Editor's Note, September 2004
Elizabeth Haller
PhD Student and Instructor, Kent State University
E-mail: editoraee@hotmail.com
Welcome back to a new edition of Academic Exchange Extra and, for many, to the start of a new school year. It is a time of much excitement as we set our eyes on new faces, fresh viewpoints, and glistening potential. As always, let us do our very best to impart knowledge, patience, and self-confidence on those we are fortunate enough to teach. For those of use who teach college freshmen, remember too that this is a time of mourning for many new freshmen. Many are away from family for the first time, away from friends, away from everything that is familiar and that offers any sense of comfort. Let us do our best, as we fully intend to, I'm sure, to make the transition an easy one for freshmen and, well, for all students, really.
Enjoy this issue's submissions, and as you do, consider offering us a piece of your work for publication. We invite your continued perusal and encourage you to submit articles, poetry, and fiction for consideration in future issues of AEE. Please review our Call for Papers on this site for more details on submission requirements. If you are unsure whether your contribution would be suitable under the terms of our Call for Papers, please send along an inquiry, and I will be happy to respond forthwith. As always, do not forget to check out Grist for the Mill for possible submission ideas.
A reminder that if you are interested in joining our editorial staff, positions are available. Please e-mail me for more details.
Lynne Fukuda returns with another entry for her monthly column, "The View From Here." Fukuda's article is the second installment of a four part study titled, "Study in the Sun on a Desert Island: My Adventures on the Northwestern Hawaii Islands, Tern Island." Please see the July/August 2004 issue of AEE for part one to her intriguing adventure. Fukuda states that she:
will always be grateful for the opportunity to live on and do research in the French Frigate Shoals. Today, on Midway Island, which is a similar place in the NW Hawaiian Islands, there is an ecotourist resort run on the former military outpost. This large atoll once had military housing and even a commissary. But now it is filled with cottages for individuals who wish to stay there and be close to nature and still have some luxuries. I will never be allowed to visit the French Frigate Shoals again in my lifetime unless I go back to school and study Hawaiian wildlife once more.
Being on my own on a desert island taught me self-reliance. And living on the atoll with others made me a better team player, something that I have carried onto my adult life in my career. Hardship and deprivation made me more hardy and cheerful in difficult times. I am able to laugh and joke about the bad times and get through it, much like my grandparents did in the old days when they went without. Sometimes having less is having more. I would never trade the lack of twenty-first century conveniences for the luxury of having nature at my back door, hearing the symphony of animal voices and the crashing of the waves on the shores of the desert atolls. Nothing can ever compare with the beauty of the quiet morning sunrise or sunset without pollution, buildings, or humans. And nothing could ever replace my communion with God and nature, when each day was spent in giving thanks to God for all the richness and wonder that the Earth holds for us. It is only when humans are aware of what we truly have and what we are losing that many decide to fight to preserve the fragile beauty of nature. I hope that many young people will have such an opportunity as I did in my youth. It is our earth that we have inherited from others and that we must pass on to the next generation with the least amount of damage. How rich we are when we are able to do this, and how civilized we are if we are able to ensure that this wealth will remain safe for generations to come.
Dan Lukiv provides
our first feature of this issue. It is the fifth of seven in a symposium
that Mr. Lukiv has generously decided to share with AEE. According to
Mr. Lukiv, "This symposium of seven parts discusses: two phenomenological
studies that explored lived school experiences that had encouraged two
people to become creative writers (part one and part two); the abstract
versus concrete sides of phenomenology (part two); bracketing out bias
and bracketing in possibilities (defined in part three); the implicit
nature of interview data and poetry (part four); the need for educators
and researchers to use tact (part five); and the precepts of something
I call Theory from Phenomenology (defined in part seven). I have
tried to avoid abstract language as much as possible to make the work
accessible to readers unfamiliar with phenomenological inquiry.
Part
One: For Those Who Teach Creative Writing--Study I of VI (see AEE
April 2004 Issue)
Part
Two: Phenomenology: The Abstract and the Concrete (see AEE May
2004 Issue
Part
Three: Bracketing and Phenomenology (see AEE June 2004 issue)
Part
Four: How is Qualitative Interview Data Like a Poem? (see
AEE July/August 2004 issue)
Part
Five: Tact, for the Researcher and the Educator
Part Six: For Those Who Teach Creative
Writing--Study II of VI
Part Seven: Theory from Phenomenology"
Andrew Foran's piece titled "At Telemachus' Gate" is our second feature and "explores the notion of 'stranger' in teaching and the 'curriculum of sameness'."
Marvin Gettleman, PhD, provides our final feature of this issue with his story "Atheism." According to Gettleman, it is "an excerpt from a novel-in-progress set in the 1980s entitled Death Squads. It concerns a young North American graduate student doing research for a thesis on refugees in Central America. In a meeting with the Roman Catholic priest in charge of a refugee camp, the subject of discussion turns to atheism."
Enjoy!
Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.
- Web Editor
| ------------------------------ Page
Citation Reference: AE-Extra. Available Online. [URL: < >. Created: 26 August 2004. Updated: --. Accessed: ] |