Big Bend Community College William C. Bonaudi Library - LibGuides at Big Bend Community College

Down the Research Rabbit Hole Jennifer McCarthy

How has reading helped you navigate the world? What books, authors, and ideas have supported and expanded your worldview or daily life?

I have been a reader for as long as I can remember. Books have always been a source of comfort, entertainment, distraction, and clarification to me. They allowed me to experience the world from someone else’s point of view, place of residence, culture, and lifestyle.

I have enjoyed reading Stephen King since the 1980s. He may write popular fiction, but he is beloved for a reason. His novels and characters speak to me from a familiar place and have a tone that is very comforting and comfortable to me. I know that he is going to bring me into the experiences of his characters and that it’s going to be a strange but awesome voyage.

Two of my all-time favorite novels are To Kill a Mockingbird and Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons Dangereuses). To Kill a Mockingbird is chock-full of memorable characters and transports the reader back in time to a small town in Alabama. I adore the goodness of Lawyer and father Atticus Finch as he defends an African American man against a false charge of rape. Dangerous Liaisons is almost the polar opposite of books in that it is a novel by letters (epistolary) written during the 18th century. It portrays the lives of two members of the French aristocracy who are libertines living only for pleasure despite the mores of the society of the time. I adore the lack of empathy expressed by the Libertines for the people they seduce, betray and play with.

A thick yellow book I had in my childhood, A Children's Guide to Knowledge: A Caravan of 16 Books, showed me that foreign languages and cultures were a thing. I can still see in my mind’s eye the pages about Germany and the German language with the picture of the little girl in a mountain meadow. Ein, zwei drei (one two three) – and I was off on a path to learn languages and teach others. I referenced this book in a feature story I wrote for my high school newspaper in which I proclaimed my ambition to become multilingual and learn several languages. (Did it, too! 😊)

Children's Guide to Knowledge, 1970s

You live with Traumatic Brain Injury. What type of research have you done on this? Do you keep current with any particular site or journal? Has research helped you manage? Is there a particular researcher or organization you follow?

I live with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) that I got in a car accident at the age of 14. It was through the Washington Brain Injury Alliance that I first started learning about what it meant for me to be living with this hidden disability. I have been facilitating a brain injury support group under the BIA’s umbrella since November 2009, and through training have gained both knowledge about and tools for coping with my TBI. We lost our funding as a support group during COVID, but I have kept up monthly get-togethers with a small core group. We meet for lunch and an activity – lately, we are creating paintings that we hope to enter in the Grant County Fair as a collective.

Your classes are lively fully engaged adventures. Where do you get your instruction ideas?

I was exposed to the language teaching philosophy/method, Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS) by Angela Leavitt, the Spanish Instructor at BBCC back in the early 2000s. It was developed by Blaine Ray, who taught the Workshop I attended back in 2006 or so. I became hooked! The teaching method is based on the idea that children learn language through using it, not by studying its grammar. In our classrooms, students dive right into communication in the target language from day one. I have been personalizing the stories from my TPRS teaching materials for years in both my German and French classes.

I also use songs as a pedagogical tool, and I learned about the neuroscience behind doing so from a wonderfully interesting book by Daniel Levitin, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Levitin is a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist who has a background as a session musician. While he was leading the Center for Musical Cognition at McGill University in Montreal Canada, he did studies on how the brains of people who are singing together release the neurotransmitter oxytocin. This is the same stuff released by our brains during orgasm and breastfeeding (both mother and baby). Oxytocin is a bonding and interdependence neurotransmitter (think about the feeling you get when singing a hymn in church or the National Anthem at a ballgame!). I was sold, and ever since reading this book, I sing with my students in class every day, and the results have been excellent. The students are better able to engage with the class and the subject matter, as they have shared with me in writing and verbally every quarter.

What countries have you lived in and what type of spirit or idea have they added to your life?

I spent my senior year of high school in Motala, Sweden as an exchange student back in 1987-1988. Every year ever since leaving Sweden, my host parents, Kerstin and Bosse Johansson, call me on the telephone around my birthday in January and we speak in Swedish (and a little English when needed) and visit for at least an hour. My world has encompassed Sweden ever since living there. It has become a part of me.

