Prescott College students working to make life better in Africa ...

Prescott College students working 

to make life better in Africa 

to make life better in Africa 

•Prescott College receives accreditation 

for nation’s only Ph.D. in education, 

with an emphasis in sustainability education 

•Students learn while teaching 

in the community 

•Nonprofit promotes education 

in the Dominican Republic

Editor 

Ann Haver-Allen 

Director of Public Relations 

Copy Editors 

Alicia G. Brzycki, Linda Butterworth, and Leslie Laird 

Art Director 

Bridget Reynolds 

Director of Development 

Ralph Phillips 

(928) 350-4501 

rphillips@prescott.edu 

Director of Alumni Relations 

Terri Harris 

(928) 350-4502 

tharris@prescott.edu 

Send correspondence and submissions to: 

Ann Haver-Allen, editor 

Prescott College 

220 Grove Ave. 

Prescott, AZ 86301 

(928) 350-4503 

ahaver-allen@prescott.edu 

Transitions, a publication for the Prescott College 

community, is published three times a year by the 

Public Relations Office for faculty, staff, students, 

parents, and friends of the College. Its purpose is to 

keep readers informed, with news about Prescott 

College faculty, staff, students, and fellow alumni. 

Transitions is available online at: www.prescott.edu. 

Prescott College is committed to equal opportunity for 

its employees and applicants for employment, without 

discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, 

national or ethnic origin, sex or sexual orientation, age, 

religion, disability, marital or parental status, status with 

respect for public assistance, or veteran’s status. This 

policy applies to the administration of its employment 

policies or any other programs generally accorded or 

made available to employees. 

For the Liberal Arts 

and the Environment 

www.prescott.edu 

Admissions (877) 350-2100 • admissions@prescott.edu 

4 Dream of making wine from Verde Valley grapes 

moves closer to reality 

5 Ph.D. program accredited 

6 College students learn while teaching 

in the community 

9 Nonprofit promotes education in the Dominican 

Republic 

14 Degree program created specifically for working 

adults 

15 Class watches Minutemen watching border 

16 Faculty and staff enjoy San Juan River experience 

19 P3 team learns from experience 

20 Students celebrate completion 

22 President challenges grads to make a difference 

24 Visual arts graduates exhibit work 

25 Work of photographer and teacher earns 

national acclaim 

26 Full-tuition scholarship to be provided 

27 Prescott College students working to make life 

better in Africa 

38 Board of Trustees meet 

40 News from the Kino Bay Center 

42 Recognizing Crossroads Center donors 

44 New space for archives 

46 Media reform: A concern for all educated citizens 

Departments 

3 President’s Corner 

36 Faculty News 

45 Letters 

47 Class Notes 

54 Memorials 

On the cover: Kaitlin Noss spent the night in the village of Daniel Olol Leturesh and 

his wife Charity, (seen in the blue top). Photo illustration by Bridget Reynolds.

President’sCorner 

A Prescott College education is about 

making a difference in our world 

One of the things I’ve 

learned about myself 

as I’ve aged is that I 

like to co-create with other 

people. I don’t know if this 

comes from my positive experiences 

playing team sports as a 

younger man, or the fact that I 

was raised in a family that tended 

to cooperate versus compete. 

Regardless of the source, I 

find myself enjoying and benefiting 

from involving others in 

many of my tasks, including 

what to write when authoring 

these messages at the beginning 

of Transitions. 

When I know that I will soon 

be organizing my thoughts for 

this piece, I tend to become a 

nuisance to those around me. I 

ask them what they think is 

important and what new things 

they’ve learned that might be 

interesting to a broad and very 

diverse group of readers. The 

only unifying characteristic is 

that each of you is somehow 

considered to be a friend of the 

College, and therefore, you are 

on our list to receive Transitions. 

During a recent flight I 

began working on this piece, 

and the person next to me 

asked what I was writing. This, 

of course, was a bad move on 

his part because it gave me the 

opportunity to ask him: “If you 

had to write a message to my 

audience, what would you say?” 

After an initial and appropriate 

pause, he asked: “What’s 

your angle?” 

I don’t use the term angle 

when I think of writing, but I 

gathered he was asking, “What 

do you want people to feel and 

Daniel Garvey 

do after they read your piece?” 

Well, to be honest, I want 

you to feel connected to the 

College and I want you to find 

ways you can contribute to our 

continued success—but that’s 

not sufficient as my intended 

outcome. 

What I really hope is that 

you’ll read this magazine and 

be reminded of the possibilities 

that still exist to do positive 

things that make a difference. 

More than anything, 

Transitions has become a collection 

of stories that should 

give us confidence that each of 

us can make a positive difference 

if we choose. 

In this issue of Transitions, 

you will find evidence of the 

power of positive engagement 

as you read about our efforts in 

Kenya. I can claim some 

knowledge of almost everyone 

who will be written about in 

Transitions, and I can testify 

that each person is normal and 

like the rest of us in every 

aspect, including the success 

they can achieve when they 

attempt to make their dreams 

become real. 

As everyone reading this 

knows—or will after they have 

finished—one of the distinguishing 

characteristics of 

Prescott College is that we 

value and honor those who 

apply their knowledge in the 

service of great ideas. The 

Kenya group is a demonstrative 

affirmation of our school’s philosophy. 

We value those featured 

in Transitions because 

they remind us of our own 

potential. 

Please enjoy the highlights of 

commitment and action that 

are detailed in this issue of 

Transitions, and consider using 

these stories as a springboard 

for your personal involvement 

in making the world a better 

place. And by the way, if you 

have any thoughts about working 

with me to co-create the 

next piece for Transitions, just 

let me know. I always enjoy the 

company. 

With gratitude for your care 

and commitment to this great 

institution, I remain appreciatively 

yours. 

Summer 2005Transitions 

3

Above, Eric Glomski talks 

about the winemaking at 

Page Springs Cellars. 

Photos by Linda Dove. 

Bottom, Page Springs 

Cellars offers tours seven 

days a week. 

Visiting Page 

Springs Cellars 

The tasting room is 

open from 11 a.m. to 6 

p.m., seven days a week. 

Tours are available for 

both members and nonmembers, 

although the 

winery prefers that nonmember 

tours include 

at least 10 people. Tours 

must be scheduled in 

advance. 

The winery is located 

at 1500 North Page 

Springs Road in 

Cornville, Ariz. The 

phone number is (928) 

639-3004. The fax line is 

(866) 848-2192. Or you 

may visit on the Web at 

pagespringscellars.com. 

Dream of making wine from Verde 

Valley grapes moves closer to reality 

by Denise Calhoun 

Eric Glomski ’92 owes 

his livelihood to a bottle 

of home-made apple 

wine. Glomski, who graduated 

from Prescott College with a 

degree in environmental education, 

found a grove of heirloom 

apple trees near White Spar 

Road in Prescott and decided to 

try making wine with them. 

He was at a party, sampling 

the fruits of his labor, when he 

realized that wine was a liquid 

landscape, an expression of the 

apples and the environment 

where they grew. 

That discovery led to Page 

Springs Cellars, a winery located 

in Cornville, Ariz. 

One might not think of the 

dry Arizona climate and wine as 

suitable partners, but Glomski, 

who learned about winemaking 

during a stint with a California 

vintner, said the two are made 

for each other. 

“Originally, most wines came 

from the Aegean and the Middle 

East,” he said. “Most of the 

grapes used to make wine today 

originated in hot desert climates. 

Page Springs, at 4,000 feet, is 

actually cooler than where many 

4 TransitionsSummer 2005 

of these grapes originated.” 

In fact, he said 20 wineries in 

the state grow their own grapes. 

Only a handful, however, grow 

grapes without the use of petrochemicals, 

and Page Springs 

Cellars is one of them. 

“We’re pretty green here,” he 

said. “Our vineyard manager 

grows cover crops that prevent 

erosion, which are then tilled 

into the soil for fertility. We aim 

to foster a soil ecosystem that 

provides nutrients for our vines.” 

The grapes from Page 

Springs Cellars vineyards are 

still too young to be harvested 

for wine. Currently, Glomski 

brings in all of the winery’s 

grapes from Wilcox, Ariz., and 

parts of California. 

By next summer, he plans to 

be growing grapes on 22 acres. 

Currently, five acres are planted. 

The crops are irrigated with 

water from Page Springs, which 

meanders through the property. 

Page Springs Cellars plans to 

bottle 2,000 cases of wine this 

year. That’s a 100 percent 

increase from last year. The 

wines include cabernet pfeffer, 

pinot noir, syrah, and mouvedre. 

But Glomski’s dream is larger 

than just bottling wine. His 

dream is rooted in the dirt of his 

Verde Valley vineyard, and that 

liquid landscape he tasted more 

than a decade ago. 

“My goal is to grow grapes in 

our valley, and to produce wines 

that express this place,” he said. 

Setting such goals and persevering 

until they are reached is a 

tool he developed while at 

Prescott College. 

“I learned how to problemsolve, 

how to set goals there,” 

Glomski said. “I also learned 

how to organize myself to meet 

those goals.” 

Page Springs Cellars is a 

Prescott College stronghold. 

Craig Martinsen ’98, is the 

vineyard manager, and his wife, 

Allison Scott-Martinsen ’98, 

sometimes helps out. In mid- 

June, the Martinsens welcomed 

their son, Troen Lars, into the 

family. 

The Prescott College influence 

even extends to the walls of 

the tasting room. Much of the 

art was created by graduate 

Raina Gentry ’94, who also 

taught rock-climbing at the college 

from 1996 through 2000. 

When he was an idealistic student, 

Glomski said, he had a 

one-sided view of the business 

world. Today, he tries to balance 

the philosophy and ideas he 

developed at Prescott College 

with the winery’s bottom line. 

“Balance, application, trying to 

put myself in the other person’s 

shoes,” he said. “It’s so easy to 

just consume and profit.” 

He said maintaining the balance 

between making a living 

and his philosophy can be a 

struggle, but it’s a worthy one. 

“My family is dependent on 

this piece of land. It affects my 

kids, our future,” Glomski said. 

“It all depends on how we treat 

the land.”

Ph.D. program accredited 

Inaugural cohort to begin studies this fall 

Beginning this fall, 

Prescott College will be 

the first education institution 

in the United States to 

offer a Doctor of Philosophy in 

education, with a focus in sustainability 

education. 

The new Ph.D. program, 

which is accredited by the 

Higher Learning Commission, a 

member of the North Central 

Association, enlarges the 

College’s mission to educate students 

of diverse ages and backgrounds 

to understand, thrive in, 

and enhance the world community 

and the environment. 

Ongoing process 

At Prescott College learning is 

considered a continuing 

process, and educators strive to 

provide an education that will 

enable students to live productive 

lives while achieving a balance 

between self-fulfillment 

and service to others. 

Students are encouraged to 

think critically and act ethically, 

with sensitivity to both the 

human community and the 

biosphere. The College’s philosophy 

stresses experiential 

learning and self-direction, 

within an interdisciplinary 

curriculum. 

The doctoral program in 

education, concentrating in sustainability 

education, logically 

derives from and brings together 

several current bachelor’s 

degree and master’s degree 

curricular specialties, including 

education, environmental studies, 

and social sciences. 

This new low-residency program 

uniquely combines 

expansive, interdisciplinary 

inquiry with intense, individualized 

research and practice. 

Four years of concentrated 

study and research culminate 

in a dissertation or a project 

that reflects the high academic 

rigor expected of a doctoral dissertation, 

and also includes a 

socially significant application. 

Flexible design 

The design of the program is 

flexible enough to accommodate 

many individual learning goals, 

but is focused sufficiently 

enough to generate collaborative 

and challenging scholarly discourse 

within a solid, if relatively 

new, academic concentration. 

Breadth is achieved through 

participation in a shared 

sequence of foundational 

courses, and a common area 

of interdisciplinary inquiry— 

that of sustainability education. 

Depth is achieved 

through study of individual 

focus areas and the dissertation 

and project process. 

The Ph.D. program emphasizes 

rigorous scholarship, critical 

thinking, and action-oriented 

research, and fosters open discourse 

through respect for 

diverse perspectives and scholarly 

collaboration. Integrated, 

interdisciplinary thinking pro- 

Program components 

motes the evolution of ecological 

understanding, psychological 

and philosophical consciousness, 

and social learning for a humane 

and sustainable future. 

The greatest challenge facing 

humankind in the 21st century 

is to learn to live sustainably on 

the earth. The increasing 

emphasis on economic growth 

and unsustainable production is 

in direct conflict with promoting 

long-term human health 

and prosperity, preserving the 

richness of nature, and even 

sustaining life on earth. 

Key players 

Educators can and should play 

a key role in helping society 

learn to meet the challenges 

of globalization and achieve a 

sustainable future. It is an 

opportunity for educational 

institutions to play a major 

role in determining whether 

the struggle to achieve a just, 

livable, and sustainable world 

will be won or lost. It is an 

opportunity of which Prescott 

College hopes to take full 

advantage. 

• Limited residency (35 to 40 days) over a four-year period 

• Four-person doctoral committee 

• Three required foundation courses 

• Five to seven individually structured, independent studies courses 

• Colloquium and symposium presentations 

• Publishable qualifying paper and presentation 

• Practicum(s) 

• Dissertation or project, with an emphasis on scholar practitioners 

Admission criteria 

• Completion of an accredited master’s degree program 

• Demonstration of significant, related life and work experience 

• Evidence of self-direction and commitment to scholarly excellence and social change 

• Ability to develop clearly articulated educational goals 

• Willingness to participate in transformative learning, alternative education models, and an 

innovative approach to doctoral education 


by Ann Haver-Allen 

For admissions information, 

contact the admissions office 

toll free at (877) 350-2100, ext. 

2100; e-mail: admissions@ 

prescott.edu; or visit the 

Prescott College Website at 

www.prescott.edu. 

5

y Hilary Eller 

Emergence: A Writers in the 

Community Anthology is 

available for purchase at 

$7.50 per copy. To purchase 

one, contact Melanie Bishop 

at mbishop@prescott.edu. 

Everyday Struggle was written 

by Ryan, who was at the 

Juvenile Detention Center. 

College students learn while 

Service learning practicum sends writers forth 

They learn by teaching, 

and, in turn, others learn 

as well. 

The eight students who were 

in Melanie Bishop’s Writers 

in the Community class at 

Prescott College paired up and 

led creative writing workshops 

at sites throughout the community. 

(See related story, on page 

8.) The students were Iris 

Cushing, Melisa Doran, Eric 

Insel, Libby Jones, Sam 

Reed, Heidi McKye, Lara 

Ruggles, and Will 

Waterman. 

Prescott House 

Sam Reed taught at Prescott 

House for Men, a residential 

treatment center. 

In a Prescott College class, 

Reed said he enjoyed the 

diversity in how his students 

expressed themselves and 

their willingness to try anything and everything. 

“They’re definitely more 

During one of Reed’s work- enthusiastic about it,” Reed 

shops, he led 11 students said of his students’ progress. 

through an exercise in which “Both with myself and with 

they each had five index cards, everyone else, everyone’s get- 

and on each one wrote down a ting more comfortable with the 

different aspect of a short idea of having the class, and 

story—two characters, a set- with my role of facilitating it,” 

ting, a situation, and a conflict. he added. 

They shuffled the cards and The director of the Prescott 

then redistributed them, caus- House’s programs asked each 

ing chuckles and some outright of Reed’s students to commit to 

laughter, including conflicts the entire 12-week class, but 

such as a dingo eats a charac- some Prescott College students 

ter’s baby and the character didn’t have that luxury with the 

gets accused of the crime. classes they taught. 

The cards included settings 

such as Coney Island, trash on Juvenile Detention 

the ground, sea gulls all over, For example, Iris Cushing and 

near the fairgrounds, winter Libby Jones, who taught at 

1983, and characters such as the County Juvenile Deten- 

Alan, a 33-year-old man from tion Center, saw different stu- 

Michigan, a forensic toxicolodents just about every time 

gist with the county sheriff’s they visited. 

department. 

If anybody needs to write, 

The Prescott House students Jones said, these kids need to 

wrote a story, using one card write. 

from each subject area. 

She said she enjoyed watch- 

6 TransitionsSummer 2005

teaching in the community 

to lead creative writing workshops at sites throughout town 

ing the moment when each student’s 

protective wall dropped 

away, and he became just a kid, 

struggling with adolescence. 

“He’s not a criminal or a drug 

addict, he’s just a kid,” she said. 

Cushing pointed out the difference 

between herself as a 

writer and her writing students. 

“I use writing to form linkages,” 

she said, when reading 

from a weekly journal entry, 

adding that for many of her 

students, writing has caused 

rifts between them and other 

people. 

Peppertree 

Eric Insel taught at Peppertree 

Square, an assisted living facility. 

Many of the people he 

worked with, he said, were difficult 

to teach because they 

have so much knowledge 

already. 

He called one of his students 

a poet/circus performer/lion 

tamer and a kindergarten 

through 12th-grade teacher. 

Therefore, he’s tried to make 

his workshops a cathartic writing 

group, where they could 

rethink some of their selfimposed 

tyrannies. 

Skyview School 

Lara Ruggles taught with Eric 

at Peppertree, and with Heidi 

McKye at Skyview School. 

Ruggles said she enjoyed the 

dichotomy of teaching adults 

one day, and middle school students 

the next. 

“It’s neat to see how enthusiastic 

they are about creative 

writing,” she said of the 

Skyview students. “On the 

other hand, with the Peppertree 

residents, with the creative 

writing exercises, you 

have to drag it out of them.” 

Lara was home-schooled 

and this is her first experience 

Photo by Ann Haver-Allen 

Members of the Writers in the Community class are Iris Cushing, Melisa Doran, Eric Insel, Libby Jones, Sam 

Reed, Heidi McKye, Lara Ruggles, and Will Waterman. Teacher Melanie Bishop is sixth from the left. 

with middle school. 

Turning Point 

McKye spoke mostly about her 

work at the Turning Point 

Youth Crisis Shelter, a crisis 

shelter for children and teenagers. 

Since her student population 

changed rapidly, she 

often improvised lesson plans. 

“I love that it can be that 

flexible,” she said. “From what 

see Writers on next page 

My Favorite Time of Day was 

written by Alice, a resident of the 

Peppertree Square. At 97, Alice 

was the oldest participant in the 

Writers in the Community 

workshops this spring. 

Summer 2005Transitions 7

Ode to My Car was written by 

Erik V., who was at the 

Prescott House for Men. 

by Hilary Eller 

Hilary Eller is a reporter for 

the Daily Courier in Prescott. 

Writers continued from previous page 

Class reaches out to community 

Prescott College’s Writers 

in the Community class 

sends college students 

out into the community to 

teach creative writing to people 

at the Prescott House for Men, 

the Juvenile Detention Center, 

Peppertree Assisted Living, 

Skyview School, Blue Hills 

Academy, and the Turning 

Point Youth Crisis Shelter. 

The class is structured to 

meet three times per week. 

The students teach at their 

sites two of those classes, and 

for the third class they get 

together and discuss how their 

weekly classes went. 

Arts and Letters faculty 

member Melanie Bishop ’86 

designed the course. She 

watches each student at their 


they responded to, I changed 

the lesson plan as we went. It 

blew me away to work with 

these kids so closely in such a 

short period of time. It made 

my week, every week.” 

Blue Hills 

Will Waterman taught at Blue 

Hills Academy, a residential 

treatment center for teen boys. 

He shared with the Prescott 

College writing class his plans 

to help his students start a 

newspaper. 

“They’re so involved,” he 

said. “They love it.” 

The challenge, he said, 

was providing his students 

with a way to use the tools 

he’d given them during 

the first part of his 12week 

course. The newspaper 

gives the students 

that opportunity, while 

allowing them to use 

their interests, such as 

writing, photography, and 

book reviewing. 

sites one time. The students 

submit weekly journal entries 

to Bishop, chronicling their 

experiences with their students 

and with their teaching. 

“My students are passionate 

about writing,” Bishop said. 

“This class allows them to minimize 

the focus on themselves as 

writers and to get to know different 

populations, to intersect 

with different parts of Prescott.” 

In addition, she said, it 

enlarges their life experience 

and their experience with writing 

and teaching writing. 

The Writers in the 

Community class is a 

practicum, which means students 

do what they’re learning. 

When the quarter ended, the 

class published a community 

anthology, which included 

poetry that community students 

wrote. The College then 

sponsored a reading, where 

every participant who was able 

to attend came and read his or 

her own poetry. 

