08.06.08
Posted in Education, Jacob Canon, Relationships, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, ethics, sociology at 11:04 am by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Rebecca P. Arrington, Assistant Director of Media Relations, we look at the annual Walter A. Ridley Distinguished Lecture at the University of Virginia, held in April in the Rotunda’s Dome Room.
“In an increasingly diverse nation and interconnected world, educators must teach students to be global citizens committed to justice for all people,” a leading voice in multicultural education told a audience at the annual Walter A. Ridley Distinguished Lecture at the University of Virginia. The Ridley Lecture Series honors U.Va.’s first African-American graduate, who received his doctorate in education from the Curry School in 1953 and went on to a distinguished career in higher education administration.
Educating Students to Be Global Citizens [5:35m]:
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According to James A. Banks, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Multicultural Education and the Kerry and Linda Killinger Professor of Diversity Studies, “schools across the nation and the world are becoming increasingly diverse due to immigration.”
Banks said, “there were 191 million migrants worldwide in 2005, and one in every five children in the U.S. is the child of an immigrant. If current trends continue, the number of persons of color in U.S. public schools will equal or exceed the percentage of whites within one to two decades — a situation that is already true in six U.S. states.”
In Banks lecture, titled “Diversity in America: Challenges and Opportunities for Educating Citizens in Global Times,” He stressed that this increased diversity requires changes in the way students are taught.
Banks said , “Because of the way in which people are moving back and forth across national borders today, we must educate students to function across borders, to become global citizens and to develop cosmopolitan values and commitments.”
He added that this focus on global citizenship requires educators to look beyond a curriculum limited to the “testing and assessment” of basic academic proficiency.
Banks went on to say, “All students of course need to master basic skills in reading, writing and math. However, these skills are necessary, but not sufficient. I am deeply concerned about education that is narrowly defined as academic achievement in basic skills. … Reading, writing and arithmetic are only important if they serve to make students humane.”
Banks said that students should be taught not only “the ability to master, access and use factual knowledge, but also the ability to challenge assumptions, to interrogate and reconstruct knowledge” and learn “to know, to care, and to act,” the three goals of global citizenship education. This type of teaching will educate “students’ heads, but also their hearts,” and create “transformative” citizens who are prepared to take an active role in their society and work for social justice.
Banks said, ‘The notion of simple patriotism to one nation has become obsolete and our society needs to accept the multi-dimensional nature of diversity. A person is not simply a citizen of one country or a member of one ethnic group. Instead, one’s identity incorporates a variety of factors, including nation and race, but also factors such as sexual orientation, religion, language and class.”
Banks encouraged educators to nurture three levels of identification in their students: cultural, national and global. This will help create a necessary balance between unity and diversity because, according to Banks, “unity without diversity leads to hegemony, and diversity without unity leads to chaos.”
This balance between respecting a student’s individual, cultural background and at the same time, encouraging national and global identification is what Banks said will ultimately nurture students who are global citizens and answer the question, “How can we educate our students so they grieve for people dying in Darfur and Iraq as much as they do for our own?”
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us for our next show, when we will well discuss a University of Virginia researcher has received a three-year grant from The Hartwell Foundation to further his research on an innovative method to treat pediatric brain tumors.
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04.09.08
Posted in Business, Jacob Canon, Relationships, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, sociology at 12:04 pm by Jacob Canon
In last week’s show we examined the research of University of Virginia politics professor Paul Freedman that suggests that the ever-growing barrage of political ads actually contributes to citizen education and engagement, and only rarely have negative impacts.
In today’s show, adapted from an article recently published on the Oscar Web site written by Melissa Maki, research communications coordinator for the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, we look at the research of Rob Cross, associate professor in the McIntire School of Commerce, and his work helping businesses discover potential bottlenecks or disconnects in their network — providing information that is critical for businesses to improve.
One of the secrets to running a business, and getting the highest productivity is understanding how a company is structured to maximize efficiency. In the past, companies have used formal organizational charts that delineate chains of command, oversight and work flow.
But Rob Cross, associate professor in the McIntire School of Commerce, doesn’t put much stock in these formal organizational charts. His research has proven them largely irrelevant in understanding how businesses actually operate on a day-to-day basis.
Cross, an expert in social network analysis, works with companies to determine the intricate, but largely invisible connections that people form in order to get their work done.
In order to illustrate and understand these relationships, Cross interviews and surveys employees about topics such as whom they rely on for information and who helps them to accomplish tasks. “It’s like taking an X-ray to see who’s important in an organization,” he says. “A lot of the times, it’s not who leaders think it is.”
Rather than a hierarchy, the results of Cross’ mapping more closely resemble a web, graphically demonstrating countless interconnections. The diagrams Cross constructs help him to understand who is central to getting things done as well as to visualize bottlenecks or disconnects in the network — providing information that is critical for businesses to improve.
For instance, at the edges of these maps, Cross often finds people with important expertise who are underutilized by their organization. Finding ways to connect these outliers and their resources back to the organization can dramatically improve business performance.
In his analysis, Cross also looks closely at the notion of enthusiasm or what he terms “energy” and its role in an organization. He has found that people who have the ability to create enthusiasm around them establish more connections and ultimately perform better than others. Cross can pinpoint areas of a company with high and low levels of energy and give managers suggestions for fostering energy, and thus new ideas.
Cross said, “Energy is hugely predictive of where innovation starts to occur deep within an organization.”
In 2004, Cross published The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations. This book incorporated his research into a practical tool for executives.
He plans to release another book in 2009 that will feature more business ideas and diagnostics. It will be geared towards not only executives but also business students. Partnering with the Batten Institute, at the Darden School of Business, Cross is developing stories about company experiences, using social network analysis, into multimedia case examples that will accompany the book.
Cross founded and directs the “Network Roundtable”, a consortium of 80 member organizations who work with McIntire faculty to apply network techniques to critical business issues. The Roundtable tests new business ideas and measures their impact. Findings are available to members, as is faculty expertise.
Cross said, “The intent of the Roundtable is to be a conversation between McIntire and the broader commercial world. The real focus for me is how we, as a business school, can show impact.”
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when our topic will be the research of John C. Herr, director of U.Va.’s Center for Research in Contraceptive and Reproductive Health, and his development of the FDA approved “SpermCheck Vasectomy”, a home test that confirms men’s post-vasectomy sterility.
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03.19.08
Posted in 19th Century, Art, Relationships, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, Uncategorized, University of Virginia, slavery at 12:04 pm by Jacob Canon
In last week’s show we examined a recent study by University of Virginia Sociologist Elizabeth Gorman which said, no matter how the data was sliced or certain variables controlled: women say they have to work harder than men. In today’s show, adapted from an article published this month on the Oscar Web site written by Jane Ford we look at the work of Maurie McInnis and her perspective of class politics, social structures and hierarchies of the antebellum South through the examination 19th century art and material objects.
Myth & Memory [6:12m]:
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Objects and ideas inform both history and contemporary thought and are the basis of the study of material culture. For Maurie McInnis, associate professor of American art and material culture and director of American Studies, understanding the antebellum South in the 19th century encompasses understanding art and objects from the perspective of class politics, social structures and hierarchies.
Working with Angela D. Mack, curator of the traveling show that originated at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., McInnis has spent the last four years creating Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art, an exhibition on view through April 20 at the University of Virginia Art Museum. The exhibition focuses on themes of race, slavery and the plantation from the 19th century to today.
McInnis said, this “is an exhibition about ideas rather than an art history exhibit that traces the development of an artist or a stylistic movement. Race, slavery and the plantation do not have a fixed meaning through time.” Working on the exhibit and the companion catalog, McInnis said she was struck by “how much cultural currency the word ‘plantation’ has. The mythology of the South as a place of gentility and refinement is still held by many today.”
For African Americans, however, the meaning revolves around an imbalance of power. According to McInnis, “The two are fundamentally different ideas of what ‘plantation’ means. The reality is that beauty and brutality lived beside each other. The artifacts explore the widely varying ideas of what ‘plantation’ meant then and today.” The themes of protest, politics, nostalgia and identity run through the artists’ works, which represent a wide variety of viewpoints within these topics.
To help clarify the ideas for both the exhibit and catalog, McInnis began by using her research to develop courses. That, coupled with insight from students in her classes, “The ‘Old South’ in Myth and Memory” and “Arts and Cultures of the Slave South,” which she co-teaches with Assistant Professor of Architectural History Louis Nelson — proved invaluable for defining questions about culture and race.
