Symposium II: Bridging Knowledge and Practice

Описание: The second symposium explores the bridging of knowledge and practice as a hallmark of a distinctive liberal arts education. Award-winning teacher-scholars discuss their boundary-spanning work and its public impact, whether in Hartford, nationally, or globally.

Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies
A leading urbanist, historian, and cultural critic, Baldwin is founding director of Trinity’s acclaimed Smart Cities Research Lab; he also directs the American Studies Program. His publications include In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities, which has been featured by universities and organizations around the world. Baldwin frequently provides expert commentary in media outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, and Time magazine. He also has received major grants and fellowships, including being named a 2022 Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians.

Shafqat Hussain, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian Studies
Hussain is an anthropologist who is trained in social and political ecology. His most recent book is The Snow Leopard and the Goat: Politics of Conservation in Western Himalayas. He also is the founder of Project Snow Leopard, a highly successful nonprofit initiative that has received funding from the United Nations Development Programme and was featured by CNN in a 2022 video. For his pathbreaking community-based conservancy work to promote human-wildlife coexistence, he has won both the National Geographic Society’s Emerging Explorer Award and the Rolex Award for Enterprise.

Michelle Kovarik, Dr. Henry A. DePhillips, Jr. Professor of Chemistry
Kovarik conducts laboratory-based research in chemistry and is passionate about applications that cross the boundaries of chemistry, biology, and engineering. Parallel to this, she works in developing best practices for the teaching of chemistry. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation and a Cottrell Scholar Award. She also was recognized with a Centennial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from Iota Sigma Pi, the national honor society for women in chemistry. Currently chairing the Chemistry Department and co-directing Trinity’s Center for Teaching and Learning, Kovarik has received the Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence and the Dean Arthur H. Hughes Award for Teaching Achievement at Trinity.

Kevin McMahon, John R. Reitemeyer Professor of Political Science
McMahon is a prolific, award-winning writer. His most recent book, A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide between the Justices and the People was selected as a 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. It is the third book in his acclaimed trilogy from the University of Chicago Press. The Supreme Court Historical Society awarded McMahon the Erwin N. Griswold Book Prize for Nixon’s Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences and invited him to deliver a lecture in the courtroom of the Supreme Court. His book, Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown, won the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award. McMahon was also a Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Montreal and was awarded Trinity’s Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence.

Moderator: Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, Professor of History
Regan-Lefebvre is a historian of modern Britain, Ireland, and British imperialism and chair of the History Department. Her publications include Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World, which won the André Simon Award. She also is co-editing the six- volume Bloomsbury Cultural History of Wine. Regan-Lefebvre is president of the Northeast Conference on British Studies and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She was named to the Future 50 initiative of the global wine industry by Wine & Spirits Education Trust and International Wine & Spirit Competition, and she holds a WSET Level 3 wine certification. She has received both the Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence and the Dean Arthur H. Hughes Award for Teaching Achievement at Trinity.