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McGill Lawrence: White Bird Legacies

White Bird worker in one of the CAHOOTS mobile crisis unit vans. (Photo from White Bird Archives, 1975)

I’m writing this as I’m coming to the end of my internship at White Bird, a multi-department crisis clinic in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in the late ‘60s as a response to droves of tripping hippie kids who descended on the town following the Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey (more or less), the clinic’s evolved over the years along with the population they work with. (Which, for three hopefully sunny and revel-filled days in May locally known as “Renn Fayre”, is the Reed community. If you’ve ever had a bad trip/sunburn/mental health crisis and been brought to a white tent between the SU and Eliot, you’ll recognize White Bird’s rock medicine department.) From a collection of cohabitating volunteers who provided 24 hour crisis service to trippers and street kids into an ever growing “collective of collectives,” White Bird has grown to be something of a household name in Eugene and continues to strive actively to improve and expand its services while retaining its status as a collective.

McGill Lawrence: Making Science Fun for All

This summer with the support of the McGill Lawrence Award, I had the opportunity to work with the science education staff at Portland’s own Oregon Museum of Science and Industry . As a Science Education Intern, it was my job not only to manage volunteers, maintain safety and coordinate with other parts of the museum, but also to act as an educator myself.

At the beginning of my internship, I thought of teaching as a challenge to prove ideas and concepts to my students. When I used this teaching style, a handful of students would walk away being able to recite a few facts I had given them, but overall it did not seem like many visitors had learned something valuable. As I progressed in my internship I learned that effective teaching is not about reciting a monologue, rather creating a dynamic conversation. Every students wants to, and can discover on their own and it is my role as an educator to guide a student to their own understanding.
During my time at OMSI I developed a few tricks to engage students:

1. Watch and listen. If you pay attention, most students will show you how they want to learn. Some students want to talk and do not want to listen to a single word you say. These students, are often better engaged by questions. They want to tell you what they see and what they think! Other students, however, are absorbers. They want to know a little about what they’re looking at before they try to understand how it works. For these quieter students, asking too many questions can feel like a quiz, and end up deterring them from staying to learn. It is my job as an educator to understand how each student will best be engaged, and to adjust my teaching style to fit an individual.

McGill Lawrence: Research and Training Program at SUFE

Daily economics class as SUFE, Shanghai.

In the past summer, I spent two months at the research and training program at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE). The education of economics has undergone significant reform during the past thirty years in China -- students used to study the political philosophy of economics, whereas now, the neoclassical economics becomes the mainstream among Chinese universities. The economics department at SUFE ranks among the top in China and it has been a pioneer in the economics education reform. The summer program attracts students from all over China. During the two months at SUFE, we had a chance to take advanced economics classes, attend academic conferences, assist professors with their research projects, and so on.

For four weeks during the program, I took advanced microeconomics and advanced econometrics classes, which were taught by Professor Du Ninghua and Professor Tao Ji, respectively. Professor Du obtained his doctoral degree from University of Arizona, and Professor Tao from Ohio State University. Both classes were taught at a graduate level and each had forty hours of teaching within four weeks. Although it was quite difficult to master all the class material under such an intensive teaching style, it was really worthwhile because the classes allowed me to have a clear sense of what I will encounter in my future study and they reminded me again of the importance of mathematics in the field of economics.

In addition to studying the theoretical side of economics, I also learned how economics can be applied in solving crucial real world problems. As part of the program, I had a chance to attend academic conferences and talk to economists on a one on one basis about a variety of topics, including the education of economics, Chinese economy, experimental economics, etc. In particular, I learned a lot about experimental economics from Professor Du Ninghua. From his lectures and our conversations, I realized how useful experiments could be in exploring any potential causal relationships. This reminded me of the book, Poor Economics (Banerjee

, Duflo, 2011), which I read in the Development Economics class at Reed. In the book, the authors make an extensive use of natural experiments to explore policy that could improve the wellbeing of poor people. The summer program stimulated my interested in this fast-developing field and I look forward to learning more about it in my future study.

McGill Lawrence: Trauma Research at the Oregon University of Health and Sciences

To me they look like tiny robots from a futuristic film made in the seventies. But these are the TEG machines, diagnostic instruments that help analyse bleeding and thrombotic risks through a whole blood assessment. It measures for example, how long blood takes to clot, how strong the clot is and how long the clot stays for. TEG machines are invaluable in the ICU because it helps the doctors and caregivers know whether a person is prone to too much blood clotting or thinning and will give them the necessary medication to counteract the condition.

For two months now, I have been participating in the Trauma Research Associates Program (T-RAP). The program is part of the Trauma Research Institute at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, OHSU, and is a yearlong commitment. I first heard about the program from my Chemistry professor Arthur Glasfeld, who mentioned that other students he had recommended for the program had found it a very good preparatory program for careers in the healthcare field.  I am interested in public health, nursing, and environmental health and I hoped by participating, I would gain obtain valuable insights about these three fields and hopefully narrow down to one field that I can follow in Graduate school.

The research I am involved in focuses on traumas, people get seriously injured in car accidents, falls, or by gunshots etc. and are brought to the Emergency Department and ICU. These patients are at an increased risk of developing infections, blood clots, post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) among others, these on top of very severe injuries or diseases that brought them into the hospital. We obtain information about their stay, and that will allow the team to determine factors that place people at higher risk for developing complications. For example in the PTSD study, we are investigating proteins involved in triggering the development of PTSD after an injury rendering some people more at risk than others.

There are people of diverse background in the team, ranging from chemistry to former art majors to salespeople.  Thus besides the research opportunity, I was very excited to start because I knew that not only is the team involved in groundbreaking clinical research, they also have nurtured many individuals like me who have gone on to become medical students, nurses and other health professionals. I felt that I was going to be in a good environment to be tutored, and could not wait to be exposed to both the hospital floor and the research front. My expectations were far more exceeded by what I actually experienced at OHSU.

Connecting with Minority Youth in the Greater Chicagoland Area, McGill Lawrence, Rosa Leal

McGill Lawrence Internship Award recipient Rosa Leal, '18, interned with the Choices Youth Outreach organization, implementing youth programs in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago.

Coming back home this summer has been a truly eye-opening experience. These last few months have been some of the most rewarding and hectic times. I was originally intended to intern with the Chicago Freedom School (CFS); however CFS contacted me two weeks into the summer apologizing that they could no longer offer a position. At first, I panicked! Then I realized I could work with an organization that I had contacted earlier in the grant process. After a week of delegation, I went on to intern with Choices Youth Outreach (CYO), a nonprofit located in the greater Chicagoland area (right in my hometown of Kankakee). Despite however stressful, my path with CYO has turned out to be a truly invaluable experience!

One of my goals this summer was to gain knowledge of the sociological issues facing the area. I wanted to work with an organization that addresses the aftermath of the Chicago Housing Crisis. A devastating policy failure that culminated in the displacement of some 181,000 residents of mostly black neighborhoods in West and Southside Chicago. As a result, concentrated poverty levels were exacerbated and started filtering into nearby towns. Wealth and jobs concentrated into newly-formed mostly white neighborhoods as a result of redistricting and complete neglect by local/federal government. In fact, I didn’t realize the severity of the situation until I was actually back home: boarded-up houses, failing schools, defunded social programs, over-policing, increased gang-affiliation, and violence every day.

Citizenship and Legalization in Immigrant Communities: Portland based Immigration Advocacy, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Francisca Garfia

This summer, McGill Lawrence Internship Award recipient Francisca Garfia, '17, Anthropology, worked with the portland-based immigrant rights organization CAUSA. Read ahead for her impressions:

As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, the struggle for legalization in the immigrant community has been central to my upbringing; I knew entire families who feared the separation of deportation, I had friends who were unable to attend college due to their legal status. This familiarity with the human side of illegal immigration led me to Causa, Oregon’s leading immigrant rights advocacy group. Causa services the Pacific Northwest immigrant community by educating them on their rights and opportunities for legalization. One way they do this is through community workshops; Causa provides access to legal forms and low cost attorneys since the legalization process is complicated and costly. The majority of my summer internship centered on a workshop, which not only served as a way to support the local immigrant community, but also pledged our solidarity to immigrant communities nationwide.

