Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Shade It Black at MU!

(Un)Shading: A Miami University Dialogue on the World Stage

We invite Miami’s newest students, members of the Class of 2015, to enter a composition contest based on the book selected for this year’s Summer Reading Program, Jess Goodell’s Shade It Black. All other Miami students, faculty, and staff are welcome to post their essays as well.
In Shade It Black, Goodell tells us about her firsthand experiences in the Iraq War and its continued influence on her life back home. We invite you to submit a composition (in written, digital, or other forms) that describe how you or someone close to you has been impacted by an event of global significance.
We hope that these compositions will help Miami University highlight ways the people and places of our world have grown increasingly interconnected and the ways we all have a stake in the world stage. While not everyone will have direct involvement with such an event, one of the goals of liberal learning at Miami is to explore ways our daily lives affect and are affected by world events.
You can participate in this exploration in the following ways:

$100 Prizes for New Students

To welcome the Class of 2016, we are offering 16 prizes of $100 apiece for the best “Shade It Black” compositions by incoming first-year students. Students at all Miami campuses are eligible for prizes. The contest opens June 2, 2012. Deadline for prize eligibility: Midnight, October 2, 2012.
Winners will be featured on the website of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence. Prizes are gift certificates to the University Bookstore. This contest is sponsored by Miami’s Howe Center for Writing Excellence and the Office of Liberal Education.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Religion and Politics

A new online journal, Religion and Politics, has just published an essay by Jess and John. It describes a community college course that proved to be a turning point in their lives. You can read it here: http://religionandpolitics.org/2012/05/01/i-was-a-mortuary-worker-in-iraq-a-marine-on-what-remains-after-war/