Emmy award-winning author to speak at First-Year Convocation
Emmy-award winning author, journalist, poet and performer Ruben Martinez will be the keynote speaker at Georgia College & State University’s First-Year Convocation Tuesday, Aug. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Russell Auditorium.
According to Dr. Bruce Harshbarger, vice president and dean of students, this is the eighth consecutive year GC&SU has had a summer reading program with its First-Year Convocation keynoted by the book’s author. Martinez will discuss his book “Crossing Over, a Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail.”
“The book was chosen to highlight a topic of current importance, but the program as a whole achieves much broader goals,” Harshbarger said. “It is intended to introduce our new students to a campus culture in which people read, think and discuss.”
Incoming freshmen are required to read “Crossing Over” before fall semester begins. Freshmen are additionally expected to discuss the books in their “Circles” groups made up of faculty and staff. Students will have an opportunity to meet with the author before and after convocation.
“Faculty volunteers lead book discussions in which new students are encouraged to think about the content of the book, both literally and as a metaphor for their own ‘crossing over’ from home to college,” Harshbarger said. “And it’s a very positive situation to provide every member of the first-year class a shared experience with all their new classmates.
The book and summer reading program provide students with conversation starters, Harshbarger said.
“If they have no other conversation starter during the Week of Welcome, they can always talk about what they liked or didn’t like in their summer reading,” Harshbarger said.
In “Crossing Over, a Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail,” Martinez uses his journalistic skills to explore the lives of the Mexican migrants that come from the small city of Zamora– a place where the future can only be glimpsed beyond the horizon. Martinez’s book explores what happens after thousands of Mexicans do not make it across the border by documenting how tragic their “illegal” lives are after immigration.
Martinez is also an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Houston and the associate editor at Pacific News Service. He has appeared as a commentator on Nightline, Frontline, CNN and National Public Radio. He is the past news editor of the “L.A. Weekly” and has won an Emmy Award as the host for PBS’ KCET politics and culture series, “Life & Times.”
He has additionally received the Freedom of Information Award, a Greater Los Angeles Press Club Award for Excellence, a Fellowship in Literature and various prizes in poetry.
For more information on the First-Year Convocation, contact the Office of Student Affairs at 478-445-5169.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Aug 12 2005. Filed under News.
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