The Tufts Daily
Commencement 2012
Features
13
of 2012: Senior profiles Jane Jihae Yoon
Luke Pyenson Natasha Jessen-Petersen
courtesy jane jihae yoon
jodi bosin / the tufts daily
A deep commitment to and passion for children informs all that graduating senior Jane Jihae Yoon does. Although she is matriculating at Columbia University’s Teachers College this fall, Yoon’s work with children has been as extensive outside the classroom as it has been within it. During her junior year, Yoon founded the Tufts chapter of Love146, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to abolishing child sex trafficking. Her passion “to stand up against a horrible humanitarian injustice” was sparked by the experiences of women she knew at Tufts. “What bothered me the most about college life while at Tufts was the prevalence of sexual assault on campus,” Yoon said. “Too many times had I heard of and seen my female friends on campus being mistreated and even sexually exploited by men.” After hearing about the work that Love146 does and knowing how tragic it can be for college women to experience rape, Yoon found it difficult to stomach the idea of the same thing happening to a child. “I felt like I couldn’t just stand there and be a bystander any longer,” she said. “I realized that I have the power to do something about it on campus.” Yoon contacted several friends, suggesting that they host a benefit concert to raise money for Love146. The effort was a huge success. “We raised $4,000, starting from scratch,” she said. Yoon added that the money that the concert — and her chapter’s subsequent fundraising efforts — raised goes directly to rehabilitation for child survivors. Yet Yoon is most proud of the response from the Tufts campus — not just the fundraising that the response has enabled, but also the many emails she receives from female students who are survivors of sexual assault telling her how Love146 has enabled them to begin their healing process. “Once I started receiving all those emails full of heartbreaking, yet empowering stories, I knew all the work our group had done was well worth it,” she said. Yoon’s work with children has extended into the classroom, too. “I’ve actually been on this fast track for the past two years to get a teaching license at the same time that I graduate,” she said. “It’s been absolutely crazy, but totally amazing. I’ve been teaching in the Boston public schools and done three different student-teacher positions.” She explained that the program entails her teaching full-time — 25 hours per week, she said — with the same responsibilities as a regular public school teacher. Last semester, Yoon taught both first and second grade students. Her next teaching experience, though, will be a far cry from the Boston public school system. “This summer, I decided to go to Uganda to teach at an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS,” she said. Yoon became interested in teaching in Uganda after one of her students lost his entire family last semester, leaving him orphaned. “It was unbelievably hard for me to see that because as his teacher, I’d been pouring my heart and soul into him for the past three months,” she said. “I couldn’t stop crying for two weeks.” She told her church about her student’s situation, and like with Love146, the response was entirely overwhelming and unexpected, with two families expressing interest in adopting Yoon’s student. “I was just so blown away [and] it inspired me to work at the orphanage this summer.” Possessed by a fervent desire to work with and help kids, Yoon’s eventual goal is to teach special needs children. “I’ve found that my love for teaching and my love for kids seeps into every other area of my life,” she said.
