VOL. VII, No. 11;
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Dear Arthur,
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Newest Member of Civitas Family
On Monday, Sept. 24, Middle
School Coordinator Lisa Granich-Kovarik gave birth to her
third daughter, Hannah. She weighs in at 8
pounds, 12 ounces! Lisa already has Hannah calling
those teachers who do not respond to e-mails or phone
messages. She will be a very valuable asset to the Civitas
community.
To the right: Hannah with mother Lisa
and father Frank Kovarik, an English teacher and co-Model
U.N. faculty advisor at S.L.U.H.
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Fourteen High Schools Participate in Country Draftourteen High Schools Participate
in Country Draft
About sixty-five students representing
fourteen high schools were at the Civitas Model U.N. Country
Draft last Saturday. Collectively they selected
thirty-nine of the 192 countries in the United Nations General
Assembly. We are most appreciative of
the students and teachers who came to the country draft and hope
that all are satisfied with the country(ies) they will be
representing.
The schools that had
representation were:
C.B.C Collinsville High
School Crossroads College Preparatory Francis Howell
North Hazelwood Central Incarnate Word Academy Lindbergh High School Maplewood-Richmond Heights Parkway North High School Rosati-Kain S.L.U.H. St. Joseph's Academy Vianney Webster Groves
Schools are still free to request additional
countries. We would still like to receive country
applications from the following schools that have previously
indicated interest:
Bishop DuBourg Chesterfield
Day School (St. Alban's Academy) Parkway Central Soldan International Studies
Information
from the country draft:
- How the Country Draft Works Explanation
- List of 192 General Assembly countries in the United
Nations
- List of 15 Security Council countries in the United
Nations.
Please
remember that we will have three committees in the General
Assembly, each dealing with different kinds of issues and
resolutions. The three are (a) Political & Security,
(b) Economic & Social, and (c) Human Rights. Thus a
country will need at least three students as delegates (one for
each committee). In addition, if a country is also on the
Security Council, a fourth delegate will be necessary. If
you want to "double-up" delegates in a committee, you can do
so. However, the more "single delegates" we have the more
countries we can have represented in each committee.
Our next
discussion group will be on Saturday, October 13
at Crossroads School (map) from 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM. The
discussions have been terrific this year; we hope to have a
great turnout for this upcoming one. We'll also provide
time for students to ask questions about the model U.N.
session. If you want help in writing a resolution, we'll
do that as well. We'll also have computers available for
research. Hope to see you there!
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Pulitzer Global Gateway
Program in St. Louis this Week
Journalists David
Enders and Jon
Sawyer from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
are coming to St. Louis on Thursday -
Saturday of this week to meet with students and teachers about
the refugee crisis in and around Iraq. The topic has
become very timely as more people are becoming aware that of the
twenty-six million people in Iraq prior to the beginning of the
current war and occupation in March, 2003, some 4.5 million of
them are now refugees or displaced. David Enders had a
most informative article on the situation in last Sunday's
Post-Dispatch. You can access it by clicking here.
The schedule of the actual workshops with Jon and David is as follows:
School |
Date |
Time |
Parkway West High School |
Thurs., 10/04 |
8:55 AM - 12:00
PM |
at Soldan (with Soldan, Crossroads, Rosti-Kain, and Maplewood-RH) |
Thurs., 10/04 |
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM |
Washington University |
Thurs., 10/04 |
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM |
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St. Joseph's
Academy |
Fri., 10/05 |
9:28 AM -
11:12 AM |
Collinsville High School |
Fri., 10/05 |
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM |
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Teacher Workshop
at Channel 9 |
Sat., 10/06 |
8:30 AM -
10:30 AM |
In the way
of review, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting was
established two years ago to provide accurate reporting on
global issues that often are not on the radar screen of the
mainstream press. Part of their program is an outreach
project to St. Louis schools in which students get opportunities
to communicate directly with journalists on the job. In
addition, reporters and videographers come to St. Louis three
times a year to meet with students in St. Louis to further
describe their experiences. To the best of our knowledge,
there is no other similar program in which students and
journalists can actively interact in real time.
