SILCS is a four-week summer institute to promote diversity in the field of English. For more information about the Institute, visit the links to the left. For our current events, program profiles and institute news, read our blog below.
Week Three
20 June 2008, 3:43 pm
The final week of classes has come to a close at SILCS, and now the students have time to focus on finishing their papers and getting ready for a symposium on June 28th. The past three weeks have been packed with a semester’s worth of theory and instruction, and the students have done an admirable job in keeping on top of things.
Amidst their classes, the students also took three more trips to visit nearby colleges and universities. On Wednesday the 11th, the students took a trip to Harvard University. On Friday the 13th was Bridgewater State College, and on Tuesday the 17th was Brandeis University. These three campuses, along with the previous visits to Yale University and Brown University, showcased the types of campuses and graduate programs that the students could expect to attend and at which they could eventually teach.
The series of lectures continued with Dr. Darryl Dickson-Carr of Southern Methodist University. Dr. Dickson-Carr is a member of the SILCS Steering Committee and spoke to the students about his career and getting a Ph.D. in English. Dr. Dagmawi Woubshet of Cornell University spoke about doing comparative work and his travel around the world. This was followed by Dr. Dolan Hubbard, another SILCS Steering Committee member, who spoke about the College Language Association and the Modern Language Association. Yesterday, Thomas Sayers Ellis, who teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, talked about creative writing and read a few of his own poems, including The Obama Hour, which was recently showcased in The Root.
There has been some leisure time in the past week as well. On the 19th, SILCS attending a showing of The Taming of the Shrew at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket. The production was a fun and energetic interpretation of the play, set in 1960s Italy. Over the weekend, some students visited Boston. Tonight there will be bowling, and tomorrow there will be a trip to see the Providence Waterfire, before we enter the final week of the Summer Institute.
Week Two
11 June 2008, 3:52 pm
With the second week of the Summer Institute just about half over, the students are really settling in to the routine on campus. On Friday there was an exam, an engaging discussion with Dr. Betty Neal Crutcher, and Chinese food in the Multicultural Center on campus. Friday ended with ice cream and Scrabble, but the students had to get up early Saturday morning for their visit to Brown University.
After several days of rain, the temperature shot up to the mid nineties, which made the day in Providence a very warm one. The students toured the John Carter Brown Library and then met with Dr. Rolland Murray before having some time to explore Providence on their own.
On Sunday there was an optional trip to McCoy Stadium to see the Pawtucket Red Sox play against the Buffalo Bisons. The day was even hotter than the day before, with temperatures just under three digits, and many of the students opted to stay home with their homework instead. For those who did go, however, it was a fun day at the ball park, even though the home team lost.
Monday and Tuesday both featured afternoon lectures. Dr. Emily Bernard from the University of Vermont discussed her essay Teaching the N-Word and spoke about hate speech and the power in self-naming. Dr. Shalene Vasquez from Dartmouth College talked about her own career and graduate school experience.
This morning the students headed out to Harvard University to meet with the English department and visit the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Later this week will be a trip to the theater, a visit to Bridgewater State College and, weather permitting, a day at the beach.
Week One
5 June 2008, 3:40 pm
This has been a very busy first week for the Summer Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies. On Sunday, June 1st, the twelve students arrived. Despite various airport woes, the day went quite well, and the early morning rains even cleared up into a gorgeous late spring day.
The students met with Dr. Paula Krebs of Wheaton College, who is Director of the Institute, and Dr. Robyn Warhol-Down of the University of Vermont, who is the faculty instructor. Also on campus was Dr. Valerie Lee of The Ohio State University. Dr. Lee was a major influence behind both SILCS and The Ohio State University’s Program for Humanities Development.
In the evening, Wheaton College President Dr. Ronald Crutcher and his wife Dr. Betty Neal Crutcher opened their home to the students, staff and guests of SILCS for a dinner and a talk about the history of Wheaton College.
On Monday, Dr. Valerie Lee gave a lecture on why she became an English professor:
Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that I wanted to teach. The only thing that ever changed was the grade that I wanted to teach. When I was in the first grade, I wanted to be a first grade teacher; when I was in the third, a third; when I was in fifth, a fifth; when I was in high school I wanted to be a high school teacher, but then when I got to college I still wanted to be a high school teacher because I did not know that I could actually become a college professor. I didn’t know any African Americans who were college professors.
On Tuesday, Dr. Lena Hill of the University of Iowa arrived to talk about her own graduate school experience. Dr. Hill graduated from Yale University in 2005 with a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature. On Wednesday, she accompanied the students on a visit to Yale and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where she had spent much of her time.
This weekend brings with it the students’ first exam, a trip into Providence, RI to see Brown University, and a leisurely afternoon at McCoy Stadium to see the Pawtucket Red Sox.
Profile: Future of Minority Studies
20 May 2008, 9:06 am
In this week’s program profile, we will be looking at the Future of Minority Studies Summer Institute at Cornell.
