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NEXUS
S C H O O L O F I N T E G R AT I V E S T U D I E S | S P R I N G 2 0 1 5
GREETINGS
FROM THE DEAN
SoIS MISSION
To cultivate creative,
intellectually engaged, and
ethical problem solvers
through integrative inquiry
and action for social justice
and the public good.
SCHOOL OF
INTEGRATIVE
STUDIES
Dean:
Kristine M. Mickelson, PhD
Predolin 109
608.663.2374
kmickelson@edgewood.edu
ON BEHALF OF ALL OF US….
On behalf of the School of Integrative Studies (SoIS), I am delighted to bring you
this issue of Nexus, a highlight of news, events, and opportunities associated with
SoIS programs.
It was about nine years ago that SoIS was created, an expression of the faculty’s
and this college’s commitment to interdisciplinarity, engaged learning, and civic
engagement. Its original mission – to cultivate creative, intellectually engaged, and
ethical problem solvers through integrative inquiry and action for social justice and
the public good – is still relevant today, and this newsletter provides compelling
evidence of how that mission is being fulfilled.
What makes this possible is partnership, a theme that permeates this edition’s stories.
In the pages that follow you will read about partnerships among SoIS programs,
between SoIS programs and other schools and departments, and partnerships that
extend into the community beyond Edgewood. To borrow a popular phrase, I
believe we are better together. Our teaching and learning on behalf of students tends
to be better – transformative, deeper, farther reaching – when our faculty, our staff,
and our programs are working collaboratively across boundaries to share expertise,
resources, and energy. That has been the case in the past, and it will remain our
commitment moving forward.
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NEWS UPDATES FROM THE CENTER
FOR MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
PROGRAM
The 2014-2015 academic year has been a rewarding
and productive one for the Environmental Studies
Program. With mixed emotions, we bid farewell to seven
Environmental Studies minors (Ross Matters, Dustin
Mireles, Peter Orlando, Katie Remondini, Debi Ryner, Kat
Foulke, and Josh Williams) who graduated and set off to
make their marks on the world. Another student, Charlie
Nettesheim, graduated with an Individualized Major in
Environmental Studies and quickly landed a job with
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. We
congratulate these recent graduates and wish them all the
best in their next endeavors.
This year, the Teaching for Diversity Series has featured two faculty panels: Race in the Classroom:
Identity Politics and Critical Pedagogies and Race in the Classroom Part II: ‘Racial Moments’
and Critical Interventions. From diverse disciplinary as well as racial and ethnic perspectives,
the panelists presented their pedagogical research and explored the challenges and strategies
in teaching race and antiracism in the predominantly white college classroom. We thank the
following panelists for their special contributions: Sara Collas (Integrative Studies), Talonda
Lipsey-Brown (Education), and Huining Ouyang (Ethnic Studies), Carolyn Field (Criminal
Justice), Marihelen Stoltz (Communication Studies), and Maria Yelle (Nursing).
The Center for Multicultural Education has continued to host monthly gatherings to provide
opportunities for community building, networking, and peer support among our faculty of color.
This fall and spring, we welcomed new colleagues and enjoyed lively discussions on such topics as
naming, language, and identity; teaching, scholarship, service, and inclusion.
A special joint program with the Environmental Studies Program, our fifth annual Distinguished
Lecture Series featured Dr. Monica M. White, Assistant Professor of Environmental Justice at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. On February 19, 2015, White delivered Black Farmers, Urban
Agriculture, and Increasing Access to Healthy Food in Detroit to a large audience of Edgewood
College students, faculty, and staff and Madison community members.
Ethnic Studies Major and Minor: Since its inception in fall 2012, the major will have graduated
four students by May 2015. The highlights of the major experiences include internships in
community organizations of color and senior seminar research. This spring, partnering with the
History Department, the graduating seniors will participate in Edgewood Engaged, the student
research symposium, and present their senior research at a panel: Researching Race: Ethnic Studies
and History Senior Research. Our minor program remains vibrant and continues to attract
students from diverse disciplines and racial/ethnic backgrounds.
In February, the Environmental Studies Program teamed
up with the Center for Multicultural Education to
bring Dr. Monica White to Edgewood as the 2015 CME
Distinguished Lecturer. Monica is Assistant Professor of
Environmental Justice at UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute
for Environmental Studies. She discussed her work
related to urban agriculture and food justice issues among
black communities in Detroit.
