UWC-USA graduate creating curriculum focusing on global awareness

When Anna Cohen ’19 was hired for an internship through Harvard University’s community service organization to teach a summer enrichment program for local low-income fifth-graders, she wanted to create a curriculum that focused on learning about the world.

Finding good online resources proved difficult.

So, Anna turned to her United World College-USA schoolmates for help. Things went so well that she is now creating an online resource to make learning about different countries and cultures more accessible for students in the United States. She is making videos with UWC students as her subjects.

“It’s fundamentally important to understand and have compassion for people from different places,” said Anna, who is taking a gap year after completing her freshman year at Wellesley College. “It’s something essential for a peaceful future. I noticed huge changes in myself since going to UWC. I’m much more compassionate and empathetic.”  

For her virtual summer classroom, Anna asked UWC-USA graduates from Timor-Leste, Nicaragua, Sweden, Nigeria, and India to hold live question-and-answer sessions with her students.

“It was amazing,” said Anna, who in the fall plans to study political science and psychology at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. “It was funny the questions 9- and 10-year-olds ask, like ‘do you wear uniforms to school’ and ‘what are your favorite foods.’”

“The kids became so much more curious and aware in those five weeks,” she continued. “Those were just first- and co-years (who made the presentations). There are so many people in the (UWC) network.”

The success prompted the 19-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., to go a step further. She reached out for help from UWC alumni on Facebook and within a few hours about 50 responded.

“It was incredible,” she said. “I even found a co-year from a different UWC to help develop curriculum packets.”

Anna did a couple Zoom interviews, but ran into Wifi and camera quality issues. To get higher quality videos, she purchased a camera and got permission to visit UWC-USA for 10 days. Anna interviewed 11 students from all regions of the world.

“This was really wonderful,” she said. “I got footage, some of which is targeting younger audiences. I used questions my students asked this summer.”

“I will also have a video from each interview geared toward an older audience where the interviewee talks about more adult topics like social justice, sustainability, government, and perceptions of gender in addition to daily life and culture,” Anna continued. “This is really aimed towards everyone who wants to learn more about the world be it for school or pleasure.”

She plans to continue collecting interviews with other UWC students.

These videos will be available online, and Anna is planning on partnering with classrooms to use these videos in their “global learning” curriculum.

 

Seventy students expected to stay on campus over winter break

Roughly 70 UWC-USA students will remain on campus during the Dec. 17-Jan. 5 winter break.

Another 40 will be hosted by Get-Away and students’ families in New Mexico, while about 120 are expected to travel elsewhere in the United States.

Because of COVID, students and faculty were asked to remain on campus or in New Mexico to reduce the number of people requiring quarantine. The governor has mandated a two-week quarantine for all international arrivals and for U.S. arrivals traveling from 47 high-risk states.

“These mandates are updated regularly, and it is difficult for us to predict what they will be in early January,” said UWC-USA Dean of Students Naomi Swinton. “We are planning rejuvenating and fun activities on campus for the students who stay, and expect that being on campus is the safest option for students.”

The $500 fee for students to stay on campus can be offset with financial aid. Activities will include global holiday celebrations, virtual hackathon, winter camping, small group activities, sledding, time with friends, and off-campus activities consistent with COVID careful protocol. 

Students staying with host families will be tested for COVID before leaving campus; host families also will be asked to get tested. Students also will need to get a COVID test through the New Mexico Department of Health within the week prior to returning to campus and share results via email by Jan. 3.

UWC-USA plans on quarantining people based on the positivity rate of the state students are returning from, and quarantining roommates who travel together with one another upon return. 

Dr. Victoria J. Mora to Keynote Panel on The Power of Youth

On Wednesday, Dr. Victoria J. Mora, UWC-USA’s fifth president, will keynote a panel on the transformative power of education. The event is free and open to the public and you can register to join the event on the UWC Hub or watch live on the UWC Facebook page.

The panel takes place at 9:00 am Mountain Time on Wednesday, November 18, 2020.

In her opening remarks, Victoria will speak about how the power of youth and the power of stories are intertwined: “A good story recounts the journey a person has taken. The more humble the beginnings, the more interesting and compelling the story. But journeys rarely take place without help.”

This talk is in collaboration with UWC’s new partner RISE, an initiative of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust. The webinar will involve a panel of three UWC alumni, who came to UWC from refugee backgrounds, sharing their stories and exploring the different ways their UWC education impacted their journey of working for and supporting change in their home communities. One of the panelists, Fatima Arabzada, is also a UWC-USA alumna from the class of 2012.

