My Resurrection Day in Chile (Semana de Santo)

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My Resurrection Day in Chile

Luke 24:5 King James Version (KJV)  And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

 My First Easter Sunday in Chile

In light of Resurrection Sunday on yesterday, and today feeling particularly reflective about life, my academic/career plans, and my relationship to Jesus of Nazareth. I thought about his messages offered to the world. Holidays have always been special times spent with my family, but since entering my Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia and now conducting my dissertation research in Chile, South American, I have learned to adjust to not being able to eat the wonderful family meals prepared by my mother or one of my sisters during holidays. I also miss out on the family fellowship times which can easily turn quite competitive if someone breaks out the games and we all form our teams looking to become the Scrabble, Monopoly, or Trivial Pursuit champions.

However, these memories did not lead to an existential crisis, on the contrary they led to more of an existential epiphany. Why does a person need to feel ostracized if they hold values and beliefs that are not common to me or visa versa? More specifically, when I study the life of Jesus, it is rarely depicted like you see in commercially produced movies or picture cards commonly seen during religious holidays. Jesus was very strong in his objections to religious leadership that held the less powerful to standards that they themselves did not regularly achieve. Yet at the same time Jesus produced a message that was both compassionate and full of expectation that called people to strive to a more excellent way. The call did not seem to be based upon some rules or commandments, but more due to his wanting people to aspire to their highest forms of self. Jesus’s teachings suggest to me that these lofty goals of self-awareness are not easily attainable in disassociation to The Creator.

We live in a physically comprehensible world, but our awareness of “reality” is incomplete if we limit ourselves to those things we can understand with our physical senses. Things that are explained through the principles of physical/natural science phenomenon are not enough for me cognitively or intellectually. For example, what is the substance that makes living creatures by nature want to survive… and conversely, what element of the self is lost among those people and things that no longer want to survive and exist to the point that death becomes a welcomed relief. I have come to the conclusion that it is our spirit, in the case of human beings, made alive unto God the Creator in a way that is not fully or easily comprehensible. The proposed inexplicably, in my view, is in large part because we are “so fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) therefore, the five known human senses become insufficient as a means to describe spiritual connections. Also, the fact that God is a Spirit and the aspect of everyone that is like God is made of spirit being, there has not to date been any scientific physical instrumentality that can capture the individual “you” in its entirety. Ahhhhhhh, there it is, complexity has just entered the room (smile and a wink). Jesus is my role model for teaching. I admire how when dealing with adult learners he used a variety of modalities to “meet people” at the level in which they could comprehend his messages. He used parables and allegories to help the most simple to the most erudite listeners understand his teaching.

Children and the less powerful preceded Jesus on a fateful Passover day (that many celebrate as Easter) with songs of praise and hopefulness; while respected scholars and theologians were so captivated by his wisdom and understanding of scripture many secretly counted themselves among his disciples but kept it hidden for fear of being ostracized by those who were the more politically connected and religiously powerful during that time period.

Fast forward to 2014, I find myself at an academic/career crossroad. I have been doing some research for my committee chair (I am also her graduate research assistant) about what will the 21st Century New Knowledge academic and/or scholarly practitioner resemble in comparison to pre-millennium professors and practitioners. I first surprisingly discovered that I fall into the category of Generation X, with a confidence interval of ± 2. he he  I have also learned that there doesn’t appear to be the mass exodus of aging faculty leaving the academy as miscalculated; poor economic times has led to many a professor to work longer versus entering into retirement. So currently, we are producing from our universities a dearth of bright-eyed new doctoral graduates with no place to go per se.

