West Hartford Community Celebrates Human Rights – By Judy Wyman Kelly and Sarah Raskin [Trinity College professor of psychology and neuroscience]
We-ha.com [West Hartford, Conn., news website]
West Hartford Town Hall was a destination for human rights activists and supporters on Dec. 3, as nearly 200 people came to honor the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
The document, created under the leadership of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, describes a range of rights to which all humans are entitled, from life, liberty and equality, to economic, social and cultural rights…
The public reading of the UDHR was punctuated by remarks from student and adult speakers and performers.
Students Xaymara Rodriguez and Ivy Nguyen touched on the West Hartford chapter of the Witness Stones project which commemorates slaves who resided in our town.
Newell reminded us of the human rights struggles still facing Native Americans in communities throughout the U.S.
Trinity professor and West Hartford Board of Education member Cheryl Greenberg and community activist Janée Woods placed human rights in historical and local contexts…
Harrington: “Civil disobedience might be resisting the prisoners’ transfer to Madrid”
El Nacional (Catalonia)
He speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese and, also, Catalan. In fact, Catalan is the language in which his new book has appeared first. Thomas Harrington, professor of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, has just published Una democràcia cívica en temps autoritaris – “A civic democracy in authoritarian times” (Gregal, 2018), a collection of the articles on the Catalan independence process which the US academic has published over the last few years. Indeed, from his North American vantage point, he warns of the “insignificance” of a New York Times editorial mentioning Catalonia, in a country with a huge capacity to forget the world beyond its frontiers. On the Catalan referendum trial, which he sees as a “farce”, he asserts that it is a “great opportunity” for civil disobedience. But right now he doesn’t see the independence movement as having clear ideas on this…
Can we handle the uncomfortable truths unearthed in WWII’s Oneg Shabbat archive?
Times of Israel
An expert on the Warsaw Ghetto’s clandestine “Oneg Shabbat” archive is on a mission to break “firewalls” in Holocaust education.
Despite being recognized as “one of the most important examples of cultural resistance in the history of mankind,” the words “Oneg Shabbat archive” unfortunately ring few bells outside academia, historian Samuel Kassow [Trinity College’s Charles H. Northam Professor of History] told The Times of Israel.
The document trove was compiled after the Nazis incarcerated Warsaw’s Jews in a small portion of the city and walled it off. Dozens of scientific studies, diaries, and content from 55 underground newspapers are among the highlights. Within months of the secret archive’s burial, most of the ghetto’s 400,000 residents were murdered at the death camp Treblinka. Thousands more perished during the revolt of 1943 and its months-long aftermath…
…“The Germans thought they would decide how Jews could be remembered,” said Kassow. “But the [Oneg Shabbat] archive is about Jewish life under Nazi occupation as it really was. Without the archive, Jews would have been relegated to the role of baseless victims,” Kassow told The Times of Israel.
On October 25, Kassow spoke about the Oneg Shabbat — or “Joy of Shabbat” — archive at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Earlier this year, he joined a scholars committee to guide implementation of a $2 million grant for Holocaust-related programs at the museum. Pledged by San Francisco-based Taube Philanthropies, the funds will address what the foundation’s head views as a “glaring omission” in most World War II museums…
Liberal Arts Education CT – with Joanne Berger-Sweeney on Trinity College
Comcast Newsmakers
Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney sits down with Eric Clemons in this video interview to discuss the advantages of a liberal arts education in the education landscape, as well as the significance the Hartford location has for students and the economy in city of Hartford.
Affordability, funding, workforce development top of mind in higher-ed
Hartford Business Journal
At a time when higher-education institutions are increasingly seen as politically motivated, and demand for career-focused curricula in K-12 schools is increasing, educators have a challenging 2019 lesson plan.
A federal tax law passed at the end of 2017 opened the door to taxing college endowments at a time when nearly half of the nation’s public colleges, and the majority of private colleges, are failing to meet their enrollment goals.
In 2019, colleges will have to contend with expanding expectations of the kind of financial support they provide students and what the institutions should contribute to the communities in which they operate.
Those are some of the top issues confronting educational institutions heading into 2019, according to Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney; Jeffrey Wihbey, superintendent of the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System (CTECS); and UConn President Susan Herbst.
On Changing student population, affordability challenges
Berger-Sweeney: The number of students graduating from high schools in the U.S. has plateaued, and in a few years, we’ll see that number drop precipitously. … Income disparities are expected to widen, and more families will require financial aid for their children to attend college. … In 2019, colleges will have to work harder than ever to be affordable and differentiate themselves amid intense competition for fewer students…
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