2 inches between us

staring into your

Brown and white seas

The two passageways so vivid

A voice tells me to jump in, but I am scared

I slip my life jacket on

To make sure I keep safe,

But-

it doesn鈥檛 help because

The waves swallow me into the depths of your seas

How is it possible that I am back in the water?

I see the shark, there it is again

Closing my eyes, holding on tight, I scream

Intensively waiting for the shark to gnaw on me.

But wait, it doesn鈥檛 鈥�

He tells me to take my life jacket off

For it won鈥檛 hurt me this time

Opening my eyes, I look around and see colors. I see greens, blues, purples, red, and pinks.

The stormy clouds begin to evaporate

The boggle of noise start to dissipate

Anxiety, fear, and loneliness slip away

The universe slowly disappears

For some reason I feel safe, this time I feel right鈥�

Each year the 51福利社 Honors Program selects three outstanding applicants to receive one of Eastern鈥檚 most prestigious scholarships, the Orland and Bernice Killin Scholarship.

In selecting our Killin Scholars, who receive full in-state tuition for four years, we consider demonstrated intellectual engagement and curiosity, demonstrated commitment to community, resilience (including persistence in the face of challenges), and transformative power of the scholarship for the student.

Lily Frye聽volunteered with numerous organizations in her hometown of Billing, MT including her local Art House Cinema & Pub, the Billings Food Bank, the Autobon Center, and local elementary schools through the National Honors Society.

She was also involved in the Platinum Program at my high school which required taking the most vigorous classes along with pursuing a project meant to get involved with the community. She chose to study Foster Care in Billings, MT.

She studied the system with help from both Tumbleweed and her local Foster Care Center. In addition, she worked with a Casa member in her community to buy and put together Christmas gifts for the kids near aging out in 2019.

Evan Bartels聽volunteered at the Garfield county food bank, every summer throughout his high school education. While he was there, he would often help with unloading food trucks, organize food on the shelves, create large and small food boxes, and occasionally help deliver this food to community members who couldn’t get to the distribution site.

After being there a few years, he realized the importance of the food bank to the members of his community and decided his senior year he was going to run a food drive. He alongside his friend organized a thanksgiving food drive and ended up bringing in over 2400 pounds of food, which was given out to over 100 families in the community.

A few other smaller things he has done include washing buses for my community’s local transit and doing volunteer yard work for people throughout the community and at the baseball fields.

Regarding all this, he always thought of himself as community-oriented. Throughout high school, the community has done so much for him and many other students and it is only right that he helps return the favor to them, whether that be through volunteering, cleaning, or any other odd job.

Emily Munson聽in high school, she was in the National Honor Society and her school’s Key Club, both programs that focused on volunteer work. They would volunteer at the local psychiatric hospital, helping carve pumpkins with the elderly patients, and
at our district’s elementary school.

She plans to major in English Literature and hopes to one day become a professor. She has always had great respect for my teachers and professors and wants to make a positive impact on future students, just as her teachers did for her.

She want to encourage them to find their passion and install in them that they can do it, no matter what their background is.

To learn more about the 51福利社 Honors program head on over to:

Each year the 51福利社 Honors Program selects three outstanding applicants to receive one of Eastern鈥檚 most prestigious scholarships, the Orland and Bernice Killin Scholarship.

In selecting our Killin Scholars, who receive full in-state tuition for four years, we consider demonstrated intellectual engagement and curiosity, demonstrated commitment to community, resilience (including persistence in the face of challenges), and transformative power of the scholarship for the student.

Isabel Flores聽has the goal of becoming a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner.聽 She has expressed an affinity and desire to help others, especially children.聽 Her work with her local church, in volunteering with the religious education classes, has provided her the exceptional opportunity to become familiar with working with a diverse group of children at the same time.

Flores has also demonstrated her commitment to community involvement by volunteering as a translator for parent-teacher conferences at her local school district.聽 As she said in her own words, 鈥淚 know there are many parents in my community who only speak Spanish and I decided to help them out.聽 It was challenging because I didn鈥檛 know how to properly translate certain phrases, but I was able to communicate properly with the teachers and parents.鈥�

Flores was able to demonstrate that volunteering isn鈥檛 always doing something perfectly, but having a willingness to try to make your community, home or school a better place.

Ivan Cibrian聽is currently exploring different majors, with the goal to help both people and animals.聽 He has demonstrated this commitment by volunteering at his local food bank, as well as volunteering at his church to cook and serve food for people at a safety shelter.

