20th Street's Civic Duty

At 20th Street, we have been working really hard to encourage community involvement. When it was warmer out, we had a great time volunteering at the nearby Hudson River Park, where we helped clear out weeds. However, during February and March, once it got colder, we had to find a new way to get involved locally. We decided to contact St. Peter’s, a church a few doors down from us, to see how we could help out. We knew that they ran a food pantry so we decided to contact them to get involved. After arranging the date, we put up flyers and a sign-up sheet in the lobby and on a lovely Friday in February, a small group from 20th Street went over to work at the pantry.

At the food pantry, along with a couple other small groups, we worked on boxing up a bunch of food for the delivery the Church does on Saturdays. It was a really great opportunity to get involved locally. Our residents had a great time going to the food pantry and we returned in March to volunteer again. We’ve had a really amazing time working there and our residents have loved getting involved with the community in Chelsea.

Live On!

In case you haven't already seen the many flyers posted around your building about housing selection ... here's one more. Housing Selection is right around the corner and you will want to know as much as possible about choosing your home for the next academic year.

What you need to know:

• Check your mailbox for the 2011-2012 Housing Selection pamphlet- this has answers to all of your questions!
• Go to your MyNewSchool account to apply and pay your deposit by April 1.
• Check your email for your lottery number (this will tell you when you get to choose your room)
• Choose Your room! Selection begins April 11th and will take place in the Stuyvesant Park Residence Hall.

In addition to choosing your room, you'll have a choice to live in one of our Special Interest Communities if you think it's a good fit. These are communities of students who have similar interests in the areas of Green Living, Global Affairs, Honors, Healthly Living and Music. For more information on these and all questions related to the Housing Selection process please visit our website or visit your residence hall office.

We'll see you next year!

Pickles Prove Perfect for Programming

Pickling is an important survival skill, particularly for those living on limited supplies in enclosed spaces. In fact, the word pickle derives from an old Dutch word, ‘pekel’, for ‘brine’; a salty testimonial to the historical importance of pickling to those who lived for many months at sea. When the nutritional role of vegetables in the prevention of scurvy (a common disease amongst mariners) was recognized, pickled vegetables became a staple of thesea-diet. At present, scurvy is fortunately rare amongst New School students. But we can never be too vigilant.

The December- January program of the month, represents an inspired attempt on the part of its organizer, Camryn Mothersbaugh, to teach the residents of the Stuyvesant Park residence hall the art of pickle-making. Camryn’s goal was to teach students cooking skills that they could use in the dorm. She chose to run a class on pickling because, not only would the outcome be delicious, but pickling is an easy skill to acquire, and well-suited to the constraints of the dorm kitchens. Unsurprisingly, given this event’s unique character and the exciting promise that every student would depart “with a jar or two of pickles”, the program was very wellattended.

Camryn elected to follow a recipe for sweet and sour cucumber pickles. She began by demonstrating how to make the spiced vinegar used to preserve the cucumbers, and then let the students fill the jars with the vegetables and vinegar. Camryn says that her favourite part of the program was the student reaction over the following week, as students would approach her to tell her how well their pickles had turned out. Thanks to Camryn’s great program idea, the students at Stuyvesant Park now have the skills to survive long sea voyages, and the supplies with which to do so; something that will no doubt be appreciated even more as midterms approach.

Written by Simone Gubler- Philosophy Major at The New School for Social Research