#communications office

[cctinsleybaxter]

spermatural???

spermatural 🫂

[mauitime]

'Terrible for the Pursuit of Truth in our Society': Former Maui News employees switch teams

‘Terrible for the Pursuit of Truth in our Society’: Former Maui News employees switch teams

Former journalist Brian Perry. Maui County did not provide a press photo of Perry by press time.

  Two former Maui News employees, Brian Perry and Chris Sugidono, have recently been hired to work within Mayor Mike Victorino’s Communications Office. Former Maui NewsCity Editor Brian Perry now serves as Victorino’s communications director, and former staff writer Chris Sugidono as an assistant…

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[scitechman]

MRSA Emerged Years Before Methicillin Was Even Discovered

MRSA Emerged Years Before Methicillin Was Even Discovered

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) emerged long before the introduction of the antibiotic methicillin into clinical practice, according to researchers at the University of St Andrews.

A new study, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Instituteand the University of Dundee, suggests the widespread use of earlier antibiotics such as penicillin rather than of methicillin…

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[workofcer]

Victoria Pang '13 Named James Madison Memorial Fellow

Online | Published May 22, 2013

Victoria Pang '13, an Honors special major in political science and educational studies from Lancaster, Ohio, is the recipient of the prestigious James Madison Memorial Fellowship for her love of education and commitment to teaching the American Constitution. The fellowship awards college seniors and graduates who have demonstrated a keen interest in teaching American history, government, or social studies in secondary schools.

Pang's Lang Opportunity Scholarship project, Chester Serves, "works to encourage Chester high school students to become agents of change in their communities and provides the opportunity for them to serve as mentors to local elementary students," she says. Working with six high school students in a five-week summer institute, Pang found herself inspired to become an educator.

"I watched my students experience tremendous growth throughout the program," she says, "particularly through a project we did writing letters to the Chester Upland School District superintendent." Pang's students were able to have their voices heard, expressing their views on educational issues that mattered most to them.

The U.S. Congress founded the James Madison Memorial Foundation in 1986 in order to improve secondary education of the U.S. Constitution and history of the American government. Named after the fourth U.S. president, the foundation aims to foster excellent teachers and a lasting commitment to providing an education on the cornerstone of American history. The fellowship also offers a summer institute at Georgetown University, where Pang and other fellows will take courses on the Constitution and meet with a Supreme Court justice.

After graduating from Brown, Pang hopes to apply what she learned from Chester Serves and her experience as a James Madison Fellow toward her work as an educator.

"I'm passionate about education equity," Pang says, "and believe that committing to the urban teaching profession is the best way that I can contribute to making public schools sites of opportunity."

[workofcer]

Swarthmore's Slam Poetry Team Ranks in Top 10 at National Competition

Online | Published May 10, 2013

Five Swarthmore student poets embarked on a poetic expedition last month, placing in the top 10 at a national slam poetry competition.

Quiñones, an English literature and natural science major and Philip Evans Scholar from Queens, N.Y., first brought a team from Swarthmore to compete at CUPSI at last year's competition in Los Angeles. After his experience there, Quiñones believed that Swarthmore "had the talent and creativity to build a great slam team."  Taking on the roles of team captain and student coach at this year's competition, Quiñones realized the vast potential of Swarthmore poets and hopes to bring an equally strong team to the event next year.

Their success at CUPSI is what Quiñones calls a "stepping stone of the Swarthmore community," placing the student writing and slam poetry scene here on the national map.

Anderson, an honors political science major from Ann Arbor, Mich., noted that when they first arrived to CUPSI, Swarthmore was relatively unknown to most other colleges that repeatedly compete.   "At the beginning of the competition most people had no clue who we were," he says, "but by the end, we were talking to random people about our poems left and right."

CUPSI is one of the student programs organized by the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), which encourages students to organize poetry slam programs on their campuses. Last November, the five Swarthmore team members were selected in a "slam-off," where 20 students vied for the coveted spots on the CUPSI team. The team has worked tirelessly since then to produce and finesse their poetic work, selecting a repertoire of 23 poems to compete with at CUPSI. Judges critiqued their performances, scoring their poems on a numeric scale. Despite this competitive scoring, the CUPSI event is meant to be an opportunity for students to "share their artistry and voices," as well as embrace each other's creativity.

Quiñones now has "big ambitions" for the Swarthmore writing community, including the poetry collective, Our Art Spoken in Soul (OASIS), to bring student writings and poetry to a national stage.

"I hope this gives students incentive to do slam poetry even if they aren't on the team," he says, "I can only see [our success] strengthening as well as enlarging the writing community at Swarthmore."

[workofcer]

Students Help Organize Annual Digital Media Symposium

Online | Published April 16, 2013

With the pervasiveness of new media and technology in everyday life, academic research is quickly turning to the digital realm as more and more students utilize online databases to gather information. Exploring how new media affects academia, the 2013 Re:Humanities symposium earlier this month featured discussions about the relationship between digital media and research. Organized and hosted by students from Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges, the symposium showcased speakers and student representatives from all over the U.S.

Swarthmore coordinator Sierra Eckert '14 noted that this year's symposium aims to "re-imagine 'narrative' across multiple new platforms," including transmedia storytelling, infographics and infomatics, and presenting new forms of criticism through new media. Eckert says that they integrated tweeting and liveblogging throughout the conference as a way to extend these conversations of new media beyond the symposium to a national level.

Two keynote speakers also addressed the symposium participants. Tara McPherson, associate professor of gender studies and critical studies at the University of Southern California (USC), presented a lecture, "A Feminist in a Software Lab." McPherson teaches courses on television, new media and popular culture at USC and is also the editor of Vectors, a multimedia journal.

Angel David Nieves discussed his work in "Undergraduate Research in the Spatial Humanities: Theories and Methods in the Soweto Historical GIS (SHGIS) Project." Nieves is an associate professor at Hamilton College and also the co-director of the Digital Humanities initiative at Hamilton College

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Amanda Epstein '15 and Alexandra Willingham '15 Win at Debating for Democracy Conference

Online | Published April 5, 2013

Amanda Epstein '15 and Alexandra Willingham '15 recently won the legislative hearing at this year's Debating for Democracy (D4D) conference for their project, a letter to State Senator Edwin B. Erickson (R-PA) concerning the parental notification section of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. Competing alongside students from four other colleges, Epstein and Willingham argued for their public policy issue in front of a legislative committee comprised of Thomas J. Downey, a former Democratic U.S. congressman from New York, Constance Berry Newman, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, the former mayor of Baltimore, Kurt L. Schmoke, and former U.S. Senator Harris L. Wofford (D-PA). After rigorous evaluation by the judges, Epstein and Willingham received the $3,000 award for their thorough argument for a reversal of the Act's parental notification section.

Epstein, a prospective political science major and double minor in education and Latin American studies from Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., is the news editor at The Phoenix, the weekly student newspaper. She is also a tutor with Dare2Soar, an after school program at Chester (Pa.) High School. Willingham, a Piedmont, Calif. native and music director for the women's a capella group Grapevine, channeled her experience as an extern with the ACLU of Illinois Center for Reproductive Rights into her and Epstein's D4D letter. Willingham has also interned at the San Francisco Office of the Public Defender and the YMCA of San Francisco. With their award, both students hope to use the funds to advance their efforts to remove parental notification from Pennsylvania law.