Tam/Tame Details
TAM
Patient as Teacher: Narrative Videos to Enhance Palliative Care
Boston College’s Pursuit of Social Justice: Networks of Alumni Voices Informing Future Higher Education Practitioners
Building upon the multimodal capabilities of MediaKron for pedagogical engagement, this project seeks to collect a narrative archive of alumni in the higher education division for use within a required course, Diversity in Higher Education, In doing so, it affords current students an opportunity to curate a soundscape engaging with Boston College's past students and future colleagues in the field.
Anne Homza & Martin Scanlan: Building a Boston College-Based Resource to Promote Practices Aimed at Undoing Oppression
We recruited an undergrad research assistant to work with us. He and an LSOE doctoral student are working to assess what LSOE faculty have been doing in their courses to enrich their efforts to promote anti-oppressive teaching practices. We hope to thereby generate a cache of resources faculty and others teaching in LSOE can draw upon to enrich their instruction and make their courses more welcoming, effective, and informative. We have also worked with Margaret Cohen, librarian, to organize resources on an anti-oppression website.
Course Development: New York Communication Study Away
This grant will fund travel for the chairperson and director of undergraduate studies of the Communication Department to New York City for the purpose of new course development. The proposed course will be offered through the Study Away program within the Woods College of Advancing Study. The summer program is designed offer domestic experiences that are similar to summer study abroad, offering a combination of classroom learning and educational excursions to local sites. The proposed course will be offered in New York City and will combine practical lessons related to professional writing and speaking, interviewing and resume building. The Tam grant will fund outreach to develop commitments for site visits during the term of the course. Students will visit a range of professional organizations including MSNBC, The New York Times, Pandora, The Paley Centre for Media, ABC, DirectTV, and International Centre of Photography Museum. The course will be taught in rotation by Communication Department faculty.
Collecting in Italy on the Grand Tour
The project undertaken with our current (2018) TAM grant amplified the course Arth4426 taught by Profs. Netzer and Leone entitled “Loot: Collecting in Italy”. It underwrote travel to Italy and England to study first hand various collections that play a central role in the course. It also enabled the instructors to take students in the course on three field trips to relevant collections and exhibitions in the Boston area.
Preparation of Two Courses – The Greeks and Their Gods & Courage to Know – and Participation in the Fourth Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Heritage of Western Greece and participation in the Post Conference Tour of Ancient Greek Archeological sites in Siracusa, Italy.
The project undertaken with our current (2018) TAM grant amplified the course Arth4426 taught by Profs. Netzer and Leone entitled “Loot: Collecting in Italy”. It underwrote travel to Italy and England to study first hand various collections that play a central role in the course. It also enabled the instructors to take students in the course on three field trips to relevant collections and exhibitions in the Boston area.
Elizabeth Rhodes/Kimberly Humphrey
Going Forth (Pilot): A Training Program in Campus Sexual Assault for Future College Teachers
The 7-week course developed under the auspices of our $1,500 TAM grant is completed, is enrolled and will launch next Wed. At that point, we'll start to access our budget; course creation has been pro-bono and our budget is for expenses related to the execution of the course. The seminar content has been developed as expected, the publicity met with success, and we're ready to go.
Developing a New Course: Shakespeare Performance Workshop
Service and Social Justice: A Multidisciplinary Approach
My TAM grant funded professors from across the university to guest lecture in the Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program (GPSP) summer PULSE course, which I oversee. Five guest lecturers (one each from CSON, LSOE, Law, GSSW, and MCAS) each led a seminar in their particular academic area that touches upon issues of social justice. The project was a success, and the GPSP has decided to fund the model for summer 2019.
