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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UC admits record number of transfer students for fall
“…The University of California offered admission this fall to more transfer students than it has at any point in its history, officials announced Wednesday.More than 137,000 students were offered spots at one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses, including roughly 28,750 transfer applicants, according to UC.California residents comprise the majority of the newly admitted students, making up 71,086 freshmen and 24,568 transfer students. The California freshman admission numbers rose by 1,114 students compared with last year’s numbers…
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To meet state attainment goals, higher ed will have to get explicit about race
“…Nearly every state has set, revised or adopted a degree attainment goal in the last few years, fueled primarily by projections that 65% of job vacancies will require some type of post-secondary training by 2020.
In most cases, however, these degree attainment goals do not focus on the various racial and ethnic sub-populations in each state, which the Education Trust’s senior director of Higher Education Research and Data Analytics, Andrew Nichols, said is problematic, particularly as the nation’s demographics continue to shift toward a browner population…
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Study: Key to boosting student outcomes might be emphasis on cultural learning
“…Preliminary data from a San Francisco State University evaluation study demonstrates that students in ethnic studies majors graduate at approximately 20% higher rates than nonmajors. At the same time, students enrolled in at least one ethnic studies class also graduated at a higher rate than students not taking the class. According to a press release from the university, ethnic studies majors maintained a six-year graduation rate of 77.3% compared with a rate of 52.3% for nonmajors…”
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Trump Officials Reverse Obama’s Policy on Affirmative Action in Schools
“WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it was abandoning Obama administration policies that called on universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses, signaling that the administration will champion race-blind admissions standards…”
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Mexico Presidential Election Results: Meet Anti-Trump Winner Andrés Manuel López Obrador
“Mexico has chosen left-leaning hopeful Andrés Manuel López Obrador to become its 58th president for the next six years, in what is considered the country’s largest election in history.
López Obrador of the Together We Will Make History coalition won the election with more than 40 percent of the votes, defeating Ricardo Anaya from centrist For Mexico to the Front coalition, who obtained 27.6 percent of the votes. José Antonio Meade of the Everyone for Mexico coalition only received 18.3 of the votes and Jaime Rodriguez Calderón “El Bronco,” who ran as an independent, acquired nearly 5.2 percent of the ballots. Mexico’s former first lady and independent candidate Margarita Zavala dropped out of the race last May because her campaign faced economic hardship and could not garner enough support of more than 10 percent of voters, according to some polls.
Eligible voters also cast their ballots for more than 3,000 posts at the state and federal level, which also include the election of eight governorships, 500 chamber of deputies and 128 Senate seats. López…”
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What you need to know about Mexico’s historic election
“Mexico holds an historic election on Sunday: its biggest to date in terms of the sheer number of races.
Eighty-eight million registered voters — many of whom are fed up with corruption and inefficiency under the administration of current president Enrique Peña Nieto — will get the chance to change the face of Mexico’s government, and affect the course of U.S. relations, with major border and trade issues at stake.
Beyond the presidential race, more than 1600 elected positions at the state and local level are up for a vote across 30 of Mexico’s 32 states — including Mexico City’s mayor — as well as its entire federal legislative body: 500 seats in the legislature, and 128 in its senate…”
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UTSA faculty help local educators create Mexican-American Studies curriculum
“…June 25, 2018) – Faculty in The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies and Mexican American Studies Program are sharing their expertise with local teachers who are creating history and fine arts curriculum focused on Chicano/Mexican American content…”
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More Latino students stay in college than white students – but only if they’re prepared
“…Latino students lag their peers overall
Latinos are the fastest-growing population in Arizona, and Latino students make up the largest percentage of students in the state’s K-12 public schools. However, Latino students lag their white peers in academic achievement across the K-12 education system and are underrepresented in postsecondary degree achievement.
Only 18 percent of Arizona Latino fourth-graders are proficient in reading, compared with 46 percent of white students. Only 20 percent of Latino eighth-graders are proficient in math, compared to 48 percent of white students…”
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Report finds differences in degree attainment levels for various Hispanic populations
“…A new report from the Education Trust examines degree attainment levels for blacks and Hispanics versus their white peers. It says that overall, gaps between degree attainment levels for Hispanic adults versus their white counterparts have grown since 2000, and Hispanic younger adults do not have much higher attainment levels than older adults — meaning there’s not the intergenerational improvement people like to believe there is.
There are notable differences in Hispanic attainment levels based on nationality and whether the individual migrated to the U.S. or was born here. According to J. Oliver Schak, one of the report’s co-authors, a majority of Latino adults age 25 to 64 were born outside of this country; those born inside the U.S. have a degree attainment rate of 30%, compared with 17% for those born outside of the U.S….”
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Don Quixote rides anew (on a bicycle!) in Cal Shakes world premiere
“…Brandishing a bedpan as a helmet and reclaimed auto parts as a coat of armor, a bedraggled “Quixote Nuevo” charges on stage at Cal Shakes atop a rickety bicycle instead of a steed.
