Library News

Kris Lou, Director of International Education, will be the first presenter in this year’s Faculty Colloquium Series. Lou will present on, “Student Intercultural Learning Abroad: What They’re Learning, What They’re Not, and What We Can Do About It”, Friday, Nov. 4th at 3 p.m. in the Hatfield Room at the Library.

Abstract: Study abroad students – US and international – are not developing the intercultural competence abroad that we expect. Intervention for intercultural learning in study abroad is proving to be an effective solution to this deficit. In this colloquium I will present a learning model (the Intentional, Targeted Intervention ITI Model) that is grounded in theories of student learning and intercultural development, informed by recent research on learning outcomes of study abroad, and reverse engineered to allow the learning outcome of intercultural development to drive the model’s design.

I will first introduce some of the theory that informs us about the nature of intercultural learning and provides us with the reasoning behind intentionally intervening in student learning abroad. Then I will briefly review recent research that confirms the theoretical predictions regarding intercultural learning abroad. Finally, I’ll discuss the ITI model together with an empirical assessment of how our students fare under this guided facilitation. I will also include data on international student learning in the US since the ITI Model integrates international students on US campuses with US students abroad in asynchronous learning communities, which empower the learner to function both as learner and teacher.

Please join us on Friday, April 8 from 12:40–1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for the Faculty Colloquium.  The Colloquium will be presented by James B. Thompson, Professor of Art, and is titled Linear Metaphysics: Contemporary Mark-Making and Time-Based Art Works.

His abstract:

Please join us on Friday, April 1, from 12:40–1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for this week’s Faculty Colloquium. The Colloquium will be presented by Sarah Kirk, Associate Professor of Chemistry.

The title of the talk is: Two Case Studies in Drug Design: Putting Together a Puzzle without a Picture

Her abstract:
Most medications are designed to either target a pathogen or correct a chemical imbalance.  My research focuses on designing drugs that target specific receptors in the body for distinct purposes, a process known as “rational drug design.” We work to understand relationships among the drug’s molecular structure, the interaction with the body’s receptors, and therapeutic result. This talk will focus on discovering the size and shape of the receptors, designing drugs to fit them, and how all the pieces must be put together like a puzzle.

Please join us on Friday, March 11, from 12:40–1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for this week’s Faculty Colloquium. The Colloquium will be presented by Stasinos Stavrianeas, Professor of Exercise Science, and Mark Stewart, Professor of Psychology.

The title of the talk is: iScience 3.0: An Integrated Science Framework for Engaging Students and Enriching Communities.

Their abstract:

Scientists, public policymakers, business leaders, and educators agree there is need for newer, more integrative approaches to science education, research, and community engagement. Join us this Friday as we discuss how an intentionally integrative approach to curricular development, scholarship, and science outreach at Willamette can positively impact students, faculty, and the broader public in meaningful and lasting ways. Insights will be drawn from our 2-year project with the National Science Foundation (NSF), our 3-year collaboration with Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), and our current work supported by the W.M. Keck Foundation. We will discuss our integrated science framework, iScience, a challenge to conventional thinking on how best to prepare students to address tomorrow’s scientific problems.

Please join us on Friday, March 4, from 12:40–1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for the Faculty Colloquium.  The Colloquium will be presented by Matthew Nelson, who is a Professor in the Theatre Department in the College of Liberal Arts.
The title of the talk is: Embodied learning in academic applications: Dancing with ideas.

His abstract:

Movement scholar Irmgard Bartenieff stated that “movement isn’t a metaphor for expression, movement is the expression.”  In our every action we move our ideas, and in doing so these ideas become realized as embodied knowledge.  As a well-formed example I will speak about my experiences with sustainability as an embodied concept, and how this interdisciplinary idea has found its way into my dancing, teaching, and choreography.  Additionally, I invite attendees to arrive with concepts from their own fields that I may be able to assist us to consider together from an embodied perspective.

Please join us on Friday 2/18 from 12:40–1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for this week’s Faculty Colloquium. The Colloquium will be presented by Joyce Millen, Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Amadou Fofana, Assistant Professor of French.
This week’s faculty colloquium is presented in honor of Willamette University’s 6th annual Celebration of Africa. The title of the talk is: Philoblidarity: A New Development Paradigm for Africa?
Their abstract is:
The popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are but the latest and most visible of Africa’s movements toward self determination. In countries south of the Sahara as well, Africans are challenging old models of development and dependence while engaging each other and the rest of the world in exciting new ways.
Related to these new trends, Professors Joyce Millen (Anthropology) and Amadou Fofana (French and Film Studies) have a cautiously optimistic story to share which is based upon findings from their ongoing multi-sited research in the United States, France, Senegal and Ghana. In the telling of this story, they will address a few overarching questions. What new spheres of influence and technological advances are emerging to encourage this movement? Who are the key players in this momentum toward self determination? What obstacles remain in the way for Africa’s renaissance?

Please join us this Friday, Feb. 11, from 12:40 – 1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for the next Faculty Colloquium. This week’s speaker is Stephen Patterson, George H. Atkinson Professor of Religious & Ethical Studies.
Stephen will be presenting on The View from Across the Euphrates [Is Clearer]: On the Gospel of Thomas and the Choices We Have Made. The event is free and open to the public.
His abstract:
In this Faculty Forum I will introduce you to some of the work I am doing on the Gospel of Thomas and how this non-canonical wisdom gospel from ancient Edessa may be changing the way scholars think about the origins of Christianity.

Please join us this Friday, Dec. 3, from 12:40 – 1:40 pm in the Hatfield Room for the seventh Faculty Colloquium of the semester. This week’s speaker is Frann Michel, Professor of English, Participating Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies, American Ethnic Studies. Frann will be presenting on Vampires, Addiction, and Octavia Butler’s Fledgling.
Her abstract:
Octavia Butler’s last novel Fledgling (2005), draws on long-standing associations between addiction and vampirism in ways that question the cultural condemnation of addiction and challenge conventional oppositions between the addict and the purportedly autonomous (and invisibly raced and gendered) subject. Unlike the gothic vampires of the past who might represent repressed desires, the blood-drinking Ina species of Butler’s vampire romance remind us that desires are not the core of the self, and the novel suggests that the possibilities for new forms of community and alliance may be enhanced by the acknowledgement of subjectivity as hybrid, divided, and changeable.

Please join us for this week’s faculty colloquium, Friday Nov. 19 from 12:40-1:40 p.m. in the library’s Hatfield Room. Admission is free.
This week’s speaker is Assistant Professor of Politics David Gutterman, and he talk is titled Rousseau’s Warning: Contemporary American Politics and the Origin of Inequality.
His abstract:
As we sort out the meaning and implications of the election earlier this month, one thing is clear in the realm of American politics: very few people, if any, are happy. The most common political sentiments expressed in the United States today are anger, fear, and despair. Indeed, despite their mixed success at the ballot, the Tea Party has set the tone (or if you prefer, has been enabled to set the tone by a complicit media) of American political discourse.
The widespread assumption is that the Tea Party is a movement driven by an individualistic, anti-government impulse that runs very deep in the American tradition. I argue instead that the Tea Party represents a broader turn to therapeutic politics, in which the worth of the self is not self-made, but is measured comparatively and receives value from the esteem of others. In developing this argument, I turn to the great critic of 18th Century France, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, particularly his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754). In this work, Rousseau traces how public opinion and considerations of status come to dominate a corrupt society, resulting in a condition where: “…domination becomes dearer to them than independence, and they consent to wear chains so that they may in turn give them to others.” By utilizing the analytic lenses offered by Rousseau, I argue that we can make a more careful diagnosis of the political conditions present in the United States and in turn begin to discover a path out of fear, anger, and despair.