Certificate! Library Conference at ULIM: Civic Engagement in the Online Classroom

What a pleasure to participate in the Library Conference at ULIM -- on the topic "Civic Engagement in the Online Classroom."

This morning I opened my emails to receive this certificate:

For more about my presentation at the Library Conference at ULIM, see

 https://jainmoldova.blogspot.com/2020/10/ulim-conference-universitas-europea.html 

For more about ULIM, see  https://ulim.md/en/

Certificate! Presentation: "USFSP-ULIM: A Decade of Scientific Cooperation,” UNIVERSITAS EUROPEA: Towards a Knowledge-Based Society through Europeanisation and Globalization conference. ULIM

What a pleasure to participate in ULIM's Opening Ceremony to express gratitude for a decade of scientific cooperation.

This morning, when I opened my email, I received this certificate:

I look forward to hanging in my office -- once I return to working out of my office at USF.

 

For more about the Opening Ceremony, and a video of the presentation, see

 https://jainmoldova.blogspot.com/2020/10/ulim-28th-opening-ceremony-usfsp-ulim.html

 For more about ULIM, see https://ulim.md/en/

ULIM conference -- “UNIVERSITAS EUROPEA: Towards a Knowledge-Based Society through Europeanisation and Globalization" -- presentation: "Civic Engagement in the Online Classroom"

This morning I had the pleasure of speaking at the conference organized by ULIM's Library:  “UNIVERSITAS EUROPEA: Towards a Knowledge-Based Society through Europeanisation and Globalization"

Previously on this blog I posted the Call for Proposals as well as the Conference Program:

https://jainmoldova.blogspot.com/2020/10/ulim-symposium-education-libraries-in.html

 

 

 I presented on the topic "Civic Engagement in the Online Classroom"

Abstract

In this presentation I will discuss the development and implementation of a civics project in an online American Government course. The challenges and opportunities of managing civic engagement projects in an online format will be explored. I have taught American National Government online for thirteen semesters.  During that time I administered anonymous pre-test and post-test surveys and collected Reflection Papers and Discussion Board Posts about each of the Civics Projects. In addition, the university administered anonymous end-of-course evaluations, and the Center for Civic Engagement administered anonymous student surveys of this Citizen Scholar course.  I will analyze the results of the survey data along with content analysis of the student reflection papers and discussion board posts in order to determine the impact of the civics project on students' civic learning and political engagement in the online course delivery format. Lessons learned are applicable to courses in fields that seek to incorporate service learning, community-based research, or civic engagement in the online context.

 For more about  my research on this topic, see

“Civic Engagement in the Online Classroom: Increasing Youth Political Engagement in an Online American Government Course.” Vol. 8, No. 1 (April 2019)  eJournal of Public Affairs, pp. 32-68.

 http://www.ejournalofpublicaffairs.org/civic-engagement-in-the-online-classroom-increasing-youth-political-engagement-in-an-online-american-government-course/ 

 and

“Promoting Civic Literacy and Engagement during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” with Elizabeth Bennion.  PSNow, American Political Science Association, 23 March 2020

https://politicalsciencenow.com/promoting-civic-literacy-and-engagement-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

 

The brains behind the organization of this ULIM Library conference

Wonderful to be collaborating again with Larisa Patlis

It was like old times -- with 2 presentations "at" ULIM in the last 4 days.

from my living room in Florida I joined colleagues in Chisinau (and from around Europe -- there were also participants from Romania, Norway, and beyond)-- you can see our banana trees in the background

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 Thanks again Larisa Patlis for the invitation!

ULIM - 28th Opening Ceremony -- "USFSP-ULIM: A Decade of Scientific Cooperation"

I was delighted to be invited to participate in ULIM's 28th Opening Ceremony -- taking place virtually this year.  My presentation celebrated "USFSP - ULIM: A Decade of Scientific Cooperation" 

 Here is a link to the video we recorded, with Romanian subtitles:

 https://www.facebook.com/ulim.md/videos/

And here are some pictures of the event.  As it turned out, I WAS online between 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM when the event was live, so I participated remotely via zoom.  There were also speakers/participants at ULIM, physically distanced.

