Charles' Story

Leeds has a program called the Diverse Scholars Program, which aims toward providing resources to historically underprivileged students. I was invited into the program by sheer luck—I happened to be introduced to Aswad, the director, last spring. So, I spent this last weekend at Estes Park, attending the Diverse Scholars Program’s annual retreat—where they welcome new members into the community, and say goodbye to graduating members. On the last morning, we all gathered together to share our experience.

It was like a moment from a movie. There we were, a group of about a hundred, sprawled in a ragged circle. If a camera were to pan around, it would show a group of slightly disheveled looking youth, who somehow conquered their vanity enough to bring their ratted old clothing on a retreat to Estes Park. The faces that would appear on the screen would be a rare mix of golden, brown, black, and white. But, what would be most notable to the viewer would not be shown on the screen, but heard; the crowd was collectively holding its breath so as to not break the perfect silence.

Sitting slightly outside the circle was a middle-aged African American Man named Aswad Allen, nicknamed As by his DSP kids, watching the scene. He was holding his chin in a reflective sort of slant, wearing a tender smile on his face, and training his gaze toward the center of the circle.

Where his gaze fell, stood a young black man, holding a stick in the air, and with the stick, holding the silence. Finally, the man began to speak.

“I too tried to run away from the Diverse Scholars Program,” he said. “I tried to run away from love.” Charles jutted out his chin, as if that small motion could dry up the well

of tears that had already been primed by the previous speeches.

“When I came here as a freshman, I wanted to make a change,” he continued. “A few months before I arrived at CU, an African American man was jumped on campus in a racist crime. My focus was to change the feeling of division here. So when I arrived on campus, I joined everything I could—I was involved in the Cultural Event Board, the Black Student Alliance, the Presidents Leadership Class, and the Diverse Scholars Program at Leeds. It was hard to balance everything, and I didn’t spend much time in DSP. But, As was always there; whenever I came back, he welcomed me and helped me get through.”

With a glace at Aswad, Charles continued, “Then, in the summer of my sophomore year, I got a call from a man named Charles Johnson, asking me to serve as Student Group Funding Board Chair. And around the same time, things started to get bad,” he said with a pain filled chuckle. Charles paused for a moment, closing his eyes.

He opened his eyes and continued, “See, my family ran into some financial…trouble, and that really threw me off track. My family is my foundation; I was sending money home that I needed, I was almost evicted, and I was so distracted by hunger that I could not focus in class. At the time, I didn’t have the wisdom to listen to the advice that As gave me. I kept running from the love that DSP had to offer.”

“At the end of my sophomore year, I pledged to my fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha Inc. and was surrounded by men that had been in similar, or worse, situations and still succeeded and that had reached a level of happiness in themselves as men that I was seeking after. My God, it was ridiculous. I think that was the first thing that helped me come back to DSP.”

“By my junior year, I was a tri-exec of the University of Colorado Student Union and was handling 36.8 billion dollars. Meanwhile, my family was still in trouble. That year, the DSP office really became my refuge. I must have been working fifty or sixty hours a week for UCSU and was working three jobs. I remember As would always ask me, ‘How are you doing?’ Even though I was not directly involved, the community was always there as an unconditional presence, and that was very powerful.”

“That year was rough because I was stuck serving my fellow students while struggling myself. I needed to be refocused. But, As was always there, asking me, ‘What are your goals?’ and reminding me that graduation was the task that would free me for what I wanted to do.”

“If it weren’t for As, I would not be here. When I was in the darkest place in my life, people would advise me to just quit, because I was only going to fail anyway. Why waist my money? As was the one who told me that I could do it, but that I had to learn that success doesn’t mean that you didn’t need help. You know, freshman year I nicknamed myself Atlas, ‘cause I was a punk, and ‘cause I could hold the world on my shoulders,” Charles scoffed.

“But no one can do that. I would not be here if it weren’t for my God, and for my DSP family. DSP was always a resource for me, but I didn’t make it my heart until my fourth year.”

“But I made it,” he said, losing the fight to tears, and not realizing that the rest of the circle was already in tears. “Don’t run from love, don’t run from this family.”

With that, Charles slowly placed the speaking stick on the ground, still sharing tears with the rest of the group. And as he walked out of the center, a young woman looked back and saw that As was crying too.

When They Said "Get Involved" I Did Not Know They Would Throw Things.

The first piece of advice that everyone gave me when I entered college was, “get involved.” They relayed this ad

vice to me with such utterly earnest looks, like this was the difference between emerging from college showered in degrees and honors, and dropping out to sell vacuum cleaners to old ladies with lots of cats, that I had to believe them. So, when the

first week of interest meetings rolled around, I put out an honest effort to get involved. However, I did not realize that they would throw things at me.

The first meeting I attended was for the Multi-Cultural Business Students Asso

ciation (http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/mbsa/students_news.html). I happened to know a few people there from the Business Leadership P

rogram (http://tinyurl.com/ouqs29) that I participated in this summer. So, I sat down and started to chat with my friends. After a few minutes, a group of well-dressed upper classmen arranged themselves at the front of the room and kicked the meeting off. They told us about themselves, about the organization, and about the benefits of joining their organization, while we munched happily away on Chipotle (I love how everyone in the Business school is dedicated to feeding me)!

I was very impressed with the organization itself. They do corporate meet and greets, resume building sessions, volunteer activities, and visits to corporate offices. They have already scheduled Accounting Night for accounting students to meet with representatives from the Big Four Accounting Firms (Ernst and Youn

g, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, KPMG) and a case study with Shell. Apparently attending these nights is a good career move. My friend Ashley said that she went to one of MBSA’s interview practice sessions. She looked really nervous, so a corporate representative grabbed her, forced her to sit down, and proceeded to interview her. A few months later, she applied for a Summer Leadership Program with the same company. She walked into the interview, only to find that the interviewer was the same person who interviewed her for MBSA. “Oh, I remember you,“ the woman said with a smile, and they proceded to spend the next forty five minutes chatting about their favorite movies and what they liked to do in their free time. She said that it changed the whole tone of the interview, and she went on to be accepted into the leadership program.

In a drastic contrast, I also went to the interest meeting for the CU Alpine Club (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34233386799). When I walked in, I went through the same routine as every other first year. I walked through the door, looked around nervously, saw a few other people lo

oking just as painfully awk

ward as me, gravitated toward

on

e of their clusters, ducked my head, and sat down—only to enjoy long, long silence, punctuated by a few furtive glances. Eventually I found the courage to chat with Stephanie, a senior who was also checking out the club. We chatted about climbing gyms in Boulder, classes, and majors—the usual. Then the meeting began.

This meeting was so big that they had to book one of the large lecture halls to host it—and there were still at least twenty

people sitting on the floor! The clubs leaders briefed us on what the club does (leads climbs, supports climbers, arranges discounts and classes with local gyms, and even rents a boat to live on for a few days after finals). They had a raffle—where they tested the agility of their new members by hurling the prizes at their heads (no one was hurt, luckily). Then they invited their corporate sponsors to talk about their companies and the benefits for members (there were great deals on gym memberships). They even played the ”sleeping bad game” where two boy-girl teams had to crawl into sleeping bags and switch clothes faster than the other team. This was a particularly hilarious and delightfully awkward game (especially if you don’t know anyone).

I had a great time at both meetings, though they were worlds apart. Where MBSA was well put together, organized, and friendly in a professional way, CU Alpine Club was rowdy, spontaneous, and a great time. They both seem like great organizations in different ways. MBSA is a good community and a great career move, while CU Alpine Club is a good time and a great way to get out and climb.

I was most impressed by the level of responsibility that both organizations had—they could lead trips, arrange workshops, connect you to Vice Presidents in Shell, and rent boats. I now understand why they said to get involved—clubs here are nothing like those in high school. Back in the day, we would sit around, eat pizza, and occasionally organize events if we were extremely ambitious. For organizations in college the sky is the limit (literally in the Alpine Club) and you join because they make things happen.

Coming soon: Running Around in the Mountains with DSP.

I Thought Size Mattered

I thought I would be physically bigger when I got to college. At five foot three (on a good day) and one hundred and fifteen pounds, I am exactly the same size as I was in seventh grade. Granted, I do not look like a seventh grader. But I always thought I would be a five-seven goddess, with men panting at my heels, by the time I reached college. I am not. I am a midget who can’t believe she is allowed to walk among the giants.

For my first few weeks, I had no idea what a big deal most of my professors are. Some of them may be smaller than me in stature (shockingly), but they are all amazingly accomplished in the real world. They are published authors, researchers, former successful businessmen and businesswomen, and even former professional ski instructors.

I never really understood that professors aren’t just the high-end models of teachers. Until one afternoon in my literature class, when my professor lovingly mentioned the big, shiny new Borders in 29th Street Mall. “Yeah, it is really nice,” he said with a boyishly excited smile, like he was telling a close friend about a new toy over a couple of sandcastles in the playground sandbox. “Except they didn’t have my book,” he said with a dramatic sigh, “but you should go there anyway.”

Just before class, I had eaten a very large and tasty lunch, and the room was hot. So naturally, my head was beginning to sag delicately into the crook of my arm. But, my professor’s comment snapped my head up. Your what? You mean I could have strolled into Borders and pulled your book off the shelf—and now I am sitting here, fighting off my food coma in your class? For me, this was a moment roughly equivalent to man landing on the moon—the whole universe opened up to me with an almost audible rumble!

As I walked down the hall of professors’ offices forty minutes later, I couldn’t help but stare into each room with big round eyes, thinking, “Wow! They are all authors, and researcher, and important people.” Quite a few of them stared back at me, probably thinking, “Wow, I wonder what is wrong with that girl.”

I still cannot understand how such important people can take the time to teach a couple hundred eighteen-to-nineteen-year-olds to think and speak intelligently at cocktail parties. College was just something that came after high school. I did not realize what an opportunity it is. We get to chill out in a small city of like-minded academics and pass our time discussing our passions with the big names in our fields. Whoever though up the idea of college was a genius!

Perhaps the strangest thing is, after the initial intimidation and awe wore off, I realized that my professors didn’t seem to care that they were educated at Harvard and Cambridge, that they literally wrote the book on their subject, or that they are directing national research projects in their areas. They are willing to draw ideas even from a lowly freshman like myself.

In my stats class, I asked my professor a question about the difference between a line graph and a scatter plot with a line drawn on it. I was thrown off, I said, by a graph on the front of The Onion, about the outlook of the economy in relation to the number of beers consumed(http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_unemployment_outlook).
After skimming the article, she cracked into a big smile, explained that it was a scatter plot, and asked if she could keep the article to use in her later classes. When I dropped by her office hours the next week to ask her a question, she became so excited about my work in Google analytics that she asked for access to my account to lecture on the data tracking software in class, and to present to the Air Force as a method of gathering information for her research!

Working with all of these academic giants, and having them want to work with me, has had the strangest effect on me—it makes me think that it is possible for me to become a giant as well. Maybe I could write a book, or radically change the nation’s environmental policies, or even start a medical practice.

In class this afternoon, my literature professor told us the story of how he had met the author of the novel we are reading—a couple of times. We are reading Who’s Irish?, by Gish Jen, who had her short story “Birthmates” named one of the best short stories of the 20th century. He said that the first time they met, he was a student and was asked to introduce her during a guest lecture. The second time, he ran into her in the toothpaste isle. “Cambridge is the sort of place where you see people like that,” He offered with a shrug, “Who knows when you will walk into the dry cleaners and run into Julia Child?” It seems CU possesses the same magic that Cambridge has—and you never know who you will run into in the toothpaste isle.

