OCH News: February 2008

Money, Mobility, and the American Dream

OCH Teacher Institute and Oregon Humanities take on the taboo topic of class.

What lies behind the terms we use when we talk about social class, such as blue collar, ghetto, working class, cultured, or elite? Why is it so difficult to talk candidly about how class shapes our shared culture? As part of OCH's Borders and Boundaries programmatic focus, both the OCH Summer Teacher Institute and the Summer 2008 issue of Oregon Humanities will consider these questions and more in their exploration of class.

Oregon secondary school teachers are invited to indulge their intellectual curiosity and satisfy their ongoing need for new ideas and resources at this summer's OCH Teacher Institute, Decoding Class: Money, Mobility, and the American Dream. This free residential institute will be held July 18-20, 2008, in Bend. Registration forms can be downloaded and must be submitted by April 14, 2008.

Working with guest scholars and peers, teachers will explore class in literature, history, and popular culture; social and economic mobility as the basis of the American Dream; the role of class in contemporary culture; and the intersections of class with religion, race, and gender.

Any middle or high school teacher who is currently employed in an Oregon school is welcome to apply. OCH seeks participants with diverse classroom backgrounds and encourages applications from teachers in all humanities and social science disciplines. Continuing education and graduate credit will be available through Oregon State University.

To see how you can contribute to the Class issue of Oregon Humanities, please visit the writers' guidelines page.


Changes in OCH education programs

The Council works to give more teens access to creative humanities programs.

This summer, OCH will give one hundred Oregon teens the chance to explore the theme of Happiness in its third annual honors symposium. OCH again partners with Portland-area public and private schools in offering the two-day, intensive humanities camp, which brings together the area's brightest young people and outstanding high school teachers.

OCH launched the Summer Honors Symposium in 2006 as a way of providing humanities-based programming for more Oregon teens. Since 2002, OCH has offered Young Scholars summer research grants, but this program was limited to serving between seven and twelve young people each year. Though Young Scholars was challenging and life-changing for its participants, who through their research became active scholars of their culture and community, the OCH staff and board wanted to explore the possibilities of reaching even more young people.

In two years, the OCH Summer Honors Symposium has already greatly enhanced the Council's network of teachers and teens. Annually, the symposium serves roughly ten times the number of young Oregonians as Young Scholars and creates a bridge between public and private schools, bringing together diverse groups of students and teachers to work and learn together.

Spurred by student and teacher enthusiasm for the symposium, OCH's board education program committee will suspend the Young Scholars program in 2008 in order to continue to expand the honors symposium, with the goal of replicating the program in another Oregon community in 2009. Teachers or education leaders interested in creating an honors symposium in their own communities should contact Jennifer Allen, OCH education program director, at (503) 241-0543 or (800) 735-0543 or by e-mail.


Four Questions registration open

Please join OCH and Portland Center Stage in April 2008 for Four Questions: Virtue, Community, Love, and Justice in the Theater, a reading and discussion series that uses contemporary American plays to explore timeless questions about justice, love, community, and knowledge.

Four Questions is based on OCH's Humanity in Perspective (HIP) program, a free public course in the humanities for adults living on low incomes or in corrections that is based upon the conviction that all people, no matter their life history or economic circumstance, benefit from the chance to explore the fundamental questions of human existence through great literature and ideas.

Participants will meet for four consecutive Monday evening sessions at the Gerding Theater at the Armory (128 NW Eleventh, at Davis). The registration fee is $35, which covers the cost of a reading packet and attendance for all four sessions. The registration form is available at the OCH website.


OCH Features Work by Local Artist

OCH is pleased to present the paintings of Portland artist Sara Kaltwasser in the council's conference room. Kaltwasser graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2006 with a BFA in painting and currently works at PNCA as the Youth Program Coordinator. According to Kaltwasser, her work centers around "the depiction of what one might define as mundane or ordinary objects; the objects, or 'stuff' that we are surrounded by in our everyday lives" and that distinguish individuals from one another.

When creating her colorful abstract canvasses, Kaltwasser employs a technique called "blind contour," a method of drawing or painting a subject without looking at the image as it is created. This process allows the artist to directly translate particular characteristics of the subject.

Please drop by the OCH office at 812 SW Washington Street, Suite 225, to view Kaltwasser's work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. If you're interested in exhibiting work at OCH, please contact Sarah Van Winkle at (503) 241-0543 or by email.


Message from the Executive Director

At the December 2007 meeting of the Modern Language Association, top scholars from across the nation argued about the importance and purpose of the humanities; they wondered how the humanities could "prove their worth." A month later, in a much-publicized, and much-responded to, piece in the New York Times, prominent American scholar Stanley Fish ultimately contended that the humanities are of little practical use. "The humanities," he wrote, "are their own good."

Of course here at OCH, we believe that the humanities have both worth and use, but we acknowledge that it is sometimes hard to explain why the humanities matter. Instead of empirical explanations, what we have are stories: Humanity in Perspective students who have changed their lives; community dialogue participants who have gained deep insight into and compassion for their neighbors beliefs; Oregon Humanities readers who come to see complex issues in a new light.

OCH is working hard to design and implement programs where the humanities are of use beyond their own good. Our programs rest on a passionate belief in the power of learning to change attitudes, lives, and the world. We invite participants from all walks of life, from every discipline, to join us in developing a deeper understanding of the world that can translate into a better future. This is a simple idea, but one that, with your support, we can make real.

Sincerely,

Cara Ungar-Gutierrez

© 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities