Tuesday, February 28, 2006
New Agreement with American International College Worth Up to $10,000 a year
Greenfield Community College will sign a joint admission agreement with American International College in Springfield that is worth up to $10,000 a year for full-time transfer students from GCC, announced Kathleen Maisto, coordinator of transfer at Greenfield Community College and Pauline Mortenson, director of international and transfer admissions at American International College. The agreement is indicative of a trend for GCC to make advantageous agreements for their students with the best private baccalaureate colleges.
"Access to excellence as students leave GCC is as important as access to excellence for students entering GCC," says GCC President Robert L. Pura. "My congratulations to all at GCC and AIC who worked to make this happen. Lives will change for the better as a result of their efforts."
Greenfield Community College has long had what are called " joint admission" agreements with state colleges and the university, explains Maisto: "These are meant to assist our students in making 'seamless' transfers to four-year institutions." Advantages include guaranteed admission for students in good academic standing, acceptance of all GCC credits toward a baccalaureate degree program, a shorter admission form, and waiver of application fee. Recently, similar agreements have been negotiated with such private institutions as Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and Marlboro College Graduate Center in Brattleboro.
The joint admission agreement with American International College confers significant scholarship benefits as well. "AIC stands out in this respect," says Maisto.
Every student who signs up for the joint admission program with AIC, while completing 30 credits at GCC, automatically gets $4,000 off their tuition bill for each year that they are a full-time student in their baccalaureate program. In addition, students transferring from GCC receive annual transfer academic scholarships based on their cumulative grade point average, ranging from $2,500 for a cumulative GPA of 2.7 to 2.99 to as much as $6,000 per year for GCC students transferring with a cumulative GPA of 3.8 or better, "and a lot of our students do," notes Maisto. "The combined value of the scholarships can be as much as $10,000 a year, and every student who qualifies will get it, not just a limited number."
"It helps make us competitive with state schools," says Mortenson, who has initiated similar agreements with Springfield Technical Community College and Holyoke Community College.
Beyond the financial incentives, according to Larry Dean, Title III director at GCC and former transfer coordinator for many years, there are compelling academic reasons why GCC students choose to transfer to AIC. "AIC is a very good place for our students," says Dean, "because it's a small institution and they give their students a lot of attention. They have long been very much interested in transfer students and they value transfer students a great deal.
"Students who enter American International College as transfers add a special dimension to the campus community," according to Dr. Vincent Maniaci, President of American International College. "The energy they bring to the classroom and the maturity enhances the quality of learning that takes place. We are indeed pleased to enter into this partnership with Greenfield Community College because we know how much the students can benefit from the opportunity, as well as how much AIC can benefit from what the students bring to the campus."
An unusual twist to this agreement involves access to AIC student dormitories. "One of the interesting things about this joint admission agreement," says Mortenson, "is that they would be welcome to stay in our dorms for our dorm costs and still go to GCC." The advantage of this, for GCC students, is the opportunity to earn their associate's degree at GCC and still experience the advantages of campus life at the baccalaureate college to which they would be transferring.
Agreements with private colleges are gaining momentum with the establishment by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation of a fund to promote the transfer of community college students across the nation into selective baccalaureate institutions of higher education.
As a result of this initiative, GCC has entered into collaborative arrangements with three private colleges in western Massachusetts (Amherst College, Smith College and Williams College). Each has applied for funding from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation to develop proactive recruitment strategies designed to increase access to selective colleges and universities for highly qualified, low-to-moderate-income community college transfer students. This initiative responds to a growing recognition that community college transfer students have insufficient access to top-tier institutions. Increasingly, low-to-moderate-income students are starting their postsecondary education at associate degree schools, and these institutions are preparing a significant pool of community college students capable of transferring to and excelling at selective colleges.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation will award five to ten multi-year grants nationally. If the grants are awarded locally, GCC students may benefit greatly from this focus on improving access.
For more information, please contact Kathleen Maisto at (413) 775-1207 or Pauline Mortenson at (800) 242-3142.
Changing the way children learn math
Long-term professional development grant already paying off
Almost exactly one year ago, as GCC launched an ambitious, three-year mathematics professional development program for elementary school teachers in Greenfield and surrounding communities, GCC mathematics professor Linda Cavanaugh and mathematics consultant Linda Dodge said, "We'll know that we did our job when we hear more and more students saying that math is their favorite subject."
They can rest assured that they've already met that goal: This spring, kindergarten teacher Lauren Mattone attests that "Kids have actually come up to me to say, 'I used to not like math, but I really do like math.'"
As a result of taking Cavanaugh's and Dodge's courses, Mattone, who teaches at the Crocker Farm School in Amherst, has submitted an article to the professional journal, "Teaching Children's Mathematics." She's developed a kindergarten math assessment that she took back to her district, and she's also become an informal math mentor for other teachers at her school. "It's not an official role," says Mattone. "Sometimes we just talk math."
Mattone and teachers across the county, including seven from Greenfield schools, are reaping the benefits of a three-year, $213,000 grant from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education and the Improving Teacher Quality state grant program that is unique in its longevity: six semester-long courses plus summer seminars over three years. The grant is now in year two.
"GCC has always been involved in providing professional development opportunities to teachers in the area," says grant writer Dale MacLeod, "but usually they've been one-time programs that go for a year. This one is special because it's a three-year project."
The grant meets two important needs, explains Dodge. "First, the mathematics required by the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks now is much more sophisticated than it used to be. Algebra was never part of the early grades and now it is. So we're bringing teachers up to speed on the best ways to teach it.
"The other need that this grant meets is, living in New England and teaching in these small schools can be very isolating for teachers," continues Dodge. "If you're the only 4th grade teacher in your building, you don't have anybody else to talk to about what your fourth-grade math classroom looks like. And so the networking that goes on, of teachers meeting each other and hearing how thing are being done in other schools, is now happening in an on-going way."
Dodge cites Orange as an example. "They have a K-2, and then down the hill is their 3-5, and then over to the side is their 6-8 building," explains Dodge. Initially, a second-grade teacher signed up for the first course, then three third- and fourth-grade teachers took a course, and now a sixth-grade teacher. "I think it starts to get the buildings talking to each other," says Dodge, "so that the curriculum flows from kindergarten to grade 8. When you're building on what went on in the grade that came before yours, then we can really get kids further ahead."
Emma Karowski, who teaches at the Hawlemont Regional School in Charlemont, is on her third course of the series. She's created a binder of math activities to make it easy for teachers to incorporate math games and activities in their classrooms. In a six-hour workshop that grew out of last semester's professional development course, Karowski shared what she has learned so far with 12 teachers in the Mohawk school district, thus fulfilling another goal of the grant, which is to disseminate their learning as widely as possible. "We need to get as many teachers on board as possible," says Karowski, "because you can't have just a few people in a building trying to work toward almost a new philosophy around teaching math."
Once you complete four courses, you are, officially, a math coordinator for your school. Actually, teachers assume a mentoring role almost from the start, "just talking about math after school, discussing what you're learning in the class," says Turners Falls resident Kathy Eichorn.
Some teachers are on their third course. "The number of returning teachers tells me that they're really getting a lot out of this," says Dodge. "To spend an entire
Saturday five times in a semester, that's a lot of personal time." Twenty-three teachers were in attendance on a recent Saturday.
Part of the impetus for teachers is, no surprise, MCAS: the standardized, state-wide testing which measures student achievement.
"Algebraic thinking is on the MCAS test for sixth grade," says Thomas Russo, who co-teaches grade 6 at the Butterfield School in Orange. "Students must show competence with the skills on that test. Are we teaching to the test? Maybe. However, I think all the skills on that test are very important for the students to know. They need them to get along in the world.
"What I'm looking for here," says Russo, "is a way to help students pull a formula algebraically from a set of data; when given a set of data, to get them to look for some patterns and then generalize about what they see. This course is giving me some examples of how I can go about doing that."
"Students can learn skills," agrees Karowski, "but it's the extension to problem-solving strategies that they need, the ability to apply what they've learned to a whole new situation."
"If you have 'number sense,' you can apply it to any type of a problem," says Eichorn, who teaches at Orange's Dexter Park school. "And we hope that when students see a problem on MCAS, they can say, 'Oh, I know "" that's like the bottle-and-can problem we did in class,' and maybe they can apply what they've learned to a totally new problem."
In the long run, this three-year project is about empowering teachers to share their learning so that it spreads far beyond Cavanaugh's and Dodge's classroom. Already, they have become, in effect, 'good will ambassadors' of math.
As Mattone, the kindergarden teacher, puts it, "It's about how much fun math can be, and how much fun it can be to teach it to young children. I've discovered that all I have to do is say to the kids, 'What do you notice?' I started asking this in September and they all kind of looked at me like, 'What does she want me to say?' and now I have kindergarteners saying to me, 'Oh, look at the hundreds chart. I see all ones going down this way, and all twos going down this way.' And somebody else says, 'If you look this way (and he meant diagonally), you see doubles " 11, 22, 33, 44.'
"I didn't start that conversation; they did," continues Mattone. "But by opening up the conversation to them and saying, 'What do you notice?' kids who say, 'I don't like math' will actually come to you and say, 'I used to not like math, but I really do like math.' Their insights and discoveries are so powerful."
For information about the grant and projects, visit www.k12.gcc.mass.edu.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Honoring Rosa Parks
GCC presenters share story at New England Women's Studies Conference
On October 24, 2005, the day Rosa Parks passed away at the age of 92, three members of the GCC faculty/staff swung into action, proving that this institution can turn on a dime when it comes to honoring peace, equality and social justice.
"When Rosa Parks' death was announced," says Rosemarie Freeland, coordinator of the Women's Resource Center, "I thought it would be important for GCC to recognize her contribution to the civil rights movement because, for the past three to four years, the Diversity Standing Committee has been presenting issues about race and inequality."
By December 1, even as President Bush was announcing that date as Rosa Parks Day, Greenfield Community College was already staging the first annual tribute to the seamstress who, on that day in 1955, changed America forever when she was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white patron on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus.
"It was a glorious day," says Professor Anne Wiley, as she recalled the showings of a film about Rosa Parks, musical performances, and readings by students, faculty and staff. "That kind of collective coming together was pretty organic."
It's rare for any institution to move so fast. On Nov. 17, Freeland sent an e-mail to Buz Eisenberg, chairperson of GCC's Assembly, by which the college governs itself. "The next day," recounts Freeland, "he and Angela Russek, who is the chairperson of the Diversity Standing Committee, moved it forward, and on the 21st, when we had the Assembly meeting, it was overwhelmingly accepted to resolve that GCC would honor Rosa Parks on Dec. 1 and in subsequent years."
"I think the highlight for me was that so many people came forward so very quickly," says Professor Abigail Jenks. "This happened over the course of just a couple of weeks, which I think says a lot about the meaning Rosa Parks holds in people's lives."
Last Saturday, Rosemarie Freeland and Professors Wiley and Jenks shared their story with colleges throughout New England at the spring conference of the New England Women's Studies Association, held at Norwalk (Conn.) Community College. Its theme was "Women and Justice."
"I think the significance," says Professor Abigail Jenks, "is that it's a recognition not just of Rosa Parks, but of what she stood for. The fact that it's been instituted as a day here by the GCC community says that GCC is committed to promoting the values of equality and human rights by which Rosa Parks lived her life."
Ideas for the day came from all corners of the GCC community. In Professor Jenks' class, students brainstormed the possibilities of what a Rosa Parks day might look like.
