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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


The quality of our faculty and staff has long been a hallmark of MCC. They make an extraordinary difference in the lives of our students, and this fact was underscored yesterday when I met with several of our alumni for lunch. Most had graduated from the college decades ago, yet they could all name the remarkable individuals at MCC who helped them along their academic and personal journeys. Their stories spoke powerfully to the impact that one professor or advisor can have on the entire trajectory of a student’s life.

Consistently, our alumni -- many of whom had not had much academic encouragement before enrolling -- share that MCC made them feel like “real college students.” They saw themselves as academics, as contributing to a larger discussion and as full participants in higher education. One way that MCC builds this sense of academic community is through its own faculty and staff, and another is by reaching well beyond the confines of campus to bring in visiting scholars and writers-in-residence. As a result, our students have what many of their community college peers do not:  the opportunity to engage in learning and participate in academic discourse on a national and international scale. These Visiting Scholars add an even greater depth and richness to our students’ MCC experience, helping them to understand the impact and reach of scholarship and the power of a well-rounded education. Even today, I can remember attending visiting lectures by everyone from Maurice Sendak to Stephen Jay Gould to Mark Strand. I fondly recall finally understanding the variability in the expanding universe (years after my C+ in Discovering the Universe) because it was explained by a visiting Frontiers of Science scholar as a rising loaf of raisin bread; today, more than twenty years later, this image still remains in my sometimes science-challenged brain. That is the power of an extraordinary scholar at the height of his or her field: the ability to inspire, to captivate, to teach lessons that last a lifetime. 

Such teachers abound at MCC, and this week, our students, faculty, and staff will have the opportunity to hear from two more: one, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, and the other, a former U.S. Marine who engaged in military conflict while also waging peace. In each case, the scholars speak both to values at the core of MCC and to our students growth in and out of the classroom. Their talks are certain to inspire, and I hope you will have the chance to attend these presentations. 

Poet-in-Residence Billy Collins is appearing October 12 from noon to 12:50 pm in the Brighton Campus theatre to discuss the craft of writing and then will return to the theatre later that evening at 7:00 pm for a poetry reading and book signing. Collins came late to poetry, at age 40, publishing early works in (of all places) Rolling Stone Magazine, and his writing is distinguished by its humor and deceptively light approach to subjects that reveal themselves as quite complex.  He is one of the few critically acclaimed contemporary poets to see his collections become best sellers, and in fact, his works are published not by an academic press but by Random House. Collins served as U.S. Poet Laureate for two consecutive terms (2001 and 2002), and was New York State Poet Laureate in 2004.

Visiting Scholar Rye Barcott will speak October 14 at 9:00 am in the Warshof Conference Center (Monroe A&B) about his book, It Happened on the Way to War. While an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on an NROTC scholarship, Barcott spent time in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. This experience led him to found Carolina for Kibera (CFK), whose mission is to prevent violence and empower youth through participatory development. After completing college, Barcott then served five years on active duty in the Marine Corps, simultaneously waging both war and peace.  For his efforts with CFK, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011 and an inaugural TED fellow. 

Who would you like to see visit MCC?  How might they interact with or inspire our students?  Share your thoughts on the
blog.

Anne Kress
President's Office
10/12/2011