Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 546 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, a long view of undergraduate research with Kristine Johnson and Michael Rifenburg.

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:23]:

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. I’m excited to be welcoming to the show authors Kristine Johnson and Michael Rifenberg, talking about their book, a long view of undergraduate research, alumni perspectives on inquiry, Belonging, and Vocation, and this book looks at the lifelong influence of undergraduate research experiences. Kristine Johnson is an associate professor of English and university rhetoric director at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She teaches linguistics, writing, and composition pedagogy, and enjoys collaborating with undergraduate researchers. Kristine’s research has appeared in college composition and communication, rhetoric review, the journal of communication and religion, WPA Writing, Program Administration, Composition Studies, and various edited collections. With Michael Rifenberg, she edited a special issue of Pedagogy, Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture on undergraduate research in English studies and authored a long view of undergraduate research, alumni perspectives on inquiry, belonging, and vocation, which we’re talking about today.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:17]:

J Michael Rifenberg, professor of English at the University of North Georgia, serves as senior faculty fellow for scholarly writing with UNG’s center for teaching, learning, and leadership. He authored the embodied playbook, writing practices of student athletes, drilled to write, becoming a cadet writer at a senior military college, and the book we’ll be talking about today with Kristine Johnson, a long view of undergraduate research. Michael is a recipient of the University System of Georgia Regents Scholarship of Teaching and Learning award and serves on the board of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Kristine and Michael, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed. Thank you.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:03:09]:

Thanks for having us.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:10]:

Something that I have found has been in common across more than a decade of doing this podcast is just a collective yearning that we can have, those of us who teach in a higher education context of just meaning and significance. And I, I don’t know about the 2 of you. I can just find myself vacillating between, you know, devastation and elation. Parker Parker Palmer writes a lot about the joy and pains of teaching. And so to help us anchor ourselves and root ourselves a little bit, Kristine, would you start by telling us a bit about what is the promise of undergraduate research?

Kristine Johnson [00:03:49]:

One of the ways we think about meaning and significance in undergraduate research for me is how integrative it is. As a mentor of undergraduate researchers, there’s the intellectual side of getting to do meaningful work and publish with them and present with them, but it also means mentoring an emerging adult. And I think that combination of joining together intellectual pursuits with the personal relationship integrates the parts of being a faculty member that I love most. Think Michael and I have both intentionally chosen to teach undergraduates in our careers. We’ve stayed at undergraduate teaching institutions and think undergraduate research is is the best of that in integrating those two domains.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:41]:

Are there particular characteristics, almost like that that let you classify something as undergraduate research? Are there sort of a minimum thing where you I mean, you mentioned publishing and presenting. If I’m not working with students to publish and present, am I not doing undergraduate, or is there something that could come before and might still classify it in that broad body of work?

Kristine Johnson [00:05:03]:

Yeah. So sure. So the council on undergraduate research has a formal definition, which includes mentored research, working with undergraduates on what they say is helping make a contribution to knowledge. So I think one part of undergraduate research is pushing beyond the research you might encounter in a traditional curriculum. The other place we see this is mentoring senior honor species or working on summer research programs or just inviting students onto a project you’re doing. The outcome of that might often be presentation or publication in some way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:43]:

Mhmm. That’s really helpful. And and so what would be something that would not be considered undergraduate research, but it’s still a a good thing to do? Michael, do you wanna tackle that one? Like, these are good things to do, but probably aren’t gonna fall under what would be considered undergraduate research.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:06:00]:

Certainly. We we long know the importance of a writing intensive class where students are in small groups of 20 to 24 students, and they’re actively working on sharpening their prose by coming alongside each other, doing peer review. So we know the importance of a writing intensive class, but authoring a 5 page literary analysis on Moby Dick, as wonderful as that novel is, for this one semester doesn’t rise to the the level of undergraduate research as House of Undergraduate Research as defines it, but also more importantly, how the participants are book project and people who have done undergraduate research understand it and experience it. So we’re looking for this long term engagement with a meaningful, passionate project alongside important mentorship and scaffolded experiences to help them pursue that passionate project beyond a semester or beyond just a quarter.

