JD Scrimgeour

Tina
By JD Scrimgeour
As a teacher of writing at Salem State College, I hear a lot of stories: The mother who lost her husband early and was trying to stay enrolled, but at last couldn’t afford it; the woman who lived in a shelter with her infant; the man who had grown up in the projects. At thirty-six, he had suffered a serious motorcycle accident, then decided to come to college. “I just wish I had done this a lot earlier,” he said to me. He was my age…

VIDEO: Students Today
Professors Kenneth Ardon of the Salem State College Economics department and Lorri Krebs of the Department of Geography agreed to watch this video and share their thoughts on some of the questions raised by it…

• Comments on “A Vision of Change” – By Kenneth Ardon
• A Vision of Change in the Classroom – By Lorri Krebs

Rob Brown responds to Mark Zaitchek.

Communication or Coercion? Point-Counterpoint
On March 17, Communications professors Robert Brown and Mark Zaitchik met at the invitation of the Salem State chapter of Lambra Pi Eta, the Communications Honor Society, to discuss the very heart of their department’s business-the business of communications…

Intelligent Design, Scientific Practice, & Educational Practice
By Paul Kelly
The well-publicized battles between evolutionary theory and the religious beliefs of some fundamentalists are just the latest in a series of struggles against the advancement of knowledge. History is rife with examples of opposition to science when those in power fear that new knowledge will threaten their position in society. From my perspective as a teacher and scientist, the Intelligent Design controversy is part of a larger issue of the acceptance of fiction over fact, of unquestioning minds accepting demonstrable falsehoods…

Constantly Risking Absurdity
By Chris Fauske
Charles Simic, who was my advisor when I was an undergraduate at the University of New Hampshire and who is the current Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, remarked in a “craft of poetry” class that “a cliché’s hope is to be readmitted to the language.” Or something like that. By necessity, I paraphrase. I was a lousy note-taker in college…