CCT News

4 June 08

See also previous news, alum news and exchanges, items for the upcoming news, and CCT calendar.
Inform cct@umb.edu if you have news OR want to be emailed when there's a new news compilation (no more than once/month) OR want to be removed from such mailings.

Contents: Student matters, CCT community, CCT events, alums, other events, opportunities, resources, food for thought, humor

Student Matters
Register soon for summer courses, including "Critical Thinking", "Biomedical Ethics", "Creative Thinking, Collaboration, and Organizational Change."

Spaces still available in fall courses, including CrCrTh612 with the theme of Humor.

M.A. at a distance is now possible -- spread the word:
Several CCT courses are offered in both face2face and online sections (e.g., CRCRTH 601, 602, 612, 616, 618). Some of the other face2face courses are designed to bring in a small number of students from a distance by speakerphone (or "voice over the internet") during regular class meeting times. (Contact the Program for details and the Program Director for approval.) It is possible, therefore, to complete the entire M.A. at a distance by: undertaking the Certificate through online and distance courses; getting approval to transfer to the M.A. program; and participating in the remaining regular classes at a distance.
Note: Online sections are intended primarily for Certificate and non-matriculated students; CCT M.A. students in the greater Boston area need permission of their advisors to take them in place of face-to-face sections. In no case may students count more than five on-line courses from UMass Boston toward their CCT M.A. degree.

Emphasis on Science in a Changing World is taking shape: see files/SICW.html

CCT Community
Congrats to John Quirk, Bertha Lucia Fries for their May/June degrees and to Sheryl Savage, Kathy Leavitt, and Jane LaChance who also graduated this academic year (in December). (We're expecting several more August degrees, but won't jinx them by mentioning names before all is signed, sealed, and delivered.)

Sheryl received the CCT book award for Personal and Professional development at graduate convocation.

CCT Events
CCT Network event upcoming
June, Tues 10 from 7-9pm EST.
Dialogue session by conference call on "Critical & Creative Thinking in Practice: Where have we come and what lies ahead?" Led by Jeremy Szteiter and assisted by Olen Gunnlaugson.
The theme is intended to allow for general thoughts about the field as well as for specific perspectives from graduates and students about the impact of the CCT Program.
To join the call, see technical details.


Alum Notes
From Bertha Lucia Fries, "We are pleased to invite members of the CCT community to register free, explore and share with your friends and colleagues VIAGlobus—the first one-stop online business and social networking service designed to enable stakeholder collaboration to build innovative and globally responsible leadership and organizations that are highly profitable, ethical, sustainable and meaningful to their stakeholders and the world.

Kristen Bennett has been accepted into the PhD program in English at Tufts.

Events
Women, Wages & Work Conference, June 9th, UMass Boston Campus Center
Registration: $75. Students: $35.

Note: some events that are still upcoming may have been posted in the previous month's news

Opportunities
A number of seminars are being offered by the Graduate Consortium of Women's Studies are being offered in the fall 2008 and spring 2009 terms. UMass-Boston graduate students and advanced undergraduate students working in related areas are eligible to apply. The fall 2008 application deadline is August 29, 2008.
See http://web.mit.edu/gcws for more information.

Resources

Humor


Food for Thought
Understanding earthquakes

I would also like to acknowledge the pioneering work of my Finnish friend Iina Kohonen in the Soviet science and technology archives, and her generosity in making available to me the astonishing, never before published, photograph of the world's first female cosmonaut just after landing in a field in Central Asia. Apparently the Soviet commissar/censor, even by excising (note the blue pencil) the Kazakh peasant children who are surprised to see this heroine of the Soviet Union fall from the heavens and stumble out of the capsule along with her astro-detritus ("camping trip from hell"), could not cope with the touchingly human and dystopian reality captured in this image from the weightless future.
Iain Boal
Image: Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space, beside Vostok 6, Russia/Kazakhstan border, June 19, 1963. Photograph Courtesy of Iina Kohonen, Russian State Archive (RGANTD), Moscow