Category Archives: Spring 2017

Giacomo Luca reporting
Feature 4, Spring 2017

A Millennial Roosevelt Alum Contemplates the American Dream

Giacomo Luca reporting

Giacomo Luca reporting for Sacramento’s ABC News10.

It is a longstanding Italian custom to name your children after their grandparents. The tradition is a tremendous honor. It is also a way for a person’s memory to live on through another, even after death.

My family has carried on that tradition, as I was named after my grandfather. He first comes to mind as I ponder the idea of the American Dream, which it seems to me has changed since my grandfather came to this country more than 60 years ago.

My grandfather was born in 1939 in the small town of Fuscaldo in poverty-stricken Southern Italy. He immigrated to America when he was 18 years of age, became an American citizen, married and had a family. He spent 17 years as a tailor and another 27 years working in a tool-and-die shop until a heart attack forced him to retire in 2006.

Growing up, I had always known the American Dream to be the idea that every American has an equal opportunity to work hard, which would result in a fulfilling life with one’s own home, family and guaranteed retirement.

However, because of rising college costs and changing expectations in today’s job market, I believe that version of the American Dream is not as easy to achieve as it was for my grandfather.

Married 50 years, he and my grandmother are comfortably retired in a quiet neighborhood on the west side of Cincinnati where they live in the same quaint ranch house where my father and his siblings were raised, and where I spent most of my childhood.

By the time I am their age, maybe even a little sooner, I hope to be in the financial position to do the same. However, I believe there are obstacles that could get in the way of millennials like myself achieving that version of the American Dream.

My parents had me in their early 20s, and divorced not long after. My dad is a tool-and-die maker, my mother a housemaid. They didn’t graduate from college. Theirs was a generation in which a high school education frequently was enough for employment.

I was privileged to have been educated in a quality public school system that prepared me for college. In 2014, I became the first person in my family to earn a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University. Words cannot describe what this accomplishment has meant to my parents, grandparents and myself.

Over the past six years, I have moved three times and thousands of miles from home in order to pursue a career in TV journalism. Like many millennials, I am content to make these sacrifices as long as I am working in a career that personally fulfills me. To me, this is the new American Dream.

While I admit that I didn’t have everything growing up, I had what I needed. I was fortunate and blessed to be raised by hard-working parents and grandparents whose strong work ethic so influenced me. They taught me if I worked hard I could achieve anything I wanted, and I believed them.

Unfortunately, nearly half of 18 to 29-year-olds don’t believe the American Dream is alive for them, according to a 2015 survey by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.

Giacomo Luca reporting

Giacomo Luca reporting for Sacramento’s ABC News10

I don’t think the basic idea of the American Dream — working hard and being fulfilled — has dramatically changed for today’s young people. However, the expectations and obstacles they face in order to achieve the dream have shifted considerably.

Long gone is the idea of any job being the ticket to a comfortable life in a quiet neighborhood. In today’s job market, some form of college degree is expected. Thus, more people are going to college and more money is spent on a college education.

My degree cost six times the salary I earned in my first TV job, but realistically, I had to obtain a college degree if I wanted to land a job in the field. Thus, I have joined approximately 44 million others, who, along with aspirations of bettering their futures, collectively have more than $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.

Millennials earn a median household income of $40,581, which is less than the average U.S. household income of $56,516, and 20 percent less than baby boomers took home at the same stage of life as today’s millennials, according to a variety of federal data.

Traditions, like carrying on the family name, may live on, but the truth is that priorities have shifted since my grandfather’s day when working meant retiring to a home in that quiet neighborhood.

“Traditions, like carrying on the family name, may live on, but the truth is that priorities have shifted since my grandfather’s day when working meant retiring to a home in that quiet neighborhood.”
– Giacomo A. Luca (BA, ’14)

For millennials like myself, today’s American Dream is more about achieving peace of mind. We need a job to pay for student loans and living expenses, and can only hope that benefits like healthcare and retirement come along with that job.

