Reinventions – Falling in Love with the Humanities? Si, se Puede! When Basic Education Goes Digital

–Dear Fellow Earthlings–

While teaching a two-semester basic course in the Humanities in the past 10 + years, I’ve evolved a narrative about history that focuses on the Earth and all its people, and a series of readings that deploy the diverse and imaginative ways that humans have practiced the arts of love across time and space.

I feel the multiple crises we face today require that this course go digital.  That way everyone can take it from all over the planet.  I believe that would be a great gift.  It would empower people to make love the ecology of their lives in ways they feel inspired to.

Crises result in successful reinventions when there is openness, trust, collaboration.

–These are difficult to generate in times of crisis, and yet that’s when they are really necessary!

–A very wide support is necessary to evolve.

In this context, I am happy to accept the invitation from UPR Carolina, a small campus in the UPR system, to present my project on March 14.  We start at 11 am in the Teatro:

“Falling in Love with the Humanities?  Si, Se Puede!  Course Design Experiences from the Flipped/Hybrid Classroom.”

Don’t you love the beautiful poster they’ve prepared for me?  It’s really neat and I’m excited about the whole thing.

I believe that the humanities are the sciences that help us understand the belief systems we have.  The arts are the sciences that help us invent the belief systems we need.

And I believe that teaching the Humanities from the Point of View of Love and in a way that students love can get students to fall in love with the humanities, appreciate their significance, and become lifetime learners that will require these courses in their curricula.

In a crisis, reinventions are a path to the future.

Reinventions may be a challenge for large institutions because much agility is needed.

In a smaller context, activating the imagination together may be easier.

When we interpret the Arts and Humanities as sciences that help us understand the present and invent the future we need, we would not remotely consider doing away with them.

And yet, when a university is threatened with losing about one third of its total budget from one year to the next, one has to activate the imagination very quickly for a prayer to save these significant learning tools.

That’s what my proposal does.  The millennial generation loves to learn online.  It’s starved for knowledge they can use to invent the future they need.  What we can give them is a structure that will empower them to learn digitally about these things.  That’s what my course does.

The ways that love has been practiced across time and space are so diverse.  They’re so imaginative.  Learning about them is a way to learn about the beauty and diversity of our species.  And thus acquire the tools to co-design the amorous lives one wishes.

This is the reinvention I propose for a basic, two-semester course that’s part of most university curricula in the US and territories.

It has worked well at UPRM.

I’ve produced the Lectures for the period 1500-2000.

I’ve embedded all tests and learning modules in the Canvas LMS system.

I’ve taught the hybrid/flipped form for one semester, Fall 2016.

I’ve measured the results in a Survey and an Encuesta.

Students have given evidence of their love for the course with direct action as course protectors.  When we had a chance to run the course as hybrid/flipped, we created together this inspiring video.

The project is seeking an open heart space, a campus, ecoversity, or other kind of hospitable institution, eager to see it evolve into the next stage.  This could include producing the Lectures for the period Neolithic to 1500, upgrading the first semester to hybrid/flipped, and upgrading both semesters to MOOC, or massive online open-enrollment course.

Access the pdf print of the presentation “Falling in Love with the Humanities?  Si, Se Puede! ” at this link.  Enjoy!  Imagine the project done.

An investment in this project can accomplish many things at once:

  1. Take a basic course for a walk out of the presential classroom.
  2.  Optimize this course so it can be featured in the world-wide digital sphere.
  3.  Get millennial students to fall in love with the humanities and become lifetime learners.
  4.  Get the university that sponsors this project on the map of those institutions that care about the public and offer basic courses for free.
  5.  Offer potential students from all over the world a taste of this institution and attract them to study at the school and become part of the region.

These all seem very desirable things to me.  They can save money too, while keeping quality and even improving it.  I am investing my energies in these possibilities.

Send good energies and wish the project good luck!

Thank you!

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

 

March 8h, 2017 – Anticipating a New Tsunamic Wave

Dear women of the world–

There ‘s a smell in the air.  It comes from a third, powerful wave of the women’s slash feminist movement.  As a proud agent of the second wave i m excited about this.  I predict this wave will be tsunamic in its magnitude.  It will be planetary, it will be ecosexual, and will focus on the divine feminine.

As this tsunamic new wave announces itself, on this 8th March i want to give a shout out to a second-wave French feminist whose voice resonates w/ me today.

