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About Bart Everson

Creative Generalist in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier University of Louisiana

A faculty member came to me and said she wanted an interactive map to help her students learn about art history from a global perspective. She had poked on the web looking for such a resource but found nothing that suited her needs.

My mind started to reel as I briefly envisioned creating an interactive map from scratch, but I quickly came to my senses. Even if we couldn't find a ready-made map, surely we could find a tool for creating maps quickly and easily.

Sure enough: We found ZeeMaps.

It's extremely easy to get started with this site. You don't even need an account (though it might be a good idea to create one). Within seconds, you can have a fully navigable map of the world at your disposal, which you can use in many different ways.

We found it most expedient to drop simple markers on the map. You can add multimedia content to the markers, including text, photos, audio files, even YouTube videos.

Best of all, for our purposes, a web link can be associated with each marker.

This means that our intrepid faculty member would be able to link markers to existing high-quality web content. No need to fuss with tricky copyright issues. It becomes an exercise in content curation. The faculty member is able to focus on learning objectives.

A couple caveats are in order. At the free level, ZeeMaps is supported by ad revenue. So unless you plunk down some cash, your students will probably be seeing some advertisements. Also, I haven't tested this product extensively. There may be limitations of which I'm simply not aware yet.

If you need an interactive map for your teaching, you may wish to give ZeeMaps a try. Just head over to ZeeMaps.com and create a map to see how easy it is. Let us know how it goes.

(A lot of people seem to be importing lists of locations into ZeeMaps from other sources, such as an Excel spreadsheet of addresses or coordinates. For help on how to do that, see this tutorial from KDMC Berkeley.)

Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and LiberationFor our seventh annual Fall Faculty Book Club, we read Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation by Laura I. Rendón.

At our final meeting, we asked our participating faculty to jot down some thoughts. Here is what they wrote.

The book challenged traditional approaches to teaching and learning and challenged readers to embrace a holistic approach to teaching which brings together both mind and heart and embraces a social justice stance.

Very comforting to have so many others feel as I do. Important to remember that we are responsible for our own outcomes and we cannot really focus on how this pedagogical endeavor affects others even though you hope it will be positive. The potential latent value of sentipensante practices is also intriguing as is the collateral leaning component.

The book provided an interesting conversation about the nuts and bolts of implementing contemplative pedagogy in the classroom.

Useful discussion on how to sustain myself in my career — by building sustenance into my professional and personal life, blended.

Thought provoking! This book points out our society's disconnect with the whole self and emphasizes its obsession with reaching non-integrative goals and measures. My questions is, "How do we change this?"

The best practices are subversive. Love is subversive!

The book reinforced the idea that the goal of education is to develop well-rounded individuals who possess knowledge and wisdom. Professors need to design a relationship-centered classroom based on caring, support and validation. Tests and grades should not be used as punitive measures, but as feedback mechanisms that assist in determining where the student is at a particular point in time.

Laura Rendón describes how to incorporate sensing/thinking pedagogy. Although the author describes the process eloquently, at times the book is lengthy.

This was a good read in that it made me think about what I do and how I can be more effective. There are a lot of great ideas, but sometimes the narrative was so subjective that it did not seem scholarly.

Examples of involving/engaging students were wonderful and inspiring.

What repercussions will we face if we do not acknowledge the existence of the emotional and spiritual along with the intellectual? Woe unto humanity if we do not!

Sentipensante pedagogy is concerned with engagement strategies that are associated with a rational and contemplative education. Engaging sentipensante pedagogy can be transformative and liberating.

On the whole, I felt it was a bit idealistic, however it does bring up some important points. We should always remember to nurture the whole students. I thinnk depending on the class and enthusiasm of the instructor one could be successful with this strategy, and we should all strive to be.

A voice crying in the wilderness, but there are more and more voices!

For an in-depth review of the book, see Ann E. Austin's article in The Review of Higher Education.

Red Leaves

The nearest airport is in Connecticut, so when your plane lands you still have a good long drive to get to Amherst. You talk to the shuttle driver. She has an accent you can't place, but she's lived in Massachusetts for at least a decade.

She drops you off at Allen House, a little bed and breakfast you found online. It proves to be a lovingly-done Victorian-era restoration, cozy and charming. The place is booked full of people from all over the world who are here for the same purpose as you. An instant and easy camaraderie springs up between you.

You're here for the Fifth Annual Conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE), which is being held at Amherst College.

You make your way up the street to a noodle shop with a couple fellow travelers for a quick dinner. It's cold, much colder than New Orleans, but only outdoors. You're surprised to find that it's warm and toasty indoors wherever you go. Apparently central heating is to New England what air conditioning is to the Deep South.

Then you walk over to Amherst College campus. The conference begins this evening. After registering at Converse Hall you find your way to Stirn Auditorium.

