Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Public Scholarship at Indiana University-Purdue University(2016-06) Wood, Elizabeth; Hong, Youngbok; Price, Mary F.; Stanton-Nichols, Kathleen; Hatcher, Julie A.; Craig, David M.; Kelly, Jason M.; Silverman, Ross D.; Palmer, Kristi L.Community engagement is a defining attribute of the campus, and the current Strategic Plan identifies a number of strategic actions to “Deepen our Commitment to Community Engagement.” In May 2015, A Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on Public Scholarship was established in May, 2015 to address the campus strategic goals to “recognize and reward contributions to community engagement” and “define community engagement work…in Faculty Annual Reports and promotion and tenure guidelines.” At IUPUI, scholarly work occurs in research and creative activity, teaching, and/or service. In terms of promotion and tenure, faculty members must declare an area of excellence in one of these three domains. The FLC on Public Scholarship is a 3-year initiative co-sponsored by Academic Affairs and the Center for Service and Learning (CSL). Seven faculty members from across campus were selected to be part of the 2015-2016 FLC, and two co-chairs worked closely with CSL staff to plan and facilitate the ongoing work. The FLC is charged with defining public scholarship, identifying criteria to evaluate this type of scholarship, assist faculty in documenting their community-engaged work, and working with department Chairs and Deans in adapting criteria into promotion and tenure materials. The intended audiences for this work includes faculty, community-engaged scholars, public scholars, promotion and tenure committees, external reviewers, and department Chairs and Deans. The following provides background to the campus context and a brief summary of work to date, including definition and proposed criteria to evaluate public scholarship.Item EFFECTS OF HUMAN-ORANGUTAN COOPERATION AT THE INDIANAPOLIS ZOO(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Riefler, Don; Hetrick, Erin M.; Libby, Chelsea; Wood, ElizabethThe Indianapolis Zoo is in the process of developing a new orangutan ex-hibit. The exhibit aims to help zoo guests develop an appreciation for the cognitive abilities of orangutans as well as understand how those abilities have helped the animals survive in the forest. The goals of the experience are to ultimately affect zoo guests’ attitudes and beliefs about orangutans and the importance of forest conservation. To that end, the zoo will be im-plementing interactive devices that allow orangutans living in the exhibit and zoo guests to work cooperatively on a series of discrete, individualized tasks. In the summer of 2011, IUPUI Museum Studies graduate students con-ducted visitor studies research and evaluation on a Chutes Interactive proto-type. The prototype invited research participants to cooperate with an orangutan by taking turns with the animal to rotate a series of chambers. With each rotation, a treat moved from the top of the device to a bottom chute, where the ape could retrieve it. Researchers used questionnaires, meaning mapping, and direct observa-tion methods to measure: 1) the extent of guest interaction at the device, 2) gains in general content knowledge/conceptual that occurred after the expe-rience, and 3) prototype functionality with regard to the exhibit goals and mechanics. Evaluation of the experience revealed that the cooperative expe-rience stimulated little long-term change in participant attitudes and behav-iors toward orangutans; that participants showed cognitive gain after the prototype activity, but not in knowledge areas identified as the core goals of the experience; and that design elements should be reconsidered to ensure the device would function properly more often.Item Memory and Identity on Display in a “Family Museum”: A Video Poster(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2014-04-11) Wood, Elizabeth; Peterson, ErikThe things we save of our everyday lives are not always considered “museum pieces,” but these items often find their ways into meaningful displays throughout the home. These objects become expressions of identity and memory. In Art as Experience, Dewey (1934), comments on the role of expressive objects as the tangible things of the world which represent meaning and experience. These objects are not simply mementoes or souvenirs of things past, but rather, emotional conduits that integrate and unify the sense of self; things from the past “become co-efficients in new adventures and put on a raiment of fresh meaning” (Dewey, 1934, p. 60). We are surrounded by these objects in all aspects of our lives, but it is not until they are assembled, or collected, in one place that the value and significance of these objects becomes clear. Vernacular museums, those which are set in “non-museum spaces,” are places that demonstrate a “connectedness between consumption, history, individuality, and place… [and which] allow people to discuss heritage without breaking from daily activities” (Gordon, 2012, p. 76).These settings provide an opportunity for exploration of stories of the past. A particular form of vernacular museum, what is best described as a “family museum,” represents a unique perspective on the meaning of objects as they interconnect with family and community history. The interdisciplinary approach to this study of material culture, experience, and family history encompasses a humanities research approach--posing questions about common assumptions, uncovering new meanings in the artifacts of human life, and finding new ways to understand cultural interactions. For this study in particular, the objects on display in the family museum and the way that they are displayed become a locus for the study of human experience. The poster presentation uses digital storytelling techniques to examine “The Loft,” a part of the Pierce Homestead in Mount Desert, ME, a family museum representing the collective material history of five generations of an American family. Digital storytelling is an emergent practice that incorporates traditional narratives with digital imagery, text, audio and video. Burgess (2006) suggests that the strategies of digital storytelling are fundamentally community oriented and represent “a field of cultural practice: a dynamic site of relations between textual arrangements and symbolic conventions, technologies for production and conventions for their use; and collaborative social interaction that takes place in local and specific contexts” (p.7). The opportunity to study and document vernacular museums like The Loft provides an important avenue for better understanding the personal connections that museums can build between visitors and objects, as well as ways memory, identity and sense of family. Each of thee artifacts in The Lof is a possession of the family as a whole, and “take their value from their association to events that are constitutive of the person or of the family history” (Marcoux, 2001, p. 72). Members of the family can point to and interpret their life events of the time, and connect this to the history and continuity of the family and community context, all through their relationship to the artifacts in The Loft. References Burgess, Jean (2006) Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 20(2):pp. 201-214. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York: Perigree Books. Gordon, T.S. (2011). Private history in public exhibition and the settings of everyday life. Lanham, MD: AltaMira. Marcoux, J-S. (2001). The refurbishment of memory. In D. Miller (Ed.)., Home possessions: Material culture behind closed doors (pp. 69-86). Oxford, England: Berg.