With/Out Discipline - Public Engagement and the PhD

I'm giving a talk at Western Michigan University today - With/Out Discipline - Public Engagement and the PhD.

In this talk, David explains how public engagement works in the modern media age, draws connections between his scholarship as a medievalist and his work as an activist/journalist, and argues that we need to find ways to support and protect academics who choose to participate in public discourse.

I did a lot of writing in The Chronicle and elsewhere for the first couple of years as I moved into public writing. When I put together this talk, I realized that I haven't done as much higher education writing lately, and certainly not work on public engagement. Thanks to my disability rights work, I've been busy just doing it, rather than theorizing about it. But I enjoyed getting back to that kind of writing for this talk, and especially reading the work of Jessie Daniels, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and others who think about this.

I'll post a few snippets from the talk tomorrow.

In the meantime, some of my writing on the subject, for anyone interested.

• My manifesto - It needs to count: Sustained Public Engagement - "But Does it Count?" (Chronicle.com, 6/23/2014)
• My Story - My Initial Public Offering (Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/22/2013)

Key pieces

• Avoiding celebrity culture and the prestige economy: A Thousand Neil deGrasse Tysons! (Chronicle Vitae, 7/21/2014)
• Public engagement from unexpected places: A Medievalist on Savage Love (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/12/15)
• Public engagement requires protection from our institution: Don't Speak Out: The Message of the Salaita Affair (Chronicle.com, 8/21/14). Tressie McMillan Cottom just wrote a must-read piece on this too: Everything but the Burden.
• #FergusonSyllabus (Chronicle.com, 11/25/2014) - Even a medievalist has something to say.

Other essays on public engagement for both individuals and institutions.

• Yoni Appelbaum goes From Grad School to the Atlantic (Chronicle.com, 2/11/15). He wants your pitches.
• Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan, fights for the liberal arts and sciences education. University Presidents and Public Engagement (Chronicle.com, 12/18/2014)
• Colleges as institutions can engage on important issues. Here's - No Longer "Falling off the Cliff" - College for People with Intellectual Disabilities (Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/11/14). I make a similar case here - 
• Catholic Universities and Undocumented Students (Chronicle.com, 7/21/14)
• Two medievalists write novels. It, too, should count. Fictionalizing Your Scholarship (Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/13/2014)
• Writing about Sarah Palin's medievalism. Why and how it matters - A Medievalist on CNN (Inside Higher Ed, 7/2/2014)

What is a university?

• Faculty Members Are Not Cashiers: Why the 'customer service' lingo in academe is bad for students (Chronicle.com, 3/18/2014)
• The Learning-Centered University (Chronicle Vitae, 7/1/2014)