JOIN THE ALUMNI COUNCIL! Attend any of our upcoming 2022-23 meetings to learn more about the Alumni Council. Each meeting will provide you with inside knowledge about Salpointe so you can go out into the community as an Alumni Ambassador! Meetings are at 5:00 p.m. in Salpointe’s Click Family Library. New members always welcome. We’d love to see you there! TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2022 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2022 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2023 TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2023 For more information, contact Joseph Luevano at 520-547-4344 or jluevano@salpointe.org
ALUMNI COUNCIL 2021-22 Pete Adamcin ’59 M.E. Armstrong ’83 Larry Bahill Octavio Barcelo ’82 Clarisa Barcel ’82, Vice President Brian Connelly ’85 Kelly Fleming Pelletier ’88, President Ben Gabrys ’97 Steve Halper ’57 Greg Horkey ’92 Jim Howell ’91 Lisa Jamison ’88, Treasurer Anne King ’64 Joseph Luevano, SCHS Moderator Kathy Mathieu Tammy McKay ’77, Secretary Rafael Meza ’87 Ernie Minchella ’58 Jim Murphy ’54 Alison Smith ’78 Tom Tronsdal ’87 John Urban ’68 Eileen Whalen Vasko ’63
Save the Date! Homecoming & Reunion Weekend October 21-23, 2022
Lancer Legacy Celebration April 28, 2023 For a complete list of upcoming Salpointe events and details, visit www.Salpointe.org/events
Brian Holstrom, World History teacher
Laudato Si’ Suggests New Lens for Studying World History Written by Fr. William J. Harry, O. Carm., Director, Office of Communications of the Carmelite Order. As published in The Sword (PCM Province) and CITOC (The Carmelite Order’s news service) Among most historians, the traditional approach to studying the history of the world is through the lenses of major figures, political movements, wars, documents, and sometimes religions. Other historians propose using other strategies in order to gain a more complete understanding of our past and therefore an understanding of our present. “Examining what history has been taught and what needs to be taught,” is how Brian Holstrom, a teacher at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, Arizona, captures the shift that needs to take place. As part of his professional development, Brian proposed attending the 2019 convention of the World Historical Association in Salt Lake City to Salpointe’s school administration. That year’s theme was “Sustainability and Preservation in World History.” So Holstrom wrote a paper entitled The Case for Ecology and the Environment in World History Instruction and submitted it. It was accepted. Other proposed papers talked about the necessity of archives, preserving historical sites and environmental history, but Holstrom’s paper offered something unique, insisting that widespread instruction in environmental perspectives to global history was required to address cultural apathy towards environmental degradation and climate change. “While most history courses remained obsessed with humanity, human interrelations and state-building, students were not being given adequate historical context for humanity’s complex relationships with the environment. Unfortunately, that year’s conference was canceled due to Covid,” explained Holstrom. “However, the journal of the association, World History Connected, picked up my paper and wanted to print it.” The Association also asked Brian to serve as guest editior and to gather and publish some of the other relevant work from the conference. He sent out an invitation for other historians to make submissions and eight people responded, submitting relevant new scholarship. Those papers, along with Brian’s, then underwent a double-blind peer review by leading scholars in Environmental History. “I was really shocked by the support and excitement to help with our work. Suddenly, I was exchanging emails and feedback with John R. McNeill from Georgetown University, Richard Tucker from the University of Michigan and several other scholars that are among the best in the field.” In July 2021, the journal issue was distributed and published online. The authors of the other articles and Holstrom presented their works at the annual conference—held online— with Holstrom coordinating the digital participants. His paper as well as his introduction to that issue of World History Connected were discussed. As part of his research in evaluating world history instruction, Brian concluded that students needed history that was more global, modern and ecological. “Many traditional courses spend a lot of the fall semester on the Roman Empire and medieval Europe. But there is only so much time. You have to make critical choices for content. We still study the Roman Empire, but our course emphasizes modernity and has an increasing focus on ecology, rather than the deeds of each Roman emperor.” Salpointe Today
summer
2022
17
