January 26, 2005
Teach for America's National Recruitment Director Heaps Praise on Earlham
Saying the College consistently produces some of the program’s best young teachers, Teach for America’s national recruitment director, Maryanne Kiley, congratulates Earlham, as well, for it’s “really impressive” level of participation in the education focused national service initiative. Since Betsy Shaw Hirshfeld became the first Earlham graduate to join TFA in 1992, another 23 alumni have followed in her footsteps (21 since 2000; remarkable for a school Earlham’s size, says Kiley), building “just an amazing record of success” in impoverished and underserved school districts across the country.
January 20, 2005
The Christian Science Monitor: "Hard Job of Blowing the Whistle Gets Harder"
In an in-depth article about the sacrifices made by whistle blowers, conscientious employees who report alleged wrongdoing by their corporate or government bosses, reporter Mark Clayton includes an examination of the case of 1974 Earlham alumnus John Fitzgerald, an attorney and former analyst with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). When, in the course of performing his USAID duties, Fitzgerald found that U.S. development funds were being spent on major building projects in South America, Eastern Europe and Africa without the environmental impact reviews required by U.S. law, he blew the whistle… and promptly lost his job. Although the Merit Systems Protection Board, a federal court for civil service workers, eventually determined that he was wrongfully terminated, Fitzgerald — now in private practice — says the process “was longer and more difficult” than he thought it would be.
January 14, 2005
New Museum Show of American Indian Art Credits Research of Earlham Professors
Curators at the Art Institute of Chicago have organized a new exhibit of ancient American Indian art, in which Earlham Professor of Astronomy and Physics Ray Hively and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Robert Horn are referenced for their investigations into the creation of the Newark Works, a collection of geometrical earthen mounds raised by Native Americans around 300 C.E. near what is now the modern-day community of Newark, Ohio. In the early 1980s, Hively and Horn conducted extensive research at the Newark Works site, determining eventually that the mounds were designed and erected as a lunar observatory — one on par in terms of its scale and sophistication with its more famous Stone Age counterpart, Stonehenge, in England. The mention of Hively and Horn in the new exhibit, entitled ‘Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South,’ appears in the description of a map depicting the layout of the Newark Works. Following its run at the Art Institute (ending Jan. 30), the exhibit moves on for a three-month showing at the St. Louis Art Museum (March 4-May 30, 2005). It also is slated to appear from late July until late September at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
January 13, 2005
St. Louis Business Journal: City Leaders Inspired by Teach For America Associate
Just before Christmas 2004, Earlham graduate Andy Graham ‘03 was scheduled to say a few words at a holiday party organized by and for his Teach for America colleagues in St. Louis, Missouri. Unfortunately for Graham, in his second year as a special education teacher at Beaumont High School, the celebratory nature of the occasion was overshadowed by the shooting death of a Beaumont student earlier in the week. Still, he agreed to speak, and so inspirational were his words that the next day St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay — who was in attendance at the holiday gathering — copied Graham’s remarks to more than 3,000 government, business, education and social service leaders in the community. Calling them “moving” and “courageous” and a demonstration of “the best” that recent college graduates involved in Teach for America have to offer, Mayor Slay urged those receiving his message to take a few minutes over the holidays to read and consider Graham’s thoughts, as “they remind all of us that the work we do on behalf of children is so very important.” Among those heeding the mayor’s call were the editors of the St. Louis Business Journal, who picked up on Graham’s remarks and published them in the periodical’s New Year’s Eve edition.
January 07, 2005
Alumnae, President Emeritus Engaged in Disaster Relief
While Earlham President Emeritus Landrum Bolling works to help raise millions of dollars for disaster relief in the wake of the recent Indian Ocean tsunami, Su’ad Jarbawi ‘03 and Estefania Samper ‘04 — past and present Landrum Bolling Fellows in International Service with the global humanitarian aid organization Mercy Corps — are in the field helping to administer programs addressing both the tsunami emergency and the ongoing ethnic conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.