Marshall

By the age of about 12, this search was one of my favorite things. That love of language blossomed into more. I was a huge fan of hip-hop music and through that art, I was introduced to poetry. I was amazed by the dexterity of the language exhibited by my favorite rappers and poets and I decided to try my hand at writing.

Poetic Competition

At 13, I reluctantly entered my first poetry slam. The poetry slam, Louder Than a Bomb, is the major youth poetry festival in Chicago. The talent of the top performers astounded me and inspired me to continue writing diligently. Throughout high school, I was recognized as a finalist in that competition and then in 2008, to win it as an individual. I went on to compete at the International Youth Poetry Slam, Brave New Voices, and be a finalist there.

When it came time for me to choose a college, my writing was a major factor. I wanted a place that would challenge me academically and allow me to study and develop my creative writing skills. I wanted a place that would supplement and enhance my knowledge of literature and teach me how to appreciate classic canonical works as much as I had grown to appreciate contemporary poetry.

The Stage to the Page

“Marshall displays prodigious talent, whipping out wordplay the way other kids punch out cellphone texts, and doing it with a keen sense of wit.”

—Robert Koehler, Variety review of Louder Than a Bomb

I’ve found that ideal environment being an English major in the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt. The creative writing program here has given me support and guidance in my writing and I know I’m an exponentially better writer after my Vanderbilt experience. It wasn’t always easy but my professors have guided me into bringing the same sort of effort and energy to the page that I bring on the stage.

Vanderbilt is a miraculous community. I remember being skeptical when I applied. I felt like it might be too Southern or homogenous to be comfortable for a young black kid from Chicago. What I’ve found in Vanderbilt is a place that welcomes and engages all. Vanderbilt is a home to all who come to 21st and West End. It is a place that has challenged my perceptions about people, education, and myself, and I am a better person for those challenges.

During my sophomore year, a documentary, Louder Than a Bomb, premiered and began making the rounds at various film festivals. The movie followed the 2008 poetry slam competition that I was part of in high school. The film profiled me and a few other participants. Since it premiered in March 2010, the film has won 17 festival prizes, including 10 audience awards. I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the U.S. and Canada promoting the documentary and working with kids. I’m looking forward to traveling internationally, as the film has been shown across Europe and Africa. This has added another layer to the whirlwind of going away for school and has been an amazing experience in itself.

I’m a senior now. I’ll be attending the University of Michigan for graduate school in creative writing next year. In the long run I hope to be a professor and also work with youth and creative arts to afford young people the same sort of outlets that were so vital to my education.

New first-year students are welcomed with cheers and move in help from now-sophomore Greshko and others on Vanderbilt’s Move Crew.

The Commons Center, the student center located in the heart of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt, has a beautiful grand piano in the lobby, a glossy, whalelike monument to music begging to be made. Sometime last September, I first heard it played, and after a second or two of confusion, I realized it was improvisational jazz—and it was good. I walked toward the piano in awe, hearing the musical mist around me swell to a torrent of bluesy riffs gushing from the unidentifiable pianist’s fingers. When I found out who was manning the keys, however, I was flabbergasted: locked in frenetic concentration was one of my friends from Math 205. I had no idea he could play piano, much less improvise for 90 minutes straight. His unexpected, outstanding talent—reflective of the depth of Vanderbilt’s student body—led me to only one thought:

This is why I love this school.

Six short months before, any statement of the sort seemed a distant pipe dream: As I sallied forth during my high school senior year—happily ready to do battle with everything life’s capricious pitcher threw my way—one herculean task remained unfinished: my college choice.

My situation was difficult; I had been admitted to Yale but was awaiting scholarship notifications from other universities—including Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science. On March 12, 2010, a day I might start celebrating as “Incredibly-Understated-Yet-Life-Changing Email Day,” I received word that Vanderbilt had offered me the phenomenal Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholarship. How was I ever going to make up my mind?

On top of that, I had an additional question with which I had to grapple: How was I going to describe my choice to readers around the world?

