This Week, September 29, 2013
Dear Students:
And here we are, at the end of September. The semester has certainly gathered steam. While we are all enjoying the beautiful weather, we are also all well immersed in the work of learning. I hope you are finding all aspects of that work pleasurable.
This week we are also mindful of the extended temper tantrums unfolding in Washington, DC that threaten to hold our entire nation, and indirectly, the entire world, as a fiscal hostage. As this plays out, millions of people don’t know if they’ll get paychecks next week, paychecks with which to pay rent, buy groceries for themselves and their children, pay for doctor visits, and so forth. Anyone who has a plane ticket for early October has to be wondering if there will be air traffic controllers working in the airports. Student loans will not be processed. Anyone who might want to buy a steak or some chicken has to wonder if there will be food inspectors making sure that our food is safe. Thousands of families in Colorado, suffering in the aftermath of floods that remind us of Superstorm Sandy, will have to wait for help in recovery. The last time we went through this process, just a couple of years ago, the national economic recovery was set back as the rate of job creation declined significantly. This deja-vu experience reminds me of the importance, for all of us, of respecting our responsibilities.
I ask you, therefore, to think this week about how you rely on others and how others rely on you. What can each of us do to assure those who depend on us that we will fulfill our obligations to them and what can we do to demonstrate our appreciation for those upon whom we rely? (It might not be a bad idea to take a moment to thank anyone in your life who helps make it possible for you to have a college education.) What do we owe our communities as responsible citizens?
And lastly, what do we owe ourselves?
Speaking of obligations and responsibilities, I also want to let you know that some time next week the annual survey of HSS students will be sent out to you by e-mail. This is a very important survey because it gives me and my colleagues clear information about your aspirations for life after college, what we can do in HSS to help you achieve those goals, and what obstacles you perceive that we might be able to help you with. In order to encourage you to take the survey, I am pleased to announce that students responding to the survey by the deadline date of November 1 will be eligible to be selected in a drawing one of ten $25 gift certificates to Amazon.com. Please complete the survey and please encourage all your HSS friends to do so. (This survey will be sent to all HSS majors, whether their major in HSS is their first or second major. So, if you’re getting this message in an e-mail from me, rather than by looking at it on the website, you’ll get an invitation to complete the survey.) Participating in this survey is an important way for you to be a good citizen in our community, so: please be a good citizen.
I wish you a happy and safe week as we enter the month of October on this shared journey of the fall semester.
Sincerely,
BR
Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences The College of New Jersey
Congratulations
Congratulations to the following students who were just elected as your HSS senators: Kyri Christodolou, Edianas Lima, Ken Rubin, Payal Ved, and Symone Yancey. They join the HSS senators who were elected last spring: Kyle Brands, Joey DiCarlo, Jessica Glynn, Anushka Patel, Kathryn Picardo, and Catherine Tung. Together, all these senators, together with Allison Kaplan, constitute our HSS Student Advisory Council. If you have any concerns or suggestions to share about your life in HSS, please reach out to one of these senators. You can do so through our HSS Student Advisory Council website: https://hss.tcnj.edu/school-resources/governance/sac/.
Congratulations again to our debaters who had some great victories in a movices tournament at Swarthmore College this past weekend. Among them were HSS students: Steven Schwering, Jacob Camins-Eskov, James Tomasullo, Zach Elliot, and Steve Rodriguez. We extend our thanks also to all the debaters who judged at that tournament, including our own Zachary Myshkoff. Please look for an announcement in next week’s weekly message about our annual “Debate the Deans” event, featuring Dean Rifkin and Dean Keep (School of Business), arguing with TCNJ debaters.
Opportunities
The Pickering Fellowship, a scholarship opportunity for graduate school for students who intend to work in the US Department of State, has announced that its 2014 competition is open. You can read more about this exciting opportunity at http://woodrow.org/fellowships/pickering/. Esther Tetruashvily, a TCNJ HSS alumna from 2011 (English and International Studies double major), won this fellowship in 2012 and is now in her second year of a Master’s degree program at Harvard. You can learn more about her TCNJ path and how the Pickering fit in by looking at her video, which is linked on the HSS home page.
Events
Mon., Sept. 30 LionsLink Workshop through the Career Center from 11 to 1 at Roscoe West 202 (workshop helps students search for internships and jobs)
Wed., Oct. 2 Community Learning Day lecture by Jonathan Katz, author of this year’s summer reading book, The Big Truck that Went By, at noon in Kendall Hall. This is a major event on our campus so don’t miss it. Mr. Katz will have a book signing at 1:15 pm in the Social Science Atrium.
Thurs., Oct. 3 Screening of film “Happy” about what makes each of us happy, at 7 pm in the Library Auditorium, with a post-film discussion: From the bayous of Lousiana to the deserts of Namibia, from the beaches of Brazil to the villages of Okinawa, this film explores the secrets behind our most valued emotion and answers the question, “What makes us happy?” (This event is co-sponsored by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences which wants every TCNJ student to be a happy student!)
Fri., Oct. 4 Career and Internship Fair from 9 am to 1 pm in the Rec Center with representatives from businesses, non-profit agencies, government agencies, as well as graduate and professional schools. For more information see tcnj.edu/career.
Brown Bag Series Lecture (School of Arts & Communication): “David Sarnoff, RCA Laboratories, and the Dawn of the Electronic Age,” presented by Dr. Benjamin Gross (Consulting Scholar and Curator of TCNJ’s Sarnoff Collection) Mayo Concert Hall, 11:30AM – 12:20PM
Day-long symposium on the history of technology in Mercer County in conjunction with the opening of the Sarnoff Collection Exhibit at TCNJ in Education 115. For more information see www.mercer175.org. This is a ticketed event but TCNJ students have a discounted rate of only $5 (lunch not included).