for a developmental writing program, and provides training and support for instructors and other writing groups. A career US Army aviator, Maurice taught basic and advanced composition and literature at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and retired from military service following his stint as a graduate teaching fellow before moving into writing center administration. Maurice also teaches professional writing for Ed.D. students. His research interests include the diverse student voices in writing centers, the writing of military veterans, and HBCU writing programs. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 224Ana Honnacker, "Pragmatic Humanism Revisited: An Essay on Making the World a Home" (Palgrave, 2019)
How can we feel at home in this world? Pragmatic Humanism Revisited: An Essay on Making the World a Home (Palgrave, 2019) offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. Thinking along with authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller, it highlights a humanist strand of pragmatism aimed at fostering human creativity and transformative action. It is grounded in everyday experience and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. Ana Honnacker traces perspectives on science, religion, and ethics in the light of a pragmatic understanding of humanism. Furthermore, she suggests how to address the existential challenges we face today. Thus, pragmatic humanism is explored as "a philosophy for real human beings". Kai Wortman is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Education, University of Tübingen, interested in philosophy of education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 48Cary Nelson, "Not in Kansas Anymore: Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities" (AEN, 2021)
“Allying with a Hamas cell (on a Palestinian university campus) is not the same as joining the College Republicans at the University of Kansas...in the West Bank and Gaza, we are not in Kansas anymore” - Cary Nelson Why is there no academic freedom on university campuses in the Palestinian territories? In Not in Kansas Anymore: Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities (AEN, 2021), Cary Nelson examines this question in the first empirical study of campus life under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas governance. For years, anti-Zionist activists have accused Israel of undermining academic freedom and campus free speech in both Gaza and the West Bank. Not in Kansas Anymore demonstrates conclusively that the major threats to academic freedom come from Palestinians themselves, including from both the Palestinian Authority and from paramilitary and terrorist groups, Hamas most prominent among them. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 13Sarah Drummond: Founding Dean Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School
Sarah Drummond provides a master class for any higher education leader contemplating a strategic alliance or merger with another institution. She describes and draws lessons from the many earlier failed partnership efforts of Andover Newton Seminary as it sought ways to continue its mission and become financially viable. And then describes in detail the carefully crafted, three-stage process which ANS negotiated with Yale Divinity School to move the Seminary to New Haven. This is the first of three episodes with presidents who’ve led the successful integration of their institutions into larger universities. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 19Nathan D. Grawe, "The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
In his highly influential book, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Carleton College Professor of Economics, Nathan Grawe, alerted college and university leaders to the challenges they would be facing with the accelerating decline in the number of U.S. high school graduates that will come in the middle of this decade. In his new book, The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021), he updates the demographic trends through the mid-2030s and describes the variety of strategies different institutions are adopting to respond to the decline in their traditional student population. He shares what led him to become an economist and the rigorous training he received at the University of Chicago. We have an engaging discussion of the implications of his work for both university leaders and policymakers as they debate reforms for funding college students. He also shares some insights from his new project looking at the publishing and career paths of economists working in liberal arts colleges. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 21Ken Hyland, "Second Language Writing" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
Listen to this interview of Ken Hyland, Professor of Applied Linguistics in Education at the University of East Anglia, UK. We talked about his book Second Language Writing (Cambridge UP, 2019), the importance of reflection to teaching, and about the importance of teaching to research, and about the importance of research to reflection. Interviewer : "I wonder whether second language writing isn't sometimes identifying itself too closely with language learning, and not–––well, it should be writing in a second language, shouldn't it? You know, put something up front which is what this is really about." Ken Hyland : "Yeah, I think that one thing that an emphasis on second language writing has given us is the recognition that writing is important. I don't think that there is a university anywhere now that doesn't have a writing center or at least an office where students can go and get consultation about their texts. Writing has been recognized as important, and also in native-English-speaking contexts as well, and in UK universities. And in fact, when we look at writing at advanced levels, like PhDs and writing for publication, language doesn't really come into it anymore. It's a rhetorical issue. And this crude native/nonnative polarization I think breaks down entirely. You know, it's counterproductive, because it demoralizes second-language writers who are trying to get their PhD or publish in journals, and it ignores the very real writing problems experienced by native English speakers, by L1s, you know. So, the L1s get ignored, in favor of the L2s, who get the courses, but everyone's unhappy because it's seen as a language issue rather than as a writing issue." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 128Marc Brackett, "Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive" (Celadon, 2019)
Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University's Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults - a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel. He was the first adult who managed to see Marc, listen to him, and recognize the suffering, bullying, and abuse he'd endured. And that was the beginning of Marc's awareness that what he was going through was temporary. He wasn't alone, he wasn't stuck on a timeline, and he wasn't "wrong" to feel scared, isolated, and angry. Now, best of all, he could do something about it. In the decades since, Marc has led large research teams and raised tens of millions of dollars to investigate the roots of emotional well-being. His prescription for healthy children (and their parents, teachers, and schools) is a system called RULER, a high-impact and fast-effect approach to understanding and mastering emotions that has already transformed the thousands of schools that have adopted it. RULER has been proven to reduce stress and burnout, improve school climate, and enhance academic achievement. This book is the culmination of Marc's development of RULER and his way to share the strategies and skills with readers around the world. It is tested, and it works. Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive (Celadon, 2019) combines rigor, science, passion and inspiration in equal parts. Too many children and adults are suffering; they are ashamed of their feelings and emotionally unskilled, but they don't have to be. Marc Brackett's life mission is to reverse this course, and this book can show you how. Debbie Sorenson is a psychologist in Denver and the host of the excellent podcast Psychologists Off the Clock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 51Pandemic Perspectives: Loneliness in Graduate School
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: how Sarah dealt with loneliness, worked as a teaching assistant from a tent her own backyard, and what the pandemic means for her dissertation, her timeline, and her funding. Our guest is: Sarah Paschal Gerenday is a PhD student in Earth Science at University of California Santa Barbara researching the use of recycled water for groundwater replenishment. She lives with a few friends and a dog in Santa Barbara. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 45College Belonging: A Conversation with Lisa M. Nunn
