Earth Day Recap

For Earth Day 2021, the SoGE's Science Department, along with the PG Ambassadors, hosted an informative event designed to bring together the Purdue Global community and provide environmental tips and education. On the Earth Day website volunteers contributed articles on a variety of environmental topics. The PG Ambassadors sponsored an Art Expo, inviting PG employees and their families to contribute artwork inspired by Earth Day. The event culminated with a live panel discussion featuring PG Provost Jon Harbor discussing his research on glaciers and climate change, and PG Faculty Professor Jane McElligott with information on the Endangered Species Act past, present, and future. The annual Earth Day event is organized by FT Science Faculty; Amy Smith, in conjunction with the PG STEM Faculty Journal Club. For more information on either Earth Day or the STEM Faculty Journal Club, reach out to Amy at ASmith@purdueglobal.edu.

Poet, novelist to set the stage as 2021 Literary Festival keynote speakers

Two outstanding keynote speakers will be elaborating on the theme of this year’s Purdue Global Virtual Literary Festival, “Finding One’s Voice, Speaking One’s Truth: Inclusion and Diversity in Literature.”

Set for June 22-23, the festival promises two full days of faculty readings, workshops on writing and photography, and presentations on a variety of literary topics that focus on inclusion and diversity. Poet Nancy Mitchell, a winner of the Pushcart Prize, will set the stage on Tuesday morning, with a keynote by novelist and retired School of General Education Assistant Dean; Deb Brien on Wednesday.

Well-known across Maryland for her powerful and thought-provoking poetry, Mitchell is the Poet Laureate of the City of Salisbury, Maryland, and the author of several books of poetry, The Near Surround (2002), Grief Hut (2009, and The Out-of-Body Shop (2018). She serves as Associate Editor of Special Features and Interviews for Plume Poetry. She taught in the Environmental Studies Program and English Department at Salisbury University and is a popular presenter at literary conferences. At the recent Bay-to-Ocean Writers Conference, she prompted writers to reconsider what they know about their voice, “Where am I really writing from? How can I enliven my writing with the vitality and immediacy of the lived moment by changing my perspective?”

Wednesday’s keynote, Deb Brien, writes under the pseudonym D.J.B. Griffin and is the author of the urban fantasy novels Ash Wednesday and The DeDanann Legacy. She’s working on her third novel in the series, which will be released July 1. Her stories draw upon her work as a Jungian therapist, teacher, and herbalist. She edited Singing to the North Wind: A Shaman’s Journey. Her articles on parenting and ADHD have appeared in various magazines including Piedmont Parent. During the COVID pandemic, Deb decided to opt for early retirement from university administration and indulge her creative side to publish her first two novels. When she’s not writing, she’s immersed in her passions for teaching at Purdue Global University, yoga and meditation, gardening, environmental and social activism, and searching for the wee folk, fae, and dryads in her magical medicinal herb gardens. Brien sums up the focus of her keynote as, “How my mother reached out from the grave across nearly thirty years to help me find my voice and speak my truth through fiction.”

For more about the upcoming 2021 Virtual Literary Festival, please visit the website, https://sites.google.com/purdueglobal.edu/pgvirtualliteraryfestival2021

Brightspace Rubric Update

In the March GenEd Digest I reported on the progress of the 2020-21 rubric project. As you all are aware, the project was a collaboration between faculty, academic leadership, the assessment team, and Curriculum and Innovation (C&I). The C&I team is in the final stages of inputting all Purdue University Global (PG) assignment rubrics into Brightspace (BS) and the rubrics will be available as follows:

• 2102B (5.12.21) all PG courses on A, B, and C tracks.

• 2104D (6.23.21) all PG courses on the D track.

• 2103C (7.7.21) all PG module assessments.

Publisher Materials (aka 3^rd Party Tools)

Design and Development

At PG, we employ a curriculum process that is a collaboration between curriculum experts, faculty subject-matter experts (SMEs), and academic leadership. During the design and development of the course, content is aligned with the learning objectives and instructional strategies to create and curate content to support student learning. Our approach ensures that the course design prepares students to succeed by providing relevant practice and aligning student performance with the course and program outcomes.

