Saint Mary's Newsroom

Now’s your chance to expand your perspective, make good on your New Year’s resolution, or connect with your peers on a timely topic. All faculty and staff are invited to participate in the newly expanded Lasallian book club.

The Lasallian book club was started nine years ago at the Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs (SGPP) in an effort to engage Lasallian pedagogical thinking with contemporary texts. As a part of our Strategic Initiative one, “Live Our Lasallian Catholic Heritage,” the SGPP subcommittee of the Lasallian Catholic Mission Advisory Council decided to expand the book club to include a bi-monthly format and an open invitation to the university community.

A naming contest for the book club was held, and the name The Lasallian Literati was chosen. The winners of the naming contest are Robert Hadley, security guard; Stacy Dean, Ph.D., director for University Writing Services; and Michael Hahn, Ph.D., program director and core assistant professor, Character and Virtue Education.

To participate, simply create an account and join the group on Goodreads. This is a FREE app. It is very important that you create your login with your Saint Mary’s email address because there is restricted access to the reading group. Future communication will be provided through Goodreads.

The Lasallian Literati is excited to share the inaugural book selections and meeting dates. The library will have a copy or two of the chosen books. If you are not aware, many public libraries use the app LIBBY which allows library cardholders access to ebooks and audiobooks.

March/April book selection
“The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander

“One of the most influential books of the last 20 years.” — Chronicle of Higher Education

• Meeting date: Friday, April 9, at noon
• Facilitated by: Nancy Van Erp, Ph.D., program director, M.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology
• You will receive a Zoom invitation before the meeting.

May/June book selection
“The Devil’s Highway: A True Story“ by Luis Alberto Urrea

• Meeting date: Wednesday, June 16, at noon
• Facilitated by: Paul Kotz, Ph.D., professor, Ed.D. in Leadership, and Molly Bigelow, director of Rochester partnerships and enrollment counselor
• You will receive a Zoom invitation before the meeting.

If you have any questions or difficulty creating a Goodreads account, contact Molly
Bigelow at mbigelow@smumn.edu.

The health and well-being of our students is a top priority for Saint Mary’s and foundational to our strategic plan, “Building a Future Full of Hope 2025.” To that end, after much planning and conversation, we have contracted with Catholic Charities to manage counseling services for students at the Jay Johnson Wellness Center beginning immediately.

This change provides several benefits for our students including:

• Access to a broad network of professional care and comprehensive services.
• More counselor availability. Catholic Charities will take over administrative responsibilities, thereby freeing up more hours for counseling services.
• Reliable continuation of care, particularly in an emergency, with coverage when one of our counselors is unavailable or on vacation.
• Access to additional resources.

Selective outsourcing allows us to focus better on our educational mission while maintaining quality and service standards. Our experience outsourcing the bookstore, food services, and security services universitywide showcases our ability to execute successful transitions. As vice president of Student Affairs, I will continue to oversee and work closely with this area and Health Services, which will not be affected by this change.

Below are some answers to questions you may have.

Why Catholic Charities?
Catholic Charities is part of a national network. It is respected, licensed, and provides confidential counseling and mental health services that address a wide range of needs. The counselors are committed to promoting physical, social, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being to all, regardless of age, ethnic/cultural background, faith/non-faith tradition, or economic circumstance.

Will students experience a difference in services?
We anticipate added benefits to students, including more counseling hours (with administrative duties moving to Catholic Charities), access to a national network, and uninterrupted service with alternative counselors available when someone is out of the office. 

How many counselors will be available at Saint Mary’s?
One full-time counselor will hold regular office hours on campus (Kat Freihammer), and an additional counselor (through Catholic Charities) will be available for both counseling on campus and teleconferencing. After the pandemic, we hope to increase the number of counselors on campus.

Where will counselors be located?
Counselors will mostly be continuing telecounseling during this pandemic. When they see students face-to-face, it will continue to be at the Jay Johnson Wellness Center in Winona.

Will we be sharing counselors with the downtown offices?
The counselor assigned to Saint Mary’s will not rotate to different locations so that students will build trusting relationships with their counselors.

Does this affect Health Services?
Health Services will not change.

What will happen with the current counseling staff?
She will remain a Saint Mary’s University employee.

Who does Catholic Charities serve?
These therapists welcome all students, regardless of age, gender, ethnic background, or faith tradition. Read their mission and vision.

Will these services extend to the Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs?
Not at this time.

Where is this organization located?
Catholic Charities is part of a national network. Our partner is Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota (Winona – Rochester).

