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What it means to graduate from college

May 12th, 2013 | Add a Comment

While hundreds of thousands of students graduate every year from American universities, millions of other students around the world do not have the privilege making it through high school, much less getting into a college like UMKC. Growing up in rural Kenya, I saw highly talented girls and boys, including myself, whose academic success went into the drain, because of grinding poverty and no room for upward mobility. We walked to school barefoot and with torn clothes, worked hard to make the best out of our efforts. But in the end, our fates were sealed at eighth grade irrespective how promising one was. That is still the scenario that you’d find in most rural communities in Africa. Africa is no doubt a very rich continent endowed with rich minerals, oil, wildlife and arable … Read entire article »

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Why celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

May 12th, 2013 | Add a Comment

Ever since I moved to this beautiful country almost two years ago, I have noticed how big this day, Cinco de Mayo, is, at least for Americans. But do you even know what you are celebrating? In Mexico, where I am from, May the 5th is not even a holiday. In fact, lots of people don’t even know there was a miniature war back in 1862. So yes, you are celebrating a battle that took place 151 years ago in a little town called Puebla, two hours east of Mexico City between the French and the Mexicans. The Mexicans defeated Charles de Lorencez and his 6,500 soldiers. Just to make sure you all know, Mexico’s independence from the Spaniards took place on September 15-16, 1810, and it is celebrated all around the country … Read entire article »

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Respect the professional relationship

May 12th, 2013 | Add a Comment

Up until about the age of 16, or when we find our first job, two kinds of relationships exist for us: completely familiar, like friends and family, and wholly unfamiliar, like a passing stranger on the street. Friends and family relationships share a nearly identical dynamic, at least for most of us. There are things we tell our friends that we would never mention to our parents, but we hardly modify our behavior from one set to the other. To familiarity’s extreme opposite, we have the stranger relationship. This relationship is most noticeably marked by its complete lack of interaction. We might awkwardly lock eyes for a split-second or offer a faint, unanswered, “How are you?,” but the relationship lasts only as long as five or six footsteps. Then, there is the professional … Read entire article »

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faculty perspectives: Why writing still matters

May 12th, 2013 | Add a Comment

Sometimes I worry that I am being too blunt with my Reporting students about the problems of the newspaper business. I worry they might get the impression that writing is obsolete, useful for nothing more than text messaging, tweets or Facebook posts. Or grocery lists. That impression is dead wrong. The platforms on which writing is presented may be changing dramatically, but the essential skill, and its importance, will always be the same. Writing is as much a means of expressing ourselves as is speech. You may talk a great game in your first big job interview after graduating from UMKC. But glibness won’t mean much if your cover letter and resume are scrawls of poor grammar, bad spelling and run-on sentences. In some respects, writing actually is more important than ever in … Read entire article »

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What it means to graduate from college

May 12th, 2013 | Add a Comment

While hundreds of thousands of students graduate every year from American universities, millions of other students around the world do not have the privilege making it through high school, much less getting into a college like UMKC. Growing up in rural Kenya, I saw highly talented girls and boys, including myself, whose academic success went into the drain, because of grinding poverty and no room for upward mobility. We walked to school barefoot and with torn clothes, worked hard to make the best out of our efforts. But in the end, our fates were sealed at eighth grade irrespective how promising one was. That is still the scenario that you’d find in most rural communities in Africa. Africa is no doubt a very rich continent endowed with rich minerals, oil, wildlife and arable … Read entire article »

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U.S. Senate acted disgracefully by rejecting common-sense background checks for gun owners

May 2nd, 2013 | Add a Comment

Exactly what drove the U.S. Senate to reject the proposed legislation on background checks for all gun sales? What if all the 20 children shot dead in Newtown, Conn., early this year were grandchildren of these senators? Would they have rejected the legislation in the shameful way they did? I doubt it. So, how many people should be killed through uncontrolled gun ownership in order to move the nation’s conscience to act? Maybe if all the victims were relatives of senators, they could surely see the sense of legislating how we acquire and misuse our guns. I’ve concluded it is easier for kindergarten kids fighting over a toy to solve their differences than for the U.S. Congress to solve straightforward problems affecting the American people. I personally do not know what it feels … Read entire article »

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Situation in Venezuela a cause for concern

April 27th, 2013 | Add a Comment

As a Latin American student, I have been following the current situation in Venezuela. Surprisingly enough, I haven’t found as much coverage as I thought there would be, especially given the magnitude of the problem. If you read this far and said to yourself “Oh, what’s happening in Venezuela?”, I do not blame you. I blame the media in this country for not considering this particular turn of events all that important. Six weeks ago, Venezuela came to the end of an era when its dictator, President and Commander Hugo Chavez, who led the country for 14 years, passed away after a long battle against cancer. After a month and a half, Venezuelans elected a new president, or at least half of the country did. Chavez’ right hand and vice-president, Nicolas Maduro, defeated the … Read entire article »

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The virtues of U.S. citizenship

April 27th, 2013 | Add a Comment

While the U.S. Congress is embroiled in a heated debate to find an acceptable compromise on decades-long, elusive comprehensive immigration reform, ordinary Americans wonder: Just what does it take for an alien immigrant to attain citizenship? On April 11, 59 immigrants from 38 countries took the solemn oath of allegiance to the flag of United States before a judge of the federal court of the Western District of Missouri. I was among the newly inaugurated American citizens. On this chilly Thursday morning, close to 300 immigrants converged on 9th Street, the Court’s premises, anxiously waiting to witness the initiation rituals of their relatives. Parking spaces were gone by 8:00. Young, middle-aged and the elderly were already lining up at the security desk, ready to assemble in a large hall where the process was … Read entire article »

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The promising future of solar energy

April 27th, 2013 | Add a Comment

Solar power systems have come a long way since 1839, when Alexandre Edmond Becquerel observed the photovoltaic effect via an electrode in a conductive solution exposed to light. Solar energy, the radiant light and heat from the sun, is harnessed and used in various forms. They include solar heating, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal electricity, solar architecture and artificial photosynthesis which can make considerable contributions to solving some of the most urgent energy problems the world now faces. Twenty years ago, it was clear solar power wasn’t going to get anywhere by itself. Photovoltaic panels were expensive and inefficient. Even solar systems designed to heat water, a far less technologically tricky task, were bad buys on the open market. Producing electricity from sunlight cost 10 times more than generating power using coal or nuclear energy. … Read entire article »

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Terror in the media

April 27th, 2013 | Add a Comment

The tragedy that beset the city of Boston a week ago Monday, when two bombs were denoted near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people, including a young boy, will leave a scar on the city and country for a long time to come. Watching Diane Sawyer on ABC News that afternoon, I watched a particularly disturbing exchange take place between her and a reporter on the scene in Boston. For several minutes the two went back and forth, defining and redefining the terms “terror” and “terrorism” and if the events in Boston, not yet even 12 hours old, could be called an “act of terror.” The two eventually concluded the details fit inside the parameters of the definition they’d come up with and that, yes, it was … Read entire article »

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