In the News

Guest Speaker, Professor Edwin A. Locke, discusses “The Case for Induction”, in Professor John L. Dennis’s INIT 350 Academic Internship & Seminar, Psychology.

Professor Edwin A. Locke, the world’s foremost scholar in the area of goal-setting research, recently gave a virtual guest speaker talk on “The Case for Induction,” where he described how induction is the only method for developing well-validated theories.

The virtual guest talk was hosted at The Umbra Institute using video conferencing software with Professor Locke calling in from his office in Westlake Village, California and students actively participated in a lengthy Q&A period.

In his talk, Professor Locke discussed how everyone who publishes in professional journals in the social sciences knows that you are supposed to start your article with a theory, then make deductions from it, then test it, and then revise the theory. He described how this policy demands premature theorizing and often leads to making up hypotheses after the fact.

Professor Locke examined how this policy is based on the hypothetico-deductive method of Karl Popper’s falsifiability theory which retards scientific progress because it demands scientists to show that something is not true rather than discovering what is true.

In discussing three major theories from psychology, (Beck’s cognitive theory of depression, Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, and Locke & Latham’s goal-setting theory) Professor Locke identified how these theories rely on observation, introspection and the identification of causal mechanisms – i.e., the inductive approach.

Professor Edwin A. Locke is the retired Dean’s Professor of Motivation and Leadership at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the co-author of goal-setting theory, which is one of the most widely respected theories in psychology and he is the most published organizational psychologist in the history of the field. He has published over 260 chapters, books and articles.

Harvard student and Umbra alumna Teagan Lehrman recently submitted a paper to the ASFS, the Association for the Study of Food and Society,the professional association of scholars who study food and food culture from various points of view. Lehrman, a Junior, studied in Perugia last semester and was one of the students who completed all three courses for the Food Studies Program. She had written the paper that was accepted for the conference, “Steamed, Sealed and Delivered” (about the history of sauces and their development with technological change) for her History and Culture of Food in Italy course here in Perugia, the core course of the Food Studies Program. Lehrman will deliver her paper in New York in June. Congratulations!

Prof. John L. Dennis, along with several students of the INIT 350 Academic Internship & Seminar, Psychology, submitted an invited conference submission for a symposium “Inside the Creative Mind” organized by Prof. Alessandro Antonietti (Università del Sacro Cuore Milano) at the annual meeting for the Italian Association for Cognitive Science held at The University of Milan, December 1-2. The submission was on on how Genetic Algorithms can be useful for modeling human creativity. The symposium will include presentations by Mathematicians, Philosophers, and Linguists as well as Psychologists.

Students (using Google Documents) collaborated simultaneously on the article submission, which discusses how Genetic Algorithms, despite following procedures that are not “intelligent,” are able to find solutions that can be recognized as intelligent. The article argues that several principles of Genetic Algorithms – for example, the memorization, storage and retrieval of information as well as the combination and recombination of simple elements within a mechanical procedure of trial and error – can be used to formulate the foundation of a cumulative creative process.

Last week, the Business in Europe and Int’l Marketing students ventured outside of Perugia to Gualdo Tadino and Città di Castello. These two charming Umbrian towns are known for their skillfully crafted artisan products including traditionally-made ceramics and furniture. Students interviewed the artisans in their workshops and learned everything from how paints are mixed using the same techniques from the 1500’s, how kiln secrets are passed down from generation to generation, to the sustainability efforts being made to preserve the wood supply in Italy.

After visiting several workshops and a furniture exposition, students now have the task of assisting the regional Umbrian government in uniting Umbrian artisans under a new brand called ‘Umbria Artigianato’. With this brand, the local government hopes to strengthen and promote their high-quality artisan industries both in Italy and abroad. Equipped with the knowledge of how Umbrian artisan workshops operate and the history and passion behind them, students will design group presentations for the regional government. For these formal presentations, students will research and discuss different strategies, obstacles, and opportunities that exist to successfully market this brand to the United States.

This collaboration brings to life a real case study- helping preserve Umbrian artisan industries in a time of economic difficulty where quality over quantity continues to be the golden rule. This service learning project, which integrates community work with classroom theory, will continue in the coming semesters at Umbra. Stay tuned!

Umbra Professor Antonella Valoroso went on Rai’s well-known Italian radio show Voci della Città (Voices of the City) recently. Continue reading →

Alessandra Pettinelli, Umbra Italian professor, publishes book on how to use Perugia as a “living language laboratory.”

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Umbra alumna Kylie Bearse, an International Journalism Festival intern while in Perugia, will be doing TV weather forecasting.

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History/Food Studies professor Zachary Nowak and Associate Director for Academic Development Elgin Eckert delivered papers.

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