Fractional Grading System @ NMSU

The new grading system will be going into affect by the Summer of 2013.

For more information revisit the article linked below:

'Fraction Grading System Revisited': click here

NMSU Roundup News

Exclusive Interview with Robert Listenbee, Incoming Head of Federal Office of Juvenile Justice Full Interview: click here
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange

"I’ve been at the bar of the court too many times with parents who came in and had no idea of what was happening with their children. With children who were at the bar of the court and had no idea of what was happening to them.

So I think we have to do a better job across the board in explaining to children and families what’s going on in our juvenile justice system and why a particular type of treatment or placement is going to best address their needs.

Often we send children away to places far from their families and we do not explain to the families or their children why they’re being sent there. And oftentimes we do not match the specific needs that children have with the kinds of places that we’re sending them.

As a direct result of that, the children come back, they have many of the same problems they had when they left, and they get re-placed later on because they still haven’t addressed the issues and concerns that they have.

So I want to make sure that people understand that I’m going to be there listening, trying to understand what’s going on, at the level where the system impacts children and their families, and not just at the research level, and not just at the summit level, because I think we have an awful lot to learn from our families and our kids."

-Robert Listenbee

'Zotero' Research Tool

Students enrolled in VBW courses are encouraged to utilize the Mozilla Firefox internet browser and install the Zotero application to catalog research and share with students.  To install Mozilla Firefox, click here (includes Mobile application), and to install Zotero visit the website at www.zotero.org.

To visit Voices Behind Walls group blog on Zotero visit the link below:
www.zotero.org/groups/voices_behind_walls

Tupac Shakur 1988 Interview

'Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'

Letter from Birmingham Jail: click here

In acknowledgement of one of history's strongest advocates for social justice, see the letter above titled "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The letter was accessed from the USC Pullius Center for Higher Education (original posting: click here).

'The Beat Within Spring 2013'

The foundation of this online course connects to a timeline of events that started with an NMSU Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences class called "Writing Inside: Prison Literature", during the spring semester of 2008.  "Writing Inside" required students conduct close readings of various texts including memoir, fiction, playwriting, graphic novel, children's literature, essay, poetry, anthology, and history.  Students researched the global prison experience through the perspective of incarcerated writers and community educators dedicated to promoting the power of writing from the silence of confinement.  Five years later (2012), the course blueprint for Writing Inside was modified to focus on a present day creative writing & arts program called The Beat Within.  The Beat Within publishes a bi-monthly magazine of hundreds of poems, writings, and artworks from incarcerated youth and adults.  Counselors and workshop facilitators are also featured in the magazine's editorial section and in comments that are printed in response to the youth & adults that contribute poems, rhymes, and art.  The Beat Within is an accessible and cost effective resource that offers incarcerated youth an opportunity to develop their skills as speakers, thinkers, and writers.  It also engages community volunteers and literacy development activities between detention facilities, justice groups, social workers, incarcerated youth, and their families.  For 2013, the course's subtitle has changed to "A Compositoinal History of Incarcerated Writing".  Our studies of The Beat Within are further supported by key texts, class projects, and weekly online discussions through the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS).

The image above is a cover for the Spring semester's syllabi and features a photograph by social justice & documentary photographer Joseph Rodriguez.  For more information on Joseph Rodriguez please visit the website:

www.josephrodriguezphotography.com

Also please check out his story by viewing the YouTube click here.