I personally am finding the “publish or perish” paradigm quite unsettling. Not because I have reservations about publishing or writing, it is because I want to publish and write things that I feel are important to improving and changing lives, systems, and societies. I don’t want to be so obsessed with impact factors and finding “the right” journals that my research and scholarly contributions will only be relevant to a small circle of scholars looking to compete with their colleagues in introducing the next big theory or framework. I don’t want to lose folks who I thought were friends because they might be jealous of my seeming success during their time of struggle. Nevertheless, the conflict for me is that I love teaching and engaging with students and communities. I love academic research as I am also a scientist by nature, holding degrees in biology (specializing in microbiology) with a minor in chemistry, plus a MPA. My adviser mentioned to me an emerging field of “Social Entrepreneurs”. I need to do more investigation into this area as I think it might be something I will find rewarding. I told my committee member Dr. Watkins that I am not sure if I want to be an Academic and she vehemently told me that she very much thinks that academia was the right career path for me. That made me smile really big on the inside knowing someone I admired and respected so much in academia viewed me as a future scholar with much to offer.

This is probably one of my longest blog posts, which is cool because it’s been a minute since my last post, and this issue is weighing heavily on my heart and mind in my final year of doctoral candidacy. Now, if I could simply find a career (not necessarily in this particular order) post dissertation completion that allows me to: 1) show the love and compassion of Jesus yet have the right to hold my own values and convictions, 2) exercise my love for teaching, research, and civic engagement while getting paid to do so, 3) be able to make a contribution to the field through my publishing and research, 4) make sure I have a personal life with time for my family and friends, 5) have my own business where I can focus on social issues and ministry needs that are directed toward those with less power and opportunity in life and finally, have the time to go to my Zumba and Body Pump classes every week; then I would be most figuratively in Heaven on Earth!  🙂

Well that was Pretty Awesome!

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Cultural Exchange Experiences

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Last Fall semester 2013, I presented in a class with Universidad Católica del Maule students.  I shared with them about the focus of my doctoral research and they also where able to interview me.  The course Professor Partrick Metzler informed me that this would be the first time many of them had ever met someone from another country (in my case the United States).  Their challenge was to speak and listen in English as much as possible, but if I would notice any furrowed eyebrows suggesting someone was not understanding me, I would translate by speaking the response or questions in Spanish which seemed to help allay many of the students’ nervousness.

Upon my return to UCMaule this semester, I finally had an opportunity to go by  Professor Matzler’s office and view the students’ project posters they used in their final class presentations.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how much they had  keyed in on particular topics.  I am sharing copies of their work in this blog post.  Their Professor  and I were very proud of the work that they did.  He and I  have plans to do something similar this semester with another class, and I will also do more of an academic teaching event with them in my Visiting Scholar capacities. 🙂

During their interviewing of me last semester, I spoke about my research focused on the civic engagement activities of adult learners following their careers as undergraduates (post-título).  I mentioned that my theoretical framework used Gravesian theory (Clare Graves) and it’s offspring of Spiral Dynamics a theoretical framework developed by Don Beck & Chris Cowan.  My scholarship and research also incorporates Multiple Intelligences theory (Howard Gardner) and Memetics, birthed from the early works of Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene) and Susan Blackmore (The Meme Machine).  In essence, I plan to wear my “teaching hat” with the students here at UCMaule moving forward,  and I’ve also been invited to present to faculty and students at the Universidad Autónoma del Chile  her at their Talca Maule campus.

Being much younger than the adults I typically teach, these pregraduado  alumnos (i.e., undergraduates) were less interested in the ethereals of my doctoral level  graduate student life, but more attentive to discussing North American sports, racism, the University of Georgia, and my hometown of Akron, Ohio.  Clearly, some of the students did their research and visited my blog  site, because I noticed that a few of the posters focused on subjects I don’t remember discussing in their class.  Nevertheless, to those budding young scholarly researchers I say, “Well Done!”

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Issues of college sports, LeBron James, and athletic exploitation was discussed.  It’s ironic that subsequent to my visiting with them on these subjects, the courts have recently passed a law allowing college athletes to unionize.  Perhaps, that was the Futurist part of me coming out during our discussions. 😉

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Many student wanted to know about the history of American Slavery (Chile was one of the first countries to abolish slavery) and from my very limited research on these topic (not my area of scholarship), this country did not have as intricate a system of Chattel slavery as is historically documented in places like Brazil, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Cuba, etc…  Maybe that is why demographical Chile does not have a very large black population.  Honestly, issues of race rarely come up in conversations here.  I did witness an interesting exchange during my research with people trying to determine if they should call themselves white of latino/a.  That will be in my findings section where I mention possible future research.  But, I did learn that there is a supposedly thriving black population in northern Arica, Chile.  The name of the region is clearly named after the continent of Africa and I believe that there are some wonderful stories yet to be told by those inhabitants.

