This week I am at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies with a BGSU “Team” led by Dr. Marc Simon (Director of Peace Studies) and Dr Ellen Gorsevski (COMS). I call it “summer camp for faculty”–in the very best sense! It’s a chance to explore new ideas, meet new people who areactive in the field, and get to know some of my BGSU “homies” better. Amazingly, the whole thing is being offered at no charge to participating faculty; we just paid our own travel and housing and some of the meals. (We did have to compete to be accepted as a team!) Still, faculty life is good; it’s a beautiful campus, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot this week. Will keep the blog updated! Here’s the conference link:
http://kroc.nd.edu/newsevents/events/2009/06/14/493
Interesting acquaintance of the day: Dr. Daniel Groody, CSC, a priest and asst prof of theology who spent years working with migrants on the US-Mexico boder and has written several books about the theology of migration. (I never knew there was a such a thing!) It is interesting, and just a little bit jarring, to be on the campus of a Catholic University where topics like theology and religious calling are front and center. Prof. Groody (or should I say Father Daniel?) wanted to stay in the border region, but his religious community decided he should be a college professor instead–and because of that vow of obedience, that’s what he did!
Just one of many fascinating people at this gathering!
Are you sick of “reselling” your textbooks at the end of a class only to get pennies on the dollar? Do something that will make you feel good instead of cheated: donate those books for global literacy! At the end of each summer session, International Studies will be collecting books to send to Better World Books. ALL kinds of books are needed: some will be donated directly to Books for Africa, some will be resold on the BetterWorld website (with a portion of the proceeds going to Books for Africa), and anything unusable will be recycled.
Please note that BetterWorldBooks is a for-profit organization with a social purpose. Their usual arrangement is to pay a commission to the book drive organizer and make a donation to the designated non-profit; IS is directing its “commission” to go directly to Books for Africa, so we will NOT make money on this and the charity will get double its usual amount. Since BetterWorldBooks provides all collection, advertising, and shipping materials, and pays shipping costs, there is no cost to International Studies or BGSU.
Are you blogging while studying abroad? If so, the International Studies program would like to know about it and publish it on our blog! Please contact me at either isp@bgsu.edu or kfoell@bgsu.edu, or just post a comment right here on the blog!
Here are two I’ve found so far:
Our own IS major, Sheila Campbell, is blogging from Mexico: http://blogs.bgsu.edu/csheila/
And I don’t know who this is, but s/he’s having a great tiem in London: http://blogs.bgsu.edu/londonparisrome2009cmb/