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: the three realms of college belonging, why “finding your place” is bad advice for first-gen students, how financial aid packages affect students’ experiences of belonging, “nice” and “not-so-nice” diversity, and the hypocrisy of white niceness on college campuses. Our guest is: Lisa M. Nunn, Ph.D., author of College Belonging: How First-Year and First-Generation Students Navigate Campus Life and Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego. She is the Director of her campus' Center for Educational Excellence. She is also the author of 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students as well as a book on high school students, Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture. She didn't grow up knowing that she would become a sociologist and she graduated college as a literature and theater major, still not knowing that she would become a sociologist. It was during her years with the Peace Corps in Limbaži, Latvia in her early twenties when she started to recognize how fascinating cultural ideas and social structures are. How they shape who we are, who we want to become, and how they also constrain the paths available to us to get there. She hasn't stopped thinking about or talking about these dynamics since. Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner. She specializes in college student relationships, gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as assessment planning. Dana enjoys engaging conversations, delicious food, practicing yoga, and wandering the Jersey shore. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students by Lisa M. Nunn Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture by Lisa Nunn The Cost of Inclusion: How Student Conformity Leads to Inequality on College Campuses by Blake R. Silver The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 99S. Garnett Russell, "Becoming Rwandan: Education, Reconciliation, and the Making of a Post-Genocide Citizen" (Rutgers UP, 2020)
In Becoming Rwandan: Education, Reconciliation and the Making of a Post-Genocide Citizen (Rutgers UP, 2020), S. Garnett Russell argues that although the Rwandan government makes use of global discourses in national policy documents, the way in which teachers and students engage with these global models distorts the curricular intentions of the government, resulting in unintended consequences and an undermining of sustainable peace. She is assistant professor of international and comparative education and the director of the George Clement Bond Center for African Education at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Susan Thomson is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 128Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch, "The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education" (John Hopkins UP, 2021)
Whether and how to reform, indeed to transform graduate education has been a matter for debate, discussion and experimentation over the past 30 years – at least. In The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021), Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch look back at the many attempts, successes and failures to do so since the 1990s. They argue that graduate school has been preparing PhD students for jobs that don’t exist and encouraging students to want those jobs to the detriment of their career success and personal wellbeing. Cassuto and Weisbuch propose what they call a more humane and socially dynamic PhD experience that reconceives of graduate education as a public good. In The New PhD, Cassuto and Weisbuch provide recommendations from admissions to advising to curriculum to the dissertation, as well as suggestions for how to begin conversations at the departmental and graduate school level to make changes. Leonard Cassuto is a professor of English and American Studies at Fordham University. He is the author of The Graduate Adviser column for The Chronicle of Higher Education, which inspired his book The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It. Robert Weisbuch, formerly a professor of English, department chair, and dean at the University of Michigan, served as the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the eleventh president of Drew University. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Center at the University of California, Irvine. She holds a PhD in Russian & East European European History from the University of Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Mary Marci: President of Dominican University
Mary Marcy discusses her influential new book, The Small College Imperative: Models for Sustainable Futures (Stylus, 2020) which lays out five different models that small colleges and universities can use to succeed in today’s highly competitive marketplace. This begins with the “Traditional” liberal arts model that is increasingly limited to the most highly selective and well-endowed colleges. Most tuition-dependent institutions have made the move toward a more “Integrated” Model that retains a liberal arts core, but has added pre-professional and graduate programs. This model is perhaps best exemplified by the 25 members of the New American Colleges & Universities (NACU). “The Distinctive Model” adopted by institutions like Agnes Scott and Furman, and implemented with great success by Marcy at Dominican University, builds off the literature on High-Impact Practices to create a common set of experiences for all undergraduates. The models that entail the greatest transformation are “Growth” and “Distributed” that entail substantial expansion beyond the liberal arts core to include satellite campuses and online offerings. In the Distributed model, exemplified by institutions like Southern New Hampshire University, the original campus is no longer central to the strategy. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 522Heath Brown, "Homeschooling the Right: How Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State" (Columbia UP, 2021)
Political Scientist Heath Brown’s new book, Homeschooling the Right: How Conservative Education Activism Erodes the State (Columbia UP, 2021) is an excellent overview of the homeschooling movement in the United States, but it is much more than an exploration of that movement, since it centers on the way that this movement developed into a parallel political structure within states and localities with substantial capacity to influence policy and politics. Brown notes that initially the homeschool movement was ideologically diverse, but that over the past forty years it has become much more directly connected to conservative politics and the Religious Right. As parents chose to opt out of public education and provide education for their children at home, an entire industry grew up around this undertaking, providing, in the pre-internet days, support, content, approaches, and the means to help parents negotiate this at home. Along the way, as this movement continued to grow and expand, even though it was composed of only a fraction of school-age children, it also became a politically vocal movement, with lobbyists who worked on behalf of homeschoolers to keep government intrusion and regulation at bay. These threads came together and helped to mobilize the members of the homeschool movement. Brown argues that the ideology and the political dimensions of the homeschool movement ultimately migrated over to the Tea Party Movement that takes root in the first decade of the 21st century, since the homeschool ideas are pulling together conservative libertarianism in the anti-government, anti-regulatory vein, and the reintegration of Christian beliefs within academic settings. As we discussed the book, Brown noted that every Republican presidential candidate over the past two decades has paid attention to the homeschool movement, and that President George W. Bush made a point of thanking the homeschool parents and children who had worked so diligently on his campaign and with the GOP Get Out The Vote efforts, since the homeschool students were able to fold these experiences into their curriculum and assignments. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which developed to provide legal support for home school advocates across the states, had initially become a key player in conservative politics, but has now refocused much more narrowly, specifically on homeschool policy. Homeschooling the Right also gets at the complicated position of the homeschool movement within a democracy, since the movement itself is a way of removing the individual or the family from the public sphere. What is ironic, and important to understand, as Brown notes, is that this political movement has a louder, heightened political voice because of the capacity to mobilize many of its adherents, thus it is both actively inside and outside the political sphere. This is a wonderfully written book and so accessible to readers—and it will be of interest to many across a broad spectrum of disciplines. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 43Inside Look: "Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education"
