Richard Gilman-Opalsky
12:57:40 PM
I can see you, but I cannot get my microphone working again.
Richard Gilman-Opalsky
01:00:36 PM
I am OK I think
Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? OK? It looks like it's it's looks I just like left and then I came back and it worked.
The whole unplug and plug back in things seemed to be.
Sure Hello everybody. My name is Richard Gilman Opolski an I'm a professor in the Political Science Department.
Play and I am a senior, so I agree I am double majoring in political science and global studies.
Yeah, um, my connection is very flimsy so it's it's coming and going and I don't know what's happening, but uhm.
Hoping that everybody could hear me. A hello and Good afternoon. My name Isabella tie I'm an assistant professor of political science.
And I'm the codirector of the Global Studies program.
Sure are, the are the students in the participating in this forum? Are they incoming new students?
OK, well thank you. I think that if you're interested in politics.
Um, studying political science is an obvious choice if you're interested in thinking about politics.
International politics American politics political theory ideas whatever having to do with politics. It's probably a good idea to explore political science.
If you are getting a terminal degree of Baccalaureate degree from UIS then the selection of a major is not some. It's not necessarily as significant and existential choice that it might seem. Too early stage students.
If you are getting a Baccalaureate from DUI S you're going to leave, presumably with a degree from the University of Illinois and the major selection is it's probably best determined by which.
Program of study in bodies and reflects your passionate interest as a human being.
Um, so so so, So what would you do if you left the University with a political science? There's a number of things you can do.
I'm in assistant professor in political science, and I teach classes in Paula, CDA program also.
One of the most obvious things that our students do is they continue to study political science, so they if they're really interested in the discipline if they're really interested in the study of politics. They can continue to study politics in graduate programs and Masters or PhD programs. But that is the only thing that you can do in many of our students are interested in working in politics. The political science Department requires 4 degree credit all undergraduate students.
To do a political internship are online students can do that where they live are on campus. Students often do that in the state capital of Illinois, Springfield where we're located.
Many of our students parlay those internships into postgraduate jobs. I was speaking to a student on Thursday, uh, last week. Who is working on a political campaign in the Chicago area and he was invited after completing his internship to stay on for full time work with the campaign.
And that's what he wants to do. So we do have a lot of students who get.
Who get into a lobbying they get into working for different organizations. Political organizations through the program directly with the internship experience. Other than that, political science. Actually, when you look at non political or non academic pathways after University is really good for a number of other things.
Non academic career paths. For example, students were interested in any kind of public affairs, working for non governmental organizations. I, NGOs international nongovernmental organizations in the nonprofit sector.
Having some formal study in politics will make you a stand out in an applicant pool. So in a pool of applicants, so there's a quite a range of things you can do. Of course, all the other things that you can do with a degree from the University of Illinois.
Thank you so much Richard. Would you like to share a little bit about the public policy program magic?
Andrew Nicol
01:09:05 PM
If you have questions, you can ask them here and we can answer them in chat and answer them live.
That's awesome, thank you so much for sharing that that like the pipeline that you mentioned. That's one of the things that I think make our programs here, especially within our college like so special is we have those connections. And those were really good examples that you share. No students who you know we connected with those.
So that was your hunger control. Your connection working OK. Do you want to share about global studies for us?
I I hope it's working OK now. Uhm, I think it's a little bit better now on and and I hope it is the same and everybody can hear me. So to recap, my name is developed I I'm an assistant professor of political science and I'm the codirector of the Global Studies program. In case it wasn't heard before, so.
Many of the things I'll say will basically repeat Watt, doctor Wade, and doctor Gilman apparel ski have said partly because we're all House Under the same Department and a lot. There's a lot of give and take across these three different degree programs, but I should note that political Sciences at disciplined. So if you if you get a BA in political science, putting a very sort of classic disciplinary education in the field of political science. If you're getting your.
Hoping for our planning to get a public policy degree.
Then the assumption at this I have is that you're more interested in local politics, federal politics, American politics, and so more. And the domestic political arena. If you're more interested in a sort of an international relations global politics, focus and a more interdisciplinary take, not just necessarily about political science, but also about how international issues and.