La Multi Ani, ULIM!

For more about ULIM, see https://ulim.md/en/

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virtually together with dear colleague Larisa PATLIS

 

 

 

what a wonderful  Opening Ceremony; many thanks Valentina CIUMACENCO

Opening Ceremony PROGRAM:

Conferința științifică cu participare internațională cu ocazia a 28 de ani de la fondarea ULIM.

La 16 octombrie curent, cu prilejul marcării celor 28 de ani de activitate ULIM, a fost organizată într-un mod atipic Conferința științifică ”UNIVERSITAS EUROPAEA: SPRE O SOCIETATE A CUNOAŞTERII PRIN EUROPENIZARE ŞI GLOBALIZARE”.

În cadrul Ședinței în plen au fost susținute o serie de comunicări științifice antrenante relatate de către:

- Igor ȘAROV, Ministru al Educației, Culturii și Cercetării

- E.S. Dl. Marko SHEVCHENKO, Ambasador Extraordinar și Plenipotențiar al Ucrainei în Republica Moldova

- Mykola GNATOVSKY, conf. univ. dr., Președinte Comitetul Contra Torturii pe lângă Consiliul Europei, prim vicepreședinte al Asociației de Drept Internațional, Kiev, Ucraina

- Oksana SENATOROVA, conf. univ. dr., Universitatea Națională de Drept „Yaroslav the Wise”, Harkov, Ucraina

- Vladimir VARDANEAN, conf. univ. dr., Președinte Comisia Parlamentară pe Probleme Juridice, Erevan, Armenia

- Judithanne Scourfield McLAUCHLAN, conf. univ. dr., Director Centru Angajament Civic, Universitatea din Florida de Sud (USF), SUA

- Anastasia KUSHLEYKO, Consultant Prevenire, Secția Prevenire, Sediul Comitetului Internațional al Crucii Roșii, Geneva, Elveția

- Valentina CIUMACENCO, conf. univ. dr.,Prorector pentru Relații Internaționale, ULIM

- Andrey KOZIK, conf. univ. dr., șef Direcția juridică, Delegația regională a ICRC, Moscova, Federația Rusă

- Kanstantsin DZEHTSIAROU, dr., Universitatea Liverpool, Regatul Marii Britanii și al Irlandei de Nord

- Elena PRUS, prof. univ., dr. hab., Prorector Proiecte, ULIM ,,Provocările megacrizei pandemice vs soluții pentru sistemului universitar”

- Eugen STRĂUȚIU, prof. univ. dr., Universitatea „Lucian Blaga”, Sibiu, România

- Florentin PALADI, prof. univ., dr. hab., Prorector pentru Știință, USM ,, Ecosistemul (clusterul) inovațional al Universității „Educație – Cercetare Inovare – Dezvoltare”

- Serghei ȚURCAN, conf. univ. dr., Curtea Constituțională, Republica Moldova

- Vitalie GAMURARI, conf. univ. dr., Prorector pentru Cercetare Științifică și Studii Doctorale, ULIM Dreptul internațional în condiții de crize: teorie și practică.

 

ULIM a fost înființată în data de 16 Octombrie 1992, zi marcată anual prin organizarea unei conferințe științifice internaționale.

 

Menționăm că lucrările conferinței vor continua în perioada de 19 - 24 octombrie curent, în cadrul Facultăților și a Departamentului Informațional Biblioteconomic. Pentru a studia programul accesați: https://ulim.md/.../10/Program-Conf_ULIM_2020-_FINAL.pdf

 Special THANKS to our wonderful crew in our Distance Learning Studio at USF St. Petersburg -- David Brodosi and Deanna Salt -- who helped record a professional video for this important event.

