Tag: I-cubed

Got Lots to Say? Do it in 3 Minutes

By Hailey de la Vara

Transcript Correspondent

hhdelava@owu.edu

In its fifth year, Ohio Wesleyan’s I-cubed lecture series drew a standing room only crowd last week just like it has in previous years.

Faculty presenters challenged the audience to think outside the box, while they stayed inside the three minutes each was allotted to teach their favorite subjects.

The Ideas, Insight and Imagination lectures this year featured students’ favorite nine professors who aimed to give insight on their expertise in their academic fields. The Benes rooms was packed.

One professor said after the presentation that it was the hardest thing she had every done.

The speakers this year included Mark Allison of English, Kira Bailey of psychology, Phokeng Dailey of communication, David Markwardt of zoology, Stephanie Merkel of comparative literature, Franchesca Nestor and Pamela Pyzza, both of politics and government, Tim Roden of music, and Chris Wolverton of microbiology and botany.

The nine speakers all aimed to give students a small insight of their own academic passions.

Senior Zhanna Caldwalder was most intrigued by Allison’s speech. “I loved Allison’s speech because I love reading, and I felt like I could relate to everything he was saying,” Caldwalder said.

Allison’s lecture, “Hitchhiking to Nowhere,” discussed how utopian societies paved a way for imagination in reading and life. Allison based his three minutes on the idea that nowhere has the best of everything.

“Utopia is the good place that is no place,” he said.

Other topics ranged from political communication to Mozart to plants growing on Mars.

Students gained new knowledge about a variety of topics.

Senior John Keller was intrigued by the variety of speakers admitting that last week’s program was the first he had attended since coming to OWU.

“I’m an English major, so I came to listen to my professor speak,” Keller said. “But after hearing all the speeches, I was very impressed by how much each professor knows and cares about their fields. It was very interesting to listen and be a part of this event at OWU.”

In the spring semester, the I-cubed lectures will feature student speakers.

Ideas, insight and imagination in three minutes

Photo courtesy of Olivia Lease.
Photo courtesy of Olivia Lease.

Sara Hollabaugh, Arts &Entertainment Editor

If lectures were only three minutes, would phones be checked or the internet surfed?

Ohio Wesleyan will hold a three-minute lecture series event on Feb. 3 called IÂł (I-cubed), which stands for ideas, insight and imagination.

At the event, 10 professors will give lectures for three minutes each.

The idea for I³ was developed by OWU’s communications office.

Will Kopp, chief communications officer, said there was a branding initiative to create a new event to market what OWU has to offer.

“We have the OWU Connection and [we were seeking] how to display that.”

Kopp added one-third of OWU students have double majors with interests across the academic spectrum.

“They are not always things that may seem to go together,” Kopp said. “It might be physics and art, but there’s a wide variety.”

The communications office considered student interests and what was most important about OWU in order to decide what really defines the campus.

Cubes hang in the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center to advertise the series. Photo courtesy of Sara Hollabaugh.
Cubes hang in the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center to advertise the series. Photo courtesy of Sara Hollabaugh.

The office decided it was great teaching.

Kopp said the event then came all together and they searched for 10 of the student’s favorite faculty members.

“We have several students working in the communications office and had them survey students,” Kopp said. “Narrowing down to just 10 was difficult, [but] every single professor said yes.”

“If we keep it the length of a pop song and really interesting, I think [people] will watch them all,” Kopp said. “[Three minutes] really makes you focus.”

Kopp added that each topic needs to be interesting because even though each lecture is three minutes, the whole series will last 30 minutes.

According to the event’s online description, the lectures “will exemplify the power of combining the traditional liberal arts with practical experience, which is the hallmark of the OWU Connection.”

“Each person has to walk out of there learning something,” Kopp said. “[The faculty] must teach the audience something new. This event is strictly ours, unique to OWU. I hope it could become a tradition here.”

Melanie Henderson, assistant professor of psychology, is giving her lecture on interviewing.

“The title of my presentation is ‘Interviewing 101: Who is That Chameleon in the Mirror?’” Henderson said. “I will present research findings on the topic of “mirroring,” a process relevant to the psychology of interviewing and the role of self-presentation in interview outcomes.”

“My objective is to provide students in the audience with a simple insight on the interviewing process and a strategy for applying this knowledge to future interview experiences,” Henderson said.

Jennifer Jolley, assistant professor of music, will be teaching a music lecture.

Jolley admitted that her lecture will be a challenge because the audience will need time to hear the music.

“In other creative fields, time is not fixed (the amount of time it takes to look at a piece of art or read a short story varies),” Jolley said. “But in my field, you cannot speed-listen to a piece of music.”

“My lecture will have to include ridiculously short excerpts of music, but hopefully that will inspire my audience to listen to the featured works when the event is over,” Jolley added.

Other professors selected to participate in the lectures are Sally Livingston, Jenny Holland, Bob Harmon, David Eastman, Paul Dean, Laurie Anderson, Zack Long and Goran Skosples.

For more information, visit here.