From the Director: 2009 - 2010

As we move forward in this year, while encompassing the financial changes in the landscape of higher education and keeping the goals of our mission, CISAH strives for adaptation to change without giving up quality of instruction. As one of the three Integrative Studies centers that provide the signature pedagogy in general education at MSU we are confronted with a paradoxical situation: should we invest in an education of complexity and change, or should we invest in narrow training?
Carol G. Schneider, President of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, addresses this burning question in the summer 2009 issue of Liberal Education (95.3):

Some courses of postsecondary study are narrowly framed, by design.

They provide technical proficiency, but little insight into the larger issues of science, society, human community and global cultures. Such programs enable graduates to acquire jobs, but by no means prepare them to navigate a world in which whole industries -indeed whole economic sectors -are being rapidly upended and rapidly created. By contrast, a liberating education, as [Martha] Nussbaum points out, makes human development its focus and its commitment. (3)

I summarize here Nussbaum's and Schneider's points of a liberating education that govern the design and delivery of IAH courses at MSU:

It prepares graduates to make judgments and decisions that lessen the likelihood of further human-induced economic storms.

It prepares graduates not only to ride the storm, but to work with others to chart a journey through the storm toward a better tomorrow.

It deliberately cultivates the capacities needed to make sense of complexity as well as the commitment to consider responsibility to the larger community as a central concern in making decisions, including economic decisions.

It not only prepares students for economic opportunity and success, but it also engages the wider world.

And it cultivates interior qualities -the virtues -that provide a moral compass.

 

IAH courses constitute the platform to enlarge the vision of a liberating education, and may become the forum to expand the human capability in changing the world according to pressing needs while keeping the best human virtues. In this context, the following are some of our initiatives for 2009-2010:

§ Expanding Tier I (A courses) and Tier II (B courses) online offerings in fall and spring.

§ Continue offering IAH in foreign languages such as:

IAH 203: Native Latin America (Spanish)

IAH 210: The Middle East and the World (Arabic)

IAH 211C: Latin America through Another Lens (Spanish)

IAH 211D: Arab Culture and Identity (Arabic)

§ Rethinking IAH through its self-study: Liberal Learning and Comprehensive UG Education in the 21st Century. In 2009-2010 CISAH will work towards a self-study report and will extend an invitation to faculty to provide feedback for its reexamination. In addition, we will participate in two AACU meetings: Integrative Learning: Addressing the Complexities (Atlanta) and Faculty Roles in High Impact Practices (Philadelphia).

§ Faculty Learning Community: "Promoting Teaching Excellence and Quality Student Learning in Integrative Studies," led by Assistant Director Kirk Kidwell.

Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) are ongoing discussion groups that allow MSU colleagues to gather from across departments in order to discuss and develop their skills around a specific teaching and learning topic. This FLC proposes to help integrative studies faculty understand better the role and importance of integrative studies and how they might best teach such courses. FLC members will review the literature on general education and integrative learning, investigate best teaching practices, and explore the unique challenges and opportunities such courses pose for the faculty who teach and the students who enroll in these courses. More Information  

§ Creativity in IAH courses: Early in 2009, we chose the theme of "Creativity in the Arts and the Humanities" to invite a reflection on the link between the learning goals of Integrative Studies at MSU, a liberating education and the creative process that extends beyond the creative arts. Last year, Nancy Bunge, professor of WRAC and writer, organized the "Discovering Creativity" workshop for her students in IAH 241E. Ron Newman, professor of Jazz, included the visit of Jazz artists in his IAH 241A class. We hope to repeat these experiences again in 2009-2010. In addition, Susannah Van Horn plans to introduce her IAH 209 students to the DIA in Detroit while Marco Diaz's IAH 241F students will engage in activities with members of Eloisa Cartonera. Likewise, Georg Schuttler, professor of Theatre, will share with the MSU community the best short pieces of Theater created by his students in IAH 241D.

Once again, I invite faculty, students, advisers and administrators to take a look at CISAH's initiatives and engage with us in ongoing collaborations. Imagination and creativity are the limit.

Other Individual Engagements

In addition to my participation in several conferences this year, I have one article published in a peer-reviewed journal of Television Studies and five forthcoming chapters in books in the areas of Gender Studies, Visual Studies, and Indigenous Latin America. I continue serving in the Division of Colonial Latin American Literatures (MLA) until 2012 and in the Executive Committee of the Peru Section (LASA). I have served this year in the Canadian Council of Research in Social Sciences and will continue serving in the American/International Fellowship Panels of the AAUW until 2010. In spring 2010 I will be on sabbatical leave, a scholarly commitment that I postponed in 2007 when I was selected to direct CISAH. I plan to use this time in the most efficient possible way to set the basis for my next scholarly book on Colonial Women's Studies.

From the Director 2008-2009

From the Acting Director 2007-2008