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: Dr. Bradley Shreve’s decision to leave academia after he became a parent; his job as the editor of Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education; what the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) does; and his work as a podcaster interviewing tribal elders. Our guest is: Dr. Bradley Shreve, the editor of Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education, the quarterly publication of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). Previously, he taught history and chaired the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Diné College, America’s first tribal college, which is located in the Navajo Nation. Bradley is the author of numerous articles, essays, and the book Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Native Activism (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011). Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: TCJ Tribal College Press TCJ student magazine Meditation on Ceremonies of Beginnings: The Tribal College and World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium Poems, by Thomas Davis The Pathfinders: Women Leaders in the Tribal College Movement Remembering Diné College: Origin Stories of America’s First Tribal College Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Native Activism by Bradley Shreve A Conversation with Verna Fowler [Audio Podcast]. Native American Studies channel on NBN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 177David Komline, "The Common School Awakening: Religion and the Transatlantic Roots of American Public Education" (Oxford UP, 2020)
The origins of American public schools can help shed light on continued contemporary discussions around religion and education in American discourse. In The Common School Awakening: Religion and the Transatlantic Roots of American Public Education (Oxford UP, 2020), historian David Komline explores the rise of educational models that introduced professional teaching and systematic educational standards alongside a period of interdenominational Protestant cooperation. Some of the origins of American public education were linked to religious revivals in the early nineteenth century, though many of the educational innovations would outlive their religious movement that catalyzed them. Komline's study brings attention to the under-explored religious dimension of the rise of American public education, and provides much-needed insight into the origins some of the perennial tensions of public education in a pluralistic society. Ryan David Shelton (@ryoldfashioned) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 980Matthew K. Shannon, "Losing Hearts and Minds: American-Iranian Relations and International Education during the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2017)
In Losing Hearts and Minds: American Iranian Relations and International Education During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2017), Matthew K. Shannon, an associate professor of history at Emory & Henry College, shows the complex role that Iranian student migration to the United States played in shaping the relations between the two countries. For U.S. policymakers, Iranian student migration to the United States was as a useful way to provide Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with the training and technical expertise necessary for his modernization program. But as Shannon shows, Iranian students quickly became immersed in the progressive student movements of the 1960, eventually turning their critical energies to the shah’s own authoritarian regime and contributing to his overthrow in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This fascinating monograph is full of many unexpected twists and turns and will be of interest to historians of the U.S. in the world, US-Iran Relations, scholars of higher education, and anyone interested in this important era of U.S. foreign relations. Steven P. Rodriguez is a PhD Candidate in history at Vanderbilt University. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow his twitter at @SPatrickRod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Jerry Cohon and Mark Kamlet: Former President and Former Provost of Carnegie Mellon University
This features our first tag team on the podcast, with an engaging discussion with Jared “Jerry” Cohon, who served as President of CMU from 1997-2013, and Dr. Mark Kamlet, who was his provost. The two describe the key initiatives they led that built on the successful momentum of their predecessors, Richard Cyert and Robert Mehrabian, that enabled CMU to advance quickly from a regional technical school with a strong arts program to one of the world’s leading research universities. This begins with a discussion of the merger that formed CMU in 1967 between Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Mellon Institute. They share how with limited resources they were able to transform CMU from a predominantly Pittsburgh-based institution with some small satellite degree programs in the U.S. into one of the world’s most global universities, with campuses in Rwanda, Portugal, Qatar, Australia, and Silicon Valley. At the same time, they partnered with the University of Pittsburgh to help bring about the resurgence of their home city, transforming it from a reliance on heavy industry to an innovation hub focused on Eds & Meds, with CMU’s tech transfer office serving as the engine of growth for Pittsburgh’s emergence as a leader in Robotics, AI, driverless vehicles, and Computer Science. Cohon concludes: “My hope is when education scholars look back in 2050 to understand how CMU, with a fraction of Harvard’s endowment, was able to pass it as the world’s leading research university, it will be because we made the decision to bring CMU to students around the world, while Harvard decided they must continue to come to Cambridge, MA.” David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 46Pandemic Perspectives: A Student Speaks About Mental Health
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: the challenges Kaylah Marcello, a STEM graduate student at UC Davis, suddenly faced when she was having coffee with a friend in mid-March 2020 and her phone rang telling her that her son’s elementary school was closing down. She quickly realized she couldn’t work in the lab she was assigned to while homeschooling her son. Kaylah shares openly about her personal history, her mental health struggles, and why taking care of herself was crucial to taking care of her family and her own educational goals. Our guest is: Kaylah Marcello, a Microbiology PhD student at the University of California, Davis. Kaylah is researching cold tolerance genes that support photosynthesis in Antarctic cyanobacteria with Dr. Dawn Sumner. She has been a teaching assistant for in-person microbiology lab courses during the pandemic. Prior to pursuing a graduate education, she was a transfer student from the California Community College system to the UC system. She is passionate about science communication, educational outreach, mental health awareness and making academia more accessible to people who would otherwise not pursue it. She is a mother and an all-around science enthusiast, taking life one minute at a time. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Postpartum depression resources California community colleges Dr. Dawn Sumner Lab https://dysumner.faculty.ucdavis.edu/ Dr. Miriam Martin’s interview about her own graduate school experiences Antarctic Cyanobacteria UC Davis COVID testing initiative Creating a support system in grad school Discussions about the Mind and Mindfulness Dr. Christina Gessler is a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 111Teaching Buddhist Studies Online: A Discussion with Kate Hartmann
Join Raj Balkaran as he talks with Dr. Kate Hartmann, Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Wyoming and Director of Buddhist Studies Online, a new educational platform providing coursework on the history, philosophy, and practices of Buddhism. Founded in 2021 by Seth Powell as a sister institute to Yogic Studies, Buddhist Studies Online provides accessible, affordable, and high-quality courses for the broader community interested in learning more about Buddhism in a non-sectarian way. It aims to bridge the gap between widespread interest in meditation and other aspects of Buddhist traditions and the all-too-often inaccessible research of the academy. Raj and Kate discuss the mission of BSO, the surprising role the NBN podcast played in BSO's origin story, and growing landscape of public-facing teaching and scholarship. How should scholars think about how to address multiple publics? How can they make their research and teaching available and meaningful to popular audiences while still being academically grounded and responsible? How do platforms like BSO fit into the larger landscape of lineage-based Buddhist teachers, mindfulness coaches, and orientalizing discourses about Asian religions? Kate and Raj draw on their respective experiences with BSO and the School of Indian Wisdom in this wide-ranging conversation about what it means to be a scholar in this exciting new era of the humanities. Plus, learn about Buddhist Studies Online's first course, BSO 101 | Intro to Buddhism: History, Philosophy, and Practice, which runs from May 3 to June 11, and get a sneak peek about future courses with Jay Garfield, Daniel Stuart, and Sonam Kachru!" Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 127Matthew A.M. Thomas et al., "Examining Teach For All: International Perspectives on a Growing Global Network" (Routledge, 2021)
