December 2006 Stories

Honoring a True Friend

Update

Kevin Dean ’06, Alex MacKenzie ’06 and Wes Randall ’06 arrived in Miami Feb. 26 after a 3,200-mile trip that included frigid winter temperatures, multiple bike breakdowns, and a plethora of unforgettable experiences. The young men have raised more than $14,000 for the ALS Association and are still accepting donations at www.coast2coast4kalan.net. “It’s an amazing feeling to be done and to know that we’ve completed something great and challenging,” Dean says. “Even though it was tough, it was for a great friend.”

“He was warm-hearted and a really nice guy.”

“He was always trying to help.”

“He was so disciplined.”

“You ever have a friend you always knew you could rely on? Well, that was Kalan.”

When you ask Kalan Morinaka’s friends to describe him, the words flow easily. Through high school in Nyssa, Ore., and during his following years at Willamette, Morinaka was known as a cheerful and funny guy, always there for those who needed him.

He was a devoted scholar, the valedictorian of his high school class and on a pre-med track in college. Many also knew him for his athletic skills, as a high school football player and wrestler, supervisor of intramural sports at Willamette and a national competitor in judo.

Morinaka died this fall from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — a disease that typically hits people older than 40 but left 22-year-old Morinaka almost unable to talk and move in a matter of months. When the worst became reality, his friends immediately knew the best way to respond. They wanted to raise money for the ALS Association by organizing a bike ride — but not just any ride: They plan to travel coast-to-coast from San Diego to Miami.

Alex MacKenzie ’06, Kevin Dean ’06 and Wes Randall ’06 — all football players and Morinaka’s fraternity brothers in Sigma Alpha Epsilon — start out Jan. 10 and hope to make the 3,300-mile trip in about 60 days. Fellow football player Jon Irizarry ’06 will help track their progress and coordinate their trip from Salem.

“Kalan was such a great competitor and athlete throughout his life, so we thought a physical feat like this was a great way to honor him,” MacKenzie says.

MacKenzie, Dean and Randall became friends with Morinaka through Sigma Alpha Epsilon; Morinaka was president of the group last year. They remember when their friend first showed signs of ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control. In summer 2005, his speech started to slur, a problem that worsened over the next year until doctors finally diagnosed the disease in June.

“He kept serving as our president even after the symptoms came,” Dean says. “By the end of the year, you almost couldn’t understand him. But it didn’t matter. People still respected him. We always had great respect for the way Kalan carried himself. I never saw a flaw in his character.”

The four athletes all graduate this fall, so it was good timing for them to take two months off to be involved in a ride. Dean was the one to start recruiting participants. “It’s the perfect reason to put life on hold,” he says. “The cause and motivation we have to do it is well worth putting other things aside for awhile.”

Bringing awareness to a disease that hasn’t received much attention also is important to them. They didn’t know much about ALS when they heard of Morinaka’s diagnosis. Randall assumed Kalan’s speech problem would go away on its own. MacKenzie didn’t realize ALS could take someone’s life so quickly. “For me, it’s been an educational process, and we’re hoping to give that experience to other people,” he says.

The athletes have been training by riding every day, but they know they can’t even begin to imagine the obstacles they’ll face on so many miles of open road. However, they say the challenge and ultimate goal of honoring their friend will only push them harder. They hope to raise at least $30,000 for the ALS Association; so far, they have collected $5,000.

The students created a web site, www.coast2coast4kalan.net, which includes bios of each of them and Morinaka, information on how to donate and the trip itinerary. They also plan to keep a blog on the site during their ride. They are asking people to pledge money for every mile they complete.

Willamette lost two students this fall. Logan Will, a member of the Willamette University Debate Union and one of the top parliamentary debaters in the nation, died after a car crash while heading home to Grants Pass for Thanksgiving. The debate program has established the Logan Will Memorial Fund to give an annual end-of-the-year academic award to an outstanding debater. Contributions may be made to the Logan Will Fund – Willamette University, and mailed to Prof. Robert Trapp, Gatke Hall, Willamette University, 900 State St., Salem, OR 97301.

