VOL. V, No. 14;
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
Dear Arthur,
Today's newsletter includes:
1. Final
Information on tomorrow's Middle School M.U.N.
2. Report from last Saturday's High School Discussion
Group.
3. Information on Washington University's International
Film Festival.
4. Information on our
new survey system, ZOOMERANG. Our survey of the week
will be on Voting Rights of
Felons.
|
|
Civitas Home
Page
|
First Middle
School Model U.N. Tomorrow
The first of six Sprng Model
U.N. sessions for middle school students is tomorrow, Wednesday,
April 5, 2006. The participating schools in the first
session will be Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School, Queen
of All Saints (South St. Louis County), and St. Gabriel School
(South St. Louis City). We expect approximately eighty
students. The session will be at the Creve Coeur Government
Center (map
and directions) from 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM.
Resolutions to be considered include:
1. Child Trafficking (St.
Gabriel's) 2. International Adoption (Queen of All Saints) 3. AIDS (Maplewood-Richmond Heights) 4.
Refugees (Queen of All Saints) 5. Tsunami & Natural Disaster Relief (St. Gabriel's)
You can access
the five resolutions by clicking here.
After a
brief hiatus we will come together on Wednesday, April 26 with
Cathedral School (St. Louis City), St. Francis Cabrini (St. Louis
City), City Academy (St. Louis City), St. Dominic Savio (South
St. Louis County), and St. Mary Magdalen (mid St. Louis County).
The rest of the schools will have their General Assemblies on May
3, May 4, May 10, and May 11.
If your school is not among the three
participating in the April 5 M.U.N. session, you still have
an opportunity to have a Civitas staff member read your
rough drafts and provide you with some (we hope) helpful
feedback. E-mail your rough drafts (soon please!) to Lisa at [email protected]
and she will get back to you quickly with comments about the
resolutions and ideas for how to improve them for your General
Assembly. Of course, if you already have the final drafts
of your resolutions completed please send those in so we can get
them posted on the web.
As always, if
you have any questions or need any additional resources for your
students, please contact Lisa Granich-Kovarik at [email protected]
or (314) 865-4704.
Middle School
Country Selections for 2005-2006
|
Outstanding High School
Discussion Last Saturday!
It was a most engaging and
informative discussion that we had last Saturday, April 1 (no
foolin', of course). Here's what we did:
- Video demonstration of the much easier system Civitas now has
allowing readers of this newsletter and others to access our
on-line surveys. Please check out our article below for
more information on this.
- Discussion on
United States immigration policy. As both houses of
Congress wrestle with this issue and politicians align themselves
without regard to political party affiliation, the country
struggles to find a solution that directly affects over 11
million "illegal aliens." Our discussion featured arguments
from both extremes on the issue: (a) Build a 20-foot wall along
700 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border and pepper the American side
with one million land mines to further discourage crossovers, and
(b) establish a comprehensive "guest worker" program for the 11
million involved and if they meet certain standards, allow them
to apply for American citizenship after six years. We still
have a distance to go before we can recommend any compromise
solutions to others.
- Information
about the Washington University International Film Festival
presented by Danielle
Silber (pictured at left).
This presents students, teachers, and anyone else interested in
internation affairs with an opportunity to learn much more about
"hot spots" in the world that generally are not covered by the
mainstream press. This Wednesday, April 5, the movie
"Dreams Die Hard" will be shown. It profiles survivors of
human trafficking across the U.S., highlighting their passion for
freedome of justice. We have more information on the
festival in the following story. You can get complete
information on the film festival including times, locations, and
further descriptions of the films by clicking
here.
Danielle will be joining us again at our
April 29 discussion group. She will conduct a 30-minute
"teach-in" on the human rights abuses and civil war in Darfur (in
the Sudan in Africa). She will be available to take
numerous questions on this "somewhat hidden" issue.
We did not have time to discuss other issues
such as: (1) Senator Russell Feingold's (D-WI) motion to censure
[condemn but not punish] President Bush for unlawful spying on
Americans and other questionable acts; (2) another round of
rising gasoline prices, and (3) ethical issues involved in
betting on sports? However, when we meet next on Saturday,
April 15, from 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM, let's keep in mind that as
always, the topics are fluid and the ultimate choice comes
from the students who are present. Adults with the
curiousity, critical thinking skills, irreverance, and
humor of students are welcome as well. One other
item: those students who participated in February's "Reinventing
the United Nations" conference will have an opportunity to meet
with and address our local chapter of the United Nations
Association. The meeting (which includes dinner at our
expense) will be this Sunday, April 9, from 4:00 PM - 7:00
PM at the Wei Hong Restaurant in University City. If you
are interested, please contact us by midnight, this Wednesday,
April 5, at [email protected]. Link
to Photos from Last Saturday's
Discussion
Link
to Video from Last Saturday's Discussion (may not be
posted until Wednesday) Map
and Directions to Crossroads School
|
Washington University International Film
Festival
Danielle Silber,
chairperson of the Washington University International Film
Festival, met with high school students at last Saturday's
Discussion Group. She provided us with comprehensive and
engaging information on the Festival. Four films remain, on
April 5, April 11, April 20, and April 27. Some are
"stand-alone" films; others will have comments from or
discussions lead by professors. All relate to topics that
we have touched upon in both our high school and middle school
programs. We thought that you might be interested.
You can get more information including the listing of the
remaining films by clicking
here, clicking on the image to the right, or e-mailing
Danielle at [email protected].
|
| Photos! | Streaming
Video! |
| |
|
Become Part of the Civitas Survey
Community
We have a brand new survey system
at Civitas called ZOOMERANG.
It gives us the opportunity to offer surveys with virtually
any format and to concurrently run as many surveys as we
wish. Additionally, it provides much improved
anonymity for participants, something that has
been of concern to many. It still retains the option
of letting participants who want to have their comments
attributed to them to do so. It does not
involve signing in with user names and passwords!
Our surveys have been extremely interesting to
those who participate, but the reliability of our results is
minimal because our sample size is generally quite small.
Our surveys will become far more meaningful and interesting if
more of our readers participate. ZOOMERANG
should make that easier and more secure.
Our survey this week is on the voting rights of
felons.
Throughout its history, the United
States has dealt with questions of fairness within the voting
system. Women could not vote in federal elections until
1920 and minorities (most particularly African-Americans) did not
have legislative protection to vote until 1965. The playing
field is still not level, as witnessed by all the controversies
involved in the 2000 election.
An issue that seemed somewhat peripheral in the
wake of the 2000 election but now has come to the forefront of
our consciousness concerns the rights of individuals who have
been convicted of felonies. Do they have voting
rights?
Our questions
will ask you your opinions on granting voting rights to each of
the following groups of people who have interacted with the
criminal justice system:
1. People who have been convicted of committing
felonies and completed serving their sentences.
2. People who have
been convicted of committing felonies and are still serving their
sentences (including being in prison).
|
Previous Survey
Results!
Next week we will
provide the results of our surveys on SATs, President Bush's
Popularity, and Voting Rights of Prisoners
|
Additional
Links
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Resolutions
(High School U.N.) for 2004-2005
| Checklist
for Writing a Model U.N. Resolution
|
Reinventing U.N.Conference Home
Page
|
|
|
|
|