The exhibit includes works by a slave potter named Dave, who worked in Edgefield, S.C., in the 1840s and 50s. He decorated the large storage vessels he made with poetry and signed them. Both the poetry and signing the pots are acts of political protest, since it was unlawful for slaves to read. McInnis said, “His poetry was sometimes funny, spiritual, ironic or obliquely political. Dave is important. His work is an excellent example of an African-American artisan, of which the South was filled, but many are anonymous to us. His work was integral to the economic foundation of the South and at the same time reveals much about slave life.”
Contemporary artist Juan Logan also deals with issues of slavery. His “Foundations,” a sculptural installation, is composed of a series of iron, brick-like structures symbolizing the part African Americans played in building the South. McInnis said, “They not only provided the economic foundation, but also literally built it,” adding that Logan is engaged in an “ongoing conversation and dialogue with the past.”
Both artists show that the heart of understanding the 19th century antebellum South is the understanding of race and slavery. Over time we construct “narratives to serve contemporary concerns and change surrounding these topics. Memories and ideas are not fixed, but changing.” McInnis will explore these shifts in her upcoming book, Remembering the Revolution: Pictures, Politics and Memory. Her interest in the divergent ways in which the North and South remember the American Revolution, especially with the approach of the Civil War, grew directly out of her research for the exhibition. Perceptions of iconic images and representations have changed over time, in terms of how both the image and the event itself are viewed. McInnis said, “that change helps us understand how contemporary cultural politics shaped the evolution of our key American myths.”
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when our topic will be the work of Karstin Hohl whose research has demonstrated that the encryption used by the now ubiquitous smart card is much easier to break than previously thought.
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11.22.07
Posted in Jacob Canon, James Coan, MRI, Psychology, Relationships, The Oscar Show, University of Virginia, anxiety, brain, emotions, environmental conditions, happiness, hypothalamus, immune, nervous system, neurobiology, neurophysiology, physical health, physiology, sensory inputs, stress at 3:46 pm by Jacob Canon
How did you react the last time you had a fight with that significant someone in your life? With couples, the woman might apologize, or the man might make a joke or express understanding. By doing this, they subtly and briefly lighten the tension as they work their way through a disagreement.
Psychology Professor James Coan discovered a long time ago that by doing this, even when couples fight, they take care of each other. This interplay was significant when Coan designed a study exploring what happens in people’s brains when they behave emotionally or observe other people’s emotions. Coan said, “what we are learning is our emotions are more heavily involved in our day-to-day physical health than we previously thought.
How we deal with our relationships is closely tied to how long we live, how frequently we go to the doctor, how rapidly we recover from injury, how happy we tend to be in our lives.” With his colleagues, Hillary Schaefer and Richard J. Davidson from the University of Wisconsin, Coan sought to demonstrate the neurobiological basis of emotional expression and regulatory processes.
In the study, they used MRI technology to view these responses at the level of glucose metabolism and blood oxygenation in the brain. Because of the importance of emotional connectedness to the study, 16 happily married, heterosexual couples were recruited as test subjects. Wives were placed in the scanner so brain activity could be recorded as each was exposed to the anxiety-producing possibility of an electric shock to the ankle.
Researchers wanted to see what effect different types of emotional support would have in areas of the brain related to the body’s normal fight-or-flight stress response. Readings were taken when the woman was alone in facing this challenge, When a stranger, a male, was present to support her And when her husband offered support. Coan stated, “the scanning environment is pretty hostile to looking at interactions between people.” The MRI machine surrounds the subject’s body and restricts movement. The women weren’t even able to see the support person during the scanning process.
Having the man offer his hand for the woman to hold was about the only intervention possible in this setting. Not surprisingly, the results show there was a healthy reduction in the stress response when test subjects were supported. Stimulation in the regions of the brain that regulate physiological arousal and coordinate large muscles and joints was significantly decreased, no matter who was holding the woman’s hand. However, when it was her husband’s hand she was holding, the response was significantly greater.
Coan said, “When you’re holding a spouse’s hand, you get down-regulation in all of those same systems. But all the other systems that have to do with the conscious regulation of your emotions — having to pay attention to what’s happening with your body and having to become more vigilant for future dangers — all of these other systems come down as well. Your brain doesn’t work as hard when it’s your spouse. What surprised Coan and his colleagues most was the relaxation response demonstrated by what they called “super couples.” In those couples with exceptionally high-quality relationships, “Hand-holding had a significantly greater effect on soothing their brains.”
Tests showed differences involving two structures that were not affected at all in other test subjects. They observed evidence of reduced release of stress hormones by the hypothalamus. These hormones are responsible for inhibiting immune response and other activities that have critical implications for health and well-being.
Of greater interest was the reduction of activity in the right anterior insula. This brain structure modulates the amount of pain stimulus one experiences subjectively. Reduction of activity in this area means test subjects actually felt less pain when they held their husband’s hand.
So it can be said, having someone you love hold your hand really can take the hurt away.
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11.15.07
Posted in Buddhist, Elevation, Jacob Canon, Psychology, Relationships, Social Psychology, The Oscar Show, University of Virginia, anxiety, biology, brain, emotions, ethics, happiness, philosophy, physical health, positive psychology, stress at 10:24 am by Jacob Canon
When social psychologist University of Virginia in 1995, he prepared by reading Thomas Jefferson’s writings and making the requisite pilgrimage to Monticello. Little did he realize the impact this Jeffersonian indoctrination would have on his own research.
Haidt’s area of specialization is moral emotions, but before coming to U.Va., he focused his studies on cross-cultural experiences of disgust. He read ancient Buddhist texts and spent time in India, exploring how the beneficial biological aspects of disgust became codified as religious imperatives and keys to social order.
Then he came across Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Robert Skipwith, in which Jefferson describes how “witnessing acts of beauty and moral goodness — whether in literature or reality — swells the chest and inspires a desire to lead a better life.” Suddenly Haidt began thinking about the antithesis of disgust, the psychological effect of uplifting experiences, an emotion he termed “elevation.” Haidt said,“That letter fundamentally changed the course of my research.”
In a moment of zeitgeist, Haidt’s inquiry into elevation coincided with the burgeoning of the academic field, positive psychology, which studies how people find meaning and happiness in life. His research into what prompts elevation and the resulting physical and motivational effects won him psychology’s largest monetary award, the John Templeton Prize for Positive Psychology, in 2001.
While researching elevation, Haidt continued teaching a large undergraduate survey course introducing the study of psychology. In the classroom, he has found it useful to cite quotations and examples from ancient philosophy and world religion to make his points more memorable. Haidt’s colleague, psychology professor Gerald Clore stated, “This penchant for asking what it all means makes him very appealing as an undergraduate lecturer in Introductory Psychology.”
Having received several university and state awards for teaching, Haidt decided to apply his ancient wisdom approach to a study of happiness. Looking at the relationship between what religious and philosophical traditions say about fulfillment and what scientists have discovered about the biological processes involved in the brain’s response to stimuli, Haidt gleaned 10 psychological truths from ancient religious and philosophical texts, which he examines in the 10 chapters of his 2006 book, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.
Throughout the work, Haidt analogizes the conscious mind to a rider straddling the elephant of the unconscious mind, trying to guide the giant beast where the rider wants it to go. He cited numerous psychological experiments that demonstrate how at odds the conscious and unconscious minds often are, despite the conscious mind’s skill at rationalizing choices and behavior. His book suggests that by understanding ancient wisdom’s insights into our divided nature, we have a chance of establishing a more harmonious relationship between the conscious and unconscious, gently training our elephants to do as we wish.
Haidt, who has also established an accompanying website, Happinesshypothesis.com , said, “every good idea I’ve ever had in my life is in this book, the book is really a gateway to everything I want to work on for the rest of my life.” Although Haidt spent 2005-2006 at Princeton University as the Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor of Ethics at the Center for Human Values, his heart remains in Charlottesville. Haidt said,“it really was because of U.Va., because of Jefferson, that I came to study this completely neglected area of emotion.”
Haidt is currently studying the foundations of moral judgment in liberals and conservatives in order to understand how political appeals might be better crafted. In addition, he’s researching how the application of elevation can be used to increase trust in relationships, especially among married couples.
To learn more about his work and this area of study, visit www.happinesshypothesis.com.
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