Teaching and Scholarship Hub

Please sign up here if you would like lunch during the September Mini-Symposium. More information about the symposia is below.

The Mini-Symposia Series builds on the extraordinary enthusiasm for the Faculty and Staff Research Symposium, offering a new rhythm of exchange across the academic year. Instead of one full day, we gather four times– in the fall and spring—for half-day symposia that revisit and reimagine presentations from the full Symposium. This new format allows more opportunities to engage with colleagues’ research, creative projects, and collaborations in a focused and accessible way. Next fall, the full one-day Symposium returns, as the formats will alternate in two-year cycles. 

Each Symposium features one or two morning panels and one or two afternoon panels, with time for community connection:

• 10:00 a.m. – Coffee and light snacks at the Faculty Hub
• 10:30–11:45 a.m. – Morning Session (1-2 concurrent panels)
• 11:45 a.m.–1:15 p.m. – Lunch at the Faculty Hub
• 1:30–2:45 p.m. – Afternoon Session (1-2 concurrent panels)
• 3:00 p.m. – Conclusion

Please feel free to come for all or part of the day–no need to register; if you would like to join in the lunch, sign up above. The 2025-2026 academic year will feature the Mini-Symposia on Friday, September 26, 2025; Friday, November 7, 2025; Friday, January 30, 2026; and Friday, February 20, 2026. 

The schedule for Friday, September 26, 2025, is as follows:

Session One: 10:30 - 11:45 a.m.

Panel 1: From Classroom to Career: Connecting Liberal Arts Learning with Professional Futures

Chair: Olivier Delers, Arts & Sciences, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures

Elizabeth Soady, Career Services

Brandy Ewell, Career Services

Michael Marsh-Soloway, Arts & Sciences, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures/Global Studio

Karina Vázquez, Arts & Sciences, Latin American, Latino, & Iberian Studies

Panel 2: The Ethics of Exchange: Money, Power, and Public Life

Chair: Sandra Peart, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, Ethics and Economics

Jeffrey Hass, Arts & Sciences, Sociology & Anthropology - Violent Capital: Violence, War, and Hierarchy

Shakun Mago, Robins School of Business, Economics - Political Identity, Income Inequality, and Joy of Destruction: An Experiment with Democrats and Republicans

Derek Miller, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement - Civic Learning and Action Goals

Lunch: 11:45 a.m.–1:15 p.m. 

Session Two: 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.

Panel 1: The Moral Economies of Modern Life: Money, Power, and Responsibility

Chair: David Hale, Business Affairs

Carol Summers, Arts & Sciences - History Fighting with Money: Patriotic Thrift and Accountable Citizenship in the British World, 1939-45

Monika Kukar-Kinney, Robins School of Business, Marketing - The Effect of Financial Literacy and Use of Different Payment Methods on Compulsive Buying among Young Adults

Bob Spires, School of Professional & Continuing Studies, Graduate Education - Neoliberalism Won't Go Away in Nonprofits

Rick Mayes, Arts & Sciences, Health Studies - Medicare Advantage and the Corporatization of U.S. Health Care: “It’s Not Personal, It’s Strictly Business”

Panel 2: Learning, Living, Acting: The Work of Community Change

Chair: Thad Williamson, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, PPEL

Tom Shields, School of Professional & Continuing Studies, Education

Kyle Redican, Arts & Sciences, Geography, Environment, & Sustainability - Learn and Live Together: Building a User Experience to Explore Housing and Education Segregation in the Richmond Metropolitan Area

Sylvia Gale, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement - Provoking Civic Action: Lessons from Professional Power Shifters