$1,000 Essay Contest

Honors Day 2013, LSCS

Art Lecture Series--Kamila Szczesna

Student Success Workshops this Week

Transfer Fair

The Horror Every Day: Police Brutality In Houston Goes Unpunished

Sebastian Prevot watched helplessly as three police officers advanced on his wife. Prevot was handcuffed and bleeding in the back of a cop car. Half of his left ear dangled where it had been torn from his head. The Houston Police Department doesn’t deny that its officers gave Prevot these injuries during a late-night arrest in January 2012. The only dispute is whether he earned them.

Full Story at the Texas Observer

Race in America: Tracking 50 Years of Demographic Trends

Data from U.S. government sources show a mixed picture of the racial and ethnic gaps among whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics over the past several decades. We’ve tracked and categorized the areas where the white-black racial gap has narrowed, widened or remained roughly the same. Hispanic and Asian data is also included in years available. Our full report, “King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal; Many Americans See Racial Disparities” and graphic slideshow of key findings present full results from our demographic analysis and August 2013 survey on the topic of racial equality.

Graph and story here.

Where Do the World's 30,000,000 Slaves Live?

This map shows where the world’s 30 million slaves live. There are 60,000 in the U.S.

 

 

We think of slavery as a practice of the past, an image from Roman colonies or 18th-century American plantations, but the practice of enslaving human beings as property still exists. There are 29.8 million people living as slaves right now, according to a comprehensive new report  issued by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation.

Full Story at the WaPo

 

#SaturdaySchool: Food Access and Food Justice

 The latest from Prof. Ragsdale

 Anyone with a basic understanding of our hierarchy of needs realizes we cannot focus on much else if we don’t have our basic physical needs met. Food and food justice is a basic foundation to human rights and positive, progressive human development. Food insecurity, malnutrition, and food worker abuses have ripple effects across the globe — and they have multigenerational consequences. We need sustainable and healthy food systems that serve community needs and respect the rights of food workers. Use the following resources to learn more about food access and food justice.

Get it at FunkNbeans

Smeltertown--Extra Credit

To receive extra credit, bring to me a printed, one-paragraph reflection at the next class meeting that follows the talk.

Hecho Para El Colegio

The HECHO committee is in need of student volunteers for the HECHO event on Saturday, October 26.

Register Here to Volunteer

Grad School Expo

Disco Skating Party

Indigenous Groups Protest Columbus Day in Chile

Protesters clashed with police in Chile’s capital Saturday during an anti-Columbus Day march organized by Indigenous groups, with activists calling for the return of ancestral lands and the right to self-determination on the 521-year anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.

Full story here.

Brothers Grimm, "Cinderella" at LSC-North Harris

Obamacare: Fact or Fiction?

Model UN Applications due Friday, October 25

WHAT IS THE MODEL UN?

It is the opportunity to present & collaborate with 5,000 students from around the world on international issues that affect all people. Students in the shoes of ambassadors from a UN member state to negotiate with allies and adversaries to resolve conflicts & promote international cooperation.

LSC-NH takes a delegation to New York City every spring to participation in this global conference.  The college takes care of all expenses and students are required to do extensive research & writing regarding the issues of the member state that we are assigned.  Issues that are addressed are

·      Illicit trade

·      Cyber warfare

·      Biological weapons

·      Intellectual properties

·      Microcredit

·      Economic development

·      Human trafficking

·      Organized crime

·      Right of indigenous peoples

APPLICATION PROCESS:

·      Must have 3.00 GPA

·      Two letters of reference from professors, supervisor/manager, commanding officer

·      Writing sample (college level) or answer this question “Discuss the relevance of the UN in the current global political environment.”

·      Submit completed application packet to Diana Cooley – A264B on or before October 25, 2013, delegation will be formed and announced on October 31, 2013 and extensive preparation for the conference begins in the spring semester.

·      We depart for NYC on Saturday, April 12, 2014 and return on Friday, April 18, 2014

String Theory

We are pleased to announce the opening reception for the exhibition String Theory by noted multi-media artist Uchay Joel Chima which will be held in the Library Art Gallery on Tuesday, October 8, 2013 from 1:00 to 2:00 PM.



Since graduating from the Art School of the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu, Nigeria in 1997, Mr. Joel Chima’s artwork has continued to evolve, remaining relevant to developments in contemporary art. These thought provoking presentations, which address the realities around us, employ a mixture of conventional and unconventional approaches to art making. His complex visual statements weave a tapestry of personal memory that evoke imagination, societal happenings and emotion. This he accomplishes by combining various found objects, including string, sand, and wax, with paint and other mediums in an aesthetic context that informs his oeuvre.

