Every Day is Magic: Ada Limón
In her 2015 collection, Bright Dead Things, a National Book Award finalist for poetry, Ada Limón writes of moving to Kentucky: “Confession: I did not want to live here.” It’s perhaps not a surprising sentiment coming from a coastally oriented person who was raised in Northern California, attended college in Seattle, and then spent over a decade in New York City.
But Limón and her husband, Lucas, have been in Lexington for seven years now and the effects of settling into this place are noticeable in her new book, The Carrying (Milkweed, Aug.). It’s a phenomenally lively and attentive collection replete with the trappings of living a little closer to nature. While Bright Dead Things is marked by a preponderance of light, such as images of fireflies and neon signs, The Carrying features numerous appearances by various trees, birds, and beetles. Limón also demonstrates a greater willingness to be explicit in naming colors, particularly green. “It’s crazy green, the whole book,” she says. “Lexington is the greenest place I’ve ever lived.” Similarly, where in Bright Dead Things, Limón tells a lot of stories and anecdotes, in The Carrying she is very present in her thoughts and experiences.
As it turns out, these shifts in focus have another, altogether unexpected source. While putting Bright Dead Things together, Limón was diagnosed with chronic vestibular neuronitis, which can cause bouts of vertigo. “If I’m really having vertigo, it’s pretty intense and I really have to focus,”
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Cal State to no longer mandate remedial classes and placement exams
In an executive order, State Chancellor Timothy P. White, directed Cal State to get rid of the requirement that students complete noncredit remedial classes to help prepare them for college courses — a decision which could affect about 25,000 students. The schools will also discontinue Math and English placement exams.
The policy change, which will go into effect in the fall of 2018, comes after Cal State had pledged to more than double its four-year graduation rate to 40% by 2025. According to the Los Angeles Times, it also arrives after many have begun questioning how helpful remedial classes really are, with concern that the noncredit courses which must be completed in a student’s first year may spur many students to drop out…
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Webster University targets drop-outs for re-enrollment
According to 2015 data reported in Forbes, 22% of Americans have attended some college without reaching graduation.
The reasons students may drop out of college or discontinue taking classes are greatly varied, but nearly half of prospective college students are concerned they may have to drop out at some point in their academic careers.
Michael Cottam, the associate vice president for academic affairs and the director of the Online Learning Center at Webster University, said many of the students who have discontinued classes and degree programs at his institution face the crush of numerous personal and professional responsibilities. But now, it is these students Webster is targeting for re-enrollment, hoping to move the number of individuals with a degree forward…
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Number of minorities, women taking CS is skyrocketing thanks to STEM collaborations
- Following implementation of a new type of computer science option last fall — AP Computer Science Principles, which puts real-world perspectives on coding — data from 2016 to 2017 shows the number of minorities taking a computer science exam in some form nearly tripled to 22,199, up from 8,283, while the number of girls taking it rose from 12,642 to 29,708.
- AP CSP was born out of a collaboration between the National Science Foundation, College Board and Code.org, along with other authorized providers, who are rolling out the course and training teachers to facilitate it, reports NPR — and over half of the schools teaching the course are using curriculum from Code.org, which trained 500 teachers last year…
Culturally-relevant pedagogy critical to meet needs of today’s students
Educators must work to find better ways of building culturally relevant curriculum and reconfiguring their approach to pedagogy as they work with students, says Dr. Christopher Emdin, an associate professor with Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
During a presentation at the school this week, Emdin cautioned that incorporating cultural insight into teaching could be problematic, particularly when educators utilize their own biased preconceptions of how they think culture can manifest in classroom instruction.
Higher ed IT still struggles with diversity
Though the field of IT in higher education has diversified during the last five years, survey data from 2015 indicates that there are still gaps in representation when it comes to age, gender and ethnicity — and only 12% are Millennials, despite that age group comprising 34% of the country’s overall workforce, according to Ed Tech: Focus on Higher Ed.
Minority workers only represent about 15% of higher ed’s IT workforce, though they also make up 34% of the country’s workforce, and their numbers jumped 5% over a five-year span from 2010 to 2015…
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High Impact
Growing up in Old Town Goleta, Britt Ortiz used to ride his bicycle to UC Santa Barbara on warm summer afternoons to swim in the campus pool. Little did he know he’d play water polo in that same pool during high school and college, or that his professional career would land him at UCSB decades later…
San Jose State U Will Utilize Mobile App to Enhance Student Life
A new partnership with mobile app OOHLALA will help San Jose State University better assist its student population to get more involved in college life, particularly those who commute to the school, according to Sonja Daniels, the associate vice president for campus life…
Republicans overall disenchanted with higher ed, study finds
Though a majority of Americans still view higher education as being good for the country, there is division along party lines on how the industry is viewed. According to a Pew Research Center report released Monday, a majority of Republicans and right-leaning citizens (58%) believing colleges and universities have a negative impact on the country while 72% of Democrats and left-leaning individuals perceive positive impact…
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University of California Graduate Admissions for Chicano/Latino students
UC is making slow but steady progress in diversifying the racial/ethnic makeup of its graduate academic students
Enrollment of underrepresented race/ethnic groups (African American, American Indian and Chicano/Latino) in UC’s graduate academic programs has grown over the past decade. In 2012–13, UC awarded academic doctoral degrees to underrepresented racial/ethnic groups at greater percentage rates than did its peers…
UC-Irvine brings intentionality to its designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution
The University of California, Irvine is among the latest to earn the “Hispanic-Serving Institution” designation, joining a fast-growing group of U.S. higher education institutions that educate a student body that is at least 25% Hispanic.
