Books Building Bridges is a local organization examining the impact of the war on literacy education here in the U.S. and in Iraq. In partnership with Books to Baghdad, Books Building Bridges is sponsoring a drive to collect books for Iraqi students whose learning has been disastrously affected by three years of war. There is a box, outside my office (111 Chapin) for academic books, published within the last five years, on engineering, math, science, computer science, medicine and technology. Several campuses in the Valley are engaged in this book drive. The books will be shipped to Baghdad University in July 2006.
This is a community-building project organized around our shared commitment to higher learning that transcends political divisions here in the U.S. The project also hopes to create connections between this community and that of Iraqi students. The project organizers plan to set up exchanges of letters between interested students here in Massachusetts and in Iraq.
Jeanette Winter, the writer, inspired this project through her publication of The Librarian of Basra, which chronicles the work of Alia Muhammed Baker, who, with her community managed to save 30,000 books from being destroyed in the ongoing war. In 2004, Dr. Safaa Al-Hamdani spearheaded a large effort to collect books for the embattled Baghdad University library. He said, "I cannot emphasize [enough] the tremendous need for books and computers in Iraq." Dr. Al-Hamdani has already channeled 11,000 books to the university, but it's barely a start.
In short, we need your books. And we need people to help collect them. For more information about Books Building Bridges, you can email afsc@crocker.com.
Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.
Martha Saxton
Professor of WAGS and History
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Amherst should stay focused on quality
In 1955, Mercedes wanted to try fuel injection for road-use automobiles. The designed, tested and finally installed this in the 300SL, an exclusive, expensive performance car.
Now, every car you see from your window has fuel injection to the benefit of performance, economy and low toxic emissions.
Had Mercedes set a goal of just improving their mass-produced passenger cars, they would have taken modest, cheap, less imaginative steps … refining the old carburetors. Fuel injection would have waited for years or ever.
It is in the arena of elite demands and objectives, of a climate that excludes all but excellence, that great good is accomplished.
I teach today (Crockett High School, Austin). My students will benefit from my education at Amherst. I am different from what they have known before. I am funnier, smarter, less tolerant of the culturally encouraged nonsense that will pinch their potential.
We need guys like me. Cars like the 300SL.
Amherst is not the place for remedial reading or an orgy of inclusion.
Paul Ehrmann '65