Paula Mathieu/Marla DeRosa/Lynne Anderson
BC Writing Center Initiative
Our TAM grant will fund the first of a two-year pilot Writing Center (situated within the English Department) to support the needs of BC’s undergraduate and graduate students (including native English speakers and English Language Learners). Junior and senior undergraduates will be hired and take a one-credit course in composition pedagogy to begin tutoring sophomore writers (the first focus of this pilot) through one-on-one consultations, drop-in support, and scheduled workshops. The sophomore participants, who will begin receiving tutoring in fall 2019, will have agreed to meet with tutors at least twice during the semester and provide feedback to the organizers to gauge how to continue, change or expand the pilot. In addition, we will test out expanding tutoring for English Language Learners by training graduate students in ELL pedagogy. The goal of a BC Writing Center would be not only to help students hand in better papers, but also to create competent lifelong writers.
The co-directors of this project are three English Department Faculty: Lynne Anderson, Director of English Language Learning; Marla DeRosa, Director of the Writing Fellows Program; and Paula Mathieu, Director of First-Year Writing.
After the use of the TAM funding, the Writing Center Pilot will receive a year of support from the MCAS Dean’s Office. A report on the pilot with a recommendations about the future of a Writing Center will be prepared in 2021.
Narrating Boston College’s Pursuit of Social Justice: Networks of Alumni Voices Informing Future Higher Education Practitioners
The purpose of the award (5/17-6/18) was to provide funds for laboratory supplies to support an undergraduate research project for senior Isabelle (Izzy) Mueller. Izzy’s project concerned an analysis of ketone bodies as inhibitors of Histone Deacetylase enzymes. Izzy continued her project throughout the academic year, and presented her research at the Biology Department’s Undergraduate Research Day celebration. The TAM award served as a platform for me to offer Izzy individual advice on how to design, execute and evaluate her project, thereby helping her to “think scientifically.” After graduation Izzy decided to postpone graduate school to work at the biotech firm Addgene (Cambridge, MA). She is now applying to several PhD programs in microbiology.
Citizen Poets of Boston, 1789-1820: Launch Events
This TAM grant has funded my ongoing teaching and research on the literary history of Boston. Its premise is that Boston, the city which was the most important American center of literary creativity until the middle of the 19th century, does too little to commemorate and celebrate this heritage. A map of Literary Boston, 1789-1860—which an earlier group of students helped me develop for the Forgotten Chapters of Boston’s Literary History exhibition (BLP and MHS, 2012)—contains 38 specific sites, several of which deserve to be memorialized so that citizens and tourists will be reminded of Boston’s literary heritage. In my courses on literary Boston, site-specific plaque-writing and historic walking-tour development have become assignments in the civic, archival, digital, and local humanities, encouraging students to see that their research can affect how the city remembers its cultural histor
TAME
Carrie Mae Weems mini-residency
"Currents" - Lectures, conversation and gallery/studio visits
Theory and Practice of Advising Tutorial
I am using my TAME grant to take a one-month course on the Theory & Practice of Advising offered by NACADA, the National Association of College Academic Advisors. The course offers an overview of the foundational theories of student advising. I see it as an opportunity to further develop and deepen my relationships with all of my English, American Studies, and pre-major advisees, a responsibility I really value as a faculty member at BC.
Soundings: Voicing the Humanities at BC
The project is directed towards enabling our student not merely to hear, but to create, podcasts. Harnessing the power of the podcast presents an exemplary way to encourage creativity while bringing the work of the classroom and of the Humanities at BC to the student body and the wider community. Soundings provides the equipment, websites, and expertise to bring this about while marrying the work of the Humanities to practical skills for today’s marketplace.
Astaza! The BC Middle Eastern Ensemble
Self-Knowledge and Discernement: The Experience of Pilgrimage
I requested reimbursement for several books I purchased last summer in order to prepare to teach a Spring course called "Self-Knowledge and Discernment: The Experience of Pilgrimage." The course culminates in walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Since the topic--the history and nature of pilgrimage--was relatively new territory for me, I needed to do a great deal of research to figure out how I wanted to present the material. The grant was extremely helpful in that I was able to consult a wide range of texts.
Attending a Teaching-Oriented Conference
I am using the TAME grant to attend the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) conference from February 7-10, 2019 in New Orleans, Louisiana. With a special focus on language pedagogy, the conference has numerous panels devoted to teaching strategies and best practices, including using technology effectively and creating a more inclusive classroom. As the Slavic/Russian Coordinator at Boston College, I am responsible for overseeing the language program as well as advising department majors and minors. Attending the AATSEEL conference will allow me to better apply technology to foreign language pedagogy, design more innovative curricular materials, and network with other language instructors in the country.
