This summer, I had the wonderful opportunity of traveling to Sri Lanka with ten scholars from the honors college. Although we each came from different academic backgrounds, we had all been chosen to be Malini Summer Fellows because of our passion and will to fight for educational opportunities and equal rights for women and girls. For twelve days, we toured Sri Lanka, learned about nonprofit and non-governmental organizations, and ran creative arts and reading workshops with about 150 children.
One day while riding on the bus, our mentor and CEO of the Malini Foundation, Valerie Handunge, spoke with us about her nonprofit and social entrepreneurship theory. In words more eloquent than these, she explained to us that running a few two day workshops in Sri Lanka wouldn’t change the world. I knew that what she said was true, and her honesty was refreshing.
Still, I remained confident that my time in Sri Lanka was well spent. Our creative arts and reading workshops, which were fun for the children and for the group of fellows, were also a key piece of the Malini Foundation’s participatory approach to social justice work. By reaching out to communities, Valerie builds relationships with communities and trust is established. Our creative arts and reading workshops were just one component of the community outreach approach. Though our time with these children represents only a drop in the bucket in terms of the time and effort that is necessary to affect change, we went into it knowing that our work was part of a larger plan. Eventually, the time will be right for these women, girls, and their communities to feel empowered themselves.
Unsurprisingly, empowerment was a buzzword on the trip. Upon reflection, I have come to the conclusion that empowerment ultimately comes from within, but that positive outside influences can be a key piece to realizing one’s own prowess. On my trip to Sri Lanka, I joined Valerie and her team of volunteers and interns on their mission to help Sri Lankan women and girls to unleash their potential. Through conversations with Valerie and the group of fellows, I began to assess my own sense of empowerment. I realized that being empowered is an active state. It requires honesty and self acceptance. My own empowerment requires effort and commitment to self growth and to continued flourishing.
This experience has shaped me in more ways than one. Not only do I feel more empowered, but I am also exploring new academic and career opportunities. Next semester, I will continue my work with the Malini Foundation as a senior program development intern. I take pride in this work because it directly facilitates the empowerment of the communities I met this summer. As a result of my efforts, I hope that I can learn and grow to be more empowered myself.
Study Abroad Liberal Arts: Jullia H in Amman, Jordan
I remember this was a particularly tough day in Jordan. It was one of the first times that I realized that Amman is a foreign city. And sometimes in foreign cities you get lost, you have to adjust to different accommodations and different schedules. After an unintended mid-day adventure around a new part of town, I found myself early to the gym. Because of Ramadan, hours for most businesses change. Really, hours for life change. For the most part during the day, everything is closed. Those who fast sleep later, stay up later, and prefer to not work while the sun is up. Usually businesses started to open around 4 or 5 to prepare for iftaar (breaking the Muslim’s Ramadan fast) and then closed for the iftaar (between 7 and 9 PM) and then stayed open until the early hours of the morning. This made grocery shopping, working out, and many other things inconvenient.
So, after getting lost and going to the completely wrong side of the city, I dejectedly took a cab to my gym. Unfortunately, my gym didn’t open until 4. It was about 3:30. I sat down on the sidewalk near my gym and a few shops and I opened up my books to do some homework. It was uncomfortable because it was about 100o, the sun was shining on my back, and I was wearing jeans. After a few minutes of staring at my Arabic homework, an older man, maybe in his 60s, walked up to me and told me to come sit with him. I politely declined, but he insisted that I get out of the heat. I followed him, secretly grateful for the opportunity to get out of the blistering Amman sun.
He led me over to his shop and pulled up a seat with him and two other young men. He asked me my name, what I was studying, and chatted with me for a while. As I did my homework, he explained to me that he fled Syria and came to Jordan when the major conflicts started a few years ago. I listened to him tell his story, his pain, and his hopes while the two younger men, whom I found out were the older man’s sons, translated words that I did not know.
They asked me questions about my life, as well. They wanted to know what New York was like (they think that there is nothing outside of the city), they wanted to know why I was studying Arabic, and they picked my brain about politics of the Middle East. I barely knew this man. I never even caught his name. Yet, he touched me profoundly. I listened to his struggle to get his family out of danger, his struggle to feed six mouths while working menial jobs, and his hope to one day return safely to Syria. I felt his pain and was simultaneously in awe of his hope of a bright future in dismal times.
It’s those interactions that remind me why I chose to go there. I am a representative for America. I want to break the stereotype that is prevalent in the Middle East that perpetuates this notion of American ignorance. If I can change the mind of one person, so that he no longer sees Americans as conceited and oblivious, then I have served a purpose. I think about all of the people at home and at school who have opened up their mind to this culture and have worked hard to understand and empathize, and they deserve to be acknowledged. By the Middle East acknowledging that Americans are working to bridge this cultural gap, then maybe they too will work to forge the bridge. Being in Amman was eye opening in terms of the cultural differences. However, it also gave me hope that somewhere we will find a connection between these two incredibly different societies to encourage love, compassion and peace.