The ACMHE conference is a little different from other conferences, and that's evident from the start. The opening plenary begins with silent meditation. There are a couple hundred people packed into the auditorium. Though no one says a word, you feel the power of their presence all the more. You are aware of the potentialities that will unfold over the next 40 hours.

If that wasn't enough to distinguish this conference as unique, what comes next certainly seals the deal. An extra space has been reserved on the keynote panel. An audience member is randomly selected to fill it.

Random

And so the conference begins. The theme this year is "Integrity of Practice." The panel considers questions that revolve around this theme. Then the audience members discuss the questions amongst themselves, and finally share their thoughts with the larger group.

Integrity of Practice

The next morning you have breakfast at the Amherst Inn, owned by the same people who run Allen House. The breakfast table serves as an extension of the conference, the conversations of the night before continuing over pancakes and coffee.

Very soon, you're back on campus for the first of the parallel sessions. There are nine sessions running at the same time, and all the topics look fascinating. How to choose? You find yourself drawn to a session by David Forbes of Brooklyn College/CUNY, with the provocative title, "Contemplative Education and Neoliberalism: A Perfect World Still Requires Radical Action."

A Perfect World Still Calls for Radical Transformation

Forbes' presentation is chock-full of ideas, far more than even a fast-talking New Yorker can cover in the allotted time. He is asking all the right questions. "What is the purpose of contemplative practices in education? Is it enlightenment/awakening and the elimination of greed, ill-will, and delusion for everyone and at all societal levels, or is it a relativistic technology used to improve attention, reduce stress, and gain personal success and productivity in a competitive society?" The conversation that follows is galvanizing.

The morning continues. All the sessions look so promising that you decide to take a cue from the previous night's panel and select your next session randomly. You end up listening to Ed Sarath from the University of Michigan hold forth on "Integrity of Practice in Meditation and Improvisation Pedagogy."

Ed Sarath

You're stunned to realize that improvisation has been perhaps the most central musical practice throughout world history, except for a period of about 200 years in Europe. This seems to throw light on the state of the modern academy, which even in America tends to be both highly traditional and Eurocentric. But that is changing.

You've come here from a historically Black university, so it is with special interest that you attend your next session, "Contemplative Race Theory: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Racial Discourse." The presenters, Seth Schoen and Rev. Christopher Carter, seem very young. In fact, they are graduate students, and this is their first such presentation.

Contemplative Race Theory

They present a "compassion practice" which they have developed together, a fairly advanced guided meditation that is grounded in critical race theory. It would seem to be a good way to prepare classes for difficult, sensitive or contentious discussions. They hope to publish on the practice soon. You make a note for future reference.

In the afternoon, there are open space sessions, organized around topics suggested by participants that very morning. You attend a discussion on race, class and gender.

Open Session on Race, Class & Gender

The conversation is heartfelt, respectful yet challenging. You are taken by one participant's observation that contemplation disrupts her "default modes of being," which suggests the subtle potential of such practices for subverting engrained social structures.

The theme for the conference is "Integrity of Practice." But your own personal theme is beginning to emerge. It might be called, "The Joy of Walking Slowly." You find yourself walking often in the company of two women who walk slowly for different reasons. Karen is walking with a cane. Eileen simply seems to be the sort of person who is never rushed. You find you must make a conscious effort to slow down and stick with their pace, but this seems entirely in keeping with the spirit of the conference.

Before dinner on Saturday evening Karen reveals she doesn't have a sprained ankle or a broken foot. She suffered a life-threatening stroke some while ago. You listen in awe to the story of her recovery, and how her 30-year practice of meditation helped her through a very difficult time.

It's been a full day. You're tired. You sleep like a rock that night, for about ten hours, disturbed only by a welcome nocturnal visitation from the B&B's resident housecat.


Sunday morning begins in much the same manner as Saturday, with conversation around the breakfast table as stimulating as any one of the formal sessions. You walk to campus with Robert-Louis Abrahamson. When learning of your fascination with seasonal progress, he bestows upon you a touching gift: a copy of his own CD and accompanying booklet, Journey Through the Seasons, a cycle of meditations on the five Chinese healing energies.

You're excited to attend a roundtable discussion on "The Role of Teaching Centers in Introducing and Supporting Contemplative Practices," convened by your new friend Eileen Abrams.

The Role of Teaching Centers

A nascent faculty development network seems to be emerging. You know from previous experience how powerful this can be, and the exchange of ideas is invigorating. For example, one colleague suggests exploring the connection between contemplative pedagogy and retention rates. It seems like a promising line of inquiry.

But the best has, perhaps, been saved for last. The impromptu student panel was one of the most engaging sessions at the ACMHE conference. This was, in part, an opportunity for faculty to ask students, "What do we need to know from you?"