She was prophetic.

Back in 1974, Francoise d’Eaubonne coined the word ecofeminism. The title of her book, Le Feminisme ou la Mort, has two meanings.

One is a cri-de-coeur, a battle cry, as in “give me feminism or give me death.”

The other is just a realistic description, one that very few people would hear at the time. Either we create a world that honors women, that worships the divine feminine in all its manifestations, or we are doomed.

Why?

Because we will blindly continue in our pillage of the partner we all share: the Earth.

Because there is sacredness to all forms of life.

Because it’s only when we make love the ecology of our lives that we are safe.

I found great inspiration in Francoise d’Eaubonne for all my works and collaborations, including Gaia, Ecosexuality, and Playa Azul I Love You.  Check them out.

Share and enjoy the excitement of women’s day!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_d’Eaubonne

Thank you!

Sending wafts of ecosexual love on this women’s day!

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Author of Multiple Books
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

Playa Azul I Love You: Together in Ecosexual Love – Film/Documentary

The film

This 30-minute documentary is the story of a 16-year love affair with a beach that culminates in a Plural Wedding of Ecosexual Love.

What is an ecosystem? When we practice Ecosexual Love, an ecosystem is a companion, a partner, a lover: much more than an object of scientific study.  Falling in love with an ecosystem–recognizing the love and health it can bring to people’s lives–is what this film is about. Interpreting the Earth as a lover is the shift in metaphors that has galvanized the Ecosexual Movement. We need to love the Earth we make love on, so as to mark a common path for the sex-positive movement and the global ecology movement. For an adult, responsible behavior of humankind toward nature.

This movement manifests locally as well.  A liminal space for dwellers and lovers, Playa Azul is a beach located on the south side of the shore of Western Puerto Rico.  It is being stewarded with love by a team of dwellers who love to share it with nature lovers. It is now a very hospitable to diverse lovers and conducive of inclusive forms of amorous behavior.

We the co-directors made this film to celebrate the beauty of this ecosystem and the spontaneous behavior it inspires in people when living close to nature and the Caribbean shore.  We extended our invitation to a Plural Wedding of Ecosexual Love, and a community came together for this inclusive and fluid symbolic ceremony. When participants married the beach, a radical form of “marriage equality” was practiced. Everyone became a “spouse” to the ecosystem, which acquired much “spice” by effect of the sacred wedding to this particular piece of Lover Earth.

When we recognize the Earth as the partner we all share, we become “metamours” to one another, namely people who consciously share a beloved. This is one of the powers of practicing Ecosexual Love.

The film documents this coming together and its transformative effects for the community and the beach itself.

Playa Azul I Love You is a coproduction of 3WayKiss, Veritas Productions, and SecondTake Media.

The Directors

Dr. Serena Gaia

Writer, activist, scholar, filmmaker, cultural theorist, and professor of humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio believes that “a world where it is safe to love is a world where it is safe to live.” Anderlini-D’Onofrio is the author, editor and co-editor of the books Women and Bisexuality: A Global Perspective (2003), Plural Loves: Designs for Bi and Poly Living (2005), Eros: A Journey of Multiple Loves (2006), a memoir and a 2007 Lambda finalist, Bisexuality and Queer Theory (2010), with Jonathan Alexander, and BiTopia (2011). She is also the author of The ‘Weak’ Subject: On Modernity, Eros, and Women’s Playwriting (1998), a study of modern drama and women’s authorship.

Anderlini-D’Onofrio has spoken about polyamory on Italian public television, and she gave the keynote address at the 2007 Loving More and World Polyamory Association conferences.

More recently, Anderlini-D’Onofrio has adopted the sacred name of Dr. Serena Gaia. She has been at the helm of the ecosexual movement, with various keynotes and the book Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love (2015), the first collection on this topic edited with Lindsay Hagamen. She has learned that “love is the ecology of life.” She is at work on new titles, including a study of Italian cinema from an ecosexual perspective, and a series of dialogs of the ecology of love. She is the convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium. News and project updates are available at www.serenagaia.org, also www.ecosexbook.com

Links:
Amazon.com Author’s page: https://www.amazon.com/Serena-Anderlini-DOnofrio/e/B001JS1VKA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1477282388&sr=8-2
Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/serena.anderlini
Academia.edu Profile https://uprm.academia.edu/SerenaAnderlini
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Serena_Anderlini
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serena-anderlini-8962038?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

Shaison P. Ouseph

Shaison P. Ouseph is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, editor, and cameraman, with credits ranging from director of photography to art director on many documentaries and independent feature projects.  His public service campaigns promoting literacy, the empowerment of women, and against child exploitation have won him many national and international accolades.  Esteemed organizations such as the United National, the International Labour Organization, the US Embassy, have bestowed him with awards and certificates for his work on social issues.  His work as a director has been well recognized and appreciated.