I see the American Dream as being more about being fulfilled by work itself than it is for the work to be a means to one day enjoy fulfillment. It’s not that we millennials don’t want a house, family and retirement in a quiet neighborhood.  For many of us, however, that part of the American Dream will have to come much later.

To register for the 2017 American Dream Conference, visit www.americandream.com/register.

Standard
Feature 4, Feature Stories, Spring 2017

Family Comes First: Winner of the American Dream Reconsidered Conference Essay Competition

When I think of the American Dream, my mind immediately goes back to my senior year in high school, sitting in my literature class reading Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The idea of the American Dream in the play is economic success. Willy Loman, the main character, lived with his wife in a seemingly perfect home in the suburbs. He strove for success in his job, but also for the success of his two sons. His American Dream was a traditional one: buy a comfortable home, achieve success in the workplace, and raise children who would follow his path. The ending to the play speaks to just how fragile this dream is. Loman’s sons have no direction and fail in finding success, while he himself loses everything and dies in a tragic, possibly suicidal, accident.

The American Dream enticed immigrants to come to America, find a steady job, purchase a home, and live a comfortable life with their families. They would achieve success that they could never have in their home countries.

Today it is very different. Many young people today share Miller’s pessimistic outlook on the American Dream. They choose to establish a career long before they decide to settle down. When interviewed by U.S. News and World Report for its October 2016 issue, millennials said that while they don’t think often about the American Dream, they locate their own idea of success in achieving “a satisfying career.”

I grew up in a large Catholic family, complete with 20 aunts and uncles and more than 50 cousins. Family has always been a large part of my life. My siblings and I have always gotten along perfectly, a few fights and teasing now and then — who doesn’t! — but all things considered, it feels as if we were friends even before we were siblings.

My parents were a somewhat different story. While I loved both of them more than anything, I was always closer with my mom. When my parents began having children, my mom quit her job in order to take care of us. We all spent quality time with her throughout our childhood, but since I was the youngest, it eventually became just her and me. After years of spending every day with her, my mom and I became best friends … in a way. You could always find us together. From going to the grocery story, to sitting in bed late at night watching Real Housewives and laughing hysterically together. This relationship with my mom and the rest of my family was the beginning of what I now consider my American Dream. When I look at the closeness I have with my family and compare it to others who are nowhere near it, I realize just how important it is to me to maintain that relationship.

“This relationship with my mom and the rest of my family was the beginning of what I now consider my American Dream.”
– Samantha Barnes (BA,’20)

The event that solidified my American Dream, my life with my family, was my mom’s diagnosis. When I was in the seventh grade, we learned that she had frontotemporal dementia. I can still remember so clearly the day my parents first told us. We were sitting in the car in a store parking lot full of snow, and I was crying at my dad’s words: “She eventually won’t be able to speak.” I didn’t truly understand the gravity of this until much later.

A few years down the road, when I was the only child left in the house, my dad and I were the only people really to understand the transformation she was in the process of undergoing. Even a year after her diagnosis, she was still as quick-witted as ever and lived life as normally as she could with her future looming over her head. By my junior year, we needed someone outside of the family to help when my dad and I weren’t there. You could see the dementia overtaking her. She would become agitated, unable to finish sentences, and couldn’t use utensils to eat. I spent much of my time outside of school with her, helping to calm her down and take a nap if she was feeling especially irritated that day or helping to feed her and give her medicine. Those days truly showed me how much I value my family.

In just a couple of years, my mom had turned into a new person. I had to take care of her in ways that, as her daughter, I would never have imagined. I had an entirely new appreciation for the family I loved. I bonded more with my dad, who understood exactly what I was going through, and we became each other’s confidants. I felt as if I was repaying my mother for all of her love and the work she put into raising us. I enjoyed my childhood so much because of her and gained a new appreciation for all she did for us.

It was at this exact point that my American Dream crystallized. With my mom’s diagnosis, and the subsequent events, I understood the importance of my family and saw how, even through the most difficult times, we were able to stay together and remain strong.

