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A MESSAGE FROM THE PROVOST We all learn from experience, but some experiences are more instructive than others. Faculty members at Loyola University New Orleans who engage students in experiential learning constantly practice what St. Ignatius of Loyola called “discernment,” a deliberative process by which one determines the best way to proceed. Faculty-mentors develop programs and individual projects that emphasize Jesuit values—social justice, education of the whole person, the commitment to always strive for more—and bridge the world of the classroom with the real world of work. The experiential learning opportunities our faculty members provide help prepare students to lead meaningful lives with and for others and launch successful careers upon graduation. But our faculty’s efforts are only part of the equation— the real value of experiential learning is created by our students. In this report, you will find examples of students from throughout Loyola’s five colleges who vigorously seize opportunities presented to them to develop the skills, confidence, and adult level of understanding that one can only attain through engagement with the “real world.” Loyola has a rich tradition of students and professors working together to build knowledge and positively affect our broader communities. Today, this tradition is as strong as it has ever been. I hope this report does justice to the exceptional efforts of our students and faculty, and that you will enjoy reading about the exciting achievements in experiential learning taking place at Loyola University New Orleans. Sincerely,
Marc Manganaro Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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Classroom learning is the bedrock of higher education, but classroom learning can only take students so far. At Loyola University New Orleans, we provide an education that takes students beyond the classroom to conduct individual and collaborative research, apply their knowledge to the real world of business, forge international partnerships, and use their skills to make positive impacts in the New Orleans community. This report highlights exceptional projects from the 2012 – 2013 academic year for which students and professors enacted the Jesuit ideal of “Learning from Experience,” a key component in an education from Loyola University New Orleans.
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10 8 LISTEN AND LEARN Students in a Spanish memoir class create oral histories for a local nonprofit that serves New Orleans’ Latino immigrant community.
24 IT STILL EXISTS A professor of English directly involves students in her research that raises awareness about modern-day slavery.
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THE BACKSIDE OF THE MOVEMENT A class learns data analysis can be a crucial component in the fight for social justice.
THE SALVE OF MUSIC The healing powers of music bring a Loyola student into cancer wards and children’s centers, where she joins forces with doctors and therapists.
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ASK THE ALGAE A biology student and her mentor devise a novel way to determine how long corpses have been underwater to aid law enforcement efforts.
WETLANDS, FIRSTHAND A veteran biology professor feels at home in the swamp, where he shares his passion and knowledge with students during nighttime canoe excursions.
A PATHWAY TO SCIENCE The PRIEMMANS program transforms students into mentors as it increases the presence of minority students in STEM disciplines.
30 MARKET DYNAMICS A recent graduate enhances food access in New Orleans as a community coordinator for the Crescent City Farmers Market.
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TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS Hustling for jobs and making money in the New Orleans music scene is all in a day’s work for Music Industry Studies students.
IT TAKES A VILLAGE An inventor trying to stem coastal erosion wins an IDEA Village entrepreneurship prize with the help of Loyola MBA students.
20 CALLING GENEVA Law students petition the United Nations to take a closer look at local abuses of human rights defenders.
22 IN LUIS’ FOOTSTEPS A museum memorializing a “disappeared” Guatemalan author and activist receives translation assistance from Loyola students.
FROM CAMPUS TO THE COMMUNITY: Outreach by Loyola students helps nonprofits and marginalized people achieve more in New Orleans. A FOCUS ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Business startups provide ideal environments to test students’ hands-on know-how. SOCIAL JUSTICE AT HOME AND ABROAD: Work for human rights prompts our students to traverse national borders. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Faculty and students act as teams to conduct important research.
32 THE PRINCIPLES OF RETREAT As governments attempt to safeguard communities from flooding, a disaster law expert and his student provide common-sense critiques.
34 THE DIGITAL COURTROOM The College of Law’s Litigation and Technology Clinic develops apps that help attorneys and the public navigate complicated legal questions.
36 VIGOROUS LIT A new editor of the New Orleans Review provides hands-on experience for students crafting Loyola’s renowned literary journal.
ENVIRONMENTAL SPOTLIGHTS: Loyola students connect to the natural world through immersion, research, and advocacy. MASTERING MEDIA: The Digital Age is rife for opportunity to hone students’ communications production skills in traditional and cutting-edge media.
FROM CAMPUS TO THE COMMUNITY:
Outreach by Loyola students helps nonprofits and marginalized people achieve more in New Orleans.
Alden Woodhull, oral historian, Latino Farmers Cooperative of Louisiana
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LISTEN AND LEARN: Students in a Spanish memoir class create oral histories for a local nonprofit that serves New Orleans’ Latino immigrant community.
“A good memoir shows its author almost naked to his or her audience,” says Uriel Quesada, Ph.D., associate professor of languages and culture and director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. That degree of nakedness, of emotional exposure when one translates personal experiences onto the page, was at the center of a memoir course Quesada taught last fall, which sent his students into the New Orleans community to collect interviews and oral histories and gain experiences about which they would write personal essays.
audio memoir Woodhull and a fellow student, Luisa Batista, a Latin American Studies major, produced for the class. The memoir includes excerpts from interviews they conducted with two women who left their homes in Guatemala and Honduras to escape domestic abuse and gang violence, respectively. These oral histories will be of significant importance for entities like La Cooperativa, community leaders, and scholars. La Cooperativa uses information from the interviews to raise awareness about the issues the agency confronts and in efforts to secure much-needed funding.