Come and global concerns interact with sociology with anthropology with history with economics as well as political science than than Global Studies is really the degree for you. One. There are two things that we really are proud of in global studies. One is that this an interdisciplinary degree where students take not just core political science courses such as introduction to international relations, an introduction to comparative politics, but also take a number of.
Four courses from other departments including sociology, communication, economics and history, as well as geography and partly from environmental studies and so that's one of our points of pride. The other one is that we really allow students to make the degree of their own by tailoring their elected in such a way that they can make an end up.
Do you wanna think their own concentration so it could be a politics and diplomacy concentration? If you're more interested in foreign affairs and International Security.
Want to, let's say go down the route of, let's say think tanks in foreign affairs or State Department or other federal agencies that are interested in international work? Or you can do a world history on cultures concentration. Or you can develop your own, let's say regional concentrations. In the past, students have developed European politics, concentration, Latin American politics, concert concentration and so on and so forth. So the degree program is structured an out to give you a good.
Foundation, an interdisciplinary foundation, but also flexible enough so that you can do what you want to do with it, and so an obviously myself and my other Co director, Doctor Crocker who is on sabbatical this semester, which is one of the reasons why she isn't with us today. But we obviously are there with you all along the way to help you structure your curriculum to talk about your degree objectives.
And what you want to do post graduation?
Great, thank you so much. So I want to switch gears a little bit and I kick it over to our students and here a little bit from you guys.
The things that we've touched on a lot of the connections that we have, so I'd love to hear from both of you. Some like if you want to share your plans for your degree, you know what you hope to do with it in any like out of the box experiences you know your internship.
Kind of cool outside of the box, not necessarily classroom learning that you guys have had so.
Would either of you guys like to start of?-?
For me, definitely my internship has you know definitely taught me a ton and helps me kinda pick what I want to do with the rest of my life, which I'm still not 100% sure on. But uhm, like they've talked about, you do have to have an internship without your program and is actually pretty easy to find and pretty easy to get all of the details sorted out. And so I actually last year I got the internship.
At the Communications Department for the Illinois Senate, so we do a lot of event things, those kind of things. So that greatly helped me kind of realize. Like I don't know what I wanted to do and I realized I did like that. So I'm actually going to grad school at uas next year. But I'm majoring or getting my Masters in intercultural communication, so I kinda did direct me kind of lead me in that kind of thing, but I've learned so much there and it's so cool being in the capital. I think that's why you IS has such a awesome.
Location being right next to the capital, like 15 minutes away. It's very cool to show up there and like everyone call I'm walking through and be like oh that's the governor or whatever it is just called to see that kind of thing for sure.
Awesome, thank you so much Anna.
And so when we when we have registration for this webinar, we had a couple of questions come in from students when they signed up, and one of those questions this one might be most directed toward you. Sabelle, 'cause I know a lot of your students are interested in this, but she had some questions about study abroad and wanted to hear about that.
Yes, of course. So obviously we value study abroad a lot and we have so many of our students who have gone on to do study abroad. So we have one student who's hoping planning to do a study abroad in the near future. I don't know if that's going to be possible in this current crisis that were in, but up until this very semester we've had to do it. It's gone on to master different parts of the world.
Including Chile, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, I believe Northern Ireland, Uhm?
And now and I I want to say a couple others, but but we've.
Yeah, I am so, so we've we've had a lot of students going not going to come.
Study abroad and and we have a really good international office on campus that we cooperate with in order to find.
Order to schedule how students sort of when students should go in terms of fulfilling their courses and how long they will go for, and so on and so forth. So when it comes to study abroad, working very close on cooperation with international office.
Who really do the the bulk of the work in helping us coordinate which locations these students are going to go to and how long they're going to stay there? One of the other things that that the study abroad is really useful is that if students take.
Courses in a foreign language that actually helps some count those language horses or the courses that they take in that host countries native language to be counted towards the language requirement for the Global Studies program. And so it's not just about taking courses when you go onto, let's say, live in Valencia, Spain for a semester, but it is also about really making that cultural immersion.
