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SPEAKING UP, SPEAKING OUT Lindsay Pennala misses her fifth- through eighth-graders deeply, even though she still sees them regularly.
It was the fall of 2009 and first-year student Soe Yu Nwe couldn’t start her biology major because there were no more seats available in the introductory course. Ceramics I, however, fit her schedule— and, as they say, the rest is history. Two years later, Nwe took top honors in a statewide competition intended for graduate art students; in 2015, she completed an M.F.A. at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. “Soe Yu became one of the most gifted students I’ve ever worked with,” says ceramics professor Lynne Chytilo, who invited Nwe to serve as Albion’s spring 2016 Philip C. Curtis Artist-in-Residence. By the end of the year, Nwe will have exhibited her work not only in Albion but in Massachusetts, Los Angeles, New York City, the Philippines, Indonesia, and her home country of Myanmar.
20 | Albion College Io Triumphe!
On the cusp of a career of which few of her peers can dream, Nwe has set for herself the added challenge of crafting her success in Myanmar. As the country emerges after decades of military rule, Nwe has the opportunity to make a real impact on the arts. Opening a studio will be tough, though, when just finding supplies— common items in any U.S. art store—currently ranges from difficult to impossible. Nwe has taken this problem as an inspiration. “I might be able to become the distributor of material—clay and glaze—in Myanmar. And hopefully this will sustain my artistic career and also benefit the community,” she says. “I want to be able to do art in the international arena for a long time.”
“It hurts me not to teach students because I became incredibly close with them,” says Pennala, who earlier this year received national recognition from Teach for America (TFA) after concluding her two-year assignment on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in northern South Dakota. But she continues to impact her 60 students from the Lakota and Dakota nations by coaching new TFA arrivals at Rock Creek Grant School and other schools in the area. “I do work closely with their teachers,” Pennala says. “I really love it so far, because I feel like I can make a greater impact.” It follows her own life-changing experience at Standing Rock that began shortly after receiving her Albion degrees in English and psychology. In recognizing Pennala, TFA said she “empowers her students to be vocal advocates of the injustices they face in their community.”
“I felt humbled and honored to have the opportunity for my students’ stories to be heard. They have so much to say,” says Pennala, who grew up in West Ishpeming on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and studied abroad in Hyderabad, India. Standing Rock has remained in the news amid the ongoing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The movement connects with Pennala in terms of land rights and environmental protections, but it also touches on something deeper and raw. “I feel like more people need to be impassioned to inspire change,” she says. “In social studies classrooms in privileged communities, the truth isn’t getting there.”