News2009January

=CCT News=

19 January 09
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**__

Spaces are still open for [|Spring courses], especially an elective on [|Dialogue Processes (online)] and the one-credit special topics course on [|Reflective Practice]. Late [|applications] will be considered for the cross-campus course, Gender, Race, and the Complexities of Science and Technology, A Problem-Based Learning Experiment. Non-matriculated students should see [| registration info]. The spring semester officially begins on Monday, January 26th for face2face courses; a week later for online courses. The full spring academic calendar is at http://www.umb.edu/students/registrar/calendar/calendar_2008_2009.shtml

Welcome to new students matriculating in the spring: Aimee Blaquiere, Marie Celestin, Eric D'Allesandro (for certificate), Michael Johns, Jeremy Poehnert, Lorna Riach, Scott White, Nina Williams.

Students admitted and matriculating in January should make every effort to schedule an entrance interview on January 23rd or 27th. (http://cct.wikispaces.com/ptofficehours), which will give the Program a chance to introduce them to a "set of steps to prepare CCT students to complete a synthesis during their final semester (or very soon after)", http://www.cct.umb.edu/SupportToCompletion.html. Continuing students are also encouraged to arrange a check-in on the 27th or soon after.

__**CCT Community**__

Janet Farrell Smith passed away January 8th after a long illness. Janet, a professor in the Philosophy Department, taught Critical Thinking, Foundations of Philosophy, and Biomedical ethics at various times for the CCT Program. Janet was a pioneer in philosophy in several ways. Entering graduate school in 1963, she was one of a small number of women in the discipline at that time. She specialized in philosophy of logic and language, an especially rare field for women in philosophy. She came to UMass in 1975 and soon began branching out into feminist topics. She contributed articles to two of the earliest feminist philosophy collections, Mothering, and Beyond Domination. Over the years her philosophical interests broadened into ethics, social, and political philosophy, and she worked on issues of identity and bioethics. She developed a subspeciality in philosophical issues concerning adoption, and was one of the first philosophers to work on that topic, contributing to the collection Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays. Her work became increasingly interdisciplinary over these years. At different times she held fellowships or associateships at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Divinity School, and the DuBois Insttitute on African and African American Research. In recent years she worked on ethics and genetics ([|longer tribute]).

Developments in the CCT-Continuing Ed partnership: A few years ago Cont. Ed. started to pay for a student assistant to support and promote CCT courses offered through Cont. Ed. In return we had to launch enough online courses that a student could, in principle, complete the 15-credit Certificate online. Now that these online courses in place, the challenge is to promote the CCT-Cont. Ed. courses (online & face2face) well and to draw students from the courses into the Certificate and M.A. program. To this end, Cont. Ed. has agreed to fund a 50% Assistant Coordinator position starting this summer. Part of the person's work will be to help launch the new CCT offerings in China, but the person will also help with general CCT administration and run the Reflective Practice course based on the monthly CCT (alum) Network events (aka CCT Community Open Houses).

__**CCT Events**__

Please join us as we kick off 2009 and the spring semester with our first CCT Community Open House: Reflecting and Connecting for Lifelong Learning--and Teaching (Co-organized by the CCT Network.) //When//: Friday, January 23, 2009. 5:30pm-8:00pm. //Where//: UMass-Boston, Wheatley Hall 4th floor lounge: W-4-148 (Listen in at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/16894; see tips ) //RSVPs appreciated//: cct@umb.edu //Event web page//: http://cct.wikispaces.com/CCTNetwork23Jan09 We'll welcome new students into the program and share our thoughts and explore possibilities for the program going forward. As the CCT program has continued to develop options for online participation in courses and events, we will discuss the possibilities and think about our part in the future growth of critical and creative thinking. A number of part-time/online instructors will join us and provide a rare chance for all of us to meet face-to-face and create a more personal connection. We'll also hear a brief presentation from graduating CCT student, Virginia de la Garza, on her work on "Per-se-ver-ence." And as usual, we'll also enjoy some good refreshments and socializing as we start the new year.

Also on January 23, 2.20-3.30, as part of the annual UMB conference on Teaching for Transformation: Place McCormack 2-205. A dialogue process session in which current and former CCT students reflect on the influence of the field of Critical & Creative Thinking on our practice, changes in the field, and ideas about future directions of development. Through Internet access, graduates who are no longer in the Boston area will be able to participate -- **volunteers welcome**! (contact peter.taylor@umb.edu for details).
 * "Changing Practices of/through Critical & Creative Thinking: Looking Back, Looking Forward"**

__**Alum and CCT associates Notes**__

**__Events__**

UMB Center for the Improvement of Teaching's annual conference on Teaching for Transformation Jan. 23rd, 2009, 8:30am-3:30pm Check-in: Ryan Lounge, 3rd floor of the McCormack building starting at 8:30 Also see the [|full schedule of workshops] during the conference, including **"Changing Practices of/through Critical & Creative Thinking: Looking Back, Looking Forward"** mentioned above

Tuesday's Presidential Inauguration will be available for public viewing in several places around the UMass-Boston campus. Please see the [|schedule] to check for specific locations (various events broadcast between 10:00am and 2:00pm).

__**Opportunities**__

**__Resources__**

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

__**Humor**__

Students and their [|learning styles]...

__**Food for Thought**__

Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts, http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Greece is still in turmoil. A note from Athens read: > The government still hasn't realized this is an overwhelming protest by the people verging on an insurrection. But never mind. They will leave sooner or later. Two things. One important and one just funny. At the boy's funeral his class mates read a letter out addressed to us. It was a great J'Accuse of our generation and how we have stripped youth of dreams, values, aspirations, how they feel ashamed of us but would like to be proud of us only all we do is buy and sell. "You don't dream any more, you don't fall in love, all you do is buy and sell and we are ashamed of you." It was really a great text... Now the funny one. Scuffles and skirmishes are continuing all over the city and at one of these yesterday where the cops were harassing some school kids, people in the cafes near by (oldies on the whole) dashed out and started throwing the sandwiches and cakes they had been eating at the cops! It's a lovely scene. Oh, and we (the Greek state if that is 'we' of course) have run out of tear gas. I don't know just how many tons have been used. Final bit, a banner that read "Money for the banks and bullets for the kids".

The Ig Noble Prizes are awarded for achievements in "improbable research" that "first make people laugh and then make them think". See full descriptions of past winners on [|improbable.com], including one group of scientists in Japan who discovered that [|slime molds can solve problems].