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Again this summer, Wake Forest University will sponsor the Cherokee CCAT (College Careers and Technology) program on campus, and ZSR librarians will participate. The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians invests a portion of their casino earnings into education and infrastructure initiatives on the Qualla Boundary. Among these are two programs that involve Wake Forest: College Careers and Technology (CCAT) and Medical Careers and Technology (MedCAT). CCAT promotes and prepares students for college. Its goal is to educate a professional class of teachers, lawyers and others among the Cherokee who will return to the Qualla Boundary and serve the tribe. MedCAT specifically promotes college education as a path to careers in the health sciences. With this program, the tribe develops culturally based health care services for its members. More…
Professor Ulrike Wiethaus, Director of Religion and Public Engagement, has been working with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians for several years. This year, Wake Forest will welcome 30 high school students and their chaperones to campus for three days. The classroom sessions will be held in Wingate Hall and each student will receive a loaner laptop for use during their visit. The program will include classroom activities, team-building sessions and a visit to SciWorks. Admissions officers will speak on the admissions process and what it takes to gain entrance to college. Students will also have several sessions with the Center of Excellence for Research, Teaching and Learning (CERTL) at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Finally, the students will spend a full day with Mary Scanlon, Research and Instruction Librarian at ZSR. She will teach a condensed version of our LIB100 course, Accessing Information in the 21st Century. Pursuing topics relevant to Cherokee culture and history, the students will use print and electronic sources to learn how to conduct research. We will focus on electronic resources available through our statewide consortium, NC LIVE, so the students will become familiar with databases that they can access when they return home. We are pleased and excited about working with the students this summer and hope to further strengthen the relationship between Wake Forest and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.