Star Trek: Into Darkness is the new Star Trek movie that is currently playing on thousands of multiplex cinema screens. I saw it last weekend with my 14 year-old niece and 11 year-old nephew. My niece really wanted to see The Great Gatsby, but deferred to her action-loving brother. I was interested in seeing Star Trek: Into Darkness after reading an article that argues that the progressive Star Trek franchise has one glaring omission: it does not depict Lesbian-Bisexual-Gay-Transgender (LBGT) people and perspectives. I wondered if the new movie would include these folks as crew members. The answer: no. In fact, Star Trek: Into Darkness was a pretty typical action movie with little else going on, and it was a much less interesting than the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Hopefully the next installment will present the social commentary that is a hallmark of the franchise.
Archive: May 2013
San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world, and I was able to visit twice recently: April 26-29 to attend the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, and May 24-26 to take a workshop at the Center for Digital Storytelling. In both trips I was also able to visit family and friends.
What I forgot to do both times was to go see what’s in the space formally occupied by a bookstore: A Clean, Well Lighted Place for Books. Why? I wanted to revisit the scene of one of my earliest introductions to the wonderful eccentricity of SF.
It was the summer of 2002 and I was in town to visit my girlfriend (now wife) in our long distance relationship. It was a weekday, so I was wandering around town while she was at work. Earlier that morning Valerie had suggested that I go check out the bookstore, which was a short walk from her apartment. As I entered I saw an older white man browsing a table full of paperbacks. He caught my eye because he looked like my department chair at the time!
I walked toward him, behind two other men: a white guy, and a Latino. My department chair look-alike said hello to each person, using his take on culturally appropriate greetings.
To the White man: “Hey, how ya doin’?”
To the Latino man: “¿Hola, cómo estás?”
To me, the African American man: “As-Salaam-Alaikum, my brother!”
I can’t remember how the other cats reacted, but I just nodded, as I was too shocked to provide a culturally appropriate response, such as “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.” I’ll be ready next time, however!
I know many folks who are annoyed by those who use what they believe are cultural appropriate expressions with members of different ethnic or racial groups, especially when they are incorrect in their assumptions. I welcome these attempts, as they are reaching out to try to make a connection, when they can so easily ignore those who are different from them. What do you think, readers?
Today I created my very first Craigslist curb alert. More accurately, a friend created one for me. For folks who don’t know what this is (as was the case for me before today), a Craigslist curb alert is a notification on the craigslist.org website about garage sales. In preparation to move to Wisconsin I’m putting the Minneapolis house on the market, and step one is to clean out nine years worth of junk from the basement. A friend informed me that 90% of “junk” would be snapped up by others if I put it out for free. So I gave it a try.
The first customer arrived 15 minutes after the announcement was posted, and he was followed by a steady stream of others…and the first guy returned an hour later (!). When I left for the airport two hours after the announcement was posted 80% of the items were gone; maybe when the friend takes in leftovers tomorrow his predicted 90% mark will be met.
The most interesting thing about the curb alert? A very rich assortment of people picked up stuff. There were recent immigrants who walked over from a nearby public housing project, as well as people rolling up in BMWs. There were blacks, whites, Latino/as, and Asian Americans. Children hauled items alongside the elderly. The scene was a little United Nations!
One family tried to give me $5 after taking several items. I hope I did not violate some Craigslist rule by refusing it. I was just happy that I was saved a trip to the city dump!
Google Glasses are being touted as a next big technological revolution, and folks are lining up for the opportunity to lay hands on this augmented reality tool. In February Google ran an “If I Had Glass” campaign, where one submitted an entry via Twitter and/or Google+ in an attempt to receive a pre-mass production version and provide feedback to Google about its operation. My Twitter and Google+ entries included a link to a video I made on Vine, a new social media network that allows users to upload and comment on six-second video loops. As you can imagine, there is a lot of porn that must be skirted, but interesting things can actually be done within the confines of a six-second video limit (as is also the case for a 140-character tweet). My Vine is not in that category, but it can still capture the judges’ attention, I hope! Here was my tweet with embedded Vine:
#ifihadglass I could go beyond the norm as a new collegiate dean who starts on July 1, 2013 http://vine.co/v/bglJv32b1u5
I’m not sure if I really want to be a “Glass Explorer” who has the opportunity to purchase a pair of Google Glasses for $1500 before they are released to the general public; do I really want to be an early adapter who spends that much money on a product that is sure to have bugs, and is already facing restrictions, such as in bars and in state law?! It would sure be fun to do additional research about potential uses if given the opportunity, though! Maybe there is an updated version of technorealism out there somewhere….
