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New book on educational reform urges innovative, global approach
LAWRENCE — Traditional pathways of education are restrictive and resistant to reform, yet many possibilities to improve learning exist beyond the borders of the classroom and other traditional structures, according to a new book from a University of Kansas professor. Yong Zhao, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education & Human Sciences at KU, has written “Learners Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for All Students.”
KU Law ranks 16th for faculty scholarly impact among public law schools
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Law ranks 16th in the nation among public law schools and 40th overall for scholarly impact, according to a new study. The study measures scholarly impact based on law journal citations to the work of tenured faculty members over the past five years. Only law schools placing in the top third for scholarly impact are included in the published rankings. The rankings are widely considered to be a leading measure of faculty productivity within legal academia.
KU announces Jeff Chasen will oversee accessibility and inclusion initiatives
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has announced that Jeff Chasen will lead accessibility and inclusion efforts at KU. As assistant vice provost for employee growth, development, accessibility and inclusion, Chasen also will play a key role in defining the university’s strategy and approach to operational excellence as it relates to employee growth and efforts to create and maintain a positive relationship with employees.
Spatial analysis reveals new dimensions of ‘War and Peace’
LAWRENCE — Having studied and taught the works of the great Russian author for years, Ani Kokobobo knows Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy backward and forward. But a grant from the University of Kansas’ Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities afforded the associate professor a new, spatial perspective on “War and Peace” that has proven influential in her thinking about Tolstoy. It is the subject of an article in the journal Russian Literature titled “Using Digital Technologies to Uncover the Geographic Dimension of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace.’”
Full stories below.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
New book on educational reform urges innovative, global approach
LAWRENCE — Traditional pathways of education are restrictive and resistant to reform, yet many possibilities to improve learning exist beyond the borders of the classroom and other traditional structures, according to a new book from a University of Kansas professor.
Yong Zhao, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education & Human Sciences at KU, has written “Learners Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for All Students.” The book illustrates how, despite decades of reform, traditional boundaries of education — graduation, curriculum, classrooms and schools — remain in place. And though society has changed greatly in the past century-plus, education remains in the control of mindsets of the past. He argues for moving from that improvement mindset to a transformational agenda, to make students owners of their learning and that pandemic disruptions can help make learning global.
“If you are a student going to school today, there are several pathways you have to take. For example, grades. Very few students can say, ‘I don’t want to go to school for 12 years.’ The COVID-19 pandemic has kind of changed the way we look at schooling and made education more flexible,” Zhao said. “In this book, I argue you can learn without borders, students can find resources to learn on their own — they just don’t always have the opportunity to do so — and we can help students be global learners.”
Students in Nepal, a small, poor country in the Himalayas, provide a prime example of global learning. In the book’s introduction, Zhao shares the story of how Nepalese students have used massive open online courses, known as MOOCS, to learn English and take high-level STEM courses. They also learned to work independently and guide their own educations through resources and ideas from beyond their immediate environment.
MOOCs are not the answer for everyone’s educational challenges, just like any other educational strategy will not work for everyone. But, Zhao wrote, they do provide an example of how students can guide their own learning and how teachers can assist via technology in breaking out of traditional ruts. In the early chapters of “Learners Without Borders,” Zhao outlines the failure of educational reform models, how the world is changing and how those changes can provide hope for new educational models. He also addresses the borders of schooling and how the model of one educational approach for many is dysfunctional.
While the pandemic forced schools to shift to online education, many focused on learning loss and problems the shift presented. Zhao said it also presented a unique opportunity to transform how we approach education and showed schools should not drop their online models when returning to the traditional school building.
“Traditional schooling does not have to stay this way. Teachers don’t have to only teach, they can bring in resources and guide students in using technology or determining what they want to learn,” Zhao said. “School had problems before, so how can we go back to the same schools to solve the problems?”
The book examines how pressure is often placed on the wrong parts of education, such as letter grades and testing, and how today’s students’ relationship with technology puts them in a prime position to find their own resources for learning and to focus on often-overlooked skills like entrepreneurship. Zhao also outlines possibilities for rethinking, breaking out of and changing the school pathway, and developing new paths personalized for the interests and skills of each student.
Throughout the book, Zhao shares examples of schools, teachers and students who have successfully broken out of the traditional paths of grades, curriculum and learning within four walls at a certain time of day. The intent is not to provide a blueprint, per se, but to show that such change is possible and to inspire others to consider their own ideas.
“I want to reach teachers, parents and students and any educators who are willing to try something new,” Zhao said. “I encourage people to ask kids, ‘What would you like to do and learn?’ Anything can lead to math and reading. Just don’t force it. Work with every child and respect them.”
Zhao, who also has written about how the pandemic presents an opportunity as well as a trap to fall into old habits in education argues that instead of trying to fill in the “learning gap” caused by the pandemic, educators should view it as an opportunity. Instead of implementing new assessments to gauge math and reading, which would be expensive and ineffective, schools would do better to examine what went right in virtual learning during the pandemic and consider how that could be adapted for the future.
Examples of learning environments from around the world, such as those in Nepal, are included throughout “Learners Without Borders,” as are resources for creating school environments that expand opportunities and provide personalized learning approaches. However, the book’s main argument is not to show people how to change but to show them it is possible and encourage them to find their own ways to make it happen.
“I give examples showing you could do this, but you also need to think of your own possibilities,” Zhao said. “I’m trying to take a stand and say, ‘This is possible, but you have to have courage to do it.’ I want to inspire people to think the impossible. I don’t want to improve; I want to transform.”
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Contact: Margaret Hair, School of Law, 785-864-9205, [email protected], @kulawschool
KU Law ranks 16th for faculty scholarly impact among public law schools
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Law ranks 16th in the nation among public law schools and 40th overall for scholarly impact, according to a new study.
The study measures scholarly impact based on law journal citations to the work of tenured faculty members over the past five years. Only law schools placing in the top third for scholarly impact are included in the published rankings. The rankings are widely considered to be a leading measure of faculty productivity within legal academia.
KU Law climbed eight spots in the 2021 rankings, tying for 40th overall. The study, conducted by a team of academics, is updated every three years. This is the third consecutive report where KU Law has moved up, ranking 48th in 2018 and 64th in 2015.
In hitting this mark, KU Law beat out several peer law schools, including Iowa, Indiana-Bloomington, Wisconsin, Florida, Brigham Young, Missouri and Georgia. KU’s scholarly impact ranking exceeded the ranking of several law schools affiliated with fellow members of the Association of American Universities (AAU).
“As a unit within an AAU institution, scholarship is an expected and valued component of a faculty member’s responsibility,” said Stephen Mazza, dean and professor of law. “Active scholars also bring national attention to the institution and enrich the classroom experience for students by incorporating cutting-edge issues into class discussion.”
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Contact: David Day, Office of the Provost, 785-864-0236, [email protected], @KUProvost
KU announces Jeff Chasen will oversee accessibility and inclusion initiatives
LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has announced that Jeff Chasen will lead accessibility and inclusion efforts at KU. As assistant vice provost for employee growth, development, accessibility and inclusion, Chasen also will play a key role in defining the university’s strategy and approach to operational excellence as it relates to employee growth and efforts to create and maintain a positive relationship with employees.
“We had a key opening within Human Resource Management at KU, so we took the opportunity to reimagine and realign several areas to best support the university’s strategic priorities to increase workplace satisfaction and improve diversity, equity, belonging and inclusion. Jeff has the knowledge, experience and campus relationships to successfully champion those efforts,” said Mike Rounds, vice provost for human resources, public safety and operations.
The new position within Human Resource Management at KU replaces Catherine Johnson, who served as director of KU’s ADA Resource Center for Equity and Accessibility. Johnson was named executive director of Disability Rights Iowa in May. As the new leader of KU’s accessibility and inclusion initiatives, Chasen will work to grow community partnerships, oversee accommodation inquiries and provide training and events for campus and community participation. He also will focus on creating and maintaining a national presence for KU as a recognized thought-leader on accessibility, disability and inclusion.
Chasen also will oversee the employee relations and learning and development areas within Human Resource Management. He will lead efforts to elevate and sustain employee experience and engagement, with a focus on learning, development, growth and retention to reinforce KU’s brand as a preferred employer.
“After more than nine years collaborating across campus on behalf of our institutional integrity and compliance efforts, I am excited to focus on opportunities for growth, development and inclusion for the entire KU workforce,” Chasen said. “Faculty and staff are KU’s most valuable resource and, now more than ever, we need to value them in meaningful and measurable ways.”
Chasen has led the Office of Integrity and Compliance at KU since 2012. Prior to joining the university, Chasen was president of In2vate LLC, a risk management consultancy organization. He previously served as senior counsel for School, College, & University Underwriters Ltd., where he led a diverse risk management program for public educational institutions. Chasen also has worked as an employment attorney in private practice and as an adjunct university instructor of communications.
Chasen earned a juris doctor and bachelor’s degrees in communication and political science from George Washington University.
“This new position is an ideal capstone for my work throughout my career, and the responsibilities align with my personal priorities of helping create an engaging and compassionate university community. I look forward to serving all KU employees in support of our students and institutional priorities,” Chasen said.
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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
Spatial analysis reveals new dimensions of ‘War and Peace’
LAWRENCE — Having studied and taught the works of the great Russian author for years, Ani Kokobobo knows Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy backward and forward. She has published over a dozen articles on Tolstoy, just finished a book monograph on the author and was editor of The Tolstoy Studies Journal (2017-2020).
But a grant from the University of Kansas’ Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities afforded the associate professor and chair of KU’s Department of Slavic and Eurasian Languages & Literatures a new, spatial perspective on “War and Peace” that has proven influential in her thinking about Tolstoy. It is the subject of an article in the journal Russian Literature titled “Using Digital Technologies to Uncover the Geographic Dimension of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace.’”
At 1,200 pages and over 500 characters, “War and Peace” is a sprawling work that Kokobobo usually takes an entire semester to teach. In hopes of gaining new insight, she used the grant to fund a variety of digital approaches to the novel back in 2016.
Students completed individual projects with different types of software.
“One student worked to figure out the different social networks of the characters,” Kokobobo said. “Other students learned how to code in the R programming language and figured out … exactly how much French text there is in the novel. And despite what people sometimes say, it’s the equivalent of 2%, so not that much, even though readers find the use of French to be very intrusive in the novel. The intrusive presence of it is an artistic choice of placement for Tolstoy.”
For the collective class group project, the professor worked with students to map certain characters’ movements, using open-source StoryMapJS software. The journal article details the results of this spatial-mapping experiment, tracking the physical movements of several characters. As Kokobobo pointed out, mapping these movements digitally is an efficient way to visualize the novel’s great geographic mobility and rich spatial poetics. The novel has a historical focus and moves in time, but Kokobobo said that it tells a spatial story as well.
“The book is really expansive and textured,” Kokobobo said. “There are many battles. … not only in Russia, but in other parts of Europe, too, like Austria. Vienna is attacked by the French in 1805, as a precursor of the later burning of Moscow in the course of the 1812 Napoleonic Invasion of Russia.”
Kokobobo believed Tolstoy’s major initiative in the novel was to push back against Thomas Carlyle’s “great man” theory of history.
“‘War and Peace’ is a vicious caricature of Napoleon,” Kokobobo said. “He is just pathetic. You have Napoleon — this proverbial great mover of people, this great emperor — and for Tolstoy, he’s just a pitiful, tiny person. Tolstoy shows all of his physical frailties, which I think really intentional and interesting, but also shows him as deeply heartless. Men are dying in the battlefield, and he doesn’t care. He just thinks of the field as his chessboard, and Tolstoy’s whole point is that, no, actually this man has no control over what’s happening in the field. By the time he sends orders to the battlefield, things have already shifted. He is not in charge. The thing that really moves battles for Tolstoy are the people in it, fighting together, and fighting better when animated by a shared, greater purpose.”
In her spatial analysis, Kokobobo argues that Tolstoy is as uncomfortable with the prominence of central spaces as he is with the great leaders who preside over them. The project shows how the fictional characters’ trajectories overlap with Napoleon’s actual movements during his failed invasion of Russia.
“In his campaign, Napoleon is moved by centers, he wants to capture Moscow, mistakenly believing that if he takes possession of this one key national site, he will possess Russia,” she said.
As Tolstoy illustrated, however, Moscow means nothing on its own. Once abandoned by its people, it comes unmade – it burns down almost by accident. As a proverbial center of power, it dissolves, showing its centrality as illusionary as Napoleon’s own sense of himself as the center of the world.
In her article, Kokobobo followed three major characters – the typically Tolstoyan “seeker” and dichotomous insider/outsider Pierre Bezukhov and two female protagonists, Natasha Rostova and Marya Bolkonskaya. She also followed minor characters like Napoleon and St. Petersburg socialite Helene Bezukhova. Helene Bezukhova is the novel’s female counterpart to Napoleon, a sort of Helen of Troy, whose beauty prompts men to carry out duels. The spatial analysis reveals that, unlike the other two female characters, Helene Bezukhova is all about the centers of power and experiences practically no spiritual growth by being beholden to these spaces.
By contrast, Pierre Bezukhov, although at first trapped in Petersburg and Moscow, eventually experiences personal growth through centrifugal movement away from centers, at a local station in the middle of nowhere, or on a raft in the water at his best friend’s remote country estate.
“While scholars all know that Tolstoy sees battles as determined by ordinary people, the thing that I am trying to add through this spatial analysis is that human life is also determined by ordinary places and the kind of experiences that people have in those ordinary places,” Kokobobo said.
“Tolstoy himself wanted to spend most of his time at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, a village in present-day Tula. He worked the fields, forded rivers on horseback and often relegated writing to a second priority, after farmwork and the education of local peasants. Tolstoy hated going into society. His broader philosophical idea, and what we see through the spatial analysis of ‘War and Peace,’ is that urban centers like Petersburg or Moscow are so driven by social conventions that they inhibit spiritual growth. They stifle characters and force them into conventional social roles. Tolstoy’s major characters have to leave these spaces to have emotional epiphanies and spiritual growth.”
In fact, due to the French invasion, the author experiments at times with a world stripped of urban centers of meaning and power. Kokobobo points out that the spatial analysis she did also made its way into her new book on Tolstoy and gender identity. She learned that the movements in space that she tracked with her class, movements that would have been unusual for female characters, are profoundly freeing for Tolstoy’s female characters.
The KU researcher said “War and Peace” is a historical novel, but it is also a novel that speaks to us through its geographical dimension. Digital mapping technology helps us understand this other dimension.
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