Studying Japanese Culture Through Anime and Mange in a Winter Travel Course

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Author: Brandon Strathmann, Animation Area Coordinator
Additional Credits: Kazuyo Kubo, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Transgenerational Identities in Japan: The Role of Anime and Manga is a joint social science and art class open to all majors at Lesley University, which will involve travel to Osaka, Japan for two weeks in  January 2016.  Through Lesley’s relationship with Osaka University of Commerce, students will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with several Japanese artistic styles and become culturally and visually literate when designing their own comics and animation projects.  Students are encouraged to meet people on this trip, learn about their lives and include them as characters in a comic or short animation they will construct as a culminating project in the course. 
Japan is a terrific place to expand our collective understanding of animation and comics. There is more Anime being watched internationally than any other form of animation, and like Manga it often shows what life is like for the people of Japan. My colleague Dr. Kazuyo Kubo, a Sociologist, brings her great knowledge of society and human culture to this event, guiding our students beyond a visual experience and into one that enlightens them to the most subtle of customs to the historical events that have shaped Japan’s sociology in immense ways. Students will observe local customs and learn Japanese etiquette well so that the characters in their artwork behave in socially convincing and appropriate manners. We will use the  study of society, Sociology, to inform and enrich the narrative art of animation and comics. Immersion in a new society and landscape will be a dramatic event in student’s education that will provide them with new experiences to inspire and inform their work.
As an Osaka native, Dr. Kubo will assist in making this an inclusive Japanese experience. We shall share this knowledge along with the observational drawing and visual storytelling skills I’ll teach our students during their adventure.   Artists will analytically break apart Anime and Manga into its component parts by researching reality and Japanese art from many historical periods. We’ll hone our sensitivity to the unique design qualities that distinguish one Japanese art period from another one; this shall involve the contrast of materials, techniques and content. There will also be exploration of the current state of Japanese life, comparing it to the way it is portrayed in Manga.  Students will keep a journal with them that they’ll draw and keep notes on their assignments and direct observations. We will visit shrines and experience the way indigenous Shinto religion and introduced Buddhism shape Japanese character, especially in the way these two faiths coexist with one another in this society.
This final narrative artwork for this class is a personal statement of a student’s educational experiences in Japan. We will study the various ethnic groups that make up this country along with the social pressures unique to Japanese life. Students will use their journals to tell a visual story that conveys these lessons and experiences in a comic or animation. Filtering through a personal archive of imagery and experiences gathered in their journals and editing them into and successfully designing a personal Manga style based on experimentations with traditional Japanese art methods.

Online Faculty Advisory Committee Sept 2015 Minutes

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Online Faculty Advisory Committee Minutes
September 28, 2015

Attendees:

Online Faculty Committee Members
(If you a member of the Lesley community, for a complete list, please email: heather dot webb@lesley dot edu for the membership list.)

The objective of the inaugural meeting for the year was to identify which issues the committee should address over the course of the year:

1) Monitoring of resources against new online enrollments
Summary: As enrollments grow, understanding the desired distribution of core versus adjunct faculty teaching online and allocation of teaching resources across face-to-face, blended and online assignments is critical.

Next Steps:
·      Provost Office is working on producing metrics that will describe how resources should be reinvested in faculty as enrollments in programs grow for presentation at a future OFAC meeting.

2) Communication and relationship between academic advisors/success coaches & instructional faculty
Summary:
It is not always clear when there is an issue with a student what the communication protocol should be or how to contact the success coach.

Next Steps:
·      Updated Standard Operating Procedures for Communication with Success Coaches will be circulated to the OFAC committee and webinar with success coaches will be scheduled to review the communication protocols.
·      Communication to all teaching faculty for FA2 will come from Associate Provost (elearning & Academic Technology) that outlines how faculty can identify their students advising information in LOIS and other helpful administrative tips.

3) Use of faculty advisor/mentor assigned to individual students
Summary: The term faculty mentor is used differently at different schools. At the graduate school, it has meant a mentor to other faculty. There is interest in ensuring all students are assigned both a faculty advisor/mentor as well as academic advisor/success coach.

