September 2007 Stories

Expanding World View: Student Wins Ambassadorial Scholarship

From interviewing Nicaraguan young people about the biggest problems in their community to tutoring elementary school students near the Willamette University campus, Lindsay Mumm ’08 has made service an integral part of her college experience — and she’s traveled far and wide to do it.

When she graduates in the spring, she’ll travel for yet another service opportunity. Mumm received a prestigious Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, a program of Rotary International that places young people as “goodwill ambassadors” in various countries. These ambassadors do service activities, immerse themselves in language study and participate in academic coursework.

Mumm will travel to Chile, where she plans to study at the University of Concepción, located south of Santiago.

“I want to be in a place where you can connect with a smaller community,” she says. “If I was in Santiago, a big city where everyone is running around all the time, I would just be another international student. It’s important for me to get to know the community I’m working in.”

Mumm, who is double majoring in Spanish and politics, hopes her future career will be in the area of international development, possibly working with a nonprofit organization. Working on immigrant advocacy in the U.S. also appeals to her.

Much of her exposure to underprivileged communities came through her participation in Take a Break, an alternative spring break program through which Willamette students travel to sites across the country for community service. Mumm worked on a Native American reservation in Nevada, did community improvement projects in Jonestown, Miss., and built houses and worked with schoolchildren in a Texas town near the Mexico border.

Her interest in Latin American culture was cultivated during the fall of her junior year when she studied abroad in Nicaragua. She initially considered going to Spain to hone her Spanish skills, but chose a Latin American country because she felt the area was crucial to future international development issues.

Through the School for International Training, Mumm participated in a program called Revolution, Transformation and Civil Society. “That really appealed to me because Nicaragua had a Socialist revolution in the ’70s and wars in the ’80s, and then had a successful Democratic transformation in the ’90s. They’re one of the few countries in the world that’s been able to do that.”

Mumm’s final project for the program examined youth development issues in the small town of Estelí, north of the country’s capital. She wanted to investigate the impact of a local youth network organization that addresses issues such as political participation, sexual health and community involvement. So she interviewed two different types of young people — those who were involved with the organization and those who weren’t.

She asked them two questions: what they thought were the biggest problems faced by their community and what they felt were their greatest influences in society. She found the contrast in their answers fascinating. “Those who were involved in youth organizations were much more elaborate in their views of the problems. They saw the problems as a means to a solution, whereas the youth who weren’t involved said, ‘Well, the politicians are corrupt and nothing’s going to change.’

“Those who were involved really saw everything as a process and saw potential for change. It was really enlightening to see the power of youth organizations in giving these people ways to get involved.”

For information on this scholarship and many others, contact the Student Academic Grants and Awards office on the second floor of Putnam University Center.

Welcoming a New Class

A median high school GPA of 3.76, 34 valedictorians and 6 salutatorians, a median SAT score of 1,230 and ACT composite score of 27, almost half in the top 10 percent of their class — these are the characteristics of Willamette University’s Class of 2011.

The 516 new undergraduates arriving on campus this fall come from 27 states and 16 countries, and 54 percent are women. Twelve percent are first-generation college students, and 21 percent are multicultural or international.

It’s easy to just focus on numbers, but who are these new students? Meet three of them.

Megan Horning
Megan Horning attended high school in Page, Ariz., on the northern border of the Navajo reservation, and 80 to 90 percent of her classmates were Navajo. So it seemed a little strange when she tried to join her school’s Navajo Language Club and found she was the only member.

She already had taken three years of Navajo language classes, and despite not being Navajo herself, she knew she had to revive the club. Soon she and her classmates were premiering Native-produced films in town, inviting Native artists to visit, hosting concerts by Native punk rock bands. Last summer — after months of raising money for the trip — she traveled with the club to Seattle to participate in a tribal canoe journey.

“It was important for us to continue the Navajo language,” she says. “The language and the culture are dying, and they’re being replaced by things that aren’t always good for people.”

During all this, Horning still found time to run cross country and track, and she excelled academically, becoming one of five valedictorians in her class. She earned Willamette’s prestigious Mark O. Hatfield Scholarship for Public Service, a full-tuition award that goes to only one freshman each year — someone with strong academic and leadership skills who is committed to public service.

