This year’s Trimmer Travel Award winner is Olivia Reyes, a Global Art and Visual Culture Major at the University of Central Oklahoma. Reyes presented at the 2nd World Congress on Undergraduate Research at the University of Oldenburg. She analyzed Cuban, Polish, and American posters advertising the two American films, George C. Scott’s Rage (1972), and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). CURAH caught up with Reyes and asked her how it went. Here is what she told us.
CURAH Chair Maria Iacullo-Bird congratulates Olivia Reyes.
Olivia Reyes reflects on her experiences
It is difficult to fully describe the value of my 2nd World Congress on Undergraduate Research experience. Nowhere else have I had the opportunity to work and collaborate with colleagues and scholars from across the globe. In addition to attending excellent keynote speakers like Dr. Lujendra Ojha, Dr. Anne Dippel, and Dr. Sonia Fizek, I also attended presentations by my undergraduate colleagues. There was such a strong emphasis on global relationships and the need for international cooperation, something that I felt we were all actively a part of in those moments.
My own presentation, a poster exploring the cross-culture development of visual languages during the Cold War through Polish, Cuban, and American film posters, was integral part of my experience. This project was the result of close to four years of work, and to be able to explore it with my international colleagues and scholars from a variety of disciplines was invaluable. I believe my research was well received, and I acquired many incites on the possibilities of traveling abroad once again to continue my research, as well as various ways to expand the research itself even further.
Cuban poster for George C. Scott’s Rage (1972)
Another truly valuable part of my experience was the chance to network with other researchers and scholars. I particularly enjoyed the “communications” thematic session. Each of us came from a wide variety of disciplines but found ways to incorporate our own knowledge and ideas into one project. Going off the idea of a colleague from South Africa, we developed a series of research questions and ideas for the development of a baby monitoring device for deaf parents, one that would be as affordable as possible for people worldwide. I am proud of what we accomplished during that short time, and I hope I have the chance to work with these colleagues in the future!
It is often said that we live in an increasingly global community, and indeed, in order to tackle global issues it is more important than ever to connect with colleagues from a variety of disciplines and from around the world. I believe the 2nd World Congress on Undergraduate Research was the first of opportunity of many for my colleagues and myself to be a part of that global dialogue. I am truly honored to have attended such an event, and I am grateful to have received the Trimmer Travel Award.
CURAH congratulates the first two recipients of our new annual faculty mentor award: Neel Smith, professor and chair of the Department of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, and Donald Lawrence, professor of visual arts at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.
Every year CURAH awards travel grants to deserving undergraduates. This year we congratulate our two award winners, Tori Dehlin (Utah State University, majoring in Global Communication and Spanish) and Madeline Hass (U of Wisconsin Oshkosh, majoring in philosophy). Tori and Madeline presented their original research at this year’s National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Kennesaw State University.
Tori Dehlin
Paper title: “#MeToo/#YoTambien: A Comparative Analysis of Sexual Harassment Discourse on Twitter.”
Dehlin examines public discourse around sexual harassment and abuse in the twittersphere. She looked at tweets in English and Spanish to construct her comparative analysis and emphasized the value and impact of #MeToo/#YoTambien on different communities of participants and users of the hashtag. As Dehlin explained, this paper is the beginning of an ongoing study that will explore the impacts of social media in creating narratives of shared experience, as well as examine how discourses such as #MeToo/#YoTambien change over time.
Madeline Hass
Paper title: “How Art Helps Us Understand: A Neo-Cognitivist Theory of the Value of Art”
Hass builds on work done by Gordon Graham. She constructs a philosophical argument about how art is able to transcend standard statements of value, advocating for a level of understanding that takes us beyond human experience and sensory perception. The audience embraced Hass’s argument with enthusiastic engagement. Speaking about her experience, Hass said, “NCUR has had an incredible impact on my undergraduate experience. It has given me the opportunity to present my work to other young academics and to improve my skills as a speaker. Most significantly, it has helped me to see that academia can be accessible, and that there is a place for people like me in academia.” Hass hopes to attend graduate school to continue her studies in the field of philosophy.
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Helping students use their developing arts and humanities skills to convince prospective employers
Those of us in the arts and humanities are well aware of disparaging messages in popular and academic media about the “uselessness” of our disciplines. As the number of traditional-age undergraduates is on the decline, as the cost of higher education and student-loan debts rise, and as suspicions swirl about whether a college education is actually worthwhile, faculty and academic administrators are expected to attend more closely than before to the recruitment, retention, timely degree-completion, and post-baccalaureate success of our students. Those of us in the arts and humanities have an additional burden of proof of our value, especially given statements from political leaders about the unviability of majoring in fields like anthropology (FL Gov. Rick Scott), gender studies (NC Gov. Pat McCrory), philosophy (Senator Marco Rubio), art history (President Barack Obama), and other areas of study perceived as impractical and even self-indulgent.