Perhaps the fable of the lion and the mouse (where the lion is saved by the little mouse after he spares the mouse’s life) has some truth in it. Maybe my professors only grew to their current stature because they work with mice. Maybe they too were once mice. It makes me hope, that someday this particular midget can become a giant.

Coming next: When they said, “Get involved,” I did not know they would throw things.

One Card Gets You in the Buff

As I walked into the mailroom to pick up my first package, the smiling woman behind the counter asked me for my ID. Unfortunately, I realized that I had left my wallet back in my room and the only things I was carrying were my keys and my Buff OneCard (CU’s student card). For fear of suffering the humiliation of admitting that I lacked the foresight to bring any ID, I smiled my most trustworthy smile and said “Oh, I don’t have my ID on me; will my Buff OneCard work?” To which the woman responded by turning her left cheek to me, cocking one eyebrow, and glancing at me through the slitted corners of her eyes, in one of the most profound “did you really just say something that stupid to me?” looks I have ever seen. I felt my face flush as the woman held her glare. Then sipping in breaths of air as if she were trying to forcibly calm herself, she strained to unclench her lips and said, “At CU, your Buff OneCard is your ID.”

“Oh,” was all I managed to force out of my throat before hastily handing her my card and fleeing with a big package full of books and embarrassment.

So, to avoid future embarrassment, I promptly asked all of my roommates what my Buff OneCard was for—much to my disappointment, they too had no idea.

So, I sought out an expert. Who would know more about these mystery cards that the woman who handles hundreds of them every day? But, when I asked the lunch lady at the dining hall what my card was for, she responded by glancing kindly, but pointedly, at the sign taped to the front of her kiosk: “1 swipe= 1 entree + 2 sides”. “Right,” I said, handing over my chosen food, “never mind.”

Finally, I decided to consult my most knowledgeable and non-judgmental resource at CU—the website. According to CU’s site, my Buff OneCard is the superhero of little plastic cards; it does just about everything I can imagine (besides fetch my morning coffee, but I hear they are working on that feature).

The site agreed with the horrible woman in the mailroom, your Buff OneCard is your primary form of identification. All students and employees are required to carry it with them at all times and present it to any official upon request.

Next, as the lunch lady informed me, your card is your ticket to meal plans. Just present your card at any dining hall and one swipe can get you a ticket to an all-you-can-eat buffet, or an entre and two to three sides at any grab-and-go. Thanks to my peer mentor, I also stumbled across another trick; you can swipe up to four meals in one day. So, my roommate and I regularly go “shopping” at the grab and goes and stock up on food for the weekend or just for late night snacks.

Your card also holds your “munch money,” university funny money that you can use to pay way too much for late night snacks at convenience stores in the residence halls. I recently bought a small block of cheese for $5.73 and have spent at least $15 on ice cream in the last three weeks (hello freshman 15).

But, now the cards capabilities become more complicated. On top of munch money; there is Campus Cash—more funny money, of a different category, that can only be used to pay for printing and for laundry.

However, the card holds real money too. You can set your card up to work as an ATM/Debit card, if you are willing to open an account with Buff One Banking—the university bank.

Your card is also your buss pass; gaining you access to the RTD, the skip, the hop, the jump, the charger, the stampede, the buff bus, and the light rail. This one magic card can get you almost anywhere in Boulder (and to the Denver airport).

Cards act as keys to dorms, classrooms, and some buildings.

But, the cards capabilities don’t stop there. You can set up the Buff Advantage on your card and get discounts in many restaurants and retail outlets in the local area.

Finally, your card can get you student sports tickets. When you buy a student ticket or season pass, simply present your card at the box office and they will give you access to the student section.

