May-20-2021-Minutes

The Academic Senate Committee on Senate Committee on Cultural and Archival Resources met on May 20, 2020 12:00pm (online)

Committee Members in Attendance:

Attending: Laura Cohen, Susan Agin, Tanya Zhelezcheva, Franca Ferrari, Jessica Prepetit, Nathaniel Sullivan, Bianca Sosnovski, Adam Luedtke, Aviva Geismar, Heather Huggins, Hsiaofang (Sharon) Huang, Jose Osorio

Liaisons in Attendance:

Liaison for Committee on Committees: Kebedech Tekleab

Steering Committee Designee: Carlene Byfield

Business:

The meeting was called to order at 12:00pm

Attendance and greetings; overview of meeting format; introductions of new members Franca Ferrari, Aviva Geismar and Jessica Prepetit

I. Review and approved minutes from March 4, 20201 meeting

• Approved (Adam makes motion and Nathaniel seconds motion)

II. Reports from cultural center directors

QPAC - Susan Agin

• Susan Agin reporting from the campus. Returning to campus is emotional. Grateful for innovations during pandemic, but “being in the room where it happens” means something (to quote the musical Hamilton)
• Committee’s charge is to spur faculty to Incorporate the campus cultural centers into curriculum in some way, for example:
  • Student film festival (featuring student filmmakers from the film program in the Speech & Theatre department showcased student creativity during the lockdown, the interaction in a Q & A with students was profound
  • In the English dept collaboration 7 classes studying Ibsen’s Dolls House - created virtual presentation of the play using professional actors 

• Next phase is to revitalize the community - continue with virtual programming until November but start to reach out more by taking it to the streets.
• Taking it to the streets: drive in concerts (safety and social distancing built into the experience). The first concert is sold out , doing 1 concert a month through November
• 13 million dollar renovation on QPAC theatre will be done in December 

KHC - Laura Cohen 

• KHC held 14 events in the spring semester (all recorded) 
• Can reach larger audience with virtual events, programming reaches more people for longer than in person events where only a handful of people can attend
• Each lecture averages a few hundred views, far surpassing what is possible in person. There were over 9,000 views (and counting) for one lecture in particular 
• Virtual format allowed for greater collaboration; for example with colleagues in Poland Srebrenica
• With these benefits in mind, KHC will continue with virtual programming in the Fall
• KHC will be partially open in the fall. There will be no tours / students will be able to come through the building
• New exhibition being mounted about concentration camps - more opportunities to engage with the content (virtually and in person)
• Over the summer KHC will promote 2 ongoing virtual exhibitions (conspiracy of goodness, dachau jacket)
• KHC hosted a year long professional development with CETL, focusing on how faculty may use the KHC and integrate the center's exhibitions and events into their curriculum. The next professional development with CETL will focus either on empathy or human rights education
• KHC installing a land acknowledgement
• Broadening focus of exhibitions and events, for example, Indigenizing institutions and on Stonewall all the while retaining primary focus on the concentration camps.

Franca to Laura: human experiments in Nazi Germany during holocaust and USA on prisoners and the effects of the concentration camps children were particularly impactful for the students.

Adam: Committee constantly gives ideas on how to incorporate centers into curriculum; for example a research ethics class in social sciences connects with the work of the KHC

IV. Elections

• Nathaniel Sullivan chair / Bianca Sosnovski secretary / no abstentions

V. Discussion of assessment

• Nathaniel to record responses and email to members before submission.

Meeting Adjourned at 12:44pm

Respectfully submitted,

Nathaniel Sullivan
Committee on Senate Committee on Cultural and Archival Resources, Secretary

Minutes typed on May 20, 2021