“Some students think they’re working for others,” Quesada said. “But I wanted them to know they’re working with them.”
Quesada partnered with Loyola’s Office of Community Engaged Learning, Teaching and Scholarship, which helped place each student from the course in a volunteer position at service-oriented agencies throughout New Orleans. In these positions, students worked with vulnerable populations—HIV patients, homeless people, prisoners, victims of domestic violence— and returned to class to discuss their experience and write about their work in Spanish. Quesada encouraged students to look for hard truths related to their assumptions, both about the populations their agencies serve and about themselves. Alden Woodhull, a senior Spanish and mass communication major, encountered uncomfortable feelings in her work with immigrants at the Latino Farmers Cooperative of Louisiana. La Cooperativa provides services to New Orleans’ Latino immigrant community, which is significantly marginalized. In conducting interviews with clients of La Cooperativa, Woodhull said she felt distinct pangs of white privilege—and guilt—while listening to stories of hardship she knew that she, as a gringa, would never encounter. These sentiments course through an
The interviews are also the beginning of a much larger project in which Woodhull and Batista developed a rubric for interviews that future students will use to create an audio oral history archive. Woodhull and Batista produced the first installment—about the Guatemalan woman’s story of escaping domestic abuse— as a senior capstone project. In the process, students were surprised to find that virtually no information about New Orleans’ pre-Katrina Latino population—which, among other things, encompasses the second largest population of Hondurans on the planet—exists. As Woodhull says “This semester, I had the opportunity to interview Latinos in New Orleans. But they were more than interviews—it was an opportunity to create an archive of the stories of the lives of Latinos who had come to New Orleans and have not had the chance to tell their stories and experiences.”
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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THE SALVE OF MUSIC: The healing powers of music
bring a Loyola student into cancer wards and children’s centers, where she joins forces with doctors and therapists. schoolchildren in New Orleans. As a first-year student, Johnson completed a practicum at the agency, working with children who have posttraumatic stress disorder from living in violent neighborhoods.
Christine Johnson grew up in a musical family. Her mother was a music teacher, and her brother and father both graduated with degrees in music from Loyola. Music has been a part of her life as long as she can remember, but as the time to enroll in college approached, she found herself leaning toward disciplines through which she could directly help others. “Music was my personal passion,” she said, “but psychology was my academic interest. I was thinking of going into counseling, social work, or mental health.” Loyola allowed Johnson to synthesize her personal and academic interests in the study of music therapy. She is set to proceed after graduation to a six-month internship at a state mental hospital, well-prepared for her future in musical healing through the experiences she gained at Loyola.
“Loyola’s program is distinct because our students are out in the community making a difference, introducing music therapy to places where it wasn’t before.” Loyola’s music therapy program is one of the oldest in the nation, and the only one in Louisiana. Music therapy is, by nature, a discipline that requires experiential learning—all students at Loyola must complete 200 hours of clinical study before they graduate, and 1,000 hours after. Joy Allen, Ph.D., assistant professor and coordinator of music therapy, said this provides Loyola the opportunity to enact its Jesuit mission of social justice. One of these places is Anna’s Arts for Kids, which provides arts education for underserved
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Most music therapy programs do not give such opportunities to their first-year students. Johnson co-presented a paper at a regional academic conference about the practicum at the end of that year, “Thrown into the fire: Experiences with at-risk children in New Orleans.” She gave a first-hand account to an audience of scholars about the challenges and triumphs of being immediately immersed in the real world of music therapy. Loyola, like other Jesuit universities, emphasizes holistic education. This is an ideal fit for music therapy, which not only requires a wellrounded understanding of medical and therapy practices, but also of patients’ needs. “Music therapists need to know how whole teams of medical professionals come together— it takes a team to rehabilitate a spinal cord injury, for instance,” Allen said. “You’re also looking at the whole person, and not just their injury or disability.” In Johnson’s most recent practicum, at Touro Medical Center, she became part of the team, using songwriting and improvisation to improve the emotional well-being of patients undergoing harsh treatment, and working with recreational and occupational therapists in the neurological unit. “This practicum highlights the need to know how to interact with all kinds of patients, therapists, and doctors and figure out how to reinforce and expand on what they’re doing by using music. Physical therapy is not fun, and it can be painful,” Johnson said. “Music therapy works on the same sorts of things, but is less intimidating, which really helps patients who are going through difficult treatments.”
Loyola’s music therapy program is one of the oldest in the nation and the only one in Louisiana.
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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THE BACKSIDE OF THE MOVEMENT: A class learns data analysis can be a crucial component in the fight for social justice. Olivia Lawson, a Loyola junior and Social Justice Scholar, is an activist who yearns to work among the people. “Personally, I don’t want to sit around crunching numbers. I want to be out in the community,” says the Maryland native and sociology major—who plans to graduate with a triple minor in Latin American studies, African-American studies, and political science. This fall, however, Lawson enrolled in a research methods class taught by Carol Ann MacGregor, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology. The course included a service learning project: Two community partner agencies needed help gathering and analyzing data related to their work. Oportunidades NOLA, which provides English classes and GED equivalency courses to the local Latino immigrant community, wanted help analyzing demographic and personal information. The Childhood Family Learning Foundation asked students to look at data from the free hearing and vision screenings it provides in New Orleans public schools.