The original American Dream, as Miller indicated, was to come to America, land a well-paying job, buy a house, and have one’s children partake in one’s success. More recently, young people have fastened this Dream almost exclusively to the idea of a career. At this point in my life, my version of the Dream differs. For me, it is staying close with my family. Success is to maintain the closeness we share and continue to stay strong together.

Samantha “Sammi” Barnes is a first-year psychology major in the Honors Program from Hinckley, Illinois. Her essay won first place in the American Dream Reconsidered Essay Competition, sponsored by the Montesquieu Forum.

Standard
Roosevelt students travel into the Tanzanian savannah
Faculty Essay, Feature 2, Spring 2017

Hakuna Matata: Conservation Biology Fieldwork and the Larger Lessons of Life

Professor Norbert Cordeiro with Tropical Biology and Conservation students

Professor Norbert Cordeiro (far left) with Tropical Biology and Conservation students at a wild fig tree in Tanzania, 2013.

A massive fallen tree blocks the only road to Mount Nilo, temporarily halting our team’s field visit to this remote, lush rainforest.

It is the early morning of Jan. 22, 2017. Though I have been to Tanzania on a number of occasions to prepare for trips with Roosevelt students taking my Tropical Biology and Conservation class, this is the first time in 22 years that I am returning to the Nilo Nature Reserve.

Together with colleagues Dr. Henry Ndangalasi from the University of Dar es Salaam, Victor Mkongewa, and Martino Joho of BirdLife Tanzania, I am certain the trip will be less about nostalgia and more about protecting the rainforest.

Emmanuel Mgimwa of BirdLife Tanzania demonstrates how to tag a bird for field study

Emmanuel Mgimwa of BirdLife Tanzania (far right) demonstrates how to tag a bird for field study, 2016. Pictured from left are students Brittney Austin, April Aloway, Wenke Dahl; Henry Ndangalasi, Nickson Ndangalasi; and professor Kelly Wentz-Hunter.

As conservation biologists, we are investigating how disturbance of the forest by local communities, including logging and farming, impacts the area’s globally endangered animals and plants.

The fallen tree throws a bump in our travels that could easily delay us by hours or days. However, being Tanzanian, my colleagues and I are all too familiar with the Swahili motto hakuna matata [no worries]. One way or another, we understand we will eventually make our way onward for the last hour of the trip to our camping site. All we need is a bit of patience, luck and the knowledge that an obstacle is only an obstacle if you let it be one.

Hardly 15 minutes later, along comes a noisy boda boda, a local motorbike taxi, the loud mechanical whirring of the engine drowning the rainforest’s melodious sounds of birds, shrills of crickets and tinkling of tree frogs.

For a time, the boda boda, too, is stopped by the fallen forest giant. Working as a team in typical Tanzanian fashion, we cut large tree branches and thick lianas that snake around the fallen tree. These woody vines use the tall trees to get to the forest canopy, only in this case they are to die with their fallen host.

A narrow space is carved away from a corner below the fallen tree, large enough to allow slanting boda bodas through with a little pushing and pulling.

One passes under with a passenger aboard, but the driver has given us two numbers of other drivers to call by cell. Victor calls, negotiates the fees, and within another half an hour, we leave our land rover behind, squeeze under the fallen tree, hop onto boda bodas with equipment, food and supplies, and head to our campsite.

My initial visit to Nilo in 1994 was the first time that Tanzanian biologists had visited the East Usambara Mountains since early exploration in the 1920s. On that trip, we rediscovered the endangered Tanzania mountain weaver, a bird that many believed was extinct. We also obtained the first record of the long-billed tailorbird, one of the most critically endangered species on the planet. This bird is found only in Tanzania’s East Usambaras, and is one of the reasons I returned to Nilo in January.

Our assignment was to locate tailorbird territories found earlier by the BirdLife field team in 2009, and to gauge the condition of the bird’s habitat. Climbing steep slopes and traversing about 15 miles a day for close to two weeks, we explored all 19 known territories, and discovered three new areas where the bird lives as well.

