Eliminating My Own Great Garbage Patch

Published September 29, 2010 in the Tacoma Weekly.

http://www.tacomaweekly.com/article/4933/

As I brought the plastic bottle of iced tea to my lips, I paused before taking a sip and stared at the horrific image on my television screen. Mired in oil, a pelican was struggling to free itself of the deadly slick from the Deepwater Horizon spill. I almost did not have the stomach to polish off the big plastic bag of tortilla chips I was scarfing. Tossing the refuse of my snack into a plastic trash bag, I grabbed the plastic remote and turned off the heart-wrenching newscast.

But the images continued to haunt me. As much as I railed at British Petroleum for its recklessness and shook my fist at the government’s aversion to stronger environmental regulation, I knew deep down that I had played my own part in the disaster. Like most Americans, I enjoy a comfortable lifestyle driven by an unquenchable thirst for oil. Maybe I could not go stuff Tony Hayward into the well and save all those poor otters and sea turtles. But I could, at least, change my own consumption habits. Walking and using public transportation was a first step, but since I already lead an almost car-free lifestyle, I decided to take things a step further. As long as oil kept spewing into the Gulf, I resolved to abstain from using disposable plastic.

The environmental impact of plastic extends far beyond the petroleum used to make the material. In a landfill, plastic bags can take an estimated 500 years to break down. Fewer than 2 percent of plastic bags end up getting recycled. Instead, they litter our streets and pollute our oceans. Isolated beaches in Hawaii, despite their remoteness, have been thoroughly covered by plastic debris. According to studies, 100,000 marine animals, an unknown number of sea turtles, and 2 million birds die every year with bellies full of trash. Nowhere is the crisis more flagrant than in current-driven garbage patches where the plastic to sea life ratio is six to one. The largest of these patches is the Pacific Gyre, or Great Garbage Patch, which is roughly the size of Texas and contains 3.5 million tons of waste. Much of this garbage has broken down into tiny pieces that bond to toxic endocrine disruptors such as polychlorinated biphenyls and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. The pieces are consumed by small fish and jellyfish, carrying their toxicity up the food chain as the contaminated creatures are eaten by bigger fish. They, in turn, pass our poisons right back to us on the dinner table.

Despite its deadliness, plastic is omnipresent. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed each year in the United States. Immediately, it became clear that breaking the habit completely would be virtually impossible. I would have to stop brushing my teeth, do away with my asthma pills and inhalers, and somehow find a store that sold quill pens. Still, it is surprisingly easy to keep plastic to a bare minimum by remembering the “three Rs”: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Reducing starts with the choices we make at the grocery store. Opt for the glass jar of peanut butter, the paper milk carton, the cardboard box of detergent, or the aluminum can. Recycling aluminum is cheaper than producing new aluminum, and it is completely and endlessly recyclable. For a tasty snack, try Sun Chips, which are now packaged in plant-based compostable bags that biodegrade in 14 weeks. One hundred percent biodegradable trash and pet waste bags are also available from companies like Bio Bags, which manufactures them from a corn-based material. Many co-ops and farmers markets sell bulk foods and detergents you can stash in a reusable container. Finally, ditch the unhealthy processed foods and head for the fresh fruits and veggies. Buy your bread from the fresh bakery section or bake your own (look for a cheap bread maker at your local thrift store).

Reusable options abound, from bringing a cloth or canvas bag on shopping trips to toting a stainless steel drink holder. Many grocery stores offer a small discount per reusable bag, and Starbucks similarly rewards customers who bring reusable coffee cups. Cloth bags and Tupperware containers are great for lunches and leftovers, and cloth napkins and kitchen towels eliminate the need for the plastic-wrapped paper kind.

If plastic containers are an absolute must, buying the largest size possible and keeping the container for future storage are two ways to reduce waste. For those old plastic bags you have been stashing under the sink, look for specially marked recycle bins at participating retailers.

Now that the gusher has been sealed, it is tempting to go back to my old ways, pushing aside the images of muck-covered wildlife. But I do not think I will ever return to my former pattern of careless consumption. Like a fish in the Pacific, I am ensnared in my own garbage patch, but – little by little – I am learning to break free.

Green-Collar Jobs: Growing Jobs in the Environmental Field

Published in the March 2010 issue of Next Step Magazine.
http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlePage1.aspx?artId=3556&categoryId=62

America is going green, and going green is going to take a lot of work. With the spotlight on the environment, new job opportunities are opening up.

