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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Meet Elora López-Nandam An evolutionary biologist dives into microscopic marine mysteries.
“Tucked into the labyrinthine recesses of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, among 32 million specimens and cultural artifacts, is the slow loris. Rather, century-old specimens of the petite nocturnal primate from Southeast Asia, with whom Elora López-Nandam became quite acquainted. After spending a summer extracting and decoding their DNA while an undergrad at Columbia, López-Nandam turned her attention to another sluggish creature, the sea cucumber, and the conservation implications of its genetic diversity in the coral reefs near Fiji. Along the way, she decided to devote her life to…”
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/meet-elora-lopez-nandam
UCLA aims to become federally designated as Hispanic-Serving Institution by 2025
“UCLA plans to expand its Latino student population to a quarter of its enrolled student population in five years to qualify for additional federal grants, university administrators said in a campus-wide email Monday.
The university plans to become federally designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by 2025, which would make it eligible for various federal funds, Chancellor Gene Block and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Emily Carter saidin the email. The university has created a task force with faculty and administrators to reach and maintain HSI status, they added…”
Remembering professor Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Chicano studies scholar and activist
“…Gómez-Quiñones, the co-founder and former director of the Chicano Studies Research Center, died Nov. 11 from congestive heart failure at the age of 80. He taught history at UCLA for almost 50 years. Gómez-Quiñones is remembered for his activism and empowering the Chicano community through his academic work…”
A Recipe for Success
“When the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 2016 mandating the development of ethnic studies curricula for high schools, Lisa Sun-Hee Park was delighted.
The professor and chair of Asian American studies at UC Santa Barbara had been meeting with the chairs of Chicano and Chicana studies, Black studies and feminist studies and they all saw the bill as a great step forward for diversity and inclusion…”
Off and Running, Gerardo Aldana steps into new post as College of Creative Studies dean with a vision and a plan
“Not a lot of people have come into a new job as ready as Gerardo Aldana, the new dean of UC Santa Barbara’s College of Creative Studies (CCS), the campus’s unique community of self-motivated undergraduate students.
A professor of anthropology and of Chicana and Chicano studies, Aldana was associate dean of CCS from 2014 to 2016 and served two terms on the CCS Faculty Executive Committee. He knows the territory…”
Opinion: Use of standardized tests in admissions decisions amplifies inequities
“The University of California regularly professes its mission of equality.
But when it comes to admissions, the University needs the courts to remind them what it means to follow through on these promises.
On Aug. 31, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman ruled the UC can no longer use SAT or ACT scores in admissions or scholarship decisions.
The verdict comes more than three months after the UC announced its decision to introduce a “test-optional” policy for fall 2021 and fall 2022 and is the culmination of a nine-month-long lawsuit challenging the University’s use of the SAT and ACT in admissions decisions. The court ruled that the University’s use of standardized tests may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act because disabled students have almost no access to test-taking sites as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, leaving them at a severe disadvantage…”
Joseph Castro, Fresno State’s president, selected as new California State University Chancellor
“The California State University Board of Trustees selected Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro on Wednesday to lead the nation’s largest public university system. Castro will replace Chancellor Timothy White, who is expected to retire at the end of the year.
Castro, a grandson of Mexican immigrants, will become CSU’s first chancellor of color when he takes over the job on Jan. 4. He is also the first chancellor since the system was formed in the early 1960s to be named from inside the CSU system and first time the board selected a president of one of its campuses to head the system…”
Chancellor Richard A. Carranza
“…A son of a sheet metal worker and a hairdresser—and a grandson of Mexican immigrants—Carranza credits his public school education for putting him on a path to college and a successful career. He believes that a great education changes lives, and is excited to help the next generation of New Yorkers achieve their dreams. As Chancellor, he is building on the City’s Equity and Excellence for All agenda, which supports students academically, socially, and emotionally from early childhood through twelfth grade. He is also championing initiatives to help educators strengthen their practice and to empower more parents to become engaged in their children’s education…”
https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/leadership/doe-leadership-and-offices/chancellor
Mexico is in crisis. Its president insists on alternative reality.
“Last Saturday, Mexico’s finance minister, Arturo Herrera, offered a grim assessment of the country’s outlook after the pandemic. This year and the next, Mexico will have “the strongest crisis since 1932,” Herrera said.
That might end up being an understatement. The Mexican economy is in shambles. GDP has contracted for five consecutive quarters, well before the pandemic began. Investment has fallen at record rates. Crucial industries, such as tourism, have collapsed. Over the past few months, the country has lost at least 12 million jobs, more than 1 million in the formal sector alone. Without help from the government, which has insisted in a policy of austerity, thousands of small businesses have gone underwater. Wages have fallen dramatically. By the time the crisis ends, experts predict 25…”
Some school districts in the U.S. are getting creative to deliver educational services to students who lack computers at home
“..Similarly in Northeastern Michigan, Microsoft is working with internet service provider Allband Communications to put equipment on buses that harness TV white space (TVWS) to provide an internet connection. TVWS can deliver broadband internet over broadcast signals that are no longer in use, with a reach up to 18 miles, according to the WhiteSpace Alliance…”
https://www.educationdive.com/news/homework-gap-continues-to-impact-18-of-nations-students/556583/
Struggling With Lockdown, Schools Relearn Value of Older Tech: TV
“In a hillside shantytown of Lima, Peru, Delia Huamani’s school day starts not with the bustle of classmates, but with the flicker of a television. With physical schools closed indefinitely, she gets her lessons at home, from the country’s brand-new library of slickly made educational broadcasts.