Student Panel

A number of new connections are made for you. For example: Metacognition is enhanced by meditation. We've sponsored workshops on both topics but never drawn that connection. You think to yourself: We should sponsor more student panels at CAT. We have much to learn from our students.

On the ride back to the airport, you find yourself once again conversing with the shuttle driver. He hails from Morocco and is a big fan of the Boston Celtics. As you describe the conference you discover what you've learned.

Pedagogy must connect course content to a larger whole; otherwise, we are merely conveying disassociated tidbits of information, quickly "crammed" into short-term memory and just as quickly forgotten. Pedagogy must be meaningful, purposeful, and connected to deep values in order to be effective and transformative. You're struck by the awe-inspiring scope of this charge. You realize that this domain — the domain of meaning, purpose and values — provides a good working definition of spirituality. These issues are the main concern of many religions. Therefore, in order to be effective, teachers must be on a spiritual path or grounded in a spiritual practice. It's not something extra, some "value added" proposition. It's absolutely essential. It's the core, the foundation of what we do. And it follows that a holistic faculty development program must provide support for the spiritual development of faculty members.

The implications are staggering. However will you communicate this to the folks back home?

I've just finished up a series of six essays for College Contemplative on the topic of "Contemplative Faculty Development."

  1. Greetings & Introduction
  2. My Story
  3. Stepping into Silence
  4. The Transformative Banquet
  5. Sustaining the Dialog
  6. What's Next

Read at your own risk; I apologize in advance for the length. Now I'm off to the Fifth Annual Conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education to present on this same topic. Catch you on the flipside! And please don't miss our Nov. 14th workshop on Zen meditation.

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Download Conversation #21

Kenneth Crews

A court ruled last year that at least within limits it was fair use to scan pages from a book and to make those pages available to students in connection with teaching at a university. Now, you're thinking to yourself: But we do that here all the time. And the answer is: I know, it's happening all over the country — and somebody finally got sued. The case is up on appeal.

A conversation with Kenneth Crews of Columbia University, on teaching, learning and copyright.

Links for this episode:

...continue reading "Conversation #21: Kenneth Crews on Copyright"

Here at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Stassi DiMaggio (Chemistry) and Mr. Jeremy Tuman (English) as our newly appointed Faculty in Residence.

Dr. DiMaggio is the CAT Faculty in Residence.

The CAT Faculty in Residence has primary responsibility for enhancing and leading programming for first year faculty. Duties include: assisting in the planning and implementation of new faculty orientation; facilitating new faculty mentoring; organizing and implementing the new faculty "brown bag" series; organizing and implementing a coherent set of workshop open to all faculty but focused on new faculty; assisting in grant writing for CAT initiatives related to first year faculty development; and assisting in the assessment of CAT's programs related to first year faculty development.

Need to get in touch? Contact Dr. DiMaggio.

Mr. Tuman is the Faculty in Residence for Service Learning.

The Faculty in Residence for Service Learning at CAT works in close partnership with the Center for Student Leadership and Service to provide services to faculty incorporating the pedagogy of service-learning into the curriculum and promoting civic engagement through meaningful community participation. Duties include: creating and implementing training workshops and program materials; assisting in identifying service-learning faculty and courses; and serving as the co-chair of the service-learning faculty advisory board.

Need to get in touch? Contact Mr. Tuman.

Sue Frantz

Today CAT welcomes Sue Frantz who will be showcasing some essential technology in The Academic's Toolbox. We're learning plenty which we'll be sure to share in the weeks and months ahead.

Rising Tide 8 is over — but video coverage of this "conference on the future of New Orleans" is now online. If you missed the live event, which has been hosted at Xavier and sponsored by CAT for three years running, you can still experience some of it vicariously.

All of the main stage panels offered substantive content with potential application for teaching and learning. I've linked these below with suggestions on what disciplines might find the content most relevant.

However, for sheer inspiration and oratory, keynote speaker Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré surely takes the prize. There are some minor technical problems with the audio, but the substance of his speech more than compensates. Listen to this for a strong and stirring message on social and environmental justice in Louisiana. It's a true "call to arms" and must be seen to be appreciated.

Keynote: Lt. General Russel Honore

Of course, no matter your special area of interest, all these videos will be of interest to anyone who cares about the future of New Orleans.

Download Conversation #20

Eric Bain-Selbo

We want students to "think outside the box." Those boxes have been handed to them, and they are going to create new boxes. As educators, our role is to point out the boxes both new and old.

A conversation with Eric Bain-Selbo of Western Kentucky University, on teaching, learning and values education.

Links for this episode:

Post scriptum: CAT is pleased to welcome Dr. Ray Lang as our new podcast host for the 2013-2014 academic year.