April 2003 Stories

Film project focuses career

Jon McNeill just wanted to make a little movie. He had no idea he’d be giving focus to his own career.

Former Tacoma resident and Bellarmine Preparatory School honor graduate, Jon McNeil and his roommate, Steve Duman, decided it would be fun to make a couple of movies over the summer. McNeill, a senior in anthropology at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., and, Duman, a junior in rhetoric and media studies, applied for and won two $2,500 Carson Undergraduate Research Grants to fund their movies. The stipend is designed to help students to explore original ideas they couldn’t study in a traditional classroom setting. McNeill and Duman proposed to individually write screenplays and then collaborate on filming them. It is the first time the Carson Grant program has funded a project that incorporates both individual and collaborative student efforts. The two films recently debuted before an enthusiastic crowd at Willamette’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

McNeill’s “No Shadows,” is a seven-minute, black and white film that explores what happens to a young girl when she wakes to find she has no shadow. “I’m interested in making everything in the film realistic except one thing,” explains McNeill. “For “No Shadows,” it was taking away this woman’s shadow and seeing how someone who needs to be in control would react.”

The film follows the girl as she becomes increasingly anxious and obsessed about finding her shadow. The audience hears the girl’s voiceover thoughts. Despondent and hopeless, the young woman finally decides to end it all by hanging herself in the park. Ironically, as the rope tightens around her neck, the girl sees her shadow. In the final frames of the film, the camera zooms in on the girl’s shadow hanging from a tree branch, kicking and struggling against the ever-tightening rope, but it’s too late.

It’s not a comfortable film to watch, which was filmmaker McNeill’s goal. “I wanted to make a movie that people had to think about,” he says. “Too many movies invite the audience to shut off and just get absorbed into the film. I want people to think about the film, to discuss it afterward. It’s people’s interpretations afterward that makes film an art form.”

While both McNeill and Duman took screenwriting and film criticism classes at Willamette, neither student was expert in the technical aspects of filmmaking. To learn the basics about lighting, filming and editing, they took classes at Capitol Community Television (CCTV), Salem’s public access television station. They were also allowed to borrow the station’s lights, digital video camera and editing equipment.

The biggest technical challenge in “No Shadows” was lighting. Eliminating shadows in regular light is difficult, says McNeill. Add three super-bright film lights and the process becomes almost impossible. “It took us hours and hours to get the lighting right,” recalls McNeill. “The first day of filming, we worked for five hours trying to eliminate the shadows and still didn’t get it. The next morning, we started again and worked until we got it right.”

McNeill estimates that it took about 50 hours to write and do pre-production on “No Shadows,” including storyboarding and casting, another 50 hours to film it and 100 hours to edit it. The result is a crisp, tightly focused essay that McNeill is currently shopping around at film festivals.

For McNeill, “No Shadows” is more than a seven-minute film. Filmmaking, he says, brings together all the disciplines he enjoys, including English, drama, psychology, physics and anthropology. Although “No Shadows” is his first film, McNeill is so enamored with the process he’s decided to become a filmmaker. “If you had asked me four years ago, what I’d be doing, it wouldn’t have been filmmaking,” he says. “But everything I’ve done, including this project, has moved me toward film. Being a director making films I like to watch would be a dream career for me.”

The next step in his journey is to get into a graduate film school. He’s applying to Columbia and New York University. What do McNeill’s parents, Tacoma residents Dennis and Gail McNeill, think about their son wanting to become the next Spielberg? “Great,” says McNeill, smiling broadly. “My dad actually had more trouble with my being an anthropology major than my being a director. They’re really supportive because they know that film is the place I’m meant to be.”

Two Willamette Students Win Prestigious Udall Scholarships

Helena (Lena) Hoffman from Anchorage, AK, and Jenelle Woodlief from Coos Bay, OR, have been named recipients of the Morris K. Udall Scholarship, which honors Congressman Udall’s legacy of public service. The Willamette University students are two of only 80 undergraduates nationwide to receive these scholarships awarded to outstanding students who have demonstrated the potential to influence issues relating to the environment or to Native American or Native Alaskans who study health care or tribal public policy. The Udall Scholarship provides cash awards of up to $5,000 per student.

Hoffman, a member of Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascan tribe, is a sophomore at Willamette University in Salem, OR, with a double major in Spanish and anthropology. She works as a tutor for the University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and helped establish the Native American Club. She helped create a tutoring and mentoring program at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, which prepares Native American high school students for higher education by helping them research scholarship opportunities, preparing them for the ACT and SAT exams and organizing visits to various college campuses. Hoffman also recently participated in the Public Policy Leadership Conference at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, which encourages minorities to pursue careers in public service.

“I’m very excited that all my hard work paid off,” says Hoffman. “This scholarship will enable me to network with peers who share my career interests and allow me to participate in internships.”

Hoffman, who plans to pursue a dual graduate degree in law and public policy, hopes to return to Alaska and work for one of the Native corporations. She is currently interning with a regional tribal organization at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks collecting information on culturally significant sites to be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

Jenelle Woodlief, a sophomore majoring in anthropology at Willamette University, has worked as a tireless activist for the environment, volunteering with the city of Salem and the Salem Watershed Council and educating elementary students about environmental problems. She’s collected more than 1,000 signatures for the Clean Air Act and wilderness protections, organized phone banks, letter-writing campaigns and press conferences to bring awareness to environmental issues.

“I’m thrilled to receive such a prestigious award,” says Woodlief. “The Udall Scholarship will enable me to focus on my career goals this summer.”

Last summer, Woodlief worked for the Oregon and Washington Public Interest Research Group on the “America’s Environment at Risk” campaign where she supervised an office of 50 canvassers and logged 100 hours a week fundraising and canvassing door-to-door. This semester, she is interning with Oregon State Senator Rick Metsger. After graduation, she hopes to work for a public interest or advocacy group raising community awareness about environmental issues.

Salem Gets Family Friends: Willamette grad makes a difference for at-risk kids

Sometimes you just need a Friend. That’s especially true for children raised on violence, neglect and poverty. For a handful of at-risk kids at Richmond Elementary, Salem residents Mary and Laura Hildebrandt offer an innovative program called Friends of the Children. This unique mother-daughter team may just be the lifeline these Salem kids need.

Mary Hildebrandt, a 2002 graduate of Willamette University, is a “Friend,” a paid adult who provides support and encouragement to at-risk children from the first through the 12th grade. The one-on-one relationship with a supportive adult is what makes the nationally acclaimed program successful.

Founded in 1993 by Portland millionaire businessman Duncan Campbell, himself a victim of neglect from alcoholic parents, Friends of the Children employs 85 Friends and currently serves more than 300 children in Oregon and 600 children nationally. Last year, the program received state funding to launch the Oregon Initiative, a pilot program to bring Friends of the Children into more rural communities like Salem and Eugene. In September, Mary Hildebrandt was hired to expand Salem’s program at Richmond Elementary. It didn’t take Mary long to convince her mom, Laura, to come onboard as Salem’s first volunteer Friend.

“I’ve got five second-grade girls and one first-grade girl,” says Mary, pushing aside a box full of files in her bright yellow Lancer. Two more first-graders will be selected to fill her caseload. The backseat of Mary’s car is stuffed with a variety of toys and games and a blue and green quilt with cartoon characters on it. Because the Friends in the Oregon Initiative are supervised from Portland, Mary and her male counterpart, Steve Gwynn, don’t have an official Salem office. Instead, Mary’s car is her portable office. She keeps in touch with the Portland office and other Friends via a cell phone, email and weekly meetings.

All of Mary’s youngsters come from Richmond Elementary, a school that has many low-income, Spanish-speaking students. Two years ago, when Friends of the Children wanted to bring the Oregon Initiative to Salem, Friends staffer Melissa Rose, another Willamette University alumna, called Laura Hildebrandt for recommendations about elementary schools to serve. For Laura, Richmond Elementary was a natural choice.

“Richmond Elementary is like home to us,” says Laura, who works as the accounting office manager at the University. “I have lived in that neighborhood since I was three. I went to Richmond Elementary and so did my girls. I was active in the school’s Parent’s Club and with the teachers and principal there. My whole family still lives in the neighborhood. The fact that it’s a low-income, bi-lingual school make it a great choice for Friends.”

It’s 3:15 at Salem’s Richmond Elementary. Kids tumble out of the school, bursting with energy. Boys run down the sidewalk, shouting, jostling one another. Girls whisper and giggle as they move in tight knots down the leaf-strewn streets that surround the school. Mary is there to pick up Carmella, a dark-eyed second grader with a shy grin. Most days, Mary works for four or five hours with the kids in class. After school, she’ll pick up one child for a two-hour outing to the library, the park or other adventure.

Today, Steve Gwynn, Salem’s original Friend, waits on the sidewalk with Mary. Charlie, one of the eight boys he mentors, charges up and pretends to sock Steve in the stomach. The man doubles over then grabs Charlie in a roughhouse hug. “Hey, buddy, how was school?”

The boy, dressed in wrinkled pants, a T-shirt and red high-topped tennis shoes with holes in the toes, wriggles out from the man’s grasp and grins impishly.

Carmella skips down the sidewalk, her latte-colored face lighting up when she sees Mary. She’s wearing a stripped knit top, a denim skirt and shiny patent leather knee boots. Her ears sport gold loop earrings. Her smile shows off two new scalloped-edged adult teeth. “Hi Mary,” the girl whispers, slipping her hand into Mary’s.

After carefully buckling Carmella into the backseat of the Lancer, Mary caravans to the Gilbert House Children’s Museum, a collection of colorfully painted Victorians filled with kid-pleasing toys and activities. Since the Gilbert House donated passes to the Oregon Initiative, the Museum has become a favorite destination.

Mary, Steve, Charlie and Carmella are met by Steve and Tomas from the Eugene program. Getting together with other Oregon Initiative Friends gives the staffers much-needed support and allows the kids to interact. Tomas and Charlie immediately begin a game of King of the Mountain, running through the giant maze of stairs and slides in the Museum’s backyard. The two Steves get into the act, chasing the boys, making monster noises, challenging their young charges to a game of hide and seek.

Carmella half-heartedly chases after the boys, but is soon back at Mary’s side. She’s more content holding Mary’s hand, picking yellow leaves off a maple tree, exploring the dinosaur-shaped sandbox or plunking out a tune on the wooden xylophone.

Amidst squeals of kid laughter come the voices of the Friends. “Good job.” “Thanks for your help.” “Try again.” “Be careful there. Take your time.” It’s a constant job of guiding, gently correcting, modeling behavior. Often, the progress is agonizingly slow. “You can’t expect success right away,” says Mary. “Progress, like the girls saying thank you or using a napkin while they eat, comes in baby steps.”

Good hygiene is also something Mary tries to instill. One of her girls was recently out of school for more than a month because of head lice and ringworm. “She’s not being taken care of properly,” Mary says. “She’s always dirty. Her hair is greasy and matted. The mother drinks and can hardly take care of herself let alone her daughter.” When the child wanted her Friend to paint her grimy fingernails, Mary gently suggested soaking the child’s hands first. “You have to find creative ways to teach things that aren’t valued by the family.”

Two hours pass quickly. Mary drops Carmella off, takes a short break and picks up Rosa, another second grader. Like most days, this one won’t end for Mary until after 8 p.m. She works five days a week, including Saturdays. Tonight, Rosa’s mother wants Mary to take Rosa’s 12-year-old sister along too. Because Friends of the Children believes in early intervention, children must start the program in first grade. Too often, older siblings need support too. That’s where Laura Hildebrandt, Salem’s first volunteer Friend, comes in.

“I’m like a grandmother Friend,” says Laura, laughing lightly. She has years of experience working as a volunteer in the classroom and with the Outdoor School. “I work five to 10 hours a month with the older siblings. I might help them with homework, give them someone to talk with, maybe take them out to dinner. I give them someone else they can turn to.”

Already a success in Portland, the volunteer Friend program is a first for Salem and for the Oregon Initiative and one that Laura thinks can fill a big role. “In families, the younger ones always look to the older ones,” she says. “If these older children have a little structure and a little mentoring, it might strengthen the whole family situation.”

The Hildebrandt family’s connection to Salem’s Friends of the Children isn’t likely to end soon. Laura’s husband, Mark, is “unofficial grandpa Friend” when the girls come to visit the Hildebrandt’s 20-acre farm. Not to be left out, youngest daughter Emily, currently a junior at Willamette University, says she wants to become a Friend of the Children when she graduates.

For Mary Hildebrandt, being a Friend is something she could do for the rest of her life. “In some small way, maybe I can help break the cycle of poverty for these kids,” she says. “I feel truly blessed that I’m paid to do this.”

The names of the children and their families have been changed to protect their privacy.

For more information, visit www.friendsofthechildren.com or call (503) 281-6633.

Pollyanna Memory: Willamette Student Researcher Finds Positive is Better for Memory

It’s easier to remember something positive. That’s the conclusion that psychology major Katy Long, recently came to when she tallied the results of a unique original research project she’s just completed. Long, a former honor student and graduate of Aurora’s North Marion High School, says the implications of positive memory or the so-called “Pollyanna Syndrome” for teachers and students could be huge.

Long, who is currently a senior at Willamette, is interested in how people remember. But the research on memory is conflicting. “Some research on memory shows that we remember positive information better,” she explains. “Other research shows that we remember negative information better.”

Long decided to conduct her own original study, carefully designing her project to resolve problems encountered in past studies. She applied for and won a prestigious Carson Undergraduate Research Grant, a $2,500 stipend that encourages students to pursue an original idea or area of research beyond what they can study in a classroom setting. To test whether people remember positive or negative information better, Long showed a group of approximately 40 college-age students paintings on computers, had them rate the images as negative or positive and asked them to recall the images in a memory test.

Instead of using already-prepared research tools, Long designed her own, using 80 different images she pulled from public art sites on the Internet. To reinforce the images, she assigned positive, negative or neutral titles to each picture. A negative title might be “venomous snake pit;” a positive title, “a field of golden flowers;” and a neutral title might include “portrait of a dog.” Some of the titles related strongly to the images – for instance, images of snakes that had snake-type titles – while other titles didn’t relate. Long showed study subjects the images with and without titles and then showed them the images with titles switched from positive to negative.

Long found that the students remembered positive images significantly more often than negative images. The students remembered the positive images that were paired with positive titles the best. She says the results didn’t surprise her. “We all know intuitively that it’s easier to remember items that are more related,” she said. “When you’re trying to remember things, it’s easier if you can relate it to other things.”

The results of Long’s study support the “Pollyanna Principle,” which says that people remember positive things more readily than negative things. Long says staying positive is something to keep in mind for anyone trying to improve memory.

“Learning environments should be positive,” she says. “Keeping the environment positive, making the learning experience a pleasant one and relating the information to things you already know can help you remember things more readily.”

For students, Long says test anxiety can hinder the ability to remember. “Try to stay relaxed and positive,” she says. “Study with a friend. Have snacks. Make it a positive experience and you’ll remember more.”

Okinawan Dream: Willamette student’s ethnic heritage becomes her passion

Most of us remember something our parents made us do that we hated. Maybe it was piano lessons, religion classes, or etiquette training. For Lynn Miyahira, fourth generation Hawaiian and daughter of a long line of proud Okinawans, it was Okinawan dance lessons. That once dreaded cultural obligation has become a passion that’s shaping her future.

“From the time I was six years old, my parents force fed me Okinawan culture,” says Miyahira, a senior politics major at Willamette University. “While other kids were out playing soccer or going to parties on Saturday, I was squeezing into a kimono and learning Okinawan dance. It definitely wasn’t the cool thing to do.”

Miyahira’s family lives in Kanehoe, Hawaii, about 20 minutes from Honolulu. They’re part of the islands’ 40,000-member Okinawan community. Her father, a leader in the Okinawan community, felt it was important for his daughter to embrace her ethnic and cultural heritage. As a senior in high school, Miyahira traveled with her family to Okinawa to meet her relatives and experience Okinawan culture first-hand. Her father’s strategy worked.

“By the time I came to Willamette, I knew my Okinawan culture had given me a unique gift,” says Miyahira. “I have something few people have.”

While Miyahira was intimately familiar with Okinawan dance, music, drumming, food, she knew little about the country’s history or its politics. A class at Willamette University in Asian and International Systems changed all that. She learned that since World War II, 20 percent of Okinawa, a prefecture or state of mainland Japan, is covered by U.S. military bases. Miles of the lush island is fenced off with chain link and is strictly off-limits to most Okinawans. In Ginowan City, where Miyahira’s relatives live, the center of the densely populated city is dominated by Futenma Marine Corps Air Base. All hours of the day, military planes and jets scream across the skies. Its not surprising that many Okinawans resent the U.S.’s military presence. Others, however, can’t imagine the island without it.

Miyahira became fascinated by the idea of a divided Okinawa. “I wanted to find out what the dynamics are between the U.S. military bases and the Okinawan people,” she says. “I wanted to explore the conflicting attitudes and get a grasp of the tension that exists.”

To fund her studies, Miyahira applied for and won a Carson Undergraduate Research Grant, a prestigious $2,500 stipend that enables Willamette University students to study a subject not covered in a classroom setting. She spent four and a half months in Okinawa, braving two typhoons during her first two weeks on the island, and she interviewed 60 Okinawan residents about how they feel about the U.S. bases. To ensure she interviewed a broad section of the population, she conducted person-in-the-street interviews, randomly talking with people she met in stores, cafes, on street corners, even in taxicabs. Some she found reticent to express contrary opinions, a trait she says is common in Asian cultures. Others, especially young people, had little awareness or opinions about the issues. However, about half of those she spoke with had very definite views.

“I was surprised to find that civilian Okinawans who worked on the U.S. bases were almost unanimously in favor of fewer bases,” she says. “These are people who depend on the bases for their livelihood. They don’t want the bases to disappear entirely, but they want the bases to be scaled back.”

She was also surprised that U.S. bases account for only about 5 percent of the Okinawan economy, including rental payments the military makes to private landowners for base sites. Because the bases are self-contained communities that have everything base personnel need, including stores, there’s little incentive for military families to spend money off base.

A number of Okinawans, including a cab driver Miyahira spoke with, feel that the presence of U.S. military bases puts the Okinawan people in harms way. “Many people said, even if we don’t do anything, we are a target because the bases are here,” she says. “After September 11, the bases went on high alert, entire roads were blocked off with cement blockades and it was very tense on the island.”

During World War II, Okinawa was the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific. More than 150,000 civilian Okinawans were killed. Perhaps because of their first-hand experience with war, the most common theme Miyahira’s interviewees expressed is that war isn’t the answer. “Okinawans of all ages are the first to say that war doesn’t work,” she says. “They are very anti-war.”

The other common theme was that most Okinawans dream of a future free of the presence of U.S. military bases on their island. Few believe it will happen, but, in a perfect world, that’s what they’d like to see.

Miyahira recently gave a talk and slide show about her research to a packed house at Willamette University’s Hatfield Library. She’s been pleasantly surprised at the interest in her work. “I can’t believe how many people are interested in how the Okinawan people feel about these issues,” she says. “It’s bringing Okinawan culture to many people who didn’t know anything about it.”

Her experiences in Okinawa have honed Miyahira’s Japanese language skills and made her feel more confident about travelling and working abroad. Perhaps the most lasting part of her research project is that it’s given her focus for the future and made her want to use her Okinawan heritage in her work. “I want to continue studying about Okinawa and I’d like to work with these issues in an embassy or maybe in public relations acting as a liaison between the U.S. military and the Okinawan people.”

No one has to force Lynn Miyahira to embrace her culture anymore. She’s taking karate lessons and taiko drumming. Her father was right – her Okinawan heritage is a precious gift.

Debating Career Change: International debate inspires former Modesto grad

Sometimes life takes a u-turn when you least expect it. Former Modesto resident and Willamette University graduate, Brian Shipley, thought he had his life planned out. He’d go to law school and become a big-time lawyer. He probably would have, too—if he hadn’t gone to Slovakia and found his true vocation.

The Beyer honor student had always been interested in debate. At Willamette University, where he studied political science, Shipley became a debate champ. He also had a keen interest in politics and worked for two Oregon state representatives. Becoming a lawyer seemed a natural career choice. Last summer, after two grueling years, he received his law degree from Georgetown University. Finally, he was a lawyer. Prestigious law firms began calling, offering jobs. Then his former Willamette debate professor, Robert Trapp, asked if he wanted to go to Slovakia for 10 days to teach debate. There was no money for a salary, Trapp told him, but it would be a worthwhile experience. Why not, the young lawyer thought. It would be fun, an adventure. Shipley had no idea his choice would be life-changing.

“Teaching in Slovakia opened my mind about the world,” Shipley says. “I taught debate to a group of 24 high school students and teachers from formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Because debate is a tool of democracy, teaching these students to debate will help make democracy happen in these countries.”

Not that long ago, Shipley would have been imprisoned or even shot for teaching students to talk about controversial international issues in Eastern Europe. Debate and the free exchange of ideas that characterize it is a relatively new concept in formerly communist countries like Albania, Belarus, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Slovakia, Uzbekistan and many others. Until very recently, education behind the Iron Curtain involved mostly rote learning. Teachers would teach “facts” and students would repeat those facts on exams. People like Brian Shipley and organizations like the U.S. National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) and the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) are changing all that.

Creating such a fundamental shift hasn’t been easy. In Solvakia, Shipley found he had to teach his Eastern European students debate basics—how to research, how to frame an argument, how to tailor the argument to the audience. “These kids are extremely intelligent,” Shipley says. “They’re knowledgeable about domestic issues and they’re interested in international issues. They’re very passionate. However, they lack experience and expertise.”

Because many of Shipley’s students come from poor, war-torn countries, they also lack the resources to research debate topics. In many countries, there are few, if any, library resources and access to the Internet is limited. Media sources may be biased or unavailable.

Perhaps most importantly, Shipley had to teach his students that it’s ok—ee—tven valuablo have and to express ideas and opinions. “Many of these students have been taught that debate is dangerous and disruptive,” he says. “They feel powerless and they don’t think they can make a difference. It’s important for them to learn that they can have opinions and to express those opinions eloquently.”

Shipley is convinced that teaching debate skills transforms lives. He’s seen the proof in his own students. “Learning debate and critical thinking skills empowers students and gives them confidence,” he insists. “As they learn to get their point across more effectively, they feel more powerful and more in control.”

At the Slovakia debate tournament, Shipley’s guidance paid off. Two of the groups he coached advanced to the quarterfinals. One group went on to earn second place in the finals. Another of his students earned the Best Speaker trophy.

It’s July in Novy Sacz, Poland, and the countryside around the little town is verdant, bursting with green. The debates are over for the day. Brian and a group of students and teachers from Romania, Hungary, Moldova and a dozen other countries stroll down the narrow streets looking for a place for dinner. At a local restaurant, they push tables together, their group nearly filling the small space. None of the waiters speak English, so the Polish students help order food. Local fare arrives, steaming plates heaped with potatoes, cabbage, beets and pork sausage. Stubby bottles of local beer are passed around.

The group’s laughter fills the restaurant late into the night. Coffee and beer fuel the conversation. A Romanian student tells about growing up during the Revolution. Her parents worked for the government that was under siege. She was just a young child, but she worried every day that her parents would be assassinated by rebels.

Another student talks about members of her family being shot to death during an uprising. On that corner, her uncle was killed by sniper fire. Across from the bakery, her brother died. Over by the building that used to house the library, her grandfather was gunned down.

Shipley traveled to Eastern Europe as a teacher. He didn’t realize the students would become his teachers. “My students showed me how powerful teaching debate is,” he says, his eyes shining with excitement. “With debate skills, these students can make a difference. I realized that I can help create new leaders in countries that desperately need good leaders.”

Suddenly, for Shipley, becoming a big-time lawyer had lost its glow.

Someone orders a final round of beer. Despite the painful stories, these young people laugh and joke easily. A student from Slovakia asks another about his country’s money. The young man pulls out some crumpled bills and a few coins. Within moments, bills and coins from dozens of nations litter the table, a rainbow of blues, greens, pinks, purples, oranges, browns and yellows. There are coins and bills with classical portraits of saints, politicians, composers, writers, poets and painters, images of elegant ballet dancers and fruit and flowers, pictures of animals, stately buildings and fierce warriors on horseback. The money becomes cherished souvenirs. Slovakian koruns are traded for leks from Albania. Romanian leis are exchanged for kunas from Croatia. Macedonian denars change hands for U.S. dollars.

Since his return from Solvakia, Shipley has coached and traveled with the debate team at Willamette and he’s working on an environmental issues resource book for debaters. He’s helped Professor Trapp host Willamette University’s annual summer debate conference and he’s organizing the U.S. national debate championship to be held in a few months in Portland. He’s also applied to a teacher exchange program that would enable him to teach debate in Eastern Europe next year.

After that? Shipley’s students have inspired him to return to school. He’s headed back for a Ph.D. so he can teach debate full time. “I love teaching students to communicate more effectively,” he says. “Instead of just writing up legal briefs, I can teach people skills that can make a difference. That’s way more important. Don’t you think?”

Shipley’s parents, Robert and Kathy, who live in Modesto, at first weren’t so sure about their son’s career decision. “Of course, they were excited about the offers I was getting for jobs with law firms,” Shipley admits. “These firms were willing to pay me tons of money.”

And now? “It took a little bit of convincing, but my parents are supportive,” Shipley says. “They know that this is what I really want to do.”

The hour is late. The debates start again early in the morning. As they wind through the streets toward the dormitories, Brian Shipley fingers the 100 rublei he received from a student from Belarus. He slips the keepsake into his pocket and smiles. For Shipley, the memories are worth a king’s ransom.

Mixing God and Politics: Willamette Student Explores Little Talked About Issue

There are two issues you’re not supposed to talk about at the dinner table – politics and religion. Alex Dukalskis, a Willamette sociology and philosophy major, decided to take them both on. He conducted original research to find out how the Oregon Farmworker Ministry uses religion to further its political cause of helping farmworkers. What he discovered changed his view of both politics and religion.

Mixing religion and politics isn’t new, says Dukalskis, who was raised Catholic, and describes himself as “non-religious.” “Religion and politics are both such powerful influences,“ he says. “Churches are some of the most organized entities in the community so they’re going to be political. Religion and politics influence one another so much that we have to talk about them.”

To fund his research, Dukalskis applied for and won a prestigious Carson Undergraduate Research Grant, a $2,500 stipend that encourages Willamette undergraduates to study subjects they normally don’t cover. He spent several months with the Oregon Farmworker Ministry (OFM), an interdenominational group that helps farmworkers organize for better pay and improved working conditions. He went to political meetings, rallies and protests, visited farmworkers’ homes and interviewed OFM members. He says he chose OFM because they “don’t push their religious views on anyone.”

“Many religious-political groups have a Jesus-first agenda,” Dukalskis says. “Before they’ll help, you have to put up with their religious views. At one of the soup kitchens I looked into, people have to listen to a sermon before they can have a meal. The Oregon Farmworker Ministry isn’t like that. In fact, they don’t evangelize, talk about religion or try to convert people at all.”

The Oregon Farmworker Ministry was formed in 1985 by a group of farmworker activists who had worked with Caesar Chavez in California in the 1970’s. OFM members represent a variety of religious faiths, including Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian and Unitarian, among others. They work closely with PCUN (Pineros and Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste or United Treeplanters and Farmworkers of the Northwest), the farmworker union headquartered in Woodburn, OR, and see their mission as “educating faith and justice communities to stand with farmworkers in their struggle to organize.”

Dukalskis says that while OFM doesn’t preach religion, it uses its status as a religious organization to further its secular cause of helping farmworkers. One of the problems that unions and others seeking to help farmworkers have is that growers can deny them access to worker camps or picketlines located on private land. OFM uses the farmworkers’ right to religion to give them access to to talk with farmworkers. If asked why they are there, they say they represent a religious organization. Local authorities are reticent to arrest religious leaders for tresspassing.

OFM members are often involved in protests, which can become heated or even violent. Many of the members wear religious collars or garments as a way to lessen the threat of violence. Their religious clothing also tells onlookers that community members other than just farmworkers are involved in the marches and protests.

A typical farmworker cabin, Dukalskis explains, might be a single 12 by 20 foot room that houses 20 men, women and children. Instead of a shower, there’s probably a cold water spigot outside. Workers are charged $100 a month to live there. For incredibly squalid conditions, the grower earns $2,000 a month. If workers protest, especially undocumented workers, the grower threatens to send them home.

To spread the word to the community at large, Dukalskis says OFM uses its interdenominational contacts with other churches. OFM members contact leaders in churches and arrange to talk with congregations during church services or during Bible classes. Once there, the members don’t talk religion, they talk about the plight of farmworkers.