“Social scientific research methods are at the core of the kind of evidence-based practice that funders and policymakers require.” Like many nonprofits, both of these agencies operate with shoestring budgets and small staffs. Tasks like tracking accomplishments and assessing outcomes sometimes get put on the back burner. MacGregor’s class provided the time, energy, and expertise to address these important
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tasks. The 20 students spent the semester gathering and analyzing data and compiling reports to help both agencies apply for muchneeded funding.
Lawson conducted interviews with Oportunidades NOLA administrators, observed the agency, and wrote an introduction to their final report. She found this immersive, qualitative task satisfying, as it helped her see that the fight for social justice requires many different skill sets. Though this fight is often portrayed romantically—King marching on Washington, Mother Teresa tending the sick and dying—anyone on the ground knows that social change requires a tremendous amount of nuts-and-bolts work. “You don’t understand the complexities of social problems just by looking at data,” says Lawson, “But data is very helpful!” Tom Zolot, Program Director of Oportunidades NOLA confirms just how helpful Olivia and her team’s work was: “Evaluating data is like taking snapshots of our work. Being able to see hard numbers allows us to objectively evaluate the programs we offer and makes our case for support very strong with funders.”
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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Nearly all of the students who have participated in PRIEMMANS since its launch in 2007 have gone on to college, and many have come to Loyola.
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A PATHWAY TO SCIENCE: The PRIEMMANS
program transforms students into mentors as it increases the presence of minority students in STEM disciplines. Nathalie Argueta hopes to open a medical practice that increases access to health care for New Orleans’ Latino community. The first-year biochemistry major grew up in this community and has witnessed firsthand the difficulties many face covering the costs of doctor visits. As a promising Loyola pre-med student, Argueta, who is the first member of her family to attend college, is in a strong position to achieve her goal. But just a few years ago, as a high school student, she had only a very vague concept of the steps she would be required to take to become a physician.
“I always knew that I wanted to become a doctor. But I didn’t know how to get there. I didn’t even know what a major was.” Seeking answers, Argueta enrolled in Loyola’s PRIEMMANS mentorship program, which prepares minority high school students to gain admission to college and pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math. In PRIEMMANS, which is an acronym for PreCollege Incubation Experience for Majors in Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, Argueta learned not only about majors but also about financial aid, admissions, medical school, and doctor’s residencies, providing her a clear idea of the path she needs to take.
Nearly all of the students who have participated in PRIEMMANS since its launch in 2007 have gone on to college, and many have come to Loyola. Al Alcazar, Ph.D., the program’s director, said PRIEMMANS has been highly successful in recruiting talented minority students
with limited financial resources who otherwise would never have dreamed of attending a private university. “We try to create a system that these students can enter, because most systems exclude them,” Alcazar said. “PRIEMMANS is a way to give them an opportunity, a chance, and channel their hard work into a goal.” Today, the mentors who work with PRIEMMANS high school students are all enrolled in Loyola, and all but one or two are graduates of the program. The mentors, such as Argueta, have successfully navigated the obstacles that minority students face on the path to higher education. PRIEMMANS mentors not only have the chance to give back to the program that helped them, but they also find it a valuable learning experience. To help high school students study for the math and science sections of the SAT and ACT tests, junior psychology major Scott Gonzalez said he felt compelled to revisit topics he thought he knew well to gain the mastery of them required to teach them to someone else. Biology senior Justine Sundrud said working with students from vulnerable populations in PRIEMMANS was part of her inspiration for choosing a career in public health. Linda Arellano-Rivera, a sophomore accounting major, said many of the questions she answers as a PRIEMMANS mentor might seem obvious to more privileged students, such as: “What is the point of going to school?” “Is it possible for me to even go to a university?” “Kids feel like they can’t make it to college,” said Arellano-Rivera, a native Honduran who went to high school in New Orleans. “But we’re perfect examples that show them they can. I tell them: ‘Here I am.’”
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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A FOCUS ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Business startups provide ideal environments to test students’ hands-on know-how.
The entrepreneurial units operate in tiered structures, with upperclassmen at the executive helm mentoring younger students who, in turn, do much of the legwork.
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TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS: Hustling for jobs
and making money in the New Orleans music scene is all in a day’s work for Music Industry Studies students. New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street, Spencer Winkles said, is like “sound guy ’Nam.” Through an internship at a French Quarter performance venue, the Loyola music industry studies senior made valuable connections in the local music industry and found himself dashing up and down the tourist-filled strip to three different clubs per night, making do with the venues’ often-shoddy equipment, and dealing with a colorful cast of egos and characters. If ever there was a trial by fire for an aspiring sound technician, this was it. But Winkles had been well-prepared by Loyola’s music industries studies program, which involves students early and deeply in the nuts and bolts of the music business through innovative “entrepreneurial units.” John Snyder, J.D., the Conrad N. Hilton eminent scholar in music industry studies and chair of the department, said the idea for entrepreneurial units (EUs) came after Hurricane Katrina, when rebuilding efforts were straining resources citywide. Each EU is essentially a business run by students, who take complete responsibility for its functioning and can generate profits.
“EUs connect the theory of the classroom, where everything works, to the practice of the real world, where everything doesn’t work.” Loyola music industry studies students currently operate five EUs, such as the audiovideo production house IggyVision, the live sound service NOLA Sound, and an EU run out of the campus recording studio, Vital Sounds. Winkles said the EUs refined his understanding
“If there’s one thing we want students to have when they graduate, it’s the confidence they need to succeed and the ability to make wealth out of their imagination.” of what these positions entail far better than studying in the classroom setting. “It’s like learning a language,” he said. “They can teach you vocabulary, but until you start using it, you’re talking baby talk.”