The goal is to serve a range 

of ages and a cross section of 

the community, Bishop said, 

focusing on people who might 

not have otherwise had a 

chance to take a class like this. 

While Bishop said college 

often is a self-absorbed age, 

she said the Writers in the 

Community class gives Prescott 

College students the opportunity 

to get outside themselves. 

And, she said, it’s really fulfilling 

to watch students grapple 

with this.

Nonprofit promotes education 

Alum founds organization committed to improving 

opportunities for children in rural Dominican Republic 

story by Erica Ryberg 

photography by Silvan Wick 

In Cabarete, on the remote north coast of the 

Dominican Republic, the trade winds blow 

year-round, carrying with them those interested 

in a little culture and adventure. This littleknown 

sport paradise hosts a multitude of kiteboarders 

and windsurfers bleached and tanned to 

outdoor perfection, who take to the choppy bays 

when the winds pick up in the afternoon. 

It’s an adventurer’s dream, but the area also 

faces deep social challenges. A Prescott College 

graduate helped establish 

the Dominican Republic 

Education and Mentoring 

(DREAM) Project, which 

works to improve substandard 

rural education in 

Cabarete. 

When Judy Greenberg 

’74 and her husband came 

to Cabarete from Vermont 

with their children in 1994, 

they were in search of Judy Greenberg ’74 

recreation; he windsurfed 

and she mountain biked through local outfitter 

Iguana Mama. Tricia Suriel, Iguana Mama’s owner, 

took her out on a couple of rides, and introduced 

her to the difficulties faced by Cabarete’s children. 

“She showed us the local elementary school, 

and said she was trying to get a library started 

there,” Greenberg said. “I was very inspired to 

come back again the next year, and not just be a 

tourist.” 

Back to college roots 

The decision brought her back to her Prescott 

College roots. Greenberg, a psychologist, first 

traveled in Latin America while still an undergrad. 

She toured South America with a roommate 

and joined a study-abroad program. 

“I joined an official cultural anthropology 

semester program in Colombia as soon as I came 

back from six months traveling around,” she said. 

“And all of that went toward my degree.” 

Greenberg earned her bachelor’s degree in cul- 

tural anthropology and Latin American studies. 

see DREAM Project on next page 

Children of Batey Caraballo, a community of cane cutters, have no school to attend. The 

DREAM Project is working to construct a schoolhouse and fund supplies. They also are in 

need of volunteers to help in this mostly Haitian and Haitian-Dominican community. 


9

Dream Project continued from previous page 

Public schools in the 

Dominican Republic are 

overcrowded, student-teacher 

ratios are staggering by U.S. 

standards, and basic materials 

(paper, pencils, scissors, etc.) 

are unavailable. In addition to 

providing basic supplies and 

desperately needed library 

books, the DREAM Project also 

funds building new 

classrooms, bathrooms, and 

libraries in the public schools. 


“One of the really wonderful things about 

Prescott College was that the instructors took 

students’ passions and turned them into academic 

pursuits,” Greenberg said. 

Following her passions, she parlayed her cultural 

anthropology training into a psychology 

career and visited Latin America frequently. It 

was on the advice of friends that she and her 

family found themselves in the Dominican 

Republic, touring a local grade school. 

According to Greenberg, in a school that had 

no electricity or running water and only one outhouse, 

the biggest challenge was the lack of educational 

materials. 

Books, books, books 

“This elementary school had 600 students, and 

there wasn’t one book in the school,” she said. 

During the year following their first trip to 

Cabarete, Greenberg and her children, Emma 

and Jacob, collected $500 in school supplies and 

books in Spanish. Since that first year, they have 

returned faithfully, always with more books. 

“Once, at the very end of their recess, we 

brought the books into the little library building. 

Kids were pouring in through the windows, 

climbing in to get their hands on these books to 

just look at them. They’d get a book, and sit on 

the floor, and go immediately into a trance of 

ecstasy, looking at these pictures and reading and

just getting transported to another world,” 

Greenberg said. “It was just so incredible.” 

Greenberg’s 11-year-old daughter, Emma, was 

no less touched by the incident. 

“You get to see how really fortunate we have it, 

and you see people who aren’t as fortunate as 

you, and it’s really rewarding,” she said. 

Greenberg wanted to include her children in 

her interests, and teach them that people in other 

parts of the world live differently. 

“I just felt like, if we’re going to change this 

world at all, that kids starting from a very young 

age should see what they’ve got and what other 

people don’t have, and what they need to do to 

make the world better. Then it’s up to them to do 

something about it,” she said. 

Distributing the books was not easy. Suriel said 

that when Greenberg brought the first batch 

down, she had a hard time getting them out her 

own front door. 

“I wasn’t able to get the books from my house 

to the school for a good two months because my 

husband and his friends were so enthralled with 

the Cat in the Hat and Huevo Verde con Jamón,” 

she said. 

After finally getting the books to the school, 

she checked back to find that none had reached 

the schoolchildren. The books had disappeared. 

“I was so ignorant at the time that I actually 

thought the teachers were going to read these 

books to the children,” she said. “I realized that 

we needed to make a library and have a librarian 

to oversee the books.” 

DREAM Project born 

That first library touched off more than a 

decade’s worth of work, which culminated in the 

DREAM Project. Following their initial efforts, 

Greenberg filed for nonprofit status and became 

the first president of the board of directors. 

“The day that we had our very first board 

meeting, the only two people there were Judy 

and me,” Suriel said. 

As the project grew, Suriel, Greenberg, and others 

helped to build additional classrooms, bathrooms, 

and libraries in the local public schools. 

“I think we have the only public school in all 

the Dominican Republic that has computers 

see DREAM Project on next page 


Early pregnancy, parental 

attitudes, and family 

obligations are partially to 

blame for the poor state of 

rural education in the 

Dominican Republic. 

Therefore, one of the primary 

goals of the DREAM Project is 

to help students finish school. 

11

The Puerto Cabarete public 

school is one of the only public 

schools in the Dominican 

Republic to have computers— 

and a backup generator to 

ensure power. 

Photo at right, many rural 

schools in the Dominican 

Republic do not have 

electricity or running water. 

The DREAM Project funds the 

building of new classrooms, 

bathrooms, and libraries in the 

public schools. 

Dream Project continued from previous page 

available to students—and a backup generator,” 

Greenberg said. 

The challenges compelling the project have 

their roots in government expansion of primary 

education during the 1970s and 1980s. While 

many schools opened, many were without teaching 

materials or trained instructors. 

“The schools are pretty loose compared to what 

we’re used to,” Greenberg said. “The teachers 

hardly make any money. The electricity comes and 

goes. They have these little desks with the arms 

attached to them, and when they break it’s not like 

they’re going to get a new one. Three kids are 

going to end up sitting on another.” 


Against a Shangri-La backdrop of giant mountains, 

remote beaches, deserts, and rain forest, 

generations of rural Dominicans have lived without 

the benefit of adequate education. According 

to a United States Agency for International 

Development (USAID) analysis, early pregnancy, 

parental attitudes, and family obligations are partially 

to blame for the poor state of rural education 

in the Dominican Republic. 

Education is the answer 

The answer, according to those at the DREAM 

project, is to help students finish school. 

Statistically, children of mothers who have completed 

high school have a 71-percent chance of 

attending school vs. 28 percent for those who 

haven’t. Since 85 percent of poor Dominican parents 

haven’t completed the compulsory sixth-grade 

education, the project has its work cut out for it. 

“You’re fighting against time, because the kids 

have an expiration date,” Suriel said. “They’re 6 

and then all of a sudden in 10 years they’re 16, 

and then they’re pregnant and the cycle starts all 

over again. So you have 10 years to get to them.” 

The country of 8.6 million people has begun to 

experience an economic renaissance, due in part 

to increased interest in sports tourism, but the 

growth and a burgeoning culture of expatriates is 

not without difficulties.

“It’s changing rapidly—that’s what tourism 

brings in. It’s not the eco-tourism that everyone 

wants to believe: there’s sports tourism, which is 

very different from eco-tourism, and should not 

be confused,” Suriel said. “Some of the biggest 

problems are that the tourists are not properly 

educated before they come out, nor are the people 

who start businesses.” 

Prescott College alumna Laurel Eastman ’98, 

who opened a kiteboarding school in Cabarete in 

2003, is an exception (see story below). Eastman, 

who graduated with a degree in human ecology, 

became involved with the DREAM Project from 

almost the moment she arrived. 

“Education here is so bad. I thought, ‘What can 

we do about this?’ Then the DREAM Project 

came into existence,” Eastman said. “They are 

really on the forefront, the leading edge of 

humanitarian work.” 

At around the same time that Eastman arrived, 

the DREAM Project began making giant strides 

Prescott College grad enjoys life 

as an adventure entrepreneur 

Starting up and running my own businesses 

has been one of the most satisfying 

achievements in my life. The ability to 

work doing what I love is more than the icing on 

the cake; it’s the reason for being! 

The beauty of being a Prescott College grad is 

that self-direction is second nature—and that’s one 

of the key qualities needed to be a successful 

entrepreneur. It’s like a real-life senior project, and 

while the rewards can be incredible, the focus is (as 

always) on the journey, not the destination. 

In more ways than one, I find my business path 

integrated very much with my physical pursuits 

of athletic excellence. Successes and opportunities 

are recognized and realized by listening to 

my body. My heart shows me the path to follow, 

and my gut instincts help guide me through 

rough waters. 

I find the same skills I use in extreme sports— 

whether its kite-surfing, snowboarding, or rock, 

climbing—also serve me in the work aspect of my 

life. These include facing my fears of failure 

head-on, analysis of what my actions in this 

moment will cause in the future, and most of all, 

calculated risk-taking. 

People who succeed in adventure or extreme 

sports possess the same qualities it takes to 

forward. Three years earlier, Suriel had sold 

Iguana Mama to direct the project full-time. 

“Now we have a full-time staff of five and have 

hosted an additional 100 volunteers encompassing 

50,000 hours of work in 17 classrooms,” 

Suriel said, adding that local businesses help the 

project through financial support and by promoting 

the DREAM Project to visitors. 

“Laurel was one of our very first people to 

come on as a partner, and she’s just been fabulous. 

Other businesses were hesitant because it’s 

such a big responsibility, and Laurel didn’t even 

blink,” Suriel said. 

In addition to making socially just contributions 

through her business, Eastman is recycling old 

kites into beach bags. 

“We’re trying to minimize the little bit of impact 

that kite-boarding does have. I think it’s because of 

my Prescott College education, the way that I 

make decisions with my company, in what I come 

up with to be treading lightly,” she said. 

become a good entrepreneur. So what are you 

waiting for? Listen to your heart, make your 

plan, and go for it! Good luck, and good winds to 

you all. 


Erica Ryberg is a professional 

writer. She can be found 

online at: www.dream 

factoryink.com. 

Silvan Wick is a professional 

photographer. To view more 

of his photographs see 

www.silvanwick.com. 

For more information about 

the Dominican Republic 

Education and Mentoring 

(DREAM) Project, see 

www.dominicandream.org/ 

by Laurel Eastman ’98 

Laurel Eastman ’98 owns 

Laurel Eastman Kiteboarding 

in Cabarete. For more info, 

see www.laureleastman.com. 

13

y Ann Haver-Allen 

Students in the Adult Degree 

Program attend an orientation 

weekend that informs and 

prepares students to begin 

their program. Information 

presented includes critical 

thinking and the liberal arts, 

academic processes, study 

skills, and library resources. 

Photos by Ann Haver-Allen 

Degree program created 

specifically for working adults 

The Adult Degree 

Program is one of two 

venues through which a 

student can earn a Bachelor of 

Arts degree from Prescott 

College. This community-based 

undergraduate-degree completion 

program is accredited by 

the Higher Learning 

Commission, a member of the 

North Central Association. 

Degrees are offered in 

adventure education, environmental 

studies, human poten- 


tial (including counseling and 

psychology), humanities, liberal 

arts areas, management, sustainable 

community development, 

and teacher education. 

The beginning 

The Adult Degree Program was 

founded in 1978, with the mission 

of helping students complete 

their college education 

without sacrificing a personal or 

professional life. 

Most students hold full-time 

jobs, and many have families. 

The average age of students in 

the Adult Degree Program is 37, 

and the average enrollment for a 

semester is 325. 

“Typically, students come in 

with at least two years of college,” 

said Jeanine Canty, 

interim dean of the Adult 

Degree Program. “We usually 

recommend that they have at 

least 70 quarter-hours of credit.” 

Semester hours can be converted 

to quarter hours by multiplying 

by 1.5. For example, 3 

semester hours equal 4.5 quarter 

credits. 

“Students are required to 

have a competence (major) and 

two breadths (minors),” Canty 

said. “The competence has to be 

at least 90 quarter-hour credits, 

and each breadth has about 40 

quarter-hour credits. The student’s 

curriculum is approved by 

the faculty, who also look at its 

scope and breadth.” 

The average time to degree 

completion is two years. 

Applicants must demonstrate 

that they have mentors in 

their community who have a 

master’s degree or a Ph.D. 

and are willing to work with 

them in their study area. 

“We are a community-based 

program, and it’s really important 

that students have professional 

people with degrees who 

are willing to serve as men- 

tors,” Canty said. 

Requirements 

In addition to finding a community-based 

mentor, students 

have three other requirements: 

• attending an orientation 

weekend in Prescott at the 

beginning of enrollment; 

• attending the Adult Liberal 

Learning Course, which is an 

extension of orientation and 

helps students become familiar 

with Prescott College’s 

philosophy and methods; and 

• attending a liberal-arts seminar 

weekend. 

The weekend orientation 

informs and prepares students 

to begin their program. Information 

presented includes academic 

processes, study skills, 

and library resources. 

Taking their first course with 

their core faculty member, the 

Liberal Learning course introduces 

students to particularly 

effective tools and strategies of 

learning that help them 

achieve high levels of skill in 

the liberal arts. This threequarter-credit 

course is taken 

in the first quarter of the student’s 

program. 

The liberal arts seminars 

broaden students’ learning 

about values and preconceived, 

commonly held 

beliefs. Seminars focus on 

topics such as environmental 

issues and cross-cultural perspectives. 

The objective is to 

develop intellectual skills in 

the liberal arts. 

New students are enrolled 

four times a year in October, 

January, April, and July. Tuition 

for the Adult Degree Program 

is $4,374 per enrollment period, 

which is six months, or 18 

to 24 quarter credit hours. 

For more information, see 

www.prescott.edu/admissions/ 

apply_adp.html.

Class watches Minutemen 

watching U.S./Mexico border 

April proved to be a good 

month for students in 

Randall Amster’s 

Human Rights Seminar to gain 

a firsthand educational experience. 

April is when more than 

700 armed Minuteman volunteers 

converged on a 23-mile 

stretch in Cochise County in an 

attempt to stop what they 

called the “Mexican invasion.” 

Amster’s class assisted the 

local chapter of the American 

Civil Liberties Union as legal 

observers to the Minuteman 

Project. Their task was to 

ensure that the Minutemen 

were following the law. 

“We were there as 

observers,” Amster said. “We 

didn’t go down to get in their 

face and debate policy with 

them. We wanted to ensure 

that everyone’s rights were 

being honored and respected.” 

Melisa Doran was one of 

the students who participated 

as a legal observer. 

“The most influential part of 

this experience was learning 

more about what the border is 

really like through firsthand 

experience,” she said. “Just sitting 

in the desert sun all day, 

even with adequate food and 

water and an easy way out, 

made me appreciate what 

migrants go through to walk for 

days just to have a chance to 

come here.” 

In 2004 more than 200 

migrants died while attempting 

to cross the harsh desert terrain 

of southern Arizona. 

Amster is the first to say 

that the Minutemen have a 

right to demonstrate, but arming 

themselves, destroying 

water stations, and using 

searchlights across the desert 

are all actions that move 

beyond demonstration. 

“An untrained armed civilian 

militia is not well-regulated,” 

he said. “The situation was like 

a powder keg, and could have 

set off an international crisis.” 

He gives credit to the 

Minutemen for drawing national 

attention to the human-relations 

crisis occurring along the 

U.S.-Mexico border. 

“They were very adept at 

creating a media circus,” 

Amster said of the Minuteman 

Project. “In actuality, the exercise 

was about 25 percent border 

control, and 75 percent 

dog- and-pony show.” 

He said that although their 

motivations were entirely different, 

his class and the 

Minutemen did share some 

bonds in political ideologies. 

For instance, members of both 

groups are against the war in 

Iraq, agree that the North 

American Free Trade 

Agreement (NAFTA) is a failure, 

and that a guest-worker 

program is shortsighted, and 

are increasingly frustrated with 

the lack of action by the Bush 

administration. 

“This gave us a place to have 

open dialogue because we 

weren’t really that far apart on 

some of the issues,” Amster said, 

adding that the Minuteman 

movement is enacting a 

Manifest Destiny drama. 

“The Minutemen tend to 

believe that America belongs to 

Americans by birthright, and 

that illegals are crossing the 

border to corrupt, rape, and 

pillage,” he said. “Historically, 

however, the people crossing 

the border have a stronger 

claim to this land. It was part of 

Mexico before it was part of 

the United States.” 


by Ann Haver-Allen 

Randall Amster, wearing the 

white T-shirt in the front row, 

is pictured with students in 

his Human Rights Seminar. 

15

Faculty and staff enjoy San Juan River 

Photo by Joel Barnes 

From left, Jeanine Canty, Ralph and Darcy Phillips, Catherine Hutchins, Tom Thomasson, and Steve Munsell 

take a break from the river. 


Faculty and staff members of 

Prescott College were guests 

of the summer block course 

River Guides Training, with faculty 

member Joel Barnes ‘81. 

Co-instructors for the adventure 

were faculty member Steve 

Munsell (first segment only) 

Robert McGillicuddy ’04, Colin 

Wann ’00, and Greg Walters ’05 

(second segment only). Guides in 

training were Jenny Aranson, 

Audrey Goldberg, Ryan 

McDonald, and Catherine 

Hutchings. 

Students and instructors led 20 

faculty and staff members down the 

San Juan River in Utah in May. The 

trip had two legs. The first segment 

was three and one-half days, beginning 

at Sand Island and ending at 

Mexican Hat. The second segment 

Above, expeditioners stop to explore River House, an Ananazi ruin. 


Left, faculty and staff members sing around the campfire 

Photo by Cathy Boland

experience 

was five and one-half days, beginning 

at Mexican Hat and ending at 

Clay Hills. 

Faculty and staff participants on 

the first segment were Adrian 

Adams, Eileen Chalfoun, Noel 

Caniglia, Jeanine Canty, Jenn 

Dinaburg, Ralph and Darcy 

Phillips, Tom Thomasson, and 

Alison Ruth Wiggers. 

Those who participated in the second 

segment of the adventure were 

Molly and Gary Beverly, Cathy 

Boland, Jeanine Canty, Frank 

Cardamone, Lyn Chenier, Joan 

Clingan, Jamie and Brian 

Mehalic, Pete Peters, and Mary 

Trevor. 

Above, faculty and staff members 

who participated in the second 

segment of the San Juan River trip 

pose for a group photo. 

Photo by Cathy Boland 

Left, running the San Juan rapids. 


Right, Navajo weavings displayed 

by Steve Munsell. Photo by Joel 

Barnes 

Bottom, participants in the second 

segment of the San Juan River trip 

listen to a student’s presentation. 



17

Devin Carberry named finalist 

Devin Carberry was 

chosen as one of 11 

finalists for the 2005 

Campus Compact’s Howard R. 

Swearer Student Humanitarian 

Award. Carberry was selected 

from a field of 58 nominations 

that came from colleges and 

universities nationwide, 

including Harvard, Yale, and 

Princeton. 

Carberry “represents a 

model of humanitarian service 

that we would all do well to 

emulate,” said Elizabeth L. 

Hollander, executive director 

of Campus Compact, which is 

a national coalition of more 

than 950 college and university 

presidents who are committed 

to fulfilling the civic pur- 

Bioneers set to beam into Prescott 

For the fourth consecutive 

year, Prescott College 

will be hosting the annual 

Bioneers Conference via 

satellite. The Bioneers 

Conference will be held Oct. 14 

to 16, 2005, at the Marin Center 

in San Rafael, Calif., and the 

plenary sessions will be broadcast 

live at Prescott College in 

the Sam Hill Warehouse. 

The Prescott College celebration 

surrounding the conference 

will feature a local green-business 

consortium, solar, permaculture 

and biodiesel workshops, 

and the creation of a Center for 

Social Change in the Prescott 

College community. 

Other events will include a 

film festival and partnership 

with the Arts and Letters 

Program in conjunction with 

the annual art auction. 

Rachael Gollub is an exciting 

addition to the planning of 

this year’s local event. Gollub is 

using Bioneers as her senior 

project and is learning about 


poses of higher education. 

At Prescott College, Carberry 

has a dual competence in education 

and social justice studies, a 

major he has dubbed “education 

for community development.” 

Carberry, who will graduate in 

December, grew up in Orange 

County, Calif. His plans following 

graduation are still being 

shaped, but he is thinking about 

a number of possibilities, including 

leading a community-based 

orientation, teaching English 

and studying Capoeria and 

Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro, 

developing a Maasai language 

module for the Kenya course 

next year, finishing the book he’s 

been writing for the last year, 

and beginning his second, join- 

socially responsible marketing 

and event planning. 

The goal of the Bioneers 

Conference is to stimulate local 

dialogue and develop broader 

alliances for positive change. 

The satellite component, 

dubbed Beaming Bioneers, connects 

the conference to 17 communities 

throughout the United 

States who share a common 

vision of ecological and social 

restoration. Plenary speakers 

and their topics include: 

• Janine Benyus: “What Life 

Knows: New Ideas from 

Biology that Could Change 

the World” 

• Wil Bullock: “You Are Where 

You Eat: Growing Urban 

Food and Community” 

• Vyacheslav Trigubovich: 

“From Russia With Snow 

Leopards: The Future of 

Wilderness Protection” 

• Bill McKibben: “Global 

Warming: A Climate of 

Fear and Opportunity” 

• Diane Wilson: “An 

ing Teach for America, and getting 

his Ph.D. in a program that 

weds activism and education. 

The Swearer Award, named 

in honor of Brown University’s 

15th president and one of the 

founders of Campus Compact, 

was created to bring national 

attention and recognition to 

the community work of college 

students. 

Campus Compact promotes 

public and community service 

that develops students’ citizenship 

skills, helps campuses 

forge effective community partnerships, 

and provides 

resources and training for faculty 

seeking to integrate civic 

and community-based learning 

into the curriculum. 

UnReasonable Woman: 

UnReasonableness and 

Where It Gets You” 

• Jeremy Narby: “Intelligence 

in Nature: A Predator’s 

Inquiry” 

• Rha Goddess: “Who’s Got 

Next? Cultivating Feminine- 

Centered Leadership in a 

Hip-Hop Era” 

• Michael Ableman: “Field of 

Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey 

to the Frontiers of American 

Agriculture” 

• Ohki Simine Forest: “Return 

of the Ancient Council Ways: 

Indigenous Survival in 

Chiapas” 

• David Orr: “The Fifth 

Revolution: The Evolution 

of Ecological Design 

Intelligence” 

For the complete conference 

schedule, see www.bioneers. 

org/conference. For more information 

about Prescott College 

activities, contact Heather 

Houk at hhouk@prescott.edu or 

(928) 350-1007.

P3 team learns from experience 

The People, Prosperity, 

and the Planet (P3) team 

headed by Tischa 

Muñoz-Erickson ’99 was one 

of 65 teams to compete in the 

Phase II grant competition in 

Washington, D.C., that was 

sponsored by the U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency 

(EPA). They did not win that 

round, but in the first round, the 

team received $10,000. 

P3, a student design competition 

for sustainability, is a collaboration 

between the EPA 

and 35 partners from industry, 

government agencies, and nongovernment 

organizations. 

P3 emphasizes the interrelationship 

of economic prosperity, 

the protection of productive 

ecosystems, and efforts to provide 

people with a higher quality 

of life, and provides grants to 

student teams to design and 

implement sustainable solutions 

to environmental challenges. 

“The feedback we got from 

the judges, public, and agency 

folks was very positive,” Muñoz- 

Erickson said. “Our poster 

setup, including brochures, 

rocked. A professor from anoth- 

er team exclaimed, ‘This is an 

eye-catching poster!’ and to me 

that is priceless.” 

Muñoz-Erickson and 

Mathew Loeser, a student at 

Northern Arizona University 

(NAU), in partnership with the 

Diablo Trust and Prescott 

College Professor Bernardo 

Aguilar-González, designed a 

monitoring tool to help achieve 

sustainable management of 

rangelands in northern Arizona. 

The monitoring tool measures 

important ecological and 

social aspects of rangeland 

management such as soil quality, 

grassland and forest health, 

wildlife viability, economic stability, 

community strength, and 

public awareness. 

“I think we all deserve a good 

pat on the back for the work 

we’ve done. I think the most 

exciting times of the project are 

ahead, so I’m personally looking 

forward to the good things we 

are going to achieve together.” 

Other research team members 

include Prescott College 

student Jeff Bayha, and Tom 

Sisk, whose lab at NAU has 

been researching grasslands and 

Scholarships help with 

summer study plans 

Eight Prescott College 

students are benefitting 

from the generosity of 

two anonymous donors. 

Each of the students received 

$7,500 in summer scholarships 

to help with the cost of their 

summer course fees. 

These are one-time scholarships 

and were awarded based 

on a combination of need and 

merit. 

The recipients and their area 

of competence are: 

• Josephine Arader, envi- 

ronmental studies 

• Katelyn Cabot, integrative 

studies 

• Lisa Glaterio, adventure 

education 

• Catherine Hutchings, 

adventure education 

• Jessica Lichtig, adventure 

education 

• Ryan McDonald, adventure 

education 

• Celeste Roberts, social 

issues 

• Paul Whitehead, adventure 

education 

Tischa Muñoz-Erickson and Bernardo Aguilar-González in Washington, 

D.C., for the Phase II grant competition of the EPA’s P3 team. 

grazing since 1996. 

For additional information, 

contact Muñoz-Erickson at 

Tischa.MunozErickson@nau. 

edu. or Aguilar-González at 

baguilar@prescott.edu. 

Student musician brings 

performance to Crossroads 

Paisley Yankolovich, a student in the Adult Degree 

Program, will give a free concert at 7 p.m., Saturday, 

Sept. 24, in the Crossroads Café. Yankolovich performs 

to tracks from his records or accompanies himself on 

acoustic guitar for smaller audiences. He has two compact 

discs out. His first, Not Unclean, was released in 

August 2004. The second, Itch, was released in April 

2005. For more information about Yankolovich and his 

music, see www.paisleyyankolovich.com. 


Student co-investigators and 

research associate selecting 

monitoring site locations 

across focal area of 400,000 

acres of rangelands. 

19

Jill Boyer, Ella Goodbrod, 

Sean Roberts, and Elisa 

Stodden celebrate graduation. 

Photos by Rachel Yoder 

Students celebrate completion 

Baccalaureate and commencement held 

President Dan Garvey conferred 54 bachelor’s 

degrees at graduation ceremonies for 

the Resident Degree Program on Saturday, 

April 30, 2005. The graduates and their degree 

competence and breadth are: 

Kyra Aneil Alexander, adventure education, 

with an emphasis in outdoor experiential education 

and environmental studies 

Jill Anne Boyer, environmental studies, with an 

emphasis in conservation biology and humanities 

Paul Thomas Bryan, integrative studies: human 

development, with an emphasis in ecopsychology 

and adventure education 

Joseph M. Carroll, peace studies and human 

development 

Katherine Holden Chance, human health and 

development and human biology 

Aaron Lee Cloninger, human ecology and visual 

arts 

Carson Rose Conklin, environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in agroecology and interdisciplinary 

arts and letters 

Sara Nicole Cross, visual arts, with an emphasis 

in studio arts, and holistic health with an 

emphasis in expressive arts 

Imogen Daly, environmental studies and arts 

and letters 

Danielle Anna DeFiore, elementary education 

and arts and letters 


Joseph Douglas Devine, experiential education 

and environmental science 

David William Drever, writing and literature 

and history and politics 

Emily Ducat, environmental studies, with an 

emphasis in environmental education and Latin 

American culture and language 

Foster Andrew Duval Jr., environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in environmental policy and 

outdoor pursuits 

Isaac Joseph Ellis, environmental studies, with 

an emphasis in ecological design and peace studies 

Samuel Luke Epperson, education, with an 

emphasis in environmental education and adventure 

education 

Kelly Evans, environmental studies, with an 

emphasis in conservation biology, and cultural, 

and regional studies, with an emphasis in Latin 

American studies 

Johnathan David Farley, political economy 


Travis Fortney, writing and literature, and philosophy 

and religion 

Kate Fox, environmental studies, with an 

emphasis in marine studies, cultural and regional 

studies, and outdoor pursuits 

Sam Fox, adventure education and environmental 

studies 

Emily Sara Gable, environmental studies, with 

an emphasis in marine studies and outdoor experiential 

education

Ella McKenzie Goodbrod, adventure education 


Beth Bernadette Hellenbrand, sustainable 

development in Latin America and the human 

potential of individuals and communities 

Carl Jackson, adventure education, education, 

and human development 

Max Willis Kamen, environmental studies and 

industrial arts and design 

Christopher Michael Kopek, natural history 

and ecology, cultural and regional studies and 

outdoor pursuits 

Robert LaBuda, environmental studies and 

environmental education 

Sonya Levy-Boyd, human development, with 

an emphasis in gender studies and adventure 

education 

Carla Anne Long, psychology and adventure 

education 

Margaret Kathleen Olinda Madden, peace 

studies, with an emphasis in Latin America and 

environmental studies 

Kathryn Ann McEwen, environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in earth science and outdoor 

education 

Heidi McKye, creative writing, secondary education, 

and interdisciplinary arts and letters 

Jamie Lloyd McSweeney, environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in agroecology and community 

health and sustainability 

Leif Mjos, environmental studies, outdoor pursuits, 

and intercultural studies 

Kaitlin Elizabeth Noss, education for community 

development and visual and expressive arts 

Omar Dylan Pierce, ecological design and outdoor 

pursuits 

Brent Pikolas, environmental education and 


Joshua Daniel Porter, adventure education and 

human development 

Sam Reed, creative writing and environmental 

studies 

Jennifer Riffle, visual arts, with an emphasis in 

art education, math and science, and liberal arts 

Sean Denali Roberts, psychology, education, 

and theater 

Zachariah William Schneider, adventure education 


Sara Ruth Schuenemann, environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in ecotourism, and arts and 

letters, with an emphasis in documenting the 

existential wilderness experience 

L.J. Schuessler, adventure education and holistic 

mind and body 

Raymond Rabbiboy Sprague III, environmental 

studies, with an emphasis in agroecology and 


Elisa Cooper Stodden, environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in environmental education and 

arts and letters 

Ellen Thomas, earth science, visual arts, and 

music 

Gabriel Abraham Wallace, adventure education, 

with an emphasis in outdoor experiential 

education and environmental studies 

Gregory John Walters, adventure education 


Jonathan Lyon Whitney, zoology and cultural 

studies 

Mark Brian Winterowd, environmental science 

and creative writing 

Marc Edward Wise, environmental studies, 

with an emphasis in ecological sustainability and 

human development 

Jonathan Joseph Zucchi, political economy 

and outdoor education 


Sam Reed, center, celebrates 

graduation with poet Megan 

Gannon and Miles Waggener, 

instructor in the Arts and 

Letters Program. 

Photo by Rachel Yoder 

21


Top photo, Kelly Ann 

Brizendine of Tucson earned 

her Bachelor of Arts degree in 

elementary education through 

the Adult Degree Program. 

James D. Nez of Kayenta 

earned his Master of Arts 

degree in American Indian 

Studies: Navajo Nation. 


President challenges graduates 

Graduation ceremonies for students 

earning a Master of 

Arts degree, and those earning 

a Bachelor of Arts degree through 

the Adult Degree and Graduate 

Programs were held Saturday, June 4. 

President Dan Garvey conferred 27 

Master of Arts degrees and 68 

Bachelor of Arts degrees. 

“We acknowledge you, the graduates,” 

President Garvey said. “We 

acknowledge the sacrifices, the hard 

work, and that you had to do things 

that other graduates may not have had 

to do. This is no small feat. It is a 

tremendous accomplishment.” 

He challenged graduates to make a 

difference in the world, and said that 

Prescott College will not be content if graduates 

from the institution do not make a difference. 

“You understand that our goal is to help you 

gather the information and skills needed for you 

to make a difference in the lives of others,” he 

said. “Have courage. It will take courage to 

make a difference. Have the courage to do the 

things that need to be done, when they need to 

be done.” 

President Garvey also encouraged the graduates 

to keep their sense of humor and surround 

themselves with positive people. 

“Define yourselves in terms of what you like, 

not what you don’t like,” he said. “We don’t need 

any more people identifying the weeds in our 

lives. We need people who are willing to help 

plant cover crops.” 

The graduates earning a bachelor’s degree 

through the Adult Degree Program and their 

hometowns are: 

Spencer Ames, Berlin, Vt. 

Tiffany Aleice Amor, Tucson 

Andrea Nicole Atencio, Tucson 

Antonio Gallego Badilla, Tucson 

Elva Maria Barrales, Tucson 

Matilda S. Begay, Rock Point 

Katherine Rebecca Brandy, Ashland, Ore. 

Katie Elizabeth Brieschke, Erie, Mich. 

Kelly Ann Brizendine, Tucson 

Cheryl Lynne Campbell, Phoenix 

Regina Anne Carpenter, Williams 

Jeanna Louise Silkiss Carter, Lopez Island, 

Wash. 

T. Miki’ala Catalfano, Bella Vista, Calif. 

Terry Faye Cavey, Cochise 

Tammy Lea Cochrell, Pahrump, Nev. 

Kelly A. Coffman, Prescott 


Derek P. Collins, Prescott 

Lee Comaduran, Benson 

Joycelyn Ann Connet, Tucson 

Ashley Magers Cornwell, Prescott 

Eric Robert Cross, Tucson 

Lincoln Andrew DeFer, Tucson 

Kristen Densmore, Prescott 

Nelson E. Dexter, Tucson 

Matthew Robert Dusek, Ashland, Ore. 

Lisette Anne Marie Eckman, Tucson 

Margaret P. Elandt, Tucson 

Jerry L. Ford, Socorro, N.M. 

Amie L. Gillis, Tucson 

Evelyn Gissendanner, Prescott 

Jeffrey Robert Glaser Sr., Summerville, S.C. 

Olga Gutierrez, Casa Grande 

Brian James Hansen, Tucson 

Pamela Paulette Houston, Arizona City 

Melanie Michelle Ann Hurst, Tucson

to make a difference in the world 

Erica Lynn Irby, Tucson 

Sonja Mariea Karihuhta, Tucson 

Bonnie Marie Kuch, Marana 

Marylynn Kunkel, Prescott 

Lisa Darlene Kynast-Pena, Reno, Nev. 

Jennifer Larkin, Tucson 

Amanda De-Anna McPherson, Marana 

Janette Marie Brentlinger Miller, Jackson, 

Wyom. 

Amara Jade Mitchell, Tucson 

Denise Marie Molina, Tucson 

Danielle Carol Parnell, Chino Valley 

Michael Payton, Tucson 

Jared Gabriel Stewart Perkins, Tucson 

Laura Colleen Pettit, Santa Ysabel, Calif. 

Richard Trujillo Quiroz, Tucson 

Wallace L. Ross, Long Beach, Calif. 

Deborah Sue Rupp, Tucson 

Lia Kathleen Sansom, Tucson 

Joye Lynn Sass, Phoenix 

Claire Elizabeth Scheuren, Tucson 

Ryn Alan Shane-Armstrong, Tucson 

Sharnell Antenette Sheffer, Tucson 

Nelida Bertha Sprunt, Vail 

Kayla Streifel, Gillette, Wyom. 

Kelvin D. Strozier, Tucson 

Mary Testa, Globe 

Kimberly Vieu, Cochise 

Sara Kathleen Voska, Delta, Ohio 

Karen Ross Waterfall, Tucson 

Deanie Lynn Wood, Tucson 

Julie Ann Wulfekuhle, Ballantine, Mont. 

Benjamin Harrison Wurzel, Franklin, Tenn. 

Elizabeth A. Wurzlow, Tucson 

Master’s Degree recipients 

Those earning a Master of Arts degree 

through the Adult Degree and Graduate 

Program and their hometowns are: 

Miriam L. Austin, Twin Falls, Idaho 

Wallace Andrew Beckham, Denver, Colo. 

Suzanne Patiño Dhruv, Tucson 

Rhonda Downey, Hampton, NB, Canada 

Diane Meyer Dunn, Plano, Texas 

Anita M. Everett, Atlanta 

Kelly Ferrell-Koren, Tucson 

Linda Karyn Focht, Tucson 

Lesly Jean Hess, West Covina, Calif. 

Cindy D. Johnson, Reno, Nev. 

Kathryn Kauppi, Durango, Colo. 

Teresa A. Lazaro, Mesa 

Shasta Renae McCoy, Gunnison, Colo. 

Aimee S. Miller, Boulder, Colo. 

Adrian Mintz, Sedro-Woolley, Wash. 

James D. Nez, Kayenta 

Stephen Powell, Truchas, N.M. 

Shandra Keesecker de Rivero, Lukeville 

Tracey Sanders, Loveland, Colo. 

John Sheedy, Tucson 

Barbara Ann Silversmith, Farmington, N.M. 

Victoria Lynn Springgay, Gilbert 

Cathy Sproul, Tucson 

Toni Stafford, Cottonwood 

Michael F. Strife, Fort Collins, Colo. 

Tierna L. Unruh-Enos, Albuquerque 

Mary Williams, Tucson 


Friends and family gather 

prior to graduation 

ceremonies to celebrate. 


23

Jennifer Riffle instructs participants in the free silk painting workshop 

held in conjunction with her senior project. 

Visual arts graduates exhibit work 


Three graduates of 

Prescott College’s Visual 

Arts Program were featured 

in exhibits at the Sam 

Hill Warehouse. The students 

were Aaron Cloninger, Sara 

Cross, and Jennifer Riffle. 

Cross’s exhibit, titled 

“Interconnection,” was a series 

of paintings that expressed the 

spiritual interconnection 

amongst all life. 

Riffle’s exhibit, titled 

“Thumb and Cloud Theory,” 

was a visual arts installation 

displaying silk paintings. The 

silk room installation and silk 

paintings explored growing up 

in Los Alamos, the history connected 

to the lab, and the 

artist’s exposure to radiation. 

Additionally, Riffle offered a 

free silk painting workshop, 

where she provided supplies, 

space, and direction to learn 

the French Serti technique of 

silk painting. Participants 

received two plank habotai silk 

pieces, an assortment of dyes, 

tools, and resist. The workshop 

was so popular with Prescott 

College students and members 

of the Prescott community, that 

Riffle had to turn people away. 

At left is a photograph of Jennifer Riffle’s silk painting from her senior 

exhibit “Thumb and Cloud Theory.” 

Above is a painting from “Interconnection,” the senior exhibit of Prescott 

College visual arts student Sara Cross.

Work of photographer and 

teacher earns national acclaim 

Andrew Beckham is one of 27 students 

to receive his Master of Arts degree from 

Prescott College this spring. Beckham 

teaches photography, drawing, painting, and aesthetic 

theory at Saint Mary’s Academy in 

Englewood, Colo. Additionally, he has a photography 

studio in Denver, Colo., where he makes 

his home. 

“I feel quite fortunate in that the work I do in 

the studio and in the classroom really does 

become the same stuff that I find fun to do,” said 

Beckham, who earned his master’s degree in aesthetic 

theory. 

“In a nutshell, aesthetics is that branch of philosophy 

that investigates the nature of beauty and 

attempts to define what beauty might be,” he 

said. “My work has addressed this question by 

attempting to reconcile and integrate aesthetic 

inquiry from a number of fields, including classical 

aesthetics (in a Platonic sense), theological 

aesthetics (in the context of mystical Christian 

teachings), ecology, and postmodern theory. My 

aim has been to offer a holistic view of aesthetics, 

a paradigm that acknowledges the metaphysical 

as well as the subjective, the ethical as well as the 

formal aspects of beauty.” 

Featured work 

Photographs from Beckham’s project “Questions 

from the Whirlwind” was featured in the June- 

July 2004 issue of LensWork, a journal of fine art 

photography. 

“Beckham’s finessing of light and shadow in 

harsh conditions is exquisite, with a wonderful 

eye for sacred simplicity,” wrote Brooks Jenson, 

editor of LensWork. 

