Campus Currents

Join us for the Alan Feldman Week of Poetry Keynote Event:

Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023, at 4:30 PM in the Heineman Ecumenical Center
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItduyoqjgpH9Gb-H-ISM5WYuvoVwB4rNJz

Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA and his newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, was recently shortlisted for the National Book Award. He is the author and editor of seven books, including The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Oliver serves as the co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board, which promotes the work of Asian-American writers. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at PLU.

Thursday, Oct 19, 2023, at 4:30 PM in the Forum, McCarthy Center

Dr. Adrian Smith, head of the Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, has a joint appointment as a Research Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. He studies the behavioral ecology of social insects and insect natural history. As a science communicator, he makes videos of his insect laboratory for his YouTube channel, Ant Lab, and demonstrates how collaboration between the Arts and Humanities and STEM is vital to education. In making science accessible to the public, we can understand how considering insects as pests and using pesticides jeopardizes environmental sustainability.

Sponsors: Arts & Ideas, the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, and the Communication, Media, and Performance Department

Monday, Oct. 16, 11 a.m.
Heineman Ecumenical Center

Chase Elodia’s Perennials, a Brooklyn-based ensemble, arrive in Framingham for an exciting
mid-day performance. Founded in 2020, the band combines a collaborative and improvisational sensibility with an aesthetic orientation that has been nourished by singer-songwriters and
electronic artists like Meshell Ndegeocello, Norma Winstone, and Becca Stevens. Their 2022
Biophilia Records release, Portrait Imperfect, was named one of the Best New Albums of 2022
by Downbeat Magazine, who awarded it 4.5 stars and hailed it as “artful” and “ambitious.” The band was featured at the 2023 Winter Jazz Festival, has received accolades from the Café Royale
Cultural Foundation and South Arts, and is set to release their next album in Spring 2024.

The next event in the Fall 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored Invited Lecture Series on Race + Digital Humanities is scheduled for October 16th:

• Monday, October 16: Dr. Julia Troche (Ancient Egyptian Archaeology, Missouri State University), will be delivering a lecture, “Current Debates in Digital Egyptology, Or What Happens When Scholars Assign Race to the Pharaohs.”

• Thursday, November 9: Gowthaman Ranganathan (Anthropology, Brandeis University) will be delivering a lecture, “Oral Histories of Queerness in Post-War Sri Lanka.”

All events will take place 4:30-5:30 p.m. in the Heineman Ecumenical and Cultural Center. For more information, contact Dr. Bartholomew Brinkman (bbrinkman@framingham.edu) or Dr. Kristen Abbott Bennett (kbennett5@framingham.edu)

Massachusetts STEM Week 2023 will take place from October 16–20 and is a statewide collaborative effort organized by the Executive Office of Education and the STEM Advisory Council in partnership with the state’s nine Regional STEM Networks, like MSEN, which plan and coordinate activities with local school communities, community leaders, and business partners.

The McAuliffe Center is hosting multiple events, to learn more visit:

https://cm-center.org/event/stemweek2023

MathWorks at FSU: Is the Amazon Rainforest Disappearing?
Hosted by Christa McAuliffe Center
McAuliffe Center (O'Connor Hall Ground Floor)
Monday, Oct. 16
1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

MathWorks at FSU: The Power of Data in Climate Science
Hosted by Christa McAuliffe Center
McCarthy Center Alumni Room
Monday, Oct. 16
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Clean Energy - Education and Career Pathways 101
Hosted by Christa McAuliffe Center and Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
McCarthy Center Forum
Wednesday, Oct. 18
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

CELTSS honors the recipients of the Framingham State University's Distinguished Faculty and Librarian Awards with an event held annually during the fall semester. On October 19, 2023 at 5p.m. in the McCarthy Center Alumni Room, we will celebrate three tenured/tenure track honorees for their excellence in scholarship, excellence in service, and excellence in teaching. We will also celebrate four visiting faculty members from the Colleges of Arts and Humanities, Business, Education and Social/Behavioral Sciences, and STEM. Each award winner will give a presentation on their career trajectory and achievements. This year's recipients are:

Tenured/Tenure Track:

Excellence in Scholarship
Phoebe (Jen) Lin (Psychology and Philosophy)
Excellence in Service
Lori Bihler (History)
Excellence in Teaching
Alexander (Sandy) Hartwiger (English)

Visiting Faculty:

College of Arts and Humanities
Lorianne DiSabato (English)
College of Business
Ella Karat (Marketing)
College of Education and Social/Behavioral Sciences
Demetrios Brellas (Sociology and Criminology)
College of STEM
Lisa Savini (Chemistry & Food Science)

2023 Swiacki Children's Literature Festival

Thursday, November 2, 2023

The Swiacki Children’s Literature Festival at Framingham State University is an annual celebration of children’s books featuring renowned authors and illustrators in the field. 