Woods Edge, the environmental studies student
organization being led by faculty advisor Jake Griffin, has
been busy organizing many exciting Earth Week events
that will take place the week of April 20-24. Brian Czech,
president of the Center for the Advancement of the
Steady State Economy and Visiting Professor at Virginia
Tech, will be visiting Edgewood that week and will give a
keynote address on Wednesday, April 22.
Woods Edge students have also been preparing for
the second annual plant sale at Edgewood by starting
tomato, pepper, and basil plants to be sold the last week
of the spring semester. As the weather begins to warm
up, they have also started spinach and salad greens in
the Edgewood hoop house. Plans are also underway for
a spring outing, perhaps another canoe trip down the
Wisconsin River or a camping trip somewhere around
southern Wisconsin.
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COMMUNITY WELLBEING CONFLUENCE
BREAD, SOUP, AND BOOKS, 2015
As is the tradition at Edgewood College, Women’s History Month began with a communitywide gathering for good food, excellent company, and important thought: Bread, Soup, and
Books. The Washburn Heritage Room was packed for the event, and the students, staff, and
faculty in attendance were treated to delectable soup and bread donated by staff and faculty from
throughout the college.
This year, the Women’s and Gender Studies Program welcomed a guest speaker for the event.
Hale Thompson, a doctoral candidate in Community Health Sciences and a pre-doctoral fellow
in the National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Research program in electronic privacy
and security at the University of Illinois at Chicago, came to Edgewood to speak about his work
on health information communication technologies and infrastructures and their relationships to
those on the social margins.
The students of the Sustainability Leadership Program’s Innovative Leadership in Community
Wellbeing are bringing together groups working for social equity and ecological sustainability.
They hope to expedite innovative, inclusive solutions to the problem of disparities in health,
education, child welfare, criminal justice, employment and income in Madison.
Social equity organizations and ecological sustainability organizations often consider their
goals to be separate, or even competing for resources. However, this class aims to increase the
understanding of these groups’ strong connections. We’ll also identify how these groups can
work together for a holistic approach to community wellbeing. Students, along with program
faculty and community partner, Sustain Dane, are organizing and facilitating “Confluence
Conversations” that will build relationships, identify community assets, outline shared goals and
visions, and create action steps.
“Our community partners offer valuable insight to the students,” says Program Director Steve
Gilchrist. “We hope to engage with more than 50 community organizations and individuals to
bring forth the complexities and opportunities for Collective Impact.” Some of the organizations
include Dane County and City of Madison Health Department, Goodman Community Center,
Mentoring Positives, UW-Extension, United Way, Boys and Girls Club, and City of Madison
Sustainability Committee.
Thompson’s talk, “The Original Plumbing Family: Pleasures of
and Resistance to a Transgender Identity,” explained the origins of
Original Plumbing, a trans-culture magazine and on-line space, and
described some of his experiences as a blogger for that publication.
He described how the website gives voice to bloggers across the
gender spectrum, and how its unique community-building space
can be a source of both great support and intense conflict.
Much of the success of Bread, Soup, and Books, can be attributed to
the diligent efforts of Jennifer Braun (School of Integrative Studies)
and Sylvia Contreras (Library Director), and to the generous
members of the faculty and staff who brought such wonderful food.
This year’s winner for “Most Delicious Soup” was Hannah Lloyd,
whose Veggie Thai Curry Soup won the popular vote!
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EDGEWOOD ENGAGED
COR1 – PEER LEADERS
In the past 1 1/2 years since I’ve
become Director for Student Research,
I’ve become acquainted with an
outstanding group of faculty who serve
on a Research Advisory Board (not to
mention my colleagues with whom I
serve on the Honors Advisory Board
and elsewhere on campus).
While peer leaders have always been a model of our motto cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to
heart), increasingly, the COR Program also looks to peer leaders to share elements of Edgewood’s
Dominican intellectual tradition with their first year students. For the first time in 2014, peer
leaders participated in training separate from Orientation Guides prior to Freshman Orientation.
Lasting most of a day, and resonant with the Dominican studium, the session included time
for reflection and a tour of sacred spaces on campus led by COR 1 faculty member Daniel
Mortensen, who teaches COR 110, The Liberal Arts and the Dominican Tradition.
