Vrindavan lies on the banks of Northern India’s Yamuna River, not far from the site of the Taj Mahal. Believed to be the city where Lord Krishna grew up, Vrindavan is one of the most sacred sites for Hindus, featuring hundreds of temples devoted to Krishna’s worship.

The holy city is also the site of overwhelming poverty and powerlessness for its most vulnerable residents: widows. Known as the City of Widows, Vrindavan has a total population of 57,000, of whom an estimated 15,000 are widows.

“Destitute widows pour into the town, either in observance of centuries-old religious and societal prescriptions or because their families, unwilling or unable to support them, have abandoned them here,” Walter said. “Fewer than one third of the residents have regular work; of those who do, many make less than a dollar a day. The high volume of tourists and pilgrims visiting the town creates a perception of economic opportunity, but a privileged few have already laid claim to the market for visitors’ goods and services, leaving no room for newcomers to secure living incomes.”

Click to view photos Walter took in India

Walter’s project will target Vrindavan’s widows and female immigrants as well as other members of the community who have no viable means of supporting themselves.

“My project is called Vrindaban ka Gaurav, or, Glory of Vrindavan (VKG),” Walter said. “It involves the creation of an artisans’ collective for the production and marketing of poshak, a needlepoint handicraft traditionally made by women in the Vrindavan area. My goals are to help create livelihoods for local people and to create a community surrounding this project in which skills can be developed and ideas can be shared.”

Walter’s work will be supported by a $10,000 grant from philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis’s 100 Projects for Peace initiative, as well as an additional $2,500 from Lewis & Clark. Capitalizing on connections she made with many organizations and nonprofits during previous trips to India, Walter will partner with groups that are already established in the Vrindavan area, such as Friends of Vrindavan and Food for Life Vrindavan. Such collaboration will not only allow her to launch VKG quickly, but will also ensure its continued existence after her visit.

“All of my lodging is being provided for free by people I know in the area, so nearly all grant funding will go toward the project: coordinator and trainers’ wages, training sessions, packaging supplies and initial poshak materials,” Walter said. “It is my hope that this solid foundation for VKG will enable the collective to cover its own operating expenses and employee wages within the first year.”

Walter also recently won a Fulbright Research Grant to study the salience of religious and economic themes in advocating environmental stewardship in Vrindavan.

“It’s clear that Vrindavan has myriad problems, including deforestation, over-development, water security issues, and unemployment,” Walter said. “I know my project won’t be able to help everyone, but I hope VKG can facilitate greater security for those most egregiously affected by these circumstances. Giving widows and poor housewives a source of income will lead to the stability and dignity needed to create an overall environment of peace.”

This slideshow features images Walter took during her travels in India. These photos appear in an exhibition at Pappacino’s coffee shop on Terwilliger through the end of May.  

As Lewis & Clark students enter the workforce, their focus on seeking global understanding and creating new knowledge aligns them with industries’ needs, especially in this time of economic turmoil.

“This is not a time to be fearful,” said Minda Heyman, director of the Center for Career and Community Engagement. “You can’t do anything from a position of fear. Instead, our office is working to empower students by encouraging them to get involved in the job-search process early and helping them tell their own stories. When students know who they are and what they have to offer to a company or organization, they’re able to take charge of their job search.”

For Lewis & Clark students, telling one’s story means articulating the connections between myriad experiences that extend far beyond the classroom, including overseas trips, internships, volunteer experiences, leadership positions, and extracurricular activities.

“Our students are tremendously talented and they are taking part in all sorts of different experiences that can help set them apart from other applicants during their job search,” Heyman said. “We’re here to help students synthesize those experiences with what they’re learning in the classroom in order to determine their path and purpose.”

The advantage of a liberal arts education and cohesive, diverse alumni community

Throughout a student’s time at Lewis & Clark, the Center for Career and Community Engagement (referred to on campus as 3CE) encourages students to make a sustained investment to the job search process. 3CE also focuses on helping students to find engagement opportunities and prepare for transitions to graduate school and the professional world by offering resources such as one-on-one meetings, resume and cover letter assistance, mock interviews, and job fairs.

This spring, 3CE also hosted a special guest lecturer on campus to help students understand how the job market has shifted and what skills are most important to businesses in the current economy. Phil Gardner, an expert in college labor markets, spoke to students, faculty, and administrators about the harsh realities of the current market.

