Community News

China, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Mali, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone

By JoAnna Haugen on Monday, April 14th, 2008

CHINA

Jake Hooker (00-02) has had a connection to China ever since he served there as a Peace Corps volunteer. In 2003 he worked for the Surmang Foundation, a non-governmental organization that runs a free health clinic in eastern Tibet. In his position, Hooker worked as a translator, bought medicine, wrote reports and met with a number of people in the Surmang Valley. As a writer, he has traveled across China and written on a number of subjects for The New York Times. Most recently, Hooker won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for A Toxic Pipeline, a series about the dangerous pharmaceutical ingredients that have entered the market from China.

COTE D’IVOIRE, MADAGASCAR

Author Tony D’Souza (Cote d’Ivoire 00-02, Madagascar 02-03) is one of 190 people awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship this year. His first book, Whiteman, was a Herald-Tribune Book Club selection in 2007. D’Souza published his second book, The Konkans this year.

MALI

In 1997 Sean Pollack became California State University Monterey Bay’s first faculty director of service learning. Now he will take those skills overseas as a Fulbright Scholar. Starting in July, Pollack will work with academics in South Africa to improve HIV/AIDS prevention programs through a service learning curriculum. He will begin his time at the University of Western Cape and finish his service at the University of Cape Town. Pollack’s research will consider the skills and attitudes that will be needed to create multi-cultural community builders in higher education.

PANAMA

Bob Vila (69-70) was recently appointed as an alternate member of the Architectural Review Commission by the Town Council of Palm Beach, Fla. Known for his decades of experience on This Old House and other television shows, Vila’s professional experience includes historic preservation, building and contracting. As an alternate member of ARCOM, he will help review and approve changes to existing buildings and review new construction and landscaping plans, though he will not be able to vote unless called upon to fill in for a regular member.

PHILIPPINES

Share-the-Love began in 2002 when Joe Zenisek (84-87) wanted to raise money for medical supplies to send to the village he served in as a Peace Corps volunteer. Today Share-the-Love is carried on by students at Molalla High School where Zenisek works as a science teacher. Each year students in a leadership class organize fundraisers for Share-the-Love and select recipients to receive the money raised. This year Share-the-Love brought in $13,180 for two cancer patients in the Portland, Ore., area.

SENEGAL

Joyce Neu’s (72-74) passion to wage peace has led her to a position on a newly formed United Nations mediation team. Most recently the head of the Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego, Neu helped coordinate forums, lectures and other programs on peace. Prior to her position at the Kroc Institute, she worked at The Carter Center as the senior associate directr of the conflict resolution program where she worked with former president Jimmy Carter on a number of peace initiatives. Neu was chosen for the United Nations team from a pool of more than 70 applicants. The group will respond as requested to hot spots around the world to help make peace.

SIERRA LEONE

Assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and director of the at Walker Health Center at the University of Arkansas, Mary Alice Serafini (69-72) was recently honored for her achievements at the 10th annual Women’s History Month Banquet in Fayetteville, Ark. This year Serafini had led the initiative to make the university campus smoke-free by July 1, 2008. In addition to her work at UA, she is active in the League of Women Voters of Washington County and Partners of the Americas, and she is president of the Arkansas league. Serafini is also a member of the American Association of University Women, the Rotary Club and the Mental Health Association.

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