ULIM -- Symposium -- Education Libraries in a Continuous Process of Development and Transformation

Our dear colleague -- Larisa Patlis -- whom we hosted at USFSP as a Carnegie Fellow -- is now working at ULIM's Library. We are pleased that she shared this call for proposals with us and that we continue our cooperation and collaboration.

Distinguished librarians from USFSP's Poynter Library  --Theresa Burress, Emily Mann, Allison Symulevich -- will be presenting at the conference. And I will be, too! 

Will post more about the presentations after the conference, which is scheduled to take place virtually on 16 October 2020.

 

 

 

Recording a Video for ULIM's 28th Opening Ceremony: "USFSP - ULIM: A Decade of Scientific Cooperation"

I was delighted to be invited to participate in ULIM's 28th Opening Ceremony -- taking place virtually this year.  My presentation celebrated "USFSP - ULIM: A Decade of Scientific Cooperation"

Special THANKS to our wonderful crew in our Distance Learning Studio at USF St. Petersburg -- David Brodosi and Deanna Salt -- who helped record a professional video for this important event.

 La Multi Ani, ULIM!

For more about ULIM, see https://ulim.md/en/

 

 

Happy International Teacher's Day -- from ULIM's Library

 ULIM Library Video -- International Teachers Day

 

Irina Shikhova: The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903. A historical video tour of Chișinău

 Irina Shikova prepared this video tour of The Kishinev Pogrom 1903:

https://youtu.be/qC0bMBjiLJU 

 

 

The Jewish Press - Rachel Freeman article -- hard copy

As a follow up to my previous posts, this was the hard copy of The Jewish Press article  about the 2020 Yom HaShoah commemoration.

See also this post --

https://jainmoldova.blogspot.com/2020/04/rachel-freeman-article-in-jewish-press.html

https://jainmoldova.blogspot.com/2020/04/florida-holocaust-museum-virtual-yom.html

Rachel Freeman article in the Jewish Press about the Virtual YomHashoah

Previously I posted here about my participation in the Florida Holocaust Museum's virtual YomHashoah commemoration:

https://jainmoldova.blogspot.com/2020/04/florida-holocaust-museum-virtual-yom.html

The Jewish Press published an article written by Rachel Freeman,"Technology Connects the Community on YomHashoah," that includes an interview with me about my experience reading names of victims during the virtual commemoration -- all of whom were from Romania/Bessarabia/Moldova region.  You can read the full text of the article here:

https://www.jewishpresspinellas.com/articles/technology-connects-the-community-on-yom-hashoah/

Technology connects the community on Yom HaShoah

April 27, 2020

By RACHEL FREEMAN
Jewish Press
Social distancing didn’t prevent the Florida Holocaust Museum’s annual Yom HaShoah commemoration from taking place this year.
One hundred fifteen people pre-recorded videos of themselves reading names of those who perished in the Holocaust. Their work was compiled into one live stream that the museum broadcast on Facebook Live from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 21.
“Reading the names of the Jewish men, women, and children killed during the Holocaust is a symbolic yet deeply personal way of remembering these individuals,” said Kristen Davis, director of marketing and public relations at the museum, which closed weeks ago due to the pandemic.
This year’s readers included members of the general public of various religions and ethnicities as well as Holocaust survivors and their children. Additionally readers included members of Congress – U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist of St. Petersburg, and U.S. Rep Ted Deutch of South Florida – a dozen Florida legislators from throughout the state, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, five Pinellas County commissioners, both Jewish and Christian clergy, law enforcement personnel, judges, and educators.

State Senator Jeff Brandes

In previous years, the commemoration has taken place in person, but with the coronavirus prohibiting physical interactions, technology was able to connect the community, near and far. One viewer even commented, “Hello from Jerusalem.” Another sent greetings from Key West.
Yom HaShoah, which began at sundown on April 20, is a national memorial day in Israel. Here in Tampa Bay, the Florida Holocaust Museum has been commemorating the day with the reading aloud of victims’ names since 2017.
“Most victims of the Holocaust don’t have graves,” Davis said. “Reciting their names allows for them to be memorialized while reminding us of their human dignity. Hearing their names offers us a chance to reflect on their lives and the events of the Holocaust while renewing our commitment to ensuring that such atrocities do not occur again.”