Despite the current economy, he said, companies are hiring liberal arts students because their skills and experiences uniquely qualify them to enter jobs and immediately make an impact on business. As Gardner’s research has shown, entry-level positions have evolved in the wake of a boom in internships and now require new employees to engage in continuous learning, integrate global perspectives, and create new solutions.

At Lewis & Clark, students are continually challenged both in and out of the classroom to develop such attributes and perspectives, which is particularly relevant given the present level of competition in the professional world.

Both Heyman and Gardner stress the importance of networking as students embark on their job search. The interpersonal connections students make through their workstudy jobs, internships, study abroad trips, and other experiences, form the basis of students’ professional networks.

“Building relationships is becoming increasingly significant,” Heyman said. “A job search is not simply submitting an application anymore. It’s a communication process.”

Careers for Pioneers, a biannual networking event collaboratively organized by 3CE, Alumni and Parent Programs, and the Board of Alumni, capitalizes on the natural affinity that exists between students and alumni. Heyman hopes to continue to increase collaboration with alumni, citing the significance of such opportunities for current students.

“The alumni’s willingness to help current students build the relationships and internship opportunities that will expedite their transition into careers is so important,” Heyman said.

The Lewis & Clark alumni network is a diverse community, representing many different sectors in the job market and geographic locations around the world.

Finding value in thinking of the path, not the destination

The paths Lewis & Clark students take after graduation are comprised of many different stepping stones, Heyman said, which underscores a central mission of liberal arts education: to create life-long learners whose insatiable curiosity and adaptability makes them invaluable to countless industries. Particularly this year, graduates likely will not go directly into their careers.

Examples abound of students tapping opportunities in both influential and diverse settings around the world. Isaac Holeman ’09, will spend the next year working for an organization he co-founded in Malawi, using technology to increase access to health care. Ben Brysacz ’09 will head to Washington D.C. after graduation for an internship with the Public Service Academy, on his way to law school. For Katie Walter ’09, the next step after graduation will be Northern India, where she will conduct research to assess the salience of religious and economic themes in advocating environmental stewardship. In each case, students’ liberal arts experience at Lewis & Clark has prepared them for serious, substantial work, paving the way for careers as innovative leaders and engaged citizens of the world.

“The question we pose to graduates shouldn’t be ‘What are you going to do for the rest of your life?’ but ‘What will you do for the next year or two?’ By shifting that question, it puts the emphasis on one’s ability to grow and learn and know oneself,” Heyman said.

The initial steps Lewis & Clark students take after graduation often include service work in organizations like AmeriCorps, Teach for America, and Peace Corps. Nationwide, applications to public service programs have ballooned in recent years, with a spike this year, due to both President Obama’s call to action and the recession. With an alumni participation rate among the top in the nation, Lewis & Clark consistently prepares individuals for positions in public service.

“It’s in the DNA here,” Heyman said. “Lewis & Clark students want to make a difference and want to help solve the problems they see in the world. For some, that means joining Teach for America, for others, it’s Peace Corps or another position in the public interest.

“No matter which route our students choose after graduation, our role is to prepare them to digest these diverse experiences and understand how the experiences and their outcomes shape who they are bring them closer to finding their calling.”

A biochemistry and molecular biology major, Holeman has earned numerous academic honors in his time at Lewis & Clark, including membership in the prestigious Pamplin Society of Fellows as well as being named a Rogers Scholar. Most recently, Holeman received a fellowship from the Compton Foundation’s Mentor Fellowship Program, which promotes the creativity, commitment, and service of ten graduating seniors across the country with the funding to implement a self-directed project.

Holeman hopes his project will aid communities with little infrastructure, where the transmission of basic yet life-saving information still depends on health workers walking up to 100 miles. By integrating a free program that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub and an electronic medical record system, the FrontlineSMS:Medic team will help to link workers in the field with health centers and hospitals.

“Isaac’s project is extremely innovative and will help launch him on what we all know will be an extraordinary career in public health,” said Professor of Economics Eban Goodstein.

As commencement nears, Holeman talks about how he has prepared for this work and shares his hopes for the project and the future.

Can you explain a bit about FrontlineSMS:Medic and what you’ll be doing for the organization?

