Published in the September issue of Next Step Magazine : http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlepage1.aspx?artId=3428&categoryId=59
Do you often wonder how your schoolwork relates to the real world? Or perhaps you have trouble remembering names and dates for history tests but write amazing essays on the lessons of history.
If this sounds like you, then you may be interested in one of the innovative colleges that offer an alternative to the traditional college experience.
Student-designed curriculum
Some students take comfort in the familiar academic structure of grades, exams and course requirements. However, there are some students who thrive much better in a self-directed learning environment with the freedom to decide their own courses of study.
At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., students enroll not in individual courses, but in interdisciplinary programs, such as “Health and Human Development,” “Writing for Change” or “Music, Math and Motion.” Each program explores a theme or question from a variety of angles.
Like their peers at Evergreen, students at Bennington College in rural Vermont design their own interdisciplinary courses and receive detailed written evaluations rather than grades. The interdisciplinary format allows students to learn about a subject in depth, discovering the connections between different themes or ideas.
At St. John’s College, a small, rigorous college with campuses in Maryland and New Mexico, there are no textbooks or lectures. Instead, students read great works of literature, study mathematics and learn to write classical music. At the end of each semester, rather than receiving a grade, students meet with instructors for a no-holds-barred evaluation.
Evaluations are “much more informative than letter grades,” says Evergreen alum Andy Cornell. “But lackluster work will be much more glaring if you aren’t on your game.”
Real-world experience
Many of these schools strive to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world. Eugene Lang, part of the New School for Social Research, is located in the heart of New York City and offers opportunities to intern at the U.N. Relief Work Agency, teach kids to read in Harlem, or learn directly from curators at the Museum of Modern Art.
A high proportion (64 percent) of students at Earlham, an Indiana college founded by Quakers, study abroad through opportunities like peace studies programs in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Many are also active volunteers, collectively contributing 30,000 hours to volunteerism. These experiences help students break out of the campus bubble and bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Small classes
With a total enrollment of fewer than 800 students, the New College of Florida is a close-knit campus where students call their faculty by their first names and meet with them at cafés to discuss philosophy.
Vermont’s Marlboro College is even smaller, with an enrollment of only 330 students, allowing for close interaction with faculty, including advanced one-on-one instruction called tutorials.
Campus life
The college experience is about more than just academics, though, and campus life can be as unique as the classroom environment. Whether it’s an abundance of vegetarian food in the dining hall or the tendency of students to be involved in social activism, these campuses foster an appreciation for individuality that attracts independent thinkers.
At Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., the longest running student group is Mixed Nuts, a food co-op that provides organic food to students and community members.
On Bard’s rural New York campus, student-written “zines”—homemade, low-budget magazines about anything from music to politics—are popular, and the college houses what is reputed to be the largest zine library on the East Coast.
Portland, Oregon’s quirky, intellectual Reed College offers theme dorms, including one about ancient civilizations and an organic-friendly co-op.
Is a nontraditional college for you?
Students who thrive at nontraditional colleges like to take the initiative in their own educations.
“I wanted to learn for the sake of knowledge, not for just the degree,” says Rachel, a St. John’s alum. She adds that the curriculum there is unique because it “trains you to look at the world critically and form your own opinion.”
Of course, nontraditional colleges are not for everyone. Their rigorous but unstructured academics can cause some students to fall through the cracks. For the right student, however, these extraordinary learning environments offer a true chance to blossom as a thinker and a person.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Trade Your Job
Published in Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.com/issues/learn-as-you-go/trade-your-job
The old apprenticeship model of learning by doing gets new life as people who’ve been left out of the job market train to meet the growing demand for green-collar workers.
- Youth participants in the ¡Youthworks! Green Collar Jobs Apprenticeship Program in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of ¡YouthWorks!
In the last 30 years, wages have dropped for people without college degrees. But in Pierce County, Washington, high school students who aren’t headed for college are learning to retrofit houses; they stand to make up to $50 an hour once they’re experienced journeymen. In Lansing, Michigan, unemployed auto workers can get up to $10,000 to train for new careers in renewable energy. These people, and others nationwide, are part of a rapidly expanding market for green-collar workers.
Since green-collar job training is affordable—usually requiring an associate’s degree at most—and since these jobs typically offer good living wages, they represent a pathway out of poverty and into the middle class.
“If a job improves the environment but doesn’t provide a family-supporting wage or a career ladder to move low-income workers into higher-skilled occupations, it is not a green-collar job,” says Sam Haswell of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition formed in 2001 to push for a clean-energy revolution.
Photo courtesy of ¡YouthWorks!
According to a 2009 report by the American Solar Energy Society, there were 9 million green-collar jobs in the United States in 2007, and 37 million could be created by 2030 if policymakers support renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives at the state and federal level.