I studied at l’Université de Paris IV: La Sorbonne France during my junior year of college. [I earned my BA in French and German from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA in 1992.] I stayed there with the Sweet Briar College Junior Year in France program, and so was part of a cohort of American students in Paris that year. Paris is a force of nature unto itself, and anyone who has lived there will always carry a bit of it with them. {I like to think that my love of scarves is a little manifestation of my Parisian year. But Swedes also love their scarves, so…}

The last country I lived in was The Czech Republic. But I also lived in Czechoslovakia: when I first moved to Prague in August 1992 after graduating from college, the country was still Czechoslovakia. However, life is change. I traveled back to Sweden for Christmas in 1992 and returned to Prague, the capital of a new country: The Czech Republic.

Name of the country aside, I moved to Prague in 1992 to teach English at the Prague University of Economics, the Vysoká škola ekonomická. It was exciting to live in such a vibrant city while the newness of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain instilled in everyone a sense of optimism about the future. I enjoyed my students and traveled extensively. Living in Prague was a lot of work, however. I never did manage to learn very much Czech while there, and navigating the streets with the cobblestones and all of the streetcars (I was nearly run over by one!) was exhausting. It was while standing inside the English Department office at the University that I articulated to myself my desire to move to a small town in the US and teach French and German at a college one day. I did not extend my teaching contract but returned to Massachusetts in June 1993.

Oh, and that plan to teach French and German at a college? Doing it. 😊

What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

My life has been changed by learning about Stoicism from the Enchiridion, or Handbook by Epictetus.

He teaches that unhappiness is caused by our desires not matching our reality and that happiness is found in having our desires match our reality. I have tried to live by this maxim for the past twenty years or so. It has made it possible for me to live here in Moses Lake, Washington, “down on the farm” even after having lived in Paris! I make the conscious decision every day to focus on the things I am grateful for having rather than on the things that are lacking or the way I wish things were.

This lesson is made by Jon Kabat-Zinn in his book, Wherever You Go, There You Are. He talks about using the practice of mindfulness in order for us to wake up to our true selves – the selves that we are, not the selves we wish we were or we hope we will be or we wish we had not been. We breathe in the here and the now, and that is enough. Just breathe.

I feel like Epectitus would agree.

Painting by Jennifer McCarthy

In your last job at Central Washington University (CWU), you were working on a research project. Tell us about it. How many people were involved? What was the topic? Where are you at with this research? Did you discover anything interesting or find more questions?

I worked as a Research & Instruction Librarian at CWU for about two and a half years. It was my first full-time job out of grad school. In that position, I had faculty status, and part of my professional development involved doing my own research and getting peer-reviewed articles published. For the last such project I undertook at CWU, I teamed up with a couple of my colleagues, Elizabeth Brown and Lauren Wittek. Since we all taught library research skills, both in credit-bearing courses and one-off lectures, we were interested in finding out how much of an impact our teaching, and exposure to library services in general, had on students’ command of these skills over the course of their studies at CWU.

To this end, we sent out a survey to the whole student body. It’s difficult to sum up the results in a paragraph or less, but we did find evidence that students typically had more confidence in their research skills the higher their class standing was. It was hard to tell how much credit we ourselves could claim for that improvement. If nothing else, though, our instruction of first-year students in introductory classes gave them a place to start by demystifying some of the multitudes of resources at their fingertips.

I’ve moved on to other projects here at Big Bend, but Lauren and Elizabeth can use the results of the survey to further develop library programs and services at CWU. This is the nature of academic research – it often does not produce earth-shattering conclusions, but it’s still worthwhile if it produces evidence on which we can base decisions, as well as spur future research, either by ourselves or others who read our work.

As a Librarian, what is the hardest question you have ever been asked. How did you solve it?

I can’t recall a particular “hardest question” I’ve been asked. As a rule, though, the more challenging reference questions are the half-formed ones. Sometimes patrons aren’t really sure what they’re looking for or have a hard time putting it into words. Good reference librarians learn how to help patrons flesh out their research topics/questions, partly by teasing out what the patron really is and isn’t interested in. If you have a choice in the matter, there’s not much point in writing a research paper on something you find boring.

In your off-work life, do you have an area you casually research as more of a hobby and intellectual interest?

There are many such areas for me. I love history, and there are some historical topics I’m passionate about to the extent that I’ll willingly read dense textbooks on them, such as modern German and Russian history. Partly, I do this to better understand how human societies evolve, rise, fall, and recover; but also because history contains endless stories of triumph and tragedy that can be more thrilling than fiction.

