SPAN: September/October 2010

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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U.S.-India Dialogue Speeds Up s the United States and India prepare for another step forward in their re lationship-the state visit of President Barack Obama, reciprocating Prime Min ister Mantnohan Singh's state visit to Washi ngton, D,C,- dialogue and agreement on a range of mutual concerns is intensifying, One example is the U,S,-Ind ia Counterterror Cooperation Agreement, aimed at providing closer and more effective cooperation on this vital security issue, On July 23, US Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer and Ind ia's Home Affairs Secretary G,K, Pillai signed a memorandum of understand ing under the agreement (photo above left) , to provide "even closer information sharing and collaborative efforts on issues ranging from bomb blast investigations and major event security to mega-city policing , cybersecurity and border security," the ambassador said, During Prime Minister Singh 's November 2009 visit to the United States, he and Presi dent Obama committed to redoubling collective efforts to deal effectively with terrorism , while protecting both nations' democratic ideals and values, Other recent steps in the lead-up to President Obama's visit in November include: • signing of a document on arrangements and procedures to implement the civilian nuclear energy agreement by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns and Indian Ambassador to the United States Meera Shankar on July 30 (photo below right) ; • a visit to New Delhi at the end of August from high-level U,S. trade and agriculture officials; • an August 12 meeting in Washington, D.C. on increasing the sharing of weather and agricultural information between India and the United States; • a July visit by Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff (in photo below left with Ambassador Roemer and Defense Minister AX Antony); • and a visit to New Delhi in August by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy (photo left), As U.S Secretary of State Hillary Cli nton said in her Independence Day greeting to India on August 15, "The United States is committed to further strengthening our cooperation and partnership with India," She referred to President Obama's view that the partnership "is rooted in common interests, shared values and democratic traditions, and strengthened by our extensive people-to-people connections.

"We look forward to further developing these bonds when President Obama visits India this fall ," Secretary Clinton said , "because it is only through dynamic, global cooperation between India and the United States that we can address the defining challenges of the 21 st century. " Secretary Clinton's greeting: http://www .state .gov/secretary/ rm/ 2020/08/145023.htm

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September/October 2010

SPAN

Front cover: A view from the main patio of the William Gates complex, which is home to members of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Photograph by Patricia A. Sarnpson, MIT/EECS Department.

VOLUME LI NUMBE R 5 Publisher : Editor : Associate Editor : Hindi Editor: Copy Editors :

Art Director: Deputy Art Directors: Editorial Assistant : Production/Circulation Manager : Printing Assistant : Web Manager: Web Content Editor: Research Services:

Michael P Pelletier Laurinda Keys Long Deepanjali Kakati Giriraj Agarwal Ri cha Varma Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Hemant Bhatnagar Khurshi d Anwar Abbasi Qasim Raza Yugesh Mathur Alok Kaushik Manish Gand hi Chetna Khera Swati Sharma Bureau of International Information Programs, The American Library

*

Learning the Language of Understanding By Cynthia Wee Miller

52 * Dispelling Myths, Building Bonds

By Cynthia Wee Miller

55 * Sports: Play Basketball!

56 * Commonwealth Games:

By Sandeep Nakai

Games Journeyman By Sandeep Nakai

58 * Achievers: Saioni Gupta

By Paromita Pain

10 * Applying to a U,S, College

Letters to the Ed itor

By MV Harish

12 * Be Yourself By Kaushik Mani 14 * The Student Journalist

By Kaitlin McVey

37

Books: Harper Lee's Novel Achievement

By Charles Leerhsen

*

Literacy: Creating Rooms to Read

By Deepanjali Kakati

*

By Sujoy Dhar

20

Golden Oldies: The Adaptable Pattern of U,S, Higher Education By Dorothy Lafferty

25 *Folk Art: Exploring the Fabric of

Everyday Life in South Asia By Jeff Baron

Readers ' Memories

44 * Poetry: Lines of Identity

By Sandip Roy

47 On the Lighter Side 48 * Creative Education: Thinking Outside the Box

Published by the Public Affairs Section, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23472000), on behalf of the U.S. Embassy, New Delhi. Printed at Thomson Press India Limi ted , 18/35, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad, Haryana 121007. Opinions expressed in this 58-page magazine do not necessari ly reflect the vi ews or policies of the U.S. Government

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A LETTER FROM THE

PU~ B LIS HER he United States and India are blessed with strong educational systems and many centers of excellence, and both face formidable challenges moving into the future. Americans have the world's best research universities, which welcome students from all over the globe, particularly from India, which, of course, leads the way with 103,260 studying in the United States. Besides our brand names like Harvard, Yale and Stanford, we have a huge system of universities run by the 50 states and by private groups, including the land grant universities that do cutting edge research and contribute enormously to spreading quality educatron to the common citizen. There are also thousands of community colleges, which further extend the reach of higher education linked to job opportunities and local needs. The challenge is to ensure that our future generations are good global citizens, ready to engage in the world in a positive and constructive way.

I hear that from so many American educators who travel to India.

They know that to attract the best and brightest, they must offer them opportunities to learn about the world and the world leaders of the new century, and that means India.

And India is, of course, home to a number of centers of educational excellence, from the IITs and IIMs to new institutions led by the private sector, such as the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. In India, of course, the key challenge is capacity- how to provide quality educational opportunities to the millions of students entering the system.

Working together in partnership is the best way forward for us as both the United States and India address our challenges and reinforce our strengths. This is happening in an incredibly dynamic and growing way through the private sector, as universities get together. For example, Brown University has a linkage program with Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Rutgers has a program with St. Stephens College, Stern School of Business has programs with St. Xavier's College and H.R. College, Fox Business School with the Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, and so many more.

In order to facilitate and support such direct links, the binational U.S.-India Educational Foundation has established an office of Higher Education Cooperation in India. The U.S. and Indian governments are working together to encourage this. Even on an individual level , educational cooperation and exchange is happening at a rapidly growing pace, through study abroad programs, exchanges, scholarships and fellowships from USAID, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture and others.

Ultimately, though, the private sector is key. The U.S.-India Business Council, for example, is playing an important role, working with both governments and corporations .to develop effective means to educate the students, citizens, employees and consumers of tomorrow. The differences in our educational systems are challenging-for instance, the U.S system is decentralized and not controlled by the federal government- but the will is there for us to accomplish so much together. The future is promising, especially if we understand each other better.

This issue of SPAN is part of that effort, explaining many aspects of the U.S. education system , offering new ideas from innovators in both countries, and helpful tips from Indians who are attending American universities.

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By LISETIE B. POOLE

U.S. colleges are working with countries that want access to the unique qualities of American education for their citizens. They are trying overseas branches, franchise programs, shadow diplomas, faculty and student exchanges and on-line enrollment. n university boardrooms in the United States, Europe and Australia, there is talk of expansion overseas. The prestige that comes with establishing a name for your school abroad is attractive, especially so to institutions that can secure donors. Above the fray of outstretched hands, empty pockets and culture clash rises more than one university president who envisions a renaissance-style global university with satellite \.OUIJ:o;;I4.C_ Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North

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In the spring of 2009, 406 students graduated from the American University of SlJarjah. ~

SPAN SEPTEMBERlOcrOBER 2010

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South America. Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? Far from it. ed by sponsors, will eventually have to rest on their own finanReceptive government laws, good research, faculty buy-in, cial feet. Make sure you can compete academically and that the and a long-term business plan are keys to a successful venture, majors you offer are attractive to prospective students. Be preuniversity administrators say. India is among a growing number pareEi to compete with other international universities." of countries considering this possibility for its citizens.

As an administrator and educator, he deals with host country Meanwhile, across the Arabian Sea, the United Arab Emirates is needs, university requirements, and sometimes potential controversies between unpopular American foreign policies and educaaggressively turning vision into reality.

As students matriculate in a post-9/11 America, the adminis- tional pursuits. His guidelines, he says, are, "Do not get involved trators of their institutions have begun to see the potential blind in national politics by taking sides, although continue to serve spots caused by a Western-centric education. Likewise, across the academic purpose of providing a neutral venue to di scuss the ocean, some countries see the benefit of giving their citizens any problem .... Stick to your academic principles and do the access to the unique qualities of American education. This par- best you can to provide the highest possible education for your allel is influenced by sociopolitical issues in America and students regardless of the political atmosphere." abroad, such as U.S. universities clamoring for international stuHe also caution"" . "Of course, if the situation in a country dents to offset American student decline in recent years; immi- descends to a level of catastrophic abuses of human rights, then gration clampdoWns in the United States dissuading some for- of course one cannot retain a neutral stance. But your stance eign students from applying as, coincidentally, more American should be based on international principles, not ones of U.S. students begin to seek an education experience overseas. national policies."

"In the United Arab Emirates, there are representatives from Heath began his overseas educational career as assistant proCanadian, French, British, Australian and Indian universities try- fessor of cultural studies at Birzeit University on the West Bank from 1981 to 1986. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University.

Marketing is an important part of establishing a university, says Mary R. Stagaman, associate vice president for external relations at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. She shares a list of effective dos-and-don ' ts in a recent interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Start with research to determine how your institution .is perceived in key audiences you want to attract. Then you can build your plan based on what you learn ," she says. "The tactical elements have to come out of that process and a realistic appraisal of what your budget can support. One caution: Make sure your leadership understands that they must make an investment. Too little money will not provide benefits. We have been successful in getting more funds by demonstrating the potential return on the investment."

She agrees with Heath that it is important to seek student involvement. "Consult students as often as possible, through both formal and informal research with them in your branding, marketing and recruitment processes. Getting student input can be as Chancellor Peter Heath of the American University of Sharjah. simple as scheduling a lunchtime focus group with a sampling of the types of students you want to reach- either on campus or at ing to emulate U.S. universities," Chancellor Peter Heath of the an area high school, for instance," she advises. Each country American University of Sharjah, tells SPAN. The American style requires a different approach .

She stresses three needs: include the faculty in the university of higher education "remains attractive and popular with students." expansion plans, create a dynamic Internet presence, and use brandHeath is well-experienced in the process of establishing univer- ing with logos and graphics for quick and unique recognition . " If sities in the Middle East. Before his appointment as chancellor in you can get buy-in for what you are doing from faculty and Sharjah in February 2008, he served 10 years as provost of the campus leaders, you will always be more successful in the long run.

American University of Beirut, where he simultaneously led the We try to update key groups on campus (such as) The Faculty post-war rebuilding of the 144-year-old university 's academic Senate, on a regular basis." A Web presence "is critical to effecstanding and guided the university through a rigorous six-year ti ve recruitment because it's the first source of info for prospective stuaccreditation process. He was also involved in the expansion of dents-and increasingly their parents as well." In her opinion, logos and graphics convey visual and verbal expression of the university. the American University in the Emirates.

To those interested in setting up, maintaining and expanding Her university, like many others in the United States, seeks universities, he advises the need for "a viable, long-term busi- ways to collaborate with universities overseas. Short of establishness plan." And he explains "even universities, initially support- ing branches overseas or offering franchise programs, or shadow 4 SPAN SEPT EMBER/OCTOBER 2010

Left: Political science student Irene Vega (center) and elementary education student Rosalia Berumen inquire about study abroad programs at Arizona State University.

Below: Sarah Little (left) advises Aiman Shahpurwala on a potential trip to New Zealand at Michigan State University's Office of Study Abroad Resource Center.

diplomas earned through simplified curriculums, institutions may choose any of four other experiences: faculty-led programs, exchange programs, external programs and direct enrollment.

This summer, University of Cincinnati study abroad classes included: Arabic culture and language in Morocco; a business scholars program in Belgium and France; a jazz exchange in Brazil; architecture, urban design and the environment in Sardinia, Italy; and a musical composition exchange program involving students and faculty at Beijing, China and the home university. Similar programs exist for many U.S. universities. Several have gone beyond that level to establish satellite branches in overseas countries, or set up franchises that offer similar, not identical, degrees as those in the United States.

At California State University, East Bay, along the shores of the San Francisco Bay, President Mohammad H. Qayoumi tells SPAN that he is thrilf~d by the increasing exchanges among universities. And, he adds that while he approves of the branching out into other countries, he believes the "American experience" is best acquired when students live and learn in the United States for at least two years. He has worked on several models to facilitate affiliation agreements with overseas universities before being appointed to his current post in 2006.

"If Cal State were approached to open a branch in another country or negotiate an affiliation it would not be a shadow program but a Cal State degree with full rights and privileges," he says. "More importantly, I would need a convergence of purpose. I would ask: Why do you want to start a university? Why choose us? Is your mission and your philosophy, along the line of ours-to build a work force connecting the institution to the

community and the economic prosperity of the nation? How would involving us enrich your university, and ours? What is the long-term relationship? What is your business plan? How will you be there for a long period of time? How will the curriculum relate to the country?"

He has facilitated a 1999, Missouri S&T academic affiliation agreement with Mazoon College in Muscat, Oman, a privately owned university founded to provide educational opportunities for women. Later, as vice president for Cal State Northridge, he worked on similar accords for three more institutions-the Higher Institute of Technology in the United Arab Emirates, Al Buraimi College in Oman and the Abu Dhabi Women's College.

He favors two-year programs that articulate-dovetail-to university programs in the United States.

Qayoumi presides over a 14,167 student campus, one of 23 in the California State University system, the largest system of senior SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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For more inlormation: New York Un iversity

A chemistry class at California State University, East Bay. The university has one of the most ethnically diverse campuses in the United States.

http://www.nyu.edu/ Californ ia State Un iversity, East Bay http://www20.csueastbay.edu/ The University of Cincinnati http://www.uc.edu/ higher education in the United States. It boasts one of the most ethnically diverse campuses with 25 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, equal part Caucasian, 14 percent Hispanic, 12 percent African AmericanIBlack and the remaining 24 percent Native American, interriational and multi-racial.

He says his administration is working closely with universities in Asia (Taiwan, China, Japan, Vietnam, India), the Middle East (Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya), Europe (Germany, France), as well as Chile in South America, Kenya and South Africa to recruit students and/or negotiate agreements of affiliation, cooperation or exchange. His focus, he says, is to keep a diversity balance in the student body because "we must keep in mind that for the students' education to be enhanced and enriched they need to have students from other countries .... For our students to become global-ready they need to be able to work in a global environment to be part of teams in school projects, extracurricular activities, to be able to work with the people of the rest of the world." And he adds, "The fact that in a few years more than 90 percent of all engineers will be from Asia is worth keeping in mind."

Qayoumi, who grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, earned his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the American University of Beirut, and M.S. degrees in electrical and computer engineering and nuclear engineering, as well as an M.B.A. in finance and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

He is a tenured professor of engineering at Cal State East Bay. He has more than 30 years of experience in higher education and

industry.

"American universities, because of the way they are structured, because of the way they have so much independence, are really cradles of creativity," he explains. "They serve the communities, cities and localities they are part of, but are also an entity of free thinking-this gives them the ability to be the paradigm-busters in a way. Also, because 'being' and 'becoming' are part of the American trait, transforming yourself on a continual basis through continuing education programs makes the American universir~. system so successful and unique.

"When students 'go back to their home countries they are great goodwill ambassadors because by living here they have gained an understanding for the way our democracy works. This openness gives them a different view of how their country works," he says.

Like Qayoumi , John Sexton, president of New York University, is very concerned about global learning. He is at the helm of the ambitious plan of the university's liberal arts school in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. He told a National Public Radio interviewer: "The key element here is what we call the global network university. We think that the world of the 21st century is going to be like the Italian renaissance taken global. And they'll be the modern-day equivalents of Venice and Florence and Rome and Milan, except they'll be in the different continents of the world.

And they'll be a movement ,among these idea capitals. We think at NYU that there's room for the incarnation in a university of that kind of movement of talent. So we're in the process of creating a networked university."

Sexton regularly travelled from New York to Abu Dhabi to teach a class of Emirates students a seminar about the intersection of religion and government in the U.S. Supreme Court. He says he also tried to teach them the need to question authority and to back up disagreements with persuasive arguments and California State University, East Bay President Mohammad Qayoumi.

6 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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facts-hallmarks of the American education style. His program Schools, credited speedier processing of visa applications, and was funded by the coffers of the oil -rich state. increased international outreach. Some universities pay the $200 Competition for foreign students is a serious matter-both on a fee charged every foreign student to register in the U.S. governdomestic and global level. International students pump more than ment's Student and Exchange Visitor Wormation System (SEVIS). $14 billion into the U.S. economy' each year, according to pubThe rebound is also the fruit of aggressive recruiting efforts by lished economic reports. Education experts say that American uni- university administrators and government officials who travelled versities depend on foreign students for teaching and research help, overseas to promote U.S. institutions. At the same time, Australia, and on a larger scale policymakers want future foreign leaders to Canada, France and the United Kingdom have launched intense be familiar with the United States. marketing campaigns to attract students America's image as a bastion of from Latin America, where improving financial stability and security has economies are swelling college enrollReceptive government laws, taken a bashing in the wake of the ments and demand for study abroad. financial crisis and the September 11, Similarly, a rapidly expanding pool of good research, faculty buy-in, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York college graduates exists in India and and a long-term business plan and Washington, D.C. But the value China. of a diploma from a U.S. school is Allan Goodman, president of the are keys to a successful venture, still solid gold, educators say. That's Institute for International Education, university administrators say. particularly true for degrees from U.S. returned from a visit to Vietnam and ,India is among a growing number other Asian countries and told a radio business, technology and science schools. interviewer that he heard stories like "of countries considering this At last count, there were 624,000 this: "I've saved up, over the years, possibility for its citizens. foreign students who had come to the $200,000-i1's all in cash, because we United States for undergraduate and don 't trust the banks-and when it's graduate degrees, according to the time for my child to go, we have actuInstitute of International Education, almost back to where it was al dollars that will be paid for actual tuitions." Vietnam, India prior to the September 11 attacks. and China have been rising rapidly on the list of countries sendForeign students returned slowly to U.S. universities in 2006 ing students to the United States.

Going the other way, a study released by the institute shows after a persistent three-year decline-the first ever registered in 32 years of higher education record keeping. In 2006, foreign students that the number of American college students studying abroad beginning graduate studies in the United States rose 4 percent, and has soared, up 150 percent, over the past decade. Goodman says the number of international graduate applications to U.S. universi- the weak dollar overseas is a factor. ~ ties shot up 12 percent at the same time, indicating the country could be regaining its positive image among foreign students. A Lisette B. Poole is a freelance journalist who lectures at California 643-page survey released at the time by the Council of Graduate State University, East Bay. SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOB ER 2010

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American university education.

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By PRERNA RAMACHANDRA

hen I entered the 11th grade, more than two years ago at Delhi Public School R.K. Puram, most people I knew assumed I would aim at gaining admission into one of the top colleges in India. As my frie~nds joined some of the coaching centers mushrooming in the city, to train and crack one of the innumerable entrance examinations, or study in the "right way" to get good marks in their CBSE senior secondary board exams, I felt a bit disillusioned. I wanted scope to explore and pursue each of my interests. I wanted to study computer science, but I also love literature, economics and writing. I wanted a college education which would give me the freedom to study all these subjects, and provide me with a holistic view of the world. I had always received good grades and had also pursued extracurricular activities which I loved. I was chief editor of my school magazine, and had been involved in writing articles and poems since I was in elementary school. I also loved public speaking and debating and recently developed an interest in photography. These were activities I wasn't willing to give up entirely.

