Rob Williams
Rob Williams
Affiliated with Applied Sustainability, Division - Core, School of Social Innovation, Environmental Policy
Biography

Dr. Rob Williams is a Vermont-based musician, historian, consultant, journalist and media educator/maker who teaches F2F, global studies, media and communications courses at Champlain College and the University of Vermont, and leads student travel trips to China, the Middle East and other distant lands.

The founding president of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME), Rob focuses with his students on media education approaches and tools, and employs hands-on learning in his classes, with an emphasis on "blogocentric pedagogy" and use of social media platforms like Blogger, Twitter and YouTube to create class conversations and produce collaborative work, and to encourage students to find their individual voices in the emerging world of digital media convergence.

Outside of Champlain, Rob serves as publisher of Vermont Commons: Voices of Independence newspaper; co-manages Vermont Yak Company in Vermont's Mad River Valley, a farm business raising grass-fed yaks for meat and agritourism; and performs pherocious pholk phunk music in the Phineas Gage Project.

Favorite tree: Willow

Most rewarding part of teaching: Connecting students with the Real World.

Favorite part of living in Vermont: Fantastic food, drink and outdoor ops.

An Object of Affection

I love teaching, travel, history, writing, and music. Performing "folkgospel grassicana" music as part of a Vermont-based musical trio called the Phineas Gage Project allows me to satisfy all of these passions. Who was Phineas Gage, you ask? He was that 19th-century Vermont railroad engineer who accidentally dynamited a tamping iron through his skull and lived to tell the tale. We play "music for happy brains" to creatively honor his legacy and to have fun.


Quote

"Never let school get in the way of your education." - Mark Twain