One day, Damon Cagnolatti found that Grace Lee Boggs, an author, passed away, so he started to do research.

He discovered that Boggs was a woman who was raised by Chinese Immigrants and known as an Afro-Chinese Woman.

Both Yiran Zhou, Chinese professor at Cerritos College and Cagnolatti felt that Boggs was the perfect subject that glued the relationship between their two disciplines.

Zhou, talked about the shared relation between the English and Chinese disciplines at the Teacher TRAC Integrated workshop.

The workshop was held on Tuesday, Dec. 9, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in room SS140.

Zhou said, “Planing for our presentation took about four to five hours.”

He believes that whatever discipline students are taking they shouldn’t be intimidated by any subject.

He suggested the student find something that interests him or her and gradually succeed in that subject.

Zhou was happy to announce that the Chinese program is working on getting an AA degree created.

Damon Cagnolatti recalled that he was discussing Frederick Douglas in his English 238 course and thought it would be a great topic to discuss.

After the meeting with Zhou and learning about the Chinese teachings of Dao he felt it related to his idea.

Cognolatti said, “I hope people walked away with an understanding that you have to think about what changes do you want to see and what world you want to live in because that is what Douglas and Boggs shared in common.”

Automotive Professor Joe Mulleary was in attendance as he is scheduled to make a presentation in April of 2016.

He said, “This was my first time attending an integrated workshop, but what I think is most important is that we get to learn what other departments are teaching.”

He felt the event was great because he got to meet professors he had yet to meet until now.

Teresa Cheatham served as facilitator for the integrated workshops.

She explained that her role in planing the workshop included emailing professors and the senate for teaching excellence.

She explained the importance of the integrated workshops is to help participants learn how subjects connect and gain new critical thinking skills.

She believes one of the most important purposes of the integrated workshops is for professors to network because they share the goal of students success.

There are two integrated workshops planned for spring 2016:

• February 2 featuring Women’s Gender Studies and Philosophy
• April 12 featuring Automotive and Music.

For more information regarding the Integrated workshops readers are encouraged to visit the Teacher TRAC web page .