Teach for America (TFA) continues to be the single largest preparation program for teachers in the United States. As that program grew in the US (attracting attention, support, and controversy in the process), it also expanded overseas with TFA-like programs (starting with TeachFirst in the UK) currently on the ground in over 50 countries. How has the internationalization of TFA gone in countries with different cultures and different educational systems than the American one in which the program originated? And what might “going global” mean as TFA transforms from a national to an international phenomenon? Three scholars who have been tracking TFA/TFAll trajectory join us today at New Books Network to discuss Examining Teach for All: International Perspectives on a Growing Global Network (Routledge, 2021) which brings together the work of over a dozen researchers examining TFAll programs around the world from a range of perspectives. You can learn more about the editors of Examining Teach for All at: Matthew A.M. Thomas, Emilee Rauschenberger, Katherine Crawford-Garrett Jonathan Haber is an educational researcher and consultant working at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and educational policy. His books include MOOCS and Critical Thinking from MIT Press and his LogicCheck project analyzes the reasoning behind the news of the day. You can read more about Jonathan’s work at http://www.jonathanhaber.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 519Paul M. Renfro et al., "Growing Up America: Youth and Politics Since 1945" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
Growing Up America: Youth and Politics Since 1945 (U Georgia Press, 2019) is a fascinating book that weaves together the burgeoning field of Childhood History, the post-World War II history of the United States, and the familiar concepts of political advocacy by younger citizens. Eckelmann Berghel, Fieldston, and Renfro, all historians, have brought together a rigorous and engaging work by other historians, legal scholars, and ethnic and indigenous studies experts, to which they have also contributed their own expertise. This book brings in the actual voices of children in the United States in the postwar period, highlighting their roles as political actors in their own right, and examining so many aspects of politics and culture as seen through the eyes of young people. The contributing authors of Growing Up America are knitting together, in their respective chapters of the book, children as agents, as actively engaged members of the society, and children as symbols, used in a whole host of different ways by different political actors and organizations. The book is divided into three sections that follow the chronological direction of recent American history, but that also focus on conceptual frameworks for each era under examination. The first part of the book is focused on the Cold War period and how children were integrated into both the symbolic and the political constructions of life during the Cold War. This section integrates the book’s first discussion of young people and science, as well as exploring the role that groups like the Boy Scouts played in building America’s Cold War empire. There is also research about the ways in which American girls and women, in particular, were supposed to look and act and how they were taught these qualities in school and how they were to shape the projected image of Americans. The second part of Growing Up America follows the arc of history through the Rights revolution that comes to dominate the political and cultural landscape in the U.S. (and elsewhere) in the 1960s and 1970s. This part of the book examines expected areas of youth involvement, but perhaps in unexpected ways, such as the many pre-adolescents who wrote to President Lyndon Johnson supporting the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The final section of the book examines the late 20th century political turn towards conservativism in American politics, and how this shift impacted and was experienced by children. Growing Up America brings in another chapter focusing on young people and science in this section, with a chapter on young women and STEM. The final chapter in this section evaluates the real and perceived vulnerability of childhood, especially in the racially segregated symbolism that was the milk carton campaign for missing children in the mid-1980s. Growing up America will be of great interest to scholars and students across a range of disciplines and areas of expertise, especially in the ways it draws on different arenas of politics and culture to explore youth engagement in the United States since 1945. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 19Helen Sword, "Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write" (Harvard UP, 2017)
Today I talked to Helen Sword about Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write (Harvard UP, 2017). We talk about what not enough people talk about when the subject is writing. interviewer : "You offer the advice of forming a writing group, because writing groups are, well, just all-around terrific for helping people write as they want to." Helen Sword : "Exactly, and well, so I try not to be didactic about just about anything having to do with writing––I'm much more about, 'Here's a range of possibilities. Make a considered decision here,' rather than, 'I'm going to tell you what to do.' But if I were to give one piece of advice concerning the social dimensions of writing, I would say, 'Really, really strongly consider belonging to some kind of writing group.' And I define a writing group as being two or more people who meet more than once to talk about any aspect of writing. So, if you have somebody you meet with for coffee once a month, one other person, and all you do is you sit there and complain about your supervisor and how you wish that they were more sympathetic to your writing––That's already a writing group. So, it doesn't have to be some big kind of formal thing. It's opening yourself up to the social dimensions of writing and particularly to the idea of having supporters in your corner, having some cheerleaders, having some people you can talk to about writing who are not there to criticize you––who are there to help you." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 41Inside Look: Campus Mental Wellness Services
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: mental wellness services on campus, asking for help, embracing who you are, and why you need support to succeed at your life. Our guest is: Elisabeth Gonella, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has worked in the mental health and spiritual counseling fields for over 25 years. The early years of her career were spent working primarily with adolescents in various institutional settings where she facilitated therapeutic wilderness programs, Gestalt based group therapy, expressive arts, and daily activities as a vehicle for self-reflection. She has received training in working with substance abuse and dually diagnosed clients in both in-patient and out-patient settings. Currently, Elisabeth is seeing clients in private practice and in a College Counseling and Psychological Services Department. Elisabeth develops curriculum for The Therapist Development Center assisting hundreds of interns to pass the MFT exams (both California and National). Since 2012, Elisabeth has served as an adjunct faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Elisabeth is a clinical member of both the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. She is also a graduate of Community Choir Leadership Training and facilitates Community Singing in Santa Barbara, California to promote well-being through music. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Elisabeth’s website Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom, MD The documentary film Finding Joe Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow, the Ted Talk: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work by Joseph Campbell Acacia Counseling and Wellness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 12Jeff Docking, President of Adrian College: On Saving Liberal Arts Colleges
President Jeff Docking shares insights from his book, Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Liberal Arts Colleges in America (Michigan State University Press, 2015), and how he implemented the Admissions Growth Model to transform the fortunes of Adrian College in Michigan. By focusing on building first-class extra and co-curricular programs that offer the +1 element to attract and retain students, he shows how Adrian has been able to grow from fewer than 900 students when he arrived, with a structural budget deficit and large deferred maintenance, to a thriving and revitalized campus of over 2,000 students that has been a vital driver of job and economic growth for the surrounding community. Today this includes 50 DIII and club sports teams – ranging from lacrosse and six ice hockey teams to bass fishing – along with a marching band, orchestra and other thriving clubs and student organizations. He also shares the genesis and growth of a second transformation to help improve the long-term prospects of liberal arts colleges – the Low-Cost Models Consortium. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 62Dave Auckly, et al., "Inspiring Mathematics: Lessons from the Navajo Nation Math Circles" (AMS, 2019)
