By Brian Mathews. I wish I had had more time to develop this post—but only about 24 hours to go.
Jade Womack (recent Virginia Tech alum—now entering graduate school at Cornell) put together a banner signing for Garissa University back in April. She worked with Monena Hall (Community Engagement Librarian) — within in three days they captured over 400 signatures. More...
Raising the volume on HipHopEd. An interview with Joycelyn Wilson.
By Brian Mathews. I’ve had many great conversations with Joycelyn Wilson (Assistant Professor, Education, Virginia Tech) about music, history, Atlanta, and teaching—actually, all of those things combined together. More...
Group Projects: creating an environment for collaboration. Interview with Tom Ewing.
By Brian Mathews. Every time I talk with students about doing group work there is a moan of displeasure. Most of them prefer to work alone despite the push for more collaborative learning. More...
Researcher-In-Residence in the Library
By Brian Mathews. We’re kicking off a residency program next month. Here is the gist:
The Researcher-In-Residence Program at the Virginia Tech Libraries aims to provide faculty, researchers, and designers with the opportunity to focus on a unique academic endeavor of their choosing in a supportive environment that includes interacting with the information and data professionals of the Libraries. More...
Feminisms & Interaction Design. An Interview with Jennifer Sano-Franchini.
By Brian Mathews. I’m a reader for a teaching award at Virginia Tech called XCaliber (shorthand for exceptional, high-caliber work.) It recognizes individual faculty members or teams of faculty and staff who integrate technology into teaching and learning. More...
Library Engagement with First Year Writing: 4 strategies. An interview with Julia Feerrar
By Brian Mathews. Here is an interview with Julia Feerrar, Learning Services Librarian at Virginia Tech. She joined our team last summer and spent the past year experimenting with first-year writing courses. More...
The Library Research Building
By Brian Mathews. You’re probably familiar with the concept of the dedicated Research Library — UCLA has a nice one. My dean and I have been soft pitching a new variation, which we call the Library Research Building. More...
Interdisciplinary Studios — incubation space for semester long projects
By Brian Mathews. I’ve always been inspired by architecture studios on campus. There is an unmatched sense of camaraderie that develops by spending a lot of time working together in a shared space. I’ve seen variations of this, mostly for graduate students, where people have assigned desks, tables, or cubicles together often near labs or other work areas. Most undergrads, however, don’t have this available to them. More...
Interrogating a Garment Or: The Rise of the Research Question (and the Decline of the Thesis)
By Brian Mathews. I want to draw your attention to a forthcoming book: A Guided Inquiry Approach To Teaching The Humanities Research Project
- Randell Schmidt (head librarian at Gill St. Bernard’s School)
- Emilia Giordanois (assistant librarian at Gill St. Bernard’s School)
- Geoffrey Schmidt (director of curriculum and instruction at Phoenix Charter School)
The book was written for teachers, librarians, or students in high school or early college and explores how to research, write, and present a humanities research project and paper. More...
Inspiring Work: putting student output on a large monitor
By Brian Mathews. I mentioned in an earlier post that we are framing our library commons as a showroom of knowledge. We curate an assortment of student output (every discipline in any format) and spread it across the library. We constantly refresh the content and aim to make it interactive when possible. More...