New Books in Education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: Ros Pyne’s path through higher education, how she found her way to her current job, her role at Bloomsbury Publishers, what Open Access [OA] is and is not, how OA can democratize knowledge, and what she’s hopeful about.Our guest is: Ros Pyne, who is the Global Director of Research and Open Access at Bloomsbury Publishers. She has worked in academic publishing since 2007, initially as an editor, and for the last eight years in roles focusing on open access. She has a particular interest in bringing open access to long-form scholarship and to the humanities, and is the co-author of several reports on open access books. She holds a degree in English from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in early modern English literature from King’s College London.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Open access at Bloomsbury Directory of Open Access Books OAPEN OA Books Toolkit (for anyone interested in learning more about what open access books are and how they work) Open Access Books Network (a free online network for people working on open access books or interested in getting involved) Open Access and the Humanities (a 2014 book by an open access expert Martin Paul Eve that’s still an excellent primer on this topic) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Is it possible to integrate scholarly study with contemplative practice? What are the benefits and potential pitfalls of doing so? Join us as we speak to Dr. Ben William about Naropa University’s vision of Contemplative Education along with their brand-new Masters in Yoga Studies program.Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The highest literacy rates worldwide, free universal healthcare, social security, strong economies —these are traits commonly associated with the Nordic countries.They also reflect the equally renowned, well-developed system of education available to the residents of each country.Despite the similarities, each country’s education system is distinct, thanks to their differing historical experiences and shifts in political climates. And the complexities of each system unfold neatly on pages of the school textbooks that have been used in each country throughout this time.In this episode, Merethe Roos and Henrik Edgren, two of the editors of “Exploring Textbooks and Cultural Change in Nordic Education 1536–2020”talk about delving deep into the centuries-old history of the education systems in the Nordic countries through their school textbooks, right from the era of the Reformation in the 16th century and through the subsequent educational acts that shaped the systems in each country. Their book encapsulates the rich academic traditions in each country and highlights the role that textbooks have had to play in building each nation by influencing national cultural politics and legislation.This episode is a part of a new special series by Brill, which focuses on Brill’s commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each episode is related to a specific SDG. This episode covers SDG 4: Quality Education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Spanning a historical period that begins with women’s exclusion from university debates and continues through their participation in coeducational intercollegiate competitions, Debating Women: Gender Education, and Spaces for Argument, 1835-1945 (Michigan State University Press, 2018) highlights the crucial role that debating organizations played as women sought to access the fruits of higher education in the United States and United Kingdom. Despite various obstacles, Carly S. Woods shows how women transformed forests, parlors, dining rooms, ocean liners, classrooms, auditoriums, and prisons into vibrant spaces for ritual argument. There, they not only learned to speak eloquently and argue persuasively but also used debate to establish a legacy, explore difference, engage in intercultural encounter, and articulate themselves as citizens. These debaters engaged with the issues of the day, often performing, questioning, and occasionally refining norms of gender, race, class, and nation. In tracing their involvement in an activity at the heart of civic culture, Woods demonstrates that debating women have much to teach us about the ongoing potential for debate to move arguments, ideas, and people to new spaces.Carly S. Woods (she/her) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Maryland. Connect on Twitter @debatingwomen.Resources in this episode here and here.Lee M. Pierce (they & she) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the State University of New York College at Geneseo. Connect on Twitter @rhetoriclee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler05[at]gmail.com or dr.danamalone[at]gmail.com Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: a student’s goal to study abroad during college, how she dealt with unexpected restrictions on becoming an international student during a pandemic, her transatlantic travels, living in a “bubble” in her new dorm, and what she’s hopeful about for her return to her American campus for her senior year.Our guest is: Emma Halfin, who is a junior at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) majoring in Political Science and History and minoring in French. She is currently a visiting student at the University of Oxford in the UK studying history and politics and is looking forward to returning to CWRU in the fall for her senior year.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Woollacott, Angela, ‘“Khaki Fever” and its Control: Gender, Class, Age and Sexual Morality on the British Home Front in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 29/2 (1994), pp. 325-347 Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (2003) Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) Jeanne Boydston, “Gender as a Question of Historical Analysis”, Gender and History 20/3 (2008) The Visiting Student Program at the University of Oxford  American students studying abroad during the pandemic  International Students studying in America during the pandemic  The College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University  Visa concerns for students studying abroad during the pandemic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Listen to this interview of William Tierney, University Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. We talk about his book Get Real: 49 Challenges Confronting Higher Education (SUNY, 2020), about what people really believe when it comes to higher education, and also about what people need to do when it comes to higher education.William Tierney : "Oftentimes the board and the administration and the faculty are in cahoots with one another, in the sense that the marker is only how to improve in the rankings. And you can see this when a teaching college becomes a state university, and then it will try to move away from teaching and move towards research. And a board member will feel good about that: 'Boy, I came in, and my institution was ranked 250th, and now it's a 100. We the board are doing a great job.' And what the administration will say is: 'I transformed the institution. We were 250, and now we're 100.' And the faculty will say, 'Yup, the students are better.' And all this impacts on writing centers like this: Writing centers are often seen as problems–––you know, that kids go to the writing center because they have a problem. Well, then, if we don't have writing centers, then we don't have students who have problems–––which is, of course, the exact wrong way to think about an essential skill that we need for the twenty-first century." Daniel Shea heads Scholarly Communication, the podcast about how knowledge gets known. Daniel is Director of the Writing Program at Heidelberg University, Germany. Daniel's YouTube Channel is called Write Your Research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In Campus Carry: Confronting a Loaded Issue in Higher Education (Harvard Education Press, 2020), editors Patricia Somers and Matt Valentine lead an examination of the unintended consequences of campus gun policy and showcase voices from the college community who are grappling with the questions, issues, and consequences that have emerged at their respective institutions. While making the case that campus carry legislation is harmful, the book gathers some of the very best thinking around enacting such policies and offers valuable recommendations for mitigating its effects and preserving university values.The implementation of campus carry is complex and has provoked many questions: How does concealed carry on campus affect the free expression of ideas in the classroom or the safety of faculty holding unpopular or even controversial views? Should students who misplace or leave their weapons unattended be disciplined? How are communities of color impacted by campus carry? Along with the book's contributors, Somers and Valentine provide higher education leaders, administrators, and faculty with a valuable resource that will guide them toward considerations that might otherwise be overlooked, help them avoid pitfalls that have been encountered elsewhere, and protect institutional priorities.The book features reflection pieces from students, alumni, and faculty to illustrate the complexity and controversy of the campus carry policy. Given that the legal possession of guns in the classroom is now a reality for American educators and students in much of the country, Campus Carry concludes with a passionate call for more university-based original research on gun violence.Pat Somers is an Associate Professor in the Program of Higher Education Leadership in the Educational Leadership and Policy Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Matt Valentine teaches writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is a fellow of the Trice Professorship in the Plan II Honors Program.   Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler05@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: how Clair adapted to changes in her academic timeline, re-planned her wedding, and postponed taking the Bar exam due to the pandemic.Our guest is: Clair Wright Sumerfield, a fourth-year, dual-degree graduate student at the University of Denver. She is earning both a JD from Sturm College of Law and an MA is Art History & Museum Studies from the School of Art and Art History. She expects to graduate from both programs by fall 2021 and hopes to find a job that combines both fields. Originally from Illinois, Clair currently lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two cats and enjoys exploring Colorado’s beautiful scenery in her free time.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Center for Art Law “Understanding Grief in the Age of the Covid-19 Pandemic” Textile & Fashion Collection at the Denver Art Museum “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty (video) Experimental Fashion: Performance Art, Carnival and the Grotesque Body by Francesca Granata The Grotesque in Western Art and Culture: The Image at Play by Frances S. Connelly Supporting Graduate Students in Times of Stress Reflections on the downsides of remote work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and Beyond the Classroom (Duke University Press, 2020), Katina L. Rogers tackles three major issues in academia – post-PhD careers, academic labor practices, and inclusivity and equity. Rogers demonstrates how scholarly reward practices hide the realities of faculty work, value normative rather than innovative outcomes, drive admissions practices for graduate programs, and narrow the definition of post-PhD success. Yet Rogers does not accept that the university of the past – or even the present – must be the university of the future.Rogers begins from the basis that higher education, humanities graduate study and scholarly research are public goods. She calls for a more expansive view of humanities graduate training that is generative rather than replicative. Rogers argues against reducing humanities PhD cohorts and programs, instead laying out a framework for faculty and advisors to initiate institutional change. She provides graduate students with context and analysis to inform the ways they discern their own graduate training. Perhaps most importantly, she highlights that multiple careers pathways can offer engaging, fulfilling, and even unexpected pathways for students who seek them out.Amanda Jeanne Swain, PhD. Historian. Humanities Center executive director. Navigating academic systems with faculty and grad students. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

“Every bit of SEL”—or Social Emotional Learning, writes Jeffrey Benson—“you can integrate into your planning will not only begin to heal the wounds of passivity, racism, and inequity, but also give students an experience today, in your classroom, of that better world.” (157) The book, Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL (ASCD, 2021), speaks to big ideas of the teacher’s role in expanding (and “saving”) democracy, while suggesting concrete tools that teacher can use tomorrow morning when the bell rings. Since “emotions and intellect operate in partnership” (7), we know our students must be engaged in order to enjoy meaningful learning. Benson proposes activities and techniques to draw students in, to help them become full participants and co-owners of their learning. He offers ways for us to get our students to share and give feedback that immediately improve their learning experience, while reducing the amount of work a teacher needs to do. For such a short and readable book, Improve Every Lesson with SEL, is a hefty and indispensable toolbox of good ideas.Jeffrey Benson has been a teacher for over 40 years, also a school director, mentor, author, and leader in education, working in school reform, teacher training, curricular development, and conflict resolution. His books include Hanging In: Strategies for Working with the Students Who Challenge Us Most, ... 10 Steps for Managing Change in Schools, ... and Teaching the Whole Teen: Everyday Practices That Promote Success and Resilience in School and Life. He is also the author of many articles and is a member of the faculty at the ASCD, the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.To learn more about Jeffrey Benson’s work or to contact him, go to https://jeffreybenson.org/.Krzysztof (Chris) Odyniec is a teacher and historian who has worked in secondary and post-secondary education for fifteen years. He currently teaches social studies at John Swett High School in Crockett, California: https://www.jsusd.org/Domain/167. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education