Dr. Lindsay Whitlow's Observation

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On November 10th, 2014, at Dr. Lindsay Whitlow from Seattle University gave a talk as part of the Regis University Department of Biology Seminar Series. Being from Seattle University, another Jesuit university, Dr. Whitlow concerned himself with how he can not only provide an engaging learning environment for his students, but how he can also help the community. It seems that his aim with this speech was not only to be informative by telling the audience about his ecological research and his research regarding creating service learning projects, Dr. Whitlow seemed passionate about both types of research, and while his ecological research was very important to him, it seems that the purpose of this lecture was to get the idea of using service …show more content…

While this lecture covered some more advanced topics in ecology, the content didn’t seem overwhelming or too over the audiences head. Most of the audience was college students studying in the biological sciences. Dr. Whitlow talked about his initial creation of a service learning opportunity by allowing his students to get involved and collect water samples in Lake Washington. His students worked on collecting data with local high-risk high school students. This allowed his students to design studies which increased their understanding in field research and ecology, and it also provided high-risk high school students a learning opportunity that not only helped the community but could have also sparked an interest in biology or science for students who don’t normally get this type of opportunity. Dr. Whitlow reported that this program was a success and the high school students involved enjoyed the project. Dr. Whitlow also …show more content…

Whitlow did an exemplary job of not only presenting his information, he did a great job of speaking ethically, establishing his credibility, and just by being passionate about the subject matter. As far as the classical metrics we use to judge a orator, such as eye contact, posture, body language, I feel that Dr. Whitlow did a great job demonstrating these skills as they added to the lecture. One thing I noticed was instead of scanning the audience; he made contact with a few audience members. He was careful not to fixate on one member for too long and was sure to have a good distribution of people to look at so it didn’t appear like he was only staring at one part of the auditorium. Not only did show that Dr. Whitlow was comfortable with his audience, it helped foster a connection, and it showed that he was prepared as preparation is associated with eye-contact (Chaney & Green, 2006). Dr. Whitlow exemplified ethos very well by suing citations through his presentation which demonstrates trustworthiness of the speaker, also his expertise in his field helps build up his credibility (Ramage & Bean 1998). With regards to logos, Dr. Whitlow backed up his assertions such as how service learning is a great benefit to both the community and the students involved by using data collected in his research and in other research. According to Ramage & Bean, “the clarity of the claim” is important to the logos of the speech and Dr. Whitlow did a good job of being

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