Anita Charles

�ֲ���ý education expert talks about ‘screen time’ with Diane Sawyer for TV special — Sun Journal

A two-hour ABC News special looking at Americans’ relationships with screens included an interview with Lecturer in Education Anita Charles, who has studied the effects of cellphones on classrooms.

The special, ScreenTime, aired May 3.

Anita Charles teaches a course on basic concepts in special education in March 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Speaking to the Lewiston Sun Journal about the interview, Charles said, “We need to just be mindful and aware. We are trying to figure out things together.”

What’s more important than setting hard limits on screen time is that parents, schools, and communities provide a sense of balance and listen to their kids.

“Professor Charles says we know American kids are very resilient,” Diane Sawyer narrated. “It’s possible they’ll teach us about balancing life in the future.”

• Read the Sun Journal report: “

Matt Bazirgan ’00

Triton alum Matt Bazirgan climbing front office ranks with Houston Texans — The Daily News

Mac Cerullo of The Daily News in Newburyport, Mass., profiled Matt Bazirgan ’00, who as director of player personnel for the Houston Texans ran the team’s scouting ahead of the NFL draft.

In the recent draft, Bazirgan looked not only for talent to improve certain aspects of the Texans’ game, but for people who would fit well among the players already on the team.

“I think it’s always a match for your team,” he told Cerullo. “There’s always intriguing guys on the board that you may have been really excited about watching on tape, but it’s like OK, with our current roster if we draft this guy and put a high-end asset for a second- or third-round pick, but it’s a luxury, how are you helping the locker room? How are you helping the current team?”

• Read the story: “,” The Daily News, May 8, 2019

Sarah Rothmann ’19

Balancing act: Andover’s Rothmann finds it at �ֲ���ý — The Eagle Tribune

Sarah Rothmann ’19 of Andover, Mass., was profiled by The Eagle Tribune, which chronicled the athlete, educator, and journalist’s personal and athletic journey through �ֲ���ý.

Rothmann, a standout high school runner, arrived at �ֲ���ý shortly after the death of her father, and as a result considered quitting cross country and track. Over the next several years, however, she learned to focus less on times and more on health, teamwork, and relationships.

On the 2018 Great Day to Be a Bobcat broadcast, Sarah Rothmann ’19 talks to Assistant Sports Information Director Aaron Morse about her work on The �ֲ���ý Student. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“I realized that I had to be more balanced in my life, that there is more to it than running and I had to take advantage of the opportunities I had at �ֲ���ý,” she told reporter Dave Dyer.

Rothmann majored in English and became sports editor and then editor-in-chief of The �ֲ���ý Student. Next year, she’s off to the Czech Republic on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant.

• Read the story: “

�ֲ���ý rowing

�ֲ���ý hosts, wins Presidents Cup Regatta — Sun Journal

Photographer Andree Kehn of the Lewiston Sun Journal documented the President’s Cup, an annual �ֲ���ý-hosted regatta that saw competition from Bowdoin, Colby, and the University of Maine.

�ֲ���ý won the regatta handily, with the women’s rowing team winning all six of its races and the men winning four.

• Read the story: “,” Sun Journal, April 28, 2019

Chomba Kaluba ’11

Experiencing Difference panel comes to SMCC — News Center Maine, WCSH-TV

The local NBC affiliate’s News Center Maine covered Experiencing Difference, a panel and discussion at Southern Maine Community College created by Chomba Kaluba ’11 that encourages people to talk frankly about their differences.

“When people are different, sometimes people have the discomfort, sometimes people have fear — but I look at the positive aspect of that,” Kaluba said. “How can we look at the positives in each one of us? How can we look at the good in each one of us?”

• Read the story: “,” News Center Maine, April 5, 2019

Daniel Hoffman ’85

Daniel Hoffman swaps foreign intelligence for elite-level swimming gig — WashingtonExec

Rachel Kirkland of WashingtonExec reported that Daniel Hoffman ’85, who recently retired after 30 years in the intelligence community, is giving back to a mainstay of his college career and life beyond: swimming.

