We received such enthusiastic reports from our Fall 2020 Invite-a-Guest-to-Class mini-grant recipients that we reprised the program this spring, extending eligibility to UI teaching assistants as well as faculty. We're delighted to award a new slate of mini-grants to support 38 virtual course visits by a diverse and impressive array of educators, researchers, artists, administrators, and activists in the U.S. and beyond. Each $150 grant will provide an honorarium to the visitor.

Awardees and their Spring 2021 visitors:

Iris Frost (Rhetoric, CLAS)
RHET:3009 — Negotiations and Conflict Resolution
Perry Howell, a licensed psychologist and professor in Florida State University's English Department, will help analyze UI students' Myers-Briggs Personality Tests, which will help students recognize their own personality traits. Howell will also explore with students how to best employ their individual strengths in negotiation situations.

Pam Wesely (Teaching & Learning, College of Education)
EDTL:7405 — Research Methods in Literacy, Culture, and Language Education
Leigh Patel, a transdisciplinary scholar in Educational Foundations, Organization, and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh, will challenge and inspire students via a discussion of her book, Decolonizing educational research: From ownership to answerability. 

Rose Schreiber-Stainthorp (School of Art & Art History, CLAS) 
CERM:2010 — Ceramics I: Handbuilding
Jonathan Christensen Caballero, the current Interdisciplinary Ceramic Research Center Artist-in-Residence at the University of Kansas, will give an artist talk and then hold a Q&A during which students will have the opportunity to ask him about the conceptual basis and technical aspects of his work.

Colleen Bringman (College of Engineering)
BME:4920 — Biomedical Engineering Senior Design II
Alena Krishna, Regulatory Affairs Manager at CIVCO Radiotherapy, will provide students with a real-world perspective regarding regulation of medical devices. She will discuss regulatory pathways and her experience with the FDA, as well as guide the students through their individual projects and help confirm if they have selected the correct regulation pathway for their engineering solution.

Matthew Arndt (School of Music, CLAS)
MUS:6210 — History of Music Theory I
Malkhaz Erkvanidze of the Georgian Folk Music Department, Tbilisi State Conservatoire and Theological Seminary, will provide personal insights into the history of Georgian music theory and its relevance for the present day with particular regard for Georgian traditional music, which has experienced a rebirth after being suppressed by Russian and Soviet occupiers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Christine Shea (Spanish & Portuguese and Linguistics, CLAS)
SPAN:3130 — Introduction to Bilingualism
Adrian Garcia-Sierra (Department of Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut) will discuss the role of input in bilingual child development, including the interaction between quality and quantity of language input to bilingual infants and how this interacts with subsequent language development.

Volkan Orhon (School of Music, CLAS)
MUS:6026 — Major String Bass
Nick Dunston, an African American composer and bassist, will give an artist talk about his music, bass playing, pedagogy, electronics, politics, and race; workshop a new short piece with a graduate student; and hold a Q&A session. 

Jennifer Buckley (English, CLAS)
ENGL:2015 — Reading and Writing about Drama
Luis Alfaro, an associate professor of dramatic writing at the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts, will speak about the process of adapting ancient Greek tragedy through his modern Chicanx experience and language and for diverse, twenty-first-century audiences.

Motier Haskins (Social Work, CLAS) 
SSW:6145 — Organization and Community Practice
Mazahir Salih, co-founder of the Center for worker Justice and a former president of the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa, will describe the realities of community organizing.

David Supp-Montgomerie (Communication Studies, CLAS)
COMM:2044 — Political Communication
Kai Wright, host and managing editor of WNYC Studios' The United States of Anxiety, a podcast about the unfinished business of our history and its grip on our future, will advise students (who are also creating political podcasts) on various aspects of podcast production, helping them to understand that their production of media is an important part of their professional portfolio and civic life.

Mary Cohen (Teaching & Learning, College of Education)
EDTL:2670 — Peacebuilding, Singing, and Writing in a Prison Choir
Fury Young, the founder of Die Jim Crow Records, will discuss his passion project—the first record label in the U.S. for formerly and currently incarcerated musicians.

Sato Ashida (Community & Behavioral Health, College of Public Health)
CBH:4150 — Introduction to Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Leslie Wright, Founder of the Collective Clarity, LLC, and former CEO of the United Way Eastern Iowa, will provide real-life examples of public health community-engagement efforts in our local area. (Wright is starting a new community engagement project in collaboration with Linn County Public Health to enhance disaster resilience within the county, specifically focusing on enhancing resilience among vulnerable populations including immigrant communities, non-English speaking communities, and those who have disabilities.)

