iLead Student Leadership Conference - Florida Atlantic University

Sep 28 - iLead Student Leadership Conference - Florida Atlantic University.

The iLead conference was a great experience for me. I hoped to collect leadership strategies that I could adapt or use in teaching. Some of the sessions were student-led, and some felt like they were thrown together at the last minute. Some where well developed, funny, and attention grabbing, but held little leadership content, other than "don't ignore anyone in the organization".

For me, the sessions that made it really worth it were the ones led by Ryan Penneau.

Penneau is a "college speaker" and founder of "Take Back College". His small session entailed Commitment, and cleverly caused the listener to draw upon an emotional response connected to a wronged loved one and led you to connect that emotion with commitments. It was very well done, and at that point felt like the only thing at the whole conference worth listening to.

Penneau turned out to be the end-Keynote speaker as well. He spoke again about commitment, but used his inexhaustive energies to model several methods for not only keeping everyone awake, but interested. He instructed us to embrace fear, to step out of the circle of safety, because "growth only occurs in moments of vulnerability". It was really an exciting and motivating experience.

I had the opportunity to speak with him after the conference. He is very approachable and friendly, and it was really a joy to meet him. I look forward to being one of the people that acts on their ideas and desires, instead of tucking them away to be forgotten. I will get something out of everything, and really, be the change I want to see in the world.

I do have one criticism about the conference, though. I had the option to select a vegetarian lunch when I registered for the conference, some time ago. The non-vegetarian lunch consisted of a ciabatta bread sandwich with turkey or roast beef, cheese, and lettuce. The bag contained a bag of chips, and Oreo cookies. I had to hunt for the "vegetarian bags" and found only a table with a few stacked side salads (containing ONLY spring mix greens) and a tub containing approximately 3 tablespoons of dressing. That's it. No cookies or chips, or even sliced vegetables to go on the salad. Honestly, if you are going to offer a vegetarian option well in advance, you should actually offer something. 50 calories worth of dressing on 20 calories of spring mix does NOT a lunch make. Very bad form.

Anthropology of Nature: Week 4 - 20130922

This blog entry is part of a project for the class Anthropology of Nature. 

Oh, what a week, what a week. I argue the validity of any claiming of humans at the top of the food chain; especially when I've spent so many days at the mercy of microorganisms. As it happens, I am still rather 'half-dead', and am going to 'wing it'.

I had two 'nature' encounters this week; one a strangely ironic farce (so fun though) and the other a combination supplication and stewardship...

Anthropology of Nature: Week 3 - 20130911

This blog entry is part of a project for a college course, Anthropology of Nature.

Some Class Reflections:

This week the class did Townsend presentations.

The ethnoecology group was very interesting. I had no idea that there were so many known language. I had heard about languages of indigenous people disappearing, and I think realizing that there are so many of them makes it so much more heartbreaking. I already think it's a crime that Latin isn't taught in more schools (pfft, 'dead language', Science isn't dead and knowing Latin would make deciphering science and so many romance languages so much easier!). How many ancient texts will we find in the future, and be unable to translate, because we force a peoples to speak English (historically, so we can then hand them a Bible and count them tithers)? I heard once that in childhood we destroy, burn, laugh, and in adulthood we repair, save, and mourn. Apparently that's true of ourselves as a species too.

I was amused with the Universal Dichotomy group. I'd seen many parallels to their information through my Women in Religion course, and even Abnormal Sexuality, but what really amused me was a big splat of irony. One female spoke about gender norms and how women tend to engage in self-restricting habits. While she was talking about women's equality and having us listen to No Doubt's "I'm Just a Girl" I couldn't stop staring at one of her images. A man, in business attire, playing at tug-of-war with a women in women's business attire, complete with open-toe-high-heels, the kind so high that you need an ankle strap. Talk about not being on equal footing. I took this image's place in her talk to be a sign of women successfully competing in today's world, and yet she mentioned self-restricting habits and uses THAT image. I desperately wanted to ask if she was aware of the irony.

