Opening+FRS+107+Letter

Here's the letter I sent by email and will later send by snail mail:

August 4, 2006

Hello from Warren Wilson College:

Here’s yet another letterful of information, this time from Laura Turchi, the instructor for your First Year Seminar. I’m going to send this out by email and then do a follow-up snail mail for those of you lucky souls who are at the beach or deep in the woods. Here in Asheville the town is in recovery from Bele Chere, a street festival that brings in the crowds for food and free music and rides and games and arts and crafts and you get the idea. Nearby WWC is hopping – people coming back from vacation: hugging old friends and greeting new members of the community. There is a gigantic geothermal energy drilling project to gawk at, and it’s been hot here, but not as bad as elsewhere in the country. Everybody’s talking about you, The New Class. You’re big, you’re talented, and we’re going to shape each other’s lives in the coming weeks and months. It’s exciting. There are 16 of “you” in the seminar. You represent 11 different states, stretching from Washington to Wyoming to Massachusetts to Georgia. You were born 1985-88. Some of you have had a year or more away from high school, adventuring across the globe. I bet others of you still owe thank you notes from graduation gifts. Get to it! It will be fun to discover the wide range of talents and interests that are represented by our group. We have a lot to learn from each other. You also have a wild range of email addresses – it’s a found poem to see them all in a row – so the standard issue (first initial) (last name) @warren-wilson.edu will seem dull in comparison. You’ll get hooked up with the campus system in the first week you’re here. If you haven’t gotten an email from me and you’re reading this on paper, something’s bouncing. If you do read email regularly, please email me: lturchi@warren-wilson.edu …  Also, please go to this wikisite http://turchiwiki.wikispaces.com/  and post an introduction.

A bit about me: I’m chair of the Education Department, so I spend a lot of time with people who are, or wannabe, teachers. This summer I was back in Europe in June, I’ve been playing a lot of classical viola, reading and reading, writing reports for an accreditation visit this fall (yuck), helping my department survive Carson Hall renovations (good for media access for our class). …thinking about how to “do” this first year seminar, which was a big success last fall. Our peer group leader is Hank Hambright, a bicycle fanatic and great guy who will be a sophomore, having survived this same first-year seminar last fall. We’ll get him to introduce himself on the wiki too.

Depending on what information you peruse, you might see our seminar listed as “Information Matters” or “Media, Advertising, and Public Relations” and/or something about American culture. Don’t worry: it’s all the same class. Although I admit I don’t watch much tv, I am very interested in the ways ideas and opinions are communicated across a wide range of media, and then how that communication influences all sorts of individual choices. It’s fair to say this class is about truth and perspective. We’ll be reading A Hundred and One Days, A Baghdad Journal by Asne Seierstad. The author is a renowned Norwegian journalist and she provides a media perspective on the US invasion of Iraq. This will help us think about how the US looks to other countries – even ones like Norway who have also sent troops. We’ll read Anne Garrells’ Naked In Baghdad which is an American journalist’s (NPR) perspective on exactly the same story of the US invasion. Or is it the same story? We’ll read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser in order to think about all the ways that fast food is a part of our US culture, and thus our identity. The connection is media and image, as you can guess. And we’re going to pay attention to some local politics—a congressional race, especially. There’s lots of media in politics, and we’re going to see what issues emerge in the race of related to poverty and affordable housing here in this region. That will tie in to our service projects. Do you like to work on digital productions? You’ll get some experiences with this class. Bring a digital camera (still or camcorder or both) if you’ve got one.

Take a good look, please, at the registration materials you’ve received from the Dean (John Casey). You’ll see some of the options for fall classes, the common readings from Heartstone, information on the work program, and more. The challenge of orientation week can be information overload, so if you take the time to think about your preferences and interests we can work together to accommodate them. If, in these next few weeks, you have pressing questions or concerns, please call me. My office number is 828-771-3010 and my home is 828-298-0511. I have a slew of meetings scheduled, so you may only get the answering machine, but I will call back. Email is also good.

I am personally terrible at saying goodbyes, so here are some ideas for you to consider as you say goodbye. Write a letter to leave behind. Be sure to have at least one leisurely meal with people who love you. Make a tape (translation: burn a cd) of all the songs that usually come blaring out of your speakers, so people can listen (or not!) when they miss you. Give away some treasures. And when you’re really pumped up with energy for coming to Warren Wilson, holler in the closet so you don’t rub it in that you’re heading for this incredibly beautiful and interesting place, and necessarily leaving a lot of good folks and things behind. Good luck with the leaving part of this enormous transition. There are a bunch of us standing by to help you with the “arriving” part. See you soon.

Laura Turchi