Octavio Solis’ cheeky new re-imagining of Cervantes’ Don Quixote mythology, exuberantly directed by KJ Sanchez, throbs with wit and poignancy in its world premiere at California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda. Letting acclaimed playwright Solis (“El Paso Blue,” “Santos and Santos”) rub elbows with Shakespeare on the docket is part of Cal Shakes’ mission to redefine the classics in a more inclusive and relevant way that speaks to the soul and politics of life in America today…”
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Mexican Americans’ many routes to finding their own national identities
“…Alfredo Corchado is messing with my head, forcing me to think hard about something I had neatly packed away: What it means to be Mexican American. What are friends for if not to turn your world upside down?
As a reporter — currently for the Dallas Morning News, and earlier at the El Paso Herald-Post and the Wall Street Journal — Corchado has always been a good storyteller. But when he began writing books, he had to learn to tell his own story. He has become good at that, too…”
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Minority-serving institutions yield higher social mobility rates, study shows
“…A new report from the American Council on Education said institutions historically servicing blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans and Native American Pacific Islanders propel students up the economic ladder at significantly higher rates than predominantly white institutions. Four-year Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), the report said, propel students from the bottom income quintile to the top at a rate three times higher than non-minority serving institutions. Meanwhile, four-year historically black, predominately black and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions propelled students from the bottom to the top quintiles at double the rate of non-minority serving institutions…”
Distinguished Graduates, UC Santa Barbara
“…Ana Guerrero Gallegos, who is graduating with bachelor of art degrees in Chicana/o studies and in sociology, will receive the Luis Leal Social Sciences Undergraduate Award for outstanding interdisciplinary achievement in the social sciences. The award was established in honor of the late Don Luis Leal, a distinguished visiting professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, whose presence and scholarship greatly enriched the Santa Barbara campus…”
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2017’s Most & Least Educated Cities in America
“College opens many doors. Besides providing invaluable cultural experiences and the opportunity to build lifelong connections, a college education can lead to better job opportunities and increase future earning potential. And the more degree holders earn, the more tax dollars they contribute over time, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
One way to strengthen an economy, the EPI suggests, is to attract well-paying employers “by investing in education and increasing the number of well-educated workers.” In states where workers have the least schooling, for instance, the median wage is $15 an hour compared with $19 to $20 an hour in states where 40 percent or more of the working population hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Local governments appear to be catching on and maximizing the appeal of their cities to college graduates…”
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Christian Ortiz Gonzalez, UCSB of Paramount, is the recipient of the Jeremy D. Friedman Memorial Award
“…Hello! My name is Christian Ortiz Gonzalez and I am a fourth year majoring in Sociology and German!
Academic year working for Career Services?:
2017-2018
Describe the different types of internship or job experiences that you have been involved with?:
I have worked for UCPD as a CSO, I worked as an RA for the EOP STEP program, I have been working at EOP as a mentor since my second year, I held an internship with UCSB’s Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and now I work for Career Services…”
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Humanity’s Genes Reveal Its Tangled History
…”Reality, it turns out, is more complex and interesting than scientists ever imagined.
In the early 19th century, Jean-Fraconnçois Champollion used the Rosetta Stone to begin the process of deciphering the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. We already knew Egypt through the Bible and the histories of the Greeks, but even Herodotus wrote 2,000 years after the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the translation of hieroglyphics, the legend of Egypt came to life. What had been cloudy became clear.
In Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard’s Medical School and the Broad Institute, introduces us to the 21st-century Rosetta Stone: ancient DNA, which will do more for our understanding of prehistory than radiocarbon dating did. Where the latter allowed archaeologists to create a timeline based on the material objects they excavated, DNA sequencing allows scholars to explore the genetics of the people who created those material cultures. We may never see the face of Agamemnon, but we already have the DNA of the warlords of Mycenaean Greece, and in the future we could reconstruct their features from genes alone…”
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San Francisco colleges fusing social justice topics with advising to boost graduation rates
“Two San Francisco area colleges are experiencing increasing success from a program that fuses social justice topics into college prep curriculum as a part of outreach and development of high school graduates who are low income, first generation or in an unrepresented minority group. Inside Higher Ed profiles the Metro College Success Program, a bridge program offered at San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco that provides high school students learning tracks in more than 10 academic disciplines to sharpen learning skills while navigating financial aid and academic coaching…”
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Big Businesses Create App-etizing Programs for Hispanic Students by Mary Ann Cooper
For many Hispanics community colleges are the first step in the higher education journey, but the road to a college degree begins long before high school graduation. Although Hispanic college enrollment has been growing over the past decade, Latinos still earn less than 9 percent of bachelor’s degrees among all graduating college students. How can more Hispanic students be funneled into the higher education pipeline, starting with community college? Three high profile corporations have created very different programs to change the minds and hearts of young Hispanics – some as young as middle school student, as well as high school students – and create a passion for pursuing a college education. Here are the stories of what these programs have to offer…”
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Firstgen Center Provides First-generation Students Support Financially and Beyond
“When freshmen step onto a college campus for the first time, they bring a wide range of emotions, from excitement to apprehension. First-generation college students are no exception. But in addition to their range of emotions, first-generation students bring a stigma that’s difficult to shake. The FirstGen Center at Notre Dame College in Euclid, Ohio, offers a support system and strategies to rid them of that stigma…”
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Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations
U.S. Latinos say it’s important for future generations of Hispanics to speak Spanish, and the vast majority speak the language to their children. However, the share of Latino parents who ensure the language lives on with their children declines as their immigrant connections become more distant, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino..”
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