These “green-collar” jobs provide good wages, and the training is affordable—usually requiring an associate degree at most. And with the help of $500 million in federal stimulus funds, many new training programs are appearing in order to meet the growing demand.

A study by the American Solar Energy Society showed that American green-collar jobs totaled more than 9 million in 2007, and as many as 37 million can be created by 2030. These jobs include building energy-efficient homes and businesses, restoring habitats, installing solar panels and wind turbines, and producing biofuels.

Find a job in: energy efficiency
Some of the fastest growing green-collar jobs involve designing and building modern, environmentally friendly buildings, and weatherizing homes and businesses to make them more energy efficient.

In order to help families and businesses save energy, workers insulate attics and walls, put caulking around windows, and install energy-saving appliances like solar water heaters.

Energy efficiency has created new careers in green architecture and energy auditing, while putting a new spin on traditional careers like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technicians, carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

Find a job in: renewable energy
Because of concerns about global warming and high oil prices, renewable energy—power generated from natural sources like the sun, wind and geothermal heat—is making up a growing part of our energy use. Solar power is another fast-growing field.

Career opportunities in solar energy include solar system installers and managers, solar engineers and engine assemblers. Meanwhile, wind has the potential to provide 20 percent of the nation’s energy needs, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

This means more engine assemblers, machinists and mechanical engineers are needed to build wind turbines. And then there’s geothermal energy, which is created by drilling wells into underground reservoirs to tap steam and very hot water. This requires welders, mechanics, plumbers, architects, geologists and hydrologists.

Find a job in: alternative fuels
The same concerns driving renewable energy have helped the growing popularity of alternative fuels, including biodiesel, ethanol and fuel cells.

In 2007, there were 1.8 million alternative fuel vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. These jobs are likely to grow even more as a result of legislation that requires the U.S. to sell 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022.

Some jobs in alternative fuels are ethanol plant and systems operators, ethanol plant technicians, electrical maintenance mechanics and biodiesel lab technicians.

Find a job in: habitat restoration
Habitat restoration is the process of cleaning up polluted habitats in order to re-establish healthy, self-sustaining ecosystems.

Along with many nonprofit organizations nationwide, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implements numerous conservation projects. Someone with a career in habitat restoration might restore salmon spawning beds, remove toxic algae and invasive species, plant native trees and other vegetation, or teach kids about protecting the environment.

Get your green education at a community college

“Community colleges have a large role to play in vocational skills training, especially in this day and age, with green-collar jobs,” says Linda Kurokawa, director of Community Services and Business Development at San Diego’s MiraCosta College (miracosta.cc.ca.us).

MiraCosta offers training for future solar and wind installers. These one-week accelerated courses give students hands-on preparation for longer, more involved apprenticeship programs offered by unions in San Diego.

Florida’s Palm Beach Community College (pbcc.edu) is offering a new degree program in alternative energy.

At Central Carolina Community College (cccc.edu), students can study green building, biofuels, sustainable agriculture, ecotourism or organic culinary arts.

Los Angeles Community College District’s (laccd.edu) green building program is a “living laboratory” for students, who are helping to revamp campuses with solar panels and power-generating windmills.

So You Want to Work in Health Care?

Published in March 2010 issue of Next Step Magazine:
http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlepage1.aspx?artId=3545&categoryId=62

If you like helping people and are looking for a challenging career with an excellent job outlook, the growing field of health care may be for you.

Some careers involve a great deal of direct patient care, while others allow you to work behind the scenes by examining X-rays or developing nutrition plans.

There are as many educational paths to a career in health care as there are occupations in the field.

“The curricula for many health careers require a strong background in science and math,” says Dr. Lori Gonzalez, dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky (uky.edu). “But beyond the coursework, the successful health care professional has a desire to make a difference in the lives of others.”

Here’s a look at some of the career opportunities that are available and how you can prepare for them.

Job: Medical assistant
Years in school: 1-2
Training: Associate, certificate
Average salary: $22,000-$24,000
About the job: Medical assistants perform administrative and clinical tasks in the offices and clinics of physicians and specialists in order to keep them running smoothly.

Job: Registered nurse (RN)
Years in school: 3-4
Training: Diploma from a hospital school of nursing, associate, bachelor’s
Average salary: $58,000
About the job: RNs work in collaboration with physicians and other health professionals to assess symptoms, administer treatment, monitor patient progress, and act as educators and advocates for patients, families and communities.