In a March 27, 2013 article for Inside Higher Education, Lawrence Abele discussed “The Associate Professor as Chair.” Abele wrote, “It is unfortunate that any administrator would feel it necessary to impose on those still building their faculty careers to fill the role of department chair…However, once the decision is made to appoint an associate or assistant professor to that position, there are certain procedures that should be followed.” I agree with Professor Abele that full professors should be the default choice for department chairs, and that assistant professors should be appointed only in the most extreme circumstances. I also very much appreciate his list of suggestions for how a dean can work with those who are not full professors to make sure that they stay on track for promotion. This will come in very handy when I become Dean of Social Sciences and Professional Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, as several of the department chairs are associate professors.
I want to present another side of the story, however: there are at least two positive reasons for appointing associate professors as department chairs. First, an associate professor may bring energy and excitement to the role that is not otherwise possible. Abele noted, “[appointing non-full professors] suggests that the senior faculty in those departments do not care about the unit or that the dean does not have confidence in their ability to lead their colleagues.” This may be true in some circumstances, but a paucity of senior faculty available to serve as department chair can also be the result of location at the other end of the spectrum: the senior faculty care deeply about the unit and have served multiple terms as effective department chairs, and need a break from the demands of the position. That was the case when I became a department chair as an associate professor in 2007. The two full professors in my small department of ten faculty obtained much administrative success during their terms, and were very active in supporting me as I learned the ropes, but needed time to complete long-delayed scholarly projects.
A second positive of department chair service as an associate professor: the chair could discover a passion for administration and decide to make the switch to devote several years – or the bulk of her/his career – on that side of the academic house. Two friends became department chairs in their late 50s and discovered a real taste and skill set for administration, and wish that they had discovered the path earlier. As a new dean at 45 I will have 20+ years to make administrative contributions. Am I joining “The Dark Side”?!? No way!
Today I am attending my college’s commencement ceremonies. (Yes, ceremonies; the college is so large that there are two sessions.) This may be the last time I attend an event in rented academic regalia. As a faculty member I could choose when to attend events like commencement and the new student convocation. As a dean, however, my presence will be required, so I might as well buy my regalia. Looking back, maybe during negotiations to accept the job I should have asked for an allowance to buy the regalia? That could be something to ponder for those who are thinking about full-time administrative jobs.
For a few years I’ve worn a t-shirt with “contexts.org” on the front, and I have received a few questions about it over the years, though always from folks who appear to be middle-aged, middle-class whites. Today two “unusual suspects” asked me about the t-shirt: a white teenage guy who took my order at a sandwich shop, and a thirty-something African American man sporting dreadlocks and multiple tattoos. After I explained that Contexts is a sociology magazine for a mass audience the African American guy exclaimed, “I love sociology! I will check out contexts.org when I get home.” Awesome!
I am currently living in Charlotte, NC. My wife has a new job here, and I’m using a Spring 2013 release from teaching to work on research projects here before moving to Wisconsin in July to start my new position as a dean. I have been travelling to Minnesota at least once a month to meet with research collaborators and attend meetings for service obligations. On the April 10-12, 2013 trip a neighbor who knew about my Minneapolis-Charlotte dual household arrangement told me about a letter to the editor in the Minneapolis StarTribune, “Minnesota Not So Nice,” in which a recent transplant from Atlanta, GA (my home town!) concludes:
“Minnesota Polite?” Sure.
“Minnesota Reserved?” Definitely.
“Minnesota Standoffish?” Absolutely.
“Minnesota Nice?” Yeah, not so much.
Earlier in the piece the author notes, “I moved up here a year ago from Atlanta, where having a 20-minute conversation with strangers in line at the grocery store, waving at cars driving down your street and making newcomers feel welcome is an everyday occurrence.” He goes on to provide examples of “Minnesota Nice,” where Minnesotans are courteous but reserved, and slow to open up to newcomers.
My family moved to Atlanta from Raleigh, NC when I was two years old, and I lived there until I graduated from college (Georgia Tech) in 1990. From 1990 until 2012 I lived in the Midwest, in Indiana and Minnesota. Since my return to the South in December, 2012 I have discovered just how much of a Minnesotan I have become in 13 years (I moved there in August, 1999). I don’t like it when strangers come up to me in Charlotte stores to chat (for example, an older African American woman once stopped me in a Target: “Where are you from? You look like my godson! What’s your name?”), and when I go to the dry cleaners I pray that I get the surly but efficient cashier, and not the chatty guy who forgets to give me my receipt. The surly one must be from the Midwest.
Of course, “Minnesota Nice” can be used as a stereotype when it goes beyond existing evidence, but there are indeed regional cultural differences that one quickly discovers, as has the writer of the letter to the editor. Learning the nuances of these differences can ease a transition to a new environment. I’m looking forward to going back to the Midwest, and discovering unique aspects of life in Wisconsin. Maybe there is a “Wisconsin Nice”?
Today I am thinking about the TV show Breaking Bad. No, not because I am excited about the recently announced August 11, 2013 second half premiere of season 5; I have Ted Beneke on the brain. For readers who are not Breaking Bad watchers (or for those who are, but have forgotten some of the minor characters), Ted Beneke was the president of a family-owned fabricating company that employed Skylar White as the bookkeeper. Skylar White used $600,00 of the proceeds from husband Walter White’s meth manufacturing operation to close an IRS audit of Beneke Fabricators and pay back taxes Ted owed to the IRS. OK, got all of that? There will be a quiz on Tuesday :).
Ted is on my mind today as an example of “conspicuous consumption,” a term coined by sociologist Thorstein Veblen in the 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class, and today defined by Wikipedia as “the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power – either the buyer’s income or the buyer’s accumulated wealth.” In an attempt to save his troubled business Ted sold many of his luxury goods, but after the cash infusion one of his initial purchases was a new Mercedes-Benz car. When confronted by Skylar about why he did not spend the money on seemingly more important items such as re-hiring furloughed employees, Ted responded that he has to look impressive when he meets with business clients.
I bought a “new” car last month, partly because my current car is not a pretty sight, with its peeling paint and cracked windshield. “New” is in quotes because the car is a 2007 model with 67,000 miles on it. That’s an improvement over the current 2000 ride, but it’s the first time since my initial car purchase in 1987 that I have not selected a new car. (The current 2000 Honda Accord was a gift from my mother-in-law to my wife when she went to graduate school in 2010.) The initial 1987 purchase at the beginning of my sophomore year of college was a 1979 Honda Accord with 120,000 miles; it had 190,000 miles when I bought my first new car (a 1992 Acura Integra) in 1991. I subsequently leased three new cars. When the last lease expired in 2010 my wife and I decided to not get another new car in order to save money for her graduate school expenses; I rode the bus to work and used the Zipcar car-sharing service while my wife used her mother’s car in North Carolina.
While I don’t need to be quite as concerned with appearances as businessman Ted Beneke, I don’t want to look shabby as a new Dean! My initial preference was to lease another new car, but I’ll be putting too many miles on a vehicle in the next couple of years to justify leasing, so I decided to investigate used cars. I ended up with a Nissan Murano SL. The “L” in SL is for “luxury,” so I’m happy. A Murano is not a Mercedes by any stretch of the imagination, but it has style, so I don’t have to worry about the negative perceptions of owning a “hooptie,” a car with problems. I suppose, though, that driving a hooptie would invite less scrutiny than if I were rolling around a college campus in a $100,000 car. I won’t have to worry about the latter possibility for many years to come…if ever.
Welcome to Dispatches from a New Dean! I’m Walt Jacobs, currently an Associate Professor in the Department of African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota. Before joining African American & African Studies as chairperson in 2007 (serving through 2012), I held faculty positions in the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, and the University of Minnesota General College, the former entry point for many students of color and first generation students. My Ph.D. degree is in sociology from Indiana University, and my undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. My research explores personal and social possibilities of undergraduate students’ generation of creative digital nonfiction; see “The Pedagogy of Digital Storytelling in the College Classroom” as an example.
