Last year, VCU’s Department of Focused Inquiry ran its first ever study abroad program to the American College Greece in Athens. As part of President Rao’s initiative to provide opportunities for experiential education, Thad Fortney taught a section of UNIV 211 “Food for Thought” a course designed to introduce students to interdisciplinary studies. Students traveled… Continue Reading Study Abroad in Greece

New Focused Inquiry faculty member, Dr. Incoronata “Nadia” Inserra, has published a book with the University of Ilinois Press. Global Tarantella: Reinventing Southern Italian Folk Music and Dances was supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the L. J. and Mary C. Skaggs Folklore Fund. On the publisher’s website, the book is described as… Continue Reading Faculty Member Publishes Book

Check out the latest story from VCU’s Service Learning blog: Students Support New School Farm Project And talk about VCU’s Community Engagement!  This service learning class is taught by an FI Professor, the Community Food Collaborative’s board president is an FI Professor, and the Vice-Chair of the Henricopolis Soil & Water Conservation District Board is… Continue Reading FI Students Get their Hands Dirty

September marks the long-awaited release of Wirewalker, the first novel by Focused Inquiry professor Mary Lou Hall.  The story is set in a fictional city of Jackson City, Virginia, and centers on the unexpected friendship between a vulnerable boy and a Great Dane.  The publisher, Penguin Random House, describes it as “a novel about self-reliance, difficult choices, and… Continue Reading FI Professor’s Novel Released this Month

VCU Professor David Coogan has spent years teaching writing in the Richmond City Jail, and curating his students’ true stories into the book Writing Our Way Out.  On Thursday, September 8th, join Coogan and some of his co-authors for a reading from their memoirs of incarceration in which they explore the personal and societal factors that… Continue Reading Writing Our Way Out event

The 2015-16 school year may be over, but the teaching in Focused Inquiry never stop!  Professors from the department are taking our lessons from the classroom and hitting the road, to share them with professors from across the nation and around the world. This week alone, Mary Lou Hall and Micol Hutchinson presented at the  Lilly… Continue Reading Taking Our Show on the Road

“[T]he Empathy Project is a collaborative, project-based learning assignment in which students design a test of human empathy and pitch it to a hypothetical business,” explains Focused Inquiry Professor Micol Hutchison in an article in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning.   In the article, “The Empathy Project: Using a Project-Based Learning Assignment… Continue Reading The Empathy Project: FI Professor Examines First Year Experience

No need to visit DC to celebrate this harbinger of spring or savor traditional Japanese culture.  This Sunday, April 3, from 12:30-4:30 VCU’s Japanese Student Association is hosting its 2nd Annual VCU Cherry Blossom Festival in the Student Commons Plaza.  Entertainment will include traditional drumming by VCU taiko club, featuring FI Professor Paul Yoon.  Join us!

“The idea came to me while watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” explained Professor DeSucof, a tenured member of the Focused Inquiry faculty team.  “I was trying to grade synthesis essays and watch at the same time, and realized it would be soooooooooo much easier if I could focus completely on the show.” And… Continue Reading FI Professor Designs Essay-Grading App