Job: Radiologic technologist
Years in school: 1-4
Training: Certificate, associate, bachelor’s
Average salary: $42,000-$65,000
About the job: Radiologic technologists are allied medical professionals who perform diagnostic imaging procedures, such as X-rays, MRI scans and CT scans.

Job: Pharmacist
Years in school: 6-8
Training: Doctorate
Average salary: $107,000
About the job: Pharmacists dispense drugs prescribed by physicians and advise physicians and other health professionals on the selection, dosages, interactions and side effects of medications.

Job: Physical therapist
Years in school: 6-9
Training: Master’s, doctorate
Average salary: $68,000
About the job: Physical therapists work closely with injured or disabled individuals to improve function and mobility and relieve pain while promoting overall fitness.

Job: Physician assistant
Years in school: 2-6
Training: Master’s; some associate, bachelor’s degrees offered
Average salary: $65,000-$80,000
About the job: Physician assistants provide diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventative care to patients under the supervision of physicians.

Job: Registered dietitian
Years in school: 4-5
Training: Bachelor’s
Average salary: $42,000-$55,000
About the job: Dietitians develop nutrition programs to promote good health, prevent allergic reactions, and alleviate the symptoms of illnesses. They may oversee the nutrition of patients in hospitals and other institutions, design nutrition programs for communities, or consult with food service managers.

Job: Licensed practical nurse (LPN)
Years in school: 1
Training: Program in practical nursing at a vocational school or community college
Average salary: $31,000
About the job: LPNs care for sick, injured, convalescent or disabled patients under the supervision of physicians and registered nurses. They check vital signs, administer injections, apply dressings, collect samples, and keep patients comfortable.

Job: Clinical laboratory technician
Years in school: 2-4
Training: Associate; additional training is required for specialization
Average salary: $32,000-$62,000
About the job: Clinical lab technicians discover the presence or absence of disease by examining lab specimens.

Job: Physician
Years in school: 10-15
Training: Doctoral degree from a medical school
Average salary: $150,000-$300,000
About the job: Physicians examine patients, evaluate medical histories, make diagnoses and prescribe treatment. They may work in a particular specialty, such as anesthesiology, internal medicine, pediatrics or surgery.

Susan Tucker, a professor of Allied Health at the University of Oklahoma (ah.ouhsc.edu), says that one good way to find a career match in health care is to meet with a health care professional or discuss options with a virtual advisor at virtualadvisor.org.

“A next step might be to spend some time shadowing or observing a health professional at work, which is an excellent idea to get a feel for what a day in the life of a health professional is really like,” she says.

Health care professionals agree that no matter what path you choose, one of the most rewarding aspects of this field is the opportunity to have an impact on others’ lives.

June Larson, a registered nurse and associate dean of Health Sciences at the University of South Dakota (usd.edu), says, “I have had the opportunity to work with people at the most vulnerable times in their lives, and they have given me so much more than I ever gave them. In that interchange between the nurse and the patient, there is a helping/healing relationship that binds you forever.”

The Triple Bottom Line: Green-Collar Jobs

Published in What's Working, the Winter 2010 issue of WIN Magazine. (An earlier version of this article appeared in Learn as You Go, the Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine.)
http://www.warresisters.org/node/940

Over the past few decades, the decline of industry has meant lower wages and uncertain employment for a growing number of U.S. workers. Yet communities across the country are being revived by a growing job market in clean energy and energy efficiency. These green-collar jobs offer simultaneous solutions to several of the nation’s most pressing issues: economic wellbeing, environmental sustainability, and peace.

According to a 2009 report by the American Solar Energy Society, American green-collar jobs totaled more than 9 million in 2007, and 37 million can 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. This means training a new generation of workers to fill a wide range of skilled jobs in the rapidly growing green sector,” says Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition formed in 2001 to push for a clean energy revolution.

Climate change legislation such as the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, introduced in the Senate by John Kerry (DMA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), promises to expand the clean energy industry by capping carbon emissions and boosting job training programs. Every dollar spent on clean energy creates nearly four times as many jobs as a dollar invested in oil and gas, Kerry pointed out in an op-ed promoting the bill.

