UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

College of Arts and Sciences

January Book Club: “Mind Over Monsters” (Jan. 8)

The College of Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning invite you to join your colleagues on January 8, 2025 from 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. for a discussion of Sarah Rose Cavanaugh’s book Mind over Monsters: Supporting Youth Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge. 

Statistics in recent years indicate that mental health problems have been rising among youth, which can impact access and persistence in higher education. Cavanagh, a professor and psychologist, employs pedagogical, neuroscientific, and psychological research to frame an approach we can use in the classroom: compassionate challenge. “When we employ this approach, learning is undergirded by compassion. We guide students into practices that encourage challenge and help them face their fears in an encouraging, safe, and playful way.” 

Please email ctl@up.edu to get your name on the list for both a free copy of the book and to join the discussion.

Co-organized by Allie Stewart, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, and Terry Favero, Director of the CTL. This project is partly funded by the HHMI IE3 Grant and CAS.

Open Call: Faculty Interested in AI and Ethics (Sept. 23)

Building on several successful College of Arts and Sciences initiatives that bring together Artificial Intelligence and Ethics in conversation, CAS is hosting the AI and Ethics Working Group on September, 23 from 1-2:30 p.m. in BC 215. We will continue conversations that began this summer regarding faculty research, grant planning, and curricular innovation related to AI and Ethics.

All interested faculty are invited to join.

For more information or questions, please email Christi Hancock hancock@up.edu

Seeking Faculty Contributions: “Portland and the Public Imagination” (Sept. 30)

Does your area of expertise intersect with the city of Portland in interesting ways? Could it? If Portland is both a place we live and a set of stories we tell about that place, how could your disciplinary field or community experience offer new ways of representing the city, or questioning stereotypes about it? We are creating a new Core Exploration “Big Ideas” course for Spring 2025 titled “Portland and the Public Imagination” and are seeking faculty from across UP to contribute modules in their disciplines/areas of interest.

For the bulk of the semester, we’ll host guest faculty each week who will select readings, develop discussion questions, and craft a class plan (including a mini-lecture and an interactive, student-centered component) on a focused Portland topic, object, stereotype, or locale (consider: bridges, rain, “foodies,” the urban growth boundary, gentrification, bikes, etc.). Guest faculty earn a $500 stipend for their contributions.

If you’re interested, email the course conveners, Jen McDaneld (mcdaneld@up.edu) and Molly Hiro (hiro@up.edu), with a brief description of a proposed topic and how it’s relevant to telling a Portland story, by Monday, Sept. 30.  

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS—Teaching to Transgress: A Book Discussion on the Liberatory Power of Education

The College of Arts and Sciences and the Center for Teaching and Learning invite full- and part-time faculty across the University to participate in a book discussion of Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks. Each participant will receive a copy of the book and is expected to attend a group discussion on Thursday, January 11, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. We will read hooks’ classic text to consider how to center the joy and power of learning in our classes, especially for students who may not feel that they belong in higher education. 

Participants will also have the additional option to join an inclusive teaching working group that will meet regularly during the spring semester to apply hooks’ teaching to one of their own classes. More information will be shared when the books are ready for pick-up. This inclusive teaching project is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence 3 (HHMIIE3) grant.

To register, please e-mail Associate Dean Allie Stewart (stewarta@up.edu) by Friday, December 1. Books will be available to pick up shortly afterwards. Note that the number of participants is limited (30 total) and all participants are expected to read the book and attend the discussion.

Join the UP Grading Collaborative

Dear colleagues, how many of you have ever wondered if grading really, truly reflects student learning? How many of you have wondered if there is a better way? If the answers to these questions are ones you would like to explore in a supportive community, please consider joining the nascent, grassroots, UP Grading Collaborative that sprung up in the summer of 2023. We will be hosting a series of casual, friendly, come-as-you-are lunch conversations meant to build a community interested in new adventures in “Grading for Growth.”  

The come-as-you-are conversations will be held in the Teske dining room with lunch provided (buffet in the Holy Cross Dining room) on:  

  • September 25 12:30-1:45 p.m. 
  • October 24 11:30-12:45 p.m.  
  • November 20 12:30-1:45 p.m. 

Please RSVP here for the events. The come-as-you-are lunch conversations are sponsored by UP’s $500K, 5-year Howard Hughes Inclusive Excellence 3 Grant focused on supporting adoption of inclusive teaching practices.  