“Questions from the Whirlwind,” which referenced 

text from the Book of Job as a foundation 

for photographic exploration, is the product of a 

Fulbright Fellowship in Photography, which he 

was awarded in 1999. The fellowship provided 

Beckham with funding for travel, studio and 

darkroom facilities, and living expenses during his 

year abroad as a visiting artist at the Bezalel 

Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. 

“The LensWork project was a wonderful 

opportunity, and I am so pleased with the quality 

of the publication,” Beckham said. 

“LensWork is one of the best journals for fineart 

photography, and I was very excited to have 

my work highlighted there.” 

Beckham discovered his interest in fine-art 

photography while 

attending the High 

School of the 

Performing and Visual 

Arts in Houston, where 

he grew up. After high 

school, he attended the 

Pacific Northwest 

College of Art, earning 

a Bachelor of Fine Arts 

degree in 1992. 

Directly following 

his undergraduate 

work, Beckham held 

an artist-in-residence 

position at Rocky 

Mountain National 

Park, followed by a 

second artist-in-residence 

at the Anderson 

Ranch Arts Center in 

Snowmass Village, 

Colo. In 1996 he 

received a National 

Endowment for the 

Humanities grant, followed 

by a Fulbright 

fellowship. His work is represented in collections 

nationally, including the Portland Art Museum 

and the MacArthur Foundation Art Collection. 

A matter of choice 

He chose to attend Prescott College for his master’s 

degree because of the limited-residency 

requirement and the quality education. 

“I think the best thing about my graduate work 

at Prescott was the unique opportunity the College 

afforded me, and that is the ability to integrate 

scholarly research with creative practice,” Beckham 

said. “My studio work was an integral part of my 

graduate study, yet the pursuit was markedly different 

than a Master of Fine Arts degree. At Prescott 

the theoretical research informed and enriched the 

studio work, just as the studio work brought up 

new and exciting questions to be examined through 

extensive literature reviews. 

“I just don’t know of anywhere else that I could 

pursue a graduate program such as this. And 

what’s more, I was able to study across disciplines 

in an effort to integrate aesthetics with theology 

and ecology. This is a unique and rich opportunity 

that the College provides its students.” 


25


For more information, contact 

the Adult Degree and 

Graduate Program (ADGP) 

admissions at 

www.prescott.edu/ 

admissions/apply_map.html 

Full-tuition scholarship to be provided 

for study toward master’s degree 

Anew graduate scholarship 

sponsored in collaboration 

between 

Prescott College and Prescott 

Alternative Transportation 

(PAT) provides full tuition for 

full-time enrollment in the 

Master of Arts Program (MAP) 

at Prescott College. The recipient 

will develop the executive 

director position at PAT, while 

earning a master’s degree. 

“I think this is an interesting 

matchup,” said Sue Knaup, 

executive director of 

Thunderhead Alliance, the 

umbrella organization under 

which PAT operates. “PAT 

needs someone to take a leadership 

role, and Prescott 

College has MAP, which trains 

leaders. This seems like the 

perfect partnership.” 

Leadership role 

Knaup said the chosen scholar 

will not be put directly into the 

executive director position, but 

will be given reign to come up 

with programs and plans to grow 

PAT, a nonprofit organization 

she founded in 1997. 

PAT works with government 

agencies, volunteers, and other 

organizations to improve transportation 

conditions for bicyclists 

and pedestrians throughout 

Yavapai community. 

“This is a real leadership role 

from which to learn the organization 

and generate ideas for 

growth,” Knaup said. “I have 

never seen another master’s 

program like the one offered at 

Prescott College.” 

Knaup said that the ideal 

candidate would have a natural 

inclination toward being a 

leader—someone who can look 

broadly and see the big picture. 

“We are looking for someone 

who has a vision, and knows 

how to reach it,” she said, “but 

someone who also understands 


the organization and our teamwork 

approach. We really have 

a think-tank atmosphere, and 

we want someone who understands 

that, and can lead us 

where we need to go.” 

Responsibilities and opportunities 

include: 

• coordination of an established 

501(c)(3) organization, working 

toward a bicycle- and 

pedestrian-friendly central 

Yavapai community; 

• program and organizational 

development at PAT (with 

supportive staff and board 

members); 

• direct connection to 

Thunderhead Alliance, the 

national bicycle-pedestrian 

umbrella organization, which 

offers the latest in best practices 

for bicycle and pedestrian 

advocacy; 

• nourishment of existing programs 

under way that need 

leadership, including Safe 

Routes to Schools, Bike 

Month in May, a Tri-City 

bike map, and PAT’s quarterly 

newsletter; 

• development of new programs 

that could include the 

nationally recognized 

“Complete the Streets” 

campaign, specific street 

projects such as Grove 

Avenue development plans, 

and long-term policy 

changes for land-use and 

transportation reform; 

• presentation of proposals to 

the PAT board for new programs, 

including work plans 

with funding sources, time 

frames, milestones, and other 

important elements; and 

• fundraising aligned with programs, 

board development, 

volunteer development and 

coordination, communication 

to members, membership 

development, and other promotional 

ideas and coalition 

building to connect PAT to a 

broader audience. 

The scholarship is awarded 

by semester, renewable upon 

mutual satisfaction of the scholar, 

PAT, and the MAP at 

Prescott College. 

To apply 

To be considered for the scholarship, 

interested applicants 

should submit the following 

materials: 

• A completed application to 

the Prescott College Master 

of Arts Program and a $40 

application fee. 

• Letter of application for 

scholarship. 

• Two letters of recommendation 

of which at least one 

must be job related. Copies 

will be forwarded to PAT. 

• A résumé, which will be forwarded 

to PAT. 

• The personal statement, as 

described in the Prescott 

College MAP application. 

This will be forwarded to 

PAT. To meet the needs of 

the PAT board in making 

their decision, this essay 

should demonstrate an 

understanding and a commitment 

to sustainable community 

development and alternative 

transportation. This 

essay should also show how 

the applicant intends to integrate 

his or her academic 

work with his or her engagement 

as a graduate scholar in 

this area. 

• The study plan, as described 

in the Prescott College MAP 

application. 

A phone or an in-person 

interview by PAT is required. 

“The writing submissions 

are so valuable,” Knaup said. 

“The Prescott College 

requirements really draw out 

an individuals personal goals 

and philosophies.”

Beyond borders 

Prescott College students working 

to make life better in Africa by Denise Calhoun 

Decades ago, Africa 

ensnared the interest 

of Paul Bowles, William 

Burroughs, Isak Dinesen, 

Graham Greene, and Ernest 

Hemingway. Today, the continent 

has new conquests: the 

hearts and minds of Prescott 

College students and faculty. 

Environmental Studies 

Professor Walt Anderson, 

who has taken six trips to 

Africa for Prescott College, is 

among the enamored. 

“Anybody who has been to 

Africa has been changed by 

the experience,” Anderson 

said. “The landscape speaks to 

us in some way we can’t 

understand.” 

Prescott College alumna 

Ann Radeloff’s work with 

the TOPSY Project in 2003 

inflamed her interest in Africa. 

After participating in that 

project, she wanted to keep 

Prescott College students 

involved. 

“Africa opens so many possibilities 

for us to learn,” 

Radeloff said in May, just days 

before returning to Kenya as 

part of a Prescott College class 

she helped design. “I’m so 

excited I can’t even think.” 

Shared love 

Cultural and Regional Studies 

Professor Mary Poole developed 

a love for Africa at an 

early age as well. She went to 

Egypt as soon as she graduated 

from high school because 

her parents had moved there. 

“It was like coming home,” 

she said. “I’m really hooked.” 


and faculty are not alone. In 

1985, the percentage of U.S. 

see Africa on next page 


Photo by Kaitlin Noss 

Above, at the Community 

Center in Ambosili, students 

are undertaking a permaculture 

assessment. The 

center will be used for 

community activities such as 

HIV/AIDS testing, adult 

literacy classes, community 

meetings, and Prescott 

College classes. The center 

will also house a library and 

donated computer equipment. 

Left, Kaitlin Noss spent the 

night in the village of Daniel 

Olol Leturesh and his wife 

Charity (seen here in the 

blue top). 

27

Right, North Moench and 

Daniel Olol Leturesh take a 

break at camp. 

Photo by Kaitlin Noss 

Below, Mark Poole, in hat, 

stands with members of the 

Maasai Environmental 

Resource Coalition (MERC). 

Poole, now deceased, was 

Prescott College Professor 

Mary Poole’s dad. He had 

dedicated the last 10 years of 

his life to MERC, and passed 

his passion on to his 

daughter. MERC’s mission is 

to protect the Maasai’s 

culture and ecosystems. 

Africacontinued from previous page 

students studying abroad who 

chose Africa as their destination 

was a mere 1.1 percent. 

In 2001, 2.9 percent of U.S. 

students studying abroad 


picked Africa. That number 

swelled by 4.2 percent in 2002- 

03, according to the Institute of 

International Education. 

Poole believes the surge can 

be attributed to students’ interest 

in AIDS and race. 

“They’ve grown up hearing 

about AIDS, and AIDS is such 

a problem in Africa,” Poole 

said. “Students are also interested 

in race. They are trying 

to understand race, and Africa 

looms large in the mythology 

of race. Also, as students 

develop knowledge and a 

social conscience, their minds 

naturally go to Africa.” 

Mutually beneficial 

Radeloff, who is a teaching assistant 

for the class in Africa this 

summer, certainly agrees. She, 

Poole, and several students started 

planning the Kenya Project 

last year (see page 29). Radeloff 

wanted the class to be beneficial 

to both students and the Maasai, 

a pastoral and hunting people of 

Kenya and Tanzania. So did 

Poole. 

After a one-month reconnaissance 

mission, which they 

paid for themselves, they 

designed a class to teach 


about Maasai worldviews and 

offer their research skills to 

Maasai community leaders. 

They hope the research will 

benefit the Maasai. Radeloff 

believes the experience has 

improved her life as well. 

“I struggle with being a 

teacher and communicator,” 

she said. “I don’t have confidence 

in my ability. I hope this 

helps me overcome that.” 

One of the project’s goals is 

to educate tourists, to teach 

them to not only look at the 

animals, but also to connect 

with the people who live in 

Africa. 

“You really have to deal with 

human issues if you deal with 

animal issues,” Anderson said. 

Poole agrees. 

“You have a much more 

rewarding experience if you collaborate 

with people, rather than

just making them objects of 

study,” she said. 

Anderson, who plans to teach 

another Prescott College class in 

Africa next year, hopes it will go 

one step further. 

He believes the Maasai, 

whose traditional lands have 

been illegally appropriated over 

the years and devastated by 

economic development, irresponsible 

tourism, and largescale 

farming, have been disenfranchised 

politically. 

“We hope to help them find 

their voice,” Anderson said. 

Many links 

There are many links between 

Prescott College, its alumni, and 

Africa. Among them: 

• Friends of the Honde Valley: 

This student project helps 

children orphaned by AIDS in 

the Honde Valley (page 32). 

• St. Lucia Nursing Home: 

This grass-roots effort, run by 

Winfrida Mwashala, the wife 

of Augustine Mwangotya 

*01, helps victims of 

HIV/AIDS who have been 

rejected by their families. 

• The Topsy Project: This student 

project supports the 

Topsy Foundation, a nonprofit 

organization that focuses 

on children affected by 

HIV/AIDS (fall 2003 

Transitions). 

• Documentary: T.A. Loeffler, 

’88, recently traveled to 

Zimbabwe to film a documentary 

on street children. 

• Regarding Hwange and 

Other Matters of Perception: 

Joshua Caine Anchors 

*98, wrote a book based on 

his experiences as a Peace 

Corps volunteer in 

Zimbabwe (fall 2004 

Transitions). 

Radeloff wants these links to 

become a strong, lengthy chain. 

She hopes that Pan-African 

studies will continue to expand 

the horizons of Prescott 

College students. 

“It can only enhance the curriculum 

here,” she said. 


Students team with 

Maasai on Kenya Project 

by Hilary Eller 

While Kenya and 

Prescott are thousands 

of miles apart, 

the two are part of the same 

global community, a connection 

students and faculty at 

Prescott College are fostering 

through The Kenya Project. 

The project’s mission is to 

create a program in East Africa 

based on a mutually beneficial 

approach to international study. 

A community center and 

field station in Amboseli, 

Kenya, will house the programs. 

The Maasai people, an 

East African tribe famous as 

herders and warriors, agreed to 

allow Prescott College to use a 

building and land there if 

College personnel fix it up. 

Mary Poole, a Prescott 

College faculty member in culsee 

Africa next page 

The teaching team for the Kenya Project are, from left, Meitamei Olol 

Dapash, Ann Radeloff, Kaitlin Noss, and Mary Poole. 

Prescott College teaching assistant Ann Radeloff, third from left, and Gerry Garvey of the Yavapai County HIV- 

AIDS task force, second from right, enjoy a moment with Maasai people last July. The two Americans 

participated in a fact-finding mission to Africa. 


29

Photos by Kaitlin Noss 

Above, Prescott College 

students visit the office of 

Keriako Olol Tobiko, newly 

appointed public prosecutor, 

also a Maasai lawyer working 

on Kenya’s new Constitution 

Committee. 

Right, Devin Carberry (with 

camera) rides in the 

Amboseli National Park with 

Mary Poole and Rob Nathan. 

Hilary Eller is a reporter for 

the Daily Courier in Prescott. 


tural and regional studies, has 

worked for years with Meitamei 

Olol Dapash, founder and director 

of the Maasai Environmental 

Resource Coalition (MERC), an 

organization meant to preserve 

the Maasai culture and East 

African ecosystems. Poole has 

worked with him to that end. 

The Kenya Project shares a 

similar vision, and extends to 

literacy, clean water, and AIDS 

testing and awareness. 


The community center and 

field station in Amboseli sit on 

the boundary of Amboseli 

National Park, at the foot of 

Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest 

mountain, and will provide 

a space for Prescott College 

students to study Africa and 

complete service projects 

there. It also will provide a 

space for the Maasai people to 

seek resources for education 

and health. 

“Our students will be totally 

immersed in Maasai culture 

and activities,” Poole said. 

While Prescott College students 

learn from the Maasai, 

they also will use their knowledge 

to help the Maasai people 

learn, she said. 

Kenya Project organizers 

have hosted some fundraisers 

to make the building usable 

and are now seeking donations 

to purchase a vehicle. 

Ann Radeloff ’04 went to 

Africa two years ago to work 

with the TOPSY Foundation, a 

home for children orphaned by 

AIDS. She assisted Poole and 

Meitamei in teaching a Prescott 

College class in May at the 

Amboseli community center. 

In future years, it is hoped 

that students will spend 

between one and four months 

in Amboseli, depending upon 

their curriculum and interests, 

Poole said. As an example, students 

may help the Maasai 

people with research examining 

the effects of tourism on 

the Massai community. She 

gave the example of a paper, 

studying the effect of the 

tourism industry on Kenya’s 

ecosystem. 

“We’ll turn ourselves loose 

on a question they design,” she 

said. 

Radeloff said that at the 

same time students study with 

the Maasai people, they will 

help set up transportation systems 

for the Maasai to get to 

the doctor. 

Poole said she has traveled to 

places where resources do not 

exist, only to return to the 

United States, where the 

resources often are in excess. 

“There is such a maldistribution 

of resources,” she said. 

Radeloff added, “Once I 

started traveling, I realized that 

we’re all global citizens. The 

boundaries of nations are not 

important or pertinent.”

A primer on the Kenya 

Project at Prescott College 

The Kenya Project was 

created to build bridges 

between Prescott 

College and Maasai community 

activists. Many universities 

have field study programs in 

East Africa, but this program 

stands apart because it: 

• is jointly created by the college 

and the Maasai people, 

and led by the Maasai 

Environmental Resource 

Coalition (MERC); 

• is designed as a laboratory for 

learning about how to make 

social change; and 

• models an experiential 

approach to learning about 

and across cultural differences. 

The Kenya Project was created 

to give American college 

students the opportunity to 

learn from MERC leadership 

about its collaborative 

approach to activism. 

“Maasai culture has so much 

of value to teach the world— 

about sharing food and children, 

of peaceful co-existence 

with wildlife—and this program 

strives to create for 

American students the opportunity 

to experience that culture 

on its own terms,” said 

Mary Poole, coordinator of 

Prescott College’s Cultural 

and Regional Studies 

Program. 

The collaboration kicked off in 

May 2005, with a month-long 

Prescott College class held in 

Maasailand co-taught by Poole 

and Meitamei Olol Dapash, 

MERC executive director. 

The course was titled 

Maasai: Indigenous People in a 

Global Context. Nine students, 

two teaching assistants, and 

dozens of MERC colleagues 

participated. The course met 

weekly throughout the 2004-05 

academic year. Students prepared 

by studying Kenyan history, 

landscape, and wildlife, 

and worked to identify the cultural 

lenses through which they 

understood Africa and indigenous 

peoples. 

Once in Kenya, students 

met with Maasai people in 

Nairobi and in towns and villages 

throughout Maasailand. 

They learned about the issues 

facing the Maasai people as 

they encounter the forces of 

globalization and the ways 

they are working to maintain 

their culture and ability to 

direct their futures. 

To strengthen this collaboration, 

Prescott College has invited 

Dapash to be a visiting faculty 

member during the spring 

of 2006. He will teach, mentor 

students, and participate in a 

College seminar on social 

change. 



learned about the political 

economy of tourism and 

trade by supporting Maasai 

community-owned 

businesses and cooperatives, 

such as the Women’s 

Beading Cooperative pictured 

here. Students brought 

products back to the United 

States and sold them to raise 

money that was then used to 

make improvements to the 

Community Center in 

Amboseli. 

31

y Sten Carlson ’97 

Prescott College student 

Judd Schiffman (wearing the 

blue hat in back) works to 

provide school fees, 

supplies, and uniforms, 

food, clothing, and health 

care to orphaned children in 

the Gatsi community of the 

Honde Valley in Zimbabwe. 


Friends of Honde Valley Project 

and clothing to orphans of the 

The opening paragraph of 

Judd Schiffman’s 

thank-you letter to 

donors to his organization 

Friends of the Honde Valley 

(FOTHV) reads, “Thank you 

for choosing to support a 

Zimbabwean child. Your contribution 

will dramatically change 

the life of one person.” 

The Talmud says that if you 

save the life of one person, you 

are saving the whole world. 

This approach—to save the 

world one person, one canyon, 

one Ponderosa Pine at a 

time—is central to the Prescott 

College mission. 

It is a difficult mission in any 

situation to follow, but 


Schiffman seems to have taken 

the difficulty to a whole new 

extreme. 

The challenges 

First, he has chosen to work in a 

place that is as geographically 

remote as one can get—the continent 

of Africa, in the eastern 

highlands of Zimbabwe, in the 

obscure Honde Valley, in a small 

community of children 

orphaned by AIDS. 

Is it possible to imagine a 

place more foreign than this— 

the same place where the first 

upright hominid established 

themselves in the savannas 

nearly four million years ago? 

Second, the enormity of the 

present AIDS situation in 

Zimbabwe seems to belittle all 

relief efforts. 

Currently, 25 percent of the 

population is infected with 

AIDS. Two thousand 

Zimbabweans die weekly from 

HIV complications. 

UNICEF has predicted that 

the life expectancy in the country 

will drop 27 years in the 

next 10 years, which means 

that the average Zimbabwean 

in 2014 will be expected to live 

to the age of 17. 

What hope, then, can one 

person working in one small 

community (population 43, 

when the project began; now 

it’s 25) bring to a country of

strive to provide food, healthcare, 

Gatsi community in Zimbabwe 

11.2 million, where the life 

expectancy is dwindling into 

the teens? 

“It is hard,” said Schiffman, 

who spent six months in Africa 

three years ago, and founded 

FOTHV as a result of that 

extended visit. 

Spark of hope 

“When I was living in Africa, 

there was a funeral every 

week in my area,” he said. 

And FOTHV affects only one 

of the many villages in need in 

Zimbabwe. But the most 

important aspect of this project 

is something I feel in my 

heart. We are doing something 

positive, and sustaining a 

spark of hope in people who 

have undergone great losses in 

their lives.” 

Despite the frightening statistics 

there, Schiffman’s stories of 

his time spent are full of beauty. 

“Mountains are respected as 

mystical and dangerous places 

of unknown power,” he said. 

“When you get up close to a 

gomo (mountain), even pointing 

is prohibited because it 

shows disrespect. 