The New York Times Calling

This question had emerged during a lunchtime phone call in late February 2010, leading to one of those moments I’d never envisioned happening halfway through a ham sandwich: The call was from The New York Times, and they wanted me to outline my college decision-making process as a guest blogger for The Choice, the Times’ higher education blog.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so I enthusiastically signed on—but I was also nervous. After all, the pressure to live up to the Times name was enormous, and I knew that sharing my life with the world would invariably summon the digital peanut gallery. I felt up to the challenge, though, so as I dove into my deliberation—replete with campus visits at Vanderbilt and Yale and talks with students, admissions officers and deans—I made it my goal to have fun with every word going under my evanescent byline.

As spring progressed and I continued my blog series, my gut slowly but surely transitioned to Vanderbilt, my writing surprisingly serving as a means of distilling and clarifying my then-muddled feelings.  After announcing my choice, I ended my blog series in late June with a hopeful analogy between a still-unfamiliar Vanderbilt and the Land of Oz, but as I submitted my final post, faint pangs of second-guessing began to settle in. Had I really made the right choice? I had no way of being sure until I arrived in Nashville in the fall. It was a risk, but I felt confident; after all, Dorothy and Toto thrived post-twister, so why wouldn’t I?

Not in Kansas Anymore

After finishing a lightning-fast first year in the College of Arts and Science, I turned out to be right; it has been an absolutely incredible start to what ought to be an unforgettable four years. My classes—covering everything from the significance of the nonhuman in German literature to the neuroscientific underpinnings of consciousness—have expanded my worldview and have pushed me in the ways I needed to be pushed. Outside of the classroom, I have also found some of the nicest, most talented people I have ever met: About two weeks into the school year, I auditioned for Vanderbilt Off-Broadway—probably the single best decision I made first semester—and performed in the group’s production of the musical Nine. I also moonlighted as vice president of my Commons house, teaming up with administrators to bring a six-band concert to The Ingram Commons’ end-of-year festivities.

But to mention what I have done is only part of the story, for I couldn’t begin to describe how I have truly lived this first year: sweet potato pancakes shared with friends at the Pancake Pantry; Frisbee on the Peabody Esplanade; impromptu adventures through nighttime Nashville; hall discussions until 3 a.m. on the merits of the humanities; and every waking moment I spent this summer with Vanderbilt’s VISAGE program in Costa Rica.

Throughout the year—no matter my exhaustion, stress or Lilliputian concern—I found myself constantly going back to the memory of the epiphany-inducing piano, the wonder of that moment echoed in a cappella concerts and rainforest hikes alike. The more I’m steeped in Vanderbilt, the more I love it—so much so that I applied to be a VUceptor for first-year students this fall. When thinking about the new students in the Class of 2015, I recall my senior year and the stress surrounding my college decision, and a thought comes to mind:

I know I made the right choice. I hope that they, too, will feel the same.

Brothers Pete and Joe Foster, successful ice cream entrepreneurs

I sat down with my father that March to discuss summer employment opportunities. We brainstormed potential internships, but I really was intrigued when he threw out the idea of starting my own business.

One of my first ideas was an ice cream truck business. I couldn’t recall seeing ice cream trucks in town, which seemed peculiar, considering the favorable weather and number of families in our Silicon Valley, Calif. area. After some research, the concept seemed challenging but potentially lucrative. It turned out there were rival trucks, yet I felt confident in my ability to compete. After working through multiple obstacles, I developed what I thought were reasonable projections of the work and money this business would require to get started. I teamed up with my younger brother, Pete, and Foster Brothers Ice Cream Truck was born.

Planned Tweets and Sweets

To deal with area competition, we decided on an alternative business plan. Being in Silicon Valley, we thought it appropriate to utilize technology to gain a following and communicate with customers. We started a website and Facebook page, and planned to use Twitter to update followers on our locations. We also concluded that by providing an upscale experience—with better products, a good-looking truck and friendly service—we could be more appealing than the competition. In doing this, we hoped not only to cater to children, but also to create nostalgia and generate business from all generations. Lastly, we decided that while selling in neighborhoods and at parks could be effective, being available for private bookings such as birthday parties and corporate events could generate more income in a shorter time.

