Students' Web Television Initiative Focuses on Drinking Prevention

Recently J. Sibley Law, a pioneer of short short-format video through his media company, Saxon Mills, recently worked with a number of high school students from HYPE (How Youth Positively Entertain), a youth development program of the Stratford, CT, Community Services Department. Among other prevention and wellness activities, HYPE provides teens with a forum to create underage drinking prevention programming for their peers.

Over the summer, this collaboration produced, "What's in Your Cup?", a web television production designed to help educate young people about some of the consequences of underage drinking.

Five episodes were produced, and each was connected to the others by a common tagline: "It's easy to make mistakes when we're young. Don't make them worse by drinking."

To access a Connecticut Post article about this initiative, please visit:

Connecticut Post: Students take teen drinking prevention to the web (4 DEC 10)

To view the "What's in Your Cup?" production, please visit:

"What's in your Cup?"

"O Come O Come Emanuel"

As part of the observance of this holy season of Advent, I offer Mannheim Steamroller playing "Veni Veni" ("O Come O Come Emanuel") with a Christmas-related slide show:

Incorporating Student Performance Measures into Teacher Evaluation Systems

A number of educational systems in New England and around the nation are now attempting to incorporate student achievement gains into teacher evaluations. Such attempts face at least two important challenges: generating valid estimates of teachers' contributions to student learning and including teachers who do not teach subjects or grades that are tested annually.

A recently released report from the RAND Corporation, Incorporating Student Performance Measures into Teacher Evaluation Systems, considers these challenges in terms of the kinds of student performance measures that educational systems may use to measure teachers’ effectiveness in a variety of grades and subject areas. In this report, the authors examine how the five profiled systems are addressing assessment quality, evaluating teachers in nontested subjects and grades, and assigning teachers responsibility for particular students.

The authors also examine what is and is not known about the quality of various student performance measures used by school systems and offer recommendations to policymakers about approaches to consider when incorporating student achievement measures into teacher evaluation systems. These recommendations include:

• creating comprehensive evaluation systems that incorporate multiple measures of teacher effectiveness;
• attending not only to the technical properties of student assessments but also to how the assessments are being used in high-stakes contexts;
• promoting consistency in the student performance measures that teachers are allowed to choose;
• using multiple years of student achievement data in value-added estimation, and, where possible, using average teachers’ value-added estimates across multiple years; and
• finding ways to hold teachers accountable for students who are not included in their value-added estimates.

To access the complete report, please visit:

RAND: Incorporating Student Performance Measures into Teacher Evaluation Systems

National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month

December is being observed as National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month, and a number of communities in this region are striving, in some way, to make injuries and deaths from impaired driving less of a threat.

An average of approximately 36 people are killed in drunk driving accidents and another 700 are injured each day throughout the U.S. During National Drunk and Drugged Driving Awareness Month and throughout the year, communities, health and safety organizations, and residents are being encouraged by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work to prevent these tragedies.

Recommendations from C.D.C. include:

• Designate a driver before going out.
• Don't allow impaired family or friends to get behind the wheel.
• When you host a party, look out for your guests.
• If you've been drinking or using drugs, get a cab, take public transit, or call a friend or family member to pick you up.

For more information, please visit:

CDC: National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month

Presidential Proclamation: National Impaired Driving Prevention Month

Healthvision: National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month

Campus Ministries Help College Students Meet Faith Challenges

A recent National Catholic Register article explored the challenges facing college students who try to balance their Catholic faith with the other priorities in their lives. There are a number of campus ministry resources available to assist these students, and some of these resources are discussed in the article.

To access this article, please visit:

National Catholic Register: Bridging the College Faith Gap (3 DEC 10)

"Tis' the Season"

A reminder from chronicler Rocco Palmo about the meaning of this time of year:

Whispers in the Loggia: "Lights, Please..." (3 DEC 10)

EPA Co-sponsors Green Chemistry Forum for New England Scientists

EPA’s New England office is working collaboratively with Beyond Benign to sponsor a Green Chemistry Networking Forum on 16 December at the MIT Faculty Club in Cambridge, MA. The forum is a free event meant to support and help further develop a network of cutting-edge scientists engaged in finding safer, less-toxic chemical uses to advance sustainability in our society.

Green Chemistry is the design, development, and implementation of products, materials, and processes to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of toxic and hazardous waste. Green Chemistry is a philosophy and approach to design new materials and products derived from renewable feedstock. Green Chemistry considers the entire life cycle of the materials and products manufactured.

EPA is launching a New England Green Challenge, with a goal to broaden the understanding and adoption of green chemistry practices and principles in business, education, government, health care, and society as a catalyst to grow a sustainable economy in New England and beyond. Some goals include understanding the interrelationship of green chemistry and sustainability, supporting a transformative dialogue about new ways to achieve a safe and green sustainable future, and fostering a New England economy that is based on local resources, labor force, research capacity and expert knowledge.

For more information about this conference, please visit:

New England Green Chemistry Networking Forum, December 16, 2010

Journey to the Priesthood

The Providence Journal recently ran a good article about Father Marcel Taillon, a priest in the Diocese of Providence (currently pastor of Saint Thomas More Parish in Narragansett) and his journey to the priesthood. To access this article, please visit:

Providence Journal: The R.I. Life: The Lord called, and Marcel Taillon answered (29 NOV 10)

"How Can I Keep from Singing?"

"No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging.":




Many are familiar with this hymn. The text is from an Early American Shaker hymn.

Wreaths Across America

A number of communities throughout New England will be participating in the Wreaths Across America program this year. The program, which honors our veterans at Arlington National Cemetery and over 500 other locations nationwide, will be held on Saturday, 11 December.

As of this date, we are aware of 95 participating local programs in New England, including 46 in Connecticut, 14 in Maine, 17 in Massachusetts, 10 in New Hampshire, 4 in Rhode Island, and 4 in Vermont.

Wreaths Across America, was formed as an extension of the Arlington Wreath Project.  The Arlington Wreath program was started by Morrill Worcester (Worcester Wreath Company, Harrington, ME) in 1992 with the donation and laying of 5000 Christmas wreaths to Arlington National Cemetery.  This became an annual journey for Mr. Worcester.

The project received national attention in 2005, when a photo of the headstones adorned with wreaths and covered in snow circulated around the Internet. Numerous requests poured in from all over the country from people wanting to carry out similar projects at their national, state, and local cemeteries. This led to the the creation of “Wreaths Across America™.

The Patriot Guard Riders volunteered to serve as an escort for the wreaths going to Arlington. This led to the annual “Veterans Honor Parade” that travels the east coast in early December.

For more information about the Wreaths Across America project, please visit:

Wreaths Across America

The Veterans Honor Parade - the procession of tractor-trailer trucks carrying the wreaths, along with escort vehicles - is scheduled to leave Maine on Sunday, 5 December, and is currently scheduled to make a number of stops in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut between Sunday and Thursday.

For more information about these stops and the full itinerary, please visit:

2010 Wreath Escort Itinerary

Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for December

Pope Benedict XVI's general prayer intention for December is: "That our personal experience of suffering may be an occasion for better understanding the situation of unease and pain which is the lot of many people who are alone, sick or aged, and stir us all to give them generous help."

His mission intention is: "That the peoples of the earth may open their doors to Christ and to His Gospel of peace, brotherhood and justice."

"This Day God Give Me"

The hymn "This Day God Gives Me" has been swirling around in my head this morning, and so I offer this version (the melody is a bit different from the one I am used to: