TL;DR

University humanists and social and STEM scientists are working to establish an institute that educates and trains faculty and students on using tools and techniques to support and develop transdisciplinary research projects in innovative and public-facing formats. The ultimate goal is a surge in research that is more engaging, accessible, and consumable. They will also contribute to this field’s growth by conducting research on and developing tools for public scholarship. Jump to: their big idea; the why and why us; implications for Rochester’s reputation; the last word.

Co-leads:

• Peter Christensen
  Associate dean, School of Arts and Sciences
  Arthur Satz Professor of the Humanities
  Professor, art and art history
  Ani and Mark Gabrellian Director of the Humanities Center
  Director, Andrew W. Mellon Program in the digital humanities
• Jason Middleton
  Associate professor, English and visual and cultural studies
  Director, film and media studies program

Member investigators

•  Rachel Glade
  Assistant professor, earth and environmental sciences and mechanical engineering
• Jonathan Herington
  Assistant professor, health humanities and bioethics
• Anna Rosensweig
  Associate professor, French and visual and cultural studies
  Director, graduate program in visual and cultural studies
• Christine Slobogin
  Assistant professor, health humanities and bioethics
  Assistant professor, art and art history
• Yuhao Zhu
  Assistant professor, computer science

Okay—Picture this…

What’s the main idea behind the institute?

How do you write without footnotes in a way that doesn’t wholly dilute the rigor that went into the research behind the ideas? The answer to that question is the foundation of the IPCS.

The IPCS seeks to educate and train faculty and students in the tools and techniques that make it easier for the public to engage in academic research. On top of that, the institute will pour effort into developing new tools and platforms that blend emerging technologies—such as generative artificial intelligence—with established forms of scholarly communication.

The first phase of the IPCS’s work will focus on advancing knowledge and enriching the public’s understanding of three areas that align with current societal priorities and the core beliefs and goals of Boundless Possibility:

• The ethical and social implications of AI
• Environmental futures
• Social justice

The long-term goal of the IPCS is to establish a permanent home at Rochester for the research and production of public and creative scholarship, replete with support staff, relevant equipment, and the resources to award “mini-grants” to faculty interested in novel forms of scholarly communication. To work toward that, the institute will develop the following intellectual infrastructure.

Research on the role of public scholarship
Researchers across disciplines agree that public engagement in scholarship is necessary, but where this fits within academia’s landscape is unclear. So, the institute aims to 1) identify the barriers that keep public-facing and creative scholarship from being fully integrated into the university ecosystem, and 2) develop criteria that allow for rigorous and innovative assessment of this scholarship.

To do this, the IPCS will investigate how public scholarship is considered for hiring, promotion, and tenure, gather insights from faculty doing similar work at other institutions, and study Rochester’s current approach to public-facing work. This reflexive research will culminate in a report that provides recommendations for the future valuation of public scholarship.

Build in the methods of public-facing scholarship
Tradition has taught scholars to share academic ideas in peer-reviewed publications. While that has merit, it also has a very narrow audience. A much broader audience could be had if the ideas were presented in more accessible and engaging formats, as evidenced by successful examples such as Avidly Reads (NYU Press), a series of short books about how culture makes us feel, and Backstory, a weekly podcast that uses America’s current events as a jumping off point for deep dives into our past.

The IPCS wants to help Rochester distinguish itself as a producer and source for studying public scholarship as shown in the examples above. To do this, the institute will create the infrastructure (computational and media tools, physical space, etc.), learning opportunities (speakers, workshops, symposia, etc.), and collaborative opportunities for faculty and students to engage in these and other modes of innovative scholarship.

Development of novel computational and digital tools
Many podcast listeners dream of being in the room with the host or hosts. Generative AI could help make that happen. The blending of AI and podcasts (the team calls it “Podcast 2.0”) is one example of the next-gen technology the IPCS envisions for public scholarship. To do this, the institute will recruit undergraduate and graduate students to perform research in this area. For example, students would participate in the development of tools that leverage generative AI to add an explicitly interactive dimension to podcasts and other forms of public scholarship.

The IPCS is currently testing these methods through “scholarly interest groups” that align with three critical issues for academic inquiry and public knowledge.

AI and creative society
While a significant amount of research has examined the ethics of AI from engineering and philosophical perspectives, there is a need for this to be done through artistic, affective, and humanistic lenses. As part of an established institute, programming might include a postdoctoral position, regular interdisciplinary training sessions for graduate students, and a faculty working group dedicated to sharing works in progress and upcoming grant proposals. The goal would be to foster focused research collaborations between humanists, social scientists, and technologists.

Environmental Futures
Around the world, environmental hazards—such as wildfires, air and ocean pollution, and flooding and erosion—are increasing in prevalence and severity, making it vital to encourage communication and collaboration between the scholars studying these climate nightmares and the general public. This group aims to foster that relationship through research-focused efforts, including an environmental studies lecture series, a faculty working group, and a postdoc in environmental justice with co-mentors in science and humanities.

Social Justice
Bringing together University faculty and students committed to addressing systemic inequalities that cut along the lines of race, gender, and class, this group would facilitate idea-sharing, challenges (e.g., the rise of misinformation and the erosion of trust in social and political institutions), and best practices. The group would also foster opportunities for new projects and collaborations.

Success is in the air

Why and how is Rochester poised to take this on, and what strengths is this institute bringing to the table?

Public and creative scholarship is a natural strength for Rochester because of Rochester’s natural inclination toward transdisciplinary research. For example, the previous section mentioned the institute’s scholarly interest group for social justice. Rochester digital media studies and film and media studies programs would make excellent partners for this group because they emphasize critically and politically informed perspectives, community engagement, and storytelling that highlights overlooked histories. These are all characteristics that would help the IPCS develop projects that challenge misinformation and help engender public trust.

The IPCS would also take advantage of Rochester’s exceptional strengths in AR/VR, generative AI, and the humanities by combining them in creative ways peer institutions haven’t explored. The institute also sees great potential in other combinations, such as how visual and cultural studies, music (through the Eastman School), and philosophy could be augmented by audio and music engineering and computer science. Relatedly, several established research relationships exist between humanists and AI researchers, including a National Science Foundation-based collaboration.

Finally, as part of the IPCS’s pilot year, each team member is working on a public-facing project related to their work to demonstrate the range of techniques the institute would employ.

Peter Christensen will publish a public platform employing an analytic algorithm to allow the general public to analyze 3D recordings of similar objects to identify their differences and explore their significance. The tool is poised to resonate with researchers who study questions within a wide range of fields, including archaeology, crafts, art, architecture, and mass production, and will greatly expand the public’s capacity to analyze spatial data across the digital humanities.

Rachel Glade oversaw the creation of It’s Snow Joke: The History of Glaciers in Western New York. Largely produced by Regan Collins ’23 (T5) using ArcGIS StoryMaps, the interactive digital storybook explains the geologic history of the Finger Lakes region, focusing on changes in the area that have happened over the last 20,000 years (when the two-kilometer thick Laurentide ice sheet covered Rochester). It’s Snow Joke includes an interactive Google map for self-guided field trips to locations in the Finger Lakes that demonstrate post-glacial geology and a series of associated geocaches.

Jonathan Herington and Christine Slobogin recorded two episodes on the podcast In the Same Vein as part of an exploration of how the humanities influences medicine and how medicine influences the study of the humanities. Jonathan was a guest in Episode 5, which discusses an article about the ethical tradeoffs during a crisis (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic) and some big bioethical questions, and a host in Episode 6 that dives into AI in medicine. He also wrote about his experience using generative AI to create podcasts.

Jason Middleton organized a three-day workshop (January 15–17) on creating scholarly video essays, led by Jason Mittell, a pioneer in videographic criticism and a professor of film and media culture at Middlebury College. Videographic criticism is an innovative and growing mode of academic work that allows scholars to present their research through engaging videos that combine visuals, audio, and text to create compelling analyses and arguments. The workshop, which included a broad range of Rochester faculty and graduate students, gave participants the tools and conceptual frameworks to produce original and public-facing research.

Anna Rosensweig is writing a book that examines how members of the political Right in the United States—including insurrectionists, antiabortion extremists, and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy—have mobilized theories of resistance from early modern Europe to justify their opposition to state and federal law. You may have read about her work in this area on the University’s News Center: “Why is a 16th-century tradition attracting activists on the Christian right?”

Yuhao Zhu is flipping the traditional podcast experience on its head. By combining the best of podcasting with AI, he’s creating a new way for listeners to connect with content, making each episode more dynamic and tailored to the individual. Powered by cutting-edge AI and large language models, episodes will enable listeners to interact directly with the hosts and guests, instead of just absorbing content. Podcasts won’t be passive anymore; they’ll be opportunities to engage and contribute to the conversation as it happens. Yuhao says, “Podcast 2.0 is here, and it will change how we experience podcasts forever.”

Reputation. Reputation. Reputation.

The last word

Academic research regularly affects and informs decisions and frameworks that have a significant impact on people’s lives. And for most people, that research might as well be written in Wingdings.

IPCS co-lead Peter Christensen points out that scholars like him and his team members aren’t typically taught how to effectively talk about or share their work with anyone who isn’t reading or running a scholarly journal. And that’s becoming a pretty serious problem.

“We’re in this age where higher ed, writ large, is under threat,” Peter says. “One of the most important things we, as scholars, can do is demonstrate the significance of our research—that’s changing healthcare and broadly shaping how we live—for an audience beyond our scholarly peers.”

The IPCS team knows that Rochester and other higher education institutions have entire departments built to do this work for scholars. The goals of this institute are about empowerment and rethinking publication. The institute wants to help scholars think about presenting their work as part of the work so that when it comes to sharing it with the general public, they’re not dumbing it down or filtering things out because it’s already in a broadly consumable and engaging format.

Jonathan Herrington’s pilot-year project for the IPCS explores AI-decision making as it relates to ventilator allocation, a topic that the layperson would normally need to wade through some pretty niche journal articles—that would be full of jargon and heavily footnoted—if they wanted to learn about it at a high level. However, through an engaging dialogue-based podcast, Jonathan made it far easier to obtain that deeper understanding without first earning a PhD.

“Our institute will not only respond to a kind of ‘crisis’ moment for higher education but also the larger erosion of public knowledge on a wide range of topics,’” says co-lead Jason Middleton. “By making academic ideas, scientific rigor, and humanistic approaches broadly legible to the public, I think our institute will also contribute to reversing some of the dangerous trends and effects of this moment often described as ‘post-truth.’”