Entrepreneurial units, besides endowing students with solid skill sets, also offer them a crucial ancillary benefit—the chance to make money while pursuing their passion. Students in executive positions can earn up to $50 per job, and Snyder said some EUs become very successful. He recalled finding students one day interviewing for a financial officer position. Asked why, they responded that the EU was generating $17,000 per month. The point of the project, Snyder said, is to create a genuine entrepreneurial culture, and the Department of Music Industry Studies has done just that. Students can join existing EUs or start their own, which teaches them to look for new ways to make a living through their craft. Winkles said he has recently begun to edit audio for independent films, taking his skills from live music production and applying them to an entirely different industry. “If there’s one thing we want students to have when they graduate,” Snyder said, “it’s the confidence they need to succeed and the ability to make wealth out of their imagination.”
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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IT TAKES A VILLAGE: An inventor
trying to stem coastal erosion wins an IDEA Village entrepreneurship prize with the help of Loyola MBA students. Vigorous efforts are underway in the New Orleans business community to transform the city into a hub for entrepreneurship. In the three-year period ending in 2012, there were 501 business startups per 100,000 adults in New Orleans, a rate that exceeds the nation’s by 56 percent. Loyola MBA students are in the thick of this entrepreneurship explosion through programs that immerse them in building new businesses. The experience allows them to develop crucial skill sets while directly influencing the city’s economic growth. “The chance for New Orleans to reshape itself post-Katrina doesn’t exist elsewhere and provides unique challenges and opportunities for our students,” Felipe Massa, Ph.D., assistant professor of management, said. “In some ways, it’s a tough place for new businesses. You have to build an infrastructure and ecosystem to support startups. But it gives Loyola students participating in the process the chance to shape the entrepreneurial landscape.” A team of Loyola MBA students participated in the 2013 IDEACorps competition hosted by local nonprofit entrepreneurship booster Idea Village. The competition pitted the Loyola team against others from top national business schools—from Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, and other prestigious universities—who each collaborated with a venture startup to shape pitches to potential funders and panels of competition judges. Loyola’s client—Wave Robber, an invention designed to protect Louisiana’s delicate coastal wetlands— won the competition’s Water Challenge with the students’ help, earning the startup $50,000 and the students recognition and praise from business executives and others in Idea Village’s broad network.
“The Idea Village competition exposes you to a litany of resources you wouldn’t otherwise have. You’re literally a consultant for a startup, and you have access to these incredibly smart people who are willing to talk to you and who care about the city.” For the competition, team leader, Sarah Zarate and her classmates worked with Wave Robber to design a communications strategy that forcefully articulates how the environmentalist invention can translate into a successful business. Massa, who served as the team’s faculty advisor, said communication skills such as the ones the students honed are becoming increasingly important in the business world. “It’s not just about having great ideas anymore,” Massa said, “but having great ideas and being able to communicate them in a way that appeals to people. Look at TED Talks, mass online courses, Malcolm Gladwell—there is a public hunger for digestible information that wasn’t available before. This competition trains students to communicate ideas in that manner.” Zarate, who graduated in May 2013, said the Idea Village competition was the highlight of her education, providing her and her teammates the knowledge, skills, and real-world experiences to become part of New Orleans’ exciting and expanding business community.
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Loyola MBA students competing in the 2013 IDEACorps competition exemplify the intersection of experiential learning, innovation, and ethical impact at the core of a Loyola business education.
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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SOCIAL JUSTICE AT HOME AND ABROAD:
Work for human rights prompts our students to traverse national borders.
New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice protests deportations
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CALLING GENEVA: Law students petition the
United Nations to take a closer look at local abuses of human rights defenders. The grand halls in Geneva, Switzerland, where the United Nations works to enforce international laws that ensure the dignity, liberty, and equality of all people, can sometimes seem not merely on the other side of the Earth from New Orleans, but on another, unreachable planet altogether. But students in Loyola’s College of Law, led by associate professor Johanna Kalb, are conducting meaningful work with local human rights advocates to bridge the gap between New Orleans and Geneva, petitioning the Human Rights Committee, a body of independent experts from around the globe, to take a closer look at law enforcement practices in the states of the Gulf Coast that stifle and silence human rights defenders in violation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Every four years, the United States is obliged under the ICCPR to submit a report on the state of human rights in the country. ICCPR guidelines give the government wide latitude in its reporting, allowing the omission of sometimes key negative details. Loyola students, in partnership with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, prepared a “shadow report” in 2013 that fills in some of those omissions. This document will be submitted concurrently with the latest U.S. report.
The shadow report, “Deporting the Evidence: Migrant Workers in the South Expose How U.S. Immigration Enforcement against Human Rights Defenders Violates the ICCPR,” details ways in which the United States uses immigration enforcement to retaliate—via arrest, intimidation, and deportation—against people advocating for the rights of immigrant workers.
Many such people in New Orleans were crucial to rebuilding the city after Hurricane Katrina and today comprise a marginalized population with little protection from state or federal laws. The students worked as part of a clinic that leverages Kalb’s own experiences in international human rights law—among other things, she was a member of the litigation team that successfully challenged the use of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld—and responds to the desires of her students to make a difference on a global scale.
