Campus Events

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Workshop Guide. Final Project for Mount Holyoke College class COLL- 224 (Being Human in STEM), Spring semester 2020
    Hagen, Gillian L.; Jackson, Iyana; Thomas, Deanna; Lau, Kierstyn
    Context of this project from author notes in co-authored ancillary document: “For our group project, we focused on ways to improve the retention of underrepresented groups in STEM fields. We determined that a project focusing on 100-level STEM courses would allow us to have the most lasting impact on student retention as introductory course experiences often shape the long-term trajectory of students. When thinking about the possible ways we could improve retention relating to 100-level STEM classes, we thought the best approach was to develop a workshop focused on educating students and faculty about microaggressions in the STEM classroom. Through our group meetings, we expanded the workshop to include sections on implicit bias and stereotype threat.”
  • ItemOpen Access
    Geomedia, Mining, and Mobility Justice: The Matter of Cloud Computing and Bitcoin
    Sheller, Mimi
    Technology never operates on its own, but is always about how people use it, how we put things together and make them work. The “material turn” in media studies and mobilities research highlights the geopolitical and socioecological power relations behind technologies like cloud computing and cryptocurrencies. There is a transnational material and ecological basis for communication infrastructures and virtual media geographies which pose crucial problems of mobility justice. Every historical period involves specific assemblages of transport, logistics, communication, and energy infrastructures, from the coal-fired steam train to the caffeine-fueled WiFi café, along with the pollution and waste these systems leave behind: “the materiality of information technology starts from the soil, and underground” in metals such as cobalt and gallium, tantalum and germanium, bauxite and aluminum (Parikka 2012). This talk will introduce the new interdisciplinary fields of Mobilities Research and Geomedia Studies and reveal the politics of infrastructure through examples such as cloud computing, e-waste, and Bitcoin. Mimi Sheller, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology and founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities, Associate Editor of Transfers: Journal of Mobility Studies, and past President of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility. She has been awarded Visiting Fellowships at the Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University; Media@McGill, in Montreal, Canada; Center for Mobility and Urban Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark; and the Penn Humanities Forum. In 2016 she was inaugural Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Hoaxes, Memes & Bots
    Dias, Nic
    In 2016 the world woke up to the severity of the polluted information environment. This lecture explained why we need to consider the whole spectrum of the misinformation ecosystem, what we learned from monitoring disinformation in the French, UK, and German elections, and why we have to stop using the term “fake news.” Most importantly, it included practical tips so you can make sure you don't get fooled by the hoaxes, misattributed, and manipulated content that surfaces online. Nic Dias is a senior research fellow at First Draft News, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting truth and trust on the internet. He has a background in computational journalism and social science. Nic's recent research interests include the use of bots to boost hyperpartisan perspectives, misinformation and disinformation on social media. In this avenue, he has studied the use of social bots to amplify misinformation in the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Germany -- particularly during elections. Other curiosities of his include the psychological principles dictating the correction of false beliefs.
  • ItemOpen Access
    DIY Cybersecurity: Solidarity Through Technology
    Kelley, Noah
    Noah Kelley is creator of the DIY Guide to Feminist Cybersecurity and is the founder of HACK*BLOSSOM, an activist organization fighting for the safety and autonomy of marginalized users in digital spaces. In this talk, Noah explores how personal relationships to technology can cultivate a culture that values safety and autonomy in digital spaces, especially in respect to threats of political oppression and personal harassment, as well as how technology can inform both institutional and personal activism. He discusses the current legal and cultural issues surrounding privacy, how cybersecurity plays a role in the addressing those issues, and how cybersecurity can be a launching point for creating enduring and resilient communities over the next few years. Note: There are two versions of this video available here. The first provides closed captioning, the second does not. A text transcript of the presentation is also available for download.