Kristine Johnson [00:06:55]:

Yeah. And I should probably add to that. There is a lot of scholarship right now on integrating undergraduate research experiences in the curriculum, and thinking about how could we bring many of these characteristics to the curriculum. In our research, we looked at students who did more traditional and intensive projects with more on a 1 on 1 faculty mentor. But but, you know, undergraduate research is extending in that direction now too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:26]:

And when you talk about the 1 on 1 mentoring, that’s been more of your focus. That to me brings so many possibilities, yet also the challenge that life learning doesn’t fit into neat and tidy boxes the way that understandably, curriculum often needs to fit itself in. So what do you see people doing in order to have the less neat and tidy, things fitting in with those 1 on 1 relationships? What are some creative ways people are pursuing the possibilities while also reckoning with the challenges?

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:08:01]:

Yeah. That’s that’s a great question because mentorship is so challenging. Because as you mentioned, Bonni, it doesn’t fit into we’re on a semester calendar, so it doesn’t fit into the 16 week semester calendar. I teach on Tuesday Thursdays from 11 to 12:15. It’s hard to put mentorship in that box of 11 to 12:15 on Tuesday Thursday. So we’re leaning on wonderful scholarship about what makes more engaging and, successful mentorship practices. There’s a great piece out there called the 10 salient practices of mentoring. Right? So if we’re as we’re continuing to push the conversation mentoring, as we continue to learn about mentoring, we’re trying to find creative ways to come along students, right, and to support the work that they’re doing and often letting students lead those conversations.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:08:48]:

We need to give that guidance because we have some institutional benchmarks to be hitting. We want this to be a project that students are passionate about, and we’re trying to come alongside them in creative ways to continue to build structures in place for them to pursue the projects that are meaningful to them and not Michael telling them, here’s the project that’s meaningful. Here are the benchmarks. We’re gonna meet at these times. But for this to be student led, and that’s what’s so wonderful about the research we have the opportunity to do, what we’re hearing from students about what they found helpful and what they found not helpful and letting them help us better understand how best to support undergrad research on their campuses.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:27]:

My colleagues and I were strategizing yesterday about going and talking about some ideas with a committee, a faculty committee, and we were sort of taking 2 extremes whether it would be better to go in to have those conversations with a real blank slate, or whether it would be better to go and have these conversations with, oh, here are some ideas recognizing that this particular group gets very energized by well, that wouldn’t work and that’s not there. And just to own the fact in advance that there are pros and cons to those two approaches. So this actually has to do with undergraduate research, I promise. So when it comes to undergraduate research, I’d love to hear from you going to students with a blank slate when you say student led, or is that too broad for undergraduates? Or do undergraduates need to have a little bit of some real intentional conversations to expand their imagination to help them before they really could start leading? It would be the equivalent of saying, hey. What did you wanna learn in a class about this? And I don’t even know what this is, which for me would be material science, by the way. If you were to be like, Bonni, what would you like to learn in a material science class? Well, I barely know what that is. So I don’t I wouldn’t be able to, like, have as much of an imagination for what my research might look like until I had some foothold. So what are your reflections on what that looks like in this kind of mentorship with students?

Kristine Johnson [00:10:51]:

One of the things we heard from students, and this is borne out in other research too, is that there’s this tension in in good mentoring between freedom and control or or freedom and direction. You know, sometimes students experience undergraduate research where they apply to work with a faculty member and there is a project already. And so the student isn’t completely at sea deciding what they would like to study. But we did learn, you know, when students write a senior honors thesis, which would be a context where they have a lot of choice and a lot of freedom and how they want to pursue it, Students really found value when their mentors helped orient them at the beginning of the project. Right? When when they were supported in that initial stage to say, okay. If you’re interested in this, here is where in my field people are thinking about that, and these might be directions you could go and these are you know, so, one of our participants used this idea of orientation. He said a good meta a good mentor will sort of orient you in this field and point you in a direction that might be generative.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:05]:

I love that. As soon as you said orientation, I started thinking about orienteering, which I’m going back many decades at this point, but I was sort of picturing Kristine, like, okay. You’re helping me get my backpack. You’re letting me know, oh, this is gonna be a little bit longer. You’re gonna need some water. You’re gonna need some snacks. You know? That that kind of thing. Here’s a compass.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:23]:

I I’m talking old school here. So here’s and here’s how you can orient yourself. And, oh, yeah. I’ll be checking in with you. I’ll be at that first pit stop. Now I’m mixing my metaphors. It’s bad. So, Michael, what’s coming to mind for you in terms of managing these tensions between the all the possibilities are out there, and I I really like that word, Kristine, that you used, you know, giving the freedom and direction.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:12:45]:

Mhmm. We also think a lot about mentoring at the end of the process as well, however that process ends. That process could end up presentation, a publication, an honor, species defense, lots of potential endings, even endings we don’t, as authors, imagine. We look forward to students creating those potential endings. We’ve thought a lot about what the internship looks like at the ending and how we might use that undergrad experience to help students prepare for what’s next. That next could be graduate school. That next could be entering the workplace. So we were imagining how might mentors come alongside students and directly translate their undergrad research experiences into some workplace readiness documents, like a resume, right, like a cover letter, as a way to kind of close the loop on this really meaningful and powerful and unique undergraduate research experience.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:13:37]:

Right? So we thought a lot about mentoring at the beginning and at the end to help them start seeing how the process, the skills that they honed might help them as they make that next step out of undergrad undergraduate to wherever they might go next.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:51]:

I was so grateful to Peter Felten for introducing us and got instantly curious about your work. And one thing that he shared is quite unique is that you really got an opportunity to talk to alumni and that that added a a unique distinct lens to your research. What were some of the surprises that came up when we when you talk to people who are a little bit further out in their hopefully, they’re not done with their learning journey, but you know what I mean? You get a little bit, you know, more retrospective when you’re able to get some distance. What were some surprises along the way?

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:14:23]:

You you mentioned Peter, and he has that wonderful book he coauthored on a relationship rich higher education showing the importance of relationships. And we heard that again and again when we were talking with people who did the undergraduate research 5 years ago, 10 years ago, even 15 years ago. What they’re not remembering is their thesis statement, their argument, their literature review. What they are remembering is having ice cream with their professor. They are remembering staying at a hotel for the very first time before their conference presentation. They remember the music they were listening to in the library while they were coding their data. And so they’re remembering these rich, visceral, usually relationship filled experiences. I was surprised by that.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:15:07]:

Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but how quickly people leaped to the front of their stories, more so than content, more so than methods, more so than literature reviews. People were foregrounded in these stories in really beautiful ways.

Kristine Johnson [00:15:20]:

Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:21]:

You talking about, you know, they get you get a little bit more whether they’ve pursued now graduate school or whether they’ve pursued a a more professional practice kind of route. We tend to make that such a dichotomy that it kinda turns education into more of a transactional thing, and and that’s not when you start talking about people, that’s not what it’s about. So you’re not hearing I got my ticket to, you know, whatever is next. It sounds a little bit more deeply rooted. And and, Kristine, what’s coming to mind for you when you think about these longer term impacts of an education that’s rich with undergraduate research?

Kristine Johnson [00:15:59]:

Yeah. Well, I think to to say that I got my ticket, I mean, certainly, we we did have some participants who went to graduate school pretty quickly after undergrad, and and they did really feel that undergraduate research prepared them well. Maybe not that it got them in, maybe it did, but but just that they had done major projects as undergraduates. So working on a master’s thesis felt less intimidating to them than some of their classmates. What surprised me, and and maybe it shouldn’t, is how many of them were still really proud of what they did. They’re 5 years out of college and in professional careers and, some of them told us you know, they said, oh, you know, before I interviewed with you, I looked at I looked back at my thesis or I, you know, I looked back at that and that was really a big deal, and I’m really proud of what I did.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:51]:

I got to go to watch some poster sessions of some STEM students at my university, and I still remember I’ve got pictures that’ll show up in my memory sometimes of a young woman who was studying telehealth, telehealth medicine, and, specifically, the implications of artificial intelligence. And it was so fun to see someone getting some experience with undergraduate research, but then the the capacity for imagination beyond that, you know, was and she could just see herself really all the different places that one might go and pursue. It would be interesting to hear from each of you couple of anecdotes of people specific research projects across maybe a few different contexts or a few different disciplines, whatever’s coming to mind of, like, wow. This was a, you know, kind of a neat neat way that somebody got to have their lives, their learning, you know, transformed in some some unique ways. Kristine, what’s coming to mind for you?

Kristine Johnson [00:17:46]:

So we have a a student in our research, named Alice. And as an undergrad, he did summer research with a geographer traveling to brownfield sites all over the state. So these urban sites that have been abandoned but are available for redevelopment. And she talked with city governments and librarians in these local towns and and created these bats of the state. And through that research, she became really attuned to equity problems, noticing that brownfield sites tend to occur in some communities and not others. And she actually eventually ended up working for a transit department of a municipality. And in that work, what she’s doing is thinking about equity and thinking about, well, when I move a bus line, what is the effect on this community? And and so the undergraduate research gave her really interesting practical experience and memories of driving around the state with her research group and her mentor and stopping for ice cream. But it also kicked off this thing in her head that, oh, urban development and transportation is about equity and that’s a thread I can follow as a professional too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:19:04]:

What a powerful story. I just was meeting with a student yesterday and he is someone with ADHD, and so we were having these conversations. I was sharing a couple of AI tools that he might want to make use of that I’ve heard from others have been particularly helpful for them. And and but one of the things I was talking about is, you know, yes, please, use artificial intelligence, let it come alongside you, that kind of thing, but I was also saying, you know, when it comes to your writing, I felt like even though I’m not teaching a writing class, I still needed to be like, you are such a very powerful communicator. And, I I mean, since, you know, meeting you, he got to come and meet our provost. I was just like, you’re so impressive. Please don’t don’t let AI take that away from you without you realizing it. So I was really cautioning him around his writing.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:19:51]:

And I was specifically talking about the things that make us distinct, then we let AI take that away from us without realizing it. Anyway, you’re you’re making me think about what a powerful interview that Alice is probably able to have with potential employers or collaborators in her work that probably I mean, this is something that literally would have transformed her her life, her entire career. I mean, that that she could find that meaning and significance in her work, but also just be able to talk about those experiences in such a visceral way. Michael, are you thinking of any examples that come up of just where, broadly speaking, undergraduate research has had that transformative or any examples with across disciplines?

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:20:35]:

I was thinking you gave us another book project on AI’s impact on undergrad research. Right? So we were doing this before all those conversation popping up. So, man, maybe that’s our next book project. We could talk about this 5 years from now. A story that comes to mind that still resonates with me after hearing all those stories over all the years we collected stories, the story from a student that we named Tess. And as an undergrad, she did a honors thesis as a psychology major on the impacts of bullying on a person. And so fast forward 5, 6, 7 years, and Tess is now working for a domestic violence agency. And she’s spending time in middle schools and she’s spending time in high schools talking to students about signs of abuse, signs of dangerous relationships, then offering opportunities and resources to get out of those spaces.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:21:28]:

And she says she particularly talks with high schoolers around the time in her area where they often reach Romeo and Juliet as like an assigned reading for the local high schools. And she’s going into the auditorium and having powerful, rich conversations borrowing from Shakespeare’s old drama about looking for signs of dangerous relationships. Right? So when she did that undergrad research project on bullying many years ago, she couldn’t forecast where that might take her. But it’s the passion that she had for people, the passion she had for advocating for victims that propelled her into this career. And she’s drawing on the same skill set she had of inquiry, of presentations, of oral delivery, of communication, and just now doing that with middle schoolers in a really, really impactful way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:14]:

Oh, I really enjoyed that.

Kristine Johnson [00:22:15]:

And I think both of these examples speak to, you know, Alice learned how to use GIS software, which did help her get a job. And Tess became a really skilled public speaker as a result of presenting her research, which which helped her get a job, but those skills came along with a larger sense of purpose.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:37]:

What’s so fascinating about all these examples is how multifaceted they are. The world is pulling us toward dichotomous thinking, and this is adding so much more nuance and and therefore, a possibility for so much more transformation. When it comes to equity and in your stories, you you were beginning to touch on that. What what do we need to be thinking about those who those of us who may facilitate undergraduate research experiences to be mitigating the potential for inequities from continuing to persist?

Kristine Johnson [00:23:12]:

You know, I think some some inequity is a failure of imagination on our part to envision who could be an undergraduate researcher. One of the things we learned in our interviews, students sort of perceived and and many some of them actually experienced this, that one research opportunity might lead to another and to another. And, as an interviewee said, oh, it turns into this nepotistic circle where the same students and professors do research together. And I think expanding our imagination of, okay, can a student who’s not in the honors program be a great undergraduate researcher? Can a freshman do this kind of work? When we ask students to apply for this, are we asking them questions that invite us to learn about them, or are we asking them questions that signal you don’t belong here? I I think, yeah, thinking more broadly about who can do this work is one angle, equity.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:13]:

Tell us a little bit more specifically about the kind of question that would help me learn more about a potential researcher or the kind of question that I may inadvertently not realize is actually beginning to posit that you don’t belong here.

