Gather Platform Previewed at Community Writing Conference
The Goldin Institute was pleased to participate in the Conference on Community Writing hosted at the University of Colorado at Boulder from October 18 - 21, 2017.
In a presentation on the theme of Building Global Networks that Support Local Action, Executive Director Travis Rejman previewed the Gather Platform alongside partners Lisa Dush and Delasha Long from DePaul University.
The conference overall focused on the field of “Community Writing” which is typically associated with the physical movement of students, teachers and researchers into local spaces to write, teach and learn. In our presentation, Lisa and Delasha offered a tool and framework for understanding how space, curricula and activities work together to facilitate learning. In light of this theory of space, Travis presented a new way to imagine spaces in a digital environment that incorporates the sense of being and working together in physical learning environments.
[quote]This was my very first time presenting at a conference, and the attendees made me feel very welcome. I enjoyed the discussion on rethinking our current models of service-learning projects. It was exciting to see how participants said they were blown away by the presentation on the Gather Platform.[/quote]
-- Delasha Long, DePaul University
The 2017 Conference on Community Writing featured dozens of enlightening presentations on the overall theme of “Engaging Networks and Ecologies.” The conference convened community writing teachers, students, scholars and activists from across the country to address the issues facing our communities—climate change, population movements related to climate, political instability, systemic misogyny, racially motivated police killings, mass incarceration, expansion of corporate rights, resurgence of anti-immigrant rhetoric, educational injustices and gun violence—from both scholarly and practical perspectives.
Questions that were explored at the conference that were of particular interest to the Goldin Institute network included:
- How can we apply or use ecological theories of writing as distributed, hyper-networked, circulatory, and remixed in order to strengthen our work to catalyze change in our communities?
- How can we work to expand our networks and ecologies to include the voices and writings of historically and chronically marginalized members of our communities?
- What projects have you completed or envisioned that take advantage of digital technologies aiding community development?
A special thank you to our partners Lisa Dush and Delasha Long for co-presenting and to our new friends at the Conference on Community Writing for hosting such a wonderful event.
Advisory Board Member at U.N. Sponsored Event
Gender Equity Summit Held in New York
Earlier this month, our Advisory Board member Akif Irfan was in attendance at a United Nations event exploring the issue of gender equity amongst young people in developing countries.
Akif reports that a diverse group focused on gender equality was in attendance. These included individuals from UN-Habitat, academia and representatives of religious organizations. Because the gathering was an open-discussion format and the group size was small by design, Akif said the event provided an open dialogue for addressing issues of gender-based violence, especially against women by focusing on remedies involving the young male population.
Because of the Institute's project work on gender-based violence, especially in Haiti, Akif found natural parallels between our work and the general findings and themes presented in the UN-Habitat sponsored event. Namely, how do we fully capitalize on the role young men can play in actively preventing violence through training and education?
Also in attendance was our former Online Education coordinator, Michael Di Maria. Michael was part of the planning and coordination of this event in his current role with Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF), which also co-sponsored the meetings with the Man Up Campaign based in New York City. LCIF and Man Up Campaign are working on a pilot project focused on reversing commonly held stereotypes of young girls and women, while emphasizing a positive and non-violent paragon for masculinity. For an overview of the Foundation's Lions Quest program, a social and emotional learning program that has seen activity in over 95 countries worldwide, click here.