On July 1 I will become Professor and Founding Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Professional Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Before the move I will write about preparation for assuming that position, and after July 1 I will chronicle my first year in the creation of a new unit. I view academic leadership as both a science and an art: important considerations for decision making cannot be completely captured in a spreadsheet when balancing compliance with changing financial/organizational realities, fidelity to tradition and established best practices, and a commitment to innovation.
In this blog I will also write about media culture (movies and TV shows), technology, and social identities. I look forward to reading your feedback!
San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world, and I was able to visit twice recently: April 26-29 to attend the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, and May 24-26 to take a workshop at the Center for Digital Storytelling. In both trips I was also able to visit family and friends.
What I forgot to do both times was to go see what’s in the space formally occupied by a bookstore: A Clean, Well Lighted Place for Books. Why? I wanted to revisit the scene of one of my earliest introductions to the wonderful eccentricity of SF.
It was the summer of 2002 and I was in town to visit my girlfriend (now wife) in our long distance relationship. It was a weekday, so I was wandering around town while she was at work. Earlier that morning Valerie had suggested that I go check out the bookstore, which was a short walk from her apartment. As I entered I saw an older white man browsing a table full of paperbacks. He caught my eye because he looked like my department chair at the time!
I walked toward him, behind two other men: a white guy, and a Latino. My department chair look-alike said hello to each person, using his take on culturally appropriate greetings.
To the White man: “Hey, how ya doin’?”
To the Latino man: “¿Hola, cómo estás?”
To me, the African American man: “As-Salaam-Alaikum, my brother!”
I can’t remember how the other cats reacted, but I just nodded, as I was too shocked to provide a culturally appropriate response, such as “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.” I’ll be ready next time, however!
I know many folks who are annoyed by those who use what they believe are cultural appropriate expressions with members of different ethnic or racial groups, especially when they are incorrect in their assumptions. I welcome these attempts, as they are reaching out to try to make a connection, when they can so easily ignore those who are different from them. What do you think, readers?
Today I created my very first Craigslist curb alert. More accurately, a friend created one for me. For folks who don’t know what this is (as was the case for me before today), a Craigslist curb alert is a notification on the craigslist.org website about garage sales. In preparation to move to Wisconsin I’m putting the Minneapolis house on the market, and step one is to clean out nine years worth of junk from the basement. A friend informed me that 90% of “junk” would be snapped up by others if I put it out for free. So I gave it a try.
The first customer arrived 15 minutes after the announcement was posted, and he was followed by a steady stream of others…and the first guy returned an hour later (!). When I left for the airport two hours after the announcement was posted 80% of the items were gone; maybe when the friend takes in leftovers tomorrow his predicted 90% mark will be met.
The most interesting thing about the curb alert? A very rich assortment of people picked up stuff. There were recent immigrants who walked over from a nearby public housing project, as well as people rolling up in BMWs. There were blacks, whites, Latino/as, and Asian Americans. Children hauled items alongside the elderly. The scene was a little United Nations!
One family tried to give me $5 after taking several items. I hope I did not violate some Craigslist rule by refusing it. I was just happy that I was saved a trip to the city dump!
Google Glasses are being touted as a next big technological revolution, and folks are lining up for the opportunity to lay hands on this augmented reality tool. In February Google ran an “If I Had Glass” campaign, where one submitted an entry via Twitter and/or Google+ in an attempt to receive a pre-mass production version and provide feedback to Google about its operation. My Twitter and Google+ entries included a link to a video I made on Vine, a new social media network that allows users to upload and comment on six-second video loops. As you can imagine, there is a lot of porn that must be skirted, but interesting things can actually be done within the confines of a six-second video limit (as is also the case for a 140-character tweet). My Vine is not in that category, but it can still capture the judges’ attention, I hope! Here was my tweet with embedded Vine:
#ifihadglass I could go beyond the norm as a new collegiate dean who starts on July 1, 2013 http://vine.co/v/bglJv32b1u5
I’m not sure if I really want to be a “Glass Explorer” who has the opportunity to purchase a pair of Google Glasses for $1500 before they are released to the general public; do I really want to be an early adapter who spends that much money on a product that is sure to have bugs, and is already facing restrictions, such as in bars and in state law?! It would sure be fun to do additional research about potential uses if given the opportunity, though! Maybe there is an updated version of technorealism out there somewhere….
