News2009March

=CCT News=

13 March 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**__

The week of March 15-19 is spring vacation week - no classes will be held.

__**CCT Community**__

A memorial service for Janet Farrell Smith will be held on Saturday March 28, 3:00-5:00, at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (on Brattle St in Harvard Sq, near the Brattle Theater). Members of the Philosophy Department will be speaking. The Department is also planning a tribute event on campus sometime this spring, probably in May. (See [|tribute].)

__**CCT Events**__

Upcoming CCT Open House: Monday, March 23: How College Students Find Their Voices as Writers: Exploring What it Means to Teach and Learn Writing, with special guest, Peter Elbow 6:30-9:00pm, Wheatley 4th Floor Lounge (W-4-0148) This panel consist of CCT alums and instructors who have been engaged in the teaching of writing to college-level students. By exploring what it means to teach and learn writing we hope to add new insights and tools to the efforts of CCT instructors to guide students in the use of writing convey their ideas and to meet academic goals through writing. Presentations can be listened to live, starting around 6.45pm or later at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/16894. See more about past and upcoming CCT Network events.

Spring Synthesis presentations by graduating students will occur on Monday, April 27th and Monday, May 4th. More details to come later.

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 http://www.stv.umb.edu/ISHS09.html for schedule. Open to the public. (Next talks: 24 March, on "Scientific data: an obstacle to policy?"; April 6, "The Subversive Summons of Ecology"; and April 22, "Dying of Sadness: Hospitalism and Mexican Social Reform") Supporting material and podcasts are available through http://sicw.wikispaces.com/ISHS09

__**Alum and CCT associates Notes**__ Ben Schwendener announces the newly designed http://www.benschwendener.com website. The main feature of the new site is 90+ minutes of music.

**__Events__** Ben Schwendener and Uwe Steinmetz Apfelschaun II will perform at Taylor House, 50 Burroughs St, Jamaica Plain, April 3 (Fri), 7:30 PM & Longy School of Music, 1 Follen St, Cambridge, April 7 (Tues), 8:30 PM

Creative Problem Solving Institute sponsored by the Creative Education Foundation in Danvers, MA, June 21-24, 2009 Registration and info: http://www.cpsiconference.com/ Multiple workshops, speakers, and experiences led by world experts in creativity, involving themes such as "Lateral Thinking for Innovative Leaders" and "Revolutionizing Training Design". Opening Ceremony Keynote Speaker, Sarah Miller Caldicott, Great grandniece of Edison, who has researched his world-changing innovation methods and will share how each of us can learn five Competencies of Innovation.

Public Conversations Project is sponsoring the following Workshops Registration and info: http://www.publicconversations.org/, email abaron@publicconversations.org or call (617) 923-1216 x13. Location for all workshops: Watertown, MA, at the Family Institute of Cambridge

> Inquiry as Intervention: Crafting Questions with Purpose and Impact > April 6, 2009; 8:30am-4:30pm > This workshop focuses on the use of questioning to support reflection and understanding, including how and when to use certain types of questions.

> Staying Grounded When on the Spot > April 30 - May 1, 2009; 8:30am-4:30pm > This workshop on facilitation will focus on working to address challenging moments in facilitation.

> The Power of Dialogue (POD): Constructive Conversations on Divisive Issues > June 11-13, 2009; 8:30am-4:30pm > This workshop will focus on the use of dialogue to create constructive conversations that establish trust and mutual understanding.

__**Opportunities**__

The Career Advancement Program Tuition Waiver is designed to reward Massachusetts's public school teachers in their first three years of teaching who have passed all three components of the Massachusetts Teachers Test. It is further believed that the Career Advancement Program Tuition Waiver helps to increase the retention of new teachers during the first three years when attrition is highest; by rewarding teachers with career advancement opportunities. Eligible public school teachers receive up to three tuition-free state-supported graduate courses, one for each of their first three years of teaching. The value of the tuition waivers is approximately $300 per course. http://www.osfa.mass.edu/default.asp?page=careerWaiver

**__Resources__**

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

__**Food for Thought**__

NY TImes, [|OpEd,] on how most whites harbor a hidden racial bias that many are unaware of and don’t consciously agree with.

Obituary from NYTimes, 24 Feb '09 Christopher Nolan, an Irish writer who, mute and quadriplegic since birth...died Friday in Dublin... At 11, supplied with a new drug to relax his neck muscles, he began writing with a “unicorn stick” strapped to his forehead, pecking a letter at a time on a typewriter as his mother held his chin with her hands. The brain that one doctor had predicted would remain infantile turned out to contain a distinctive literary voice awaiting release. “My mind is like a spin-dryer at full speed, my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down in my lap,” he told The Observer of London in 1987. “Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind’s expanse.”

To keep the boy’s mind stimulated, his father told stories and read passages from Joyce, Beckett and D. H. Lawrence. His mother strung up letters of the alphabet in the kitchen, where she kept up a steady stream of conversation. His sister, Yvonne, two years older, sang songs and acted out skits. All three survive him. “I was wanted dearly, loved dearly, bullied fairly and treated normally,” Mr. Nolan told The Christian Science Monitor in 1988.

__**Humor**__ On the bicentenary of Darwin's birth, [|New Scientist magazine] invited readers to tell them "Things you would never have heard Charles Darwin say about evolution." The winner was Kris Halls: "Finches, eh? Seen one, seen 'em all!"