You know, take place and.
Trenton Newberry
01:21:22 PM
I am here! I would be happy to answer any questions anyone has as well!
And also the language immersion through taking courses in the native language of the of the host country so.
Mardo Panumpabi
01:21:33 PM
One question that I have is, what would be the class material? what I mean by this is say if you are pursuing a political science degree, what would the classes be like?
Like I said, if they have if anybody watching us right now. If you have any specific questions and I'd be very happy to answer them over email, but this is sort of.
Elise Blinn
01:21:38 PM
I cannot hear Cody
Web and R version of of what we have in your ***.
Um, thank you so much. Chevelle, uhm, we have a question. Um, almost actually kind of goes with the next question. I was going to ask to our faculty members.
Mardo was asking what classes might be like an actually, which leads right? And what I was just about to ask you guys. Do you guys have a favorite class within your major to teach?
Class that you think is really engaging. Interesting, um, with those guys, faculty members like to share with us about those.
I don't mind, yeah I well I I can quickly.
I'll be, I'll be quick. I mean I think I I think you know, for undergraduate students you have a core set of classes to take that you have to take in the major. But for the electives you should let your passions you're passionate interest decide what you sign up for and.
Our faculty in the Political Science Department, which includes doctors, octopi, and Wade are all extremely were excellent.
We're all really good. We have a we have a very you know comparatively top rated.
Teaching faculty in our program. So you're going to get a good class if you take. If you're interested in the subject, you'll get good classes with good teachers.
But my one of my favorite classes to teach is my ideologies course. Which teaching this summer and I teach usually once or twice a year, because it's kind of a run through a whole series of ideological traditions and histories, conservatism, Liberalism, Feminism, Marxism, Anarchism. It's a whole bunch of isms and students come to that class from all the different majors across campus. Because it's a general education course.
Trenton Newberry
01:24:04 PM
Elise, are you using Chrome? I was using Firefox and also could not hear everyone, but I am now on Chrome and can hear everyone loud and clear!
And they bring with them a whole lot of different perspectives, and they usually have their own ideological perspectives that they bring with them into the classroom. So my conservative students are always shocked to read who are the classical Conservatives in my liberal students are so upset that they find the conservative philosophers convincing and everybody gets really confused when they find Karl Marx convincing. And what will they do and what will they tell their parents?
At Christmas time, so I love teaching that class because it's a real wild ride full of provocation one after another, and it's full of excitement. I also love teaching Upper Division thematic courses in political theory and philosophy because are 400 level courses that undergraduate students take, and I welcome students who are new to the program who are interested in the themes of those courses. To sign up for them 'cause they don't have prerequisites and were able to really in those classes.
Elise Blinn
01:25:25 PM
How does the Capital Scholars Honors Program Political Science degree differ from the regular Political Science degree?
Feed students appetites for close study of subject areas in the discipline that appeal to them. and I love that I love that we have students who want to sign up for a class with me on postmodern theory. If you're in that class, it's be cause you find it interesting. You don't have to be there, so it's extremely exciting for me to have a classroom full of students who are really interested in the subject matter in those classes so.
There's so many I could add and talk about others as well, but those are two.
Alright, so building would you like to share now?
Sure, so my favorite course is international politics of the Middle East, and although I'm not a Middle Eastern scholar, meaning I don't do research on Middle East politics person, I do some work on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But this is not what I do as it was a core of my research agenda. But that course is so engaging and there's obviously only talk about that, that it's always a blast when whenever I teach it.
Online or on the ground, uhm?
I'm going to teach it in all of next semester of next year in 2020.
And I'm I'm excited. I'm kind of scared because I haven't updated that course in awhile. The last time I thought it was about I don't know. Two years ago an obviously everything changes in the Middle East. You know every day and so.
But that's that's the beauty of it, because I get to update that course, um, so much every time before I teach it every time. And it's I mean, there's it just shows you how there are layers and layers of conflict and cooperation. And it's not just a sort of a black-and-white region. There's so much greys and there, so there are so many different perspectives from which we can see why countries behave the way they do in that part of the world.
