April 2008 Articles
Story ideas? Opinions? Questions, Compliments, or Complaints? Send us an email at facultyadvocate@gmail.com.
Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept It by Glenn Hansen
Faculty Who Blog by Christine Kickels
Books for Africa—a Trip to Saint Paul by Chris Goergen
Musings from a Dulwich Common Room by Richard Jarman
Got Words? by Karin Evans
Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept It by Glenn Hansen
College of DuPage enriches lives through distinctive learning, service and cultural
experiences within our diverse community.
This is the final draft mission statement developed by the constituency representatives at the March 12th in-service day work session. The six first-draft statements were reworked by the constituent groups and then discussed by everyone during the early afternoon portion of the session. The common themes were identified and combined into this draft. The draft statement was presented to the Board of Trustees on March 20 by the planning facilitator, Evelyn Canabal. The BoT were supportive of the statement, but discussed the terms distinctive and community. Lisa Higgins has posted a topic update on our discussion board that describes the in-service day activities as well as the BoT session, and includes a downloadable copy of the in-service day outcomes.
Coming next will be all-college forums:
Tuesday, April 8 from 2 to 3 p.m. in SRC 2052
Wednesday, April 9 from noon to 1 p.m. in M 156
Thursday, April 10 from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. in SRC 1544
Leadership Council will facilitate the open forums and everyone is encouraged to attend. We will maintain our discussion board topic as a virtual forum for faculty thoughts, concerns, and feedback. Additionally, please consider talking to your Senators and sharing your thoughts.
The April 17th and 18th work sessions will be half days and will hopefully include the attendance of 1 or 2 Trustees. Their involvement in the process is important and should not be a separate activity. After the April 18th results are compiled, in order to gather outside community feedback, focus groups will be invited to campus during the last weeks of April. This will be followed by a wrap-up session for the constituencies groups in early May.
We are at a point where your input is critical; please consider sharing your thoughts and concerns
by whatever means you feel most comfortable with!
Get on Board - Join the Faculty Discussions
If you aren't a member of the CODFA discussion boards, please sign up and be part of the conversation! Read your colleagues' thoughts on a wide variety of important topics concerning the faculty and college.
Go to the CODFA Discussion Board and click on the "register an account" link right above the green Login stripe. On the subsequent page that appears, type in a username (the name others will see you as when you communicate in the forums), email address you can be contacted at (it could be your COD email address), password (should be more than eight characters, a mixture of letters and numbers, and something relatively easy for you to remember), retype the password (to make sure you didn't accidentally type an incorrect character), and then type in the characters that are displayed (this is to prevent an automated process from trying to create an account). Click the checkbox towards the bottom of the page to accept the legal agreement and then click the Register button.
The WebMaster will be notified by email of your account request. Once he determines that you are indeed a full-time faculty member, you will receive an email (to the address you specified) that your account has been activated. At that point you can navigate to CODFA Discussion Board, enter your username and password, and you will have access to the discussion boards. Every fulltime faculty member has access to the General Faculty Discussion forums but depending on if you belong to Senate, committees, etc., you may have access to different forums for discussions pertaining to those specific groups.
Faculty Who Blog by Christine Kickels
You know what they are. But do you know who they are? I'm talking about our
faculty bloggers—colleagues who post their thoughts and links on a wide range of topics. Free
sources abound for those who wish a 2.0 tool; blogs take very little time to start, have no rules
to follow, and can be tailored for any use you wish. At last count,
Technorati figured that 1.4 new blogs
are created every second.
Blogs are somewhat controversial among educators, however, since they often mix the personal and professional, and I wondered how many of us had added blogger to our vitae. It turns out that C.O.D. faculty are using blogs in a variety of ways.
Jeff Curto regularly maintains not one but two blogs: Camera Position and History of Photography. Though his blogs are mainly a vehicle for publishing his podcasts, Jeff also links to other photography blogs and sources.
Another new but frequent blogger is Christine Monnier with The Global Sociology Blog. Since December, Christine has posted daily on topics that reflect her current professional and personal interests—that is, anything pertaining to globalization from a sociologist's perspective.
No time to write? Take a look at Mark Pearson's ArchiSketches where images are the predominant form of entry.
Ever wonder what it would be like to be a community college librarian? Then take a cyber moment to read Denise Cote's The Community College Librarian or Jennifer Kelley's Please Be Quiet. Both of these are excellent if you want a glimpse into the musings of academic librarians.
Finally, there is Richard Jarman's blog, The "C" Word, in which he shares what is going on in the science world, and everywhere else for that matter, since March 2007. Richard's blog is also openly shared with his students via his faculty website.
Blogs can also serve as websites that organize and archive information. In January, I began a blog for faculty development as a way to chronicle the myriad of development offerings that come my way via email. Check out Faculty Development at College of DuPage for conference invitations, development opportunities, and links to sources that will improve your life as an educator. Interested in starting your own blog? Check out WordPress, Edublogs, or Blogger for help. Think of it as yet another way to continue the conversations beyond our offices and classrooms and showcase the excellent work and diverse interests of our faculty.
Books for Africa—a Trip to Saint Paul by Chris Goergen
For almost 10 years, I have been collecting books to be sent to Africa to help alleviate what has
been described as the African book famine. Since last year I have joined forces with
Adenuga Atewologun (Nuga). Many faculty members have been very generous and over the years have
donated thousands of books, and some even money for shipping, which will help to alleviate one of
the underlying reasons for Africa's struggle to develop.
This time I decided to take the books to the Books for Africa warehouse in Saint Paul, Minnesota myself, not only because I wanted to see what happens to the books, but also because I was invited to attend a board meeting of BfA.
I was joined by Asratie Teferra, a former COD student who comes from Ethiopia and was directly affected by the lack of textbooks as a child. After a six-hour drive, we unloaded the books at the BfA warehouse. I was truly surprised and impressed with the size of this warehouse and the efficiency of the operation. BfA was founded 20 years ago (its big anniversary will be celebrated on September 12th, 2008) and has grown from a small volunteer organization that shipped one container a month to a staff of six full time professionals that ships two or three containers every week!
In 2007 BfA shipped 119 containers, almost 3 million books, to 22 countries in Africa. Each container holds about 22,000 books; shipping costs are $9500 and rising. The warehouse has currently 700,000 books, most of them sorted by subject and education level and ready to go. Volunteers come every day to sort the books -some sent by the courts for community service. BfA only ships books that have been requested by African governments, who have to pay at least part of the shipping. This way they can send exactly what is needed. BfA staff members spend time in Africa, verifying that the books have reached the intended institution and are being put to good use.
At the board meeting, I met Tom Warth, the founder of BfA, and spoke to the dedicated director and staff. BfA is a non-profit organization based on a clever idea and a win-win situation: we get rid of books that might otherwise collect dust or end up in a landfill; the books are recycled and put to good use by kids who desperately need them and could not possibly pay for expensive textbooks. The bottleneck is the shipping costs. It costs about 35 cents to ship a book to Africa. BfA is now cooperating with Better World Books. This web-based company buys and sells used textbooks and sends a share of its profits to BfA. BfA also works with Follett's, who sends them thousands of unwanted textbooks.
My visit to BfA has encouraged me to expand my efforts. I am planning to contact high schools to see if they might join the effort. I also want to explore the possibility of having a regional collection center at COD. Faculty who have books to donate should contact me or Nuga. You can even get an original BfA box and keep it in your office to fill up for the next book collection!
Musings from a Dulwich Common Room by Richard Jarman
Since a laptop and the "in'nernet" grant equal access to resources from all corners of the globe
(where exactly are the corners of a sphere, I hear you asking), I pursued my writing on
English soil for a brief interlude. I lodged in Dulwich, courtesy of my sister, who teaches at the
prestigious and historic Dulwich College, founded in the 17th century by the actor Edward Alleyn. As
a visitor from a foreign clime, I was shocked by some of the differences in the educational world.