I soon realized that expectations can (and will) clash harshly with reality. Getting the business running was more stressful, time-consuming and challenging than I had envisioned. We bought a former mail truck that needed immense amounts of work. While we tried to do as much as possible on our own, getting the 1984 AM General vehicle painted and trips to the mechanic resulted in higher startup costs than anticipated. I navigated a labyrinth of business permits, licenses and background checks that gave me the feeling I was in over my head. We formed an LLC (limited liability company). I also found an ice cream wholesaler, negotiated discounted prices, kept accounting records and marketed the truck to potential customers. With my brother in school until early June, I did most of the startup work myself and gained an appreciation for the hours that go into building a business.

Dishing Out Ice Cream

As the weather warmed, Foster Brothers Ice Cream finally served its first customers. Business was decent, but it soon became clear that we could not compete with rival trucks in established spots. While waiting outside of an elementary school one day, another driver threatened us, forcing us to leave. We quickly realized that selling at parks and throughout neighborhoods netted relatively low profits per hour.

After working a school function for a few hours and making more than $800, a lightbulb went off. I decided to alter the business plan and pursue private bookings exclusively—and in a more aggressive manner. Instead of attempting to take market share, we would solely address a new, underserved market.

This proved fruitful, and we soon were working up to three or four events daily. We placed business cards in shops and sent emails pitching our services to area families. Local papers covered our story, aiding marketing efforts. I contacted summer camps, which hired us to treat their campers. Corporate bookings were also very successful; we pitched employee appreciation events to companies and eventually served various Silicon Valley businesses and departments at Stanford University. We even established relationships with catering companies who hired us to handle desserts at their events. The new approach was profitable beyond our wildest dreams, but more important, I loved my job. The sense of ownership was a tremendously satisfying feeling.

Left: A crash nearly totaled the truck and the business. Right: Foster Brothers Ice Cream Truck delighted customers large and small.

On the way home from a successful corporate event on July 15, the business suddenly came crashing down. We were broadsided by a minivan that ran a red light. Pete and I were unharmed, but the truck was nearly totaled. We had to cancel all remaining bookings and close down the company while awaiting a compensation verdict from the other driver’s insurance company.

Undeterred and Rolling Again

I learned how important it was that I kept up to date with accounting. I was forced to prove the truck’s value and show our lost business bookings. This process also opened my eyes to the complicated insurance world. After six weeks of daily calls to the body shop, mechanic, independent appraisal firms and insurance companies, we finally received compensation. Only then, after locating unfathomably rare spare parts at a junkyard in rural Alabama, were we able to get the truck repaired and working for one final event before retiring for the summer.

Starting this business taught me lessons that will last a lifetime. Foster Brothers Ice Cream made people happy, and we were given a crash course in real life, experiencing extreme highs and lows. I cannot wait to grow the company again this summer; I would love to run businesses for the rest of my life.

Joe Foster is a rising junior majoring in economics. He’s put on his marketing, accounting and general manager hat to get Foster Brothers Ice Cream ready for the 2011 summer season and is looking forward to selling ice cream sandwiches, ice pops and shakes all summer long.

I sat in the semifinals of the American Debate Association National Tournament. My debate partner, Cameron Norris, avidly clicked away on his computer, preparing in case we advanced. Directly across from us, our two opponents from Liberty University hunched over their computers doing the same. In the back of the room, three judges quietly deliberated who had won the round. I gazed out the window, too nervous to even think. I could hardly believe how far we’d come.

Inexperienced but Competitive

I came to Vanderbilt with just one year of high school policy debate experience (most collegiate debaters have three to four), and during my freshman year, my lack of experience showed. Somehow I was partnered with Phil Rappmund, BA’08, the debate squad’s senior varsity member. I debated with him at the SEC District tournament. This tournament was hugely important for Phil—it determined whether he would qualify to compete in the National Debate Tournament (another national title) his senior year. He didn’t. I knew I’d stopped him. Policy debate is a two-on-two match, and it’s impossible to succeed without a good partner.

