Focused Discussion: Room 2
Using Technology in Writing : Is Composing Digitally Helpful or Harmful?
Focused Discussion Sara Whitestone
Is the recent advent of technology really the end of writing as we know it? It all started on Facebook. A friend posted that young people don't know how to write anymore because digital tweeting, texting, and messaging was making them lazy, rather than deep thinkers. As a college creative writing professor and also as one who embraces all modes of composition in my writing process, I disagreed. I work best using a combination of techniques--dictating into my phone, moving to a full keyboard to fill in details, printing out the work to apply pen-to-paper edits, then going back to the keyboard . . . After my Facebook comment, the discussion got heated when a stranger (to me) wrote: "Digital communications somehow short-circuit a part of the mental processes that accompany actual pen-to-paper composition. And that short-circuiting removes some intangible part of the artistry." Is this true? By writing digitally, are we short-circuiting ourselves? Are we less able to produce words that are as valuable or as artistic as those of the past? In this session, we will discuss some brain science on the process of writing and then talk through how to best use modes of technology to achieve compositions that are deep thinking, aesthetic, and valuable.
Student-Instructor Relationships in Higher Education: Thirty Years On
Focused Discussion Rebecca Chory, Evan Offstein
Student-centered learning (SCL) is an educational philosophy grounded in the assumption that students have diverse needs, interests, and experiences that require diverse instructional and relational approaches. Some stakeholders consider SCL to be essential in higher education’s efforts to develop responsible, democratically engaged citizens. In 2009, the Bologna Process endorsed SCL, urging European higher educational institutions to focus on improving teaching, providing student guidance structures, and supporting individualized education. The globalization of higher education and its commodification in the international marketplace make calls for SCL even more salient. As the classroom increasingly “comes to feel like a microcosm of the whole world,” professors are expected to adjust how they relate to students. Likewise, students must adapt to various cultural norms regarding power and the role of the professor. In this session, we will examine the challenges and opportunities associated with the student-centered learning agenda embraced by European and American higher education institutions since the “End of History.” To stimulate the conversation, we will consider the following questions: How have student-instructor relationships and the role of the professor changed “Thirty Years On?” Has the classroom become too democratized? How do students see themselves in relation to professors (e.g., as customers, friends, employers)? How do professors see themselves in relation to students (e.g., as service providers, surrogate parents, employees)? To facilitate the discussion, the facilitators will draw on their twenty-five plus years of research on student-instructor relationships and their international teaching and learning experiences.
Lesvos Island: Migration and Host Community
Focused Discussion Eirini Aivaliotou
Globalization has been a buzzword in various circles especially the last thirty years. While the fall of the Soviet Union signaled a new era, with the rise of the USA and its values, gradually the idea of the "Rise of the Rest" with emerging countries taking the lead, has gained momentum. Parallel to this, Europe as a part of the Western world has faced several economic crisis and a massive influx of migrants arriving from the East. Especially after 2014 due to the Syrian Civil War, Europe has been a heated area. Most likely the island of Lesvos from 2014 until hitherto hosts multiple refugee camps. Policy makers and the media have been focusing on the migrants themselves, with a great disregard to the host community. An analysis of the host communities and how they tackle this new reality can be enlightening and is the base for discussion for a relatively rising existence of racism and nationalism in Europe; which is subsequently accompanied with the rise of populism in the continent. Populist parties tend to attack globalization claiming it to be a danger to the security of the sovereign states and their national interests. The method for this research is interviews to locals of Lesvos and theory on host communities. Various conversations concerning the clashes between nationalities are blamed to be a result of globalization and its reckless values. This discussion considers how, thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world order seems to be revised.
Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act and the Impact on Global Institutions
Focused Discussion Alicia Wendlandt Law
In 2010, the Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act, also known as FATCA was implemented, which called for foreign financial institutions to file an annual report to the IRS on each US taxpayer living abroad or holding more than $50,000 in assets at the foreign financial institution. American expatriates are required to file if their financial assets exceed $200,000. The US, as a center for global movement of cash imposed a 30% withholding tax on the assets of any foreign financial institution: brokerage houses, offshore banks, fund companies, insurance companies, etc., that refuse to turn over all financial details on US persons to the IRS. An additional threat of being frozen out of US financial markets loomed over non-compliant institutions. In 2013, the Cayman Islands, one of the top financial centers in the world and a global financial hub signed the US FATCA agreement. The Cayman Islands is host to 40 of the top 50 world banks licensed in the country, and as of December 2016 reported assets and liabilities at US$1.02 and US$0.98 trillion respectively. Additionally, the Island hosts the “Big Four” auditing and accounting firms KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Price Waterhouse Cooper. As an expatriate living and teaching at a university in the Cayman Islands, this researcher gathered information using literature reviews, descriptive statistics, and interviews with policymakers, expatriates, and financial officials to better understand America’s global tax law and the impact FATCA has on this consortium of businesses and individuals as the basis of this discussion.
Aging and Globalization: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
Focused Discussion Dara Bramson
"Globalization and aging are two sides of the same coin," a 2012 Atlantic piece asserted. Aging populations are an urgent consideration for governments and globalized industries. It is estimated that by 2050, nearly a quarter of most regions of the world will be over the age of 60. The median age in the European Union is estimated to increase from 38 to 52 million by 2050; Poland is a prime case study of a population that is both aging and declining. This focused discussion aims to generate dialogue on the intersection of aging and globalization from a variety of perspectives and regions and present on current aging studies. The dialogue will address major themes of the conference, with an emphasis on the trajectories of modernization, challenges and opportunities related to new migration patterns, and aging as a global crisis.
