Not the Healthiest?

I posted yesterday that Burlington was the healthiest city in the U.S. But a few hours later my friend e-mailed me this article from Web MD saying that Lincoln, Nebraska was the healthiest. It says that the other rankings were derived from 2006 CDC figures.

This makes a good information literacy point. It is easy to "prove" things based on some article, but that does not make it true. If someone only looked at my previous blog post or the original CNN or Burlington Free Press article, they would only get one side of the story.

It is important to question our information. Don't just accept what CNN says or Web MD says, look at the CDC numbers for yourself. In this case it is not terribly important but in others it may be. Question the info that is given to you, and don't simply take things for granted.

And who cares if we are #4 or #1? We're still in exceptional health, and I think I would rather live here than Nebraska.

Healthiest City in U.S.

According to the CDC, Burlington is the healthiest city in the U.S. This may come as little surprise to those of you who are constantly biking, hiking, walking, etc. Here at Champlain people even start skiing and snowboarding before the snow flies.

So whatever else is going wrong, whether you are stressing about finals or the holiday season, at least you can say you've got your health.

Chili Cookoff

Last week at here at the library we hosted the First Annual Faculty/Staff Chili Cookoff and Tasting and it was a stunning success. We brought people together from all over campus including entries from 212 Battery down by the lake and Spinner in Winooski.

Our three skilled judges Bob Mayer, Sandi Earle, and Craig McKeon chose our winner Tee Mulhall. They also chose David Wolfe as winner of "Most Original Chili" with his strawberry rhubarb entry, which edged out Rob Williams' entry of Yak Chili no less.

The discerning chili crowds spoke loud and clear choosing Rich Long's entry as their favorite chili and giving him the title of "People's Chili Champion."

There were at least 73 people who voted and I am willing to bet that over 100 people came to taste chili a week ago. It was a good opportunity to bring different parts of the campus together who would not normally commingle.

Due to the popularity of this event there is already a Second Annual Cookoff in the works. We'll see you next year once the leaves start turning and a chill permeates the air!

TC Boyle at the Library

Every year, Champlain selects a Community Book for the campus to read and come together to discuss. This year we read T.C. Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain.

Boyle was here for two and 1/2 days. The big bang of those two days is his book talk. Andy Burkhardt, the Library's Emerging Technologies librarian, showed his emerging technologies stuff by live-twittering it. Thanks Andy! The talk was amazing: Boyle read a short story, talked about his writing process, read an excerpt from the Tortilla Curtain, and then answered questions. He was very funny but also gave a lot of insight into how he writes. My favorite part was when he wouldn't answer a question about the book's interpretation. Essentially, he believes that the writer must leave issues of interpretation up to the reader. That is our job. If he told us it was just one way, what fun would that be? YES!

One of the more quiet but wonderful parts to the Community Book author's visit is their seeing our GGD students' renditions of the bookjacket. Here's Professor David Lustgarten's announcement of the project:

Students in Graphic Design and Illustration classes have produced their own interpretation of T.C. Boyle's "The Tortilla Curtain" in the form of new book jackets. Their varied, imaginative, and highly professional work can be
viewed in the Miller Information Commons magazine area on the first floor, where new acquisitions are normally displayed. The show will be up for about three weeks.

TC Boyle seemed to really enjoy the bookjackets, as these picture show:


It’s always wonderful to have student art work at the Library, but even better to have authors and students mingling, discussing the importance of the students’ choices in their work, and students getting the real world perspective of book art in the eyes of an acclaimed author.

Yup, it was pretty awesome.

Kyle Dodson's Meaningful Books

Kyle Dodson, our new Director of the Center for Service and Civic Engagement, was truly engaging on Monday during his Meaningful Books talk. The conversation branched over a lot of topics: race, media, accountability, politics, elections, youth, the individual v. the society...I could go on. Needless to say, it was wonderful.

In case you haven't made it over to look at the display of Kyle's books on the Main level of the MIC (come on over!), here is the list of books that he discussed:
NVISIBLE MAN-Ralph Ellison
NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME-James Baldwin
FOUNTAINHEAD-Ayn Rand
THE ORDEAL OF INTEGRATION-Orlando Patterson
CATCHER IN THE RYE-J.D. Salinger
A SEPARATE PEACE-John Knowles
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD-Zora Neale Hurston
CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES-John Kennedy Toole
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD-Harper Lee
AMAZING GRACE-Jonathan Kozol
THE SNOW LEOPARD-Peter Matthiessen
THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD-Ray Suarez
DON QUIXOTE-Miguel de Cervantes
LOVESONG: Becoming a Jew-Julius Lester
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL-John Berendt
ALL SOULS: A FAMILY STORY FROM SOUTHIE-Michael Patrick MacDonald
LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET-Rainer Marie Rilke
FREAKONOMICS-Stephen Dubner and Steven Levit

Many thanks to Kyle for an excellent hour of conversation and welcome to Champlain!

Shiver Me Timbers!!!!

Happy International Talk like a Pirate Day! I almost forgot, but luckily I was reminded by one of my friends online. So I exhort the faculty, staff, and students of Champlain to shove off and start talking like ye be pirates. I would really like to hear about an entire class conducted in piratese, but that may be wishful thinking.

I may try to take a reference session today so I can throw at least some pirating talk into the questions I get. Maybe I'll make an eye patch, or at least draw an anchor tattoo on my arm.

If you arRRRR not sure how to talk tlike a pirate here is an instructional video:



Good luck me hearties!

Grockit and learning in gaming

Here at the library we have been involved with two separate groups who are designing games for us. These games are meant to teach information literacy. We are not quite sure how we are ultimately going to use them, but that may be easier once we see the finished projects. From the meetings I have been to, the games are looking pretty solid and I can't wait to play them.

In addition, a number of students recently got a grant from the UN to design a game that combats violence against women. They traveled to South Africa and from their blog posts clearly had an amazing and moving experience. Learning in gaming is clearly a trend around here, and an awesome one from my perspective. I love fooling people into learning.

This trend is not limited to Champlain College though. The startup company Grockit took home a Jury Selection award at this year's TechCrunch50. From what I have read it is “Massively Multi Player Online Learning Game” in which you are a student in a classroom and you get questions that you can discuss and debate and ultimately decide on. You award "Grockit points" to other students that increase or decrease their ranking. It sounds like an online study session but funner. The article talks about using it to study for things like the SATs, but I could see this product used in a lot of interesting ways, especially in the classroom. They have been very secretive about it for the past year and only now are they opening it up to the light of day. I am excited to learn more about it and see where this game goes.

Who knows, maybe some of our graduates will go on to work on this game or something even better.