My involvement in this conservation effort is multi-faceted. I serve as BirdLife Species Guardian for the tailorbird (an honorary position), training Tanzanians in field-research techniques and collaborating with various partners and stakeholders on tangible strategies for conservation of this rare species.

Since 2005, my guardian work has allowed me to travel home to Tanzania at least once a year, giving me the opportunity to reconnect with family, friends and colleagues. These trips also reignite my love for nature and people, paving the way for development of sound conservation strategies for the East Usambaras.

I have developed important relationships in this remote area. It is not near the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, where I was born and raised. However, I have found the East Usambaras to be my home away from home, and the ideal place to engage my students in tropical conservation.

Perhaps there is an emotional attachment linked to raising my daughter for the first two years of her life in the East Usambaras, where her main toys were chameleons and tree frogs. Perhaps it is because the village we spend most of our time in is called Amani, which means “peace” in Swahili — a way of life embedded in the village’s aura, culture and landscape.

“Perhaps there is an emotional attachment linked to raising my daughter for the first two years of her life in the East Usambaras … No matter my personal reasons, one thing is certain: Tanzania needs all the help it can get.”

– Norbert Cordeiro, Associate Professor of Biology

No matter my personal reasons for attachment, one thing is certain: Tanzania needs all the help it can get. Approximately 65 percent of the country’s nearly 50 million people live below the poverty line. Given this circumstance, it isn’t surprising there is pressure on natural resources, like the rainforest, which has led to deforestation rates equivalent to the loss of 400,000 football fields per year over the last two decades.

Deforestation is pervasive in the East Usambaras, an area rich in flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. We must make an effort to preserve this endangered place that is tied to local livelihoods and the environmental health of our entire planet. It is a calling we cannot ignore.

Collaboration and cooperation with others are key to preserving this environmental treasure, and my research, which frequently includes Roosevelt students, as well as my position as a species guardian, have allowed me to work with amazing people and organizations from all over the world.

Because of our efforts, I view the world as connected in inter-disciplinary ways, from professionals to local villagers, conservation managers to researchers, students to trained academics, and followers to leaders.

It is also a world where we work together to curb and remediate environmental destruction, at the same time always considering what is at stake for those who must try to get by in one of the world’s poorest countries.

With all of this in mind, I created an experiential learning course for Roosevelt students called Tropical Biology and Conservation 369-469. Since 2013, three classes totaling 40 students have visited the East Usambaras.

On these expeditions, my students learn about complexities involved in conserving the savannah ecosystem of the Ngorongoro-Serengeti; they then join local communities in efforts to combat rainforest destruction; and they plant thousands of tree seedlings that can help reverse deforestation.

Roosevelt students travel into the Tanzanian savannah

Roosevelt students (from left) Olivia Downs, Maggie Dobek, Arielle Nausieda, Sarah Callaghan, Carli Schlaker and Najoua Alioualla travel into the Tanzanian savannah.

Learning should be about success, failure and the unexpected, as well as how to handle such outcomes in academics and in life. In this course, I want students to be aware that travel and fieldwork require flexibility.

Tanzania is a place that operates in a completely different cultural context than many of us understand. I inform my students in the classroom before we leave that they will have to work outside their comfort zone. I ask them to consider that “time” as they know it in the developed world isn’t perceived in the same way where they will be working in Tanzania. I encourage them to accept each day for what it brings.

“Learning should be about success, failure and the unexpected, as well as how to handle such outcomes in academics and in life.”

– Norbert Cordeiro, Associate Professor of Biology

In my experiences, especially growing up in Tanzania, failure and the unexpected are normal. How one perceives these outcomes determines personal and social growth. I believe not knowing what is to come, yet learning to expect the best of every situation, makes for more contentment with an experience and with life in general.

I don’t expect everyone to embrace this “glass half-full” mentality, but I do want my students to think about the concept during their travel and work in the wilds of eastern Africa.