The discussion and Q&A will be moderated by Al Jazeera journalist Zaheena Rasheed (UWC Mahindra College, 2004-2006).

UWC-USA grad’s company designs low-cost ventilator

Addressing the global ventilator shortage, Kernel Labs founder and chief executive officer Amit Mital ‘87, a leader in disruptive innovation, has created an inexpensive, practical approach that can bring aid to millions around the world.

Through his Seattle technology startup studio, Mital and his team, including three engineering students from Dartmouth and another from the University of Washington, have created AutoLung, a respiratory assistance device for low-income countries. The ventilator can be assembled in two hours at a cost of $200 with simple, locally available hardware. The instructions are easy to follow and require minimal and accessible tools.

“We realized that a core issue was the supply chain – access to parts, ” said Amit. “ We designed the device to use components that already had millions in existence.” The key part of the design is that all the complexity is in the software, which enables the mechanical components to be simple and more easily available.

Kernel does not manufacture these devices. Instead, users can download the free instructions at www.autolung.org to assemble their own. The software can be downloaded on Android phones. So far, the instructions have been downloaded 230 times.

The company came up with the idea in April as the coronavirus spread worldwide and countries experienced a ventilator shortage.  They quickly realized that any solution would be too late for the U.S. market, but not for the rest of the world.

“Even if they were available (worldwide), many don’t have the funds for ventilators at $20,000 a piece,” he said. “Most rely on complex manufacturing and parts. In the Central African Republic (a country of 4.6 million), you have seven ventilators for the entire country. We wanted to design a ventilator, that if you have $200 and two hours, you should be able to put one together.”

The first part of the plan is to make the design available for anyone to use. The next step would be to partner with medical groups to evangelize usage.

Autolung ventilator is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is not meant to be a replacement for a mechanical ventilator. It is meant to be used in scenarios where a traditional ventilator is not an option.

An entrepreneur, Amit has served as chief technology officer and EVP at Symantec, and corporate vice president at Microsoft. He has been involved with technology startups as an investor, advisor and board member for many years.

 

Distillery where Josh Madere ’07 works producing hand sanitizer

The Texas distillery where Josh Madere ’07 works as the tours and education manager has produced more than 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer to help meet the demand created by COVID-19.

Through a partnership with the City of Austin and Travis County COVID-19 emergency response, Still Austin Whiskey has donated bulk hand sanitizer to those on the frontlines battling the respiratory pandemic. Additional batches were allocated to hospitals, cancer centers, firefighters, police and public health officials, emergency medical services, nursing homes and high-risk groups within underprivileged areas.

The distillery’s decision to make hand sanitizer didn’t surprise Josh, who has an undergraduate degree in international relations and global studies from the University of Texas and has been with Still Austin Whiskey for three years.

“We are a company driven by our values,” he said. “We have all the tools, and the main ingredient in sanitizer is ethanol. Ethanol is another word for the alcohol you’re familiar with, and that’s what we make every day.”

The company started making the product in March after the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and Food and Drug Administration authorized production of ethanol-based hand sanitizers by permitted distillers. Still Austin continues to produce its signature bourbon whiskey and rye gin.

“We’re pleased to provide hand sanitizer for all the local heroes on the frontlines fighting this virus to ensure their safety while keeping the rest of us safe,” Chris Seals, chief executive officer of Still Austin, said in a news release.

Still Austin is also supplying high proof ethanol to Austin pharmacies to produce hand sanitizer for their customers.

Josh said his UWC education opened his eyes to the size of the world and differences among cultures, yet common ideas among people.

“Good times, kindness, passion and sharing, the values are similar between everyone,” the 32-year-old said.

Anna Rogers ’03 treating COVID patients in nation’s hardest hit area for pandemic

Dr. Anna Rogers ‘03 took a job at a hospital on the border of the Navajo Reservation because she wanted to care for the underserved. Six months later, she found herself treating COVID-19 patients in the nation’s hardest hit area for the pandemic.

 “It’s been challenging, emotionally and physically,” said Rogers, who since last October has worked at Gallup Indian Medical Center in northwestern New Mexico. “It has been isolating personally and professionally, and it’s been hard to watch the devastation in the community. There’s not a family that hasn’t lost a loved one in the Navajo Nation.”

