Bryn Mawr College
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While We Are Here: Resisting Hegemony and Fostering Inclusion through Rhizomatic Growth via Student-Faculty Pedagogical Partnership
Get PDFPostsecondary educational institutions often struggle to enact their espoused commitments to inclusion. Faculty on temporary appointments and students traditionally underrepresented in and underserved by colleges and universities, in particular, can feel excluded. In this article, we argue that student-faculty pedagogical partnership can help postsecondary institutions better enact their espoused commitments to inclusion by nurturing rhizomatic development for human sustainability. We describe how a student-faculty pedagogical partnership program provides a brave space within which rhizomatic growth can unfold by offering an autoethnographic case study of one faculty-student pair who worked in a semester-long pedagogical partnership through this program. Their work aimed to affirm and extend inclusive practices in the faculty member\u27s STEM course, and the unexpected intertwining of their paths also served to foster a sense of inclusion for both partners. After an introductory discussion of the partnership program, definition of rhizomatic growth as we use it, and an explanation of our method, the faculty and student partners present their autoethnographic case study by alternating their voices. We focus our discussion and recommendations on how partnership supports rhizomatic growth, inclusion, resistance to hegemony, and human sustainability. Finally, we propose possible directions for future research in each of these areas
Resistance to Energy Transitions
Get PDFWhile the global effects of climate change are accelerating at an alarming rate, climate policy is not keeping pace. This special issue addresses domestic constraints on climate action around the world. Specifically, our authors analyze the multifaceted resistance to energy transitions arising in a variety of industrialized democracies, including the USA, Germany, Japan, the UK, and Switzerland. We develop politics-oriented explanations within an institutionalist framework. Each article focuses on a different aspect of resistance to energy transitions, involving different actors and political institutions. Taken together, they help explain the unsteady trajectory of energy transitions even in countries where support for climate action is robust
Seedling survival declines with increasing conspecific density in a common temperate tree
Get PDFFeedbacks between plants and their soil microbial communities often drive negative density dependence in rare, tropical tree species, but their importance to common, temperate trees remains unclear. Additionally, whether negative density dependence is driven by natural enemies (e.g., soil pathogens) or by high densities of seedlings has rarely been assessed. Density dependence may also depend on seedling size, as smaller and/or younger seedlings may be more susceptible to mortality agents. We monitored seedlings of Quercus rubra, a common, canopy‐dominant temperate tree, to investigate how the density of neighboring adults and seedlings influenced their survival over two years. We assessed how the soil microbial community influenced seedling survival by growing seedlings in a glasshouse inoculated with soil collected from beneath conspecific and heterospecific mature trees. In the field, seedling survival was lower in areas with high densities of mature conspecifics but was unrelated to either conspecific or heterospecific seedling density. Smaller seedlings were also more sensitive than larger seedlings to neighboring adult conspecifics. In the glasshouse, seedlings grown with soil from beneath a conspecific adult had a higher mortality rate than seedlings grown with soil from beneath heterospecific adults or sterilized soil, suggesting that soil microbial communities drive the patterns of mortality in the field. These results illustrate the importance of negative density‐dependent feedbacks resulting from the soil microbial community in a common and ecologically important temperate tree species
Using Digital Competencies to Build Student Portfolios
No full textStudents will be expected to already be proficient in data management and preservation, data analysis and presentation, and critical thinking, and so it is our responsibility as educators to provide them with opportunities to not only develop these competencies but to develop their portfolios to show future employers that they have these competencies. The purpose of this presentation will be to describe the way I have incorporated this into the curriculum of multiple classes and internships
Plant species determine tidal wetland methane response to sea level rise
Get PDFBlue carbon (C) ecosystems are among the most effective C sinks of the biosphere, but methane (CH4) emissions can offset their climate cooling effect. Drivers of CH4 emissions from blue C ecosystems and effects of global change are poorly understood. Here we test for the effects of sea level rise (SLR) and its interactions with elevated atmospheric CO2, eutrophication, and plant community composition on CH4 emissions from an estuarine tidal wetland. Changes in CH4 emissions with SLR are primarily mediated by shifts in plant community composition and associated plant traits that determine both the direction and magnitude of SLR effects on CH4 emissions. We furthermore show strong stimulation of CH4 emissions by elevated atmospheric CO2, whereas effects of eutrophication are not significant. Overall, our findings demonstrate a high sensitivity of CH4 emissions to global change with important implications for modeling greenhouse-gas dynamics of blue C ecosystems