Kaleidoscope Summer 2015, Vol. 48

Volume 48 Summer 2015

page 2

The Investor page 4

Project Week 2015 page 7

Got Grit?

iii

TABLE of CONTENTS Letter From the President

1

FEAT UR E

The Investor

2

FEAT UR E

Project Week 2015: Challenge, Learn, Connect

4

FEAT UR E

Got Grit?

7

Connected Good Samaritans

9

Change Agents Mobilizing Volunteers Against Depression

10

Back Country Taking the Lead

12

Viewpoint The World Gets Closer 14 Spotlight An Unconventional Journey

15

One of Us Researcher Finds Her PATH—Tala de los Santos ’93

16

Peer Review 18 Big Heart Activist. Philanthropist. Entrepreneur.

23

Looking Back A Most Magical Place

24

Inspiration 25 Cover photo: UWC-USA Archives Inside front cover photo: Raudya Amalia ‘16, Indonesia Inside back cover photo: Beatrix Howe ‘16, The Netherlands Back cover photo: Ben Gillock

LETTER FROM THE

president

The thrill of graduation has now faded. The tearful goodbyes are done. The students have long since piled onto buses headed for home or new adventures. There are two long months before the dorms are once again brimming with life. For me, these next months are a time to pause and plan, to celebrate successes, and envision the future. And that’s exactly what’s happening at UWC-USA right now. Since I returned to UWC-USA in October, you’ve probably heard me talk about a vision anchored by innovation. I am very pleased to report that innovation at UWC-USA isn’t simply part of an ideal future state; it’s happening right now. As you read this issue of Kaleidoscope, you’ll see plenty of examples: students who took charge of their Project Week experience to create a trip centered on wealth disparity; an alumna who received a Clinton Global Initiative fellowship to design a program to battle depression in her hometown in China; a program that, since our founding, has been devoted to building “grit,” or resilience, by daring students to go deeper and further than they ever thought they could. These are the experiences and the people that define innovation, and there’s more to come. So much of what we do at UWC-USA is the direct result of generous philanthropic support. In April, I was privileged to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Davis United World Scholars program with Shelby Davis, a UWC-USA benefactor who has quite literally changed thousands of lives. An investor by trade, Shelby doesn’t look at his gifts as donations but rather as investments in future leaders. It was an honor to spend time with him at Middlebury College, and the profile on Shelby on page 2 will give readers more insight to this humble and generous man. Another significant benefactor we celebrate in this issue of Kaleidoscope is Virginia Dwan, who gave us the incredible Dwan Light Sanctuary. After being closed for months of repairs, the sanctuary reopened this spring and once again is a place of reflection, performance, and inspiration for students and the entire community. One of the first events we held in the space—even before it officially reopened—was a chat with Allan Affeldt, who shared about citizen activism and entrepreneurship in New Mexico. Years ago, Allan organized a peace walk through what was then the Soviet Union. His values mirror ours, and we are grateful to call him a friend and supporter of our school. Truly, this issue of Kaleidoscope is a reflection of the UWC-USA essence. In its pages, you see the confidence students build here, the initiative they take to achieve in big ways, and the manner in which their views—and their very identities—shift as they develop a global perspective. Warmly,

DR. MUKUL KUMAR ’89 President

The magazine of UWC-USA, The Armand Hammer United World College of the American West Volume 48, Summer 2015 Vice President for Advancement: Christie Baskett Editor: Jennifer Rowland Peer Review Editor: Celisse Ruiz Copy Editor: Jeannine Santiago Designer: Liz Burrill Contributing Writers: Cedar Attanasio LPC ’97, Sage deBrum ’15 (Marshall Islands), Tara Hassin ’91, Beatrix Howe ’16 (The Netherlands), Dana Micucci, Ojaswee Rajbhandary ’15 (Nepal), Graham Rasmussen, Jennifer Rowland, Sharon Seto, Eric Schulz ’16 (USA-NY), Sara Yeboah ’15 (Ghana) Contributing Photographers: Raudya Amalia ’16 (Indonesia), Todd Balfour (courtesy of Middlebury College), Clinton Global Initiative, Ben Gillock, Shimpei Goto ’15 (Japan), Beatrix Howe ’16 (The Netherlands), PATH/Patrick McKern, Myosore Okeremi ’15 (Nigeria), The Optic, Jennifer Rowland, Celisse Ruiz, Deidra Alyanadine Said ’16 (Indonesia), Carlos Varela ’95, Sara Yeboah ’15 (Ghana), Jose Tomas Sandoval Zamorano ’15 (Chile) Contact: UWC-USA P.O. Box 248 Montezuma, NM 87731 publications@uwc-usa.org

Kaleidoscope is published biannually by the UWC-USA Advancement Office to sustain connection with alumni and the school’s extended community.

1

Investor BY JENNIFER ROWLAND, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND ENGAGEMENT

The

SHELBY DAVIS MAY BE THE WORLD’S GREATEST LIVING PHILANTHROPIST WHEN IT COMES TO INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION. HE CONSIDERS HIS GIFTS AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE. Six thousand, one hundred and ninety-eight. That’s how many college students Shelby Davis has helped to fund in the past 15 years. Add to that the hundreds of U.S. high school students who have received Davis Scholarships to attend UWCs around the world, and the number of lives he’s touched—and forever changed—is astounding. “If I do this for the rest of my life, I will have probably helped educate 40,000 or 50,000 students and spent over a billion dollars doing it,” Shelby says. “It’s staggering to imagine, but it’s a drop in the bucket in a world with 6 billion people. But you have to start somewhere.” Shelby got his start in 1997, when a fortuitous meeting with former UWC-USA President Phil Geier at the Taos ski resort led to a visit to the Montezuma, New Mexico, campus. Shelby had the good fortune of attending one of the school’s cultural shows, and he recalls being overwhelmed “by the energy and talent.” That visit inspired Shelby to “invest”—the term he prefers—in a $43 million endowment to fund the UWC tuition for 50 U.S. high school students every year; half attend 14 UWC campuses around the world, and the other half represent the U.S. at the New Mexico campus. The gift in 1998-99 was the largest private contribution that had been made to the field of international education. But Shelby wasn’t finished.

2

COLLEGE SCHOLARS “I started visiting the other UWCs, primarily to meet ‘my’ American scholars, and I was impressed—but I was totally blown away by the roommates of the Americans, usually four to a room from all corners of the globe and widely different cultures,” he says. “It was obvious that these young people were absorbing as much outside the classroom as within it. They were building bridges of understanding, which is so critical for our future with each other.” That observation led Shelby to team up again with Phil to found the Davis UWC Scholars in 2000. The program, headquartered at Middlebury College, grants need-based college scholarships to UWC students from around the world. More than 90 U.S. universities and colleges partner with the Davis UWC Scholars program, which not only

funds promising students but also supports international diversity on those college campuses. “What we’re trying to do … is to encourage Americans to learn about the world from these international students,” Shelby says. “If you get enough UWC students on a campus, they become an important part of the fabric of the community.” Davis Scholars typically become leaders at their chosen universities. They publish works, receive academic honors, and win awards, including prestigious Rhodes Scholarships and recognition by the Clinton Global Initiative. (See the story on MoJia Shen ’14 on page 10.) THE DAVIS CHALLENGE—TIMES TWO In the past eight years, Shelby has sought to inspire the UWC-USA community to join his philanthropic efforts to support the school. Toward that end, he issued two challenges: The first, in 2007, raised $10 million for the school’s endowment. Last year, Shelby issued a second challenge match of $1 million to fund an endowment for students from conflict regions. In just 11 months, the UWCUSA community came through, not only meeting the challenge but also exceeding it by nearly $150,000. “The Davis Challenge for Scholars and Programs gives the opportunity of a UWC-USA education to some of the most deserving students in the world,” said UWCUSA President Mukul Kumar ’89 upon the challenge’s conclusion in December. “It also helps solidify significant initiatives that distinguish the school as an innovator in the realm of international secondary education. UWCUSA is deeply grateful for Shelby’s ongoing support and to the donors who helped meet Shelby’s challenge.” FAMILY VALUES UWC is committed to developing students who can make an impact. Shelby certainly has made an impact of his own, and his parents set the example. Shelby Cullom Davis, his father, and Kathryn Wasserman Davis, his mother, both had a keen interest in international affairs; they met on a train to Geneva in 1930 and discovered they had both recently traveled in Russia. The senior Davis became a leading financial

advisor to governors and presidents, parlaying a $100,000 investment in the 1940s into more than $800 million by the end of his career in the 1990s. Shelby C. Davis gave millions to Princeton University and other charities. When he died in 1994, The New York Times obituary “commemorated his charitable nature more than his investing prowess,” wrote Rupert Hargreaves, author of the online article “Shelby Davis: Not Just an Investor.” Kathryn also was a tremendous philanthropist, primarily focusing on education and international affairs. She was devoted to her alma mater, Wellesley College, supporting numerous projects, including financial aid for students; global education initiatives; professorships in Russian, Slavic, and Asian studies; and the creation of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center. In 2007, when she turned 100, she founded Davis Projects for Peace, which

and the stock market boomed. Added to that, the stock market averages went up tenfold in the last 15 years of my business career, after being relatively flat in a trading range for the prior 15 years. In essence, we had a great tail wind.” Of course, it wasn’t just luck. Shelby acknowledges that growing the business took a healthy combination of passion, patience, and integrity. “We stayed committed for the long haul,” he says. “And more important, we also held ourselves accountable.” THE RULE OF THIRDS Shelby had been raised with a distinct road map for life: “The first 30 years should be focused on learning, the next 30 on earning, and the remaining 30 years should be focused on returning, or giving back to make the world a better place,” he says. His own third phase started with his gift to UWC-USA in

