Faculty Showcase

1:00– 1:20 p.m.

Faculty Success Program: Helpful Strategies for New Faculty / Faculty from a Professional Background (20 min, Zoom) 

Kate Petrich

As a new faculty member, Prof. Petrich participated in the Faculty Success Program—run by the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development—which is designed to build skills and strategies to allow faculty members to ‘show up’ in all aspects of their job (teaching, research, service, etc). She will share some of the strategies and insights she learned that may be helpful, particularly for new faculty or faculty coming from a professional background.  

1:20–1:40 p.m.

China/U.S. Relations: Finding a Path toward More Constructive Long-Term Negotiation as an Alternative to an Economic Cold War (20 min, Zoom)

Robert Rogoswky

A new cold war is emerging between China and the US. Prof. Rogowsky’s research examined the need for and scope of more constructive economic statecraft by both the US and China in order to build a workable, new rules-based framework for managing international competition and trade that is acceptable to both countries. It contributes a path toward more constructive long-term negotiation as an alternative to an economic cold war.

1:40–2:00 p.m.

Water Conflict and Conflict Transformation in Thailand and Vietnam [J-Term Global Course] (20 min, in-person and Zoom)

Wei Liang and Jessica Teets

Prof. Liang (Middlebury Institute) and Prof. Teets (Middlebury College) led a group of 10 graduate students and 6 undergraduates in conducting field research in Thailand and Vietnam to analyze the social, economic and environmental impacts of Mekong hydropower projects. The presenters will share what worked and lessons learned including their immersive course design, planning, and how they incorporated Intercultural Competence learning objectives into a field research course.

2:00–2:20 p.m.

Urban Forests as a Tool for Adapting to Climate Crises (20 min, in-person)

Fernando DePaolis

This presentation is based on work in which graduate assistants Erin Lawrence and Jack Anderson participated.

Tracking the evolution of urban forests is not a new endeavor as it has been done routinely for the past four decades worldwide. This project had three distinct goals: 1) Determine whether there are sufficient data sources to perform a long-term analysis of the tree coverage of the Monterey Peninsula; 2) Explore cases in which different techniques have been used to perform the analysis and their success in informing policy alternatives; 3) Determine if more advanced AI-based techniques are sufficiently developed to analyze specific species, as well as change detection.

2:20–2:30 p.m.

Refreshment Break (10 min)

2:30–2:50 p.m.

Peace, Poetry, and Policy: A Multilingual Anthology of Poems on Peace, Conflict Transformation, and Social Change (20 min, in person)

Marie Butcher

Prof. Butcher is engaged in a project to research the connection between poetry and peace and demonstrate how poetry has historically been and continues to be a vehicle for social change and conflict transformation. The intent is to share the culmination of the research in a book entitled Peace, Poetry, & Policy, which will include an introduction about the history of these connections, the curation of multilingual poems focused on peace and conflict transformation, and specific practices to use poetry in multiple contexts (the classroom and other fora) focused on conflict transformation.

2:50–3:20 p.m.

The Role of Language in Social Change: Local and Global Perspectives (30 min, in-person)

Netta Avineri

In this talk, Prof. Avineri will share interdisciplinary approaches to centering language in the collective work of building towards social change. She will share case studies from both local and global contexts, and a methodology that can be adapted to various fields and topical areas.

3:20–3:40 p.m.

From Problem-Focused to Solution-Driven Approach (20 min, in-person)

Maha Baimyrzaeva

Last semester, Prof. Baimyrzaeva took a sabbatical to practice institutional, organizational, and individual development. She did this by developing and delivering training on institutional capacity building for military leaders from around the globe, designing and facilitating organizational strategic planning for a local nonprofit, and learning and practicing coaching, helping people from all walks of life get unstuck in their fundamental dilemmas. Originally, she had thought coaching would complement her work as an educator because both coaching and teaching are concerned with the development of an individual. However, she was surprised to find how coaching built on and amplified her work on both institutional and organizational level development and vice versa. In this talk, she will share one of the several insights she uncovered from studying and facilitating individual, organizational, and institutional development and change that cut across all three levels of social reality.

3:40–3:50 p.m.

Refreshment Break (10 min)

3:50–4:20 p.m.

Correlations Between Teaching Modes and Student Connections (30 min)

Phil Murphy

During the height of the COVID pandemic, a student who had decided to withdraw from our program mentioned that he felt the online format was stifling his ability to form ties with his student colleagues. He said that he felt that the education he received was important, but the network he was there to form was even more critical to his future. Later, it occurred to Prof. Murphy that he had been tracking the formation of ties between people in his network analysis course for years. He has data on students in classes before, during, and after the covid pandemic. He was, therefore, able to use a quasi-experimental design to test whether the mode of teaching was, in fact, affecting students’ ability to form ties. This presentation covers the second iteration of analytic work that he has conducted to test this hypothesis.

4:20–4:40 p.m.

Incorporating AI into a Course [DLINQ Digital Fellowship Project] (20 min, Zoom)

Daniel Chatham

This project focused on developing a process to review an existing course and identify opportunities to enhance learning by incorporating generative AI systems. It also resulted in creation of an agent or character students can interact with and simulate different cross cultural scenarios.

4:40–5:00 p.m.

The Impact of COVID on Money Laundering Methods (20 min, Zoom)

Moyara Ruehsen

The financial crime landscape has been transformed in the past decade, first by crypto, then by Covid, and now by AI. How can we keep up with the innovation that’s happening in this criminal space? The answer is public-private partnerships. In this presentation, Prof. Ruehsen will discuss two of the projects she worked on during her sabbatical - research she conducted together with colleague Phil Murphy on the impact of Covid on money laundering methods, and the book she is co-authoring with another colleague: a handbook for law enforcement, journalists, and others investigating international financial crime.

5:00–5:05 p.m. 

Closing Remarks (in-person)

Andrea Hofmann-Miller