I will say that it was very interesting to me that no one really asked me much about my time as a field organizer during the 2008 Senator Barack Obama Presidential campaign.  I spent more time talking about LeBron James than President Obama.  That was different! lol  So, moving forward I am going to share the students’ visual aid documents and if any of them are reading this blog I want you all to know I think you did a great job on this assignment.  Kudos to Professor Patrick Metzler as well. 🙂

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I spent some time talking about North American racism and the historical legacy of both the Northern and Southern states in relation to the civil war and the Civil Rights movement.  That could easily be a class all by itself of course.  The interview and discussions had occurred fresh off of the recent court ruling in the George Zimmerman trial.  Seems liked someone must have pick up on some still raw emotions from me surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin.

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Make it HOT!!! (Remembering & Honoring Mr. Richard Neal)

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Make it HOT!!!

I love comida picante (hot and spicy foods), but typically Chilean food is not very spicy. 😦

When cooking in Chile I compensate relative to my desire for hot dishes by adding lots of pepper and merken (a traditional Chilean spice) to my food (see above scrambled eggs with black pepper).  However, the local grocery story is starting to carry more “international” food item from the other Americas.  I scored these two babies pictured below today at the grocery.  It’s not very often that we get fresh jalapeños in, so I snatched me up these hot peppers real quick.

Additionally, I almost turned a backflip out of joy when I saw bottles of Mc.Ilhenny Tabasco salsa.  I remember my mentor, Mr. Richard Neal would always carry a bottle of this product in his suit jacket pocket.  No matter how fancy the conference or dinner affair he had no reservations, with the cool of James Bond 007, reaching for his inside coat pocket to access his Tabasco sauce and discreetly dab a few drops on his meals.  Those were the days! 🙂

I honor and dedicate this particular post today to Mr. Richard Neal who passed away last summer, but was a role model and mentor to me and so many minority students, faculty, and staff during this long and distinguished tenure at the University of Akron.  I know God had a special reward when you arrived as you have blessed so many people and played such a big role in the successes I’ve had as a professional and now doctoral candidate.   Thanks Mr. Neal.

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Mr. Richard Neal

Who Mr. Neal was to so many students

I spent the majority of my undergraduate work-study days in the EEO/AA office working for Mr. Neal and Mrs. Kalavity his secretary who became the godmother of my daughter.  Mr. Neal was always a very quiet and classy man with a heart for black people and always looked to help minority students succeed at the University of Akron.  I graduated with a science degree and hated working in the laboratory at a major company near Akron.  I asked Mr. Neal if he could help me find something else as I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing boring chemical test of commercial products.  He offered me a temporary position that was being created by the then University President Dr. William V. Muse (another on of my mentors), as the coordinator of the Peer Counseling program designed to recruit and matriculate struggling minority students at the University.  It subsequently turned into a full-time administrative faculty position.  The program I headed was a novel concept that identified successful minority students who would mentor and monitor the academic, social, cultural, and personal development of students during their first 2 years at the University (much like Mr. Neal).  The program became a model success both locally and nationally and propelled me on my trajectory toward adult learning and development.  Although himself a highly respected educator, Mr. Neal never lost sight of his roots and desire to help the less fortunate in the community.  I am sure he had no idea how many students’ lives he affected in the most positive of ways while here on this earth’s plane, but I am confident he certainly knows it now at this point, and here is my small contribution to that knowledge and “shoutout” to Mr. Neal. ❤ 🙂

Better

The meal ended up being so delicious I wish I could share it over the blog: Blackened Merken chicken breast cubed over angel hair pasta in a soy sauce base plus: (jalapeños, mushrooms, green bell pepper, sweet onion, celery, broccoli) all grilled together.