In conjunction with his mixed-media practice which in many ways responds to painting, the artist has been developing a body of work using video technology since 2008. Among these current short films is a project called Residue Collection of Societal and Environmental Mishaps: HABITAT LOSS. The goals of the project are to promote and create awareness concerning contemporary lifestyles both with regard to socio-economic circumstance and environmental conservation.

Mr. Joel Chima’s work has been exhibited in Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. His works may be accessed via his website: www.uchayjoelchima.blogspot.com.

We look forward to your participation in and attendance to this culturally important event.

Metidation and Your Health

Graduate School Expo at LSC-University Park

Honors College

Honors at LSC-North Harris

Dr. Joachim Reinhuber Piano Recital

"How I Met my Grandmother: Using Family Stories to Uncover Community History."

On Wednesday, October 23 at noon, Monica Perales will speak in the Conference Center in the Student Services Building. The title of her talk is "How I Met my Grandmother: Using Family Stories to Uncover Community History."

Dr. Perales will tell the story of the research she conducted for her award winning book, Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community. In that book, Dr. Perales utilized her grandmother's photographs and oral histories with family and friends, as well as many other historical records, to place her grandmother's story of immigration, Americanization, community, and neighborhood women's activism in historical context.  The talk focuses on Dr. Perales'  attempt to learn more about the community of which her grandmother was a part. Her presentation focuses on how everyday folks found ways to navigate a world shaped by industrial labor, poverty, and racial discrimination.

About Dr. Perales:
Monica Perales is associate professor of history at the University of Houston, and is the Assistant Director and Graduate Program Coordinator for the UH Center for Public History.  She received her Ph.D. in history from Stanford University in 2004, and holds a B.A. in journalism and an M.A. in history from The University of Texas at El Paso. Her book, Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community (University of North Carolina Press, September 2010), received the Kenneth Jackson Award for Best Book in North American Urban History from the Urban History Association.  She is also co-editor of Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2010).  Her 2008 article “Fighting to Stay in Smeltertown: Lead Contamination and Environmental Justice in a Mexican American Community” (Western Historical Quarterly, Spring 2008) received the Article Award from the Oral History Association. Professor Perales has been the recipient of various fellowships including the 2006-2007 Summerlee Fellowship in Texas History at the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.  She serves as a member of the boards of the Labor and Working Class History Association, the Urban History Association, and Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Perales’s general research and teaching interests include Chicana/o labor and social history, memory and history, immigration, race and ethnicity in the American West, Borderlands, and oral history.  She is currently working on a book manuscript exploring the intersections of ethnic Mexican women’s labor and food in the U.S. Southwest through a from 1900 to 1960.

Sponsored by the Center for Diversity Studies

Structure of Unit Exams

·         Paragraph 1 (Columbus Day) Topic sentence that takes a stand.

o   Evidence (textbook) à keyword à who what when where and so what?

o   Evidence (video)

o   Evidence (de las Casas)

o   Conclusion

·         Paragraph 2 (reparations) Take a stand

o   Evidence (keyword identified) textbook

o   Video

o   Ghetto life 101 audio

·         Paragraph 3 : you reflect on this topic

Victory Gardens Workday--Service Learning Opportunity

Please join us this Saturday (September 14th, 2013) at the Lone Star Victory Gardens from 10:00am-12:00pm for our first official fall workday. Activities will include: clearing the eight garden plots of old plants; tilling the soil for the plots; planting new plants to produce fall crops; and, watering the plots. While it is not required, students are encouraged to bring with them any gardening tools they might have for the day, including gloves, shovels , hand-shovels, etc. Please show up at 10am, and we will perform the listed activities until noon. Thanks, and I hope to see you there!
-Professor Jacobs


The victory Garden is located at: 7603 Antoine Houston, TX 77088. This is behind the old Inwood Country Club

Do I Really Have to Read the Book

A Great Resource at FunkNBeans

Inevitably, each semester students ask instructors: Do I really have to read the book?! The answer is YES. You really do need to read the book. You bought it; you will have assignments and exams related to it; and you are in college to learn and earn credits. That’s not going to happen successfully by just going to class. There is a lot more to college than showing up, and reading the book is essential. It’s not extra. It’s not optional. It just has to be done.

