"Archive to Adventure: DEL International Webinar, March 2026"

​On March 6, 2026, I presented "Archive to Adventure: Reigniting Curiosity Through Campus-Based Creative Research" at the DEL "In Between" International Webinar, hosted by Digitally Engaged Learning in the United Kingdom. The presentation drew on pedagogy developed in ART1600 and my ongoing work with UNT's campus collections, arguing that the problem is not technology but passive learning, and that archive-based, object-driven encounters can rebuild the curiosity and tolerance for ambiguity that test-driven systems train students out of. The full active learning loop, from novel object to creative transfer, was demonstrated using Mildred: a hamster, a silver cross reliquary, and a very good argument for Special Collections.