Kristine Johnson [00:24:28]:

I I can give an example from something I’m doing this semester. So my home English department received a very small donation. And with that, a faculty member was able to work with a freshman researcher for for a year. And so I’m doing that right now. And we asked high school seniors to apply for this. And the questions we asked them were, what are you curious about and what are you excited about? And I think any student can answer a question like that Because what makes a good undergraduate researcher is often their curiosity. And so asking questions like that can be more invitational.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:10]:

And is there something that comes to mind where people get stuck in a kind of a question that would perpetuate inequities?

Kristine Johnson [00:25:18]:

I think traditional questions emphasizing what is your grade point average and what are your other research experiences and what are these other things that you’ve done. Right? One of the things we we know is that many, many college students need to work for pay right now. And and so they they may not come to us with the kind of experience maybe we hope they would have, but that’s I think, that is more our issue than theirs.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:47]:

Yeah.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:25:49]:

And since these experiences often go beyond semesters where students might be living in dorms or residence halls and they might be going into summers, we also need to think about housing. Right? Yeah. We heard stories of students doing undergraduate research because their aunt lived near campus and they could live at their aunt for free over the summer. Right? And so trying to imagine ways in which undergrad research can continue as well as engaging with housing shortages we have on a lot of college campuses, housing prices that are out of control in a lot of communities, finding ways to engage with long term summer research projects. Also, think about housing needs and food needs where cafeterias might be closed over summers, right, or have odd hours. That that there’s not a question I could ask there to get around that, but being sensitive to that and going back to where about creativity, finding creative ways to engage with pressing needs about housing and food and equity that we’re seeing on our college campuses.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:46]:

That’s so helpful because as you said, there’s no easy answers to that, but an easy failure is not asking the question. And I I’ve I look back at my career across a number of fronts, sometimes it’s just because I wasn’t really taught to ask the question. I mean, could the question could be no, but if I never ask, so thinking about, gosh, can we stir up a little bit of tension between how vital this research is to the mission of the university, then why can’t there be possibilities for housing to be made available despite the shortages and exorbitant costs as you said? And we’ve been talking a lot about imagination. And before we switch over to the recommendation segment, share your thoughts about expanding the imagination for the person who might do the mentoring, who might either begin engaging in undergraduate research or extend what they’ve been doing? Give us a little bit of both hope and some practical ways to kinda nudge us on a little bit. Easy question, little softball question before we get to the recommendations part.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:27:52]:

I love it. I love it. I’ll imagine for a moment as we’re just kind of brainstorming. I I would love to continue imagining and learning from students how to make undergraduate research more interdisciplinary. Right? And moving away from the Michael by himself working on a project that just has Michael’s name on it and reimagining what that eventual output would be. It’s not Michael doing a project and then publishing an undergrad journal in the end. That the presentation doesn’t have to be the output. Publication doesn’t have to be the output.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:28:24]:

Reimagining what’s a valuable output for students in their community. So two things there. Reimagining the siloized individual aspect that can be a part of undergrad research because we did hear stories of how isolating and lonely this can be. So reimagining collaborative interdisciplinary undergrad research projects in which that output is something beyond what higher education often values, which is a publication or presentation.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:52]:

And when you say your research showed how isolating and lonely is that on behalf of the undergraduate student researcher, the one doing the mentoring, or, d, all of the above, or some other thing I’m not thinking of.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:29:05]:

The the the key story that came to mind comes from an undergraduate researcher, themselves of just talking about being in the library, listening to music, inputting data on the computer, and then going home. And that that was their experience. That was their experience. So so that that’s the whole concept.