“Our students want to confront problems of poverty and inequality, in the United States and elsewhere. The clinic is a means of addressing that demand.” Becca Curry is one such student. She came to the clinic with a background in international law augmented by work in Cambodia with an organization that monitors prisons and submits similar “shadow reports” about the Cambodian government to the UN. “Loyola’s strong social justice tradition was definitely a factor in why I wanted to attend,” Curry said. “I plan on working in Washington, D.C., or overseas in international law after I graduate, and the clinic was a practical application of everything I’ve been studying and want to pursue. It really, truly is an international experience that I can take with me anywhere to work for human rights.”
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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IN LUIS’ FOOTSTEPS: A museum memorializing a
“disappeared” Guatemalan author and activist receives translation assistance from Loyola students. Nathan Henne, Ph.D., associate professor of languages and cultures, has been studying the life and work of indigenous Guatemalan author and activist Luis de Lión for eight years. In 2012, the University of Arizona Press published for the first time in English de Lión’s most important work, Time Commences in Xibalbá, which Henne translated and introduced. Henne’s research uses de Lión as a prism to examine broader themes of ethnicity, identity, imperialism, and violence. For the past two years, Henne’s students have joined the professor in this exploration, which has taken them to the sites of mass graves and museums, and to an understanding of the values for which Luis de Lión lived and died. Henne’s students Taylor Adams and Molly Wagner took lengthy trips through Guatemala during their summer breaks to lay the groundwork for their research projects. “A lot of de Lión’s fiction is concerned with how difficult it is to build a nation
state around a nation’s—supposedly singular—identity, but still leave room for real difference among the many indigenous groups,” Henne said, “especially when that country went through an extended colonial period where racial difference was the most significant ordering principle. That’s why it was so important for Molly and Taylor to travel throughout Guatemala and better understand the legacy of the colonial period.” Wagner, who plans to further her studies in international human rights, accompanied a team of forensic scientists who exhumed mass graves from the period of state-sponsored violence in Guatemala that spanned 1954 – 1996. Scientists and human rights workers were trying to identify bodies of those
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“disappeared” by the government during that time—de Lión among them. Adams worked with the Proyecto Luis de Lión, founded and operated by de Lión’s daughter Mayarí, to create a website for the organization, which includes a museum, library, and arts education center. The website builds awareness about the organization and provides an important avenue through which its administrators can raise money and solicit donated musical instruments.
But perhaps the most important work Adams and Wagner did was translate elements from the Casa Museo Luis de Lión into English. The 15-year-old museum uses the life of de Lión as a starting point to introduce the historical context in which the indigenous author “disappeared,” a period of deep racism toward the indigenous and a general intolerance toward creativity, intelligence, and union activism, such that de Lión took part in. Now, thanks to Loyola students’ translations,
Students explore Guatemalan history and literature to understand cultural issues and human rights. visitors from other countries who speak English but not Spanish can fully realize the complicity of the United States in the atrocities in Guatemala’s recent history that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of its indigenous inhabitants, such as the author at the core of its existence.
Thanks to Loyola students’ translations, visitors from other countries who speak English but not Spanish can fully realize the complicity of the United States in the atrocities in Guatemala’s recent history.
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH:
Faculty and students act as teams to conduct important research.
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IT STILL EXISTS: A professor of English directly
involves students in her research that raises awareness about modern-day slavery.
Slavery—a thing of the past? Unfortunately not. Nearly 30 million people are enslaved globally, including many in the city of New Orleans. Loyola assistant professor of English Laura Murphy, Ph.D., specializes in studying modern slavery and fighting human trafficking internationally. “How can I possibly live in this world where there is slavery happening now and not address it, pretending it’s a thing of the past?” Murphy asked.
Murphy discusses her work on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show Murphy gives her students the chance to research and fight slavery along with her. Junior Saramaile Tate and senior Lauren Cutuli have become deeply involved in the research and in working with survivors. Tate maintains a website, SurvivorsOfSlavery.org, an outreach project that arranges speaking opportunities for survivors who want to share their stories in the community. “I want to engage communities and educate them socially and culturally about history, racism, and sexism.” Tate said “These institutions function in our lives every day, and human trafficking is wrapped into all of that.” Tate and Cutuli coordinate with Murphy to explore different avenues of research. The various channels provide a diverse experience tailored to each student’s learning objectives and goals for the future.
“Undergraduate research is an opportunity for students to transfer what they are learning in the classroom and relate it to larger issues,” Cutuli said. “This opportunity has allowed me to combine my knowledge within the field of Mass Communication with my interest in social justice issues.” Cutuli said one of her favorite moments as a research assistant was visiting NET Charter High School in New Orleans to meet with student leaders interested in setting up an anti-human trafficking club on campus. “The students understood prior to my visiting what human trafficking is, but they did not understand the magnitude of the issue,” she said.“When I mentioned that human trafficking happens in New Orleans,” she said “each student looked up at me shocked and asked me to repeat myself.” Murphy admits research on modern slavery can be frustrating and difficult at times, but she believes the issue is far too important to ignore. And with the help of her research assistants, Murphy is able to grow and develop the Modern Slavery Research Project and give her students invaluable first-hand opportunities to combine research and activism. “Right now I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t have my research assistants,” she said. “They have expanded my capacity to meet the increasing demand for information about trafficking. The students keep me on task and are incredibly committed to the work.” Tate says the mentor relationship she has built being on Murphy’s team is one of the best parts of the job. “The reward is working with Dr. Murphy,” Tate said. “I am honored she wants me to work with her. Everything we do is a learning experience for me, and she is an excellent example for how I want to be in this world.”
