The College Writing program at the College at Florham and the Writing Initiative at the Metropolitan Campus have started the semester with two exciting activities.

The Namesake

At the College at Florham the Freshman Read for fall 2006 is The Namesake, a novel by Pulitzer-prize-winning-author Jhumpa Lahiri, which speaks to the University mission of global education and addresses the themes of identity and sense of place. The Freshman Read was developed as a common intellectual experience for incoming freshmen.

At orientation sessions this summer, every freshman received a copy of the book and participated in a discussion on arranged marriage, one of the book’s themes. They were strongly encouraged to read the book by September.

The academic branch of this initiative is the College Writing program, and The Namesake will be incorporated into the College Writing Workshop curriculum. In August, Claire Dixon, English (Flor), conducted in-service training for instructors and prepared a 70-page guide for The Namesake. Nandita Ghosh, English (Flor), contributed a glossary of Bengali terms used in the book.

Bethany Rabinowitz, English (Flor), is coordinating creative ways to explore the themes raised in The Namesake. Special events for the entire campus community include a film festival with the theme of identity (Saturday, September 16, noon to midnight, Bottle Hill Room, Student Center), a discussion on immigration in the “Hot Topics” series and a presentation by Khyati Joshi, education (Metro), whose new book New Roots in America’s Sacred Ground draws on case studies and in-depth interviews with 41 second-generation Indian Americans.

Schedule for the film festival is noon, “Bend It Like Beckham,” a coming-of-age comedy about ethnic identity; 2 p.m., “Spanglish,” a comic drama about cultural identity; 4:15 p.m., “The Flamingo Kid,” a coming-of-age comedy about class identity; 6 p.m., “The New Guy,” a slapstick comedy about social identity; 7:30 p.m., “Little Big Man,” an epic drama about personal identity; and at 10 p.m., “Gattaca,” a sci-fi thriller about false identity. The festival is sponsored by the English writing program, the visual and performing arts department and FDU Film Guild.

The Dean of Students Office has enthusiastically supported the writing initiativeproject from the outset. In Freshman Seminar, a required one-credit course designed to help freshmen make the transition to college life and academic studies and coordinated by the Dean of Students Office, the book will be a trigger for discussion and many of the novel’s themes will be integrated with the course outline. Resident assistants will explore ways to weave the book into their programming.

Susan Gerson, English composition and director, College Writing (Flor), said, “Being part of this initiative has been exciting for me because of all the wonderful work being done by so many people. It truly is a ‘campus book.’”

Metro Writing Studio

The Metro Writing Studio, designed to provide comprehensive writing support services to students, faculty and staff and located in Weiner Library, second floor (behind the circulation desk), will have its grand opening on Tuesday, September 19, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., to celebrate the completion of another phase in the campus-wide Writing Initiative. The Metropolitan Campus faculty deemed student proficiency in writing to be the number one academic priority; and the School of English, Philosophy and Humanities was charged to implement the Writing Initiative, a multiphased, wide-ranging plan to improve student writing skills.

The Metro Writing Studio has wireless Internet access and provides laptop computers to facilitate individual, small group and classroom instruction. Accordingly, the furniture was purchased with mobility in mind — chairs and tables can be clustered into small group stations or configured to seat an entire class or one-on-one sessions. Named a “studio” rather than the more traditional “lab,” the entity emphasizes the flexibility of this learning atmosphere. A stationary screen for projection and a mobile Smartboard, where it is possible to revise and edit with a marker and save corrections, also are available.

In addition to tutoring and classroom instruction, the Metro Writing Studio will host student workshops. Rotating each semester, the workshops will focus on issues such as recognizing and avoiding plagiarism, revising written work, and, for non-native speakers of English, mastering verbs and idioms. Faculty workshops will provide guidance to those who need to define and deliver “writing-intensive” courses in their disciplines. In the spring, Your Professional Persona on Paper, the first of many one-credit courses, will be offered. These “mini-courses” will meet for the equivalent of one-third of a semester and offer sustained learning of a specific writing skill.

“Housed in the Weiner Library, the Metro Writing Studio is ideally situated for the library staff to offer research instruction in the technology-rich space and will coordinate instruction with the Metro Writing Studio to help teach students how to write about the information they unearth,” said studio coordinator Janet Boyd, who also teaches in the Writing Composition Program. She may be reached at 201-692-2165 or at the studio at 201-692-2166.

September 2006

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Flor =
College at Florham, Madison, N.J.

Metro =
Metropolitan Campus, Teaneck, N.J.

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