| March 2006
In
this Issue:
- A Word from Sean
- APAN Member of the Month
- SU Students Excited to be Making "Trax"
- Crusader Campus Corner: Spring Concert '06: Guster; SU Professor Reads Award Winning Poetry; Groundbreaking Anti-Racism Author to Speak at SU
- Crusader Athletics: SU to Join New Athletic Conference
- News & Notes
A
Word from Sean
“What is salmon?”
Jeopardy music counts the seconds in the classroom as one girl tries to conjure up a salmon in her mind. Whispers shout through the air as her friends, munching on pretzels and apple sauce, try to advise her on just what type of foreign-being a salmon is. She closes her eyes, hand clasping her forehead as if she is trying to physically pull the answer from her skull. Fact games, Jeopardy music, snacks, and a rowdy group of kids…no, this is not your typical senior year capstone course; it is, however, my senior year capstone course.
Actually let me clarify: this is my first grade classroom. That’s right, after three and a half years of accumulating the skills and tools necessary to become a teacher, I am finally student teaching, placed in a first grade classroom at Oaklyn Elementary School in nearby Shikellamy. As an elementary education major, as all education majors do, I am spending my last semester of college student teaching, and loving every minute of it.
Coming in to school each day is a brand new challenge; I never know what the students are going to say, how they are going to respond to and participate in learning opportunities, what tensions and conflicts might arise within the classroom during the school day. My students constantly surprise me both with their willingness to take on new challenges and the caring hearts that they use to meet those challenges. They force me to reflect on my own planning and preparation, making me into a better teacher with each passing day. It is a truly rewarding experience.
Of course, my challenges do not stop at the end of the school day. I leave the school building at 3:20 on the dot each day to make sure I am ready for the beginning of track practice at 4:15. The team finished second at Indoor MAC’s at the end of February, and after a Spring Break trip and meet in South Carolina, is preparing for a run at the Outdoor MAC title. I still have my other commitments as well, including a Tuesday night class, my RA position, and, last but not least, APAN. I’ll admit that there are times when I have felt asleep on my feet this semester, because when it is all said and done my sleep time is what gets sacrificed, but it has also by far been my most rewarding semester. I might need to sleep through the end of the month of May after I graduate, but that is a completely different matter altogether…
Right now, I am still in the middle of this awesome experience, and so, I need to get back to work—more preparation, more activities, and more lesson plans. That way, when the Jeopardy music ends and my little first grader answers in the form of a question, “Is salmon…a pumpernickel?” I know that I can laugh it off, reflect on at what point the fish multiplied into loaves, and head right back to the drawing board.
SU Students Excited to be Making "Trax"
The grand opening of Susquehanna's new social space, Trax, was held this past Friday, March 25. Constructed from an existing building on campus, the social space gives students a new recreational facility for such activities as dances, comedy clubs and for-fun poker nights. The space features a dance floor, DJ booth, game area, bar, performance stage and outdoor patio. It will be open Friday and Saturday nights from about 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and on select nights, a limited amount of beer and wine will be available to Susquehanna students 21 or older. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Trax is that everything--the food, the drinks, and the entertainment--are all free for SU students!
Needless to say, the grand opening was a big hit with SU students. Featuring Wilkes-Barre area cover band The Collective and student DJ Basha Taylor on the turntables, more than 400 students turned out throughout the night. Many commented that it was a fantastic time, that the money to build Trax was well spent and that finally, SU students can say that on the weekends, there will ALWAYS be something to do on campus!
  
Calendars,
Schedules and Events
(Click
the link to see all of the latest happenings on campus!)
Spring Concert '06: Guster
Guster will be performing for the spring concert at 8 pm on Thursday, April 27, in Weber Chapel Auditorium.
The concert will kick off SU's annual Spring Weekend festivities. Tickets go on sale for students on Sunday, March 26 from 1 to 4 p.m.
The cost is $15 per ticket for students with university identification and there is a limit of two tickets per student.
Tickets will go on sale to staff, faculty and the general public for $20 each on Monday, April 3.
Guster will be performing songs from their past albums such as "Goldfly," "Lost and Gone Forever" and "Keep It Together."
Junior Michael McLean, Student Activities Committee concert committee chair, said many factors had been considered when booking Guster's performance for the spring concert.
First was the committee's budget, according to McLean. They wanted a performance that was quite different from the past. "Guster's main audience is college students," McLean said. "In the past we have had artists that are geared more toward the high school age group."
Guster's Campus Consciousness Tour will begin in late March and end in May. The tour is to promote environmental awareness and is supported by the non-profit organization Reverb.
Reverb was created by Guster's guitarist and vocalist Adam Gardner and his wife, Lauren Sullivan. Its purpose is to raise awareness about the environment by connecting bands and their fan base to environmental issues, according to reverbrock.org.
During the concert, tables will be set up encouraging environmental awareness. A Clif and Luna Bar Consciousness Pavilion table will provide concert attendees with information about renewable energy and alternative fuels, global warming and how to win a "meet and greet" with the band.
Through this concert, Guster hopes to educate, inspire and activate students to leave a positive impact on the community and the university.
Ben Folds Five, Lifehouse and Gavin DeGraw were among other performers that were considered.
SU Professor Reads Award-Winning Poetry
Karla Kelsey, visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing at SU, read from her recently published book, Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary, on Monday, March 27. Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary was originally written as Kelsey’s doctoral dissertation at Denver University and won the prestigious Sawtooth Poetry Prize last year. Her award includes a publishing contract with Ahsahta Press, which released the first pressing of the volume in January. Acclaimed poet Carolyn Forché, who judged the 2005 Sawtooth award, described Kelsey’s work as “a masterful debut…at once philosophical and political.”
Inspiration for Kelsey’s Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary stems from Plato’s Theaetetus, in which Socrates compares knowledge to an aviary, a bird carrying knowledge that its owner can freely choose. “This vision is horrifying because the knowledge-birds are tapped and the knower ‘plucks them down’ to use them. The mind as a thing that ‘uses’ the world seems like a very skewed and limited sense of being,” Kelsey writes.
This is Kelsey’s first published book of poetry. She is also the author of the chapbook Little Dividing Doors in the Mind (Noemi Press, 2005). She has been published in several journals, including The Boston Review, Verse, 26, and others. From 2003-2005, she was the associate editor of the Denver Quarterly.
Kelsey attributes her attachment to form to the 14 years she spent as a dancer. “The training and rigors of classical ballet have been fundamental to the writer and person that I am. …When you grow up spending hours inspecting the forms that you make in the mirror as you are making them, you realize the extent to which the act of dancing does not equal the image created by the dancer; rather, it is more.”
Kelsey is currently in her first year of teaching in the creative writing program at Susquehanna University. She teaches introductory and advanced classes in poetry and the Editing and Publishing class, which is aimed at giving students practical experience in working with the publishing of literary journals.
Kelsey’s more recent work includes a project for which she has collaborated with her husband, Peter Yumi. Yumi is a visual artist and musician. Together, the two have combined her poetry and his music, which Kelsey hopes to share at the reading.
Groundbreaking Anti-Racism Author to Speak at SU
Prominent anti-racist writer and activist Tim Wise will speak at SU on Tuesday, April 4. The lecture, titled “Racism, White Privilege, and the Ongoing Struggle for Racial Equality,” will begin at 8 p.m. in Isaacs Auditorium of Seibert Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
Wise is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, (Soft Skull Press), the first history of what it means to be part of the “majority” in America. He is also the author of Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge Press). He has contributed essays to 15 books, and is featured in White Men Challenging Racism: Thirty-Five Personal Stories from Duke University Press. Wise will release two new books in 2006 - Disasters, Natural and Otherwise: Race, Class and the Destruction of New Orleans and Speaking Treason Fluently: Dissident Reflections on Race, Faith and Nation.
The recipient of the 2001 British Diversity Award for best feature essay on race issues, Wise is the race and ethnicity editor for LIP magazine. He has been a featured guest on hundreds of radio and television programs worldwide. In addition, his writings are taught at hundreds of colleges and have appeared in dozens of popular, professional and scholarly journals. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tulane University, where his anti-apartheid work received global attention and the gratitude of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Michael Eric Dyson, professor of African-American and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and best-selling author of Race Rules, Holler if You Hear Me, and Between God and Gangsta Rap, calls Wise “one of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation. His considerable rhetorical skills, his fluid literary gifts and his relentless search for the truth make him a critical ally in the fight against racism and a true soldier in the war for social justice."
Wise has spoken in 48 states and on more than 400 college campuses and has provided anti-racism training to educators, health care providers, and corporate, government, military and law enforcement officials. He has taught at Smith College’s School for Social Work and the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he trained journalists to eliminate racial bias in their reporting. From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute and in the early 1990s was associate director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke.
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APAN WEB SITE UPDATE
We would like to remind you
that all of the materials you receive via mail will also be available
through links on our Web site, http://www.susqu.edu/apan/.
A PDF version of the APAN manual is available to view and print
on the APAN Web site. Please continue
to check the APAN Web site as we are continually making updates
and improvements. Many key aspects of the program are now run
on the Web site. Members can update their personal information,
refer a prospective student, submit their College Night Evaluation
form, order an APAN Polo Shirt, and read their favorite monthly
newsletter, The Pipeline!
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Please be sure to send us
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Contact Information:
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Susquehanna University Office of Admissions
514 University Avenue
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www.susqu.edu/apan
E-mail: apan@susqu.edu
Angela Motto '03, APAN Coordinator
Chris Markle '84, Director of Admissions
Sean Capkin '06, APAN Assistantship Student
Pam Aungst, Administrative Assistant
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