Recently our team of SMEs and curriculum specialists (CS), Amy Themer and Tonya Scalise, completed 11 course revisions to update or replace publisher materials to ensure currency and ADA compliance.

Amy worked on the following courses with our amazing faculty:

• HU245 - Russell Fail and Elliott Crozat

• CM250 - Michelle Bianco

• SC121 - Susan Deno

• SC131 - Cathy Rice

• SC156 - Melissa Derby and Vanessa Myers

Amy stated "everyone did a great job of learning the products and finding innovative ways to include the content for students. In addition, they exhibited patience through the new process." She was "especially grateful to Susan and Cathy’s flexibility and professionalism through revision that became much larger than anticipated."

Tonya worked with the Math faculty to revise most of their courses.

• MM150 - Laura Baggett and Tami Tacker

• MM207 - Mary Bruce

• MM212 - Nancy Reck and Kirsten Meymaris

• MM255 - Carrie Derkacy and Christian Hampson

• MM250 - Fred Sakon and Kirsten Meymaris

• MM570 - Ann-Janette Locke and Melissa Scranton

Tonya shared that "all of the faculty worked together to choose the textbook and lab option to meet ADA compliance standards and support course outcomes. Weighing the pros and cons of each product, writing course content, and working with publishers to customize settings all required a great deal of time and effort. The teams did a fantastic job of meeting tight deadlines and working within new platforms to create courses that would benefit the students."

Celebrating our Diversity

The SoGE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee has been working on several DEI initiatives over the past month. One easy way to familiarize yourself with the vision and mission of the committee as well as some of the work already accomplished, is by reviewing the SOGE Chairs Panel presentation from the 2021 General Education Conference. The presentation included an open discussion where participants offered suggestions on how to better support DEI at PG. These suggestions were compiled into a document that the DEI committee is now reviewing.

The committee has launched a “Cooking With” video series that features diverse cooking videos presented by faculty and staff from the School of General Education. The first video presentation was by Ritu Sharma where she shared a vegetarian biryani recipe. Do you have a recipe that is meaningful to you in some way? If your answer is yes, please contact Jessica Love at jelove@purdueglobal.edu. We would love to have more people become involved in these presentations!

The DEI committee has also launched a “Five Minutes With” video series. This interview series spotlights one faculty or staff member from General Education with questions aimed at getting to know the interviewee better, and to discuss the importance of DEI at PG. These videos are also available for viewing at the SoGE DEI website.

Data is currently being gathered on our SoGE student population with the goal of getting to know our students at a deeper level to better support their needs. The School of Social and Behavioral Sciences developed a diversity report on the SBS students at PG so that SBS could better serve their students. The SOGE DEI committee aims to do the same with the SOGE student population.

Classroom curriculum that promotes, teaches, and celebrates diversity is one of the best ways to support our students. The committee is developing a curriculum one-sheet to share how the SoGE is celebrating diversity through classroom curriculum.

Lastly, we celebrated Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Jewish American Heritage in the month of May. Below are links to resources on these highlighted heritages to learn more and to continue celebrating diversity here at Purdue Global.

• Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month Resources for teachers: https://asianpacificheritage.gov/for-teachers/

• 2020 PG Literary Festival presentation by Beth Lee: "Ke ʻano o ke aloha. NĀNĀ I KE KUMU: Exploring True Hawaiian Identity Through the Selected Works of Kiana Davenport.” http://khe.adobeconnect.com/psac5w28i14z/

• 2019 PG Literary Festival presentation by Beth Lee: “Much Aloha! Exploring the Culture and Literature of the Hawaiian Islands: http://khe.adobeconnect.com/ppw6wxtuorz1/

• Jewish American Heritage Month Resources for teachers: https://www.jewishheritagemonth.gov/for-teachers/

If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions for the committee, please contact the committee chair, Jessica Love at jelove@purdueglobal.edu.