I met up with my school guidance counselor. I remembered a presentation she had given at the beginning of the year regarding admissions to universities outside India, and I wanted to know more. After speaking to her, I did a little more research , and concluded that colleges in the United States could offer me a holistic, well-rounded education. Also, a big factor for me was the cost. Many American universities are willing to give deserving students assistance in the form of scholarships and financial aid awards. I had made up my mind . I would give my best shot to apply to top universities in the United States.

Once I began the actual process of applications, the magnitude of the work at hand hit me. I had to spend weeks studying for the SAT exams, balance my schoolwork, and make sure grades remained consistently good. But, the real work started once I reached the 12th grade.

During the summer of my senior year, I spent a month researching various universities on the Web. There are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States and narrowing your search down to 10 or 15 is a mammoth task. An important thing to remember is that rankings do not give you the whole picture. One could simply check the U.S . News & World Report rankings and apply to the top 10 or 15 colleges given there. But this would perhaps be the worst way of approaching your col lege applications. It is important to find colleges which are the best "fit" for you, in terms of academics and the student body.

Each U.S. university has a distinctive campus culture and it is really important to find out more about that, and see where you

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think you will be happy. Also, a good way to go about this would be to refer to a book such as the "Fiske Guide to Colleges," which gives you a spbjective description of all the colleges.

Once the task6t"narrowing down was complete, I had to get to work on my applications. Most students wonder just how to strengthen their applications in terms of academics and extracurricular activities. An important thing to keep in mind is that colleges don't just want you to pursue lots of activities with no connection to each other. The admission committee always looks for depth, not breadth. It is important to pursue activities which you love. Even if you take part in just one or two activities, you

Above: Students working in the Princeton University Campus Writing Center.

Above right: Dogwood tree in bloom outside 1879 Hall at Princeton University in New Jersey.

should have invested significant time and energy in them , and your involvement should have yielded some visible results.

Have you done some social service? How long have you been involved in it? What have you gained from that experience? One of the activities I had mentioned was writing. I have been writing poems since J was a child. I have written for various newspapers and magazines, and last year, I published a book containing the poems I had been working on for the last four years.

Another important aspect of the application is the recommendation letters of your teachers and counselor. Most colleges require two teachers' recommendations. Preferably, they should have taught you varied subjects, such as math and English.

For more information:

u.s News & World Report Best Colleges 2011 htlp://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges Princeton University http://www.princeton.edu/main/ Fiske Guides

chances are, you would want your essay to reflect that.

For those applying for financial aid, there are additional fonus to fill out, discussing your family's financial situation. Undoubtedly, there are many questions that will arise in your mind while working on each college's application. The best way to clear your doubts is by shooting off an e-mail to the admissions office with your query. They are always prompt, and ready to help. Do not look through the Internet and refer to anonymous information sources. Usually, a college Web site contains all the necessary information, and is your most reliable resource. Another .l'< thing to keep in mind is to be completely honest in your application. Do not give wrong information, or try to copy essays from ! the Internet. That would be the ideal way of destroying your ~ chances of admission to that college. Admission committees are ยง well-versed with all these tactics, and can spot discrepancies and ~ plagiarism almost immediately. ~ There is no denying that the application process is extensive E ~ and exhaustive. Each step of the way, there are hurdles to cross . .~ But, at the end of it all, there is nothing that I regret. When I held ~ my Princeton acceptance letter in my hand, when I talk to the ~ current students and my future classmates and roommates, ~ receive letters from the university describing the various cours~ es available, e-mail my professors to ask about classes, or just {look at the orientation calendar I received a few days ago, ~ describing all the welcome shows and events, I am sure I took ~ the best decision. Princeton was always my dream school, not only because it has a brilliant computer science department and ~ some of the best faculty, but also because I love the university's mission statement, the student culture and the high standards of These recommendations should talk about your interest in the integrity to which they hold all their students. Jf you are the kind subject and your enthusiasm as a student. Ke.ep in mind that the of person who enjoys having academic freedom to explore variteachers should have known you for a sigrtificant period of time, ous subjects before choosing a major, or you have diverse interand should have observed your growth as a student. The coun- ests and want to get a holistic undergraduate education, I would selor recommendation should talk about you as a person and definitely recommend applying to colleges in the United States. your activities outside of the classroom.

It is hard work, but the opportunity you get at the end of it will After researching all this information, and requesting my be worth it all. I have to admit that I have grown and evolved teachers to write my recommendation letters, I reached what is immensely over the last year, even while completing all my perhaps the most important part of the application package: the applications. As I eagerly look forward to the next four years of essay. The admissions essay is your voice to the admission com- my life, I can't help but recall the words of the president of mittee. It is a way to tell the committee that you are more than Princeton's Undergraduate Student Government in his welcome just a set of numbers, talk about your likes, dislikes, dreams and letter: "Even if you spend most of your time in a laboratory, the aspirations. The essay must be very personal, and should come most meaningful discovery you will ever make at Princeton is across as genuine, honest and unique. It took me about five yourself." months to be completely satisfied with my essay. Remember, the essay isn't something you can finish in a day and keep aside. You Prerna Ramachandra is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in computer will grow and evolve throughout the application process, and science from Princeton University in New Jersey.

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Applying. to 8U.S. College Whatever your reasons for studying at a U.S. university, M.V. Harish advises beginning early on the challenging application process.

The most important piece of advice I can give.

You have to be really motivated to apply to a U.S. university. It requires almost a year of continuous effort, and it's not easy. Go ahead and apply only if you really want to. " When to begin?

You need to begin working on your application process at least a year before the batch you intend to attend begins. For example, if you are applying for the fall 2012 session, which begins in August 2012, you need to begin working in August 2011 .

What does a university look for in an applicant?

In my opinion, a university looks for people with true passion for what they want to do and the ability to succeed in their field. It looks for evidence of this in academic scores, internship/work experience and project work, letters of recommendation and the statement of purpose.

Universities use GRE (graduate record exam) scores only as basic criteria, and usually ignore a poor score if the student has exceptional achievements in other areas. Try and get a good score, but a good score alone does not by any means guarantee admission.

What are the steps involved?

Check application deadlines at the universities you are broadly interested in, which will usually be the first two weeks of December 2011 . Some universities, notably the University of Southern California, allow applications as late as May/June 2012, although it's highly unadvisable to apply so late.

Write the GRE, SUbject GRE (if required) and the TOEFL (English ability) exams.

For fall 2012 applicants, you should do this any time before October 2011. In fact, try to get this over with as early as possible, such as in the early part of 2011.

Apply for academic transcripts at the 10 SPAN S'EP'TEMBER{()CTOBER 2010

university you are currently attending well in advance, that is, in July/August 2011. It can take as long as a month.

Make a final list of universities you would like to apply to. I wouldn't recom~,~ mend applying to more than 12 universities unless you have a lot of spare time, as preparing each application involves substantial amounts of time and expense.

Select universities based on the U.S. News & World Report and other rankings, recommendations by college seniors, information you see on the university Web site and forums such as www.edulix.com and www.thegradcafe.com.

If you apply to 12 universities, make sure you have a very strong chance of making the cut in at least three of them.

And make sure at least four of them are universities you have always dreamed of being in. You don't want to regret not applying later.

Sometime in August, talk to professors in the institution you currently attend or supervisors at work for letters of recommendation. Inform them you want to apply, and ensure your letters are sent in as early as possible. More on this later.

Once you have drawn up the list of places you are applying to, start writing your statement of purpose.

Almost all universities now use an online application system. Start filling up the online forms as early as you can, say in September. You can ask the university for a paper application, but do this only if you have absolutely no access to a computer.

How to select recommenders?

• Make sure at least one of them has a Ph.D. from a reputed institution.

• Make sure at least two are senior faculty members.

• Letters of recommendation by internship supervisors are usually acceptable.

• Usually, universities demand that at least two of the three letters of recommendation are by faculty members

from institutions that you have previously attended.

• Pick those faculty members who have taught you at least one or two courses, or have guided your undergraduate projects or research work.

• Obviously, your recommenders should write positively about you.

How to write a statement of purpose.

A statement of purpose can make or break an application. Be very careful while writing it.

• Use perfect English, but keep it simple.

Don't use obscure words from the GRE word lists.

• If possible, ask a friend already in the United States to go through it.

• Most statements of purpose are about two to three pages long. Keep within the~e limits.

This is the basic format I followed, which you might want to use: Para 1: What do you want to do? For example, an M.S. in computer science, specialization in algorithms.

Para 2: Why I want to study this, that is, your source of inspiration.

Para 3: Undergraduate academics.

Para 4: Undergraduate projects.

Para 5: Internships and work experience.

Para 6: Why are you applying to this university? You are expected to talk about interesting research, the courses on offer, specific professors.

Right: The Tech Tower is one of Atlanta, Georgia's most recognizable landmarks.

For more information: Georgia Institute of Technology

http://www.

Para 7: Your plans for the future and long and short term goals.

There are plenty of sources of information on the Internet. Look for blogs or Web sites of American professors, which offer advice on writing a statement of purpose. But don't copy them.

Use your own words.

How do I find out what a university wants?

Again, the university's Web site, and in particular the department's Web site, is a great source of information. Also, talk to your seniors who are in similar programs and in similar institutions.

Why I chose Georgia Tech?

• A senior advised me to do so. He was admitted last year and this is what he said about it.

• Very reputed for my areas of specialization.

• Excellent research in computer science.

44

M. V. Harish graduated from Bharati Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering, GUnt Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in May and has been admitted to the Georgia Institute of Technology for a Master of Computer Science program.

Top: Located in the center of the campus, Georgia Tech's 24-meter campanile served as the centerpiece for the Olympic Games Plaza in 1996.

Above center: The Ramblin' Wreck, a 1930 ford Cabriolet Sport Coupe, is one of Georgia Tech's mascots.

Above: An aerial view of Tech Tower.

Kaushik Mani advises students to be truthful and avoid exaggerating in their applications to American colleges and universities.

What is the most important piece of advice you would give an Indian student who wants to apply to a top U.S. university?

I think it is most important to be what you are.

• The application material should always reflect the truth and should not have any hyperbole in the statement of purpose.

• Avoid making generic remarks in your statement.

• Be specific. Every word and sentence should be purposeful and must count.

• Try and cut down on the length of the statement of purpose and any other document you need to compose and submit,

For more information: Stanford University litt :7 www.stanforCi.eCiu 12 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

like the personal history statements, resume, etc. Ideally, I think the statement of purpose must not be more than 1,000 tq:.

1,200 words. The shorter it is, the better.

• Avoid using sensational words. It is okay to write in simple English as long as it conveys the message effectively.

• Try not to hype up people you have worked with and say that they have left an indelible mark and all that. Instead, you could just say that you have worked with that person and what you got out of the experience and how you plan to apply it in the future.

• There should never be a single sentence that only plays up the experience without

saying what you did and what you learnt.

• It is also not necessary to say things like, "Ever since I was a toddler I always wanted to be an aerospace or nuclear scientist or dreamt of studying in a great university." It is okay to take these decisions later in life and be inspired toward a particular career while doing your Bachelor's.

What do you think these universities look for in an application?

I think every university looks for genuineness and a sense of purpose in what the student wants to do. I believe that you must give the university a reason to believe that by giving a particular student

Above: The Stanford University Oval and front entrance.

Right: Students ride through Stanford University's main quad.

an opportunity, he would be able to fulfill .â&#x20AC;˘ his goals and the university in turn would also be benefited by having his or her intellectual capital.

How were you able to find out what your university wanted?

By going through the university and program Web site. It is also important to see if any of the professors' work interests you and if yes, you could probably state that in the statement of purpose.

What did you do to make your application strong?

My practical experience and strong, credible references. The references should be from people you have worked with and done some good, quality work which has practical applications. Another important aspect is that there should be continuity in the work and it should not be like you work in a particular field today and another interesting field tomorrow. All the work that we do should have some kind of linkage to our area of interest.

What are the most common mistakes Indian students make while applying to U.S . .universities and how c!,n they

avoid them? o Writing and submitting references themselves instead of the professor or supervisor doing it for them. If we have worked with someone, have done credible work with him and if he agrees to write a reference for you than he would definitely not mind filling it up for 10 universities or whatever may be the number. o Not writing their statements of purpose themselves. We must always realize that nobody can speak for us the way we could do it ourselves. o Giving too much emphasis to the GRE score. I think it is just the quantitative score and the analytical writing analysis that matters. o Sending mails to professors after submitting the application and while waiting for the decision. It does not always work and may create a negative impression about you.

What preparations should students make before applying to a top university? o Submit only the necessary documents.

Give the referers enough time to write a reference for you. o Try and get the most important referers under whom the student would have done credible work. o The stature of the referer would not matter if the student has not worked with him. o Ensure that all required documents reach the admissions department in time. o It does not matter when you complete your application as long as it is done before the last date.

Why did you choose Stanford University? o I think Stanford is one of the best places in the world for applied and practical engineering. o I always wanted to be in the automotive sector and I think the area surrounding Stanford is full of automotive companies doing cutting edge research in my field of interest.

o

44

Kaushik Mani graduated from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 2009 and is pursuing a Master's degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford University in California.

dam Weiss has been working as a journalist for a year.

Now he's the managing editor of his high school newspaper, which prints 5,000 copies a month and has a staff of roughly 50 people. When deadline time comes, he often works until 10:30 at night, editing stories and approving final layouts. At 16 years old, some might think that is too much responsibility. But for Weiss, it's all part of his passion-and his academic experience.

"Honestly, at home, the newspaper takes over my life. I love it. It's what I do," says Weiss, who moved up from a reporter position to his new post for the 2010-2011 academic year.

In high schools and universities across the United States, student-run newspapers cover the news surrounding the institution in the same fashion as a regular daily newspaper. These papers are the training grounds for the next generation of American journalists. Some of the staff members are paid small stipends, but many do it for free. What they get in return is real work experience, and in some cases academic credit, as well as the chance to compete for national awards and honors.

Working on the Cypress Bay High School newspaper, The Circuit, in Weston, Florida, Weiss registers for the newspaper class and is graded on his work. Students apply for editorial board positions and do all the writing, photography, design, editing, as well as making printing decisions and selling advertisements. "I've learned how to be a leader," Weiss says, "how to deal with people who don ' t get along, how to deal with professionals and businesses and be a professional myself- even though I'm a high school student."

For students on the 2007 staff of The Circuit, being in newspaper class also meant that they were featured on an MTV real -

A

14 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

ity series titled, "The Paper," which chronicled their lives. The paper 's faculty adviser, Rl)onda Weiss (no relation to Adam), was one of the show's stars. "I' m called the adviser and try to really live up to that word ...so that they learn the right rules and hopefully will make the correct decisions themselves," she says.

Bigger budgets and audiences While The Circuit's operating budget is about $14,000 a year, the figure at university papers is usually higher. The 130-year-old Cornell Daily Sun at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has a budget of roughly $750,000 a year for 5,000 issues every weekday. Not all college budgets are in triple digits, though. A smaller institution, such as Evergreen State College in Washington, publishes its paper, The Cooper Point Journal, just once a week with a yearly budget of about $60,000, says its adviser, Dianne Conrad.

George Washington University 's GW Hatchet was once not that far behind Cornell, with a budget of about $600,000.

However, it too has been hit by the economic slump. Ad revenue, which provides about 95 percent of its budget, is down significantly, and the budget for this academic year will be $400,000 to $450,000, says former general manager Howard Marshall.

"With ad sales down you can't print as many pages, which reduces editorial coverage," he says.

Having its own budget means that The GW Hatchet is independent from the university, located in Washington , D.C., though the paper does use part of a university building at a discounted rent. This also means the students are free from any edi torial interference from professors or administrators, and make their own decisions. One university professor from the media

For more information: The GW Hatchet http://www.-gw-;.h-: at.... che~ t.com".7.. / ------------ Columbia, where the Missouri School of Journalism is .located.

The paper is directed by professional editors but entirely proThe Cooper Point Journal, Evergreen State College duced by more than 300 student journalists. http://cooperpointjournal.com/ In 2007, the paper moved to a "Web first, print second" The Cornell Daily Sun model. "We have changed just about every aspect of our news http://cornellsun.com/ production to meet that goal, and the evidence shows in the products we offer," says Tom Warhover, executive editor for innovation and an associate professor at the journalism school.

The transition has been a multi-year process. This summer, it led them to upend the normal way of doing things and directly publish stories to the Web once a city editor had gone over them, making copy editing changes after the stories have already been posted. This way news gets out faster.

Keenan Weatherford, editor in chief of The Cornell Daily Sun in Ithaca, New York, recently oversaw expansion of the paper's Web site and the creation of a new iPhone application. The physical paper itself also points readers to the Web site to read more and see exclusive content. Weatherford admits that it hasn't been easy to adjust to a more Web-focused office, saying that it is "a Far left: Adam Weiss of The Circuit at Georgetown University 's summer journalism program.

Left: Lauren French, editor in chief (foreground), and Matt Rist, campus news editor, make phone calls for a story in The GW Hatchet newsroom.

Below: Emily Calw, senior news editor (left), and Max McGowen, former life editor, in The GW Hatchet newsroom.

school does sit on the board of directors, but serves in an entirely advisory role. Alumni, students, lawyers and journalists also sit on the board.

With the budget cuts in recent years, The GW Hatchet, along with many other college newspapers, is changing the way it reports the news. Says Marshall, "We've been expanding our blogs, we've done a lot more Web-only stories, we've added videos and podcasts to our Web site .... Whatever is not appearing in the newspaper is thriving online."

very confusing, difficult process, but worthwhile nonetheless."

Even the business side is changing to encourage the sales of more Web ads, he points out.

High school newspapers are also moving increasingly online.

The Circuit started producing some Web-only content last year, and this year will have a brand new set of Web editors. At the Georgetown University summer journalism program for high school students, course director Danna Walker has changed the curriculum to include more multimedia reporting. "My goal was to introduce the students to the revolution that is going on in jourBecoming digital nalism right now, and also to teach them how to do it." During the At The Missourian, the push for digital news has led the pub- week-long course, they learned how to blog, shoot video, and met lication to completely revamp the way the newsroom functions. with some of the top political journalists in the U.S. capital.

This paper is unique in the United States: Though it is a studentThe goal of the program is for the students to learn more about run newspaper it is the only daily newspaper that serves its town, journalism "and decide if they might want to go into it." If they SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

15

decide they do not, Walker says that the course can still provide value by teaching them to "be good journalistic consumers-to learn about media and how to consume media more intelligently."

Above left: High school students attending the Georgetown University summer journalism program.

Above: Photo Editor Michelle Rattinger photographs Tim Gowa, former managing director of The GW Hatchet, for a newspaper column.

Choosing a luture path

work quickly on de,ftdline and create a usable photograph from For Christopher Gregory, The GW Hatchet's senior photogra- whatever situatio~' he was placed in-even if the light was terripher, being pari' of his college newspaper changed his entire ble or the space was crowded.