Math circles defy simple narratives. The model was introduced a century ago, and is taking off in the present day thanks in part to its congruence with cutting-edge research in mathematics education. It is a modern approach to teaching—or facilitation—that resonates and finds mutual reinforcement with traditional practices and cultural preservation efforts. A wide range of math circle resources have become available for interested instructors, including the MSRI Math Circles Library, now in its 14th year of publication by the AMS. I was excited to talk with three editors and contributors to a recent volume in the series, Inspiring Mathematics: Lessons from the Navajo Nation Math Circles (American Mathematical, 2019). Drs. Dave Auckly, Amanda Serenevy, and Henry Fowler have been instrumental to the Navajo Nation Math Circles Project, along with co-editors Tatiana Shubin and Bob Klein and a broader contact and support network. Their book showcases scripts developed and facilitated in Navajo Nation, including an introduction to modular arithmetic through bean bag tossing, prefix sorting in the guise of pancake flipping, and a tactile use of limiting behavior to folding a necktie. We discussed the origin and expansion of math circles, their potential to indigenous mathematics educators and students, and the content of and stories behind a selection of the scripts. Dr. Fowler's foreword and the editors' introduction situate the math circles movement and the Navajo Nation Math Circles Project in history, geography, and culture. Each script begins with a (minimal!) list of the necessary materials and a student handout that invites explorations with them. A short survey of connections to deeper mathematics precedes each handout, and each is followed by an extensive teacher's guide with (illustrative) solutions and presentation suggestions. The scripts vary in complexity and are suitable for student- and teacher-focused math circles. I hope the text becomes widely adopted for science-based and culturally conscious mathematics education and helps introduce others like myself to the greater math circles project. Suggested companion works: -James Tanton -The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival -Gordon Hamilton and Lora Saarnio, MathPickle -Robert Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan, Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free -Rachel and Rodi Steinig, Math Renaissance Dave Auckly is a research mathematician at Kansas State University and Co-founder and Director of the Navajo Nation Math Circles Project. Amanda Serenevy is Co-founder and Director of the Riverbend Community Math Center. Henry Fowler is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Navajo Technical University and Co-director of the Navajo Nation Math Circles Project. Cory Brunson is a Research Assistant Professor at the Laboratory for Systems Medicine at the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 126Itay Snir, "Education and Thinking in Continental Philosophy" (Springer, 2020)
Itay Snir's book Education and Thinking in Continental Philosophy (Springer, 2020) draws on five philosophers from the continental tradition – Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Rancière – in order to “think about thinking” and offer new and surprising answers to the question: How can we educate students to think creatively and critically? Despite their differences, all of these philosophers challenge the modern understanding of thinking, and offer original, radical perspectives on it. In very different ways, each rejects the modern approach to thinking, as well as the reduction of proper thought to rationality, situating thinking in sociohistorical reality and relating it to political action. Thinking, they argue, is not a natural, automatic activity, and the need to think has become all the more important as political reality seems to exhibit less thinking, or to even celebrate thoughtlessness. Bringing these continental conceptions of thinking to bear on the urgent need to educate young people to think against the current, this book makes a significant contribution to educational theory and political philosophy, one that is particularly relevant in today’s anti-intellectual climate. (The podcast focuses especially on Adorno's thoughts about thinking.) Kai Wortman is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Education, University of Tübingen, interested in philosophy of education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 239Jarvis R. Givens, "Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a channel on the New Books Network. I am your host, Adam McNeil. On today’s podcast, I am interviewing Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Suzanne Young Murray Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Dr. Givens joins us to discuss Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching, published by our friends at Harvard University Press in 2021. In our discussion we chopped it up about Carter G. Woodson, Black educational history, the origin story behind "fugitive pedagogy" as a term, his journey from grad school at Berkeley, to his post at Harvard, and much much more. Enjoy the conversation family! Adam McNeil is a third year Ph.D. in History student at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 114Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro, "Minds Wide Shut How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Two very thoughtful oddfellows--a labor economist and a Russian literature scholar--take on the world's problems in their newest collaboration, Minds Wide Shut How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us (Princeton University Press, 2021). Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro bring to bear the remarkably powerful tool of great 19th century Realist literature (and other parts of the Western canon) to define and counter the all-or-nothing fundamentalisms that have come to divide us in recent years. They touch upon politics, religion and economics, as well as great literature itself, and advocate bridging the divides with assertion and dialogue rather than the crude dismissal of opponents based upon absolute, unyielding assumptions. Daniel Peris is Senior Vice President at Federated Hermes in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at [email protected] or via Twitter @HistoryInvestor. His History and Investing blog and Keep Calm & Carry On Investing podcast are at https://strategicdividendinvestor.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 18The Writing Center Today: An Interview with Gerd Bräuer
Listen to this interview of Gerd Bräuer, Head of the Schreibzentrum, the writing center, at Freiburg University of Education. We talk about the place of the internet in writing development, we talk about views on writing in German higher education and more widely in German society and culture, and we talk about Bert Brecht's journals. Tnterviewer: "What part does a person's biography play in their writing? And I mean the academic writing students do, or also, the academic writing we publish, and not just literature and memoir." Gerd Bräuer: "Well, in the writing process, there's something we call writer-based prose. And here the writer would really get the chance, from the institution and from the instructor, to pay attention to this first phase within the writing process, where the writer struggles with his or her own thoughts and ideas and also reconnects to what he or she has learned through the writing––or however else they've learned it––and the writer gets the chance to be always trying to figure out what to explore and how to explore it, before he or she starts to think about how to say it to a certain audience within a certain text genre. This writer-based prose is focused on immediate work with knowledge, with creating new knowledge. Peter Elbow, an American writing researcher that I admire greatly––he speaks about cooking, about letting your ideas boil and simmer, and then tasting to find out whether you like it and what to change. And all this I see as part of biographical work. You work on your biography as a learner, and that phenomenon, learning, is lifelong and includes everyone. So, with every single new writing assignment you get a learning chance. But of course, the institution or whoever assigns the writing would also have to provide the framework to make this learning happen." Daniel Shea, heads Scholarly Communications, a Special Series on the New Books Network. Daniel is Director of the Heidelberg Writing Program, a division of the Language Center at Heidelberg University, Germany. Just write [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 42Pandemic Perspectives: Graduating, Job Searching, and Being a New Professional