About the size of West Virginia, the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah is home to about 175,000 people. By mid-May, the Navajo had an infection rate of more than 3.4 percent – the highest in the nation — and more than 6,000 confirmed cases, according to the Navajo Nation Department of Health. By comparison, New York state had an infection rate of 1.9 percent.

As of earlier this month, 9,800 had tested positive for the coronavirus; 500 had died and 7,100 recovered.

The coronavirus was so devastating, experts say, because of severely lacking infrastructure on the reservation. An estimated 30 percent of homes don’t have running water, and over half of Navajo communities lack broadband access. A lack of healthy food options, overcrowded housing and high rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity compounded the problem.

“They have such strong family networks and live in multigenerational homes so it’s difficult to isolate,” Rogers said. “Those communities that have been systematically marginalized are a setup for a respiratory virus to be particularly bad because of difficulty isolating and keeping their community protected.”

She works for the U.S. Indian Health Services, a government agency that provides care for 567 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and their descendants, or about 2.2 million people. Rogers spoke about her COVID experience as a private citizen and not an employee of the federal government.

“COVID affected the Navajo Nation disproportionally,” she said. “We very quickly had a significant number of cases in the emergency room and admitted to the hospital. The sickest were often flown to Albuquerque. Ultimately, the state set up a hub, where patients were sent all over the state – Santa Fe, Farmington and Las Cruces.”

Gallup’s 99-bed hospital had up to 45 COVID patients admitted to the inpatient wards, forcing Rogers to work 10- to 12-hour days. She also had to protect herself and her staff; Rogers tested negative for COVID six times. In addition, the hospital didn’t allow visitation, but provided video visits for patients and their families.

“I think the hardest part is that patients were alone and scared, and their families were at home and couldn’t be at their bedside,” she said.

Mother’s Day was the hardest.

“To have a family on a Zoom meeting, having to say goodbye to their grandmother on Mother’s Day… knowing Mother’s Day would be difficult forever, knowing their grandmother had to die alone without family in the hospital in a culture where when a loved one dies, there are often 10 to 20 family members in their room with them.”

To compound matters, Rogers lost an uncle to COVID two weeks ago.

“I, too, am grieving the loss of a family member to COVID-19,” she said. 

For Rogers, serving in her birthplace of Gallup is sort of a homecoming. Her family moved to California when she was just 5 and she returned to New Mexico to attend UWC-USA.

A 2012 graduate of University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Rogers completed her residency in family medicine at Ventura County Medical Center and remained with the hospital for two additional years before moving to Gallup.

“I had intended to take a job with Indian Health Service and knew I wanted to work in the Southwest,” she said. “I’m interested in global health, and at some point will work abroad and this allowed me to serve a very underserved population.”

“I think it’s important to provide access to excellent health care to those who need it most,” Rogers continued. 

Her experience at the United World College-USA is why she went into medicine.

“It’s the foundation for why I do what I do,” the 36-year-old said. “It’s a big part of why I came to work for the IHS. I started out wanting to go into a career where I could make a difference.”

“I was expecting to work in a place, where I was navigating cultural differences and working with a population in which I’m not familiar with the language or the culture” she continued. “No one expected a pandemic.”

 

Rowley ’94 wins Emmy for documentary, cover-up about police shooting

Director and writer Rick Rowley ‘94 won an Emmy for best Investigative Documentary for 16 Shots, a film that chronicles the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a black teen by a Chicago police officer and the cover-up that followed.

Laquan McDonald, 17, was killed on Oct. 20, 2014, by officer Jason Van Dyke. Police had initially reported that McDonald was behaving erratically while walking down the street, refusing to put down a knife. Preliminary internal police reports described the incident similarly, leading to the incident being judged a justifiable shooting and to Van Dyke not being charged at that time.

A dash cam video showed McDonald had been walking away from the police when he was shot. Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder.

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “16 Shots is a very deliberate, ominous documentary, filled with views of the Chicago skyline and a pulsing score, but Rowley makes several smart decisions as a storyteller.”

Rowley also directed the 2013 film Dirty Wars, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

 

Top floor of Montezuma Castle renovated for classrooms

 COVID-19 prompted the continued renovation of the historic Montezuma Castle at the United World College-USA.

Not included in the castle’s $10.5 million renovation from 2000-01, the vacant third floor over the summer was remodeled for additional classrooms.

