Category: Bachelor’s Degree

Looking Forward to Residency and Expressive Arts

For me, a magical aspect of residency is getting ready: making airline reservations, planning the seminar I will teach, hearing from students about the artwork they will exhibit and present, and looking forward to conversations with students and faculty colleagues on campus. Here is a “sneak preview” of the seminar I will lead this upcoming… Continue reading Looking Forward to Residency and Expressive Arts

Poetry & Symbolism

  Here is the solitude from from which you are absent. It is raining.  The sea wind is hunting stray gulls.                                                                         — Pablo Neruda   Every day, we encounter symbols that help redefine the world around us and our place in it.  Pablo Neruda was a poet acutely aware of this dynamic, and his… Continue reading Poetry & Symbolism

One Student's Amazing Work With Midwives for Haiti

In the fall of 2010, six months after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, Jenna Schmitz (BA HAS ‘13) moved to Hinche in Haiti’s Central Plateau, 37 miles north of Port-au-Prince. Trained as a Certified Professional Midwife at Birthwise Midwifery School (which has a credit-bearing partnership with Goddard College), Jenna volunteered with a Haitian-led organization called Midwives for… Continue reading One Student's Amazing Work With Midwives for Haiti

The Mediocre Meditator Thinks About Knitting

As a lifelong knitter but only a recent (four years) but dedicated (every day if I can, several seven-day retreats) meditator, here is a short list of similarities between the two activities which I thought might apply to many other kinds of learning processes as well: 1. The beginner gets immediate rewards. Knitting: The magical… Continue reading The Mediocre Meditator Thinks About Knitting

Alumna Lynne Vanderpot on Jung and Expressive Arts in Psychology and Counseling

I assume that many new MA in Psychology & Counseling students at Goddard can relate to the discomfort I experienced at first residency at being initiated into the process of, well, learning how to trust the process. To be perfectly authentic, I showed up on day one looking for much more explicit direction, and much… Continue reading Alumna Lynne Vanderpot on Jung and Expressive Arts in Psychology and Counseling

Goddard Semiannual Sustainability Progress Report

January 16, 2013 Background The sustainability team was formed in 2007 when Goddard’s then president Marc Schulman signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. We conducted a carbon inventory, created a climate action plan, and began working to reduce emissions and to integrate sustainability into all aspects of college activities. The carbon inventory,… Continue reading Goddard Semiannual Sustainability Progress Report

Twinkling Genius

In July 2012, Neely Cohen (BA HAS ’12) reached the final round of Food Network’s “Sweet Genius”– a dessert competition. Neely and the other remaining contestants awaited instructions on what mystery ingredients they would need to include in their dessert stand-off. The winner of the challenge would get $10,000 and national recognition. The host, pastry… Continue reading Twinkling Genius

Contemplation, Clarity, and the Poem

Complex thoughts distilled through plain diction, interactions with the natural world, and specificity of details can heighten imagery and evoke larger implications.  This endeavor to make human connection through introspection, reflection and acute awareness of one’s environment is a prevalent style employed by many ancient Chinese poets.  Within this seemingly simplistic approach, these masters arrived… Continue reading Contemplation, Clarity, and the Poem

Reading, Listening, and Making Poems

  I’ve been thinking lately how certain literary influences have informed and shaped my writing.  As a narrative/lyric poet interested in story and expressed feeling, the poets I keep returning to for inspiration include Richard Hugo, Stanley Plumly, James Wright, Philip Levine, William Matthews, B.H. Fairchild, Lynda Hull, Sharon Olds, and others who draw from… Continue reading Reading, Listening, and Making Poems

The Mediocre Meditator #3: My Three Best Books on Meditation

Below are brief descriptions of my current three favorite books on meditation. Each one is written by psychologists who have been practicing psychotherapists and meditators for more than 25 years. I use them for reference, inspiration and companionship. I reread them and refer them to clients, friends, students and colleagues. Radical Acceptance (Bantam Books, 2003)… Continue reading The Mediocre Meditator #3: My Three Best Books on Meditation

Making a Safe and Empowering Birth Culture: Interview with Alumna Amy Chavez

17 years ago, Amy Chavez (BA HAS ’11, MA HAS ’13) paused her college career in order to raise her two daughters, now 16 and 13. While raising her children, Amy became a doula, studied herbalism, received her associate degree in science, a massage therapy license, and became a childbirth educator and prenatal yoga instructor.  In the… Continue reading Making a Safe and Empowering Birth Culture: Interview with Alumna Amy Chavez

Creative Final Products in the Psychology and Counseling Program

  The last work of the Master of Arts degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Goddard College is the “Final Product.” This work represents a culmination and integration of coursework, and may take the form of a thesis or a Capstone Product. Each student makes his or her own decision about which of the… Continue reading Creative Final Products in the Psychology and Counseling Program

An Interview with Laurie Foos in The Writer's Chronicle

Jorge Armenteros | October/November 2012 Reprinted from The Writer’s Chronicle and www.awpwriter.org EXCERPTI’ll be perfectly honest and tell you that I have no adequate answer to why I write the way that I do. Writing fiction that departs from reality in some way is not intentional for me; it’s not a precept I impose upon… Continue reading An Interview with Laurie Foos in The Writer's Chronicle

Character-driven Fiction: Toward Believabilty

The novelist Paul Auster has written, “As long as there’s one person to believe it, there’s no story that can’t be true.”  And what compels that one reader to believe, especially if the narrative consists of characters that might be difficult to identify with?   The challenge here is to create characters in a way that… Continue reading Character-driven Fiction: Toward Believabilty

An Integrative Approach to Crohn's Disease

Four years ago, Carina Rockland (BA HAS ’13) was hospitalized for six weeks with an unknown diagnosis. She had severe abdominal pains and was malnourished, vulnerable to septic shock, and showing no signs of improvement. Just after Carina’s last surgery, weak and perilously underweight, a gifted acupuncturist visited her hospital room and helped Carina feel… Continue reading An Integrative Approach to Crohn's Disease