When I began planning this internship, President Obama had recently announced the expansion of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans). Immigrants across the nation were abuzz with the news; if enacted, millions of undocumented immigrants would be legalized! However, the celebration was short lived as Texas and other states filed a lawsuit that prevented the implementation of the programs. As a result, immigrant advocacy groups that had hoped to help people become “DACAmented,” now had to focus their efforts on convincing the fifth circuit court that DACA was vital to these communities, and that these individuals were Americans despite their lack of documentation. 

Frankfurt Consulate Public Affairs Internship, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Nicole Thompson

Nicole Thompson ’16, political science-ICPS major, received the McGill Lawrence Summer Internship Award to work in Geneva as a member of the Frankfurt consulate's Public Affairs team.

It is comically difficult to summarize the events of this summer into a short and legible blog post. Perhaps that is the best way to summarize this adventure.

When I accepted the McGill-Lawrence award, my plan was to work for the US Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. Two weeks before my departure I was notified that issues with my security clearance meant this was a no-go. Three days later, thanks to the grace of some higher power and the inhuman prowess of our own Brooke Hunter, I had secured a position in Geneva with the WHO. The next morning I received an email congratulating me on my approved security clearance and welcoming me to the Frankfurt consulate's Public Affairs team.

Summer School at McCoy Academy, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Kelli Collins

Kelli Collins '15, McGill Lawrence Internship Award recipient, is teaching summer school to econmically disadvantaged youth through the Portland-based nonprofit Oregon Outreach.

Teaching at McCoy Academy has been fun, challenging, rewarding, and eye opening. I went into this experience hoping to learn how to effectively educate youth who come from difficult, often at-risk backgrounds. I've realized that many of the teachers who devote themselves to this demographic spend decades asking themselves these same questions and learning more every day about the teaching methods that are most and least effective. 

We Love Clean Rivers Environmental Stewardship Internship: McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Joshua Tsang

Recipient of the McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Joshua Tsang '18, is combating water pollution through water quality monitoring of rivers around Portland with the nonprofit organization We Love Clean Rivers.

Hands-on and Hands-off River Scrubbing:

Youth Organizations Umbrella, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Olivia Kilgore

Recipient of the McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Olivia Kilgore '16, is teaching cultural connections and slam poetry to classes to Middle School Youth in Evanston, Illinois. 

Youth Organizations Umbrella is a youth development non-profit organization that serves youth in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago.  This summer, I have the privilege of facilitating classes for an eight-week summer program to middle school students in Evanston.  As a staff member of Y.O.U., I promote positive youth development. The strategy encompasses the idea that empowering youth through supporting their voices and ideas enables them to resist negative factors and be successful in all areas of their lives. 

The summer program incorporates seven main elements: life skills (civic leadership & cultural connections, health & nutrition, healthy relationships & sexual health), electives (arts/drama/lit, sports & fitness, STEM), structured play & team building activities, field trips, supportive adult relationships, family engagement and mental health counseling/crisis intervention.

Reedies Win Grants for Peace and Understanding

Nine Reed students have won grants to pursue summer projects to promote peace and strengthen understanding.

From participation with Mercy Corps to work with the Chicago Freedom school, to outreach work with the Consulate General in Frankfurt, read about these students amazing projects on the Reed magazine "sallyportal" blog:

http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/sallyportal/posts/2015/davis-mcgill-summer-2015.html

Economics in Cape Town: McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Sarah Brauner

Sarah Brauner, junior economics/mathematics major, received a McGill Lawrence Internship award to spend her summer in Cape Town, South Africa working at the Economic Policy Research Institute.

This summer has been a story of disparate images and experiences, and as I sit down to write this post, its hard not to be daunted by the task of stringing them together into a cohesive narrative. In fact, the more I reflect, the more it seems that the thread holding all that I wish to convey together is a series of sharp contrasts that I have borne witness to, participated in, and attempted—with mixed success—to process.

The backdrop for all this—Cape Town, South Africa—is in some ways one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Table Mountain, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is visible from almost every vantage point in the metropolitan area, and beaches (apparently the setting for Shark Week) surround the city. Eucalyptus and palm trees, British-colonial architecture, striking panoramas and even Baboons, abound.

The Smiles of the Children: Marshal Academy Internship in Pakistan, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Ahyan Panjwani

During the scorching summer of 2014, I worked with Mashal Academy, an alternate school for underprivileged children in Neelum Colony, a squatter settlement in Karachi, Pakistan. The initiative is primarily run by high school students from The Lyceum; they spend afternoons and early evenings with primary school level children from the area helping them with Math, English, Urdu (the national language) and basic sciences which are part of the Department of Education endorsed curriculum. Mashal was based in a single room, rented by the high school students where they used to help around 15 children with these subjects.

However, because of the superior quality and consistency of education that the students offered, there was a surge in the number of children wanting to attend Mashal. In light of this, I worked with the students to lease a new space which is much bigger and accommodates 34 children and the activities that the mentors plan for them. The new place has two rooms and a huge veranda allowing the students to be divided into two groups depending on their prior academic learning. Over the summer, we also created lesson plans for new subjects including Music, Arts, Drama and Physical Education while also allotting an hour every week for reading time. Given the pedagogical methods in the schools usually available to the children, these new additions are phenomenal – almost unheard of. We also laid ground for two other programs at Mashal: monthly medical check-ups for the children by a qualified pediatrician and a daily lunch program. Both of these are aimed at incentivizing parents to send their children to school while also providing quality services in area where infrastructure for health and hygiene is almost negligible.

Most importantly, we put in place a sustainable donor model for Mashal over the summer. Since the school was housed in smaller premises earlier, the rent was not a very big issue. However, the new house and the expanded services being offered mean that the operating costs have risen substantially. I guided the students towards finding and approaching donors who would pledge to chip in with the costs on a monthly basis for an entire year before renewing their commitments.

Causa: Protecting Immigrant Rights, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Cristobal Mancillas

Cristobal (3rd from left) working a summer internship with Causa

I spent my summer traveling around Oregon while working for Causa, the largest network of Latinos in the Pacific Northwest. In this capacity I was given a great degree of independence and charged with a variety of tasks, from administrative tasks such as statistical analysis and the incorporation of the Voter Activation Network as a hub for directing volunteer and campaign management to activism in the form of voter registration, civil rights organizing, and immigration legal services. My primary work was to advocate for Measure 88 on the upcoming ballot, also known as the Safe Roads Act. This measure would reduce barriers to accessing insurance and grant thousands of people the opportunity to apply for a driver card regardless of citizenship status. I found this experience to be a meaningful supplement to my Reed education, so I have worked to establish a federal work study contract with Causa and Reed College.

Working with Causa has changed the way I think about politics, identity, and everyday experiences as well as the way these three facets of life interact with each other. I realized, as I talked to people on the streets, in supermarkets, Jaripeos, concerts and churches, that people of color face numerous obstacles that could (and should) be addressed by legislation. This led me to reflect on the role of politics as well as my own privilege. My coworkers were a huge inspiration to me because of their sense of purpose and commitment.  I saw people overcoming language barriers, and driving long distances after a full day of work in order to help shape the world they lived in. They weren’t just raising signs, they were raising voices. I came out of this experience wiser, more skeptical (only a little bit jaded) and more conscious of my own identity. My internship continues to impact me in the new ways as my academics endogenously fuel my passion for social justice.  

