March 2010 Archives

Jaime Escalante taught advanced mathematics to underserved minority students in a poor school district in East Los Angeles, helping his high school students achieve a level of academic success that no one would have predicted for them. Escalante's work inspired the hit 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, starring Edward James Olmos.

One of the most dramatic passages in the movie tells the following story. Through long hours of early morning and after-school work, all of Escalante's students in 1982 passed the college-level advanced placement test in calculus. The organization administering the test believed that the students had cheated: how else could these kids from the barrio do so well on the test? Escalante was outraged at the accusation of cheating. When the students took the test a second time, they all passed again. 

National Public Radio offers this appreciation of Escalante's life and work.

To read a first-hand account of how Escalante created his unprecedented teaching regime, use our library's JSTOR database, which contains the 1990 article "The Jaime Escalante Math Program," by Escalante and Jack Dirmann. In the article, Escalante wrote, "I exhibit deep love and caring for my students. I have no exclusive claim to these attributes; they are as natural as breathing is to most parents and teachers. The power of love and concern in changing young lives should not be overlooked."

Escalante, who was born in Bolivia, died on March 30. He was 79 years old.

Photo of Jaime Escalante from National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125398451

U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan will hold a Webcast April 1, 1:00 PM Eastern time, in which she explains her creative process, showing how a poem of hers evolved through ten drafts.

You can view the Webcast at http://www.loc.gov/poetry/mindsjoy/

More information is here.

The Webcast is part of Ryan's initiative to celebrate poetry at community colleges nationwide.

You can read about Ryan and listen to poems of hers at poets.org.

Below is a video of Ryan, from poets.org, in which she talks about her poem "Home to Roost."

Culture flourishes through the creation of new music, videos, and textual works. Sustaining a vibrant culture also requires the freedom to use and reuse existing creative works for scholarly, business, and personal daily uses --in balance with the rights of content owners.

Google's Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry and American University law professor Peter Jaszi will spotlight current creative rights and copyright developments as keynote speakers. Join other noted scholars and practitioners as they discuss today's copyright concerns at Hybrid ©: Sustaining Culture in Copyright sponsored by UMUC's Center for Intellectual Property (CIP). The three-day event offers panels, keynotes, and seminars on everything from the Google book settlement, to the future of fair use, net neutrality, social networking, and more.

For complete agenda and registration, please visit http://www.umuc.edu/cip2010 or call 240-684-2803.

Doing research in the area of politcal science or government?  Do you want to see video of the health care debate in Congress? Concerned about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell? Every C-SPAN program aired since 1987, now totaling over 160,000 hours, is contained in the C-SPAN Archives and is immediately accessible through this online database.

Image source: http://www.c-span.org/ImagesSite/logo.png

As part of its exhibition Poetry and Prayer: Islamic Manuscripts from the Walters, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has made available online a number of beautifully illustrated books dating from the ninth to the nineteenth century. Click on a book and turn the virtual pages to see vivid pictures and beautiful, flowing calligraphy. Information on each book and highlighted, "must see" pages are also provided.

Image source: http://poetryprayer.thewalters.org/w649/

The USDA has announced its Food Environment Atlas, a research tool allowing you to find county-level information about food and health issues. The many statistics available through the Atlas include:

• How many grocery stores are in your county?
• How much does your county spend on fast food?
• Diabetes, obesity, and physical activity levels in your county

The Atlas complements First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to combat childhood obesity.


Image source: http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/

March is Irish-American Heritage month and the U.S. Census Bureau has prepared a fact sheet on all things Irish-American:

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/014521.html

    The U.S. Census Bureau has an enormous amount of statistical and other factual information that can be used in your research.

For more information on statistical Web Sites and how to use them, see the library's guide:

Using the Web for Research: Statistical Web Sites

The Library of Congress and other government institutions have put together a Web site celebrating Women's History Month. It contains lots of resources covering various aspects of women's history, including Women of Four Wars, a look at women's experience in the military.

The photograph below, from Women of Four Wars, is of Lee Lane, a helicopter pilot who served in Iraq.

Image source: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp-stories/loc.natlib.afc2001001.47372/

For research projects having to do with women, our library is the place to be: explore our Guide to Women's Studies for recommended databases, books, Web sites, and more.