Calling certain degrees unmarketable might seem strange given our historically low unemployment at the moment. But the National Center for Education Statistics (2018) recently reported that nearly half of all recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed (i.e., piecing together part-time work and/or working in low-skilled jobs). One explanation is that employers are competing for skilled workers, but another more pervasive and troubling explanation is that so many employers believe millennials are ill-equipped for 21st-century jobs.
The problem: employers don’t believe students have the right skills.
Studies commissioned by the AAC&U (Hart Research Associates, 2015; 2018) and the Chronicle of Higher Education and Public Radio International’s Marketplace (Fisher, 2013) have reported that hiring managers and supervisors in a wide range of businesses and nonprofit organizations believe recent college graduates lack basic proficiencies critical to success in the workplace, such as communication skills, complex problem-solving, and working across difference. Employers gave very low grades to recent graduates on all 17 of the AAC&U’s essential learning outcomes of college, including those deemed most important for careers:
Oral communication
Working effectively on teams
Written communication
Ethical decision-making
Critical thinking & analysis
Applying knowledge to real-world problems
Nearly all of those surveyed said those six skills are more important than a job candidate’s alma mater or major. In order to consider applicants for further review, interviews, and hiring, employers are looking for evidence of those experiences and skills in job-seekers’ resumes and cover letters.
The solution: undergraduate research in the arts and humanities provides evidence of key skills.
Here’s where undergraduate research can help. Undergraduate researchers in the arts and humanities are in a particularly strong position for demonstrating with evidence that they have developed the skills and dispositions most highly valued by a broad range of potential employers. Their faculty mentors can help them see how to make the case. Here are some ways I have coached arts and humanities majors at Bridgewater State University to use their undergraduate-research experiences as indicators of the most highly valued workplace skills.
Arts and humanities scholars demonstrate communication.
Proficiency in oral and written communication (combined here for the sake of brevity) is shown by giving talks at campus symposia and even regional or national conferences, engaging interpersonally with peers and experts in those settings, and committing to revising written work (including in response to critical feedback) in order to convey ideas effectively.
Arts and humanities research can include collaboration.
Skills associated with working collaboratively on teams can be demonstrated by arts and humanities majors (even if they are less likely than students in the sciences to conduct collaborative research) when they draw upon situations in which they saw themselves as part of a group (e.g., a community of practice) with common goals. In an AAC&U survey, 96% of employers agreed that “all college students should have experiences that teach them how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own” (Hart Research Associates, 2015). Those mentored in working across difference, a value in many of our fields, can highlight that understanding in their job searches. The practice of accepting and learning from constructive criticism, explicit in the arts and valued in the humanities as well, are effectively discussed in cover letters and interviews.
Arts and humanities research fosters ethical thinking.
Ethical decision-making can be evidenced by students whose work aims for the common good and who are able to explain how they have grappled with complex issues in their research. Considering the consequences of their research decisions—and modifying their course of action when needed—demonstrate students’ thoughtful, and often principled, choices.
Arts and humanities scholars demonstrate critical thinking.
The development of skills of critical thinking and analysis is integral to undergraduate research; students tackling “actively contested” questions (Kuh, 2008) must take resourceful, creative approaches to those questions, problems, or goals. The scholarly practices in the arts and humanities of “unpacking” theories, texts, cultural norms, etc.; examining assumptions; and determining what needs to be known or done to accomplish the goals of the project, are of vital importance in a range of careers.
Arts and humanities research focuses on real-world problems.
One of the reasons students express satisfaction in undergraduate research is that they finally had the opportunity to apply knowledge to real-world problems—something that arts and humanities majors do not always experience in their coursework. Undergraduate research engages students in the authentic questions of the discipline or another community. It deepens student understanding through active learning, especially when they immerse themselves in long-term projects. The ability to describe such directly applicable work helps arts and humanities majors stand out in their job searches, especially because we humanists and artists commonly guide students in metacognitive practices that allow them to reflect on their learning and its applications beyond the classroom and academic program.
Conclusion
Despite the denigration of the arts and humanities in political messages and popular culture, there is little evidence that such majors are less viable when it comes to post-baccalaureate employment prospects. In fact, data from multiple sources speak to the immense value of certain skills and dispositions, developed particularly well through undergraduate research, including in the arts and humanities. The Chronicle of Higher Education headline may have said it best in touting the positive job outlook for students in our fields, “If They Have Some Specific Skills Too” (Blumenstyk, 2016). One of the important aspects of mentoring arts and humanities undergraduate-researchers can be to show them how to highlight the sought-after skills that they are developing in their projects.
Kuh, George D. 2008. High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
(Note: the above post is a summary of a presentation Jenny Olin Shanahan gave at the CUR Biennial in 2018).
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The following is an excerpt from a new book I co-edited with Susan Kattwinkel, Performing Arts as High-Impact Practice, with particular emphasis on our chapter on undergraduate research.