Jimmy Garcia

Jimmy Garcia is a video-maker and a student at UPRM.  He is working on several videos and is the founder of SecondTake Media.

Director Statement

Dr. Serena Gaia:  “We did Playa Azul I Love You to practice #EcosexualLove. We came together to marry the partner we all share, the Earth, and become “spice” for one of her beautiful ecosystems, Playa Azul. We learned to consider each other “metamours.” And we model the world where ‘it is safe to live because it is safe to love.’  I am especially grateful to all those who initiated, believed in, participated, and contributed to completing this project.”

Playa Azul I Love You will be screened at the Symposium Practices of Ecosexuality and Sex-Positive Education, February 3, 2017, at UPRM.

The film has been uploaded as a project in Film Freeway will be submitted to appropriate Film Festivals.  It will be distributed by CreateSpace and Amazon.com

Contact us if you’d like to screen the film or ask for more information.

Thank you!

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

 

“Immigrant”: Sharing Stories and Images of Special Surveillance and Personal Dilemmas

People are sharing their immigration pictures and stories and so here are mine.
 
Yes, I am an immigrant and one who chose California as a place where I felt I would be more respected as a single mom at the time who wanted to access a professional line of work.
 

I was raising my daughter in Rome, Italy, and rent was more expensive than anything i could earn in one month. UC Riverside offered me a teaching assistantship and admitted me to their graduate program. I got a student visa that way. My daughter Paola Coda joined me the second year and stayed until the end of my doctorate. At that point I had a big dilemma. Would I go back or stay? The answer came when Vanderbilt University in Nashville offered me a job as Assistant Professor, and processed a green-card for me. The job was discontinued a few years later, but the green-card stayed. That’s when I moved back to California to be an activist in the LGBT community and practice holistic health. I came to Puerto Rico about 20 years ago to resume my academic career. All these decisions were very difficult to make at the time, and involved many inner conflicts and painful choices.

 

Some of these are narrated in my memoir, Eros: A Journey of Multiple Loves. Where I explain that because my father was an independent senator elected in the PCI, I was always afraid that the FBI would at some point catch up with me. When I finally got my green-card it was a big relief. That’s when I felt I could really be myself. A few years later an anti-immigrant proposition passed in California. Like many others, I woke up and applied for citizenship so I could vote next time around. And I have ever since.

 
When I hear about the allegations that 3 million undocumented people would have voted, my mind jars. Being a “legal alien” is hard enough. One constantly feels like on a watch list. On special surveillance. One can only imagine what being undocumented can be like. Why would anyone in that situation want to even get near a voting booth? Just to get arrested and deported? It’s like offering one’s wrists for the handcuffs. Who could ever believe these allegations? The fact that they are even made is evidence that so many people are totally unaware of what the immigration system is like. Of how complicated it is to even go from a temporary visa to a permanent one, if you come in as a “legal alien” to begin with. If you cross without papers, it’s even much more difficult to be recognized. And often people who do so are desperate, with no place to return. How could they possibly risk the little niche they found to try and cast a vote that isn’t even likely to have any effect? It’s just baffling that anybody could believe that an en-masse action like that could ever be orchestrated.
 

There is more that I want to say. In Italy people also talk a lot about the influx of “foreigners.” They call those from poor countries “extracomunitari/e” which alludes to them being from outside the EU. They are afraid of them, and avoid them. There is a difference though. In Italy there really isn’t an immigration system, as in, say, ICE or the former INS. They way people become “documented” is by waiting enough years as undocumented, until an amnesty comes, at which point their years as “clandestini/e” count. So one would think that there the act of voting without the right to do so could be interpreted as an act of civic presence, as in, say, I’m here, see, I want to perform my responsibilities as a citizen.

 
In the US any act of brushing against the law, even civil disobedience, as in, say, a march or a demonstration, is a risk when you are not a citizen. It’s a risk even when you are documented on a temporary visa or a green-card. Imagine if all those people who live in constant fear, in this pall of special surveillance, would ever dream of committing voter fraud.
 
