Welcome!
Welcome to the companion website for A Guide to Teaching Effective Seminars: Conversation, Identity, and Power by Susan R. Fiksdal. This book provides college and university faculty with a new approach to thinking about their teaching and arms instructors with the necessary tools to manage successful seminars. By giving readers an appreciation of the discourse of seminars, the book helps to undermine stereotypes about language and people, increase civility, reduce misunderstandings, and foster tolerance for new ideas.
On this interactive website you will find a wealth of resources, including video clips of the transcripts in the book, related weblinks, further reading recommendations, and a glossary of terms and concepts.
Stranded in Seminar
By Dean Olson
In a crowded seminar
conversation often follows
channels well-traveled.
Thoughts unspoken
that could create a newness
are stranded in the shallows
like fish in a receding flood.
We fall silent,
turn and start away
to a place safe and quiet
in the margins of solitude,
that is,
unless conversation connects
hushed pools of relevance,
gates are held open,
thoughts alive and visceral
fill to the brim with hope,
become solid things
on tongues ripened to willingness
and the reward
will be in what we hear.
Olson, D. (2014). “Stranded in Seminar.” Off the Clock. McKinleyville, CA: Fithian Press. Reprinted with permission.