Our overall goal was to acknowledge that the performing arts contribute to “high impact practices,” (HIPs) as identified by the American Association of Colleges & Universities. Using the well-known map of the HIPs to illustrate the centrality of performing arts practices in higher education, Kattwinkel and I call for increased participation by performing arts programs in general education, and campus and community initiatives. We use specific case studies as a guide. Ours is the first book to explicitly link the performing arts to HIPs. As a result, it will help institutions implement best practices to meet the transformative educational goals of students and ready them for the creative careers of the future. At stake is the viability of performing arts programs to continue to serve students in their pursuit of a liberal arts education.
Each chapter describes the performing arts disciplines’ contributions to one particular HIP, including a chapter on undergraduate research. Accepting creative activity as research is still contested ground, even among artists. Administrators and faculty need to advocate for the understanding of creative activity as research, and creative scholarship by students and faculty should be acknowledged for their contributions to the institution’s research profile. Ensembles and individuals that create plays, choreography, and compositions are conducting undergraduate research, and we need to educate our peers in other disciplines that this is the case. In our chapter on the HIP of undergraduate research, we review the literature of the performing arts as research and trace the history of the incorporation of undergraduate research into the higher education landscape. We present two dynamic case studies. First, Kathy L. Privatt describes how engaging students in a dramaturgy project of their own choice has been a fruitful model of individual research. Second, Malaika Sarco-Thomas illustrates the benefits of integrating theory and practice in a dance project that gives undergraduates the framework in which to pursue their own research project.
Critical reviews of the book have been extremely positive:
“A combination of advocacy of arts in higher education, common sense, creative thinking, and twenty-first century ideas, this book reconsiders the myriad ways in which the arts could make our institutions richer and our students’ pathways more innovative, leading to career outcomes that transform society.”
–Nancy J. Uscher, Dean, College of Fine Arts, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
“An absolutely crucial read for practitioners, teachers, and scholars of the performing arts. Remarkably cogent, it meets a long-outstanding need: a point-by-point, thoroughly evidentiary argument for bringing the arts from the margins of higher education practice to the center, where they can help students meet the challenges of this new age.”
— Jacob Pinholster, Associate Dean, Herberger Institute for Design & the Arts, Arizona State University
Cover Photo courtesy of Yasmin Falzon
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Many national conferences in humanities fields deliberately limit participation to advanced graduate students and faculty. As a result, finding venues for undergraduate presentation is challenging. One solution to this problem is starting a local undergraduate research conference on your own. That’s how I came to create the Michigan Medieval & Renaissance Undergraduate Consortium.
Dana Aspinall, Professor of English at Alma College
Near the beginning of my career, I took a position as Assistant Professor at a small liberal arts college in central Massachusetts. That fall, noted Clark University professor Virginia Mason Vaughan notified me of a Medieval and Renaissance consortium she had organized among several of the colleges and universities in our area, and invited me to participate. I did so, and brought with me 2 or 3 students.
While I do not remember how my students performed or the topics they discussed, I do remember thinking to myself what a wonderful opportunity Professor Vaughan had provided through this consortium: students read and then discussed their papers in a professional fashion, and answered questions from both fellow students and faculty sponsors. Perhaps more importantly, these students heard what their peers from other schools were studying and discussing, and I could see that their interactions reignited the fires that originally had led them to writing their papers in the first place. For the next ten years, I encouraged my students to participate in this consortium. And I urged strong presenters to consider advanced study in medieval and/or early modern literature.
When I moved to Alma College in the fall of 2007, I brought with me the joy of participating in this consortium. I immediately asked my colleagues at Michigan’s other liberal arts colleges if they wanted to establish a consortium among us. To my delight, the response was immediate and positive. Our first consortium, held in 2009, included six colleges and nearly 20 student participants.
My goals with the consortium have remained largely the same throughout the ten years we have held it:
to provide students interested in medieval or early modern fields of study (including literature, history, art, language, and religion) a forum wherein they can speak on what they have discovered and upon what they want to conjecture
to provide these students an interested and responsive audience
to provide those seeking graduate study an environment much like that of a professional conference
to provide faculty a place to gather and discuss what students have done and seem most interested in pursuing
One other goal, less easy to articulate as succinctly as those above, also deserves mention: I always have believed that the simple act of discussion, in a challenging but nurturing and safe environment, brings out the best in both students and faculty. Our students are seeing things and making connections between them for the first time, while faculty can guide them even further and simultaneously share the excitement students feel in their discoveries and conjectures. I am happy to have been a part of this environment, and hope it continues long into the future.
The consortium has experienced occasional years of fluctuating participation, but overall these goals seem to have been met. None of this success would have been achieved, of course, without the efforts and energies of my colleagues at Michigan’s liberal arts colleges. I thank them all.
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The Arts and Humanities Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research
Ours is the first book to explicitly link the performing arts to HIPs. As a result, it will help institutions implement best practices to meet the transformative educational goals of students and ready them for the creative careers of the future. At stake is the viability of performing arts programs to continue to serve students in their pursuit of a liberal arts education.
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