“We must build a 21st century workforce in America to compete in the new clean energy economy,” says Apollo Alliance Chair Phil Angelides. “This means training a new generation of workers to fill a wide range of skilled jobs in the rapidly growing green sector.”
The need for green workforce development has produced unprecedented collaboration among labor and environmental organizations, government agencies, schools, and businesses. There’s a return to the apprenticeship model of learning by doing and a growing acknowledgement that valuable education happens outside the classroom.
In Bellingham, Washington, which NPR’s Marketplace recently declared “the epicenter of a new economic model,” the Opportunity Council’s Building Performance Center is teaming up with Bellingham Technical College to provide green workforce development. “We feel like this training has to take place on the job and in the field,” says the Center’s director, John Davies. “The training has to include hands-on learning along with the learning that takes place in the classroom.”
The Center is one of 26 agencies participating in a state-run project that sends trainers to teach home audits and energy retrofits in communities across Washington, including those not served by established training programs. Led by experienced peer technicians, these sessions are customized to meet the specific needs of Washington agencies that provide low-income weatherization services.
Photo courtesy of ¡YouthWorks!
Sound Alliance, in Pierce County, Washington, matches women, people of color, youth, and members of other traditionally disadvantaged groups with openings in green-collar apprenticeship programs. Like other Industrial Areas Foundation organizations, the Sound Alliance empowers people to create change and become grassroots leaders. One leader, Steve Gelb, emphasizes the need to train workers in deep retrofitting, which involves not only simple weatherization, but replacing furnaces and water heaters. Doing so saves more energy and also creates higher-skilled jobs, Gelb says.
When youth and people from disadvantaged communities step into such high-demand, high-salary jobs, it not only gives them an avenue toward a brighter future; it also helps to change community perceptions of them. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, for instance, the group ¡Youthworks! joined with city officials and local businesses to create the Green Collar Jobs Apprenticeship Program in 2008. The program provides valuable training, academic skill building, and job counseling to youth in a city where the dropout rate hovers around 50 percent.
“There’s a lot of racism and discrimination and bad perceptions of young people in Santa Fe,” says Tobe Bott-Lyons, educational coordinator at ¡Youthworks! “Now you see these tattooed kids that people are generally used to being scared of restoring the river and building a house, and they’re retrofitting homes and installing solar panels.”
Lauren Herrera’s life turned upside down when her 6-year-old son passed away last year. She started getting into trouble, which culminated in drug-related felony charges that caused her to lose her job as a dental assistant. Scarce jobs and a criminal record made it hard to find work, until ¡Youthworks! gave her an opportunity to play a positive role in her community. Now she weatherizes homes for low-income families with the newly launched Energy RX crew. “They’re ecstatic when they find out the weatherization is free,” she says. “It’s very rewarding.”
Young people aren’t the only ones looking for green-collar jobs. Throughout the country, community college programs in alternative energy have been flooded with recently unemployed workers and those simply seeking valuable new skills. In Michigan, which suffers the nation’s highest unemployment rate, the transition to a green economy promises to revive communities that have been devastated by job losses in the auto industry. Michigan’s Green Jobs Initiative is one of the programs made possible by the $500 million in federal stimulus funds allocated for green workforce development. The money helps workers enroll in new community college programs in green sector fields like alternative energy.
The alternative energy degree program at Lansing Community College, one of the first of its kind, has grown from 42 students in 2005 to 252 in 2008. Starting this fall, the college will offer new certificates in solar, geothermal, wind turbines, and energy efficiency. The college also has partnered with the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium to develop an alternative energy curriculum for colleges and universities nationwide.
Gelb says that green workforce development has turned on its head the historical divide between labor and environmental concerns. “We call it the ‘triple bottom line,’” he says. “We’re reducing carbon, creating jobs, and saving money for people in the homes we’re retrofitting.”
Monday, June 1, 2009
Activists Protest Drone Warfare
Published in YES! Magazine, Summer 2009
http://yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3555#peace
Fourteen peace activists were arrested on April 10 at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, during a 10-day vigil protesting unmanned aircraft strikes along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The activists, who were participants in an interfaith Sacred Peace Walk organized by the Nevada Desert Experience, sought to engage in dialogue with Air Force personnel operating Predator and Reaper drones from the base.
In addition to causing numerous civilian casualties, the strikes have contributed to a deepening humanitarian crisis in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. According to UNICEF, over 860,000 displaced persons from those areas, including 325,000 children, are in dire need of water, nutrition, sanitation, education, and health care.
Despite warnings by Pakistani intelligence officials that ongoing strikes will further destabilize the country, the Obama administration has declared its intention to intensify drone attacks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced he will seek $2 billion in additional funding for unmanned aircraft for the 2010 budget, including 50 more drones. This will represent a 62 percent increase in the military’s capability to carry out drone operations.