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear: the realities of completing a master’s program, initiating a job search, and transitioning into a new professional role during a pandemic; losses and silver linings around key milestones and traditions, the significance of physical spaces; lessons learned; and advice to other graduate students. Our guest is: Alex Schmied, M.S., an academic coordinator for Spectrum Scholars, a comprehensive college-to-career program for University of Delaware undergraduates on the autism spectrum. She supports students in obtaining their personal and academic success by providing holistic coaching sessions focused on executive functioning, academics, self-care, self-advocacy, social engagement, career exploration and interdependent living skills. Alex holds an M.S. in Higher Education Policy and Student Affairs from West Chester University and a B.S. in Public Health from Temple University, merging her two interests she loves identifying ways to support the whole student and focuses on wellbeing. She lives in Philadelphia, PA, a city she loves to explore. She prizes the time she spends with her friends, partner, family, and dogs. Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner, with a background in student affairs. She specializes in college student relationships, gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as assessment planning. Dana enjoys making (and, of course, eating) delicious, healthy food, practicing yoga, and wandering the Jersey shore. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Stacey Flower’s TEDx talk entitled, “The 5 People You Need to be Happy” Alex uses this when choosing “her circle” of people. The 5 People You Need To Be Happy | Stacey Flowers Drew Dudley’s TEDx Talk on “Everyday Leadership” A reminder to celebrate the little moments! Everyday Leadership | Drew Dudley “The Opposite of Loneliness” by Marina Keegan. Alex read this her senior year of undergrad when everything feels so uncertain. The author was the same age as Alex when she died in a car crash after graduating from Yale. The Opposite of Loneliness | Marina Keegan The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan NPR News Now Podcast and Inside Higher Ed. Alex uses these to stay informed as a new professional. NPR News Now Podcast & Inside Higher Ed NASPA New Professionals and Graduate Students Knowledge Community and ACPA Graduate Students and New Professionals Community of Practice. It’s also important to get involved in your field. NASPA New Professionals & Graduate Students Knowledge Community & ACPA Graduate Students and New Professionals Community of Practice Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. This was a classic grad school read that really opened Alex’s eyes. Pedagogy of the Oppressed | Paulo Freire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 8Esther Barazzone (2): President Emerita of Chatham University
Esther Barazzone describes the latter part of the transformation she led at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. In a whirlwind of activity in 2007-08, Chatham changed its status from a college to a university, to reflect the fact that a majority of its students were in graduate programs, and then made two major acquisitions – an $18 million investment in a 300,000+ sq. ft old manufacturing building in a struggling neighborhood 1-mile from its Shadyside Campus that became home to its graduate health science and interior architecture programs and the gift of 388-acre Eden Hall Farm, that was transformed over the next 8 years into the world’s greenest campus and the home for the Falk School of Sustainability and Environment. The final chapter in Barazzone’s transformation of Chatham came in 2014-15, with the difficult decision that the only way to save the undergraduate college was for it go all-gender. Barazzone describes the careful planning that went into the successful co-ed transition and offers her lessons from her 24-year career for new college presidents. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 7Esther Barazzone (1): President Emerita of Chatham University
When Esther Barazzone took over Chatham College in 1992, it was in danger of closing – selling off property each year surrounding its beautiful in Pittsburgh, PA campus to cover its budget shortfall. In this episode, she describes the first stages of her remarkable 24-year tenure that transformed Chatham from a small, all women’s liberal arts college of fewer than 600 students into a thriving 2200+ university with three campuses and innovative online doctoral degree programs. She discusses the educational and career experiences that gave her the capabilities needed to save Chatham and some of the difficult decisions to make this possible – including cutting 20% of faculty and staff in her first year to free the resources needed to launch graduate programs and the first NCAA women’s ice hockey program in Pennsylvania, and phasing out tenure to replace it with long-term, renewable contracts. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 155Michael J. Kruger, "Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College" (Crossway, 2021)
For many young adults, the college years are an exciting period of self-discovery full of new relationships, new independence, and new experiences. Yet college can also be a time of personal testing and intense questioning— especially for Christian students confronted with various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. In Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College (Crossway, 2021), Michael Kruger addresses common objections to the Christian faith—the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible. If you’re a student dealing with doubt or wrestling with objections to Christianity from fellow students and professors alike, this book will equip you to engage secular challenges with intellectual honesty, compassion, and confidence—and ultimately graduate college with your faith intact. Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 125Carolyn J. Heinrich, et al., "Equity and Quality in Digital Learning: Realizing the Promise in K-12 Education" (Harvard Education Press, 2020)
The COVID19 pandemic has profoundly changed the landscape of K-12 education in our society. Last March, many states closed their brick-and-mortar schools and shifted to remote education. The massive shift is historic and unprecedented. Until now, while we see the light at the end of the tunnel in our battle against the coronavirus, millions and millions of students are still learning at home via online platforms. It is also because of this shift that digital learning all of a sudden has drawn attention from not only educators but also the general public from families to policy makers. Over the past months we have seen concerted efforts to invest in digital learning and improve the required infrastructure. In spite of this unexpected yet much welcomed attention from the society at large, digital teaching and learning a field has existed for a long time. Experts in the field have been documenting and exploring the best practice of digital teaching and learning. Today I am going to talk with three researchers who have been working in this field for a long time, Carolyn Heinrich from Vanderbilt University, Jennifer Darling-Aduana from Georgia State University and Annalee G. Good from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Last year, they published their new book with Harvard Education Press, titled Equity and Quality in Digital Learning: Realizing the Promise in K-12 Education (2020). It systematically studies the implementation and best practice of using digital tools to reduce inequities in educational opportunities and improve student outcomes. Although the book was out right before the start of the pandemic, the lessons, best practice and insights they highlighted in their book have so much to offer for educators, policy makers and families to navigate a teaching-and-learning landscape during and after this pandemic. Carolyn J. Heinrich is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Public Policy and Education and Chair of the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, and an affiliated Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University. Jennifer Darling-Aduana is an Assistant Professor of Learning Technologies in the Department of Learning Sciences, College of Education and Human Development, at Georgia State University. Annalee G. Good is co-director of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative and Director of the Clinical Program at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Pengfei Zhao is a critical researcher and qualitative research methodologist based at the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 3Richard K. Miller (3): Founding President of Olin College of Engineering
In the concluding episode, Richard K. Miller, Olin College of Engineering President Emeritus, discusses how Olin has shared the key learnings from this innovative higher ed start-up, hosting over 800 groups from around the world who’ve come to observe what makes Olin so successful, and his current focus on translating these lessons about the value of hands-on, project-based learning to other top engineering institutions (UICU and MIT) and other academic disciplines. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 124Morten T. Korsgaard, "Bearing with Strangers: Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion" (Routledge, 2018)