“MY FATHER WAS A REALIST, MY MOTHER AN IDEALIST—AND PERHAPS I BECAME A COMBINATION OF THE TWO.”

awards $10,000 grants to humanitarian endeavors around the world initiated by college students. “Looking back, I think I got my business genes from my father and my humanitarian genes mostly from my mother,” Shelby says. “My father was a realist, my mother an idealist—and perhaps I became a combination of the two.” Shelby didn’t immediately follow his father into the family investment business. He began his career at the Bank of New York, where he rose to be the head of the research department and was named the bank’s youngest vice president since Alexander Hamilton. In 1969, he and two partners founded Davis Selected Advisers LP, a mutual fund management company managing more than $40 billion. “It was a struggle at first,” he says. “But in 10 to 15 years, we got lucky. We achieved a five-star ranking, and with that ranking our accounts grew rapidly, our assets mushroomed as a willing public was drawn to our funds,

1998. His approach, however, has always been very much an investor’s methodology. “We focused on identifying leaders who would grow their firms while we rode along as investors,” Shelby says of his financial business. “I’m now investing in talented young people, and that gives me the same excitement.” And those young people are deeply grateful. “From the outpouring of gratitude which you receive each year in our letters, you surely have seen the impact which you have had on so many of our lives,” first-year student Francesca Brecha of Ohio wrote in a letter to Shelby this spring. “Hearing it one more time, however, can never hurt: You have utterly transformed the paths which many of us were set upon. We can now look forward to a future of giving as much as we possibly can and taking only what we need. We can look forward to sharing and understanding between people who seem too different to ever get along. Every day, we thank our lucky stars for the incredible gift which you have given us.”

3

roject Week 2015

BY JENNIFER ROWLAND, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND ENGAGEMENT

Challenge, Learn, Connect

4

Project Week is one of those quintessential UWC-USA programs that often is the highlight of a student’s two-year experience. Offered in lieu of a traditional “spring break” that is common at other secondary schools, Project Week—which takes place in March—presents a selection of organized trips to destinations around the U.S. Over the years, trips have varied widely, from service-oriented excursions to cultural explorations. The trips often reflect faculty organizers’ individual passions and allow teachers to share these passions with small groups of students. Anyone who went on a Project Week trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas with Alan Wicks, Judy Land, and Anne Farrell can attest to the fact that the ritual of tea time quickly becomes beloved by all. For Project Week 2015, three new expeditions were offered that were unlike anything from the past. For the first time, alumni stepped in to facilitate two trips—one to New York City and the other to Ferguson, Missouri. The third was a student-organized (and faculty-supervised) journey to Albuquerque, in which students were challenged to spend the week living on the equivalent of the U.S. federal minimum wage.

Albuquerque: Living on the Edge It was Wednesday, the midpoint for Project Week. Jodi Robertson ’15, USA-PA, was down to her last $3. “If we have to take a bus, I’m out,” she said. Jodi had spent most of her minimum-wage allowance on food—a committed vegan, she decided fresh vegetables and tofu were her budgetary priority. After her trip to the grocery store, though, Jodi says she understood why so many people living in poverty subsist on a diet of cheap carbohydrates. But she realized something else, too. “Walking down the streets in Albuquerque [with no money] I realized that all these shops and restaurants are off-limits to me,” she says. “And I understand now why people do things that may not be culturally acceptable [like stealing]. It’s because it feels like you are being denied.” Jodi, Max Danielewicz ’15, USA-MI, and Alvar Huhtanen ’16, Finland, conceived the Albuquerque trip last fall, at a time when debates over the minimum wage were a focal point in the U.S. media. The trio proposed the concept to Campus Headmaster Tom Oden, who was wholly supportive of the student-initiated, student-led trip. Alvar had to drop out because of other commitments, but Jodi and Max saw it through to the end. “We live in an impoverished state in an impoverished area, but we don’t have to deal with that reality because we live on campus,” Max explains. “We wanted to give people a closer view of what it’s really like to live near the poverty line.” The group was made up of 12 students and two faculty members, math teacher Dan Willms and English teacher Parris Bushong. They took the train from Las Vegas, New Mexico, to Albuquerque and stayed at a youth hostel. Each student received $43 to cover food and additional expenses; the amount was based on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. To get around, they relied on public transportation—and their own two feet.

Every day, students walked to “work” for six-hour volunteer shifts at one of two homeless shelters. They served food, sorted clothing, and assisted with a variety of projects that required extra hands. Afterward, their time was their own. However, students found that without money, options for entertainment were limited. “We played cards, had interesting conversations, and got a good amount of sleep,” recalls Sarosha Hansraj ’16, USA-TX. “I did go to the library, but I was only able to get a library card to check out books. Since I don’t have a driver’s license, I couldn’t use the computer.” At the end of each day, the group would debrief and reflect on their experiences. Food was a prominent theme: not feeling like they had enough, not liking the meager selection they could afford (everyone except Jodi ate a lot of pasta and oatmeal). They agreed that if this was real life and there were children or other responsibilities to consider, they would be in desperate shape. “In retrospect, we’ve realized how privileged we are,” says Abhiti Vaish ’16, USA-NY/ India. “I’m starting to feel a lot of gratitude for my parents and for the school.”

Ferguson: A Moment in History On Aug. 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Protests erupted in St. Louis and across the U.S., bringing to light—again—the many pain points that surround race relations in the U.S. Flannery Burke ’91, a history professor at Saint Louis University, already had been grappling with race and segregation in her work when the shooting occurred. Watching her university students protest on campus, Flannery started thinking about UWC-USA. Flannery had spent the previous year using a Fulbright scholarship to teach English at high schools in Norway. As a university professor, she says the experience gave her an opportunity to stretch as an educator by working with an age group that was out of her normal scope and teaching a subject that was not her expertise. But she loved it, and it got her contemplating other teaching opportunities with high school students. The Norway experience, combined with the events in St. Louis, led Flannery to call UWC-USA with an idea: She would facilitate a Project Week trip in Ferguson, arranging meetings with historians, activists, and others so that UWC-USA students could delve into the complexity of race relations in the U.S. The trip came together quickly, and in March, nine students and two UWCUSA staff members drove for two days from New Mexico to St. Louis for an intense week of discussions, meetings, and tours of places that played significant roles in the segregation—and desegregation—in St. Louis. Among the meetings was a session with a white St. Louis police officer. Flannery wrote on a Facebook journal, “I was initially hesitant to approach him, but the students very much wanted to hear his thoughts.” They also met with the racial justice director from the local YWCA, and Flannery says the students reported that the conversation was “the most rigorous they’ve had.” Combined, each event they participated in left a deep impression on the Project Week participants. “Seeing and hearing the events going on in Ferguson and across the nation was not the same as actually being there and witnessing everything with your own eyes,” says

ON Albuquerque:

“I understand now why people do things that may not be culturally acceptable [like stealing]. It’s because it feels like you are being denied.” JODI ROBERTSON ’15, USA-PA

ON FERGUSON:

“The media portrays the events one way, and it can be quite easy to distance yourself from these issues as they may not directly affect you. However, speaking to community members, protestors, and students powerfully impacts you.” CAROLINE AYALA ’15, USA-CA/CHILE

5

2015

Caroline Ayala ’15, USA-CA/Chile. “The media portrays the events one way, and it can be quite easy to distance yourself from these issues as they may not directly affect you. However, speaking to community members, protestors, and students powerfully impacts you.” For Flannery, the trip served as a catalyst for new projects. She’s looking at ways of implementing a similar weeklong program for local St. Louis high school students, and she’s working with a museum in Los Angeles to hold a conference on public history. However these projects shape up, Flannery knows one thing: She likely won’t have the same experience she enjoyed with her UWC-USA Project Week students. “UWCers come in with questions,” she says. “Every teacher who met them told me how impressed they were with the level of inquisitiveness. You just can’t teach curiosity.”

