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Provost Melanie Stein invites us to celebrate the intellectual and creative accomplishments of our colleagues. Presenters will share from the research and/or creative activity they engaged in during their sabbatical. Light refreshments will be served.

Thursday, December 8th, 4:00-5:30pm
Clark Lounge, Campus Center

Presenters:
Narges Kasiri, Department of Management
Title: The Patterns of Business Analytics Adoption in US SMEs:  An Exploratory Approach

With the prevalence of Business Analytics (BA) tools and Big Data through the expansion of social media, cloud-based services, and introduction of new tools, research is needed to revisit the adoption of analytics technologies by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This study interviewed 50 US SMEs to investigate whether businesses are aware of new trends in BA, what patterns of adoption have occurred with recent tools, and how businesses’ size and industry can change the adoption patterns. We also investigated the different patterns in barriers that SMEs of different size and industry experience. Our results provide insights for SMEs to navigate the complicated process in the adoption of many Business Analytics solutions. For US SMEs policymakers and technology providers, knowing the state of BA adoption is imperative. Our findings also shed a light on how technology providers, policymakers, and industry associations can support SMEs to adopt further Business Analytic Tools.

Craig Duncan, Department of Philosophy and Religion
Title: Technological Justice: Tom Paine’s Revolution and the Coming Robot Revolution

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) is best known as the author of Common Sense, the famous pamphlet that galvanized support for the American Revolution among the colonists. Less well-known – but arguably more important – is another pamphlet he wrote entitled Agrarian Justice, which contains history’s first realistic proposal for government-provided social security. Paine also supplies a novel philosophical foundation for his proposal.  Since none us created the earth on which we live, Paine argues that the productive asset of land is most properly understood as the common inheritance of all of us. Land owners thus owe compensation to society for the use of an asset they did not create – a kind of “ground-rent,” he says, which can furnish the funds to secure societal well-being. My talk will explore a potential extension of Paine’s argument: just as none of us created the earth on which we live, it is also true that none of us alive today created the many technologies invented by past generations – technologies which continue to underwrite our prosperity today.  Like Paine’s idea of land capital, might it be wise to think of this intellectual capital as the common inheritance of all of us, and conclude that our current prosperity deserves to be more widely shared than it now is?  I will explore this argument, and explore the implications it has for a future that will be even more technologically automated than the present.

Richard Faria, Department of Music Performance
Title: A Temporary Affair: Talks on Awakening and Zen

In addition to the music related projects undertaken during my sabbatical, this period also saw the publication of a collection of talks I recorded, transcribed, and edited, entitled A Temporary Affair: Talks on Awakening and Zen. This book is a collection of thirty-one dharma talks given at Sunday morning sittings at the Ithaca Zen Center by David Radin, the center’s abbot and founder. These talks were given at a time when Radin’s health was severely compromised by end-stage renal failure. They continue right up until Radin’s admission to the hospital and contain insights as well as the personal story of how the dharma teachings comforted him and guided him to cope with and even thrive throughout his ordeal. In Radin’s own words, “How extraordinary, how blessed, how wonderful, to have met the teachings that free us from suffering when in difficult places.” Through these talks, readers can clearly see how Radin put dharma wisdom to use in his own life situation—and be inspired to do so for themselves.

“These short discourses by an old Zen priest facing his possible imminent death are relaxed and friendly in tone. They speak directly to the heart of human suffering, the confusion that comes from not understanding what is clearly available for us to feel directly and be liberated. It is a book I keep on my bedside table, at close hand when I need a dose of encouragement.” —Sylvia Boorstein, cofounding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and author of Happiness Is an Inside Job.

Facilitator: Patty Zimmermann, Dana Professor of Screen Studies, Media Arts, Sciences and Studies
Organized and supported by the Center for Faculty Excellence