“These big corporations see us as numbers, not names. They’d just as soon write you off as look at you.”

“This was a booming area for manufacturing, now there’s nothing.”

“Winchester was an integrated part of the community, and the people who worked there were respected…”

These quotes are all part of a larger story currently being told in a new exhibit on Level B of Homer Babbidge Library.

“Our Community at Winchester: An Elm City Story” is the story of the Olin-Winchester Repeating Arms plant, one of New Haven’s most important employers of the 20^th century.

The history of the plant and the stories of its workers are told in 35 display boards of oral histories, photographs and other documents such as newspaper clippings and company memos.   They chronicle the company’s creation in the late 1800s up to the aftermath of its closure in 2006. Like many large corporations, it has had its fair share of triumphs, struggles and controversies.

The elements of the exhibit, compiled by Joan Cavanagh, archivist and director of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association, tell the story of labor struggles, union battles, racial tensions and impact on the community brought on by the manufacturing giant.

Especially compelling are the oral history accounts, which were collected by Dorothy Johnson and Lula White, two sisters whose father worked at Winchester. The accounts, both positive and negative, paint a picture of life for the various workers at the plant. Along with photos of the interviewees, quotes and background information give a vibrant overview of each of their individual experiences and often, struggles.

The exhibit will be on display until June 13, 2016. It’s definitely something to check out, whether you need a quick study break or just want to learn something new.

There will also be a reception and gallery talk April 18, 4:30-6:30 p.m. titled “Workers at Winchester: Community, Contradictions and Struggle” by Joan Cavanaugh, Archivist/Director of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association.

“Art and Activism in the Humanities” is student work as part of our collaboration this semester with the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program series “Feminism/s and Future/s.” These works are from students in several classes in WGSS where they were asked to consider the meanings of feminism in the future and the kinds of future they envision. Using the lens of “Art and Activism in the Humanities” to identify, interrogate, and express their thoughts on everything from marginalized bodies and household economics to sexualization in the media and changing gender expectations around the world, these students produced a close examination of utopias, dystopias, US and global movements for social justice, and the many ways in which the personal is political.

The exhibit is located on the Northwest side of Level 1 for the next few weeks. The public is invited to a reception on Monday night from 5-6:30 where you will have the opportunity to talk to the students as well as join in some gender-neutral swing dance lessons.

 

Faculty members play the key role in choosing, adapting, and developing new learning materials and methods which leads to student success. This symposium will be an opportunity to enter into conversations about the pedagogical possibilities that open/affordable learning resources offer and to become inspired to explore and integrate them into your own classrooms. These resources allow a freedom to develop, reuse, and remix materials of all types to create dynamic and engaging courses, all without increasing student debt or leaving behind students who are unable to afford expensive traditional materials.

We will be joined by experts on the national stage as well as those who have had success here at UConn to lead the conversation on the challenges and rewards to this style of teaching.

The symposium is being sponsored by the UConn Affordable Textbook Initiative (ATI) Task Force through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation and the University Student Government. Established in 2015 by the Provost’s Office, ATI is looking into best practices for excellence in teaching and learning using new, open, and/or alternative materials and methods that are more affordable for our students.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Rome Commons Ballroom, UConn, Storrs 

Registration is free and required. Lunch is included. 

Symposium Schedule:

9:15am – Registration and Reception
9:45am – Welcome
10:00am – Keynote Presentation – David Wiley

Dr. Wiley is Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning, an organization dedicated to increasing student success, reinvigorating pedagogy, and improving the affordability of education through the adoption of open educational resources by schools, community and state colleges, and universities. He is also currently the Education Fellow at Creative Commons and adjunct faculty in Brigham Young University’s graduate program in Instructional Psychology and Technology, where he leads the Open Education Group (and was previously a tenured Associate Professor).

11:30am – Tim Dzurilla, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science
12:00pm – Lunch & Table Top Discussions
1:00pm – Panel Discussion

• Daniel Byrd, President Elect, UConn Undergraduate Student Government
• Aynsley Diamond, Director of Faculty Development Programs, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
• Kathy Labadorf, Project Coordinator, Affordable Textbook Initiative, UConn Libraries
• Edward Neth, Lecturer, Department of Chemistry
• Amit Savkar, Associate Professor in Residence, Department of Mathematics
• Ethan Senack, Higher Education Advocate, U.S. PIRG
• Jeremy Teitelbaum, Dean, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

2:00-2:30 – Wrap Up

If you have any questions, please contact Kathy Labadorf.

An exhibit of handcrafted books created by members of the world-renowned Ediciones Vigía, a fine press publishing house in Cuba, is on display in UConn’s Homer Babbidge Library through May 2.

Since its creation in 1985 in the city of Matanzas, Ediciones Vigía has been internationally recognized as a unique artist’s collaborative press, whose work is included in outstanding private and public collections, such as the British National Library, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the Library of Congress, and numerous universities throughout the world. Ediciones Vigía’s catalog combines limited editions by authors such as Baudelaire, Emily Dickinson, Pasternak, Tolstoy, Tagore, and Verlaine, Spanish-language authors such as Borges, Federico García Lorca, and Gabriela Mistral, and renowned Cuban writers such as José Martí, Lezama Lima, and Nancy Morejón.

However, Ediciones Vigía’s work is especially notable because of their aesthetic value and original design, which use wood, paper and cloth scraps, and the most unimaginable objects and materials. This reflects both the artists’ creativity and the unfortunate economic crisis and resource shortages currently experienced by Cubans. Each handmade volume is a genuine piece of art, as well as a powerful testimony of struggle and artistic survival and sustainability.

“This exhibition takes place within an exceptional context,” says Professor Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, associate professor of UConn’s Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Literatures and Cultures department and co-curator of the exhibit. “Since December 2014, when U.S. and Cuban Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced their mutual intentions of reactivating the relationship between the two nations, the general interest in Cuba has unexpectedly increased. One of the result of more than 50 years of political and economic disconnection is the tremendous lack of information about today’s reality in Cuba which must be addressed.”

This exhibition about one of Cuba’s most innovative fine art publishing houses sheds light on this often misunderstood country, Casamayor-Cisneros observes.

 

“While showcasing pieces of remarkable aesthetic value, the exhibition also exposes the visitors to a little known aspect of Cuba’s cultural production,” she notes.

The UConn Libraries’ Archives & Special Collections currently owns 42 of these beautiful handcrafted books and looks forward to adding more work from the collective in the future, says co-curator Marisol Ramos, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Latino Studies, Spanish & Anthropology Librarian.

The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Department of Literatures, Cultures & Languages and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC).
Two public receptions will be held in connection with the exhibition on March 24, from 4-6 p.m. at the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center and on April 18 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Homer Babbidge Library.

All organizing is science fiction. A world where everyone has a home, a great education, community based transformative justice, nourishing food to eat and clean water to drink, where we are in right relation to the planet, to each other, where are free to be and love ourselves as we are, to grow together? We have never seen it; its possibility remains speculative. Yet speculative fiction, perhaps particularly science fiction, offers a powerful opportunity to speculate-into-being.

Walidah Imarisha, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (AK Press 2015), will facilitate a salon focused on the history of science fiction and social change, considering ways to use science fiction as a practice ground for social justice strategizing and vision.

March 23, 12:30-2 p.m. in the Rowe Building, Room 122 (please note this is a room change.)

This is the second lecture in the Feminism/s and Future/s salons sponsored by the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program in partnership with: the UConn Libraries; the UConn Humanities Institute; the UConn Reads! Program; the Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies; the Africana Studies Institute; the Women’s Center; and the English Department.

Want to learn about some of the tools out there to help effectively manage and analyze your research data? Ever wondered what OpenRefine, Introduction to R, Data analysis and visualization in R and SQL for data management can do for you?

Join us for a two-day Data Carpentry workshop on Mar 7-8 from 9:00 am-4:30 pm and explore basic concepts, skills and tools for working more effectively with data. This will be focused on ecology/natural resources research data but anyone is welcome to attend. UConn participants can register for either the UConn Associate or the General seats.

Registration and laptops with specific software are required. Information on both of these be found on the Data Carpentry website.

Want to learn more?

On March 21-22 we will offer a second two-day workshop that will focus on the basic concepts and tools for your research, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. This will also be focused on ecology/natural resources research data. UConn participants can register for either the UConn Associate or the General seats.

Registration and laptops with specific software are required. Information can be found on the Software Carpentry website.