I was awarded tenure this year. I had hoped to write a reflection about what this means for me and my work as an academic librarian, and I still may (though it feels kind of overwhelming to try to capture in words all the complex feelings I have about this). But one very concrete thing it means is that I am eligible for a sabbatical during my first year as tenured library faculty, and that year has just started.
Library faculty at my institution are eligible for what is termed a "short-term sabbatical" in our Faculty Handbook, which means we may take sabbatical time during the "off seasons" on our campus: January, June, July, and August. The number of months (four) equal that of a single semester-long sabbatical, but they are broken up. I suspect the reasoning behind this when it was negotiated has to do with ensuring the library is properly staffed during the fall and spring academic semesters. I have a lot of thoughts, questions, and ideas about this, which I may pursue on my campus in my future as a tenured member of the library faculty.
But for now, being eligible at all for a sabbatical--during which I will be paid my full salary for pursuing in-depth research in my professional discipline--is a privilege I can barely wrap my tired, feeble mind around at this point. I'm sure I won't understand the significance until it is Monday, January 4, 2016, and I don't have to report to the office for my daily library duties, and instead get to crack the pages of bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress for the first time.
If you haven't guessed by now, my sabbatical was granted, and I will be taking it in January, June, July, and August of 2016. I am incredibly excited about the line of inquiry I plan to pursue during these months, as it brings together in conversation so many areas I have studied and begun to scratch the surface on during my six probationary years on the tenure track.
On a practical level, my main goal is to use this time to read, read, and read some more, with some writing in there as well, but most of the writing will serve my understanding and processing of the reading. There are some concrete things I hope to show for the experience, including scholarly contributions in appropriate publications, as well as some curricular development and mapping across my campus in the areas I'll be researching.
But mainly, I plan to read. I want to read all the longform things I haven't been able to fit into my daily 12-month, 40-hours-per-week work schedule.
I had an idea to possibly share my sabbatical application openly in some way, and coming across Barbara's post from two years ago has inspired me to do so here.
A few contextual notes: I had to apply for a sabbatical that would take place during academic year 2015-2016 in September 2014. This means I was casting out a year and three months to what I hoped would be a series of worthwhile research activities for the specific months of the sabbatical, which was not an easy feat. Also, I have expanded the publications I plan to target for any process-based writing that results from this research to include In the Library with the Leadpipe, Hybrid Pedagogy, and the Journal of Digital Humanities (or another appropriate DH publication for a particular idea I have in mind) [edited to also add the Journal of Interactive Technology & Pedagogy who just put out a call for submissions I am eyeing...].
So, without further ado, here are my own soon to be real "sabbatical dreams":
Technology, Identity, & Personhood:
A critical inquiry into the relationship
between who we are
and the information tools we use to
learn, process, and communicate
Application for Short-Term Sabbatical
Leave
During Intersession 2016 and Summer
2016
September 15, 2014
Donna Witek, MA, MLIS
Associate Professor &
Public Services Librarian
Weinberg Memorial Library
The University of
Scranton
Scranton, PA 18510
donna.witek@scranton.edu ~ 1.570.941.4000
SUMMARY
I request a short-term, scholarly research sabbatical
leave, to be taken during Intersession 2016 and Summer 2016, to research the
intersections between the technologies we use to both interact with and create
knowledge and information, and our conceptions of self and embodied personhood
in the digital post-modern world.
BACKGROUND
Information literacy is currently defined by the
American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of College &
Research Libraries (ACRL) as “a set of abilities requiring individuals to
‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate,
and use effectively the needed information,’” a definition first published in
1989 and developed further in 2000, just before the emergence of social media
on the Web. ACRL is currently revising its Information
Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education into a Framework for Information Literacy for
Higher Education to address the technological developments that have
occurred these past fourteen years, moving beyond a skills-based understanding
of information literacy to an understanding that incorporates dispositional
attitudes and conceptual knowledge of the increasingly complex nature and
contexts of information in the digital age.