But from that failure rose an insatiable desire in me to win—at all costs. After Phil graduated, I met Cameron Norris, a junior from Knoxville, Tenn. With a shaved head and sporadic facial hair, he had an intense look about him. He loved debate. I’ve never met anyone with such a fierce desire to compete and we decided to become partners. I knew that even if we weren’t the most finessed duo, we’d at least be the hardest working.

The Underdogs

We were the underdogs, of course. When the school year started, we had to work to keep up with larger, more experienced varsity squads.

Cameron had only as much experience as I, and we had only two other varsity members to help us, juniors Richard Waller and Brian Abrams. Compared to schools like Harvard or Emory, which often have squads with 15 or more debaters, we knew the odds were stacked against us.

Luckily, though, we had help. The squad hired a former debater, Christian “Seds” Sedelmyer, as an assistant debate coach. From afar, Phil and former debater Houston Shaner, BA’09, helped us research and develop arguments even after they’d graduated. Of course, M.L. Sandoz, the school’s debate director and senior lecturer in communication studies, constantly kept us on track and pushed us to strive for success. Still, winning a national championship seemed about as likely as the Commodores winning the Rose Bowl.

After one particularly disappointing tournament at Wake Forest, Seds forced Cameron and me to play a game of chess against him. Cameron and I took turns moving our pieces, learning to think and act a team and rely on each other.

Cameron and I retooled and competed in the 2010 Berkeley Debate Tournament, placing among the top 16 varsity debate teams. We could hardly believe it. I still remember Will Repko, a legendary debate coach from Michigan State, passing us in the hall and saying, “Great tournament, you guys.”

A Shot at the Nationals?

But in this moment at the ADA National Tournament semifinals, I simply waited. The judges finally announced their decision. We had won! I looked to Cameron, smiling to congratulate him, but he was already packing up to relocate for the final round. “Let’s go!” he barked.

The final round. A national championship on the line. As we fought off exhaustion, we made our way to the auditorium. Across from us sat our opponents, University of Mary Washington’s top team of Kallmeyer and Susko. As defending ADA National champions and one of the top ten debate teams in the country, they were intimidating adversaries.

Everything moved in slow motion as our opponents readied their evidence, set their timers and prepared to start.

Clockwise from top: Cameron Norris (left) and Brown research arguments during a debate; the author; Brown using plastic tubs full of research materials as a makeshift podium.

“THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD…” the words rang out. No turning back now. Susko moved back and forth, words spewing from his mouth. They argued that we should eliminate its land-based nuclear missiles to help stop nuclear proliferation. Minutes later, Cameron returned fire. We countered that these missiles were key to our security, that proliferation was a manageable risk, and that the president needed to focus on passing health care reform rather than on controversial defense cuts. Just seconds after Cameron’s first speech, Kallmeyer shot off his responses like a machine.

“Dude, I don’t know how to answer this argument. I’ve never heard it before,” Cameron whispered. I couldn’t recall Cameron ever saying those words. I stared at him. “Well, can you do it?” I asked. He paused. “Yeah, I think so.” A gamble. Cameron and I gave our mid-round speeches as the debate passed the halfway mark.

Susko started, and I watched the timer ticking down. He fired off arguments. Our opponents had built their argumentative fort, and the time had come for me to knock it down. This was my final speech. Whether the national championship belonged to us depended on the next six minutes.

I shut everything else out. Cameron gave me a brief nod. I sharply inhaled, and then fiercely spoke as persuasively as I could.

Pure Force of Argument

It’s an odd thing giving a debate speech. You think, but only instinctively. Your brain is processing information and your mouth is saying it, but you do so almost unconsciously. I hardly remember what I said in my speech. I felt nothing but the pure force of argument.

After the speech, sweat dripped down my forehead. I looked at my notes, scanning for flaws. But it was done. As I moved to sit down, I will never forget what Cameron said. He whispered, “That was the best speech I’ve ever heard you give.”