He’s now a senior adviser for the International Swimming League, comprising swim teams from the United States and several European countries. A swimmer at �ֲ���ý and a coach for many years afterward, he wants to raise the profile of elite swimming between Olympics.

“There is a supply of elite swimmers who frankly aren’t receiving any of the financial compensation that they should be receiving because there aren’t opportunities to continue swimming during those four years (between Olympics) unless you’re in a college program,” he told Kirkland.

• Read the story: “,” WashingtonExec, April 15, 2019

Robin Leventhal ’88

In her Walla Walla pottery studio, chef Robin Leventhal connects food and art — Pacific NW Magazine

Providence Cicero of Pacific NW Magazine profiled Robin Leventhal ’88, an artist and chef who rose to the top of Seattle’s restaurant scene before making her way to Walla Walla, Wash.

Leventhal studied art at �ֲ���ý but developed an interest in cooking. She opened a respected restaurant on Capitol Hill and even competed on Top Chef, but health and other issues forced her to close the restaurant.

Robin Leventhal ’88 combined her talent for food and art by creating ceramic oyster plates. (Courtesy of Robin Leventhal)

Leventhal found a culinary school job — and, she told Cicero, contentment — in Walla Walla. In addition to cooking, she maintains a ceramics studio, creating, among other, things a line of oyster plates.

Both pottery and cooking, Leventhal said, are “craft-driven. It’s mastering a craft, then elevating it.”

• Read the story: “,” Pacific NW Magazine, April 30, 2019

Bill Sweat ’79

Oregon’s ‘Pinot in the City’ comes to Boston — Boston Herald

When “Pinot in the City” comes to Boston, the touring display of pinot noir wines from Oregon’s Willamette Valley will include two produced by Bill Sweat ’79 and his wife, Donna Morris.

Sweat told Boston Herald reporter Jim Campanini that he and Morris were working in financial services in Boston when their adventures in the city’s burgeoning restaurant scene inspired them to open a winery in Oregon. The pinot makers travel together to introduce laypeople to Oregon wine.

“The collegiality and collaboration of winery owners is incredible,” Sweat said. “We realize that if a Willamette Valley wine achieves success, we can all benefit from it.”

• Read the story: “,” Boston Herald, April 24, 2019

Kate Allen ’99

In ‘The Line Tender,’ great white sharks make great reading for the younger set — Pioneer Press

Mary Ann Grossman of the Twin Cities Pioneer Press interviewed Kate Allen ’99 about her debut young adult novel, The Line Tender.

Inspired by the sight of a great white shark Allen saw as a teenager, The Line Tender tells the story of a young girl who, in the midst of grief, must become a metaphorical “line tender,” holding the line that guides her loved ones through murky waters.

Allen told Grossman she hopes the book will help young people understand that “difficult things are going to happen in life. Hard, hard times are inevitable.

“The power of the story is that we can adjust, adapt, find a way to move forward.”

• Read the story: “” Pioneer Press, April 28, 2019

Ru Freeman ’94

As Sri Lanka Goes So Goes the World — Literary Hub

In the wake of the devastating Easter Sunday bombings across Sri Lanka, writer and journalist Ru Freeman ’94 and her daughters, Duranya and Hasadri, wrote about their reactions to the terrorist attacks and their Sri Lankan heritage for Literary Hub.

Ru Freeman argued that the violence was not a local problem, but a global one. The world’s response, she said, must be one of solidarity — using as a model the Sri Lankans of all religions who supported each other after the attacks.

“As we consider these attacks, we must dwell on the potential for darkness among us,” Freeman wrote. “It is not something that can be addressed piecemeal, by governments but collectively, as global citizens.”

• Read the story: “,” Literary Hub, April 28, 2019

Arin Arbus ’99

Arin Arbus makes Broadway debut directing revival of ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’ — WAMC

Director Arin Arbus ’99 spoke with Sarah LaDuke of Albany, N.Y., public radio station WAMC about the first play she’s directing on Broadway, a revival of Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.