I also have more obscure interests. Since I was a kid, I’ve enjoyed watching hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey. At the moment, I’m obsessed with observing golden eagles, which are much more reclusive than the magnificent baldies I grew up seeing in Western Washington. I use maps and information from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, the Nature Conservancy, and other agencies or organizations to know where to look for them. Watching falconry and rescue videos on YouTube has helped me identify the few goldens I’ve been lucky enough to spot so far.

What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

One of the most interesting books I read in the last couple of years was Lying About Hitler, by Richard J. Evans. It was about a Holocaust denial-centered libel case at which the author, a distinguished British historian, appeared as an expert witness. The testimony of Evans and his fellow historians were critical to winning the case, as it proved both that the plaintiff (writer David Irving) was a Holocaust denier and that there could be no honest, reasonable basis for Holocaust denial. They made a powerful statement about the importance of serious, truth-seeking, evidence-based research.

This book didn’t change me per se, but it confirmed my respect for history as an academic discipline. Before getting my Library & Information Science degree, I earned an MA in History. While I am on a different career path now, I remain proud of that accomplishment.

Mattias and friends mountain climbing

Image of Lindsay Groce with Issue 5 heading

Interview with Lindsay Groce, Chemistry Instructor at Big Bend Community College.

What is your mental space when it comes to research? Do you have a plan? Are you random? Is it a research rabbit hole or a carefully planned expedition?

I did a presentation one time that was an attempt at inspirational and I talked about how most people think of success as linear. You learn the things, you earn the piece of paper, you get the job, etc. My trajectory has always been a little on the non-linear side…in life, so too with research. Well, it might be linear, but on some sort of wacky 2-dimensional surface – I am picturing, like, a Möbius strip, or an M.C. Escher drawing. I try to approach research with the same curiosity that draws me to science. I like to put myself in the mindset of a scientist, which I think in our heart of hearts, is really the mindset of a child, wondering at the world around us. “I wonder why…” is an expression that never ceases to excite me. From there, you springboard into resources – What all can I learn about this? What background info do I need to better understand the mechanisms for why this happens? This leads to some answers, but usually more questions and then you just go from there. I can be more disciplined in my approach, but I usually choose not to. I am a big fan of the research rabbit hole – there is joy in the journey.

undefined

To keep up with your profession, what are your go-to books, blogs, journals, social media follows, and/or people?

I have been a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) since I was an undergrad. I keep up-to-date on chemistry stuff there – Journal of Chemical Education is one I have spent time wading around in lately. I follow a lot of the pop-science Instagram and Facebook pages – IFLS, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Crash Course, Scientific American, Popular Science, and of course ALL of the science memes. I participated in the March for Science a few years ago in Seattle, so there is a group of scientists from a variety of disciplines that have an active Facebook page I like to follow (March for Science – Seattle). In terms of authors and personalities, I will forever love me some Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Carl Sagan, Hank Green, Bill Bryson, Michio Kaku, Sam Kean – I tend toward the scientists that also take seriously their role of public educator…they also tend to be the best storytellers! I love books about the history of science, in general; chemistry, specifically; and the periodic table – The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, I just read The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Elements by Theordore Grey (which is visually stunning along with interesting facts). Part of my teaching style involves telling stories about the personalities, embedding discoveries in their historical contexts, and trying to put real faces and circumstances to the science.

What's the best presentation or workshop you have ever pulled together in the name of science excellence?

It took me 5 years to do what is traditionally a 2-year Masters program because I was working on it part-time while I was working full-time. In the summer before my last year, I went into my advisor’s office and said, “I know that you will be invited to speak at an international conference next year [he always got international invites – he is kind of a big deal]. I want you to pick one and take me with you.” That was how I got to go to Japan. My research was in its final stages, but the story the data were telling was not coming together the way we hoped. I had to put together a poster with the data we had and our best ideas as to what it all meant. I gave the poster presentation on my research during my allotted session and was selected for one of three Outstanding Student Poster awards that were given based on votes and feedback from the conference attendees. It was a huge honor.

Lindsay Groce in googles

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I think that people might be surprised to know that I was not originally interested in teaching. It is so much a part of who I am now; it is sometimes hard for even me to believe that. My plan when I graduated was to work in a lab somewhere and be a scientist. I was not picturing having the opportunity to train future scientists. I feel very fortunate that Big Bend took a chance on me so that I could try it out and experience the elation of watching light bulb moments, being present for important milestones for the students, and help guide them towards whatever all comes next academically and life-wise.