As we waited, I ate for the first time that day, now-cold Chinese food I’d forgotten to eat earlier. I kept nervously glancing at the judges. Their demeanor told me the debate was extremely close. Over an hour passed. Finally, the debate judges prepared to announce their decision. I held my breath. “The winner of the 2010 American Debate Association National Tournament…”

“…is Vanderbilt University.” Shocked, I stood up and hugged Cameron. We’d done it. Against the hurdles of limited experience, past setbacks and strained resources, this scrappy team from Vanderbilt prevailed. We won a national championship!

Nick Brown and Cameron Norris still have a year of college debating left. They’re working harder than ever, and want to bring more national titles back to Vanderbilt and the College of Arts and Science.

I am a final year Ph.D. student from Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland, and one of eight graduate student fellows at Vanderbilt’s Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. We are a diverse bunch, with varied interests, ideas and opinions, which makes for lively meetings when we gather on Tuesday afternoons in the Vaughn Home, where the Warren Center is located.

Being Warren fellows affords us the opportunity of interdisciplinary exploration. We represent philosophy, English, German, French, Spanish and history as well as four countries: Mexico, Germany, Ireland/U.K. and the U.S. By reading and critiquing one another’s work, we are gradually becoming more fluent in disciplines not our own.

My own thesis examines theological aesthetics in Northern Irish poetry. The violent conflict known as “The Troubles,” which has dominated political, social and cultural life in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s, has had particular—and peculiar—implications for literary production and criticism. By focusing on the poetry of Northern Ireland’s Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon, my thesis seeks to reimagine art’s relationship to religion and theology in this context.

I applied for the Warren Center Graduate Student Fellows program to spend time in dialogue and debate with other doctoral candidates. In the U.K., doctoral work is entirely research-based. I haven’t taken a class in four years. Instead, I’ve been let loose in libraries. Consequently, I’ve been much more isolated than I imagine I would have been in the U.S.

In the second year of my doctoral studies, I spent a few months doing research in Atlanta at a large archive of Irish poets’ papers at Emory University. It was great to spend time in a university on this side of the sea and to travel south and west, but archival work is a lonely process.

While in Atlanta, I visited friends in Nashville for a weekend. That gave me some sense of the city and I found some of its best little nooks for reading with an Americano in hand. I left Nashville with a feeling of curiosity about the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt (as well as a three-legged cat called Mister Joshua Ingalls, but I suspect that’s another story).

The opportunity to spend my final year at the Warren Center seemed too good to be true. I told myself it was unlikely I would be chosen, so the invitation was a very pleasant surprise.

This is the first time someone from Queen’s University has been part of the program, making me the pioneer and guinea pig. The Warren Center hopes to establish a full exchange program with Queen’s University. The connection is actually closer than one might imagine. Nashville and Belfast are sister cities, with Belfast holding a Belfast/Nashville Songwriters Festival every February.

Seen through a wide-angle lens, my semesters of interdisciplinary activity at the Warren Center are part of broader processes of cultural exchange, as Queen’s scholars have visited and lectured over the year.

Mona Frederick directs the Warren Center, and I heard her passion for the vision and values of the center when we first spoke. Despite the poor phone connection, her enthusiasm for the work achieved and the encounters enabled within the Vaughn Home was clear. I felt welcome before I’d even arrived. Mona, together with Polly Case, Katherine Newman and Faculty Director Edward Friedman, Chancellor’s Professor of Spanish and professor of comparative literature, welcomed me warmly and have made my time at the College of Arts and Science an enjoyable experience. The Warren Center also happens to have the best coffee on campus so, in addition to supporting my academic endeavors, the staff has helped keep me in caffeine (do you see a minor theme here?).

From left, Warren fellows Elena Deanda-Camacho (MA’07), Gail McConnell and Matt Whitt (MA’08) spend Tuesday afternoons helping each other fine tune their dissertations.

Being part of the graduate student fellowship program has provided me with the chance to have my work read by scholars from outside Irish studies and, indeed, from outside English literature. This has been of great benefit for my writing, challenging me to pay close attention to my writing style, as well as to my argument, methodology and structure.

I love the variety of the work represented by my fellow graduate fellows and I have learned so much throughout the course of the year. Whether it’s the politics of 15th-century Mexican folksongs, the musical modes of 18th-century German aesthetics, the history of evangelical political activism in the U.S. or the morbidity of Victorian poetry, I have not had a dull week.

Submitting your work to seven keen and intelligent minds is a vulnerable process, but the risk has been worth taking. Each of us fellows has benefited from sharing our writing and learning from other perspectives; we are becoming betters writers and better critics as a result.

What will I take away after I earn my doctorate and leave Nashville? I’ll be a stronger writer, a better critic, a more complete scholar, a more accomplished teacher. I’ll also leave with memories: of the Warren Center people who made me feel so at home, of the warmth of the university and Nashville communities, and of my companion graduate fellows. Most of all, I look forward to seeing my fellow fellows in print in years to come, and to remembering fondly our Tuesday afternoon debates at the Warren Center’s roundtable.

Gail McConnell is a poet and scholar preparing for her doctoral dissertation at Queen’s University Belfast. She is also the first Queen’s University participant in the Robert Penn Warren Graduate Fellows Program at the College of Arts and Science. In addition to finishing their dissertations, Warren fellows also meet with visiting scholars regarding issues related to academic careers and each delivers a capstone public lecture.

Klimkowski with mentor Brooke Ackerly, associate professor of political science

The project was part of the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Summer Research Program (VUSRP), a research opportunity that affords students the opportunity to partner with a faculty mentor in a field of study. Political Science Associate Professor Brooke Ackerly, with whom I worked on an independent study in fall 2008, recommended that I apply, and she served as my project mentor.

Through VUSRP, I was able to combine my political science and human and organizational development interests in researching the feasibility of a nonprofit organization that might direct carbon offsets toward the improvement of energy efficiency in low-income housing in Nashville.

Carbon offsets have been in the news a lot this year. Simply put, carbon offsets are ways to compensate for carbon emissions. Let’s say a company emits a certain amount of carbon. To counteract the effects of those emissions, the company can pay an organization to decrease emissions in another way, thereby negating the effects of the company’s emissions. This is a method of meeting emissions restrictions in areas where cap-and-trade programs are in effect. The United States currently has no federal cap-and-trade program, so the offset market here is primarily voluntary, suggesting that people and corporations are interested in purchasing carbon offsets for philanthropic reasons, not just financial.

The nonprofit organization would serve as a marketplace where individuals could purchase carbon offsets. Then the proceeds from these offsets would be used to weatherize low-income homes, thereby decreasing energy bills for low-income individuals, increasing their real income and lowering the carbon footprint of the city of Nashville.

Professor Michael Vandenbergh of the Vanderbilt Law School and Professor Ackerly developed this idea for encouraging emissions reductions. I thought it was brilliant—everyone wins. Poorer people, who spend more income proportionately on energy than do wealthier people, save money and Nashville emits less carbon dioxide.

Then as I began researching the feasibility of the program, reviewing literature about offsets and meeting with people in the field, I hit a wall.

The cost to offset one ton of carbon emissions is between $5 and $30. The average carbon dioxide emissions of a U.S. household per year are about 19 metric tons of CO2. So even if the average household decided to offset all of its emissions, at $10 per offset, the revenues generated would be only about $190 each. To renovate one low-income household to be energy efficient and save 19 metric tons of CO2 itself would cost substantially more than $190.

I couldn’t reconcile the discrepancy in revenues generated per ton of carbon and the cost these methods would entail. As a researcher, I was quite discouraged, not only by the dismal findings, but also about my work for the rest of the summer.

I was very lucky to have a mentor like Professor Ackerly. She helped me see that that research is not a linear activity. It takes a lot of trial and error. It takes a lot of persistence. When you hit a wall, you try to dig your way under that wall. If you can’t find a way around that wall, go in a different direction. That’s the nature of research. That’s the way progress is made.

