PHD SYMPOSIUM DAY 3: DISSERTATION PRESENTATIONS
FRIDAY, April 12th
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7:00-8:30 AM Leave No Trace Hiking Presentation and Activity LeAnn Ishcomer / Christina Merz (meet outside Crossroad Café)
8:00 - 8:45 AM Breakfast (All Cohorts)
8:45-8:55 AM Announcements
9:00 – 11:40 AM Dissertations
9:00-9:40 AM Effects of Ultrabrief Mindfulness on Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy
Shane Roderick Snipes
Dissertation 4
Entrepreneurship education (EE) needs to create entrepreneurial thinkers as the future unfolds with more workplace complexities and shifting skillsets, students must learn to think in innovative ways whether they are starting a company or working for one. However, the stressors of introducing entrepreneurship to students can be high due to the quest to promote new thinking, and not rote memorization. By combining ultrabrief mindfulness with EE, students develop improved entrepreneurial self-efficacy compared to the control group.
9:50-10:30 AM Analyzing their White Privilege within Person of Color Led Food Justice Organizations
Evan Martynovych
Dissertation 5
Often white people who have learned about their white privilege continue to perpetuate the system of white supremacy in the United States. The purpose of this dissertation project was to create an orientation to inform white folks on how their whiteness impacts the work that is done in food justice organizations, and how to work effectively within an organization that is led by people of color, specifically Hilltop Urban Gardens.
10:30-10:55 AM Creative Interlude
Yoga Stretch/ Move your Feet, Stretch your Seat
Julie Munro
Have you been doing too much sitting? Are you feeling foggy, but you have already had enough coffee? Join Julie for some yoga stretches that should get the blood flowing and your energy going. No fancy clothes required, just a desire to stand.
11:00-11:40 AM National Park Citizen Science: Exploring Place Attachment & Stewardship
Philip Halliwell
Dissertation 6
Citizen science is an emerging approach to conducting research in the National Parks System. As National Parks work to cultivate stewards for their second century, this research strategy is viewed as one that may support valuable scientific efforts while engaging and connecting participants with parks. As this practice is increasingly leveraged, understanding the impact it has on those that are involved is important. This phenomenological research effort explored place attachment and stewardship motivations of graduate and undergraduate students contributing toward citizen science efforts in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.
11:40 AM- 12:00 PM Break
12:00 PM - 12:55 PM Lunch | Crossroads
1:00 – 2:30 PM Dissertations Continued
1:00-1:40 PM Deepening Local Foodshed Connections Through Kitchen Based Learning
Matthew Rogers
Dissertation 7
This dissertation presentation focuses on measuring how experiential learning programs around garden and kitchen-based earning could affect the local foodshed and then deepen one's connection to place. Highlights include how the cross sections of foodsheds, healthy food choices, access and demand issues, food deserts, urban agricultural, and the agricultural themes of Southeastern North Carolina all interplay into sense of place and understanding of local foodsheds. Furthermore, the presenter will review the case study findings to understand how might these themes be used in conjunction with other education programs such as garden-based learning.
1:50-2:30 PM Listening, Learning, and Resilience: Supporting the Productive Engagement of Diverse Perspectives through Suspension and Mindfulness
Jennifer Mason
Dissertation 8
Working to understand and address complex social-ecological challenges requires the engagement of stakeholders who experience and think about the issues differently, but listening to, and productively interacting with those who have diverse perspectives can be profoundly difficult. When our views are challenged, self-protective responses block the flow of information, and inhibit learning and collaboration. This study was initiated to investigate the role of mindfulness in supporting David Bohm’s notion of suspension in multi-stakeholder dialogue about a contentious social-ecological issue. In this presentation, Jen will describe her study, summarize the findings, and explain the role of listening in supporting sustainability.
2:30-2:55 PM Creative Interlude
B.R.E.A.T.H.E.
Shane Snipes
Learn several simple short mindfulness activities to use in class. They follow the acronym B.R.E.A.T.H.E. which you will discover in the session.
3:00-3:40 PM “Sitting at the Loom”: Weaving Sustainability through Navajo Kincentric Wisdom
Molly Bigknife Antonio
Dissertation 9
How might sustainability be conveyed and fostered through the traditional Navajo cultural practice of weaving? Molly will present findings from her research with ten Navajo wool rug weavers, which looked for connections between weaving and sustainability. Their kincentric wisdom provided insights for nurturing our inherent human-nature symbiotic relationship. “Sitting at the loom” was an expression used by several of the weavers, which indicated not only a physical cultural art practice, but also a deeply multidimensional and creative spiritual space whereby creation and creator work together together to weave balance and harmony into our shared ecology through kinship.
3:40-4:00 PM Break
4:00-5:00 PM Sacred Trees of Norway and Sweden: A Friluftsliv Voyage
Doug Hulmes, MS
Crossroads
What began as a curiosity about the traditions and folklore related to trees planted in the center of many farms in Norway, ‘Tuntre’, and Sweden, ‘Vårdträd’, led me to a recognition of a tradition that can still be observed in the cultural landscape today. The tradition can be traced as far back as the Viking period, and directly linked to the mythology of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. I have been studying these traditions as they relate to the field of environmental education as an example of mythopoetic stories and folklore that influence moral and ethical regard for nature.
5:00 - 7:30 PM Keynote Speaker Dinner - A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life
L. Hunter Lovins
Crossroads
Humanity is in a race with catastrophe and charting the course to a regenerative economy is the most important work facing the world. In this talk, Hunter Lovins, lead author of new the book A Finer Future, will set forth the essential blueprint for an economy in service to life. She will show how to rally communities, companies, and countries to create a world that works for 100% of humanity. Hunter will describe how to transform finance, corporations, agriculture, energy to enhance well-being for all and restore trust and social capital by addressing income inequality and environmental destruction. Using case stories of solutions, she will outline the principles of a regenerative economy and detail the policies needed to achieve it.