Common Book Discussion Groups on Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race & Inheritance by Barack Obama
Join us for refreshments, discussion, and WACky ideas as we discuss this year's Common Book and consider ways to incorporate this book in class discussions and campus conversations.  Open to faculty, staff, students, and administrators!
Lowell Campus: Tuesday, September 22nd, 2:00 - 3:00 pm, Room LF-310 (Court Room)
Bedford Campus: Wednesday, September 23rd, 3:00 - 4:00 pm, Room CC-217

Weekly Creative Writing Hours
Students, faculty, and staff interested in creative writing can meet to share their work and get some feedback from other writers. 
Bedford Campus:  Thursdays, 1:00 - 2:00, Writing Center, Room AR-201 (starting 9/24)
Lowell Campus:  Tuesdays, 1:00-2:00, Federal Bldg Library, Kerouac Room   (starting 9/22)

Faculty workshop:  You assigned writing, but you didn’t expect this!  How to respond to overly personal, disturbing, or emotionally provocative writing
This faculty workshop will address instructors’ concerns and questions about disturbing student writing, providing strategies for responding to student writers across the disciplines. (Signing up on the MCC / LENS Professional Development Calendar Webpage ahead of time would be helpful for our planning, but you can also just show up that day.)  Jointly sponsored by WAC & Personal Counseling and Consultation Services.
Bedford Campus:  Thursday, October 1st, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, Bedford TLRC

Faculty workshop:  Writing and Students with Learning Disabilities
This faculty session will address instructors' questions and concerns, exploring ways to respond to the writing of students with Learning Disabilities in courses across the disciplines.   Jointly sponsored by WAC & Disability Support Services.  (Signing up on the MCC / LENS Professional Development Calendar Webpage ahead of time would be helpful for our planning, but you can also just show up that day.)
Lowell campus:  Thursday, October 8th, 2:30 - 3:30 pm, Lowell TLRC

Faculty / Staff Workshop: NCBI Welcoming Diversity/Prejudice Reduction Workshop
Faculty and staff using or considering using the Common Book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama, may wish to attend this thought-provoking, one-day, on-campus workshop that will explore many of the issues of diversity raised in the Common Book.  This workshop may help generate new ideas for Common Book related assignments and improve comfort levels when facilitating discussions related to diversity issues and/or the Common Book.  For more information, follow this link: NCBI Invitation
Bedford campus: Tuesday, October 27, 8:45 am – 4:00 pm, Campus Center Building - Café East
 
Faculty Workshop:  Plagiarism and Safe Assign --Your Student Plagiarized!  What do you do?  What can you do?  
This faculty workshop will explore student plagiarism issues, including discussions of our pedagogical responses to plagiarism and our current detection options, including the new SafeAssign software.  (Read an  article on the rise in college plagiarism from Educause Review.  And/or listen to this brief 4 minute NPR commentary, Plagiarism in College, from an adjunct professor in New York.)   Jointly sponsored by WAC & the Library. 
Bedford Campus:  Tuesday, October 27th, 2:00 - 3:30 pm, Bedford Campus Library, Alcott Room  

Open Poetry & Fiction Reading
Calling all creative writers!  Let your creative voice be heard!  And Win a $50 Prize! 
With another election season here again, we want to elect MCC’s Best Slammin’ Writer for 2009!  This poetry & fiction reading and contest is open to the entire MCC community.  If you’re interested in reading, please contact Tom Laughlin by email at laughlint@middlesex.mass.edu or phone at ext. 3839.  (Flier to print.) (Current list of readers.)
Sponsored by the Writing Across the Curriculum Committee, Student Activities, and the Creative Writing Hours.
Bedford Campus: Wednesday, November 4th, 12:30, Campus Center - 1st Floor Lounge

“Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed” documentary film presentation & discussion
     Did you know that the first open-heart surgery was performed by a black doctor, Daniel Hale Williams? Not many people did in 1968, the year this eye-opening documentary film, narrated by Bill Cosby, was first released.  Many still don't today.  One segment of a celebrated series broadcast on Public Television, “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed” reviews the numerous contributions of African-Americans to the development of the United States. From the perspective of the turbulent late 1960s, this film highlights the fact that their positive roles had not generally been taught as part of American history, a pervasiveness of derogatory stereotypes persisted, and black people had long been victims of negative attitudes and ignorance. Viewing this film today offers us an opportunity to explore our own perspectives — to examine how things have changed in our lives and in the lives of others around us, as well as how troubling stereotypes still persist four decades later.
     One of the events supporting the MCC Common Book, Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race & Inheritance, this film offers historical context to more fully appreciate the legacy of “race & inheritance” influencing African Americans and all people in this country, as well as what contributes to individual “dreams” and aspirations.  “Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed” raises a number of potential points for discussion related to ongoing issues of race in this country, such as those highlighted following the recent arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
A discussion will follow the film.
Lowell Campus: Tuesday, November 10^th,  2:00 – 4:00 pm, Federal Building – Assembly Room
Bedford Campus: Monday, November 16^th,  12:30 – 2:30 pm, Campus Center - Café East


Creative Writing Activities at MCC
For additional Creative Writing Activities at MCC, go to the following:
http://www.middlesex.mass.edu/english/CrWrtgActivities.htm

*The Common Book
As part of WAC activities, each year, a Common Book is recommended for the whole college, selected for literary quality and relevance to many subject areas.  Faculty can choose to assign the book to be read independently or teach appropriate elements within a given discipline.