Fancy Handouts

Sociology needs more artistic flair.

Scientific disciplines (or disciplines which like to think they are scientific) have a tendency to bog themselves down in data and research, at the expense of art and crafts. There are many ways this deficit can be rectified. Social Psychology Quarterly publishes pictures on its front cover. These images are submitted to the journal along with a brief description of why they are relevant to social psychology.

One can also study the sociology of art.

Another option is to make art inspired by sociology. For example, I have merged my artistic background with my academic present life to some extent with this blog: I painted a portrait of myself as an academic superhero (prophetic, it is - you just wait and see). Then I did a few Arts & Crafts for Geeks projects (i.e., nerdcraft).

Most recently, I gave a workshop at my school on making "fancy handouts" for improving conference presentations. A well-made handout is a boon to any presenter. It can keep you on track, keep the audience engaged (ooooo something to touch and look at!), and can improve your feelings of preparedness-- hence diminishing presentationophobia.

I had always used Microsoft Publisher to make my handouts - never even straying much from the templates - and invariably I was sought out with questions regarding how others could make handouts as professional-looking as mine. It occurred to me that many people had never opened their Publisher program, though most have it. This is a wonderful underutilized asset! So, I gave the workshop.

At the end of the semester, a classmate and I were sitting around wishing we had more cool events in our department. Later, the conversation turned to talk of the recent conference and how everyone was so impressed with her fancy handout. And that's when we decided to have a gallery opening for all the people who made fancy handouts for their presentations. It would be the perfect way to end the semester: people could display and reflect on their accomplishments, while eating food and drinking "grape juice."

We used the student bulletin board to display the handouts, sent invitations, and set out a spread of goodies. I had a last-minute scheduling conflict and couldn't go to the opening, but I hear it was a success! We even had a fair number of faculty in attendance.

Plus, the handout submissions were AWESOME!

Yay!!!