While the arts constitute endangered species in many areas of modern education, given the need for "relevance," fiscal restraint, and vocational training (the needs of the community, etc., etc.), Alleyn's theatrical heritage ensures their ongoing importance at Dulwich. Through my sister's official, albeit unpaid, role as the college photographer, I was privileged to sample the flowering of this artistic tradition on a number of occasions: I accompanied the Dulwich choir when it sang evensong with their hosts at Trinity College, Cambridge; I witnessed performances of the theatre team at the Globe theatre; I attended a recital given by the "Barbershop" chorus in the Dulwich College library. All this in little more than a week, mind you.
However, I was struck more than anything, not by the exceeding quality of all performances, nor the attention to detail, nor the dedication of staff and students, nor the commitment to excellence—no, none of those things, as impressive as they all were—but by the unifying theme of the wine that flowed like a social lubricant through each event. At Trinity, the choir master had no sooner completed conducting a moving and complex choral work than he transformed into wine waiter, serving visitors and choir alike; for the theatre event I was recruited to man the drinks table, an apparently essential part of Dulwich's dramatic experience, that was open before, during and after the performance; drinks dominated the interval at the Barbershop recital, and I distinctly recall one of the soloists clutching a glass of Sauvignon Blanc before her performance….
To a visitor from American education, it will appear all the more improbable given that Dulwich College is actually a high school. The image of the principal of Naperville North High School extending his hand in invitation to partake of a Chilean cabernet is so unthinkable as to be preposterous. So why is drink (even the word has negative connotations) regarded as an acceptable, civilizing part of the culture at an English high school, while the practices I observed in Dulwich would elicit howls of moral outrage at the American equivalent? Is the old country descending into a mire of decadence and louche behaviour? Is American youth better prepared for adulthood and responsibility by its rigorously enforced segregation from the demon alcohol? Is American youth more susceptible to the dangers of alcohol thereby requiring greater protection? Negative on all counts I think. Granted, there is wailing aplenty on both sides of the Atlantic about the prevalence of binge drinking among the nations' youth, and perhaps some of that is merited and genuine problems exist; but I humbly submit that these troubling excesses have nothing to do with the generally civilizing practice of a glass of wine with one's school theatre, even in the company of students.
I have yet to comprehend completely the rampant opposition to drink that pervades American educational institutions. I am reminded of a line from Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis that chronicles the adventures of a young lecturer at a decidedly white tile (not even red brick) university. At one point he is presented with "the smallest glass of sherry he has ever been seriously offered." Sadly, I anticipate that tiny thimbleful will exceed by some considerable margin the drink that will be offered me at all events in my COD career. Am I the only one that recoils in disgust at the proffering of a plastic cup of "fruit punch?" Must we endure this kindergartenesque treatment at adult events forever?
My Dulwich sojourn concluded with the staff wine tasting, an event made even more improbable (to American eyes) by the fact it was conducted by a clergyman, who seemed as well informed about the affairs of the vine as he was with those of the soul, though in truth the latter were not strongly tested that night. We often lament the absence of community at this community college, unless one classifies that noisy sterile rectangle in the cafeteria as such. Methinks the conviviality of the Dulwich College Common Room, enhanced as it was by the ready availability of alcohol, could translate successfully to the COD environment. Why should it not be so? I really want to know.
Got Words? by Karin Evans
Tom Tipton deserves a lot of credit for getting the Faculty Advocate going. He created a masthead for our first edition and made us pick a name and start writing. As he said, we just have to get something out there! You might have noticed Tom's by-line on quite a few articles, and he does a great job, but he's also on Negotiations…so I'm restraining myself from begging him to write stories.
I'm not a journalist—I've never even played one on TV—so to be honest, I'm really not too sure what I'm doing. But luckily I'm having fun anyway, because I love getting stories from faculty about the cool things they are doing, like Chris Goergen's story in this issue. I'm inspired, aren't you?
What story could you tell? Maybe it's yours, maybe it's someone else's. Maybe it's just a paragraph or two, or maybe you've got kind of a saga to share. Let me know. If you need someone to help you write, we'll work that out. If you just need an editor to tap and trim your text, no sweat. The pages of May's Faculty Advocate, our final issue for 2007-08, are open for business—and the copy deadline is Monday, April 28. Make your reservation now.