Horning feels her work with the Navajo people in her community was the most worthwhile. “We wanted to show the kids that their culture is beautiful.”

Sol Cooperdock
When Sol Cooperdock graduated high school, he knew he eventually wanted to go to college, just not right away. “I feel like a lot of people just jump right into college,” he says. “I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to get myself dirty, do some hard work.”

So even though he had been accepted at Willamette, he asked if he could defer his admission for a year. He had some soul-searching to do, and for him that meant leaving his home in Concord, N.H., to join Americorps. He went to the Mojave Desert area of Nevada and spent a year working for the Nevada Conservation Corps.

Cooperdock planted trees, built trails and blocked off makeshift roads that drivers had used to cross the desert. But it wasn’t just manual labor — he also discovered important science lessons about the delicate ecosystem of the desert. “I can identify most desert plants now. I learned a lot — way more than I learned throughout high school.”

This fall he’s making the transition back to academia as he enters Willamette. “I definitely think I can do more if I get a degree. It will help me no matter what type of job I choose.”

Emily Terrell
For Emily Terrell, cooking isn’t just a survival tool, it’s a creative outlet. Since arriving on campus, she already has discovered Salem’s downtown farmers market and bought fresh tomatoes and basil there to make pasta sauce for her friends in Terra House residence hall.

Using organic gardening practices, buying produce directly from local farmers, cooking healthy fresh dinners, taking care of the land — these are all things Terrell learned in high school when she helped organize the Boise Urban Garden School, or BUGS for short.

It began when she was in eighth grade and a teacher convinced her to spend her summer helping BUGS get its start by turning an abandoned, weed-filled field behind a church into a beautiful garden. The program teaches youths ages 11 to 14 how to grow their own organic produce and turn it into healthy meals.

By the time she graduated high school, Terrell had written grant applications and solicited donations, served as secretary on the program’s board of directors, and mentored younger students in sustainable, healthy eating practices. These practices also are followed at Willamette by food service provider Bon Appétit — a major reason Terrell was drawn to the campus.

“It’s great to see how the young kids can start out learning these principles, teach them to their friends and family, and carry them on for the rest of their lives,” Terrell says.

Kiomars Qahir: Ambassador for Peace

War seems much different when you’re a child. It can be more of a game than a stark reality. You revel in successfully dodging bullets and play with the ones you find on the ground. When people’s homes are destroyed by rockets and they take refuge in your school, your biggest concern is how hard it is to concentrate because classes are held outdoors almost on top of one another.

These are some of the memories of Kiomars Qahir MBA’08, who came to Willamette’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management a year ago on a Fulbright Scholarship. When he was 12, his hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan, was constantly under attack during one of many phases of the country’s long-battled civil war.

Many of his memories are also somber. His family would spend nights in their third-floor apartment, then retreat to the basement of the building during the day to hide from rockets and bullets. He remembers the green zones and red zones — areas of the city deemed safe, areas where fighting was intense — and how they were often only a few blocks apart and constantly shifting. “There was so much bloodshed. Being a 12-year-old kid and living with it, I got used to it, and that’s how I made it. I think that makes it easier for me to talk about it.”

In 1992 Qahir’s family joined at least half a million people fleeing the city. They couldn’t just pack their things into a moving truck — they only could bring what they could carry in their hands. When the war reached the abandoned neighborhoods, militias often would loot what remained in the houses.

Qahir’s family relocated to Pakistan, where there were so many Afghans that they had their own schools so they could learn in their native language of Dari. But once Qahir reached college age, he couldn’t go to an Afghan-run university there because Afghan schools had been closed by a new force: The Taliban, a puritanical, extremist Islam movement that wanted Afghans to return to their own country.

Qahir did go back in 1998 to attend Kabul University and get his degree in journalism. “In a way it was safer because you didn’t see rockets and bullets,” he says. “But with the Taliban, you didn’t feel safe mentally. They were controlling everything, like your beard — you weren’t supposed to cut your beard. They put it all under the umbrella of religion, but none of what they imposed represented what the religion says. They took things to an extreme self-defined level.”

The Taliban Falls

When Qahir received his degree in spring 2001, he returned to Pakistan to work as a newsletter editor for a Danish non-profit organization. Several months later, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban attacked New York’s World Trade Center. Qahir’s memory of Sept. 11 is interestingly similar to the stories of many Americans: He came home to find his parents watching TV, flipping between CNN, BBC and Fox, shocked at the images of the towers burning.

