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Academics, Ethics, and Community Engagement: A Conversation Series

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Throughout the 2017 spring term, the academic centers will cooperate with the Office of the Provost to host a conversation series at the intersection of critical inquiry and consequential action. The entire college community is encouraged to attend.

Our Quaker heritage is expressed in the Haverford motto: "Not more learned, but imbued with better learning." The college encourages engagement with fundamental issues of inequality and social justice. Many students, staff, and faculty work to put learning into action for greater ethical purposes. Considering action and impact simultaneously with the classic liberal learning goals of inquiry and understanding presents several questions worthy of sustained attention.

Throughout the 2017 spring term, the academic centers will cooperate with the Office of the Provost to host a conversation series at the intersection of critical inquiry and consequential action. The entire college community is encouraged to attend. Faculty and/or organizational partners interested in developing proposals for HCAH's’ Mellon Philadelphia Area Creative Collaboratives initiative may find the first discussion and lessons learned particularly helpful. Presentation titles, described in full below, are:

  • Community Media at Haverford College: A Conversation, February 9, 4:30–6:00 p.m.
  • Science, Information, & Transdisciplinary, Engaged Inquiry, March 23, 4:30–6:00 p.m.
  • Archiving Ideals: The Professional Work of Archivists in a Contested World, April 17, 4:30–6:00 p.m.

Community Media at Haverford College: A Conversation
Thursday February 9, 2017, 4:30–6:00 p.m.
CPGC Cafe

Please join us for an open discussion about community media. In community media, some or all of the content in a film, video, or multimedia project is generated by the people represented, with the goals of democratizing media, strengthening civil society, and creating opportunities for self-representation. In recent years, faculty, staff, and students at Haverford have experimented with film and media projects that have engaged local, regional, and national communities in the shared creation of films, websites, and artworks.  We will share insights from these projects, and together we’ll imagine possible goals and directions for future programming, including curricular and co-curricular work. We’ll consider questions relevant to the ongoing discussion of engagement, ethics, and academic inquiry at Haverford.  What role can scholarly work play in community media processes? What are the goals of community media projects and how might they relate to academic goals? How might such projects influence the way the college relates to surrounding communities? What resources and grants currently exist through the Centers to promote and fund such work?

Discussion co-facilitators:  jesikah maria ross, Community Media Artist and 2014 TriCo Mellon Creative Resident, and Vicky Funari, Visual Media Scholar, HCAH and Independent College Programs

The discussion will include insights from:

  • Joshua Moses, Anthropology, and Caleb Eckert ’17, on the Strawberry Mansion Intergenerational Gardening Oral History Project, a collaboration with the East Park Revitalization Alliance
  • Kristin Lindgren, Critical Disability Studies and Writing Center Director, on a collaboration with the Center for Creative Works
  • Theresa Tensuan, Associate Dean of the College, Dean of Diversity, Access, and Community Engagement, and Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, on collaborations with artist Pato Hebert
  • jesikah maria ross, 2014 TriCo Mellon Creative Resident, on Troubled Waters, an interdisciplinary collaboration with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network

Science, Information, & Transdisciplinary, Engaged Inquiry
Thursday, March 23, 4:30–6:00 p.m.  
CPGC Cafe

Three interdisciplinary teams will briefly present the genesis and outcomes of their engaged teaching, research, and learning. Presentations include: a chemistry-visual media partnership that led to the Haverforidan production of a short film meditation on the continued presence of the oil industry in Southern Louisiana, Wake;  consideration of the ways in which anthropological methods may support technical information systems development such as in the course, Mobile Development for Social Change; and discussion of how botany can be more deeply understood and complicated with integration of travel, field experience, and historical and cultural understanding through the case of “Economic Botany: Trinidad Field Study course.” Presenters will be asked to share what community engagement and transdisciplinary collaboration made possible, while also offering an honest assessment of challenges in doing more of this kind of work. Facilitated discussion will turn toward the special opportunities and challenges specific to community engagement and social responsibility in the physical sciences. Presenters include:

  • Helen White, Chemistry, and Vicky Funari, Visual Media and Independent College Programs
  • Sorelle Friedler, Computer Science, and Joshua Moses, Anthropology
  • Jon Wilson, Biology, and Stephanie Zukerman, Center for Peace and Global Citizenship  

Archiving Ideals: The Professional Work of Archivists in a Contested World
Monday, April 17, 4:30–6:00 p.m.
CPGC Cafe

The accumulation, organization, and representation of historical materials - archiving - is often imagined as an objective process. Yet choosing what to archive, how to organize, and how to represent historical materials reflects values commitments that interact with our cultural and temporal positions. Together with a colleague visiting from Princeton, Haverford archivists and human rights scholars will discuss their scholarship on: mass grave sites, archives, and privacy; archiving Black Lives Matter; and understanding Haverford College's history of peace and social justice commitments and activism. Conversation will focus on the purpose of archives, the presence of social justice and human rights struggles within archival work, and the ways in which professional and academic archivists may exhibit fidelity to professional standards of practice while remaining committed to such struggles. Panelists include:

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