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This is a big week for us, a chance to really get out of the gates with your projects and to expand our views on the potential sources for solutions to 21st Century challenges.
For Tuesday's class
As I detailed in class on Thursday, you should prepare for Tuesday a substantial analysis of the first phase of your project:
- What 21st Century challenge do you plan to study, and why do you think that this is an important challenge?
- How will the reading that we have recently completed -- Scott, Easterly, and Woolcock and Pritchett -- help you to shape your analysis of this challenge?
It is really important to take the time to do this assignment thoroughly. In particular, avoid generalities: rather, use specific ideas from our reading to illuminate how you plan to analyze a specific challenge. Even more particularly, I will be very keen to see how you use the material in the Woolcock and Pritchett article to begin to diagnose the nature of the challenge that you plan to study. (And remember, you are strongly advised to actively use your notebook to begin to structure your project.)
For Thursday's class
In Blessed Unrest, please study the first five chapters: 'The Beginning' through 'Emerson's Savants.' I will also place on ERES, for a guick look, a chapter from Ignition and a chapter from Fight Global Warming Now
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While we did discuss this in Thursday's class, this assignment seems like a larger task to expect from us with 36 hours notice. While I realize this week will be busy (as always), perhaps we should spend some time outlining work over the next few weeks, and construct a rubric (perhaps building off the tangible principles expressed in the 'discussion on discussions').
On another note, I skipped my usual Thursday colloquium lunch to hear President Liebowitz explain/advocate/sell the integration of the Monterey Institute into this liberal arts college called Middlebury. President Liebowitz based his argument on the questionable future of traditional undergraduate-only liberal arts colleges, citing an Inside Higher Ed article from earlier in February. Creating an educational institution with a global focus appears to be the president's mission.
I see two relevant ideas for our class: (1) the way we Americans (and Canadians) approach international education and a "globalized" curriculum, and (2), the value of broad, liberal arts-style higher education in the developing world.
Here is a link to an interesting op-ed piece in today's NY Times. It focuses on the tradeoffs between food supply and using crops for biofuel. This may be an interesting thing to read for those focusing on world hunger, food supply, etc for their project.
oops, here is the link.. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/opinion/03mon1.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
I am having a bit of trouble shaping my topic because I feel that it is hard to maintain a global approach when paring down the topic to a manageable scope. Are any of you having issues with identifying a global topic and keeping to a larger scope. I am also hoping that we can more clearly define an end result for this paper because it is hard for me to approach something without having something solidified to work toward. Any suggestions?