In November, 2017, Dr. Harrison participated in the faculty colloquium series as part of his semester as assistant professor at America University of Malta. He discussed the history, process, criticism, and applications of autoethnography as a viable qualitative research method across the disciplines.
Continue reading “Dr. Harrison gives presentation on autoethnography to AUM faculty”
In October, 2017, as part of Dr. Harrison’s semester at American University of Malta, he participated in a week-long recruiting tour of Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, visiting numerous high schools and education fairs. Continue reading “Dr. Harrison represents university on Eastern European recruiting tour”
In October, 2017, Dr. Harrison was appointed to the General Education committee at American University of Malta where he is an assistant professor for the fall semester. He will serve as Director of Assessment for General Education overseeing the assessment process in conjunction with the General Education Committee and the Director of General Education. Continue reading “Dr. Harrison to serve as Director of Assessment for General Education at American University of Malta”
In autumn, 2016, Marlen re-designed Tiffin University’s “Diversity in Education” course. Marlen had previously taught the course in summer, 2016, as part of Tiffin’s online M.Ed. program. Acting as a subject matter expert, Marlen selected Banks & Banks’ Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives as the new course text, for example, and expanded the units on Multilingual and LGBTQ students. Additionally, the documentary films People Like Us and An Unquiet Mind are now included in the curriculum along with updated PSEL Standards (formerly ISLLC). These are just a few highlights of the newly designed course that will be delivered starting January, 2017.
“This course provides understanding of cultural, ethnic, economic, gender, and racial differences and similarities in American society; it focuses on educational organizations implementing successful strategies of working successfully with the needs of diverse students to ensure high quality educational outcomes.”
“Then came my final capstone class again. Learning from past experiences, I requested Dr. Marlen Harrison as a capstone mentor, whom I felt was the best professor I ever had at SNHU. He was the one teacher that pushed me the most during my stay here at SNHU. I knew if I worked hard and could earn a good grade for him, that it was a grade well deserved.”
CLICK THE IMAGES ABOVE TO VIEW THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN THE (SNHU) PROVOST’S NEWSLETTER, FALL 2016
One of the ways that literature instructors can actively address states of insecurity with graduate thesis writers is by helping them develop projects that build upon strengths and interests and critically explore connections between personal and cultural experience. As such, this session seeks to expand concepts of literary research by examining the enduring paradigm of author-evacuated research (see Geertz’s 1988 Works and Lives, and Swales’ 2004 Research Genres) in traditional literary criticism and analysis, and challenging this paradigm by presenting the stories of six instructor-researchers who performed autoethnography (see Ellis, Adams, & Bochner’s 2011 manuscript in FQS) as an alternative research method in their graduate English theses.
We begin this project (see SECTIONS in the menu above) with a conversation between Harrison and Whyland discussing the pedagogical implications and rationale of adopting a socio-anthropological methodology in literary studies (“An Introduction to Autoethnography and the MA English Thesis: Student & Advisor Perspectives”). We continue with two additional conversations that illustrate this method in practice: Beasley, Coleman and Bridgeman discuss the significance of “voice” (“Silenced No More: Claiming Voice via Autoethnographic Explorations of Literature and Writing”) while Ruppert, Jones-Young and Schimke explain how personal reflections on the classroom experience can illuminate literary research (“Milton, Post-Colonialism and Feminist Diarists: What Autoethnography Has to Offer Pedagogy”).
Our discussions highlight the tensions, challenges and emotions involved in performing autoethnography as literary scholars. We pay special attention to the uncertainty inherent in placing oneself into one’s research and navigating an unknown method. We conclude with practical implications for curricular development and advice to writers and their advisors (“Advice to Writers & Their Advisors) who wish to undertake or advocate autoethnographic scholarship.
PROJECT BLOG: https://autoethnographicjourneys.wordpress.com/
Authors
marlenharrison.wordpress.com