A few months ago, I began working on a project using cell phones to empower community health workers in poor rural areas, mostly in East Africa. My initial vision was to give cell phones to health workers so that they could send text messages to doctors, and also write a program that would enable them to access electronic medical records with their phones. Since I started out, the project has grown a lot; I’ve teamed up with other students here at Lewis & Clark, as well as the undergraduate and medical schools at Stanford, and we decided to launch under the name FrontlineSMS:Medic. We’ve lined up some really great clinical partners, so we’ll be setting up this technology with at least 15 global health organizations across several continents in the next year. I’ll spend most of the year based out of Malawi, working with several health centers there, as well as directing implementation across the globe via e-mail and Skype.

How have your classes or extracurricular experiences at Lewis & Clark prepared you for this work?

I’m a biochemistry and molecular biology major. If I had not been a part of this rigorous, very challenging major, I just don’t think I would have the confidence to do what I’m doing right now. I have had some incredible experiences working with technology with friends here on campus, as well as with the vibrant open-source tech community in Portland. I used to think my fascination with technology was just a hobby. It was only recently that I discovered the field of global health informatics and realized that I could design a career that would bring together technology, information, and global health. Finally, studying abroad in Havana, The Netherlands, and Guatemala were all important experiences that prepared me to begin planning FrontlineSMS:Medic.

What other international experiences have you participated in, and what impact have those experiences had on you?

Choosing to study in The Netherlands between high school and college was probably the best decision I’ve ever made. When I finished high school, I was relatively egocentric and narrow minded, and, frankly, that lifestyle was not making me very happy. While abroad in Holland, I ended up selecting Lewis & Clark for it’s global and political ethos, and I’ve been thinking more and more about global citizenship since then. After my sophomore year, I spent about two months in Guatemala, learning Spanish and participating in a human rights delegation that taught me a lot about the practice of human rights (which is worlds away from the philosophy or scholarship of human rights). Just a few weeks after returning to The States, I left again for Havana, Cuba, with about 25 other LC students and a professor of sociology. I spent most of the semester conducting an ethnography at a walk-in clinic in downtown Havana. It was my first extensive qualitative research project, and a fascinating peek at a health system that is very different from our own.

You’ve been an advocate for health care reform in this country by working with the Archimedes Movement. You were also a vocal supporter of the Obama campaign. What changes do you hope to see in the sector in the next few years?

My freshman year at Lewis & Clark I started working with the Archimedes Movement and learning from visionary leaders like Liz Baxter and former Governor John Kitzhaber. For about four years, we’ve been trying to inject one big idea into the health care debate: the way we finance health care is distinct from the way we deliver it. Changing the financing mechanism alone will not get us out of this mess. Changing the structure of our delivery system will not be easy—one in 11 jobs in our economy is related to health care, and it’s not surprising that hard-working people want to keep their jobs. If we want to make our country viable again, patients and providers will need to commit to being citizens first and stake-holders second. This idea is not mainstream yet, but it’s increasingly common in policy circles, and I fervently hope that President Obama will make it a pillar of our health reform agenda.

Given the growing need for human services and funding challenges, how do you hope to make a difference?

I’m carving out a path in global health informatics, and I’d like to spend my career cultivating entrepreneurial educational systems that address real problems rather than just training people to get high paying jobs. For the next year, my work with FrontlineSMS:Medic will be supported by a Compton Mentor Fellowship, and subsequently I’ll attend medical school. I will definitely continue to engage in the political process, but I’m probably too unconventional in my political philosophies to run for elected office under either of the dominant political parties in the U.S. I can imagine working with the World Health Organization, but who knows? For now, I’m content working hard and listening intently for the coy knock of opportunity.

Click to view photographs

In March, senior Brendan Larsen and senior Alec Kerins spent their spring break fusing these types of Lewis & Clark experiences. Larsen and Kerins brought lab research and global engagement together in Puerto Plata, a region in the Dominican Republic. Along with Assistant Professor of Biology Greta Binford, Larsen and Kerins gathered spiders and worked with children at the Laguna Salada Orphanage. There, they enlisted the help of the children to look for spiders while talking with them about scientific research. The goal was to help the children see education, and science in particular, as a part of their future.

With the help of a SAAB grant, Larsen was able to afford this opportunity. In the following photo slideshow, Larsen documents the trip and explains the group’s work.

“While in the Dominican Republic Alec and I got a chance to participate in actual fieldwork with Greta and learn so many new things,” Larsen said. “How many undergraduates get a paid trip to go to the Dominican Republic over spring break to collect toxic spiders with their professor? It was a beautiful experience.”