Eric Pastman, a Florida Holocaust Museum docent

Davis said she received extraordinary feedback from those who pre-recorded the name readings.
“Almost every person thanked us immensely for doing this, and so many were emotionally moved by reading the names and ages of the victims,” said Davis.
One of the readers for this year’s commemoration was Judithanne Scourfield McLauchlan, a professor at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.
“The list I received had victims all from Romania, which is where I lived and worked, in Moldova,” said McLauchlan in a Jewish Press phone interview. “I was a Fulbright Scholar in the areas where the victims lived and perished. When I saw the list of names and where they were from, I was like, ‘wow.’ It was very emotional for me.”
McLauchlan had never participated in previous Florida Holocaust Museum Yom HaShoah commemorations, but she said she felt honored to be included in this year’s livestream.
“It’s such an important event to remember those who were victims,” she said. “I really appreciate the way the Florida Holocaust Museum made it a virtual event, so we can still remember.”

Florida Holocaust Museum - virtual Yom HaShoah 2020 - April 21st from 10:00 to 6:00; and the Holocaust in Romania

I participated in the preparation of the Florida Holocaust Museum's Virtual Yom HaShoah Commemoration by reading a list of names -- which we recorded via Zoom.
 
The list included the victims' names, dates of birth, residence, dates of death, and place of death.

All of the victims on my list were from Romania, and many of them perished in what is now Moldova. (Bessarabia)


After Romania allied with Nazi Germany, Jews in Besarabia were rounded up and sent to labor camps in Transnistria, and then to Auschwitz.

It was heart-wrenching to read the names, many of whom were children. I tried as hard as I could, but could not fight back tears. I should have had a tissue handy.

You can watch the Yom HaShoah commemoration on Tuesday, April 21st from 10 AM to 4 PM via facebook live:  

https://www.facebook.com/events/266629424470860/


https://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/event/virtual-yom-hashoah/


And here is the Florida Holocaust Museum's facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/TheFHM

In remembering Holocaust victims and survivors from what is now Romania, I borrowed and re-read my daughter's copy of Elie Wiesel's Night. (Wiesel was from Sighet in Transylvania, see more about Sighet: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/sighet)

"NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night, the first night in the camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God  and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself.

Never."


It is a slim volume, and I re-read it this morning. Over coffee, on my porch, while the rest of my household was still asleep. Typically neighbors will be walking their dogs, and I wave and smile. This morning - cool and damp - I was alone with Wiesel and his horrific memories that get more dreadful as the pages turn -tears rolling down my cheek.

But this translation includes Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (from 1986) as an appendix, which provides inspiration (and a call to action) for us today:

"...I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere....Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe....
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere....
There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done. One person -- a Raoul Wallenberg, an Albert Schweitzer, a Martin Luther King, Jr. --one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them....
Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately...."

(See also  https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/facts/)

Wiesel also headed a commission that explored Romania's role in the Holocaust.  You can see the full report here (completed in 2004):

http://www.inshr-ew.ro/ro/files/Raport%20Final/Final_Report.pdf

A few months ago, it was announced that Romania will be establishing a Holocaust Museum in Bucharest:  

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-romania-holocaust/romania-gives-green-light-for-holocaust-museum-idUSKBN1WN1R4

Before the war there were an estimated 750,000 Jews in Romania; today there are 8,000-10,000.

Also relevant to the victims from my list --  this article in Foreign Policy by Robert Kaplan (5 February 2016):

Full text:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/05/the-antonescu-paradox-romania-world-war-ii-hitler/


"The Antonescu Paradox:  Hitler’s Romanian ally led an utterly barbaric regime — that while often protecting Jews inside Romania’s borders, murdered them indiscriminately just outside those borders."

