Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well. Seeing as the semester's end is not far off, we really should get moving on our end of the semester project. I am waiting to hear back from the assistant to the Chair in my department about reserving Clemens 120. But in the meantime, there are other things that need to be decided.
1) We need a name for our actual presentation. This will go on flyers that we will hand out to interested parties.
2) Abstracts. I have a friend who is a graphic designer, and have asked her to help us in designing a flyer for the presentation. If we were to collect the full abstracts of all of our papers and circulate them, I wonder if that would be too much. Would people actually read through all of them? What if instead we each came up with a sentence or two about our paper, and included that on the flyer? Any thoughts/suggestions?
3) People. We need to think of groups/departments/friends or family members that will be interested in attending our presentation. We should come up with a final list, so that when it comes time to circulate the flyers and/or abstracts, we are all set.
4) Food. Although I was told that food in Clemens 120 is off limits-I distinctly recall being in that room and eating. For the TA conference I had to attend, food/drink was catered by the University. Having said that, we should think about the kind of food/drink we would like to supply. I am not sure if my department has any extra funds, so this might have to be an out of pocket expense. Perhaps each of us can chip in to help defray the costs?
5) Time. We should think about a convenient time for the presentation. When should it begin? How long should each of us speak? Those sorts of things.
Any questions/comments/suggestions please share with everyone.
See you all tomorrow.
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2 comments:
Hi, All:
I've made some preliminary suggestions below. Please tear them to shreds, if you like… I just hope we can pull something off in the next few weeks. Let’s keep the conversation going.
1. Possible titles: (Sorry if they're corny...)
a. "The Work Race Does: Causes, Conflicts, and Consequences"
b. "Race Reconsidered"
c. "Race: Perceptions, Ideology, and History"
2. I suggest that we gather the class' abstracts and assemble them as a conference catalog. On the flyer, though, I think we can get away with just listing topics that will be covered (e.g. Arthur A. Schomburg, Race Riots, W.E.B. Du Bois, etc.).
3. I have two ideas here:
a. We can market this as a closed session—invite only. The advantage here is that we will solicit the attendance of specific individuals, especially professors and other student researchers (grad and undergrad), who can offer us instrumental feedback.
b. We can market to the campus. The advantage here is exposure and lively discussion.
4. I like the idea of muffins, cookies, coffee -- that sort of thing. I'm down for sandwiches, too, but catering gets pricey. I've got chip-ins, though...
5. I see at least two possibilities here:
a. We can work toward a 2.5 - 3 hr program. Each of us can deliver a ten minute talk and open the floor for ten minutes of suggestions/critiques.
b. We can divide the class into two thematic panels. Each student will have ten minutes to talk about her/his project. Then, when all papers have been read, we can open the floor for thirty minutes of discussion. After the first question/answer period, we can break for ten minutes while the second panel assembles. Then, we’ll do it all over again.
I think that we can definitely work with these suggestions.
1. Perhaps we can combine 1a. and 1c.? "The Work Race Does: Perceptions, Ideology, and History"--whatever we decide, I think the "race does work" has been the mantra of our class, so we should somehow work it in--sorry, couldn't resist the pun.
2.) I concur with collecting the class abstracts. Also, I think just listing topics to be discussed will be best for us (I know that I won't be able to compose two interesting sentences about my topic; also, by the time that we will produce the conference catalog, we can have titles and abstracts that perhaps are more congruent with what we've written).
3.) I think we should market to the entire campus--only those who are interested in race will come anyway. The potential pitfall of a closed session at the end of a semester is that those whom we invite might be too busy/tired/disoriented to attend.
4.) I'm willing to pitch in for food. I love food. I'm also willing to buy the food when we decide specifically on what we are going to purchase/eat.
5.) I'm not much of a decision-maker, so both of these possibilities are fine by my eyes. The only pitfall of b. is that one individual on a panel may not receive any feedback due to more provocative papers on the panel. Then again, thirty minutes of discussion should eliminate this pitfall.
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