Kindness in the Academy with Catherine Denial

Today our guest is Dr. Catherine Denial, Mary Elizabeth Hand Bright and Edwin Winslow Bright Distinguished Professor of American History; and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College. Dr. Denial’s historical research has focused on nineteenth-century marriage, divorce, pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy among Native and non-Native communities in the land we currently call Minnesota. In addition to her historical scholarship, Catherine is a scholar of teaching. She was Principal Investigator on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant “Pedagogies, Communities, and Practices of Care in the Academy after COVID-19.” She contributed a chapter to the edited collection Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions and is a contributor to Hybrid Pedagogy. Her book A Pedagogy of Kindness has been making waves since it was published in July of 2024. We are delighted to have Dr. Denial on the show to discuss care in teaching, the intersection of kindness and AI, and much more.

Resources:

Catherine Denial, A Pedagogy of Kindness

https://www.knox.edu/care-in-the-academy

John Malesic, The End of Burnout

Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Unraveling Faculty Burnout