Andrew Nicol
01:27:12 PM
@Elise, The degrees themselves are not different for Honors and non-honors students, but the general education curriculum has the greatest differences.
Elise Blinn
01:27:25 PM
Yes! I am using Chrome and can hear everyone except Kody.
To give you a sort of a snapshot of what we do, we go all the way back to World War One and we look at the formative period of the Middle East. That's the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and how that Middle Eastern State system as we know it came about in the in the beginning. In the first two decades of 1900. And then we talk about regional cooperation. We talk about political Islam. We talk about pen, air, abysm. We talk.
About Cold War Post Cold War US foreign policy in the region year convenience foreign policy in the region In addition to a whole host of perpetual an on going.
Issues, right? Like the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the Organization of Iran, transnational networks, terrorism and statelessness such as the Kurds as well as the Syrian civil war. So throughout that but 15 week period we talk about all of these issues both from domestic political perspective but most importantly through an international relations perspective. And there's always.
Amazing, the base happening in class either online or on ground. Uhm, and there's there's always room to make it relevant to what's happening as we speak, and so that's that's my favorite course. That DWI S?
Awesome, thank you so much and then doctor way. Would you like to share what your favorite classes just to teach?
Brenna York
01:29:05 PM
How hard is the course load to manage? How does undergrad compare to grad? I want to go to grad school in political science after I finish my degree.
I just want to eat a little cheesy for a second and talk about how fun it is to hear all of you professors like so passionate about what you teach.
Learning from people like that, learning way, more fun and exciting. So now I kind of want to throw it over to our students and just talk to you guys about some classes that you've really enjoyed. Maybe from some of these lovely folks who are with us today or some other professors within your majors.
Yeah, I honestly can say that I haven't taken any classes that I hated or anything. Even classes that I thought I wouldn't like as much have turned out to be like. I don't know. Very encouraging and very eye opening I guess. Like right now I'm taking empirical political analysis, which is probably the thing I would think I would hate the most, but it has been totally fine and it like you actually get to understand and you.
Andrew Nicol
01:32:29 PM
If you are having problems viewing or hearing a participant, this webcast will be recorded and you will be able to view later if you wanted to revisit one of our topics.
Side of the major, which is awesome, but my favorite class was international ends and I think much of that is because that's my favorite section in political science in general. I just love that topic. I love learning about how different nations in countries like cooperate or don't cooperate or whatever and just really enjoyed that. And to go back to the course work in like the load of all of that, it is doable. They don't make it to where you just are hating your life and studying all night, but it is going to be harder than high school until you have to come in.
Thinking that and prepared to do it so there is a lot of reading and it's harder than what you're probably used to, but it's still doable and the professors are always there to help like I have had class with every single one of these awesome professors, every recording it hasn't haven't ever been like discouraged and sad by anything so.
Elise Blinn
01:33:55 PM
Thanks as I cannot hear the students talking.
Hannah Baity
01:33:57 PM
I can't hear what's being said
Brenna York
01:33:58 PM
Are political science courses more essay-heavy than test-heavy?
Andrew Nicol
01:35:02 PM
@Brenna, I think each class is different when it comes to tests and essays. Some will have more tests than others and some will be only essays. It just depends on the teacher.
Brenna York
01:35:59 PM
Thanks, Andrew! I assumed and am fine with both. :)
Will I Study Ice? I studying right about political theory in Philosophy and I've noticed a pattern for Maine, which is whenever I read something that I can't understand at all. And I'm totally perplexed and angry with my effort to understand it. That usually I've learned means that I'll eventually write a book about it or an article about it. I'm drawn to things that I find difficult or challenging.
I don't know why and I wouldn't recommend it but but but it's just a pattern that's developed over the years, so as a political theorist I'm interested in thinking about the the meaning of big ideas or concepts that are we often take for granted that we think we know what they mean. For example, words like democracy, people talk about that as if it has anything to do with elections, which of course it hasn't. For most of human history had anything to do with elections.