Loyola students help lift the veil on the millions enslaved globally today.
Experiential Learning at Loyola
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ASK THE ALGAE: A biology student
and her mentor devise a novel way to determine how long corpses have been underwater to aid law enforcement efforts.
Anyone who has watched mafia movies knows what a mobster means when he says he is going to make someone “sleep with the fishes.” But this method of disposing of evidence onscreen has corollaries in real life, which can present real problems for law enforcement. Currently, there is no good method to determine how long a body has been underwater. Such knowledge could potentially provide detectives important insight into when a crime was committed. Thanks to a Loyola student’s honors thesis project, scientists may be one step closer to solving this conundrum. Recent graduate Shelly Wu and her faculty mentor, James Wee, Ph.D., provost distinguished professor of biological sciences, monitored the growth of algae on submerged human hair and found its proliferation to be a potentially reliable time marker. For the project, Wu affixed standardized bunches of hair—clipped from her own head—to plastic foam mannequin heads she submerged in a freshwater garden pond and a brackish canal. She collaborated with James L. Pinckney, Ph.D., at the University of South Carolina to complete sophisticated measurements of the amount of Chlorophyll a—found in algae—on the hair, a method that could help investigators determine how long a cadaver has been submersed in water.
“A lot of experiments in lab classes are like cooking from a cookbook—but research isn’t like that. You have to determine your own methods and use creative thinking to find the best approach.” Wu documented her findings in a paper she co-authored with Wee and Loyola biology professor Craig Hood, Ph.D., which Wu presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Botanical Society of America. She will travel from the University of Oklahoma, where she is continuing her studies of algae ecology as a graduate student, to the 2014 Joint Aquatic Sciences meeting in May to present a follow-up. By presenting at a scholarly conference as an undergraduate, Wu said, she gained yet another head start on many of her peers in building the complete set of skills required of a working scientist. “A large component of being successful in science is presenting your work,” Wu said. “It’s how you establish yourself in the field, interact with and make an impression on experts. As an undergraduate, it was an enriching experience.” The experience Wu gained at Loyola put her ahead of many of her colleagues in graduate school—some, she said, have never conducted any independent research. As is true for many young Loyola researchers, the hands-on learning she engaged in here made a huge difference. “It got me in the door,” she said. “I was accepted to all of the graduate programs I applied for. If it wasn’t for undergraduate research, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
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ENVIRONMENTAL SPOTLIGHTS: Loyola students connect to the natural world through immersion, research, and advocacy.
The subjects his students study— like wetland loss, human impact on the landscape, and the interaction of organisms and their environment—become at once more tangible and complex.
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WETLANDS, FIRSTHAND: The
swamp feels like home to a veteran biology professor, who shares his passion and knowledge with students during nighttime canoe excursions. When biology professor David White, Ph.D., takes his students into the swamp, he likes to go after dark. The wetlands south of New Orleans that he leads his classes through in canoes are full of snakes, spiders, and insects, and he will periodically tell students where to point their flashlights so they can reflect constellations of red alligator eyes. He is not trying to scare anyone, he said, but to “demystify that nighttime world.” He likes to remind students that the drive down the interstate to the launching point is far more dangerous than slowly skimming in the dark through the reeds. He wants them to feel comfortable in the outdoors, and he uses the experience as a way to break down misconceptions about the natural world they study in biology class. As they paddle, White discusses topics on ecology while natural manifestations of what he describes abound around them. The trips also provide students the emotional and spiritual sensations involved in being outdoors, which, White said, fewer and fewer of his incoming students have experienced. The expeditions provide his students common points of reference that enrich classroom discussions. One honors student wrote to White and said she wished the trip had taken place earlier in the semester, because it was such an enriching bonding experience. The subjects his students study—like wetland loss, human impact on the landscape, and the interaction of organisms and their environment—become at once more tangible and complex, and his students come away with a more nuanced understanding and sincere appreciation of the natural world than any classroom lecture could provide them. Experiential Learning at Loyola
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MARKET DYNAMICS: A recent graduate enhances food access in New Orleans as a community coordinator for the Crescent City Farmers Market. Midway through his education at Loyola, Andrew McDaniel realized that some issues must be addressed at the intersection where social justice and the environment meet. That’s why McDaniel, who graduated last spring with a sociology degree and a minor in environmental studies, became interested in food deserts, areas of a city where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain. In his classes, McDaniel and his peers discussed the ways in which social and economic factors deprive some people of access to good food. But it wasn’t until he undertook an internship with the Sankofa Farmer’s Market in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward that he began to seriously understand the complexities and challenges involved in creating that access. “My internship at Sankofa really drove the point home that things are way more complicated than they ever will be on paper,” McDaniel said. “The social dynamics of a neighborhood are always going to be a very important determinant as to whether a farmer’s market will thrive.” McDaniel’s senior thesis explored these very dynamics. It compared the interactions— and the social capital exchanged—involved in shopping for food at a big-box grocery store and a farmer’s market. His ethnographic study—for which he took extensive field notes and coded different types of exchanges—revealed that farmers markets yield far more meaningful interactions than one finds in the grocery store. Today, McDaniel works as the market community coordinator at the Crescent City Farmers Market, where he leverages his hands-on education to help bring healthy, affordable food to the community and strengthen the network of others fighting to increase food access.
