Final Entry!

Path of inquiry:  What books did you read and how did it relate to the research mentoring experience?

 My book was Community, Violence and Peace, by A. L. Herman, explores the concept of community and the belief that it can resolve the problems of violence and insufficient peace in the twenty-first century. A. L. Herman examines four visions of community exemplified in the works of two Western thinkers, Aldo Leopold and Martin Luther King, Jr., and two Eastern thinkers, Gandhi and Gautama the Buddha. The relationship between the individual and the community was the most agreed upon concept amongst the identified thinkers.  Herman states, according to the four thinkers, that the relationship between the individual and the community is a symbiotic one; this essentially is an exemplified explanation of my mentor-mentee relationship experience.  I found this to be the most poignant of themes throughout the book pertaining to this class.

This has been reiterated throughout the course, as my peers have discussed in class, the learning happened equally across the board; and as Christina expressed, the feeling of belonging to an academic community was of the most valued attributes of this class.  

So I've been somewhat negligent of my blog, because of chaos ensuing in my life. However, the last contact I had with any of my mentees was editing one paper a few weeks ago.  This was my mentee that I had never met and we had a somewhat off-putting experience in the beginning, so ironically enough she was the only one who pursued me for an editor.