Better Teaching, Better Mentoring, Better Students
The goal of my TAME project is to better teach and mentor undergrad and graduate students. Thanks to the grant, I will be able to attend a workshop (“Census and ACS in the Classroom: A Workshop for College Professors”), which will enable me to devise innovative and engaging ways to help students better understand the social world they are living in through hands-on learning activities. Additionally, I now have monthly lunches with undergraduate students to better understand their personal lives, coursework, and career paths, with the ultimate goal to build a warm student-faculty relationship. At the graduate level, I use the grant to arrange gather-ups for Chinese students to help them better adapt to the US academic environment given our common ethnic background.
Real-World Application-Based Customer Research Course Project
The TAME grant ($2,000) that I received for my Customer Research and Marketing Decisions course covers the expenses of a research project that the students conduct throughout the semester. In the course of the project, the students apply every research method covered in class to solve a real-life problem of marketing a consumer product. The grant covers the expenses of data collection (participant compensation and associated logistical costs) which the students conduct during the semester and which is critical to students’ research findings
Applied Psychology Practicum Retreat
I have developed a brand-new curriculum for the Applied Psychology Practicum. The curriculum integrates decision making, design thinking, and purpose research. This course takes students through a process of designing their vocational aspirations in a way that is reflective of their core values, character strengths, 21st Century Skills, and the desired impact in their lives. These funds provided stipend money for my collaborator to help create the visuals and other materials for this course.
Learning Principles of Economics in a Large Lecture Environment
Especially in a large lecture environment¨ it is important to try to make the student feel more included and minimize the size of the classroom. New and exciting technology like VR can be utilized to enhance the understanding of the concepts and their application to real life scenarios. I may also ignite the enthusiasm of the students for a subject material that may¨ at times¨ seem to be dry.
I have continued to investigate the world of VR applications and gave a poster presentation on this at BU last June:
The (Virtual) Reality of Economics– Dismal Blissful Science,” TASSA (Turkish American Scientists and Scalars Association) Biennial Conference, poster session and presentation, Boston University, MA, USA, June 2nd, 2018.
The next step will be communicating with some publishers to get a team together around the idea.
Greek Tutor-in-a-Box
Designed to provide supplementary support for elementary learning of ancient Greek, the materials collected in this “box” enable students to work independently on problem areas and/or in tandem with a tutor more experienced in ancient Greek. Materials include supplementary explanations of English and ancient Greek grammar as well url’s for websites and computer materials (e.g., quizlet vocab. cards) that facilitate learning vocabulary, accents, pronunciation, and verb forms
Re-Evaluation and Re-Design of Organizational Behavior Course for Dept. of Management and Organization
On behalf of the Management & Organization Department in CSOM, I led our comprehensive process of evaluating and then developing recommendations to re-design our primary required course in CSOM, Organizational Behavior. Ourgoal was to increase quality, uniformity and rigor of the class across sections, while still maintaining the ability for each of the Professors to pursue their own approach to teaching the class.
To do so, I collected data through interviews with current and former Organizational Behavior instructors in our department, collected and analyzed benchmark syllabi from several Universities, and also met several times with our Department Chairperson and one other faculty member, who provided feedback on the process and helped design recommendations. As a result of the assessment, new faculty will pilot the implementation of a design which identifies a series of common features in our course while also maintaining personalization for each faculty member.
Diversity & Inclusion Certificate Program
Introduction
Over the course of the 2017-18 academic year, the SSW began an assessment of both its “implicit” and “explicit” curriculum. Both of these assessment contributed to the design of a new certificate program, “Leadership for Diversity and Inclusion in Organizations and Communities.”
Our work was supported by a BC TAME grant. The availability of these funds contributed to our accomplishments. We are most appreciative of this support.