With all of the things that this all in one card can do, it is really no surprise that I had no idea how to use my card. Even now, I have decided that the safest bet is just to hand over my card to anyone I come in contact with, and hope that I have done the right thing.

Coming next: “I Thought Size Mattered”

My First Week of Classes

I am exhausted. This morning, to combat a bought of homesickness, I headed out on my bike to explore Boulder. After striking out in a random direction, I biked along a few large roads on the outskirts of town before veering off into a quaint little residential area. After about half an hour of admiring the pretty domesticity of the scene, I looked up to find that I had no earthly clue where I was. So, I turned down a random street and wandered my way around for another three miles until I found a bridge over a highway. As I paused to look around at the top of the bridge, I spotted the mountains through the clouds. For a moment, I enjoyed a glimmer of hope, only to realize with a sinking feeling that this view looked nothing like the view from campus. By my calculations, I was at least ten miles south and another six mile east of campus. But, having no other choice, I climbed back on my bike and struck out in the right direction. It took me another forty minutes of winding my way through back streets, crossing church parking lots, and in one strange scene, crossing a stream, before I found Broadway. I eventually made it back to campus, after running into Williams Village, the somehow making it up to the hill, crossing a lake that I had no idea resided in the middle of campus, and finally stumbling into my hall.


Now, as I sit curled in an amazingly comfortable chair in my dorm, I realize that this morning’s adventure is a perfect analogy for my first week of classes. I wandered around aimlessly in interesting directions until I realized that I was hopelessly lost, then headed toward the largest landmark I could find, and eventually ended up in the right place.

Thanks to my peer mentor, and a good quantity of dumb luck, I never got physically lost finding my classes. But, I did have an adventure finding the classes in which I should be enrolled in the first place. I started out in Intro to Business, Intro to Environmental Studies, Ethnic Literature, and Calculus Two. On Monday, everything was going well, until I sat down in my first class—Calculus Two. My professor rolled in on his long board, wearing cut-off jean shorts and a Polish beer tee shirt. He spent the first five minutes of class going over the syllabus—while I took a few notes and admired the tattoo of the man who meets a tragic end as an ink splat, adorning the back of his shaved head. I was just settling into the class, and enjoying having such an eccentric professor, when he abruptly stopped discussing the syllabus and launched into a full-blown calculus lecture about the nature of functions that need to be integrated by parts. As he took off discussing at marathon speed a back door approach to logarithmic functions, I sat in the second row, drowning. I was so overwhelmed by the end of class that I was nearly in tears. So, after escaping from that terrible classroom, I headed to the only place I could think to go—the Leeds Advising Office.

There I met Jose′, who proved to be my lifeline. He agreed with gentle good humor to see this particularly petrified looking walk-in, after hours (oops), and help her out. He took me to his office and asked me what I needed. That is when the floodgates broke, and everything came pouring out; about how I thought I could handle the class, how lost I was already, how everyone else seemed to know the answers, how there was a quiz the next day, how I couldn’t face that right now, and please, please, please save me!

Poor Jose′ was stuck sitting in his office with a quasi-hysterical teenage girl breaking down in front of him. He was extremely nice about it though. He told me that it was all right, and that he would be happy to switch me out, and that I could take calculus later—or never—if I wanted. So he switched me into Business Statistics and Anatomy (for fun). It seems I never learn.

The next day, I went to Anatomy, and realized that I had once again gotten myself into an upper-division course that I was woefully unprepared for. This time, I did enjoy the class, and it broke my heart to walk into the Leeds Advising Office again and ask to drop the class. But, it was a huge time commitment, I did not have the pre-requirements for, and it was just not feasible. So, I left behind Anatomy (for now) and picked up a second RAP class in meditation, which looks like fun.

