Spring 2008 Issue - NIU College of Business - Northern Illinois ...

Cover Focus | The World According to...“The huts were in the desert, two miles away from any source of water,” Clark said. “The villagers walked miles everyday – several times a day – just to get water.”Memories of entire towns without the basicnecessities, including electricity, stayed with Clarkand Pascual into adulthood. So much so, thosememories compelled Pascual to travel the world.He repeatedly returned to the Philippines anddeveloping countries, where he discovered thatseeing children begging for food on the streetwas nothing out of the ordinary. “I have seenthe drastic extent of poverty in different areas ofthe world. To see this level of poverty, you reallymust leave the United States. It’s heart wrenchingto see so many starving children. It’s difficult todescribe,” Pascual said, then added, “It is trulyunimaginable.”Unimaginable for most, but not all. In his 21 years, Patricio Rodriguez Rucoba (B.S. Finance 2007) has alreadyexperienced a lifetime of change. Rucoba was born and raised as one of four children in a small village in Mexico. Thefamily’s only material comfort was providedby a patch of land and a small house, justa bit more substantial than the shacksdescribed earlier by Clark and Pascual.“The issue of putting credibility behind thenumbers, in terms of human impact, andeffectively communicating that story . . . theseare the two issues we plan to address duringour global conference,” said Steve Nelson,Opportunity International vice president ofstrategic initiatives. “They [the NIU businessstudents] nailed both those issues.”“I was one of those starving kids,” Rucobashared. “We were very poor, but we weremore fortunate than others. Most poorpeople only had a hut without land. But ourfamily had two trees near our house. I grewup eating oranges and lemons. More oftenthan not, they were the only things we ate.”Changing the World One Person at a Time . . .TThroughout the semester project, faculty coach Joe Cullinane encouraged story sharing among all of the students,including American students Anne Edwards (M.A.S. major), Lindsey Savoie (marketing major), and Katie Shanahan(B.S. Marketing 2007). Cullinane leveraged the convergence of life experiences – from impoverished, middle-class, toprosperous – realizing that these varied perspectives would cast the project into a fuller context for all of the students.That some among them directly lived in or around extreme poverty made the Opportunity International project thatmuch more tangible. Transformation really was possible even if not easily obtained. Rucoba’s life provided the mostdramatic proof. And yet, Rucoba would be the first to admit that even he finds himself dismayed by his journey: fromthat of a starving boy in Mexico with seemingly no way out of a cycle of despair, to a well-educated U.S. citizen, nowa multilingual college graduate from a nationally ranked business school. Rucoba credits his parents with achievingNIU Business 2008 | 13