May 2008 Stories

A Call to Teaching

Dan Dougherty graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, served in the Marines during the first Gulf War, and went on to run chemical plants that created plastics. Jamie Peters studied business at Willamette before moving to North Carolina and working in technology for Bank of America.

These two men have lived vastly different lives, but both recently found themselves in the same place: a Willamette classroom, studying to become teachers.

Dougherty MAT’08 and Peters ’96, MAT’08 both initially gravitated toward jobs that would pay well so they could live comfortably — an understandable goal. But they found themselves unhappy, wanting to spend more time with their families, and searching for a career that was more fulfilling. They enrolled last year in Willamette’s master of arts in teaching (MAT) program, and this spring they tested their newfound skills by working as student teachers in Salem classrooms — Peters at an elementary school and Dougherty at a high school.

“Maybe it sounds cliché, but I think about Willamette’s motto, Not unto ourselves alone are we born,” Peters says. “I have a desire to find some way to give back to a community that’s given so much to me. I enjoy the classroom setting. I have nothing but fond memories of my own time in school, and it’s nice to get back into a classroom.”

Older students with a wealth of life experience are more common in the MAT program than many might expect. Of the 117 students enrolled this past year, 36 were non-traditional. Many of these students tried a different career but decided teaching was their true calling, or they took time off to raise a family and wanted to get back into the working world.

Education is a good choice as they explore their future options. According to data from state employment security agencies, Oregon will average 1,176 K–12 teacher job openings annually until 2012. For Washington, that number is 2,677. Nationally, the U.S. Department of Labor says that job opportunities for teachers over the next decade are good, with many openings resulting from the need to replace the large number of teachers expected to retire.

But the positive job outlook isn’t what brings many of these students to the classroom, although it does help. Their reasons are much more personal. Peters majored in business economics at Willamette because he thought, “If I have a major with the word ‘business’ in the title, I am guaranteed a job.” And when he went to North Carolina after graduation, he was indeed guaranteed work in Bank of America’s corporate office. Eventually he and his wife, Maija (Osterholme) Peters ’98, MAT’99, had a son together and decided to move back to Oregon.

“I got into the corporate world looking for a living wage, but I just wasn’t enjoying what I was doing,” Peters says. “I wanted to do things that mattered to me, things that impacted the community.”

His wife already was a teacher, and Peters’ corporate job allowed him paid volunteer time, which he used to tutor students in a low-income school near his office. “They became my little buddies. Those two hours a week I spent volunteering became the hours that I looked forward to the most.”

Going from banking to running an elementary school classroom was quite a change. Peters’ former office didn’t have any color on the walls; now he’s building eye-catching bulletin boards for his students. “One of the things that really struck me about coming back from the corporate world was the overwhelming energy and enthusiasm from both my fellow students and the Willamette staff. You can’t help but get excited. These people really care about kids.”

Dougherty had similar revelations when he entered the MAT program. “I didn’t know what to expect,” he says. “I had been to a lot of academic institutions, and I’ve even taught at some military institutions. Willamette models very clearly what a teacher should be. They talk the talk and they walk the walk. The professors are passionate about producing effective teachers. They’re teaching students to be good teachers because they want to make the schools better.”

After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, Dougherty was an officer in the Marines for six years before going back to college for a master’s degree in engineering. Then he spent 12 years running chemical plants, a job that often kept him on the road and away from his wife and children.

“I originally went for the job that would pay me the most money,” he says. “I found out money didn’t make me happy. All the things I’ve done successfully in my life have involved teaching someone. I love seeing that light in someone’s eyes when they do something they thought they couldn’t do.”

Peters and Dougherty both appreciate the way Willamette’s program gives them so much hands-on time in the classroom. Students spend three weeks gaining practicum experience in a local classroom, followed by an entire semester as a student teacher.

“When you’re actually in front of the kids, it’s kind of a trial by fire,” Peters says. “It’s invaluable to go out there and actually try all the things we’ve been learning in the classroom.”

Philosophy 101 Leads to Unexpected Path

“Sometimes I get asked why I changed my major from biochemistry to philosophy,” says Jacob Swenson ’07, who recently received an American Graduate Fellowship. “But if you ask ‘Why’ long enough, even your organic chemistry professor will eventually point you to the philosophy department.”

After Swenson chanced upon Philosophy 101, “it was the beginning of the end” for his well-laid career plans. He had wanted to work as a physician. “I came to realize the power of medicine,” Swenson says of two stints in Senegal, West Africa, where volunteer activities included work in a rural medical clinic.

Swenson co-authored and published a paper in a professional science journal and orchestrated student visits to local schools with the Willamette Chemistry Club, demonstrating science experiments for children. “We hoped to ignite student interest through substantial — and exciting— chemical reactions,” he says.

But he was becoming increasingly consumed by philosophical questions, even lugging his well-thumbed philosophy books back to Senegal for his second visit. “It was kind of weird. Every night my Senegalese family and I would gather on the porch around the TV. While they watched soap operas, I read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.”

Back at Willamette, Swenson read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in the chemistry lab as the centrifuge spun and joined in late-night discussions with the Philosophy Club. And then led discussions. And then organized a film group that discussed the philosophical and theological themes of films. Classes in philosophy and reading groups in the park jostled with required science courses and lab schedules.

“Eventually, I realized I had a deeper passion for philosophy than for science. Philosophy was the best place for me to explore the questions that fascinated me,” he says.

“I can’t think of any better training for philosophy than science, with its tight structure and clarity. As a science student, I was concerned with understanding precisely how physical processes came about, but philosophy introduced me to an entirely disparate set of questions about the self, God and values. These questions, it seems to me, extend beyond the scope of empirical science. For example, we can’t think of God as located in time and space. If we did, we would be on a wild goose chase. Similarly, we cannot answer questions about what is good or beautiful through scientific experimentation. Just imagine trying to design a scientifically sound test to determine what one should do when faced with a particular ethical dilemma, like lying to protect a friend.
“Philosophy students are trained to think about the world in the broadest possible sense. Every discipline has its theory and ground rules. In a connected and rapidly changing world, it is important to sit back and analyze the wider picture. And you need to navigate between different fields and transcend traditional boundaries. Philosophy gives you those skills.”

Swenson is especially interested in exploring how our scientific and humanist vocabularies interact, and how they diverge. His American Graduate Fellowship from the Council of Independent Colleges — one of two in the nation awarded each year — will provide graduate support as he heads to the University of Chicago for a PhD program in philosophy.

Swenson set aside his goals of helping others through medicine, but found a different path. “Willamette is such a socially engaged place, and you feel a pull toward tangibly helping others,” he says. “But each person has something different to offer.”

He wants to teach philosophy in a small liberal arts college someday, where he hopes to foster the same attitude of inquisitiveness his professors encouraged in him. “I would like to engage students in a ‘life of the mind,’” he says, “to pass on the same opportunities I have received.”

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

Prof Organizes Benefit Concert for Earthquake Relief

Willamette trumpet Professor Jay Chen has been watching the images emerging from China and says, “I have never cried so much in my life.” He is a native of Chengdu, from the Sichuan Province of China, 50 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake.

The quake occurred in the middle of the day, so schools were the hardest hit, he says. “In just one school alone, more than a thousand children were buried. When they were uncovered, they were found wrapped in their teachers’ arms. There is a true humanity here. The response by the Chinese government is also unprecedented.”

Chen, who plays principal trumpet with the Portland Opera, organized a response almost overnight, inviting friends from the Columbia Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Portland Opera Orchestra, Oregon Ballet Theatre Orchestra and Portland Chamber Orchestra, along with professors from regional universities, to join him in a fundraiser June 1 in Portland.

Compelling slides of the disaster were accompanied by brass ensemble music, provided by French horn, trumpet and low brass musicians, and Chen spoke about the disaster in China and how it has affected people’s lives. All funds were directed to the American Red Cross for dispersal to earthquake victims.

Sponsors included the Portland Columbia Symphony, Willamette University and the Portland Opera Company.

www.statesmanjournal.com/NEWS

HOW TO HELP

If you would like to donate, you may send a check payable to the American Red Cross with “China earthquake” in the memo line. Send to:

American Red Cross
P.O. Box 4125
Portland, OR 97208-4125

Donate online.

The American Red Cross name is used with its permission, which in no way constitutes an endorsement, express or implied, of any product, service, company, individual or political position. For more information about the Red Cross, please call 1-800-HELP-NOW or email info @usa.redcross.org.

Student Continues Life of Travel Through Scholarship

About half of Willamette’s students study abroad sometime before they graduate, eager to learn language and culture by living in a country besides their own. Mika Lim ’11 was lucky enough to have this experience before coming to college, as the daughter of two parents who were adamant that their children explore the world.

She was born in Maryland, but her homes during the years have included Guam, Palau and, most recently, Taiwan.

“My parents thought it was important for us to be global citizens rather than just staying in a suburban town and only experiencing one lifestyle,” she says.

Having a global perspective is increasingly important in the business world, and it will give Lim an advantage in her latest adventure. Lim is one of two Willamette students recently selected for the national Kemper Scholar program. The scholarship from the James S. Kemper Foundation is for first-year students interested in business or management. It provides an annual scholarship for three years in addition to two paid summer internships — one at a nonprofit organization in Chicago after Lim’s sophomore year, the other in a location of her choice after her junior year.