NEW YORK CITY: FINDING CONNECTION

ON NEW YORK CITY:

“It is very scary to not know exactly what to expect after we graduate, and [the alumni] helped us a lot when we discussed how to deal with that.” MARIA LUISA DA SILVA MACIAS ’16, PORTUGAL

6

More than a year ago, Kevin Jackson Ugueto ’06 contacted UWC-USA with an idea: What if New York City alumni gathered together to host a Project Week for students? Kevin, who has been instrumental in formalizing a regional UWC alumni group in New York, was certain that he’d be able to tap a broad spectrum of UWCers in the area who could host and create meaningful experiences for a group of first-year students. “I had this general feeling that we don’t do enough to keep our mission alive and keep connected with each other,” Kevin says. “And then I thought, Wouldn’t it be great bringing the kids out here?” He didn’t have to work hard to convince his peers—Philip Nikolov ’95, Bela Walker ’95, Beata Jostmeier AC’79, and Claire Bruten AC’89 agreed to serve with Kevin as hosts. Irfan Hassan ’85 jumped in to coordinate with three nonprofit organizations where the students could volunteer for the week. One of those organizations was the Morris-Jumel Mansion, where Emilie Gruchow ’00 works as an archivist and was able to step in. “As we were planning, more people volunteered and got involved,” Kevin says. “A lot of people rallied to make it happen.” The alumni effort wasn’t lost on the student participants—in fact, for many, connecting with their elders was among the trip’s highlights. “I was excited to be able to network with alumni in our biggest alumni hub,” says Eashwar Ramesh ’16, Botswana. “It was wonderful to hear stories of what another UWC was like so long ago.” For Maria Luisa da Silva Macias ’16, Portugal, meeting alumni offered reassurance. “It is very scary to not know exactly what to expect after we graduate, and [the alumni] helped us a lot when we discussed how to deal with that,” she says. The students had a similar effect on their hosts. “Meeting them gave us so much energy as a community,” Kevin says. “They are us, and they still have their idealism. We get it and appreciate it so much.” Kevin would love to see other alumni around the world offer similar experiences for students. UWC-USA alumni interested in pursuing this idea should contact Vice President for Advancement Christie Baskett at christie.baskett@uwc-usa.org.

BY DANA MICUCCI

Got Grit? RedefIning What It Means to Succeed Grit. It’s become a buzzword in U.S. education circles. What does it mean to have grit— otherwise known as resilience, determination, and persistence? How much does grit contribute to success in school and life? Can grit be taught and learned? For generations of UWC students—many who likely never heard the term “grit”—the answer to that last question is resoundingly “yes.” Whether he knew it or not, UWC founder Kurt Hahn was a grit pioneer, firmly believing that constant challenge and risktaking would develop the kind of change-agents who could build a better world. Today, a host of researchers, psychologists, and educators are attempting to answer new questions about grit while uncovering the hidden recesses of character and redefining what it takes to succeed. A slew of recent books—including GRIT: The New Science of What It Takes to Persevere, Flourish, Succeed by Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D.; How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough; and Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, Ph.D.—are expanding the grit dialogue and offering new perspectives on how to transform young people’s lives so they are better prepared for adulthood. Angela Lee Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and

MacArthur genius grant recipient, is leading the grit movement. In her 2013 TED Talk, Duckworth says the best predictor of success is not IQ but passion and perseverance for long-term goals, having stamina, and sticking with it to make one’s dreams a reality. Grittier kids—those who aren’t afraid to fail, pick themselves up, and try again—are more likely to succeed. UWC-USA students—and alumni—have proved this again and again.

PIONEERING GRIT AT UWC The encouragement and development of grit has been a key component of the UWC mission and experience since Hahn founded Atlantic College in Wales more than 50 years ago. Also a founder of the international outdoor-education organization Outward Bound, Hahn is noted for his philosophy that “there is more in you than you think.” Hahn’s passion for relentless selfdevelopment has long inspired UWCUSA President Mukul Kumar ’89. “When you attend UWC-USA, you go through an ‘initiation by fire,’ whether in the classroom, the Wilderness Program, community service, or other extracurricular activities,” Mukul says. “Grit is not only about resilience and perseverance but having the courage to take risks, to push yourself beyond your limits, fears, and perceived failures, which forces you to be creative and adapt

to new situations. So many of our students take big risks by giving up the comfort of home—their cultures and countries—to immerse themselves in a highly diverse, unfamiliar environment. UWC delivers challenges that bring out the best in you, and cultural diversity is a significant challenge that reveals and builds grit.” Mukul believes grit is an innate and acquired quality that transcends socioeconomic, cultural, and political boundaries. “As a pioneer in leadership and experiential education, we’re not directly teaching grit but providing the environment for it to arise,” he says. “And the leaders of the future are going to need a lot of grit.”

INWARD BOUND The cornerstone Wilderness Program offers UWC-USA students perhaps one of the most powerful opportunities to display and develop grit. “Everyone is pushed to their limits at one time or another in the wilderness, where the development of grit is inherent,” says Wilderness Program Director Arianne Zwartjes ’97. “In the long run, I don’t care if students can pitch a tent or use a compass, but I do care if they can deal with adversity, uncertainty, and interpersonal conflict. The ultimate goal of this program is to teach them life skills.” 7

8

Grit is not only having the resilience to overcome physically challenging situations but to do so with a positive attitude while also showing empathy for and inspiring others in your group, according to Arianne. For example, Oluwadara Olayiwola ’15, Nigeria, pushed through a brutally cold, snowy expedition in New Mexico’s Pecos Wilderness by singing, which also lifted the spirits of the group. “I had never been on a wilderness expedition before, but I’m not one to give up easily,” Oluwadara says. “That trip brought out even more grit in me. Grit is a quality of courage that you need to move forward whether you fail once or 100 times. When I leave UWC-USA, I know I’ll be able to meet any challenge to achieve my goals, one step at a time.” UWC-USA alumni often cite their hair-raising wilderness adventures as a key experience that tested their grit and helped them develop important life skills. “The Wilderness Program was one of the most challenging experiences I’ve ever had,” says Dana Aghabi ’14, a petite woman who fearlessly crossed a dangerously high and frigid river on a leadership expedition in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. “It took me so far out of my comfort zone that I learned a tremendous amount about myself and others. I learned how to think more positively and not be afraid to take risks. Teamwork, leadership, communication, conflict resolution, self-awareness, and risk management are lifelong skills that I can use in any situation.” Benjamin Thompson ’88, a copywriter based in Los Angeles, says he continues to benefit from the stick-with-it grit he mustered in the Wilderness Program. “I can trace my successes in life to pushing through that one afternoon of skiing misery and food poisoning,” Ben says. “I equate grit with hard work and having the mental focus not to

give up. In the wilderness, I learned that you always have a choice about how you react to a situation. It’s a lot like the real world, where you can get ground up if you don’t have grit, even though you may have had a 4.0 grade-point [average] in school.”

FLOURISHING THROUGH ADVERSITY The grit movement not only casts new insights on the definition of success but also reframes the way teachers, students, and parents perceive and define failure. It offers an alternative to the long-standing “everyone is a winner” approach to education. “We have a culture of telling students, ‘You’re so smart,’ which only makes them more afraid to take risks and not look smart,” Arianne says. “I believe the emphasis should be on encouraging students to work harder and persevere, let them know it is OK to fail and learn from their experience. In the Wilderness Program, we say, ‘We all know we’re going to make mistakes.’ Instead of failing grades, we give next steps for improvement.” Students at UWC-USA have many opportunities to cultivate grit beyond wilderness training. Sofie Nielsen ’15, Denmark, says her work at a youth detention center in Albuquerque ignited her grit. “That experience showed me that grit also involves having empathy for others,” Sofie says. “Just as being around students from all over the world at UWC-USA encourages you to understand and have compassion for different perspectives, while at the same time to stand up for yourself and figure out who you really are.” A built-in grit barometer for many students from outside the U.S. is learning how to communicate effectively in English. “True grit is being able to survive the first weeks at UWC-USA not understanding the language,” says English

teacher Anne Farrell. “I admire how students here have found the courage to persist, even with a smile, knowing they’re going to be challenged and intimidated by basic communication.” Grit not only can be taught but also can be scientifically measured and enhanced, says Paul Stoltz, founder and CEO of the global research and consulting firm PEAK Learning. Considered the world’s leading expert on the application and integration of grit and resilience, Stoltz devised an online assessment tool, the GRIT Gauge, which measures the four building blocks of what he calls GRIT: growth, resilience, instinct, and tenacity. Drawing on his 35 years of research with top companies, business leaders, educators, and students, he says the quality of one’s GRIT—good or bad, strong or weak, smart or dumb—is just as important as the quantity of GRIT. “We found that 98 percent of employers worldwide choose GRIT over any other factor when hiring,” Stoltz says. “Research shows that people who score higher on the GRIT Gauge score higher in life. They have better income, better health, and achieve more of their goals.” However you define grit, Sandile Dube ’15, Swaziland, says we could all use more of it. For Sandile, who hopes to pioneer outdoor education in his country, grit is how persistently you chase your dreams, which necessarily involves a certain amount of struggle and sacrifice that comes with the territory at UWC-USA. Any leader aiming to transform the world would probably agree.

Dana Micucci is a widely published journalist and author. Her books include Sojourns of the Soul: One Woman’s Journey Around the World and Into Her Truth, a gold winner in the 2013 Nautilus Book Awards, and a new novel, The Third Muse.

CONNECTED

BY SHARON SETO DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND OJASWEE RAJBHANDARY ’15, NEPAL

For more than two decades, UWC-USA has had a relationship with Samaritan House, a nonprofit in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It began when chemistry teacher Bob Pearson joined the board and has grown substantially since 2007, after three more UWC-USA faculty joined the board and helped lead the opening of an emergency shelter. In addition to the shelter, Samaritan House runs a food pantry, a permanent rehousing program, a counseling and service referral program, and a thrift store. Students spend hundreds of hours each year volunteering for its various programs. “We could not run the shelter without UWC-USA students’ involvement,” says Arline Quintana, executive director of Samaritan

House. “Students benefit, too. They are thinking about how they can take the skills that they are learning back to their countries to help people who are less fortunate than them.” UWC-USA’s support goes beyond student volunteer hours. Every other year, the school hosts the Neighbor Helping Neighbor fundraiser. The event features an international dinner, student

entertainment, and a silent auction that includes donations from local businesses, student-made pottery, language lessons, and hosted trips to the students’ home countries. This year’s benefit, held in March, drew a crowd of more than 250 community members and raised $12,000. “The benefit really helps us financially,” Quintana says. “We appreciate the gifts that were shared to help raise money to support the shelter.” In addition to donating items for the silent auction, a team of students helped organize the fundraiser. Moyosore Okeremi ’15, Nigeria, was one of them. She says she learned that staging a major event could be “tough but very rewarding.” “I realized that it is easy to talk about the UWC mission,” Moyosore says, “but it is actually the reallife application of service that takes the most effort but also creates the most impact.” For some students, living on a campus tucked away in Montezuma can make it easy to think of UWC-USA as a little bubble. Yet student organizers found that by getting involved in the Neighbor Helping Neighbor dinner, they were able to make connections with the Las Vegas community. “I really enjoyed Students spend several hours a week at the Samaritan House’s shelter for the homeless. LEFT: Hening Cheng ’16,

China, hangs laundry. RIGHT: Karol Bisaga ’16,

USA-IL, and Shimpei Goto ’16, Japan, clean the kitchen.

the opportunity to talk with the people from Las Vegas and the surrounding area,” says Naré Harutyunyan ’16, Armenia. The Samaritan House receives additional support for the shelter from the city of Las Vegas, the Santa Fe Food Depot, the Housing and Urban Development agency, the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, First United Presbyterian Church, the Mortgage Finance Authority, and individual donors. In 2014, the organization gave out 3,480 bags of groceries, served 3,439 meals at the emergency shelter, provided 850 bed nights from November through March, and housed 54 individuals through the Community Transitional Housing Service. For UWC-USA students, engaging with Samaritan House provides a palpable opportunity to experience what it means to be a global change maker. “Being a volunteer at the homeless shelter has truly been an impactful experience both in my life and in my time at UWCUSA,” says Irving Barrera ’16, Mexico. “Interacting with homeless people has taught me the power that listening to other’s stories has and to take action on things where I want to see a difference.” Summia Tora ’16, Afghanistan, adds, “Homeless people are humans just like us. They have feelings, life stories, and incredible, fascinating experiences to share with the world. Try to help one homeless person and you’ll learn more than you can imagine.” 9

CHANGE AGENTS

BY CEDAR ATTANASIO LPC ’07

“When I was young, you’d walk 20 steps and you were at the edge of the sea,” says MoJia Shen ’14 of her hometown in China. Situated along the ruins of China’s Great Wall, Qinhuangdao has grown from a cluster of villages to an urbanized center of high-rise buildings, immaculate parks, and tourist promenades. Located three hours from Beijing, Qinhuangdao’s beaches serve as a getaway for the capital’s emerging elite, whose mansions line the coastline of the city’s sheltered gulf, a harbor that communicates with the Yellow Sea. Poverty is down, but not everyone is thriving.

10

Because of a series of financial incentives and other legal pressures, virtually all Chinese families have single-child homes. The elderly depend on their one child to provide for them in old age. If that child dies, his or her parents are left to cope not only with the grief but also often with severe economic challenges. MoJia, a freshman at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, saw an opportunity for change. She submitted a proposal to help grieving parents in Qinhuangdao as part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s Social Venture Challenge.

Out of a pool of 307 entries, hers was one of 30 selected for the Resolution Project Fellowship. In addition to financial support, MoJia will be paired with a mentor to execute an ambitious project that integrates government and nongovernmental organizations, an army of volunteers, and a group of trained counselors. “We have enough food, we have jobs, we have leisure time,” MoJia says. “People in China can rely on the government for many services and needs, but there’s a gap at the very local level.”

For the estimated 1 million couples in China who have lost their only child, it’s a lethal blind spot. As many as 50 percent of those couples experience an attempted suicide by one or both partners. MoJia understands the problem more than most: Two of her cousins died very young, leaving their parents—her aunts and uncles—bereft. “My cousin died in a car accident, several days before his 20th birthday,” MoJia says. “My other cousin committed suicide, [triggered] by stress ahead of an English exam. She was only 10 years old.” MoJia’s aunts and uncles are now retired and too old to have another child. The death of a child would be tragic anywhere, but China’s one-child policy compounds the tribulation. “It’s not only their son, it’s their social security,” MoJia says. “Who’s going to take care of them when they grow older?” Chinese parents feel an overwhelming combination

of guilt, economic doom, and loss of purpose. They avoid family events where discussions are dominated by the question, “How are your kids?” The resulting isolation occurs at the time when they need the most support. MoJia says that her aunt and uncle moved to another city and were never heard from again. Those stories weighed on her mind, but she’d never felt empowered to tackle the problem until she attended UWC-USA. “By working with so many underprivileged people through No More Deaths, the Las Vegas Peace and Justice Center, and other organizations during my two years at UWC-USA, I reassessed who I was in society,” she says. Now, MoJia is focused on issues at home. She’s concerned with people like her aunts and uncles who have been robbed of their children and have relinquished their support systems. Local government agencies do their best to

help, paying sporadic condolence visits and giving gifts, but they don’t offer sustained psychological support. Instead of dismissing the local government agency in Qinhuangdao as ineffective, MoJia is bringing it on as a partner in her project. It will provide data essential to connecting families to counseling services that exist but are underused. MoJia’s goal is to build a “peaceful relationship between the families and the government, and between families in the society.” “The first problem is that there is a shortage of psychologists,” she says. “Counseling is not really a ‘thing,’ and it’s still very expensive. It’s also taboo, so people don’t seek help.” MoJia believes that to reach those couples cloistered in grief, she’ll need to undertake a serious outreach effort. Remember when she said that the strong economy gave people more leisure time? She’s already leveraged that pent-

up demand into more than 300 volunteers. MoJia points out that she didn’t do any of this alone. She cobbled together a coalition of four groups. On the government side, she’s won the support of a single-child support agency and a citizen ombudsman organization. On the NGO side, she’s integrated a volunteer matching service and a committee of psychiatrists who can train 100 counselors to send out around Qinhuangdao. If helping her own community wasn’t enough, MoJia is already planning her next social venture in Monterrey, Mexico, where she’s volunteered before. She’s just won a $10,000 Draper Business Plan Competition for the project, which she’ll use with the help of Andrea Cecilia Sánchez Náñez ’12. But that’s for another MoJia “Change Agent” article, of which we suspect there will be many more to come.

Instead of dismissing the local government agency in Qinhuangdao as ineffective, MoJia is bringing it on as a partner in her project. It will provide data essential to connecting families to counseling services that exist but are underused. 11

TAKING THE LEAD

BACK COUNTRY

BY BEATRIX HOWE ’16, CANADA/THE NETHERLANDS, AND ERIC SCHULZ ’16, USA-NY

12

IMAGINE THIS. YOU’VE SPENT THE PAST FOUR DAYS hiking with 13 peers across the primitive area of the Blue Range mountains in southern Arizona. Your heavy backpack is nearly half your weight. The clouds look like they are ready to douse you with buckets of water. You’ve become fairly accustomed to acacia, a plant so filled with thorns, it has been deemed “cat’s claw.” You only have raisins left in your snack mix and ... it’s getting dark. It is at this point you realize you’ve somehow managed to get yourself stuck on top of a mountain surrounded by 20-foot cliffs. Life is good. Granted, this may not be the best first impression of our spring wilderness leadership trip. These were examples, though, of the challenges we had to overcome to become the wilderness leaders we are today. When you encounter challenges in the wilderness, there is no option to simply remain undecided. You cannot run away. The problems you encounter become your main objective, your priority. Leadership positions, in both the wilderness and in the “front country,” call for a particular type of thought process. It is the purpose of a leader to facilitate and organize decisionmaking, to ease the stresses and concerns of your colleagues, and to simultaneously incorporate a wide variety of skills. What was honestly the best two weeks of our lives proved to

offer opportunities for growth in, what may have seemed to us then, the darkest moments of the trip. (And we mean this quite literally. The sun sets earlier and faster than you’d think, especially when you are nowhere near your designated campsite for the night.) From climbing in and out of countless drainages to mounting the tallest peak—only to realize that you had to go all the way back down—each and every obstacle proved to be a learning experience. The objective of the trip was to learn to lead and to learn to follow. Living with no technology, beds, showers, toilets, heaters, or electricity made us realize how to work together and to make the best of what we had. We worked in groups to solve problems and make—sometimes not the wisest—decisions. Our adult leaders stepped further and further away from their leadership roles, leaving it to us students to take initiative and make decisions. We adopted a new “leader of the day” each hiking day, which allowed each person to be immersed in a role of authority. After careful preparation and thorough lessons about leadership types, the role of leader was our first official field test. The idea of leading an entire group of students through the wilderness is more taxing than one would think, especially in