We are honored this year to host featured speakers Ekua Holmes and Dashka Slater. There will also be a special presentation from FSU alumna Nora Chan '16, an editor at Curriculum Associates, who will discuss the impact of book bans on children's literature.

For more details and to register, visit: https://www.alumni.framingham.edu/s/1929/bp20/interior.aspx?sid=1929&gid=2&pgid=623

About the featured speakers:

Ekua Holmes’ work is collage-based and her subjects, made from cut and torn papers, investigate family histories, relationship dynamics, childhood impressions, and the power of hope, faith and self-determination. Remembering a Roxbury childhood of wonder and delight, she considers herself a part of a long line of Roxbury imagemakers. In this spirit, she supports those who have a calling in the arts as well as keeping her own studio practice ignited. Well known for her work in illustrating children’s literature, Holmes is the recipient of a Caldecott Honor, the Coretta Scott King’s John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator award, and a Horn Book award for her illustrations in Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, written by Carole Boston Weatherford. She also twice won the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration for Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets and for The Stuff of Stars, written by Marion Dane Bauer. Ms. Holmes currently serves as Commissioner and Vice Chair of the Boston Art Commission and as the Associate Director at the Center for Art and Community Partnerships at MassArt, where she manages and coordinates sparc! the ArtMobile, an art-inspiring, art-transforming vehicle retrofitted to contribute to community-based, multidisciplinary arts programming currently focused in Mission
Hill, Roxbury and Dorchester, MA. She received her BFA in Photography from MassArt.

Best-selling author Dashka Slater has been telling stories since she could talk. An award-winning journalist who writes for such publications as The New York Times Magazine and Mother Jones, she is also the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her children’s picture books include Escargot, Dangerously Ever After, and The Antlered Ship, a Junior Library Guild selection and a Parents' Choice Recommended book that received four starred reviews and was named Best Picture Book of the Year by both Amazon and the Northern California Independent Bookseller’s Association. Her New York Times bestselling true-crime narrative, The 57 Bus, has received numerous accolades, including the 2018 Stonewall Book Award from the American
Library Association and the 2018 Beatty Award from the California Library Association. It was a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist, an LA Times Book Award Finalist, and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Young Adult Book of the Year.

Fall FSU Cooks Events!

FSU Cooks is back in the kitchen…in-person to Mix and Bake some fun with the entire FSU Community!! Join us for any and all of the following events. All events are free to the FSU community and are sponsored by the Nutrition and Health Studies Department.

Quick Pumpkin Snack Cake – October 25th 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Come scare up some fun as we bake a simple pumpkin chocolate chip snack cake. This Mix and Bake takes place during lunch break, so bring your lunch and leave with a snack cake! #snackcake #1hourbake

Registration Link

A Twist on Pie Crust – December 6th between 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Looking to perfect your pie crust?…then join us to learn some new techniques. This Mix and Bake takes place mid-day, so bring your lunch and leave with some pie crust twists! #pietwists #1hourbake

Registration Link

Join FSU Sustainability for a Neighborhood Cleanup on Friday, October 27!

All students, faculty, and staff are welcome. Teams will leave from the McCarthy Center at 12:30pm and 1:30pm to pick up litter on streets bordering campus. Gloves, bags, and grabbers will be provided.

Sign up here for either or both time slots: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C4BA5AA2CA4FB6-45181075-fsuneighborhood

If you cannot make it for the full hour, that’s okay! Any time you can contribute is appreciated.
Let’s help prevent plastic and other waste from entering the environment!

The Hispanic Honor Society, Sigma Delta Pi is holding a bake sale to raise money for the club on Thursday, October 26th from 11-1 in the McCarthy center lobby. There will be various Hispanic desserts and they would love as many students and faculty as possible to attend.