May 16 & 19: Points-Based Course Design Workshop

Support Student Growth One Point at a Time: Course Design for Flexibility and Choice!

Providing students with choice in how they accumulate and demonstrate knowledge, skills, and points throughout the semester can help increase motivation, interest, and connection to the material. It is a student-centered practice that is supported by principles from Universal Design, inclusive pedagogy, and motivation research. It provides structured flexibility giving students time to interact with the material at the pace they need.

This two-session workshop will provide guidance and work time to update or design a course you are teaching next year, including getting started with a Canvas site. It will consist of two 3-hour working sessions. You will be working on your ideas throughout the sessions, but the last 30-45 minutes will be dedicated to working directly on your course. By the end of the workshop, you should have a lot of your course ready to launch!

What to bring:

• Syllabus if you have one, or course overview and objectives
• A computer
• An open mind ready to rethink the structure of your course 

This session will be offered on Wednesday, May 16th and Monday, May 19th, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the CFDE (Woodruff Library suite 216), facilitated by Liesl Wuest (director of learning design & technology). For more information, please visit this webpage.   

Two Emory College Professors Named Guggenheim Fellows 

The John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Foundation has named Emory College professors Aubrey Kelly and Dianne Stewart as 2025 Guggenheim Fellows. Kelly and Stewart are two of the 198 distinguished individuals across 53 disciplines in the class of 2025 selected for their history of career achievement and exceptional promise.

Kelly and Stewart will each receive a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under, according to the Guggenheim Foundation, “the freest possible conditions.”

Kelly is an associate professor of psychology in Emory College who joined the faculty in August 2018. In her research, she studies how the brain allows animals to be social, from fish to birds to rodents. Currently in her lab, she and her trainees are studying spiny mice to understand what makes animals behave prosocially with strangers and form bonds with peers, as well as how the brain influences group dynamics. The Kelly Lab uses an interdisciplinary approach, combining techniques from behavioral ecology, neuroendocrinology, developmental neurobiology, molecular biology and genetics. This research gives a window into the primitive origins of modern human behaviors.

Stewart is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies in Emory College. Her research and teaching focus on African heritage religious cultures in the Caribbean and the Americas, including the practices of African-descended people in the Anglophone Caribbean and the U.S., the impact of African civilizations upon religion in the African diaspora, and womanist approaches to religion and society. To that end, she is the author of three published books focusing on Afro-Jamaican ancestral religions, Black love and partnership, and Yoruba-Orisa adherents’ struggle for religious freedom in Trinidad.

Family Stories That Were Never Told 

This research began . . . at the Emory Center for the Study of Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) . . . for the study of American families . . . to look at what was happening to the American family. We were an interdisciplinary group, there were historians and anthropologists and sociologists and theologians, everybody coming together to ask, for us, the question of what was happening to the American family as culture changes. In 2000, we were starting to see lots of families doing lots of things. . . . Families were spending less and less time with each other, not eating with each other, maybe eating near each other. . . . Things were pulling us apart. So we were charged with identifying centripetal forces. . .: what forces are there that pull us closer together?        

So, we got a group of families together, and we were going to interview them in the summer of 2001. We did interview them. . . . We had all kinds of data. [And then], 9/11 happened to all of us. . . . We just stopped. Everybody went into their houses, and stayed there. And then people began coming out of their houses at different rates. . . .We became interested in the differences in the ability to bounce back after 9/11. . . . And we did a number of studies, for a number of years, trying to answer a question which arose because of an observation made by my wife. [She] noticed that some kids know an awful lot about the history of their family, know about their family stories. They know where their parents met and all kinds of things. They seem to have a sense of connectedness to their past. And, she said, [she] also noticed those are the kids who seem to be able to get better, to overcome, to rise above difficulties, social or academic.   

-- Marshall Duke (Psychology, Emory University), "Family Stories that Were Never Told; What Grandchildren of Survivors Know About What Happened to Their Grandparents During the Holocaust," Emory University Emeritus College Colloquium, March 31, 2025

Direct Digital Access to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Emory Libraries now provides institutional access to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) for current Emory staff, faculty, and students. For instructions on how to sign up and redeem this subscription, please see this guide. The subscription allows for access to both the web (including online-only content) and app versions of the paper, with archival coverage back to 2018. There are also multiple paths to access contemporary and historical AJC content (back to the first issue), which you can review via this guide.

André Patrão, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History

André Patrão is assistant professor of history and theory of the built environment in the Department of Art History in Emory College.

His research has primarily focused on significant moments of exchange between architects and philosophers from the early 20th century to today. Studying the contexts that enabled these interactions, the intellectual ruptures they triggered, the methodological processes that brought them about, and ultimately their effects upon both disciplines, his investigations have shown the consequential ways in which architecture and philosophy have shaped one another. His most recent work tackles contemporary issues of the built environment more broadly understood, within a framework that combines ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy.

Prior to joining Emory in Spring 2025, Patrão taught at ETH Zürich, Yale University and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He is part of the Editorial Board of Khōrein: Journal for Architecture and Philosophy, and a collaborator with the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture. His work has been published in academic journals and other outlets such as Architecture Philosophy, Architecture and Culture, ARENA Journal of Architectural Research, Drawing Matter, Lingua, Khōrein, and Log.

André is a member of the Portuguese Diaspora Council.