How do you approach the finding sound answers in what seems like a whirlpool of pseudoscience?

First of all, I love this question. It is so timely and important. When I start any class at the beginning of a quarter, we go back and talk about the scientific method. All of the students can go through the rote, monotone recitation of the scientific method, but I try to get them to really start using it - to start thinking like scientists. This involves being skeptical, asking questions, and being curious. We can apply this to finding sound answers in the wonderful and terrible thing that is the internet. We find a claim, whether it is something about the utility of masks for preventing the spread of COVID-19, or the current record high temperatures in Siberia and then it is the 5 W’s.

Who: Who is telling the story and what do they have to benefit from telling it that way? Do I trust the source that the information is coming from (and we could get into what all would go into earning that trust – peer review, scientific track record, qualifications, who paid for the study?, etc.)?

What: What are the data telling me? Go straight to the graphs. Analyze the axes. Look at the scope and scale of the collection of the data – Is it a big sample size? Does it represent the population it claims to? How was it collected? Is there a valid trend?

Where: What is the source of this information/claim? Who is the intended audience? Where is the information published? Why is it coming from this source in particular?

When: Why is this being presented at this way at this time? Is the storytelling political? Is it urgent? Is it even current? Check the date.

Why: The why part is encompassed in some of the other W’s, but ultimately, why is this claim being made?

So, really, there are a couple of pieces to this. First, you have to do some critical thinking about the claims that you see. Second, you have to understand that science is a process. Science is a method by which we know things about the world. As such, when you are in the middle of an experiment, or an experience that is being studied, the models created to explain the various phenomena are subject to change.

It is hard to make valid conclusions in the middle of collecting data. As scientists, it is our role to interpret and report findings to the best of our ability with the data that are available. That does not mean that things will not change in the next week or the next year or the next decade. That is the beauty of science, its fluidity. The value of the scientific method is in the way we can change our minds and models as new information becomes available. When we are researching claims made on the internet, or even just reading headlines on the internet, we have to be scientists.

Everyone could use a little more science these days.

STEM cat image...if you are going to stem..you have to CHEM!

Heading image of William C. Bonaudi Library's Down the Research Rabbit Hole Issue 4 | Kyle Foreman: Original Parts

The William C. Bonaudi Library talks to Director of Safety, Security and Emergency Management, Kyle Foreman about his lifelong research practices at work and for fun.

Could you share some books, blogs, journals, or other sources of information you use to keep up with your profession.

Public Safety offers a wide variety of media in order to stay proficient.

Websites:

Campus Safety magazine is probably the foremost online resource for Campus Safety professionals. Written by people who actually do the job, it’s the most reliable source, I believe.

Higher Ed seems like an unbiased source of information. The writers seem to be well-centered and transparent; if higher ed is doing something and it’s not a good practice, the Inside Higher Ed writers don’t turn their heads to it.

The Journal of Emergency Management is a great resource for emergency and crisis management issues.

Books:

Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable by Steven Fink is an excellent and timeless classic. The lessons in the book continue to ring true 35 years after this book was first published.

Crisis Leadership Now by Laurence Barton – Excellent. Over the years I have attached multiple post-it page markers to topics in my copy. I’ve referenced it a lot over the years.

What Were They Thinking?: Crisis Communication: The Good, the Bad, and the Totally Clueless by Steve Adubato. A great reminder of how crisis management can go wrong and what human traits cause it to happen.

**We can interlibrary loan these books for you. They are also available via North Central Libraries.

You have to talk to a lot of audiences and people from a variety of backgrounds. Do you have a technique for getting out critical and sometimes difficult information?

The audiences Campus Safety has contact with a range from one person to hundreds of people. Each audience or customer will require a different presentation. To achieve this, you simply have to understand each audiences’ or customers’ needs.

But, the biggest thing you have to do is show that you care and be honest, timely, and transparent. Once you’ve lost the customer’s trust, it takes a very long time to rebuild it.

In your off-hours, you work on some amazing vintage vehicles. How do you learn about these vehicles, hunt down the parts, and keep your research together?