And so I like to. I like to go into the concepts and unpack what they mean and where are the history of words and ideas. and I do that in various ways. In my own projects very specifically, I am interested in thinking from the ground. So what people are actually doing in the world, social movements of political upheavals, uprisings, my mind goes to those places in my body goes to those places.
And I travel usually whenever there is some kind of an upheaval. If I can get there, I try to so that I can learn what type of thinking is happening there and what we can learn from activities in the world that are not themselves texts. So some I've the general theme through all of my research is that some of the best ideas are not in books, so the most forward thinking ideas for the future.
Um are being worked out, not in words in pages, but in actions in the world undertaken by groups of people who are struggling to transform the world they live in. So I have studied early on the uprising in Mexico of this up at East as in 1994. And then I went on and went to a Baltimore recently and went to speak with people who participated in the Baltimore uprising of 2000.
To see if they can help me understand how to think better so I don't so much do analysis of a social movements and political upheaval as much as I try to understand the analysis that's already in those things. What is being said by black lives matter? What is being said in the Arab Spring? My most current project. I just finished a manuscript for is probably the one that scared me the most. I should have known I would write about it because when I thought about doing it, I wanted to hide under the bed.
And, uh, it's it's a book about love as a political concept, and political scientists and political theorists have run away from the concept of love because it doesn't seem hard enough. It seems to softer. Two vaporous it's emerged at various points and pull in political conversations. You know probably most of you are even familiar with the way that Martin Luther King Junior talked about love. Or maybe you've heard about James Baldwin.
Who talked about love and Socrates and Plato talked about love, but it's been abandoned by people who study politics as something unfit for political thinking. So I have just finished a book in which I'm trying to think about love as a political concept so that will come out later this year and I'm absolutely thrilled about it.
Spell, would you like to share?
Sure, so I studied foreign policy.
And my current project is it actually started back in around October, November when some of you might recall that the United States decided to pull out the troops in Syria and the immediate reaction in the US from both the left and the right of the political spectrum was that we were abandoning our Kurdish allies who were fighting isis in the North of Syria. But that rhetoric raised a lot of eyebrows in Turkey.
Uh, where I was born and raised where Turks, who have had this for decades long civil war against the Kurdish minority in Turkey, considered the Kurdish fighters in northern Syria as extensions of the terrorist group in Turkey, and so they consider them also to be terrorists. And when the USA adopted this rhetoric of allies, Turkey along time NATO ally, which also has the second largest army.
Inmate oh following the United States.
Reacted very in in strongest possible terms, saying, You know, this is this is actually offensive, that the United States considers Kurds allies and that Turkey is the real ally because they are both in NATO and so that I I wrote publicly about that conflict at the time. But I was also thinking more in terms of what this means for political science and international relations in terms of research. And so so the question that I was thinking about at the time was that was.
Who counts as allies, right? So basically what the United States considers an ally. the Kurds is a non state actor, right? It's to some. It's been. It's considered a terrorist group. But then when you look at IR research, decades of IR research, allies are always considered to be state actors, right states with borders with flags with standing armies and so on and so forth.
The The research puzzle there is that you know who are the lie is really depends on who you ask, right? And depends on whether they support your foreign policy objectives on the garage. For the United States have definitely been boarding US foreign policy goals in the ground by fighting Isis.
So, so there was a broader question there to be tested to be investigated. To do this I.
Touch base with some scholars at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Council on global affairs, one of the big foreign policy think tanks here in Chicago and an eye pitch them the idea I said. How about we reach out to foreign policy elites in Washington and feel this survey to them to congressional staff and other forms of the agency people.
And you know, round the survey about about how they think about allies and international politics, and they receive the idea very enthusiastically. We also applied for a grant at UIS, one of the competitive scholarly research grants, and we got it. And so, So what we're going to do later this summer is to field a survey experiment to foreign policy elites in Washington.
Um and ask some some sort of Prearranged prompt about about how they view allies, an particularly from that US Social Security perspective. So that's the current project. I'm working on an I already have an array of whose undergraduate, so I'm able to actually bring in undergraduate students to the project, which I'm very excited about.