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Andrew McDaniel, ‘13
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THE PRINCIPLES OF RETREAT: As
governments attempt to safeguard communities from flooding, a disaster law expert and his student provide commonsense critiques.
Lynsey Johnson worked for four years in her native Wisconsin as the state’s disaster response and recovery planner before enrolling in Loyola’s College of Law. She said she came to Loyola to learn how the policies she implemented as a planner are created, and for the opportunity to work with Robert Verchick, J.D., the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar and Chair in Environmental Law and a nationally renowned expert in disaster law. As a second-year student, Johnson joined Verchick conducting research for an article that examines new federal policies that encourage communities to move out of disaster-prone areas. The article contrasts the policies with a set of principles that, they argue, should inform laws that promote such “managed retreat.” They found the policies full of pitfalls for the communities they are meant to govern and the local agencies that must implement them. One of these principles states that government should play an active role in the process of managed retreat. “You don’t want the government telling you what to do,” Johnson said, “but in cases of retreat efforts, you want government there to support you.” The Biggert-Waters Act of 2012, for instance, removes subsidies from federal flood insurance, dramatically increasing premiums for properties in flood-prone areas and effectively pricing people out of their homes. This step would help lessen the National Flood Insurance Program’s steep debt, but, the article points out, it does little to make things easier for local and state governments to manage the fallout. Upon graduation in May 2014, Johnson plans to continue work in disaster law. With her practical and academic experiences, she plans to move to Washington, D.C., and help to ensure disaster law is crafted in a manner that is intelligent, efficient, and just.
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Experiential Learning at Loyola
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MASTERING MEDIA:
The Digital Age is rife for opportunity to hone students’ communications production skills in traditional and cutting-edge media.
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THE DIGITAL COURTROOM: The College of Law’s
Litigation and Technology Clinic develops apps that help attorneys and the public navigate complicated legal questions. Loyola law students are ahead of the curve when it comes to the integration of technology and law. Through the College of Law’s Litigation and Technology Clinic, one of the few of its kind in the country, students are learning how to develop mobile apps that serve attorneys and the general public in deciphering complicated questions about the law while building students’ skill sets to compete in a tough legal job market. The clinic, which is part of the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice, is led by assistant clinical professor Judson Mitchell, J.D., with assistance from local lawyer and web developer Ben Veradi. So far, Loyola law students have developed five apps, with two more in development this year. The Multiple Bill Calculator, for instance, helps attorneys calculate minimum and maximum sentences for their criminal clients under Louisiana’s Habitual Defender Statute. LaCrimBook replaces the cumbersome and expensive Louisiana Criminal Law and Motor Vehicle Handbook with a free digital alternative. The DocketMinder app monitors the Orleans Criminal Court trial docket and notifies users of real-time entry changes. And in the spirit of encouraging further integration of technology and law, the app Huey is a search engine and interface for Louisiana statutory law that aims to make the law readily available to software developers.
The experience that students gain in the clinic contributes to the service of justice. Technology can help attorneys gather facts and information more efficiently and at a lower cost to them and their clients. Additionally, the Interactive Decision Tree app helps members of the public determine whether they have a legal claim and where to get legal help if they do. But this experience is also valuable to law students vying for legal employment after graduation. Recent graduate John Love Norris IV, J.D., said learning how to code alongside his law studies was challenging, but ultimately helped him land a job. “The Litigation and Technology Clinic has given me confidence which correlates to my entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. “This confidence has allowed me to obtain a position as an attorney at the law firm of Sarver and Guard, LLC.” Third-year student Kevin Carter said the clinic is preparing him for what will be a fundamental shift in the legal profession, as technology plays an increasingly large part in all facets of life. “Everything around us is becoming more and more tech-based,” Carter said “and, although you’ll never be able to replace the judgment calls a human makes, learning how to be tech-savvy can be a huge benefit to your clients, yourself, and employers.”
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VIGOROUS LIT: A new editor of the New Orleans Review provides
hands-on experience for students crafting Loyola’s renowned literary journal. For English majors at Loyola, an innovative internship course provides the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the publishing industry and gain practical experience. The internship involves students in helping to publish the New Orleans Review, a journal of contemporary literature and culture produced by the Department of English. In the process, they discover the challenges of working and writing for the greater literary community. According to English professor and internship supervisor Mark Yakich, Ph.D., what sets this course apart is the application of students’ previous coursework in literature, writing, and theory to real-world publication. “Every class project is a real-world project,” Yakich said. “Students can finally connect the stories they’ve read to the process of getting those stories out into the world through copyediting, social media marketing, digital media, promotions, layout, and more.” In addition to teaching the course, Yakich serves as New Orleans Review’s editor. He understands just how important the collaboration between the student interns and the editors is to the success of the publication. “The best part of having students work on the publication is the amount of energy they bring,” he said. “The students are eager to learn, but they also bring a new perspective to the work that the editors sometimes can’t see.” With the New Orleans Review undergoing key changes, including a new web design and online-exclusive materials, the students experience what it is like to be a critical reader while managing hundreds of submissions. “Dealing with submissions was more difficult than I expected,” Junior Erin Little said. “As a third-year English major with tons of writing- and reading-intensive coursework under my
belt, I thought I could easily identify a piece worth publishing. In this class, I realized how hard that process really is.” As for Senior Kylee McIntyre, the course offered a new perspective on her own writing. “I am certainly more disciplined than I used to be. There’s a management aspect to the internship. I spend a lot of my time writing for other people, and in a strange way, that was flipped around and people were writing for me. I gained a lot of perspective, and reading other people’s work makes you a better writer,” McIntyre said.
