{"id":27571,"date":"2019-07-24T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T17:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=27571"},"modified":"2019-07-24T10:29:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T15:29:53","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-history-students-use-video-conferencing-technology-to-connect-with-prominent-authors-across-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2019\/07\/24\/austin-peay-state-university-history-students-use-video-conferencing-technology-to-connect-with-prominent-authors-across-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University history students use video-conferencing technology to connect with prominent authors across the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Books, unlike movies, don\u2019t often come with \u201cdeleted scenes\u201d or other bonus features. If you\u2019re curious about the \u201cmaking of\u201d process or discovering what events didn\u2019t make it into the final version, you\u2019ll have to talk to the author.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay Students talk with historian Keri Leigh Merritt from Atlanta using video Conferencing. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Austin Peay State University (APSU) student Steve Sullivan did a few years ago, after he read \u201cKu Klux: The Birth of the Clan During Reconstruction\u201d for a class assignment.<\/p>\n

But tracking down nationally recognized historians can be tricky, so Dr. Minoa Uffelman, APSU professor of history, decided to make it easy for Sullivan.<\/p>\n

At the end of the semester, she took her class to a technology classroom in Austin Peay State Univeristy\u2019s McReynolds Building, where they participated in a video conference with author Elaine Frantz Parsons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to ask her about anything she would change or anything she had left out, which gave me a bit more insight,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cBeing able to ask and hear about things that didn\u2019t make the final edit was like getting a sequel to the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last few years, Uffelman has used video conferencing software, such as Zoom, to connect her students with prominent historians and authors across the country.<\/p>\n

Previously, she\u2019d spend up to $1,000 of departmental money to bring these individuals to campus, but with continued advances in conferencing technology, she\u2019s now able to have students talk with authors for free.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I did it, the professor was from Cornell University,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe he was in Cornell, and we were in Clarksville talking to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

That professor was Edward Baptist, and in 2014 \u2013 the same year he spoke with Uffelman\u2019s class \u2013 his book, \u201cThe Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism,\u201d became an international phenomenon. The Economist magazine, in an unprecedented move, retracted its negative review of the book, which complained of Baptist\u2019s depiction of slaves as victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe regret having published this and apologize for having done so,\u201d an editor\u2019s note in the magazine read.<\/p>\n

[320left]The controversy made Baptist an author in great demand that year, leaving him little time to visit Austin Peay. But talking to APSU students from the comfort of his own office proved to be an easier solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwitter went crazy because it was the only time The Economist had retracted a book review, and my students were talking to him in the middle of all this,\u201d Uffelman said.<\/p>\n

From book club to classroom<\/h3>\n

Inviting an individual to give a talk on campus can sometimes turn into a logistical nightmare. There are schedules to consider, and if planes are missed or a snowstorm shuts down campus, the talk is canceled.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Minoa Uffelman, professor of history. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

All of this was probably in the back of Uffelman\u2019s mind after work one night when her book club hosted its monthly meeting. Instead of simply talking about the novel they were reading, one of the club\u2019s members set up a Skype interview with the author.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018if we can do that for a book club, why can\u2019t I do that for Austin Peay?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A few days later, Uffelman contacted Austin Peay\u2019s Distance Education Office to see what type of video conference capabilities the University offered. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost people think Distance Education is just for geographically separated students and online faculty, but our department supports Digital Learning as a whole, regardless of location,\u201d Amor Moran, interim director of Distance Education, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Dr. Uffelman reached out, our department created the Zoom session with the historian and provided the room for the session to occur. I stayed for the duration of the class to troubleshoot any difficulties that may arise and walked away actually buying the historian\u2019s book. The conversation between her and the students was just that interesting,\u201d stated Moran.<\/p>\n

Meeting the authors<\/h3>\n

Every semester, Uffelman designs an upper-level course that includes an award-winning book on its syllabus. Throughout the next few months, students read the assigned text, discuss it in class and write their own review of it. All of this prepares them for the Zoom session at the end of the semester.<\/p>\n

[320left]\u201cOverall, by having the authors \u2018in\u2019 the classroom actually pushed many of us to READ the entire book instead of skim pages or look up summaries,\u201d Zack Kinslow, APSU graduate, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking to the person who created the work put that extra pressure on myself and my fellow students to take more time and effort into understanding not just the work itself but the history surrounding the topic. It made us feel important in that an actual historian is willing to take the time out of their busy schedule to talk to a class of graduate and undergraduate students,\u201d stated Kinslow.<\/p>\n

Before each video conference, Uffelman has her students write down questions, and they rehearse what they want to ask before the actual meeting. When the day comes for her class to speak with the academic celebrity, she\u2019s often pleased with how they represent Austin Peay State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey always bring their A-game; they make us shine,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody we\u2019ve talked to, they tell me I have excellent students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Atlanta-based<\/a>

Atlanta-based historian Keri Leigh Merritt answers questions from Austin Peay students. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

This fall, she\u2019ll continue this tradition by having her students read Kevin M. Levin\u2019s new book, \u201cSearching for Black Confederates: The Civil War\u2019s Most Persistent Myth.\u201d Pulitzer Prize-winning author David W. Blight said, \u201cLevin’s book needs to be widely read as a rich history drawing the life out of a lethal narrative of wish fulfillment.”<\/p>\n

Later this fall, Uffelman\u2019s students will ask Levin about his research during their Zoom meeting. And the experience will likely remain with them once they leave the University.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy far, Dr. Uffelman’s (Zoom) interviews were one of the highlights of my time at APSU,\u201d Kinslow said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Books, unlike movies, don\u2019t often come with \u201cdeleted scenes\u201d or other bonus features. If you\u2019re curious about the \u201cmaking of\u201d process or discovering what events didn\u2019t make it into the final version, you\u2019ll have to talk to the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[33864,23,6586,7207,262,512,825,22957,4472,31812,33863,33865],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-7aH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27571"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27572,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27571\/revisions\/27572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}