“When I was getting ready to 

climb Eagle Mountain in 

Zimbabwe, an ambuya (grandmother) 

told me that if I kept 

quiet and listened, when I 

arrived at the peak it might tell 

me stories.” 

Power imbalance 

“Your contribution is doing a 

lot of good for people who 

need it,” reads the last paragraph 

of Schiffman’s letter to 

donors. “And it is not only the 

money, it’s the thought and the 

feeling behind the giving that 

are most important. It means a 

lot to kids who have lost their 

parents that someone, let alone 

a person from the widely fabled 

America, cares about them.” 

The fact is, Schiffman said, 

America—with its colossal concentration 

of power and 

wealth—should bear much of 

the responsibility for the problems 

in Zimbabwe. Globally, it 

comes down to a basic imbalance 

of power. 

“We have too much, and they 

don’t have enough,” Schiffman 

said. “And us having too much 

kind of drives us crazy; we have 

too much time and we waste it, 

say, walking around the video 

store looking for a movie. 

There is a kind of mental illness 

in our country of having 

too much and being overwhelmed 

by all the stimulation. 

Whereas the sickness in 

Zimbabwe is from being malnourished 

and not having 

resources.” 

Modest goal 

When Schiffman started 

FOTHV his goal was modest: 

to meet the nutritional, medical, 

educational, and personal 

needs of about 43 orphans. He 

took photos of these children 

and recorded their names, hobbies, 

dream careers, ages, dates 

of their parents’ passing, and 

present caregivers. 

When he returned to the 

United States, he found 43 

sponsors for the children and 

raised $2,500. By the time the 

last check had been collected 

and sent to Zimbabwe, 

Schiffman was already working 

on a new project to serve the 

orphans in the Honde Valley: a 

small-scale chicken project that 

would allow the community to 

become self-sustaining by selling 

produce and livestock. 

Chickens arrive 

He and fellow undergraduate 

Jen Erickson went back to the 

Honde Valley in January 2005 

and brought chickens to establish 

a sustainable enterprise. 

Now the orphanage raises 

chickens, and the profits go to 

fund school fees and basic living 

expenses. 

“I don’t know how long 

FOTHV will be able to sustain 

itself, or if sending money is 

the best way to help,” he said. 

“But if we can help them to 

start their own projects, that 

will be something that will help 

kids now, and in the future.” 

Eager supporters 

When Schiffman arrived at 

Prescott College in the fall of 

2003, he had no trouble finding 

support for his project. Along 

with Anastasia Millison, a 

student in the Adult Degree 

Program at the time, and fellow 

undergraduate Libby 

Rasmussen, he organized a 

book drive and acquired four 

crates of books to send to the 

children. A laptop computer 

was donated to send to the 

FOTHV local volunteer in 

Zimbabwe. 

Derek Collins ’05 and the 

technology department at the 

College helped set up a 

Website for the project. 

In the spring of 2004, the 

Student Union gave a $280 

grant to ship the books and the 

laptop overseas. FOTHV 

became an official College 

group, with seven committee 

members, and it qualified to 

see Africa on next page 


33

Mission 

Friends of the Honde 

Valley (FOTHV) seeks to 

empower women and 

children in 

Zimbabwe through sustainable 

solutions. With 

local community members, 

we help to create 

economic opportunities 

that provide resources for 

dealing with the effects of 

HIV/AIDS. FOTHV provides 

school fees, supplies, 

uniforms, food, 

clothing, and health care 

to orphaned children in 

the Gatsi community. 

FOTHV educates orphans 

in Gatsi to be self-reliant 

through its gardening and 

poultry projects. FOTHV 

creates relationships 

between the orphaned 

children of Gatsi and their 

penpals from the United 

States, providing the children 

with friends abroad, 

and helping them develop 

their English language 

skills. FOTHV provides a 

community of peers and 

elders for orphans in 

Gatsi, through which they 

gain strength and companionship 

in the midst of 

growing poverty and the 

HIV/AIDS pandemic in 

Zimbabwe. 


receive nonprofit status 

through the College. 

In fall 2004, FOTHV put 

together a benefit and raised 

over $700 dollars in the 

Prescott community. The 

Student Union also donated 

about $680. Another $500 was 

raised by selling paintings from 

Zimbabwe through the 

“Zimbabwe Artists Project,” 

located in Oregon. 

“We exhibited the art work at 

Eye on the Mountain Gallery 

in the McCormick Arts 

District,” Schiffman said. “This 

money went to pay for kids 

school fees, to buy chickens, 

and to pay the Zimbabweans 

running the project in Africa.” 

Schiffman said they took the 

money over in January. In the 

spring, they raised another 

$700 by putting together a halfmarathon 

in conjunction with 

Sacred Earth Gatherings, 

which was primarily organized 

by Erickson. Another crate of 

books with a bit of the money 

raised from this benefit has 

been shipped. 

“The FOTHV project has 

truly been a blessing to me,” 

Schiffman said. “I spent many 

days in Zimbabwe wondering 

how I could give back to the 

people who gave so much to 

me.” 

The problems Zimbabwe 

faces, he said, are not a result 

of laziness or ignorance on the 

part of the local people. 

Inflation, a recent drought, 

the AIDS pandemic, a corrupt 

government system, and more 

than a century of colonization 

have left the country nearly 

crippled. 

“The people in Zimbabwe 

are ready to work, ready to 

learn, and ready to do whatever 

it takes to survive and provide 

for their children and coming 

generations,” Schiffman said. 

“This project demonstrates that 

willingness.” 


Photo by Judd Schiffman 

Prescott College students Judd Schiffman and Jen Erickson visited the 

Honde Valley in January 2005 and brought chickens to establish a 

sustainable enterprise with income to provide for school fees and basic 

living expenses for the orphanage. Ivy Pfumai, the chairperson of the 

FOTHV Project in Zimbabwe, is pictured in front of the chicken coops. 

10-year vision 

“In 10 years,” he said, “I’d like 

there to be a small-scale sustainable 

garden and livestock 

project in the Honde Valley 

where people are meeting each 

other and working together and 

sustaining themselves. 

“As far as Prescott College 

goes, I’d like this to be a place 

where students can go and stay 

in the community and perhaps 

develop more projects, 

depending on what the need is. 

I see this as a place akin to 

Kino Bay where students can 

go and have amazing experiences,” 

Schiffman said. 

He added that they also have 

discussed the possibility of 

doing wilderness therapy trips 

for street children from the city 

of Mutate, about 80 miles away 

from the Honde Valley. 

Another possibility is providing 

mbira lessons (the classic 

instrument of Zimbabwe) for 

the children in the Honde 

Valley. 

“Of course, we are still working 

at getting the children’s 

basic needs met first,” 

Schiffman said. 

When asked about the future 

of the project, Schiffman said 

he just intends to keep working 

toward his goals: in part to 

appeal to the people of this 

country to use their time and 

resources for a good cause; in 

part to keep helping meet the 

basic needs of the children of 

the Honde Valley. Put simply, 

Schiffman will keep working at 

his goal of saving the world, 

one person at a time. 

For more information or to 

make a donation to Friends of 

the Honde Valley, visit websrv.prescott.edu/~hondevalley/, 

or send an e-mail to 

fothv@yahoo.com.

Fleischner has new publication out 

Thomas Fleischner, faculty 

member in the environmental 

studies program, 

has a new book in print. 

Desert Wetlands features the 

photography of Lucian 

Niemeyer, and completes his 

series of wetland studies of 

North America, which he has 

been working on for almost 20 

years. Fleischner provided the 

narrative. 

Desert Wetlands documents 

sites in the American 

Southwest and Mexico that are 

gauges to the environment. 

The wetlands included are 

Cuatro Cienegas Basin in 

Coahuila, Mexico, the San 

Pedro River in Arizona, the 

Escalante River in Utah, the 

Bosque del Apache National 

Wildlife Refuge in New 

Mexico, the Mohave Desert in 

California, the Big Bend 

The Navajo Nation 

Teacher Education 

Consortium (NNTEC) 

held its quarterly meeting at 

Prescott College in the new 

Crossroads Center in April. 

Vicky Young, core faculty 

member in the Adult Degree 

Program and coordinator for 

Prescott College’s Native 

American students, hosted the 

meeting. 

“I received so many compliments 

on behalf of the 

NNTEC membership,” Young 

said. “It made me proud of our 

teamwork and our unity as a 

learning community, and reinforced 

the fact that we are 

unique in the academic world 

in that we really ‘walk our 

talk.’ The folks really enjoyed 

their interactions with students, 

staff, and faculty.” 

Participants of the NNTEC 

National Park in Texas, and 

other playas and wetlands in 

Arizona. 

Water plays different roles in 

the desert. It appears when it is 

least expected, and hides when 

it is wanted most. Rain falls but 

never reaches the ground, and 

dry washes abruptly become 

rivers. One constant holds true: 

water enables life. 

“Exploration of desert wetlands—whether 

on foot, with 

photographs, or in words— 

involves vacillating between 

tremendous, uplifting beauty 

and great, heartbreaking degradation,” 

Fleischner writes in 

Desert Wetlands. “We offer the 

images and words in your 

hands that you might grasp the 

beauty more readily, and join 

the chorus of voices calling for 

an end to despoiling of these 

treasurelands.” 

include: NNTEC chair Harvey 

Rude, University of Northern 

Colorado at Greeley; Thomas 

Benally, Diné College; Maxine 

Roanhorse, Arizona State 

University; Ferren and Troy 

Webb, Fort Lewis College; 

James Muneta, Office of 

Navajo Nation Scholarship and 

Financial Assistance; Bruce 

Payette and Deoksoon Kim, 

University of New Mexico at 

Gallup; Gypsy Denzine, 

Northern Arizona University; 

and Vicky Ramakka, San Juan 

College. 

The NNTEC’s purpose is to 

prepare teachers to teach the 

Navajo language, which 

requires fluency in the language, 

permission from the 

tribe to teach it, and state 

endorsement. It is not necessary 

to be Navajo to participate 

in the teacher education 

Niemeyer’s previous books 

include Chesapeake Country, 

Okefenokee, and Old Order 

Amish. He lives in Santa Fe. 

Fleischner is the author of 

Singing Stone. 

Prescott College hosts consortium 

programs. 

Goals for the coming year 

include outreach to Navajo 

Nation high schools; creating a 

new NNTEC brochure and 

CD to inform counselors, parents, 

and students of the path 

to teaching degrees; updating 

the Websites to inform “hits” 

of the NNTEC partnership 

and mission; specific outreach 

to school guidance counselors; 

public service announcements 

to target recruitment markets; 

outreach efforts within each of 

the learning communities; and 

expansion of summer institutes 

to include professional 

development opportunities for 

current math and science 

teachers. 


NNTEC, contact Vicky Young 

at (928) 350-3200, or 

vyoung@prescott.edu. 


Desert Wetlands, published by 

the University of New Mexico 

Press, is available online at 

www.unmpress.com. 

35

Bernardo Aguilar-Gonzalez 

Joel Barnes 

Melanie Bishop 

Joan Clingan 

FacultyNews 

Bernardo Aguilar- 

Gonzalez 

Aguilar-Gonzalez, chair for the 

Cultural and Regional Studies 

Program, and his graduate student, 

Ligia Umaña-Ledezma, 

had an article published in the 

spring 2005 newsletter of the 

U.S. Society for Ecological 

Economics. 

Titled CAFTA and 

Ecological Economics in 

Central America Today, the 

article calls for broadening the 

debate—from an economic 

perspective—on the Central 

American Free Trade 

Agreement (CAFTA) in Costa 

Rica. CAFTA is a free-trade 

agreement that includes Costa 

Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, 

Honduras, Nicaragua, and the 

United States. The Dominican 

Republic may also be added. 

CAFTA is modeled after the 

North American Free Trade 

Agreement (NAFTA). 

The article is available online 

at www.ussee.org/newsletter. 

Joel Barnes 

Barnes, faculty member in the 

environmental studies and 

adventure education programs, 

has received his doctorate 

degree in environmental conservation 

and education from the 

Union Institute and University. 

His studies have focused on 

river and watershed conservation 

in both wild-land and urban 

settings, and his dissertation is 

titled “Protecting Wild Waters in 

a Dry World: the Role of Wild 

and Scenic Rivers in the 

Conservation of Arid Land River 

Systems and Watersheds in the 

American Southwest.” 

His research project formed 

the basis of a five-year research 

partnership between Prescott 

College and Grand Canyon 

National Park. As the project 


leader from Prescott College, 

Barnes coordinated a wild and 

scenic river study for more 

than 500 miles of rivers and 

streams in the park. 

Ultimately, this study could 

result in one of the largest wild 

and scenic river designations 

ever passed by Congress, and 

more than double the mileage 

of wild and scenic rivers in the 

Southwest. Barnes’ research 

has advanced the College’s reputation 

as a leader in bioregional 

conservation, and has helped 

set the stage for future collaborative 

research between 

Prescott College and Grand 

Canyon National Park. 


Bishop, faculty member in the 

Arts and Letters Program, was 

awarded a grant from the 

Wendy Fort Foundation for 

Dance, Literature, and Film to 

write a screenplay about the 

life and work of dancer and 

choreographer, Wendy Fort, 

the foundation’s namesake. 

Additionally, the Eastern 

Frontier Society awarded Bishop 

a three-week writer’s residency 

this summer on Norton Island, 

off the coast of Maine. Six writers, 

two visual artists, and two 

songwriters were selected for 

this summer’s session. 

The Arizona Commission on 

the Arts provided a travel grant 

for Bishop to attend the 

Norton Island residency. 

Joan Clingan 

Clingan, humanities faculty 

member in the Master of Arts 

Program, presented a paper at 

Youngstown State University’s 

Conference of the Center for 

Working Class Studies on May 

20. This paper represents the 

final section of one of her dissertation 

chapters and was 

called “Without Reservation: 

Exploring Alexie’s Toughest 

Little Indians—Working-Class 

or Just In-din?” 

While in Youngstown, 

Clingan also facilitated a daylong 

workshop for doctoral students 

of the Union Institute 

and the university, called “A 

Seat in the Steel Lifeboat: The 

Working-Class Artist and Class 

Fortitude.” This workshop is 

the final program requirement—other 

than the dissertation—leaving 

her officially and 

gratefully all-but-dissertation. 

She anticipates having her dissertation 

complete and 

approved this fall. 

Clingan was the invited 

keynote speaker at the 

Northern Arizona Veteran’s 

Administration’s Diversity Fair 

on June 22. She spoke to 

employees of the administration 

and medical center on the 

topic “Diversity and the Arts.” 

Clingan was also invited as an 

Arizona Humanities Council 

Scholar to be the moderator 

and discussant for the July 

2005 Hassayampa Institute for 

Creative Writing. 

She will interview authors 

Simon Ortiz, William 

Kittredge, Kim Addonizio, 

and Melissa Pritchard on the 

institute’s theme: “The Stories 

We Tell Ourselves: Defining 

Self, Defining Reality.” 

Lisa Floyd-Hanna 

and David Hanna 

Floyd-Hanna and Hanna are 

officially on sabbatical, but they 

are working with students on 

three research projects, which 

include 

• studying the fire history of the 

Kaiparowits Plateau, Utah; 

• determining the effects of the 

beetle infestations on the 

future of pinon-juniper 

woodlands in the Four

FacultyNews 

Corners area; and 

• studying the vegetation pattern 

and mapping project at 

Chaco Canyon National 

Historic Park, N.M. 

Additionally, Floyd-Hanna 

presented a paper at the Forest 

Resources Adaptive Modeling 

of Ecosystems (FRAME) meeting 

in Cortez, Colo., May 28, 

2005, and was co-author on 

two papers presented by 

William Romme at the 

Pinon-Juniper Woodlands 

Restoration meeting in 

Montrose, Colo., May 25-27. 

Floyd-Hanna is a faculty 

member in the Environmental 

Studies Program; Hanna is an 

instructor in that program. 

Erin Lotz and 

Julie Munro 

Lotz and Munro are teaming 

up together to host this year’s 

International Conference for 

the Association for Experiential 

Education. The conference, 

titled Learning in Motion: 

Immerse, Reflect, Act, will be 

held in Tucson, Nov. 3-6. 

Munro will be conference convener, 

and Lotz is the primary 

liaison for the workshops. 

There are six other host committee 

members from around 

the state and the Southwest 

region, bringing together diverse 

perspectives on the field. More 

than 1,000 conference participants 

from around the world are 

expected to attend. The conference 

will offer more than 130 

professional workshops. 

A thematic flow will set the 

conference tone. Participants 

will enjoy a day focused on 

immersion, followed by a day 

of reflection, and finishing 

with a themed day that 

encourages participants to act 

on their newfound insights on 

experiential education. 

Lisa Floyd-Hanna 

David Hanna 

Erin Lotz 

Julie Munro 

Opera star 

to perform 

in Prescott 

Native Prescottonian and 

opera star Charles 

Edwin Taylor will perform 

in his hometown on 

Thursday, Aug. 18, and 

again on Friday, Aug. 19, 

at the Pine Cone Inn at 

1245 White Spar Road. 

Taylor is a baritone with 

the Metropolitan Opera 

and the Lindemann Young 

Artists Development 

Program. He will be in 

concert with mezzosoprano 

Kelly Gebhardt 

and pianist Glen Dennis. 

Taylor’s performance 

titled An Evening of 

Vocal Treasures will begin 

at 8:30 p.m. Cocktails will 

be served from 6-7 p.m., 

with dinner at 7 p.m. 

This black-tie optional 

event is a fundraiser to 

benefit the Ebarb and 

Räikkönen Scholarship 

Fund at Prescott College. 

The gala evening is 

made possible thanks to 

the loyalty and generosity 

of devoted alumni Tony 

Ebarb ’84 and Liisa 

Raikkonen ’84, who 

earned their bachelor 

degrees through the 

Adult Degree Program in 

accounting and language 

studies, respectively. 

Special thanks go to the 

Gallo, Hayden, Makela, 

Perry, Taylor, and Wood 

families. 

Tickets are $150 each 

to attend An Evening of 

Vocal Treasures, which 

traditionally sells out. For 

more information, contact 

the College’s development 

office at (928) 

350-4501. 


37

Outgoing Board of Trustees 

President Gerald Secundy 

passes the gavel (tootsie pop) 

to incoming President Donald 

Sweeney. 

Taking care of business 

Board of Trustees meet 

When the Prescott 

College Board of 

Trustees met in 

June, three long-term members 

of the board ended their service, 

two new members were 

welcomed, and new officers 

were elected. 

Stepping down 

Anne Dorman ’74, Sturgis 

Robinson ’75, and Gerald 

Secundy stepped down after 

many years of service. 

Dorman and Robinson began 

serving on the Board in 1997, 

and Secundy joined in 1998. 

Secundy, who was chairman 

of the board, passed the tootsie 

pop (gavel) to Donald 

Sweeney, who was elected the 

new chairman. 

The chair of the board of 

trustees at Prescott College is 

likely the only board president 

who convenes meetings with a 

giant tootsie pop. The customized 

gavel was made by 

Dorman’s daughter, Elizabeth. 

Stepping up 

Dan Campbell was elected to 

a three-year term, and Chris 

Hout ’92 was elected to a 


Prescott College President Dan Garvey presents outgoing Board of Trustees 

President Gerald Secundy with a commemorative tootsie pop in 

recognition of his service to Prescott College. 

one-year term as the representative 

of Prescott College 

employees. 

Campbell is the Verde 

Program Manager for the 

Nature Conservancy. His task is 

to direct the conservancy’s outreach 

and land protection activities 

within the 6,600 squaremile 

area that encompasses the 

Verde River corridor and adjacent 

grasslands. 

Campbell has more than 20 

years of experience working for 

the Nature Conservancy, with 

communities in Arizona and 

abroad. For the past eight years 

he has served as country director 

in Belize, where he was 

instrumental in bringing scientific 

information and funding 

resources to community-based 

conservation projects. 

He also served as state 

director of the Arizona chapter 

for 12 years, and was on 

the board of Prescott College 

from 1993 to 1996. 

Campbell received his 

Master of Education degree in 

biology science education from 

the University of Colorado in 

1974, and his Bachelor of Arts 

degree in sociology from 

Oberlin College in 1969. 

Hout, college career and 

personal counselor, is the 

Prescott College employee 

representative to the board. 

Hout holds a a Master of 

Education in counseling, and 

is a licensed counselor. 

New officers 

In addition to Sweeney being 

elected the new chair, Fred 

DuVal was elected vice-chair, 

David Meeks was elected 

treasurer, and Paul Sneed was 

re-elected secretary. 