In his own words, 鈥淭his experience has helped me to see things from a different perspective, and realize that not everyone is as fortunate as you.聽 This is why I am interested in a profession where you help others, and why I would someday like to help animals鈥� I will work hard to continue to get good grades, and I will always continue to help other people out as much as I can.鈥�

Dawn Rose Ratcliff plans to major in business administration and minor in psychology, so she can open a counseling center.聽 鈥淕rowing up I have seen many people struggle.聽 My goal is to provide a safe place for people to go when they need support and guidance.聽 I want to spend my life bringing happiness and strength into people鈥檚 lives.鈥�

Ratcliff ran a business for her high school senior project called the $1 Christmas Store, where children buy presents for their families.聽 While running her business, she obtained experience with, among other things, advertising and marketing.聽 Ratcliff also acted as a mentor for sixth grade elementary students in her school district.

To learn more about the 51福利社 Honors program head on over to:

51福利社 Faculty Perspectives

By Kasey Hermens, April 2021

The year of 2020 was defined by the COVID-19 virus, Zoom meetings, and masking up. Many conversations were centered on the student experience, and rightfully so, but there wasn鈥檛 much chatter about the impact on faculty members, as they zigged and zagged through the labyrinth of adaptation to a global pandemic. I wanted to shed some light on the perspectives of faculty, and open up the conversation to include both professors and pupils alike.

I interviewed two instructors and we spoke about both the hardships and the silver linings the past year made.

Travis Masingale

An associate professor at 51福利社, passionate about teaching Visual Communication Design courses and helping students achieve their goals. He considers himself a Bauhaus fanboy, a child of postmodernism, and a 鈥渟pecialist in obscure details.鈥� He loves spending time reading books that get him thinking, spending time with his family, and escaping outside to hike the bluff.

Kasey:聽Thank you for meeting with me, I really appreciate your willingness to let me ask you some questions. Hopefully you have some insights that you鈥檇 have fun sharing. I鈥檇 first like to ask, what did your expectations look like when this transition to virtual learning happened about a year ago?

Travis:聽Oh, my expectations were low. I really lowered them鈥� For myself, they were high because that鈥檚 just who I am but they were shifted to take care of the students and to provide space for the break from our normal routine. [I] really backed off and provided a space for reflection for the students, especially in our Design 200 class鈥� [t]rying to create ways to tether students to school; to keep them coming back to the Zoom class, stuff like that.

K:聽How have you managed your mental health during this time? I know mental health has been a big topic of discussion lately.

T:聽I鈥檝e been meditating since the summer of 2016. I had a nervous breakdown and it was either get on more meds or stop meds and meditate. I started meditating and I had a pretty regular practice but I鈥檇 usually fall off at 90 days. So, last May was like, the lowest of low and I stopped meditating because I just couldn鈥檛 get out of bed in the mornings. I would just doom-scroll.

So, June 1st I committed and started [meditating] and a month went by, and another month, and then I was into August and was like, 鈥淥h my God, I鈥檓 going,鈥� so I decided, 鈥淚鈥檓 gonna do this for a year in the morning.鈥� I haven鈥檛 stopped since June 1st .

I have my struggles too but my meditation practice in the past month has really grown about love and acceptance, and meeting people where they鈥檙e at. It鈥檚 hard in a student-centered space because we have this dual role as teachers where we鈥檙e supposed to push you as hard as we can to get students to do more than they expected they can. At the same time, we鈥檙e not supposed to break you. It鈥檚 this fine line of a balancing act, you know?

K:聽I know a lot of students have felt like they鈥檝e missed out on the community aspect of college or university. Do you feel like faculty has missed out on that as well since everything has been remote learning?

T:聽For sure. In the fall and spring, it was like someone tied my arms behind my back. I am very empathetic, I read people, I鈥檓 sensitive, you know, if you will. Not being able to like, look at people鈥檚 faces, not being able to judge body language, and then not to have the community of students to get to know, it was really hard. Without that [sense of community], students would just be names on a roster and I don鈥檛 get to know their quirks. I get to know, maybe, their work visually but I don鈥檛 get to know them.

I can鈥檛 imagine being a student right now, with the amount of technology that鈥檚 been thrown at students per class. Every faculty member is making this [stuff] up on their own, every department has some loose guidelines. As a student, the resiliency and the ability to adapt among this section of students for the past year鈥� they are set for the modern world. They strengthened up that area of their mind and way of knowing the world. I think that all of us have atrophied this social aspect.

K:聽Is there anything you鈥檙e looking forward to?

T:聽I鈥檓 just looking forward to this summer. I think鈥� a bunch of us faculty, we didn鈥檛 take last summer off. I normally don鈥檛 work in the summer, I do personal research. We planned for fall quarter hardcore, and I know I鈥檓 looking forward to a breath of space and to not be on Zoom all day and worry about 90 human beings and whether I鈥檓 doing enough for them.

Dr. Sarah Mount

Sarah is the program director of the Undergraduate Public Health Program at 51福利社, teaching an array of public health education courses; ranging anywhere from program planning, to health disparities, to grant writing. In her free time, she enjoys teaching herself instruments like the banjo and ukulele, playing board games like Ticket to Ride, and being outdoors with her new addition to the family, her puppy named Otter.