Questions? contact vanhoomi@up.edu 

You’re Invited to the First Faculty Colleagues Event of the Year! (Nov. 2) 

We invite the campus community to the first Faculty Colleagues event of the year, sponsored by the College of Arts and Science! Please mark your calendars for November 2, 4–5:30 p.m. in Franz 120. Come mingle, sip, chat, and take a moment to immerse yourself in the scholarly worlds of Kristin Sweeney (Environmental Studies) and Lezlie Cross (Performing and Fine Arts). Explore with us the staging of Shakespearian plays and how the interpretation is in the mind of the beholder and the amazing world of scientists who study volcanoes around the globe. 

At the heart of it, the thread that weaves us together is our intellectual curiosity; the drive of a hungry mind to reach out and explore the world. For questions or ideas for future Colleagues events, please contact Jacqueline Van Hoomissen in CAS (vanhoomi@up.edu) 

Come and Chat with the CAS Dean Team

The Dean and Associate Deans of the College of Arts and Sciences are holding rotating drop-in hours in the Pilot House this fall semester. Have any questions or ideas to share? Want to get to know us better, or for us to get to know you? Stop by to chat—the coffee’s on us! The drop-in dates and times are as follows: 

  • Dean Valerie Banschbach—Fridays, 9 a.m.–10 a.m.: September 16, October 7, November 11, December 9
  • Academic Associate Dean Allie Stewart—Thursdays, 3:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m.: September 15, October 13, November 17, December 8
  • Academic Associate Dean Jacquie Van Hoomissen—Thursdays, 4 p.m.–5 p.m.: September 29, October 27, December 1
  • Academic Associate Dean Larry Larsen—Mondays, 3:45–5 p.m.: September 26, October 24, November 21, December 12

These dates are also posted on the Outlook Calendar “CAS Information.” We look forward to seeing you!

Destination Declared workshop, March 8 and 10

The Career Center and the College of Arts and Sciences are hosting Destination: Declared – a 2 session workshop series designed to help students explore majors and choose one that will be a good fit. Faculty and staff who know students who may be thinking about changing their major and/or need to declare a major are asked to encourage them to participate.

For more information, contact Chelsea Chase, Career Center, at chase@up.edu.

“Trust Black Women: The Importance of Black Women in U.S. Politics” by Brittney Cooper, Sept. 4

The College of Arts and Sciences’ Public Research Fellows program will present a talk by Brittney Cooper, “Trust Black Women: The Importance of Black Women in U.S. Politics,” on Friday, September 4, at 3:30 p.m, as part of the Public Research Fellows 2020-2021 Virtual Series. ​Cooper’s talk was postponed from its original March date, and in keeping with COVID-19 safety protocols, will take place via Zoom. To attend, use this link.

Cooper will explore the struggle for Black women’s suffrage and the historical role of Black women’s vote, making the case for why there is no progressive politics in America without Black women.

As an associate professor at Rutgers, Cooper studies and teaches Black Women’s Intellectual History, Black Feminist Thought, Hip Hop Feminisms, Hip Hop Studies, Race and Gender Representation in Popular Culture, Digital Feminisms, and New Media. ​She is co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection (The Feminist Press 2017). and author of Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (May 2017) and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (February 2018).

Sponsors include the College of Arts & Sciences, Juliet Ashby Hillman Foundation, The Jackson Foundation, and Juan Young Trust. For ADA accommodations and further information, contact Cara Hersh at x7262 or hersh@up.edu.

UP Science Takes Home The Prize!

First Place TrophyA group of 26 science faculty and students from the College of Arts and Sciences attended the annual M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Undergraduate Research conference on November 8-9 in Vancouver, WA. The annual conference drew hundreds of college students and science educators from across the Pacific Northwest. A number of UP students gave oral and poster presentations to colleagues from around the Pacific Northwest.  Students mentored by Laura Dyer (biology) and Eugene Urnezius (chemistry) took home poster prizes for outstanding posters in their sections: Pia Fornell won for “Identifying How Sonic Hedgehog Signaling Affects Cardiac Neural Crest Migration Following Fetal Alcohol Exposure” and Kailin Mooney won for “Physicochemical properties of 2,5-dihydroxy-1,4-quinones appended with phosphonato groups.”

Additional information about the conference is available on the Trust’s website.