Bearing with Strangers: Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion (Routledge, 2018) looks at inclusion in education in a new way. By introducing the notion of the instrumental fallacy, it shows how this is not only an inherent feature of inclusive education policies, but also omnipresent in modern educational policy. It engages with schooling through an Arendtian framework, namely as a practice with the aim of mediating between generations. It outlines a didactic and pedagogical theory that presents inclusion not as an aim for education, but as a constitutive feature of the activity of schooling. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, the book offers a novel and critical perspective on inclusive education, as well as a contribution to a growing literature re-engaging didactic and pedagogical conceptions of teaching and the role of the teacher. Schooling is understood as a process of opening the world to the young and of opening the world to the renewal that the new generations offer. The activity of schooling offers the possibility of becoming attentive towards what is common while learning to bear with that which is strange and those who are strangers. The book points to valuable metaphors and ideas - referred to in the book as 'pearls' - that speak to the heart of what schooling and teaching concerns, such as exemplarity, judgement, and enlarged thought. Kai Wortman is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Education, University of Tübingen, interested in philosophy of education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 2Richard K. Miller (2): Founding President of Olin College of Engineering
In part two of the interview with Rick Miller, the founding President of Olin College of Engineering, he describes the key elements of the Olin model that have helped this bold start-up become one of the most highly-rated and innovative models of undergraduate engineering education. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 39Pandemic Perspectives from a Recent College Graduate: A Discussion with Amy Sumerfield
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: social justice, chronic illness, the importance of self-advocacy and a support network, and what it’s like graduating from college and then applying to graduate school during a pandemic. Our guest is Amy Sumerfield, who describes herself like this: I am a 23 year old cisgendered woman living in Loveland, Colorado. I was born in South Korea and lived with a foster family there until I was five months old. I was eventually adopted by my current family where I then grew up in Boulder, Colorado. I am more than privileged to have the upbringing that I did and I would not be here today if it wasn't for their constant support. Growing up as an adoptee was certainly hard to process, and especially as I grew older, I began to struggle greatly with my multi intersectionality. Not only was I confused about my identity at the time, but I was also learning to live with an autoimmune disease - Lupus. I was diagnosed with Lupus when I was 11 years old, and having to limit my activity in an extremely active town was difficult and only added to my idea that I didn't fit in. It took a lot of ups and mostly downs for me to learn how to cope, but I eventually came out on a better end. I received my degrees in Social Work and Sociology from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado in August 2020 and am currently applying for my Masters in School Counseling. My goals are to take not only my educational background, but my personal experiences as well, to help advocate and support children and families in need. Although I had a very positive environment growing up, I had my own struggles and everyone does. Especially as children, they are extremely vulnerable and impressionable and I believe this is the most important time of their lives as it sets the foundation for their future and beyond. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. She is Amy’s first cousin. Christina co-created the Academic Life channel with Dr. Dana Malone during the pandemic. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: National Counsel for Adoption Family Resources Healthy Place: Mental Health Resources The Lupus Initiative Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 1Richard K. Miller (1): Founding President of Olin College of Engineering
This is the first of three episodes featuring Richard K. Miller, the Founding President of Olin College of Engineering, in Needham, MA. Olin was created in 1997, by at the time, the largest gift in higher education history, when the Olin Foundation decided to give its entire $460 million endowment to create a new college that could serve as a model for reinventing undergraduate engineering education. Miller, who served as Olin’s President from 1999 to 2020, describes his career before Olin and his decision to defy the advice of his colleagues and mentors to give up a secure, leadership position at the University of Iowa to join a start-up. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 123Emile Bojesen, "Forms of Education: Rethinking Educational Experience Against and Outside the Humanist Legacy" (Routledge, 2019)
Emile Bojesen's book Forms of Education: Rethinking Educational Experience Against and Outside the Humanist Legacy (Routledge, 2019) analyses the tenets of the humanist legacy in terms of its educational ethos, examining its contradictions and its limits, as well as the extent of its capture of educational thought. It develops a broader conception of educational experience, which challenges and exceeds the limits of the humanist educational legacy. The book defines education, openly and non-restrictively, as the (de)formation of non-stable subjects, arguing that education does not require specific formations, nor the formation of specific forms, only that form does not cease being formed in the experience of the non-stable subject. Exploding and pluralising what amounts to 'education', this book rethinks what might still be called 'educational experience' against and outside the humanist legacy that confines its meaning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 11John Sexton (4): President Emeritus of New York University
We conclude the discussion with NYU President Emeritus John Sexton by discussing key points from his book, “Standing for Reason: Universities in a Dogmatic Age,” where he describes the pivotal role of universities in creating a “Second Axial Age.” He also reflects on the leadership lessons from his successful tenure as NYU Law School Dean and President, and how he was able to teach a full course load on top of the demands of these positions. And he describes what may be the longest planned transition out of a University presidency that occurred between 2009 and 2016, as well as the wonderful life he’s built since he returned full-time to the NYU Law School faculty. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 6John Sexton (3): President Emeritus of New York University
NYU President Emeritus John Sexton provides a detailed history of the evolution of NYU into the world’s first, global network university. This began with the recognition that New York itself was home to immigrants and neighborhoods representing most of the world’s cultures. Version 2.0 involved foreign-language focused study away sites in Generalisimo Franco’s Madrid and Paris. Under Version 3.0 NYU added a large number of study abroad sites, each taking advantage of the distinctive strengths of its location (e.g. London for finance and theater). Version 4.0 featured transformational partnerships first with Abu Dhabi and then Shanghai to create comprehensive universities to develop global leaders and citizens that quickly became among the most selective and successful in the world. The COVID pandemic has accelerated the development of Version 5.0 by connecting all of these campuses more closely into a virtual network where students across the locations are taking shared courses. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 36A Field Guide to Grad School: A Conversation with Jessica McCrory Calarco
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear: things you really need to know to navigate graduate school, why there’s a hidden curriculum, and a discussion of the book A Field Guide to Grad School. Our guest is: Dr. Jessica McCrory Calarco, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University in Bloomington. She is the author of A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (Princeton, 2020), and Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in Schools (Oxford 2018). Her research examines inequalities in education and family life, which she has written about for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Inside Higher Ed, and The Conversation. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. She sincerely wished she had had a guide to graduate school; the lack of one coupled with the ongoing mysteries of the hidden curriculum of her PhD program led her to create a mentorship program while still a student. She later co-created the Academic Life channel for NBN with Dr. Dana Malone. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum by Jessica McCrory Calarco The Merit Myth by Anthony Carnevale, Peter Schmidt and Jeff Strohl The Hidden Curriculum by Rachel Gable Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School by Kimberly McKee and Denise Delgado, eds. The Academic Life channel on New Books Network Dr. Calarco’s graduate school advice here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 5John Sexton (2): President Emeritus of New York University
