Member of the Month: Lisa Heller Boragine

The Member of the Month feature periodically highlights our amazing membership and the things they’re doing. If you know someone who should be featured as the Member of the Month, email our Communications Minion and we’ll make it happen! October’s Member of the Month is Professor Lisa Heller Boragine (she/her).

What kind of work do you do?

I teach college courses in communication and sustainability. I also teach and write about communication, sustainability and climate change. I like to play games when I teach!

Why are you a NASAGA member?

I love NASAGA. NASAGA is authentic, different, creative, and fun. Being a member makes me feel more connected to like-minded people.

What’s your favorite NASAGA memory?

I attended my first NASAGA in 2015, I was doing work with an academic publisher at the time, and I went to the conference to see how to more games to teach my classes. I was so excited by my experience of playing the Commons Game by Richard Powers. The game and the debriefing I experienced inspired me to go back to school to get my PhD to study how students who play a sustainability game might think and feel about climate change.

NASAGA’s theme for the 2023 Conference is “Space at the Table.” What do you do in your professional practice to integrate diverse points of view?

This is such an important question! We can include others by limiting our assumptions and asking the right questions. When we play, are we playing a game that might exclude people because of assumed shared knowledge, attitudes or behaviors? We need to be careful not to assume that people know or believe something to be true.

For example, when I play a game in class that involves physical motion, I need to remember to ask students to let me know if they have mobility issues and have a way to include that person in the game without movement. Or, if the game expects people to get recent references to American popular culture, I need to provide extra support or more information to help recent immigrants or non-native English speakers feel included and participate.

Editor’s note: Conference week is here, people! Get excited and look for updates from the Comms Team all week about the cool stuff waiting for you in St. Louis!