Hiking Down to a Science

Almost anyone who has hiked uphill knows the feeling. You’ve just trekked a mile, maybe three miles, maybe even 10 miles or more. The hike may have only been up a small grade, or maybe it was a mountain. But now that you’ve come back down and returned home or to your campsite, your body feels Sore, with a capital S. Your joints and muscles ache.

That hill was just too steep, you think. My body can’t handle climbing. Nope. According to Julianne Abendroth-Smith, associate professor of exercise science, that’s not the problem. You’re more likely to get injured on those coveted downward slopes than on the tough uphill ones. “When you’re really sore after you get home from a hike, it’s not from going uphill, it’s more from coming back down,” she says. “That pounding on the body can really take a toll.”

Abendroth-Smith’s area of expertise is biomechanics, the study of the forces on the body from a physics standpoint. Herself an avid hiker and lover of the outdoors, Abendroth-Smith has studied the effects of downhill hiking on the body. And hikers really put a lot of force on their knees, ankles and hips when they pound their way down a hill, she found.

Her solution: Use trekking poles. The poles are popular among hikers in Europe, but people who use them in America are more likely to draw comments like “Are you going skiing?” But Abendroth-Smith’s research shows that using two poles while navigating a downhill slope is a great way to avoid injury because it lessens the amount of force placed on the body. Even one pole is better than nothing, she says.

Abendroth-Smith has spent hours in the exercise science lab having people hike for her, with and without poles, so she and her students can monitor what happens to their bodies. Involving students in lab research is one of her favorite parts of being a professor. “One of the reasons I do practical research is because it gets them involved,” she says. “They can see the practical applications.”

She also has studied the differences between men’s and women’s use of the poles, finding that women tend to rely on them more for balance and stability. This shows one of the other reasons Abendroth-Smith believes poles are good for less-experienced hikers: They can bring comfort. For those who aren’t as likely to get out on the trail, who may be worried that they can’t make it or that their balance isn’t good enough to walk on anything except asphalt, poles can be a solution. One of Abendroth-Smith’s mottos regarding exercise is that people are more likely to keep doing it if they’re participating in something fun. “People need to understand the importance of physical activity,” she says. “It’s not just about exercise. It’s any form of movement.”

Abendroth-Smith became interested in exercise science because, as she says, “I’m a nerd and a jock, so I guess it’s a good combination.” As a newer science, her field still struggles to be taken seriously instead of simply being considered PE, she says — and she strives to be recognized as a scientist.

Biomechanics, her focus, is far from simple. It involves complex analysis of forces on the body, and is often considered the toughest class in the exercise science major, she says. “Everyone always says it’s the hardest class you can take, but I think it’s the easiest because it’s math and physics. You do the math, you follow the physics and you get an answer.”

Showing these students a different form of science and how they can apply it in the real world is one of the fun parts of her job, Abendroth-Smith says. She estimates that about 60 percent or more of Willamette’s exercise science majors go on to graduate school. “It’s so fun to see them move on and know that we helped influence them,” she says.

The Bistro Family: 20 Years of Common Grounds

To its patrons, the Bistro is the place to enjoy the warmth of a cup of coffee, smell the sweetness of freshly baked cookies or scones, get comfortable on the funky mismatched and oft-painted furniture, and study or talk with friends.

To the long line of people who have worked at this student-owned and operated shop, it’s a testament to entrepreneurial spirit, a place to gain work experience, and, most important, their second home. “It’s a job, but it doesn’t always feel like a job because you’re with your friends,” says Melissa Dean ’07, the current general manager. “We like to say we’re the Bistro family.”

The sense of community created by the Bistro — evident in the work ethic of the staff and in the diversity of patrons it draws from campus and the surrounding city — is a unique spirit that has driven the business since its 1986 founding by two students who just wanted a place to hang out.

In late September, about 130 members of the Bistro family — supporters and past employees — returned to their former home to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Some of them hopped behind the counter for a shift. Others attended a concert reinforcing the Bistro’s long-standing reputation as a center for campus entertainment.

The reunion’s theme was “20 Years of Common Grounds,” and though these former employees have gone on to a wide array of careers — from attorneys to school principals to chemists to software engineers — many fondly remember their original “common grounds” of keeping the coffee and tasty treats flowing. “There’s always this fondness for the Bistro,” says Darby Schroeder ’88, a member of the Bistro’s first staff and a manager during its second year. “It doesn’t matter if the current Bistro staff is 20 years younger than you. There’s still a camaraderie over time.”

How It All Began
It was two freshman roommates from Matthews Hall, Eric Friedenwald-Fishman ’88 and John Donovan ’88, who started it all. They vividly remember complaining that there were no good places to go at night for coffee in Salem. “At some point when we were whining and moaning about this, people said, ‘Why don’t you do something about it?’” Friedenwald-Fishman says. “We said, ‘Let’s go ask the president to do this.’ We were joking. We didn’t think he’d give us the time of day.”

They walked over to President Jerry Hudson’s office and asked to see him, thinking they would be told to leave. Instead, his assistant let them in. “We told him the problem and how we thought the university should open a café,” Friedenwald-Fishman says. “He said, ‘Where would it be? How would it be funded? Who would work at it?’ He said he’d meet with us again in two weeks, and that we should bring a proposal.”

This was the start of many meetings with Hudson throughout their sophomore year. The two students researched other coffee shops, costs for espresso machines, ideas for a business plan — then returned to Hudson, only to have him ask for more information. Bob Hawkinson, then a politics professor, helped with their research and later became the Bistro’s first advisor. “I was very encouraging because I thought we needed such a place,” Hawkinson says.

Finally, in the spring of 1986, Hudson offered the students $20,000 to open a shop, despite opposition from some other administrators. “I give Jerry Hudson full credit for staying with us and giving us the time to fully address his questions in an appropriate way,” Donovan says. “That was one of the best learning experiences.”

What followed was a hectic summer as the two hurried to build a shop to open in the fall. They transformed a room that had been used as the office for the Collegian — the newspaper staff wasn’t too happy at first about the move, Friedenwald-Fishman says — into a nice, comfortable hangout. They arrived every morning to do renovation projects, then switched in the afternoon to testing food and coffee recipes. “It was an amazing summer,” Donovan says. “We really were on a regimen of 16 hours a day where we worked on some component of the process — developing training materials for new staff, making sure we were doing everything up to code, trying to befriend the county health inspector.”

The community spirit was present from that very first summer, in the campus office staff who taste-tested their recipes and the person from the bookkeeping office who taught them how to keep records. In the maintenance worker who fixed their old equipment and even showed them how to make lemon custard, something he had done in his former days as a pastry chef. And it was in the numerous people who showed them where they could find free or cheap furniture — the beginnings of the Bistro’s tradition of relying on funky found objects. “The creation of the Bistro and the survival of its first year was a combination of President Hudson taking a risk on students, the hard work of the first student employees, and key faculty and staff members who helped us along the way,” Friedenwald-Fishman says. “Every aspect of the Willamette community contributed to us starting the Bistro, which is a great lesson.”

The shop hit a few bumps in the road as it tried to make its presence known, like when its new coffee mugs all were stolen within two weeks. (By this time, the Collegian staff had gone from grumbling to being supportive of the shop, and they wrote an editorial chastising students for stealing from a student-run business. Within a few days, the cups were returned.) But over time, it has become a profitable business. “We all worked hard to get integrated into the flow and dynamic of the campus community,” Donovan says. “I think that was a big factor in our success.”

The Bistro Spirit
“Do you want room for cream?” Donovan asked a student as he filled her cup with coffee.

It was one of many phrases Bistro alumni recall from their barista days. Donovan and Friedenwald-Fishman were among several who spent a busy day during the reunion making espresso and passing out free cookies. “I let Eric run the espresso machine because he does it at home all the time,” Donovan says. “I told him if I blow up the machine, he can’t blame me. I’ve just been trying to help people at the counter.”

Chris Didway ’89, another member of the original staff, also was behind the counter. She says it’s gratifying to see the popularity of the business today. “It’s the pulse of the campus. It’s the hub where everything convenes. There was a void before, and Eric and John filled it.”

Some of the food passed out that afternoon was created using recipes still in use from the Bistro’s early days. That includes the chocolate and peanut butter Buzz Bar, named after beloved teacher and administrator Richard “Buzz” Yocom ’49.

Each year, the new batch of employees leave their own mark on the place, whether by painting the walls new colors or naming the plants growing around the shop. Garett Brennan ’01 left his mark musically. The Bistro already had hosted some open mic nights and concerts, but they weren’t consistent events, and Brennan changed that. He recalls seeing DJs, singer-songwriters, jazz trios and magicians at the popular open mic nights. “The events gave the students an outlet to express themselves,” Brennan says. “It was the one event that allowed everyone to try things they wouldn’t normally do. All of a sudden, you’d see this huge football player trying to play a Dave Matthews song at open mic, and you would go, ‘Wow, this is awesome.’”

Brennan’s own band, Herschel Patch and the Gleakers, was a popular fixture at these events. “Late at night, toward the end of the open mic event, we would do a few songs — primarily improv funk and gibberish storytelling. It was very loose, very unorganized.” Brennan still plays music today, and his current folk Americana band, Garett Brennan & the EbGbs, played a return engagement at the reunion.

Campus Community
Students aren’t the only ones who have connected with the Bistro, as evidenced by the faculty members who come in every morning for their wake-up drink or who hold small classes inside the shop. Faculty and staff also have been crucial to the Bistro’s success, and often are among some of its most ardent supporters.

Hawkinson has his own wooden “endowed chair” with a plaque bearing his name in honor of his long-standing support. At one time, Hawkinson and President Lee Pelton — back when they both still wore bowties — held regular events called “Bowties at the Bistro.” They would hang out at the shop and chat with anyone who was interested. “There were times when no one would show up, and there would be times when whole groups would come in to lobby us,” Hawkinson says. “The whole football team came in one time because they wanted turf on the football field. They got it.”

Customers who walk into the Bistro during the study days before final exams can sometimes find a variety of professors working behind the counter. In the early ’90s, biology professors Sharon Rose and Grant Thorsett and chemistry professor David Goodney (once joined by chemistry professor Kiki Brink, who no longer works at Willamette) began putting in a shift so the shop could remain open when all the employees were studying. In recent years, exercise science faculty Stas Stavrianeas, Russ Cagle, Julianne Abendroth-Smith and Skip Kenitzer also started working a shift every semester.

Both groups really get into the process, donning their own aprons and nametags and playing their “oldies” music. “It takes us a little bit of time to get to know the drinks,” Rose says, “and the cash register has always been our nemesis.”

As for the long-standing tradition of employees as family, for many it has extended beyond graduation. Today Schroeder is general manager of BridgePort Brewing Company’s brewpub in Portland and has employed several former Bistro managers. Friedenwald-Fishman and Donovan used their entrepreneurial skills to co-found a company called Metropolitan Group, one of the country’s leading marketing firms for social issues.

Whenever the two founders are on campus, they always stop by to “spend as much money as we can.” Sometimes the staff members recognize them and offer them free items. “We tell them, ‘No, we have to pay. The Bistro needs to make money,’” Friedenwald-Fishman says.

His repeated visits have shown him that the core idea of the Bistro has worked — the shop truly is its own community. “Whenever I walk into the Bistro, there are people studying together, tables of students and faculty interacting or people playing music. That sense of connection, that sense of community, is very, very much there.”

Music: It’s More Than a Pastime

No matter what a person’s birthplace, language or culture, one element tends to pop up as an expression of identity: music.

In fact, the interrelation between culture and music is so strong, so important, that an entire field of study is dedicated to it: ethnomusicology. Anthropology professor Pamela Moro is so passionate about the connection of music and society that she has dedicated much of her career to researching it — from the flowing sounds of Thai classical music to the harmonies of gay and lesbian choruses. It’s a passion she hopes to impart on her students, who listen to their own unending array of tunes.

“Music is so important in the lives of students,” Moro says. “Their whole expression of identity comes out in what type of music they listen to.”

Sounds from Thailand
Moro, who specializes in Asian culture, has been interested in Thailand’s music ever since she was studying for her bachelor’s degree in music at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1980s. She remembers taking classes to play in an Indonesian, percussion-heavy music ensemble on her campus, called a gamelan. These groups were popular at the time as universities wanted their students to experience non-Western music, she says.

Moro discovered that Thailand’s music was similar to what she had learned in the gamelan, but that almost no experts had written about it. Thailand was never colonized so its traditional music had been studied by few outsiders, which intrigued Moro. When she switched to studying anthropology in graduate school, she spent a year in Thailand to further research the music. “As a nation, Thailand is musically diverse, but they also have Thai classical music,” Moro says. “It’s similar to European classical music in that it was patronized by royalty and performed in political and religious settings.”

When Moro was in Thailand in the 1980s, classical music was seeing a resurgence after decades of being ignored by much of the populace. But the country was looking for symbols of national identity, Moro says, and the educated Thai middle class started promoting classical music and wanting their children to learn it. Today, Moro says Thai classical music still is something the government supports and schools teach to their students although it is not widely popular, similar to treatment of classical music in the U.S.

So what does Thai classical music sound like? “It tends to be soft and flowing,” Moro says. “Some people compare it to currents of water.” It follows a scale where all the notes are a whole step apart, which can sound off-pitch to those accustomed to Western music with its scales that include whole and half steps. It includes many percussion instruments, such as xylophones and gongs, and some stringed instruments that are either played with a bow or plucked with a plectrum. When singing is involved, only solo vocalists are used. Many songs have a spiritual focus, associated with the Buddhist temple or life cycle rituals, Moro says.

Music as a Movement
A more recent music research interest of Moro’s is gay and lesbian choruses. She recalls several years ago being aware that such choruses existed, but knowing little more. Moro sought out the local Willamette Valley Mixed GALA Chorus and quickly became friends with many of its members.

Moro obtained a grant through the Lilly Project in 2004 that allowed her to travel with the local chorus to a festival in Montreal. She wanted to spend more time with these choruses to learn why people in the gay community would turn to music as a cultural outlet.

Her answer depended on whom she asked. Some chorus members saw the activity as a social bonding experience. Others wanted to raise more awareness about gay and lesbian societal issues. Some saw the choruses as a form of protest — something that made sense to Moro as she thought back to the strong tradition in the U.S. of music as a form of protest (e.g., the civil rights movement or the anti–Vietnam War protests).

One commonality Moro saw among the choruses was that they weren’t just haphazardly created; they all had mission statements and were specific about what they wanted to accomplish. The choruses’ varying goals also determined their varying repertoires. Many had an eclectic repertoire that might include classical music, Broadway tunes and current popular songs. Moro found that some composers wrote songs specifically for gay choruses, often tackling important societal issues gay people face.

Moro also used her Lilly Project grant money to bring the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus to campus last April for a performance that included “Metamorphosis,” an expansive choral/orchestral song cycle that centers on the struggles of coming out within families and communities of faith. Portland’s chorus, founded in 1980, is one of the oldest gay-identified choruses in the country.