The Future of Minority Studies Summer Institute is part of the larger FMS Research Project, which is a consortium of scholars that discuss the needs of minority education.
Although originally conceived in 2000 as a year-long interdisciplinary bicoastal research initiative, the FMS project has evolved to become a mobile “think tank” facilitating focused and productive discussions across disciplines about the democratizing role of minority identity and participation in a multicultural society. At a number of different events organized over the past few years, FMS participants have focused their discussions on a defined set of questions about the changing role of education and the need for an adequate conception of minority identities as the basis for progressive social change. (link)
The Summer Institute is a two-week seminar for 12-14 graduate students and postdoctoral faculty, who meet four days a week for lectures. The middle of the Institute is a two-day Colloquium, where the students of the Institute can interact with FMS scholars from all over the world.
This year’s Institute has the theme “Thinking Transnationally: Feminist Visions” and is led by Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. Professor Guy-Sheftall, a Professor of Women’s Studies and English and Spelman College, is also on the Steering Committee for SILCS and will be speaking at the 2008 SILCS program.
The application deadline for this summer’s Institute has passed, but keep an eye on their website for information on when to apply for next year.
The Future of Minority Studies Research Project is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which also funds SILCS.
Profile: Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers
5 May 2008, 9:04 am
In our second in a series of program profiles, we have selected the Phillips Academy Andover program IRT. The Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers is focused on increasing diversity among those students pursuing careers in education at both the K-12 and the higher education levels. IRT includes two programs: the Intern Summer Workshop, in which 25-30 interns attend an intensive four-week workshop in July, and the Associate Program, which supports and counsels students as they apply for graduate schools.
The Institute for Recruitment of Teachers was founded in 1990 by Kelly Wise, current executive director and former dean of faculty at Phillips Academy, with a mission to “deepen the pool of talented minorities entering the teaching profession in our country.” The institute was designed to increase the number of African American, Latino/a and Native American students pursuing advanced degrees for teaching, counseling and administrative careers so the pool of potential faculty members at both the K-12 and university levels will become more diverse. (link)
The program is open to rising and graduating seniors with a 3.0 GPA or better. Applications are closed for this year, but keep an eye on their site for information on how to apply for next year’s program.
News: Graduation Rate Gap
21 April 2008, 9:42 am
Education Sector, an independent research group, released a report today [PDF] that said while there is a staggeringly large gap between the graduation rates of black and white students, the gap is relatively easy to close.
Florida State University has been particularly successful in closing this gap–it is the only institution of its size and type where black students graduate at a higher rate than white students. FSU’s success is due in part to its Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement (CARE), which starts identifying potential students as early as the sixth grade, using counsellors and summer programs to help guide the students through the application process into college, and onward through graduation.
Education Sector found that most of the problem had to do with not paying attention to the students. When students were left to fend for themselves, they tended to do poorly and drop out; those students who were helped by mentors and counsellors tended to remain in school. This did not translate to coddling students or lowering standards, but rather increasing the quality of the teaching and the engagement of the students, as stated by the National Survey of Student Engagement:
Although African American students at the lowest levels of engagement were less likely to persist than their White counterparts, as their engagement increased to within about one standard deviation below the mean, they had about the same probability of returning as Whites. As African American student engagement reached the average amount, they became more likely than White students to return for a second year (link, pg 8).
The report suggests a few policy changes to close the graduation gap. Such changes include changing the rankings published by U.S. New and World Report to include graduation gaps instead of just graduation rates; improve the measures of graduation rates; improve accountability systems; and move back to need-based financial aid.
Profile: OSU Program for Humanities Development
17 April 2008, 10:26 am
In the weeks leading up to the Institute, we will be profiling other programs that aim to increase diversity in graduate studies. If you know of a program that we don’t mention, please let us know at [silcs at wheatonma dot edu] and we will be glad to talk about it.
The Ohio State University College of Humanities will be starting their own diversity institute this summer. The Program for Humanities Development (PHD) is a two-year program aimed at college sophomores from historically underrepresented groups who are interested in a PhD in the Humanities.
The PHD offers two summers of guided coursework, research, mentoring, and cohort building. Moreover, during the academic year, PHD students will receive ongoing programmatic support at their home institutions. This unique structure provides students with the opportunity to gain foundational knowledge about graduate study in the Humanities and then build upon that foundation with discipline specific research (link).
PHD, like SILCS, came out of the findings of an Ad Hoc committee on the status of African American faculty members in English. The committee, which published a report, Affirmative Activism: Report of the ADE Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of African American Faculty Members in English [PDF], discovered that summer programs for students of color can greatly affect their retention in graduate programs.
The deadline for this year’s program has passed, but keep an eye on the website for information on application deadlines for next year.
Welcome
14 April 2008, 10:09 am
Welcome to the SILCS blog. We’ll be using this space to keep you updated on current events, showcase programs at other colleges and universities that may interest you, and let you know how the Institute is going. If you want to make sure you don’t miss a post, please subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for reading!