It was therefore surprising to me that one of my former students, Roosevelt alumna Té Monoski, shared thoughts about the transformation that resulted from our first trip to Tanzania in May 2013.

“Our class trip to Tanzania was not just a momentary adventure, it was the experience that I would base future endeavors on for the rest of my life. Our trip forced me out of my comfort zone, and I loved every minute of it. Those few weeks in Tanzania, riding around in our jeep, to this day, remain one of the only instances in my life where every day was completely different from the previous. Every day I was learning and experiencing something totally new and wonderful … from birdcalls and mixed species [bird] flocks to rainforest vegetation and wildlife. It was addicting, and I felt the loss immediately upon returning to Chicago. Taking this trip to Tanzania cemented the way I choose to approach experiences in my life. Take chances, immerse yourself in new things, leave your comfort zone. Feel alive!”

Like almost all my students, Té was interested in understanding other cultures, being respectful of one another, and thinking about how we fit into the larger global environment. She and fellow student Corinna Dampf, along with the BirdLife Tanzania field team, used recorded birdcalls by a rare species known as the drongo to entice birds in the rainforest into hunting flight so that the drongo could catch insects from the birds’ wings.

The data collected studying the impact of the drongo’s habitat was the foundation for publication of a paper in the international peer-reviewed journal Biological Conservation. Their study also set the stage for further evaluation of how human disturbance affects interactions among dependent rainforest species, and the integrity of habitats.

Inquisitive, driven, inspiring — those are traits of the Roosevelt students I know and cherish. When I am with them, they give me energy and desire to keep learning new things and asking new questions. In the classroom prior to the trip, my students learn to become critical thinkers capable of problem solving while developing their projects at home and in executing those projects in the field.

Their projects have included: understanding butterfly diversity in the forest canopy vs. ground vegetation; conducting population censuses of the rare chameleons in farms vs. the rainforest; and identifying and estimating the abundance of animals in disturbed vs. undisturbed rainforest using motion-triggered camera traps.

It is awe-inspiring to see my students engaged. They learn how to work closely with local Tanzanian experts, some who speak limited English, and to eventually arrive at answers to questions their projects pose.

According to May 2016 graduation speaker Najoua Alioualla, the Tanzanian learning experience demands “many skills … such as critical thinking, adaptive learning and application strategies.” She calls it a “holistic approach to learning” that teaches not only conservation biology, but also training and implementation of independent, student-designed field experiments.

In the spring of 2018, I will return to Tanzania with more Roosevelt students. As always, I will make a reconnaissance visit as I did in January to plan, talk to local collaborators and field-test new project ideas. I am excited to work with an excellent team that includes Roosevelt biology professor Kelly Wentz-Hunter, who adds great depth by developing social interactions among students, and Dr. Ndangalasi, whose calmness and exuberance impart his immense passion for plants and all things Tanzanian.

There will be minor obstacles, like the giant tree that fell and temporarily blocked our path. However, I will be just as excited as my students about the upcoming journey, for Roosevelt students are a different breed. They ask insightful questions and are curious, open to new ideas and people, and authentically engaged in learning and activism.

“…Roosevelt students are a different breed. They ask insightful questions and are curious, open to new ideas and people, and authentically engaged in learning and activism.”

– Norbert Cordeiro, Associate Professor of Biology

I hope many will remember the motto hakuna matata when facing obstacles, as it will remind them of the resilience and flexibility they need to live in a world where each day brings the unexpected.

Professor Norbert Cordeiro portraitNorbert Cordeiro is an associate professor of biology at Roosevelt University. His specializations are in tropical conservation biology and ecology, and he serves as an editor for two African journals and one international journal in these fields. His research has focused in his native Tanzania, where he has spent the greater part of the last 27 years studying the ecology and conservation of the globally biodiverse East Usambara Mountains. His fieldwork with Roosevelt students has been possible in part thanks to student scholarships provided by Dr. Stuart Meyer (BS, ’56).

Standard