Monday, May 5                         

At 11:30 a.m. at the Luce Center and on Zoom, the Emeritus Lunch Colloquium presents Tonja Jacobi, professor of law and Sam Nunn Chair in Ethics and Professionalism, who will give a talk titled "Supreme Court oral arguments: Patterns, predictions, prejudices, & predilections." For more information, please visit this webpage.

At noon on Zoom, the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Living Room Conversation presents Women's History Month, a virtual panel of women sharing diverse practices of cultivating a community of cultural care. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At noon on Zoom, the Oliver Brand Memorial Lecture Series presents the 2025 ACME POCT Microsystems Awards. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At 1 p.m. at the Health Sciences Research Building II room N600, the Center for Childhood Infections and Vaccines Seminar presents Erin Scherer, assistant professor, division of infectious diseases, Emory medicine, who will give a talk titled "Elucidating how the HPV vaccine induces durable antibody responses." For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At 6 p.m. on Zoom, the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture Lecture presents Genta Tango, graduate student, University of Tokyo, anthropology, who will give a talk titled "Dissolving Self into Flow: Transformative Experiences in Vipassana Meditation." For more information, please visit this webpage.      

Tuesday, May 6                       

At 8 a.m. at the Rollins School of Public Health Auditorium, the Rollins School of Public Health presents the 11th Annual Health and Services Research Day Symposium. For more information and to register, please visit this webpage.

At 2 p.m. on Zoom, the Goizueta Alzheimer's Disease Research Center presents Emory BrainTalk Live, a weekly webinar of discussions led by expert faculty clinicians. For more information and to register, please visit this webpage. 

At 4 p.m. at the Emory Center for Ethics, the Healthcare Ethics Dialogue presents LaShaunda Reese, senior clinical ethicist of advocate health & adjunct faculty in religion at Morehouse College, who will give a talk titled "The Narrative of No: Agency in Patient/Surrogate Refusal." For more information, please visit this webpage.  

Wednesday, May 7

At 10:30 a.m. on Zoom, the Emory Video Production Team presents a drop-in where Emory faculty and staff can ask questions about online video, lighting, audio, equipment, storyboarding, flipped classroom projects, graphic design, visual aids, and other media-related needs. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At 11 a.m. at Summit Coffee, the Emory Pride Employee Network presents a Coffee Break. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At noon on Zoom, the Latinx Employee Resource Network presents Conversa & Aprende, a monthly session to chat and practice Spanish with Emory colleagues. For more information, please visit this webpage.   

At 1 p.m. at the Emory Center for Ethics, the Center for Ethics presents a seminar titled "AI, Ethics, and Humanity: Intersections, Reflections, and Future Plans." For more information, please visit this webpage.  

At 7 p.m. at the Emory School of Medicine room 120, the Stop Criminalization Of Our Patients presents a book release and signing event featuring Alec Karakatsanis, writer of Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News. For more information and to register, please visit this webpage.  

At 8 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts Emerson Concert Hall, the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra will present a concert. For more information, please visit this webpage.

Thursday, May 8

At 1 p.m. at the Emory Children's Center room 302, the Center for Cystic Fibrosis and Airways Disease Research Seminar Series presents Charles Esther, professor, pediatric pulmonary, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who will give a talk titled "Mucus, Microbes, and Inflammation: the Vicious Vortex in CF Airways Disease." For more information, please visit this webpage. 

Friday, May 9 

At 9:30 a.m. on Zoom, the Library & Information Technology Services presents a webinar intoducing Canvas's New Quizzes Tool. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At noon at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta presents Bach's Lunch, a concert featuring seasonally-themed music by Vivaldi, Barber, Piazzolla, Gershwin, and Amy Beach. For more information, please visit this webpage.  

At 1 p.m. on Zoom, the Intersecting Minds Neurohumanities & Consciousness Collective presents a Literary Neurodiversity Studies talk presented by Bradley Irish, associate professor, English, Arizona State University. To join the session, please visit this webpage. 

Saturday, May 10

At 10 a.m. at the Carlos Museum, the Carlos Museum presents Relaxed Morning, a chance for those who would appreciate a calmer visit to the museum. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

At 11 a.m. at the Avis G. Williams Library, the psychology department presents Arber Tasimi, assistant professor, psychology, Emory, who will give a talk titled "What Do Babies Know?" For more information, please visit this webpage.  

Sunday, May 11 

At 1:30 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts Emerson Concert Hall, the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta Emerson Series presents the Cherry Emerson Memorial Alumni Concert. For more information, please visit this webpage.

At 2 p.m. starting at the Carlos Museum rotunda, the Carlos Museum presents a Sunday Public Tour, a docent-led tour free with museum admission. For more information, please visit this webpage. 

Monday, May 12

At 8:30 a.m. at the main quadrangle, Emory University presents the Commencement Ceremony. For more information, please visit this webpage.

At 9 a.m. at the Children's Support Center and on Zoom, the Marcus Autism Center Spring Symposium presents Vivian Ibañez (University of Florida) who will give a talk titled "The Importance of Secondary Analyses During Behaviorial Feeding Treatment." For more information and to register, please visit this webpage. 

ThoughtWork: Emerging Knowledge and News in Emory's Intellectual Community

Monday, May 5, 2025, Volume 25, Issue 34

ThoughtWork is a publication of the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, which is supported by the Office of the Provost. This electronic newsletter list is moderated; replies are not automatically forwarded to the list of recipients. Please email aadam02@emory.edu with comments and calendar submissions. Calendar submissions are due 5:00pm the Wednesday before the week of the event. Dates and details of events on calendar are subject to change; please confirm with organizers before you attend.

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