Pathways out of Poverty

Because green-collar job training is affordable—usually requiring an associate’s degree at most—and because these jobs typically offer good living wages, they represent a way out of poverty and into the middle class. For example, an experienced journeyman trained to retrofit houses stands to make up to $50 an hour. “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 Apollo Alliance spokesman Sam Haswell.

The creation of green-collar jobs is having a positive impact on communities plagued by violence and economic despair. “By increasing green jobs training opportunities for young people in low-income areas,” says Haswell, “we can create pathways out of poverty and help end the cycle of violence that afflicts many of America’s poorest communities.”

In Santa Fe, where the high school graduation rate languishes below 50 percent, a group called ¡Youthworks! collaborated with city officials and local businesses to create the Green Collar Jobs Apprenticeship Program in 2008. The program offers youth valuable training, academic skill building, and job counseling, while helping to change their image in the community.

“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!. “And 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 six-yearold son died 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 turn her life around and 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 it’s free,” she says. “It’s very rewarding.”

Fostering Peace

Since green-collar jobs offer alternatives to youth whose limited career options may have once pushed them toward military service, some peace organizations view them as a counterweight to the “poverty draft.” The American Friends Service Committee notes on its website that the Pentagon devoted $4 billion to recruitment among low-income and minority youth in 2003. The organization has highlighted green jobs in the career guides it makes available to youth who are considering military service.

As the green economy develops, it is likely to help ease conflicts over resources and climate change-driven social upheaval. “Transitioning to homegrown renewable fuels will reduce our dependence on unstable, war-torn regimes to meet our own growing demand for oil, which will in turn increase U.S. energy security and also help curb climate change,” asserts Haswell.

Few understand this equation more personally than the veterans who have seen first-hand the harmful effects of oil dependency. They are raising their voices through organizations such as Operation Free, a veterans group fighting for climate change legislation and green jobs. Main State Rep. and Operation Free Campaign Coordinator Alex Cornell du Houx says he began thinking about the need for clean energy while deployed with the Marines in Fallujah in 2006. He and other veterans recently toured 22 states telling their stories and highlighting the importance of green energy as a national security issue. In December, Operation Free members joined representatives of 170 countries at the international climate conference in Copenhagen.

Veterans have another reason to take the initiative in developing the green economy: They have suffered disproportionately during the current recession. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans aged 20–24 reached 15 percent in February, compared with a 13.8 percent jobless rate for non-veterans in the same age group. After finding that their military training has fewer applications in the civilian job search than they had expected, many veterans end up reenlisting. As a result, they often experience the strain of additional combat tours.

Veterans Green Jobs, a part of the Operation Free coalition, trains veterans in home weatherization and helps place them in energy-efficiency jobs in Colorado. One of its programs, called Home Energy Audit Training (HEAT), offers veterans a monthly stipend while they conduct training in the field. “Not only does it get veterans employed,” says Cornell du Houx, “but it gives them skills and training for a job that can’t be exported.”

Participating in the green economy provides veterans with more than a job, however. “All veterans come home with some form of PTSD,” says Cornell du Houx. As they cope with the psychological scars of war and struggle to readapt to civilian life, these jobs also provide a source of healing and a new sense of mission.

Job Training

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 (12 percent), 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 funding allows workers to receive up to $10,000 to enroll in the new training programs.

The alternative energy degree program at Lansing Community College, one of the first of its kind, has seen enrollment grow from 42 students in 2005 to 252 in 2008. Starting in the fall, the college will be offering new certificates in solar, geothermal, wind turbines, and energy efficiency. The college has also partnered with the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium (NAFTC) to develop an alternative energy curriculum for other colleges and universities nationwide.

At the same time, 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, Wash., which National Public Radio’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 that are 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.

Sound Alliance, in Pierce County, Wash., 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 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. “We do that for two reasons; it saves more energy, and it also creates higher-skilled jobs.”

The need for green workforce development has produced unprecedented collaboration among labor and environmental organizations, government agencies, schools, and businesses. Steve Gelb says that this collaboration has turned the historical divide between labor and environmental concerns on its head. “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.”

Are You the Next Apprentice?

Published in the January issue of Next Step Magazine
http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlePage1.aspx?artId=3520&categoryId=61


Preparing for an exciting career does not have to burn a hole in your pocket.As an apprentice, you can earn a paycheck while learning valuable skills from experienced professionals in a wide variety of trades.

Apprenticeships are as diverse as the careers that offer them, including carpentry, electrical work, firefighting, health services and more.

