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Some Recent Events

Earth Day Swap Out
On April 22, College maintenance staff swapped out hundreds of incandescent bulbs throughout the Castle and changed them to low-watt, high-lumen CFLs. Having installed an energy meter in the building some weeks prior, the College will now be able to measure the amount of energy saved by this simple move.

The bulb replacement was made possible by the BTU Do It Center of Las Vegas and PNM through their discounting and donation of CFL bulbs to United World College-USA.

The Iraq Project
Claudia Nagel '09 (Germany) and Lukasz W. Niparko '09 (Poland), members of the IPG (Iraq Project Group), describe the Iraq Project:

In the fall 2007 semester, one of the Group 2 English assignments was to prepare a presentation about a chosen global issue. Zahraa Mohsin Al-Janabi (Zizo) from Iraq made her presentation about Iraq.

Because of this presentation, many people discovered that our knowledge about Iraq was dominated by the politicized information we got from the media. We decided to create a special project for our College to raise the awareness about the human side of this terrible conflict.

With endorsement from President Lisa Darling, we dedicated February as a month for Iraq. One of the actions was to prepare a magazine to present the testimony of our Iraqi friends Zizo and Rulla Mohammed Al Saedi and also our point of view about this issue.

CLICK HERE to read their magazine (pdf, 984 kb)

The Fifth 24-Hour Playwriting Project
Pre-registered participants met at 8pm on the night of Saturday, January 12. Playwrights were given casting requirements (number of men/women) for their script, a stimulus (from a fortune cookie…that has to be included in some way in to the script), a director and until 8 o'clock the following morning to write their new play.

There were no limitations to what the play could be about, the genre or the format. At 8am the following morning, the director received the script, cast the play from a pool of actors and went straight into rehearsal. The director and actors then had until 8 pm to rehearse, learn lines, collect props/costumes and organize sound and lighting in time for a world premiere of each play, in the auditorium, exactly 24-hours after first meeting.

Nearly seventy students and community members registered to participate, and the public was invited to the free performance of eleven world premieres on Sunday night.

Southwest Studies
While second-year students attended a variety of workshops as part of a multi-day, on-campus ToK Festival, first-year students headed off on various trips to learn about Southwest culture, to visit geographically and culturally significant places (such as Los Alamos, the Grand Canyon, and White Sands), and to do service work. Click here for some great photos from the week.

25th Anniversary Founders' Weekend: Live@25 and Founders' Day

Live@25 celebrated 25 years of the United World College-USA. The show combines speeches from founding members of the College with student performances.

On Saturday, keynote speaker Peter Haas, founder and director of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, started off a day of mission-oriented discussion and work. Panelists and workshop leaders include a labor organizer with the Texas State Employees Union, the Executive Director of Compassion Beyond Borders, and the Director of Programs for Peace and Non-Violence at the Inter-Faith Council in Ann Arbor, MI.

Small group work was done on the following issues:

• Education at the Grassroots
• Organizing Activism
• Peace and Justice
• Environment and Sustainability
• Ethical Leadership Development

Following these working-group sessions, thre was an oportunity for service work at the skating pond and the springs. There was a late afternoon recap of the work done, afternoon tea on the Castle Veranda, a first year vs. second year basketball game, and an evening bonfire.

Hunger No More--Faces Behind the Facts
Art Ziemann, Regional Director of Church World Service, the organization that organizes Crop Walk, explored causes of hunger from an international perspective as well as ways that individuals, communities, and nations can address this issue. Art Ziemann also spoke at Crop Walk, held the next day at UWC.

Truth & Reconciliation: Liberia After the War
The Truth and Reconciliation Process was used in post-apartheid South Africa to allow war crimes victims to publicly tell their stories and to allow perpetrators to admit to and ask for forgiveness of their crimes. The process is considered instrumental in that nation's progress from apartheid to a democratic civil society and has since been adopted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Today, the West African nation of Liberia - which was founded as a constitutional democracy by freed American slaves - is undergoing the same process after a series of gruesome civil wars.

This lecture by Samuel Toe, Hearings Officer of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, explored the progress of the commission in its efforts to bring widespread healing and forgiveness between the nation's war-torn peoples.

Sundae Sunday
GetAway families met their 2007-2008 GetAway students at this annual ice cream social.

Human Rights in an Age of Fear and Terror
A conference co-sponsored with Las Vegas Amnesty International, Group 463

The conference feratured Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA and an array of workshops on the international implications of US anti-terror policies; human trafficking; the human rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers; the global trade in small arms; and international response to genocide and mass killings.

All parts of the conference were free and open to the public. Lunch was provided.

Click here to see the conference program. (pdf, 131 kb)

Click here to see more about the conference speakers.(pdf, 53kb)

Orientation at Ghost Ranch
For orientation this year, we tried something new: the entire campus moved to Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu for four days and three nights. There was a packed schedule of expeditions, mural painting, documentary making, challenge-course activities, mission statement workshops, intercultural games, bon fires, diversity workshops and much more. Click here for some great photos from the week.

2007 Montezuma Reunion
Alumni are uploading their reunion photo albums here.

Graduation 2007
On May 25, 2007, the United World College-USA celebrated the graduation of the class of 2007, the 23rd graduating class. The graduation speaker was Andrew Maclehose and the student Sally Martin Prize speaker was Bar Houli. Celebration events, including the annual student variety show, Blue Moon Café, began on Thursday, May 24.

Books for Africa
This spring students in first-year English B class brought community service into the classroom by centering their lessons around a book drive called Books for Africa. You can read a thank you note from Better World Books, the organization they assisted, on the Better World Blog.

Gracias, Amigos!
Held on March 23 and 24, Gracias, Amigos! was an exciting performance of song, dance, and storytelling from around the globe. The show was offered as a thank you to the people of New Mexico, who have been such wonderful friends, neighbors, and supporters of the United World College-USA.