Students in Professor Wiley's Introduction to Women's Studies course had recently completed a "herstory" presentation that emphasized the contribution of women of color in the 19th and 20th centuries. "So my students had an historical context and overview of the peace and social justice movement," says Wiley. "Students were really engaged in realizing that Rosa Parks was a much larger figure in the civil rights movement, that she, in fact, had had nonviolence training, that she, in fact, had been active in both her church and community groups working toward nonviolence and civil rights long before she took that action on December 1, 1955."
Part of the lesson of Rosa Parks Day, says Wiley, is that Rosa Parks didn't happen in isolation; her efforts and contribution to the civil rights movement were part of a long history of women's work toward peace and social justice.
In fact, if Rosa Parks were alive today, she would probably find contemporary parallels of the civil rights struggle.
"I think she would speak out against the economic resources going toward (the war in Iraq)," says Jenks, "that are taking away from other areas of need such as education, social services and health care."
"Right away, I think of (Hurricane) Katrina," says Freeland, who believes that Rosa Parks would be speaking out against "the language that was being used in the media to describe what was going on. For example, using the word " looting' when describing people of color wading through the water with satchels on groceries in their hands, whereas, if it was a white person in the exact same situation, the word used was 'finding.'"
"I think if Rosa Parks was here today," says Wiley, "she would be saying that we need to make public higher education accessible to anyone who wants the opportunity to go to college."
Future plans to honor Rosa Parks include some kind of permanent memorial on campus that would have a plaque or a stone and, definitely, a rose bush. "Maybe near the labyrinth," says Wiley, "a place where anyone could come on campus and have a moment of reflection about her important contributions."
"It's to celebrate that the community of GCC is willing to keep issues of race and equality at the forefront," says Freeland.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Students Tackle Transportation Problem
Ridesharing Sign-up Drive Set for February 16
Carpooling in a rural area presents challenges. Carpooling that meets college students' "no two are alike" schedules seems almost impossible. Yet, ridesharing advocates from the state's Executive Office of Transportation on down to the individual student are trying to make that happen at Greenfield Community College.
"I would love to carpool," says Eva Agudelo, a GCC student who says she spends more than $100 a month commuting from Brattleboro. "I don't know that it would work out every day, but it would be great to cut costs a little bit by being able to drive down here with somebody. I'm on a really tight budget, so it's important to me that this succeed."
Agudelo is spearheading a ride-sharing effort sponsored by the college's human ecology department in partnership with MassRIDES, which is a project of the commonwealth's Office of Transportation. "Lack of transportation prevents many people from being able to access GCC," says Agudelo, "and at the same time, it's really important that we start thinking about how we can conserve and how expensive it is for all of us to drive as much as we do."
On Thursday, Feb. 16, from 10 to 2, Agudelo, outreach coordinator Brittany Burnside from MassRIDES and others will be manning a sign-up table outside the GCC cafΓ© in the main building. Interested students will fill out a simple data base form specifically designed for GCC by MassRIDES. Possible ridesharing partners will be notified.
Carpooling is a real challenge, given the rural nature of western Massachusetts, according to Martha Field, Dean of Institutional Support and Advancement.
"Ninety-five percent of the trips in and out of GCC are by drive-alones," Field says, "because public transportation isn't frequent enough to accommodate a lot of people. Plus, a lot of our students go to work after class and there's a good chance that where they work is not along a bus route."
Field, who commutes to GCC from Amherst, has been in the MassRIDES data base for almost three years. "I've gotten calls," she says, "but it just hasn't worked out. Right now, we really just need to get more students into the data base and there'll probably be more matches. I think it would be a big help for students." Carpooling parking spaces are marked out in Parking Lot A, near the rotary end of the East Building.
Field says Greenfield Community College also supports alternative methods of getting to school.
"GCC has bike racks. In fact, we have just added a few more bike racks from a bike path grant that I went in with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments. The bike racks get used," she added. "We actually have a locker room with showers on campus; the commonwealth has found that if people have access to that kind of facility, they'll be more likely to bike or walk to work or school.
Agudelo hopes to garner a significant percentage of signups on Feb. 16. "It would be great if half of all GCC students were in the ridesharing data base," she says. "I'm on a really tight budget, and ridesharing will make GCC more accessible for a lot of people in the same boat."
For more information on ridesharing at GCC, contact Eva Agudelo at 775-1141 or agudeloe6629@stuemail.gcc.mass.edu.
Students Tackle Real-Life Marketing Challenges
"It's one thing to learn from a book," says Tatyana Baraban, 20, of Greenfield, "but it's a whole different thing when you actually do a project in real life. I've always wanted to work in business " that's my major " and now we have this (marketing) experience because Ms. Vranos let us actually do it."
In a twist on education that capitalizes on the "community" in "community college," Professor Kathleen Vranos brings together the enthusiasm and fresh perspectives of students taking her Introduction to Marketing class with the real-life marketing challenges faced by local businesses.
"I have a responsibility of delivering a curriculum that covers the purpose of marketing, which is to help businesses meet objectives by identifying and meeting consumer needs with product, price, promotion and distribution strategies," says Professor Vranos, who has a master's degree in advertising from the Medill School at Northwestern University in Chicago. Vranos has worked on both the client and advertising agency sides of the business, developing programs for Fortune 50 corporations including Kellogg, Pillsbury, Green Giant and Georgia-Pacific Corp.
"This is typically done with a case-oriented approach," she says. "But I also feel it's very important for those students who are pursuing the two-year degree in the hopes of going out and starting a business to gain some practical experience. So I approached businesses in the area and, basically, asked them to share their marketing challenges with us so that the students could get a taste of the real world. In return, we hope that we'll provide the businesses with some very good ideas and something close to a full marketing plan."
This past semester, five groups of students got the chance to flex their marketing muscles on Northern Woolies yarn shop and the Greenfield Tae Kwon Do Center.
Northern Woolies
"The strength of Northern Woolies is personal services, helping people with this newly re-emerging craft," says owner Christine Copeland, who opened the Greenfield shop for knitters at 18 Miles St. two years ago. "They can come to Northern Woolies and find really interesting books and get help with picking yarns and needles and projects that they would have a harder time getting in a bigger, general crafts store.
"So the students came in," says Copeland, "and they had a lot of questions. Initially, it just showed their lack of expertise or their lack of experience. But by the end of the project, they had done such an amazing job for me that it was fantastic."
"We first had to gather as much research as we could on factors that surrounded the knitting industry," says Kate Traeger, 31, of Brattleboro, "what consumers thought of knitting, what kinds of behaviors surrounded the culture of knitting and the demographics of the greater Greenfield region. That was really hard to get because there is no single source for that kind of information, so we had to go about it indirectly. I ended up sending out a survey by e-mail to all of my girlfriends that I knew, not just in New England, but all around the country. It included my mom and my godmother and just all sorts of different people, even if they didn't knit at all. It was really interesting; I got back about 30 responses."
They learned that knitting is definitely a social craft and a time-honored tradition. It's also a portable craft that knitters can take anywhere.
"The other step we had to take early on, and I think one of the most difficult ones," says Traeger, "was to figure out who the target market was for this particular store, and what advantage Northern Woolies has over its competition."
Their findings confirmed Copeland's emphasis on personal service. "Friendly, welcoming service was Northern Woolies' greatest strength," says Traeger. "From there, we took on the whole realm of advertising."
Hannah Wells, 16, of Shutesbury, designed a rack card. "It's a 4 by 9 printed card and it has just enough information to give you an idea of what Northern Woolies offers," says Wells. "It says at the top, 'Northern Woolies: Greenfield's Knitting Solution.'"
Others in their group designed print ads and scripted radio spots.
"The other thing the students did that was most helpful were their surveys of my customers," says Copeland. "The knitters in Franklin County are happy that I'm here and they're not going to come in and criticize the store, so the surveys were great. I learned, for example, that a lot of people felt shy about going into the back room where I have stuff and that if I just had a sign over a certain part of the store saying, 'Please come into the back room,' that that would be really helpful."
At the end of the two-month-long project, the groups of students made presentations. "One group of young women had taken up knitting in the course of doing their project," recalls Copeland. "They were all wearing these starched white shirts and colorful scarves they had knitted, so that was really fun to see! One group had done a really wonderful display with marketing ideas like, for example, a flag with some kind of knitting image on it to lure people down from Main Street.
"So by the end, all of their questions and, sort of, interruptions were made worthwhile," says Copeland. "I think they in turn learned how very complex even a small business can be in terms of succeeding."
Tae Kwon Do Center
"We're well-established, we've been in town for three decades and our enrollment waxes and wanes," says David Johnson, master instructor at the Tae Kwon Do Center located at 102 Federal St. in Greenfield. "We've done a great deal of advertising, promotional campaigns and charitable fundraisers, and this seemed like a unique opportunity to have some marketing students look at populations that we may or may not be reaching out to."
"The biggest challenge, I would say, was trying to identify our target market," says Jessena Graves, 20, of Shelburne Falls. "They were basically marketing to everyone and we focused on a smaller group of people who were a little bit older: health-conscious people who were interested not just in losing weight, but on improving their mind, body and spirit."
Tatyana Baraban, 20, of Greenfield, designed a complete Web site to showcase some features the Tae Kwon Do Center might want to incorporate into their existing Web site. "When people go online to look for what they need," says Baraban, "it's very important to have a Web site that stands out."
Each group tried to capture their business's message in a nutshell. "For example, for Tae Kwon Do," says Baraban, "we came up with, 'It's the ticket to confidence, self-esteem and good health.'"
One of the groups working with Northern Woolies came up with, "Knitters enter interested and leave inspired."
The tag line helps keep the advertising message consistent. "Keeping it simple and then just sticking with it, I think, is the biggest thing I learned," says Traeger.
Even when the advice seemed obvious, it was welcomed by the business owners. "They made observations and suggestions about greeting procedures when people come in which I thought were very useful," says Johnson. "From now on, anytime anyone comes through the door, they will be greeted immediately by one of the staff or one of the regular members who will begin to explore what their interest is. Interestingly enough, it was something that I had made mandatory many years ago but apparently had fallen by the by. So the marketing groups were incredibly helpful in giving me a wake-up call that I need to be more mindful and more attentive.
"They were able to identify the strengths of the business as well as the weaknesses, so it was a nice balance," says Johnson. "It was mindful of our resources, and their suggestions were built upon utilizing those resources more effectively.
"Marketing is something that's very deliberate," says Traeger. "It's not just something you throw out there and hope something good is going to happen. It takes a lot of thought and a lot of research to come up with the right look and feel of whatever business idea you're trying to promote."
"I think the fact that it was 'real' inspired students to work very hard," says Professor Vranos. "Working on real businesses is like a gymnast performing on the balance beam instead of on the floor: it focuses you."
Businesses interested in participating in future marketing projects through Greenfield Community College are invited to contact Professor Vranos at (413) 775-1471, or vranosk@gcc.mass.edu.
GCC to Produce Landmark Play
'The Vagina Monologues' will raise money, awareness to end violence against women and girls. The Vagina Monologues is a series of vignettes about life experiences that people don't usually talk about, such as domestic violence, rape, genital mutilation, acid-disfiguring attacks on women by their own male family members and government-condoned sex slaves like Japan's "comfort women" of World War II.
Two performances will be presented this Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m., in the Stinchfield Lecture Hall, chosen because it is the college's largest venue. Last year, both performances sold out. "People were asking to buy tickets to our rehearsal time!" recalls student co-director and co-producer Gloria Ratcliffe. Tickets are still available at the GCC Bookstore, and at NELCWIT's office at 479 Main St. Tickets are $5 for students and low income, and a donation of $10 to $20 for others. For information about ticket availability, call (413) 775-1132.
"It will probably make some people blush," says Julia, "but it's shocking in a good kind of way and it's very respectful." Julia is one of 21 Greenfield Community College students who, along with another 10 or 12 working behind the scenes, are producing Eve Ensler's Obie-award-winning play, The Vagina Monologues, as part of a worldwide effort on college campuses to end violence against women and girls. They hope to raise over $3,000 from the sale of tickets, program ads, and refreshments provided by the Human Services Club, which they will donate in equal parts to The New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (NELCWIT), and the college's Women's Resource Center.
Dawn Berne-Allen, returning for her second production of The Vagina Monologues, portrays a Southern woman of color in "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could."
"Throughout the piece," says Dawn, "she goes through memories, starting at age 5 and all the way up until age 16. One of the memories is, she is at a party at her father's house " I believe she's nine in this one " and she's raped by her father's friends."
Another piece, "The Flood," depicts the shame that an old woman still carries as a result of a date experience with a boy when she was 16. "She's sitting in a car with this boy," explains Eva, "and he kisses her and she, like, gushes because she gets excited. So he calls her a stinky, weird girl and she's just totally ashamed of herself. Women have these stunting experiences where people tell them they're bad or wrong or dirty or disgusting or whatever, just for being normal."
Interspersed with these intense scenes are lighter monologues like The Vagina Happy Fact. "It's actually really funny," says Bridget, "because it talks about how the clitoris is the only organ in the human body that's designed entirely for pleasure and how it has 8,000 nerve fibers, which is way more than anywhere else, including the male penis, which is really cool. It's so funny to say it and then hear people, like, gasp. It was hard at first, but it's getting easier. Once you get it out of the way the first couple of times, then it's easier to say it."
"The biggest challenge is being able to say a lot of these taboo words out loud, in public, and confidently, to an audience of nearly 200," agrees Dawn.
The special drama of these monologues is that they are performed similar to old radio plays, with limited props, staging and dramatic interpretation. Dawn designed and built the one-of-a-kind, 10-by-30-foot backdrop on which she painted images inspired by the manuscript. Others in the cast contribute simple props, donate their time and assist with the behind-the-scenes production.
Professor Anne Wiley, who teaches psychology and women's studies, and Rosemarie Freeland, Coordinator of the Women's Resource Center, craft a cohesive unit out of the cast and crew of The Vagina Monologues that contributes to the emotional intensity of the production.
"It's a labor of love," says Professor Wiley. "These students volunteer their time, they come in, they read, they give each other critique and praise, and lots of clapping and " That was great!'
Part of the power of this production stems from the fact that some of these student-actors are, themselves, survivors of domestic violence. Wiley, Freeland and counselor Sue McGowan, provide extra support when a rehearsal reading hits a little too close to home.
"I was in an abusive relationship," says Krystal. "The way that that brings you down can be really stressful; it can totally tear your life apart and I'm still dealing with it. So participating in something like this is very helpful to me. I'm sure there're other women in this room who have gone through something similar to what I have and this is something that they're looking to as self-empowering."
"There's so much passion behind these readings," says Tye, "because we really believe in what we're saying."
One-half of the proceeds from the show will benefit GCC's Women's Resource Center.
"It's a safe space where women can go and be women," explains Julia.
"I go there to check out the books they've got there, to use the internet," says Krystal. "I know there's food available. I've taken and given to the community clothing area. I feel it's kind of like a family of women."
"I spend a lot of time at the Women's Resource Center," says Eva. "I use the computer. I sit and do homework. I make food sometimes. It feels like a sanctuary."
Raising money for organizations like the Women's Resource Center and NELCWIT is one of the goals of The Vagina Monologues. "It helps students realize that they can have an impact on both the college community and the larger community, particularly around educating all of us about the prevalence of violence against women and girls," says Wiley.
"We're all so supportive of one another," says Jillian. "I think there is a unity (to this production) that will be awesome to see."
"I hope the audience will get a better understanding of how women are," says Julia, "and that it's OK to talk about how you are and who you are. I think that everyone will be changed by it."
Greenfield Community College | One College Drive | Greenfield, MA 01301-5129 | (413) 775-1000 (tel) | (413) 775-5129 (fax)