“The more training you have, the more likely you are to find employment,” says Randy Ambuehl, training director of the Electrical Industry Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC) in Washington state.

In addition to on-the-job training, apprentices receive classroom instruction, usually at a community or technical college. Most courses are offered at night and on the weekends.

At the end of the training program, which can last from two to five years, an apprentice receives a Certificate of Completion.

Someone who earns this nationally recognized credential is called a journey level worker or journeyman.

Who can be an apprentice?

Although some trades require apprentices to be at least 18 years old, others take on apprentices as young as 16. Still others, called youth apprenticeships, are specifically designed for teens.

Wisconsin’s statewide Youth Apprenticeship Program allows students to do paid work in fields ranging from health care to information technology, while taking related courses and possibly receiving college credit.

What’s required in an apprenticeship?

Apprenticeship programs vary greatly in their requirements. Applicants may be asked to provide a high school diploma or scores from the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), administered by the U.S. Department of Labor Employment Services.

Depending on the occupation, apprentices may also be required to complete certain math courses or electives, such as algebra, mechanical drawing or shop classes.

“As in any occupation, you’re going to have to be dependable,” says Ambuehl. “Construction is a team sport, so you need to be relatively physically fit—and interpersonal skills are good to have also.”

How much will I make?

One of the great things about apprenticeships is that they provide a chance to receive free training. Your sponsor—the company you work for, a trade association, or an educational trust—will typically cover the cost of your apprenticeship program. At most, you may be asked to pay for books, tools, or other necessary
materials.

Apprentices are generally full-time employees, earning wages that begin at approximately 40 percent of what a journeyman makes. As their training progresses, so does their pay, often equaling 90 percent of a journeyman’s wages toward the end of the program.

In many occupations, they are also eligible for benefits such as health care and vacation pay.

Wages for apprentices and journeymen depend greatly on the trade, region, and whether the apprenticeship is with a union or non-union employer.

How do I get an apprenticeship?

You can find an apprenticeship directly through a company, a labor organization, a trade association, or your local labor department.

As long as you are willing to put in the time and work, an apprenticeship can be a great opportunity to learn new skills and get to know a trade while earning money.

Losing Liberal Arts

Published in the January 2010 issue of In These Times.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5312/losing_liberal_arts

At the end of the 2007-2008 academic year, shrinking enrollment and a budget crisis forced Antioch College to close its doors after 156 years of progressive liberal arts education. Other liberal arts colleges and programs are under

similar stress. University of California-Santa Cruz is not accepting applications to its History of Consciousness for the 2010-2011 academic year. Goddard College underwent dramatic restructuring in 2002, and the New College of California ended operations in 2008. These losses are emblematic of the hardships facing liberal arts and humanities programs.

In light of rising costs, students fear liberal arts degrees are not worth the price tag. Consequently, interest in the liberal arts and humanities is on the wane, and the education they provide runs the risk of becoming restricted to elites who are rich in capital—cultural and otherwise. The liberal arts are not the only source of a valuable education, but they place an unparalleled emphasis on critical thinking, integrated learning and civic engagement. The growing inaccessibility threatens to deepen the divide between a well-educated elite (once called the ruling class) and a technically proficient, but less broadly educated, middle and working class.

In the face of financial insecurity, students, colleges and universities have begun to calculate the value of higher education in terms of the “bottom line.” As tuition skyrockets and education becomes more unaffordable, students want assurances that their degrees will benefit them financially. A 2004 UCLA survey of incoming freshmen at 700 colleges and universities reported that the top reasons chosen for going to college included “to get training for a specific career” (74.6 percent), “to be able to get a better job” (71.8 percent), and/or “to be able to make more money” (70.1 percent). Meanwhile, over the last 25 years tuition has risen by 440 percent—more than four times the rate of inflation.

A college degree is no longer a dependable ticket to a middle-class lifestyle. Though a 2006 study commissioned by the Association of American Colleges & Universities showed that business leaders seek employees with a wide base of skills and knowledge, recent graduates are not finding a higher education advantageous amid the economic downturn. The job market for college graduates dropped 40 percent in 2009, according to a Michigan State University study of 2,500 companies nationwide. For many graduates lucky enough to find employment, the recession has meant taking low-paying retail or customer service jobs while struggling to pay off student loans.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities are explicitly gearing their curricula toward the job market, including tailoring academic programs toward the needs of local corporations. Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg predicts that “20 years from now there will be fewer colleges that fall under the category of small residential liberal arts colleges.” Data on emerging trends seems to agree. In an article in Inside Higher Ed, “The Case of the Disappearing Liberal Arts College,” Roger G. Baldwin and Vicki L. Baker write that “national data on liberal arts colleges suggest that their numbers are decreasing as many evolve into ‘professional colleges’ or other types of higher education institutions.”

Some, like Massachusetts Higher Education Commissioner Richard M. Freeland, hail this development. Freeland is part of a movement to connect liberal arts and professional programs through the inclusion of internships, practical skill development, study abroad programs and experiential education. He argues that advocacy for a stronger emphasis on practical skills can complement the traditional goals of liberal learning.

Yet, it is unclear if liberal arts colleges will be able to undergo this transformation and retain their core missions. “Whether you can sustain the intensity of focus on the liberal arts portion while still doing all those other things is an open question,” says Rosenberg.

As colleges and universities strive to become more profitable, faculty are coping with their own economic squeeze. Over the past three decades, colleges and universities have replaced tenure-track faculty positions with contract positions, often part-time. In his 2008 book The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (Fordham University Press), Ohio State University English professor Frank Donoghue writes that tenure-track and tenured professors now make up only 35 percent of college faculty, and that number is steadily falling. He notes that the decline in tenured positions has disproportionately affected faculty in liberal arts and humanities programs, which lack the government and private funding enjoyed by other departments. In turn, aspiring professors are becoming discouraged by the prospect of juggling multiple academic adjunct positions for little pay and no job security.

The current recession has greatly amplified existing pressures on liberal arts and humanities programs. Thomas H. Benton writes in his Chronicle of Higher Education article “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go,” that universities have “historically taken advantage of recessions to bring austerity to teaching” through hiring freezes, early retirements, and the replacement of tenured faculty with adjuncts. He writes, “When the recession ends, the hiring freezes will become permanent, since departments will have demonstrated that they can function with fewer tenured faculty members.”

Students, too, are likely to face the long-lasting consequences of shrinking endowments at private colleges and budget cuts at public institutions.

This past year, the director of financial aid at Reed College tasked the admissions team to not send acceptance letters to 100 scholarship students and instead find 100 students rich enough to pay $49,950 per year for tuition, room and board.

If liberal arts colleges such as Reed are unable to recover from financial hardship, they risk losing their economic, social and ethnic diversity.

In turn, students lacking a privileged background may be denied access to a liberal arts education, regardless of their achievements or aspirations.

“Figuring out a way with smaller endowments to provide the financial aid necessary to enroll an economically diverse student body—and to pay for all the other things that you have to pay for at a college—is a very big challenge,” says Rosenberg of Macalester College.

“One of the risks that we have to attend to is not becoming the educational equivalent of a BMW.”

If a liberal arts education becomes a luxury, the implications for civil society are profound. A broad-based higher education provides an environment that fosters the critical thinking skills that are the hallmark of informed, responsible citizenship. Disparity in education equals disparity in power. By making a well-rounded education available only to the elite, we move one step closer to a society of two classes: one taught to think and rule and another groomed to follow and obey.

Politics of Denial

Published September 24, 2009 in Middle East Mirror.
http://www.middleeastmirror.com/politics%20of%20denial.html

History is political. And in a region fraught with battles over legitimacy, where each group prizes the mantle of righteous victimhood, the political implications of history are deeply felt. Unfortunately, when political ideologies obscure our common humanity, conflicts over history can generate a climate of denial.

In the Middle East, the present reverberates with historical suffering. On Yom HaShoah in Israel, sirens mark the tragedy of the Nazi genocide, and the nation comes to a stop as Israelis stand at attention and remember the loss of six million. Memorials to the victims of terrorism dot the country. Each year Palestinians remember the Nakba ("Catastrophe") with demonstrations commemorating the exile of 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war. Shaheed ("martyr") posters cover the walls of refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank. The faces of martyrs are also omnipresent in Iran, where passion plays mourning Shia leader Imam Hussein swirl with memories of bloodshed in the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq War.

Denying the suffering of others can serve multiple political purposes. For example, rejecting the Holocaust or the Nakba can be a vehicle to challenge Israel's right to exist or Palestinians' right of return. Denial--especially when victims are accused of emotional manipulation--can also undercut sympathy for adversaries, which is especially critical in a battle over international opinion.