And while many colleges and universities become HSIs by accident — simply by virtue of changing demographics — UC-Irvine’s goal of becoming an HSI has been a clear part of its strategic plan. The number of Latino students on UCI’s campus has more than doubled in the last decade, thanks to targeted recruitment efforts and pipeline building…
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Funding awarded for new Latino Center of Excellence
UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare has won a five-year $3.4 million grant to fund recruitment, scholarship and research efforts in the school’s new Latino Center of Excellence.
Awarded by the federal Health Resources & Services Administration, the grant will support efforts to boost Latino youth interest in behavioral and mental health and encourage them to pursue undergraduate and/or graduate degrees in social welfare…
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UC San Diego is failing in equity and diversity
I recently retired from my position as a student affairs administrator and education studies lecturer after 28 years of service at UCSD. In 1991, along with UCSD alumni, faculty, students and staff, I helped found the UCSD Chicano/Latino Concilio to advocate for the access and success of Chicanos at the elite La Jolla campus. Creating an external organization was necessary as virtually no Chicano voices existed among the UCSD administration or academic senate to increase institutional diversity and equity…
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The Chicano Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso has recently launched a new online Bachelor of Arts in Chicano Studies option enabling students across the United States and around the globe to have access to one of the oldest and most respected Chicano Studies programs in the nation.In 1971, UTEP became the first university in Texas to introduce a Chicano Studies program…Link to article
Highest Honors: UCSB graduating students
For their scholastic achievement, their extraordinary service to the university and the community, and their personal courage and persistence, three graduating seniors at UC Santa Barbara have been named winners of the university’s top awards…
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The California Promise Program
If you are an Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) student and a California resident entering SF State University in Fall 2017, you are invited to participate in the California Promise Program
If you are committed to graduating in 2 years, the CA Promise program can help you make that goal a reality. We encourage you to join the CA Promise Program and earn your degree in two years!
Benefits of SF State’s CA Promise Program
After Pledging to the program in your first semester, you will receive:
Priority registration every subsequent semester so that you can enroll in the courses you need to complete your degree program in two years (maximum of 60 units);
Guaranteed course availability with personalized academic plan;
Specialized advising each semester to ensure students stay on track…
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Erasing Borders: The Mexican-American Connecting Students and Mentors
As a young student, I’d wake up around 4 a.m. in Tijuana, Mexico, hustle into the car with my mom and two sisters and spend up to three hours waiting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. We lived only 15 minutes from the border, but it was a process. Since we were born in San Diego, we could attend a private elementary and middle school in the U.S., which my parents believed would provide more economic opportunity later in life. My dad, who works for the Mexican government, stayed local. My mom is a manager of a health center in San Diego. For her, our school was just a stop on her way to work…
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Literary Dynamo
Author of more than 200 publications, books, essays, articles, reviews and short stories, UC Santa Barbara professor Sara Poot-Herrera is known for “always working” — organizing conferences or speaking events on Mexican and Spanish American literature, as well as writing, editing and teaching.
“According to my friends, I don’t sleep,” Poot-Herrera joked. Initially “torn” about missing her apartment and friends in Mexico, she sustains her cultural ties by inviting Mexican writers to speak to her students at UCSB, such as Elmar Mendoza, a key figure in the genre known as narcoliterature — crime fiction. The students, she noted, “were captivated.”…
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Rise In Latino, Black High School Grad Rates Boosts National Numbers
National graduation rates reached a record high of 81.4 percent in 2013, in part due to the increase of graduation rates among minority and low-income students.
Over the last decade, 1.8 million additional students have graduated from high school, according to a report released by America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, Everyone Graduates Center, and the Alliance for Excellent Education.
GradNation, a campaign by America’s Promise Alliance, was launched in 2010 to focus individuals, organizations and communities on decreasing dropout rates. They adopted a goal of raising the national average on-time high school graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020…
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Machismo is a factor in the retention of Latino college men
Texas State University was recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution March 24, 2011. One of the things that this HSI or any others across the nation fail to research is the hidden cultural factors that affect Latino enrollment and graduation—namely, machismo.
Machismo, meaning strong or aggressive masculine pride, has been a part of the Latin culture since the beginning. From the Aztecs to the Tejanos to the contemporary Latino, the stigma remains men provide for their families. Even for Latinos who leave the nest, the expectation to support the family remains—especially for the eldest male…
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