There’s a grassroots effort taking shape to highlight faculty voices through conversations about current professional interests and research. The vision of the “Faculty Research Spotlight,” is create a venue for faculty to speak candidly about their field work and research beyond the classroom. More conversation than lecture, the series, which will be recorded for podcast and hosted on the Institute’s new iTunes U site, offers faculty a unique opportunity to share their expertise with a larger audience.
The spotlight conversations will experiment with a format that will include an Opening Big Idea Pecha Kucha Talk, followed by a moderated question and answer session. Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-cha-kcha in Japanese) is a presentation format that has gained a following recently because it places a constraint on the presenter, limiting them to twenty PowerPoint slides and only twenty seconds per slide. The total time comes to 6 minutes and 40 seconds. While we could just record a regular lecture, we feel that this special format would allow presenters to be creative in how they choose to frame and introduce us to their topics.
A handful of faculty have stepped up to the plate to kick the series off:
Fernando de Paolis and Bob McCleery: Development and Connectivity
March 12, 12:15 – 1:45
McCone Boardroom
Jason Scorse: Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism- evidence from Indonesia in the 1990s
March 17, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101
Lyuba Zarsky: Climate Resilient Development: Models for Government and Business
March 19, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101
The Spotlight series is being recorded for podcast on iTunes U with assistance from the Digital Media Commons staff and participants in the Digital Media for Change workshop.
It would be great to have a page with these (on a volunteer basis) on the website under the “faculty” menus of the departments, with links from the MIIS homepage.