As a substitute, it’s far from perfect. Delia, 10, says her parents cannot afford books — she misses reading about animals in the school library — and she has no one to check her work. She leans on her friend Katy Bautista, 12, who wishes she could ask the television presenters to slow down during difficult lessons…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/world/coronavirus-television-schools.html
As schools close due to the coronavirus, some U.S. students face a digital ‘homework gap’
“As K-12 officials in many states close schools and shift classes and assignments online due to the spread of the new coronavirus, they confront the reality that some students do not have reliable access to the internet at home – particularly those who are from lower-income households.
…”A quarter of lower-income teens do not have access to a home computer. One-in-four teens in households with an annual income under $30,000 lack access to a computer at home, compared with just 4% of those in households earning over $75,000, according to the 2018 survey. There are also differences by race and ethnicity. Hispanic teens were especially likely to say they do not have access to a home computer: 18% said this, compared with 9% of white teens and 11% of black teens…”https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/16/as-schools-close-due-to-the-coronavirus-some-u-s-students-face-a-digital-homework-gap/
SAISD elementary school teacher dies after battle with COVID-19
“SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Independent School District officials confirmed Friday that one of their elementary school teachers died after a battle with COVID-19.
Carmen Canales, 48, taught at Ogden Academy. SAISD officials said she tested positive for the virus this summer and had been hospitalized. It’s the first death of a district employee due to COVID-19…”
Berkeley admits most ethnically diverse class in over 30 years
“..Freshman admission offers to African-American students increased by more than 40 percent, and offers to Chicanx-Latinx students increased by 45 percent. In addition, we saw gains in various measures of greater socio-economic diversity among students offered admission. Further, this exceptionally talented admitted class maintains the high academic accomplishment seen in admitted classes from prior years…”
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/07/16/berkeley-admits-most-ethnically-diverse-class-in-over-30-years/
Mexican American textbook is courting controversy in Texas
“Mexican Americans might not recognize their cultural history as it unfolds in a new textbook proposed for Texas public schools.
Chicanos are described as people who “adopted a revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society.”
In another passage, Mexican Americans are linked to undocumented immigrants.
Illegal immigration has “caused a…”
Koret Foundation awards $50 million to Bay Area colleges
“The San Francisco-based Koret Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $50 million in support of a dozen colleges and universities in the Bay Area.
To be distributed over five years, the grants will provide support for school leadership priorities, campus programs and initiatives, the creation and expansion of new models for learning, the modernization of campus technology and infrastructure, and efforts to strengthen relationships between institutions in the United States and Israel…”
How technology will change us after the COVID-19 pandemic is over
“…When Rice University suspended classes in early March after a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus, three for-credit courses were available online. When Rice’s classes restarted on March 23, 1,906 online courses were offered, said Klara Jelinkova, the university’s chief information officer.Setting all this up – including training 487 professors, many of whom had never taught online before – was “simultaneously exhilirating and scary,” Jelinkova said.Online education has been around for a while, and some universities are built entirely on it. But many colleges — and particularly K-12 schools — have not embraced it…”
New UCLA Library program will begin digitizing cultural items for preservation
“A new conservation initiative at UCLA Library will help digitize at-risk cultural items and share them on a UCLA-hosted website.UCLA Library announced Oct. 9 the creation of Documenting Global Voices, a program that aims to preserve endangered symbolic materials of cultures. DGV will identify, fund and collaborate with international organizations that lack the necessary infrastructure and resources to preserve cultural heritage objects. UCLA Library will receive digital copies and upload them onto the DGV website to make them available to students, faculty and people around the world…”
“…DGV was developed from the International Digital Ephemera Project in 2011, which digitized rare manuscripts held by St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt and other facilities worldwide including Cuba, Iran and South Africa…”
Escuelitas, Literacy, and Imaginary Dual Citizenship
“… Reading, Writing, and Revolution escuelitas and the emergence
of a mexican american identity in texas PHILIS M. BARRAGÁN GOETZ
University of Texas Press austin … | Mexican American…”
USC makes tuition free to students of families making $80,000 or less
“Feb. 20 (UPI) — The University of Southern California said Thursday tuition will be free to students whose families make $80,000 or less.The announcement was part of a financial aid expansion to benefit low- and middle-income families, a university statement said. Along with offering tuition free to students whose families have an annual income of $80,000 or less, owning a home will not be counted in determination of a student’s financial need…”