Three
projects are scheduled for the 2007-2008 school year. The
first is the current one: Iraq:
Death of a Nation. David Enders
spent much of the past summer in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan
meeting with Iraqi refugees who have been displaced both within
their country and outside. Other projects will be in
January and April.
Blogs are available for each
school to begin communicating with David Enders -- questions and
comments alike. The link to the blog web site is: http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/global_gateway_students/welcome/index.html.
Thanks to everyone who has already contributed; there is still
time for others!
Finally for teachers, the
Pulitzer Center is sponsoring a workshop on its resources and
curriculum development for teachers this Saturday morning,
October 6. It will be from 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM (location to
be determined). Participating teachers will receive a
$50.00 stipend. If you are interested, please e-mail us at
[email protected].
Teachers who are currently signed up are Kristen Collins
(Parkway West), Liz Morrison (Parkway Social Studies District
Coordinator), Amber Booth (Parkway South), C.J. Kinney (Kirby
Middle School), Margene Jerrolds (Lift for Life Academy), Jane
Garvin (St. Joseph's Academy), Ronni Zagora (Lindbergh), Kelly
Krejnik (U. City), David West (Soldan International Studies),
Kelly Moore (Soldan International Studies), Dawn McClain (Soldan
International Studies), Dr. Hamid Azimi (Soldan International
Studies) and Christine Marshall (John Burroughs School).
We still have room for a few more teachers if they are
interested.
By the time of the workshop, a blog will
be open for any and all teachers who are interested in the
activities of the Global Gateway program. We'll have more
details Saturday morning!
You can access more
information on the Global Gateway Project by clicking here.
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While many of us like
candy and the other trappings of Halloween, the United Nations
has sponsored the UNICEF program for over 50 years to encourage
trick or treaters to collect money to help needy children
throughout the world.
Civitas is looking for someone
who would like to initiate an outreach effort to participating
schools as well as individual students in our program to
organize a UNICEF effort on our part. We will provide
considerable support for the effort. If you are
interested, please e-mail us at [email protected] or
call us at (314) 367-6480.
You can find more
information on UNICEF by clicking on http://www.kintera.org/htmlcontent.asp?cid=75109&tr=y&auid=3031591.
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Two
Essay Contests
We want to
keep students informed about essay contests with interesting
topics -- particularly when there are attractive
incentives. Here is information on two:
Ron Glossop and
the local chapter of Citizens
for Global Solutions is once again offering an
outstanding opportunity for high school and college students in
the St. Louis area to attend an all-expenses paid conference in
Minneapolis in October. The topics of the conference cover
a host of United Nations related issues. In order for a
student to qualify for the trip, he/she must submit a thoughtful
essay. Click here for more details.
Kenya Madison from Vianney High
School has informed us of the Greg Freeman Memorial Essay
Contest on "Improve St. Louis -- Build Racial Harmony."
The deadline for submission of this 750 word contest is February
8, 2008. One contestant will receive a $500.00 savings
bond. Click here for more details.
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Upcoming Civitas Events
(Preliminary Version;
actual events in bold --
always subject to change when change occurs!)
Black: High School
Blue: Middle
School
DATE |
TIME |
PLACE |
ACTIVITIES |
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Thurs. 10/04
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Sat.,
10/06 |
Varies |
Varies |
Pulitzer Global Gateway Program with high school
students, high school teachers, and university
students |
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Sat.,
10/13/07 |
9:00 AM -
11:00
AM |
Crossroads |
Discussion Group #4 |
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Mon.,
10/15/07 |
4:00 PM
- 5:00
PM |
Richmond Heights Community
Center |
Middle School Teacher Meeting
#2 |
Rev., September 24, 2007
See complete Civitas calendar
for 2007-2008 by clicking here.
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Civitas now takes
donations and payment of fees with credit
cards and PayPal. If you
want to make a tax-deductible donation or pay a fee, you may do
so by clicking here.
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ADDITIONAL LINKS
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2006-2007
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Countries
Conference (Feb., 2007)
on "The Nuclear Club"
Checklist
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Resolutions
(High School U.N.) for 2004-2006
Make donation to
Civitas
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