Arts & Humanities: Toward a Flourishing State?

Network for Academic Renewal Conference
November 3-5, 2011
Providence, Rhode Island

Pre-Conference Workshops

Thursday, November 3, 2:00 – 5:00 P.M.
separate registration and fee required ($100 member, $125 non-member)

CANCELLED Workshop 1: From Literacy to Multimodality:  Implications for Teaching and Learning  
This workshop will review key issues in defining and understanding literacy and multimodality in their current and changing forms.  The facilitator will summarize findings from interviews with graduatestudents who have given extensive thought to what it means to be literate and the ways that literacy is linked to learning.  Participants will discuss how to use these findings to adapt their teaching to current and evolving uses of technology and the ways these changes influence the process of making meaning.
Eileen Landay, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Brown University

Workshop 2: Creating Artists: Partnering the Liberal Arts with Study in the Fine and Performing Arts
Participants will consider the ways that institutions are partnering traditional liberal arts and sciences disciplines and arts education throughout arts courses and activities.  They will explore the potential this partnership has for positive impact on student learning and discuss opportunities to enhance this partnership for students in non-arts settings.  This workshop is designed for educators who teach performing and fine art students and those interested in exploring ways to advance creativity and artistry with other liberal arts disciplines.
Camille Colatosti, Chair, Liberal Arts, Berklee College of Music; and Ron Levy, Chair, Humanities Department, The Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University

Workshop 3: Using Creative Artifacts to Assess Liberal Learning
Creative artifacts (novels, films, artwork, etc.) are valued when they are produced by established creators, but when assessing student learning, faculty are likely to ask for expository prose to assess the learning outcomes of various creative assignments.  Participants will consider the potential of artistic inquiry to generate evidence of liberal learning as typically pursued in the humanities and create a provisional assessment rubric that speaks to liberal learning.
Robert C. Lagueux, Assistant Professor of English and Director, First-Year Seminar, Columbia College Chicago; and David H. Krause, Associate Provost,  Dominican University

Workshop 4: Building Sustainable Engaged Arts and Humanities Programs
Facilitators will discuss components necessary to the serious study of engaged arts and humanities in higher education: training/disciplinary knowledge; scholarship; and hands-on experience in interactive settings where these ideas are applied.  Participants will apply this model of engaged learning in real-world and community settings in the context of their own syllabi and identify challenges and opportunities to civically engaged cultural partnerships. Annie Valk, National Advisory Board Member, Imagining America, and Associate Director for Programs, Brown University; Adam Bush, Director, Publicly Active Graduate Education Program, Imagining America; and Jan Cohen‑Cruz, Director, Imagining America, and University Professor, Syracuse University  
Sponsored by Imagining America

Workshop 5: Interdisciplinary Faculty Development that Fosters Interdisciplinary Faculty Work
Wheelock College's innovative Faculty Development and Evaluation Process connects junior faculty members with senior faculty mentors from different disciplines in an intensive mentoring process. Offered by a team of faculty members with an academic leader, this workshop will begin with narratives by junior and senior faculty members about how the process works and its advantages and challenges. Participants will then discuss and plan ways to put such a process in place on their own campus.
Nicole Dubus, Assistant Professor, Social Work; Marjorie Hall, Chair of the Arts Department and Associate Professor, Art History; Susan Kosoff, Professor, Theater; Roy Old Person, Assistant Professor, Social Work; Hope Haslam Straughan, Interim Chair of Social Work and Director, MSW Program; Lenette Azzi-Lessing, Assistant Professor of Social Work; and Julie Wollman, Vice President for Academic Affairs—all of Wheelock College