English 414.001:Biographical Writing
ENGL 414.001, Biographical Wrtg taught by Toby Thompson on W from 6:30 p.m.- 9:30 p.m. in 322 Boucke.
Description: The course will be conducted as a writing workshop based on a study of the literary development of the New Biography and the New Journalism. Students will learn the careful application of fictional techniques to the writing of their own nonfiction through projects that will lead to full-length articles. Text will include Life Stories from the New Yorker, The Beholder’s Eye, Up in the Old Hotel, The art of Personal Essay and the Gay Talese Reader.
Engl 400.003, Lit & Society: Faith & Fiction
ENGL 402.003, Lit & Society: Faith & Fiction taught by Sandy Schwartz on MWF from 10:10 a.m.-11:00 a.m. in 109 Sackett.
Description: In this course we will consider works of modern fiction (and occasionally non-fiction) that involve issues of religious belief and observance. Most of the readings will be selected from the following modern Christian and Jewish writers (listed alphabetically): Georges Bernanos, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Shusaku Endo, Graham Greene, Soren Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis, François Mauriac, Flannery O’Connor, Cynthia Ozick, Walker Percy, Chaim Potok, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Along the way we will be discussing several theological issues that recur in these authors: the existence of God and God’s relationship to creation; the problem of suffering, evil, and death; the justification and survival of faith in modern secular society; the relationship between religion and violence, including the contemporary issue of religiously motivated violence; the conflict between personal conscience and Church/State authority; and the related conflict, especially significant in writers of fiction, between individual imagination and religious orthodoxy. As time permits, we will also look at the representation of religious issues in recent cinema.
CI 597G: Disruptive Technologies in Teaching and Learning
CI 597G (Disruptive Technologies in Teaching and Learning) Spring 2015 takes on higher education as a grand design problem from the perspective of human-centered design (HCD) grounded in social learning theory (including readings on communities of practice, distributed cognition, and conceptions of new literacies). We will engage in academically rigorous interrogation of practices in higher education to uncover emergent, disruptive, and subversive opportunities. To facilitate the process, we will disassemble and analyze existing notions-higher education as content providers, knowledge production/creation confined to an activity for the academic elite, and the research dissemination via academic publishers. We invite students from any discipline and value expertise from education, communication, information technology, philosophy, ecology, anthropology, engineering, but not limited to those fields. Further details will emerge on the course blog at: http://sites.psu.edu/disruptive.
Read Out: A Reading on Race & Resistance
Student Leaders Wanted!
The Office for Student Orientation and Transition Programs is looking for diverse, dedicated, enthusiastic, resourceful, and motivated undergraduate students to join its student staff. There are currently three positions available: Orientation Leader, Student Program Specialist, and Welcome Week Student Coordinator.
Applications are currently available. All application materials are due by 11:59pm on Thursday, November 20, 2014. Interested student should visit orientation.psu.edu/employment to learn more about the application and selection process.
General Education: A Survey & Focus Group
Would you like the opportunity to make your voice heard by many of the Deans, Doctors, and other highly respected faculty members of Penn State? There is currently an initiative in motion to change the way credits are distributed amongst a Penn State degree. Please take a moment to fill out this survey and contribute to the final presentation that will be given at a retreat in January to Penn State faculty.
http://smeal.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_e8z11Fsz8YlhwwZ
If you would like to become further involved with the discussion after taking the survey please sign up for a focus group time slot on the excel form below. There will obviously be pizza at each session, which will be a little under an hour long.
Thank you so much for your time. If you have any further questions or comments please don’t hesitate to email Spencer McCullough at: mccullough.spencer@gmail.com.
Election Day: November 4, 2014
The 2014 General Election will be held on Tuesday, November 4th 2014! Get out and cast your vote. Find out more information about where your polling place is, any rules and/or laws about voting, Do I need an ID? All of your questions can be answered here. All students who live on campus can vote in the HUB. All other students can find out your designated polling place at the link above. Make sure to cast your vote tomorrow on election day between 7am and 8pm.
Apply to be an MLK Day of Service Team Leader or Committee Captain!
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration holds its annual MLK Day of Service every year in January on Martin Luther King Day. MLK Day is normally a day that we as students take off from classes but we like to call it a “Day on” when we take time to give back to the Penn State and surrounding State College communities. If you enjoy service and would like to help facilitate a group of students while they participate in the annual MLK Day of Service then apply to one of the following positions:
MLK Day of Service Team Leader
Applications are due in 209 HUB on Wednesday, October 1st by 5pm!
The 2015 MLK Day of Service will be on January 19, 2015. For any questions or to find out more information visit mlk.psu.edu or email penn.state.mlk@gmail.com.