Inter-college faculty Seminar in Humanities and Sciences (ISHS)

Spring '10 "Engaging Colleagues in Caring Collaborations"

meeting time, dates & place
12.30-2pm, W-2-157
Monday Feb 1, Mar 1, Apr 12, May 3
Thursday Feb 18, Mar 11, Apr 1

The prospects for caring collaborations are addressed--in many and varied ways--in our scholarly fields. Social psychologists examine the moral corrosion that follows when people allow themselves to be bystanders. Game theory favors "tit for tat" relations. Economics and evolutionary theory argue that cooperation occurs only if there's a payoff to us or our genetic lineage. Literature depicts the base nature of humans, as in the Lord of the Flies, or the noble struggle of the individual against constraining systems, as in Ken Kesey's novels. Caring is held to be a feminist ethic or criticized as a capitulation to women working a second shift in the home. Family history documents the real and idealized role of families protecting their members from the demands of the State and corporations. Cultural history observes that "cooperation" has been a euphemism for continued subordination to a hierarchical division of labor. Participatory Action Research insists on the shaping of inquiries through on-going work with people most affected by some aspect of economic or social change. Collective action studies document creativity and capacity-building flowing from well-facilitated participation. And so on.

What do we make of such disciplinary claims and analyses? What do our practice and life experience tell us about the source and strength of collaborations that we value? And of the structural disincentives to such collaborations? Can we reconcile our experience with theory and empirical research? What questions have been un- or under-explored? What practices can we adopt (or resist) that facilitate (or impede) caring collaborations? These seem to be important questions to take up in these times of constrained resources and heightened expectations.

Participants
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Family Therapy Program
Jesse Marple
Arthur Millman, Philosophy
Alex Mueller, English
John Saltmarsh, New England Research Center for Higher Education
Esther Shapiro, Psychology
Jeremy Szteiter, Critical & Creative Thinking Program
Peter Taylor (ISHS coordinator), Director of Science, Technology & Values program and Science in a Changing World graduate track

Sessions
Monday Feb 1, Introductions to our work as it intersects with the theme (Peter Taylor leads)
Thursday Feb 18, Peter Taylor, Addressing "the challenge of bringing into interaction not only a wider range of researchers, but a wider range of social agents, and to the challenge of keeping them working through differences and tensions until plans and practices are developed in which all the participants are invested"
Monday Mar 1, Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Social Technologies Potential for Strengthening Collaborative Health Efforts
Thursday Mar 11, John Saltmarsh,
Thursday Apr 1, Show and tell on technologies that may facilitate community-engaged research: Jesse Marple, Gonzalo Bacigalupe, and wiki homework by Peter Taylor (ustream (from iphone),camtasia recording)
Monday Apr 12, Ester Shapiro, the community engagement core of the Horizon health disparities center
Monday May 3, Alex Mueller, Collaborative Writing: The Case of Wikipedia

ISHS is a forum for discussion and interaction among faculty at UMass-Boston. Faculty from different disciplines and colleges come together to focus on topics of common interest, exchange ideas, renew their intellectual energy, and advance their work in a spirit of adventure and collaboration.

At the core of ISHS activities is a semester-long faculty seminar, focused on a particular theme. Participation in the seminar, which meets every second week, is open to full and part-time faculty at all levels; the ethos is democratic and interactive. No single member is responsible for the full semester's activities; leadership of the seminar rotates, with participants taking it in turn to lead the discussion, and all contributing to a collective enterprise. The basis for discussion might be a set of readings (or images, or music), or a piece of writing or creative work by the presenter(s), or some combination. Where relevant we may use the internet as a resource: to provide readings or other material; to facilitate discussion; to set up an archive and maintain a work-in-progress forum.

For any ISHS seminar, participants should feel free to approach the topic in your own way, and as it relates to your own interests. What we are looking for is a group of people who would like to explore their own particular 'take' on the topic in the company of others; to enrich each other's perspectives; to deepen their own imagination and conception of the issues; and to see what results from a collaborative, interdisciplinary exercise. You don't have to be an expert; and you don't have to limit yourself to our suggestions. Ideally this will be work in progress for all, which will produce ideas we may not have anticipated.