Judith Swift
Professor, Communication Studies and Theatre; Director, Coastal Institute
CONTACT
Office: 124 Coastal Institute, Narragansett Bay Campus
Phone: 401-874-6513
E-mail: jswift@uri.edu
- Certificate
- Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London, 1976-77
- M.A., English Literature
- University of Rhode Island, 1971
- B.A., English (Sociology/Criminology)
- University of Rhode Island, 1968
Graduate
- MBA 575: Business Communication
- MBA 576: Seminar in Management
- EVS 610: Multi-disciplinary Problem Solving in Coastal Ecosystems
- EVS 612: Leadership and Communication in Coastal Ecosystem Science and Management
- HPR 411: Environmental Dystopia
- COM405: Humor in Communication
- COM/SUS/ECN 108: Spaceship Earth: A Systems Approach to Sustainability
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS/PRESENTATIONS
Anthony, A. et al. Coastal lagoons and climate change: ecological and social ramifications in U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coast ecosystems. Ecology and Society, 14(1): 8. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss1/art8/ (2009).
August, P. V.; Swift, J. M.; Kellogg, D. Q.; Page, G.; Nelson, P.; Opaluch, J.; Cobb, J. S.; Foster, C.; Gold, A. J. The T Assessment Tool: A Simple Metric for Assessing Multidisciplinary Graduate Education. Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education. 39:15-21. (2010).
Representative Creative Research Projects
Director, Rock 'n' Roll by Tom Stoppard. The Gamm Theatre, Pawtucket, RI. ( Equity LOA Theatre). 2010.
Director, The Scarlet Letter by Phyllis Nagy adapted from the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Gamm Theatre, Pawtucket, RI. (Equity LOA Theatre). 2009.
Director, An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde. The Gamm Theatre, Pawtucket, RI. (Equity LOA Theatre). 2008.
It's a Shore Thing--A Coastal Cabaret -- Musical look at global environmental change in our coastal zones. Capstone event for public lecture series, People and Planet – Global Environmental Change (co-coordinator), http://www.uri.edu/hc (also performed for the US Geological Survey New England Coastal Workshop, the RI Sea Grant national evaluation meetings, the URI Coastal Institute Senior Fellows meeting, Sea Grant Panels (both the Program Assessment Team and the Literacy and Education Topical Assessment Team), the New England Chapter of the North American Lake Management Society's international symposium, Save the Bay, the estuarine Research Federation and the 2007 Marine Aggregation of The Nature Conservancy, Pacific Grove, CA. (director, co-lyricist; co-lyricist, composer, Charles Cofone) 2008.
The Katrina Project, director and author/editor, The Gamm Theatre, Pawtucket, RI. (Equity LOA Theatre). 2008.
Grants (recent)
NSF IGERT, ($3.2M) Assessing Change in Coastal Ecosystems: Integrating Natural and Social Sciences (P. August, PI; Co-PIs A. Gold, C. Oviatt, R. Burroughs, J. Opaluch, J. Swift)
Davis Educational Foundation, ($298,000) Creation of university-wide outcomes assessment (co-PIs J. Swift, D. Grossman-Garber)
United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, Northeast Region, Pilot project internship to promote career development through the CESU: A doctoral student assigned to the NPS Science Advisor ($5000) (J. Swift, PI; C0-PIs, A. Gold, D.Q. Kellogg)
BIO
Judith Swift serves as the director of the Coastal Institute and a Professor of Communication Studies and Professor of Theatre at the University of Rhode Island. Her research focus is the translation of science to the public. Among her most recent works are a cabaret on adaptive management of coastal ecosystems, It's a Shore Thing., which has been performed at over two dozen local, regional and national science conferences and The Katrina Project, a dramatic piece based on over 90 interviews Swift conducted in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta following Hurricane Katrina. She also directs conventional professional theatre. She is a co-PI and co-director of the National Science Foundation IGERT, Assessing Change in Coastal Ecosystems: Integrating Natural and Social Sciences (PI, Dr. Peter August). Swift has also served as the vice provost for academic affairs at URI. She spent eight years as a resident director at Brown University's Rites and Reason Theatre. Swift's artistic work was recognized by receipt of the 2002 Research Excellence Award at URI. She holds an Unlimited Joint Appointment in Film Media and is an Honors Faculty Fellow.
Swift believes strongly in experiential learning. Her work as a teacher has always stressed this pedagogical approach. Consequently, when in the Theatre Department, she always spent numerous hours with students in the production laboratory, in rehearsals of their own projects, in informal meetings, advising sessions, and group discussions. Now that she works primarily in Communication Studies teaching an array of courses from honors seminars to undergraduate and graduate communication studies courses, from film to multidisciplinary problem solving in the coastal zone, she feels fortunate to have the challenge of reinventing her scholarship and pedagogy to suit these distinct audiences. Swift notes: "Teaching is often a twelve-hour-a-day job if it is well done for, at its best, it is inextricably bound with scholarly or creative activities, and with outreach and service. Everything a faculty member does should involve students in some way. I make substantive efforts to uphold this philosophy and strive to discover when and where I fail or how and why I succeed. I think my greatest strength is that I get involved in the process of learning with my students. Undergraduates provide a vast opportunity to introduce new ways of thinking, analyzing and even behaving. I also genuinely enjoy the numerous opportunities I have to work with graduate students through my work as thesis or dissertation committee member, as major professor, or in courses I've team-taught in the Coastal Institute IGERT Project. These students bring a more mature perspective to the work, which in and of itself, challenges me to be a student alongside them."
faculty spotlight
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Dr. Ian Reyes
Helps Establish
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Ian Reyes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
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Study Links TV Viewing
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Congratulations to
Dr. Kevin McClure
Dr. McClure received the 2010 NCA Outstanding Article Award for "Kenneth Burke's Dramatic Form Criticism," coauthored with F. D. Anderson and A. King, in Rhetorical Criticism, edited by J. A. Kuypers.