“They tell congregations about the poor conditions at farmworker camps,” says Dukalskis. “Once people see the conditions and hear about the low wages, they get concerned. By letting the different congregations know what’ s going on, OFM gets more people involved.”

Dukalskis says his work has changed his views on religion and politics. “I came to this project with the preconceived notion that any religious group involved in politics must be conservative,” he says. “OFM isn’t conservative and they gave me a sense of a quieter side of religion and politics. It’s softened my ideas about religion and politics coming together. Now I see using religion to further a political cause as a natural thing. Both conservatives and liberals see their work as manifesting their religion. They both see what they do as good.”

The project with OFM has also made Dukalskis more interested in farmworker rights in Oregon and in human rights internationally. He plans to continue his work with the farmworker community and, after graduation, work with a human rights organization abroad. “This project has sharpened my career goals,” he says. “I’d like to continue bringing my two interests – politics and human rights – together in my work.”

For more information about the Oregon Farmworker Ministry, call (503) 991-0611 or email them at ofwm@earthlink.net

Life in the Shadows: Willamette student examines undocumented Latino workers

To most of us they’re invisible—the migrant farm workers who harvest our berries, pick our apples, cut our Christmas trees; the brown-skinned busboy who makes dirty dishes disappear; the dark-eyed girl who freshens the linens at our get-away bed and breakfast. They’re undocumented workers—so-called “illegals”—from Mexico, Central and South America who come here to find work to feed and support their families with jobs that often pay less than minimum wage. For Amy Nanney, an honors graduate of Rogers High School in Puyallup, Wash., who recently completed an intimate narrative study of six undocumented workers, these “illegals” have become a source of inspiration.

Nanney, a senior majoring in Spanish and Latin American studies at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., recently presented the findings of her narrative study to an enthusiastic group of about 100 guests at the University’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art. The project, entitled “La Vida en Sombras (Life in Shadows): Chronicling the Lives and Struggles of Undocumented Mexican Immigrants,” was supported by a $2,500 Carson Undergraduate Research Grant Scholarship. The narrative study, excerpts of which are reprinted here, paints a vivid and often grim picture of life in the United States for undocumented workers.

Rogelio, 27, sometimes feels lost, caught between two worlds. On one hand, he’s from Mexico, the people he works with speak Spanish and he lives in an apartment complex inhabited mostly by Mexican immigrants. Yet, in the eight years he’s lived in Oregon, he’s developed a personal attachment to the United States. He speaks English reasonably well, watches American television, and enjoys American food. But when he walks out on the street, he knows he doesn’t fully belong.

Nanny first became interested in the lives of undocumented workers in high school when she taught English to a migrant Latino family in Puyallup, Wash. “I realized many of the problems this family faced were due to their immigration status,” she recalls. “One of the daughters, who was 13, was getting straight A’s in her math classes in school. But because she was undocumented, I knew she wouldn’t have the opportunity to go to college.”

Last year, a five-month work-study trip to Ecuador helped Nanney become fluent in Spanish and intensified her interest in the issue of undocumented workers. When she returned to the University, she began volunteering at CAUSA, a statewide immigrants rights coalition. “I was interested undocumented workers, but, like many Americans, I didn’t really understand the issues,” she says.

One of the biggest misconceptions about undocumented workers, she says, is that they take jobs away from American workers and use up vital services. In fact, a number of studies by the U.S. Department of Labor show that migrant workers take difficult, low-paying jobs such as farm work that few Americans want. In many cases, these jobs don’t even pay minimum wage. The money these workers earn is taxed, but, because they don’t have valid papers, they are often unable to use government services. In fact, undocumented workers in the U.S. pay more than twice in taxes what they consume in services. Even Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has noted that undocumented workers in the United States “contribute more than their fair share.”

The work Juan can get isn’t great. Without legal documentation, he can’t apply for really good jobs, only ones where he works a lot and gets paid a little. Still, any job is better than no job. He doesn’t speak English and hates it when people look at him like a sad dog or ignore him. What really irks him is how he pays taxes, but the government tells him he cannot receive any of the benefits.
Another misconception about undocumented migrant workers is that they’d rather live in the United States than their native countries. Even Nanney says she struggled with this. “At first I thought, of course they want to live here,” she recalls. “When I realized most of them come just to work, I felt insulted and wondered what’s wrong with our country that they wouldn’t want to live here. Then I realized that when I went to Ecuador, I didn’t want to live there. These people come here because they want to feed their families.”

After more than 10 years in the United States, Rosa speaks only a little English. Despite her many years here, she still wants to return to Mexico. She knows there are many more opportunities here than in Mexico, but it doesn’t feel like home. Here her culture is rejected and her place in the community is constantly questioned. She doesn’t feel part of American society.

Americans also have difficulty with the fact that many migrants don’t adopt the language and culture of the U.S. “Many of these people think they’re only going to be here temporarily,” Nanney explains. “Why would you adapt to our culture if you don’t plan to stay? Of course, the longer they stay, the more they change, especially the children.”

Nanney found that discrimination is something most of the undocumented workers regularly experience. However, because they have no legal status, they usually don’t complain to authorities.

Gloria leaves while it’s still dark and she arrives in the field when there is just enough light to see the red barriers she needs to harvest. Soon enough, the intense summer heat will leave her feeling weak and dehydrated. For now, the cold is welcome. [She says] the supervisor treats them like animals, not like people. She can’t comprehend this. They are working his fields, for his profit, but he can’t treat them with respect. When the heat becomes unbearable and Gloria’s fingertips are scratched from thorns and stained red with juice, they stop for the day. For seven or eight hours of work, she has earned $12.

Nanney says working with CAUSA and doing the narrative study taught her that there’s no simple solution to the problems undocumented workers face. While workers are only paid a few cents a pound to harvest produce, for instance, farmers are struggling to make a living and consumers want to pay the lowest price. “I want to be able to say this is what should happen and this is why it should be this way,” she says. “But it isn’t that simple. There isn’t one concrete solution.”

Despite no single solution, Nanney says her work with undocumented workers has changed her in positive ways. This holiday season, she shopped for gifts at places like 10,0000 Villages where items are priced fairly to ensure workers receive reasonable compensation for their craft. She buys fewer things she doesn’t need and tries to buy things that have been handmade. “You can’t be part of the solution unless you’re willing to change your lifestyle too,” she says.

Perhaps the biggest change for Nanney is that her life has a clear direction. Some of the interviews she conducted will be used in a CAUSA film promoting worker amnesty. After graduation, Nanney plans to use her bilingual skills to help the Latino community. “I realize how much I love these people and how much I want to work with them,” she says. “I also I know that I can’t just work for people, I have to work with them. Change will only happen when we work together.”

For more information about CAUSA, call (503) 363-1895 or log onto www.open.org/~mano/eng_causa.html

Idaho’s Next Spielberg? Young filmmaker wins award to make film

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. When you’ve got 24 pictures per second, you can really say a lot. That’s what budding filmmaker and former Hayden, Idaho, resident and Coeur d’Alene High School honor graduate, Steve Duman, has discovered. Duman, a junior at Willamette, recently debuted his new 22-minute film, “The Sad Truth,” before an enthusiastic crowd at the University’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

“I like films with stories that can’t be told without images,” he says. “I want to create stories that need the film experience to get the whole story.”

Duman, a rhetoric and media studies major, applied for and won a Carson Undergraduate Research Grant to fund his movie. The grant is designed to help students explore original ideas they couldn’t study in a traditional classroom setting. Duman and Jon McNeill, a senior in anthropology at Willamette, proposed to individually write screenplays and then collaborate on filming them. It is the first time the Carson Grant program has funded a project that incorporates both individual and collaborative student efforts. Duman and McNeill, two of only nine students this year to win the prestigious award, each received $2,500.

“The Sad Truth” explores the idea of truth and how people can manipulate it. Filmed in the black and white detective noir of the 1940s, Duman’s story features three characters—a photographer who’s obsessed with finding the truth, a detective hired to find the truth and a female model who continually lies. The photographer, who believes he’s witnessed a woman murdering her lover, hires the detective to help him solve the crime. As the story unfolds, however, it becomes increasingly complicated and until no one, including the audience, is sure who’s telling the truth. At the end of the film, the black and white images suddenly change to color, which Duman says represents truth being so badly manipulated that it no longer resembles truth. In the end, says the filmmaker, fantasy becomes reality.

This film, his third and most ambitious effort yet, not only honed Duman’s writing, editing, filming and directing skills, it also taught him the fine art of compromise. “I had my idea of what this film would be and I thought compromising meant someone had to lose,” he recalls. “But I learned to go with the flow a little more and found that the film became a product of everyone’s vision. Other people’s interpretations changed my vision and made the film even better.”

Duman says he’s shopping “The Sad Truth” around to the film festivals. Does he expect to become Idaho’s next Steven Spielberg? The young filmmaker smiles at the suggestion. “Well, I’m definitely looking into film school,” he says. “In the meantime, I learned that I can make something that’s my own from nothing. That’s an incredibly important part of storytelling.”

Willamette Students Take an Unusual Break

Mountains, bare except for a light dusting of snow, cradle the sagebrush valley. The sounds are singular: the caw of a crow; a dog barking; the occasional car on Highway 95; the ever-present wind. In this isolated corner of northeast Nevada, the Quinn River, its path outlined by rushes pregnant with the pinks, yellows and greens of spring, switchbacks through 34,000 acres of the Fort McDermitt Shoshone-Paiute Indian Reservation. Rusting hulks of cars, sometimes three or four deep, huddle next to tiny houses with sagging porches or singlewide trailers with peeling paint and tires on the roof. Rib-thin packs of dogs meander the hills. Trash from the hilltop landfill blows across the landscape. Two white vans loaded with 20 Willamette University students, three adult advisors, sleeping bags and a dozen bags of food bump across the valley. They’ve come hoping to make a difference.