One of the Afghan people’s greatest hobbies, Qahir says, is discussing politics. And that day, elders in Qahir’s neighborhood immediately gathered to have tea, watch TV reports, and talk about the attacks. When the Taliban claimed responsibility, Qahir says these Afghan men immediately predicted the fall of the Taliban regime. “We all thought 9/11 was so horrible. We were shocked by what happened. On the other hand, we also were tired of seeing people die. We’d already lost so many loved ones. We were tired of seeing blood. We knew that the Taliban and their allies did the most stupid thing, and that it would bring an end to their life. That’s exactly what happened. The Taliban forces were defeated by the Americans in coalition with the Afghan army.”

The next summer, Qahir relocated to Afghanistan for his job, and he returned to his home country for the first time after the Taliban fell. Qahir calls the Taliban regime “the darkest, darkest page of history for our country.” When he returned, everything had changed. “It was like another chapter,” he says. “Sunshine after the cloudy, dark days. It was more peaceful, and there were more opportunities. A lot of people repatriated back to Afghanistan.

“I see the U.S. troops more as peacekeepers there rather than being in a regular war,” he adds. “The law enforcement is not absolutely empowered. The U.S. makes sure things are safe, helps rebuild and gets people back on their feet.”

Life in America

Qahir decided he wanted to go back to school and get an MBA, and he wanted to do it in America, which had better and more plentiful programs. He applied for Afghanistan’s competitive Fulbright Scholarship Program, and after rigorous applications and interviews, he was one of only about 20 chosen to go to the U.S. After obtaining his MBA, he plans to return home to work in the Afghan government’s public administration sector, teaching others there the skills he learned while at Willamette.

Despite the initial Fulbright screening process, Qahir’s biggest challenge was being allowed to enter the U.S. He applied for a visa but had to wait two months for the U.S. government to finish his security clearance. Security checks increased sharply after Sept. 11 for international students wishing to study in the U.S. Qahir’s clearance took so long, he arrived two weeks late for last fall’s classes and spent the rest of the semester playing catch-up.

In the past five years, Atkinson has hosted Fulbright scholars from Bangladesh, Peru, Vietnam and Jordan — Qahir is the first from Afghanistan.

Qahir wasn’t sure how he would be received by Americans. When he had visited Europe, he encountered strong stereotypes — of people thinking all Afghan men wore turbans, acted aggressively, sported lots of facial hair, forced women to wear burkas. One woman told him he couldn’t possibly be a native Afghan because he lived and dressed like an ordinary Westerner.

But many of the Americans Qahir has met are “friendly and charming,” and he is happy to share his culture with them. That’s part of what being a Fulbright scholar is about. “We’re here to show Americans that we’re not all the same,” he says. “They’ve heard about the extremists, the terrorists, but we’re not all like that. There are people in Afghanistan just like the people you know from your hometown. I’m looking forward to being an ambassador for peace.”

Math Professors Put Their Stamp on Research

Ready for a math quiz? If that’s too intimidating, call it a critical thinking question. If you have a roll of 3-cent stamps and one of 7-cent stamps, what is the highest postage amount that is impossible to make with your stamps?

Obviously you could send a 3-cent letter. A 4- or 5-cent letter? Impossible. If you keep going — a 6-cent letter with two 3-cent stamps, and so on — you eventually discover that 11 cents is the largest amount that would be impossible (nevermind the miracle of how you might fit hundreds of stamps onto your tiny envelope).

Guess what? Typical of math, there’s an equation that could have given you this answer in a snap. Take the product of the two stamp amounts (3 x 7 = 21) and subtract their sum (3 + 7 = 10): 21 - 10 = 11.

Now add a third roll of different-valued stamps to your collection, and it gets more complicated. In fact, a simple equation to find the highest impossible postage amount does not exist — hence the Frobenius Problem, as it’s formally called. And it’s this problem that inspired the work of a mathematics team this summer at Willamette, led by assistant professors Colin Starr and Inga Johnson.

Johnson and Starr’s specific research question is too complex for an article in anything other than an academic mathematics journal (in fact, they’re publishing a paper on it soon in the Journal of Integer Sequences). But what’s more important in this case is that the professors are bending students’ minds in ways they may not be used to from math class — moving beyond problem-solving using equations puzzled out by other brilliant mathematicians, and instead conducting research to write their own theorems. “With research, you can’t just flip to the back of the book to get your answers. There is no book,” Starr says.

Since coming to Willamette several years ago, Johnson and Starr have made it their goal for their students to experience math research. Remember writing proofs in geometry class? You couldn’t just solve a problem, but you had to show how you solved it and why the formulas worked the way they did. Same goes for math research. You must prove that your proposed equation will work in every possible instance — not an easy task.

To share this type of thinking with their students, Johnson and Starr hosted a summer research program for a few years to study questions relating to the Frobenius Problem. “You don’t normally get to do research in the classroom as an undergraduate,” Johnson says. “So being at the forefront of research is pretty exciting for students.”

Then last spring, their project got bigger. Much bigger. They applied for a three-year, half-million-dollar National Science Foundation grant and got it — on their first try. “We thought we would be turned down because that’s what’s supposed to happen,” Starr says. “We were thrilled,” Johnson adds.

With the grant, they created the Willamette Valley Consortium for Mathematics Research, which includes Willamette, Linfield College, the University of Portland and Lewis & Clark College. This summer, teams of four undergraduate students, one high school or community college teacher and two faculty mentors met for eight weeks on each of the campuses to wrestle with various mathematical questions. Those convening at Willamette worked with the Frobenius Problem.

But before the teams could even start working, they had to understand what it means to be a researcher. “It’s worse than just not being able to go to the book for the answers,” Starr says. “You can’t even go to the book for the question.”

Starr and Johnson approach math with humor and a sense of ease that could make almost anyone comfortable hearing their theories. They encouraged this math-phobic writer to take one of their Contemporary Mathematics classes — “You’ll be surprised what you’ll learn,” Starr says. In fact, they urge everyone who says they’re “bad at math” — a commonly uttered phrase — to re-think the statement.

Math suffers from a negative stereotype that both professors are fighting madly to change. “It’s not acceptable for people to say ‘I can’t read or write,’ but many in our society think it’s OK to be bad at math,” Johnson says. “Math is fun and cool, and those who don’t study it are missing out on learning about a beautiful and dynamic subject.”

Compassion 101

For the last two years, students with Willamette’s Take a Break program restored homes in Louisiana during Christmas break. So moved by the plight of the people she met there, Lindsey Mizell ‘08 returned to New Orleans for a year of volunteer service. She took $1,500 for a trip that was largely unplanned, slept on floors and commuted by bike, and managed to keep “finely afloat” due to the generosity of friends and strangers. Below are abridged excerpts of emails she sent home.

Subject: changes
Sept. 27, 2006

I immediately noticed changes since my first visit to New Orleans. McDonald’s arches are mostly straight now, the thousands of drowned cars beneath the interstates have been removed. The barge that went through the 9th Ward’s levee is gone. The pervasive silence of the neighborhoods is interrupted by the occasional chirping bird.

In January, my group could find the street we worked on by turning right before the overturned boat in the middle of the boulevard — that is gone now too. The Saints are back in the Superdome; the tamale vendor is on his corner.

But many things are as they were. The X’s that marked each house have not washed away — the top quadrant containing the date the house was searched; the left quadrant, the initials of the search team; the right, the hazardous waste within the house; the bottom, the number of bodies.
Numerous square miles of neighborhoods lie vacant, rotting, wondering if and when life will once again return.

Subject: the one thing
Oct. 8, 2006

... As a lone volunteer, I stayed in the church by myself over the weekend and woke up Sunday morning to the sounds of church activity. I sat in a back pew and an elderly woman sat down beside me. She asked what I was doing in New Orleans. When I told her she cried. At the end of the service she placed $25 in my hand.

Subject: saints
Nov. 12, 2006

The pastor asked that we pray for the Saints today. No, not the canonized of heaven. The football team. The New Orleans Saints may never have had a winning record in their history, but as of this morning they are 6-2.

Last year their home, the Superdome, became a symbol of social inequity and political ineptitude. Parts of the roof blew off during the storm, drenching those unable or unwilling to evacuate the city and exacerbating their plight of insufficient food, water, medicine, privacy, safety and bathroom facilities.