The objective of the trip was to learn to lead and to learn to follow.

regard to decision-making. Moving from directive leadership to more consensus-based ideas proved an interesting opportunity to experiment. While one would ideally aim to use the consensus-based option, at times the more directive decision process was needed. Finding the balance between these two was essential; we found that an overly directive leader loses the respect of his or her group, while consensus options could prove to be too time-consuming. Facilitating this process of decisionmaking was one of the main priorities for the leader of the day. In addition to revolving daily leaders, a new theme was selected for every hiking day: Expedition Behavior, Communication, Competency, Judgment and Decision-Making, Tolerance for Adversity and Uncertainty, Self-Awareness, and Vision and Action (or EbCoCoJdmTauSaVa, as Wilderness Director Arianne Zwartjes ’97 called them). Establishing one of these themes gave the assigned leader a sort of handrail to follow in the way he or she made decisions, just like we used rivers as handrails to make sure we were heading the right way. For example, on the day when we adopted “vision and action” as our theme, the leader’s objective was to relay his or her plan for his or her hiking group of the day and to execute the plan to the best of his or her ability. By assigning one of these underlying themes every day, we could focus on our own development in

these fields as well as work toward the wellness of the team as a whole. Creating hiking groups was a crucial element of the entire process. By changing and shifting who was with whom every day, it was possible for each person to have a break from being a leader and it allowed us to experience the role of active followership. A day off from being a designated leader did not provide one with a “day off,” however. The role of a follower was to pay attention and contribute to the navigation process and the general well-being of fellow hikers. Whether it was by noting the features we hiked past or checking that everyone remained hydrated, all followers fulfilled a leadership role of their own. Delegation via the leader facilitated the process and ensured everyone was contributing to the day’s goal. The experience of hiking through a primitive area was exhilarating and confidence building. A firsthand witness to grounds touched by humans only a dozen times a year provided a serenity and awareness of our impact on our surroundings. From seeing a natural spring sprout from the roots of an ancient sycamore tree to nights spent sleeping under the open, starry sky, the 14 of us will always remember our days in the Blue Range mountains of southern Arizona as a time of learning, growth, and fond memories. 13

VIEWPOINT

BY SAGE DE BRUM ’15, MARSHALL ISLANDS

Coming from an atoll in the Marshall Islands, climate change is something that holds greater significance for me than for people from places of higher altitudes. The fact that Kiribas islanders are preparing to move to Fiji because the ocean is gnawing away at their land makes me pay attention to climate change even more, especially because I live in a similarly vulnerable area. The Marshall Islands is being slowly swallowed by the sea. Never having left my island—let alone the Marshall Islands—before going to UWC-USA, I had seen how the tide changed and how the frequency of water washing ashore had increased. In the summer of 2013, the ocean destroyed three or four houses and the families had to move. In March 2014, the Marshall Islands was intruded by “king tides,” which encroached the land, forcing nearly 1,000 inhabitants to leave. I find it hard to feel completely safe from the ocean because the islands, including where my house is, can be so thin that the land is only wide enough 14

for a two-lane road with a building on each side. Beyond the buildings, the ocean stretches endlessly. Attending climate change meetings, I learned that there are ways of defending ourselves against the push of the waves, such as building more sea walls. However, the Marshall Islands is not economically stable, so we cannot afford many forms of protection along the perimeter of each island. Whatever sea walls we have are also being eroded by the waves. I believe that Marshallese, and the Oceanic people in general, bring a sense of reality to the issue of climate change to UWC-USA. Yet attending

UWC-USA also brought the issues of the rest of the world closer to me, as well. Before starting at UWCUSA, I stayed for a week with relatives in Arizona to get used to living out of the Marshall Islands. What I noticed was that problems seemed a lot bigger now that they were closer. When I watched the news, crimes in or near where I was staying definitely remained in my mind for longer than they would have had I heard about them back home. I had held the land within my country’s border to be what was “close to home.” Once I arrived at UWC-USA, I realized that the same was true for others. It is often hard for people to imagine the scope of a problem when it is something that they do not experience or hear about from a firsthand perspective. Instead of defining “close to home” as being within my country, I found that looking at the world as one community, the UWCUSA community, helped me to realize the importance of all the problems people face. Knowing and fully understanding a problem is always the first step to resolving it. Attending UWC-USA and meeting people with experiences from so many different countries really opens one’s eyes to how serious problems are. There have been problems that I learned of that had been happening for years, but living so far away, I had not heard of them before. As overwhelming as it does get sometimes, being alerted to all these issues is a big first step, especially when you

discuss them with someone who is personally affected. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are places where people can express themselves and say whatever they may want. They are places where information can be shared with a huge mass of people. However, posts on these sites are not always taken as seriously as they perhaps should be. Sometimes people need to reach out and notify others asking for help. The Internet is a place where people from all over the world can communicate with each other about what is happening. The great thing about the Internet is that cross-nation communication is much easier. The hard part about it is being able to transform social media into action. I hope that when people interact with others, they take what they learn of other places and speak not only of the good but also of the problems there. Albeit this is a generally melancholy topic, if they tell those they meet a little about the challenges they face, then the problem becomes better understood. There may be those who do not care, but there are always those who do. I believe that, as long as every person helps a little in whatever way they can, be it helping to resolve or extend knowledge of a problem, significantly positive change worldwide would happen more.

SPOTLIGHT

Maya Alkateb-Chami seems like a classic UWCer: She spent a year abroad as a teenager, studied politics in college, worked for nonprofit organizations, and volunteered for the Syrian National Committee. So what UWC did she attend? None of them. Maya, who joined the UWC-USA staff as the associate director of admissions in January, says that discovering UWC was wholly serendipitous. She was in her last year at Damascus University in her home country of Syria when a friend connected her with an American couple who were interested in providing scholarships to young Iraqi refugees. One thing led to another, and in short order, Maya found herself serving as the “de facto chair” of the newly founded UWC Syrian National Committee. “My goal was to help the students,” she says of her decision to get involved. “UWC offered a great opportunity for their education, and I liked the UWC values.” Having spent a year of high school in San Antonio, Texas, Maya understood the value of studying abroad. Her stay was arranged through the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program, and Maya was one of the first participants. It was

an unusual opportunity— especially for a teenage girl. “My dad was very courageous to let me go,” she recalls. “My mom wasn’t so eager. I owe them because they made a very difficult decision.” Maya took full advantage of her time in Texas. She excelled in her classes, joined a variety of student groups, and even served on the San Antonio Express-News Teen Advisory Board. “I felt this was the best thing to happen to anyone,” she says of the exchange program. “To go away to study, to be independent, to reflect on who I was and who I wanted to be.” Maya returned to Damascus, graduated from high school, and went on to study politics. “I had ambitions to work in government,” she says. Maya took a job at a Syrian political think tank as a researcher, but soon it became clear to her that politics in Syria was a dangerous field, and she shifted her focus to culture and youth with a goal

of increasing ownership of public space, civic participation, and tolerance. Maya later applied for— and received—a Fulbright scholarship to study for a master’s degree in community arts and youth empowerment at Indiana University. By that point, Maya was entrenched in her work as chair of the growing Syrian National Committee. In the committee’s first year, they placed three students in UWCs and had an applicant pool of 80 students. Today, the committee offers 11 scholarships and has more than 230 applicants. “The conflict in Syria has changed the committee,” Maya says. “Only a few members are actually based in Syria, and the applications we receive come from Syrians living in 12 countries other than Syria. We do the selection process completely online as a result.” Managing the committee while studying and working in the U.S. was challenging, but as with everything she does, Maya devoted herself fully. “Working with the committee has been my main volunteer activity,” she explains. “It’s how I help my country.” Last fall, Maya learned about the position at UWCUSA. Her studies at Indiana University were wrapping up, and going back to Syria was no longer an option given the present conflict. (Her family has since left the country, resettling in the United Arab Emirates.) Working at UWC, she realized, would give her

an opportunity to “have a positive impact on as many students as possible.” “I’m really happy to be here,” she says. “I’ve had so many wonderful, random conversations with students. This age group is my favorite.” Maya says her focus will be on increasing diversity among the student body— both internationally and among U.S. students. She’s particularly interested in bringing in more students from conflict regions. “When UWC was founded, diversity focused on bringing together students from countries that were in conflict with other countries,” she says. “Today, the nature of conflict has changed. It’s not just between countries but between groups within the same country, too. We need to look at bringing together students who will work toward peace with that broader definition.” —Jennifer Rowland

15

ONE OF US

Researcher Finds Her PATH It was a fortuitous time to receive good news: Researcher Tala de los Santos ’93 learned she had been named a Washington Global Health Alliance Rising Leader the very day she went into labor with her second daughter. “PEOPLE WERE CONGRATULATING ME, AND I HAD TO ASK THEM IF IT WAS FOR the award or for the baby,” she recalls, laughing. Tala’s “Rising Leader” accolade acknowledges the transformative work she directs as the leader of the diagnostics program for PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit that develops innovative solutions for global health challenges. Tala oversees a team of 45 scientists, public health specialists, and business strategists—plus a $17 million budget—to develop and introduce point-of-care tests for use in health-care programs in developing countries. It sounds complex, and it is. Tala’s work with river blindness provides an excellent example. River blindness is a parasitic disease that is found near fast-flowing rivers in Africa, Latin America, and Yemen. The World Health Organization estimates there are 120 million people at risk of getting the disease, which is transmitted by flies that carry the parasite. There is treatment available, although everyone in the affected community has to take the drug annually for 10 years or more. After the community has been told that they can stop taking the drug, the problem is monitoring the situation to make sure that the disease does not come back. That’s where Tala and her team come in. Funded by a grant from the Gates Foundation, PATH researchers and scientists were able to invent a diagnostic tool that is fast, inexpensive, and simple to use in rural locations with limited resources. It took nearly four years of work, but the tool is in the final phase: It is being manufactured by a South Korean firm and is being deployed in endemic countries. 16

“This project is near and dear to my heart,” Tala says. “Previously, no manufacturer would take on diagnostics for neglected tropical diseases because there wasn’t enough profit. At PATH, we are able to do ‘high-risk’ research and development work for health products that otherwise would not be developed.” Tala explains that by tackling the R&D component, PATH was able to de-risk the project. Once the prototype was designed and tested, PATH partnered with a commercial company to bring it to market. “We just placed orders [for the river blindness tool] for Togo and Nigeria,” she says with pride. “My team is training in-country partners on the proper use of the tests.” Tala says her passion for global health is a direct result of her UWC-USA experience. She began her career working for a for-profit biotech firm, and while she enjoyed the opportunities it provided, Tala found herself seeking greater fulfillment. “I wanted to explore how work could be a bit more meaningful for me,” she says. Her search led her to PATH, where she’s been for 10 years. Initially interested in biomedical research—she was on track to get a Ph.D.—Tala changed gears and earned master’s degrees in genetics and in business. “At PATH, I get to “When I arrived at UWC-USA combine the rigor of business thinking with scientific at 16, I hardly thought of world work to address health inequities,” she says. Tala’s exposure to students from so many parts issues. Being there allowed me to of the world as a UWC-USA student gave her a deep engage in questions I had been insight into issues she had never previously considered. “When I arrived at UWC-USA at 16, I hardly thought sheltered from, and I learned of world issues,” she says. “Being there allowed me to how important it was to have the engage in questions I had been sheltered from, and I learned how important it was to have the perspective perspective of so many different of so many different views but to still be able to act views but to still be able to act with with conviction on my own.” Tala stayed in the U.S. for the duration of her conviction on my own.” two years at UWC-USA—her family couldn’t afford for her to fly home to the Philippines during break. Her mother is a professor and her father is an architect, but money was always tight for the family. She received full scholarships to go to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts for her undergraduate work and Stanford University in northern California for her master’s degree in human genetics. “I am deeply grateful to the U.S. for all the education I received,” she says. “I truly had the best education in the country.” She’s thought “many times” about returning to the Philippines, but she feels she’s able to do more global good from her perch in Seattle. “I’m able to harness more resources here that I can bring to the Philippines and other developing countries,” she explains. But she will return one day. “There’s a Chinese saying: ‘Sea turtles always end up returning to the place they were born.’ That resonates with me,” Tala says. In the meantime, there are new projects to tackle and more diseases to conquer. She and her team are currently working on a new diagnostic tool for elephantiasis, another parasitic disease that causes gross enlargement of the arms, legs, or genitals. At the same time, Tala is looking at ways of increasing the participation of the medical diagnostics industry in global health by using PATH as an investor in companies that could effectively grapple with neglected diseases. “Our impact could be broader and longer lasting by harnessing a deeper bench of talent,” she explains. “There’s so much work that still needs to be done,” Tala says. And this rising leader is just the person to be doing it. —Jennifer Rowland

17

peer

Heather Deutsch ’92 and Michael Taylor ’91

REVIEW CLASS OF 1984

Amit Mohindra is combining his engineering and labor economics knowledge to pioneer the use of analytics in the field of human resources, which is also known as Workforce Analytics and People Analytics. Amit is a frequent conference speaker and also teaches the Introduction to Human Capital Analytics course at the University of California, Berkeley’s Extension program in San Francisco. Amit switched companies recently and now leads Talent Analytics at Apple. CLASS OF 1985

Erika Harding is the director of replication initiatives for Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), a collaborative model of medical education and care management for doctors in rural and underserved communities. Based out of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, ECHO is being adapted to expand

access to knowledge resources and meet the needs of underserved communities around the world. Erika drove up to UWC-USA in February from her Albuquerque home to participate in the annual Alumni:Connect weekend. The two-day event brings four to six alumni back to campus every year. They present about their careers in classrooms and participate in a panel discussion with all students in the evening. CLASS OF 1990

Stephanie Walton is the senior regional program director at Counter Tools. She works with clients to advance their point-of-sale policy goals to improve the health impacts of the retail environment in communities around the country. She joined Erica Harding in February for Alumni:Connect weekend. Zulfiqar Ali moved to Washington, D.C., to work at the International Finance Corporation, the

private-sector arm of the World Bank. His wife Sana and their two boys Raza (10) and Rafay (8) hope this will be their last move for at least several years. Over the past decade, they have moved from London to Dubai (2006), then to Karachi (2009), then to New Haven (2011), then to Boston with a six-month interlude for Zulfiqar in Dubai (2012), and now finally Washington, D.C. “The kids have settled down well—they got pretty used to moving schools—and we are beginning to enjoy the city more and more,” he says. “We hope to make this a base for the next eight to 10 years, until the boys are ready to go to college. But with our itchy feet, anything is possible.” CLASS OF 1991

Camila Silva Leão d’Araujo Olsen and Christian Olsen recently moved to Bolivia, where Camila took a position at the Brazilian Embassy in La Paz.

President Mukul Kumar ’89 gathered with UWC alumni in Boston in April.

18

Michael Taylor reports that he recently met up with Heather Deutsch ’92 to strategize on how to increase the bike-ability of San Antonio, where he lives. CLASS OF 1992

Adam Barak Kleinberger started a new position at Boston University in Massachusetts as associate ombudsman. “It is great to be back in Boston!” he says. Anais Tuepker took on a temporary teaching position in global health at Pacific University in Oregon. She is also an assistant professor in research at Oregon Health & Science University. “The bigger news in my professional life, from my perspective, is that I was recently awarded a multiyear grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Academic Affiliation to evaluate innovations in interprofessional education for medical, nursing, pharmacy, and social work students being trained in the VA’s primary care clinics around the country,” Anais says. “I am still working toward launching my company Preciva’s low-cost cervical cancer screening test in India.”

Harald Tuckermann is celebrating 12 years with the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. He started there in 2003 for his Ph.D. program and stayed on for his postdoctorate work. He is finishing his postdoc and working on his habilitation, which he says is a sort of German second Ph.D. His research roles have included being the managing director of the research program “HealthCare Excellence,” as well as the managing director of the Center for Health Care at the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on systemic intervention at hospitals. Ruben Ayala has spent the past 23 years with Operation Smile, a nonprofit organization that provides cleft palette surgery to children in underserved communities. Ruben is the organization’s senior vice president of medical affairs. He also serves as a board member of the Global Alliance for Surgery, Obstetrics, Trauma, and Anesthesia, an organization advocating for increased availability of safe and timely access to essential surgical care in the neediest regions of the world. He and his wife Karina joined the UWC-USA community in February for the annual Alumni:Connect weekend.