Access Services, Integratus, and the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) will welcome Dr. Annika Konrad of Dartmouth College for a virtual talk on Wednesday, March 24, at 12:15 p.m. and a virtual workshop for faculty on Thursday, March 25, at 2 p.m. Both events will be on Zoom, and you can find links and RSVP on the CELT site. The title of her talk will be, “Learning from Stories of Access Fatigue: Building Interdependence into Pedagogical Design.”

In our fall survey of students about their learning experiences during the pandemic, our students lauded faculty for finding innovative ways of adapting to their needs. We think the talk will be a valuable resource as we continue the work of building courses and experiences in the Lasallian Catholic tradition that respects the human dignity of all people and meets learners where they are.

Dr. Annika Konrad

Dr. Konrad’s research centers around the question, why is it so hard to communicate about disability? She explores this question at the intersections of Disability Studies and Rhetorical Studies, examining how access is a fundamentally rhetorical phenomenon that we all unknowingly participate in. Dr. Konrad teaches writing courses on rhetoric of disability and accessibility at Dartmouth College, where she is a senior lecturer in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric. Her article, “Access Fatigue: The Rhetorical Work of Disability in Everyday Life,” was recently published in College English. She has published other work on rhetoric, disability, and writing in Composition Forum, Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, and Reflections.

You can RSVP for the talk via the CELT site and add the event to your Google Calendar. You can RSVP for the workshop (though we have more limited availability to permit workshopping) via the CELT site and add the event to your Google Calendar.

“Learning from Stories of Access Fatigue: Building Interdependence into Pedagogical Design”
12:15 to 1:15 p.m., Wednesday, March 24

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the realities of inaccessibility. As the abrupt shift to remote work and schooling has forced people to operate under conditions of precarity, the problem of inaccessibility — of one’s needs not being met — has become palpable for many. People with disabilities have always operated under inaccessible conditions and yet, it remains uncommon to encounter spaces (virtual or otherwise) where accessibility is a priority.

Universal Design for Learning offers useful strategies for building access into the design of educational spaces and experiences. In this talk, Dr. Konrad will help faculty build access into the design of their educational spaces and experiences by drawing upon firsthand accounts of the daily labor that disabled people have always performed for access. Through an original concept called “access fatigue,” developed from life history interviews with people who are blind and visually impaired, Dr. Konrad names the everyday pattern of constantly needing to help others participate in access, a demand that can be so taxing and so relentless that, at times, access is simply not worth the effort. Dr. Konrad will share accounts from study participants who describe years — if not decades — building the courage to advocate for their own access needs, and still, at times, dis-engage out of a need for self-preservation.

By sharing these narratives, Dr. Konrad will help faculty identify pressures we all unknowingly perpetuate that make the pursuit of access fatiguing. As a solution, Dr. Konrad will propose a pedagogy of interdependence and care, which offers a framework for reorienting norms in educational, professional, and public life. Through a pedagogy of interdependence, disabled and non-disabled people alike can uptake and transfer a structure of habit for access.

Workshop: “Building a Pedagogy of Interdependence and Care in Higher Education”
2 to 3:30 p.m., Thursday, March 25

In this workshop, Dr. Konrad will work with participants to build a pedagogy of interdependence in higher education. Examining scenarios drawn from Dr. Konrad’s research on the rhetorical experiences of people who are blind and visually impaired, participants will work to identify common barriers to communicating about access in higher education (what Dr. Konrad refers to as “normative commonplaces”) and identify habits they can adopt to prevent such barriers. Participants will learn how to apply these habits to their own curriculum, looking for normative commonplaces embedded within their own disciplines and teaching contexts.

Thank you for considering attending, and we look forward to working with you before and after the talk to enhance access for all our students. If you have any questions, contact CELT@smumn.edu.

Julie Gauderman, DNAP, APRN, CRNA, associate program director and assistant professor in the Nurse Anesthesia Program, is being recognized with the Federal Political Director of the Year award with the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA). She will receive the award during a virtual conference in April.

The award is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of the national healthcare agenda of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) by coordinating grassroots CRNA involvement at the state level or through special contributions to the federal political process.

Students or alumni looking for a job in the education field (who will be eligible to teach/work by the end of 2021) are invited and strongly encouraged to attend this job fair.

For more information about the Minnesota Education Jobs Fair being held Tuesday, April 13, virtually via Handshake, go to mnedfair.org.

To attend the Minnesota Education Jobs Fair information session (if you are not already enrolled in ED490 Portfolio Assessment class), you must pre-register through Saint Mary’s to participate.

DATE: Monday, March 15
TIME: 5 to 6 p.m.
LOCATION: Simulcast via Class and Zoom