Additional board members 

include Betsy Bolding, Judy 

Clapp, David McCarthy, 

Karen McCreary, Jan 

Nisbet, Alan Rubin, 

Rebecca Ruffner, and 

Suzanne Tito. Erica Ann 

Flood is the student trustee.

Horsing around 


Members of the Prescott 

College Board of Trustees were 

introduced to equine-assisted 

learning when they came to 

campus in June. As an 

enrichment activity, board 

members visited a ranch in 

Williamson Valley. Paul Smith, 

pictured above, is the director 

of the new Centaur Leadership 

Services (CLS) Program, which 

provides equine experiential 

learning opportunities for 

Prescott College students. 

Smith works with students and 

horses to develop relational 

leadership skills. Above left, 

Gret Antilla, dean of the 

Resident Degree Program, 

bonds with Ginger. Pictured at 

left are board members Jan 

Nisbet, Donald Sweeney, and 

Chris Hout. Their challenge 

was to bridle a horse while 

keeping their arms linked and 

functioning as a unit. See 

www.prescott.edu/cls for more 

information about CLS. 

39

The Kino Bay Center for 

Cultural and Ecological 

Studies just completed 14 

years of supporting field 

research, marine 

conservation, community 

outreach, and Prescott 

College field courses, 

including marine 

conservation, sea kayaking 

and marine studies, 

oceanography, coastal 

ecology, SCUBA diving, and 

marine biology. 

Kino Bay Center roundup 

The Kino Bay Center for 

Cultural and Ecological 

Studies, Prescott 

College’s field station on the 

Mexican coast of the Gulf of 

California, just completed 14 

years of supporting field 

research, marine conservation, 

community outreach, and 

Prescott College field courses. 

The 2004-05 academic year 

included many new achievements 

at the station, in addition 

to the usual support of 


Prescott College field courses 

in marine conservation, sea 

kayaking and marine studies, 

oceanography, coastal ecology, 

SCUBA diving, and marine 

biology. More than 4,000 user 

days were recorded at the station 

this year, the highest ever. 

The new high school field 

program—in its second year— 

brought in groups from 

Washington (Forest Ridge 

School), Colorado (Pioneer 

School and Colorado Rocky 

Mountain School), 

and Arizona (the 

Orme School). 

Another 

birthday 

The Conservation 

Fellowship Program 

completed six successful 

years. To date 

10 fellows from 

seven universities 

and three countries 

have participated in 

the fellowship program, 

which provides 

opportunities for 

recent graduates to 

contribute to ongoing 

research and education 

projects. 

This year’s fellow, 

Virginia Jimenez of 

Madrid, facilitated 

another great year of 

environmental education 

in the local primary 

and secondary 

schools in Kino Bay. 

Jimenez was also 

the driving force in 

completing a draft of 

the Isla Alcatraz 

Management Plan. 

This plan, the culmination 

of five years 

of research, will be 

submitted to the 

Mexican government 

this summer. 

Visiting researchers 

continue to use the station for 

projects centered on marine 

biology and conservation, cultural 

studies, marine mammal 

biology, coastal development, 

herpetology, and even bat ecology 

and conservation. 

This year, the Kino Bay 

Center hosted researchers 

from Arizona State University 

in Tempe, Universidad 

Nacional Autónoma de México 

in Mexico City, Northern 

Arizona University in 

Flagstaff, University of 

Madrid, University of 

Netherlands, Universidad 

Autónoma de Baja California 

Sur in La Paz, and others. 

Staff news 

This was the final year of a 

three-year National Science 

Foundation grant. The grant, 

administered by Ed Boyer, codirector, 

enabled the purchase 

of state-of-the-art scientific 

equipment, improvements to 

the field station, and the upgrading 

of the boat and vehicle fleet. 

Tad Pfister, our field coordinator 

since 1991, and his lovely 

wife, Bete, became parents to 

Kai Sebastian Pfister on May 

2, 2005. Lorayne Meltzer, codirector, 

is preparing for her 

sabbatical this fall. Her activities 

will include working on a 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration marine 

mammal ship and visiting field 

stations in California, Hawaii, 

and Mexico. 

Maria Gaytan, administrative 

coordinator, is moving on to 

graduate school. Her three years 

in Kino have professionalized 

our operations immensely, and 

we wish her the best. 

Alumni are encouraged to 

stay in touch with the Kino Bay 

Center, either by visiting the 

Kino facility, or going online at: 

www.prescott.edu/highlights/ 

kino/index.html.

Leave a legacy through your will 

Few legal instruments are 

more valuable to the 

people and causes you 

care about than your will. 

Along with other important 

documents, such as insurance 

or IRA beneficiary designations, 

your will ensures financial 

security for your family and 

support for your favorite charitable 

causes. 

A bequest may be large or 

small, restricted or unrestricted. 

An unrestricted gift provides 

the College with flexibility 

to use the funds from 

bequests where they are needed 

most. 

A bequest to Prescott College 

may memorialize a friend or relative, 

or carry in perpetuity the 

name of the donor. Through 

certain bequests, you may establish 

an undergraduate scholarship 

or a graduate fellowship, 

add to the library collection, 

expand program opportunities, 

or increase the College’s general 

endowment. 

All noncash gifts in your will 

are deductible at fair-market 

value, without any reduction in 

value, such as the reductions 

often required on gifts of short- 

term property or the unrelated 

use of property. The donated 

gift receives a charitable deduction 

equal to its value for estate 

tax purposes. 

Additionally, the bequests 

have no built-in limitations on 

the size of the gift. They are 

unlimited, and can be deducted 

Alum wants to give back 

“Prescott College provided me with the fundamental education 

needed to become self-sustaining,” said Mark N. 

Goodman ’73. “Consequently, I have always felt indebted to 

the College.” 

Goodman, who is an attorney working in Prescott, said that 

leaving a legacy for Prescott College is “relatively easy to do, 

does not necessarily involve a present out-of-pocket expense, 

and will have enough of an impact when it occurs so that 

some real, tangible good will come of it.” 

He hopes that his legacy will help the College develop student 

housing and increase salaries for faculty and staff. His 

reward, he said, is “knowing that I have done something useful 

for the community that did something wonderful for me a 

long, long time ago.” 

Parent recognizes life-changing 

effect of Prescott College 

“I have five children who went to five different colleges, and 

Prescott College is the only one that I am remembering in 

my will,” said Dr. Nancy W. Hendrie. “Prescott College 

never lost faith in my daughter, and helped her grow at a 

tough time in her life. Prescott College helped her find herself, 

and today she is a very successful adult.” 

Dr. Hendrie said Prescott College was a “lifesaver” for 

Katherine Hendrie ’94. “The College took her on at a vulnerable 

time in her life, and turned her into a functioning 

adult,” she said. “I am sure they are taking on other students 

who need help, and I want to support that.” 

She recalled that when her daughter came home for 

Christmas during her sophomore year, she asked for books 

“and that had never happened before.” 

“These are really Ivy League kids who don’t fit into the 

round hole provided for them,” Dr. Hendrie said. “Prescott 

College is a wonderful alternative.” 

dollar for dollar from the taxable 

estate. 

Your bequest can have a 

direct impact on Prescott 

College’s future excellence, 

while offering practical tax 

advantages to you and your 

heirs. There are a variety of 

ways to make a bequest. This 

method of giving to Prescott 

College is quite simple, and it’s 

also a wonderful way to ensure 

that your support of the College 

will continue after your lifetime. 

Anyone who names Prescott 

College in their estate plan in 

any way automatically becomes 

a member of the Charles 

Franklin Parker Legacy Society. 

This special designation is 

named in honor of Prescott 

College’s founding president, 

and is intended to recognize 

donors who support the 

College in this very special way. 

Inquiries about naming the 

College in your will are welcomed. 

Call Ralph Phillips, 

director of development, at 

(877) 350-2100, ext. 4501. 


41

Recognizing those who helped realize 

the dream of the Crossroads Center 

The commemorative 

plaque in the 

Information Commons 

reads: Providing a commons 

for our learning community, 

the Crossroads Center is an 

environmentally and socially 

responsible space in which to 

address the challenges and 

opportunities facing our local 

and global communities. 

Opened: September 27, 2004 

Inaugurated: February 19, 2005 

$500,000+ 

The Walton Family Foundation 

$100,000-$499,999 

Arizona Public Service* 

Suzanne Tito 

$50,000-$99,999 

Anne and Simone Dorman 

Don and Rebecca Routson* 

$25,000-$49,999 

Max and Bessie Bakal Foundation 

Clark Granite and Marble* 

Tony Ebarb and Liisa Raikkonen 

Dan and Barbara Garvey 

Margaret T. Morris Foundation 

Frank and Linda Plaut 

The Secundy Family 

Donald and Barbara Sweeney 

$15,000-$24,999 

Jay Cowles and Page Knudsen 

J.W. Kieckhefer Foundation 

$10,000-$14,999 

David and Marilyn McCarthy 

Gail Partridge* 

Robert Perry 

Wells Fargo Bank Arizona 

Karen Williams McCreary 

and Kent Alderman 

$5,000-$9,999 

Richard Ach and Carey Behel 

Betsy Bolding 

Steven and Traci Corey 

Reuben Ellis and Linda Dove 

Keith and Jo Carol Harris 

David Meeks 


Alan and Elisabeth Rubin 

Sabin Chiropractic 

Carl and Maria Scotti 

Peter, Margie, and Sarena Stern 

Brad Tito 

$2,500-$4,999 

Dianne Albrecht 

Margaret Antilla 

Catherine Boland 

Cathy and Ron Church 

Judy Clapp 

Fred DuVal 

Nancy and Toby Ebarb 

Elizabeth and H. Gerard Everall 

Glen and Donna Gallo 

Mark and Sarah Hayden 

James and Myra Musgrove 

Tom Robinson and Joan Wellman 

Charles and Diana Taylor 

$1,000-$2,499 

Frank Cardamone and Joan Clingan 

Claude and Barbara Christiano 

Robert and Edith Edson 

Richard and Sally Fleming 

Four-Four Foundation, Inc. 

Mark and Gwen Goodman 

Joel and Debra Hiller 

Lifeworks Foundation 

Jan Nisbet and John Moeschler 

Becky Ruffner 

Charles Sydnor 

Steve and Ann Walters 

Nancy and Fulton Wright, Jr. 

Nora Wood 

Yavapai County Community Foundation 

$500-$999 

Fred Arndt and Bethany 

Bradbury-Arndt 

Peggy Bair 

Doug and Ruth Blocker 

John and Carol Cody 

Anne and Walter Dellinger 

David Drever 

Sam Epperson 

ER Taxes LC 

Billy Hicks 

Alison Holmes 

Mary Jane and George Joyal 

Layne Longfellow 

Dorothy McKinney and 

Shazad Contractor 

Joseph McShane and Jan Marshall 

Catherine Ollom-Toolan 

Brian and Joann Peterson 

Ralph and Darcy Phillips 

Prescott College Library Staff 

Karen Rizk 

Bud and Velet Thomas 

Carl and Joan Tomoff 

Robert and Karen Wallace 

Barbara Williams 

$250-$499 

American Insurance Agents 

Rex and Arlyn Brewster 

Floyd and Gayle Brown 

Lyle and Ruth Brown 

Keith and Alison Carvounis 

Paul and Marylyn Clark 

Marty and Diana Corkery 

Pete and Christine Deyo 

John and Nora Fairfield 

Tracey Finch 

Steve Finucane and Marjorie Bernardi 

Michael and Nancy Fortney 

Marlene Freedman and Susan Levin 

Carolyn and Paul Harris 

Michelle Hawkins 

John High 

Don and Elizabeth Hopper 

Ken and Thelma Huff 

E. Andrew and Pamela Kaskiw 

Ainslie Kincross 

Leah Lamb 

Marion and Steve Lefkowitz 

Ryan Levenick 

Richard and Audrey Mandell 

Matuschka 

Doreen and Charles McDonald 

Harry and Frances Miller 

Jim and Sydney Mitchell 

Donald Moore 

Aaron and Page Newton 

Robert and Barbara Nichols 

Anna Parker 

Claudine Perrault 

Elisabeth Ruffner 

Jeffrey Salz 

Tom and Janet Taylor 

Fred and Sally Veil 

Rachel Yoder 

Kathy Young 

Up to $249 

Ellen Abell

Gene and Elizabeth Allen 

Esther and Oscar Almazon 

Michael Anderson 

Trudy Anderson 

Alison Arthur and Arthur Charbonneau 

Marianne Balfe 

Joel Barnes and Lorayne Meltzer 

Michael Belef 

Molly and Gary Beverly 


Norman Bloom and Christina Johnston 

Carlyn Brewster 

Noel and Don Broadston 

Natalie Canfield 

Jeanine Canty 

James and Ruth Carlin 

John and Heather Carney 

Jennifer Cerovski 

Jim and Patsy Chamberlain 

Lyn Chenier 

Ford Church 

Kenneth Cook and Charissa Menefee 

Richard and Birgitta Dahl 

Drew Dellinger 

Cindy Dick and Cherie Howe 

Brad Dimock 

David and Martha Ellis 

Judith and Peter Ellsworth 

Connie and Ed Etzkin 

George and Sherry Evans 

Liz Faller 

John Flax 

David Hanna and Lisa Floyd-Hanna 

Kathy Harting 

Jane Follett Janson 

Francis and F. Isabelle Fowler 

Michael and Maryann Fox 

Timothy Fraantz 

Mark Friedley 

Nelson and Marcia Goldberg 

Joseph and Virginia Goldberger 

Austin Goodman 

M. Eileen Gorton 

Gail Gorud 

Doris and Peter Grey 

Karlyn and Brian Haas 

John Hamm 

Ruby Harris 

Jack Herring and Roxane Ronca 

Jeanne Jones and William McCowan 

Lewis and Patsy Kelley 

Robert and Terry Kimbro 

Dawn Knight 

Janet and Michael Kothrade 

Bob and Marilyn Kriegel 

Jay Krienitz 

Cynthia Kruse 

Melanie Lefever 

Gabrielle Liese 

Bill Litzinger 

David Lovejoy and Amparo Rifa 

Pat and Ellen Lusk 

Sue Maida Kirk 

Bob and Eleanor Maas 

Steven and Jeanne Matthews 

Gail Mello 

Shane Metcalf 

Deb Morrison and John Huff 

Steve Munsell 

Peggy Natiello 

Dee Navarro 

Colleen Newhart 

Nick and Penny Nickolas 

Judy and Eddie Overholtzer 

Thomas Potter 

Steve Pace and Barbara Wood 

Lark Paulson 

Evelyn Peterson 

Dorene and Eugene Pierce 

Edward and June Poe 

Diane Prescott 

Kevin Rethman 

Bridget Reynolds 

Tiffany Rice 

Ray and Darlene Ried 

The Ripma Family 

Robert and Christine Rosenberg 

Margaret Rubel 

David and Wanda Rummel 

Kenneth and Karen Santos 

Thomas Scavone 

John Schmit and Laurie Dix 

Christina and Kelly Sell 

Michael Shay 

Linda Smith and Joseph Bailey 

Jen Steitz and Larry Landry 

Sally ’dhruva Stephenson 

Lee Stuart 

Esther Summers 

Howard and Barbara Summers 

Harris Sussman 

Lori Tella 

Margaret Testarmata and 

Wilfred Anowlic 

Donald and Elizabeth Thompson 

Stephen and Terri Titcomb 

Jeanette Treuel 

Mary Trevor and Toni Kaus 

Julie VanSant 

Lillian Wilcox 

Carol Young 

Vicky and Steven Young 

Additional in-kind contributions 

and acknowledgments 

Steven Brock, Discovery Works Studios 

and Gallery 

Ruth Forman 

Girl Scouts—Arizona Cactus-Pine 

Council, Camp Maripai 

George Goodman 

Granite Mountain Materials 

Doug Hulmes, in memory of 

Ross Hulmes 

Prescott College Work-Study Students 

Wilson Automotive 

* In-kind contributions 

The names shown are as they appear in 

our records, or as they have been requested 

by the donor. Anonymity is honored 

upon request. Every effort has been made 

to ensure that the above listing is accurate. 

If your name is incorrect, please contact 

the College’s Development Office, 220 

Grove Ave., Prescott, AZ 86301 (877) 350- 

2100, ext. 4505. 


43

y Tom Brodersen 

and Joel Hiller 

New space for archives 

Help compile College’s history 

As Prescott College 

approaches its 40th 

anniversary, the need to 

preserve its history is becoming 

apparent. 

For the first time in the 

College’s history, Prescott 

College has created a space 

designed to protect the old 

photos, publications, and other 

materials that document the 

history of the institution and 

the people who have made it 

what it is. 

The new library in the 

Crossroads Center Information 

Commons has an archives 

room, with an independent 

temperature and humidity control 

system to maintain the 

optimum environment for 

preservation. 

The library’s special collection 

is also housed in the archives. 

This collection includes books 

written by faculty and alumni, 

and books published by the 

Prescott College Press. 

The archives collects materials 

that tell the story of the 

College’s conception and development. 

These documents 

include everything from photographs 

to magazine articles and 

newspaper clippings. 

One such article was located 

during the past year that 

acknowledged a generous gift 

made to Prescott College by 

Mr. and Mrs. John Hawley, 

parents of Lisa Hawley ’74 

and James Hawley ’71. 

While researching the 

College’s history in the 

archives, Sam Henrie, cultural 

and regional studies faculty 

emeritus, found an article that 

appeared in The Daily Courier 

in October 1974. 

The article quotes then- 

Board Chair Hamilton 

Wright as saying “he will leave 

tomorrow for a fund-raising 


Pictured in the front row, from left, is Lucia Hawley (daughter of James) Roz 

Hawley (wife of James), James Hawley ’71, MacLane Hawley (son of 

James), and Alana Hawley (daughter of James). In the back row, from left, 

is Lane Hawley, McGill Hawley, Zita Wright (mother of Lisa and James), 

Mac Hawley, Lisa Hawley ’74, and Corey Ryder. 

luncheon in Minneapolis to be 

led by Mr. and Mrs. John 

Hawley, who donated $100,000 

to the college during its financial 

crisis last spring.” 

The College shared the article 

with Lisa and her family, 

who expressed appreciation for 

this acknowledgment. 

“My family is deeply grateful 

to receive the acknowledgment 

of my father’s donation to 

Prescott College, dating all the 

way back to the ‘Stone Age’ in 

1973,” Lisa said. “I hope that my 

family’s recent recognition will 

encourage other past, unacknowledged 

Prescott College 

donors to come forward.” 

“The past contributors serve 

an important foundation that 

needs to be preserved and honored 

in Prescott’s history and 

archives,” she continued. 

“Honoring the early supporters 

of the College will help to give 

it a stronger foundation for its 

growth into the future. I am 

very proud to have attended 

one—if not the first—environmental 

college in this country.” 

Faculty and students working 

in the archives hope the Hawley 

family’s recognition is one of 

many wonderful stories of past 

support that can be shared about 

the College as students, faculty, 

and alumni use the archives as a 

valuable research tool. 

If you have old Prescott 

College memorabilia in your 

attic, basement, or garage (or 

maybe in your parent’s house) 

we may have a new home for it. 

The College is interested in the 

ephemera of student life at 

Prescott College—newsletters, 

posters, and flyers that reflect 

the changing interests of the 

student body over time. 

Give us a call, and see if we 

can use what you have. Call 

Tom Brodersen at (928) 

778-2090 ext. 1300.

To the editor, 

As I was reading through the 

last edition of Transitions I was 

just amazed at the building and 

development progress at the 

College. I am also astonished at 

the overall evolution of the 

College. The Prescott College 

academic environment has 

always been, and continues to 

be, on an exceptional and experimental 

path. I am proud to 

have been a part of Prescott 

College as a resident student 

back in 1994 and 1995. Even 

after 10 years, I have such vivid 

and fond memories of the courses, 

teachers, and fellow students 

I was involved with, as well as 

my work-study program in the 

financial aid department and the 

wonderful people there. 

I felt like relaying some of 

my highlights in this letter, 

since several Prescott instructors 

made an unforgettable 

impression on me. 

Virginia Savage, who 

entered into Prescott as an 

instructor in 1994 and joined 

our group for the Wilderness 

Orientation, was a wonderful 

mentor throughout my academic 

year, and so full of fascinating 

life stories. 

Paul Sneed was my instructor 

for conservation biology in 

the spring of 1995. I thoroughly 

enjoyed his course, and I appreciated 

the wealth of knowledge 

he brought to the class. 

