July 31, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
Of Construction Toys and Public Engagement —  A few weeks ago I arranged for a group of graduate students to take a tour of ImaginOn, which is a collaborative venture of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and the Children’s Theater of Charlotte.  During our tour, we spent part of our time exploring an amazing interactive exhibit called “TINKERTOY:  Build Your Imagination.”  This exhibit will be at ImaginOn through September 10.

I talked with one of the librarians who brought the exhibit to ImaginOn, and I shared with her my long-standing interest in construction toys.  As a result of this conversation, I agreed to write an essay about the history and importance of construction toys.  This week the administrators at ImaginOn will post a giant version of this essay as part of the Tinkertoy exhibit.  Over the years, I have collaborated with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library on many projects, but this latest project is the first time I have written text for one of their exhibits.

My involvement with our public library is but one of many examples of members of our English Department sharing their academic expertise with the general public.  For the purposes of today’s Monday Missive, I will highlight the public engagement activities performed by JuliAnna Ávila, Alan Rauch, and Greg Wickliff, but I am aware of other examples that I hope to highlight in future Monday Missives.

JuliAnna has an expertise in digital storytelling, and she has been publishing on this topic since 2008.  Recently, however, she has become involved with several community projects in which she is drawing on her expertise in this area.  For example, she is participating in the Lumbee tribe’s project called Unlocking Silent Histories.  This project involves an extensive digital storytelling program.   She is also joining forces with Tisha Greene, the principal of the Oakhurst STEAM Academy in Charlotte, to implement a digital storytelling into their curricula.   As part of her public engagement work in this area, JuliAnna is creating opportunities for our English Education students to participate in these projects.

Alan’s public engagement activities often relate to his scholarly interest in the relationship between literature and science.  A recent example is tied to his role as a member of the Advisory Board of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature at University of Florida.  As part of his involvement with the Baldwin Library, he helped curate an exhibit of books about science written by women for children between 1790 and 1890.  Titled “Subverting the ‘Natural Order’:  Women and Science,” this public exhibit showed how women contributed to the advances in scientific knowledge during the nineteenth century.

Greg regularly shares his expertise in technical communication with the members of the Charlotte Regional Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.  He has participated in several collaborative projects with the members of this organization.  However, the largest of these projects is an annual exhibit of student work.  Each year the faculty teaching in our Technical/Professional Writing programs invite undergraduate and graduate students to exhibit and discuss their projects with representatives from the regional chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.  Over the years, Greg, Aaron Toscano, Meg Morgan, and Mary Ellen Muesing, with support from graduate students and other faculty in the department, have worked together to make this annual event a big success.  The discussions of the projects with professional writers and editors have often led to formal job interviews for our graduates with employers looking for employees with a balance of language, computing, and graphic design skills.

As these examples demonstrate, our English Department can be seen as a hub off of which there are many spokes extending in different directions.   I find it intriguing that this description applies equally well to the design principle behind Tinkertoys.

Kudos — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.  Here is the latest news:

Pilar Blitvich recently presented a paper titled “Trolling in the Name of Free Speech”: The Milo Yiannopoulos’s Controversy” at the Politeness Symposium in York, UK.  She also presented a paper titled “Peninsular Spanish Retailer-Consumer Interactions on Facebook: A Variational Pragmatics Perspective” at the conference of the International Pragmatics Association in Belfast.

Sarah Minslow presented a paper titled “Impossible Choices, Possible Justice?  The Realities and Representations of Child Soldiers” at the International Research Society of Children’s Literature conference at York University in Toronto.

Alan Rauch presented a paper titled “Evolutionary and Anglican Afterlives:  Death as a Sacrament in Kingsley’s Water Babies” at a workshop sponsored by Princeton University and held at the Gladstone Library in Hawarden, Wales.

Lara Vetter‘s edition of By Avon River was featured in a poet-scholar’s blog.  Here is the link:

<https://lesleywheeler.org/2017/07/18/hybrid-h-d/>

Greg Wickliff recently participated with his wife, Alisa, in the STEM education learning festival at Ludwigsburg University  in Germany on July 19th. In Germany, the STEM acronym is MINT: Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik. The learning festival brought together hundreds of elementary and middle grades students, their teachers, and students and faculty of the university for a day filled with workshops and exhibits.
 

Quirky Quiz Question —  Tinkertoys were very popular during my childhood, but nowadays the most popular construction toys in the United States are Legos.  However, Legos did not originate in the United States.  Does anybody know what country gave the world Legos?

Last week’s answer: Charleston, SC

Does anybody know what city in the South serves as the setting for the opera Porgy and Bess?