Willamette is one of 15 small colleges that can nominate students to be Kemper Scholars, and this is the third consecutive year that the Kemper program has chosen two Willamette students for the honor — typically only one is picked from each campus. The other winner is Marco Fiallo ’11.

The opportunity is golden for Lim, who hopes to work for a nonprofit advocacy organization in the future. “Interning at a nonprofit is a great opportunity for me to be exposed to that environment and see if it’s what I want to do long term,” she says. “Because of my background, I’ve met so many different types of people, and I’m interested in the way different cultures can share with each other.”

The issues she is currently most passionate about are women’s rights and challenges facing the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community. She is a member of Angles, Willamette’s gay-straight alliance. It’s one of several activities she’s taken on during her first year at Willamette.

During the academic year, you can catch her weekly on the University’s online radio station, WU Wire, where she hosts a show called “Fierce Beats.” Punk rock, riot grrrl and hardcore are her music genres of choice — listen for bands like Sleater-Kinney, the New York Dolls and the Violent Femmes. (Look for the show schedule at www.willamette.edu/org/radio/ in the fall.)

She also has traveled to the Oregon coast for service projects with her fellow residents at Kaneko Commons, a residential community that incorporates multiple levels of programming into the living experience, including service. The students have worked at a camping area clearing trails, cleaning and building a sustainable garden.

Lim still isn’t sure about her major or her career path (she’s only a freshman, after all), but that’s another reason she’s excited about the Kemper program. “They have large variety of organizations where you can do your internships, which is nice because it caters to a lot of different interests.”

For more information on this scholarship and others, contact Monique Bourque in the Student Academic Grants and Awards office on the second floor of Putnam University Center, or visit www.willamette.edu/dept/saga.

Chasing the ‘Wild Collective Song’ Across the Globe

Jennifer McKenzie ’08 will spend the next year meeting women on four continents, courtesy of the prestigious and unconventional Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Each year, 50 students receive the fellowship for a wanderjahr anywhere in the world. One of the only stipulations: Recipients can’t step back over the U.S. border for 12 months.

McKenzie’s project will take her to Mexico, India, Spain and South Africa, where she will work with theater companies and community and college groups who are producing The Vagina Monologues and explore the ways individual cultures have adapted the play to speak to universal women’s issues. She’ll document interviews — in Spanish and English — with performers and audience members, using film and still photography. The play, based on interviews with more than 200 women, has been shown in 80 countries and translated into more than 45 languages. It has also raised more than $50 million to support women and girls who have survived sexual violence.

Women’s issues are nothing new to McKenzie, who volunteers on an almost full-time basis with campus groups such as S.H.E. (Strength, Health, Equality). The student organization coordinates numerous campus events that promote empowerment and gender equality, such as International Women’s Day, Take Back the Night, Love Your Body Days, the Sexual Assault Forum, Breast Play and The Vagina Monologues. McKenzie also co-founded a hotline, S.A.R.A. (Sexual Aggression Response Allies), which trains campus peers to listen, support and educate survivors and their families about local and state resources.

“Events like the annual Take Back the Night open mic, where survivors are invited to tell their stories, teach me the deep power in breaking silence,” McKenzie says. “In the last three years as I watched friends bravely speak their hearts, I realized how personal change is possible and how perspectives can be broadened. These programs open the minds of those listening, and healing becomes possible.”

McKenzie shares part of a personal statement below:

When I produced The Vagina Monologues my second year in college, I gained perspective on the audience members’ experience. I watched their apprehension dissolve into laughter and at times, tears. This hour and a half changed lives, and not just those of the cast. I had so many people thank me and tell me how the play had touched their lives, and every one of them identified with a different issue. The Vagina Monologues touch upon the commonalities that unite people across cultures and generations, such as birth, sexuality and romantic love.

I have found my learning curve is strongest in new environments, and I have dreamed of what it would be like to see the process, performance and reaction to the play in vastly different cultures, countries and even languages. Is the same community fostered among international actresses and audiences? How do they personalize their experiences? What is the response to an undeniably radical performance in countries with different levels of equality or inequality between the sexes?

In our world violence against women is a fact, and one in three women will experience rape or sexual assault in their lifetime. How might communities react differently to a play that delves into these facts and explores some of the darkest and also the most brilliant aspects of our humanity and womanhood?

The Monologues playwright, Eve Ensler, describes how her interviews took on a life of their own, “A choral thing began to occur, a kind of wild collective song. Women echoed each other.” I want to hear this collective song. My anthropology and Spanish majors have taught me a great deal about cultural sensitivity, and I relish immersing myself in other cultures and languages. I am also an art studio minor, and look forward to documenting by film and photography the way the Monologues empowers women around the world.