Next Steps:
·      Work with CLAS Human Services program as pilot to identify process for adding faculty mentor/advisor to students (through collaboration with Advising Center) and to create reports that appropriately advise Program Director and Faculty Advisor/Mentor of the advisees for the program.
·      Work with GSOE Ed Tech program as a pilot to identify process for adding faculty mentor/advisor to students (through collaboration with Associate Dean) and to create reports that appropriately advise Program Director and Faculty Advisor/Mentor of the advisees for the program.

4)  Expanding the learning resources for online orientation to other populations
Summary:
An Online Orientation is provided to all new online students. There may be interest in expanding this orientation for other populations.

Next Steps:
·      Review the online orientation at the next OFAC meeting to examine the existing materials, identify opportunities for additional information, and recommendations for other uses of the materials.

Next meeting: November 2015

 

2 Week Summer Opportunity in Beijing

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The Global Education Center is pleased to share the attached information about an opportunity to teach in Beijing for two weeks. Please be in touch with one of our Global Center Faculty Fellows, Yvonne Liu-Constant or Joanne Szamreta, for further details. As noted in the attached, there is no stipend for the work, but all travel expenses, accommodations, and meals will be provided for the participants.

Lesley has been building collaborations with several organizations in China in recent years including the Daxing public schools. The attached is a follow-up to last year’s visit by Lesley faculty and a February visit by several Daxing principals and teachers.

We are pleased to support this developing relationship and invite your inquiry.

2015 Summer Technology Fellows Announced

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The Summer Technology Institute Fellows for 2015 have been selected!

The Summer Technology Institute, sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Center for Teaching, Learning and Scholarship (CTLS), and the eLearning and Instructional Support (eLIS) department, is an opportunity for faculty to participate in a learning community of faculty across disciplines and schools engaged in an exploration of the effective uses of technology in teaching, learning, collaboration, and scholarship.

The program features a four-day institute in June, where faculty will engage in a rich mix of dialogue, hands-on practice, project-based learning, reflection, and application to explore innovative ways technology can be integrated into their teaching.

This year’s Fellows are:

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS)

Lisa Fiore
Anne Pluto
Robin Roth
Eugene Slason
Joanne Szamreta
Kazuyo Kuyo
Daphne Strassmann

Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences (GSASS)

Valerie Blanc
Meg Connor
Marion Nesbit
Donna Owens
Christine Routhier

Graduate School of Education (GSOE)

Maureen Creegan-Quinquis
Susan Davison
Cynthia Denmat
Lorraine Greenfield
Jim Keefe
Linda Lengyel
Yolanda Neville
Susan Rauchwerk
Maria Serpa
Stephanie Spadorcia

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences/Graduate School of Education

Nicholas Pietrowski
Amy Rutstein-Riley

Threshold

Leslie Macone

Collaborative Development of Alumni Ambassador Training

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The Office of Enrollment Management is collaborating with eLearning and Instructional Support on a new initiative to develop online training for their growing group of Alumni Ambassadors. Alumni Ambassadors serve as volunteer recruiters in their communities, helping to spread the word about Lesley University programs.  Liana Caffrey, Director of Alumni Volunteer Recruitment and Shirley Chin, Assistant Director are leading the effort in collaboration with eLearning and Instructional Support (eLIS) staff members Robyn Belair, John McCormick, and Bill Porter.

This project is driven by a rapidly growing need for training of Alumni Ambassadors who come from 15 states and cannot always attend the yearly face-to-face training. There are currently 250 Ambassadors and we continue to add ambassadors each week. The initial phase of the training development is expected to be completed this semester, and the project team plans to pilot both online components and in-the-field support aids, with an eye towards improving the training through real-world use at college fairs and other venues for recruitment. Here’s an example of a testimonial from one our Ambassador’s, Terry:

If you want to know more about our work with the Office of Enrollment Management and Liana’s team, please contact Liana at x 8201 or lcaffrey at lesley [dot] edu or John McCormick at 8261 or jmccormi at lesley [dot] edu.