Arin Arbus ’99 poses in Times Square during a 2010 �ֲ���ý photo shoot. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Arbus is a longtime off-Broadway director who has worked on the Campfire Project, which staged a theater production at a refugee camp in Greece.

She is currently a resident artist at the nonprofit company Theater for New Audience, which produces Shakespeare and other classic plays. That’s how she met playwright McNally, who asked her to direct the two-character Frankie and Johnny.

Arbus sees many parallels between Frankie and Johnny and Shakespeare’s characters. “The territory is existential,” she told LaDuke. “There are these two middle-aged, world-weary, isolated souls who, in Frankie’s case, no longer believes that her dreams are possible, that she is [never] going to have a serious relationship with a man, who’s at a loss for what has meaning in her life.”

Read the story: “,’” WAMC, May 1, 2019

Two �ֲ���ý College students have received 2010 Davis Projects for Peace awards to fund development initiatives in Zambia and Afghanistan.

Mustafa Basij-Rasikh, a sophomore from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Chomba Kaluba, senior from Mpika, Zambia, each received a $7,250 grant. The money will support Basij-Rasikh’s project for empowering people disabled by land mines in Afghanistan, and Kaluba’s literary and microfinance programs for development in rural Zambia.
The projects reflect the importance of economic opportunity to a stable society. As Kaluba wrote in his Projects for Peace proposal, “The dissatisfaction of one sector of a society with the unequal access to opportunity and prosperity is always cause for unrest and violence.”

Their projects are among more than 100 initiatives supported by the Projects for Peace program. At the age of 103, founder and philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis funds the program to encourage college students to undertake innovative, meaningful projects that promote peace in the world.

Beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979, unceasing conflict has made Afghanistan one of the world’s most heavily mined countries. An average of 40 Afghans are killed or maimed by mine explosions each month. Basij-Rasikh, who has witnessed firsthand the devastation wrought by mines, designed a project to help reintegrate mine victims into society.

See a video about Chomba Kaluba ’10.

Victims are often among the most marginalized because of pre-existing poverty, gender discrimination and the social stigma attached to disabilities. Often they were the sole breadwinners for their families before they were injured. “I feel I must help them,” says Basij-Rasikh.

He will supply tricycles and carts to mine victims, train these individuals to repair and use them, and provide small grants to begin a business. The tricycles will promote independence by affording mobility, and the carts will serve as stands for selling goods such as vegetables, fruit or clothing.

Basij-Rasikh will undertake the work in the provinces of Kabul, Herat, Parwan, Bulkh and Nangarhar. These provinces are home to many of Afghanistan’s disabled people and have many paved roads, which provide easier transportation and a better market for the disabled to sell their goods.

The Davis grant will allow Basij-Rasikh to purchase parts for tricycles and carts, hire assistants and give startup financing for mine victims. As he puts it, “With a little money and a tricycle, a disabled person can start an independent and prosperous life.”

Kaluba also feels a strong personal connection to his project. He seeks to promote peace in rural communities in Zambia through empowerment programs. There are two parts to his project: a microfinancing initiative using livestock and a literacy initiative.

The microfinance element focuses on goats as an income source. Goat meat is popular in Zambia and goats are a good source of income and protein. Goats will be provided to impoverished households and volunteers will teach recipients how to make best use of them. Participants will be required to give the first offspring of their goats to another family in need, form registered associations and establish banking systems.

With formal education out of reach for many Zambians, the second part focuses on improving literacy through the Kachlite Foundation, which Kaluba founded and directs. Volunteers will facilitate study circles with members of the community. Materials for this project will be donated by the Zambian Ministry of Education in Mpika, along with book donations from Maine. The rest of the supplies will be funded by the Davis grant.

This is not Kaluba’s first initiative in these fields. In 2008 he shared a Projects for Peace grant with two other �ֲ���ý students to create a community garden in Tanzania that offers street children a survival alternative to a pervasive sex-for-food trade. In 2009 Kaluba received a �ֲ���ý College Philips Fellowship grant supporting a project in Guatemala that promoted the making of salable art to fight poverty.

�ֲ���ý students have won a award every year since the program’s inception, in 2007. .

By Kelly Cox ’11

Adorned in bright red and exuberant gold fashionings, Barbara Byers ’10 stomped and feigned tears and anger in her portrayal of the Hindu demon god Ravana.

Byers was performing a “tari topeng,” a traditional style of narrative dance from West Java, Indonesia, whose characters are represented by ornate masks. Byers embodied the demon from the Hindu epic Ramayana with confident, crisp motion that meshed seamlessly with the accompanying gamelan music.

This resident of Elkins, W.V., offered the performance as part of an Oct. 7 presentation on student experiences made possible by the Phillips Student Fellowship program at �ֲ���ý. Also presenting was Chomba Kaluba ’10 of Mpika, Zambia.

The fellowships support student experiences in a foreign culture. They allow undergraduates to pursue service-learning, volunteer work or career exploration while developing a global perspective. Byers, an interdisciplinary major in music and dance, spent two months last summer studying in Indonesia.

Kaluba, a sociology and anthropology major, used his fellowship to support volunteer work with Safe Passage, a nonprofit that supports children who survive by scavenging the city dump in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Byers, who had never studied abroad before her Phillips adventure, told listeners at the Skelton Lounge gathering that time in a dramatically different culture nourished her deep interest in music and dance. “Being immersed in these arts infused me with a desire for a quality of sound in my work that’s strongly reminiscent of Indonesia,” she said.

The dance, she explained, was an important symbol of Indonesian identity, independence and tradition. Jingling ankle bells, swinging her sampur — a sash essential to the costume — Byers balanced a headdress and inhabited an intensely expressive mask with an ease and confidence reflecting her intense study.

Byers discovered her passion for traditional Indonesian performance as a member of the �ֲ���ý Gamelan Orchestra, which performs the percussion-rich court music called gamelan. She worked with renowned Javanese musician and composer Nano Suratno during his campus residency last spring, and Suratno invited her to work with him in Indonesia.

She studied several instruments, including the suling, a bamboo flute, and the kacapi, a plucked zither. Byers also worked with artists including choreographer Pak Ahmad, who taught her the tari topeng that she performed at the presentation.

Kaluba spent a month last summer teaching English and leading art projects with children of families working the Guatemala City dump.

“My volunteer opportunity made me realize how my education can impact others, especially in communities with many problems,” Kaluba commented. Such experience “always helps me understand how to work with others and how to be part of a change I want to see.”

Kaluba’s presentation included footage of the Guatemala City dump, a source of income and food for many families who live in shacks nearby. The video showed young and old sorting through trash for materials that they could eat or sell. Hundreds of people forage here rain or shine to meet their daily needs. Chomba also showed clips of his teaching the children English.

Known around campus for the toy buses and motorcycles he creates from recycled materials, Kaluba shared this craft with children from the dump. This gave them an opportunity for self-expression and potential income from the sale of the toys. He also traveled to Antigua to assess consumer interest in them, and found that they appeal to tourists.

“The opportunity given by the Phillips Fellowship helped me understand how life is lived in other parts of the world,” he said. “I now appreciate things that others may take for granted. My time helping others is what makes me appreciate life most.”

Kaluba, who has launched a foundation to support literacy in remote areas of Zambia and has worked with the homeless in Maine and Washington, D.C., was named Volunteer of the Year in 2007 by the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Maine for his work in South Portland. He is currently working on a documentary that will include footage of community projects he has conducted in Guatemala as well as in Tanzania, Zambia and Honduras.

The Phillips Student Fellowship was established by Charles F. Phillips, fourth president of �ֲ���ý, along with his wife, Evelyn. The deadline to apply for a fellowship for the upcoming summer is Feb. 1, 2010.