My hobby is working on old Ford trucks, vintage 1970-1978. I own two, and my buddy owns two and we frequently help each other out. Thankfully, there are old Ford truck enthusiasts worldwide and multiple web resources for research and for buying parts. It can be a challenge sometimes hunting down a part, and in some cases, the part can be cross-referenced because it was used on several types of Ford vehicles. I keep a three-ring binder for each of my old trucks to catalog the research and to log the repairs or upgrades.

William C. Bonaudi Library's Down the Research Rabbit Hole | Issue 19 | Jennifer McCarthy | Mind's Eye

How has reading helped you navigate the world? What books, authors, and ideas have supported and expanded your worldview or daily life?

You live with Traumatic Brain Injury. What type of research have you done on this? Do you keep current with any particular site or journal? Has research helped you manage? Is there a particular researcher or organization you follow?

Your classes are lively fully engaged adventures. Where do you get your instruction ideas?

What countries have you lived in and what type of spirit or idea have they added to your life?

What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

Leave a comment

Commenting on blog posts requires an account.

Login is required to interact with this comment. Please and try again.

If you do not have an account, Register Now.

Similar Posts

In your last job at Central Washington University (CWU), you were working on a research project. Tell us about it. How many people were involved? What was the topic? Where are you at with this research? Did you discover anything interesting or find more questions?

As a Librarian, what is the hardest question you have ever been asked. How did you solve it?

In your off-work life, do you have an area you casually research as more of a hobby and intellectual interest?

What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

What is your mental space when it comes to research? Do you have a plan? Are you random? Is it a research rabbit hole or a carefully planned expedition?

To keep up with your profession, what are your go-to books, blogs, journals, social media follows, and/or people?

What's the best presentation or workshop you have ever pulled together in the name of science excellence?

What would people be surprised to know about you?

How do you approach the finding sound answers in what seems like a whirlpool of pseudoscience?

The William C. Bonaudi Library talks to Director of Safety, Security and Emergency Management, Kyle Foreman about his lifelong research practices at work and for fun.

Could you share some books, blogs, journals, or other sources of information you use to keep up with your profession.

Websites:

Books:

You have to talk to a lot of audiences and people from a variety of backgrounds. Do you have a technique for getting out critical and sometimes difficult information?

In your off-hours, you work on some amazing vintage vehicles. How do you learn about these vehicles, hunt down the parts, and keep your research together?

William C. Bonaudi Library's Down the Research Rabbit Hole | Issue 19 | Jennifer McCarthy | Mind's Eye

How has reading helped you navigate the world? What books, authors, and ideas have supported and expanded your worldview or daily life?

You live with Traumatic Brain Injury. What type of research have you done on this? Do you keep current with any particular site or journal? Has research helped you manage? Is there a particular researcher or organization you follow?

Your classes are lively fully engaged adventures. Where do you get your instruction ideas?

What countries have you lived in and what type of spirit or idea have they added to your life?

What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

Leave a comment

Commenting on blog posts requires an account.

Login is required to interact with this comment. Please login here and try again.

If you do not have an account, Register Now.

Similar Posts

In your last job at Central Washington University (CWU), you were working on a research project. Tell us about it. How many people were involved? What was the topic? Where are you at with this research? Did you discover anything interesting or find more questions?

As a Librarian, what is the hardest question you have ever been asked. How did you solve it?

In your off-work life, do you have an area you casually research as more of a hobby and intellectual interest?

What book, poem, or study have you read that engaged you so deeply you were changed?

What is your mental space when it comes to research? Do you have a plan? Are you random? Is it a research rabbit hole or a carefully planned expedition?

To keep up with your profession, what are your go-to books, blogs, journals, social media follows, and/or people?

What's the best presentation or workshop you have ever pulled together in the name of science excellence?

What would people be surprised to know about you?

How do you approach the finding sound answers in what seems like a whirlpool of pseudoscience?

The William C. Bonaudi Library talks to Director of Safety, Security and Emergency Management, Kyle Foreman about his lifelong research practices at work and for fun.

Could you share some books, blogs, journals, or other sources of information you use to keep up with your profession.

Websites:

Books:

You have to talk to a lot of audiences and people from a variety of backgrounds. Do you have a technique for getting out critical and sometimes difficult information?

In your off-hours, you work on some amazing vintage vehicles. How do you learn about these vehicles, hunt down the parts, and keep your research together?

Login is required to interact with this comment. Please and try again.