Learn more about Binford’s research online, including a New Yorker profile, NPR interview, and video of Binford extracting spider venom.

Bringing unique international perspectives into the classroom, student groups, and the larger campus community, TCKs and Global Nomads expand and energize the college’s global awareness.

To document their experiences and share their views of the world, junior Andrea Liamzon and first-year student Remy Neymarc have harnessed their passion for photography to stunning results.

Remy Neymarc

Neymarc, who was born in Chicago and grew up outside of Paris, shares his story and some of his favorite images in the following video slideshow.

Andrea Liamzon

Born in Manila, Philippines, Liamzon has visited 22 countries. In the following slideshow, she shares the journey that brought her to Lewis & Clark and offers some the most memorable photos she’s taken along the way.
Click to view photographs

Hosted by International Students of Lewis and Clark (ISLC), the International Fair is a day-long event, featuring food, cultural displays, activities, and performances representing cultures from around the world.

“We’re trying to engage the larger LC community, as well as the neighborhood, alumni and parents in this festival,” said organizer Shelley Zhao, a senior mathematics and physics double major. “It’s a great way to celebrate the diversity and cultures of students from different regions.”

With more than 100 student volunteers and participants, this year’s event, titled “Spices of the World,” will take place on Saturday, March 7 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

In this podcast interview, Zhao and co-chair Sara Eichelberger, a senior International Affairs major, share their hopes for this year’s event.

“I think SAAB reflects the level of curiosity at Lewis & Clark,” said senior Ben Brysacz, SAAB chair. “It shows students’ willingness and enthusiasm for helping out other students.”

In this video, Brysacz and two student participants, seniors Katie Walter and Luke Wheeler, discuss the program. This fall, Walter received a SAAB grant to host journalists from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting at a campus event in November. Wheeler’s SAAB grant allowed him to travel to China last summer to study the rise of student nationalism ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Watch the video to learn more about SAAB and to hear the students share their thoughts about what it offers to the community.

Learn more about SAAB online.

The students, Casey Nelson CAS ’08, James Cotton CAS ‘08 and sophomores Betto van Waarden and Claire Battaglia, are hard at work, improving the Criamar facilities and establishing community programs with help from UNICEF. As they help Criamar residents counteract the effects of neglect and abuse and become peaceful contributors to society, they will share stories and photos on their blog Cultivating Peace.

In this most recent dispatch, Cotton describes the arduous process of renovating the Criamar playground. The former site of an open sewer trench, crumbling concrete, and generally unsafe conditions, the playground has undergone substantial changes at the persistent hands of the peace group.

Read about their progress and see pictures on their blog.

Click to view photographs

Traveling to Egypt in March, eight Lewis & Clark students participated in an immersion course at MU, created by Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology Teresa McDowell and MU faculty. The course, which was designed to focus on cross-cultural understanding and enhance cultural competence, brought together Lewis & Clark and MU students for a series of intensive learning experiences in and out of the classroom.

“There was an important emphasis on clarifying and attempting to correct common misconceptions of the Middle East and of the United States,” said McDowell, the coordinator of the Marriage, Couple and Family Therapy (MCFT) program. “The Menoufiya University faculty’s plan of integrating formal lectures with field experiences and informal learning opportunities offered all of us excellent learning opportunities.”

The group from Lewis & Clark worked closely with 10 MU students, studying topics such as the status of women in Egypt, the rights of Muslim women, domestic violence in rural and urban Egypt, and cross-cultural misconceptions. More than 100 MU students also participated in various lectures.

Click the image to learn more about the trip and to view a collection of photos taken in Egypt.

Teresa McDowell, associate professor of counseling psychology and coordinator of the MCFT program, arranged the international collaboration with the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work. Sebastian Perumbilly, doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut, co-led the experience. In addition to their time spent in classes, Lewis & Clark graduate students visited a treatment center, court, a rural fishing village, several schools, and numerous women’s NGOs.

Click to view photographs“The faculty at Nirmala Niketan arranged a rich and extensive learning experience for visiting students by integrating formal lectures with field experiences,” said McDowell. “Students were able to develop conceptual frameworks during lectures and then apply what they were learning to understanding the experience of single women living in poverty, women’s micro-economic groups, schools, and so on. All U.S. participants were very pleased with the program which consistently exceeded our expectations.”

Click the image to learn more about the trip and to view a collection of photos taken in India.