amamblog:

Calling all educators! The AMAM has recently developed a Teacher Resource Packet as part of our “Religion, Ritual and Performance in the Renaissance” exhibition. This collection of resources provides background on the major thematic elements of the show (such as iconography and public vs. private devotion), includes tons of images and their related information, and a glossary of saints and terms found in the exhibition. 

If you are planning a visit to see the show, or just want more information on the Renaissance for your personal or classroom use, then we hope you find this a valuable resource.

If you are interested in bringing your school group in for a visit to see the “Religion, Ritual and Performance in the Renaissance” exhibition, please visit our website here for information on scheduling a tour with our Education Department. 

artistbrush:

Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) was created in 2004 by Kennedy Odede, a resident of Kibera, Kenya, located just outside Nairobi and considered to be one of the largest slums in Africa. With 23 cents and a soccer ball, he began a youth group that traveled around the community, playing soccer and putting on plays about HIV awareness, gender equality, and the importance of education. 

Odede met Jessica Posner, a Wesleyan student studying abroad in Kenya, in 2007, and, seeing the extreme gender inequalities and low priority placed on girls’ education, they set out to create a tuition-free school for girls. In the years since, SHOFCO has also created a community clinic, a soccer league, youth group, newspaper, micro-finance program for HIV-positive women, and the first affordable clean water point in the entire slum. These services are offered to the entire community with the idea that as people begin to value them, they will also value the school linked to them, and finally the idea of girls’ education. Today, the school, The Kibera School for Girls, has 100 girls enrolled in grades Pre-K through 3rd.

Kennedy will be on campus speaking about his experiences on Monday in West Lecture Hall.   I encourage all of you who can make it to come out and do so!  (:

jacquelynn:

I am not a professor. I work with computers, people in which profession, I’m frequently told, are highly in demand. I could easily work in corporate America or in the non-profit sector. But I don’t. I work in academia because I believe in the power of education and further, I believe in the values that my institution has historically supported and strives to uphold today. 

I didn’t attend Oberlin as a student but I can say with one hundred percent certainty that my time here as an employee has changed me for the better.  

Despite the fact that I’m largely a cynical realist, there’re a few remaining places where a shred of idealism shines through. This isn’t about what job I think you can get with a college degree. Neither is it about the barriers preventing some people from entering universities like the one I work for. There is still work to be done. But I maintain a simple and perhaps naïve belief that reading, thinking, arguing, and agreeing force us to grow as people and institutions that provide environments to do that help move humanity forward.

And today, when I walked by this gate in front of the art building on campus, I remembered why I do the work that I do and that I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute my small part.

This. All of this. *shivers*

(Source: oberlincareer)