The activists view their June 9 arraignment in Las Vegas as an opportunity to build support for their “Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind” campaign. In addition to holding a monthly vigil at Creech, the Nevada Desert Experience plans to draw further attention to the issue during its August Desert Witness, which commemorates the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
http://yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3555#peace
Fourteen peace activists were arrested on April 10 at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, during a 10-day vigil protesting unmanned aircraft strikes along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The activists, who were participants in an interfaith Sacred Peace Walk organized by the Nevada Desert Experience, sought to engage in dialogue with Air Force personnel operating Predator and Reaper drones from the base.
In addition to causing numerous civilian casualties, the strikes have contributed to a deepening humanitarian crisis in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. According to UNICEF, over 860,000 displaced persons from those areas, including 325,000 children, are in dire need of water, nutrition, sanitation, education, and health care.
Despite warnings by Pakistani intelligence officials that ongoing strikes will further destabilize the country, the Obama administration has declared its intention to intensify drone attacks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced he will seek $2 billion in additional funding for unmanned aircraft for the 2010 budget, including 50 more drones. This will represent a 62 percent increase in the military’s capability to carry out drone operations.
The activists view their June 9 arraignment in Las Vegas as an opportunity to build support for their “Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind” campaign. In addition to holding a monthly vigil at Creech, the Nevada Desert Experience plans to draw further attention to the issue during its August Desert Witness, which commemorates the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Evangelicals' Faith Leads Them to Issues of Environment, Social Justice
Published in YES! Magazine (Fall 2008: Purple America issue): http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2845
A passion for environmental action and social justice is spreading in what some may consider unexpected places. Had you walked into Northland, A Church Distributed—an evangelical megachurch in Florida—one Saturday morning last August, you would have found parishioners in Kevlar suits sifting through the congregation’s trash. Their mission: to fulfill what they consider the biblical imperative to be good stewards of the Earth. Led by senior pastor Joel C. Hunter, an advocate of the pro-environment, evangelical Creation Care movement, the churchgoers sorted about 30 bins of trash in order to assess the congregation’s environmental impact.
After the church showed the film “The Great Warming,” featuring National Association of Evangelicals spokesman Richard Cizik, they wanted to take action. When they were finished assessing the congregation’s waste, they created a 140-page audit of the church’s solid waste, energy management, landscaping, and water use, which formed the basis of Northland’s strategy for lowering its carbon footprint. Creation Care at Northland didn’t end there. After services another weekend, the church held a Creation Care event with 30 environmentally-friendly vendors and organizations. Then, in February, evangelical leaders hosted an interfaith summit at Northland, training religious leaders to promote sustainability within their own congregations.
Rev. Hunter is one of a growing number of evangelicals creating an alternative to an evangelical political platform long dominated by hot-button issues such as gay marriage and abortion. While maintaining a socially conservative platform, Hunter and others are expanding their agendas to address concerns such as global warming, poverty, education, and peacemaking. His recent book, A New Kind of Conservative, sounds a call for social justice and compassion for the disadvantaged. According to Hunter, younger generations are avoiding the negative tone and single-issue focus of the Christian Right. “As a movement progresses and matures,” he says, “it begins to define itself by what it’s for instead of what it’s against. It starts to think of pro-life in terms of life outside the womb as well as inside the womb.” He likens this shift to the changes a person goes through while growing up. “When you’re in middle school, you define yourself as who you hate and what you hate. But when you grow up, you start to say, ‘Now, what do I like? What do I want to build? What do I want my life to mean?’”
Black and Hispanic evangelicals have played a major role in shifting the agenda. A 2004 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Inc. for Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and U.S. News & World Report showed that while white evangelicals considered socially conservative moral values their first priority (37%), 41% of black and 34% of Hispanic respondents placed a different moral issue—the economy—first.
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, leader of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), believes Hispanic evangelicals serve as a natural bridge between the “righteousness platform” of white evangelicals and the “justice platform” of the black church. While the approximately 15 million Hispanic evangelicals in America often oppose abortion and gay marriage, many also hold progressive, populist views on issues such as poverty, health care, education, and racial equality.
Immigration is one contentious issue Rodriguez hopes to see depolarized. The NHCLC envisions a “middle path” between upholding the rule of law and exercising compassion toward the approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. In response to HR 4437, the 2005 bill designed to rein in illegal immigration, NHCLC drafted a proposal calling for comprehensive immigration reform that would include penalties and the payment of back taxes while “bringing immigrants out of the shadows” and providing a path to citizenship.
Rodriguez’s concern for social justice stems from his upbringing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he witnessed economic upheaval and the decline of industry. As the region transformed, he saw rising levels of violence and racial inequality that persisted as the city grew increasingly diverse. In neighboring Allentown, where the high-school graduation rate was only 60.7% in 2005, evangelical pastors are making efforts to become a “firewall” against gang violence and high dropout rates. In collaboration with Allentown mayor Ed Pawlowski, the NHCLC-affiliated Third Day Worship Center launched an initiative to address these problems, creating an after-school mentoring program for at-risk youth. The effort, coinciding with the creation of Allentown’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, was part of Generation Fuerza (Generation Strength), an NHCLC campaign to reduce teen pregnancy, dropout rates, and gang involvement. Generation Fuerza advocates will begin meeting with Congress in October to promote this agenda.
