Browsing by Author "Wheeler, Rachel"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 22
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    Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Goff, Philip; Farnsley II, Arthur E.; Wheeler, Rachel; Thuesen, Peter J.
    The NEH Summer Institute for Teachers will support the studies of twenty-five talented teachers from across the nation as they join with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. The institute directors, Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Rachel Wheeler, are all noted scholars in their field, whose work encompasses a wide range of subject matter and methodologies. The institute will enable participants from many different fields to develop new materials on American religion that can be incorporated into their current curricula. An English teacher introducing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, will be better prepared to discuss the nexus of religion and race in the context of nineteenth-century America. A civics teacher focusing on the origins of the American government will be able to incorporate discussion about the religion of the founders and the ways in which the First Amendment has shaped American society. The prime goal of The Bible in American Life project is to gain insight for clergy and scholars on Bible-reading as a religious practice. We are particularly interested in how people use the Bible in their personal lives, how religious communities and even the internet shape individuals’ comprehension of scripture, and how individual and communal understandings of scripture influence American public life. Employing both quantitative methods (the General Social Survey and a local survey) and qualitative research (focus-group interviews, historical analysis, and other means), we hope to provide an unprecedented perspective on the Bible’s role outside the context of worship, in the lived religion of a broad cross-section of Americans both now and in the past. Such data will be invaluable to clergy and seminar professors seeking more effective ways to teach and preach scripture in an age saturated with information and technology. The results of the project also will help scholars seeking to understand recent changes in American Christianity.
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    Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture NEH Summer Institute for Teachers July 12-30, 2010
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2010-04-09) Goff, Philip; Farnsley II, Arthur E.; Wheeler, Rachel
    This institute will support the studies of twenty-five talented teachers from across the nation as they join with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. The institute directors, Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Rachel Wheeler, are all noted scholars in their field, whose work encompasses a wide range of subject matter and methodologies. The institute will enable participants from many different fields to develop new materials on American religion that can be incorporated into their current curricula. An English teacher introducing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, will be better prepared to discuss the nexus of religion and race in the context of nineteenth-century America. A civics teacher focusing on the origins of the American government will be able to incorporate discussion about the religion of the founders and the ways in which the First Amendment has shaped American society.
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    Charlottesville, Exodus, and the Politics of Nostalgia
    (2017-08-22) Wheeler, Rachel
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    Course of Life: A Transformative Design Inquiry into the Modern Academic CV
    (2023-08) Ganci, Aaron M.; Wheeler, Rachel; Dombrowski, Lynn; Hong, Youngbok; Haberski, Raymond J.
    This project addresses the growing issue of burnout among U.S. higher education faculty. An inquiry into the causes of faculty burnout points to weaknesses within the American higher education system that have been exacerbated by a network of external and internal pressures. From the outside, institutions are being pressured to act more like corporations and embrace neoliberal values. At the same time, the societal pressure to democratize American institutions by asking them to become inclusive in their policies and practices is felt acutely in academia. These aims—productivity and inclusive democratization– are often in tension in academia, with overseeing bodies like trustees and legislatures prizing measurable, economic productivity, and faculty and administrative bodies prioritizing gender and racial inclusivity. There is one place where all these pressures play out: the academic CV. The CV is an ideal lens through which to examine these dynamics as it struggles to link faculty, administrators, universities, and funding agencies, in their attempt to convey both neoliberal and inclusive values. Many stakeholders trying to construct different narratives leads to an inherent tension and leaves no one satisfied. To make matters worse, the growing use of digital analytic software in place of traditional CVs has led to an imbalance, with neoliberal success indicators overshadowing inclusive ones. This disparity negatively impacts faculty wellbeing, especially faculty in underrepresented demographics, as their sense of personal achievement is diminished under these criteria and raises the question: how might the CV evolve to balance the needs of all of its stakeholders? Doing so may ease some of the tension within academic life and enhance faculty wellbeing. This study employs a transformative research design to explore whether the CV can be reformed to rebalance the tensions within academia. The mixed-method qualitative study draws on interviews and participatory co-design activities, and a constructive design process to explore divergent ways the CV might evolve to benefit faculty more. After evaluating the designs through transformative criteria, new insights are developed about the nature of modern academic work and spheres of action that can lead to faculty wellbeing.
