Becoming something…

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**Objective**

Combine current cultural, social and economic knowledge with new ideas and concepts in a rigorous learning environment exposing new solutions for today’s businesses and organizations.

**Education**

Kalamazoo College Bachelor of Arts Kalamazoo, MI 2003-2007
+ Major in Economics and Business - Minor in Chinese - 3.4 GPA
+ Senior Individualized Project - English Department - “Couches”

Capital Normal University Intensive Mandarin Study Beijing, China 2005-2006
+Cultural/Sociological focus
+Intercultural Research Project: observed local restaurant business

**Employment**

MI Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA MI 2007-2008
+Is national service fighting poverty through student empowerment and departmental development via service at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) to the campus and surrounding community.
+ Administered scholarship; 250% increased enrollment
+ Created and/or facilitated over 25 professional level trainings
+ Established department standard for tracking Learning Beyond the Classroom, a general education requirement
+ Developed training curriculum and new recruitment system
+ Helped recruit over 600 volunteers who served over 2,700 hours

Kalamazoo College Computer Lab Assistant Supervisor MI 2004-2007

Y.M.C.A. Professional Rescuer & Swim Instructor MI 2003-2006

Times Ledger Newspaper Subscription Telemarketer NY 2005

**Other Experiences**

Community Records Volunteer
+Attend board meetings and vital to recent recording project

National Collegiate Athletics Association Swimmer
+Teamwork, led underclassmen, time management, goal setting, Most Valuable Freshman

Answers for Students with Sexuality Questions (ASSQ) Founder
+ Campaigned successfully for gender neutral restrooms; peer-counseling

Human Rights Campaign Statistical Analyst
+Introduction to statistical results, pre-coursework conceptual application

Manpower Inc. – Externship Executive Assistant
+Presented customer intake analysis, front-desk, assistant to Vice President

ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES AND SKILLS

**Professional Development**

MCC Solutions Summit –
+A collaboration between groups/educators with similar missions who want to encourage the greening of service-learning, volunteerism, community-based research and place-based education
National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) conference -
+Focusing on precision in experiential education outcomes, assessment and promising practices
IMPACT conference -
+The largest campus community conference on service, activism, politics, advocacy, and other socially responsible work across philosophical and ideological lines
Pre-Service Orientation -
+Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA; community partnerships, identity and privilege, recruitment and volunteerism
The Institute -
+Tackling issues and exposing best practices in service-learning and civic engagement
EMU Office of Research and Development grant writing workshops –
+Topics included an introduction to and funding sources
MCC AmeriCorps*VISTA trainings –
+Fine tuning the skills of collaboration, meeting facilitation, problem solving, and youth outreach

**Trainer Experiences**

ASSQ and EMU’s PRIDE Education Coalition - sexual identity and peer counseling
EMU students and staff - general education system
EMU Emerging Leaders - citizenship and service
EMU New Student Orientation Advisors - diversity issues and awareness
Life-size Game of LIFE reflection activity - social privilege
EMU student program coordinators and staff - program development, delegation
Michigan Service Scholars - cohort development
One-on-one student development and mediation; including web-based group surveys and team building activities

**Professional Skills**

+Scholarship administration
+Job description development
+Volunteer recruitment
+Workflow and staffing systems
+Staff orientations, student/staff meetings, and classroom presentations
+Conflict facilitation and resolution
+Program presentations and promotion
+Hiring and interviewing systems

Are adults made? A recent article by Kay Hymowitz from City Journal suggests something about young men today in our society:

Today’s single young men hang out in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

The suggestion is that for various social reasons, we are bypassing the previous generations’ milestone of marriage and a family when we supposedly begin our adult lives with the start of our careers. That first main job and first step now equals independence. Am I socially stunted, stuck in a culturally locked puberty (video games, the internet, and career changes)? I’m not in college anymore and much of that activity has gone by the wayside. There isn’t much like the structure of a full-time job, other personal pursuits, and a growing long-term relationship to have other things take favor. Yet, I still long for the long nights, long papers, and long haphazard days.

My relationship and new job is the cornerstone to a growing foundation that I think is moving me beyond this immature middle ground. Priorities change and whether or not I like to admit it, I’m heavily invested in both. This is by choice. This implies that this stage is under our own self-control. Is it important to take action?

Action would be contrary to what is rewarded in our culture; action which requires forward thinking loses to the many short-term excited battles our cultures supports. How can the weekend (or even every day) be one of exciting battles if you are settled into a life track, one long battle with something or short ones with quick feedback and results? Immediate gratification is clearly our cultural winner. It usually takes an event or emotional commitment to be able to recognize the importance of the former, long-term action, possibly to just return back afterwards.