In a March 27, 2013 article for Inside Higher Education, Lawrence Abele discussed “The Associate Professor as Chair.” Abele wrote, “It is unfortunate that any administrator would feel it necessary to impose on those still building their faculty careers to fill the role of department chair…However, once the decision is made to appoint an associate or assistant professor to that position, there are certain procedures that should be followed.” I agree with Professor Abele that full professors should be the default choice for department chairs, and that assistant professors should be appointed only in the most extreme circumstances. I also very much appreciate his list of suggestions for how a dean can work with those who are not full professors to make sure that they stay on track for promotion. This will come in very handy when I become Dean of Social Sciences and Professional Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, as several of the department chairs are associate professors.
I want to present another side of the story, however: there are at least two positive reasons for appointing associate professors as department chairs. First, an associate professor may bring energy and excitement to the role that is not otherwise possible. Abele noted, “[appointing non-full professors] suggests that the senior faculty in those departments do not care about the unit or that the dean does not have confidence in their ability to lead their colleagues.” This may be true in some circumstances, but a paucity of senior faculty available to serve as department chair can also be the result of location at the other end of the spectrum: the senior faculty care deeply about the unit and have served multiple terms as effective department chairs, and need a break from the demands of the position. That was the case when I became a department chair as an associate professor in 2007. The two full professors in my small department of ten faculty obtained much administrative success during their terms, and were very active in supporting me as I learned the ropes, but needed time to complete long-delayed scholarly projects.
A second positive of department chair service as an associate professor: the chair could discover a passion for administration and decide to make the switch to devote several years – or the bulk of her/his career – on that side of the academic house. Two friends became department chairs in their late 50s and discovered a real taste and skill set for administration, and wish that they had discovered the path earlier. As a new dean at 45 I will have 20+ years to make administrative contributions. Am I joining “The Dark Side”?!? No way!
Today I am attending my college’s commencement ceremonies. (Yes, ceremonies; the college is so large that there are two sessions.) This may be the last time I attend an event in rented academic regalia. As a faculty member I could choose when to attend events like commencement and the new student convocation. As a dean, however, my presence will be required, so I might as well buy my regalia. Looking back, maybe during negotiations to accept the job I should have asked for an allowance to buy the regalia? That could be something to ponder for those who are thinking about full-time administrative jobs.
For a few years I’ve worn a t-shirt with “contexts.org” on the front, and I have received a few questions about it over the years, though always from folks who appear to be middle-aged, middle-class whites. Today two “unusual suspects” asked me about the t-shirt: a white teenage guy who took my order at a sandwich shop, and a thirty-something African American man sporting dreadlocks and multiple tattoos. After I explained that Contexts is a sociology magazine for a mass audience the African American guy exclaimed, “I love sociology! I will check out contexts.org when I get home.” Awesome!
I am currently living in Charlotte, NC. My wife has a new job here, and I’m using a Spring 2013 release from teaching to work on research projects here before moving to Wisconsin in July to start my new position as a dean. I have been travelling to Minnesota at least once a month to meet with research collaborators and attend meetings for service obligations. On the April 10-12, 2013 trip a neighbor who knew about my Minneapolis-Charlotte dual household arrangement told me about a letter to the editor in the Minneapolis StarTribune, “Minnesota Not So Nice,” in which a recent transplant from Atlanta, GA (my home town!) concludes:
“Minnesota Polite?” Sure.
“Minnesota Reserved?” Definitely.
“Minnesota Standoffish?” Absolutely.
“Minnesota Nice?” Yeah, not so much.
Earlier in the piece the author notes, “I moved up here a year ago from Atlanta, where having a 20-minute conversation with strangers in line at the grocery store, waving at cars driving down your street and making newcomers feel welcome is an everyday occurrence.” He goes on to provide examples of “Minnesota Nice,” where Minnesotans are courteous but reserved, and slow to open up to newcomers.
My family moved to Atlanta from Raleigh, NC when I was two years old, and I lived there until I graduated from college (Georgia Tech) in 1990. From 1990 until 2012 I lived in the Midwest, in Indiana and Minnesota. Since my return to the South in December, 2012 I have discovered just how much of a Minnesotan I have become in 13 years (I moved there in August, 1999). I don’t like it when strangers come up to me in Charlotte stores to chat (for example, an older African American woman once stopped me in a Target: “Where are you from? You look like my godson! What’s your name?”), and when I go to the dry cleaners I pray that I get the surly but efficient cashier, and not the chatty guy who forgets to give me my receipt. The surly one must be from the Midwest.
