Hello on this fall evening as the sunset peaks through. Some Notes and News.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT

TD Sophomore Advising Night: Monday, October 6, 9 – 10 PM, TD South Common Room. The director of Undergraduate Career Services will talk about majors and employment, the director of study abroad will talk about study abroad, TD students will talk about their summer and study abroad choices, and I will talk about choosing a major.

ACADEMICS

Academic Deadlines:
October 15: Deadline to apply for a spring-term 2009 Term Abroad.
October 17: Deadline to complete applications for financial aid for the spring term, for students not enrolled in the 2008–2009 fall term.
October 24: Midterm. Last day to withdraw from a fall-term course without having the course appear on the transcript. Deadline to apply for double credit in a single-credit course. Withdrawal from Yale College on or before this date entitles a student to a rebate of one-quarter of the term’s tuition.
November 7: Last day to convert from CR/D.\/Fail option in a fall term course to a letter grade.

Freshmen
Listening and Note-Taking Skills workshop: Tuesday, Sept. 30, at 7:30 pm, LC 101, and repeated on Wednesday, October 1, at 4:00 pm, LC 101. The presentation lasts one hour. The presenter, Mark Schenker, Associate Dean of Yale College, has offered this very popular workshop for many years to help students develop strategies for taking more useful notes during class. No sign-up or registration is required, but bring a notebook, and a pen or pencil with you. The presentation lasts one hour.

STUDY ABROAD

PKU-Yale Joint Undergraduate Events for the Week of 9/29
Learn about the program at events this week.

1. Tuesday, September 30th
International Experience Table
1-2pm
Location: Bass Library

Tuesday, September 30th
Study Break in Morse College
8-9:30pm
Location: Dining Hall

2. Wednesday, October 1st
Study Break in Saybrook College
8:00-9:30 pm
Location: Common Room and Dining hall

3. Thursday, October 2nd
Study Break in TD College
8-9:30pm
Location: South Common Room

Yale-in-London for the Spring 2009 term deadline is October 10. Full course descriptions and application forms are online at the Yale Center for British Art website: http://ycba.yale.edu/education/edu_yil.html . Questions to yaleinlondon@yale.edu .

FELLOWSHIPS

Seniors
Fully funded 1 yr MA in Urban Education Studies including CT Teaching Certificate Gr 7 -12 followed by 2 yr teaching commitment in New Haven. Application due January 2. Interested seniors should make an appointment to see Kendra Mack at urbanteaching@yale.edu. 432-4631. More information: http://www.yale.edu/tprep/urban/

Juniors (and possibly seniors)
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies / Yale College Five-year Joint Degree Program Information Sessions: Friday, October 3rd at 2:00pm and on Thursday, October 16th at 4:00pm in the Timothy Dwight South Common Room. This program is designed to provide well-prepared Yale College students with accelerated graduate training in environmental science and management. Five-year joint degree students earn a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master of Environmental Management or Master of Environmental Science Degree in five years. More information at http://www.yale.edu/evst/master’s%20degree.html . This joint degree program is open to all Yale College majors. Pizza will be served. For more information, contact Debbie Broadwater, Program Manager of the Environmental Studies & Five-year Joint Degree Programs; 432-9868 or at deborah.broadwater@yale.edu.

OTHER

Interfaith Day of Service
Friday, October 3rd
1:45-5:15 PM (after Muslim Jumma prayers and before Shabbat services)
Chaplain’s Office (lower level of Bingham Entryway D)
Serve your neighbors in New Haven and reflect on service with other students. Meet at the Chaplain’s Office, break into groups, and walk to a nearby locale to put in a few hours of work on the Interfaith Day of Service. All are welcome. To register, email nathaniel.deluca@yale.edu by Tuesday, September 30. Food will be served. Further information from Altaf Saadi, altaf.saadi@yale.edu

Exhibition of summer work by Yale College students who studied in the United States and Abroad this past summer. The Exhibition is called “Working Vacation” and opens on Tuesday, September 30, through Wednesday, October 8. The opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, October 2, from 6:00-8:00. This show is being held in the Yale School of Art Gallery, 1156 Chapel Street. Hours are daily from 10 am - 6:00 pm.

Peer Health Educators: PHE is a volunteer group under the supervision of the health educator at YUHS. PHE’s usually meet once every other week over dinner with her, discuss new health-related topics as they come up, and prepare for several large events throughout the year, as well as ongoing projects. They put out monthly newsletters, help coordinate Stress Down Day in December, send a delegate to Safety Net (an umbrella group comprised of representatives from student health/safety groups), and conduct workshops: Connections (during freshmen orientation), Eroticizing Safer Sex (in February), and others. The role includes lots of outreach, educating, and of course being an at-home resource for TD students on a wide variety of health-related topics and issues. Kathy Tran TD ’09 is a peer health educator for TD and would welcome your interest and help and answer your questions. Further information: http://www.yale.edu/uhs/med_services/student_health.html

NOTES

I have talked about exploring and discovering, and usually when I am talking about how and when to choose courses. Exploring and discovering can happen outside the pages of the Blue Book, of course, and outside can even (and should be?) be outside the list of student groups and other activities — discoveries of and on our own, I am thinking.

I walked by the tree many times and did not see it. I was asked about the tree by a TDer: a fruit tree at one corner of the Yale power plant on Grove St. (even the name of the street evokes). After dinner, I walked up Grove St. to see the tree. I was amazed that I was seeing it for the first time: a quince tree. Right there, before my very eyes. I wonder what the tree is doing there. I wonder the same thing when I discover two quince trees in a (almost) hidden courtyard behind the Yale Press building just down Temple St. from TD. I go there sometimes to sit on one of the benches and to reflect in this quiet and almost unknown place. Then, once, I looked up and there they were: two quince trees with their unmistakably heavy green fruit.

Then another TDer told me that the circle of trees near the Morse gate comprises Gingko trees. I thought to myself, “That cannot be; I would have seen that.” But, no. Again I had not seen. She was right, and only after she told me and I went back to look did I see the Gingko trees. I cannot tell you how many times I have walked past that circle of trees, thinking only of the magic of circles in folk lore and religion. I saw only of the social construction of a circle instead of the trees themselves.

Then last week I received an email from a TD alumnus: “I thought of you the other day as I rushed through a subway stop near Central Park in New York. I was in a hurry and had my head down. You miss a lot when you’re not looking around you, but in this case I noticed something I’d never seen all the other times I’d walked through that station: little green Gingko leaf-shaped tiles in the midst of all the white tiles, as if the leaves were sprinkled across the floor. It seemed a little strange at first, but then I realized that this was the Central Park subway station, and I decided it was a nice touch, bringing some greenery from up above into the underground tunnel. I wonder if they really have any Gingko trees in Central Park. (A quick Google search shows that, yes, they do: http://www.centralpark2000.com/database_trees/database_trees.htm).”

The moral of these little tales of discovery is already well known to you, I am sure: just because a thing is in plain sight does not mean we see it. I do have, as you surely also have, the recollection of that satisfying experience, yet again, of seeing something for the first time, of discovering something unanticipated and unexpected. Maybe we discover because we look up or down; maybe we discover because someone points something out to us. In a community of learners and teachers, both and more are possible. I know of no guide or Blue Book to tell us how and when to see, or tell us when and how to learn. But one lesson seems clear to me: we need to see the place in learning of discovery and surprise.

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