Newsletter of April 11, 2006

First Middle School Model U.N. Major Success

Congratulations to all who participated in tThe first of six Sprng Model U.N. sessions for middle school students last Wednesday, April 5, 2006. The schools that participated in the first session were be Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School, Queen of All Saints (South St. Louis County), and St. Gabriel School (South St. Louis City).

Five resolutions were on the agenda and we were able to consider four of them. Resolutions on each of the topics listed below overwhelmingly passed the General Assembly. You can read the resolutions; see the amendments; and examine the votes by clicking here.

1. Child Trafficking (St. Gabriel's) -- Passed
2. International Adoption (Queen of All Saints) -- Passed
3. AIDS (Maplewood-Richmond Heights) -- Passed
4. Tsunami & Natural Disaster Relief (St. Gabriel's) -- Passed

Unfortunately, we did not have time to consider the resolution on refugees submitted by Queen of All Saints School.

Once again, you can access the five resolutions by clicking here.

After two weeks off, 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. We will give you the line-up for the resolutions on April 26 in next week's e-newsletter.

If your school is not among the three that participated 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.

All sessions are at the Creve Coeur Government Center (map and directions) from 9:00 AM - 12:00 Noon.

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

Special Documentary Film Showing at High School Discussion This Saturday!

This Saturday (April 15) we are going to have a special premier showing of a documentary film. The film provides grass-roots coverage of St. Louisan Jeff Smith's 2004 race for the House of Representatives from Missouri's Third District.

Jeff Smith is a fellow in his early thirties. He studied political science in college and over the past several years has held positions as adjunct professors at Washington University and Dartmouth. He is a graduate of Horton Watkins High School (Ladue) who spent much of his youth playing basketball in north St. Louis. That was essentially a mandate from his father who wanted Jeff to be a star basketball player and felt that he would only reach that goal if he trained with the best.

(continued)

Following the 75-minute film Jeff (the candidate), Frank Popper (the film-maker) would love to hear feedback from students. The film is at Crossroads (map) from 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM.

Hopefully we will have time for some free-flowing discussion on topics of your choice before we adjourn at 11:00 AM.

Also.....

Special thanks to Allison Reed (Rosati-Kain, 2008) who came to the United Nations Association's Annual meeting last Sunday at the Wei Hong Restaurant in University City. She gave a splendid description of our "Reinventing the United Nations" conference last February.
Please keep in mind that our final discussion of this school year will be on Saturday, April 29. While we will have ample time for free-flowing discussion, we will also have a 30-minute "teach-in" on the civil war and famine in Darfur presented by Danielle Silber, chairperson of the Washington University International Film Festival.
We will wrap the school year up with our annual Spring picnic and softball game. It will be on Saturday, May 13, from 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM at Deer Creek Park in Maplewood. More details to follow.
Finally, please don't forget our summer events including workshops on "Public Policy by the Numbers" and one or two Urban Studies field trips.

Link to Photos from April 1 Discussion

Link to Video from April 1 Discussion (may not be posted until Wednesday)

Map and Directions to Crossroads School

Washington University International Film Festival Continues

Three films remain in this Spring's Washington University International Film Festival. They are on April 11, April 20, and April 27. The one tonight (Tuesday night) is called "Turtles Can Fly." It is about people in a Kurdish refugee camp on the eve of the U.S.-Iraq war.

Some of the films 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].

Special thanks to Christina Doelling (Rosati-Kain, 2008) for coming to last week's film!

Photos!

Streaming Video!

Survey on Bush Administration & Possible Iranian Nuclear Weapons

Over the weekend, reports from The New Yorker Magazine and the Washington Post indicated that the Bush Administration is studying the option of military strikes against IRAN (as opposed to IRAQ). The reason would be that U.S. intelligence is reporting that Iran is close to developing and manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Conservative estimates are that to inflict significant damage on the Iranian nuclear program, at least 400 bombs would have to be dropped, some of them of the tactical nuclear variety. Many of the presumed Iranian sites are concrete enclosed located many feet below the surface of the ground.

Our survey today involves several questions related to this subject.

Click here to take the survey:

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.

Click here for survey on voting rights of felons:

Previous Survey Results!

Survey on Accuracy of SAT and ACT Tests

COMMENTS:

Survey on Popularity of President Bush

Comments:

Anonymous: Bring on Hillary and Obama in '08!

Our survey last week was 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).

3. People who have been arrested and indicted for committing felonies but who have not yet been found guilty in a court of law.

Survey on Voting Rights on Convicted Felons, Previous Felons, & Possible Felons

Additional Links

Photo Gallery

Streaming Video [Real Media]

Civitas Calendar

Civitas Intranets Site

Civitas Home Page

Maps & Directions

Previous Newsletters

Resolutions (High School U.N.) for 2004-2005

Checklist for Writing a Model U.N. Resolution

Reinventing U.N.Conference Home Page

General Assembly Countries

Security Council Countries