CLASS OF 1994

Oscar Owens lives in Brooklyn with his wife Elissa and two kids, Asa (5) and Isaac (10 months old). His band Gangstagrass, a bluegrass/hip-hop band, released a new album titled American Music, which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts. “Very exciting news,” Oscar says. “And alumni can help keep it on the charts by buying it (available on iTunes and Amazon). It is a really great album, and they will love it.” CLASS OF 1995

Muran Heo celebrated 14 years with MBPlusmedia as a TV show producer in Seoul, South Korea. Last year, she visited Martin Clutterbuck in Brazil and met his dog Muran, her namesake. She hopes to visit other friends, especially Subina Shrestha in Nepal. “Still haven’t given up on writing books and making music,” Muran says. “And still looking for a soul mate!” CLASS OF 1996

Anna Links took on a short-term assignment as the associate director at Folio: The Seattle Atheanaeum, which is a new cultural center. In this role, Anna helped direct operations while the organization waited for its nonprofit application to

PASSINGS The following alumni and friends of UWC-USA passed away in the past two years. We hold them dear in our hearts. Celeste A. Bartos, former distinguished trustee, January 2013 Gabriele Brougier Geier, friend and donor, January 2013 Kathryn Davis, former distinguished trustee, April 2013 Victor D. Amarilla-Cañete ’01, Paraguay, May 2013 Ake A. Densert ’87, Sweden, November 2014 Andreas Panagopoulos ’88, Greece, March 2014 Montoeli Molefe ’92, Lesotho, May 2014 Dr. Harold Brown, friend and donor, August 2014 Bar Houli ’07, Israel, September 2014 Judith McBean, friend and donor, October 2014 Dorothy “Dottie” Mann, assistant to the dean, vice president, and librarian, January 2015

19

peer REVIEW Harriet (Rollitt) Monzon-Aguirre ’05 and her husband Carlos

Kerunne Ketlogetswe and her husband Sascha welcomed the arrival of their son Thapelo DeVere Sheehan on Jan. 15. The family is doing splendidly. get approved. When her contract ends, she’ll move on and look for something else. Anna reports, “Other than sunshine in Seattle, nothing newsworthy is going on.” Alison Quinn and her family moved to Brisbane, Australia, and she says she is having a wonderful time watching her 4-year-old daughter Ada grow up. “She’s climbing on me as I write!” she says. Alison works at the University of Queensland in their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies unit as a learning advisor and researcher. “We think we’ll stay here a while once Ada starts school,” Alison says. “Looking forward to the reunion! Love to everyone.” Emil Jones has a new job as associate professor of public policy at Oxford

20

University’s new Blavatnik School of Government in the U.K. She teaches about and does research on global economic governance. Her second child Maya just turned 1, and her son Rumi is thrilled to have a baby sister. “I recently caught up with Tobias Breidhardt, Carianne Gran, Ed Doe, and Nicola Mai ’97 at the wedding of Aleem Siddiqui,” she says.

CLASS OF 1998

Christian Proano has lived in Quito, Ecuador, for the past 10 years and says he’s been working hard drawing, painting, and making lots of noise. Christian reports that he hasn’t married and probably won’t, but he is living in Quito’s historic center with his two loves: his partner and his cat. They hope to grow the family soon.

CLASS OF 1997

CLASS OF 2000

Jubilee Marimba lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife of four years, Angelene, and their 9-month-old son. He works for the Douglas County School District as a senior integration developer. He is in touch with Lisa (Strassner) Hutchcraft ’98, who lives in the same city with her husband and two kids.

Gigi (Modrich) Christopher left private practice at Holland & Knight LLP to join the Office of the Solicitor, Division of Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. She works with the assistant secretary for Indian affairs on fee-to-trust matters. She still works with tribal governments as she had in the past but now represents the U.S. government. Gigi says her new position is intellectually stimulating and gives her an opportunity to work on issues that have never before been considered. Recently, Gigi had dinner with Deidre Ciliento ’01,

UWC-USA alumni met with President Mukul Kumar ’89 at Middlebury College in April.

and together they decided to reinvigorate the alumni community in Washington, D.C. Be sure to reach out to either Gigi or Deidre if you are in Washington, D.C., or the surrounding area and want to work with them on this UWC initiative. You can find them on Facebook. On April 17, Yoomie Huynh celebrated her 35th birthday and hosted a party with friends from UWC-USA, Georgetown University, the Peace Corps, and beyond. Representing the class of 2000 were Emilie Gruchow, Joel Hunt, Gigi (Modrich) Christopher, Lucy Cheah, Adelina Voutchkova, and David and Helena (Poon) Aten. Other UWCers included Josh Hall ’01, Susan (Keppelman) Harcourt ’01, Patrick Drown ’13, and Anthony “Tony” Spearman-Leach ’86. Hannah Tyson also made her way to Yoomie’s party to congratulate her on another year of life. Yoomie’s birthday is especially notable because in October 2014, a car hit her. The accident resulted in a broken neck and collapsed esophagus. She suffered another accident while in the hospital that required brain surgery. She says her friends pulled together, along with Cristina Gomez-Jimenez ’01, Firend Zora ’99, and Smriti Lakhey ’99, to coordinate efforts and ensure that Yoomie had the

Tara Kelton ’06 and her husband Javier

support, love, visitors, and snacks she needed. Everyone was delighted to see Yoomie celebrate another birthday. CLASS OF 2002

Kachi Okoronkwo started a new job as a senior technical recruiter at Sungevity. “I am always on the hunt for mission-driven people who want to be a part of the clean energy evolution and welcome contact,” she says. “New Mexico is the most recent Sungevity market, and I’m plotting how to get panels on my former abode of Chum, and then the Castle.” Ninya Loeppky started a new job as a program associate with The John Merck Fund. In her role, she focuses on grant making in the areas of regional food systems and environmental health. “I’m enjoying living

in Boston and always happy to reconnect with Udub classmates,” she says. Patricia Enzi has taken a new job as the head of account management for OpenGamma. CLASS OF 2003

Valerie Nucete recently celebrated two years as the communications manager at the Voices for Children Foundation. CLASS OF 2005

Natalie Jo Ross left the Aga Khan Foundation to take a job at the Council on Foundations. She leads the global philanthropy program, which supports foundations engaging in cross-border philanthropy and works to connect American foundations to international best practice and philanthropy networks.

Leonor Añó Stephens ’06 and her husband Drew

Natalie is still based in Washington, D.C., and she travels globally to engage with partners and meet with member foundations, whether in Beijing or Milan.

2014. Avia Tadmor ’06, Macarena Fernandez Robaina ’06, and Shannon O’Connor ’05 were able to join Leo and Drew in Argentina for the big event.

Alessandra Valconi married Ricardo Tizon on Nov. 1, 2014, in Samana, Dominican Republic. Joining her to celebrate were Natalia Bernal Restrepo and Kjersti Aalbu.

Tara Kelton married Javier Ramirez on Pi Day, March 14, and she really embraced the significance of both her wedding and pi. “We got really nerdy about it, signed our marriage certificate at 9:26:53 (so we had the first 10 digits of pi),” she says. “I had a whole speech about how pi is like love ... it is a ratio between circumference and diameter, so it is a relationship between outer and inner. It is also irrational, so it can’t be expressed simply, at least not accurately. It is apparently infinite and random, and hence an enigma. But it is a constant. No matter how a circle expands or contracts, it is still present.”

Harriet (Rollitt) MonzonAguirre married Carlos Monzon-Aguirre on Jan. 24, 2014. They live in Clearwater, Florida. The pair own Bahia Studios, which showcases Carlos’ underwater videos and photos and Harriet’s paintings. They are expecting the addition of a baby boy to their family in July. CLASS OF 2006

Leonor Añó Stephens celebrated love in her home country of Argentina. Her wedding to Drew Stephens took place on Dec. 27,

LEFT TO RIGHT: Juan Carlos

Morales, Natalia Bernal Restrepo ’05, Alessandra Valconi ’05, Ricardo Tizon, Kjersti Aalbu ’05, Charlie Dougherty UWC RCN at Alessandra’s wedding

CLASS OF 2008

Jasper Lauderdale is editing a film on the life and work of renowned Pan-Africanist sculptor Melvin Edwards. The film will premiere later this year alongside an exhibition of Edwards’ work at the 56th Venice Biennale. Jasper graduated in January with

21

peer REVIEW

“As a newly established organization, the responsibility of getting our name out there heavily relies on me.” —LAURA PASTORES ‘10 a master’s degree in cinema studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and he will start his doctorate at Tisch in September.

Elle Newbold ’09 with her husband

Director of College Counseling and Admissions Vernicia Elie gathered with alumni at and alumni at Macalester College.

CLASS OF 2009

Elle Newbold is a customer service specialist with the Collier Cos. She married a UWC Red Cross Nordic alumnus, and they celebrated their one-year anniversary in May. CLASS OF 2010

Ana Aguilera Silva completed a short stint at CanopyLAB in Washington, D.C., and she is now working on a master’s degree in education policies for global development. She won an Erasmus Programme scholarship, which will allow her to travel through Europe, stopping in Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Malta. “I hope to reconnect with my UWC-USA family currently residing in Europe!” she says. Laura Pastores recently became the marketing and development officer

at Excel Center for Educational Leadership, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide public school principals in the Philippines with leadership development training. Laura is in charge of creating partnerships with other organizations and corporations. “As a newly established organization, the responsibility of getting our name out there heavily relies on me. Aside from that, I come up with fundraising projects and regularly update our donors,” she says. Laura also gets asked to help facilitate youth leadership training programs headed by a nonprofit organization partner, the Kaya Natin!

Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership. CLASS OF 2011

Ernesto Gonzalez works as a research assistant at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands as part of his electrical engineering master’s program. His project involves designing a system for acquiring electroencephalogram signals from premature babies. Once complete, the system will be used by the doctors at the medical research center. Vu Thanh Chau was one of the 33 candidates to win a full five-year doctoral scholarship at Harvard University. After graduating, Vu wants to combine being a professor and policy consultant

Laura Pastores ’10 facilitated a youth workshop with Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership. 22

to a public organization such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or the government of Vietnam. CLASS OF 2012

Francesca Annicchiarico is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in social studies at Harvard University in Massachusetts and was awarded a research grant to investigate the relations between police forces and second-generation immigrants in Paris this summer. She hopes that this research project will allow her to complete a senior honors thesis this upcoming academic year. Francesca also was recently elected to the news board of The Harvard Crimson, the student-run daily newspaper that she joined as a staff writer in her freshman year. Sharbel Diarbakerli recently started as a talent training intern with Ernst & Young in Stockholm.

BIG HEART

Allan Affeldt puts his money—and energy—where his heart is. BY GRAHAM RASMUSSEN DIRECTOR OF ANNUAL GIVING The combination of entrepreneurialism and activism has become recently fashionable, but Allan Affeldt has been doing it for decades. A successful hotel entrepreneur in the American Southwest, Affeldt admits, “I’ve spent most of my adult life as an activist.” Affeldt began his activist career as president of International Peace Walk Inc., a nonprofit he founded in the late 1980s while on leave from his doctoral studies. It was an era of difficult relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, and Affeldt’s mission was to organize the first international peace walk from Leningrad to Moscow. He succeeded. The demonstration of solidarity involved 50,000 people and culminated in the first demonstration in Red Square and a joint U.S.-Soviet rock concert. An entire chapter of legendary concert promoter Bill Graham’s autobiography is devoted to Affeldt’s groundbreaking walk and concert. As passionate as he is about peace and human rights, Affeldt’s also a fan of historical architecture, an interest that underpins his hotel entrepreneurial activities. He opened his first hotel property, a restored Harvey House hotel called the La Posada, in Winslow, Arizona, in the late 1990s. Last year, Affeldt added to his hotel portfolio with the purchase of the historic Castaneda Hotel, also a former Harvey House, and the Plaza Hotel. Both properties are in Las Vegas, New Mexico. His fascination with historic hotels brought Affeldt to the Montezuma Castle at UWC-USA more than a decade ago, when the former hotel and Harvey House was still a dilapidated shell. Since becoming an hotelier in Las Vegas, Affeldt has returned to the Castle several times over the past year for events, and he has enjoyed several opportunities to meet students and staff. It wasn’t surprising, then, when he decided to become a philanthropic supporter of UWC-USA.

Affeldt had read about the $1 million Davis Challenge for Scholars and Programs. In a meeting with President Mukul Kumar ’89 in December 2014, he says he was inspired to make a gift of $100,000 after learning from Mukul that UWC-USA was short of the goal. “There was huge leverage for a gift to the challenge, a one-to-one match but also helping unlock $1 million for scholarships,” he says. Reflecting on the school, Affeldt says that he has “both an architectural and ethical connection” to UWC-USA. “I care deeply about education, and the school appeals to me in particular because social values are embedded in the UWC movement. This combination resonates with me,” he says. Affeldt sees great potential for collaboration between UWC-USA and his hotels and work in Las Vegas. The partnership is partly spurred on by a personal connection he and Mukul share as two energetic newcomers in the community. “I felt engaged by Mukul Kumar and wanted to cooperate and share the school’s story with the broader community,” he says. Affeldt says he’s looking forward to partnering with Mukul on projects related to conflict resolution and the arts, two things near and dear to his heart. While Affeldt’s conflict resolution credentials go back to his early activist work, he is also deeply involved in the art community—his wife Tina Mion is a noted artist, and he has been actively bringing more artists into the Las Vegas fold. For example, Ed Ruscha, an artist associated with the pop-art movement and friend of Affeldt’s, recently bought a building in town. Affeldt sees part of his job as helping revitalize Las Vegas and tell the story of the town, which he says is “physically the most beautiful in the Southwest.” These efforts to bring Las Vegas to the consciousness of the wider world need active participation by the entire community—from students at UWC-USA to local Las Vegas residents. “If you want a better world, you have to make a better world,” Affeldt says. “Differences in scale don’t matter because it’s all incremental.”

23

LOOKING BACK

BY TARRA HASSIN ’91

Walking up the meandering path to the entrance of the Dwan Light Sanctuary, there’s just enough time to leave behind your daily concerns and take in the tall pines and the curved outer walls of the building. The mind prepares for peace and meditation.

24

Pull open heavy wooden doors, and inside you are greeted by the smell of earth. The whiteness of the interior—in contrast to the earth tones of the exterior— is bright and filled with lines of light that move with the sun. The impression is celestial and earthbound. It’s always remarkable—and sometimes magical. Completed nearly 20 years ago, the Dwan Light Sanctuary was conceived and funded by Virginia Dwan, a renowned patron of the arts. The building, designed with artist Charles Ross and architect Laban Wingert, now serves as a sacred space. The only adornment comes from the sky: Large glass prisms purposefully placed in the ceiling create light patterns that shift as the sun makes its way across the sky. The colors reflected on the walls and floor are “the direct light of the sun,” Virginia explains. “The colors are evidence of the sun and how much it affects the earth.”

The 1996 dedication ceremony was memorable. Seven religious leaders participated, and the musical program featured singer Judy Collins and original Gregorian chants sung by UWC-USA students. Since then, some of the many events at the Dwan have included two concerts by Philip Glass and Jon Gibson, an original composition for

five accordions by Tristan Perich, and the creation of a mandala by Buddhist monks. Over the years, the space has been used for yoga classes, student concerts, poetry readings, theatre performances, guided meditations, weddings, and ceremonies related to various religions. The space has always remained nondenominational but sacred in nature. It is for many—students, alumni, and local community members—their favorite place on campus. It is a place of reflection and inspiration, for solitude and community, and for expression. As UWC-USA Music Director Ron Maltais

says, “It’s a space that should be celebrated all the time.” For musicians, the Dwan offers unique acoustical properties. The curved walls, concrete floor, and molded bancos provide challenges for some instruments, such as a grand piano. And yet others—guitar, tabla, harmonium—sound wonderful. In the end, each performance is a result of

an “interaction with the building itself,” Ron says. “Whenever I walk in that space, I immediately start getting ideas that I would never think of anywhere else.” That’s exactly what Virginia had in mind when she conceived of the idea for the sanctuary. “I would hope it would be awe-inspiring, that it would be unifying—to bring people together in mutual understanding,” she says. “That’s become my primary issue—not only connection with the divine but more understanding between people.” In the future, Virginia says she hopes that the space can host a series of speakers who “lead the way” in their fields or those who can speak to different sides of the same story. As the next 20 years in the Dwan Light Sanctuary unfold, one may imagine the impressive audiences, the well-known artists, the world leaders, and the many lessons that will be learned. But in quieter hours, there will be the moments unremarked and unknown. As a place for quiet or solitude, many a person has sought this venue to write, to pray, to meditate, and sometimes to play. So many memories and so much solace found in this room, under the glow of life-giving sun.

INSPIRATION

What Change Means to Me Change they say Change they believe Through a Microscope But will that obvious change get us off our seats They adopt the world’s challenges Without solving their own Do go to your backyard and mow your bushy lawn Your people cry from their undying hunger But you run to the next continent claiming to solve their banter If you do want change Change in the whole world Then my fellow humans Do look in yourselves It takes one breath to change the air It may not be big But it is a difference One tiny move That’s all it takes To make a change in our world today. —SARA MARY YEBOAH BOAKYE ’15, GHANA

25

The MAGAZINE of UWC-USA, The ARMAND HAMMER UNITED WORLD COLLEGE of the AMERICAN WEST

The Armand Hammer United World College of the American West P.O. Box 248 Montezuma, NM 87731-0248 USA

www.uwc-usa.org

UWC MAKES EDUCATION a FORCE to UNITE PEOPLE, NATIONS, and CULTURES for PEACE and a SUSTAINABLE FUTURE.

LAUNCH THE NEXT GENERATION THEY SEEK OUT CHALLENGE AND AREN’T AFRAID OF FAILURE.

They are passionate about their beliefs and open-minded to the beliefs of others. They take action, turning their ideas into reality. They know how to balance idealism with pragmatism. And they are curious—about the world, about learning, and about ways they can make an impact. Do those characteristics fit teenagers you know? If so, please encourage them to apply to UWC. This year, several UWC national committees have moved up their application deadlines. For U.S. students, the online application will be available in July, and the deadline is Oct. 15. This is nearly three months earlier than in past years, and we need your help to recruit the class of 2018. We know that most of our students find out about UWC from trusted friends and family members. Share your story, and help launch the next generation of UWC changemakers. Go to www.uwc-usa.org/admission for more information.