Introduction – Clément Aubert

Making the invisible visible will begin by answering seemingly simple questions: Why are we here? Which contradictions do we need to face? How can we improve despite boundaries?

• Slide in html and pdf (source in .md)
• “Digest” in html and pdf (source in .md)

Academic Writing – James Garner

Academic writing can be difficult to navigate, especially when it’s required alongside a teaching load. How do I juggle writing and teaching time? Should I use a reference manager? Which reference manager? What about AI? Dr. James Garner, interim director of the Center for Writing Excellence, will share techniques and technologies to help you improve your writing and research process.

• Slides
• “Digest” in html and pdf (source in .md)

Using Thick Description to Make the University Visible – Andrew Goss

Universities are under the microscope, and there is no shortage of writing about the state of this strange but important fragment of American life. So much being written is either prescriptive, opining on what the university could or should be, or relies on quantitative methods to comprehend college’s value and importance – like the poll about the public perception of college education, or the studies of the ROI of different majors. In this presentation, I take a different approach, utilizing Clifford Geertz’s method of ethnographic description, what he called Thick Description, to make visible the culture of today’s university. This method was developed to make sense of the interwoven structures of behavior and relationships that make a society’s culture. This method lends itself to efforts to analyze something as unusual as the university. What are the rituals, language, and habits of the university? How do different university participants construct interpretative frames of meaning about their institution? I look at four different ways Augusta University exists – as a Republic of Scholars, as a Business, as a Bureaucracy and as a Corporation – not for the purposes of finally figuring out what the university truly is, but to help suggest ways to navigate the invisible structures of the university.

• “Digest” in html and pdf (source in .md)

Tips, Tricks, and Tools for Efficiency – Emily Harris

Between teaching, research, service, and life outside of work, it’s easy to feel buried under an endless list of tasks and deadlines. These days, it seems like every problem comes with a new AI tool promising to fix it—but sometimes the most inconspicuous habits are still the most powerful.

In this session, we’ll get back to basics: practical, time-tested strategies for working more efficiently and staying focused in our day-to-day academic lives. We will also review a few (non-AI) tools that you can use to keep yourself on track!

• Slides (backup)

An Imperfect Science - Bridging the Gap – Katie McKie

Have you ever wondered just what your doctor is doing behind the scenes as you tap your toe and scroll through your phone in the waiting room? In this session you will get a peek behind the curtain at the daily life of a physician in a busy academic practice as we discuss similarities and differences between our roles as university faculty. This discussion invites us to reflect as a group on how we teach, how we investigate, and how we care for our patients, learners, and colleagues.