Global Academic
Selamat ulang tahun! On this 25th of June, as she celebrates her birthday in Semarang and I start my day here in Rochester, I think of all that inspires me about and connects me to the beautiful soul that is Puji Astuti. Her Radiance Her Family Values Puji brings a sense of adventure and commitment…
A literate celebration of this influential Javanese woman, educator, feminist, advocate, reader/writer Today, April 21, is Kartini Day – Selamat Hari Kartini 🇲🇨 – a day when Indonesians celebrate the influence that a young Javanese woman, daughter of a regent, had on women’s rights and education. Because her legacy has been used by different Indonesian…
As we enter mid-April, and I’m ending my 4th week of sheltering in place in Central Florida to avoid contracting or carrying COVID-19, I keep seeing examples of how lessons I learned in Indonesia are applicable for navigating these challenging times. So, I thought I’d use the next couple of blog posts to explore some…
During my time in graduate school at Arizona State University, I learned something very important about myself that has been critical in my success as an academic on the tenure-track and beyond. I am a social writer. No mistaking it. Having to write my comprehensive exam papers on my own nearly ended my academic career…
It’s been a month since I landed back in the U.S.A. at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, smack in the midst of one of that city’s famous winter freezes, as temperatures plunged to near 0 degrees Fahrenheit. At the time, the novel coronavirus was plaguing China, and news was starting to report some spread beyond that country’s…
Feeling Good about Our Fulbright Host Engagement Project I write this entry in a meeting room at one of my favorite resort getaways in the Semarang region, Melva Balemong, during what is one of the final writing sessions of this second week of writing camp – what I have come to affectionately call “Writing Camp…
Well, not really, but the surveys have all been entered Just today, the fabulous Master’s student who has been helping us with our research, Anjar, let me know that he’d finished entering all of the survey responses into our data management system. 618 That’s how many survey responses we have! I’m thrilled. Now the sense-making…
A goal of the Fulbright grant is to foster connections, and that’s certainly been a highlight of my 5 months here. And, some of my most memorable Indonesian connections originate back in the U.S. and through the University of Rochester. I’ve written elsewhere about how this grant period included an opportunity for Puji and I…
Here in Indonesia, where the overall population is reportedly about 87% Muslim (according to the CIA World Factbook page on Indonesia, which matches our findings with the secondary students who responded to our survey), I have had the opportunity to see — and hear — Islamic prayer rituals and to learn more about Muslims’ values…
In the last month, Puji and I, with the help of Anjar (a super-helpful student pursuing his Master’s in English Education at UNNES), have collected more than 500 survey responses from secondary students in the area. We’re learning a great deal from them about when and how they access technology, for what purposes, where they…