The social justice approach extends beyond the domestic sphere. Evangelicals for Darfur, a member of the Save Darfur Coalition, includes advocates across the political spectrum, from Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention to Jim Wallis, editor of the progressive Sojourners magazine. In 2006, the group ran full-page ads in 10 major newspapers entitled “Without You, Mr. President, Darfur Doesn’t Have a Prayer,” urging support for international peacekeeping forces and multilateral economic sanctions. In addition to pushing for action, the group solicits donations for relief efforts and promotes education about the genocide.
Other evangelical groups are advocating peace between Israelis and Palestinians. They urge a two-state solution to the conflict, offering an alternative to the approach of more visible leaders such as John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and senior pastor of the Cornerstone megachurch in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee is an influential proponent of Christian Zionism, which takes literally the biblical Book of Revelation and views an apocalyptic war in the Middle East as a necessary precursor to the Second Coming of Christ. As Christian Zionists, Hagee and his organization believe that Israel has a divinely sanctioned right to the West Bank and Gaza, and are actively involved in lobbying Washington to oppose “land for peace” and the creation of a Palestinian state.
Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding was founded in part to counter what the organization calls “a rising tide of Western interpretation of the nation of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.” Its Executive Director, Leonard Rodgers, believes the key to understanding lies in forming personal ties between American evangelicals and Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims, which the group accomplishes through its Living Stones delegations to the region. The organization is especially committed to forging ties with Middle Eastern Christians, a community Rodgers says few Americans are aware of. “When you introduce them and they build a relationship, they begin to understand the Middle East through the eyes of a Middle Easterner,” he says.
Last November, about 100 leaders signed an open letter by Evangelicals for Social Action, a group devoted to social and economic justice. “In the context of our ongoing support for the security of Israel, we believe that unless the situation between Israel and Palestine improves quickly, the consequences will be devastating,” the letter reads, commending Israeli and Palestinian leadership for supporting a two-state solution. The letter reaffirmed the call for peace contained in a July 2007 open letter to President Bush signed by 39 prominent evangelical leaders.
A key factor in the changing face of evangelicalism is the appearance of a young generation that is more expansive in its social outlook. While they are likely to share the socially conservative approach of their parents, younger evangelicals are being shaped by the dynamic world of globalization, technology, and online social networking.
Ben Lowe, 24, studied environmental biology at Wheaton College and is active in several Creation Care groups on Facebook. Last year, he brought together student leaders from 15 campuses for the January 2007 Wheaton Creation Care Summit and participated in Power Shift 2007, joining tens of thousands of other young adults in Washington, D.C. to confront global warming. He now works for A Rocha, a Christian organization devoted to conservation. Although his peers sometimes express suspicion toward environmentalism, they often change their minds once introduced to the issue in a biblical context. “Once we show from the Bible that being good stewards of the environment is our privilege and responsibility,” says Lowe, “then my peers are usually very enthusiastic and supportive.”
Rowan University graduate Dan Lebo, 22, now attends Palmer Theological Seminary. He received a scholarship to work with Evangelicals for Social Action and helped distribute its call for Middle East peace. “The American political landscape can be a very frustrating place for younger evangelicals,” says Lebo, because the issues they care about fall across the spectrum. “It would be very hard to pigeonhole young evangelicals into any political sphere. However, at the same time we are becoming very politically engaged. We realize how important politics can be to the welfare of our society and our world and are understanding that being apathetic about politics doesn’t help anything or anyone.”
A passion for environmental action and social justice is spreading in what some may consider unexpected places. Had you walked into Northland, A Church Distributed—an evangelical megachurch in Florida—one Saturday morning last August, you would have found parishioners in Kevlar suits sifting through the congregation’s trash. Their mission: to fulfill what they consider the biblical imperative to be good stewards of the Earth. Led by senior pastor Joel C. Hunter, an advocate of the pro-environment, evangelical Creation Care movement, the churchgoers sorted about 30 bins of trash in order to assess the congregation’s environmental impact.
After the church showed the film “The Great Warming,” featuring National Association of Evangelicals spokesman Richard Cizik, they wanted to take action. When they were finished assessing the congregation’s waste, they created a 140-page audit of the church’s solid waste, energy management, landscaping, and water use, which formed the basis of Northland’s strategy for lowering its carbon footprint. Creation Care at Northland didn’t end there. After services another weekend, the church held a Creation Care event with 30 environmentally-friendly vendors and organizations. Then, in February, evangelical leaders hosted an interfaith summit at Northland, training religious leaders to promote sustainability within their own congregations.