“We didn’t have the (right) size classrooms for appropriate social distancing and decided to finish four large classrooms,” said UWC-USA President Victoria J. Mora.

Most classrooms can accommodate 15 to 18 students, said Alexis Mamaux, dean of students. These classrooms were initially built for purposes other than classrooms, including hotel rooms.

“With appropriate physical distancing, we only had five classrooms that could fit more than 13 students,” she said.

The school contracted with Grimm LLC of Las Vegas, N.M., on the project. The renovation included finishing the wooden floors, painting, installing electrical service and more.

“We did a bare bones project to make sure we have adequate space,” Mora said. “It’s a beautiful space with natural light that will offer a lot of flexibility.”

The long-term plan is to use the third floor for additional dormitory space.

“The one wonderful thing is while this was a different use than what was contemplated, none of this work will be wasted,” Mora said. “It will be very easy to convert. It was a great opportunity to get folks working in the area. It was a great opportunity to make sure we were prepared for the kind of health precautions needed over the next two to three years.”

One of two Harvey Hotels in Las Vegas, the first Montezuma castle was built by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in 1882. It was rebuilt twice after fires and had multiple owners before being abandoned for decades. In 1981 the Armand Hammer Foundation purchased the 90,000-square-foot Queen Anne castle and surrounding acreage for UWC-USA. Known today as the Davis International Center, the castle houses the dining hall, dorm rooms, offices, classrooms and student center.

Last year, the school completed a $1 million bat guano remediation project of the castle. Workers removed bats and sealed the building to prevent re-entry.

“It was a big effort to remove them safely and in an environmentally responsible way,” Mora said.

A crew of 30 spent a month removing the bat guano; sanitation followed. Upon completion, the third-floor space was build-ready.

UWC-USA joins educational institutions to create student volunteer opportunities

The United World College-USA has joined five Las Vegas educational institutions along with the city to provide volunteer opportunities for students. 

Representatives from UWC-USA, City of Las Vegas, New Mexico Highlands University, Luna Community College, and Las Vegas and West Las Vegas school districts on Sept. 11 signed an agreement to create Vecinos Juntos de Las Vegas.

“This is a historic day in Las Vegas,” said Mayor Louie Trujillo. “This is the largest volunteer organizational effort Las Vegas has ever seen.”

UWC-USA has been involved with community volunteering for years–to the tune of 17,000 hours per year.

The mission of Vecinos Juntos – which means “neighbors together” in Spanish — is to make volunteerism a force for promoting the concept that we are all neighbors sharing an uncommon commitment for the common good.

The first project scheduled for Oct. 3 will be painting the Bridge Street bridge over the Gallinas River in Las Vegas and gazebos in the Plaza, South Pacific and Lincoln parks, Trujillo said.

“We’re also brainstorming for new projects and volunteer opportunities including snow removal for the elderly, litter eradication, weatherizing homes, and (providing) firewood,” he said. “The list goes on and on.”

A representative from UWC-USA will serve on the Vecinos Juntos Advisory Council along with Trujillo, NMHU President Sam Minner, LCC Interim President Dr. Kenneth Patterson, Las Vegas Schools Superintendent Larryssa Archuleta and West Las Vegas Schools Superintendent Christopher Gutierez.

Two Alumni Documentaries For UWC Day

This year’s theme for UWC Day is United We Can and UWC-USA is pleased to announce that two alumni – both from the class of 1994 – are sharing their recent work.

Please complete this form to receive the links and codes to watch the documentaries. You can also register for a workshop featuring the filmmakers this Sunday, September 20, 2020.

16 Shots, directed by Rick Rowley ’94, is a documentary about the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald as he walked away from police in Chicago. Rowley’s film is up for three Emmy awards (the Emmy’s are this weekend) and it is co-produced by UWC-Adriatic alumna Jacquie Soohen ’94.

¿Quién mató a mi hermano? (Who Killed My Brother?) is a documentary directed by Ana Fraile ’94 that explores the enforced disappearances of people in Argentina and the human rights issues they face.

Workshop Schedule (all times are Mountain Time):

11:30am  Discussion of Rick and Jacquie’s movie 16 Shots
12pm       Discussion of Ana’s movie ¿Quién mató a mi hermano? / Who Killed My Brother?
10 minute break
12:40pm  Q&A: Audience will be able to ask questions and Rick, Jacquie, and Ana will ask each other questions

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday.