Tag Archive for 'colby-sawyer college'

23 April 2008    08:06 pm

ENEBC 2008

This year, Colby-Sawyer College hosted the Eastern New England Biology Conference, an annual conference in which students from participating universities present their research. It was a splendid day for a splendid conference. The keynote speaker, David, Carroll, was a very entertaining fellow who introduced us on the ecology of spotted and wood turtles. The student presentations were captivating (and enlightening!) Many thanks to the members of the Biology Club here at CSC contributed their efforts, and to members of the faculty (Go, Bonnie!) who helped to put this conference together.

Since I love pictures, here are quite a few for perusal:

On the left are two of the student presenters from CSC. On the right is a faculty member of the natural sciences department at CSC.

Here is a shot of the keynote speaker, David Carroll, on the left, conversing with a visiting faculty member on the right.

This is another CSC student presenter. Yes, he is always this silly.

This CSC student is not a presenter, but has helped out to put this conference together.

Right after lunch, was the poster presentation session. I greatly enjoyed the posters, because I could speak one-on-one with the presenter about his or her research. And I got plenty of pictures, too ..

I apologise for not getting pictures of everyone. I would have loved to get shots of everyone involved, but they were all busy presenting or running the conference! This has been a wonderful experience for me. I speaking with the presenters about their research. I hope that the conference has been just as pleasant for others.

categories: academia, events, links, pictures, science
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21 April 2008    07:17 am

April is the Cruellest Month

Blogging here has slowed to a near halt for two reasons: (1) the end-of-the-semester crunch, and (2) spring. Other than the daily poems, I am hardly blogging at all. Writing, however, is another topic entirely. During these last few weeks, I have been writing numerous lab reports and essays (not to mention all that writing on exams). Right now, in fact, I am writing a lab report that is due Monday at 5pm. (Don’t tell Cheryl.) Academia has consumed my life once again. I’ll return to the land of the Internet in early May.

Also, spring has overtaken my senses. The snow is finally gone, and the sun has finally come to stay. Now instead of holing up because of exhaustion and lack of sunlight, I hide because I fear exposure to other people. But more on that later. Now I have to go back to writing about the synthesis of aspirin.

categories: academia, diabola.org, links, personal
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18 April 2008    03:58 pm

NH Clothesline Project

Colby-Sawyer College hosts the New Hampshire Clothesline Project in full every year on campus. The Clothesline Project is a visual display of the suffering from abuse and the healing that still needs to be done. Abuse survivors and loved ones of abuse victims write their stories on shirts. Each color represents a different form of abuse and whether the victims survived. Pink represents rape, and white, for women who died from violence, and so on. The shirts are then hung on clotheslines for display.

The Clothesline Project has become an international movement. About 50,000–60,000 shirts are displayed around the world. The display at CSC is open for one more day: Saturday, April 19th from 9am–4pm at the Mercer Hall Gym. Admission is free. Please come see some of the moving stories these women have to share.

Many more pictures follow the cut ..

As I was taking pictures, one shirt moved me deeply. I wish I could have gotten a better shot, but it was very windy today on campus.

This is what the shirt says:

For JB:

For surviving when they thought you wouldn’t + for becoming the amazing woman you are today.

Continue to be strong.

Horrible things happen all the time. But we are strong. We can heal, and many of us do. Only then can we teach others to rise up, stop the violence, and how to heal.

categories: activism, culture, events, links, pictures
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08 April 2008    02:15 pm

WAM! 2008

About two weeks ago, a few of us went down to Cambridge for WAM! 2008, a conference for progressive feminist activism. The energy there was very positive, inspiring women to analyse media content, claim their own image, and help others realise their own potential. Going to this conference changed my perception of what it means to be an activist and a feminist. While I don’t agree with every opinion there (because we are diverse even if we believe in the same cause), everyone I met there has been inspiring.

Here is our (very) little motley group:

Group at WAM! 2008

Mostly I hung around the tables where I found some very, very cool women with very, very cool programs and projects. These women here represent the UMass Boston Program for Women in Politics and Public Policy and the media reformation movement Free Press.

Table for the public policy program at UMass and the Free Press

The UMass program is a two-year graduate program that trains women in the theory and practice of politics and public policy. Also coming up at UMass is the Women, Wages, and Work Policy Conference on June 9th. Women have been and still earn less wages than their male counterparts, and this conference addresses what we can do to change that.

Free Press is a non-profit organization that campaigns for better media policies. The premise is that there has been too much leniency favoring corporate media, and the monopoly of media is detrimental to the democratic process. To learn more about the topic, visit the website or read the book Our Media.

A small, progressive printing company

This is the display for Red Sun Press, a printing press in Boston. What is great about this company is that are very socially, economically, and environmentally progressive. They take care to make green, eco-friendly publications. Every employee is also an owner and has equal share in the profits. They truly embody the spirit of equality. (Also, they’re designs are nifty. Check them out!)

Positive, supportive, renown publications for adolescents

At this table is Teen Voices, a Boston-based publication written by adolescent girls for adolescent girls, and Girls Write Now, a NYC-based program that helps high school girls find their strength through writing. Both these programs focus on empowering young women through writing, and the effects are inspiring and humbling.

Those are only a few of the tables I visited. (I just don’t have any more pictures!) The rest of the time at the conference was spent at panels about blogging and women in popular culture, and this amazing documentary on reproductive rights in African-American communities, Silent Choices. The breadth of experience at this conference has been eye-opening, refreshing, and inspiring all at once.

I’m so glad to have attended. It was a fabulous experience.

categories: activism, culture, links, media, personal, pictures, politics
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