News2009April

=CCT News=

13 April 2009
See also previous news, alum news and exchanges, items for the upcoming news, and [|CCT calendar]. Inform cct@umb.edu if you have news OR want to be emailed when there's a new news compilation (no more than once/month) OR want to be removed from such mailings.

Contents: Student matters, CCT community, CCT events, alums, other events, opportunities, resources, food for thought, humor

__**Student Matters**__

Monday, April 13 at 12:00noon DEADLINE: The CCT Program has been notified of an endowment fund concerning graduate programs in the GCE. This fund was created to provide support for "outstanding students" from Master's programs including CCT. This fund will continue to make awards in the future. Each program can only nominate one person. The CCT faculty members do not really like to single out students, apply the usual standards of "merit," or to generate competition-our interest is in helping each student develop as much they can personally, intellectually, and professionally. But we also recognize that tuition and fees are significant these days, so we are not going to decline to nominate someone! The criteria we will apply are GPA in CCT of 3.8 or above; 5 or more courses completed; no incompletes. To choose among equally merit-worthy students, we will give preference to someone paying their own tuition & fees. Let us know ASAP if you think you meet the three criteria and tell us what your tuition/fees bill was for academic year 08-09 and the fraction you have had to pay, after any assistantships/tuition waivers.

Registration for the fall 2009 has begun. > CCT courses to be offered are at []. >> See the description for the Seminar on Creativity, [] >> The schedule number for the Reflective Practice course is not yet assigned; an email will be sent out when it is. >> Look for other emails about course updates/registration matters over the following weeks. >> WISER term code for fall 2009 is 1910 > Students should consult with their advisors unless they are 100% clear about what they want to take. Students with two or more incompletes must meet with their advisors to take stock of what's been happening and make realistic plans to move forward. > Summer courses can be viewed at [] (CCT) and [] (all courses offered through CCDE dept.) WISER term code is 1840

Saturday May 16th: CCT Marathon Day 10:00am-5:00pm, in McC2-628C (room subject to confirmation). This is a day for students to get faculty and peer input and support to finish their syntheses and incompletes. It is also a day for you to initiate or advance your Reflective Practice /Metacognitive Portfolio; see http://cctrpp.wikispaces.com. We are asking every new student to develop a Portfolio through their program of studies and we encourage other students to do it in preparation for their synthesis semester.
 * Please RSVP to cct@umb.edu if you plan to attend.
 * Everyone must send an updated course plan to peter.taylor@umb.edu (unless it is unchanged from last time you submitted this).

Graduate Convocation (where book prizes are awarded) is Thursday May 28. Commencement is Friday, May 29. U.S. Senator John Kerry will deliver the principal address, and honorary degrees will be presented to Joseph Kennedy, Sister Margaret Leonard, and Edwin Moses.

__**CCT Community**__

Wednesday, April 15, 2009: Deadline to apply for the Delores Gallo fund The Delores Gallo fund (established on the occasion of her retirement) invites proposals for funding small projects of CCT students and alums, e.g., to bring in guests to your classes, initiate a new creative project, prepare your writing/photography/etc. for publication, buy materials for your classroom... More info at: []

Peter Taylor, wearing his other hat as Director of Science, Tech. & Values (or one face of his CCT hat), has organized a semester-long series of talks highlighting the wide range of work going on at UMB in the Science and Society area. See [] for schedule. Open to the public. (Next talks: April 22, "Dying of Sadness: Hospitalism and Mexican Social Reform" and May 5, "Mars as Cultural Mirror: Science, Imagination, and Society") Supporting material and podcasts are available through http://sicw.wikispaces.com/ISHS09

Poem, [|Remembering Janet], from Memorial service for Philosophy and CCT professor, Janet Farrell Smith, March 28th

__**CCT Events**__

Monday, April 27th and Monday, May 4th 4:30-8:30pm each day, fourth floor in the Science building, room 4-064 Spring Synthesis presentations by graduating students. Open to the public. Please come support the students as they present their Synthesis projects and prepare for graduation. Schedule of presentations

May 6 & 13 7-9:30: Wheatley Hall, 1st floor, room 50 Problem-based Learning Presentations Messy Problem: May 6: public health matter of obesity; Access to higher education for disadvantaged families; May 13: public safety matter of food contamination

__**Alum and CCT associates Notes**__ Ben Schwendener (pn) and Uwe Steinmetz (sx), Apfelschaun II, played at the [|Taylor House], Jamaica Plain on April 3.