Kasey:聽I appreciate that you鈥檝e taken some time out of your day to meet with me. My first question is, what did your expectations look like when the transition to virtual learning happened this time last year?

Sarah:聽Boy, if it had been鈥� if COVID had hit any other quarter it would have been awesome. Spring quarter, for me, was really the worst possible quarter to try to put those classes online, especially the program planning class, which I feel really takes a lot of work behind the scenes to do that well online. I鈥檇 become very, you know, dependent on seeing you guys every, you know, two days, right? Being able to really push our two hours together as far as I could. When I鈥檓 planning something online, you don鈥檛 have as good of a feel for the timing of it, right? You don鈥檛 want to overburden the students, but at the same time, you know, you have to get through a lot and you don鈥檛 want to undercut it. So, I was pretty much upside down a year ago this time. This spring is going a lot better. It was a learning experience.

Breanna Guzman
Summary

When finding the perfect project to carry out, I came to the conclusion that my focus should be around intervention of speech and language disorders for younger children. Younger children and speech related disorders have been an interest of mine since the beginning of this program.

After some discussion, I decided to create an at home literacy kit that could be presented to caregivers to begin early literacy learning in the homes. I have seen changes in my personal life as my parents have read to my sisters and I since we were young. As I completed this project, I grew my understanding of early literacy, especially in the ways in which children can thrive through language and reading, by incorporated it into their daily lives. Helping children in this way has always been a passion of mine. Through creating this kit, I came to better understand how a child鈥檚 skills can start at a young age, with the help of early language intervention in the home.

As I started to research for this project, I realized I wanted to incorporate a bilingual aspect, specifically Spanish, allowing my literacy kit to be available for a wider range of individuals.

I chose a book to focus my project on, that had a Spanish version of the text, as well as an audio CD. The book I chose, 鈥淧ete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes鈥�. With this book in mind, I started to create activities for the children to complete individually, or with a grown-up, that will hopefully expand their language skills.

Other aspects of this project included a reading log to track the progress of time spent reading books, as well as a writing journal with a few prompts to get the writing started. To make my project as user friendly as I could for the families who may receive this kit, I also included different links to online resources that they can utilize to further their understanding of early literacy.

My project was very beneficial for my learning, as I was working through my courses this semester. I was able to relate this project heavily back to my 鈥淚ntervention of Speech and Language鈥� course. Through early literacy with children, we may be able to limit the amount of intervention that is needed for the child in the future. The whole goal of intervention is to improve the skills that may be falling behind for a child, but there is a possibility this need can be reduced with resources like this kit. Completing this project as my Honors enhancement project was a great experience. I was able to apply my interests of working with the younger population through speech and language aspects, as well as apply them to the Honors program by creating a better community around me, and sharing helpful information that will hopefully decrease the need for intervention in the future generations. My hope for this project is that others in the future will enjoy this information as much as I enjoyed researching, bringing it together and creating this final project.

Katie Gower
Abstract

In his analysis of representative democracy and its demerits, English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill proposes a solution to address the political inequality that often proliferates in representative systems. Mill argues for proportional representation, a type of representation encompassing multiple methods that ensure minority groups are represented. Through his political and philosophical analysis of Mill鈥檚 book 鈥淐onsiderations on Representative Government鈥�, a compelling argument for proportional representation can be derived. Political representation is a critical subject within the field of political science, and understanding the many forms and methods of representation allows political scientists to evaluate the political freedom of individuals within a democracy, how well the individuals are truly represented, and how effective, or ineffective, the method of political representation renders the government and society as a whole.

The ideal of a true democracy, in which all of the people are represented equally, can be difficult to achieve, and political scientists and philosophers have strived to find solutions to this problem. Mill believed that this problem, and two additional weaknesses within democracies, can be solved by addressing the method of representation within that democracy.

Proportional representation creates a solution to two dangers of democracy as identified by Mill: 1)T the inaptitude of the ruling body, and 2),The interests of said ruling body diverting from the interests of the people.

As Mill argues, proportional representation creates a number of benefits for both the individual and the democracy as a whole. By analyzing its merits, further understanding of democracy and the importance of representation can be established.

Honors Student, Hope Sands, travelled to the Netherlands this past summer for an intensive two and a half week long institute on Diversity, Inclusion and the Holocaust. The program focused on finding solutions to persisting problems today, but learning from examples in the past. Joined by 21 other Honors students from across the US and the Netherlands, the group travelled to places such as Camp Westerbork, Amsterdam, Den Hauge and even to Berlin, Germany and Bergen Belsen.

Read more on Inside51福利社:

“This trip was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that not only taught me about the past, but also granted me knowledge in how to approach problems in the future. I made so many new memories and friends on this trip and learned a lot about myself in the process.”
– Hope Sands