Great thank you guys. See you all. I wanted our incoming students to just kind of get to hear a little bit more about your passions outside of teaching and the things that you're interested in, because you know, those things can really inspire your students who are going to be working with you so.
Brenna York
01:45:00 PM
Do the electives that are offered change every semester? Is there a large variety every semester?
Look at the Clock and since we have such a large group, I had one of the things that I really did want to ask of all of you to our students and our faculty members was just, you know, do you guys have any advice for our incoming students who are going to be our knew UIS students next year? You know those of you guys who are students? I know you guys have been through it, Anna, you're just about done and Cody, I know you finished your undergrad and they're working on grad school, so I would just start off with our students. I'd love to hear.
Wait, you guys? Um, you know might offer as advice to get the most out of their UI S experience and then will kick the same question over to our faculty members.
I can go OK, uhm, so my advice I guess would be definitely if you're undecided. Definitely pick something you're passionate about or else it's just gonna be miserable. So try to pick something that you could really talk all night about and not get bored and then go from there and see what falls into that category. And the great thing about all of these majors is they are interdisciplinary and so they include a lot like I love geography and I love history. And like all of these things come back today. I would also encourage people to try a bunch of things.
At like all these different organizations, there's a bunch of student organizations, and there's definitely some that everyone would like this, but I tried a whole bunch of different summarization saying got plugged in everywhere I did, student, government, and Christians who don't fellowship an international student sociation all these things, and I definitely recommend trying at all, but then realizing you don't want to spread yourself too thin, so work hard in your classes, but also have a fun time and try to get plugged in and as many places as you can.
Andrew Nicol
01:47:20 PM
@Brenna, The electives are the course that are required for the degree but not the "core" classes. That being said, the electives can really be wide variety of things. some majors require electives that are in the degree some require you to take classes in another degree program (like music or criminal justioce).
Alright, thank you so much to you guys. And Congrats on uh, your upcoming graduation, Anna an good luck with the rest of grad school Cody. How much do you have left?
OK, Alright well we're gonna miss you around here but I'm excited that you're almost at the end for you.
Alright, are professors. Would you guys like to share your thoughts?
Selena Garcia
01:48:26 PM
Since I put Political Science as my major will I dabble in some global studies?
Let me let me jump in here because I actually want to tell everybody that they my advice is to follow the advice of Anna and Cody.
Um wrote their senior thesis for their undergraduate degree in political science under my supervision. In the closing seminar, there honors students in the political science Department. Cody wrote an outstanding thesis that I'll never forget, and Anna's doing that, too, so will get will get the final version on Tuesday. No pressure.
But but so, so we have really outstanding students who do very interesting things and they do that by by following their passionate interests and taking seriously their coursework. So follow their advice. The only other thing I would add to that is that there are some very unique things about studying at UIS, and you need you should be aware of them so you don't take them for granted.
So I went to universities where the way that I would speak to my professor is that I would go outside of her door of her. The classroom that she was scheduled to teach in, and when she would show up 15 minutes late, which was the normal practice, I would make her 20 minutes late by forcing her talks before she could go, 'cause she would never have office hours. She was unavailable, and uas is not like that. You can talk to us easily.
We're responsive, were attentive. All of the faculty in the Department of the programs of political science, public policy, and global studies. You have faculty who you can reach and talk to and get some really good personalized attention.
Um, take advantage of that.
Andrew Nicol
01:50:33 PM
@Selena, You definitely can! That might be part of your electives but UIS allows for a lot of freedom to study what you want while still getting the degree you are pursuing.
And I don't think that it's everywhere, because if you do go on to grad school, you'll soon find out that's not the case. So we have. We have an opportunity to give you really good sort of individualized guidance. Or when you do, find out what you're specifically interested in studying, you can get really good support.
At UIS, so take advantage of that would be the only thing I would add to following Anna and Cody's advice.
Brenna York
01:52:42 PM
I am taking mostly online courses in the fall, as they have proven to be something I enjoy at my community college. However, how can one go about gaining more personal relationships with professors? That's something I have struggled with.
