TANG INSTITUTE AT ANDOVER | October 2020

Dear Friends of the Tang Institute,

Happy Fall! Our campus has been exploding with color the past weeks as our trees change color and begin to shed their leaves. Students in Cohort 2 are out of quarantine, and it has been heartening to connect with current and past students on the paths, under tents, and across campus. I continue to be inspired by the many ways in which dorms, advising groups, and classes create community during this challenging year.

Here at the Tang Institute, we have had several programs that connected us with students, alums, and fellow educators over the past month. Our recent Tang Institute Lunch & Discussion, “Now More than Ever: Climate Justice and the Humanities,” featured presentations from students and faculty about ethics, literature, visual arts, and social action. We have offered mindfulness programming in partnership with our own Community Engagement Office and the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion in Cambridge. A follow-up to the ethi{CS} summer project featured talks by Tang Fellows, a charter school teacher in California, and a curriculum manager from an educational non-profit. And our Workshop faculty continues their work with Global Online Academy, revising and refining the program in anticipation of a new group of students this spring.

We look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the weeks and months ahead. As ever, please be in touch with your ideas, insights, and inspirations.

Warmly,

Andy Housiaux
Currie Family Director, Tang Institute

20-21 Mindfulness Opportunities

As 2020 continues to offer uncertainty and challenge, we are reminded of the importance in connecting with ourselves and being in community with each other. We are grateful to be able to offer the Mindfulness Speaker Series again in 2020-21, and we are excited to try out new ways to explore mindfulness in this very different year.

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Towards Transformational Coaching

Corrie Martin, the Institute's Senior Fellow in Engaged Pedagogy, shares how our peer coaching program is building off of other collaborative efforts on campus and creating space and time for deep conversations about teaching.

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Virtual Family Weekend

While Family Weekend looked different this year, parents and families had the opportunity to connect with the Andover community in new and unique ways. In this video to families, Institute Director Andy Housiaux shares the ways we support and enhance teaching and learning efforts, on campus and beyond.

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3 Questions in 3 Minutes

The Tang Institute’s video series, 3 Questions in 3 Minutes, continues! Here, former Tang Institute Fellow and Chair of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Kurt Prescott shares insight into his project, Teaching Religious Studies. During his Tang fellowship, Prescott partnered with the Religious Literacy Project, now Religion and Public Life, to explore the complexity of religious identity. In 2019-20, Prescott had the opportunity to be an RLP Fellow and mentor teachers and educators from across the country.

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What We're Reading

Below are three resources that have been helpful and inspiring to us over the last few weeks that we are excited to share with you:

Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World by Sharon Salzberg. This fall, close to 75 campus adults took part in a book group to discuss Real Change and explore its impact on campus.
We’re excited to share the first edition of the ethi{CS} project’s newsletter, Code of Ethics. This newsletter will be sent out quarterly and will highlight recent events, conversations and other updates on the ethi{CS} project.
What's something you want to keep post-COVID? Global Online Academy asked this question to school leaders and gained insight on how schools are not only surviving this school year, but growing from it.

We inspire teachers.

We inspire learning.

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