Our Fall 2023 Speaker Series is now available below! As a reminder, all presentations for the Fall 2023 semester will be held virtually via Zoom, and registration will be required for attendees to receive a Zoom link.
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. To request an accommodation, or have any additional questions, please contact our Associate Director Brian Timm (timm.21). At least two weeks’ advance notice will help us to provide seamless access.
Information on prior speaker series, including video recordings and additional material, can be found here.
Fall Semester 2023 Speakers
Friday, September 8, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm: Dr. Monnica Chan, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, University of Massachusetts-Boston (UMass-Boston)
Title: Incentivizing Equity? The Effects of Performance-Based Funding on Reducing Racial Disparities in College Completion
Dr. Monnica Chan
Bio
Monnica is an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Her research examines how higher education policies and practice provide (and limit) students’ opportunities to earn a credential. Of particular interest is how students pay for college – through traditional financial aid, employment, and other resources – and the implications for students’ academic and long-term success.
Prior to joining UMB, Monnica was the director of policy and research at the New England Board of Higher Education.
Monnica earned her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Program Evaluation from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Learn more about Dr. Chan by visiting her webpage.
Registration for Dr. Chan’s talk is now closed. Please click here to watch the recording of her talk.
Friday, September 22, 12:00pm – 1:00pm: Daniel Oppenheimer, Professor of Social & Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
Title: Choosing to Learn: The Value of Autonomy in Post-Secondary Education
Please join us for an invited talk by Dr. Danny Oppenheimer, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, for an invited talk on Friday, September 22 from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.
Dr. Danny Oppenheimer
Abstract
Despite a large literature demonstrating the importance of agency/autonomy in student motivation and achievement, there has been little focus on developing specific, practical, and implementable interventions that promote autonomy in educational settings. If anything, many practices endorsed by university teaching and learning centers, such as mandatory attendance, mandatory drafts, and syllabus quizzes, serve to undermine feelings of autonomy. Here, we briefly review the literature on the benefits of promoting agency, provide several concrete teaching strategies for doing so, and provide evidence of their efficacy. Agency-promoting teaching practices have the potential to improve student outcomes both in the classroom (i.e. more motivated students who consequently learn more) and beyond.
Bio
Danny Oppenheimer is a professor at Carnegie Mellon jointly appointed in Psychology and Decision Sciences who studies judgment, decision making, metacognition, learning and causal reasoning, and applies his findings to a diverse array of domains, such as charitable giving, consumer behavior, education, electoral outcomes, and how to trick students into buying him ice cream.
He is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed articles and books including “Democracy Despite Itself: Why a System that shouldn’t work at all works so well” and “Psychology: The Comic Book Introduction”.
He has won awards for research, teaching, and humor, the latter of which is particularly inexplicable given his penchant for truly terrible puns.
Read more about Daniel Oppenheimer on his CMU webpage.
Registration for Dr. Oppenheimer’s talk is now closed. Please click here to watch the recording of the talk.
Friday, October 20, 12:00pm – 1:00pm: Dr. Jelani Nelson, Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
Title: High School Data Science Controversy: California and Beyond
Dr. Jelani Nelson
Bio
Dr. Jelani Nelson is a professor of Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He won the 2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Nelson is interested in big data and the development of efficient algorithms.
Nelson is the creator of AddisCoder, a computer science summer program for Ethiopian high school students in Addis Ababa. After his doctorate, Nelson worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, then Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study.[3] He specializes in sketching and streaming algorithms.
Learn more about Dr. Nelson by visiting his UC Berkeley page, as well as his Twitter page.
Registration for Dr. Nelson’s talk is now closed. Please click here to watch the recording of the talk.