The rest of the groups were pretty well done. I liked the Role of Religion in Agriculture group. The Water Temples of Dewi Danu and the rice system was fascinating. I enjoyed hearing about how the introduction of the Green Revolution damaged a working system. Not in a sadistic way, but in the "even when we try to save the world, we tamper with long-standing working models and force them to collapse" kind of way.
For our own presentation, I'm always terribly critical. It wasn't as interesting as some of the others, but then again we DID have to outline the steps of mining. I think I'll try for the more boring part of our topic next time and see if I can Teach it Up to the students: see if I can make it a little more engaging. I talked too much and too fast.

Observations of Environmental Anthropology in the Specimen "Me":

I realized that when I talk about environmentalism and what I think it is, I'm really talking about what I wish it was. I sat the MGSA club fest table today, for about an hour and a half, and heralded people in to us. I'm pretty good at that. I realized that when I was explaining what the group does I mentioned things that I had recommended we do (to the other group members at the first meeting). We have no plans for a Movie Night showing "Tapped" and then engaging in a talk/debate about water bottles and the low-regulation of their contents, and yet I mentioned it to at least two people. I hope I didn't misrepresent us too much. I don't want people to be let down if I can't swing that event. Does that make me an idealist, or simply an exaggerator? Boooo. :(

Ethnography of the South Floridian:


Sitting the table gave me a good opportunity to see what people thought of environmentalism, while I people watched. How much more Anthropology of Nature can one get? Answer? People don't want to put a lot of work in, but want results. Attend an environmental leadership conference for four days, paid by FAU? No thanks. Beach clean up? Maybe. Save the world by just changing a 2-second habit? Yea, that had the most people biting. Ah well. It's that sort of laziness that got us all into this situation anyway. Convenience here, free stuff we don't need there (says the girl who came home with a recycled paper notebook and a MGSA polo shirt, but hey, those are for 'work', right?). Le sigh.

Anthropology of Nature: Week 2 - 20130907

This blog entry is part of a project for a college course, Anthropology of Nature.

Some Class Reflections:

It was weird to have read the Milton chapters and felt like I completely grokked what was going on and what author was talking about and had absorbed the definitions and concepts, and then to have questions asked in class and realize I couldn't connect them to what I had read. It seems like it should be a simple question: "What is 'traditional'?" I offered an answer that it must somehow be connected with the author's concept of Ecosystem People vs Biosphere people (simple, local systems versus complex, global systems). It felt clumsy, for an answer, and was shot down. I shouldn't feel too bad, most of the rest of the class fumbled with it too. I think we came to the conclusion that 'Traditional' is a word that doesn't really mean anything. We tend to use it when referring to ethnic identity and habits, and apply some sort feel of indigeneity to it, but it's constructed. At least, that's the conclusion I came to.

Oh! I did find the Chapter 7 Townsend very interesting. (It's about the plight of a small Papua New Guinea tribe and issues resulting from large-scale mining near them.) Seriously last week I had an email from some indigenous-people's rights group talking about some IP tribes refusing to let a mining company use their area. I searched high and low in my email boxes, my browser histories, and just couldn't find it! UGH, it would have made SUCH a cool attachment to our presentation. "Look students! These fights are STILL going on!"

Observations of Environmental Anthropology in the Specimen "Me":

This week the Mission Green Student Association met for the first time of the semester. It was pretty cool! A couple new faces. So many people graduated though. Definitely need some new people. We talked about upcoming Green meetings and planned out personal goals (for ourselves within the club) and group goals (what we can help the group achieve). My latter goal is to try to bring in new environmentally-concious (or even curious) people, so I'm going to take the first step and announce the club in class. We're trying to get more interest in the FAU garden too, but from the way the Tortuga Trail seems to be ignored I'm not sure so many people will want to put actual work into a garden plot.

I find myself a little detached from things today, but probably because I've been nose-in-book all day. It rained, so I didn't get to spend as much time outside. I've just been so busy this week. I'm glad I made time for the meeting though. I wish I made time for some of my purposeful-reading; "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw" is next on the list! Ah well.

