Catawba College first-year students will continue the journey they began last summer with the Common Summer Reading text, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," when Edward Cardoza, Development Director of Partners in Health, visits campus March 17 and 18.
Cardoza's visit is offered as part of a second semester Consilium seminar on globalization which focuses in part on the problem of infectious disease in the world and the political, social, and economic causes and effects of disease. Cardoza will speak at a plenary for first-year students and is also the scheduled speaker for Catawba's Corriher Community Forum scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 18 in Hedrick Theatre on campus. The forum event is free and open to the public.
Cardoza works for the non-profit organization co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, the man featured in Tracy Kidder's book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains." The theme of the text is how one man's indefatigable energy and calling in life combine to change the lives of those who desperately need help. In it, the reader is introduced to a Harvard-trained physician, Farmer, a man who spends most of his time and money to address the problem of rampant infectious diseases in the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, Haiti.
In 1987, Farmer, along with Ophelia Dahl, Jim Yong Kim, Thomas J. White and Todd McCormack, co-founded the Boston-based Partners in Health (PIH). PIH began in Cange in the Central Plateau of Haiti and has developed into a worldwide health organization. PIH provides direct health care services and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. PIH operates on a model that focuses on training and employing local residents, which has been implemented in Haiti, Russia, and other countries in Latin America and Africa.
Members of Catawba's first-year students (the Class of 2011) are planning a themed charity dance marathon from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday, March 14 in Peeler Crystal Lounge with the proceeds going to benefit Partners in Health. The theme of the dance is "Beauty and the Geek" and entry fees are $3.
Members of the first-year class' student government representatives include Lucy Scott of Mt. Pleasant, Felicia Youngblood of Rural Hall, Ryan Glidewell of Marietta, Ga., Stephanie Hill of China Grove, Jake McClain of Williamsburg, Va., and Emily Lewis of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Catawba Selects 2008-2009 Common Summer Reading
Catawba College's 2008-2009
Common Summer Reading is "We Are All the Same" by Jim Wooten, an award-winning senior correspondent for ABC News and the recipient of a John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. His Robert F. Kennedy Book Award-winning book's subtitle is "A Story of a Boy's Courage and a Mother's Love."
In "We Are All the Same," the reader is introduced to Nkosi Johnson, a Zulu, HIV-positive child with no hope for living, but whose life remains anything but hopeless. The reader also meets the indefatigable, white South African Gail Johnson who becomes Nkosi's foster mother. Johnson's persistent as an advocate for children like Nkosi helps draw international attention to discrimination and personalizes the apartheid struggle in their country.
Members of Catawba's Common Summer Reading Ad Hoc Selection Group recommended the book because it includes topics which may be addressed in first-year seminars, including cultural differences, heroism, vocation and helping, as well as political and social issues. The book also will dovetail with a second semester Consilium course on globalization which first-year students will take.
"We Are All the Same" will provide a starting point for Catawba's first-year students and their faculty. After completing the common summer reading, first-year students arrive on campus ready to participate in and contribute to intellectual dialog on campus. The book also provides a common thread for intellectual discussion throughout new students' first-year experience.
Catawba's Common Summer Reading began in 2005 as a way to help first-year students become intellectually engaged when they initially arrived on campus. Past selections include Edward Tenner's "Why Things Bite Back" and Khalid Hosseini's "The Kite Runner."
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PHOTOS: Visit from Partners in Health Representative, Edward Cardoza
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- First-Year Class Raises Money for a Great Cause ;
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- Common Summer Reading