I really feel for those people who are in fact deprived of their right to vote, and are now also accused of having had an effect on the election, or at least on public opinion about it, they could not possibly have had. I remember, as the child of an honest political family, that I felt very invisible during the period when I was not in a position to vote. That was hard enough. And I understand how infuriating it can now be to feel accused of a fraud one could not possibly have been part of.
 
And all this just because a woman won the popular vote!  Hard to believe.
 
Here I’m sharing some pictures from the years of the big dilemmas.  Lol.  Speaking as if they were ever resolved.
What really brought peace is the practice of #EcosexualLove.  May the partner we all share protect us.
Love and blessings.

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

Practices of Ecosexuality and Sex-Positive Education: A Symposium, Feb 2-3, 2017

Dear Earthlings–
 
Warm greetings from Puerto Rico.
 
Can #EcosexualLove help to #resist multiple assaults on the Earth and its all its people?
Does allowing nature to inspire the arts of love help to create #consent and #unity, as we negotiate ways to share the partner we all share and need?
 
The Symposium #PracticesOfEcosexuality addresses these questions and many more. Presentations, workshops, panels, poetry, cinema are free of charge and open to the public. Share about and join this unique event not to be missed. We look forward to welcoming you!
 
Dates: Feb 2-3. Practices of Ecosexuality and Sex-Positive Education: A Symposium.
Feb 2 – Time: 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM.
Feb 3 – Time: 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM.
Where: UPRM (Colegio), Salon Tarzan (Anexo a la Cafeteria).
 
Free of charge and open to the public.
 
Check the Program-at-a-Glance below and click on the link for the complete Program. Enjoy.
 
Description: This symposium is designed to educate participants about the role of ecosexuality in helping humans to reconnect our metabolism to the partner we all share: the Earth, and design unscripted amorous lives that appreciate the beauty and health of natural surroundings. The symposium also focuses on the skills people use in communicating their desires to others, in negotiating partnership that all participants enjoy, and in agreeing upon practices of love that are totally consensual and appreciated by all parties.
 
Over 20 guest speakers, presenters, facilitators are donating their time and expertise. Guests are coming from far away locations including the ancient Mediterranean island of Malta, Montreal, Canada, and Portland, Oregon, and from numerous locations in Puerto Rico, including the Area Metro and the Area Oeste.
 
They are activists, students, professionals, teachers, practitioners, poets, professors, artists, and much more.
 
Bring your own water and favorite foods for the day.
 
View and download the complete Program here
 
 View and download the Program-at-a-Glance here
 
Join us.  We look forward to welcoming you.
Love and blessings.

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

Caribbean Season of Ecosexual Love: West PR Symposium and Wedding – Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRACTICAS DE ECOSEXUALIDAD y la EDUCACION al SEXO-POSITIVO: SIMPOSIO 2

KEYNOTE: INTRODUCING ECOSEXUALITY and SEX-POSITIVE EDUCATION

                    A 4-WAY PANEL on the ARTS of ECOSEXUAL LOVE

Feb 2, 10:30 AM SALON TARZAN, UPRM–COLEGIO

PANELISTS:  KAREN HERY, LINDA RODRIGUEZ, DR. SERENA GAIA, SAFFIRE BOUCHELLION

A FIRST for the AREA OESTE and UPRM:  CARIBBEAN SEASON of #ECOSEXUALLOVE

January 16, 2017
Contact: serena.anderlini@gmail. com, Tel 787 538 1680
Dear Earthlings–

 

This season of Caribbean balms we offer a beautiful calendar of events of #EcosexualLove.  We welcome all interested parties.  There is no charge.  Why?  We want to seed the Area Oeste with the inspiring energies of #EcosexualLove.  Join us!

Event # 1:

Dates: Feb 2-3.  Practices of Ecosexuality and Sex-Positive Education: A Symposium.  Time: 10 AM to 6:30 PM.  Where: UPRM (Colegio), Salon Tarzan (Anexo a la Cafeteria).  Free of charge and open to the public.

Description: This symposium is designed to educate participants about the role of ecosexuality in helping humans to reconnect our metabolism to the partner we all share: the Earth, and design unscripted amorous lives that appreciate the beauty and health of natural surroundings.  The symposium also focuses on the skills people use in communicating their desires to others, in negotiating partnership that all participants enjoy, and in agreeing upon practices of love that are totally consensual and appreciated by all parties.