Of course, “Minnesota Nice” can be used as a stereotype when it goes beyond existing evidence, but there are indeed regional cultural differences that one quickly discovers, as has the writer of the letter to the editor. Learning the nuances of these differences can ease a transition to a new environment. I’m looking forward to going back to the Midwest, and discovering unique aspects of life in Wisconsin. Maybe there is a “Wisconsin Nice”?
Today I am thinking about the TV show Breaking Bad. No, not because I am excited about the recently announced August 11, 2013 second half premiere of season 5; I have Ted Beneke on the brain. For readers who are not Breaking Bad watchers (or for those who are, but have forgotten some of the minor characters), Ted Beneke was the president of a family-owned fabricating company that employed Skylar White as the bookkeeper. Skylar White used $600,00 of the proceeds from husband Walter White’s meth manufacturing operation to close an IRS audit of Beneke Fabricators and pay back taxes Ted owed to the IRS. OK, got all of that? There will be a quiz on Tuesday :).
Ted is on my mind today as an example of “conspicuous consumption,” a term coined by sociologist Thorstein Veblen in the 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class, and today defined by Wikipedia as “the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power – either the buyer’s income or the buyer’s accumulated wealth.” In an attempt to save his troubled business Ted sold many of his luxury goods, but after the cash infusion one of his initial purchases was a new Mercedes-Benz car. When confronted by Skylar about why he did not spend the money on seemingly more important items such as re-hiring furloughed employees, Ted responded that he has to look impressive when he meets with business clients.
I bought a “new” car last month, partly because my current car is not a pretty sight, with its peeling paint and cracked windshield. “New” is in quotes because the car is a 2007 model with 67,000 miles on it. That’s an improvement over the current 2000 ride, but it’s the first time since my initial car purchase in 1987 that I have not selected a new car. (The current 2000 Honda Accord was a gift from my mother-in-law to my wife when she went to graduate school in 2010.) The initial 1987 purchase at the beginning of my sophomore year of college was a 1979 Honda Accord with 120,000 miles; it had 190,000 miles when I bought my first new car (a 1992 Acura Integra) in 1991. I subsequently leased three new cars. When the last lease expired in 2010 my wife and I decided to not get another new car in order to save money for her graduate school expenses; I rode the bus to work and used the Zipcar car-sharing service while my wife used her mother’s car in North Carolina.
While I don’t need to be quite as concerned with appearances as businessman Ted Beneke, I don’t want to look shabby as a new Dean! My initial preference was to lease another new car, but I’ll be putting too many miles on a vehicle in the next couple of years to justify leasing, so I decided to investigate used cars. I ended up with a Nissan Murano SL. The “L” in SL is for “luxury,” so I’m happy. A Murano is not a Mercedes by any stretch of the imagination, but it has style, so I don’t have to worry about the negative perceptions of owning a “hooptie,” a car with problems. I suppose, though, that driving a hooptie would invite less scrutiny than if I were rolling around a college campus in a $100,000 car. I won’t have to worry about the latter possibility for many years to come…if ever.
Welcome to Dispatches from a New Dean! I’m Walt Jacobs, currently an Associate Professor in the Department of African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota. Before joining African American & African Studies as chairperson in 2007 (serving through 2012), I held faculty positions in the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, and the University of Minnesota General College, the former entry point for many students of color and first generation students. My Ph.D. degree is in sociology from Indiana University, and my undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. My research explores personal and social possibilities of undergraduate students’ generation of creative digital nonfiction; see “The Pedagogy of Digital Storytelling in the College Classroom” as an example.
On July 1 I will become Professor and Founding Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Professional Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Before the move I will write about preparation for assuming that position, and after July 1 I will chronicle my first year in the creation of a new unit. I view academic leadership as both a science and an art: important considerations for decision making cannot be completely captured in a spreadsheet when balancing compliance with changing financial/organizational realities, fidelity to tradition and established best practices, and a commitment to innovation.
In this blog I will also write about media culture (movies and TV shows), technology, and social identities. I look forward to reading your feedback!