Academic Evolution

"I Think Gideon's Letter to Students is Wrong": Gregory Clark

The most commented post on Academic Evolution so far has been my "Dear Students: Don't Let College Unplug Your Future" letter. When this caught the attention of a rhetoric study group made up of graduate students and faculty at BYU this week, one of my colleagues, Dr. Gregory Clark, circulated the following response. Greg is Associate Dean of the College of Humanities at BYU and editor of Rhetoric Society Quarterly. He was also my teacher years ago and helped me value the productive interchange of competing ideas. In that spirit, he has granted permission for me to post his letter:

The Coming Change in Humanities Publishing (7): The Online Archive

On my other blog I have added a seventh installment to my series on changes coming to academic publishing (in the humanities but also generally). This one is focused on the online archive or institutional repository as the third of four kinds of electronic publishing that are emerging. Hope you will read it, as well as the entire series of which it is a part.

Podcast #003: Blogging in College Writing Instruction

Student instructor Kathy Cowley describes why and how she is having her students use blogging in her writing class at Brigham Young University. Is blogging a legitimate kind of writing instruction? What are its advantages and limits? Listen to the episode here (or subscribe to the podcast here).

In the podcast I quote from a paper Kathy wrote in which she quoted Rosa A. Eberly, "From Writers, Audiences, and Communities to Publics: Writing Classrooms as Protopublic Spaces." Rhetoric Review 18 (1999): 165-78. In our discussion Kathy also refers to Geoffrey Sirc's "Box-Logic."  Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2004. 43-66.

Podcast #002: The Facebook Experiment

Using Facebook in a literature class is the subject of my second episode of the Academic Evolution Podcast. With Stephen Humphrey I discuss the merits and limits of using this popular online social networking service for teaching and learning. Students are sharing and interacting in ways they would not have, but also seem to see the medium as too informal for serious work and are at times afraid to put their work "out there" where it can be seen by peers. We agree that our role as educators is to refine the use of the medium that the students are already using.

Subscribe to the podcast by clicking here, or listen to the current episode, here.

Podcast #001: Welcome to the Academic Evolution Podcast

The Academic Evolution Podcast has been launched! The inaugural episode includes my conversation about education and new media with Stephen Humphrey. Click the image to subscribe to the podcast feed if you like, or listen to it here. Please tell your friends! (Highlights and links from the episode follow below.)

Dear Students: Don't Let College Unplug Your Future

Dear students:

I'm about to say something a college professor shouldn't say to his students, but I care about you a lot so I'm prepared to break the code and say what needs to be said: Your college experience is likely to set back your education, your career, and your creative potential. Ironically, this will be done in the name of education. You deserve to know about this! You have what it takes to reclaim, reform, and remix your education. Don't let college unplug your future!