Rev. Hunter is one of a growing number of evangelicals creating an alternative to an evangelical political platform long dominated by hot-button issues such as gay marriage and abortion. While maintaining a socially conservative platform, Hunter and others are expanding their agendas to address concerns such as global warming, poverty, education, and peacemaking. His recent book, A New Kind of Conservative, sounds a call for social justice and compassion for the disadvantaged. According to Hunter, younger generations are avoiding the negative tone and single-issue focus of the Christian Right. “As a movement progresses and matures,” he says, “it begins to define itself by what it’s for instead of what it’s against. It starts to think of pro-life in terms of life outside the womb as well as inside the womb.” He likens this shift to the changes a person goes through while growing up. “When you’re in middle school, you define yourself as who you hate and what you hate. But when you grow up, you start to say, ‘Now, what do I like? What do I want to build? What do I want my life to mean?’”
Black and Hispanic evangelicals have played a major role in shifting the agenda. A 2004 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Inc. for Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and U.S. News & World Report showed that while white evangelicals considered socially conservative moral values their first priority (37%), 41% of black and 34% of Hispanic respondents placed a different moral issue—the economy—first.
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, leader of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), believes Hispanic evangelicals serve as a natural bridge between the “righteousness platform” of white evangelicals and the “justice platform” of the black church. While the approximately 15 million Hispanic evangelicals in America often oppose abortion and gay marriage, many also hold progressive, populist views on issues such as poverty, health care, education, and racial equality.
Immigration is one contentious issue Rodriguez hopes to see depolarized. The NHCLC envisions a “middle path” between upholding the rule of law and exercising compassion toward the approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. In response to HR 4437, the 2005 bill designed to rein in illegal immigration, NHCLC drafted a proposal calling for comprehensive immigration reform that would include penalties and the payment of back taxes while “bringing immigrants out of the shadows” and providing a path to citizenship.
Rodriguez’s concern for social justice stems from his upbringing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he witnessed economic upheaval and the decline of industry. As the region transformed, he saw rising levels of violence and racial inequality that persisted as the city grew increasingly diverse. In neighboring Allentown, where the high-school graduation rate was only 60.7% in 2005, evangelical pastors are making efforts to become a “firewall” against gang violence and high dropout rates. In collaboration with Allentown mayor Ed Pawlowski, the NHCLC-affiliated Third Day Worship Center launched an initiative to address these problems, creating an after-school mentoring program for at-risk youth. The effort, coinciding with the creation of Allentown’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, was part of Generation Fuerza (Generation Strength), an NHCLC campaign to reduce teen pregnancy, dropout rates, and gang involvement. Generation Fuerza advocates will begin meeting with Congress in October to promote this agenda.
The social justice approach extends beyond the domestic sphere. Evangelicals for Darfur, a member of the Save Darfur Coalition, includes advocates across the political spectrum, from Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention to Jim Wallis, editor of the progressive Sojourners magazine. In 2006, the group ran full-page ads in 10 major newspapers entitled “Without You, Mr. President, Darfur Doesn’t Have a Prayer,” urging support for international peacekeeping forces and multilateral economic sanctions. In addition to pushing for action, the group solicits donations for relief efforts and promotes education about the genocide.
Other evangelical groups are advocating peace between Israelis and Palestinians. They urge a two-state solution to the conflict, offering an alternative to the approach of more visible leaders such as John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and senior pastor of the Cornerstone megachurch in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee is an influential proponent of Christian Zionism, which takes literally the biblical Book of Revelation and views an apocalyptic war in the Middle East as a necessary precursor to the Second Coming of Christ. As Christian Zionists, Hagee and his organization believe that Israel has a divinely sanctioned right to the West Bank and Gaza, and are actively involved in lobbying Washington to oppose “land for peace” and the creation of a Palestinian state.
Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding was founded in part to counter what the organization calls “a rising tide of Western interpretation of the nation of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.” Its Executive Director, Leonard Rodgers, believes the key to understanding lies in forming personal ties between American evangelicals and Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims, which the group accomplishes through its Living Stones delegations to the region. The organization is especially committed to forging ties with Middle Eastern Christians, a community Rodgers says few Americans are aware of. “When you introduce them and they build a relationship, they begin to understand the Middle East through the eyes of a Middle Easterner,” he says.
Last November, about 100 leaders signed an open letter by Evangelicals for Social Action, a group devoted to social and economic justice. “In the context of our ongoing support for the security of Israel, we believe that unless the situation between Israel and Palestine improves quickly, the consequences will be devastating,” the letter reads, commending Israeli and Palestinian leadership for supporting a two-state solution. The letter reaffirmed the call for peace contained in a July 2007 open letter to President Bush signed by 39 prominent evangelical leaders.
A key factor in the changing face of evangelicalism is the appearance of a young generation that is more expansive in its social outlook. While they are likely to share the socially conservative approach of their parents, younger evangelicals are being shaped by the dynamic world of globalization, technology, and online social networking.