The events includes over 20 guest speakers, presenters, facilitators.  Guests are coming from far away locations including the ancient Mediterranean island of Malta, Montreal, Canada, and Portland, Oregon, and from numerous locations in Puerto Rico, including the Area Metro and the Area Oeste.
They are activists, students, professionals, teachers, practitioners, poets, professors, artists, and much more.

 

View and download the complete Program here.
View and download the Program-at-a-Glance here.

Event # 2:

Date: Feb 4.  Te Amo Playa Azul I Love You Three.  A Plural Wedding of Ecosexual Love.  Time: 10:30 AM – & PM.  Playa Azul, on the tip of Punta Arenas, Carr 102, Km 11.6, Joyuda, Cab Rojo.

Description: This Plural Wedding celebrates the natural ecosystems of Puerto Rico or any other Caribbean island for what they are: Loving partners in the fruition of people’s amorous lives.  The event is designed to support participants in making love the ecology of their lives.  The program consists of three workshops, designed to help participants to connect 1) with their own personal ecosystem, 2) with the partner we all share, the Earth, and her elements water, fire, air, earth,  and, 3) with those who share this partner with us.   In between we rise the energy of #EcosexualLove with oxytocin group hugs.  The event culminates in a simple ceremony at dusk when participants symbolically marry the beach, and become its “spice.”

Nota: Ambos eventos son bilingues y participativos.  Los y las participantes estan invitadxs a expresarse en su idioma de preferencia.

Contact for both events: Dr. Serena Gaia, email: serena.anderlini@gmail.com, also on Facebook as Serena Anderlini of Puerto Rico, on Google, and on Messenger and WhatsApp at + 1 787 538 1680.

Event # 1: Facebook Page

Event # 2: Facebook Page
Share the news with your friends and beloveds.  It’s always good to experience something new with company you enjoy.
Send it as a Press Release to papers you like.
Let us know if there are any questions we can answer.
Thank you!
Enjoy the Caribbean breezes this early 2017.
Blessings and abundant #EcosexualLove.

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, PR 00681-9264 (USA)
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium at UPRM
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

Inspiring #EcosexualLove for this Solstice Season: Special Offer 2-in-1

Dear Earth Lovers-

We wish you a season of #EcosexualLove as we co-create together a path toward an #EcosexualZeitgeist.

We have entered the time of year in temperate climates when Life retreats underground, into the dark fecundity of Lover Earth, to rest, restore and renew itself for the season of growth and change to come. As we synchronize our personal metabolism to that of Lover Earth, we too are drawn inward into a space of reflection and creative incubation.

This coming year is going to ask that we show up with a Gentle Fierceness, ever more embodying the ecosexual love that knows Nature as both Lover and Self, that practices consent as a way to undermine coercion, that understands pleasure is a path towards peace.

To support this time of rest and renewal, of drinking in nourishing visions and allowing them to strengthen and inspire your creative soul, we are offering both Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love AND  Gaia and the New Politics of Love for $20.

To take advantage of this special offer available through January 6th and share ecosexual love with your friends, family, or beloved self, follow these steps:

Go to Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love on Create Space

  1. Click Add to Cart
  2. Enter Discount Code: SYXYS5CE (towards bottom of page)
  3. Go to Gaia and the New Politics of Love on Create Space
  4. Click Add to Cart
  5. Enter Discount Code: M94EYNJR (towards bottom of page)
  6. Complete Check Out

Enjoy giving these inspiring gifts to yourselves and your loved ones.

Enjoy the inspiration they bring to people’s lives when they transform fear into courage to invent together the new #EcosexualZeitgeist.

Imagine the partner we all share revive in this new zeitgeist and bless us with her ecosexual beauty, love, joy, and abundance.

Support those intent on that path with the inspiring gifts of #Ecosexuality and #Gaia.

Thank you!

Blessings and enduring #EcosexualLove.

Dr. SerenaGaia and Lindsay Hagemen

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, PR 00681-9264 (USA)
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium at UPRM
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

Your Experience in Humanities 3112-Hybrid: Humanities and Love

Evaluation Survey Humanities 3112 – Hybrid Fall 2016

The Survey: “Your Experience in Humanities 3112-Hybrid”

šThis anonymous Survey was called “Your Experience in Humanities 3112-Hybrid.”

šThe study measures the quality of the educational experience in the Hybrid Sections of the course Humanities 3112, with thematic organization: Humanities and Love.

šThe Survey assesses the quality of interdependent and integrated elements in the distance and presential  modules of the course which constitute the Hybrid modality.

šThe Survey integrates elements of the experiential segment of the COE (Cuestionario de Opinion Estudiantil), of the “best-practices” empirically formulated by CREAD, and of the Objectives of the Course, as described in the syllabus.

šThe Survey: Characteristics

The course is an integrated study of the Humanities from 1500 to the present.

šRespondents are from the first three sections of the course taught in a Hybrid modality in the Fall of 2016.

šThe Survey was taken anonymously by participating students.

šIt was open on the Canvas LMS portal from November 10 to the 22.

šParticipation was 78.5 {a9d64f7890d157e71e6efcce19e215a5f853c7f4151cde0b7bf7aada464173f6}, with 55 students responding over a total of 70 currently in the course.

šThe Survey has 40 questions, with the results of each reported below.  In-Progress results speak of an overwhelmingly positive experience.  For details skip to penultimate slide.

The Survey is available at this link.

šIn-Progress Results

Event from a first glance to the percentages obtained in the top two options in each questions (Excellent and Very Good), it appears that the Hybrid course was an overwhelmingly positive experience for a vast majority of enrolled students.

šMore specific insights into the “best practices” that work well in this course and other similar courses may be inferred from a more specific analytical observation and discussion of the results in each question and cluster of related questions.

Thank you!

Questions, comments, observations?

 

EVALUATION OF CURRICULAR SEQUENCE IN ITALIAN

Evaluations of academic programs are a lot of work and they require much patience.

The Curricular Sequence in Italian is a program I love and of which I am very proud to be part.  It is coming up for evaluation as we speak.

The original version only included three of the four teaching faculty.  A few days ago I realized that I, the fourth one, had been left out.  I didn’t take it personally.  I simply proceeded to complete the job.

The Sequence includes one of my favorite courses: Italian Cinema.  My contribution to the Sequence includes the results of my one year of advanced study in Italian cinema and what that brings to the students of the SCI and others at our university.

The complete evaluation integrates the teaching of cinema as a path for students to discover one of the 20th century arts for which Italy is best known and appreciated around the world.  This I believe makes the program stronger and more viable.

The version also includes the goal of having more that one faculty teach the course in Italian cinema.

All of these are available.

Enjoy the evaluations and think about all the time it really takes to prepare them.
Thank you!

 

Drumming Toward an Ecosexual Zeitgeist

Dear Earthlings-

We know you’re stressed out around this thing that has happened and that is the unnameable of our time.

We at #Ecosexuality encourage you to look at the wider horizon.  We asked ourselves:  What kind of transformations may this bring about, what new zeitgeist is emanating out of us, together?

Here we share our answer:

Toward and Ecosexual Zeitgeist: Transforming Fear into Courage

Diversity is the nature of being.

All nature, human and non human, is an aggregate of interconnected ecosystems.

Difference and repetition are the fractals that mirror the world of life where symbiosis drives evolution.

Respecting those different from us is a way to get to know ourselves more deeply, more fully.

It is done by practicing open mindedness and good listening.  It leads to a wider and deeper truth.

A way to embrace diversity in all its enchantment, beauty, resilience, joy, sustainability, collaborativeness is to practice ecosexual love:

What is #EcosexualLove?  The love that reaches beyond genders, and race, and ages, and origins, and species, and biological realms, to embrace all of life as a partner with important and enduring rights.

ecosex-frontcover-revised2Now that the illusion of “American exceptionalism” is shattered is the time to act.

There are a million ways to practice #EcosexualLove.  Find yours in #Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love.

 Here we offer a special one: “Transformation,” by Saffire Bouchellion, where he evokes the divine magic of the sea in Yemaya.

Transform fear into courage through Yemaya.  This divine force so long denied is resurging.

She is the liquid element of Gaia.    screen-shot-2016-10-09-at-5-51-11-pm

We urge you to get inspired and energized!

Contribute to Practices of Ecosexuality and Sex-Positive Education.

Call open till November 30.  pes2017-studentsbottom4-copy

Blessings and enduring ecosexual love.

Dr. SerenaGaia and Lindsay Hagemen

drserenagaia

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