UR bloggers share their passions for research, teaching, family life and sports

BY BARBARA FITZGERALD

A year ago there were 112 million blogs on the Internet; the figures change so rapidly that even Wikipedia can’t keep up. Estimates by the blog search engine Technorati suggest that the blogosphere, the collective community of blogs, doubles every six months. CNET concludes that a new blog starts up every half-second.

Whatever the current number, UR students, staff and faculty are adding to the bloghood.

Wikipedia defines a blog as “a contraction of the term Web log.” It is a Web site, “usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.”

Faculty and staff bloggers at UR tend to blog their passions, spotlighting their fields of study or interests, their research and writings. They communicate through their blogs with students, one another and sometimes the worldwide academic community.

Ted Bunn, associate professor of physics, writes a general-audience blog (blog.richmond.edu/physicsbunn/) that tries to explain physics to non-specialists—especially prospective UR students. “I want them to get a glimpse of some of the things that are going on here,” says Bunn. “Whenever my students and I go to a conference, submit a paper or get an interesting result, I write about it. But I also like to comment on interesting topics in physics, or science more broadly, when they catch my eye.”

The effect of Miss Rumphius

“The Miss Rumphius Effect,” (missrumphiuseffect.blogspot.com/), set up by Tricia Stohr-Hunt, assistant professor of education, was conceived as a place where students could access material related to Stohr-Hunt’s classes and where the blogger could share her interests.

“My job is to prepare future teachers, and this is the blog of a teacher-educator,” she says. Her posts include discussions of poetry, children’s literature and issues relating to teaching children. The blog includes a great deal of poetry—hers and others—as well as annotated lists of books and poems on topics traditionally taught in elementary schools.

Her Miss Rumphius effort has gone so well that last January, Stohr-Hunt started a second blog, “Open Wide, Look Inside” (blog.richmond.edu/openwidelookinside/) as a means to share the work of her students. “It’s also a place where I review books and write about online resources for elementary teachers. Last spring, my students created podcasts about math instructional books. My class this fall is writing book reviews for science and social studies.”

Her audience is worldwide, with both blogs attracting more than 47,599 visits from 141 countries since April. “I’m overwhelmed,” she says. “I never expected it to take off as it has.” She currently spends about 10 hours a week on Miss Rumphius and not as much time on the second blog, since most of it is student input.

Stohr-Hunt thinks that blogs work much better than student journals. “Now I can respond immediately to students’ comments and writings, and they can comment on each other’s work immediately. It makes for a much richer conversation.”

Spider fans visiting Jim-nasium

Around the time Stohr-Hunt was getting her blog underway, Jim Miller, athletic director, was setting up one of his own. In January 2007, Miller created “Jim-nasium” (thejim-nasium.blogspot.com/), inspired by a blog his daughter kept while studying in Mexico.

“I saw that it was an effective way to communicate,” says Miller. His next thought was that a blog of his own might be a good way to communicate with certain Spider fans interested in getting an inside perspective on Richmond athletics.

Miller says that Jim-nasium (he came up with the name) “provides an uncensored vehicle for communication...something ‘straight from the horse’s mouth,’ not filtered through a third-party reporter.”

Miller says that the biggest problem he has in writing the blog is to restrain his sense of humor. “Humor can easily be misunderstood,” he says. “When something is written, it appears to be much more serious.”

Miller’s blog is working well. “Often when significant information, like scheduling philosophy and stadium updates, is placed on the blog,” says Miller, “someone copies it and places it on Spiderfans.com, enabling even more people to read what I had to say. Once in a while, I can use [the blog] to provide important information without relying on the formal media.”

Mama Ph.D. balances classroom and parenting

Two faculty members contribute to the blog “Mama Ph.D.” on Inside Higher Ed, an international source for news, opinion and jobs in academe (insidehighered.com/views/ blogs/mama_phd). Della Fenster, associate professor of math, and Libby Gruner, associate professor of English and women’s studies, are among seven women who participate weekly in this blog for professors trying to balance their work in the lab or classroom with parenting and family responsibilities.

While the original purpose was twofold—to raise awareness of the book Mama Ph.D. (to which Fenster and Gruner both contributed) and to give voice to other academic parents trying to balance parenting and academe in their own lives—Gruner says the result has been to build community among far-flung academics with similar interests.

 “It is gratifying to feel that what I say can help others or that I can be a useful part of a larger conversation,” she says. As a writer, Gruner notes that opportunities to write are always good. “I teach creative nonfiction, and I think one direction that field is going may be towards the interactivity of blogging and other new media, so it’s good for me to have a foothold in that area.”

Like most of the other UR bloggers, Gruner is careful not to say anything that would reflect badly on the University. “I also try to be circumspect about my family, not saying anything about them that I wouldn’t say in front of a roomful of students or faculty. My goal is to keep the balancing act of work and family front and center in the academy, since I think there are still unsolved issues that we should be addressing.”

 

See the “blog roll” at groups.richmond.edu for more faculty blogs.