Bill Litzinger was my 

instructor for concepts of ecology, 

and our class had several 

memorable student-directed 

roundtable discussions. Our 

field excursions all over central 

Arizona were great fun. 

Lorayne Melzer was my 

instructor for recreation management. 

This course brought 

me to a wonderful student 

project at Thumb Butte. I 

worked with U.S. Forest 

Service rangers, and developed 

a draft trails-restoration plan 

for the park. Mapping the 

whole trail network north of 

the Thumb Butte Recreation 

Area was just a wonderful and 

relaxing project. To this day, 

Thumb Butte is still one of my 

top favorite hiking places. 

Wafula Okumu was my 

instructor for a course called 

Changing World Order during 

spring 1995. I really enjoyed our 

course dynamic, and Wafula was 

a wonderful and challenging 

instructor. His breadth of political 

knowledge was well suited 

for this course work. I know the 

year I left Prescott, Wafula also 

was moving onto a professorship 

at Mississippi University for 

Women. I was sad to see him 

leave the Prescott faculty, but I 

knew he would have as great an 

impact on a new set of students 

in Mississippi. 

I was quite fortunate to join a 

block course with Walt 

Anderson to the Sutter 

Buttes, Calif., a place he 

seemed to know like the back 

of his hand. Observing and 

studying the landscape at this 

unique geographical feature 

was a fabulous experience. The 

field techniques that he 

instilled in his students were 

great preparation for any type 

of field expedition, and the 

wealth of knowledge and experience 

for unique ecosystems 

that he shares with his students 

is tremendous. I am so glad I 

had the opportunity to take this 

block course. 

I took a course during the 

fall of 1994 I believe was titled 

Opening the Creative Mind, 

which was just a fabulous outlet 

for absorbing so many new elements 

around us. It was taught 

at the wonderful open space at 

Sam Hill. It was such a great 

building, and very conducive to 

Letters to the editor are welcome. Don’t 

be shy. We would like to hear your opinion 

about Transitions, or any article 

printed in this publication. To tell us 

what you think, send your letter via 

e-mail to: ahaver-allen@prescott.edu., or 

via snail mail to: Ann Haver-Allen, 

Prescott College, 220 Grove Ave., 

Prescott, AZ 86301. Letters must be 

signed, and may be edited for clarity or 

space. Letters will be printed as space 

permits. 

our course. I believe the inspirational 

Liz Faller was the 

instructor for that term. During 

and after the course, I really 

found myself reaching out to 

think and possibly react in different 

terms than my normal, 

analytical self. I really enjoyed 

trying out all the new, creative 

outlets presented to us by Liz, 

especially the rhythmic and 

movement activities. 

Although I am not a graduate 

of Prescott College, the faculty 

and school made an incredible 

impression on the rest of my 

academic pursuits. In 1999, I 

graduated with an environmental 

studies degree from the 

University of California at 

Santa Barbara. For the past five 

years, I have worked in the 

New York City area with an 

environmental consulting and 

engineering firm as an environmental 

permitter. I am fortunate 

to say that my academic 

degree is being put to use. 

I thank you all for making 

the Prescott College environment 

one of lifelong memories. 

Being part of this school was a 

genuine gift. Cheers to the 

graduates of 2005, and the new 

students of tomorrow. 

Ingrid Young 


45

y Jenn Weaver ’97 


the National Conference on 

Media Reform, or to read the 

text of Bill Moyers’s keynote 

address, see 

www.freepress.net/conference/ 

Media reform: A concern 

for all educated citizens 

Last night, someone 

burned three crosses in 

Durham, N.C., eight 

miles down the road from my 

home in Chapel Hill. I wondered 

how the rest of the 

nation would greet this news. 

Would it make the national 

news? Would it be chalked up 

as a just another crazy 

Southern episode? 

My guard was up and righteous 

outrage at the ready, but I 

never got the chance to delve 

into the complexities of the 

coverage, because no major 

news source went beyond stating 

the basic fact that the event 

had taken place. 

In fact, anyone who thought 

CNN might have something to 

say about it would have found 

that “the most trusted name in 

news” thought the most important 

thing Americans needed to 

know about this morning was 

who won the American Idol 

competition. 

I’m sure there were other 

things going on that day that 

may have been more important 

than the cross burnings, but I’m 

certain the American Idol competition 

is not one of them. 

That’s what’s so hard about staying 

informed about the news – 

it’s not just interpreting the news 

that you do get, but realizing all 

the news you don’t get. 

Media reform 

The weekend of May 16, 2005, 

more than 2,500 policymakers, 

activists, students, scholars, 

journalists, and odd and sundry 

other concerned citizens gathered 

in St. Louis for the second 

National Conference on Media 

Reform. I even ran into fellow 

Prescott College graduate 

John Schmit ’97 at the top of 

the escalator. 

The conference created a 


forum, discussing media reform 

and other critical issues surrounding 

problems with the current 

state of the news media. 

The conference was sponsored 

by Free Press, a national, 

nonpartisan organization, working 

to increase informed public 

participation in crucial media 

policy debates, and to generate 

policies that will produce a 

more competitive and publicinterest-oriented 

media system, 

with a strong nonprofit and 

noncommercial sector. 

Bill Moyers delivered the 

keynote address. Additional 

speakers and plenary presenters 

included Al Franken, Jim 

Hightower, Phil Donahue, 

Robert McChesney, and Amy 

Goodman.As Americans, and, 

in fact, world citizens, we are 

on the receiving end of increasingly 

homogenized and sometimes 

government-sponsored 

information, owned by a handful 

of corporations. 

Since 1983 the number of 

corporations controlling the 

majority of U.S. news media 

has gone from 50 to just six. It 

is increasingly impossible to 

have informed debates about 

the numerous decisions and 

events happening every day 

that affect all of our lives, especially 

as the line between news 

and entertainment becomes 

harder and harder to discern. 

It matters to you 

Hear this now: No matter what 

“your issue” is, if you are not 

thinking about how media 

reform is necessary to the 

cause’s success, you are totally 

missing the boat. 

Not only is support for and 

knowledge of independent 

media critical in disseminating 

today’s news, but actively 

demanding mainstream outlets 

change their practices is critical 

as well. To use the war 

metaphor we Americans seem 

so attached to—this is a battle 

that must be fought on all fronts. 

There are many well-intentioned 

journalists out there giving 

their best efforts, but the 

evolution of running news outlets 

with the goal of making the 

most money rather than the 

goal of giving the public the 

best information, prevents 

many—if not most—of those 

best intentions from being evidenced 

on our airways and in 

our newspapers. 

Just two things 

There is not room here to do 

justice to all the things I took 

away from this conference, 

but here are the two most 

important ones. 

First, media reform is crucial 

for those of all ideological persuasions. 

The ideal of informed 

political debate is that there is 

a wide spectrum of ideas, and 

with proper information, people 

can come together as a 

community and make informed 

decisions, as opposed to the 

dominant model of one side 

beating out (or beating down) 

the other, with all-out winners 

and all-out losers, that change 

with the tides of power. 

Second, on a practical note, 

wireless internet is the last 

information domain that is not 

corporate-controlled … yet. 

Nonprofit community wireless 

networks offer an incredible 

opportunity to offer free highspeed 

information access to 

people from all walks of life. 

There is still a huge information-access 

gap as costs continue 

to rise, and community wireless 

is a way to bypass all of this. 

Feel free to contact me at 

jeweave@email.unc.edu.

1970s 

Robert Miller ’72. Countryman 

Press, a division of W.W. 

Norton, has just released (May 

3, 2005) my book, Kayaking 

the Inside Passage: A Paddler’s 

Guide from Olympia, 

Washington to Muir Glacier, 

Alaska, by Robert H. Miller, 

$18.95, 460 pages. It is available 

from the publisher and 

Amazon.com. It is being nominated 

for a National Outdoor 

Book Award. “The Inside 

Passage is something of a holy 

grail for contemporary sea 

kayakers,” the publisher wrote 

in the book cover. “It is without 

question the most scenic and 

challenging paddling trip in 

North America. Kayaking the 

Dan Fagre ’75, a U.S. 

Geological Survey (USGS) 

biologist with the Northern 

Rocky Mountain Science 

Center at Glacier National 

Park in Montana, received the 

National Park Service (NPS) 

Director’s Award for Natural 

Resource Research on March 

15, 2005, at the George Wright 

Society biennial conference in 

Philadelphia. 

Fagre was selected for the 

NPS honor because of his ability 

to perform excellent scientific 

studies, resulting in significant 

publications, his ability to 

“outreach” to the park staff and 

visitors, and his penchant for 

collaboration with other 

researchers and managers in 

the Rocky Mountain region. 

His research program is 

focused on Glacier National 

Park, but the scope of his 

efforts extends beyond park 

borders into western North 

America and internationally. 

Inside Passage will aid kayakers 

both in planning and in carrying 

out paddling trips on the 

An outstanding communicator, 

Fagre has assisted with educating 

park staff, visitors, the local 

community, and managers on 

the importance of globalchange 

research and the implications 

for managing parks and 

other protected areas. His work 

is recognized internationally, 

yet he is an important contributor 

to basic park management 

and programs, including snow 

and avalanche predictions for 

opening the Going-to-the-Sun 

Road, the Climate Friendly 

Park Initiative, the Inventory 

and Monitoring program, air 

quality and UV-monitoring support, 

and supporting the 

Crown of the Continent 

Research Learning Center. 

The USGS serves the nation 

by providing reliable scientific 

information to describe and 

understand the earth; minimize 

loss of life and property from 

natural disasters; manage 

water, biological, energy, and 

rugged Pacific artery that runs 

along the western edge of 

North America.” Miller grew 

up in Cuba. He has taught 

climbing and kayaking for 35 

years and has published articles 

and photos in Rock & Ice, 

Canoe, River Runner, and 

other publications. He lives in 

Prescott. mrh10@qwest.net. 

Bob Gouge ’73. Remember 

the psychic woman out in Skull 

Valley? She had a little place 

built into the side of a rock 

face, 1970 or so. I went out to 

her one night to have her look 

into my future. “I see you in a 

red truck,” was all she said. I 

felt kinda gypped by that. She 

told some other folks about 

see Class Notes next page 

Alumnus receives national award for research 

mineral resources; and 

enhance and protect our quality 

of life. See www.nrmsc.usgs. 

gov/research/climate_changes. 

htm to learn more about Fagre’s 

research. 


Erratum 

Isabelle (Belle) Shook 

’01 is pursuing her Master 

of Arts degree in counseling 

at the University of 

Phoenix, not Prescott 

College as reported in the 

spring issue of Transitions. 

We regret any inconvenience 

this error may have 

caused. 

47

Class Notescontinued from previous page 

love affairs, adventures, and 

disasters. All I got was a red 

truck. Well, I’m driving a red 

truck, have had her for years 

now. Over 250,000 miles, and 

going strong. Finally, I’m 

beginning to see what that psychic 

meant. Living the mystery. 

Anyway, I guess I’ve done a 

few things. I spirited a cool, 

Manhattan beauty away to the 

desert. We’ve got an old house 

down near the border, sturdy 

thick walls, heavy beams, and 

Mexican tile floors. Dogs and 

cats sleep out back in the sun. 

Our son is grown, and off on 

his own adventures. I’ve wandered 

Paris streets at a misty 

dawn, sat in smoky jazz in a 

Florence cafe nestled in 

Thieves’ Alley, watched the sky 

burn, and once communed 

with a wild, white mare back in 

the red Jemez canyons. I’ve 

known beauty and love, horror, 

too. Life’s good, sweet. Like a 

summer peach. My best to you 

all. luckystrike36@yahoo.com 

Douglas Hanson ’74. Since 

graduating from Prescott, I’ve 

worked at the Museum of 

Northern Arizona, and then 

went to graduate school at 

Cornell University, where I 

received a master’s degree and 

Ph.D. in biological anthropology 

in 1988. I spent a good part 

of my early career doing mortuary 

archaeology and bioarchaeology 

in the Mariana 

Islands. Much of this work 

resulted in a collection of 

papers published in the 

American Journal of Physical 

Anthropology back in ’97. In 

1985 I began doing NIH 

research in skeletal biology at 

the Forsyth Institute in Boston. 

My work has taken me as far 

north as Iceland, and as far 

south as Krueger National 

Park. And I have managed to 

make my way as far afield as 

Angkor Wat in Cambodia (a 

boyhood dream) and the glaciers 


New book is a guide to 

Prescott creeks 

Alumnae Lyn Chenier 

’03 and Leigh 

Aultman ’04 have a 

new book in print. Titled 

Emerald Veins: A Vegetative 

Field Guide to the Creeks in 

Prescott Arizona, the book 

provides aid in the basic, nontechnical 

identification of the 

more common riparian plants 

in the Prescott area, including 

trees, shrubs, and herbs of 

native, nonnative, and naturalized 

species. 

Although riparian ecosystems 

cover less than 1 percent 

of Arizona’s land area, they are vital for flora and fauna safety 

and development. Riparian areas provide habitat for birds, 

amphibians, insects, and mammals. Larger animals—javelina, 

coyote, and deer—use the riparian corridors as roadways. 

“Despite their relative scarcity, riparian ecosystems host 75 

percent of native wildlife species for some or all of their life 

cycle,” the authors write. “Without a healthy stream to support 

riparian vegetation we would lose a diverse group of 

plant species, and the wildlife they support would vanish from 

the landscape.” 

Chenier, who graduated with a competence in environmental 

studies with an emphasis in natural history and ecology, 

handles interlibrary loans at the Prescott College Library. 

Aultman, who is working on her master’s degree at Antioch, 

earned her degree in environmental studies. 

The objective for Emerald Veins is to increase public interest 

and awareness of Prescott’s unique and vital ecosystems. It 

is the first of its kind for the Central Arizona Highlands 

region. Funding was provided by the Arizona Native Plant 

Society and Prescott College faculty member Doug Hulmes. 

The book is available at the Prescott College Bookstore (928) 

350-4307. 

of South Island, New Zealand. 

It has been an exciting and fulfilling 

career. I am still at 

Forsyth, in my 20th year here, 

but doing less research and 

more administration, primarily 

as chief technology officer and 

head of the BioInformatics Core 

at the Institute. I have been 

married and divorced to a 

woman who is now one of this 

country’s leading number 

crunchers (also an anthropologist) 

in human engineering at 

the Department of Defense, 

and with whom I share a spectacular 

daughter (Katherine, 

“KT” to her friends). She is 

now 15, with anthropological 

leanings and is currently 

preparing for a summer of 

Spanish immersion in Segovia,

Spain. Right now I am enjoying 

my life as a single male again. 

As I look toward “retirement” 

sometime in the next few 

decades, I have my sights on a 

little spread with Appaloosas, 

somewhere near Sonoita, 

Arizona. Although I love 

Boston, I am anxious to get 

back to my Southwestern roots 

and closer to Mexico. Where is 

Peter Sherman, Steve Sessions, 

and the rest of my Center for 

Man and Environment colleagues? 

1980s 

Kim Reynolds ’84 was featured 

in the January 2005 issue 

of O, The Oprah Magazine. 

Newsweek staff writer Peg Tyre 

went on a spiritual retreat led by 

Reynolds. She recounted her 

experience of yoga, life-coaching, 

rock-climbing, and high-altitude 

hiking in the majestic San 

Juan Mountains of Colorado in 

O. Reynold’s company, Mind 

Over Mountains, brings together 

her love of the outdoors, her 

belief in the power of life-changing 

experiences, and her passion 

for working with women. 

“Within this beautiful mountain 

setting, we have designed a 

series of one-of-a-kind retreats 

that inspire positive change to 

have a lasting impact on your 

life,” Reynolds said. “The mountains 

are incredible teachers, 

that reveal our strengths, limitations, 

and personal depth.They 

grant us lessons we can apply to 

every aspect of our lives.” 

Reynolds earned her bachelor’s 

degree in wilderness interpretation 

and outdoor education. The 

story for O can be found at 

www.mindovermountains.com/ 

mediaOprah.html. 

1990s 

Cody Lundin ’91 was featured 

in the April 11, 2005, 

issue of the Arizona Republic, 

offering safety and survival 

skills for hikers, campers, bikers, 

and others who enjoy the 

wilderness. Lundin provided 

Alum wows critics 

with one-woman show 

Justine Moore ’94 

received rave reviews from 

theater critics at Variety, LA 

Times, LA Weekly, and other 

publications for her comical, 

autobiographical, onewoman 

show titled “Ecstasy 

and the Ice Queen.” The 

show follows a pivotal day in 

the lives of two rebellious 

teenage girls, anglo daughters 

of hippie radicals growing 

up as racial and cultural 

minorities in the 1980s in 

Taos, N.M. The show, 

named the LA Times Critic’s 

Choice, ended its run at the 

Promenade Playhouse in 

Santa Monica, Calif., on 

Sunday, July 17. 

tips for creating a survival kit 

designed to keep an individual 

alive for at least 72 hours in the 

backcountry. Lundin, who 

earned his degree in depth psychology, 

is a survival expert. 

Ann Gassaway ’96. A long, 

joyous journey has culminated 

in receiving my doctorate in 

psychology this month. To 

think, it started right there at 

Prescott College with a B.A. 

Upon my graduation from 

Prescott College, I knew more 

education was in store for me. 

So with full intent I took that 

desire seriously, and here I am, 

nine years later, completely 

nourished as a scholar. Thank 

you, Prescott College, and 

specifically Thank You Tim and 

Terril for your kind, compassionate 

guidance and belief in 

me. Nearing 68 years of age in 

June, I have completed that 

dream I talked so much about. 

I have worked as a crisis therapist 

in mental health services at 

a local hospital for seven years. 

It is a great career fit. I started 

teaching last year for CSUB in 

their Alcohol and Drug Studies 


“Ecstasy and the Ice Queen” see 

http://plays411.com. 

Program, and, of course, that is 

also a fit. More recently I have 

involved myself with psychoneuroimmunology. 

Last 

year I took courses at UCLA in 

neuropsychology, and this year 

I took workshops on “pain,” 

and mind/body courses on line. 

I’m not sure where this is leading 

me, but know it will have 

relevance somewhere because 

I enjoy it all so much. 

Aaron P. Di Orio’s ’97 article 

“Forty-eight year decline and 

fragmentation of aspen 

(Populus tremuloides) in the 

South Warner Mountains of 

California” was published Feb. 

15, 2005, in Forest Ecology and 

Management. In the article, Di 

Orio and his colleagues Richard 

Callas and Robert Schaefer 

propose that new land-management 

strategies need to be 

developed to reverse the 

decline of aspen—and ensure 

their persistence—in the South 

Warner Mountains. Di Orio 

earned his degree in environmental 

studies and field ecologies. 

The article can be accessed 

see Class Notes on next page 


49

Class Notescontinued from previous page 

at www.sciencedirect.com. 

Denise Barr Washko *98. 

I am enjoying life as a stay-athome 

mom, enjoying every 

minute with my son. I am also 

working part-time from home 

for an environmental conservation 

organization, and am planning 

to develop a small business 

based on sustainable-living techniques. 

dlwashko@yahoo.com 

2000s 

James Reinhold ’00. I have 

found myself bouncing all over 

the country, and think I have 

found a landing zone. The last 

couple of years I have been in 

the beautiful Southern 

California mountains as the 

program director for a small 

camp. I married an amazing 

woman on the beautiful 

Catalina Island, off the southern 

coast of California. But, the 

Maine woods keep calling. I 

have moved again, and accepted 

a job as the camp director 

for a new summer residential 

camp near Bar Harbor and 

Acadia National Park. There is 

a lot of work to do to get this 

place up and running for 2006, 

but it is a lot of fun! I highly 

recommend anyone to come 

and visit Acadia and the Down 

East region, and stop on by the 

camp. Canoe, kayak, or hike 

around the area. You can find 

us on the web at www.campperegrine.com, 

or give me a 

call at (207) 565-2195. Take 

care, and have an awesome 

summer! reinhold_james@ 

yahoo.com 

Heather Robertson ’01 was 

featured in the winter/spring 

issue of TellurideStyle 

Magazine in a story about 

Jagged Edge, a retailer of performance 

gear for mountain 

lifestyles. Robertson, who graduated 

from Prescott College 

with a bachelor’s degree in 

environmental politics and cultural 

and regional studies, was 


Doug Hulmes donated a gamble oak tree with four major branches to 

the landscaping efforts for the Crossroads Center. The branches 

represent his parents and brother Daniel, all deceased, and Doug 

himself, the last surviving member of the family. He said he considers 

the new stems as metaphors for the students that he and his parents, 

who were both teachers, taught. His father Ross was principal at 

Kimball Junior High School in Elgin, Ill., for many years. His mother 

Sylvia was a physical education teacher at Teft Junior High School. 

