The 2010 University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Provost’s Teaching and Learning Summit began Monday evening with a powerful and provocative Grand Opening Celebration.
Provost Lane Earns welcomed participants and honored UW Oshkosh scholars who focus their research on enhancing student success. The Reeve Union Ballroom, in which he spoke, featured a poster-display documenting the results of that current research and the personal success stories of many students.
A poster featuring geography major Hannah Kirk read, “My speech instructor pushed me to my limits. My fear has been replaced with confidence.” Other posters displayed research findings about community-based learning, student journaling in nursing, clickers as a way for students to respond in large lecture classes and discussion in online classes.
“We want to know what works,” said Lori Carrell, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. “The UW Oshkosh teaching community is committed to student success.”
Inspiration followed the poster-session as the First Wave Hip-Hop Theater Ensemble performed original works depicting the challenges of student life, especially for those who are the first in their families to attend college.
“The spoken word can open our eyes to blatant truths and trigger experiences and memories, making you feel akin to the poet. Performance poetry is the live performance of the word, a validation of the person through narrative,” said Chris Walker, director of First Wave, a UW-Madison student group and emerging leader on the national hip-hop theater scene. “Slam poetry includes the audience as part of a spherical, communal circle community. Our presence as audience warrants the telling.
UW Oshkosh communication student Iris Metoxen expressed her appreciation to the performers following the production, saying, “You have the bravery to talk about the challenges that others are afraid to talk about. I admire you. You opened up the conversation.”
Added Chancellor Richard H. Wells, “Part of student success is making sure that students are accepted in a multidimensional way and that they find and develop an authentic voice to express their multidimensionality. We have to combat the tendency to engulf people in one thing that distinguishes them as well as the tendency to misunderstand what that distinctiveness means to them.
“The First Wave Hip-Hop Theatre Ensemble very successfully engaged the audience last night in a dialogue about their multidimensional identities and expressed what the distinctiveness of their identities means to them,” Wells said.
The Provost’s Teaching and Learning Summit continues throughout the week, with events focusing on enhancing the courses that all students take (i.e., general education classes), understanding the experiences of students of color, and listening to students describe the college experiences that have had a significant impact of their success.
Student speaker Hope Schuhart will describe how her collaboration with a professor on a research project changed her college experience, while other students talk about study abroad, sustainability, and access to education through online classes.
“The Provost’s Teaching and Learning Summit is a catalyst for our on-going commitment to exceptional educational practices,” said Carrell. “I’m so grateful to be a part of the UW Oshkosh campus community. The passion for student learning here is real. I admire my colleagues — those whose research helps us discern the best teaching methods and those who use those best-practice suggestions.”