Denying the Holocaust

Before heading to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a speech during Iran's annual Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) rally labeling the Holocaust "a lie" and "a mythical claim". The speech was one of many expressions of denial from the Iranian government, which in December 2006 convened a conference challenging the authenticity of the Holocaust. According to NPR diplomatic correspondent Mike Shuster, the Iranian government's Holocaust denial serves the political purpose of delegitimizing Israel's existence while diverting attention from domestic problems such as its troubled economy.

Holocaust denial also runs rampant throughout the Arab Middle East, appearing often in newspapers and other media. As the U.N. Relief and Works Agency discussed plans to teach about the Holocaust in its Gaza schools, Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal condemned the curriculum as a "war crime." In a written statement, Al-Astal called the curriculum tantamount to "marketing a lie and spreading it," arguing that it "serves the Zionist colonizers."

In an April editorial in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Palestinian writer Aziz Abu Sarah wrote of his decision to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day by watching the film Schindler's List. His reflections reveal much about the impulse to deny the suffering of those on the opposing side of a conflict. "As Palestinians, we simply did not learn about [the Holocaust]," he wrote. "There was a stigma attached to it, an understanding that Israel would use the Holocaust to lobby for sympathy, then turn and use the sympathy as a terrible weapon against the Palestinian people…. Deep down, I think I felt that by acknowledging their pain, I would betray or marginalize my own suffering."

Silencing the Nakba

Denial cuts both ways, however. Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar recently announced his intention to remove mention of the Nakba from textbooks, arguing that the subject would encourage extremism among Arab-Israelis. Notably, Israeli textbooks bore no mention of the Nakba at all until Israel's former Education Minister Yuli Tamir approved a text broaching the subject in 2007.

In an interview with the Institute for Middle East Understanding, Israeli activist Eitan Bronstein, founder of the organization Zochrot ("Remembering"), described the lack of awareness about the Nakba in Israel. "When it comes to the Nakba and what was there before Israel was created, it's a big hole, a black hole and people don't know how to deal with it," he said. There is, in part, a linguistic reason for this gap: during the 1948 war, many Palestinian villages were destroyed or depopulated, and the names of those that remained were changed from Arabic to Hebrew.

In May, Israel's Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved a motion to ban Nakba Day commemorations of the birth of the refugee crisis. According to the motion, brought before the committee by Knesset Member Alex Miller of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel Is Our Home") party, anyone observing Nakba Day could receive up to three years in jail. The motion was a source of heated controversy between those who opposed it on free speech grounds and those who alleged the Nakba demonstrations constituted "incitement" against the State of Israel.

The Armenian Genocide

In Turkey, the government refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide that claimed an estimated 1.5 million Armenian lives in the Ottoman Empire during and shortly after World War I. As with the Nakba, the Turkish avoidance of history has a linguistic side. Because of Turkey's 1928 language reform, during which Turkey switched from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin-based alphabet, most Turks are unable to read Ottoman-era writings.

In April 2007, Turkey objected to the wording of a U.N. exhibition entitled "Lessons from Rwanda," which included the following sentence: "Following World War 1, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the United Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes." The objection caused a delay in the opening of the exhibition, which occurred three weeks later after a compromise wording was created.

Official rejection of the genocide has had real consequences for Turkish artists and intellectuals courageous enough to address the issue. Under the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which took effect in 2005, it is a crime to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions. The article has enabled prominent Turkish novelists Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak to be brought to trial for referencing the genocide, though charges were dropped in both cases. However, the grave repercussions of denial came through in 2006, when renowned Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was prosecuted under Article 301 and was subsequently assassinated in January 2007. The assassination took place shortly after Dink appeared in the documentary Screamers, about denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Recognition and Reconciliation

The act of acknowledging and honoring others' suffering is an essential part of reconciliation. In an interview with JustVision, Aziz Abu Sarah told of his desire for revenge after his brother died from injuries he sustained during beatings in an Israeli prison. However, after a family friend persuaded Abu Sarah and his parents to participate in the dialogue organization the Bereaved Families Forum, his growing awareness of Israeli grief prompted him to become a peace activist.

On a larger scale, such encounters can play a significant role in dismantling the climate of denial and transforming conflicts. Acknowledging past suffering does not mean excusing present-day injustices. Rather, by recognizing others' pain, it is possible to reverse the battle over victimhood and establish meaningful human connections.