In the June 2014 draft of this new Framework, the ACRL Information Literacy
Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force offers the following as an
updated definition of information literacy in our present context:
Information literacy is a
repertoire of understandings, practices, and dispositions focused on flexible
engagement with the information ecosystem, underpinned by critical
self-reflection. The repertoire involves finding, evaluating, interpreting,
managing, and using information to answer questions and develop new ones; and
creating new knowledge through ethical participation in communities of learning,
scholarship, and practice. (p. 2)
As
a faculty librarian whose instructional content area centers on information
literacy, it is my job to both engage and embody this definition of information
literacy in my work, in order to effectively develop it in our students through
my teaching and pedagogy. In particular, the definition’s focus on
“dispositions,” “critical self-reflection,” and “ethical participation in
communities of learning, scholarship, and practice,” opens the door to engaging
and understanding information literacy through new theoretical lenses, such as
critical, rhetorical, and social theory, as well as Christian anthropology and
ethics—particularly when information literacy is taught, learned, and practiced
in the Catholic, Jesuit educational context.
I began this work of understanding
information literacy within this increasingly complex technological environment
several years before ACRL developed the updated definition shared above.
Through my work co-designing and co-teaching the course WRTG 224: Rhetoric
& Social Media with Dr. Teresa Grettano, student learning outcomes related
to information literacy and developed through the lenses of rhetorical and
identity theory, metaliteracy, and Jesuit pedagogy have been taught on our
campus since the first run of the course in Spring 2011. As the syllabus tells
the students,
We designed this course to
engage you “where you are at”—a goal of both Jesuit education and critical
pedagogy—by situating traditional instruction in rhetorical theory/practice and
information literacy within social networks—specifically on Facebook. The
benefit of our doing so is not only your enhanced engagement, but also an
opportunity for us to facilitate a critical engagement with the media you use
daily. . . . In essence, the course will investigate rhetoric through and the rhetoric of social media. Put simply, we will be
examining and practicing how you make meaning with information on Facebook.
The
course has been taught three times since its creation, and each time Teresa and
I update the content and assignments to address the changes in social media
that have occurred since the last iteration; for instance, for the third run of
the course, the platforms studied were expanded to include Twitter, Instagram,
and Pinterest, in addition to Facebook, inviting critical engagement with an
increasingly diverse set of participatory information tools which students use
on a daily basis. Teresa and I have published on our work (Witek &
Grettano, 2012; Witek & Grettano, 2014), and the course will be offered again
in Spring 2015 after another substantial revision to account for further
changes in both the theory and practice of rhetoric and information literacy on
social media.
Amid the above instructional work
with Teresa, I completed my MA in Theology here at the University, and wrote my
thesis on worship and liturgy as they relate to knowledge and experience of God
(Witek, 2013). While at first a connection between this work and my work with
Teresa might not seem obvious, I found myself using the liturgical theology I
was engaging for my thesis as a tool to critique the digital contexts I was
studying and working in with Teresa and the students in Rhetoric & Social
Media. More specifically, the implications of an incarnational, embodied understanding
of what it means to know (and love) God—and by extension, what it means to be
in community and know (and love) others—when considered alongside theories of
constructed knowledge and identity as they play out in participatory and
virtual environments and spaces, are considerable and require further study. What
are the differences between identity (understood to be constructed) and
personhood (understood as the Imago Dei
in us)? How do these differences play out in our relationships with both the
technologies we interact with on a daily basis and those persons with whom we seek
to be in community, often facilitated by these technologies? How might
Christian anthropology offer a lens through which to both use ethically and
critique these technologies? And how can we use the answers to these questions
to inform our pedagogy?
REASONS OR NEED
There are several needs for this
type of inquiry at this moment in time, and situated on our particular campus.
Issues of privacy, surveillance, and monetization of personal data are playing
out in both government legislation and in the national discourse surrounding
the Internet, including the “free” platforms we use on a daily basis to both
learn and communicate—platforms like the ones we study in Rhetoric & Social
Media which are, in fact, businesses that understand users and their data as
the product they sell to their actual customers: advertisers. It is critical
that our students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions, as well as
the moral and ethical compass necessary to both navigate this future (which has
already arrived) and thrive within it as men and women for [and with] others.
In 2013, a film titled Her was released in which a near future containing artificially
intelligent software is depicted. Ironically (and tellingly), the film is first
and foremost a love story, where the protagonist Theodore falls in love with
his computer’s (disembodied) operating system, named Samantha; the film’s
function as dystopian commentary is secondary to this relationship-based
romance. As fanciful as this premise sounds, the information systems we currently
interact with on a daily basis are learning our preferences with every click,
swipe, and keystroke we make—much as Samantha does for Theodore in the film—through
the use of powerful algorithms designed to offer us the personalized experience
those in power would have us believe we crave. And with wearable technology
like glasses and watches that are also mini-computers whose function is to
collect personal data about our very selves, in order to augment the way we
interact with the world around us, the question of how to both critically and
meaningfully thrive in this world as persons of dignity and worth is more
pressing than ever. Furthermore, such an inquiry will put in constructive
dialogue the humanities and information literacy, a
conversation that will infuse and benefit multiple areas of the curriculum on
our campus and, through our transformed pedagogy, result in the formation of
our students into critical yet empathetic persons and professionals upon
leaving the University.
SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES
 |
This TIME cover appeared in my Twitter feed
as I
wrote this application (Moore, 2014).
|
I plan to participate in the
Ignatian Pedagogy Seminar on our campus the summer prior to the sabbatical
(Summer 2015 [my recently posted follow-up report]), with an eye towards identifying ways that Ignatian pedagogy can
both critique and provide meaning to the use of technology in our classrooms
and in our lives. My primary activity during the proposed sabbatical will be to
immerse myself in the literature focused on information science, social media,
identity, personhood, ethics, and Christian anthropology, as well as the focused
study of critical, rhetorical, and social theory as they relate to both
technology and pedagogy. As I do so, I will map connections between these discourses,
identifying areas of overlap and complement, as well as any conflict between
modes of thinking and being articulated in them. In many ways, finding these
anticipated points of conflict and incompatibility is a primary goal of this
project, as these points will provide an opportunity to critique both the
technologies themselves and our relationship with them, while yet offering
(perhaps) a way forward for thinking, learning, and being, with dignity and
discernment, in the digital post-modern world we find ourselves in.
During and after this focused period of research, and
still within the period of the proposed sabbatical, I plan to develop learning
outcomes in three modes—cognitive (knowledge), behavioral (skills), and dispositional
(attitudes/habits)—related to my findings as I compare and synthesize this
material. These outcomes, while situated within the curricular goals of the
Weinberg Memorial Library (WML) Information Literacy Program, will have
resonance for other programs on campus, and so will serve as a resource for
further integrating information literacy into the campus-wide curriculum. To
this end, I will map these developed learning outcomes to the following
documents: the ACRL Framework for
Information Literacy for Higher Education, the WML Information Literacy
Program Assessment Plan, and institutional and program goals at the University.
Finally, I will begin the preliminary design of learning activities (i.e.,
assignments and assessments), through which these learning outcomes might be
developed in students both inside and outside the classroom, for intended use
by the WML Information Literacy Program in collaboration with other curricular
programs on campus.
OUTCOMES
In addition to developing learning
outcomes related to my sabbatical research, as well as documents mapping these
outcomes to the ACRL Framework for
Information Literacy for Higher Education, the WML Information Literacy
Program Assessment Plan, the Institutional Learning Outcomes for the University,
and other relevant curricular programs on campus (i.e., General Education, Eloquentia Perfecta, etc.), I plan to
report on the process, findings, and classroom implementation of my sabbatical
research activity, targeting the following peer-reviewed venues: Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal ; SIMILE: Studies In Media & Information
Literacy Education ; Composition
Forum ; Journal of Technology,
Theology, & Religion ; and, Zygon:
Journal of Religion and Science.
REFERENCES
ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education
Task Force. (2014). Framework for
Information Literacy for Higher Education, Draft 2, June 2014. ACRL. Retrieved
from: http://acrl.ala.org/ilstandards/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Framework-for-IL-for-HE-Draft-2.pdf
American Library Association & Association of College and Research
Libraries. (2000). Information Literacy
Competency Standards for Higher Education. ALA and ACRL. Retrieved from: http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/standards.pdf
Moore, T. [TimMoore]. (2014, September 10). How #WearableTech is
changing your life - like it or not. @TIME pic.twitter.com/iwjxT8o8Ly [Tweet].
Retrieved from https://twitter.com/TimMoore/status/509803279870476288
Witek, D. (2013). “‘Now lay aside all earthly cares’: Knowledge of God
through Christian Worship.” MA thesis. The University of Scranton. Retrieved
from: http://digitalservices.scranton.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15111coll1/id/941
Witek, D., & Grettano, T. (2012). “Information literacy on
Facebook: an analysis.” Reference
Services Review, 40(2), 242-257.
Witek, D., & Grettano, T. (2014). “Teaching metaliteracy: a new
paradigm in action.” Reference Services
Review, 42(2), 188-208.