Here is part of Kaplan's description of the situation in Romania:

"Antonescu’s crimes against humanity are beyond adequate description. Deletant breaks down the figures based on the latest evidence: between 12,000 and 20,000 Jews shot by Romanian and German soldiers in northern Bukovina in July and August 1941; 15,000 to 20,000 Jews murdered in Odessa in a similar manner by Romanian troops in October 1941; the deaths of at least 90,000 Jews from typhus and starvation in the course of deportation organized by Romanian troops eastward from Bukovina and Bessarabia into Transnistria between 1941 and 1943; and the deaths of as many as 170,000 local Ukrainian Jews inside Transnistria itself during the same period of Romanian occupation. (There are, too, the thousands of Jews killed within Romania’s legal borders: for example, the Jassy pogrom.) “These figures,” Deletant writes, “give the Antonescu regime the sinister distinction of being responsible for the largest number of deaths of Jews after Hitler’s Germany.” (Keep in mind that the deportation of a half-million Jews from Hungary and northern Transylvania to death camps in Poland occurred after the March 1944 German occupation of those territories. Romania was never occupied by Nazi Germany; it was an ally.)
Typhus, starvation, and shootings on the bleak and freezing steppe of eastern Romania Mare (“Greater Romania”) and its shadow zones in Bessarabia and Transnistria — these facts do not begin to capture what the Jews actually experienced at the hands of Antonescu’s troops. The victims’ valuables were confiscated and in many cases transferred to the Romanian national bank. The victims were forcedly marched; brutally bullied into trenches and ghettos filled with armies of rats and mice; beaten mercilessly and left to die of their wounds; doused with gasoline and burnt. Old men, women, and children were numerous among those who suffered the worst atrocities. Young girls were regularly raped. The Romanian soldiers killed vast numbers of Jews “from infants in swaddling bands to old men with white beards,” writes Vladimir Solonari in his 2010 book, Purifying the Nation: Population Exchange and Ethnic Cleansing in Nazi-Allied Romania. On one occasion in the Bessarabian capital of Chisinau in July 1941, after 551 Jews had been rounded up, “[w]omen and children were shot first, followed by the men who were forced to push the dead bodies into the ditch,” Solonari goes on. In a 1996 memoir, Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld calls Romania Mare and beyond, from Bukovina to Transnistria, “the great cemetery of the Jews,” where, in 1941, mass death “was not yet industrialized and any means of killing was used.”
To wit, the American-Romanian scholar Radu Ioanid’s study of this geographic sector of the Holocaust is more than a book, but a document from Hell: a dry, factual, nausea-inducing account of the most bestial and intimate atrocities, committed in one village and town after another against the elderly and the smallest children by Romanian soldiers and civilians, with Antonescu’s bureaucratic fingerprints everywhere apparent. Ioanid notes how Antonescu once confided to his Council of Ministers on April 15, 1941, after sporadic atrocities in Romania proper, and on the eve of the invasion of Bessarabia and Transnistria: “I give the mob complete license to slaughter them [the Jews]. I withdraw to my fortress, and after the slaughter I restore order.”"

Also -- Iulia Pdeanu's thesis on the Boston College website:"The Holocaust in Romania: Uncovering a Dark Chapter"
https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/pdf/IuliaPadeanu_The%20Holocaust%20in%20Romania.pdf

provides background on this topic as well.


When I was first living in Moldova, information and landmarks (or historic markers) about the Holocaust were hard to come by. There was a monument to Jews who perished in the pogrom in 1903, but when I asked about the labor camps in Transnistria, not much was shared with me at the time. However, it seems as if greater strides have been made in Holocaust education and remembering the victims over the last decade, as new materials are accessible in archives. For example, one of my former students sent me this link for more about records of Jews who were killed in his home town in Transnistria:
https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/holocaust/0250_Dubossary

So, let us never forget. And join the virtual YomHaShoah commemoration with the Florida Holocaust Museum on April 21st.