In this memo, I summarize our accomplishments. For additional information, please feel free to contact:
Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Professor and Associate Dean
School of Social Work
pittcats@bc.edu
617-552-4033
Review of the Implicit Curriculum
Overview
The review of the implicit curriculum focused on a review of the websites of 25 other schools of social work recognized by U.S. News & World Report as being the “top” schools of social work to determine:
(1) the extent to which issues related to equity and justice are visible in website text relevant to the schools’ culture, climate, and structures (i.e., policies, procedures, positions, resources, etc.); and
(2) the equity and justice frameworks (i.e., differences/similarities; disparities/equities; diversities; inclusion/exclusion) that appear to underpin the statements about culture, climate, and structures; and
Accomplishments
The information gathered was summarized in the research memos (See attached files.). In addition, the information was “translated” into a template for an audit that our School intends to conduct in the fall of 2018. (See attached file.) The research team is preparing a manuscript about this aspect of our project for submission to a social work teaching journal.
Review of the Explicit Curriculum
Overview
Courses and other opportunities for learning constitute the “explicit” curriculum. For our project, we reviewed the websites of the 25 other schools of social work recognized by U.S. News & World Report as being the “top” schools of social work to determine:
(1) the number of course descriptions which indicate that the courses address content relevant to equity and justice; and
(2) the equity and justice frameworks (i.e., differences/similarities; disparities/equities; diversities; inclusion/exclusion) that appear to inform relevant course content
Accomplishments
The research team reviewed the course descriptions for more than 400 courses and have entered the codings into a database for analysis.
We have determined that there seems to be an opportunity for the BC SSW to develop a unique, multi-disciplinary certificate program focused on diversity and inclusion leadership in organizations and communities.
Over the summer, the research team will prepare a manuscript about this course review for submission to a social work teaching journal.
Preliminary Design of the Certificate Program: Leadership for Diversity and Inclusion in Organizations and Communities
Overview
As we conducted the review of the explicit curriculum (highlighted in the section above), we examined the emphasis that the courses relevant to diversity and inclusion seemed to place on the:
(1) expansion of awareness about bias and discrimination;
(2) knowledge about specific underrepresented/marginalized/vulnerable populations;
(3) the development of multi-cultural competencies that would support the interactions that social work practitioners might have with individuals/families/groups; and/or
(4) the development of leadership competencies that would enable social work practitioners to fulfill the roles of either managers and/or leaders who can introduce and sustain systemic changes to organizations and communities.
We were able to determine that the development of a certificate program focused on leadership for diversity and inclusion in organizations and communities would be a unique offering.
Accomplishments
The team has developed a proposal for a new certificate program that will be presented to the School’s Academic Planning Committee in the fall of 2018. The current design includes two courses that would be offered by SSW faculty (with the possibility that two additional courses might be offered in collaboration with the Carroll School of Management and the BC School of Law).
The first proposed course will be an advanced practice course addressing concerns of bias and discrimination and will provide the students with opportunities to develop skills related to: (1) facilitating difficult conversations; and (2) conflict resolution. A draft syllabus has been prepared for this 15-week masters level course.
The second proposed course will be an advanced course on leadership for/management of diversity and inclusion programs that could be implemented in organizations and communities. For this course, we propose that the class culminates with an innovation lab conducted in partnership with a large non-profit or public agencies that wants to consider innovative programs and resources to address concerns about social justice and equity. A draft syllabus has been prepared for this 15-week course.
Annual Conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses
I had planned to attend the annual conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses, which was held in Framingham, MA in April, 2018. Unfortunately my mother-in-law died and the funeral was the same weekend as the conference, and thus I was unable to attend and so did not use the grant monies.
Interactive Teaching in the Classroom through Digital Technology
I used the TAME grant to buy and integrate in my teaching a tablet. It allows me to seamlessly incorporate handwritten notes into my teaching materials, which helps make class materials more interactive. In-class discussions often give me ideas for new examples to show students, and last semester the tablet allowed me to quickly, in-between different class meetings of the same week, produce new material related to such discussions, share it online with my students, and then bring it up for further discussion the very next class, while previous conversations were still fresh.