Ben Lowe, 24, studied environmental biology at Wheaton College and is active in several Creation Care groups on Facebook. Last year, he brought together student leaders from 15 campuses for the January 2007 Wheaton Creation Care Summit and participated in Power Shift 2007, joining tens of thousands of other young adults in Washington, D.C. to confront global warming. He now works for A Rocha, a Christian organization devoted to conservation. Although his peers sometimes express suspicion toward environmentalism, they often change their minds once introduced to the issue in a biblical context. “Once we show from the Bible that being good stewards of the environment is our privilege and responsibility,” says Lowe, “then my peers are usually very enthusiastic and supportive.”
Rowan University graduate Dan Lebo, 22, now attends Palmer Theological Seminary. He received a scholarship to work with Evangelicals for Social Action and helped distribute its call for Middle East peace. “The American political landscape can be a very frustrating place for younger evangelicals,” says Lebo, because the issues they care about fall across the spectrum. “It would be very hard to pigeonhole young evangelicals into any political sphere. However, at the same time we are becoming very politically engaged. We realize how important politics can be to the welfare of our society and our world and are understanding that being apathetic about politics doesn’t help anything or anyone.”
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Beyond the 'Big Ditch': CAP holds Water Leadership Forum
Published in July 2008 issue of Tucson Green Magazine.
On May 14, the Central Arizona Project (CAP) held a Water Leadership Forum at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel, inviting the public to learn about the history and future of
During the early 1900s, the seven states of the
Legal and political disputes, particularly between
From
Coping with a potential shortage, which could begin as early as 2011, is a key concern for CAP. In a shortage, a priority system governs allocation. According to the Colorado River Basin Project Act,
The availability of water for downstream users is determined by the water elevation (above sea level) in
In the event of a shortage, CAP is exploring a number of coping strategies, including replacing non-native salt cedars (tamarisks) with native cottonwoods, which absorb less water; desalinization and possible re-operation of the
The forum also addressed conservation. The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program of 2005 balances existing and projected
To learn more about CAP visit online at www.cap-az.com or call its
Monday, May 19, 2008
Yom HaShoah event recalls Kristallnacht
Published in Volume 64, Issue 10 of Arizona Jewish Post (May 16, 2008)
On Sunday, May 4, community members packed into Congregation Anshei Israel to commemorate Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), which was officially observed May 1. The ceremony held a special significance this year, marking the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht and the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. The ceremony was themed "Kristallnacht Remembered," featuring keynote speaker Gerhard Weinberg, professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
The commemoration began with a Presentation of Colors by the Davis-Monthan Honor Guard and a processional of Holocaust survivors from Hungary, Poland, Greece, Germany and Ukraine. The survivors, escorted by students belonging to the Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition, lit six candles in honor of the six million Jews who perished in the genocide. Two survivors, Inge Schneider and Ester Harris, spoke of the horrors that began with Kristallnacht--the "Night of Broken Glass"--on Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis destroyed Jewish homes and businesses throughout Germany.
Schneider was a 12-year-old in the German town of Dusseldorf when her family was awakened at 4 a.m. by Nazi troops bursting into their home. The soldiers ransacked the home and arrested her father. In the morning, she saw that the streets were littered with glass and the Jewish school she and Harris both attended had been burned to the ground. Her mother arranged for her father's release and brought Schneider and her two sisters on the ill-fated St. Louis, which sailed for Cuba in May 1939 but was not permitted to disembark upon arrival. All but 28 of its 937 Jewish passengers were forced to return to Europe, where most--including Schneider's mother--perished in concentration camps. "For the Nazis, this was a victory," she said. "It showed that no one wanted the Jews." Schneider survived Bergen-Belsen, but was hospitalized for typhus and tuberculosis after the camp was liberated. After the war, she and her sisters were reunited with their father in New York City.
Although they did not know each other at the time, Harris grew up in Dusseldorf and attended the same Jewish school as Schneider. She, too, remembers the terrifying events of Kristallnacht, when several soldiers broke into the house, brutally beat her father and destroyed the family's dry goods store. Harris had just turned 11. Her father managed to escape arrest because of his service in WWI. The next morning, the Jews of Dusseldorf wandered through the streets surveying the damage. "It was like a ghostly parade from another world," Harris said. Fearing for their future, the family fled to Belgium and then to France in May 1940, when the Nazis invaded Belgium. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, they eventually found refuge in Portugal.
Weinberg, a noted WWII historian whose own family fled Germany in 1938, discussed the context of Kristallnacht, explaining that it occurred following the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, who was shot in Paris by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan. The Nazis sought to drive Germany's Jews out of the country and plunder their property ahead of the impending war, and used the assassination as a justification.
The program was coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the public affairs and social action arm of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona.
On Sunday, May 4, community members packed into Congregation Anshei Israel to commemorate Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), which was officially observed May 1. The ceremony held a special significance this year, marking the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht and the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. The ceremony was themed "Kristallnacht Remembered," featuring keynote speaker Gerhard Weinberg, professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
The commemoration began with a Presentation of Colors by the Davis-Monthan Honor Guard and a processional of Holocaust survivors from Hungary, Poland, Greece, Germany and Ukraine. The survivors, escorted by students belonging to the Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition, lit six candles in honor of the six million Jews who perished in the genocide. Two survivors, Inge Schneider and Ester Harris, spoke of the horrors that began with Kristallnacht--the "Night of Broken Glass"--on Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis destroyed Jewish homes and businesses throughout Germany.
Schneider was a 12-year-old in the German town of Dusseldorf when her family was awakened at 4 a.m. by Nazi troops bursting into their home. The soldiers ransacked the home and arrested her father. In the morning, she saw that the streets were littered with glass and the Jewish school she and Harris both attended had been burned to the ground. Her mother arranged for her father's release and brought Schneider and her two sisters on the ill-fated St. Louis, which sailed for Cuba in May 1939 but was not permitted to disembark upon arrival. All but 28 of its 937 Jewish passengers were forced to return to Europe, where most--including Schneider's mother--perished in concentration camps. "For the Nazis, this was a victory," she said. "It showed that no one wanted the Jews." Schneider survived Bergen-Belsen, but was hospitalized for typhus and tuberculosis after the camp was liberated. After the war, she and her sisters were reunited with their father in New York City.
Although they did not know each other at the time, Harris grew up in Dusseldorf and attended the same Jewish school as Schneider. She, too, remembers the terrifying events of Kristallnacht, when several soldiers broke into the house, brutally beat her father and destroyed the family's dry goods store. Harris had just turned 11. Her father managed to escape arrest because of his service in WWI. The next morning, the Jews of Dusseldorf wandered through the streets surveying the damage. "It was like a ghostly parade from another world," Harris said. Fearing for their future, the family fled to Belgium and then to France in May 1940, when the Nazis invaded Belgium. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, they eventually found refuge in Portugal.
Weinberg, a noted WWII historian whose own family fled Germany in 1938, discussed the context of Kristallnacht, explaining that it occurred following the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, who was shot in Paris by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan. The Nazis sought to drive Germany's Jews out of the country and plunder their property ahead of the impending war, and used the assassination as a justification.
The program was coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the public affairs and social action arm of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Solar festival offers a taste of green energy
Published April 15 in Tucson Green Magazine
As summer approaches, Tucsonans may view the sun as an ominous harbinger of sweltering 100 degree days to come. For some, however, Tucson's omnipresent sun represents an opportunity for change and a path toward sustainable living.
On April 26, solar enthusiasts will gather at Catalina State Park for the 26th Annual Festival of the Sun and Solar Potluck, a family-friendly celebration of the power of solar energy with music, food, and demonstrations on innovative solar technology. According to organizers, the event is one of the longest running solar events in North America, second only to the annual meeting of the American Solar Energy Society.
The potluck is organized by Citizens for Solar, which was formed for the purpose of putting on the event. Ed Eaton, a solar pioneer and founding member of the group, began the tradition in 1981 with a small group of friends. Over the next few years, the event continued to grow, and organizers began holding the potluck at Catalina State Park. Last year, the event drew about 1,500 people.
One new feature this year is the Teahouse of the Rising Sun, a place where attendees can gather in the shade, enjoy a cup of tea, and listen to a lineup of guest speakers who will address this year's Paths to Sustainability theme. Eaton will be one of the speakers this year, discussing the long history of the solar industry. Mark Schwirtz of Trico Electric Cooperative, and Bill Henry of Tucson Electric Power will explain the utility rebate program for solar systems. Bruce Plenk, solar coordinator for the City of Tucson, will offer another perspective, discussing what the city is doing to go green.
A solar-powered stage, supplied by George Villec of GeoInnovation, will provide live music, including local artist Black Man Clay.
In addition to speakers, performances, and hands-on kids' activities, there will be ample opportunities to see cutting edge solar technology in action. "It's almost become a game of one-upmanship every year between the exhibitors," said Jerry M. Samaniego, the group's president. "Everybody likes to have new things every year."
Samaniego, whose father owns Expert Solar Systems, grew up with an appreciation for solar energy. He has helped his father run the local business for 18 years, and been involved with Citizens for Solar for about ten years, serving as president for the past two. "The solar potluck is really my favorite solar event of the year," he said. "Now I bring my two kids out there, and they have fun."
While a variety of solar technology will be on display, the main attraction will be at least 50 solar ovens and cookers of various types. Some are quite powerful. One year, someone made stir fry and popcorn, which requires about 450 degrees, using an enormous solar reflector parabolic cooker. Other participants have made turkey, pizza, and a plethora of vegetarian food. Demonstrators will hand out food samples of all kinds throughout the day, culminating in a potluck dinner at 5 p.m.