Pictured with Hulmes in front of the oak are Ceridwen Bloor and her 

daughter Bryhen. 

the manager of the Telluride 

store. Robertson was described 

as a “bit of a mountaineer, who 

meditates, enjoys yoga, biking, 

hiking, loves to read, and is a 

passionate herbalist and nutritionist.” 

The article can be 

accessed at www.tellurideofficialguide.com. 

Jean-Francois Camson ’03’s 

business, Technicians for 

Sustainability LLC, was spotlighted 

in the March 28, 2005, 

“Small Business Makeover” feature 

in the Arizona Daily Star 

of Tucson. Camson is an electrical 

contractor, dedicated to 

building energy systems that use 

renewable sources of energy 

and natural resources. He was 

matched with an experienced 

business counselor, who provided 

advice to help him take his 

business to the next level. For 

more information about 

Technicians for Sustainability, 

see www.techniciansforsustain- 

ability.com. 

Maryann Neubert *04. I 

accepted a new museum position 

in El Paso, Texas, and 

moved the 1,500 miles from 

Tennessee. Upon arrival in 

Texas, I also started a new 

chapter in my goal to become a 

working artist. I got confirmation 

of acceptance into the 

Union Avenue Fiber and Art 

Gallery to sell hand-dyed and 

hand-spun yarn and jewelry. 

aspens2004@yahoo.com 

Bill Wesselink ’04. Tara 

Powell and I are doing well. 

Liam David was born June 3, 

2004, and is adjusting to life in 

his new environment. Tara was 

accepted to graduate school at 

Alliant University in San Diego, 

and we will be moving there in 

August. Always waiting for 

news from our friends, so 

please contact us at wwesselink@ 

prescott.edu. Thank 

you all, and hope all is well.

Alumni river trip a time to reconnect 

This year’s alumni river 

trip was a four-night, 

five-day float down the 

San Juan River, from Mexican 

Hat to Clay Hills Crossing. 

The weather couldn’t have 

been more perfect on this quintessential 

Southwest river: cool 

evenings for great conversation 

on shore, and blue skies and 

sunny days, offering refreshing 

dips in the San Juan’s waters 

and side canyon pools. 

The objective of this annual 

trip is to provide the opportunity 

for Prescott College alumni 

to reconnect with the institution 

and each other in a familiar 

setting—the outdoors. 

To hear the stories and the 

common threads of how people 

found the College, and how 

their experience at the College 

inspired their lives is always 

reinvigorating. The stories 

seemed endless and the nights 

long on this trip. 

The group would arrive at 

camp to bask on the shaded 

beach we’d call home for the 

night, while the last rays of sun 

constantly changed the hue of 

the canyon walls. The stars and 

the Milky Way would slowly 

emerge as the sun set, and 

stimulating conversation permeated 

this intimate group all 

the while. 

The participation was amazing 

this year. Cory Burk and 

Laura Salamone ’82 stepped 

away from their love of hanggliding 

to join the trip for the 

third year. Mike Townsend 

’81 somehow talked his wife, 

Laura, into running their 

downtown Prescott business 

Granite Mountain Outfitters so 

he could get away. 

Caroline (Wright) 

Paseieo ’95 is a newlywed, 

and even though her husband 

couldn’t make it on this trip, 

we hope Caroline’s experience 

might be able to persuade him 

to join us next year. Christina 

’71 and Tom LaVella joined 

us from Page. Christina was 

Doug Hulmes’s ’74 

Wilderness Orientation 

instructor, which provided 

many hours of storytelling. 

Sharon Curtin ’79 canceled 

her summer teaching 

schedule to participate in this 

trip, and provided the great 

service of foot massages. 

Cindy Dick ’87 and Cherie 

Howe were such a pleasure to 

have on the trip. Their work, 

passions, and interest in others 

provided very stimulating 

conversation. Cindy hadn’t 

kayaked since her kayaking 

block course more than 15 

years ago and hopped in one 

for a full day, looking like she 

had been kayaking for years. 

Jeanine Canty *00 has 

been drawn to the rivers this 

summer. After just completing 

the faculty and staff river trip 

with Joel Barnes ’81 and 

Robert McGillicuddy’s ’04 

River Guides Training class 

(see page 16), she joined us 

for another float down the San 

Juan. 

This year’s crew was amazing! 

McGillicuddy, Hulmes, 

Stewart Lasseter, Brooke 

Schickedanz, Gabe Wallace, 

and myself pulled off a great 

trip, and look forward to helping 

out again next year. 


by Rachel Peters ’04 

Photo by Rachel Peters 

Participation in this year’s 

alumni river trip down the San 

Juan was amazing. 

Photo by Rachel Peters 

This year’s alumni river trip 

down the San Juan was well 

attended. 

51

y Rachel Yoder 

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen 

I’ve known all spring that I 

needed to write my parting 

words for this issue of 

Transitions. 

Oddly enough, I’ve always 

been able to find something 

else to do—an e-mail needed 

to be answered, a gift entered, 

a thank-you letter written. 

Now, on the day after my 

farewell is due to our very 

patient Transitions editor, I am 

finally sitting down to try and 

capture what Prescott College 

has meant to me, to adequately 

thank the students, parents, 

alumni, staff, faculty, and 

friends for the community I 

unwittingly found at this miraculous 

little college. 

And as I force myself to 

write, I realize that my procrastination 

is motivated by one 

simple sentiment: Prescott 

College, I don’t want to say 

goodbye. 

While I don’t have a degree 

to show for it, I have spent the 

last four years at Prescott 

College getting an education. 

In true PC-style, one final selfevaluation 

is in order, to “document 

my learning” (but this 

one doesn’t go on my permanent 

record)… 

If apathy and ignorance are 

the plagues of modern 

America, Prescott College is 

the cure. Believe the hype: PC 

students are the most ablebodied, 

inspired, intellectually 

agile, open-minded, out-ofthe-box 

dreamers, thinkers, 

and doers. 


carry full course loads, while 

raising children and working 

full-time. They imagine, 

administer, and fundraise for 

full-fledged conferences … 

while barefoot. 

They write soul-numbing 

poetry while hiking through 

Yosemite, and create evocative 

sculpture from scraps found in 


dumpsters. And ditto all that 

for Prescott College alumni, 

the people who have taught me 

about far-reaching community 

that stretches from the high 

desert to urban asphalt, across 

generations and all the iterations 

of Prescott College. You, 

alumni, keep the spirit of 

Prescott College alive in the 

world, from Taiwan to the 

Dominican Republic. 

The Prescott College staff 

are the collegiate equivalent of 

James Brown; that is, the hardest 

working folks in higher ed. 

From them I have learned 

about tireless dedication and, 

even more, about the restorative 

powers of a late afternoon 

sugar fix. 

Prescott College faculty 

embody the word “yes”—Yes, 

you can study this, go there, 

climb that, be my friend, be 

my critic, become your greatest 

dream, live out your highest 

ideals. 

They have taught me that 

humility equals teachability; I 

can learn how to harness a 

horse, run a river, or write a 

story if I approach each new 

challenge ready to look stupid 

and learn a lesson. On that 

note, cleaning out the groover 

is exponentially grosser than I 

ever imagined. And, yes, P 

really is for the P in Prescott 

College… 

Thank you to the Prescott 

College Alumni Association 

Board for making my job fun 

and challenging and meaningful, 

for being bold and brilliant. 

Thank you to the Board of 

Trustees for opening your 

homes for Prescott College 

gatherings, for providing 

encouragement and advice, for 

believing in this college, and 

for being willing to invest in 

our collective dream. 

Thank you to President Dan 

Garvey for your jokes and 

Kleenex ® , and, most importantly, 

your vision. Thank you to 

the many friends who I’ve 

made along the way, to all of 

you who have written and 

called with support, kind 

words, and well-wishes. 

While I am incredibly sad to 

be leaving my friends and colleagues 

at Prescott College— 

my friends and colleagues, my 

PC tribe—I am also excited to 

be on to the next part of my 

journey that leads me to the 

University of Arizona in Tucson 

for graduate studies in creative 

writing this fall. 

I know that we hear it all the 

time, but Prescott College really 

is an amazing, unique, and 

magical place. 

My parting wish is that you 

reconnect with your love for 

Prescott College by recalling 

your time here as a student, 

considering how this school 

transformed your son or 

daughter, or remembering 

why you work or volunteer for 

this college. 

I’ll sure miss you, Prescott 

College. 

Big love, 

Rachel Yoder

Alum kicks off fundraising events 

to support conference for teens 

Courtney Osterfelt ’04 was 

so jazzed over the success of the 

first Women’s Empowerment 

Breakthrough Conference 

(WEB!) last fall that she vowed 

it would not be a one-time 

occurrence. 

Osterfelt is keeping that vow. 

She has already begun fundraising 

for the second WEB conference, 

which is scheduled to 

begin Friday, Sept. 16, and end 

Sunday, Sept. 18. 

“Young women ages 15 to 19 

express challenges with body 

image, eating disorders, sexuality, 

teen pregnancy, and educa- 

Thank you to the 237 

donors who contributed 

through the Phonathon 

that took place in March. 

In total, $32,880 was 

pledged. As of June 30, the end 

of the fiscal year, only $3,720 in 

pledges were still outstanding. 

This year’s total represents a 

27 percent increase in giving 

tion,” Osterfelt said. “There is 

an urgent responsibility we 

have as members of their community 

to support them 

through these life challenges.” 

The WEB! Conference began 

as Osterfelt’s senior project. She 

said such educational programs 

are needed because teenagers 

are especially susceptible to 

social marketing that frequently 

represents women as provocative, 

brainless objects. 

“We have a responsibility to 

provide them with tools in facing 

these obstacles in order to 

leave this period of their life a 

through the Phonathon. The 

2004 Phonathon raised $23,000 

from 220 donors. 

We deeply appreciate everyone 

who took the time to speak 

with our student and alumni 

callers, and all those who supported 

the College this year. 

We also thank our incredible 

callers for working long 

successful, empowered, and 

healthy individual,” she said. 

Planned fundraisers include 

a walk for women’s fitness; 

Jazzin’ for Women, a dinner, 

wine, and jazz event; and 

Fabulous Females, a benefit 

concert and silent auction. 

Female performers and artists 

from around the area are featured. 

Last year more than 300 

people attended this event. 

“We already have 10 bands 

booked,” Osterfelt said. 


the conference, see websrv. 

prescott.edu/~costerfelt. 

Phonathon reaches new high 

evenings to get in touch with 

our donors. They are: Tom 

Barry ’92, Audrey Clark, 

Krista Cole, Jon Demitrieus, 

Erica Ann Flood, Ali 

Graham, Connie Hockaday 

’04, Kate Liedel, Grayson 

Light-Lookner, Kate 

McEwen, Heidi Normand, 

and Hanna Soumerai. 

FromtheArchives 

Thank you to everyone who participated in this photo challenge—it 

was a good one. The last names of two individuals 

remain a mystery. This is a photo of the first Kino Bay Marine 

Biology study group for Invertebrate Zoology II, and it was 

taken in January 1972. 

Standing in the back on the left are Mexican fishermen and 

guides. Zanahoria was the boat pilot. In the center back is 

Jane Taylor, course instructor, Doug Hulmes, and Mark 

Grinter. Seated in the back row are, from left, Marc Harvey, 

Diane (last name unknown), Ann Killefer, John Blake, Jane’s 

friend Betsy (last name unknown), and Marion Marlboro. 

Seated in the front row, from left, are Paul Long, Martha 

Meyer, Gary Nabhan, Deb Inch, Steven Trumbull, John 

Schneider, and John Flax. 

Thanks to Doug Hulmes, John Flax, Deb Inch, Marc Harvey, 

Paul Long, Dan Young, and Tova “Toni” Sands for contributing 

to finding the solution. 


53

Ronald C. Nairn, Prescott College’s 

first president, passes away 

Ronald C. Nairn, Prescott 

College’s first president, passed 

away on May 3, 2005, in 

Chiang Mai, Thailand. Nairn 

succeeded founding president 

Charles Franklin Parker, and 

was president of Prescott 

College from 1965 to 1973. 

Nairn helped build the original 

campus on a 220-acre site 

outside town, now occupied by 

Emery Riddle University. A 

revolutionary curriculum and 

tough admissions policy attracted 

the best students from all 

over the world, and the college 

was recognized in worldwide 

press, while Nairn led aggressive 

fundraising efforts from 

major benefactors. 

Nairn was born in rural 

Ireland on Nov. 15, 1922, to 

William and Alice Nairn, and 

from the age of 2 was raised in 

the Hutt Valley in New 

Zealand. At the age of 17, he 

was selected as a fighter pilot 

Warren C. Knaup, founder of 

the Knaup Family Scholarship 

fund at Prescott College, died 

May 28, 2005, at St. John’s 

Mercy Medical Center in 

Creve Coeur, Missouri. He suffered 

a stroke while gardening 

at his home in Ladue, 

Missouri, and never regained 

consciousness. He was 84. 

Knaup, a World War II veteran 

and chief financial officer 

for Enterprise Rent-A-Car for 

more than 30 years, was a 

graduate of St. Louis 

University, where he played ice 

hockey and earned a bachelor’s 

degree in finance. 

He attended the Coast 

Guard Academy’s officers’ 


in the Royal New Zealand Air 

Force (RNZAF). During World 

War II as a young flying officer 

in No. 14 Squadron, he flew P- 

40s on 187 missions in the 

Solomon Islands, walking away 

Knaup Scholarship founder dies 

training school in Connecticut 

and served as a lieutenant during 

World War II. He survived 

the D-Day landing on Utah 

Beach in Normandy, and the 

Anzio and Palermo landings in 

North Africa. 

Mr. Knaup was hired as the 

chief financial officer of 

Enterprise in 1964, a position 

he held until he retired in 1995 

with the additional title of senior 

vice president. He also 

served as the treasurer for the 

company’s board of directors. 

Among the survivors are his 

wife; two daughters, Missouri 

Court of Appeals Judge 

Kathianne Crane of Clayton 

and Mary Jo Crosby of 

from several disastrous 

crash landings. After 

being awarded the 

Distinguished Flying 

Medal and the Air 

Force Cross during the 

war, he returned to New 

Zealand to earn his 

Bachelor of Arts degree 

with high honors from 

the University of 

Canterbury in 

Christchurch. 

In 1956 Nairn was 

appointed as the first 

New Zealand delegate 

to the Southeast Asia 

Treaty Organization’s 

(SEATO) military planning 

division. As a 

SEATO delegate, he was 

introduced to the remote areas 

of northern Thailand, studying 

the then-nomadic hill-tribe 

societies residing there. 

Promoted to Wing 

see Nairn on next page 

Evanston, Ill.; two sons, 

Stephen Knaup of Seattle 

and James Knaup ’80 of 

Prescott, Ariz.; seven grandchildren; 

and one great-grandchild. 

The family requests that in 

lieu of flowers, donations can 

be sent to the Knaup Family 

Scholarship Fund at Prescott 

College, which provides support 

to students, who are planning 

a career in environmental 

conservation or environmental 

education, and who are U.S. 

citizens with financial need. 

To contribute to the Knaup 

Family Scholarship Fund, contact 

Ralph Phillips, director of 

development, at (928) 350-4501, 

or rphillips@prescott.edu.

Alum remembers former president 

Iwas a freshman in 1969 on 

a Prescott College campus 

that was informed by the 

spirited vision of one man: Ron 

Nairn. To me, he was Prescott 

College. He was our leader. I 

remember his photo that year 

in the college catalog looking 

like Clark Gable in academic 

robes, appearing larger than 

life. A Royal New Zealand Air 

Force fighter ace more than 

once shot down at sea, always 

surviving to thrive once more, 

his air and energy personified 

the swagger and hope of our 

bold and fledgling institution. 

Dr. Nairn’s job was not just 

to inspire students to do their 

best. It was also to convince 

donors to give their most. I’m 

afraid we didn’t make his job 

very easy. 

In fact, it was scruffy hippyfied 

me (I literally did not 

brush my hair for one year) 

who put his unwashed feet up 

on a seat back next to a particularly 

valuable donor that Dr. 

Nairncontinued from previous page 

Commander, Nairn returned to 

New Zealand in 1959 as the 

Commandant of the Air 

Officers Training School in 

Wheneupai. At the age of 37 

he retired from the RNZAF 

and accepted a fellowship to 

Yale University’s graduate program, 

where he completed 

both his master’s degree and 

his Ph.D.—both with high 

honors—in only two and onehalf 

years. Upon graduation, he 

joined the faculty of the 

Political Science Department 

at the University of California 

at Santa Barbara, and served as 

a consultant for RAND, the 

Institute of Defense Analysis 

and the Center for Research in 

Social Systems at American 

University. 

Nairn had been courting for 

some time. The fellow was 

apparently so put off by this 

offense that he fled shortly 

thereafter, leaving not a penny 

behind. This event occasioned 

a speech in which Dr. Nairn, in 

measured and even tones, 

implored us to voluntarily curtail 

our expressions of freedom 

in order to support this school 

that we all so loved because, in 

his words, “liberal arts colleges 

do not fall like the gentle rain 

from heaven.” 

In that moment, as in the 

wilderness orientation that he 

championed, Ron Nairn firmly 

but fairly helped us all to see 

that we were not just recipients, 

but the co-creators of greatness. 

In 1970 I went to New 

Zealand, and for six months followed 

the Ron Nairn Tour, visiting 

and staying for extended 

periods of time with his family 

and friends, a loving network 

that stretched the length of 

both islands. That trip—a result 

In 1973 after fulfilling an 

eight-year commitment to 

Prescott College, Nairn moved 

to Scottsdale, partnering in a 

new company, which took him 

back to his passion for Thailand 

and its agriculture-based economy. 

As the business grew and 

developed, Nairn and his wife, 

Mona, moved to Bangkok and 

eventually to Chiang Mai in 

northern Thailand. 

Nairn’s next venture was to 

form a division of Known You 

Seed, a Taiwan-based company 

that grew seeds for export to 

most of the major fruit and 

vegetable growing companies 

around the world. He brought 

specialized seed-growing techniques 

to Thailand, and contracted 

with as many as 2,200 

of Ron Nairn’s generosity— 

changed my life. 

In truth, it was Ron Nairn 

himself who changed my life. I 

was a wild vagrant and bushyheaded 

wilderness yippie. He 

was a conservative academic 

and war hero. In many ways we 

could not have been further 

apart. Yet despite our obvious 

differences he treated me not 

just as a student, but as an 

equal and a friend. He seemed 

to have some kind of crazy faith 

in who I was. That faith— 

reflected in his eyes—allowed 

me to see who I might someday 

become. 

Today I am that person … 

president of the Prescott 

College Alumni Association and 

a successful corporate speaker, 

a loving father, and a responsible 

“cultural revolutionary.” I 

think Dr. Nairn would be proud 

of me. I have for a lifetime 

been proud that a man such as 

Ronald Nairn considered me 

his friend. 

local Thai farmers to grow and 

propagate the seeds to the 

company’s specifications. After 

selling his interest in the seed 

company, Dr. Ron did not 

enter retirement, but began a 

project planting Neem trees in 

northern Thailand. 

Nairn was a prolific author, 

publishing two books, contributing 

to two more books, and writing 

for many publications. 

His wife of 56 years, Mona, 

died in Chiang mai in 2000. 

In 2003 he married a local 

Thai woman, Arunee, and 

adopted her son Nat. His surviving 

daughters, Sue Bray 

and Belinda Nairn Wertman, 

and his grandchildren, Ryan 

and Erin Bray, reside in the 

United States. 


by Jeff Salz ’74 

55

“Those 

were the 

days, my 

friend,...” 

Who are these people, and 

what are they doing? If you 

can identify the folks in this 

picture, the year it was 

taken, and what brought 

them together, please let us 

know. Phone (877) 350- 

2100, ext. 4502; e-mail: 

tharris@prescott.edu; or 

mail: Alumni Affairs, 220 

Grove Ave., Prescott, AZ, 

86301. 

FromtheArchives 

PrescottCollege 

For the Liberal Arts and the Environment 

Public Relations Office 

220 Grove Ave. 

Prescott, AZ 86301 

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