Campus Currents

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.

Ekua Holmes, featured speaker for the Children's Literature Festival, will have an exhibition on display in the Mazmanian Gallery starting on October 30th:

Ekua Holmes: Black is a Rainbow Color
Oct 30 - Dec 12, 2023
Swiacki Children’s Literature Festival
Book Signing: Thursday, November 2, 2023

https://www.ekuaholmes.com

By Sophia Harris, publications intern

Joe Shay has seen firsthand the power of Narcan to save the lives of many people experiencing an overdose.

“I've regained people that I love and care about as a direct result of the overdose reversal that is Narcan,” Shay told an audience of about 50 students during a Narcan Training hosted by Framingham State University’s Health and Wellness Center on October 18th.

A former addict himself, Shay, the project manager at Project Trust, was joined by Justin Clancy from the Addiction Treatment Center of New England to shed light on the humility behind overdoses and how to decrease the stigma around Narcan.

After the training was completed attendees were able to take a free Narcan device.

Pamela Lehmberg, Coordinator of the Office of Wellness Education, who led the event, said in addition to demonstrating how, when, and why to use Narcan “the training addressed the need to decrease any stigma associated with carrying Narcan.”

In order to break the stigma around talking about overdosing, Shay and Clancy shared with the crowd their background in addiction treatment and first-hand accounts of how they have had a past of drug abuse and drug poisoning.

Clancy emphasized that overdosing and the abuse of drugs, especially opioids and fentanyl is a “global health crisis.”

They highlighted the importance of carrying Narcan on your person at all times because of this ongoing epidemic.

“A life is a life, is a life, and at the end of the day, it's somebody that is a human just like us. They deserve the right to live no matter what,” said Clancy.

Shay and Clancy agreed that most of the people who are addicted to “hard drugs” are using them to mask trauma, to a point where it is not their choice to keep using them. Shay said, “It gets to a point where you are just doing it to maintain, not to get high.”

Shay and Clancy’s passion for addiction treatment and wellness was shown during their presentation. “If we bring somebody back to life for the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth time, and that's the time that they find recovery - decide to change their lives Clancy said. Adding, then it's all worth it at the end of the day.”

Narcan training followed a similar event the health center hosted called Fetanyl Facts that occurred on Oct. 11. Special Agent in Charge, Noah Herzon of the Drug Enforcement Administration, discussed fentanyl, counterfeit pills, and the growing number of deadly overdoses from fentanyl.

Monday, November 6, 2023, at 7 PM in DPAC

Maria Schrader here adapts the 2019 memoir by New York Times’ journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. Together, they launched a groundbreaking investigation into the sexual wrongdoings of Harvey Weinstein, a kingpin in the American film industry. They interviewed numerous victims, but couldn’t publish until one went public. Actor Ashley Judd courageously led the way, allowing the reporters to publish and garner other names. Weinstein is currently serving a three-decade sentence for his crimes. Twohey and Kantor’s courageous reporting helped ignite the #MeToo movement.

This event, being held in partnership with Framingham Public Library, features special Guest Megan Twohey via Zoom in a post-screening Q&A led by Liz Banks.

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to join the Department of World Languages at the initiation ceremony of the Nu Theta Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society.

Thursday, Nov. 2, 5 p.m.
Center for Inclusive Excellence 

Sigma Delta Pi is the only honor society devoted exclusively to students of Spanish in four-year colleges and universities and is the largest foreign-language honor society in existence. FSU's chapter was nationally recognized as one of the top ten chapters in the nation out of 645 chapters.

This semester, three students from the Spanish program will be initiated into Sigma Delta Pi. The students involved in the organization have not only achieved academic success but are also committed to learning about and sharing Hispanic languages, literatures, and cultures. In addition to being honored for their scholarly achievements, the students will utilize their Spanish-language skills to plan cultural events on campus and serve the local community through volunteer work.

Our second undergraduate Open House is scheduled for this Saturday, Nov. 4. Check in begins at 8:30 a.m.

This is another chance to meet with parents and prospective students and share with them everything that makes FSU a wonderful learning community. We hope to see you there!

National First-Generation Celebration Day, Nov 8th!

All students, faculty and staff are invited to join CASA at the McCarthy Center on Wednesday, Nov. 8th from 11:30 – 1:30.

Stop by our lobby table. We’ll be recognizing the unique skills and strengths of our first-gen students, faculty and staff with fun reflection activities, G1 gear, and treats. See you there!