And that’s what I did. With Professor Ackerly’s support and encouragement, I adapted my research project to take a new direction, one that corresponded with environmental legislation moving through Congress this summer (the Waxman-Markey Bill). I started compiling media reports on climate news to examine how different media outlets portray it.

After I compile all my data, I will run it through a program called Atlas.ti. The program carries out quantitative analysis of qualitative data like news documents so that I can find trends in how the media responds to White House environmental press releases, how different outlets vary in their reporting and how environmental challenges are conveyed in different outlets.

Already through my statistical analysis, I was able to confirm and discount some hypotheses I developed from my reading. I had thought that the higher the median income of a congressional district, the more likely that district would vote against the bill. There was, however, no correlation. Yet by examining different variables, I found that there was a very statistically significant correlation between the amount of emissions in a given state and the vote of its representative on the recent Waxman-Markey Bill. Basically, for every thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted in a state, the odds of voting in favor of the bill went down 0.1 percent.

I also found that something as simple as quiet, focused thinking was incredibly crucial, particularly when carrying out study in social science. If you’ve ever taken the History of World War II with Professor Michael Bess, Chancellor’s Professor of History, then you’ve heard the story of Leó Szilárd, the famous physicist who developed the idea of a nuclear chain reaction. He often worked out great problems while thinking in the bathtub. He just sat there and thought.

I realized at some point that I wasn’t spending enough time in my bathtub (figuratively speaking). You can read all the material you want—but if you’re not thinking about how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together, you’re nowhere.

I have already learned so much through VUSRP. Not just on the subject of my research, but also about how research is carried out. I am fortunate to work with Professor Ackerly, a pre-eminent political scientist who also invests her time and energy in my personal development as an academic researcher. She genuinely cares about my progress. VUSRP provides the opportunity for students to develop such relationships with professors—and that experience is just as valuable as the actual research. I’ve also discovered that professors are always looking for help with their work, no matter their discipline. VUSRP is not the only way to get involved in research at Vanderbilt. Getting plugged into the work is as simple as asking.

Moreover, my summer research has also helped me appreciate Vanderbilt more. The work I am doing involves different disciplines such as statistics or communications. Other professors and students collaborated with me—like Professor of Education John Braxton from Peabody, who helped me figure out the correct statistical tests for my work. Another undergraduate researcher, Zach Stearns, helped me understand statistical output correctly. The Vanderbilt Community Creed lists scholarship as its first value. I experienced this partnership of learning firsthand through the people with whom I worked.

It’s been said that Thomas Edison tried thousands of times before successfully developing the light bulb. He didn’t consider those attempts failures: He saw each as a hypothesis tested and eliminated, pointing the way to the solution. Edison, you see, was a researcher. I am one, too.

Miron Klimkowski is a senior political science and human and organizational development major from Memphis, Tenn. He hopes to work in the nonprofit sector after graduation.

Sophomore Ruth Kinsey

“I don’t drink coffee, I take tea, my dear,
I like my toast done on one side,
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I’m an Englishman in New York.”

With Nashville substituted for New York, this song by Sting has become my theme since arriving at Vanderbilt in 2007. I find myself humming the melody as I walk across campus to class, and when I contemplate the lyrics, I realize that Sting was right. Even though I speak the language, I sometimes stick out as a foreigner. From food choices to clothing to the sound of my voice, I really am an alien. A welcomed and legal alien, but an alien all the same: an Englishman in Nashville.

The first time I stepped foot in Tennessee was August 2007, a week before classes started. I arrived at Nashville International Airport armed with two suitcases and a backpack, appliances pre-ordered online from Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond, and an interest in American political science. Many people say I should have visited the school I was going to attend in advance, but there hadn’t been time. My weeklong U.S. college tour the previous summer had focused on Northeastern schools—those best known in England. Yet conversations with my best friend’s mother, a Vanderbilt alumna living in the U.K., piqued my interest. However reckless it seemed, I was secretly glad that I hadn’t visited my future home: It appealed to my impulsive side and added to the adventure. 

However as I got out of the plane, felt the 110 degree Fahrenheit (43 degree Celsius) heat, and heard the voice of Dolly Parton welcoming me, the realization hit. I was definitely not in England anymore. Even though I was excited, I began to feel a little nervous. 