Kristine Johnson [00:29:21]:

Mhmm. Powerful. And we interviewed we interviewed, students, not mentors. So that that was the perspective. You know, I think, I think for a long time and and both Michael and I come from the humanities, the the idea was if you worked with an undergraduate researcher on maybe a faculty driven project, that undergraduate researcher could write an annotated bibliography for you, right? That they could sort of do a lot of background research. And I think I think the place where we can imagine more is just to imagine what students can do and what they’re actually capable of. You know, as I said, I’m working with a freshman researcher this semester, and one of the things we’re working on, and obviously, she’s been through IRB training now, and we’ve done some practicing, and she’s done a lot of reading, but she’s conducting interviews for a new project I’m working on. And this is great because the students are interviewing with a peer.

Kristine Johnson [00:30:22]:

They’re not interviewing with a faculty member. And so I think the things she’s able to learn may be things that that I’m not able to learn by talking with them. And so thinking about can an undergraduate conduct interviews, can they conduct focus groups? What else can they do beyond sort of bibliographic grunt work? Think it makes it, a more fulfilling experience for the student. And it it might actually lead to a better product for the the faculty number 2.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:53]:

I was thinking about the transformative power of faculty learning communities, and it’s something I’ve been advocating at my university for making more use of. Of course, no one ever has enough funding to go around, but I’ve been advocating instead of a 100% of the professional development funding going toward more individualistic projects, what faculty learning communities allow for is the more collective work to be done, which, of course, benefits those who are historically marginalized, also benefits in the ways that you each are describing of expanding that imagination and also building a foot hold for further further research. So as you’re both sharing, I’m thinking about that, you know, your work, of course, is looking about the equivalent of that at the student level and and wanting to press on that, yes, the 1 on 1 mentoring crucial, but how can we start to build these nodes and networks where that imagination gets gets expanded. Yeah.

Kristine Johnson [00:31:51]:

Right. And I and I think there’s a lot of value in faculty members talking with each other about how to be better mentors and how to do this. You know, that that’s the skill we can build we can build too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:03]:

What’s coming to mind for you when you think about what that would look like? Obviously, you wanna have a discussion you’re saying talking, but to to fuel that conversation a little bit, what kinds of things what would you put on that sort of list of topics for people to come together and be able to benefit from those conversations?

Kristine Johnson [00:32:19]:

So on our book website, we actually have a discussion guide for mentors. And and some of the questions we encourage them to think about are actually what we’ve talked about earlier, how we act practically balance freedom and control. What does that look like when you’re planning out your project? How often do you meet with your researcher? How do you communicate goals? Right. Another set of questions we could think about is how undergraduate research might lead to more belonging on campus. We found that these researchers felt a deeper sense of belonging in the campus community and I think mentors can have good discussions of how can we structure projects so that students are actually more embedded in the university, how can they serve other offices on campus, how can they share their work on campus and and create, like you said, that sort of network of researchers?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:17]:

How fun. I can’t wait to go look at those look at those questions. It sounds really powerful. And having seen some of the materials around the book, I’m just gonna really encourage people to have a look at the show notes. Of course, go check out the book, of course. I always feel like, though, books, you know, books are really wonderful. It’s so wonderful when authors like you also then can curate these things so that you can squeeze even more value out of out of an experience like this and and fuel these conversations. So thank you so much for that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:45]:

Michael, anything you wanna add before we switch over to the recommendation segment?

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:33:49]:

No. It’s it’s been a wonderful experience talking with you and even learning more about our project by by your great question, so thank you for your time. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:56]:

So glad. This is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. The first thing I wanted to recommend is a fairly new in the last couple years project called the civics of technology. This is both a blog as well as a set of curriculum, and I’ll read a little bit from their website. This is foundational in their beliefs. Technologies are not neutral, and neither are the societies into which they are introduced. As technology continues encroaching in our lives, how can we advance technology education for just futures? I heard about this project from Autumn Kanes, who has been on the podcast many times in the past. I’ve been able to collaborate with her in the past and get to join her in her work at the University of Michigan Dearborn as they invited me to be the scholar in residence around artificial intelligence and in a higher education context.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:55]:

So she’s just been just a wonderful source of learning and nourishment in my life. She is on their board, and so that’s what got me first intrigued. But there’s so many other familiar people that are doing incredible work, both in in leadership and so many people who were new to me as well. The blog, I could have linked to many, many blog posts that that that they have done, but was also taking further look at their curriculum. I think the curriculum that they’re doing is worth taking a look at, not just if you’re interested in these topics, but also if you’re still seeking ways to be more creative in how you think think through assignments, we really are going to need to continue expanding our imagination from more transactional, what are called throwaway assignments. And, of course, Kristine and Michael have brought such richness around. The anecdote for that would be an assignment that isn’t just what my professor reads and isn’t particularly interesting to me. I’m not really curious about it, you know, what what undergraduate research can do.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:55]:

So I think it’s worth looking at from a pedagogical and creativity standpoint as well as just just really good curriculum about expanding this. I’m gonna read one more thing from their website. They say, quote, while humans have wrestled with their relationships to technologies for centuries, The rapidly changing technological landscape of facial recognition, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and other pervasive technologies requires citizens who can address associated social problems. And the last thing I’d like to recommend I realize, Kristine and Michael, it’s a little bit of a lengthy recommendation for me, but I feel convicted today. So Karen Costa had posted on LinkedIn. Karen Costa has been on the show many times, and she’s quoted many times, Adrienne Maree Brown, who says small is all. And when we get in times where we feel desolate, alone, hopeless, rather than thinking we have to take on the monumental change the entire world, sometimes it is, in fact, often. Small is all.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:05]:

The small steps we can do, and I felt very convicted by Karen Costa on LinkedIn. Maybe she did this on other social media, but I’m specifically saw her post there. She’s like, alright, folks. You wanna take action? Delete your Twitter account. Do it. Do it right now. And I thought I’ve been letting it sort of if it was a garden analogy, my garden, you know, has weeds and has not been maintained, but I kept clinging to, like, oh, maybe something would change to make that a healthy social network for me to be a part of and aligned with my values and, you know, curated such that you can take control of how to how to to, make sure that you’re you’re engaging with people whose values you share. And for me and for Karen and for so many others, that just isn’t the case.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:49]:

So thank you, Karen Costa, for the nudge to say, you know, not just put it on hold, so to speak, but it’s gone. So as of as of today, it is gone. So it will by the way, if any of you would decide to take this small step on Karen’s suggestion, it doesn’t delete right away. So if you were to try that you would deactivate it, and 30 days later than it officially officially is gone. So they kinda put it in a a little waiting waiting period there. And if you log back in, then you sort of negate your having having deleted it. And, associated with Karen’s urging for us to do this, if you feel so compelled, is Harold Jarky’s post, farewell, little bird, where he touches on many similar themes around what he used to get out of that community. And I I I, you know, I did feel sad, but I was sad about the past, and I didn’t wanna continue perpetuating my and other peoples who are far more vulnerable than me, potential sadness for just a network that, I do not believe for me and for so many others provides the kind of value that it once did.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:53]:

So I’ll quote from him here. I do not miss the constant doubt and outrage of Twitter. Even though I used to think I could get around that by carefully curating who I followed, that is impossible now, and even blocking does not work on x because those you block can now read your feed, thanks to new ownership. And I will leave it there. Let’s see. Kristine, what would you like to recommend today?

Kristine Johnson [00:39:18]:

Yeah. So in in September, Kantanji Brown Jackson, who is the latest supreme court justice in the United States, released her memoir called Lovely One. And Lovely One is the translation of her first name, Ketanji. So I am always up for a good supreme court memoir. And what I loved about this one though is it is a story about education, and it’s a story about literacy, and it’s a story about rhetoric. So we learn a lot about what it’s like to be a high school debater and orator and how those experiences resonated in her later life. But the the plug I will make today is that it’s also a story about undergraduate research. So she she actually writes in some level of detail about her senior honors thesis at Harvard.

Kristine Johnson [00:40:13]:

And in that project, she wrote about plea bargaining and the coercion of criminal defendants. And she first started thinking about those topics in this thesis project, for which she received an a minus. And and those scenes that got kicked off there resonated really through the rest of her legal career and drove a lot of her professional choices. So I was I was pleasantly surprised to to read about undergraduate research and in a book I was already really excited to read. It’s it’s a really interesting story. It’s well written. I would really recommend it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:52]:

Oh my gosh. It sounds wonderful. I’ve heard about it and heard a couple interviews with her, but you’re really prompting me. And not only are you benefiting me, but I was have a former student who just graduated from law school and is, in fact, I think tomorrow as of this recording, taking the ethics in law exam. I’m not sure I’m quoting that right, but some formal process of becoming an official lawyer, and this is gonna sound like a good graduation gift. He’s gonna love it. So Yes. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:20]:

So you’ve given me, 2 gifts with that recommendation, and no doubt so many people listening have just added that to their list if it wasn’t already there. Michael, what do you have to recommend today?

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:41:30]:

I have some music and a book. Wonderful.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:32]:

So one

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:41:32]:

of my favorite artists, his name is Tycho, t y c h o. He does beautiful ambient music, and he has an album that came out 2014, wow, 10 years ago, called Awake. And I often write to music, and I enjoyed listening to more ambient music. And this was a a album that I spent a lot of time listening to as I was working on my dissertation long, long time ago. It’s actually to the point now where I hear this music, my mind and fingers kinda get into writing mode

Kristine Johnson [00:42:02]:

for

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:42:02]:

better or worse. But I’m always looking for wonderful music to set a great writing experience for myself. And so Tycho’s 2014 album, Awake, some really beautiful, ambient, relaxing, chill music. On a very different note, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on leadership. I work at a university that’s the the state that is state of leadership institution. And we’re still trying to figure out what that means. Right? What that means for our students, what that means for our curriculum. There’s a wonderful book by an author named Mac Lake called The Multiplication Effect, building a leadership pipeline that solves your leadership shortage.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:42:39]:

What I really appreciate about this book is him imagining ways to get more people involved in different levels of leadership for whatever that organization might be. Right? I have the opportunity to work with our International Society For the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, really beautiful international organization. I’m using this book to try to imagine ways to get more people involved in leading parts of this organization as we continue to grow and as we continue to develop. How might we even embed some particular opportunities into our structure to offer more people opportunities to lead in ways that are meaningful for them. So this has been a great book for me in that aspect. I recommend it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:19]:

Oh my gosh. That’s so helpful, Michael. What it sounds like a wonderful read, and the intentionality with what you’re thinking about applying it to that organization resonates with me so much. By the way, I’ve been very intrigued by the by the organization for a long time. You could imagine in my my line of work that that would be very relevant to me. But sometimes these new places can be very intimidating. And if you kinda catch someone with a with something that doesn’t feel like, you know, you have to take on and carry so many pieces and bring down that intimidation factor, it can be so helpful. And then, of course, as you said, also expanding the leadership.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:54]:

Wow. You’ve both you’ve both given so much. I’m laughing because I’m wondering if ambient music would today be the same thing as what the the young people call lo fi music or if those are still 2 distinctly different genres

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:44:05]:

of music. Great podcast on chill versus lo fi versus chill hop versus ambient.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:11]:

I feel like we’re

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:44:12]:

running out of time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:14]:

But pair apparently, I’ve got some homework to do. I do have showing up on my my curated playlist. It’ll be I do have chill chill vibes, I think, is one of them, but, oh, fascinating. Yeah. I always wanna keep it separate because I probably I don’t have, an album like you mentioned that I do associate with that, but I enjoy working. But I don’t want I don’t wanna, like, show up on my 2027, you know, most listened to is, like, what I would include kind of just like yeah. I mean, because that’s not like you don’t wanna go revisit that and have it show up in all your stats. So yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:44]:

That’s why the apps come in handy, I think, if you don’t have, like, a favorite album you want to show up, so that’s so helpful. Oh, I love it. Well, thank you both so much for this conversation, and a huge thanks, of course, to Peter Felten for connecting us. And, what a, I mean, just what a wonderful if by the way, he he, he occasionally will email me, and it’s like, I just see his name, and I’m like, yes. Guess whatever it is. Yes. So did not disappoint.

Kristine Johnson [00:45:10]:

I think we are we are always grateful for Peter Felten.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:45:13]:

Yes. Yes. We’ll end with that. Well, thank you so much. And until we meet again, yes, what a wonderful source of inspiration and learning both of you have offered us today. Thank you. Thank you.

J. Michael Rifenburg [00:45:24]:

Thank you so much for the time. We enjoyed it, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:45:29]:

Thank you so much to Kristine Johnson and Jay Michael Rifenberg for today’s conversation about a long view of undergraduate research. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you’ve yet to sign up for the weekly updates from Teaching in Higher Ed, now is your moment. Head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes, show notes, as well as some other resources that don’t show up in the regular show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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