As preface, my fellow Student Ambassadors and I are, over the course of this term, having a “blog of the week” series of posts.  In essence, we are given a weekly theme on which to write and you’ll get six different perspectives on that theme.  In theory, it works well.  My colleagues have been fantastic.  Not so much for me, though.  With my apologies to them, to Kirsten Martin (the coordinator of the project) and to you, here’s a blog of the fortnight.

In no particular order, I’ll be talking about my hopes, dreams, and fears for my penultimate semester of my undergraduate career as well as some course highlights.  Enough preface. Here goes…

For this term, I have a lot on my plate.  Managing my time will be my highest priority because, as I’ve explored in an earlier post, the number of hours in the day remain fixed.   I’m working on three research projects:

1. Finishing out research on learning objectives for the twenty-first century student (technology in service to learning)
2. Working with the ASU Center for Urban Innovation on new trends in citizen engagement in governance on the different levels
3. Seeing how Social Network Analysis has evolved into the Social Media age (read: Web 2.0 and beyond) and how that is used to generate political and social capital

In conjunction with my College’s Spirit of Service Scholars initiative, I’m working (independently at the moment) on drafting a white paper that addresses the importance of theoretical IT (read: the research of emerging and emergent technologies) for the next generation of public service workers.  The College and its Dean, Dr. Debra Friedman, have correctly identified that there is a need for public servants to fill the shoes of those that will be retiring in the next decade or so.  The common criticisms of government are that it is ineffective and inefficient.  One could also argue that contemporary governance is based around 1960s-era technology.  Sure, governments have incorporated the Internet and computers into their daily operations; however, are these technologies truly embraced into governance’s day-to-day operations?  My research shall see…

Academically, I’m enrolled in six classes.  The most interesting is a graduate seminar on public art.  Taught by Dr. Betsy Fahlman, the course takes a look at the evolution of public art in the United States, especially looking at Phoenix and its metropolitan area.  It’s been a lot of work thus far: I’ve had to read four books and write a three-page précis on that book.  The last book will be read and the last précis will be written for Tuesday’s class, and then the fun begins.  There are field trips planned to see public art in situ in Downtown Phoenix (a walking tour led by Ed Lebow, the City of Phoenix’s director of public art is in order), Sky Harbor International Airport, Tempe, and Scottsdale.  The course has been a blast and I certainly, as an Urban & Metropolitan Studies student albeit whose focus is on policy and governance, have enjoyed it immensely.

I’m one of those weird social scientists who likes the natural sciences.  I started off for a year in the Civil Engineering program, but as I’ll explore in a later post, my interest all along has been in policy and not actual construction.  I’m taking a chemistry course (because I want to!) and it’s been absolutely wonderful.  I took a couple chemistry classes on the Tempe campus but whereas those were the instructor preaching from the altar, this is completely not like that.  It might have to be that the Tempe campus courses had 120 students and on the Downtown Phoenix campus, there are only 35 or so.  And yes, I’m getting the content, too: win!

I have no idea what Kirsten’s going to pick for the next topic. We shall see…

-Edward Jensen