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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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Mitchell Columns
will not be published on Wednesday, Nov. 26.
The final issue of 2008 will be published on Dec. 10. |
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CLICK
HERE FOR A PDF FILE OF THE CURRENT PAPER EDITION |
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From the President's Desk |
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Did You Know? |
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Employee Birthdays |
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Faculty/Staff Profiles |
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Scholarships |
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Academic Calendar |
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Board Briefs |
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QEP Quips |
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MCC Inclement Weather Policy |
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Archive |
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Veterans Day Ceremony |
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Halloween |
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Autumn Fish Fry |
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Fall Festival |
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Fall Convocation |
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SGA Club Fair |
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SACS Celebration |
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Findt Reception |
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November 20 through December 3
Michael Brooks—20th
Lamont Kinney—22nd
Audra Houpe—29th
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Deadline for article submissions to
Mitchell Columns is every Tuesday at
9 a.m. E-mail articles to
printgraph@mitchellcc.edu
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Motivating Students Series
Negative feedback can lead to a
negative class atmosphere. Be specific when giving negative feedback and tie
comments to a specific task or performance—not to a specific student.
Cushion negative comments with positive compliments about aspects of the
task that students did well and be sensitive to "offhanded" remarks that
might engender feelings of inadequacy. Often students want to know the
"answer"—"what was it I should have said or done to make it right?" Avoid
pleas from students for the "right answer" which can rob them of the
opportunity to think and problem-solve for themselves. Ask for suggestions
of possible approaches to the problem, suggest sources, and encourage them
to build on existing skills. Always praise students for small, independent
steps. —Submitted by Employee Development
(11.19.08)
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Flu Shots
November 20
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
WFD-108
Music Students
Recital
November 25
12:30 p.m.
Music House
Thanksgiving Holiday
College CLOSED
November 26 through 28
World AIDS
Day/Iredell County Health Dept. on Campus
December 1
Montgomery Student
Center & Mooresville Center
Holiday Band
Concert
December 1
7:30 p.m.
Mac Gray Auditorium
Holiday Chorus
Concert
December 2
7:30 p.m.
First ARP Church
Phi Beta
Coffeehouse
December 3
Second Fret
Coffeehouse & Music Hall
Music Students
Sing "Messiah"
December 4
12:30 p.m.
Rotary Auditorium
MCC Jazz Band
Concert
December 4
7 p.m.
Montgomery Student Center
"Walk-in" Messiah
December 7
3 p.m.
First ARP Church
(Rehearsal, Dec. 6 @ 3 p.m.) |
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| From the President's
Desk |
| March 19, 2008 |
I am reading one of the new books I got for Christmas this year, and I have
been fascinated by its insights into learning and the way the human brain
operates. The title is Proust Was a Neuroscientist and is by Jonah
Lehrer (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007). Marcel Proust was a 20th century
French writer who wrote a four-volume novel popularly titled in English
Remembrances of Things Past. A more accurate translation of the
title, however, is In Search of Lost Time (A la Recherche du Temps
Perdu"). The theme of Lehrer’s book is that scientific insights are often
anticipated by artists, in many instances decades before research reaches
the same or similar conclusions. Proust, for instance, begins his novel with
a lengthy passage describing how memory is triggered by the taste of a cup
of tea and a buttery cookie, a "madeleine." What is remarkable, according to
Lehrer, is that Proust described the complex functioning of memory some
fifty years before neuroscience confirmed the novelist’s descriptions.
Professor Rachel Herz, a psychologist at Brown University, presented a
scientific paper in 2005 entitled "Testing the Proustian Hypothesis" that
"our senses of smell
and taste are uniquely sentimental. This is because smell and taste are the
only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus, the center of the
brain’s long-term memory. Their mark is indelible. All other of our senses
(sight, touch, and hearing) are first processed by the thalamus, the source
of language and the front door to consciousness" p. 80). While the chapter
on Proust focuses on artistic and scientific understanding of memory, other
chapters—a total of eight in all—focus on other artists and art forms—e.g.,
Walt Whitman, George Eliot, Paul Cezanne, Igor Stravinsky, etc.—where the
artist anticipates a later scientific discovery about the way the mind
works. Having the connection between artistic creativity and scientific
research again held up for examination and confirmation makes for
fascinating reading. |
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