Even today, they say SYM (Single Young Males), Hymowitz’s term, or this millennial generation in general is distracted by many new things, a world of instant gratification. Take your college life for example.

[Jones, S] (2002) indicated that 72% of all students check their email daily, and 26% of college students use instant messaging on an average day. A similar survey in 2005 found that 83% of adults in the 18-29 age range participate in online activities [Demographics of Internet Users] (2007 ).

Digital-Distractions

We learned in and with this environment. Conveniences have become crutches.

So what of women? I don’t necessarily think they are excluded from this phenomenon but they sure are talking about it. The child-man article continues,

In Internet chat rooms, in advice columns, at female water-cooler confabs, and in the pages of chick lit, the words “immature” and “men” seem united in perpetuity…Men feel threatened by female empowerment, these thinkers argue, and in their anxiety, they cling to outdated roles.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

The CEO phenomenon is one example of the ever growing worth and exchange value of a single individual. Females with this power, on this scale, is historically rare; they have a right to enjoy it, even in the face of the above mentioned masculine uncertainty. It would be wrong to not point out that only twelve of Fortune 500 companies are headed by female CEOs, which debunks Hymowitz’s argument above.

I’m not sure if I see it as gender specific because I feel like many women face the the same cultural pressures that us males do.

Are these trends any different from the activities of young women who are often unwilling to surrender personal freedoms to be “shackled” by motherhood? The Sex and the City generation who see marriage as an anchor and drag on their personal lives, who embrace disposable relationships and are obsessed with designer clothing?

Editorial: Beware the Child-Man?

I’ll admit my cravings and notice that I see many peers expressing their freedom. I even would go as far to say, because of a different social experience in my youth while dealing with my sexuality, I am even more immature in certain areas. My immaturity is supported. More than ever we are rewarded for growth of self and not of family or relationships if it is in the way.

So, do we continue because we can?

We all may need to read more, converse more, and look at how thin we are spread in our social world (especially if it’s virtual). I keep wondering if I should be focusing harder or caring less? I am not a SYM, the relationship disqualifies me of that title, but the cute voices on my shoulders are both telling me that the SYM life is calling. Most of us now have the freedom to develop in the context of something, say a relationship, or develop outside of that structure.

The child-man, gay-infant, and adult-girl are real. Stuck playing video games, exploring deep relationships for the first time, and keeping time with image and power, we are our own segment of society. We will become a generation around it. It feels good, but I feel detached. Our 30s will come soon, but should our goal be to cum as much as possible before it does?

Adults don’t emerge. They’re made.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

This entry is coming from an interesting experience I had yesterday. Shedding light on my cultural background and growth I realized that your environment can really influence impulses. I found myself wondering why I picked oranges over minorities.

I’d just enjoyed some nice gulps of water, post workout. I was waiting for my fair weather friend to change. I say fair weather because she ditched driving me home because the roads were getting poor and I was left to wait for a fair weather bus that was a cycle late. I digress. While waiting, I looked at a photo representing the writing/academic center for the campus I work on. I noticed something peculiar. What do you notice?

I saw oranges. I was so tickled by my discovery that I asked the same question of miss fair weather. Turns out everyone is white in the photo, this being what she noticed. Stumped, I asked her to look harder. By time the oranges were of mutual discovery, she was antsy to leave and I was fumbling for my own explanation of our differing perspectives.

Was it that I came from a college with beyond Caucasian diversity around 15% (not to mention other missing groups)? Was it that I don’t remember seeing much color in my suburban environment? Why did I choose oranges over minorities?

It hit me though, in one of those I got it before but now I really understand it kind of ways, that our life experiences are unique. Not only unique, but they are the molders of how you see the world. It was important to realize that all the education in the world hadn’t taught me to see, instead I was blind. We will see things differently, all of us. Your boss or supervisor that just doesn’t seem to make sense, probably isn’t doing it on purpose. This experiential intelligence is hard to measure because it has as much to do with how much you experience as it does with the quality and variety of an experience. In the work setting, the ability to recognize this is the biggest step in being able to manage up (7 ways to manage up or Managing Up: An Overlooked Factor in Career Success). In your personal life it can help relationships grow and drama dwindle.

Can we challenge ourselves to see things differently? If you saw white people, begin looking for the oranges, and vice versa. I think too often we find ourselves in conversations where we are more concerned about the other person not seeing the oranges that you did. Instead, why not notice that they saw something different and wonder why you didn’t see it at all.

Life is one big learning opportunity. If you aren’t listening you might just always end up with a bunch of white people or oranges for that matter.