Performing Pedagogies and Exploring Embodied Knowledge as Curatorial Investigation

Performing Pedagogies was a week-long performance and exhibition series I organized that took place in Kingston, Ontario between March 15th - March 20th 2016. The motivation for this project came from a desire to explore performative modes of experiencing critical, embodied knowledge. The series featured five performances, a long distance collaboration between thirty-one Queen’s undergraduate students and a Vancouver artist-run free school (The School for Eventual Vacancy), a subsequent exhibition, a panel discussion, and a radical performance pedagogy workshop led by co-artistic director of the international performance art troupe, La Pocha Nostra. Artists featured included Golboo Amani, Basil AlZeri, Caitlin Chaisson, Justin Langlois, Saul Garcia-Lopez, Francisco-Fernando Granados, and Andrew Rabyniuk. By curating examples of performance art that variously incorporated embodied pedagogical interventions, I examined the processes of performance as pedagogy. Performing Pedagogies explored interventions into contemporary contours of neoliberal education paradigms through embodied encounters—fostering conversations about the meanings and limitations of knowledge dissemination and education today and posing questions about possibilities for radical pedagogies, embodied knowledge, and counter curricula.

Special Education and the Risk of Becoming Less Educated in Germany and the United States. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.1, 13 December, 2004

Over the twentieth century, a growing group of students has been transferred into considerably expanded special education systems. These programs serve children with diagnosed impairments and disabilities and students with a variety of learning difficulties. Children and youth “with special educational needs” constitute a heterogeneous group with social, ethnic, linguistic, and physical disadvantages. An increasingly large percentage of those students at risk of leaving school without credentials participate in special education, a highly legitimated low status (and stigmatizing) school form. While most countries commit themselves to school integration or inclusive education to replace segregated schools and separate classes, cross-national and regional comparisons of special education’s diverse student bodies show considerable disparities in their (1) rates of classification, (2) provided learning opportunities, and (3) educational attainments. Analyzing special education demographics and organizational structures indicates which children and youth are most likely to grow up less educated and how educational systems distribute educational success and failure. Findings from a German-American comparison show that which students bear the greatest risk of becoming less educated depends largely on definitions of “special educational needs” and the institutionalization of special education systems.

Identification of cyclins A1, E1 and vimentin as downstream targets of heme oxygenase-1 in vascular endothelial growth factor-mediated angiogenesis

Angiogenesis is an essential physiological process and an important factor in disease pathogenesis. However, its exploitation as a clinical target has achieved limited success and novel molecular targets are required. Although heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) acts downstream of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) to modulate angiogenesis, knowledge of the mechanisms involved remains limited. We set out identify novel HO-1 targets involved in angiogenesis. HO-1 depletion attenuated VEGF-induced human endothelial cell (EC) proliferation and tube formation. The latter response suggested a role for HO-1 in EC migration, and indeed HO-1 siRNA negatively affected directional migration of EC towards VEGF; a phenotype reversed by HO-1 over-expression. EC from Hmox1(-/-) mice behaved similarly. Microarray analysis of HO-1-depleted and control EC exposed to VEGF identified cyclins A1 and E1 as HO-1 targets. Migrating HO-1-deficient EC showed increased p27, reduced cyclin A1 and attenuated cyclin-dependent kinase 2 activity. In vivo, cyclin A1 siRNA inhibited VEGF-driven angiogenesis, a response reversed by Ad-HO-1. Proteomics identified structural protein vimentin as an additional VEGF-HO-1 target. HO-1 depletion inhibited VEGF-induced calpain activity and vimentin cleavage, while vimentin silencing attenuated HO-1-driven proliferation. Thus, vimentin and cyclins A1 and E1 represent VEGF-activated HO-1-dependent targets important for VEGF-driven angiogenesis.

Maternal separation followed by isolation-housing differentially affects prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response in C57BL/6 mice

Exposure to chronic stress is associated with an increased incidence of neuropsychiatric dysfunction. The current study evaluated two competing hypotheses, the cumulative stress and the match/mismatch hypothesis of neuropsychiatric dysfunction, using two paradigms relating to exposure to “stress”: pre-weaning maternal separation and post-weaning isolation-housing. C57BL/6 offspring were reared under four conditions: typical animal facility rearing (AFR, control), early handling (EH, daily 15 min separation from dam), maternal separation (MS, daily 4 hr separation from dam), and maternal and peer separation (MPS, daily 4 hr separation from dam and from littermates). After weaning, mice were either housed socially (2–3/cage) or in isolation (1/cage) and then tested for prepulse inhibition in adulthood. Isolation-housed MPS subjects displayed greater deficits in prepulse inhibition relative to socially-housed MPS subjects while socially-housed AFR subjects displayed greater deficits in prepulse inhibition relative to isolation-housed AFR subjects. The results indicate that these treatment conditions represent a potentially valuable model for evaluating the match/mismatch hypothesis in regards to neuropsychiatric dysfunction.