OK so II want to address the elephant in the room which is what's gonna happen next semester right.
We don't know if we are coming back to class in the fall and obviously it's on everybody's minds it's on your professors minds it's on your mind such a parents minds and so so there's there's a lot of uncertainty around that obviously but what I think makes you ISN our Department particularly unique is that we are.
We are extremely experienced in delivering courses in both hybrid an online environments and so whereas many of our peer institutions as well as other institutions right research schools other other liberal arts colleges not every institution was ready to move abruptly online in March right Anne I've heard several horror stories across the board wears.
Where professors are not easy to reach where courses have been transitioned but the you know but the.
But again, there are a lot of communication issues, and so on and so forth. This is not to bad mouth other institutions, obviously, but that the fact that we have been teaching online and doing a great job doing that for so many years makes us uniquely positioned in this crisis period and so.
I can't say for whatever reason, but if in the event that we cannot go on ground and we cannot start offering classes on ground in the fall, you can be very confident in knowing that your professors are as easy to reach on line as they have been on ground and our courses will be as high quality online as they have been on ground. This is, this is how we have been operating for years and we will continue to do that, so you should have no worries in that front.
If if kovid forces us to stay home for an extensive period of time.
Andrew Nicol
01:56:10 PM
@Brenna, that definitely can be a challenge. I think Professor Sibel is answering this now, in a way. Also, UIS is known for its availability to its students. So when not able to speak face to face, our professors and faculty are very responsive and all of us are here for your success. If you reach out, you will find someone to connect with!
Selena Garcia
01:56:15 PM
Awesome! Thank you Andrew
We had something very quickly to what doctor Wade said.
Other format use the other thing that you that happens a lot in online teaching in higher education is something you learn about in your political science undergraduate degree program. It's a word called outsourcing.
We don't do that. You IS. So if you go and you look at the political science faculty page, you'll see doctors weight in Oct I there as well. But all of us are the ones who teach your online courses. The courses are not outsourced to people who aren't required to do research. They aren't outsourced to people who aren't being reviewed for 10 years and promotion and what that should mean to you.
Is that if you take our online classes, you're getting the same education that you would get if you were taking them on campus, whether that's in the fall of 2020 or any other semester. And the faculty that deliver them are very active scholarly group amongst the most active scholars on our campus. So that's something that is really important. That one thing I would just say two is Brenna. Brenna asked a question in the.
Sidebar about making a connection with with your professors when you're taking online classes. The challenge there is you do have to go after that a little bit. It's not right in front of you as it might be if you're in a classroom, but it's not that far away either. So if you want to talk about a number of things, maybe instead of emailing back and forth if you're an online student, request a phone meeting.
Some of the students I have the closest working relationship with our online students, but it is true that that had to be cultivated and did take some additional initiative on the students part.
Thank you Anna and Cody Yeah.
I can get Jillian. I can hang out for another 5 minutes or so if student asked, have other questions.
Trends are very good student. Take his advice.
Andrew Nicol
02:01:28 PM
Thanks for your help today Trenton!!
I'll take it as an indication that we were just so thorough and effective.
Or that we were maybe a too boring. Now we won't go there.
I think he did a great job.
Mardo Panumpabi
02:02:17 PM
yes
Nina Feathergill
02:03:40 PM
Is there any study abroad in China
On the question that Nina just raised about study abroad in China.
There are opportunities to do that. Um, I spent the summer lecturing and China Chauncey, Normal University, and 2018.
Uh, in Xi'an and there are there a little bit more informal Nina, but there are a number of opportunities. There are some arrangements in relationships that uas has with several universities in China, including shangsi normal, so it it's possible.
Trenton Newberry
02:05:49 PM
I know that many of our courses are heavily focused on discussion and textual engagement. Our small class sizes make it really easy to have thoughtful, engaged discussions. It is great to come into college with an open mind, and you will be amazed by some of the insights of your peers. It is interesting, especially in the philosophical courses, to hear what other students take away from the material! It's all about perspective.
Thank you, thanks Gillian.