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Faculty Adventures in Cyberspace!
In this column we ask SPEA faculty members to describe their
relationship to the Internet, e-mail, and related gadgetry. This
month we go online with Lisa Bingham, the Keller-Runden Professor
of Public Service, and Director of the Indiana Conflict Resolution
Institute at SPEA.
Your favorite work-related Web sites?
- www.americaspeaks.org Way cool organization. These people
ran “Listening to the City”, a 4,300-person deliberative forum
with a representative sample of the electorate in NYC on what
people who live there really want to happen in the redevelopment
of Ground Zero. As a result of the forum, the original plans
for redevelopment were scrapped.
- www.thataway.org Gateway Web site for the National Consortium
on Dialogue and Deliberation, resources on citizen engagement,
public participation, and deliberative democracy in governance.
- www.crinfo.org The research Web site for the field of conflict
resolution, a rich resource.
- www.adr.gov Web site for everything you want to know about
how federal agencies are using dispute resolution in procurement,
employment, the environment, civil enforcement.
- www.ecr.gov A small federal agency whose mission it is to
help other federal agencies, the private sector, state and local
government, Native American sovereign governments, and the public
resolve complex environmental disputes and make public policy
using consensus-building processes.
- www.adr.org American Arbitration Association Web site—wealth
of information on how the private sector is using dispute resolution
www.policyconsensus.org Gateway Web site for state government
use of dispute resolution.
Where do you go for fun?
www.playbill.com
Theatre listings for every city that I have conferences in. I don’t
spend time on the Web for fun; I usually go to it with a mission.
I am pretty task-oriented. The exception is theatre. I will cruise
and explore the Web sites of regional theatres whenever I know I
am going to be traveling. I know where the theatres are in Tucson
and Seattle and San Diego and places you don’t associate with theatre.
When I go to conferences, I usually try to organize an outing with
my colleagues. We have seen some great things (Edward Albee’s The
Goat or Who is Sylvia? on Broadway) and some really terrible things
(juvenile improv comedy at a smoke-ridden bar in Tucson).
How has your work lifestyle changed as a result of the Internet
and e-mail?
One, I’m e-mail addicted. Two, Internet makes it possible for the
Indiana Conflict Resolution Institute to have a national impact.
We are connected to people all over the country on our various research
projects. We are to some degree a virtual organization. The students
are real; the organizations and agencies and people we work with
are real. Everything else exists in cyberspace.
Do you worry about students cribbing off the Internet and
how do you handle it when you suspect it’s happened?
I teach a core required course in Law and Public Affairs. I assign
a final research paper on a law-related topic of their choice. If
I suspect plagiarism, I can use LexisNexis to search a sentence
or phrase that sounds suspicious; if they have quoted without attribution
from a law review article, it pops up right away. However, generally,
we have wonderful graduate students and this is not a problem.
Do you have other gadgets (PDA, Blackberry). If not, why
not?
I have a PDA. I want a Blackberry, but I am not sure I can justify
the expense!
What’s the one Web site you couldn’t live without?
Google™.
A graduate of Smith College and
the University of Connecticut School of Law, Lisa Bingham practiced
labor and employment law for ten years. She joined the faculty
of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs in 1992 and
co-founded the Indiana Conflict Resolution Institute five years
later. Supported by a grant from the Hewlett Foundation, the Institute
conducts applied research and program evaluation on mediation,
arbitration, and other forms of dispute resolution. Bingham is
also director of the National REDRESS® Evaluation Project for
the United States Postal Service. She has served as a consultant
on evaluating conflict resolution systems to the National Institutes
of Health, the United States Air Force, and the Occupational Safety
and Health Review Commission. A winner of three teaching awards
and four peer-reviewed awards for her research, Bingham has published
over 20 articles and book chapters. Learn more about the Indiana
Conflict Resolution Institute at http://www.spea.indiana.edu/icri/
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