On Thursday, January 13, participants gathered on Zoom to celebrate the nominees for the Ward Prize in First-Year Writingfor 2020-21. Rather than having one winner and two runners-up, as in past years, the committee selected 11 of the 30 nominees to receive the prize. The change allows for a broader range of styles and disciplines to be adequately represented and recognizes there isn’t one dominant voice in student writing that can be deemed best. Read more about the celebration and see the digital book of essays.
Between leading participants in movement exercises she uses with her students, Becky Thompson spoke on Tuesday, January 11, about the current challenges to staying present in the classroom. Centered on the pedagogy in her book Teaching with Tenderness, the talk and following workshop opened the2022 Contemporary Teaching Series on holistic, embodied approaches to teaching and learning.A recording of the talk is available to the Middlebury community. See upcoming events, including several on trauma-informed teaching, at go.middlebury.edu/contemporaryteaching.
An announcement was sent out on December 22, 2021 that the first day of classes for J-term will be moved to Monday, January 10, 2022. The last day of classes will be moved one day later to Friday, February 4, 2022. Classes will begin remotely on 1/10-1/11. DLINQ will be offering pre-semester workshops the first week of January to assist faculty with remote teaching.
Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti will be holding a meeting on Monday, December 13 at 10 am with DLINQ and CTLR representatives to discuss strategies for conducting exams online (see email announcement from 12/10 at 5:14 pm for the Zoom link). The meeting will be recorded for those who cannot attend. Digital Learning and Inquiry (DLINQ) has also shared a list of Canvas options and resources that may help in transitioning your final assessments online. See the full list.
The Middlebury Campus recently featured professor Mario Higa’s course “The School of Bossa Nova.” Students spent the semester studying Brazilian music through movies, reading, lectures and discussion, which culminated in a live performance. The course was supported by Pedagogy Enrichment Funding through the CTLR. Read the full article.
As the semester comes to an end, Dean of Curriculum Grace Spatafora asks faculty to allow students time in class to complete their Course Response Forms. In a recent email, she stated “responserates are typically between 80 and 90% when students are provided class time to complete these forms, and they drop to well below 50% when we rely on students to complete the forms outside of class.” Instructions on how to manage Course Response Forms will be sent to faculty in a separate email shortly. Online information can be found from Academic Affairs.
Sam Wilson ’24 posted his essay Asking for a Friend this fall on Blurring Boundaries, a Writing and Rhetoric Program (WRPR) project started by professor Hector Vila. The site is a creative non-fiction space built through Medium for students to share their class writing and digital stories that blurs boundaries, including photography and art that ask us to think deeper. Over 80 students have contributed to date. Alumni are also welcome to submit works. Read more essays.
A November Newsroom article highlights the Axinn Center Public Humanities Labs Initiative and the push to incorporate more humanities skills and research options through a lab setting. Professors Febe Armanios and Marion Wells have received a three-year grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to support the project. Read the full article.
At their November 12 meeting, the faculty approved two changes for the fall 2021 semester effective immediately: 1) re-instatement of the Credit/No-Credit alternate grade mode for the fall 2021 semester and 2) extension of the drop deadline to December 10. See the email from the Registrar’s office dated Monday, November 15, 2021 at 10:33 am for additional details.
