Campus Connection: At Viterbo, teachers are big on learning, too – La Crosse Tribune

Viterbo has a similar, if newer, tradition of lifting up the scholarly pursuits of those who teach there. The annual Celebration of Faculty Scholarship, which goes back to 2013, spotlights work of academic rigor in a more informal setting than the research symposium. This year’s event was held Oct. 27 in the Fine Arts Center’s FSPA lobby, equal parts happy hour social event and exploration of academic insights.

“It’s a really neat event because it allows faculty to talk about this area of their jobs that is often hidden. We’re a teaching institution, but tenure-track faculty have to have an emphasis on scholarship,” said Jennie Anderson-Meger. “The conversations are really rich at this event.”

A full-time faculty member since 2000, Anderson-Meger is a social work professor who also serves as director of graduate studies and co-director of Viterbo’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which organizes the event.

It started as an event “designed to recognize the presented and published work of faculty, promote networking and interdisciplinary conversation, and encourage faculty to begin or continue creating plans to take their scholarship to the next level.”

Anderson-Meger was one of those to present that first year, solo on the topic of Undergraduate Social Work Student’s Epistemological Beliefs and as part of a trio focused on “infusing a new ethical decision-making model throughout a Bachelor of Social Work curriculum.”

This year, Anderson-Meger presented as part of a trio with professors Matthew Bersagel Braley and Tyler Flockhart about an ongoing research project looking at how spirituality factored into how certified nursing assistants dealt with their work during the pandemic, when they faced “death, disruption and fear in the workplace” that they were not trained to handle.

Apryl Denny, an English professor since 1992 who serves as director of faculty development, noted the focus in the early days was mostly on research in “hard” sciences like biology and chemistry but presentations on history, literature and other humanities have become more prevalent.

This year, for example, Alexander Ashland presented on his experience last summer writing and researching at Quarry Farm in upstate New York house where Mark Twain wrote “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Life on the Mississippi.”

He was awarded a fellowship by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, and at the end of his two-week residency he presented a talk at the historic Park Church in Elmira on The Ruins, Relics and Reshaping of Mark Twain’s Mississippi Memory.

Ashland’s work focuses on the development of a distinct 19th century American literature, finding influences in Twain’s work from Washington Irving’s writing, particularly “The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.,” a foundational text in early U.S. literature that includes “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

His fellowship will result in a journal article that he’ll expand into a chapter in a book he’s writing, and his work there also helped him develop a class he’ll teach next spring. The fellowship also gave Ashland deep insights on Twain.

“I spent a lot of time learning about things that would never make it into the scholarship I was there to produce, but doing so enriched my experience and made me feel more connected to my work and Quarry Farm itself,” he said.

A member of the faculty for three years, Ashland said he finds this event to be a valuable experience. “Viterbo often identifies as a teaching-first institution. In my view, however, all good teaching is energized and supported by good research,” he said. “The two reinforce one another, and I believe that events like this promote such a view and make the institution’s scholarly profile more visible to the campus community.”

In addition, Viterbo encourages scholarship and best practices in classroom teaching through several other programs, including grant funds for faculty development and research activities, an academic sabbatical program, and an annual celebration of teaching and learning that offers faculty presentations on a wide variety of classroom related topics.

Longtime history professor Keith Knutson, who gave a presentation on the development of the European Union, already is preparing for his spring semester 2025 academic sabbatical during which he will explore The Future of European Integration.

After four decades of study, Knutson is an expert on the foundations of European integration, on which he gave an overview. His presentation was bolstered by his trip last summer to Luxembourg, one of the six countries involved in a coal and steel industry cooperative that paved the way for the today’s EU, which has 27 member countries.

“When I showed up in 1990, Viterbo wasn’t such a research-oriented institution. That has definitely changed, thanks to events like this and the university’s commitment to encouraging academic scholarship,” Knutson said. “Also, this is a tremendous way to encourage collegiality, both within departments and across disciplines. I always look forward to seeing what my colleagues are working on and getting into some stimulating conversations.”