Lesley Joins Generation Study Abroad

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Lesley has joined the nationwide Generation Study Abroad initiative that seeks to double the number of students (undergraduate and graduate) who engage in a study/research abroad program.  For Spring 2015, these experiences across the University have included trips to the Dominican Republic, Paris, London, South Andros, and Mexico.  Claire Carroll, Director of Study Abroad, forged new partnerships this year that helped bring students to Lesley this Spring from Sogang University in Seoul, Korea and Centennial College, Hong Kong.  Our first exchange students from new partner Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan will be sending us two students for the 2015-16 year.

Find us on Facebook: The Global Education Center at Lesley University

FERPA Compliance

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The following are observations and recommendations from Lesley’s General Counsel that faculty and staff should follow to remain in compliance with FERPA:

  1. The FERPA rules and guidelines prohibit universities from disclosing student education records like grades and evaluative comments to third parties without a student’s permission.
  2. Some email systems are vulnerable to interception.
  3. Because communications between faculty and students posted on the Blackboard learning management system remain with the Blackboard system, these communications are much more secure than non-Lesley email systems, and are somewhat more secure than the Lesley email system.
  4. Faculty are encouraged to use Blackboard Grade Center to post grades and evaluative comments:
    • This is the better practice, and should be particularly observed with respect to transmitting grades.
    • Posting feedback and grades to Blackboard Grade Center ensures that only the intended student can access his or her grades and evaluations within a secure Internet connection.
    • Blackboard does have a feature that permits annotations of written work.
  5. In the meantime, for those who are more comfortable using email messages to communicate evaluative comments to students:
    • Those email messages should be sent to and from lesley.edu addresses only.
    • If a student sends you a paper from a non-lesley.edu account, you should respond by using the student’s lesley.edu address only.
    • You should not forward emails from lesley.edu to your personal email accounts if the email messages contain personally identifiable information or student records.
    • If you have reason to believe that someone other than your student has access to your student’s email account, do not send anything to that email address
    • Do not allow anyone else to have access to your lesley.edu email account.
  6. GoogleDocs and other services are not secure, are not subject to contracts with the university, and we should not put student information on those sites or services (the attached FAQ addresses a few questions related to this).  Note also that anything placed on GoogleDocs and other services may be “data mined” by Google or the service company.

More information is available in this FERPA Questions and Answers March 2015

 

Updates on New Academic Initiatives: Partnership with the Learning House

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On April 23, 2014, the President and Provost signed a 5-year contract with the Learning House (TLH), a for-profit company that provides a variety of services to colleges and universities that wish to develop or expand their online program offerings. We have contracted with TLH for the sole purpose of aggressively marketing and recruiting our existing and anticipated new academic online programs. Our goal is to increase the number of students in fully online programs from our current number of 500+ students to approximately 2,000 in the next five years. In only a few months, TLH has already demonstrated their ability to exceed our original enrollment goals. Their employment of success coaches ensures that Lesley students enrolled in online programs have all the tools they need (both academically and technologically) to achieve their learning objectives.

TLH brings a tremendous amount of expertise to the university. As a result of the implementation of this partnership, Lesley has been able to develop systems that streamline the online student application and registration process for online student.  As a result of discussions about streamlining student services, Lesley has expanded its book voucher program, allowing students to use federal financial aid to purchase textbooks and other materials through the university book store.  Although still in the early stages of our relationship, Lesley is already seeing significant benefits to this partnership.

Professional Developments Opportunities for November 2014

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Looking for Professional Development opportunities?
Be sure to check out the new Faculty Professional Development Calendar, which will share professional development opportunities from eLIS, CTLS, and the Creativity Commons.

November 2014 Faculty Professional Development Highlights Include:

NEASC Update

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Many thanks to all members of the campus community who have worked tirelessly on the NEASC self-study process thus far. The accreditation process offers an important opportunity for us to describe the status of our major initiatives, appraise and evaluate our efforts across multiple areas, and identify projections for focused improvements in the coming years. We encourage everyone to read the DRAFT self-study [Lesley Login Required] and provide input to the co-chairs, Lisa Fiore and Lisa Ijiri either by email, in person, or via the confidential survey. The visiting team will be on campus April 12-15, 2015 to meet with students, faculty, staff, and administration.