I ended up walking out of Leeds that first week feeling that the Business school really was my haven. I stumbled around, with no idea the direction I was going; I have seven different book-return receipts to show for it. But, because the people at Leeds put me in classes I can handle, give me tons of support in those classes, and occasionally let me break down in an emotional fit in their offices, Leeds has quickly become the big landmark of safety, which leads me back to where I need to be.

I Wish I Could Bathe in Purell

After a short and sunny stroll home from my literature class, I high stepped up the stairs in double time, strode down the hallway to the door of my room, stretched the last remaining stiffness out of my back, and walked through the door contemplating an afternoon nap, only to come to realize that my roommate was wearing a white mask, and had swine flu. Now, she is in quarantine…as are half the girls in the hall. The other half of the girls have, in the last few hours, developed an obsession with disinfectant and vitamin c, and have adopted the mantra “you don’t have swine flu” every time we cough, or have a headache, or touch anything in the hall.

But, containing the virus is proving to be a big problem. We all share a bathroom, live in each other’s rooms, and even share one drinking fountain. To top things off, there have been outbreaks in several other dorms on campus as well. It seems that the only thing that is spreading faster than the flu itself is the gossip and anxiety about it. But, before we all break down in hysteria, CU is doing everything they can to combat an epidemic.

In the last few weeks, we have subtly seen signs telling us to wash our hands and cover our coughs appear on all public walls, and small clusters of industrial sized disinfectant and tissues gather on cashier’s counters and in dining halls. Emails have been flying around the campus discussing absence policies and emergency procedures.

Cu has created a website with everything you could possibly need to know about H1N1 at:
http://www.colorado.edu/safety/h1n1/prevention.html

But, to summarize their advice, H1N1 is spread between humans through physical contact or by sneezing or coughing on people or anything that multiple people touch. So to decrease your risk of catching the flu, practice healthy habits (sleep, exercise, eat right, don’t drink to excess), wash your hands often with soap and hot water, take advantage of the disinfectants offered by the university in public places, sanitize anything that you share with others (like your buff one card), and encourage others to seek medical attention IMMEDIATELY if they are experiencing any of the following symptoms: dizziness, fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue, diarrhea, or vomiting. Since Swine Flu is very contagious, officials are urging anyone feeling ill to stay home.

If you are confirmed to have Swine Flu, university policy is to quarantine anyone with H1N1 until they are completely clear of symptoms. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine to prevent Swine Flu and there are no medications that can cure you of the virus. However, CU does what it can to provide for its sick students. If you are living in the resident halls and are quarantined, the university will provide you with a quarantine box of chicken noodle soup, saltines, Gatorade, fruit cups, and other staple “sick” items. If you visit the Wardenburg Health Center (http://www.colorado.edu/healthcenter/infectiousdisease.html), they will also give you a very stylish white quarantine mask, which my roommate is now wearing (I am very jealous).

If one of your close friends (or your roommate) has the flu, wash your hands and disinfect anything that you share. Generally, just avoid close contact (on a hormone ridden campus, this can be difficult I know). If you are living with the infected party, you may want to consider re-locating for a few nights until they are out of quarantine. However, you can go and see them, retrieve anything in their possession that you may need, and even sleep in the same room if you are willing to risk it. I called the Wardenburg Health Center, and spoke to a very nice nurse who further informed me that there is no need to come in the be “checked” if you have come in contact with a sick person but are not experiencing any symptoms yourself.

Overall, just take care and live a healthy lifestyle, and you should be ok. I just spent the last three days sleeping in the same room as an infected person, and I am fine, so there is no reason to panic. Even if you do catch the flu, my roommate does not seem to be suffering much (except from boredom) and I have been having fun playing nurse and fetching soup and water for her. And even the professors are doing their part to support those who fall ill. Almost all of my professors have stated that they are willing to work with students who miss class because of quarantine, and that they would MUCH prefer that infected student’s stay home. I live in the middle of the outbreak, and my view from the eye of the storm is that so long as we are all responsible we can avoid having this become a full blown epidemic and can weather the storm.