Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Haley Outliers Project


Over the next several months, we'll devote our Wednesday blog posts here to one of our newest endeavors with the S.O.A.R. office: "The Haley Outliers Project."

The project involves approximately 60 SIUE Johnetta Haley Scholars in a year-long series of collaborative learning activities utilizing Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. The project is designed to engage Haley Scholars in "intellectual service work," raise the visibility of the Haley Scholars, and explore the benefits of an honors program that highlights students of color.

The Haley Scholars constitute a diverse group of university students who have attained high levels of academic success at SIUE. In the past, the Haley Scholars rarely participated in public collaborative projects that allowed them to further develop and showcase those thinking and academic skills so central to their scholarly achievements. Hence, this project.

Ideally, our discussions--here online and at events on campus--of an intriguing common reading about "the story of success" will assist us in our goals of getting even more people involved in providing "intellectual services" that address the needs of S.O.A.R. students and the university community in general.

We invite you to join our Wednesday discussions.

• September 9: A Community of Outliers
• September 16: Accumulative Advantages of Outliers 
• September 23: Outliers' 10,000 Hour Rule
• September 30: The Trouble with Outliers, Part I
• October 7: Practical Intelligence and Outliers
• October 14: Meaningful Work and Outliers 
• October 21: The Lessons of Outliers, Pt. 1
• October 28: Cultural Legacies and Outliers
• November 4: PDI and Outliers
• November 11: Rice Paddies and Outliers
• November 18: Bargains and Outliers 
• December 2: Race and Outliers 
• December 9: Barriers, Opportunities, and Outliers


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

looking forward to participating.
--Erica

Anonymous said...

What stood out to me the most what the fact that the Rosetans picked up on the egalitarian ethos of the cummunity, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures. This practice is especially important, because some wealthy individuals look down on the poor. The Egalitarian practice keeps the wealthy humble,and it causes the community to be more unified. Financial problems cause a lot a stress, and stress causes sickness and disease. This explains why they are so healthy. They don't have the cares, and stressors the "Outside World" has, which makes them healthier.

If Americans practiced this way of life, we wouldn't have half the stressors we deal with on a daily basis. While this practice is not realistic when it comes to the whole united states, we could incorporate just the practice of being a more unified community just here on the SIUE Caampus. Maybe one small deed at a time, and over time the small deeds will add up and in turn, we would have made much progress.

Allen C.

Anonymous said...

I do agree that if everyone does a little bit themselves that it will add up in the long run. You don't have to be wealthy or in an upper class to be successfull or make a difference in someones life. Sometimes something as simple as a smile could make another persons day better.

-Robert C.

dominic williams said...

This chapter reminds me of a old saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." It shows how you can make your people stronger and make the world a better place. If we could live like this, the world would not be as corrupt or damaged as it is.

robyn rhone said...

I think this was the best way to get us engaged. I love reading books, but really dont find the time to. This was a great idea.

N.L.W. said...

I've never heard of this book before but I am interested to see what the author has to say and the different opinions everyone will have about the readings.

-Nia Williams.