We continue the discussion with NYU President Emeritus John Sexton who shares how it took an intervention from his close friends to get him to give up his career as a professor of theology at St. Francis College and champion high school debate to go to law school and how it took a special recommendation from his friend and Constitutional Law Professor Lawrence Tribe to get Harvard Law to reconsider his initial rejection. He would go on to become one of the most successful law school deans in American history, lifting NYU into the upper echelon of legal education by systematically recruiting stars from the leading schools to join its faculty. It took several years for his close friend and eventual NYU Board chair to overcome his initial reluctance to become NYU President. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 12Ramsey McGlazer, "Old Schools: Modernism, Education, and the Critique of Progress" (Fordham UP, 2020)
Ramsey McGlazer's Old Schools: Moder nism, Education, and the Critique of Progress (Fordham University Press, 2020), traces the ways in which a group of modernist cultural practitioners (thinkers, politicians, artists, poets, novelists, and filmmakers) across varied linguistic and cultural contexts ((Italian, English, Irish, and Brazilian) resisted certain notions of education perceived as “progressive”. At the heart of this remarkable study, pulses a nexus of issues that are of interest to anyone teaching anything anywhere: What is education? How does it differ from “instruction”? What is education for? (if anything) What does it mean to ask the question “what is education for”? Who is education for? What are the stakes of that question? Education reforms from the end of the Victorian Era until the mid-20th century sought to surpass the “sterile and narrow” forms of education that insisted on rote learning (memorization, declamation, imitation, and so forth) that did not help students of any age or grade “transform.” Resisting the ideology of “progressive” education, the figures in McGlazer’s fascinating study propose instead a “counter tradition” that sought to offer resistant strategies in “old school” pedagogies focusing on rote means, reproducing (though McGlazer will “queer” that term) ordained content. The practitioners McGlazer focuses on include figures like Walter Pater, author of the influential Studies in the History of the Renaissance, first published in 1873 and whose interest in mechanistic pedagogies anchors the first chapter. Giovanni Pascoli and his focus on grammar follows, then a chapter on “direct instruction” in James Joyce’s Ulysses. McGlazer concludes by focusing on films centering on instruction, like the pedagogy of pain in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) and avant-garde Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha’s film Claro (1975). McGlazer’s focus on this nucleus of texts and practitioners from the end of the 19th Century to about the middle of the 20th gives rise to questions about tradition, resistance, and the ideology of education that are evergreen and of interest to educators in a wide array of places and spaces and Old Schools will be of interest to anyone who has taught and anyone who has learned. Ellen Nerenberg is a founding editor of g/s/i-gender/sexuality/Italy and reviews editor of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies. Recent scholarly essays focus on serial television in Italy, the UK, and North America; masculinities in Italian cinema and media studies; and student filmmakers. Her current book project is La nazione Winx: coltivare la futura consumista/Winx Nation: Grooming the Future Female Consumer, a collaboration with Nicoletta Marini-Maio (forthcoming, Rubbettino Editore, 2020). She is President of the American Association for Italian Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 4John Sexton (1): President Emeritus of New York University
New York University (NYU) President Emeritus and consummate story-teller John Sexton describes how his childhood experiences as a young entrepreneur growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn prepared him to lead the world’s largest private university. He shares the profound impact that his teacher and mentor, Charlie, had on his lifelong passion for teaching, and the role that high-school forensics, first as a national champion debater, then as a volunteer coach of the debate at the local Catholic girls high school had on his vision of the modern, ecumenical university. David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 10Free College is Bad Public Policy
One of the major debates surrounding higher education is whether to make college – whether 2- or 4-year public colleges and universities – free for all qualified applicants. Dr. David Finegold, President of Chatham University, discusses why this is bad public policy, based on comparisons with the experience in the UK and Germany and an analysis of the policy proposal in the US context. He shows that the two key elements of a more equitable and effective approach already exist and simply need to be expanded – doubling the resources available for Pell grants to increase the level of grant and the income thresholds for those families who qualify for it, and converting all Federal Student Loans to income-contingent repayment so individuals only begin repaying the investment in their education once they are earning enough to afford it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 9An Introduction to "The Future of Higher Education" Podcast
Dr. David Finegold, the President of Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA and international expert on education and training systems and how they relate to changes underway in the global economy and workplace, provides an introduction to this new podcast which will focus on the forces that are shaping The Future of Higher Education and leaders that have found ways to help their institutions thrive in this challenging environment. He discusses the long-term trends that are disrupting the higher education marketplace – demographic decline in number of high school graduates, rising price competition, declining public funding, growth in large, higher quality online providers – that have been compounded by the pandemic. And he outlines the different types of episodes to come: interview with university leaders who have transformed the fortunes of their colleges and universities for the better, who have pioneered new models of higher education, or have created strategic partnerships or mergers that have enabled their institutions to continue to pursue their mission in a new way. He’ll also be speaking with leading experts on higher education, like Nathan Grawe and Mary Marcy, about their new books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 101Cristina V. Groeger, "The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Education is thought to be the route out of poverty, but history disagrees. For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality. The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston (Harvard UP, 2021) returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger's test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences--both intended and unintended--for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality. The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace. Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Ep 14Matt Brim, "Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University" (Duke UP, 2020)
In Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (Duke UP, 2020), Matt Brim shifts queer studies away from its familiar sites of elite education toward poor and working-class people, places, and pedagogies. Brim shows how queer studies also takes place beyond the halls of flagship institutions: in night school; after a three-hour commute; in overflowing classrooms at no-name colleges; with no research budget; without access to decent food; with kids in tow; in a state of homelessness. Drawing on the everyday experiences of teaching and learning queer studies at the College of Staten Island, Brim outlines the ways the field has been driven by the material and intellectual resources of those institutions that neglect and rarely serve poor and minority students. By exploring poor and working-class queer ideas and laying bare the structural and disciplinary mechanisms of inequality that suppress them, Brim jumpstarts a queer-class knowledge project committed to anti-elitist and anti-racist education. Poor Queer Studies is essential for all of those who care about the state of higher education and building a more equitable academy. Matt Brim is Associate Professor of Queer Studies in the English Department at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York; author of James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination; and coeditor of Imagining Queer Methods. John Marszalek III is author of Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi (2020, University Press of Mississippi). He is clinical faculty of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at Southern New Hampshire University. Website: Johnmarszalek3.com Twitter: @marsjf3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education