eLearning Roadtrip

"Courage in Women is Often Mistaken for Insanity"

Today is the 90th anniversary of the Certification of the 19th amendment.  My friend Libby Dorsey shared an email this morning with a reminder of this important anniversary, asking that we remember the day and remember the efforts of those brave women who fought for our voice.

We have had the right the right to vote for a relatively short time. Many women still do not vote in this country.  So this is just a little reminder of how grateful we should be to those who went before us...
 
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. In the years that led up to passing the 19^th amendment suffragists demonstrated and protested, even to the point of staging White House protests. In 1917 a group of suffragists were arrested in Washington DC and jailed for carrying signs and banners asking for the vote.

 

The warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia was incensed because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House. He ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the imprisoned suffragists. 

By the end of the Night of Terror (Nov 15, 1917) many of the suffragists were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

 

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
 
HBO's movie 'Iron Jawed Angels (2004) is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that we can could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have our say.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
 
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
 
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on.  We need to get out and vote. Especially these days. We need to exercise this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

In Memory of Dr. Kim Foreman

Dr. Kim Hyun Deok Foreman, Professor at San Francisco State University, pastor’s wife and missionary to Rwanda, passed away after an auto accident near the town of Gitarama, Rwanda.

I still have a hard time looking at those last words and believing that my friend Kim will not be back at SF State this month, inspiring her students and colleagues to think about how each of us can make a difference in the lives of students, everywhere.

Kim used to tell me how she thought I was brave, how much she learned from me about facing fear. And every time she said that - and I would think about her leaving her home in Korea, and earning a PH.D. in her second, adopted language, running the SFSU ITEC program and slogging through years of academic administrivia without losing hope or faith, her amazing Christian mission service, in Rwanda, a country putting itself back together after having been ripped apart by genocide - I would just smile. My version of bravery seems kind of silly and small when I  think of Kim's accomplishments and commitment to service.

On July 19th she began her 10th mission to Rwanda, where she and her husband had founded a Christian mission school.  On July 31st on her way to Kigali from Butare, she was involved in an auto accident.  She passed away peacefully on August 3rd, never having regained consciousness. A memorial service was held for her in Kigali on August 7th with hundreds in attendance, among them the American Ambassador to Rwanda. Another was held in Hayward, CA, this past weekend, for her US based family and friends.

Kim's example was a daily reminder for me to always try and be a better person. This is my very small way of thanking Kim for that gift. Rest in Peace, Kim. Thanks for being my friend.

Welcome to the New WCET

On behalf of the entire team at WCET, I’m very pleased to share two big announcements.   

As of August 2, WCET became the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)'s Cooperative for Educational Technologies.  We continue to be known as WCET, but now our acronym better reflects who we are, and what we do: We are a community of practice consisting of North American higher educational institutions, learning technology vendors, coordinating agencies and foundations that share a passion for learning technologies excellence in the service of more effective teaching and learning. 

We know that in these changing times, when money is tight and expectations unrealistic, that like-minded thinkers and doers are better served when we work together toward common shared goals. So we have sharpened our focus toward accelerating the adoption of learning technologies innovations in practice, and are raising the bar to reset expectations for excellent digital experiences that engage and inspire. We now actively feature WICHE’s well-established expertise in higher education policy and analysis circles to make sure our stakeholders are positioned for success at each point along the practice-to-policy learning technologies value chain. 

In honor of our new name change, we are quite pleased to launch our new WCET website: wcet.wiche.edu.   Please bookmark the NEW url so you can find us when you need us!

The updated site design is only part of what’s new. We’ve used this site launch to highlight WCET’s core programs and services that help our members Connect, Learn, and Advance higher education learning technology excellence. 

In the next few weeks you will be hearing a lot more about our upcoming annual membership meeting that will be held in LaJolla, Ca November 10-13. We will be making some noise with a new membership campaign and sponsor/partner programs that drive real results for our academic and corporate members alike. We’ll be looking for ways to help you engage with us as we take on the challenge of accelerating adoption of innovations that improve the quality and experience of learning online.

But for now we wanted to tell you our news, invite you to explore the new site, and hope you will take a look at what we are doing to help raise the bar on online learning excellence.

And now, it’s Distance Teaching and Learning 2010 (#DTL_2010) Time!! I'm off to Madison. See you at the Monona Terrace.