A remote lecture series roadmap to equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM

Within a year of the shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings transformed from an auxiliary service to an essential work platform for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Universities rapidly accelerated adoption of virtual platforms for remote conferences, classes, and seminars amidst a second crisis testing institutional commitment to the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Here we present thorough guidelines for drawing out hope from the Pandora's box of virtual programming now open to the world. We review milestones from our first year organizing the Diversity and Science Lecture series (DASL) and explore insights into equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM gleaned from hosted speakers' talk content. Nearly every speaker highlighted the importance of social or interpersonal support to their career progression, and three-fifths of speakers commented on race or ethnicity. Other recurring topics each received attention from a minority of speakers: immigrant identity, gender identity, mental health, sexual minorities, disability, and rural or agricultural background. We conclude with generalizable advice on creating new remote lecture series that benefit executive team members, speakers, and attendees. Our success with DASL demonstrates that community building and knowledge sharing can flourish under a remote lecture framework.

Review of the monthly “Skyscape Archaeology Keynote Lecture Series” organised by the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology and the Sophia Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, October 2020–March 2021

Review of the monthly “Skyscape Archaeology Keynote Lecture Series” organised by the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology and the Sophia Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, October 2020–March 2021

George Victor Du Noyer’s large format paintings: Nineteenth-century lecture slides

ABSTRACT The National Museum of Ireland’s natural history collections include a range of large format artworks, many of paleontological subjects, which were painted by George Victor Du Noyer, the celebrated nineteenth-century geologist, antiquarian, and artist who worked for both the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI). Letterbook references in the archives of GSI indicate that most, if not all of these, were commissioned by Joseph Beete Jukes, director of the GSI, for different public lecture series. The artistic qualities of the work suggest they were done at speed. However, they also are designed to be seen from a distance within a lecture hall, so an apparently crude technique is appropriate to the purpose. In effect, the watercolor paintings in this series are the PowerPoint presentation of the 1850s.

245 An Introduction to Surgery: Effectiveness of An Online, Lecture-Based Programme in Providing Surgical Career Guidance for Pre-Clinical Students

Aim Early exposure to surgery has been found to impact medical students’ decisions to pursue a career in surgery. Despite this, students are often not exposed to surgical specialties until senior years of medical school. The aim of this study was to determine if a student-led, three-month online lecture series can facilitate early exposure to surgical careers. Method Participants volunteered to complete pre- and post-lecture questionnaires. The four domains discussed across the lecture series included: what a surgical career entails, the day-to-day life of a surgeon, advances in surgery and surgical portfolio. Participants self-rated confidence in the knowledge of each of the four domains was measured on a five-step Likert scale. Changes in perceived confidence were measured using a paired Student’s t-test. Data were analysed using R 4.03 (Vienna, Austria). The threshold of significance was <0.05. Results A total of 45 respondents completed both pre- and post-lecture questionnaires. Most respondents (57.8%) were first- or second-year students. Following the course, there was a significant increase in confidence across all four domains investigated (mean rating 2.64 vs 4.07, p < 0.001). More than 9 out of 10 respondents (99.3%) gained new knowledge and (95.2%) agreed that an online event format did not hinder their learning. Conclusions Student-led online lecture series can increase knowledge of core concepts pertaining to a career in surgery for pre-clinical students. The findings provide a basis for further large-scale investigation of surgical education during early years of medical school and for the potential value of extracurricular, student- or trainee-led courses.

‘Stunt-Reading’

Chapter 2 offers the first full-scale treatment of Paul Muldoon as critic. It looks at his major works of literary criticism, from the F. W. Bateson Lecture ‘Getting Round’ and To Ireland, I to the later End of the Poem, and considers what these lecture series from his American years can tell us about Muldoon the reader, as well as the poet. Muldoon announces himself on the critical scene not only as a self-proclaimed ‘stunt reader’ but an extraordinarily Freudian thinker, who is unusually attentive to the kinds of veiled communication and word-association that might reveal a writer’s ulterior motives, resistances, or unconscious desires. But his offbeat, often knowingly mischievous performances in these lectures also suggest a basic distrust of the authority of the critical reader, and in turn raise questions about the kinds of reading his own poems are expected to elicit.