A Long Overdue Reflection, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Sunny Yang

Me being the MC for the closing ceremony of the summer pre-service training.

The past two months have been a whirlwind of events, feelings, and encounters. Quite different from my original imagining of this summer internship, yet equally as fantastic, or even more so.

Originally, the plan was to spend half of my time doing a field research project in rural regions in Taiwan for the organization Teach for Taiwan, and the other half of the time would be spent assisting the organization in finding mentors for Teach for Taiwan's pilot cohort teachers. Well, plans don't always work out, especially independent internship projects like this.

Defense Mechanisms of a City Under Water Siege, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Suhai Yehuza

While parts of the country battle wild summer fires and far lands such as the Darfur region and Southwestern China make headlines in the news for want of water, one city is doing everything it can to rid itself of this important element of classical thought. This summer I am in New Orleans. And I must admit I was in part lured to this Southern princess by five star reviews of its rich culture and cuisine by Dana Lawson. After exploring as much of the city as I could during my arrival weekend, I turned my back on bustling Bourbon street, buckled my work boots, rolled up my sleeves, and began toiling under the sweltering sun with a team of other volunteers to fight water in this city. I am interning with Groundwork New Orleans, an environmental non-profit organization, this summer to lead a group of volunteers to construct rain gardens in the lower ninth ward of the city to minimize the risk of future flooding.

The start of the project had been delayed by a week pending paper work from the New Orleans’ Redevelopment Authority and the city’s Water and Sewage Board. So I spent my first week helping working with Global Green USA, a sister organization of Groundwork with a similar project on Andry Street. This gave me the first idea of the construction challenges I would be facing in the proceeding weeks. After two weeks of teasing grey clouds masking the resilient furnace of the sun, the clouds finally showed some potency by spewing down the long overdue rains. There were sighs of relief on the sweating faces digging the rain garden with shovels.

Jungle Reedie: Robin Fink, 2009, pursues her dream career in the Ecuadorian jungle

Robin Fink, Class of '09, lives and works in Ecuador where she does her self-proclaimed “dream job.”  Involvement with the Ecuador Service Project her freshman year sparked a lifelong passion and career path. Throughout her time at Reed and beyond, her dedication to service and her drive to take advantage of every available resource earned her multiple awards, grants, and scholarships.

Tell me a bit about yourself, and what you are doing now:

I graduated in 2009, so I’ve now been out as long as I was in Reed. Which is totally trippy, really mind-blowing. I’ve lived in Ecuador for the past 4 years. I currently work at organization called Fundación Pachamama, in Quito. We have a sister organization in San Francisco, the Pachamama Alliance. Our focus here is more on the ground, since we’re actually located in Ecuador. We promote alternative forms of development that don’t depend on the extraction of non-renewable resources, and support alternative, sustainable ways of living that are also spiritually fulfilling. I’m working with a program called Jungle Mamas,  a maternal and infant health program. It’s intercultural, so we’re working with indigenous nations of people in the Amazon. Actually, we’re working with the Achuar people, which is interesting because Reed had an Anthropology class while I was there called “Nature, Culture, and Environmentalism” and we read a lot about Achuar people… and now I’m working with them!

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• Summer Internship Award: Performing Arts Intern for Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
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• McGill Lawrence: White Bird Legacies
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• PSF: A Day in the Fish Lab
• PSF: History and Memory in Southwest Ireland
• McGill Lawrence: Making Science Fun for All
• McGill Lawrence: Research and Training Program at SUFE
• Summer Internship Award: Community Work in Cape Town
• Summer Internship Award: The Business of Art
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• PSF: Sense of Place in Spain, “El Botxo”*
• Summer Internship Award: Anti-Human Trafficking Work at San Diego ComiCon
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• McGill Lawrence: Trauma Research at the Oregon University of Health and Sciences
• PSF: Deep Learning in Experimental High Energy Physics, CERN
• PSF: Jasmine Williams '17, Teaching English in Myanmar (Burma)

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