At the time, he had experience in fine art photography but felt career path. Now a junior, he started shooting during his sophomore year after meeting other staff photographers at his job in shy when photographing people.

"What the paper did was give me a reason to go approach peothe campus darkroom. "Photo journalism always interested me ple," he says. "It gave me a huge amount of confidence." After a but I didn't really understand how it worked," he says.

During his first year, he covered exciting breaking news year of working at The Daily, he got a tip from a professor about events, like the election of a U.S. Senator in Virginia. "I was a part-time job at a local newspaper. "I had a portfolio of pictures shooting next to Washington Post photographers and the New from my student newspaper work," he says. "If I'd tried to walk York Times," he gushes. These unique experiences influenced his into those jobs without any experience, just based on class work, thinking. "I went into journalism wanting to write. And now I'm I would have had a really bad time."

Now, when Douthitt looks to hire recent graduates, an appligoing to graduate wanting to take pictures, all because of The cant with experience working on a high school or college newsGW Hatchet."

Bill Douthitt, senior editor for special editions at National paper draws his attention. He knows that they will already be Geographic, had a similar experience when he was in college used to many duties they wjll perform in the workplace. "It's a and deciding on a future career. He worked for The Daily paper mark of credibility," he says. of the University of Washington in Seattle from 1973 to 1975. "I just wanted to try it out," he says. While there, he learned to Sebastian John is an Indian journalist living in Washington, D,C.

auren French, editor in chief of The GW Hatchet, is busier than your average college student. Every day she supervises a paid staff of 28 and 250 unpaid writers, photographers, artists, etc, "I wake up at 9 o'clock and I don't stop until 3 o'clock in the morning," she says Her average day involves attending classes in the morning, using breaks to do homework and reading, going out to lunch with friends and then working in the newspaper office late into the night. Until recently, she also held a part-time job "A lot of people say that once you get on staff your [grade point average] goes down," says French, She admits that the work does put pressure on her academics, but she believes the experience she

L

Lauren French talks to Christopher Gregory, senior photographer.

gains as editor is just as important for her future career.

French is also compensated financially Most college papers have some sort of pay for their editorial staff, though the amounts can often be minimal. At The Hatchet, staff are paid from $12,50 to $65 an issue as a stipend, with two issues per week, In order to receive a stipend at Evergreen State College's Cooper Point Journal in Olympia, Washington, student editors are required to turn in weekly self-evaluations which detail their goals for the week, what they achieved, and their goals for the next week, "It's a great equalizer in th is way," says The Cooper Point Journal 's adviser, Dianne Conrad, "When you don't have some kind of source of money to participate in a student activity, often a student can't afford to, because they have other commitments, But if they' re getting a little bit of something, it allows more people to participate" -S,J,

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. 1 II II

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The Both Sides Story E

By SUJOY DHAR

arly this year, when my journalist friend and academic partner, Laura Ungar, said at least five universities in her state, Kentucky, and neighboring Indiana, home of U.S . Ambassador Timothy 1. Roemer, were keen to have us speak on international journalism, I was guardedly elated.

The offers in the United States appeared to me a logical extension of Adbosve: LaOuhra Ung/ar "1 1 h Id b . ar at t 1e Siffil ar c asses e y us In two '" vvest anS路IS tuJoy ers oJ,{ CI1an't y oJ,{ Be~gal ~nive~sities and a journalism Nazqreth in Kentucky.

InstItute In India last year. But I was also Right: Sujoy Ohar pondering over the content of my talk (right) interacts with and its utility to the students abroad. a student after a Bridging the East-West gap is a donelecture at Western to-death way of expressing our initiative, Kentucky University.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

17

The Curriculum The Louisville-Kolkata talks on international journalisrn focused on: Diversity in journalism, the sirnilarities and differences in how journalisrn is practiced in both countries during these changing times.

Independent journalism. In this era of newspaper layoffs, closings and changes in the United States, journalists wil l continue to start small , independent ventures. Many will involve the Internet and multimedia tools such as video.

Multimedia journalism The future of news gathering and dissemination is tied to the Internet, which is also an important way to communicate across countries and cultures.

Narrative and enterprise journalism. One of the biggest chal lenges in Ameri can journalism today is translating the depth, perspective and strong storytelling in the best newspapers to the Web. And while journal ism is thriving in India, narrative writing is not widely practiced . but that is, indeed, what we are actually doing, through journalism classes instead of the usual cultural curry involving fme arts, music, plays and movies. So I thought I somehow have to rise above the cliches and communicate something meaningful for a student of 2010. Some new wine in the old East-West bottle, I told myself.

Therefore, the frame of the lecture that Ungar of The CourierJournal newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky and I rustled up amid our daily grind finally became a blend of our own experience as journalists reporting on issues that cross national boundaries and the story of transition in media. We focused strongly on health, environment and economy- the three vital cogs in the wheel of serious journalism in both countries. In a way, they encompassed everything from HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer to India's land acquisition problems and the U.S. -India civilian nuclear agreement. Collaborations between Bollywood and Hollywood were thrown in for good measure, spicing up our talks.

As we are both primarily print media journali sts, the effects of economic recession and the onslaught of electronic and cyber media on the newspaper industry featured prominently in our talks, especially in the United States, where the newspapers are in a grim battle for survival.

What we experienced in our fusion classes with the students and their teachers is quite encouraging. We called it the Louisville-Kolkata Journalism Exchange, an initiative between two journalists practicing the profession in two different worlds but united by the common thread of democracy and free media.

We received financial support from the Society of Professional Journalists, in the United States.

I was flattered when, weeks after the classes ended, Deborah Givens, chief of the communications department at Eastern Kentucky University, wrote to me: "Your presentation was great, and I think the students took a lot fro m it. I' ve heard several dis-

18 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

cussions about news coverage and what is not covered in the U.S." During our respective visits, we drove through the lush, green countryside of Kentucky marked by the beautiful thoroughbred horses, and we inched through the chaotic streets of Kolkata and its suburbs as we traveled fro m one campus to another.

We took classes at Eastern Kentucky University, Western Kentucky University, Spalding University, Bellarrnine University and Indiana University Southeast. A talk at the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky on communications and journalism was a pleasant experience. The senior ladies, with their wealth of experience, were good listeners and excellent questioners. And I liked the sprawling campus.

In West Bengal, we taught at the University of Calcutta and West Bengal State University.

Leaving aside the biggies of Washington and New York, some publications in the United States have been criticized for focusing on local issues. The amount of space available for foreign news has dwindled. It is a common complaint in Indian vernacular media, too. So our focus was on how to take up the challenge posed by a so-called parochial approach to journalism and drive home the joy of practicing journalism with a global perspective.

My effort was to nudge the youngsters and germinate the desire to know the other world, joining the jigsaw of life and events in India in one whole fo r the students. I think it worked and the students were excited, connecting their home truths with realities of the developing world. The U.S. outsourcing industry,

for more information:

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Far left: Students put up a poster for the talks by Laura Ungar and Sujoy Dhar at Western Kentucky University.

Left: Laura Ungar interacts with journalism students at Eas tern Kentucky University.

domestic unemployment and the rise of Indian information technology firms figured in our talks py default.

Having written on global warming and its effects in the Sundarbans archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, it was not too farfetched to connect the crisis in my backyard with the Copenhagen climate summit and the role of the United States vis-a-vis the group of countries led by India. As we connected the local issues of each country with the global, and with each other, the students responded enthusiastically.

Ungar narrated her experience of working over the years on her award-winning cervical cancer series, which first brought her to India in 2007 on a fellowship from the Washington, D.C. based International Center for Journalists. Her story, "Stopping a Killer," in multimedia form became a showpiece reportage for us to demonstrate where Louisville meets Kolkata.

Dr. A. Bennett Jenson, a researcher at the James Graham Brow n Cancer Center in Louisville, hope$ to erase cervical cancer by helping invent a low cost vaccin~ 'against the virus that causes most cases in India. The connection was a good example to showcase the East-West collaborations in journalism on important issues like health care for the poor.

We focused on issues such as the land battles and farmers' movements in India, something I reported on for years, being a journalist in West Bengal, the cradle of the unrest over land acqui sition for heavy industries, and how it connects with journalism in America and the Western world as such, home to big corporations and investors eying the huge Indian market.

Says Ungar: "In a shrinking world where the fortunes 'of people in every nation are so closely tied together, it is more important than ever to forge international connections in the fields of journali sm and communications. It's also crucial to inspire students to 'think internationally' as young adults so that they retain

a global perspective for life."

I enjoyed my interactions with the American students. Some of them have kept in touch and are interested in internship opportunities in India. Tyler Cacek, a student of Western Kentucky University and a photojournalist representing ZUMA Press, wrote that he wants to work in India to gather experience. "At the moment, I'm trying to find a photo/multimedia internship or temporary employment at a news outlet that will also give me the chance to further my experience in foreign reporting," he says.

Ungar says she found the university students in West Bengal "engaged and interested, and hungry for information about journalism in the United States. They were particularly interested in our hands-on assignments. In one, we asked them to propose a story idea connecting local issues in India to the wider world.

Some of their ideas were very good- as good as ideas professional journalists might develop.

"Several of the students remained in touch with me long after class ended, contacting me by e-mail in the United States to get my thoughts on stOlies or on journalism in general. One even befriended me on Facebook recently," Ungar says .

"If these students are any indication, India's next generation is bright, curious, respectful and hungry for knowledge. It makes me feel good to know that in a time when journalism is going through such massive changes and adapting to a new-media world, there seems to be enough passion out there among the young to keep it going into the future. I also feel like the experience of teaching in India informed my teaching in America- and in many ways, the students were the same," she says.

Sujoy Dhar is a correspondent with The Washington Times in India, editor of India Blooms News Service, its portal arm, www.indiablooms.com and Trans World Features.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

19

The Adaptable Panern 01

hough born of a long tradition of British and European universities, higher education, as it exists in the United States today, is different from that of every other country. It has been moulded by 300 years of native development, and by America's historic commitment to provide full educational opportunity for all who can benefit by it.

Through the years, effOlts to do this have led to the creation of a system of great variety and diversity, to meet the variety and diversity of individual temperaments, interests, talents and purposes. This has involved a constant stmggle to keep standards high while, at the same time, making education flexible enough to adapt to the swift changes of an evolving society in a complex and often baffling world.

A large part of the strength of American higher education lies in that very diversity and flexibility. There are now some 1,900 colleges and universities (See note at end on page 24.) in the United States-covering a wide range of programs, and varying in size from 19 students at a junior college in Deep Springs, California, to some 42,000 at the great University of California, at Berkeley on San Francisco Bay. (See update box on page 22.)

No two of the institutions are alike. Each one sets up its own policy and follows its own procedures. This is possible because there is no nationalization or centralization of education in the United States such as exists in

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20 SPAN

For our 50th anniversary this year, SPAN is reprinting articles from past editions that reflect on issues we are reporting about today. For this issue focusing on education, we are reprinting this article from August 1964.

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many other countries. Nevertheless, in all centers of higher learning in America the ultimate purpose is the same: to provide advanced training for young men and women- separately or together-who usually enter at about 18 years of age and stay on into their early 20s.

Many of the institutions are liberal arts colleges, some of them among the oldest in the nation. These offer four-year programs toward the degree of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. The college may be privately or publicly supported, and may be an independent school or an undergraduate school forming part of a university. Emphasizing the humanities, the cuniculum provides for some vocational specialization within the framework of a well-rounded education in the arts and sciences. This type of college follows more closely than any other in America the traditional pattern of liberal education brought to the New World from Europe and destined to serve as a bulwark of American culture for hundreds of years.

Junior or community colleges, typically offering two-year programs leading to a diploma, give their students a general academic education and also frequently train them to meet specific needs of their hometowns and the regions surrounding them.

They are usually publicly supported, like most of the nation's secondary or high schools.

Small, church-supported colleges scattered all over the land constitute another important group. Though not all of them have yet been fully recognized as institutions of higher learning, a number have high standards, and their graduates, many of them clergymen and school teachers, are providing much of the spiritual ferment in contemporary American life.

Then there are the universities-some of them, like Harvard and Yale, dating back to Colonial days. The universities may be largely self-supporting, privately endowed, church supported or financed by public taxation. They comprise both undergraduate schools leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts or of Science, and graduate and professional schools leading to such advanced degrees as Master of Arts or of Science and Doctor of Philosophy, of Divinity, Letters, Law or Medicine. A number offer training equal in excellence to that given by any of the 22 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

world's great universities.

University libraries promote a primary aim A very small group of institutions of high- of higher education: to help men and women er education-notably West Point in New grow to their full intellectual stature.

York and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and the U.S. Air In an educational system as autonomous Force Academy near Colorado Springs, as the American one, some control must be Colorado, whose function is to train officers exercised over the quality of the instruction for the armed forces-are supported by the given. To that end, voluntary accrediting federal government directly. In addition, associations have been set up throughout the certain government departments and instal- country. These detennine how well the collations conduct extensive educational pro- leges and universities are meeting estabgrams of their own. Examples are the educa- lished standards and compile lists of those tional services of the Department of that have been maintaining them successfulAgriculture and the national training centers- :, ly. In addition, a number of states have offi'.,' ciallists of their own. Recognition of a gradfor foreign service personnel.

But the influence of the government is uate's eligibility to teach in a given locality, not limited to the few institutions it supports or to practice various other professions callor the educational programs it directs. In ing for a high degree of academic comperecent years particularly, government par- tence, may depend upon whether or not he ticipation in higher education has become has completed his studies in an institution very active and vital an over the nation. To that has achieved accredited status. help it channel its activities, it maintains in Another distinctive feature of higher eduthe federal Office of Education a special cation in the United States is the unique Division of Higher Education, which serves character of American campus life. Since as a publication and consultation center and many students live at the school during their a center for research and infonnation four years of undergraduate study, most of exchange. the colleges and universities furnish them

Update n 2009, there were more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, according to the US. Census Bureau. "Th is number includes community colleges that award Associate degrees as wel l as institutions that award Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. degrees It is estimated that about 28 percent of Americans have a college degree," says Renuka Raj a Rao of the United States-India Educational Foundation in New Delhi.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center, 39.6 percent of all Americans aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in either atwo- or four-year college as of October 2008. The center's 2009 analysis of U.S. Census Bureau datarevealed arecord 84.9 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds had completed high school as of October 2008, up from 75.5 percent in 1967.

From 19 million students in public schools and 1.9 million in private schools in 1965, college enrollment was projected to rise to 13.4 million in private schools and 4. 05 million in private schools in 2010, according to the US. Census Bureau.

In 2009, 89 percent of 25- to 29-year-old Americans had received at least a high school diploma or equ ival ency certificate, an 11 percentage point increase from 1971. In the same year, 31 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds had earned at least a Bachelor's degree while 7 percent had a Master's degree or higher The postsecondary institution with the highest enrollment in 2007 was the University of Phoenix online campus with 224,880 students, according to

I

the US. Department of Educati on.

The federal Office of Education was created on March 2, 1867. It became part of the Department of the Interior in 1889. In 1939, it was placed under the Federal Security Agency of the Department of the Interior where it remained until the creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) in 1951 The commissioner of education reported directly to the secretary of HEW until 1972, when an Education Division was created , headed by the assistant secretary for education. The Offi ce of the Commissioner of Education ceased to exist when the Department of Education was created in 1980.

Today, the U.S. Department of Education establishes policies on federal financial aid and focuses America's attention on key education issues. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet, has called education "the most pressing issue facing America," saying that "preparing young people for success in life is not just a moral obligation of society," but also an "economic imperative. " - RV

For more information: The Promise of a Liberal Education

with room and board at cost. For many To the traditional program in liberal arts, young Americans, these years away from many innovations have been added: among home offer a fruitful opportunity for a others, drama and opera workshops, and maturing experience. Because college stu- extensive curricula in psychology and the dents are largely on their own, they grow in social sciences; journalism and creative self-reliance. Also, the close comradeship of writing; the techniques of teaching; human campus life can do much to broaden their relations, foreign policy and public service. human understanding, since they are Typically, throughout a student's college brought together, many of them for the flrst .,Years, formal learning is kept close to the time, with others their own age from wideli . issues and concerns of the modem world. In scattered sections of the nation and, some- addition, teachers and administrators try to times too, from distant comers of the world. take into account their students' special talBehind the growth and variety of higher ents and aptitudes, and their social and vocaeducation in America is the widely held con- tional needs. Thus, the training of what have viction that a nation's culture is not an inert been termed "second-echelon intellectuals" body of knowledge or of past accomplish- is considered as valid an objective as the ment, but is, rather, a vibrant, constructive development of intellectuals of the fIrst order. force pelmeating all aspects of daily life. To This is a striking feature of Amelican higher the traditional faculties of arts and letters, education, and from it the nation derives law, medicine and theology, American uni- much of its economic and cultural vitality. versities have added, through the years, facThough most students are preparing for ulties of agriCUlture, mining, engineering, a chosen career, colleges and universities industry, management, business administra- aim to do more than merely groom them to tion, architecture, dentistry and several more. become competent specialists-though

they must do that, too. They try also to help them grow into integrated individuals, able to translate much of what they have learned into activities that will be personally rewarding to them all their lives. And they try equally to inculcate in them the heritage of cultural and spiritual values stemming from the art and thought of both East and West; to train them to think freely on vital issues of their time; to sharpen their sense of civic responsibility; and to strengthen their grasp of the meaning and potentialities of life.

Other goals are the more traditional ones: to help able men and women grow to their full intellectual stature. To encourage and train the artists among them to express themselves creatively. To provide the discipline and instruction that will enable others with special gifts to make lasting contributions to the march of knowledge in the world, and to develop in them all an awareness of their moral obligation to do so. And perhaps ultimately most far-reaching of all- to supply vitalizing nourishment for the inner life-stronger responsiveness, subtler perceptions, and more worthy imaginings.

How well is American higher education attaining these high goals? Not fully, by any means. Yet a recent survey by the United States Census Bureau shows an educational trend that is highly signiflcant for the health of a democracy: the rising level of education among American workers.

Today, the average American worker has completed 11.8 years of schooling as against 9.3 in 1940. Nine per cent of all workers are college graduates as compared with 6.4 per cent, and 18 per cent have had at least one year of coll~ge as against 13.4 per cent 19 years ago. (See update box on page 22.)

Significant too is the fact that America's experiment in mass education is appealing to the interests and hopes of newly emerging people in every quarter of the globe.

Recently, Robelt H. Reid, United States Eisenhower Fellow for 1956-57, upon retmning from a world tour to study educational systems, reported that educators, in Asia particularly, were impressed by the fact that in the United States the whole future of a child's education and his future place in society are not determined forever at the age of 12-that, in America, a child can escape the pattern, so widespread SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

23

elsewhere, by which many opportunities in life are shut off to all but a favored few.

Today, the principle of providing a sound general education before allowing students to embark on specialization is almost universally accepted. Usually, specialization is accomplished through elective study, with general education embodied in broad orientation and background courses in the humanities, the social sciences, and in various areas of the physical and biological sciences. It is a widely established practice to prescribe a certain number of these general courses as partial requirements for the Bachelor of Arts or of Science, and to have the student supplement them by extensive work in one speciality or "major."

Though the common core of studies may be prescribed, much of the subject matter and approach are wholly modem. In their combination of set requirements and free choice, lecture and seminar, laboratory and conference, such programs constitute a fusion of the traditions, influences and

24 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

experiments that have shaped American higher education from the beginning.

Since the tum of the century, and at an increasingly swift pace in recent years, the changing pattern of higher learning has enabled the colleges and universities to reach more and more deeply and directly into the national life. This has been due, in large part, to the growth of technical and vocational training within the framework of higher education. Today, nearly twothirds of all students enrolled are pursuing vocational, technical or professional studies, with the remaining third engaged in liberal arts and science programs.

In commenting on the current state of things, Robert F. Goheen, president of Princeton University, has this to say, summing up the present picture: "Despite the anguish of traditionalists, and there has been much, the extension of the university's role to include education in vocational and technical subjects cannot be said to have radically debased our academic

coinage. Instead, it has brought the application of high standards of objectivity and of systematic thinking to vocational and technological problems. Advances in knowledge reached in university laboratories and disseminated through university courses have vastly increased the yield of our grain crops, opened the way to unknown mineral resources, raised beyond past credence the life expectancy in human childbirth. These are but a few of the many tangible returns directly attributable to the development of our universities in such areas in the past 50 to 70 years. We must add into the balance as sheer gain the thousands upon thousands of competently trained engineers, farmers, nurses, journalists, business school graduates, and other vocational specialists who have been schooled in our universities. In accepting such tasks, clearly the universities have reached down from whatever remote heights they may have been thought to have held and have proved their ability and their concern to lighten the darkness and the dangers in which we all spend our workaday lives."

Yet, while stressing the tangible returns, the American public is becoming more alive to the intangible. There is wide recognition that a 'liberal education in the sciences and the humanities has, in the past, amply proved its power to produce men and women whose view of life is broad and deep. The people at large are realizing, too, that such men and women are badly needed for crucial tasks: to help the nation to use to advantage the successes and the failures of history; to give new insight into the forces that move individuals and societies; and to lead the way in a continuing search for principles and values that will serve as compass and anchor for a world that is certain to be radically different from the one we know.

%

Colleges and Universities The terms are often used interchangeably. But, more properly, a college typically offers four years of undergraduate work toward a first degree, while a university comprises a number of schools, offering graduate and professional study as well as undergraduate work. Students may enter a college or university upon satisfactory completion of four years of secondary education in a public or private high school. (The high school is preceded by eight years of elementary education.) Frequently, the successful passing of college entrance examinations is also required for admission, and in some places certain other requirements must be met as well.

By JEFF BARON

uilt making is a well-known and exhibitions. India's quilts are less known. valued tradition in the United States. ,"All over the world, quilted textiles have An institute at the University of " been the least studied textiles because Nebraska-Lincoln, . the International . 't hey've really been the folk art," she says.

Quilt Study Center, has been workHanson emphasizes that the exhibit, ing for more than a decade to expand the "South Asian Seams: Quilts from India, understanding of quilted fabrics Above: A from around the world. It opened a godra or museum in 2008, and its new dharki quilt exhibit, running through November made by the 7, explores quilting textile tradiRabari tions in South Asia. tribespeople of India has been known for cenGujarat. turies for its fine printed textiles, Left: A gudari and textile experts have studied quilt from the rich fabrics and clothing of its Maharashtra. maharajahs' courts, says Marin F. Hanson, the museum's curator of

Q

Pakistan & Bangladesh," is about more than the quilts, as appt<.~ling as they might be. She says the goal "is to help visitors think about other societies and other people through this medium, through this metaphor of textiles."

For this exhibit, the museum relied on the expertise of Patricia Stoddard, an American who lived in Pakistan for several years and wrote a book on quilts from the region. The museum owns quilts from her collection from Pakistan and the neighboring Indian state of Gujarat. Also included in the exhibit are quilts from eastern India and Bangladesh collected over two years by museum researcher Patrick Finn, who documented their production and uses; and from a collector and researcher in SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

25

might provide padding on a cart seat or a cover for the cart's cargo; or it might serve American Quilters as a cushion for the bride and groom in a wedding ceremony. "Women still work on he quilti ng industry is active and flourtheir dowries, and these quilts are often ishing in the United States, American part of their dowries," Hanson says. quilters spent almost $3.6 billion on The quilts of South Asia vary as much as th eir passion thi s year, up 9 percent since the region's cuisines, Hanson says. The top 2006, says the Qui lting in America 2010 of a kantha quilt from Bangladesh or West survey by Texas-based Qu ilts Inc, and Bengal or Bihar will typically be a solid Quilters News letter magazine, With more piece of cloth-an old sari or dhoti, the than 16 million quilting househo lds, the garment of a woman or a man- rather than total number of quilters in America is 21,3 pieces of cloth stitched together. It will be million, with a litt le more than 1 mil lion heavily covered in embroidered images" households including som eone who is a perhaps including fish, to represent bounty, ,r, "ded icated quilter," While the average or a Hindu temple chariot, or a Bengal American quilti ng hou seh old's annual tiger, or a peacock. "They completely expenditure is $219, dedicated quilters cover the surface of this whole cloth," spent more than $600 a year in qui lting Hanson says. "It's sort of mind-boggling." supplies, whi ch is a lot of thread, In Maharashtra, the saris are differenthttp://www.womenfo lk.com/h istoryofqu iItsl typically a fairly plain gray, but with a brightly colored border-and the stitching is done with the thread laboriously what you can with what you have," she unwound from the borders. Hanson says the says.

Contrary to popular perceptions, she recycling of fabric is the norm for Indian quilts, which also use worn-out saris and says, American quilts from even as far dhotis as their layers of filling. "You do back as the colonial period, before 1776, often were made of pieces of new cloth.

"The idea of thrift in quiltmaking is complicated," she says, adding that the quilts often used newly purchased fabric as well as scraps and some reused fabric.

The ralli quilts from western India and Pakistan are more typically pieced together from many scraps, with cut-out pieces appliqued on top as well as embroidery and the inclusion of sequins and tiny mirrors.

The motifs might include animals such as peacocks, elephants and camels, and symbols such as the tree of life.

It's not only people's blankets that are quilted. The exhibit includes decorative coverings made for camels and bullocks by the Rabari people in Kutch, Gujarat.

Bullock coverings are designed to accommodate the Brahma bull's distinctive hump, Hanson says.

Hanson says the Nebraska center has begun to explore Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan for their quilts, and she hopes to travel through China to document the quilting traditions there. "This exhibition is really just the beginning, I think, of finding out about quilted textiles from all over this part of the world," she says.

T

Mumbai.

Hanson says the quilts are the fabrics of everyday life, but that "everyday life" has a broader meaning than most Americans might suspect. A quilt might be used as a bedcovering, as in the United States; it might be spread on the ground for a seating area; it might be hung in a doorway; it Above: A close-up of a West Bengal kantha quilt shows the stitchery involved in creating an elephant that seems to lumber along the quilt's border.

Below: A kawandi quilt pieced together and embroidered by a member of the Siddi people, possibly in Karnataka.

Jeff Baron is a staff writer with America.gov.

26 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

08

A

"Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America" is available at the American Library in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai

unner's D

u.s.

Odyssey

By LAURINDA KEYS LONG

"I trave led among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee."

-

William Wordsworth, 1799

iliP D'Souza, like Wordsworth, has turned on their heads the cliched sayings about how we travel to learn about other peoples and places. We do, no doubt. Yet D'Souza, in "Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America," shows that the intelligent, open -eyed and openeared traveler gains even greater understanding of his home country and people as he journeys abroad. ~ .:t~ " As D'Souza spent 10 years ~" studying and working in the United States ~~4' before returning to India in 1992, he has, perhaps, a better understanding of both countries than most travelers. Yet, he has something more. The ability to observe detail and describe it in an original way, to Top Left: A new house near Darby, make connections and comparisons intelliMontana, where the Bitterroot Valley gibly, to write wittily, and within a few wildfire destroyed homes built in hardpages engage the reader in the life and to-reach wilderness areas in 2000. story of a character. That is because Top Right: Bikers ride beneath Mount D'Souza is brave enough to not only backRushmore, during the annual pack alone in Africa for three months but motorcycle rally centered at Sturgis, South Dakota. to roll into a string of campgrounds, SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 lO

27

Writer Dilip D'Souza met people from all walks of life at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which takes over this South Dakota town each year.

roadside cafes and small towns across Americans and Indians, as well. In other America and strike up a conversation words, he learned more about the human with ... well, just anyone. It's the trait of a family and its connections and complexitrue journalist, though D'Souza's back- ties. And he shares this with the reader, ground is in computer science. while providing scenes meant to elicit And in these conversations, D'Souza out-and-out laughter, awe and wonder, listened, found what was unique and inter- and I-want-to-go-there-too responses. esting about individuals including motorOne reason for writing his book, cycle-riding missionaries; a feuding cou- brought out in 2009 by HarperCollins ple looking for, and finding, a wireless Publishers, "is that stereotypes need bustconnection in a desert campground; sur- ing," writes D'Souza. He presented phovivors of Hurricane Katrina, descendants tographs from his travels at the American of pioneers, soldiers' grieving families, a Center in New Delhi this summer. He buxom and bored model, a blind painter.... regards America as "a familiar second The writer has reserved judgment and home, one I always delight in visiting." found that gives him deep insights into He finds the United States thought-proBelow left: The ferry from Ocacroke Island, in the area where the Wright Brothers tested their aeroplane, brings travelers to the North Carolina mainland. The area is known as the ship graveyard of the Atlantic and the island is full of cemeteries.

28 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

Below: A Coast Guard officer in Virginia heads under a section of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, considered one of the wonders of the modern world.

voking, sometimes kooky, and generally audacious. Of home, he writes, "You could have been an Indian for half a century, yet you can always find one more stone to pick up under which lies one more thing about India you never heard of." So D'Souza has found out some things about India he never realized, by traveling across America, and he has mined .golden nuggets about American life, culture and history by searching for them with Indian eyes.

Both nations have flaws. D'Souza fights cynicism by searching for audacity and beauty. He first recorded incredible beauty in the Land Between the Lakes, in India in Bangalore, where 20 years ago he photographed "birds rising through a quilt of mist laid on the river ... the landscape reduced to soft silhouettes by the late afternoon sun, black and shimmering .. .. " That memory drew him later to another

Land Between the Lakes, a wildlife refuge that spreads over the border between the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. He called ahead from India to reserve a spot for the last viewing trip of the season, when rangers take visitors to see the American bald eagles, which spend the winter there. Car problems deprived him of the eagle sighting, but "Give up one American icon, I always say, pick up another." Instead, he saw bison, remnants of those mammoth herds that used to race across the American prairie before they were hunted nearly to extinction. There are bison at Land Between the Lakes because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recreated the prairie, rescuing bison and elk from disappearing by raising captive herds. The vegetation has been restored to provide the animals' natural habitat in the way it looked when Americans first began moving west.

Above left and right: The badlands border area near Malfa, Texas, where D'Souza found a wireless connection at a campground and met fellow campers Kent (left) and Rebecca.

Right: Amusement rides at the North Idaho County Fair in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Below left: The Lolo Na tional Forest near the Bitterroot Wilderness in Montana, where residents are trying to work out conflicts between development and preservation.

Below center: The Little Switzerland tunnel on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Below right: The Blue Ridge Parkway, one of America 's most scenic highways, snakes around Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

29

never again roam across the plains in vast herds. The market for their hide and meat Raphine, Virginia is gone. "Why bother with thi s small caphttp://www .virg inia.org/site/cities.asp?city =Raphine tive herd of bison, why care. about restoring a small patch of land to the way it Land Between the Lakes Elk and Bison Prairi e once was?" He concludes, as George Mallory did, when asked why one should http://www.lbl.org/EBPrairieGate.html climb Mount Everest. "Why save the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel bison? Because it was once here. Why restore the prairie? Because it, too, was http://www.cbbt.com/ once here."

"Only in America?" D' Souza comAnd that is where great beauty meets ments. "Don ' t just set aside land for a audacity, something D' Souza describes as refuge, but actually transport it back a cou- "a theme song," heard as he travels across . ple of hundred years. " Readers can share the United States. " .. .It tells a story of.路 D' Souza's feeling ,as he spots the herd of gumption: the moxie, the chutzpah, of 32 bison, grazing almost within reach as turning vague ideas into bold reality."

That brings our traveler to other examhe turns off hi s car engine and listens. "A quiet sound slowly worked into my con- ples of this gumption: the causeway into sciousness. First heard, I think of it as New Orleans, Louisiana, a long, straight gusts of soft wind through the trees ... .It's bridge that runs 40 kilometers across Lake the sound the nearest animal is making Pontchartrain, north of the city. D' Souza with his jaw. Munch chew munch, grazing drove out into that vast blueness, where the prairie one mouthful at a time." no land was visible in any direction, only Walking among the trees, he ponders other cars on the manmade slip of conthe bison and all the work involved in pre- crete and steel. "It's not unusual , I'm sure, serving them and their food. They will to remark on the awe you feel in the middle of a long bridge," D' Souza shares.

Icicles on rocks near Raphine, Virginia.

"But it marks the audacity of the original

For more information:

A roadrunner, native to arid regions of the United States and Mexico. Also, a popular Warn er Brothers' cartoon character known for its audacity.

thought: Let's fling a road thirty miles across this water .. ,," Another example is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Parts of three statesDelaware, Maryland and Virginia- constitute a peninsula that is the eastern shore of the bay. "If you ' re merely human, it was once a journey of several hundred miles,

.

Left: A bull elk, being preserved in small herds, along with bison, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Center: Re-creation of an 1850s-style farm at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky.

Bottom: Mountain highway near Lewiston, Idaho.

long and laborious, around the bay.

Which set somebody thinking, why not a bridge across the mouth of the bay, so we can cross as a crow would?" That is, about 37 kilometers in a straight direction. The complication: the use of the bay as one of the world's great shipping channels. A bridge high enough for ships to go under it would have been impractical, a drawbridge perhaps to slow for ships or cars.

"What's the answer? Easy: the bridge turns into a tunnel turns into a bridge," D' Souza tells us . "Twice in that...stretch, the road actually disappears underwater.

Seen from the air, long fingers snake out from either shore. Lonesome in between, a shadow of the fingers , is a span by itself." The writer says he has "driven this marvel twice," feeling an "involuntary chill as we burrowed into the tunnels at fifty -five" miles per hour. "The sea above me: what a thought, what a measure of chutzpah."

One of the most beautiful, and poignant, vignettes D' Souza includes is about Raphine, in western Virginia. A small town off one of the small state routes that the writer found presented more interesting and memorable scenes and experiences than the straight and speedy interstate highways. D'Souza drove into town in the wake of a massive February snowstorm that had left the winter-bared trees covered in fairy-tale white.

"When snows and ice fell from the skies, they coated the naked branches and twigs of the trees in films of water that immediately turned to ice," he writes. "The branches and twigs are completely encased in ice .... The sun shines through the branches, off the branches, on trees all around me. It's like I'm surrounded by a forest of delicately carved glass , or silver filigree. I'm inexplicably reminded of the Hyderabadi craft of bidri .. .The trees on the heights must all be similarly filigreed too, because the impression is of silver clouds settled on the hilltops."

Read it all.

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eading down Highway 101, through the steep-sided peaks of the Cascade Mountains in the Olympic National Park, we are enveloped by a pounding rain and a thick, neverending fog that obscures the dark, overhanging trees and the small towns we pass. Then , there is a large, green, wooden sign: "The City of Forks Welcomes You. " And instead of another sleepy timber town, we seem to have entered a magical Twilight-ville. Vampire and "Twilight" movie related souvenirs and signs are everywhere, as tourists overflow the shops and the sidewalks.

Stephenie Meyer 's teen vampire love saga, 'Twilight," is set in this rain-soaked hamlet in the northwestern corner of Washington state. Once a small logging town of 3,000 residents with a suffering economy, Forks is now booming with touri sm from the hugely popular novels and Hollywood movie adaptations. Even though the movies were filmed in neighboring Oregon state and Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada, fans surge into Forks to see the high school attended by the heroine, the vampire family's home, and other favorite locations from the

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32 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

novels and movies.

Before the vampire saga brought fame and fortune to Forks, it was just one of many small towns with a declining population as jobs were lost in the logging industry. An occasional experienced traveler would pass through looking for the mystical trees of the Hoh Rain Forest or the beautiful beaches of La Push, where 750 members of the Quileute tribe offered whale-watching, hiking, fishing and surfing adventures along with sun set-view ing accommodations. While residents often hoped that tourism would save the town, they never envisioned that it would stem from a teen vampire love story.

On June 2, 2003, thousands of kilometers away in scorching Phoenix, Arizona, a stay-at-home mom, Meyer, awoke from a vivid and gripping dream. "Though I had a million things to do .. .! stayed in bed, thinking about the dream .... Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down arrhe computer to write-something I hadn ' t done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering," she comments on her Web site.

Above: Waves crash ashore on the beach on the Quileute bJdian Reservation in La Push, Washing ton.

Left: The private residence in Forks designated as Swan House.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

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The dream, which ended up being Chapter 13 ("Confessions") in "Twilight," the first novel of the saga, was set in a meadow in the woods. In it, an "average girl" and a "fantastically beautiful, sparkly.. .vampire" were having an intense conversation. As Meyer recalls, the handsome vampire was professing his deep love for the human girl and his intense frustration that he also desired to kill her. Meyer became obsessed by the dream and the mysterious characters. She began creating the story line through her days of potty-training her children and taking them to swimming lessons. At night, once everyone had gone to bed, she would sit down and transcribe her story onto the computer.

In planning out this tale, Meyer knew that she wanted the love story to be set somewhere dark and rainy, so she turned to the Internet. After searching for the place with the most rainfall in the United States, the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state popped up. Meyer mentions on her Web site that she "pulled up maps of the area and studied them, looking for something small, out of the way, surrounded by forest. ... And there, right where I wanted it to be, was a tiny town called Forks." Forks receives about 3 meters of rain per year. She also discovered the nearby home of the Quileute tribe, whose ancestral legends say they descended from wolves. She wove that into her story, too.

Meyer 's story has become four novels, following the adventures of a teenager, Isabella "Bella" Swan, beginning with her

move from sunny Phoenix to rainy Forks to live with her father, Charlie. Bella quickly falls dangerously in love with a handsome, 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen, who appears to be a teenager. She also develops a close relationship with Jacob Black, a member of the Quileute tribe, who can transform himself into a werewolf. The novels portray Bella's perilous life, as other vampires try to kill her, and Edward or Jacob come to her rescue whjle vying for her affections.

Meyer published the first novel, "Twilight," in 2005 with a print run of 75 ,000. It reached number five on The New York Times' best-seller list for children's books within a month, and then quickly shot up to number one. Meyer wrote the sequels "New Moon" in 2006, "Eclipse" in 2007 and "Breaking Dawn" in 2008. The initialJ110vie of the series, "Twilight," was released on November 21; '2008 with great success. The other books' film adaptations followed each year and "Breaking Dawn" is to be released in two parts in 2011 and 2012.

Meanwhile, "strangers began drifting into Forks searching for 'Twilight' related locations during the summer of 2007," says Samuel Scheyler, a Forks resident who works at the Native to Twilight store that focuses on the Quileute tribe and Jacob Black's role in the saga. Mostly, teen girls accompanied by their families would roam the streets taking pictures wearing "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" T-shirts, representing whom they were rooting for in the battle to win Bella's love. ~ All parts of the town , especially anything with ~ "Forks" in the title, became a photographic oppor~ tunity. Scheyler comments that "the crowds contin~ ued, and eve!! more started arriving after the first ~ movie was released." Soon, visitors from across the ~ United States and around the world were making the pilgrimage to the town to see whether the reality matched their imaginations. Forks residents were curious at first about the tourists, but quickly caught on to the economic opportunity attached to the saga.

Kora Lotspiech, who works at the Dazzled by Twilight store and tour company, says, "Our quiet little town is now alive with new faces and excitement" though "some people are a bit annoyed .

They miss the peacefulness, and don ' t like the traffic or all the visitors. In the future, I see Forks always being a little tourist town that people come to for the beautiful sights we have here. 'Twilight' will always be a part of our town but the fame won ' t last forever, so we better enjoy it now!"

"Twi-hards" or "Twilighters," as "Twilight" fans are known, have several options when exploring Forks. Detailed novel and movie related maps and travel books are available at many of the stores.

Avery Ellis, a 9-year-old die-hard Team Jacob fan from Scotland, came to Forks with her grand moth(f)

Above far left: Bella Swan's truck parked in front of the Forks Chamber of Commerce.

Above left: An old motorcJjcie outside Jacob Black's house.

Left: Dazzled by Twilight store in Forks.

Above: Forks High School.

Right: A note at the Cullen House for visitors taking the Twilight Tour put on by the Forks Chamber of Commerce.

er and chose to explore the town on their own so that she could take her time searching for sights from the stories. "I feel like it is a treasure hunt. I like searching out all the places in the books, or imagining where they would be."

Jennifer Boggs from Washington state took one of the many "Twilight" tours on offer as she felt "it would be more fun . I wanted to be with a group of people that all enjoyed 'Twilight' as much as I do." The Forks Chamber of Commerce began providing "Twilight" tours in the summer of 2008. Private travel companies offer day trips. Dazzled by Twilight runs tours four times a day, each lasting two to three hours, for $39 per person.

The first popular destination is the Miller Tree Inn, which has been designated as Edward CulleI1's vampire family house. "The Cullen House," as it is known, is a two-story inn built路as a barn in 1916. Glancing through the grand front entrance windows, it is clear that the owners, Bill and Susan Brager, enjoy their home's new designation. They have put placards in each room with each of the Cullen family characters' names. "Our piano in the front room we call Edward's practice piano and we have clippings and other memorabilia in scrapbooks for guests to look at while they are here as well as the musical CDs and board games." They also have messages from Edward's mother, Esme Cullen, for visitors on a message board by the front door, and the mailbox bears the Cullen name.

Next is the police station, where Charlie Swan works. If you visit city hall during office hours, you can sign your name in the 'Twilight" guest book along with thousands of others from as close as Seattle and as far as the Philippines. The next stop is Forks High School, "Horne of the Spartans," where Bella and Edward study. This building was condemned and is currently being torn down, but pieces are being sold to raise money for a new school in the same location.

From there you can head over to Forks Outfitters, the sporting goods store where Bella works in the novels. At the shop, you can pick up 'Twilight" For more information: souvenirs, from baby Twilight Series clothes to rain boots http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilightseries.html and coffee mugs. You can grab a bite to eat Forks, Washington at the nearby Thrifthttp://www.forkswa.com/ way where Bella shops Quileute Nation ----------~---------- for groceries. CUp-

cakes in blood-red or black frosting or vampire vanilla fill the pastry counter. There is also 'Twilight" coffee and Bella chocolate to match her brown eyes. There is a visitor's center at the Chamber of Commerce, where Bella's old, rusted 1956 Chevy truck is parked in front.

Charlie and Bella's home is next on the tour. Meyer didn't have this particular house in mind when she wrote the series.

After tourism grew, the Chamber of Commerce designated this house as the Swan horne because of the resemblance it bears to the book's description of Charlie's two-story, Craftsman style house. This house is a private residence.

The next stop is the hospital where Carlisle Cullen, Edward 's father, works as a doctor. The hospital has a parking space with a sign stating, "Dr. Cullen: Reserved Parking Only." Eventually, the tour crosses the vampire/werewolf treaty line, which is labeled with a sign stating: "No vampires beyond this point."

Here in werewolf territory, we find Jacob Black's home, a red, one-story house with paint chipping off the walls and an old, rusty motorcycle leaning in the front yard. Twilighter Ellis enjoyed this location because she "liked how they put the motorcycle in front of the house. The owners seemed to really try and make it look like Jacob's house."

Next is the small town of La Push, on the Quileute Reservation, where Black lives, 24 kilometers west of Forks, right on the Pacific Ocean. "La Push's First Beach was my favorite. This is where Bella's best friend, Jacob, suggests Edward's true identity to Bella," exclaims Boggs. "I really thought it looked like what I imagined it would. The beach was so beautiful and I loved all the washed-up wood!"

There is also a tour and store in Port Angeles , Washington, 90 kilometers away from Forks, where you can visit Gottschalks, the department store where Bella and her friends , Angelina and Jessica, went shopping for prom dresses . Stop by the Port Book and News Store, the one Bella decided not to go into because it looked too "New Age" for her. In the novel , Bella gets lost walking around town while it starts to get dark. She ends up cornered in an alley by some strange men until Edward suddenly shows up in his Volvo to save her. Edward then takes her to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Bella Italia, where she enjoys her mushroom ravioli . Besides the tours in Forks and Port Angeles, tours based on the movies have also popped up in Vancouver and Oregon, where the movies were filmed.

http://www .quileutenation.org/ SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

35

In 2005, roughly 5,000 visitors signed the guest book at the Forks Chamber of Commerce. By 2009, an amazing 70,000 names were listed. The pages are full of declarations of love and admiration for characters in the novel. Walking through the town, it is hard to tum in any direction without seeing some piece of "Twilight" merchandise or decoration. Annette Root and her husband have opened two stores, Dazzled by Twilight (one in Port Angeles), a tour company, The Twilight Lounge, and a restaurant downstairs called The Lodge in Forks, all on North Forks Avenue, the town's main street. Mrs. Root told Peninsula ~ Woman Magazine, "This is about having a true passion for ~ something. It's why people come here- I guess that's why we're g all here." Passion is close to an understatement since Mrs. Root ;;.s mentioned she has read the entire series 22 times. ::; .'.

Stepping into the Dazzled by Twilight store is similar to stepping into a fantasy "Twilight" world: the floors are covered with Robert Pattinson (from left), Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner arrive at the premiere of "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" in Los Astroturf carpeting, there are large molded trees with twinkling Angeles, California in June 2010. lights entwined in the branches and leaves, and every kind of "Twilight" souvenir imaginable surrounds you. The two young girls working the counter, Lauren Peterson and Kora Lotspiech, you regularly see the Dazzled tour bus around town and the store are wearing matching Dazzled by Twilight T-shirts and are excit- is constantly full! " Peterson says. ed about the tourism that the novels have brought to Forks.

Lotspiech adds, "We couldn't be more thankful for our "Traffic is always busy at our only stoplight. Main Street's park- 'Twilight' fans! I love 'Twilight.' It's a series aimed for young ing is constantly full, tourists are always at the Forks sign and females but got the attention of women of all ages. It has done a lot of good for our town. I just like the story plot of the series and all the action in the books."

Being surrounded by souvenirs from their favorite novels is a bonus, but both agreed that their favorite part was all the tourists.

"My favorite part is meeting people every day who are happy fans that are excited to be in Forks. It is cool because you become really good friends with certain fans who come back to town a lot," says Peterson.

To keep with the "Twilight" theme, many Forks' residents Above: Avery Ellis stands have altered their businesses to match the vampire hype. A next to the" treaty line. " Twilight Coffee Shop, Twilight Firewood Store, Twilight Above right: "Twilight" Locksmith and other "Twilight" themed businesses line the main themed wine on sale. street. Thriftway sells "Twilight" rain boots, slippers, clothing, Right: "Twilight Territory: coffee syrup and wine. It you can think of it, they have it. Sully's A Fan 's Guide to Forks & La Burgers has sold more than 12,000 of its Bella Burgers, and Push" by Chris Cook from Subway, the only fast food chain in town, serves up a "Twilight the Forks Forum newspaper, sub," which oozes with deep red marinara sauce. There is even 011 sale at the Thriftway a Robert Pattinson lookalike, who resembles the actor who plays store.

Edward. The lookalike strolls through town and allows visitors to take photos with him, for a charge of course.

Tourism hits its peak on Stephenie Meyer's Day, which falls on Bella Swan's birthday in the novels, September 13.

Thousands of visitors swarm into the town each year to celebrate with birthday cake, lookalike contests, music and dancing.

*12.99

Kaitlin McVey is a writer living in Seattle, Washington.

36 SPAN SEPTEMBERJOcrOBER 2010

Harper Lee's Novel Achievement

By CHARLES LEERHSEN

'Witli liTo Ki(( A Mockingbird, "yubfislied 50 years ago, Lee gave America a storyJor tlie ages. Just don't ask lier about it. ~

T

0 spend an hour in Monroeville, Alabama, is to know why Harper Lee, the author of "To Kill A ~ Mockingbird," ranks as one of the crankiest writers on ~ the planet. Strongly inclined to put aside the hype and 8 hoopla and let literature speak for itself, Lee, the bestknown native of the town (population 6,372) that served as the model for her novel's Maycomb, has found herself living a short drive from one restaurant called the Mockingbird Grill and another named Radley's Fountain Grille, after Boo Radley, the character in "Mockingbird" who might be voted Least Likely to Become a Restaurateur. That would be a mere Tshirt's toss from a gift shop peddling "Mockingbird" hats, tote bags, necklaces, Christmas ornaments, refrigerator magnets, wrist bands (inscribed "I see it, Scout, I see it!") and paper fans.

The gift shop is in the venerable courthouse where as a child Lee watched her father practice law, and which she later rendered so vividly in her book. The courthouse has long since been turned into a "Mockingbird" museum, to the delight of a constant stream of camera-toting tourists, foreign and domestic. I sympathize with Lee, who has steadfastly refused to take part in the merchandising of her most famous accomplishment.

Life can ' t be easy when everything you hate about success stands between you and the Piggly Wiggly [grocery store].

This could be an especially maddening season for the 84year-old author, given that 2010 marks the 50th year since 'To Kill A Mockingbird" was published, and we all know how the media love anniversaries. Witness this very article, for example, though believe me no novelists were annoyed during its production. After what I had heard about her, I was too scared to knock on the door of her residence of record, a neat brick, reportedly book-lined house she shared with her older sister, Alice, or even to request an interview through the closest thing there are to proper channels. I should also disclose at this juncture that I am working under the influence of Inspirational Writer's Water, purchased at the gift shop described above.

Lee relied on perspiration as much as inspiration during the drawn-out creation of the book that, when it finally appeared Above: The 50th on July 11, 1960, changed her life instantly and forever. anniversary edition of "To Translated into more than 40 languages, "Mockingbird" has Kill A Mockingbird."

Left: Harper Lee in 1963 . sold over 30 million copies; with help from the anniversary

~

"To Kill A Mockingbird" is available at the American Library in New De lhi , Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.

The film will be screened at the American College in Madurai on September 30, at the Gandhigram University north of Madurai on October 1, and at the American Library in Chennai on October 30.

Copyright Š 2010. Originally appeared in Smithsonian February 2010.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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hullabaloo, HarperColiins (the book was originally published by the now-defunct Lippincott) will probably sell at least a million more this year, mostly to high schools and junior high schools, where it has been a staple of reading lists since it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961.

The 1962 movie version, starring Gregory Peck, won three Oscars, yet somehow that earnest black-and-white film never trumped the three-dimensional chiaroscuro "Mockingbird" that shimmers in peoples' imaginations after they experience Lee's work on the printed page. Indeed, many say the story of Scout Finch; her lawyer father, Atticus; her brother, Jem; their neighbor, Dill; and the ill -fated Tom Robinson is their all-time favorite novel. In surveys asking what one book every civilized person should read, "Mockingbird" routinely finishes second to the Bible, and in one (if I may go a bit Maycomb on you here) it up and finished first.

Readers have been living with the book for so long that they may not realize how profoundly odd this is. "Mockingbird" is hardly a marketer's or publicist's dream, and could easily have been dismissed as a downer. Set in the "tired old town" of Maycomb, in the unglamorous era of the Great Depression, it tells the story of a widower attorney who tries in vain to defend a black laborer from a wrongful charge of rape. It's pretty clear at the outset that Tom Robinson's word won't be taken over that of the unstable, white, incest victim who accuses him. And ... guess what? It isn't.

That maddening miscarriage of justice is not even the worst thing that happens to Robinson in the book. Like life itself, "Mockingbird" has no neat, symmetrical story arc, allowing obstacles to be introduced and then overcome before the ending. (That may be one reason the movie's producer, Alan J. Pakula, said there was no studio stampede to acquire film rights.)

The other thing "Mockingbird" lacks is what salespeople might call synergistic potential: it has no series mates, or even a sequel, that can help tum a book into a brand. There is no "To Kill a Cockatiel" or "Valley of the Dills" or "Am I Boo?" "Mockingbird" is Harper Lee's one and only published book.

Lee has never discussed her output, or lack of one, publicly. Not since the mid '60s has she said anything for the record about her

38 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

career. "My book had a universal theme," she told the Birmingham Post-Herald in 1962. "It's not a 'racial' novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, 路 not necessarily Southern civilization."

But don't call her a recluse. Miss Nelle, as she's known around town (she went with her middle name on the dust jacket because she didn' t want Yankees to elide Nelle Lee into "Nellie"), is that tallish woman with closely cropped white hair who over the years you could see in the aisles of the grocery store or having coffee at Hardees, often in the company of Alice, who also never man路ied. (Lee is rumored to have h~d ~ ~ @

Harper Lee (left) and President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony in 2007 when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

a slight stroke in 2008.) They were living comfortably but not extravagantly a short walk from the site of the modest woodframe house where she, and the book's narrator, Scout, were raised. (In its place now is an ice cream stand known, surprisingly, as Mel's Dairy Dream, and not To Chill a Mockingbird.) She would play golf and, occasionally, fish. (''I'm not like Thomas Wolfe," Lee said in a 1961 Life magazine interview. "I can go home again.") During the summer, when she would migrate to New York City, she would go to museums and the theater and root for the Mets, the natural choice for someone with an underdog thing as big as the Ritz. In 2007, Lee went to the White House to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President George W. Bush (and said nothing that was reported). She has a quick and easy smile for those who respect her privacy. But reporters who request an interview through

98-year-old Alice, a sneaker-wearing attorney at the family firm and her sister's semiofficial gatekeeper, can expect a polite but ironclad refusal. ("Hell no," Lee herself once wrote in reply to a scribe's request.)

It was not always thus. At first, perhaps buoyed by the mostly rave reviews and strong sales, Lee talked to almost anyone with a pad or microphone, saying that Atticus only superficially resembled her beloved father, A.c. ("one of the few men I've known who has genuine humility") and the trial in her novel "was a composite of all the trials in the world" (as opposed to, say, a gloss on the Scottsboro Boys' trial, as has been widely supposed). The questions, though, tended to be repetitive, annoyingly so. Journalists seemed obsessed with determining the degree to which the novel was autobiographical. Lee tended to say that her characters were basically fictional, but her biography does seem more ambiguous.

After all, she had been a tomboy like Scout, with an older brother like Jem. A Boo Radleyish character lived just down her street. Dill, meanwhile, closely resembled the young Truman Capote, who as a boy had spent summers at his cousin's house, next door to Lee's.

Once interviewers broached the subject of Capote, Lee might have braced herself for a question that would have been not just annoying but insulting: Wasn't it true that her pal Truman had written much of her book? Capote-always competitive, and, of course, a bit of a crackpot--didn't discourage the rumor, answering vaguely when asked about his contributions to her novel.

The truth (as is evident from Capote's private correspondence) is that he did not write a word of "Mockingbird," and that Lee, who assisted him as a reporter and researcher on "In Cold Blood," contributed substantially more to Capote's 1966 blockbuster than he ever admitted. Still, the rumor persists-to the point where it is addressed (and debunked) in one of the Monroeville museum's exhibits.

Another distasteful question was the inevitable two-parter about what she was doing next and when the world would see it.

Soon after "Mockingbird" appeared, Lee said, only half-jokingly, "All 1 want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama," and she began work on a second Southern novel, but its progress was slow. This in itself was not surprising: "Mockingbird" had not exactly

t

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fallen fully fOlmed from Lee's brain. She had turned out essays, humor pieces and short stories for campus publications during her one year at Huntingdon College in Montgomery and her years at the University of Alabama (where she studied law), but writing did not come easily to her. After she moved to New York City in 1949, she struggled for years with a hodgepodge of anecdotes about small town Southern life, fIrst called "Go Set a Watchman" and then "Atticus. " She received encouragement from an agent, Maurice Crain, and an editor, Lippincott's Tay Hohoff, who had seen the work-in-progress, but one night in 1957 she flung the unfInished manuscript out the window of her Manhattan cold-water flat. After a teary phone call to Hohoff, Lee charged down the stairs, recovered the forsaken pages-and then began a title-on-down revision that resulted in a book that would become a Literary Guild selection and Book-of-the-Month Club alternate, and that The New Yorker would call "unpretentious and totally ingenious" and the Chicago Tribune would hail as "a novel of strong ~ contemporary national significance.:' ----"'-Many years later, to a fan who engaged seems to have found her way to a place of her in conversation in a fast-food restaurant relative peace. She did squawk a few in Monroeville, Lee would say straightfor- years ago when the museum crossed a line wardly that the success of "Mockingbird" in her mind and started selling a collection overwhelmed her, making it impossible for of recipes called "Calpurnia's Cookbook," her to write a follow-up book. She wrestled after the black housekeeper in the novel. with that second novel for several years- (The book was withdrawn.) But it seems and then one day Alice rather too calmly that Lee has come to accept that she will told a BBC interviewer that the manuscript publish only one book, and to enjoy that had been stolen from their home and the she exceeded her expectations in doing so. project had been abandoned. (And Alice "When you're at the top," she once told later told a Chicago Tribune repOlter that her cousin Dickie Williams, "there is only the book never got beyond the conceptual one way to go. " stage.) In the rnid-1980s, Lee began Lee will in all likelihood stand aside researching a nonfIction book about an.,. and let "Mockingbird's" 50th anniversary Alabama preacher suspected of being a" ' happen . Truth be told, Monroeville is a serial killer, tentatively titled "The charming place, where the palpable pride Reverend." But she abandoned it, too, per- in its native daughter 's achievement tends haps feeling that just as she could not out- to make up for the occasional crassness.

Lee Lee she could not out-Capote Capote. Besides, Monroe-villains have been From this low point, however, Lee exploiting Lee's work for decades : when the movie came out in 1962, Charles 1.

Shields reports in his biography For more information: "Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Presidential Medal of Freedom Lee" (2006), the local theater offered ~----~----~-hltp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/ $10 to the first five people who releases/2007/11/20071105-7.html showed up with live mockingbirds.

Monroe County Heritage Museum Jane Ellen Clark, director of the Old http:7/www.to il amockingbird.com/ Courthouse Museum, notes that pilTo Catch a Mockingbird grims started flocking spontaneously

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ttp:l/ngm.nationa geograplilc.com/ngm/0601/ feature8/index.html

Mockingbird, " performed in Monroeville, Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the novel.

Left: Gregory Peck plays small-town lawyer Atticus Finch in the 1962 movie, "To Kill a Mockingbird. "

to Monroeville in 1960, as soon as the book was published. "All these people who said it was their favorite book would save up for the trip and find the town," she says. For thousands each year, " this was their vacation, and we created the museum because we wanted to give them something to see." Every spring since 1991, the town has staged a several-timesa-week theatrical production of "To Kill A Mockingbird" with local volunteer actors in the roles. Act I takes place on the town square, weather permitting, and Act II inside the courthouse. If the air conditioning isn't working, it can get steamy in that cavernous chamber, especially up in the "colored balcony" (as it was called in the ' 30s), where I saw last year' s production.

But if you've got a bottle of water, inspirational or otherwise, it makes for a uniquely American evening, right down to the realization that, as you're standing and applauding for the sometimes contradictory notions of small-town values and racial tolerance, Harper Lee would prefer to be a thousand miles to the north, cheering, ~ "Let's go, Mets! " Charles Leerhsen is a writer liv ing in Brooklyn, New York.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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Children in several Indian states are discovering new books, improving their reading skills ~ and girls are finishing school, with American support.

By DEEPANJALI KAKATI

ema Bisht, who lives in a village near Nainital in Uttarakhand, had to give up school after finishing the 10th grade. Her family cou ld not afford the fees, and with five children to feed Bisht's father did not feel further education for his daughter was a priority. Bisht's situation is not unique.

Millions of girls across India cannot complete their education because of factors ranging from lack of female teachers to violence from male teachers and classmates. They may also be forced by their families to drop out of school to marry early, care for younger siblings or contribute to the family income.

But Bisht's story took a different tum because of Room to Read, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, Califomia. In 2005, the year Bisht completed 10th grade, Room to Read started its Girls' Education program in Uttarakhand.

The program helped Bisht complete her schooling through the 12th grade. She is

H

40 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

now studying for her graduation and also working as a teacher at a local school.

Room to Read focuses on literacy and gender equality in education and works in nine Asian and African countries. Since it started in 2000, Room to Read has built schools and established bilingual libraries.

It has also published original, local language children's books and supported students through the Girls ' Education program. In 2010, Room to Read is celebrating the year of tens: 10 years, 1,000 schools opened, 10,000 girls on long-term scholarships and 10,000 libraries set up (http://www.roomtoread.org/yearoftens/in dex.html ).

Room to Read India st:aJ1ed in 2003 and as of last year had supported 2,081 Girls' Education participants, set up 3,295 libraries and published 74 books for children. It works in Andhra Pradesh, New Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. India hosts 50 percent of the group's two key programs-

Reading Rooms and Girls' Education- for the Asia region, says Sunisha Ahuja, Room to Read's India country director.

The origin of Room to Read lies in a trek in Nepal by a burned-out Microsoft executive, John Wood, in 1998. On his longest holiday in many years, Wood was taken by a Nepali acquaintance to visit a school in a remote area. They were shown around and then taken to the school library. The room, however, was empty.

When Wood asked where the books were, the headmaster explained they were kept locked up as they were considered precious and they did not want to ri sk the children damaging them. A teacher then came and unlocked the book cupboard.

"My heart sank as the school 's treasure trove was revealed. A Danielle Steel romance with a couple locked in passionate and semiclothed embrace on the front cover. A thick Umberto Eco novel, written in Italian. The Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia. And what children's library

Far left: Girls attend a bridge course, as preparation for regular school, at Mirzapur village in Rajasthan.

Left: A Room to Read facilitator encourages a child to read a storybook at a government school at Kekri in Rajasthan's Ajmer district.

Above: Students from a government school at Siroj, Arahi in Ajmer district at a Room to Read supported library.

Below: "Macho Machli, " a product of Room to Read's Local Language Publishing

would be complete without 'Finnegans Wake'? The books appeared to b~ backpacker castoffs that would be inaccessible (both physically and intellectually) to the young students," Wood writes in his book, "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. " "I asked about the school's enrollment and learned there were 450 students. Four hundred and fifty kids without books. How could this be happening in a world with such an abundance of material goods?"

Wood wanted to help, but wasn' t sure whether it would be considered condescending if he offered anything. But "the headmaster saved me the trouble of thinking this through," he writes. "His next sentence would forever change the course of my life: ' Perhaps, sir, you will someday come back with books.' " Wood did just that. From Kathmandu, he e-mailed everyone in his address book, asking them to send new and used chil-

dren 's books to his parents' house in the United States. A year later, Wood returned to Nepal with this father and over 3,000 books. They helped establish libraries in 10 schools. As Room to Read started taking up more of his time, Wood quit his position as Microsoft's director of business development for the greater China region.

Since its inception, Room to Read has drawn a diverse range of funders, including individuals, foundations and corporations.

Some of the significant support comes from The Hewlett Foundation, Microsoft, Scholastic Inc., Oprah's Angel Network, The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Credit Suisse, besides others. . ' In India, the nonprofit has come up with : many innovations which have been adopted globally. An example is the three-year support to schools where Reading Rooms are set up. The organization's flagship program, Reading Room, seeks to help children develop a lifelong habit of reading.

Reading Rooms are libraries with books in English as well as local languages, magazines, posters and educational games. "In India, we don't construct Reading Rooms.

The reading rooms are set up in available space in schools ... ," Ahuja says in an interview with SPAN. "Our purpose is that children have access to books and are able to use them

appropriately for reading and enjoy reading. The Reading Room is set up in a classroom or in a separate room . Books can be stored in the space available in the school and each classroom has a display of books.

Each grade has a library period when children can access the books and teachers can also conduct structured activities to develop a reading habit among children," she says. Room to Read aims to add 850 more such libraries in India this year.

It also trains librarians, and Ahuja says the focus is on ensuring that children can take books home. "This is one of the areas we monitor to measure the success of our libraries," she says. "Given that we would like children to become independent readers, we would in the future like to measure the number of books a child could be reading in a year."

"A significant proportion of children in India do not learn to read well. This reading failure is totally avoidable. What is needed is effective classroom practices for teaching [and] learning of reading and a vailability of good, developmentally appropriate books for young children," Dhir Jhingran, Room to Read's chief program officer, tells SPAN. Jhingran, who has worked for 18 years in the field of elementary education, is an Indian Administrative Service officer on a five-year deputation to SPA N SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

41

Hema Bisht teaching young girls at Rampur, Uttarakhand. Room to Read's Girls' Education program helped Bisht complete school. "

Room to Read.

To improve first- and second-grade students' reading abilities, Room to Read is implementing a two-year, pilot Primary Enhancement Reading Program in 150 schools with Reading Rooms in New Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

"I feel really energized when I see how small interventions can help children learn to read quickly and enjoy reading. There is immense joy in seeing children engrossed in interesting learning activities, rather than being passive or inactive in the classrooms," says Jhingran, who heads a global team that is responsible for guiding Room to Read's literacy program in Asia and Africa. Ahuja too feels Room to Read has been able to make an impact. "We have been able to create awareness about the importance of libraries," she says.

Resources for the organization's libraries are donated by foreign and local publishers, some are purchased locally and some are published by Room to Read through its Local Language Publishing program. This program was born out of a specific need.

"There are several children's books publishers in India but very few of these publishers publish new stories. Also, many a time the stories have an urban context.

For more information: Room to Read India http://www .roomtoread. org/india Room to Read India- A Glimpse into Our Work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =PiGki09W3zE It Began With Books p: www.newsweek.com/20US/037Z9 it-began-with-boo:.;.;,; ks~. ~h~ tm ;.;.;.I_ _ _ _ __ 42 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

Sometimes there can be good books which are not published frequently," says Ahuja.

Room to Read India works with local writers and illustrators to develop children's books in English and in local languages. Topics include gender equality, the environment, health, art, basic vocabulary and family life. Some stories are adapted from folktales and some come out of writing competitions and writers' workshops sponsored and facilitated by Room to Read. Winners are trained to write or illustrate for kids of different age groups : .:.

As of 2009, Room to Read India had published 74 children's titles in English, Hindi, Garhwali, Rajasthani and Telugu.

"Prakash," written and illustrated by Biman Basu in Hindi and English, explains the concept of light as a fonn of energy.

Written for 3- to 1O-year-olds, it talks about the various uses of light in our lives.

Another favorite is "Macho Machli" in Hindi, which was selected by the National Book Trust to represent children's literature from India at the International Book Fair in Bolivia this year.

Literacy is one of the primary concerns of Room to Read, especially in India, which has the highest number of illiterate people in the world, according to the United Nations Population Fund. "Young girls face some of the highest barriers. Not only are they less likely than boys to be in school, but those who are out of school are far more likely than boys never to enter," according to UNESCO's Education For All-Global Monitoring Report 2010.

Even though it is widely acknowledged that educating girls is an effective way to benefit their families and communities, economics and gender discrimination often keep girls out of school.

Room to Read India started its Girls ' Education program in 2004 and aims to add 700 more students this year. It covers the costs of school fees, textbooks and uniforms.

Ahuja explains that earlier girls were selected with participation from local community members and schools. They picked students from economically disadvantaged families and single parent families, when

they were moving from Grade 5 to 6. But "we will now be focusing on all girls in a class and our focus will be Grades 6 to 8," says Ahuja. "We are now also ... moving toward selecting schools and communities where there is gender disparity.

"In India, while there are several initiatives that the government has started to ensure girls come to school, there is still much to be done to keep girls at school, support them through their schooling and help them develop capacities such that they can make key life decisions," says Ahuja.

"Room to Read is focusing on ensuring that we will have gender equality in education ."

The country team selects the villages and communities with which the organization works. "Room to Read India partners with the Department of Education in each state where we implement our programs," says Ahuja. "We have had successful partnerships where either the government has been

John Wood's ''Leaving Microsoft to Change th e World " is available in Hindi at th e American Library in New De lhi.

a co-investor in our projects or the government has come in and matched the number of schools in which Room to Read

works, it works in partnership with local NGOs. "Because of their strong relationships at the community level we have been able to implement our programs with a fair amount of success and the schools continue to get support even after Room to Read's direct investment in the school is over," says Ahuja.

"There are few organizations that have looked at reading as a comprehensive agenda encompassing development of reading [and] literacy skills as also the joy and habit of reading," says Jhingran.

"With this clear focus, Room to Read is poised to develop and implement. .. quality programs for enhancing reading among primary schoolchildren." ~

Sandip ROJ San Francisco, California don't remember when we first started getting SPAN. But I remember the glossy magazine showing up in the mail at our home in Calcutta. It came addressed to my father but I usually nabbed it first. Until then the only glossy magazines I had seen come in the mail were the National Geographics our neighbors subscribed to.

SPAN caught my eye because it was so big. At that time I was in a scrapbook phase I would cut pictures and news clippings from newspapers and stick them painstakingly (and crookedly) in scrapbooks. SPAN's photographs were a godsend not only for the scrapbook but also for my school projects.

But there was one story that was indelibly imprinted on my memory. I'll always remember a profile of Carnatic singer M.S. Subbulakshmi. There was a gorgeous full page photograph of the singer, diamonds glittering on her nose. Next to it was a story that began with Subbulakshmi singing while Helen Keller listened. The deaf, dumb and blind Keller touched Subbulakshmi's throat with her fingertips feeling the vibrations of the music. And Subbulakshmi sang , tears pouring down her cheeks. That story gave me goose bumps. It was arts writing at its most profound , able to convey the power of music just through words.

But now I realize It worked at another level. No government orchestrated public relations venture could surpass the undistilled purity of that moment when two icons of India and the U.S.A. came together, understanding each other at a level that was beyond words.

I

Below: Sandip Roy, an editor with N ew America Media in San Francisco and host of its radio show "N ew America Now," poses with his dog, Panic.

Above: The article by Malini Seshadri in SPAN's October 1978 edition.

The first anthology of contemporary South Asian American poetry is not just about saris, migration and Bollywood. The 49 radically different voices also speak about a high school cheerleader, basketball and an Italian Renaissance princess.

By SANDlP ROY

A Mangalorean Catholic, I pray in Konkani, count in Kannada, swear in Tulu, sing in Hindi, write in English, and dream in American.

That's how poet Ralph Nazareth describes him se lf in "Indivisible," a new anthology of contemporary South Asian American poetry.

It's tricky business putting poets into boxes of identity. Asian American poet. South Asian American poet. Why not just American poet?

That, says Neelanjana Banetj ee, one of the co-editors of "Indivisible," published by the University of Arkansas Press, is one of the perils of putting together the first anthology of contemporary South Asian poetry. "People said, 'I spent all my li fe trying to say you can't essentiali ze my identity and now you are asking me to do j ust that!' " Banerjee says.

But it's the poets that make the anthology South Asian. It's not like the poetry is all about saris, monsoons or the Indian imm igrant in small town New Jersey.

There is a poem about a high school cheerl eader:

There are some suits more difficult to remove: spades, armor, tweed in the summer, light, cups.

Those nights you thought I was home, dateless, studying for chemistry, memorizing the dates of epic battles -

44 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

I worked myself into a lather of sweat for afield of angry young men.

-The Mascot of Beavercreek High Breaks Her Silence, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil There are poets with names like Monica Ferrell writing about an Italian Renaissance princess.

Listen, when the doctors finally carried me Wrapped in linen and sprinkled with camphor, I saw a scene frescoed on my eyelids' vellum I hadn 't imagined for years.

-Confessions of Beatrice D 'Este There is a sixth generation Trinidadian poet, Sasha Kamini Parmasad, who says:

I think of the Caribbean as my blood, India as my inherited bones.

But all these complicated questions of identity came much later. In the beginning it was supposed to be a much simpler book.

Maybe 10 or so poets responding to 9/11.

Their beautilullaundromat For many South Asians in the United States, 9/1 1 was a rude awakening. The memories of the ' 80s when the infamous

Asian American arts scene, went to a poetry reading at Brainwash, a laundromat cum cafe and met Sundaralingam. At another poetry reading, Sundaralingam met Kaipa and was impressed by her experimental poetry credentials. The three of them got together and became a sort of Charlie's Angels of South Asian poetry.

"Summi says, 'I talk to you more than my husband,''' Sundaralingam says. "She knows she can call me up and shout at me if she needs to."

"Pireeni-she's the go-getter among us," Banerjee says.

"She's the brave one. She'll make us show up at 8:30 at the registration desk at the writers conference. And she almost made us wear saris and lehengas as a bit of guerrilla marketing."

"Neela, she's the mellow one," Kaipa says. "She'll look like she just rolled out of bed but she'll show up for the meeting."

Spice girls Summi Kaipa (from left), Pireeni Sundaralingam and Neelanjana Banerjee.

Dotbusters gang beat up Indian immigrants in New Jersey had faded. But after the Twin Towers attack, one of the first victims of hate crimes was a Sikh gas station owner in Arizona. His turban, his beard, marked Balbir Singh Sodhi as an Osama bin Laden look-alike in the eyes of his assailant.

"It was the first time for many o.f us that we suddenly felt as a community we were the explicit targets of xenophobia, rather than the subtle victims of racism," Banerjee says. "We wanted to gather voices we were hearing at readings and protests and put them out there."

But in researching what was out there, Banerjee and her coeditors, Pireeni Sundaralingam and Summi Kaipa, found a much bigger void. There had not been any anthology of South Asian American contemporary poetry.

"We all realized we had each been asked multiple times, 'Are there any South Asian American poets?' " Sundaralingam says.

"That really rubs against the skin. We felt we wanted to stand up and be counted."

It took almost eight years. In the course of that time, they moved, got married, gained publishers, lost publishers, but somehow stuck together. "I did think at one point路! was throwing my time down a black hole," Kaipa confesses: "1 definitely considered letting the two of them finish the project. But I just liked the conversations."

They all came from very different schools of poetry. Kaipa had grown up in Arkansas and Fresno, California and gone to ~he ~owa Writers' Workshop where she'd started Interlope, an onhne JOurnal of experimental writing by Asian Americans. Sundaralingam, born in Sri Lanka, raised in London, had grown up with the classics: "We regularly put on Shakespeare plays and in elementary school we had to memorize a poem each week." Banerjee, born in the American Midwest, was more of a fiction writer than a poet but read the Beats and wrote "bad, Kerouac-inspired poetry" on her typewriter.

The three found each other by chance in San Francisco, California. Banerjee, new to the city and hungry to embrace the

Sundaralingam had a point. In publishing, it's also about marketing. Even when they were shopping the manuscript around, they kept encountering publishers who were interested in the first anthology of South Asian American poetry but had their own notions about what that constituted.

"They would insist we only include poems that fit certain themes," Sundaralingam says. Publishers thought it would be more marketable to have sections like Body, Immigration, Borders. "But we wanted to curate poets, not themes," Sundaralingam protests.

"What drew us to the University of Arkansas Press was that they had already been through all this. Their last big poetry book was an Arab American poetry anthology," Banerjee says.

The success of South Asian American fiction writers in America has certainly raised the profile of all types of South Asian writers. But poetry is a really different beast, says Kaipa.

"There is freedom in the poetic form for divergent experiences that are not captured in South Asian fiction."

"There was a definite sense out there (thanks to the fiction) about what being South Asian is all about," Banerjee says.

"Spices and sex," says Sundaralingam.

"Immigration, food, the domestic sphere," Banerjee adds .

"There are a lot of book covers out there with saris on them."

Poets, on the other hand, says Banerjee, write about "a lot of things you might just Google randomly."

That's not to say that the sacred cows of South Asian identity don't come up. There are poems about the homeland, about migration, about immigrants cleaning motel rooms across America. And, of course, about Bollywood.

Kaipa takes on the Bollywood classic "Qurbani," with Zeenat Aman, red sequined dress and all.

I wished I was Zeenat Aman, the Indian 80 Derek "/0," and dreamed of her white feather boas to wrap around my shoulders while I mimicked her shaking hips.

-A Personal Cinema The point, says Kaipa, was to complicate the simplistic mango-monsoon notions of identity. "So I wanted to play with Bollywood in my poetry or see what it would mean to rewrite SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOB ER 20 10

45

Center telTorist attacks. One of them, Jeet Thayil's "September 10, 2001 ," describes the day before. But the shadow of 9/l1lingers on in the lives of the poets who are part of the anthology.

