MINNovation
By SCSU Online
MINNovationMar 25, 2022
S1E6: Growing and Sustaining Community with Dr. Tracy Ore
Dr. Tracy E. Ore is a professor of Sociology at St. Cloud State University. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, is an active member of the American Sociological Association and the Southern Sociological Society and is Past-President of the Sociologists for Women in Society. Dr. Ore does research in the areas of poverty, food insecurity, food apartheid, and food justice. Her most recent text is The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality (Eighth edition), published by Oxford University Press in 2022. In addition to this work, Dr. Ore is a long-time activist and community organizer, from ACT-UP in the ‘80s to her current work around food justice. The connections between her scholarly work and activism are made real in the SCSU Community Garden, which she established in 2005.
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode:
Tracy Ore: Life Lessons Cultivated in a Garden
Community Garden Crowdfunding Website
Canning and Freezing: Preserving the Summer Harvest
Email Dr. Tracy Ore: teore@stcloudstate.edu
S1E5: Making the Digital Physical with Bill Gorcica
Bill Gorcica is a professor of Art at St. Cloud State University where he teaches in the Integrated Media and Graphic Design areas. He has a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Virginia Tech and a Master of Fine Arts degree in visual art from Rutgers University. Over the course of his career Bill received a number of honors including a Fulbright scholarship to work in printmaking in Poland, and a Bush Foundation artist fellowship in 3D art. He created an interactive work collaboratively with other faculty and students from St. Cloud State University for the Twin Cities Northern Spark festival in June 2015. For Northern Spark 2016, Bill worked with colleagues in science and engineering to create simRVR, a VR movie that was juried and showcased at the Sundance Film Festival New Frontiers program and at the Walker Art Center. The artist also creates underwater simulations for educational 3D software projects SimRiver and MushiRiver with Dr. Shigeki Mayama in Tokyo, Japan that addresses water quality issues by studying populations of microbes and aquatic invertebrates. In 2019 Bill received an Innovation Funding Grant entitled “Making the Digital Physical” from MN State to set up a small Maker Space in the Art Department at SCSU .Throughout his career, he has worked across disciplines and has often made art about how we as humans engage with the natural world. Currently he is exploring the possibilities of mixing the ancient techniques of encaustic wax painting on wood reliefs designed on an iPad and carved with a CNC router machine.
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode:
Making the Digital Physical with Bill Gorcica Transcript
Current Art: Painted and Carved Wood Reliefs
S1:E4 Student and Community Sustainability with Dr. Sheila Moriarty, Carson Uselman and Diana Kuhl
On this episode, Dr. Sheila Moriarty and interns Carson Uselman and Diana Kuhl, share with us the efforts being made on campus to support student and community sustainability.
Dr. Sheila Moriarty is an Associate Professor in the Social Work department. She has been at St. Cloud State University since 2008. Her interests include work on poverty issues, anti-racism work, and projects on campus and in the community that impact poverty and homelessness. She created a project called Bridge to Community Resources 5 years ago to create basic needs solutions for students
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode:
Voices of Homelessness Facebook Page
For more information, email Sheila Moriarty: smmoriarty@stcloudstate.edu
S1E3: Supporting Autistic Student Success with Dr. Teri Estrem
Theresa Estrem is a professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at St. Cloud State University where she teaches, provides clinical education to graduate students, and does research, with an emphasis on autism, early childhood, and culturally/linguistically diverse clients. In 2021, she and her colleague, Dr. Rebecca Crowell, were awarded a MinnState Innovation grant, the SCSU Autistic Student Success Initiative (SASSI), which encompasses faculty/staff education and autistic student support programs to make the SCSU an autism-friendly campus. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Estrem about the SCSU Autistic Student Success Initiative and the work happening across campus to increase awareness and support students.
Resources:
S1E2: To Meta and Beyond with Mark Gill
Visualization Engineer Mark Gill, has three decades of experience in visualization and development of experiential learning environments. He has worked in government, private and academic arenas, finally landing in a position where he can help the next generation grow up comfortable with ideas it has taken his entire life to develop. As the current director of the St Cloud State University Visualization Lab he is able to explore, pioneer, and even evangelize for the newest visualization technology and concepts. Part of the Lab’s mission is to expose students to a wide range of subjects; visualizing the Earth’s magnetosphere, or developing a game to help caregivers deal with Alzheimer’s sufferers for example. He teaches classes, and leads student research teams in the areas of Virtual/Augmented Reality, video game development, and scientific/engineering visualization concepts.
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode:
S1E1: Tuning In and Turning Up with Dr. Michael Dando
Our very first guest is Dr. Michael Dando, Assistant Professor in the English Department at St. Cloud State University. Dr. Dando is a 2020 Miller Scholar grant recipient for his work on Afrofuturistic Design and Literacy. If you ask the students, they will say they know Dr. Dando as the professor of their Hip Hop Cultural Studies course. A course that has received a lot of positive feedback from students who had the opportunity to create their own Hip Hop artifacts – virtual exhibits, books of artwork and vinyl records. When he’s not on campus teaching, you can find Dr. Dando in his basement home-studio recording and producing his own podcast – Comics School.
Check out the resources mentioned in this episode:
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Princess Steel by W. E. B. Du Bois, Adrienne Brown and Britt Rusert
The Comet by W.E.B. Dubois