Graduating senior Luke Pyenson has two main passions: cooking and music. An International Literary and Visual Studies (ILVS) major from Newton, Mass., Pyenson has been interested in cooking since he was a child, and he started apprenticing for restaurants when he was 13. “I started cooking when I had to stand on a stool in my kitchen, and I have been watching cooking shows on PBS since I was a little kid,” he said. “It’s something that has always been important to me.” Pyenson met a fellow student who shared his interest in cooking his sophomore year, and they began to make elaborate dinners in his friend’s off-campus house every week. Soon after, they had the idea to start a supper club. “We did a pilot run in January 2010 for some friends with five courses for 20 dollars,” Pyenson said. “It grew as people began to tell their friends, which is exactly what we wanted to happen.” The supper club continued through Pyenson’s sophomore year, and he did Sunday brunches every week in the same vein as a junior. Although he has been busy with academics this year, he has done a dinner roughly every month. “We used whatever was in season, letting the month dictate what we cooked,” Pyenson said. “In October we made ravioli that had chocolate in the pasta dough and made Snickers pasta which actually worked out.” Pyenson said that throwing dinner parties for his friends and the friends of his friends has been tremendously fun for him. “Wherever I am, I’d like to continue something like this because it gives me the chance to be creative with food and cook for other people, and that’s what I like doing most in the world, besides music,” he said. “I love getting people to try new foods and introducing people to flavor combinations and spices that they may not use themselves.” Pyenson also enjoys writing about food. In addition to writing food-related articles for the Tufts Observer, Pyenson has been writing food travel articles for The Boston Globe since high school, writing about food from Boston to Denmark to Puerto Rico. He has also managed to combine his love for cooking with academics. For his thesis, Pyenson cooked a 12-course dinner, which he served for his thesis committee at his parents’ house in Newton. “The dinner explored socio-cultural relationships between France and North Africa, mainly through food,” Pyenson said. “Each of the courses references something important to me while I studied at Tufts and had a visual or cultural reference point. The finished product was an 80-page cookbook, with a history of French and Arab cooking.” In addition to his cooking, Pyenson has also cultivated his passion for music at Tufts. He has been playing the drums since he was eight years old, and has been involved with B.E.A.T.s. since his freshman year and was president of the group as a sophomore. Since the spring of 2010, he has also co-run Midnight at Tufts, which is the alternative student-booking group that brings local and independent music to Tufts. Pyenson also plays the drums for two bands, Gulls and Krill, with Krill planning to tour this fall. After he graduates, Pyenson hopes to continue cooking and playing music. “I want to try to find some way to keep both music and food in my life,” he said.
Halfway into a conversation with Natasha JessenPetersen about the many activities she has been involved in at Tufts, she laughed and realized she’d forgotten one. “Oh, I just realized I’m also a tour guide!” she said. “I know. It’s ridiculous. I’m also in six classes, so it’s not feasible.” But this dual-degree student has proven that what seems almost impossible is in fact feasible. Jessen-Petersen also started the Amnesty International chapter at Tufts, was the lead artist for the Tufts Observer, a head writing fellow, played club soccer and choreographed for Tufts Dance Collective (TDC) — while jumping between the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) and Tufts campuses. Amnesty International has been always been part of Jessen-Petersen’s life, and when she arrived at Tufts and saw there was no chapter, she decided to do something about it. “I and another student went through all the bureaucratic nonsense and difficulties and actually started the club on campus,” she said. With over 400 people now on the Amnesty mailing list and the club now part of the Institute of Global Leadership (IGL), Jessen-Petersen explained why she thinks this club has been so popular. “There’s such a huge emphasis on international relations and human rights at Tufts that I think for a lot of people it feels like a natural fit,” she said. And this is only one aspect of Jessen-Petersen’s varied life at Tufts. Keeping up with the Observer, being a writing fellow and always taking five or more classes kept this senior busy. “There were a lot of moments where I felt completely overwhelmed,” she said. Still, not all of these activities added to her stress levels. “TDC and soccer were a really good balance for me. Soccer is a huge stress-reliever, and a lot of my closest friends are people I met from TDC.” Being involved in this many activities meant that JessenPetersen felt missed out on certain, more social aspects of Tufts life. “I definitely made sacrifices in terms of going out every Tuesday night,” she said. But this is a girl with no regrets. “I felt that because there are these opportunities available, it would be foolish of me not to take advantage of them,” she said. Jessen-Petersen added that a bonus to everything she’s been involved with is the people she’s met. “It’s a really great way of meeting people,” JessenPetersen said. “These are your friends and your connections for life.” As Jessen-Petersen is part of the five-year dual-degree plan, she is not actually graduating this year. Instead, she plans on moving to Jamaica Plain in Boston and taking SMFA classes while also working on her senior honors thesis. “My thesis is about the relation and dialogue between art and human rights, and how art is a natural communicative tool,” she said. Given this background, it is hardly surprising that Jessen-Petersen approached Senior Week events with the same vigor and motivation as she has throughout her Tufts’ career. “I will be engaging in every single senior event,” she said.
—by Falcon Reese
—by Victoria Rathsmill
—by Emily Bartlett
jodi bosin / the tufts daily