One of them, Kazim Ali, a professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, was recycling a box of student manuscripts after judging a poetry competition. He didn't realize as he drove away that he had aroused the suspicion of a young man from the Pireeni Sundaralingam (from left), Summi Kaipa and Neelanjana Reserve Officers' Training Corps watching him leave the box Banerjee at the launch of "Indivisible " in San Francisco, California. near a garbage bin. Within hours, the campus was shut down, the bomb squad had been dispatched and there was a lookout for a the Mahabharata," she says. man who matched his description.

As an experimental poet, Kaipa says she was used to being The university called it an "honest mistake" but Ali wrote that one of the only South Asians in her genre. "I remember being on it wasn ' t the package that was the problem. "That package the train reading a magazine of experimental writing and a guy came up to me and asked if I was Prageeta Sharma," she laughs. became 'suspicious::.because of who was holding it, who put it "There were just so few of us around." Sharma is part of the down, who drove路'away. Me." "We think of poetry as safe, innocuous, rhyming couplets," anthology as well.

Banerjee says. "But it is powerful. It can be dangerous. " Sundaralingam says they struggled to find a title that was short Where have all the aunties gone;禄 and catchy, yet encompassed the complexity of the poets ' work.

One big challenge, as the poems started to come in, was to figThen Kaipa happened to read the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. ure out who was a South Asian American poet and who was a "As soon as she reached the word 'indivisible,' I said, 'Stop,' " South Asian American who happened to write some poetry.

Sundaralingam recalls. As a book of poetry about South Asians, Not very many had books to their credit. Most had alternate with the fractured histories of their home countries, the tensions careers. "We have a lot of doctor poets, scientist poets," Banerjee between unity and pluralism, the word 'indivisible' held obvious says. Kaipa is a psychologist. Sundaralingam studies the brain. power. But coming as it did from the Sundaralingam says when the manuFor more information: Pledge of Allegiance, it was also a very script first went out to major publishers, American word for a book that wanted Indivisible many of them raised their eyebrows at the to find its place very fmnly within the poets that had been included. While there hltp://www.indivisibleanthology.com/antho ogy/ p,\ntheon of American poetry. were some established names like Chitra Iowa Writers' Workshop Its 49 writers might give voice to Banerjee Divakaruni, the late Agha Shahid hltp://www.uiowa.edu/-:iw-w..,.. / -----HUlTicane Katrina victims or 18th cenAli and Meena Alexander, Sundaralingam tury weavers of muslin whose thumbs says publishers asked, "Who is this Dilruba Ahmed, who is this Ravi Shankar, why don't you have Auntie so- were chopped off. They were at home in supermarket aisles or an Indian movie theater in New Jersey. They might riff on jazz or ghazand-soT' Sundaralingam now feels vindicated in believing in the poets also "We wanted to explode the stereotype of the South Asian they chose. Ahmed, who has roots in Pennsylvania and category, the expectations people might have of us," says Bangladesh, won the 2006 New Letters Award and the Florida Sundaralingam. "We wanted to show 49 radically different voices."

Why not 50?

Review's 2006 Editors' Award. Shankar founded an internation"It's like setting the table for Elijah; there is a missing poet," al arts journal, Drunken Boat, and was a finalist for the 2005 Sundaralingam chuckles.

Connecticut Book Awards.

"It speaks to the idea of this as a beginning," Banerjee adds.

But in the time it took to find a publisher, they also lost track of many of their poets. Banerjee remembers the desperate hunt "It's the first but it's not the complete South Asian American poetfor Sachin Patel, one of their early contributors. "He had written ry collection. It's the beginning of a conversation." She writes: a great poem about basketball and we knew he was a doctor. But can you imagine how many Dr. Sachin Patels there are?" she says. "We finally found him through the friend of another contributor. And to our delight he was still writing."

And so it came to pass that I was baptized on the basketball courts of West Philly, where Fonso and Cass showed a brotha the bouncing ball gospels of the old school.

-The Blacktop Gospels by Sachin Patel

Passage to America The anthology, which started out as a response to 9/11 and the war that followed, includes very few poems about the World Trade

46 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

Chapa tis make a flap flapping sound against Radha 's palms, her bangles tinkle like cowbells.

Jane sets her boots heavily on the porch railing, swills her whiskey in a glass.

They are both thinking of the way the light looks in the dust the cows kick up at the end of the day.

-Radha Meets Calamity Jane, Cowgirl Series, I Sandip Roy is an editor with New America Media in San Francisco and host of its radio show "New America Now."

. "/'I/I not a glint. /'1/1 jllst han ging out here ri/l111Y renovCl tioll is don e. "

" Even th ollgh YO II gave th e c.E.O. a kidney, this is a lot of sick days. ,.

Copyright © Robert Leightonffhe New Yorker CoUection/www.cartoonbank.com

Copyright © Leo Cullum/The New Yorker Collecli onlwww.cartoonbank.com

" /'m aI/ for pllshing them alit of 'h e nest, but maybe next ,ime we cOllld wait til/ th ey hatch. " Copyri ght © The Saturday Evening Post magazine.

Saturday Evening Post Society. Reprinted wi th permission.

Copyright © Pat Bymesffhe New Yorker Collcc tion/www.cartoonbankcom

SPAN SEPTEMBERIOCTOBER 201047

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In • In U81 e e ox

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Q\

Samuel Micklus, program director of Odyssey of the Mind, a problem-solving competition for students from kindergarten through college, answered fil questions on encouraging creativity in children during a U.S. Embassy-sponsored Web chat in India recently. 'Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics," says the Web site of the New Jersey based enterprise, http://www.odysseyofthemind.com. 'They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and world level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program."

Excerpts from Micklus' chat with Indians: What activities' can I do at home with my son to make him more creative?

There are many activities, some simple, like passing around a household utensil like a spoon and asking him what else it could be.

Give responses yourself as well....

More detailed activities can be taking school assignments and making the homework a hands-on activity where they perform a show about the subject. A lot depends on the grade level.

I have a son who is getting so addicted to the PlayStation and computer games, he is losing interest in the world beyond. Help me!

I know what you mean. I have a 9-year-old son back in the U.S. who is near that point as well. Get them engaged in the world around them. Point out beautiful flowers, clouds, etc. Then ask him to pretend he's the flower and to de~cribe a day in his life. Pretty soon he'll

be doing this over and over again with many items and parts of nature ....

It's also fun to play word games that are ... educational. Our family takes turns naming animals, or places on Earth, and the next person must give a response that starts with the last letter of the previous response. It's a lot of fun and you are both teaching and learning from your child.

How do we encourage children to think creatively when Indian schools promote rote memorization?

Rote memorization is an important part of learning but it is the basic part. We are talking with educators across the country to demonstrate that creative education is the highest form. So far, most seem very agreeable and interested. Parents can always let the people who make the decisions know their feelings.

Indian schools typically swamp kids with homework, projects and assignments, leaving very little time for anything else.

How can we work around this system to encourage creativity and critical thinking?

Samuel Micklus and a young participant during a workshop at the American Library in New Delhi.

ask you to list places in a part of the world, ask if you can create a model showing them. Use your creativity, and discuss possibilities with your friends, and give it a try.

Does a creative education necessarily mean a decrease in competitiveness among students?

Too often homework is thought of as "the more the better" .. .and that could not be more incorrect. It is the quality of education that matters, and too often quantity detracts from the quality.

Competition can and should be invoked in creative endeavors.

When we compete we try our best. Ask someone to create the best toy and you will get thousands of great innovative ideas.

Do you have any suggestions for parents who may be short on time, balancing their own jobs and the kids' school routines?

How can I inculcate a reading habit in my 8-year-old? I have lots of books for him, but he seems interested only in gadgets.

The best advice for parents short on time is to make the most of it. Read stories to your children before they go to sleep. Let them make up a story. Our family does this: One picks an animal, one picks a color, one picks a place and, one picks anything else. We then take turns telling stories that include all four.

Find him a book about gadgets. My son loved trucks so we got him books on trucks. He learned that books can be fun and now he reads about a lot of subjects.

How can I ensure that my 2-year-old grows up into a creative and confident boy?

I wish there was more of an emphasis on it when I was young.

Learning different languages helps in the learning process but it's not for every child. If it does not come naturally, see if they want to put in the effort. Knowing the languages you will need in life is a must.

Well, you will playa key role .... Make sure you make his education creative right from the start. Ask the "What if..." and "How else ... " questions.

My 7-year-old daughter is very scared to learn new concepts.

Is this some kind of a problem?

That's normal for a lot of children. In fact, some thrive in the current educational system. This is why we wish to enhance it as opposed to overturn it.... Let her grow into herself. I find that children are more likely to take risks and try new things when they are around others. That's bad when you're not there to make sure they are not getting into trouble, but it's good when you can control the experience. Ask her and her friends, "Who wants ... " and see what happens. .~

What do you think about the parent-teacher relationship?

All the activities carried out at home are fine, but it is the school that influences the children to a greater extent.

I think parents should get acquainted with their children's educators. I find that teachers prefer this as long as it is not only a meeting to complain about things. Teachers need to know your children's preferences and weaknesses that only a parent can see. My wife and I are very involved in our children's schools.

Do you have suggestions on how to motivate slightly older kids, in the age group of 12 to 15, to be interested in their studies?

If you have the right teacher you have great opportunities. If they ask you to write a report ask her if you can perform a play. If they

Are foreign languages really that important to a child's creative education?

Today's market is flooded with CDs of nursery rhymes, games, stories and fables. Are these recommended or would you rather have the parents only read out stories?

A lot depends on the time you have to spend as a parent. If you have little time then some of these CDs might come in useful. I would not make them the basis of the time they spend at home nor the time they spend learning at home. Eventually your child will think anything on CD or in the "box" is educational and we know that's not good.

How can I improve the learning skills of my child in this technological age being in a developing country?

Being in a developing country has many great opportunities. The ability to learn is a skill like any other. No matter how you develop that tool in your child you can use it in most any field. Make sure your child has no fear of computers and the like and they will perform remarkably well. Take advantage of what you see developing around you. Ask friends who are in technical fields for their advice.

Just don't overwhelm your child.

How important is it for a parent to involve hislher child's friends in the process of creative learning?

Involving friends is incidental. Friends might enjoy the process and the experience but the big picture is that you are sharing time in a fun and beneficial way with your child. ~

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

49

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Byc~Q8rnln

the Language oli

American exchange students in India learn Hindi and not so visible aspects of Indian culture as part of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth. n the sweltering New Delhi summer, 16 students from all over the United States visited India for six and a half weeks to study Hindi as part of the National Security Language Initiati ve for Youth. Organized by the U.S. Department of State, the program gives American high school students opportunities to study Hindi, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Farsi, Russian, Korean and Turkish. These can be studied abroad for a summer, a semester or a year.

The students had applied to the language program, which was advertised in their schools, and were then interviewed and selected to participate. ~ Languages, often a barrier to intercultural understanding, can } actually pave the way for it. According to the initiative's Web site, ~ it is "part of a broader government-wide presidential initiative that ~ prepares American citizens to be leaders in a global world" by :ÂŁ encouraging study of languages that are not commonly taught in ~ American schools.

During their pre-departure orientation, the students were intro- to the lilting cadences of Hindi through daily life and popular duced to the "iceberg" concept of culture. Aly Gideon from films as well. All 16 American students were rushed to the newly Princeton, New Jersey explained that most of an iceberg is sus- released romantic comedy "I Hate Luv Storys" by their host fampended unseen below water while only a tiny portion at the tip is ilies. Even though they couldn't understand all that the characters visible. This model parallels our discovery of new cultures. The were saying, the students were later amazed to find how much of visible parts of culture are immediately apparent- food, dress and an influence Bollywood movies had on popular Indian culture. In appearances-while other subtle aspects of culture- values, cus- India, as in the United States, dialogue from hit films often finds toms and ethics- are harder to discern. "An exchange program its way into colloquial speech. gives one the opportunity to understand and see what is not always Elizabeth Bigelow, from the small town of Argyle, Wisconsin, visible," she says. remarks, "Language is a window into the culture," as there is a The most evident aspects of Indian culture alternatively thrilled, definite connection between language and social interaction. This stunned, inspired and shocked the American students. Shoshanna is especially evident in Hindi, where the differences in addressing Goldin of Allentown, Pennsylvania discovered that "the best parts someone (the informal "you"-tum-versus the formal "you"of traditionalism and modernism" live together in India. aap) highlights a cultural difference from Engli sh-speaking counThe students were introduced to saris, lehengas, spices, North tries where everyone can properly be called the same thingIndian food,jalebis and other sweets. They explored bustling mar- you- whether they are elders or children, strangers or family. kets with their host families and visited the Taj Mahal in Agra and Each day, the exchange students attended classes at Amity the Qutab Minar in New Delhi. They got caught in the monsoon International School in East Delhi to practice their grammar, rain and saw monkeys outside of a zoo for the first time. And, of vocabulary and the Hindi alphabet-all forms and sounds entirecourse, they watched Bollywood movies. ly unfamiliar to English speakers. Bigelow recounted in a teleUpon their arrival, the language students were quickly exposed phone interview the challenges she and her classmates had learning Hindi: "None of us could hear correctly the differences" For more information: between the throaty "da" and the "dha" pronunciations.

Nati onal Security Language Initiative for Youth Reina Gattuso, an exchange student from Holland Township, nttp://excnanges . state.gov/youtn~ ro rams7ns I.ntml New Jersey, suggests that if more people-specifically more

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50 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 10

American youths-learn languages, it could promote "the kind of global consciousness that American schools lack." It is precisely this need for speakers of critical languages that the initiative aims to address. "In the United States, being fluent in a second language is the exception; in India, it's the rule," Gattuso notes.

She adds that Indians "can speak three, four, five languages and it's no big deal. Part of this is because the U.S. is far more linguistically homogenous. But U.S. schools, with some exceptions, just don ' t prioritize language learning. In India, students learn in a language that usually isn't what they speak at home, and they take another language on top of that. I think thaI's the kind of global consciousness that American schools lack."

In addition to their language classes, the Amelican exchange students learned about yoga, sculpture, traditional music, and games such as kabaddi.

They also learned about subtler aspects of Indian culture, like the importance of family in everyday life. "While many people in the United States preach 'family values,' I really think we can learn from the warmth and generosity of Indian families," Gattuso says.

Goldin marveled at the fact that "here, literally everyone- the uncles and the grandparents and the cousins- will be in the room with your friends."

Having lived away from their culture and familiar lifestyle for over six weeks, the students now realize the acute need for an international perspective and greater understanding of other peo-

Far left: The American exchange students visit the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Above left: Lauren Berry, exchange student from Phoenix, Arizona, dresses in a sari.

Top: Exchange students Shoshanna Goldin (left) and Hannah Campbell.

Above: Exchange student Elizabeth Bigelow (right) with her host sister, Anika Ghei.

pIe and cultures. Lauren Berry from Phoenix, Arizona explains, "There are so many stereotypes out there .. .. My job can be to (politely) break down those stereotypes."

Gattuso explains that the value of an exchange program lies in the fact that it "exposes you to another culture with all the paradoxical, beautiful and mundane moments of daily life. If you want a whirlwind adventure, join a tour group. But if you want to actually get to know people and how they think, and begin questioning your own culture and why you do the things you do, go on an exchange. I never realized how American I was until I came here, and being immersed in aspects of Indian culture that surprise, enlighten and even disturb me causes me to see the idiosyncrasies of my own culture in sharper relief." ~ Cynthia Wee Miller wrote this article while working as a Public Affairs intern at the American Center in New Delhi. She is an English literature and creative writing student at the University of Warwick.

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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Indian exchange students develop greater skills, knowledge and understanding about American culture while learning som ing about themselves.

(

By CYNTHIA WEE MILLER

gaggle of girls disdainfully toss their hair as they strut down the hallway, high heels clicking on linoleum and keys to their fancy cars jangling in their purses. They bare their shoulders to the Californian sun as they discuss the delicious scandal of last night's party. They have no regard for anyone but themselves, no desire to learn of the world beyond the wrought iron

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52 SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

school gates. In the rigid social hierarchy of high school, these girls and their simpering admirers rule the jungle. The camera pans out to take in the group: catty and capricious, each primped and plucked to perfection, the epitome of the American high school student as portrayed by the TV show "90210."

"But that 's not how it is. It's not true! " Bhawna Mahalwal cries, breathless with

indignant laughter. "Those shows like '902 10' -they're showing everything wrong." The dramatic lives of American teenagers as portrayed by the media are scri pted to thrill the audience, but as several Indian students have learned, stereotypes and reality often clash. After all, "it's just TV," Mahalwal declares.

Taking out 11 months from school in New Delhi in 2005-2006, she attended

American homes for a semester or a school year. Every year, Indian students travel to towns all over America to do just that, encountering unfamiliar faces, weather, food, culture and customs. They exchange searing summer heat for winter snow and breakfast parathas for maple syrup-soaked waffles. They become, essentially, Indian cultural ambassadors to the United States.

What is American high school likeil Left: Darshit Sagar (second from left), exchange student to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, golfs with his host family.

Top: Ankush Wagle, exchange student to Scottsdale, Arizona, with other AFS students at Grand Canyon N ational Park.

Above: Bhawna Mahalwal (left), exchange student to Livingston, Texas and a friend at high school.

Bonds Livingston High School in Livingston, Texas as part of a U.S. government supported exchange program.

These opportunities are a popular way for students to dispel misconceptions. The American Field Service (AFS) and Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programs, sponsored by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, allow students from several countries to live as "sons" and "daughters" in typical

given more importance as compared to in Indian culture. I noticed that in America if you have to be the 'hero' of the school, you have to be a sportsperson. While the contrast in India is that to be the 'hero' you need to be a whiz kid and be good in academics," she says.

While sports are enjoyed by both Indian and American students, many YES participants remarked on the level of intensity of sports in America. Some, like YES student Sheba Basu of Mumbai, were not convinced that all the competition was strictly necessary. "I do not like the competitiveness in sports over there," she insists. "It's very stressful and sports are supposed to be played for exercise and relaxation from stress." However, Basu concedes that sports can be a way to stay healthy.

Classroom culture The difference between Indian and American culture also manifests itself in the classroom. While one system favors a patterned approach to learning, the other is more theoretical: children in America are expected to move beyond rote memorization to fully grasp the concept of the lesson.

"Considering the stress Indian students go through with school and extra tuitions, I would say that we slog a lot more," says Basu.

Wagle agrees, adding, "American schools have easier curriculum and exams."

Despite the rigor of the Indian education system, when compared to the American system with its various extracurricular courses and activities, many of the YES students believe that American schools could learn from Indian ones. "I didn't think it was appropriate to have open-book tests," Mahalwal says. "Multiple choice questions can be kiddish at times; you just have to tick it, it's so easy! It should be a little more elaborate."

Shadab Nazmi, who traveled from New Delhi to Westport, Indiana in the 20072008 school year, explains that Indian schools could also learn from American

"Indian schools and American schools are about as alike as chalk and cheese," says Ankush Wagle of Pune after living in the town of Scottsdale, Arizona from 2008 to 2009. Attending American high school was for him and other YES exchange students an opportunity to learn from American teenagers. Sports teams, school dances like homecoming and prom, music, theater, visual arts, competitions and debates are among the activities that YES students participated in.

Whether it was joining the team or .:' 'cheering from the bleachers at Friday night football games, decked out in school colors, YES students found sports to be an important part of their experience in America. Americans "are so proud of their sports. With regard to this American football-they were just crazy about it," Mahalwal says.

Aditi Juneja from New Delhi, who was hosted in the Tri-Cities, Washington from For more information: 2007 to 2008, agrees. The Tri-Cities is a American Field Service metropolitan area in Washington state l http]/www.afs.org/afs or/home comprised of three neighboring cities: Youth Exchange and Stu dy Program Kennewick, Richland and Pasco. llil!ElLwww.yesprograms.org/ "Sports in the American culture are

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

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American society. Jog, who attended Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City, Maryland from 2008 to 2009, realized that the vibrant diversity of languages, ethnicity and colors she experiences in Pune is also present in America.

Are India and the United States worlds apanra

Top: Ankush Wagle in a football team uniform at school.

Below: Exchange student Ishita Joshi relaxes w ith her host family at their home, decorated for Christmas.

schools. As an example, he mentions the style of learning that promotes innovative thinking, education that goes "beyond blackboard and teacher." In encouraging a holistic learning process, American schools use a grading system with both percentages and grades over the course of the year. In classes, students create presentations, research and collaborate on projects, discuss ideas, make speeches, debate over issues and are encouraged to learn creatively.

The YES students took advantage of the curriculum options available, enrolling in a range of classes that were not offered in their Indian schools: U.S. history, art, photography, forensics, dance, debate and Model United Nations. A greater understanding of different people and cultureslearning "about people," as Mahalwal says-transcends the curriculum. After making friends with not only American students but other exchange students in their schools, the YES students found themselves more open-minded and aware of their place in a global community.

Rutuja Jog found many similarities due to the intermingling of cultures in 54

SPAN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010

Once the initial shock of displacement and a new culture wears off, students realize that despite all their stark differences, perhaps the United States and India aren't as different as they had assumed.

"To adjust in any circumstance in a new:. country-or anywhere, really-is to learn about people and their nature and the way they work," Mahalwal explains.

For the more than 100 students that lived and studied in the United States in recent years as a part of these exchange programs, the opportunity to be an exchange student was a chance to develop greater skills, knowledge and understanding about different cultures while at the same time learning something about themselves. "It's amazing how much a person can grow when he's removed from an environment that he's been used to for years and placed in another one where he has to learn to adapt. That's where the value of exchange programs lies," Wagle says.

The cultural exchange works both ways.

Indian classical dance, Bollywood actors, traditional food and festivals such as Diwali and Holi, are introduced and explained by YES students who relish the opportunity to impart something of their culture.

Efforts at bridging this cultural divide parallel the personal development of several students, who found themselves changing in environments that continually pushed their comf0l1 zones. When asked how he had grown and changed- as a person and as a cultural ambassador-Najmuzzaman Mohammad from Ghatotand, Jharkhand, a 2009 YES student in Slocomb, Alabama, replied that he had become "a more confident and responsible person with a perspective to see things from a global point of view."

The growing self-confidence was a common reaction of many students to their new lifestyles. It was encouraged, even necessary at times, for them to become more self-assured in order to interact with their peers. "It was quite a challenge in the early months, when I had no friends and was still adjusting to life in the States. During this time I realized that I would have to rely on my own social skills in order not to feel lonely. The program has taught me that I have the confidence to communicate with people who may be from another country and who share different tastes ," says Wagle.

As YES student Aadil Fahim sums up his jC!urney from New Delhi to Geneva, Illinois, "I went on an exchange program to learn something new about the U.S. and somehow learned about myself and my ~ country."

Cynthia Wee Miller wrote this article while working as a Public Affairs intern at the American Center in New Delhi. She is an English literature and creative writing student at the University of Warwick.

Branimir Rokvic

ames uorne man

56 SPAN SEPTEMBERJOCTOBER 2010

ranimir Rokvic calls himself a journeyman, moving from one destination to another as an information technology specialist for a new multiple-sports event every few years Currently in New Delhi on a one and a half-year assignment for the Commonwealth Games, Rokvic, an American, is head of the team that delivers the results to officials and the media, "The challenge is to prepare systems ahead of the Games, to have the technology ready to respond to the needs during competition, When the events get under way, we seek to make it a routine exercise, " says Rokvic, "It's been a charmed life and a great experience, I like going to live in new cities and countries," says Rokvic, popularly known as Brano in the sports technology fraternity, His home is Colorado Springs, in Colorado, where the mountain air and scenery are reminiscent of his birthplace, Sarajevo, That's where he worked on his first games, the 1984 Winter Olympics in what was then Yugoslavia, He worked on the Summer Games in Los Angeles, California in the same year and became aU,S, citizen after moving to America in 1993, He has worked at five Olympic Games and two FIFA World Cups as an information technology specialist, perftkting the craft of real-time results at showpiece events, "Given another opportunity, I'd choose the life of a journeyman again, I quite enjoy this kind of work, moving from city to city, from one sporting event to another," he says "At each of the places I lived in during the course of the Games' preparations, the cities were trying to change for the better, All cities were looking to improve their infrastructure when they went about preparing for the Games, It was fascinating to see what was happening around me wherever I went."

Rokvic also worked at the Calgary Winter Olympics in Canada in 1988, after which he became a consultant with a U,S, software company, Electronic Data Systems, and was deputed on a four-year assignment to do the spadework fOJ the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in Spain "My most" memorable period working at a Games was the four years in Barcelona," says Rokvic, whose good work there earned him a full-time job with Electronic Data Systems He was then moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and was assigned to oversee work at several venues across the United States for the 1994 FIFA World Cup "Soccer was not very popular in the United States, but it was an amazing experience to see a record number of spectators thronging to the stadiums, " says Rokvic, After spending two and a half years in Los Angeles, the Rokvic family decided to move to Colorado Springs, His wife, Rada, also from Sarajevo, has worked as a special education teacher for 25 years, "Our two daughters studied in Colorado Springs and have now moved

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to different cities in the US pursuing their respective careers," says Rokvic, He missed the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia as his employers did not have a contract with the organizers, It was only in 2010 that he again featured in the Olympic Games technology team in Vancouver, Canada last winter.

However, Rokvic's association with FIFA continued , as he got an assignment in France for the 1998 World Cup, Deciding to go freelance in 2004, he was contracted to the Asian Games organizers and spent two and a half years in Doha, Qatar before signing up with Vancouver's Winter Olympics team, While there, he received the offer that brought him to New Delhi for the Commonwealth Games, "India was an absolutely new world for me, For starters, the vehicular traffic on the roads was something for which no one could have prepared me, You have to experience it to believe it. I wonder how these drivers manage to wriggle their way through ," says Rokvic, He arrived in India on an assignment as director for results in the sports department, but was moved to the technology division as deputy director-general for timing, scoring and results, "It wasn't unexpected as I'd spent all my working life in results technology," he says, Under his charge in New Delhi are 25 information technology professionals and 700 volunteers, "When I started at Sarajevo, the volunteers were mainly high school kids, " says Rokvic, "It's amazing how fast kids could learn, They had basic skills; we just had to train them about the technological nuances, "The difference in New Delhi is that [it] has not had a big multiple-sport event for more than a quarter of a century In 1982, when New Delhi staged the Asian Games, technology was not as developed as it is now, Due to this, there was a lack of experience with sportrelated technology, but they're catching up quickly," Rokvic says, After the Commonwealth Games: he will return home for five months before resuming his journey, this time heading to the Russian city of Sochi that is to host the next Winter Olympics, in 2014, "Sochi's Winter Olympics will be the last of my sporting ventures, I will then retire and look to indulge in my passion for fishing and photography," he says "I've been a photography enthusiast for 35 years, collecting images from my journey across the globe, They're all catalogued and filed , but retirement will give me a chance of cherishing the memories and living through those times yet again, " says Rokvic, "From what I have managed to see in New Delhi , India is a photographer's delight. I only regret not having enough time to go around clicking pictures, " ~ Sandeep Nakai is a New Delhi-based sports writer.

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Sa(oni gtpta

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An Indian American teenager gives microloans to entrepreneurs across the globe.

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t's not every day that you would associate the title "money lender" with a 16-year-old But for Saloni Gupta, lending is something more than just helping out. As a 10th grader in The Harker School in San Jose, California this young Indian American heard about the microfinance Web portal , Kiva, from her school's Global Empowerment and Outreach Club. It changed the way she viewed money. Starting early last year, Gupta's involvement has been a sustained one, and on July 15, 2010 she made her 100th loan.

"I feel like I have made a tangible impact and have helped alleviate some amount of poverty in the world. Even though I have made 100 loans, I want to encourage 100 others to make 100 loans, creating an avalanche effect," says Gupta.

Microfinance, which involves making small loans to poor people who can't get loans from i banks, came into focus when the Bangladeshbased Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad § Yunus, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. He ~ proved that microfinance could change the way ~ development works and that the poor are indeed ~ credit-worthy. those most in need. It combines microfinance small amount of money "I was instantly hooked onto the idea," says with the power of the Internet and allows individGupta, "and did a lot of research. I looked for a uals to lend to entrepreneurs across the globe. As Girl power platform where I, as a teenager, could involve Gupta explains, "Lenders around the world go to Born in Bhopal , Madhya Pradesh, Gupta immimyself I came across various organizations such Kiva's Web site, where they choose entrepreneurs grated to the United States with her family in as the Grameen Bank and finally, Kiva. I was to lend to. Kiva works with local microfinance 1995. instantly interested in Kiva because of its reach institutions that disperse the loans and collect As one of Kiva's youngest members, Gupta and convenience. " entrepreneurs' repayments. The institutions send lends to women entrepreneurs in developing counKiva, based in San Francisco, California, was that money back to Kiva, which then repays the tries. Occasional birthday gifts and profits from her set up in 2005 to enable people who want to help lenders over the course of a few months. Over handicraft business, Cherish, have enabled her to $150 million of loans have been made through raise capital to lend. Gupta started Cherish in 2009 for more information: Kiva. More than 375,000 entrepreneurs from over by making memo boards for friends.

Kiva Gupta's reasons for supporting women are 50 countries have received loans through Kiva." httpJ/WWW.kiva.orgl clear.

"A woman is not only an anchor for her Today, as an intern helping to expand the Kiva ----------------Saloni Gupta's blog High School program that reaches out to schools family, but also for humanity. The combination of to spread the message of microfinance and women and entrepreneurship can change sociestablish active chapters, Gupta works hard to eties in the developing world in powerful ways. encourage others to make a great impact with a Considering the social, economic and political

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Far left: Saloni Gupta making a memory board, Left: Fabric memory boards sold by Saloni Gupta through her handicraft business, Cherish. Gupta uses the profits to give loans to women entrepreneurs through Kiva,

obstacles disadvantaged women have encoun- and a perpetual boost for the nation's economy " tered throughout history, empowering women is Choosing whom to give to is an important necessary now more than ever in a world that is decision and Gupta decides with care. "I usually still ravaged by wars and populated by the impov- ,loan to women who ask for less than $1,000 and erished," she asserts. ': with short repayment terms so those loans are repaid faster and I can help more entrepreneurs, Since I earn all my money for my Kiva account Young financier Choosing microfinance rather than any other myself, I reduce the risk of my loans being voluntary or charity work was a conscious deci- defaulted by lending to entrepreneurs with MFls sion. Gupta explains, "Micro lending helps strug - [microfinance institutions] with four- to five-star gling entrepreneurs expand their businesses and field ratings to increase the probability of repaypromotes sustainability Donations, done with the ment. Sometimes, I am so moved by someone's best of intentions, only provide relief and improve story that I disregard a few of those guidelines to short-term situations, A microloan to an entrepre- help someone who truly impacts me," she says, neur can often ensure prosperity for Iife, If you give a woman a fish , you feed her for a day, If you Loans and more A hundred people may be "indebted " to her give her a loan, you give her a fishing pole, a stand at a local market, food for her family for life, but Gupta says, "The very first loan I made to

Janet Akyem in Ghana remains special. She wanted to buy bags of flour for her bakery and supplement her family's income. She sought to pay her children's school fees and provide a future for them with an education, Since she was the first entrepreneur I lent to, I was always excited to see her repayment installments and was eager to see that her business was benefiting from my efforts," Gupta says Though Kiva has not started work in India, Gupta hopes that loans to Indians are a "development that wi ll arise on the Kiva Web site in the future, I would be very excited with the opportunity to loan to Indian entrepreneurs. " Though the impact both lender and borrower make on each other's life can be significant, no personal friendships are formed, "Kiva Fellows and MFls communicate with lenders during the repayment process and sometimes do send updates after loans have been repaid ," says Gupta.

Of course, there is always the fear of borrowers defaulting on a loan. "Favoring quantity over quality, I lend smaller amounts to many entrepreneurs rather than committing hundreds of dollars to a certain individual, " she explains, With school and Kiva, the going can get a bit tough sometimes but Gupta says, "Finding time to pursue a passion is not a chore, but a pleasure, Making memo boards provides a creative outlet and microlending provides gratification, I am learning about entrepreneurship and economics in a real-life , hands-on way, which complements my academic environment." .

Her advice for young people who want to help but don't know how or doubt if they can make a difference is simple, "First of all, how you make a difference is not nearly as important as realizing you want to make a difference," she explains, "Once you have determined that you want to help people and commit to it, finding what you want to do is easy," Her career at Kiva has taught her some important lessons: "I have realized that a small amount of money can be life altering to millions of people around the world, Receiving feels good Giving is better, Empowering is indescribable! " ~

Lata Rele, Mumbai, Maharashtra Just to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed the May/June 2010 issue of SPAN , particularly "Lend Me Your Ears" by Richa Varma. Maybe because I was a regular listener/reader of the series Madhulika Sikka produced for NPR, "Along The Grand Trunk Road ," all through April and May this year.

It was fascinating. I was glad to know more ""ding "'" of American public radio's __ mostrespectedslloWS, about Madhulika. .,.ltK'KAv...-.. Madhulika SikXahas a job cut out for her.

It was really interesting and inspiring to read about all the great work being done by various women in India and in America.

Stories on Tinker Lindsay, Kathryn Bigelow, Christine M. Singh , Sweta Mangal, Radha Basu were very fascinating for one reason.

Our society usually praises those who do well in the corporate sector, but these women are doing what they believe in and enjoying it. Thanks a lot for these stories. This does not mean that I haven't enjoyed the other issues of SPAN but this one particularly touched my heart.

Ears

Aswini Kar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa "Doing Good is Good Business" (July/August 2010) is an article basically about corporate PR programs. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is catching up fast. It has gained publicity among companies and business houses to gain popularity in the community and SOCiety.

Companies have suddenly woken up to do good for the community. Actually each one of us is responsible to the community,society and world at large. We have got so much free since our birth, i.e., air, water, light, flowers, fruits , etc. Therefore, we must give back to the community, SOCiety and to this Earth. CSR should be everyone's responsibility. But CSR should not be mistaken as charity or philanthropy DOing good should come from within Charity and philanthropy are different from CSR. It is the responsibility of every individual on this Earth to give back to nature and keep it intact for our future generation.

S.M. Goyal, Ajmer, Rajasthan In India, child labor is ... taboo. The labor enables the employer to exploit the situation. That's why it is banned. But in "For American Youngsters, Work Is Part of Growing Up" (July/August 2010) , there are umpteen lessons to be learnt. One of America's fGu~'ding fathers, Benjamin Franklin's warning against idleness, cautioning that "time is money," was well heeded by the youngsters and we see that in today 's America. In the U.S. , , Work Is Part of Growing Up teens, irrespective of their family's financial status, work for three hours on a school day or eight hours on a nonschool day. They find a job on their own to earn money and gain experience for greater success in life ahead . Working at an early age instills confidence, character, real-world ski ll , knowledge, self-reliance, value of money, saving, independence, interaction wi th adults and consequences of one's actions. The feelings that all men are created alike and that no job is too big or too small are fostered. If existing situations are improved and laws regarding child labor are made in the interest of the teens, this U.S pattern if adopted in India too can prosper.

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Dhiraj K. Agrawal, New Delhi There are many reasons in my life to say thanks to SPAN. Last year, for the first time, I read SPAN at the American Center in New Delhi and this magazine changed my life forever. After learning about American culture and life and especially Martin Luther King , Jr. through this magazine , I made a plan to go to the United States last October and reached Chicago , where I met with officials of President Obama's government, including Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer of the U.S. government. He is a very nice person and always eager to know about India.

Today I saw SPAN (July/August 2010) , and seeing a picture of Aneesh, I am very happy. Thanks to SPAN , which completed a circle among me, SPAN , Aneesh and my journey.

Pr'omOHng Technology for Better

Governance TtHiU SQO\lffiYTIenl'1 TIr$I,llieI t~ oIli(:er, A".n~ ChoPfl. spoIo~ MIn SPAN.

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Daniel A. Kelin, director of education at Theater for Youth in Honolulu, Hawaii, is using his Fulbright-Nehru scholarship to examine how elementary school children can learn through drama. He is working with two schools in the Chennai area, with support from the Sharma Center for Heritage Education. Kelin took five classes of fifth and sixth standard students to view the rock caves at Mahabalipuram and guided them in acting out their reflections on what they saw. http://www.usielorg.in

"Tom Sawyer," "The Audacity of Hope," "It Takes a Village" and other titles by and about famous Americans are among the 50 books in Hindi now available at the American Library in New Delhi. And many more are on the way. "The introduction of Hindi books allows us to reach out to a larger audience," Michael Pelletier, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs (center) , said while releasing the special collection on August 5. Also seen in the photo are American Library Director Kala Dutta (from left), Govind Singh , executive editor of Hindustan and Shashi Shekhar, editor in chief of Hindustan. http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/americanlibrary.html

Syed Zeeshan Ali (below left), a runner-up in the online and interactive Hindi and Urdu poetry contest organized by the American Center in Mumbai, was congratulated on July 26 by Hindi lyricist Guizar (center) and Consul General Paul Folmsbee (right) . Other winners were: Anil Kumar Jeengar and Mohit Kataria, first place; and Neelam Saxena Chandra, runner-up. http://mumbai.usconsulate.gov/

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One of the Indian Air Force's six C-130J aircraft (front) takes its spot on the flight line in Marietta, Georgia, with others built by Lockheed Martin. The first test flight of the aircraft is scheduled for September 21. This program is on budget and on schedule to deliver the first aircraft to India early next year. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/c130/

"We're proud of the high quality of American food products, and we're happy to be able to bring more of America 's delicious, healthy food options to Indian consumers," said U.S Deputy Chief of Mission Donald Lu as he inaugurated a promotion of California prunes, grapes, plums and nectarines, Washington apples and more at the Godrej Nature 's Basket chain of stores, with outlets in New Delhi and Mumbai. Lu and Mohit Khattar, managing director of Godrej Nature 's Basket, displayed some American foods at the September 5 event in New Delhi.

For more information: http://www.caltreefruit.com/ppn/i ndustry/mission .asp http://www. susta. org/