INTERDISCIPLINARY PROBLEM-SOLVING DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

By Shane Drefcinski, Immediate Past Department Chair

There are a variety of ways in which Department of Humanities faculty and instructional academic staff engage in interdisciplinary problem-solving. The most prominent examples are the Spirit Lake Review, an annual online magazine that contains creative writing, art, and photography by faculty, instructors, students, and alumni, and the Raven Revisited, a collection of creative writing published annually in The Exponent. Another prominent example is the LAE Faculty Forum presentations by our faculty and instructors. Over the last several years, philosophy and Spanish faculty members and instructors gave presentations on ethical and cultural issues with responses from members of the Department of Biology, Department of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences, and Department of History. The German professor and a Spanish professor gave guest lectures to the Platteville History Club. The English program recently offered two study abroad courses taught by our professors in Great Britain. In addition, the Philosophy program worked with the Department of Mathematics to develop and team-teach a course in data science ethics. Finally, for many years, philosophy and geography faculty team-taught the Introduction to Social and Environmental Justice course.

Related student organization: The Exponent Student Newspaper

UW-Platteville celebrated the 20th anniversary of the literary magazine Spirit Lake Review with a launch party featuring contributor readings, live music and visual art displays. Spirit Lake Review was founded by now retired UW-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County professor Kelly Dwyer in 2003. The annual student-run literary magazine was named after Baraboo’s popular landmark, Devil’s Lake State Park, which was known as “Spirit Lake” by the Ho-Chunk. For two decades, it has served as a significant creative outlet for the region, as well as an important learning tool for students, who produce the publication as part of the Literary Magazines class.

Read the full article online at go.uwplatt.edu/spirit-lake-review