**__Events__**

Wednesday, April 22, UMB, Campus Center: 12:00 – 5:00 p.m Hidden Treasure: Celebrating the Achievements of Non-Tenure Track Faculty

April 27-May 1, 2009: Graduate Student Appreciation Week The Graduate Student Assembly is sponsoring the first GSAW, a week-long series of workshops, events, and activities to make time for us to recognize the many achievements of graduate students as members of the UMB community. Through these events, there will be time to socialize with each other graduate students and learn about projects across all areas of study. Visit [] for time and location and to RSVP, as space may be limited for the events. Highlights include:

> 4/27: “Life by Design: A Five-Phase model for identifying what needs to be cleaned up, remodeled, renovated, or complete rebuilt in all aspects of a person's life”, and “Graduate Appreciation Week Kick-off Pizza Party” > 4/28: “Personal Branding and Marketing Yourself: an Essential Core Competency”, and “Let’s sit down for Coffee & Tea with the Chancellor” > 4/29: “Keys to Writing a Successful Thesis or Dissertation”, and “Inter-departmental Game Show Night” > 4/30: "Steppingstones to Leadership", featuring Chancellor Motley. > 5/1: "Interdisciplinary Perspectives: A Graduate Student Research Showcase."

Saturday, May 2, 2009: [|Celebration] of the Urban Scholars Program's 25th Anniversary and Motley Scholarship Program honoring Charles Desmond, chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education who will receive the Chancellor’s Medal.

June 21-24: The Creative Problem Solving Institute is the oldest and longest running conference dedicated to the teaching and practice of creativity and innovation. CPSI brings together the powerful voices of international leaders, trainers, authors, academics, corporate executives and entrepreneurs in a highly interactive and intimate setting. The program includes keynote presentations that inspire the mind to workshops, processes and events that reinforce the notion that solutions can be found in a more innovative, engaging and inspired way. The 2009 conference will be held in Boston, MA and includes Dean Kamen – Segway Inventor and founder of the FIRST Robotics Competition, Sarah Miller Caldicott – great grandniece of Thomas Edison and author of Innovate Like Edison, and Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius. For more information on speakers--which include Nina Greenwald--program descriptions, and the registration process, you can visit http://www.cpsiconference.com/ or call 508-960-0000.

The Believing Game as a Model for Thinking, conference of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, Estes Park, Colorado July 30--August 1, 2009, [] Scholarships available to assist attendance.

__**Opportunities**__

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UMass Boston is looking for graduate students to be instructors for the fall of 2009 to teach non-credit courses for 5 to 6 weeks. OLLI is a Lifelong Learning Program for people 50 and older. The topics of interest include literature, foreign languages, digital photography, Basic computers, history, potitics, science, and many more. We will provide a $300 stipend per course. To learn more about the program, please visit our website at [|www.OLLI.umb.edu]. For more information on teaching a course and a course proposal email Mary.McCarthy@umb.edu or call 617-287-7312.

To improve the quality of instruction in the Boston public schools, the Boston Plan for Excellence, a private non-profit organization, is seeking to hire two experienced facilitators to work with principals and school-based teams of practitioners to implement the work of Accelerating Improvement through Inquiry. Deadline: May 25, 2009. http://www.bpe.org/about/jobs_internships

The Graduate School of Social Sciences based at the University of Amsterdam offers many Master’s programs in English, including summer programs. It offers you the chance to develop yourself in an international academic environment. You will encounter professors and students from all over the world, which stimulates intercultural exchange on an academic level. [|http://www.graduateschoolofsocialsciences.nl]

**__Resources__**

The most current UMass-Boston [|Community Front Page].

WUMB’s popular Internet auction is back. It will run for the next few months, with about 15 new items being added every Wednesday. Many unique items and services including artist's signed CD's, posters and concert tickets. http://www2.www.umb.edu/wumb/auction/show_all_products.php

If you enjoy philosophy (and who doesn't in CCT?), check out [|Philosophy Bites], a web site dedicated to short audio recordings of interviews with "top philosophers" covering all kinds of philosophical issues. Explore views on ethics, friendship, virtue, social issues, and much, much, more.

__**Food for Thought**__

Robot Scientist? Researchers at Aberystwyth University in Wales claim to have developed the first robot that can [|hypothesize, test, and make discoveries on its own]...

Children's dictionary dumps "nature" words: To make way for modern tech terms such as BlackBerry, blog, voicemail and broadband, the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has opted to drop terms pertaining to old nature. No longer can a child check this dictionary and learn more about the blackberry, dandelion, acorn, heron, otter, magpie, sycamore, or willow. Source: http://www.nextnature.net/?p=3110

A visual introduction into Next Nature: http://www.nextnature.net/?page_id=3112

__**Humor**__

Stress I am not sure exactly how it works, but this is amazingly accurate. Read the full description before looking at the picture. > The picture on the link below has 2 identical dolphins in it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary ' s Hospital. Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences in the two dolphins. The more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing. Look at the photograph and if you find more than one or two differences you may want to take a vacation. [|picture]