We’ve engaged in meaningful dialogues
ranging beyond the confines of a list,
nevertheless I’ll create one: specific
levels of engagement as it relates to
research and creative inquiry, what it
would take to form a better means of
communication specific to research and
creative inquiry, specific “brass tacks”
tasks related to Edgewood Engaged
student abstracts and Ebben Fund
proposals, and the formation of both a
research-focused course and a summer
research program.
Being the first occupant of this role, I’ve found navigating the waters of the Edgewood College
system to be dubiously challenging, asking myself questions related to “are we pursuing this
program on the right path,” and “am I occupying this directorship with a dignifying level of
expertise, leadership, humility, academic rigor, authority, etc?”
I’m fortunate to find such a collegial atmosphere on campus, including an engaging network
of colleagues in the School of Integrative Studies. Nevertheless, it feels rather perilous at
times. I became mindful of this the many moments I shared my questions with strangers
occupying similar roles on their campuses while attending the NCHC (National Collegiate
Honors Conference) Institute for City as Text (TM) methodology in Lyon, France in July 2014.
Similarly, I could end that same sentence with a reference to NCUR, the National Conference for
Undergraduate Research in April 2014. And I’m looking forward to attending NCUR again this
year, because intellectual growth emerges when one participates in communities. I’m grateful that
our program fosters constant examination of teaching methodology and the role of the self in
pursuit of teaching and learning.
Dr. Mortensen worked with campus archivist Sister Sarah Naughton to develop the tour, and
generously complied with requests to repeat it for whole classes. The tour and talk, he says, “look
at the Edgewood campus as a place with sacred spaces that connect us.” People were drawn here
by natural beauty and were connected, as we are connected now, by the space.
The spaces also connect us to our past. The tour stops at Marshall Hall, named after Samuel
Marshall, who built the stone carriage house of the villa Governor Washburn gifted to the
Sinsinawa Dominican sisters he was known to admire. Erected in 1964, the carriage house
survived the tragic fire that destroyed the villa in 1893, claiming the lives of St. Regina Academy
students only six to eight years old. Marshall Hall is a reminder that the children of St. Regina’s
were here before Edgewood.
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COR 1 Intended
Learning
Outcomes:
• Identify,
explore and
critically
reflect upon
personal
identity,
values, beliefs,
spiritualities
and
worldviews.
Visiting the sacred spaces on campus highlights Edgewood’s rich history, and respect for Native
American tradition, as well as the relationship between humans and place. Peer leaders were
encouraged to share the places and aspects of history that resonated most with them, and
highlight the importance of having the space in our lives to reflect.
• Use inquirybased
approaches
to critically
examine
relevant
human issues
questions.
COR 1 classes are also spaces that connect people. Cara Brasted,
senior art therapy and Spanish double major, is a three-time peer
leader with Professor Julie Dunbar’s MUS 151 class, The Art of
Listening. Cara appreciates the way peer leaders are encouraged to
“bridge the gap between incoming students and professors, and to
create a sacred space for these connections to happen”.
• Explore
contemporary
issues and
problems
from multiple
perspectives.
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NEW FUNDING FOR
GLOBAL ENGAGED LEARNING
Along with other engaged learning
initiatives, global education has
received Transformation Funds.
These funds are divided into two
parts: faculty development and
student development. This strategic
investment will ensure that our
professors and students are prepared
to contribute internationally and
can compete with their peers
locally and globally. It will help us
implement the current Academic
Plan’s prioritization of student global
learning through the enhancement
of curricula and academic programs.
It will also take global pedagogy to
the next level, important because
most of our students get their global
perspective in the classroom.
For faculty development, roughly
half of the requested global
resources will fund three different
but complementary modes of
global immersion: travel abroad,
attendance at U.S. conferences, and
faculty exchange.
The other half will fund student scholarships in three areas: study abroad, international students,
and Global/Latin American Studies minors. The goal is for more Edgewood students to have
access to transformative experiences.
Implementation of these initiatives will be coordinated by three staff members in the Center for
Global Education: Andrea Byrum, Sara Friar, and Hannah Lloyd.
As a result of these initiatives, Edgewood College will be recognized as a leader in global
education. We will also increase the number of under-represented students studying abroad to
reach our goal of 8% of full-time undergraduate students going abroad. These initiatives will
enhance faculty global knowledge, experience, and pedagogy and bring us more strategic global
partnerships to further our internationalization.