Ethnography of the South Floridian:

Thursday's class occured the day after the MGSA meeting and I announced the MGSA table and club to the class as they were all packing up. I'm not sure most heard, and I'm sure most that heard didn't care (and are just there for their grade) but I did have two people interested. Funny, they are both people in my group. I did have one girl ask me about the beach cleanups, which was cool. I know that their attendance to a class with 'nature' in the name doesn't make them naturalists... well, ok, as anthropologists, they are, really, but, not non-human naturalist, heh. I didn't really have much chance to observe people this week. The second week of school overlapped with the beginning of my teaching practicum. The encounters in class and at club made me happier about the state of human-nature interaction though.

This entry feels thin. I'll have to try to make shorter entries more often, because I felt all revved up to write a few days ago, but I seem to have lost the content.


Instead I present some (smirk) naturalist observation about animal calls. Kinda.

*In case the embedding doesn't work, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE

Anthropology of Nature: Getting a feel for the Nature Journal...

This blog entry is part of a project for a college course, Anthropology of Nature.

Some Class Reflections:

When I was younger I wanted to be a forensic anthropologist. I thought it was amusing when the author, Townsend, of 'Pigs to Policies' all but rolled her eyes at the notion that people hearing the word 'anthropologist' first think "bones and bodies" or forensic anthropology. Though I was honestly more interested in the bodies than any kind of linguistics or archaeology (though I love reading about archaeology) and therefore steered myself more towards Biology.

I think I still would have been happy in anthropology. I like to gripe about disliking "humans" but when I first started going to college I took as much psychology and religion courses as I could. People told me they were separate fields, even the teachers said they weren't connected. I always felt that you couldn't describe history or culture or gender views or anything else without seeing the interplay of religion (really a summary word for "all of our superstitions and cultural habits woven into a single cord"). Combine that with how these people interact with the world around them and bam! Basically, anthropology. Still, probably not as much formaldehyde as I'd prefer. Cest la vie. Maybe, as a second bachelors somewhere along the way.

Observations of Environmental Anthropology in the Specimen "Me":

I'm very excited about the upcoming beach cleanup in September. I was super excited to get to announce it to the class. I don't think the email I tried to send through Blackboard worked, since it sent it to me, but I'll try again. I'd love to get more of these kids to go help out, even if it's basically two-point bribery. Maybe they'll see how fun it is.

I want to use this subheading to analyze how my views change about nature and my role in it. I've been everything from a dirt-worshipping tree-hugger to as lazy as the modern man can be (being guilty of throwing away food is probably the epitome of wealth and laziness). I'm currently somewhere in the middle. The courses I've taken for my environmental science degree have left me a little cynical about some staples of "environmental friendliness", like recycling. I still want to save the world though.

Ethnography of the South Floridian:

I want to use this subheading to record information, cultural-anthropologist-style, about South Floridians. Specifically, I want to pay closer attention to how they interact with their natural environment. This might take some "sit time" in various places, and maybe I can apply it to "how many students trashed recyclable paper" etc. I want to try to focus each week's information gathering along the class themes for that week. This week we mentioned Economic systems altering the human-nature intersection previously in place. We also mentioned food taboos and "witches", but since this isn't any sort of religion or gender course I'll try to leave those alone.

Water bottles. Easy target. As I wrote this a student used the pop machine next to me to buy a bottle of water. Besides the fact that they're less regulated than the tap water (do so much poorer than tap water in microbacterial tests and contaminant tests) and so much more expensive than the literally* free water here at the school, she shoved her paper money into the machine to purchase water that media (the shaper of culture for good or ill) told her was cleaner and more convenient than the drinking fountain. The plastic bottle will be drained (probably) and then discarded. Hopefully it gets deposited into a recycle bin, but so little of it gets recycled anyway (le sigh). The technology (basically a windowed refrigerator) combined with the media imperative to buy SAFE and CONVENIENT water, has drawn people away from the safe and convenient water fountains.

*Literally* I use this in the honest dictionary term, not the new dictionary term "for emphasis". To the student the water in the fountain is free. Bring a reusable cup or sturdy non-BPA bottle and you could have all the free water you want, and all of it backed by EPA's water quality tests (conducted every few minutes due to the rate at which is flows through the pipelines, dontchaknow)!


Hmm. I think I'll end the journal there. Otherwise it'll become a rant.