“Every class project is a real-world project.” Both Little and McIntyre had the class on their course list since freshman year due to an interest in publishing after graduation. “[The course] made this job I had in mind more tangible,” McIntyre said. “I’ll be more confident when I apply for positions after graduation.” For the final project in the course, each student submits a book review to be published on New Orleans Review’s website. According to Yakich, writing a review gives an edge to the students’ portfolios when they look for jobs after graduation. And for students who excel in the course, Yakich offers the opportunity to be an editorial assistant in subsequent semesters to develop their skills further. “I think I speak for quite a few English majors when I say that I’ll apply for a myriad of jobs associated with this degree, including editing and publishing,” McIntyre said. “There’s something I find very exciting about having the opportunity to share people’s ideas with others.” Experiential Learning at Loyola
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BOOK SHELF
Outsourcing Justice: The Rise of Modern Arbitration Laws in America
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Discovering Your Dream: How Ignatian Spirituality Can Guide Your Life
Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I, 1914-1918
By Imre Szalai Carolina Academic Press
By Gerald M. Fagin, S.J. Loyola University Press
By John Mosier Penguin Group
Outsourcing Justice: The Rise of Modern Arbitration Laws in America demonstrates how misinterpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court of arbitration laws has created an expansive, informal, private system of justice that touches almost every aspect of American society. Using untapped archival sources, Imre Szalai tracks the development of arbitration law from its radical transformation in the Roaring Twenties through the wild proliferation of arbitration agreements in the present day.
In Discovering Your Dream, Gerald Fagin uses St. Ignatius’ principles of the Spiritual Exercises, coupled with an Ignatian approach to decisionmaking, to guide us through a discernment process that truly satisfies our deepest desires and brings us closer to God. He shows readers how St. Ignatius’ own decision-making process can be molded to meet the needs of our faith and lead us to our truest selves that God desires for all of us.
Alongside Waterloo and Gettysburg, the Battle of Verdun during the First World War stands as one of history’s greatest clashes. However, our understanding of Verdun has long been mired in myths, false assumptions, propaganda, and distortions. Now, using numerous accounts of military analysts, serving officers, and eyewitnesses, including French sources that have never been translated, John Mosier offers a compelling reassessment of the Great War’s most important battle.
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
The Scandal of White Complicity in U.S. Hyperincarceration: A Nonviolent Spirituality of White Resistance By Alex Mikulich, Laurie Cassidy, and Maragaret Pfeil Palgrave Macmillian
The Scandal of White Complicity and U.S. Hyper-incarceration is a groundbreaking exploration of the moral role of white people in the disproportionate incarceration of AfricanAmericans and Latinos in the United States. Alex Mikulich comes together with fellow Catholic theologians to develop an understanding of how whiteness operates in the U.S. system of incarceration, and he outlines Christian nonviolent ways for whites to subvert their oppression of brothers and sisters of color.
Shock the World: UConn The Broadview Anthology of Basketball in the Calhoun Era Medieval Drama By Peter F. Burns, Jr. Northeastern University Press
In 25 years at UConn, Coach Jim Calhoun changed a team, a university, a state, and college basketball. Shock the World is a riveting season-byseason, game-by-game, and player-by-player biography of Calhoun’s winning program. Peter F. Burns, Jr. paints a vivid portrait of college basketball in the past 25 years and highlights the challenges Calhoun overcame to become the best program builder of all time and the greatest coach of his generation.
Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian, eds. Broadview Press Director of Loyola’s Medieval Studies Program John Sebastian presents The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama, which takes medieval plays as its base while expanding very substantially beyond them to represent the full range of drama in English (and, where strong connections exist, in French, Latin, Cornish, and Welsh, as well) through 1576.
State, Religion, and Revolution in Iran, 1796 to the Present By Behrooz Moazami Palgrave Macmillan
Two basic assumptions have shaped understanding of recent Iranian history. One is that Shi’ism is an integral part of Iran’s religious and cultural landscape. The other is that the ulama (religious scholars) have always played a crucial role. Moazami confronts these assumptions and constructs a new synthesis of the history of state and religion in Iran from 1796 to the present while challenging existing theories of large-scale political transformation.
Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility Samuel O. Idowu, Nicholas Capaldi, Liangrong Zu, and Ananda Das Gupta, eds. Springer
The role of corporate social responsibility in the business world has developed into an important aspect of corporate behavior. Sustainable strategies are valued, desired, and deployed more and more by relevant players in industries all over the world. Nicholas Capaldi, along with a leading team of experts from the global CSR community, has contributed to make the Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility the definitive resource for this field of research and practice.
PUBLICATIONS, PRESENTATIONS, AND PERFORMANCES The research and creative work highlighted in this report is a small representation of the expansive body of scholarly work ongoing at Loyola University New Orleans. For a complete list of publications, presentations, and performances in the 2012 – 2013 academic year by Loyola’s faculty, go online to www.loyno.edu/provosts-report
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OFFICE OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS 6363 St. Charles Avenue New Orleans, LA 70118 www.academicaffairs.loyno.edu