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This article presents the findings from a qualitative research project about a group of Black women scholars who discuss their experiences as academics in a predominantly White setting. The scholars represent fields including anthropology, education, Pan African studies, art education, and language studies. The themes found across the interviews include the value of education among their parents and families, the philosophy of mentoring that they espouse, their commitment to service in and beyond the campus, and their productivity within the rubric that Boyer (1990) described as scholarship of discovery, integration, application, and teaching.

Unraveling the Garment Industry: Transnational Organizing and Women's Work. E. C. Brooks. 2007. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 243 pp. (Includes bibliography; index; illustrations; photographs). $22.50 (Paperback). Nobody can write [...]

Three middle school teachers and a performing artist/activist collaborated on a poetry workshop that lasted 5 weeks. The goal of the workshop was to help students build a repertoire of skills that facilitated their ability to identify the characters in poems, and then perform the poems using the voice and physicality of the people they created. In a series of classes that were co-planned by the artist, who describes herself as an ‘inspector’, and the teachers, a five-step lesson plan evolved that included warm-up, showing, joint practice and demonstration. This lesson plan outline for the workshop allowed the teachers to create activities that were age-appropriate and relevant. The teachers, encouraged to participate in the activities, found themselves being challenged to commit their imaginations and emotions to the creation of characters from the poems that they chose to perform. They also found that students who had previously shown very little interest in classroom activities began to participate at a high level. This process encouraged other reluctant students to take part in the workshop and perform poems personally meaningful to their lives. The workshop fulfilled many of the facets necessary for success in urban classrooms outlined as part of the reform initiative known as the Urban Atlanta Coalition Compact. Through this project, the artist/activist/inspector and the teachers realised the aims of the reform initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]