The Academic Minute from 5.08 – 5.12
Monday
Miriam Wallace – New College of Florida
Free Speech and the 1780s Elocution Movement
Miriam L. Wallace is Professor of English and Gender Studies at New College of Florida where she has taught English literature from 1660 forward since 1995. She is the author of Revolutionary Subjects in the English ‘Jacobin’ Novel (Bucknell University Press, 2009), which was supported by an NEH College Teacher Fellowship. She has written widely on eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British literature and culture, most recently recovering the anomalous-bodied public speaker “Sir” Jeffrey Dunstan (in Making Stars: Biography and Celebrity in Eighteenth-Century Britain). She is co-editor with Dr. Mona Narain of the Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture 1650-1850 series with Bucknell University Press.
Tuesday
Brad Garner – Indiana Wesleyan University
The Power of Inclusive Hospitality
Brad Garner serves as the Digital Learning Scholar in Residence at Indiana Wesleyan University. Before moving into higher education, his career was focused on program and faculty development in K-12 public school settings, where he worked as a classroom teacher, school psychologist, and administrator. Garner is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops and has authored several publications on topics related to teaching and learning. His most recent research activity has focused on the use of digital technology to promote learning. Brad is the co-host of the “Digital to Learn Podcast” and serves as Editor of the eSource online newsletter published by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.
Wednesday
Chris Linder – University of Utah
A New Approach to Stopping Sexual Violence
Chris Linder is the director of the McCluskey Center for Violence Prevention Research & Education at the University of Utah.
Thursday
Elizabeth Blaber – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Understanding How the Environment Affects Stem Cell Function
Elizabeth A. Blaber, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a Visiting Scientist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science at NASA Ames Research Center and a Space Biology Principal Investigator. She earned her Bachelor of Medical Sciences (Honors) at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry from the same University. Prior to joining RPI, Dr. Blaber conducted research at NASA Ames Research Center. Dr. Blaber’s research is focused on understanding how stem cells and consequently, tissue regeneration, are affected by spaceflight stressors. She is also investigating the effects of alterations to the bone marrow microenvironment on peripheral tissue degeneration and disease progression. Dr. Blaber has been honored with several prestigious awards including the Thora W. Halstead Young Investigator Award, the NASA Early Career Public Achievement Medal, NASA Honor Awards, the Australian-American Individual Innovator of the Year Award, the Emerging Space Leaders Grant from the International Astronautical Federation and has been invited to present her research at several prestigious institutes including the Center for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Research and Applications (CiRA) in Kyoto, Japan.
Friday
Robert Kunzman – Indiana University
Learning from Failure
Robert Kunzman is Professor of Curriculum Studies and Philosophy of Education at Indiana University. His scholarship explores the purposes of education and how we can learn not only in classrooms but from life more broadly. He’s currently working on a book about navigating failure across the full span of our lives.
