Faculty workshop: "Hazard mitigation: strategies for developing cross-disciplinary courses through curricula infusion"
Part of the InTeGrate Claflin University Program Model
Date/Time & Location: March 18, 2017 (Saturday) from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm; WVM Room #112*, Claflin University, 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg, SC 29115
* Room number might change.
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: March 10, 2015 by 5:00 PM.
Brief Description of the webinar.
There is emerging consensus among scholars and practitioners for cross-disciplinary approaches to disasters and emergency management (McEntire 2007). In response, many undergraduate institutions have included cross-disciplinary courses or short term course infusion in their curriculum because this pedagogic approach is considered applicable to solving real world problems (Brown and Pollak 2004; Raynolds 2012). One such example is represented by the National Science Foundation/Carleton College project focused on Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate). Claflin University (CU) has joined the project in 2015 and infused 9 courses with help from a dedicated faculty team. We are now trying to expand the efforts and support additional CU faculty beyond the project. Thus, our objectives are to:
1. Strengthen faculty capacity to incorporate learning about hazard mitigation at CU;
2. Build faculty capacity for teaching across the disciplines;
3. Help faculty find the right tools to teach using multiple disciplinary perspectives to a population without prerequisites;
4. Increase faculty conceptual flexibility that would allow them to teach "outside the box" in order to develop a more complete appreciation of their particular discipline and to recognize its place in the world at large.
References:
Brown, C., & Pollack, A. (2004). Reconstructing the paradigm: Teaching across the disciplines. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 3(1), A9.
McEntire, D. A. (2007). The importance of multi-and interdisciplinary research on disasters and for emergency management. Disciplines, disasters, and emergency management: The convergence and divergence of concepts, issues and trends from the research literature, 3-14.
Reynolds, E. R. (2012). Creating cross-disciplinary courses. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 11(1), A72.
Presenters: Camelia M. Kantor, PhD. & Anisah Bagasra, PhD.
Short Presenter bio.
Dr. Camelia Kantor, PhD is a dynamic, collaborative, and innovative professional who has enhanced and steered the university in all aspects of academic achievement including student teaching & mentorship, research, curriculum development, environmental preservation, and external funding. As a hybrid human geographer with research interests in the areas of human-environmental systems vulnerabilities assessment, Dr. Camelia Kantor is a native of Romania (Eastern Europe) and has spent her first eight years at Claflin University designing the Geography curricula and recruiting students from a variety of disciplines. Her goal (and passion) is to expose more minority students to Geography, Geosciences, and Geospatial Intelligence and to help them build and sustain geospatial knowledge skills needed to develop sustainable solutions to issues faced by their communities. Dr. Kantor is currently the PI on an NSF Targeted Infusion award entitled: Building an interdisciplinary geosciences and geospatial intelligence curricula through applied training in mapping and spatial reasoning and the PI/Lead on NSF CU InTeGrated! Earth Sciences curricula infusion sub-award from Carleton College.
Dr. Anisah Bagasra, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Claflin University. She teaches a wide-range of psychology courses and mentors students on undergraduate research projects. Dr. Bagasra works in the area of mental health disparities, focusing on perception of mental illness and barriers to help-seeking. Her research interests include mental health issues affecting religious and ethnic minorities in the United States, acculturation issues, and cross-cultural and interfaith dialogue. Much of her research has been conducted in the Muslim American and African American faith communities in the South. She helped to establish Claflin's Psychology Major in 2013 and developed and taught the first fully-online courses at the University. As Interim Director of Online Education, she has worked to launch two fully online undergraduate and two fully online master degree programs to serve the needs of South Carolina residents. Dr. Bagasra is a CU InTeGrated! team member supporting Psychology curricula infusion with Earth Sciences content.
Conveners:
- Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC (Host Institution)
- Benedict College, Columbia, SC
- Voorhees College, Denmark, SC
Note: Lunch included. Participants will receive a certificate of participation.
Funding Statement: This faculty training is sponsored by the National Science Foundation through the NSF/Carleton College InTeGrate. Certificates of participation will be offered by Claflin University's Faculty Development Committee.