Senior Teaching Fellow Lecture in South Africa
Added on 27 Oct 2009
Academic Stays at Home to Lecture in South Africa
A senior lecturer at Bath Spa University has addressed a conference in South Africa on literature and the environment without leaving his desk.
Dr Greg Garrard, Artswork Senior Teaching Fellow, delivered his keynote lecture to the international conference near Cape Town from his office at Bath Spa, using the Internet phone system Skype.
The new technology saved him a round trip of 12,000 miles and nearly three tonnes in carbon emissions.
It was especially appropriate for Dr Garrard to do it this way as the lecture was on his specialist subject, ecocriticism, or the study of literature and culture from an environmental perspective.
The Bath Spa University expert spoke via Skype for 40 minutes on how to teach ecocriticism, then answered questions from his audience of fellow academics in South Africa for a further 20 minutes, all without a hitch.
Dr Garrard said: "This year I have already flown to the west coast of Canada and to China for conferences, and a third long-haul flight seemed a bit excessive for my carbon footprint.
"I think its important to be physically present at a conference, for the personal face-to-face contact, but when its theme is environmental you must set an example and be the change you want to see."
The only problem Dr Garrard experienced with his Internet lecture was that he could not see or hear his audience, except for individual questioners. He was therefore unable to tell whether they laughed at his jokes!
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