Quaker Schools - period ended 1.31.2006

Quaker Schools/Environment//Building a friendly environment, one brick at a time/Business Gazette/Silver Spring/MD/USA/24-Jan-2006//…A group of workers at Sandy Spring Friends School have manufactured compacted earth blocks for an environmentally green faculty residence on the school’s campus.

The ‘‘Earth House” is expected to be the first and only structure of its kind in the greater Washington area, using a revolutionary technology that utilizes inexpensive on-site materials and unskilled workers, school officials said.

‘‘This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us,” Head of School Ken Smith said. ‘‘We are putting into practice now the environmental principles and practices that we have been talking about and teaching our students for so many years.”

The landmark structure is made possible by an E.E. Ford Foundation grant of $50,000. The grant matches $50,000 raised by the school’s advancement office last year from parents, alumni and friends for the purpose of building new faculty housing.

The new residence will be a one-story structure suitable for either a family or up to three individual residents. It will be located on the north side of the campus, near the organic Community Garden, which is maintained by students and faculty. The yard area of the new residence borders the property of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends and Friends House Retirement Community.

Plans call for the heating and waste disposal systems to be environmentally sensitive as well. Wood for interior framing comes from trees harvested on the school’s campus this year during construction of three new buildings and a perimeter road.

The house is designed by John Spears, a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) and president of the Sustainable Design Group in Gaithersburg, a resource for sustainable housing using materials at hand and unskilled workers in the United States and other countries.

Spears’ daughter Mundy graduated from Sandy Spring Friends School in 2001; his son Chris graduated in 2004.

Spears recommended that the school build the earth blocks on campus and arranged for the school to work with Foxfire Associates, a Virginia company that has developed portable earth block construction technology and machinery.

For more information on the project, visit the school’s Web site at www.ssfs.org or contact Earth House volunteer coordinator Nancy Preuss at the school at 301-774-7455, Ext. 131, or by e-mail to nancy.preuss@ssfs.org. ...

Quaker Schools/Youth/Leadership/Building a friendly environment, one brick at a time/Business Gazette/Silver Spring/MD/USA/24-Jan-2006//…Quaker youths to meetFeb. 2-4 in Sandy Spring

Sandy Spring Friends School will hold the annual Quaker Youth Leadership Conference Feb. 2–4 on its campus in Sandy Spring.

The event, for students in the ninth through 12th grades, is co-sponsored by Friends School of Baltimore, Sidwell Friends School of Washington, D.C., and Thornton Friends School of Silver Spring and Alexandria.

More than two dozen Quaker secondary schools throughout the country have been invited to participate.

This year’s conference theme is ‘‘Passion and Compassion.” Students and faculty will explore the ideas through a variety of workshops, discussions, and presentations.

‘‘Given the current state of our world and the increasingly complex life choices we all have to make, it is important that we all discover and actively pursue our individual passions while maintaining a commitment to helping others and improving our world,” said Karen Cumberbatch, Sandy Spring Assistant Upper School head, speaking on behalf of the organizers. ‘‘Our future leaders need to embrace these concepts if they are to become effective change agents.” ...

Quaker Schools/Religious Diversity//Keeping The Faith In Diversity/CBS News/New York/NY/USA/29-Jan-2006//
National Review Online/Washington/DC/USA/26-Jan-2006//

…The honor society's view on diversity is knotty, as not one single evangelical college among the 102 that belong to the Council on Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) has a chapter of their organization. As president of an evangelical college that is not a member of CCCU and one that has Roman Catholics teaching on its faculty, I do not pretend to speak on behalf of the Council, but it seems peculiar that an honor society which includes Quaker schools and Catholic institutions does not include evangelicals. Perhaps Phi Beta Kappa should think about evangelical colleges the way in which it thought about women and blacks more than a century ago when it opened up membership to them.

So which is it? Is a religious college that sticks to its mission guilty of following a familiar path of intolerance when it declines to employ its declared opponents? Or has Mr. Golden missed the subtler and more significant issue about institutions and organizations that distance themselves from their defining missions when those become unfashionable?...

Quaker Schools/Public Schools//Students enjoy Phila science day/New Philadelphia Times Reporter/Philadelphia/PA/USA/18-Jan-2006//... A group of about 27 New Philadelphia High chemistry students also spent the day at the elementary school, leading their young Quaker counterparts through ...

Quaker Schools/Progressive/Tolerance/Guilford College/Director presses for changes/Winston-Salem Journal/Winston-Salem/NC/USA/30-Jan-2006//…His mother died while he was in high school, which made him think about what he wanted to do with his life, (Joe) Raymond said.

Guilford College's Quaker tradition was also a major influence in choosing a career in social work, he said....

Quaker Schools/Peace Studies/Swarthmore/The road map to peace studies/NUviews magazine/Chicago/IL/USA/16-Jan-2006//…“It’s much more than just looking at the absence of war,” said Kyle Schafer, a McCormick junior active in the NOWAR campaign. ”(It’s looking) at the various things that set the foundation for peace to be possible.”

Some traditionally liberal schools in the United States such as the University of California-Berkeley have had programs for about 25 years. Other schools, such as Swarthmore College, recently have established programs based in older religious traditions.

Swarthmore’s “Peace and Conflict Studies Program,” which students must take along with another major, has existed for about 12 years. But the school has always been interested in promoting peace because of its ties to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). For 75 years, the school has maintained a “Peace Collection” that includes materials documenting efforts toward social change from the Progressive Era to today, said Wendy Chmielewski, the collection’s curator and a member of the academic program’s oversight committee.

Peace studies seems to have the respect of the faculty, Chmielewski said, and is regularly accredited by outside auditors.

NOWAR still is in the preliminary process of lobbying for a peace studies program. Members say the ideal would be an adjunct major like the many others offered at NU. They are meeting with professors and administrators to gain support and help shape the program. …

Quaker Schools/Labor/Whittier College/Students decry sweatshops/Whittier Daily News/Whittier/CA/USA/27-Jan-2006//... "I'm proud to be a student at Whittier College and support its Quaker values. We need to remove this stain from the Whittier College campus.". ...

Quaker Schools/Labor/Whittier College/Students decry sweatshops/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/San Gabriel/CA/USA/27-Jan-2006//... "I'm proud to be a student at Whittier College and support its Quaker values. We need to remove this stain from the Whittier College campus.". ...

Quaker Schools/International Conflict/Carter, Max/Struggle for land continues to fuel Middle East conflict/Jamestown News/Jamestown/NC/USA/25-Jan-2006//…Carter's interest in the Middle East was sparked when he taught at the Friends School for two years in the late 1970s.

Growing up in the Midwest, Carter was raised a Quaker. However, during the Vietnam War, he was leaning towards military service, despite the Quaker tenant of pacifism.

Yet a chance meeting with a survivor of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, changed his life. Carter chose to become a conscientious objector and as part of his alternative service to the military was assigned to teach at the Friends School in Ramallah. ...

Quaker Schools/International Conflict/Carolina Friends School/Rwandan family builds new life in Durham/Durham Herald Sun/Durham/NC/USA/21-Jan-2006//Didier and Anaise don't speak English. But they've been taking lessons at the Literacy Center, and Hodges said he's confident they'll be accepted to the Quaker-founded Carolina Friends School.

Quaker Schools/Humanitarian Assistance/Malone College/Rec center connection to church explained/Canton Repository/Canton/OH/USA/30-Jan-2006//…CANTON = An often erroneous assumption is religion and government don’t mix.

Truth is, the two often are intertwined, especially when it comes to federal funding.

In the past, religious groups had to hide from their identity, creating separate spin-off organizations, to secure grants to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and house the homeless.

“They had to neuter themselves,” said Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C. “But those lines are more relaxed.”

The change started even before President Bush created a White House faith-based initiatives office, Sullivan said.

It should come as no surprise that First Christian Church could secure a $750,000 grant to help build a community recreation center on the land on Market Avenue N in Plain Township where it is building a new church. Sullivan said similar types of projects regularly are supported by HUD dollars.

“It’s not who you are; it’s what you do,” he said.

Two years ago, U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Bethlehem Township, got $1 million to help pay for a wellness center at Malone College, a school that’s affiliated with the Evangelical Friends Church. ...

Quaker Schools/Equality/Swarthmore/Crowded tables/Phoenix Online/Swarthmore/PA/USA/18-Jan-2006//... Unlike many of our peer institutions, we only have one dining hall because of the Quaker belief that everyone should eat in the same place. ...

Quaker Schools/Equality/George School/Students learn lessons on race and ancestry/phillyBurbs.com/Philadelphia/PA/USA/17-Jan-2006//... It was one of the overlying messages at the George School on Monday as the Quaker school celebrated what would have been Martin Luther King Jr's 77th birthday. ...

Quaker Schools/Decision Making/Swarthmore/Put ink towards solutions/Phoenix Online/Swarthmore/PA/USA/18-Jan-2006//... for taking students seriously and treating them like adults, and we pride ourselves on that shared decision-making model inherited from our Quaker founders. ...