Digication ePortfolio :: Spring Colloquium :: Keynote Speaker: Robert Boice

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DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Keynote Speaker:

Robert Boice, Ph. D

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Provost's Lecture, Friday, May 13, 4:00pm
Wang Center, Room 201, Stony Brook University

Professors and Imagination:
Mastering mental imagery to improve teaching/writing and reveal hidden genius

The current research and forthcoming book by Robert Boice focuses on building higher minds by way of learned skills of imagination. We’ve known since Darwin and Freud that where natural selection and its instincts ended, humans were then able to build higher minds by way of learned skills of imagination (Im). But we are remiss in so rarely educating our professors to think and feel in mental images that allow new potentials for self-control and success. Robert Boice has found through his research that exemplary professors more often think, teach, and write in mental images than in verbal ways. Over the past two decades, Boice has coached new faculty struggling as classroom teachers and others blocked as writers. Boice recounts, “teachers who endured my individual coaching sessions and visits to their classes each week for an academic year reliably improved in rated skills like a) briefer prep times (e.g. they needed only single page notes with diagrams and brief statements from which to teach optimally), b) more useful note taking by students coached to include shorthand drawings, and c) improved student comprehension compared to controls.” Writers unblocked when Boice coached them to prepare conceptual outlines as brief abstracts connected via symbols and sketches; all but one unblocked enough to earn tenure. The professors who learned a broader set of Im-skills (e.g., thinking in images) returned to neglected reading habits and scholarly interests. In the course of this retraining faculty came to the realization of what made them the professors they expected to be was thinking in novel ways about how to help our conflicted society improve.

Saturday, May 14, 10:30am
Colloquium General Session, Student Activities Center (SAC), Ballroom A

The New Faculty Experience: Building a successful academic career

Robert Boice will conduct a panel session with new faculty from Stony Brook . Looking back on the first few year's teaching and looking forward to the future, it's time to reflect and consider what it takes to build a successful academic career. Robert will lead them in a discussion on his rule-based practices for writing, increasing productivity, creativity, and publishability.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Brief Biography:

Robert Boice, Ph.D, tenured and emeritus professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, as well as world renowned author, is notable for his studies in faculty development and progress. Having received numerous awards in teaching, he also has published several books and more than 200 published articles. Some of his works include: Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing, Procrastination and Blocking, and Advice for New Faculty Members. Basing his work on both research and experience, his pieces are highly regarded for their practical use and worthy guidance for new faculty. Robert is currently making final revisions on his forthcoming book, tentatively titled Imagination and the Professor. The book is based on his current research on building higher minds by way of learned skills of imagination. His distinguished career has been dedicated to counseling new faculty on balancing their research work and classroom instruction. The focus of much of his work has been with helping faculty to overcome their writing problems so that they are able to turn their attention to their students and, therefore, become effective educators. He began his career as a professor at the University of Missouri as an animal behavior researcher interested in the evolution of higher mind. Since then he has worked on imagination throughout his career.

On a personal note, Bob adds that he has retired to an old farm in the Tennessee mountains to be near wild animals; his lovely wife is his constant partner in enterprises including writing and long walks with their dog, Hopper.