The group is part of Take a Break (TaB), an alternative spring break program where students from Willamette University in Salem, OR, volunteer their services during spring break to help others. It’s Willamette University’s second year in the unconventional program. Last year, 19 students and adults participated; this year 57. Their trip is one of three sponsored by the University. Other groups went to communities in Chicago, Il, and Jonestown, MS. The students come to this out-of-the way Indian reservation to paint, to repair, to clean up and to help out in anyway they can.

Why a group of young people would choose to spend seven days doing community service instead of partying with friends on the beaches of Florida or Cancun? Mary Toledo, a senior majoring in Japanese at Willamette and one of the group’s student leaders, says she volunteered to “get out of the Willamette bubble.” It’s easy to go from class to class and not really meet people in the community,” she says. “My goal is to make connections with people outside the Willamette community.”

Emily Metrock, a junior from Ojai, CA, majoring in English, says she came “to have my perspective altered. I thought I’d come out here and do something completely different,” she explains. “I’ve never been on an Indian reservation and I expect to have my views about the people who live here changed.”

The group comes equipped with not only 23 willing workers, but also with tools and supplies. The $3,000 they raised, as well as support from the Lilly Project at Willamette, pays for everything from gas for the vans to food and supplies, including several gallons of paint, Spackle, paint brushes and scrapers. Their first job is to repaint two ramskackle houses belonging to tribe members.

Felicia Smart, a tribe member and administrative secretary for the Tribal Office, says that because the income of most members of her community is well below the poverty level, help from groups like Willamette’s TaB is welcome. “Housing for the tribe is a problem here,” she explains. “People don’t have money to spend on repairing their homes, so programs like this are really good.”

One of the first houses the group tackles belongs to Rose Curtis, a single mother who was raised at Fort McDermitt. Recently released from six-months in jail, she is unemployed. In the summer, she says she hopes to get hired on a fire fighting crew. For now, she receives $154 a month in general assistance from federal welfare.

The students scrape peeling paint off the weathered exterior of Curtis’ house and carefully apply white latex. Stiff wind blows tiny specks of paint everywhere. Before long, the hands, arms, faces and hair of the Willamette volunteers are covered with a fine spray of paint. Perhaps inspired by the students, homeowner Rose Curtis rakes piles of debris off the threadbare lawn. Late in the afternoon, a good-natured paint fight breaks out between two girls, one wielding a paintbrush one a long-handled roller. Both students end up with long streaks of white paint on their clothing.

Just across the valley, a second group of students paint Annette Smart’s house light blue with turquoise trim. Smart, 71, a lifelong resident of Fort McDermitt, has arthritis and walks with a cane. “These kids are pretty good help,” she says as she sips tea in her tiny kitchen. A woodstove overheats the room and a large screen television blares out war news from halfway across the world. “These kids are working hard out there in the cold. I appreciate it.”

Much of the weathered trim paint was scraped off the day before so the trim painting goes fairly quickly. Neither the homeowner nor the students have a long enough ladder, so one of the advisors hops up on the roof and hangs off the edge to scrape paint from the roof peak.

Mrs. Smart’s three young grandchildren are fascinated by the students. At first, they hang shyly on the edges of the group. Before long, they are right in the middle of the action. The granddaughter helps with scraping and repainting a dresser. Michael Le Chevallier, a religious studies student from Lake Oswego and a self-proclaimed “kid person,” chases the boys through the yard, making monster noises and swinging the youngsters over his head. The children’s squeals of delight fill the yard.

“The little kids are really accepting,” says Katie Myers, a sophomore majoring in history and French. “They want to know all about us. They ask lots of questions and they want to help.”

Next to the old woman’s house is a two-room shack occupied by one of Mrs. Smart’s grown sons. Mrs. Smart walks through the shack and shakes her head. The air inside smells faintly of urine and mildew. “I haven’t been out here in a long time,” she says, poking the holes with her cane. “It’s a mess.”

The students strip off water-damaged wallpaper and repair basketball-sized holes in the walls of the tiny home with Spackle and newspaper before painting the walls white. They paint strips of wood blue and tack the new trim boards around the windows and doors. They haul an old dresser outside and strip off the chipped paint, replacing it with an eye-popping glossy bright blue.

At night, the students bunk in sleeping bags on the concrete floor of the Tribal Youth Center. Next door, there is a small kitchen where they mix up boxes of macaroni and cheese, canned green beans and fruit cocktail. Afterward, they gather for “reflection time,” small group discussions of their impressions of the day. Then, late into the evenings, they play Trivial Pursuit, listen to music, braid each other’s hair, write in their journals and snack on Rice Krispy treats and chips.

One evening, the students invite tribal members to share a potluck. Ten tribal members show up, including several young people. They bring mashed potatoes, macaroni salad and macaroni soup, fry bread with margarine and honey and pineapple upside down cake to go with the Sloppy Joes the students made.

After dinner, Dennis, a tribal elder, brings out his dance regalia — leather pants and moccasins, an elaborate Bald Eagle feather headdress, two feather fans, ankle bells, beaded belts. His mother made the outfit, including the intricate beadwork, which he wears when he dances at Pow Wows.

Much of the tribe’s cultural heritage has fallen away. They no longer do hand games, get together for community sings or hold Pow Wows. Few of the young people speak Paiute. Dennis is one of the last.

The Willamette students sit in a large circle on the gymnasium floor and Dennis tells a story. “Badger struggles carrying a big bag,” he says, gesturing with his arms. He wears his gray-streaked hair in two long braids. “Wolf says, `I’m bigger and stronger. I can help you.’ So Badger gives Wolf the bag and Wolf hurries to the top of the hill. But Badger is still far behind. Curious about the sounds coming from the bag, Wolf opens it up and a big wind comes out. The wind pushes the Wolf all the way to the Atlantic. To this day, that is why the east coast has the strong wind of tornadoes and the west coast does not.”

By the end of the week, the Willamette students and their advisors have repainted and repaired four houses, washed windows and cleaned out a huge pile of wood debris from the community building area. On Friday night, the tribe holds a feast to thank the students for their hard work. They serve Indian tacos — flaky fry bread wrapped around ground meat, cheese and lettuce.

As she fills her fry bread with ground beef, Mary Toledo sums up the importance of their Take a Break experience. “I feel so lucky to have been part of this,” she says. “Especially in times of war, it’s important that we care for each other. We could solve a lot of our problems if we cared for each other just a little bit more.”

Debating Democracy: Willamette University professor causes debate in Eastern Europe

Robert Trapp doesn’t look like a revolutionary, yet not so long ago, the university professor would have been imprisoned or even shot for encouraging critical thinking in Eastern Europe. With students from Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Romania, Lithuania, Poland and dozens of other formerly communist countries, Trapp uses debate to teach democracy.

“Debate is the tool of democracy,” explains Trapp, a professor of rhetoric and media studies at Willamette University in Salem, Ore. “In many of these countries, they see debate as something dangerous.”

Two years ago, Trapp was invited by the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) to teach in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thirty-three formerly communist countries sent their best high school debate students. For Trapp, the experience was life changing. “We were making history,” he says. “I knew these would be the next world leaders in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. I had to be involved.”

Trapp jumped in with both feet. He wanted to get high school and college-level students involved. With support from the U.S. National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) and IDEA, Trapp began organizing international debate tournaments in countries like Romania and Poland. The response was overwhelming. Hundreds of students and teachers from Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Slovakia, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan and many other countries joined U.S. students for what would become annual events. “These students are so thirsty for debate you can’t believe it,” says Trapp, his voice rising with excitement. “They see the potential that debate holds for their countries, the practical application of it and they’re very excited.”

Debating Ideas, Changing Lives
Everyone involved in bringing debate to former Iron Curtain countries has been deeply impacted. Willamette University humanity students and veteran debaters Una Kimokeo-Goes and Heather Rice recently attended a tournament in Poland. They were the only students from the United States who opted to partner with students from other countries rather than compete together. “It was a little strange at first debating with someone I didn’t know,” admits Kimokeo-Goes. “But the point of going to this kind of competition isn’t winning, it’s meeting new people and figuring out how to work together.”

Despite having never debated together, Kimokeo-Goes and Sylvia Poppa from Romania won first place. The prize was $100. Kimokeo-Goes donated her half of the prize to her partner.

For the Willamette student, the experience was eye opening and much more valuable than any cash prize. It altered her world view. One student, she says, talked about the trafficking of women and other human rights violations in her country. A Yugoslavian student talked about how the policies of Slobodan Milosevic had crushed her country’s economy. A student from Belarus shared her experience working in a cancer center just 15 miles from Chernobyl. Polish students talked about being given iodine pills so their bodies would take in less radiation from the crippled nuclear reactor. “These are things we read about,” Kimokeo-Goes says, her eyes shining with tears. “For us, it’s all just theory. For them, these are issues that affect their everyday lives.”

Debate coach Brian Shipley was so deeply affected by his experiences at these international debates that he’s changed careers. The 1996 Willamette graduate recently earned his law degree from Georgetown University. Last summer, he traveled to Slovakia with Professor Trapp to teach debate. The experience changed his priorities. When a number prestigious Washington, D.C., law firms recently offered him lucrative positions, Shipley turned them down. He’s currently working as a volunteer debate coach for Willamette University. Next fall, he’s returning to graduate school to earn his Ph.D. in rhetoric. “Instead of just writing up legal briefs, I can teach students skills that can make a difference,” he says. “By teaching debate skills, we’re empowering the students to make democracy happen.”

The first day of debates has ended. Here in St. Petersburg, it’s a Russian “white night” when the sun sets for only a few hours each day. Debate students and teachers mill about the quad, tired but too excited from the day’s competition to sleep. Luka Keller, a debate trainer from Croatia, begins strumming a battered acoustic guitar. “Bye, bye Miss American Pie,” he sings, the English words softened by his Eastern European accent. Within minutes, the grassy square has filled with plastic chairs and students and teachers alike are singing a medley of American songs from the 1950s and 60s. Most of these students weren’t even born when these songs were popular, but they know the melodies and the lyrics to tunes from the Beatles, Elvis, Jim Croce, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor and many others. As soon as one song ends, someone shouts out another and the chorus begins again.

The Dangerous Art of Debate
Not everyone is enthusiastic about debate’s potential. Some, including many educators in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, believe that debate is disruptive. Education in these formerly communist countries has primarily involved rote learning. Teachers present “facts” and students repeat those facts on exams. Until very recently, the free exchange of ideas that characterizes debate wasn’t allowed.

“Some of these students are afraid that democracy is dangerous,” says debate coach Shipley. “It’s something they’ve learned from their families, from their governments and in their schools. Learning to debate teaches them that exchanging ideas and talking things out isn’t dangerous.”

The Eastern European students and teachers who want to learn the art of debate are willing to make sacrifices. Coming from some of the poorest nations, many of them have to fund raise or apply for grants to pay for tournament travel and housing. Romanian law student and volunteer debate coach, Ioana Cionea, not only pays her own way to tournaments, but she must take time off from work. A third-year law student, Cionea works five days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at a law firm doing everything from answering phones to preparing contracts. She earns $15 a week (the Romanian average is $25/week). After work, she attends law classes from 4:30 until 8 p.m. Despite her heavy schedule, Cionea takes time to coach the Transylvania debate team. At the Romanian tournament, she had to leave after the first day of competition because her law firm wouldn’t give her an extra day off.

Changing the World
Many countries around the world, says Professor Trapp, especially those of emerging democracies, are at critical tipping points. Their young democracies could flourish—or they could crumble. He believes teaching debate, and the critical thinking skills that go with it, may help solve many of the problems these countries face. “Debate can give citizens the critical skills they need to analyze the messages potential leaders send,” he says. He admits he can’t guarantee that teaching debate will improve the state of emerging democracies, “but the possibility is large enough that we’d be foolish to pass up the opportunity.”

Debate may also influence who the new leaders are in many parts of the world, according to Trapp. He points to a young debate student from Romania who is now a scholarship student at Harvard. “There are going to be several kids like her who will return to their countries and make a difference,” he says. “There’s no doubt in my mind that many of the kids we’re working with will be the new world leaders.”

The songfest has been going steadily for hours. Many of the adults have retreated to the warmth of their beds. Students from the United States, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Montenegro, Yugoslavia and dozens of other countries huddle together around Luka’s guitar singing another favorite tune. It’s 2 a.m. The competition will start early tomorrow. Robert Trapp rises from his chair, bidding the students around him goodnight. As he heads toward the dormitory, a girl begins to sing, “Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya…” He smiles. Earlier today, they were strangers, competitors. Tonight they are friends.

For more information about international debate, contact IDEA at www.idedebate.org or call (212) 548-0185 or NPDA at www.parlidebate.org or call Dr. Rena Gernant, Executive Secretary, at (402) 643-7305 or Robert Trapp at Willamette University at (503) 370-6244.

Willamette Student Researcher Thumbs Nose at Breathe Right Strips

You see them all the time, athletes and weekend warriors alike sporting those adhesive strips on their noses. Professional athletes like football great Jerry Rice do television commercials for Breathe Rightä nasal strips, claiming the funny looking pieces of adhesive worn across the bridge of the nose help them breathe easier, run faster and play better. Are the claims true? Do those little adhesive nasal strips really improve athletic performance? Maybe not, says Gregory Boggs, a student researcher at Willamette.

“The makers of Breath Rightä nasal strip claim that you can breathe easier with their product,” says Boggs. “But how do you define breathing easier? I measured one of the best physiological indicators of exercise performance and found the strips didn’t improve performance.”

Boggs, a senior majoring in exercise science, won a $2,500 Carson Grant, a prestigious competitive award given to students who want to research an original idea or an area of research beyond what they can study in class. He had eight physically fit female athletes work out on exercise bicycles at increasing levels of resistance until they reached exhaustion and had to stop. The group performed twice, once using the Breathe Rightä nasal strips and once without strips. Blood samples were taken from the subjects throughout the test and then three minutes into recovery after exercise.

Unlike other researchers who have measured factors like resistance to airflow in the nostrils and the amount of inhalation/expiration (ventilation) occurring in the nose, Boggs chose to measure blood levels of lactate, a byproduct of metabolism. As exercise increases, the body produces more and more lactate until the body is unable to remove the lactate from the muscles (called the lactate threshold). At this point, the body is performing without much oxygen (anaerobically). The excess lactate causes the muscles to be unable to work properly.

Lactate threshold is one of the physiological measures of athletic performance. Trained athletes, who are able to take in and use oxygen efficiently, are able to physically work harder and longer before reaching the lactate threshold than untrained individuals. “Lactate threshold is an important measure of aerobic performance,” explains Boggs. “It’s a good measure of whether you’re using oxygen for energy or whether you’re working anaerobically or without oxygen. For best performance, we want to be working with oxygen.”

If a product like Breathe Rightä can make more oxygen available, wearing the nasal strip would delay the onset of the lactate threshold and therefore enable the wearer to work harder and longer. A person working at the same intensity should have less lactate in their blood compared with someone not wearing the strip. However, Boggs found no significant differences in the lactate threshold levels of the athletes when they wore the strips or when they didn’t. His is not the first to conclude the little nasal strips don’t work.

“A lot of research agrees with my conclusion although none of the other studies use lactate levels to measure performance,” says Boggs. “Most of the research measures whether a person is able to inhale and exhale more air with the nasal strip. Some of that research shows the strips work and some of it shows it doesn’t.

How does he explain the popularity of the strips, despite evidence that they don’t change blood lactate levels?

”Maybe it’s psychological,” young researcher speculates. “I’ve tried them and it does feel like it opens up your nostrils a little bit and makes it feel easier to breathe. Maybe if it feels easier to breathe you perform better. Or maybe because they said this would help athletic performance, the strips just caught on. Now everybody uses them whether or not they really work.”

Native Hawaiian applies her culture and her heart to an innovative program for at-risk kids.

She calls them “my girls”—five second graders and three high school children who come from homes filled with poverty, violence and neglect. As part of an innovative mentoring program called Friends of the Children, native Hawaiian and former Honolulu resident, Jennifer “Jenn” Madrazo Riordan is friend, mentor, disciplinarian, role model and personal angel to at-risk kids.

A 1999 graduate of Willamette University, Riordan credits the school for waking her to the possibilities in community service. Willamette’s motto, “Not unto ourselves alone are we born,” stresses service to others. “I always knew I wanted to work with children,” says the sociology major. “Willamette taught me to use my education and affect the lives of those around me. It gave me a broad understanding of what I could do in social services and allowed me to experiment so I could figure out where I wanted to go.”

That path lead her to Friends of the Children, a nationally acclaimed mentoring program based in Portland, Ore., that assigns at-risk children a Friend, a paid adult, who provides support and encouragement from the first through the 12th grade. This one-on-one relationship with a supportive adult is what makes the program successful. Founded in 1993 by Portland millionaire businessman, Duncan Campbell, himself a victim of neglect from alcoholic parents, Friends of the Children employs 85 mentors and currently serves more than 600 children across the country. The program is funded by a variety of sources, including individuals, businesses, foundations, and government contracts.

Jenn pulls in front of a faded two-story Victorian in Northeast Portland. The white paint has long since surrendered to a peeling gray. She walks through a gate that hangs crazily off the sagging picket fence that encloses a threadbare lawn and a few neglected rose bushes. The sound of rap music booms from a low-slung Chevy. Cars sit on cement blocks in front of bungalows with tired porches. A couple of young boys shoot a basketball into a makeshift hoop on a telephone pole. They wear the colors of a local gang. At the corner, one African American man hands a wad of bills to another in an obvious drug transaction. Across the street, a group of older men drink from a paper bag. Jenn raps on the scuffed wooden door. She’s there to pick up Amy, an energetic seven-year old who she’s been “Friending” for the past year. In addition to working with these children in the classroom, Jenn takes her girls out several times a week. Sometimes they go to a park or to the library to play on the computers. Other days it’s bowling or baking something at Jenn’s place. She uses fun activities as rewards for getting schoolwork done.

The door opens a crack and a toddler in a sagging diaper peaks around the door. “Hey Jerome, is Amy here?” He grins and jams a dirty thumb in his mouth and scuttles away.

“Amy ain’t here,” a woman’s voice comes from the back of the room. Jenn gingerly steps through the door.

“She knew I was coming Mrs. Brown. Where is she?” Jenn asks, struggling to keep her voice even. This has happened before. Unlike most of the mothers who welcome Jenn’s help with their children, Mrs. Brown seems to resent Jenn’s involvement with her daughter. If the mother continues to resist Jenn’s efforts, another child may have to take Amy’s place in Friends.

“How should I know?” Mrs. Brown replies. She sits in a well-worn over-stuffed chair puffing on a cigarette. Next to her is an open bottle of beer. It’s not Mrs. Brown’s first drink of the day.

“I’ll just wait,” Jenn says easing herself onto a faded green chenille couch. Mrs. Brown glares at her and takes a swig from the bottle.

Fortunately, the wait isn’t long. Amy, breathless and flashing a gap-toothed smile, bounds through the door. “Jenn!” she shouts and throws her arms around her Friend.

“Did you get your homework done?” Jenn asks the squirming child.

“Yep, I went to the library by myself after school,” Amy says proudly brandishing a few rumpled sheets of paper.

Jenn scans the work. “This looks great, Amy,” she says smiling. “How about the park?” The child wiggles with delight.

Families usually welcome Riordan. “Most of my families are very grateful to have me in their children’s lives,” she explains. “At first, it’s hard for them because I come into their homes and see things others don’t. But most of them have a lot of kids and it’s great to have a little help. My families realize that I’m there to help them, not to make their life harder, to judge them or to take their place as a parent.”

Riordan finds being native Hawaiian opens doors with her mostly African American families. “Being Hawaiian makes my families more welcoming of me,” she says. “Some of my white co-workers have a hard time gaining trust and getting their foot in the door. For me, it’s not that way. Being Hawaiian also helps my girls understand that there are other cultures besides black and white. One of my girls has actually started using Hawaiian words.”

While she loves her work in Portland, Riordan misses the Islands. Her dream is to bring the Friends program, which currently has programs in a dozen cities, to Hawaii. “I’m going to be the first Friend of Children in Hawaii,” she insists.

Being a Friend of the Children mentor often requires that Riordan use judgment and discretion. Unlike teachers or social workers, Friends are not required to report suspected neglect or child abuse. Filing a report with police or social services almost guarantees the family will deny her access to the child. To fail to report might expose the child to serious harm. Poverty often clouds the question of neglect. One of Jenn’s families, for example, had its electricity shut off for two weeks for non-payment. “There were no lights or heat,” she recalls. “Children were running around in urine-stained clothes. These kids were not being taken care of the way they should have been. When the electricity returned, things got a lot better. I didn’t report it, but if the situation had continued, I would have.”

Another time, one of her younger girls showed up with a black eye. The child said her mother had “whupped” her for picking at the turkey during Thanksgiving. Currently, Riordan is dealing with a potential child abuse situation. A relative’s recent release from prison has filled the house with strange men who make her worry for the safety of her young charge. She’s trying to teach the youngster how not to become a victim. “I’m talking with her about good touch and bad touch, trying to keep her safe,” she says. ”I want her to know that I’m a safe person to come to if anything ever happens.”

Friends of the Children’s commitment to each child is 10 years. The first group of mentored children will graduate from high school this year. While some Friend staffers have been with the program for as long as eight years, most stay with the program three to five years. If a mentor moves on, the children are assigned a new Friend. Riordan, who works as a Friend full-time, including every Saturday, says she could do this job for the rest of her life. “It’s not often you can say you have the perfect job, but I do,” she says smiling broadly.

Despite having worked with her girls for only about a year, Riordan sees positive changes. A few weeks ago, one of her 15-year-olds who only recently expressed a desire to have a baby, asked, “How old should you be when you have a baby?” Riordan and the teen had a long talk about college, jobs and money. A few days ago, the girl announced she was going to wait until she was 25 for her first baby. Riordan’s eyes shine as she tells the story. “Seeing that they’ve made up their own minds or changed their behavior because of what you talked about is powerful,” she says. “We’re making a difference.”

The names of the children and their families have been changed to protect their privacy.
For more information, visit www.friendsofthechildren.com or call (503) 281-6633.

Ashland’s Own Wins International Debate

Debate champ wins more than contest

Una Kimokeo-Goes didn’t plan on being an international debate star. The former Ashland High School honor student just wanted to have some fun with a few new friends half-way around the world. She came home with more than a trophy.

Una, a humanities senior at Willamette University, recently traveled to Poland to compete in an international debate tournament. The debate, one of the first of its kind, attracted students from Romania, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Poland and dozens of other formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Una and her long-time debate partner, Heather Rice, represented Willamette. They were the only students at the tournament from the United States who opted to partner with students from other countries rather than compete together. “The point of going to this kind of competition isn’t winning,” says Una. “It’s meeting new people and figuring out how to work together.”

Una paired with Sylvia Popa of Romania. A few weeks before the tournament, all the students were given a list of possible debate topics, which included controversial international topics such as human rights abuses, the European Euro, the United Nations and U. S. immigration policies. Each student then researched the topics. Working with a partner several thousand miles away proved challenging. “At first, working with someone I didn’t know was a little strange,” admits Una. “Sylvia and I exchanged emails so we had some idea about one another. We talked via email about what we thought about each topic.”

When the two young women finally met face to face in the little town of Novy Sacz in south Poland, both were apprehensive. “Sylvia was afraid we’d have a lot of differences, that I’d use terms she wouldn’t understand or that maybe we just wouldn’t get along,” Una recalls. “I was afraid I might disappoint her.”

The Pressure of Competition
The international competition proved to be a pressure cooker for the students. They were given their debate topics only 15 to 20 minutes before they had to speak. Each member of the two-person team had to speak on the selected topic for seven minutes. Una and Sylvia spoke on six different topics during the competition. Despite the pressure and the language barrier, Una says her Romanian partner did extremely well. “I can’t imagine trying to think of an argument in something other than my native language,” she says. “Do you think in your native language then translate it into English? I don’t know how she does it.”

What amazed Una even more was her Romanian partner’s passion, especially on the topic of human rights violations. “Sylvia talked about the trafficking of women in her country,” she says, her eyes shiny with tears. “She was really passionate about it because these are people she sees in her community. For me, human rights are something I read about, not something that affects my life every day. Sylvia was able to say, this happens in my neighborhood. It was very powerful.”

Sylvia’s passion and Una’s debate expertise enabled the team to prevail over 20 other teams. They won first place in the team competition. The women were given a cash award of $100, which Una donated to her partner. Una also won the Best Tournament Speaker award.

Reward More than Money
For the Willamette student, the experience in Poland was eye opening and much more valuable than any cash prize. Una was deeply moved by her debate partner’s presentation on human rights violations. She learned first-hand about the policies of Slobodan Milosevic from a Yugoslavian student who talked about how the dictator had crushed her country’s economy. She got an up close and personal take on what it’s like to work in a cancer center just 15 miles from Chernobyl. Polish students told her about being given iodine pills so their bodies would take in less radiation from the crippled nuclear reactor.

Her experiences in Poland have made Una more committed to promoting international debate. As soon as she returned, she talked with officials at Willamette about bringing Eastern European debate students to the campus. She also talked with her debate coach at Silverton High School in Silverton, Ore., where she volunteers about getting more students involved in debate. “I want to tell students who aren’t involved in debate that they should be,” she says, her voice rising with excitement. “Debate gives you opportunities to travel, to meet people and to discuss real issues.”

What she learned in Poland also changed Una’s worldview and made her more interested in international issues. For her, the world is now both bigger and smaller. “I learned a lot from my teammate and from all the other people I met,” she says, touching the edge of a delicate hand-painted ceramic dish that Sylvia sent to her from Romania. “We may come from different countries and totally different backgrounds, but we have more similarities than differences.”

Plugged-In Junior Miss: The Northwest’s Hottest Teen is Hopping

It’s 9:00 a.m. Monday and Amy Kerr, the Northwest’s 2002 American Junior Miss, is in music class at Willamette University in Salem, Ore.. Or she may be on a plane heading to Houston, Mobile or other far-flung city. Or perhaps she’s being interviewed on national television by Deborah Norville or Diane Sawyer; doing the weather on “Fox and Friends;” or preparing to sing an operatic rendition of “God Bless America” at a nationally televised football game or starring in the television road show “Go for It.” If you’re trying to catch up with Amy Kerr, Oregon’s first teenager to win the coveted title of America’s Junior Miss, put on your track shoes. This is one young woman who’s on the go.

“It can get hectic,” Amy admits, when talking about her non-stop schedule. Since winning the national title in Mobile, Ala., in June, her life has moved into hyper-drive. Her job is to be a role model and inspire America’s youth to be their best with the Junior Miss “Be All You Can Be” campaign. To that end, she criss-crosses the country, speaking and performing at schools, nonprofits, civic events, community groups and sporting venues. She’s so busy that she has a full-time public relations firm to maintain her schedule.

In addition to numerous speaking engagements and appearances each month, Amy is required, like all previous titleholders, to attend college full time. She’s currently a freshman at Willamette University. “With all the traveling, I do miss a lot of school,” she says. “That’s why it’s important for the Junior Miss to be intelligent and be able to do well in school. Scholastic achievement is a huge part of the judging.”

Amy shines in the scholastic arena. The former McNary High School honor student graduated with an overall 4.205 grade point average. She’s won local, state and national Junior Miss titles that have earned her more than $76,000 in scholarship money. Enough, she says, with other scholarships she’s won, to pay for both undergraduate and graduate school.

Technology, and the understanding of her professors at Willamette, makes it possible for her to keep up with her studies. When she’s on the road, she emails in homework assignments and takes proctored exams. Her trusty laptop allows her to receive, work on and deliver assignments, even when she’s miles from campus. A cell phone enables her to keep in touch with friends, teachers and her close-knit family.

“My professors here at Willamette have been very accommodating,” she says. “I make sure I do the reading and do the homework. I may miss a few class discussions, but if I’m careful about studying, I’m okay.”

Doesn’t her hectic schedule mean she misses out on the all-important college social life? “Well, I don’t miss the party scene because I’m not big on parties,” she says smiling broadly. “I’m gone so much that I do feel I miss out on building strong relationships with friends. I don’t have time to hang out with my friends much. But I’m going to be here four years so I figure there’s plenty of time for that.”

Fearing that the title of America’s Junior Miss might put off or give the wrong impression to students who don’t know her, Amy rarely reveals her royal status. She says when school started, Lee Pelton, the president of Willamette University, gave a speech to incoming freshmen and mentioned that one of them was America’s Junior Miss. She was relieved that he didn’t say her name.

“I try to let people get to know me before I tell them about the title because some people have the wrong idea about America’s Junior Miss,” she says. “They think I run around in swim suits all the time and that I must be a stuck up, self-centered beauty queen. They don’t understand that America’s Junior Miss is a scholarship pageant not a traditional beauty pageant.”

In fact, beauty doesn’t enter into the judging for America’s Junior Miss. Contestants are judged in the following categories: 20 percent scholastics; 25 percent interview; 25 percent talent; 15 percent fitness; and 15 percent poise.

One of the first things you notice about Amy is her poise and sense of calm. She’s only 18 years old, but little seems to ruffle her. For instance, after winning the title, she was invited to be interviewed on “Fox and Friends” in New York City. Instead of an interview, the producers had her forecast the weather — without any instructions or rehearsal. They threw her trick questions like asking her if American’s Junior Miss Pageant is owned by Hugh Hefner (it isn’t). She says she looked “like a goof.” However, she came through that media trial by fire more confident and able to laugh at herself.

“After the ‘Fox and Friends’ interview, I was almost in tears,” she says. “But those kinds of experiences have taught me to laugh at myself. I’ve learned to wing it and roll with the punches.”

Not all of her appearances have been so challenging. A gifted soprano, she sang Quando m’en vo’ from Puccini’s La Boheme at the national pageant and won the $10,000 talent scholarship. Amy says performing before large audiences is “fun.” She fulfilled a childhood fantasy when she received standing ovations for her performance from both David Foster (Whitney Houston’s songwriter/producer) and Ed McMahon. “It felt like I was on Star Search,” she says, her eyes shining at the memory. “As a little girl, I was obsessed with appearing on Star Search and earning four stars from Ed McMahon. After I sang, he stood in the front row applauding and yelling “four stars.””

A soft ring comes from Amy’s brief case. “Excuse me,” she says reaching for her cell phone. It’s her public relations representative calling, updating her schedule. “Ok, Houston on Tuesday; then three days in New York City. I’ve confirmed the speech with the Chamber of Commerce in Bend. They want me to sing too? Ok. Yes, I can squeeze in another elementary school.”

A few minutes later, she hangs up the phone and glances at the clock. “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to go,” she says gathering her books. “I’ve got a class in 10 minutes.”

It’s just another day in the life of America’s Junior Miss.

Being Your Best Self
Amy Kerr works to promote the AJM’s “Be Your Best Self,” a nationwide outreach program to help young people develop positive self-esteem and encourage them to adopt healthy lifestyles. The program encourages youth to:

-Live by moral principles.
-Get a good education
-Stay fit
-Get proper nutrition
-Participate in community service
-Set goals
-Work to reach goals

For more information about America’s Junior Miss program, call (800) 256-5435 or log onto www.ajm.org

A Latina Friend to Children: Young woman’s Hispanic heritage defines her career

Sometimes fate hands you a gift so precious that you want to spend your life giving back. That’s how it is for Nicole Palmateer, director of development for Friends of the Children, a unique mentoring program based in Portland, Ore., that helps at-risk children, many of them Hispanic.

Twenty-seven years ago, Nicole Palmateer was born Maria Pia Lopez in a ghetto in Quito, Ecuador, to a young mother too poor and too desperate to keep her. Nicole’s birth mother was only 14 and a victim of domestic violence. At the tender age of nine months, Nicole was adopted by a Caucasian family and brought to live in Oregon. It was a twist of fate, this young Latina believes, that saved her life.

“As a baby in South America, I was very ill,” she explains. “If I hadn’t been adopted, I probably wouldn’t have lived. I know that the space I occupy on the planet is a gift to me.”

Being adopted may have saved her life, but Nicole says it was another fateful happenstance—attending Willamette University in Salem, Ore.—that gave her pride in being Hispanic and the confidence to do something with that pride. Before coming to the liberal arts university, Nicole had little opportunity to appreciate her uniqueness or her Hispanic culture because she was raised by a white family in the small town of Elkton, Ore.. The town had no other Hispanics and offered few opportunities to explore Latino culture.

“I always felt different,” she says. “Elkton doesn’t have a large population of color. In my high school of 70, there were two people of color—myself and an Asian friend of mine. It made me aware that I was different, that I looked different from other people.”

Because of her family’s long history in the tiny ranching town, Nicole said the discrimination she faced there was subtle rather than blatant. “People didn’t call me names to my face,” she says. “But some of them certainly had different expectations about me than if I’d been white. Because I’m Latina, at first, they assumed I was lazy or stupid.”

Nicole proved she was neither. At Elkton High School, she was an honor student, an athlete and a cheerleader. She starred in theater productions and worked on both the school paper and the yearbook. She graduated second in her class. But she didn’t have a sense of her ethnic culture.

It was at Willamette University that Nicole says she had the opportunity to explore being Latina. Currently, students of color make up 23 percent of the school’s current incoming freshmen class; five percent of them are Hispanic.

“One of the first classes I took at Willamette was taught by Patricia Varas who is from Ecuador,” she says. “She helped me learn about Ecuador and how it relates to the United States. I learned a lot about my culture. At Willamette, people encouraged me to explore my Latina heritage through music and dance and to get politically involved. I came away being proud of my background and valuing the unique perspective it gives me.”

It wasn’t just exposure to Hispanic studies or to other Latino students at the school that made Nicole choose to work with at-risk children. Nicole’s adopted family, especially her grandparents, instilled a strong sense of helping others and giving back. Willamette University’s philosophy, “not unto ourselves alone are we born,” also helped Nicole look outside herself and develop empathy and a sense of responsibility for others. “You must give to get,” she says. “You must give to the world, to your job, to whatever you’re invested in to earn a reward. Willamette challenged me to look at how I can be part of the solution; how I can be part of the tapestry of change,” she says.

That inspiration has lead her to Friends of the Children, a nationally acclaimed mentoring program that assigns at-risk children a Friend, a paid adult, who provides support and encouragement from the first through the 12th grade. This one-on-one relationship with a supportive adult is what makes the program successful. Founded in 1993 by Portland millionaire businessman, Duncan Campbell, himself a victim of neglect from alcoholic parents, Friends of the Children employs 85 mentors and currently serves more than 600 children nationally. In Oregon, 8 percent of the program’s children are Latino; another six percent are multi-racial, including part Latino. The program is funded by a variety of sources, including individuals, businesses, foundations and government contracts.

At Friends of the Children, it’s Nicole’s job to raise money for the Oregon Initiative, a new program that’s designed to bring mentors to children in smaller, more rural communities. The Oregon Initiative is currently operating in Eugene, Salem and Klamath Falls. Soon, there will be Friend mentors available in Coos Bay, Bend, Madras and other small communities.

“Being at Friends has taught me what being at-risk truly means,” Nicole says. “Because of my adoptive family, I grew up with two parents who love me and who met all my needs. I got to ride horses and go to summer camp. At Friends, I’ve seen children who not only don’t have money, but who have no safety or stability. I’ve seen children who go hungry because their parents are too drunk to feed them.”

Friends of the Children is making a difference, says Nicole, one child at a time. “Our kids are doing amazing things,” she says. “They’re learning to play the piano. They’re trying sushi for the first time. One child in Eugene who is petrified of water is learning to swim with her Friend. Another child who has been physically and mentally abused by his parents has essentially been raised by his Friend. He’s now in high school and he’s doing well, much better than anyone ever thought he would.”

It’s that kind of success that keeps Nicole knocking on doors and making phone calls asking for support. “Asking people for money can be a hard job,” she admits. “What keeps me coming back, what gets me up in the morning is remembering that what I do today impacts these kids. Everything I do makes it possible for one more child to have a Friend. And that’s a real gift.”

For more information about Friends of the Children visit www.friendsofthechildren.com or call (503) 281-6633.

Two Willamette Students Win Prestigious Scholarship

Robert J. Macfarlane and Ashley R. Smith, both junior chemistry majors at Willamette University in Salem, OR, have been awarded Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships, the most prestigious undergraduate scholarship in science, mathematics and engineering. Only 300 of these highly competitive national scholarships are awarded annually.

Macfarlane, a graduate of Colony High School in Palmer, AK, and currently a tutor in organic chemistry, is working on designing a Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LVD) apparatus for analysis of sperm motility. He’s collaborating with Dr. Jeffrey Willemsen, a chemistry professor at Willamette, to synthesize deratives of a male contraceptive. “The LVD gives us a faster, easier and more accurate way to measure whether sperm are killed when the compound gossypol, a potential male oral contraceptive, is added,” explains Macfarlane, who plans to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry and go into medical research. Macfarlane is also a member of the University’s Chamber Choir and a talented pianist and French horn player.

Smith, a graduate of Lincoln High School in Portland, OR, was named Willamette University Organic Chemistry Student of the Year in 2002. She’s currently head teaching assistant in the chemistry synthesis lab and president of the University’s Chemistry Club. She uses her knowledge of organic chemistry to synthesize biologically important molecules that might have pharmaceutical applications.

“We’ve synthesized about 30 compounds, some of which have never been synthesized before,” she says. “The work is important because it has the potential to shed light on how proteins function.”

Smith often performs chemistry demonstrations for area elementary students. She’s also a section leader for the University’s Women’s Choir and vice president of the Circle K Club. She intends to pursue a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry and become a researcher and teacher.

Both Macfarlane and Smith have been active researchers while at Willamette. Last summer, they participated in the Science Collaborative Research Project, and, in November 2002, presented the results of their research at the Murdock Undergraduate Research Conference at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. Smith will co-author an article based on their research.

The 300 Goldwater Scholars, including Macfarlane and Smith, were selected from more than 1,000 top mathematics, science and engineering students from across the nation who are nominated by their universities. The scholarship awards are based on student grade point average, research and career goals. The one- and two-year scholarships cover the cost of tuition, books, fees and room and board up to $7,500 per year.