For more information on this scholarship and others, contact Monique Bourque in the Student Academic Grants and Awards office on the second floor of Putnam University Center, or visit www.willamette.edu/dept/saga.

Math + Chemistry = Goldwater

Jeff Weber ’10 was raised to be a biologist. His biologist parents introduced him to microscopes at a young age, and dinner conversations revolved around family concerns like state health issues (his mom) and the restoration of Montana’s rivers (his dad).

His own foray into science took place at a lab in Montana, a state strewn with Superfund sites. Weber tested heavy metal concentrations in water, fish, soil and blood samples as a summer intern. When mines close down, he says, they leave diminished towns and sites laced with toxic heavy metals. “The mines are a huge issue.”

At Willamette, Weber’s instinctual love of math emerged, and he also found himself gravitating toward chemistry, rather than biology. “As far as my parents are concerned, I’ve committed a small act of treason,” he grins. “But I like math, and it has more practical applications to chemistry than biology.”

His act of treason has paid off — in a big way. Weber just received a prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, which supports math and science students who demonstrate outstanding potential. He is now a math/chemistry double major, hoping to find intersections between the two fields.

“Pure math is all theory,” Weber says. “I’m interested in applying abstract mathematics to analysis of chemical structures and to specific questions in science. It’s cool to know what will happen before it happens, and to explain processes with concepts that don’t have anything to do with our everyday lives. For example, mathematicians use imaginary numbers in a very abstract way — such numbers, after all, are called ‘imaginary’ — but it turns out that a lot of scientific applications need imaginary numbers to arrive at solutions.

“There’s kind of a stigma about pure abstract math, that it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone outside the field — kind of like philosophy — but the applications are what excite me the most, the places where it does mean something.”

Weber’s proposed research will look at the application of an algebraic method to theoretical chemistry and will allow for a degree of abstraction seldom seen in chemical calculations. In particular, it will examine electric dipole allowed electronic transitions.

Weber is also on the Willamette golf team (“Not many people know we have one!”) and the debate team. Debate appeals to him in an almost mathematical way. “I like the logic of arguments. If this, then that, and then that — kind of like math or chess. Debate is great training for politicians and lawyers and teachers, but I look at it more as a game.”

His strength in science makes Weber a formidable debate opponent when the topic is pharmaceutical drug oversight, global warming, environmental protection or alternative energy, including nuclear power. He reads The New York Times online every day to keep abreast of issues.

Weber landed a very competitive summer internship at UC–Davis, where he’ll do lab work with a professional research team. And then he’ll return to his studies at Willamette, to continue tracing the “this, then that” logic of pure math applied to chemistry.

For information on the Goldwater Scholarship and others, contact Monique Bourque in the Student Academic Grants and Awards office on the second floor of the University Center.

Alumna Earns Prestigious Research Fellowship

During her time as a biology major at Willamette, Jacquie Grace ’07 spent countless hours studying the behavior of Caspian Tern chicks in the Columbia River estuary. As a PhD candidate at Wake Forest University this spring, she still is investigating the behavioral development of young birds. But this time it’s the Nazca Booby she has in her sights and the exotic Galápagos Islands where she is conducting the research.

This spring, she also won something coveted by scientists everywhere: funding to help with her research. She received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which provides money annually for up to three years to students with extraordinary promise in the sciences, mathematics or engineering. Grace will receive about $40,500 this year. She is the seventh Willamette graduate to win this fellowship in the past four years.

Grace conducted her Caspian Tern research at Willamette under the guidance of Biology Associate Professor David Craig (read more about her undergraduate research.)

In graduate school, she has been investigating a strange behavior of the Nazca Booby, a bird that lives and breeds mainly in the Galápagos on the island Española. When non-breeding adults visit chicks whose parents have left them alone, the adults often display aggressive, sexual behaviors toward the young birds. Grace is studying the abusive behavior, which often causes the chicks to become more abusive when they grow up — similar to a “cycle of violence” in humans.

“For the past month and a half, I have been protecting chicks by placing an enclosure around their nest sites, and taking blood samples to detect any differences between protected and unprotected chicks,” she says.

Because she was away from her email during her time in Española, Grace didn’t even know she had received the NSF award until Craig, her former mentor, sent her a note with his congratulations. She is excited about what the opportunity could mean for her future work.

“The NSF fellowship will allow me to continue to spend long periods in the field,” she says. “Otherwise that would be very difficult since my financial support at Wake Forest is in the form of a teaching assistantship.”

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