"There are different kinds of sacred music," says Choral Director Margery Heins, who will lead the GCC Chorus in a varied program on Sunday, April 2, at 7:30 p.m. at the Second Congregational Church in Greenfield. The concert is free.
"We have William Billings in a piece called 'Chester,' which is kind of a proclamation against slavery, and the American hymn, 'Shall We Gather at the River,' which speaks about the melody of peace, and gains added poignancy when you realize it was written during the Civil War.
"We're doing the complete Schubert Mass accompanied by string instruments, and Cesar Franck's 'Psalm 150,' in French, and that may be a real first. I think it's always done in English in this country.
"We have a gospel piece, 'The Storm is Passing Over,' to a tune written by one of the original black gospel songwriters, Tindley. "We have a beautiful arrangement of Deep River" that just seems to speak to everybody in the chorus. It's not loud and noisy, but it has its own excitement.
"We also have a piece by Lowell Mason, who is not all that famous, but if you open up any hymnal in any church in this area, you'll find many hymns that he wrote. The piece that we're doing is called 'Oh, Sing Unto the Lord.' It's fast-moving and sophisticated and offers a little bit of everything that's satisfying about singing: everybody singing together, parts that come in at different times, parts that form duets with each other, a few high notes for the sopranos, and a very lovely piano part.
Greenfield Community College's Response Initiative Committee joins with a number of Pioneer Valley institutions and organizations to offer a series of public lectures and events on the topic of the return home of the war veteran called " Stories of War and Return." The series is planned with the single focus of developing understanding, support and welcome for those who are returning and will return from war to our communities, schools and homes in the coming months, according to Hampshire College Professor of Humanities Robert Meagher, who is program director for the series.
On Friday, April 7, GCC hosts Meagher as guest speaker for "The Myth of Herakles," in the GCC TV Studio (S-312) from 11:30 to 1 p.m. Starting Monday, April 10 and on display through April 28, is a photo exhibit of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs from the Iraq War (Social Sciences Studio, E-115, 10 to 4, M-F), On April 21, GCC hosts Jonathan Shay, psychiatrist/classical scholar/veterans' advocate, as a guest speaker (GCC TV Studio, 12 to 2 p.m.). Finally, on May 4 is a film showing of "Turtles Can Fly," about the war's youngest veterans, Iraq's children. (GCC Downtown Center, 7 p.m.) All events are free and open to the public.
"I think that the war is affecting all of us, whether it's directly or indirectly," says Professor Abbie Jenks, who teaches introduction to peace studies and a peace psychology class at Greenfield Community College. "What really appealed to me about this project is that it's not intentionally antiwar. It's not a black and white issue, by any means. It's simply to allow the public to hear and understand the stories of war and what it's like for people who have been in combat and their return back to so-called normal life.
"The legacy of trauma is deep and it does affect people's relationships," says Professor Jenks, "and I think we need to prepare as a community to be supportive of people who are returning from war."
Project sponsors include the Veterans Education Project, American Friends Service Committee of Western Massachusetts, the Five College schools, and Greenfield and Holyoke Community Colleges.
"We don't have dormitories (at GCC) and we have a commuter college," says Daniel LaRose, Interim Associate Dean of Behavioral Sciences. "So we need to create what I call 'neighborhoods,' these very attractive spaces for students to linger in and utilize between classes so that they can have ready access to faculty and resources."
The latest "neighborhood " at Greenfield Community College is a warm, welcoming space called the Social Sciences Studio, in East 115. A cluster of comfortable couches and chairs surround a coffee table in one corner. Twelve Internet-connected computers flank one wall. A bank of windows floods the space with natural light. An art exhibit decorates the walls. The central part of the room changes according to need.
"The space is very flexible," says Professor Anne Wiley, who teaches psychology and women's studies. "so it can be used in a multipurpose way. We can set up chairs for an audience, or we'll just have two large tables in the middle where small groups can work or a meeting could take place."
Since its open house on March 9, students have been dropping in to study and socialize, and community members have joined them for a film showing of "Thirst" and a discussion on global water issues led by JoBeth Mullens, professor of environmental science at Keene State College.
On Wednesday, the Studio will host Athena Bradley, program director of the Franklin County Solid Waste District, for a workshop, "Spring Cleaning and Healthy yards, Naturally!" (See the "Please join us"¦" box on this page for details.)
Opening their space for special events fulfills one of the three goals which organizers set for the Social Sciences Studio. "It becomes a place for bringing people together to talk about critical issues of our time," says Angel Russek, faculty member in the Human Ecology Program. "A couple who came to a recent event said they moved to this area because they wanted to be part of a community where issues that are current and relevant to their lives are talked about."
The other goals focus on students' needs: to provide a place where students can work alone, with one another and with their professors, forging the social bonds that have been proven to keep students in school. "We know that retention (students staying in college) improves with one-on-one and small group relationships that faculty can have with students," says Wiley. "But you have to have the space to encourage that."
The social sciences encompasses psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, human ecology, political science, women's studies and the new discipline of peace and social justice. "Social sciences are about who we are as human beings in this world," says Russek, "and our relationship to other humans and the non-human world. We talk about how decisions that are being made affect our lives and the lives of future generations."
It's fertile ground for the kind of discussions that spill out of classrooms, according to Eva Agudelo, a work-study student, and the Social Sciences Studio is the perfect place for that to happen. "It's really important for people to discuss their ideas together and be able to have a forum where everybody's asking the same questions," says Agudelo. "It makes much smarter people!"
Faculty members in the behavioral sciences will be spending part of their time in the studio, which is a bonus for students. "It's much more one-on-one in the studio," explains Agudelo. "The professors are there, they have time to be with the students and you can catch their ear for a bit longer. A lot of the most rewarding experiences I've had here are having conversations outside of class with my professors, and being able to rant and rave about whatever current global issues we're discussing. It's really excellent to be able to sort of pick your professors' brains about those things."
It's also a proven contributor to student success. "We think when students have an opportunity to get one-on-one connections with their professors, when they have enrichment activities that go beyond the classroom, that they have a better chance of staying in school," says LaRose. "The data shows that students who are engaged in their classes, engaged with other students and faculty, have a higher rate of staying in school. So this space is designed to encourage that and we think it will have long-term impact on retention."
"It's important to see the use of this space across a spectrum," says Russek, "from individual students using it to come and do their homework and research to groups of students working together on projects to offering events for the college and community. It's a center for looking at our role in the world through the lens of the social sciences."
Women outnumber men on college campuses
More women than men are pursuing, and succeeding at, higher education. On the GCC campus, according to fall 2005 enrollment figures, only 37% of the student population are men, 63% women. Nationwide, according to a recent Newsweek cover story, only 44% of undergraduates on college campuses are male, down from 58% 30 years ago. And men are not graduating at the same rate as women.
Greenfield Community College is taking the lead in trying to find out why. A new course, "Psychology of Men," explores what it means to be a man, and a new Men's Initiatives committee aims to establish the first-ever Men's Center on a community college campus, and only the second Men's Studies program in the nation.
"We are in the forefront (of college men's centers)," says Adjunct Professor Lewis Bosler, a Board member of the American Men's Studies Association and chair of the GCC Men's Initiatives steering committee. Bosler brings to these endeavors more than 20 years' experience working with men in his psychotherapy practice. "We're laying the groundwork for men's programs, and not just at GCC. It's a national concern right now: Why aren't our men enrolling in colleges and why aren't they successful once they get there?"
Also serving on the committee are Interim Associate Dean Daniel LaRose, GCC Foundation Executive Director Allen J. Davis, Professors Thom Simmons and David Johnson, Advising Coordinator Larry Dean, staff member John Murphy, and four male students.
Recently, Bosler and two students attended the third annual Conference on the College Male at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.
For Wendell resident Cristian Marano, 18, "Going to this conference enlightened me on this country and the entire world.
"We still have the same stereotypes for men and boys as we did 80 years ago," says Marano, "that we're the providers, we have to be strong, we can't show our weaknesses, that we've very nonempathetic."
"I think a lot of people have the Homer Simpson vision of what a man is," says Greenfield resident Daniel Phillip Cutler, 26, who also attended the conference. "He's the stupid father who sits on the sofa, watches TV and drinks beer. With that stereotype in mind, men don't feel empowered to do much more than that. Positive role models are what we need."
Stereotypes, a sense of 'father hunger,' absent male role models, unreasonable expectations of boys, different learning styles, and the mistaken assumption that men are personally empowered just by virtue of their sex are all fueling the men's studies programs and college men's centers.
Professor Bosler traces the roots of the men's movement back to the 1970s.
"The so-called men's movement came as a response and reaction to the women's movement in the '60s," says Bosler. "One of the things that happened was that the women said, This is how we want our men to be: more communicative, and more equality in our roles." And then at some point, men said, 'Wait a minute, we want to decide for ourselves what it means to be a man,' and that's the work that we're doing: What does it mean to be a man in today's society? What are our roles? Because our roles have changed."
"I think the men's movement is identical to the feminist movement," agrees Cutler. "The feminist movement is about women getting to understand themselves better and being able to empower themselves. The men's movement is about the same thing."
By focusing on men's issues at Greenfield Community College, the Men's Initiatives steering committee hopes to turn around the trend of declining population of male students and at the same time increase their graduation rate.
The first step, according to Bosler, "is to identify our male students, especially the ones who are at risk, and to formulate programs and services that will help them both as students and as men. We really need to do the research first."
"We're so in the dark right now," says Marano. "My task in this semester is to form these focus groups of eight to ten people each, maybe four of them, to talk about our studies, our teachers, what's troubling us at home, what's troubling us at school, and how we can work to improve things.
"We've posted it in the newsletter at school and we've been getting e-mails from people saying it's a good thing, other people saying it's a bad thing. Everybody has their opinion," says Marano, "and I'm hoping that when they say it's a bad thing, it's coming from a place of misunderstanding or fear and we can try to change it."
Just getting these focus groups together will be challenging, predicts Cutler.
"We're talking about guys who don't talk about 'issues,'" says Cutler. "Women, I think, are just more readily available to come out and say, 'Hey, this is how I feel. Something's wrong,' and they'll talk to their friends about it. But how do you get guys who don't talk about personal issues to talk about their personal issues? It's nearly impossible. They always come up with, 'No, I'm fine--everything's OK.'"
One promising tactic: pizza.
"I mentioned pizza and my friend's eyes just lighted up," says Cutler. "So I thought, all right, we'll definitely have pizza!"
Teaching men's studies at three colleges has shown Bosler that students benefit from talking about men's issues. "Students who have taken my course have come to the class with one idea of what they thought the class would be, and a very different idea by the time they left the class, especially the women, and my classes have been about half women.
"The women have come into the class with the idea that they'd try to figure out men " their boyfriends or male friends -- and they've left the class with a really deep understanding of why men struggle to communicate their feelings and why men behave the way they do. As a result, they really become allies for men.
"And the men come to a better understanding about who they are."
Just as GCC demonstrates its commitment to women's issues with a women's studies degree and a Women's Resource Center staffed by a full-time coordinator, the Men's Initiative envisions similar resources for men. Bosler anticipates that GCC will become the model that other colleges will look to.
"One of the most amazing things about GCC," continues Bosler, "is that they're willing to not only take a look at men's issues, but to do something about it. We will be only the third college campus that has a men's center " in the country! And we will be the only community college. Pretty soon, colleges will be calling GCC and saying, how do we start a men's course? How do we start a men's center?"
In April, Bosler, with colleague Gar Kellom, Vice President of Student Affairs at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., will address the American Men's Studies Association conference April 7-9 at Eastern Michigan University on how to initiate men's studies and men's centers on a college campus. Later that month, on April 12 and 13, Kellom will visit the GCC campus to talk with students and the community, and formulate a set of questions that will be used on nine campuses across the country and in the West Indies. The results of the groundbreaking research that Bosler and Kellom are conducting will be published in 2007 by the Men's Studies Press.
The pay-off is already happening in the classroom when Psychology of Men meets.
"I look out at their faces," says Bosler, "and I see that they finally recognize what the issues are and why they feel and behave the way they do and why the results are what they are through the years. I think I see a little sadness in their eyes, and also a little hope that, now that they understand it, maybe they can do things differently and finish college.
"One of the things that really excites me about the Men's Initiatives committee and the work we do in the classroom," continues Bosler, "is that this is the first time a lot of male students have had male role models that really care about them, that show interest in them.
"The fact that we're developing a men's center and programs to help men here makes a statement to these young men in college at GCC: 'We care about you. We want you to be successful. How can we help you?'
"That's new for them, and I think it will benefit them in a variety of ways."
For more information on the Men's Initiatives, please contact boslerl@gcc.mass.edu or call (413) 775-1276.
Thanks to strong community support!
In its second year, the all-GCC production of The Vagina Monologues bested its first-year proceeds by raising a total of $3,106.15 from the combined sale of ads, tickets, flowers/candy/door prizes. This money will be divided equally and given to the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (NELCWIT) and the GCC Women's Resource Center.
"We are particularly grateful to our business and individual sponsors who made this a successful fundraiser," says Professor Anne Wiley. "As part of the college VDAY.org campaign, we are also appreciative of dedicated performer/readers, behind the scene folks and our two nearly full-house audiences. What a gift for NELCWIT and the GCC Women's Resource Center in helping to stop violence against women and girls."
Bake Sale raises $288.11
"Congratulations and many thanks to everyone who participated in the Human Service Club baked goods sale on both nights of the Vagina Monologues," says Abigail Jenks, faculty advisor for the Human Service Club. "We made $288.11, which will go to the GCC Women's Resource Center! Special thanks go to the following local businesses who donated coffee and baked goods:
Café Koko
Mirlings Bakery
Dunkin Donuts
McCusker's Market
RoseAnn's Bakery
Fosters
Big Y
For further information contact Anne Wiley, (413) 775-1132.
Prospective students can sign up for tours of Greenfield Community College guided by an admission counselor who will lead the way to program areas of special interest such as the dance studio, climbing wall, TV studio, fitness center, learning center, math studio, and more.
Morning tours are scheduled for Wednesdays at 10 a.m. on March 1, 15, 29, April 12 and 26, and May 10. Afternoon tours are scheduled for Wednesdays at 3 p.m. on March 8, April 5 and May 3. Each tour is about 90 minutes start to finish, and is limited to 10. To make an appointment, please phone (413) 775-1806.
GCC faculty, staff and trustees, and members and friends of the GCC Foundation are invited to the first-night of opening of The Smokin' Hippo restaurant at 20 French King Highway in Erving, Tuesday, March 14 beginning at 4 p.m.
Owner and Certified Master Chef Gary Weiss, who ran the GCC Cafeteria for many years and taught cooking workshops for the department of community education, will donate 5 percent of the night's gross proceeds to a GCC Foundation scholarship fund.
The Franklin County Collaboration for Children, in partnership with the Education Department at Greenfield Community College, invites nominations for the second Abigail Adams Eliot Award in Early Education and Care. This award will recognize an individual working directly with children ages 0-5 in the field of early childhood education who has made an exemplary contribution to young children and their families in Franklin County. The recipient will be honored at the fourth annual Educational Forum to be held at Greenfield Community College on Friday, April 28, from 7:30 to 10 a.m.
"Often childcare workers are taken for granted," says Karen Green, Union 38 Community Partnership for children Coordinator, "and so we really want to bring visibility to the field through this award. By selecting one person, we will be elevating all the fine people working so tirelessly in this field without much reward."
Award nominees should be individuals who are working with young children in an educational setting in Franklin County and have made an outstanding contribution to our community over a long period of time. Family child care providers and early childhood teachers are some of the professionals that may be considered. Nominations may be submitted by parents, early childhood practitioners or community members.
For paper nomination forms, contact Karen Green, at (413) 665-8928 or greenk@frsu38.deerfield.ma.us. To download a nomination form go to: http://www.gcc.mass.edu/adams_award.html.
The deadline for nominations is April 3.
"Family daycare providers typically work from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. five days a week and truly do not have much opportunity to be treated to an evening out," says Karen Green, Union 38 Community Partnership for Children Coordinator. "So that's what we wanted to do for them."
On Thursday, March 23, all family daycare providers who work in Franklin County are invited to attend a free dinner event at 6:30 p.m. in the Greenfield Community College café. "After a delicious dinner, there'll be raffle prizes and a presentation by Betsy Evans, who's going to speak on Conflict Resolution in Young Children," says Green. "It's a great opportunity for family daycare providers to get together to network, share common concerns, and have fun."
Workshop leader Betsy Evans is a nationally recognized early childhood education consultant, and author of the book, "You Can't Come to my Birthday Party."
Family daycare providers should let Green know they're coming by calling (413) 665-8928 by Thursday.
The event is co-sponsored by GCC, Child Care Circuit and Franklin County Community Partnership for Children Councils.
Greenfield Community College | One College Drive | Greenfield, MA 01301-5129 | (413) 775-1000 (tel) | (413) 775-5129 (fax)