However, reading a textbook can feel like an overwhelming task, and it’s very likely no one ever taught you how. Knowing how to read doesn’t actually go far enough. We need to specifically know to read a textbook. The following resources have great advice for reading textbooks — these guides can make all the difference between a successful college experience and a seemingly impossible struggle and miserable bore! Here are some of my suggestions, but be sure to check out the other resources too.

Get the full story at FunkNBeans

Hispanics and College Success

Never before has a minority group made up so large a share of the nation’s youth. A new national survey finds that Latino ages 16 to 25 are satisfied with their lives and optimistic about their futures. They value education, hard work and career success. But they are more likely than other youths to drop out of school, live in poverty and become teen parents. They also have high levels of exposure to gangs. And when it comes to self-identity, most straddle two worlds.

Amazing report here.

U.S. High School and College Completion Rates Continue to Climb

Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree.

These across-the-board increases have occurred despite dramatic immigration-driven changes in the racial and ethnic composition of college-age young adults, a trend that had led some experts to expect a decline in educational attainment.

Get the full report here.

Pronunciation of Aztec Names

There is a base language called Nuatla. It was spoken by the Aztecs as the first Spanish who visited them. The Spanish recorded it, and unfortunately their spelling is often used for the names of Aztec deities. Why unfortunately? Well English and Spanish do not always pronounce things the same. 

Tthe Spanish also destroyed most of the glyphs (pictured sounds) that constituted the Aztec's alphabet but the priests also preserved a few of their deer skin manuscripts and so we have some of the original 'sound symbols' of the Aztecs. See Aztec Writing for more details.

Spelling of Quetzacoatl in English is the Spanish spelling. QUE is not like in 'question' but like in the Spanish "Que passa?" which sounds like "KAY PASSA". (Actually it sounds close to "kuh passa.")
 

Pronunciation Guide Here

Thanks to Michael Patrick Simpson for this resource. 

Constitution Day

Mark your calendars and encourage your students to commemorate and celebrate CONSTITUTION DAY 2013 on Tuesday, September 17th 2013 in ACAD-126, the LSC-North Harris Teaching Theatre.

Guest Speakers:

Dr. David Yalof, Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Constitutional Law., and a JD from the University of Virginia Law School. Speaking on “The U.S. Constitution.”

Professor Marcy Delesandri, Founder and Director of the LSC-North Harris Paralegal Studies Program. Speaking on “Constitutional Checks and Balances and the Rule of Law.”

Time:

11:30 a.m.- 1:30 p.m.

Other events around campus will include Voter Registration tables….. sponsored by the LSC-North Harris Library.

Movie Night

Math Review Sessions

Nine Questions about Syria You were too Embarrassed to Ask

 The United States and allies are preparing for a possibly imminent series of limited military strikes against Syria, the first direct U.S. intervention in the two-year civil war, in retaliation for President Bashar al-Assad’s suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Get the context here 

Comparison Table, Tindall/Shi, America, 8th and 9th Edition

.    9th edition

.    8th edition

.    Part One / A Not-So-“New” World .    1. The Collision of Cultures .    2. Britain and Its Colonies .    3. Colonial Ways of Life .    4. From Colonies to States .      .    Part Two / Building a Nation .    5. The American Revolution .    6. Shaping a Federal Union .    7. The Federalist Era .    8. The Early Republic .      .    Part Three / An Expansive Nation .    9. The Dynamics of Growth .    10. Nationalism and Sectionalism .    11. The Jacksonian Era .    12. The Old South .    13. Religion, Romanticism, and Reform .      .    Part Four / A House Divided and Rebuilt .    14. An Empire in the West .    15. The Gathering Storm .    16. The War of the Union .    17. Reconstruction: North and South

.    Part One / A New World .    1 The Collision Of Cultures .    2 Britain And Its Colonies .    3 Colonial Ways Of Life .    4 The Imperial Perspective .    5 From Empire To Independence .      .    Part Two / Building A Nation .    6 The American Revolution .    7 Shaping A Federal Union .    8 The Federalist Era .    9 The Early Republic .      .    Part Three / An Expansive Nation .    10 Nationalism And Sectionalism .    11 The Jacksonian Impulse .    12 The Dynamics Of Growth .    13 An American Renaissance : Religion, Romanticism, And Reform .    14 Manifest Destiny .      .    Part Four / A House Divided And Rebuilt .    15 The Old South .    16 The Crisis Of Union .    17 The War Of The Union .    18 Reconstruction : North And South