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    COVID CV: A System for Creating Holistic Academic CVs during a Global Pandemic
    (IEEE, 2021-05) Raja, Umesh; Chowdhury, Nahida Sultana; Raje, Rajeev R.; Wheeler, Rachel; Williams, Jane; Ganci, Aaron; Computer and Information Science, School of Science
    The effects of the Covid pandemic have been, similar to the population at-large, unequal on academicians - some groups have been more susceptible than others. Traditional CVs are inadequate to highlight these imbalances. CovidCV is a framework for academicians that allows them to document their life in a holistic way during the pandemic. It creates a color-coded CV from the user's data entries documenting the work and home life and categorizing corresponding events as good or bad. It, thus, provides a visual representation of an academician's life during the current pandemic. The user can mark any event as major or minor indicating the impact of the event on their life. The CovidCV prototypical system is developed using a three tier architecture. The first tier, the front-end, is a user interface layer that is a web application. This prototype has a back-end layer consisting of two tiers which are responsible for handling the business logic and the data management respectively. The CovidCV system design is described in this paper. A preliminary experimentation with the prototype highlights the usefulness of CovidCV.
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    Daniel Boone and Joshua, the Mohican: American Lives and American Myths
    (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021-11) Wheeler, Rachel; Religious Studies, School of Liberal Arts
    This article compares the life and legend of Daniel Boone (1734–1820) with that of his obscure contemporary, Joshua (1742–1806), a Mohican man whose life unfolded along a remarkably parallel, yet dramatically different course. Both men were born in the East, and moved steadily westward during their lifetimes, on roughly parallel routes. Both men were adept in Native and White ways. Yet Boone died of old age, while Joshua went to a fiery death as an accused witch at the hands of Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet. Boone became a legend during his own lifetime, while Joshua has remained consigned to a few footnotes. This article asks what narratives of America are possible with Joshua's story at the fore.
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    Early American Music and the Construction of Race
    (University of California Press, 2021-12) Barnes, Rhae L.; Goodman, Glenda; Gordon, Bonnie; Ryan, Maria; Bailey, Candace; Garcia, David F.; Ramsey, Guthrie P., Jr.; Marshall, Caitlin; Eyerly, Sarah; Wheeler, Rachel; Religious Studies, School of Liberal Arts
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    Intersectional Solidarities: A Design Approach to Building Collective Power in Racialized Organizations
    (2024-05) Carey, Nicole C.; Schall, Carly; Shasanmi, Amy; Edmonds, Joseph Tucker; Wheeler, Rachel
    This dissertation explores the development of a novel framework for fostering intersectional solidarities within racialized organizations, aimed at enhancing anti-racism efforts and building cross-racial coalitions. Drawing on Critical Participatory Design and grounded in real-world experiences, the Doing Intersectionality framework is presented as a practical tool for practitioners navigating the complexities of racialized organizations. It presents the importance of addressing power dynamics, belief in marginalized stories, the creation of inclusive norms, disruption of harmful narratives, implementation of transformative change, and the importance of continuous healing. Theoretical underpinnings from scholars like Gloria Anzaldúa, Patricia Hill Collins, and Audre Lorde informed the framework, emphasizing the role of consciousness, healing, and coalition-building in dismantling dominant narratives and fostering new realities in solidarity. The discussion also navigated the lived experiences of Black and/or Latinx professionals in Indianapolis, highlighting how their identity formation and relational dynamics inform cross-racial interactions and contribute to multiracial coalition-building efforts. Practical insights were shared, including challenges encountered during the design process, such as resistance to change and the emotional toll on professionals of color. The dialogue underscored the necessity of adopting an intersectional and relational lens in organizational practices to address complex social issues and promote equity and inclusivity. By integrating theoretical insights with actionable strategies, this research advocated for a new consciousness in organizational antiracism work, one that acknowledges the interconnected liberation of individuals across diverse social locations. This synthesis aims not only to contribute to the academic discourse on race, identity, and organizational behavior but also to offer tangible solutions for practitioners committed to fostering meaningful systemic change within their organizations.
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    The left needs its own story of American greatness
    (Washington Post, 2018-10-17) Wheeler, Rachel
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    Lessons from Stockbridge: Jonathan Edwards and the Stockbridge Indians
    (University Press of America, 2005) Wheeler, Rachel