Stephen Warren (History and American Studies, CLAS)
HIST:7202/AMST:6050 — Native American and Indigenous Studies: Theory and Practice
Andrew Denson (History Department, Western Carolina University) will speak about his work with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and his study of heritage tourism, public memory, and how monuments were put to the service of white supremacy in the Jim Crow South.

Maia Sheppard (Teaching & Learning, College of Education) 
EDTL:6840 — Theories and Perspectives in Global Education
Hanadi Shatara from the University of Wisconsin's History Department and School of Education, will share findings from her research, which examines the worldviews of eight global educators in NYC public schools. She will discuss how global educators’ positionalities influences their ways of teaching global education and how this influences student learning.

Auden Lincoln-Vogel (Cinematic Arts, CLAS)
CINE:1834 — Modes of Film and Video Production
Aggie Pak Yee Lee, a world-renowned independent animator born in Hong Kong and educated at the Estonian Academy of Arts, will share with students her unique perspective on international animation as well as her pedagogical strategies. She will also introduce students to a new cultural sphere and discuss how an animator can work by her/himself with few financial resources to complete award-winning animations.

Katina Lillios (Anthropology, CLAS)
ANTH:1201 — World Archaeology
Ventura Perez (Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts–Amherst) will discuss his research on expressions of violence in the past and more contemporary present and how archaeology and biological anthropology can contribute to key issues of concern to all. Dr. Pérez, who received his BA in Anthropology from the University of Iowa and is a first-generation Mexican/Latino scholar, can also speak to UI students who share his experiences.

Lina-Maria Murillo (GWSS and History, CLAS) 
GWSS:2250/HIST:2250 — History of Social Justice Movements
Lauren Maclvor Thompson (Department of History, Georgia State University), an expert on the history of the 20th-century women's movement in the U.S., will lecture on issues such as the ERA and the birth control movement.

Jodi Linley (Education Policy & Leadership Studies, College of Education)
EPLS:6332 — College Student Psychosocial & Identity Development
Erik Albinson, Director of Student Educational Services at Marquette University, will discuss how he uses theories of values and discernment (moral development and spirituality) and psychosocial development (identity, purpose, intersectionality) in his daily work. He will also listen to student presentations, provide feedback, and give a talk on his translation of these theories to practice.

Deborah Whaley (African American Studies, CLAS)
AFAM:2700 — The Black Image in Sequential Art: Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime
Marcus Kwame Anderson, independent comic artist and creator of the graphic novel The Black Panther Party, will provide an artist viewpoint on the production of the Black image in comics and how one translates history in graphic novel form. He will also discuss his podcast Black Comics Chat.

Heather Parrish (School of Art & Art History, CLAS)
PRNT:6675 — Graduate Print Workshop
Leslie Diuguid, founder and master printer of Brooklyn-based Du-Good Press, will share her journey of establishing a professional collaborating printing press in New York, giving real-world advice and offering her unique perspective.

Jennifer Kayle (Dance, CLAS) 
DANC:6050 — Graduate Improvisation II
Mayfield Brooks, a professional dance artist and teacher in New York City and the creator of the practice "Improvising While Black," will explore with students his experience of deploying improvisation as a form of critique and social reformation. He may also invite students to practice these ideas under his guidance.

Paula Amad (Cinematic Arts, CLAS)
CINE:5673 — Advanced Film Theory: Postcolonial Theory, Film and Visual Studies
Terri Francis (Associate Professor, Cinema; Media Studies Director, The Black Film Center/Archive at The Media School, Indiana University) will discuss her forthcoming book on Josephine Baker during a class focused on the colonial history of fetishizing Black women's bodies, specifically Sarah Baartman and Josephine Baker. 

Yolanda Spears (Social Work, CLAS)
CCCC:4490 — Integrative Seminar: Critical Cultural Competence
Nyasha M. GuramatunhuCooper, Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at Our Lady of the Lake University, will speak to students about future leadership plans post-graduation as they relate to cultural competence and diversity.

Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder (English, CLAS)
ENGL:3510 — Topics in Transnational Literature: Literature and Coffee
Sherif Abdelkarim, an assistant professor of English at Grinnell College, an Arabic translator, and a specialist in linguistics, will give a talk and lead a workshop about Arabic translation and the importance of coffee in the post-classical period. The goal of the workshop is to give students a better understanding of the polysemy of Arabic and the cultural emphasis on poetic meter and repetition.

