PLACE’s next event will be a workshop on Tuesday, October 26th from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm CST. The workshop will feature Aubrey Garcia, the founder of Southern Kitchen Witchery located in Shreveport, LA. She will be teaching about locally sourced dried herbs and florals from the ArkLaTex region and Reiki energy healing in observance of Samhain (Hallowe’en), one of the four Greater Sabbats in the Wicca calendar. October’s PLACE meeting is hyflex so you are able to meet in person at UC210 or attend via Zoom. Pre-registration is required to attend on Zoom, after registering a link will be emailed for the event.
This year’s theme of Religion, Spirituality, and the Sacred holds weekly events and also monthly roundtable discussions. The sub theme for PLACE changes each month, October sub theme is on the soul and salvation. The roundtable speakers have been local faith leaders in the Texarkana community. The roundtable speakers are encouraged to invite their local congregants to join in these events. Dr. Jaime Cantrell, co-chair, said, “We need more programming that draws both the local community and campus community into discussions of the non-Western religious practices, beliefs, and holidays–allowing for a greater understanding and acceptance of the diversity of globalized human experiences surrounding faith-based relationships.”
PLACE was started by a group of faculty members to encourage students to not learn solely for a career or job but to encourage the students to why and how we learn. “PLACE is meant to embody what universities are for, in many ways this is meant to be the life of the mind. PLACE is to engage with those that are experts and passionate about materials that are going to be of interest to you,” Dr. Nakashian, co-chair, said regarding PLACE. All PLACE events are open to students, TAMUT faculty, and the surrounding community. Event schedules are advertised in the Texarkana Gazette, Facebook (@Tamutplace) or @Tamutplace on Twitter. Meetings are held once a week and have different avenues in which to participate such as roundtable discussions, workshops or to hear a guest speaker. All of the events are hyflex at this time, with the occasional Zoom meeting only if guest speakers are located in other towns or states.
Texas A&M University-Texarkana inaugurated this program in 2014, led by faculty, that centered around a different theme every school year. PLACE is an acronym for Program for Learning and Community Engagement and emerged from a faculty discussion about a unifying academic theme. PLACE is a classroom and lecture series where the program has a variety of books, art, podcasts, and songs to engage students, faculty, and the Texarkana community. The yearly theme is integrated into many classrooms with pointed focus in IS100, a University Foundations course.
Each spring the faculty is invited to decide on two chairs and a theme for the fall semester. Some of the past theme’s have been on environmental issues, race and ethnicity, and gender issues. This year’s theme, Religion, Spirituality and the Sacred covers a wide spectrum of ideas and values. The PLACE website gives opportunities for students and the community to learn more about a variety of sources on the subject or Religion, Spirituality and the Sacred. Each faculty member can focus on this theme regardless of what type of class is being taught to enhance a wider view of other participants’ world views.
Dr. Craig Nakashian said, “Over the years, we figured out how to integrate PLACE more effectively into the freshman curriculum.” In IS100, a freshman required class, there is a book assigned and also a resource list in which students use to present on a subject and answer questions that come from the subject matter of that week. These classes encourage students to not only learn material but to think about why they believe in their personal lives. The end goal of PLACE is to create and encourage students to be lifelong learners.