Maps (pdf) and raster images (tif) of predicted rural land cover suitability under current (2010) conditions and future climate scenarios

This study projects land cover probabilities under climate change for corn (maize), soybeans, spring and winter wheat, winter wheat-soybean double cropping, cotton, grassland and forest across 16 central U.S. states at a high spatial resolution, while also taking into account the influence of soil characteristics and topography. The scenarios span three oceanic-atmospheric global circulation models, three Representative Concentration Pathways, and three time periods (2040, 2070, 2100). As climate change intensifies, the suitable area for all six crops display large northward shifts. Total suitable area for spring wheat, followed by corn and soybeans, diminish. Suitable area for winter wheat and for winter wheat-soybean double-cropping expand northward, while cotton suitability migrates to new, more northerly, locations. Suitability for forest intensifies in the south while yielding to crops in the north; grassland intensifies in the western Great Plains as crop suitability diminishes. To maintain current broad geographic patterns of land use, large changes in the thermal response of crops such as corn would be required. A transition from corn-soybean to winter wheat-soybean doubling cropping is an alternative adaptation.

1990 University of Michigan Football Team

1991 University of Michigan Football Team

1998 University of Michigan Football Team

1999 University of Michigan Football Team

1996 Ice Hockey Team, UM Ice Hockey, posed with trophies.

Front Row (L-R): Asst. Coach Billy Powers, Marty Turco, Blake Sloan, John Arnold, Kevin Hilton, Head Coach Red Berenson, Steve Halko, Mark Sakala, Brendan Morrison, Gregg Malicke, Asst. Coach Mel Pearson

Second Row (L-R): Student Manager, Jason Botterill, Chris Frescolin, Warren Luhning, Peter Bourke, John Madden, Harold Schock, Bobby Hayes, Mike Legg, Chris Fox, Bill Muckalt, Matt Herr, Student Manager

Third Row (L-R): Student Manager, Trainer Rick Bancroft, Student Manager, Sean Ritchlin, Bubba Berenzweig, Justin Clark, Greg Crozier, Craig Assenmacher, Greg Daddario, Equip. Mngr. Ian Hume, Student Manager, Video Coordinator Josh Richelew.

1994 University of Michigan Men's Golf Team

Back Row: Trent Isgrig, Bill Lyle, Justin Hicks, Kyle Dobbs, Michael Lyons, Michael Hill, Geordie Earle, Carl Condon

Front Row: assistant coach Ed Klum, Brent Idalski, Adam Anderson, Bob Henighan, Chris Brockway, David Jasper, coach Jim Carras

1995 University of Michigan Men's Golf Team

Back Row: coach Jim Carras, Keith Hinton, Brent Idalski, Adam Anderson, Chris Brockway, assistant coach Ed Klum

Front Row: David Jasper, Justin Hicks, Bill Lyle, Michael Hill, Kyle Dobbs

1997 University of Michigan Men's Golf Team

back Row: Brent Idalski, David Jasper, Adam Anderson, Keith Hinton, Mike Reabe, head coach Jim Carras

Front Row: Justin Hicks, Kyle Dobbs, Mike Emanuel, Michael Harris, Isaac Hinkle

1977 University of Michigan Men's Golf Team

Back Row: Keith Hinton, Justin Hicks, Brent Idalksi, David Jasper, Isaac Hinkle

Front Row: Kyle Dobbs, Adam Anderson

1995 Men's Gymnastics Team

Back Row: Justin Semion, Tim Lauring, Jin Bin Im

Middle Row: head coach Bob Darden, Evan Feldman, Paul Bischoff, Chris Onuska, Jason MacDonald, Bob Young, Flavio Martins, Kris Klinger, trainer Jamie Blake, Jason Taft, asst. coach Mike Milidonis

Front Row: Cory Huttenga, Brian Winkler, Raul Molina, Rich Dopp