Alyssa Clayden (Social Work, CLAS) 
SSW:1022 — Social Justice and Social Welfare in the U.S.
Rania Awad (Social Services/Human Rights, DMACC) will share with students her experiences of living in the U.S. as an immigrant and refugee while also working in the social welfare/human rights/social justice field in a country that is not of her origin.

Lori Branch (English, CLAS)
ENGL:6300 — Postsecular Studies and the Long Eighteenth Century
James Reeves (English, Texas State University), author of Godless Fictions in the Eighteenth Century: A Literary History of Atheism, will be presenting on William Cowper, atheism, and ecumenism in the 18th century, and will also share his recent experience on the job market and in academic publishing. 

Carolyn Colvin (Teaching & Learning, College of Education)
EDTL:7070 — Students in Critical Discourse Analysis
Jonathan Rosa, an associate professor and member of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and Director of the Chicanx-Latinx Studies Program in the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, will discuss his research on "racio-linguistics"—the historical and contemporary co-naturalization of race and language—and imagine with students the denaturalization of race and language as part of a broader structural project of contesting white supremacy.

Elizabeth Walker (Communication Sciences & Disorders, CLAS) 
CSD:4244 — Rehabilitative Audiology
Nicole Marrone, James S. and Dyan Pignatelli/Unisource Clinical Chair in Audiologic Rehabilitation for Adults at the University of Arizona, will discuss her research on the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in pediatric and adult hearing healthcare.

Jennifer Sterling (American Studies, CLAS)
SPST:1074 — Inequality in American Sport
Stan Thangaraj, a professor and socio-cultural anthropologist at the City College of New York, will join the class for a discussion of on ethnicity and its intersections with topics such as race, religion, and masculinity. 

Carrie Figdor (Philosophy, CLAS)
PHIL:6620 — Seminar in Philosophy of Science
Jonathan Birch, Principal Investigator on the Foundations of Animal Sentience project and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics, will lead a class discussion on a new proposal, much discussed in philosophy of biology, on the evolutionary origins of consciousness.

Louise Seamster (Sociology and African American Studies, CLAS)
AFAM:2770 — Environmental Racism
DeMeeko Williams, a community organizer with Hydrate Detroit, will discuss his on-the-ground work around water insecurity and access in Detroit.

Gayle Walter (Health & Human Physiology, CLAS)
HHP:2280 — Cultural Competency in Health Promotion
Raffy Luquis (School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, Penn State), who authored the textbook used in Walter's course, will elaborate on the major themes related to cultural competency and share his research on reducing health disparities.

Jake Jones (School of Art & Art History, CLAS)
INTM:2710 — Introduction to Intermedia
Lindsey French, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Studio Arts at the University of Pittsburgh and an artist whose work engages in gestures of sensual and mediated communication with landscapes and the nonhuman, will give an artist talk on the range of her art practice, discuss her professional career, and provide insight into students' creative practice, which includes electronic, installation, and sound art.

Ain Grooms (Education Policy & Leadership Studies, College of Education)
EPLS:6265 — Standards-Based Accountability and Education
Duke Bradley III, Associate Superintendent and Chief of Schools in the Beaufort County (South Carolina) School District, will speak about how district leaders work to balance instructional demands with the challenges resulting from COVID-19; he will also walk students through scenarios grounded in real-time decision-making. Additionally, as there are national calls to pause (or end) standardized testing because of the pandemic and its effect on existing educational disparities, he will share how his district is addressing this particular concern.  

Matthew Hipps (Cinematic Arts, CLAS) 
CINE:2600 — Writing Film Reviews and Criticism
David Sterritt, a film professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, will discuss the tug and pull between journalist opinion—approaching film criticism from a journalistic setting via reviews—and academic criticism.

Micah Bateman (School of Library & Information Science, Graduate College)
SLIS:5030 — Conceptual Foundations
Daniel LaRossa, a licensed architect at Group 4 Architecture in San Francisco and chief architect of the Dayton Main Library, the San Lorenzo Library, and other civic spaces, will speak to students about the social and practical visions of designing library space.

Rachel Williams (School of Art & Art History, CLAS)
DRAW 3310:001 — Concepts of Drawing
Independent artist and teacher Elgin Bokari Smith (Gary Comer Youth Center) will discuss his work and artistic process to help students understand how professional artists address issues related to music and illustration.