Millions were spent to rebirth the Dome, and Sept. 25, the day before I arrived, the Saints retook the field. A season-opening win. There was partying in the streets and every Sunday since, the city has turned black and gold. I haven’t missed a game because it’s not just a sport this year. In a city where closed businesses, destroyed homes and displaced citizens are the norm, this space-ship-looking cement mass in the heart of the city is a source of hope. It’s back. It is functioning as it was intended. And that team, always rooted for but not always achieving (locally nicknamed “the Aints”), is succeeding. So could a sports team really help mend shattered infrastructure and spirits? A friend today reminded me of a World Cup berth that halted a civil war. So what’s possible? I don’t know, but I think this year the team’s name is appropriate in more ways than one.

Subject: water
Dec. 1, 2006

Destruction, hardship, despair. It fills me up like drops of water. The grief. I lie on my bed this evening staring at the wall listening to my new Cajun CD, the drops threatening to flood out of me, but they wouldn’t. I decided to call a friend. No answer. But suddenly the phone rang.

“How ya’ doin’, Lindsey? I was just thinkin’ of you.” I was shocked when I realized who it was: a homeowner whose house I had worked on weeks ago. She had never called me before. I thought maybe she needed something, but instead she said, “I just wanted to see how you were doing and what you were up to on a Friday night.” I didn’t say that I am staring at a wall right now extremely overwhelmed. There is so much pain everywhere and sometimes it is unbearable and all I want to do is cry but I can’t. That’s not what I said. Instead, I said that I was chillin’ out, and asked about her kids and the FEMA trailer, and told her I’d be coming with another group next week.

She said she didn’t want to use up all my minutes but that if I ever just wanted to talk I could call her anytime. We hung up and my emotions burst out of me. Finally.

It seemed appropriate that in New Orleans — a place destroyed by flood — sorrow and grief are likewise expressed by water.

Subject: biloxi
Dec. 4, 2006

Saturday Donna took me to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and she gasped when we hit the water-front. “There used to be casinos,” she said, “packed in so tightly you could barely see the sand.” Not a single casino remained on that eerily calm sea. I scanned the left side of the road and realized there should have been houses in the clearings between the trees. Only slabs remained. The sea was hungry, I thought.

Donna pondered aloud. “Maybe they are lucky,” she said. No moldy memories to scavenge through. No tough questions: Do I bulldoze? Do I salvage and rebuild? Do I sell? No city officials threatening to take your house if you don’t gut it quick. Their slate was completely cleaned.

In my head I immediately disagreed with her. Surely it would be better to have one water-warped photograph of your past than none. Surely it would be better to choose how you answer those tough questions than to have them decided for you. But I don’t know. I didn’t lose a house in the storm. Donna did.

Subject: numbers
May 30, 2007

I’ve spent 8 months and 5 days in New Orleans. I’ve worked on 54 houses with 5 different organizations. I have lived in 9 different locations, and have moved between them 26 times.

I came to New Orleans with 1,500 dollars and have gained zero income; but the generosity of others has kept me finely afloat. I was given 1 bike my second week in town, 3 friends allowed me to stay in their homes, 27 different people — some perfect strangers, others I’d known for mere days — gave me $889 cash and $450 in gift cards.

I’ve read 18 books. I have written 53 mass emails, and I’ve seen 1 Saints’ game live.

Subject: finale
June 2, 2007

The sun was orange and burning. It peaked over houses yesterday morning on my last bike ride to Habitat for Humanity. I passed through many neighborhoods. Often I was the only life on the street; many areas still lie deserted.

Progress. Though I’ve seen plenty of progress since I arrived in September the needs for New Orleans remain immense. The majority of homes are still gutted and lifeless studs. Many schools remain shut down; neighborhood businesses are still boarded up. “Don’t forget me,” I feel like New Orleans is shouting to the world.

Please hear her.

My time in New Orleans ends today. My plane heading west leaves in five hours. Thank you. Thank you to all of you who have supported and encouraged me along the journey. Thank you for reading — the stories would have tormented me had I not shared them.

Goodbye. This is my last. Thank you. Thank you.

Mizell’s emails have been compiled into a booklet, available online. Proceeds will be donated to the New Orleans relief organizations where Mizell volunteered.