March 2007 Stories

Hello, My Beautiful Ones

English Professors Linda and Gerry Bowers have thrown in their lot with 65 girls in a remote Zambian village. Electrical wires stop long before they reach the 500 huts of Lumwana West, and cell phones display “No Service” messages. Missionary-bred religions, witchcraft and tribal beliefs ease the burden of carrying water for miles.

The Bowers’ daughter Beth lived there, sweeping ants out of her hut, hoeing fields and helping subsistence farmers build fish ponds as part of a Peace Corps aquaculture project. The fish supplemented the protein supplied by scrawny chickens pecking through yards.

Beth’s letters to her parents told of women walking barefoot to the fields with babies on their backs, laughter as families ate around the fire, and the thud of ripe mangos dropping from branches in the night. She was most homesick when she received letters from the States or had ice cream dreams.

Beth didn’t make it home. She was pedaling to a neighboring village when a bike accident took her life, at age 22.

Wanting to sustain Beth’s vision, the Bowers established the Elizabeth Bowers Zambia Education Fund (EBZEF), which sponsors the education of girls in grades 8–12 — and, hopefully, beyond.

The Bowers’ world outreach was already an important part of their teaching. Gerry shares poetry from around the world with his students, beginning in America and Britain and extending to India and China. The Buddhist and Taoist texts he uses speak to the life of simplicity his daughter chose. Linda not only covers American and traditional English literature, but introduces students to Japanese writings. She believes the study of poetry places students on the path of fully exploring what it means to be human. It introduces them to the world of ideas.

The world of ideas is not as accessible to students in rural Zambia, where schools can’t afford basic textbooks. Most people live on less than a dollar a day and can’t afford the uniforms required by the British-style school system. Not surprisingly, few 9th graders pass into 10th grade, and graduation from high school is almost unheard of.

That’s changed in the last five years. Scholarships, administered by World Vision Zambia and funded by EBZEF, are giving “Beth’s girls” — a term coined by people in the village — a route out of poverty. “The project empowers girls and young women,” Linda says. “Their children are more likely to survive infancy, and they can support themselves and their families.”

They’re also less likely to develop AIDS, which has ravaged Zambia. The disease has left so many orphaned children in Lumwana West that the headmaster uses a graph on his wall to track students whose parents have died. “If someone is orphaned, they are taken in,” Linda says. “Mr. Mwadimwanza, a village headman, has extended family in many huts.”

The Bowers’ foundation is also working with the Peace Corps to build a solar-powered, mud-brick community library. It will be stocked with textbooks and, hopefully, fiction and nonfiction by Zambian writers, allowing families to get in touch with their heritage and with the world beyond their village.

When the Bowers visited last summer to meet the scholarship recipients, they slept in Beth’s former mud hut and the retired headmaster introduced them to his granddaughter, “Little Beth,” a small girl with a headful of ponytails.

“The trip was an important milestone in our grieving the loss of our daughter,” Gerry says. “The people there welcomed us as members of the village family, and we learned how much they loved Beth.

“They are living in an odd, transitional time,” Gerry says. “Men are still hunters and gatherers, but there’s no game to hunt. The parents, who carry the old culture, need to learn from children how to adjust to the modern technological age. Children need to take the lead.

“There’s a clear cultural and geographical identity, and now that I’ve been there I love that place,” he says. “I respect the people of the village. My feelings aren’t diffused by abstract principles.”

Beth would have understood what her father was saying. She also came to a deeper understanding of the gifts her parents had bestowed. In a letter home — they often began with “Hello, my beautiful ones” — she wrote, “I kept looking for things to rebel against you guys about, but I couldn’t find any. Both you and dad are helping people to heal. You do this by teaching in your own ways. You help young people reconnect.”

Beth’s last letters described a life that had slowed and taken on awareness. She realized, she wrote, how little time her own culture left her to think.

“Or more important, not think. We forget to notice the present — to feel, to smell, to love.”

In carrying on their daughter’s legacy, the Willamette English professors have taken a page from the book of author Wallace Stegner. Their daughter quoted him in a letter. “As Mr. Stegner says, ‘Walk openly ... Love even the threat and the pain. Feel yourself fully alive, cast a bold shadow, accept, accept.’”

Exploring the World, Molecule by Molecule

Buck Taylor ’07 went from playing the clarinet to playing with molecules during his time at Willamette, starting out as a music major before changing to chemistry.

“I’ve always liked science, but in high school, I really got into instrumental music and I thought I wanted to be a high school music teacher,” he says. “After a year or so as a music major, I realized it was more of a hobby.

“I’ve always wondered how things work, and that’s really what science is about. Chemistry is basically a science that tries to describe how things work on a molecular level, which includes everything in the world.”

Taylor’s interest and his summer spent working with Assistant Chemistry Professor Sarah Kirk through Willamette’s Science Collaborative Research Program (SCRP) led him to examine ways to improve antibiotics. SCRP allows undergraduates to research collaboratively during the summer with natural sciences faculty. Taylor’s senior thesis research, “Synthesis of Novel Neomycin-Doxycycline Conjugates,” was so impressive, he was named one of 12 finalists last fall for the 2006 Frank and Sara McKnight Prize in Undergraduate Chemistry, given by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

More than 100 undergraduates from 85 colleges and universities applied for this new national chemistry prize, and Taylor’s name was alongside finalists from California Polytechnic State University, Brown University, Northwestern University and University of California, Berkeley. He presented his research in November at a biochemistry research retreat in Texas.

“I was amazed I was even there,” he says. “I’m from a small liberal arts school where research isn’t the emphasis. But even though it’s not a focus here, I’m really glad Willamette has the opportunities for students to do the research they want, like through the Science Collaborative Research Program.”

Taylor also received help in his research from a Willamette Presidential Scholarship, an award for seniors that provides one semester’s tuition and $2,500 for research expenses in the summer preceding a student’s senior year. Only two students receive this scholarship annually.

So what exactly is Taylor’s research project? It started when he worked with Kirk, whose research involves attaching small molecules to neomycin and studying their potential medicinal properties. Neomycin B is the primary ingredient in the topical medication Neosporin. Taylor came up with the idea of attaching a different antibiotic, doxycycline, to neomycin in hopes of creating a new, more effective antibiotic. The problem with neomycin is that it’s toxic if taken orally; doxycycline fights bacteria the same way as neomycin, but its weakness is that it’s an older antibiotic and many bacteria have become resistant to it.

Taylor hopes the new drug he creates can be ingested, like doxycycline, yet be more effective against drug-resistant bacteria, like neomycin. If the idea works, it could be used to create an array of new antibiotics by combining old ones. “We really need more internal antibiotics to fight bacteria,” he says. “Major health problems are generally internal, so that’s what we’re working to address.”

Taylor hopes to enter a chemistry PhD program this fall to get more research experience and broaden his exposure to other areas of chemistry. His ultimate goal: Become a college professor. He has practiced at Willamette by acting as a tutor and laboratory assistant in organic chemistry. “My experiences at Willamette have cultivated my love for teaching and research,” he says. “I want to dedicate my life to the pursuit of knowledge and passing along that knowledge to students. I love helping others to learn and, hopefully, to become as excited about science as I am.”

Art Bounded by History

Many of her paintings are dominated by muted grays, blues and browns — calm scenes of buildings and the endless skies above them. Often they show people bracing against their surroundings or carrying out their day’s work; many portray a mother and child huddling together, bringing a bit of color to an otherwise monochrome landscape.

This is the world of oil painter Hisako Hibi, and if many of the buildings in her paintings look the same, there’s a good reason — they are the surroundings she viewed every day for three-and-a-half years while she was confined to a Japanese internment camp in Utah.

The paintings are also the subject of Kimi Sato’s senior thesis. “We are reminded in Hibi’s artwork that there were barracks, a guardhouse and wire fences at the camp, but in the center of her paintings is usually a figure, often a mother and her daughter,” says Sato ’07. “I think she is essentially ignoring what’s around her and her situation and focusing on maternal love and her family connection.”

If you haven’t heard of Hisako Hibi, Sato would understand. The artist’s lack of fame is what led Sato to write her thesis about Hibi, who was one of at least 110,000 Japanese-Americans forced to relocate to American internment camps during World War II. Sato, an art history and psychology major, knew she wanted to dedicate her thesis to a Japanese-American artist, partly because of her own heritage as a fourth-generation Japanese-American who grew up in Hawaii.

But she didn’t settle on Hibi until a visit last summer to the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, a Japanese-American history museum in Portland that highlights immigration. Sato was a student leader for Ohana, a multicultural-focused part of the Jump Start orientation program for new Willamette students. During the program, her Jump Start group traveled to the Nikkei Center to prepare for a service project cleaning up a Japanese garden in Gresham, Ore.

“We toured the museum, and our guide showed us all these items the internees had made,” Sato says. “He showed us furniture they created, and told us how they would find scraps of wood to make beautiful chairs or tables.” Sato began to wonder if any artists had spent their time in these camps creating paintings or other artwork. When she asked the guide, he said there were a few and encouraged her research the topic.

Sato soon discovered Hibi, who came to the U.S. from Japan at age 13 and later attended what is now the San Francisco Art Institute, where she met her husband. During the war, the couple and their two young children were forced to live at a temporary relocation site in California before moving to the permanent Topaz Internment Camp in Utah in 1942. At Topaz, Hibi created multiple paintings and taught art classes to children.

After they finally were allowed to leave the camp, the Hibis moved to New York. Hibi’s husband died soon after. Her post-war paintings exhibit a sharp contrast in style to those she did in Utah, Sato says. “Her later paintings are more abstract. She’s adjusting to this new life that’s boundless.”

Hibi later wrote a memoir — indispensable to Sato’s research — and Sato also fell in love with the artist’s beautiful way with words. Hibi writes, “Forever moving, changing the forms of human-made society in the vastness of the universe, I seek something beautiful with line, color, and form in such a way, wishing to convey a message of peace. Art consoles the spirit, and it continues on in timeless time.”

Sato’s thesis will be among those on display April 14 to May 13 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art as part of the annual Senior Art Majors exhibition.

Discovering Hibi’s story has made Sato feel closer to her own family and heritage. Sato is particularly close to her grandparents, who often talk to her about Pearl Harbor and who continue celebrating Japanese traditions, although with a bit of Hawaiian influence. At Willamette, Sato performs with the Willamette Taiko Club, a traditional Japanese drumming group, and teaches hula dancing to students for the Hawaii Club’s annual campus luau. She dances kahiko, the ancient style of hula, because she loves sharing the stories embedded within each dance.

She also is eager to reach out to other cultures, whether it’s by tutoring Native American high school students at the local Chemawa Indian School or by spending a semester studying abroad in Thailand. After graduation, Sato will be off to serve in the Peace Corps in Central Asia, teaching English and health. “Learning about different cultures is important to me,” she says. “In order to overcome discrimination and stereotypes about gender or certain ethnicities, you have to actually learn about who and what they are talking about before making any assumptions.”

For now, Sato continues to pore over Hibi’s memoir and paintings. Her favorite is one called “Prayer,” which portrays a mother and daughter in a giant field facing the horizon, praying for relatives and friends fighting on the war’s front lines. Far in the background is a tiny red square — a sign the internees saw often, one that warned them not to come too close to the barbed-wire fence. One Topaz resident was shot and killed for walking too near it.

“The painting is eerie,” Sato says. “It’s a nice image, but then in the background you see they’re still in the camp. It’s typical of Hibi — she’s capturing a tender family moment, yet there’s still that reminder of where they are.”

Symmonds Sizzles in National Races

Once again, the spotlight is on recent chemistry graduate Nick Symmonds ’06, who won the national title in the 800 meters at the 2007 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships in February. “I come to these races really hungry,” he said.

Racing six weeks after getting his diploma last May, Symmonds captured national attention when he finished second in the 800 meters at the outdoor track and field championships. “It was a surreal feeling,” he said, “because I knew I’d made a name for myself. It’s crazy. A minute and 45 seconds of work.” He soon found himself with an agent and a Nike contract.

The Boise, Idaho, native had raced to victory earlier in the 800 meters at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games and in the mile run at the 2007 Washington Indoor Preview; there he broke the four-minute mark at 3:56.72.

Symmond’s recent victory was aired on ESPN2 and covered by The New York Times and the Boston Globe, and he claimed center stage on numerous websites, including USA Track and Field. Newspaper headlines say he “sizzles” and bloggers call him a “legend” and rave “Unbelievable,” “Nick is the best racer I have ever seen,” “He runs his own race.”

The website letsrun.com said “Track and field’s newest sensation, Nick Symmonds, continued to be red red hot. In his first indoor race ever, he ran a 3:56 mile all by himself. Today in his first race on a banked track, he captured the men’s 800 in 1:48.15. Symmonds is so raw and talented it’s unreal. We think we should devote a whole week of the website to just him.

“When asked if this was his first time on a banked track, Symmonds said it wasn’t. ‘No no, I got out here last night and was able to run some curves and come up with a game plan.’

“Are you serious? The kid is unreal.”

Symmonds is running — 70 miles a week — toward qualifying for the 2008 U.S. Olympic trials and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The 2008 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials will be held in Eugene, Ore., at the University of Oregon. The trials are the world’s largest national championship track meet and include more than 1,000 athletes who compete for the right to represent the United States at the Olympics. More than 350,000 people attended the last two trials.