Sonoma County Book Festival

The eighth annual Sonoma County Book Festival happens Saturday, September 15, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Old Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa. For this special day, the street between the two sides of the square will be closed to vehicles, and both sides will be aglow with the white canopies of more than 70 booths showcasing independent booksellers and publishers. Admission is free and includes readings, panels and activities for all ages. The continued support and volunteer efforts of SSU staff, faculty, alums and students help to keep this award-winning event alive and growing.

Some of this year’s highlights include Amy Stewart reading from Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers,  prize-winning cookbook author Mollie Katzen on Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without, and Tim Cahill exploring Lost in My Own Backyard: A Walk in Yellowstone National Park. Maxine Hong Kingston will introduce Veterans of War; Veterans of Peace. Gaye LeBaron will lead a panel on writing nonfiction, and Susan Swartz will lead a panel where women tell all. Other panels will consider travel writing, science fiction, green living, small presses and mysteries.

Katherine Hastings of the WordTemple Poetry Series will host a full day of poetry reading on the Main Stage by such luminaries as Kay Ryan, California Poet Laureate Al Young, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Geri Digiorno, and Francisco X. Alarcón.  Also on the Main Stage, Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will introduce The Big Read Sonoma County and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 at noon.

For a full list of authors, panels, times and locations visit www.socobookfest.org.

Transforming Course Design

All faculty are invited to attend a workshop on "Transforming Course Design" by guest speaker Tom Carey. This session will take place on Wednesday, September 12, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. in Schulz 3001.

Tom Carey is Visiting Senior Scholar for the CSU and Professor of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo, where he was most recently Associate Vice-President for Learning Resources and Innovation. He has been working with CSU faculty development and academic technology staff for the last two years and brings internationallly recognized expertise relevant for transforming course design to the CSU.

Sonoma State University has received funding from the CSU to implement a demonstration project in transforming course design. This funding will enable training, collaboration, and support of interested faculty to engage in a faculty learning community focused on the topic. Brett Christie will be presenting an overview of this opportunity and the related stipends and professional development support offered.
Please register for this session at:
http://depot.csuprojects.org:8080/fdc/emcode/register/register.jsp?campusid=1
Contact Brett Christie (ctpd@sonoma.edu; 664-CTPD) with questions.

Awareness Through Music

On September 13, 2007, Karen Clark, Music Department, presents "Awareness Through Music," a 40-minute lecture/demonstration on the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education and its philosophy and application in education. As part of the lecture, she will present a brief Awareness Through Movement® lesson, then lead a discussion on how the structure of the movement lesson and philosophy of the Feldenkrais Method might be applied in learning and teaching of academic subjects.  This talk will take place in Schulz 1121 at noon; all are welcome and everyone is encouraged to bring lunch.