Toby Schneider, treasurer of Citizens for Solar, has been involved with the group along with his wife, Vivian Harte, for many years. Solar power is increasingly entering the mainstream, said Schneider, in part for economic reasons. "With increased energy prices, more people are thinking of solar as a long term investment," he said. According to Schneider, an inverter, which changes DC voltage from solar panels into standard household AC voltage, typically lasts about 10 years, and the panels usually last more than 20.
Because of the low cost (you can pick one up for as low as $250), solar ovens are an attractive option for those who are just beginning to go solar. "[They're] a great, inexpensive foot in the door, a way of experiencing solar power and playing with it," said Samaniego.
Cari Spring, the group's vice president and a faculty member at Pima Community College and Prescott College, believes there is more to solar living than just the technology. "There's a solar culture in the world," she said. "When you practice solar and renewable energy, you place the sun at the center of your existence--and that means you don't just buy a technology and live the same life you used to."
In 1996, Spring bought a piece of land in Catalina and began designing a completely solar-powered home. She soon found that everyday activities--from laundry to cooking--required her to be conscious of the sun. "The center of your life shifts," she said.
As summer approaches, Tucsonans may view the sun as an ominous harbinger of sweltering 100 degree days to come. For some, however, Tucson's omnipresent sun represents an opportunity for change and a path toward sustainable living.
On April 26, solar enthusiasts will gather at Catalina State Park for the 26th Annual Festival of the Sun and Solar Potluck, a family-friendly celebration of the power of solar energy with music, food, and demonstrations on innovative solar technology. According to organizers, the event is one of the longest running solar events in North America, second only to the annual meeting of the American Solar Energy Society.
The potluck is organized by Citizens for Solar, which was formed for the purpose of putting on the event. Ed Eaton, a solar pioneer and founding member of the group, began the tradition in 1981 with a small group of friends. Over the next few years, the event continued to grow, and organizers began holding the potluck at Catalina State Park. Last year, the event drew about 1,500 people.
One new feature this year is the Teahouse of the Rising Sun, a place where attendees can gather in the shade, enjoy a cup of tea, and listen to a lineup of guest speakers who will address this year's Paths to Sustainability theme. Eaton will be one of the speakers this year, discussing the long history of the solar industry. Mark Schwirtz of Trico Electric Cooperative, and Bill Henry of Tucson Electric Power will explain the utility rebate program for solar systems. Bruce Plenk, solar coordinator for the City of Tucson, will offer another perspective, discussing what the city is doing to go green.
A solar-powered stage, supplied by George Villec of GeoInnovation, will provide live music, including local artist Black Man Clay.
In addition to speakers, performances, and hands-on kids' activities, there will be ample opportunities to see cutting edge solar technology in action. "It's almost become a game of one-upmanship every year between the exhibitors," said Jerry M. Samaniego, the group's president. "Everybody likes to have new things every year."
Samaniego, whose father owns Expert Solar Systems, grew up with an appreciation for solar energy. He has helped his father run the local business for 18 years, and been involved with Citizens for Solar for about ten years, serving as president for the past two. "The solar potluck is really my favorite solar event of the year," he said. "Now I bring my two kids out there, and they have fun."
While a variety of solar technology will be on display, the main attraction will be at least 50 solar ovens and cookers of various types. Some are quite powerful. One year, someone made stir fry and popcorn, which requires about 450 degrees, using an enormous solar reflector parabolic cooker. Other participants have made turkey, pizza, and a plethora of vegetarian food. Demonstrators will hand out food samples of all kinds throughout the day, culminating in a potluck dinner at 5 p.m.
Toby Schneider, treasurer of Citizens for Solar, has been involved with the group along with his wife, Vivian Harte, for many years. Solar power is increasingly entering the mainstream, said Schneider, in part for economic reasons. "With increased energy prices, more people are thinking of solar as a long term investment," he said. According to Schneider, an inverter, which changes DC voltage from solar panels into standard household AC voltage, typically lasts about 10 years, and the panels usually last more than 20.
Because of the low cost (you can pick one up for as low as $250), solar ovens are an attractive option for those who are just beginning to go solar. "[They're] a great, inexpensive foot in the door, a way of experiencing solar power and playing with it," said Samaniego.
Cari Spring, the group's vice president and a faculty member at Pima Community College and Prescott College, believes there is more to solar living than just the technology. "There's a solar culture in the world," she said. "When you practice solar and renewable energy, you place the sun at the center of your existence--and that means you don't just buy a technology and live the same life you used to."
In 1996, Spring bought a piece of land in Catalina and began designing a completely solar-powered home. She soon found that everyday activities--from laundry to cooking--required her to be conscious of the sun. "The center of your life shifts," she said.
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