LATROBE, PA – Recently, Dr. Eric Mohr, Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Saint Vincent College (SVC), was invited to attend the Digital Liberal Arts Summer Institute hosted by Transylvania University.
The goal of the Institute was to advance a broader conversation about the role of technology in teaching at the college level in order to aid students in facing obstacles of the 21st century. Mohr was one of 17 attendees invited to speak on the subject matter.
“As the new director of the SVC Liberal Arts program, I was interested in the nature of the conversation about ways in which digital technologies are approached within a Liberal Arts framework,” Mohr noted when asked why he chose to attend the Institute. “I attended largely in connection with my efforts with other SVC faculty to revitalize the liberal arts major.”
Mohr explained how the workshop had been split into three days, holding conversations and workshopping on topics such as digital fluency, wicked problems and design thinking, and human-technology interaction.
Mohr found a particular interest in the conversations of the second and third days, especially when the idea of a “wicked problem” was introduced.
“The multidimensionality of a wicked problem—for example, poverty or climate change—is considered to be a problem that cannot be adequately addressed without taking a multidisciplinary approach,” Mohr explained. “They’re broadly human and environmental issues that require us to look at wholes rather than only at parts and parts in relation to a whole. This is definitively liberal arts in focus.”
“The discussion on the third day was helpful to think of how a Liberal Arts capstone project could include a component where students are required to organize a social media-related campaign to facilitate social engagement about their issue,” furthered Mohr. “The important pedagogical aspect is educating students how to approach social media not just as a consumer, but as a producer and a way to facilitate thinking and action on the issue.”
Having returned after attending the Digital Liberal Arts Summer Institute, Mohr plans on using the knowledge he gained at the Institute to further develop the Liberal Arts program here at SVC and start conversations of his own regarding the topic.
Dr. Eric Mohr is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Vincent College. He graduated from Duquesne University with both his Ph.D. and his MA, and he received his BS fromFranciscan University. He specializes in moral and critical phenomenology and personalism and has made numerous publications in his field, the most recent being "Through Windows of Love and Hatred: A Critical Phenomenology of Dehumanization," published in 2023.
To learn more about more about Dr. Eric Mohr and his work, contact Dr. Mohr at eric.mohr@stvincent.edu.
-Madison Kozera, English major, of Abingdon, MD