I had been warned of the differences between America and England, but the variations most Englishmen see when they go on vacation are the obvious ones. “Don’t forget they drive on the other side of the road,” they said. “Remember they spell words differently.” These are differences one can learn from watching any Hollywood movie. 

Once here, I noticed the less obvious, perhaps things that are more Southern, things most Americans don’t think about being different. I found a sweet potato is a dessert as well as a vegetable, that country is a well-liked form of music, strangers say hi on the street, and it costs money to both make and receive phone calls. Even though I had been to America before, in the South I felt naïve, like a newborn baby. Gone were the things of home: the narrow country lanes, the Marmite, the silence on the Tube, and of course, the rain. 

Ruth and best friend Frances White (now also a Vanderbilt student) commemorate the end of seven years at England’s Wycombe Abbey.

Not only did I have to modify my everyday life, but I also had to adjust to a completely different school system. My education back in England had been at an all-girls boarding school called Wycombe Abbey. It was everything Americans imagine a typical English boarding school to be. In many ways, it was like Hogwarts. Instead of magic spells and wands, we had calculus and pencils, and instead of Quidditch, we had lacrosse, but it was still rather similar. On campus was a forest we couldn’t enter, our main school building was a castle, and our uniform included striped shirts, ties, kilts and long cloaks. 

As classes began, I began to notice that although some differences didn’t matter—no uniforms and men and women attending classes together—there were others that did. Phrases and writing techniques my classmates understood were foreign to me. In my first-year writing seminar, one early homework assignment was to identify the thesis of an article. I remember looking bewilderedly at the professor and my classmates as they nodded and wrote the assignment in their diaries. A thesis? Wasn’t that the article itself? Later I embarrassedly asked the professor what exactly a thesis was. I discovered it to be a statement of argument, not a 20-50 page paper, as it is in England. 

I continued to learn the ways of an American university. I quickly learnt that instead of the final grade of a class resting on one exam, assignments throughout the semester also contributed. I attempted new things, joined new organizations, and considered classes that I didn’t necessarily think I would enjoy. With the help of multiple cups of tea, bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and new friends who laughed with me, I slowly but surely muddled through my first semester in the College of Arts and Science, aka American College Life 101. 

When I went home for Christmas, excited to see my family and England again, another realization hit. After having lived in America for only three and a half months, I looked at my country through a completely different lens. England actually looked downsized compared to America. As I looked out the car window at the cottages and village greens passing by, the word that came to mind was “quaint.” 

As soon as I thought it, I wanted to kick myself. Quaint? Who, apart from American tourists, uses that word to describe England? English people definitely do not. This time, I saw what they were talking about. It wasn’t an insult—England is just on a smaller scale. 

Attending the College of Arts and Science has opened my eyes to the world and has made me versatile. More than a year later, instead of a tea-drinking, Cadbury Dairy Milk-chocolate-eating English schoolgirl, I am a student who listens to country music whilst reading the BBC News Web site. I am a girl who uses American colloquialisms whilst walking across campus in her wellies. I have both U.S. dollars and pounds sterling in my wallet. While I still find American politics interesting, I have found my true passion: history. Not only the history of a different country, but relooking at the history I already know from a different perspective. So now, perhaps, instead of being an Englishman in Nashville feeling slightly out of place, I combine two cultures, am able to fit in, and have wonderful friends in both places. I am an American college student with an English heritage. 

Sophomore Ruth Kinsey is a double major in German and history. She hopes to eventually work as a journalist. 

photo credits: Dee Fontenot

No place is so synonymous with the written word and the community surrounding it as New York. And why wouldn’t it be? NYC is “the capital of the world” and an undisputed creative hub, and writing is what brings other worlds, or different ways of looking at this one, into the public domain. New York is the ultimate public domain—an often overwhelming convergence of culture and cultures, everyone swimming around its concrete sea in trains sliding underground like eels, multitudes of pedestrians like darting schools of brightly colored fish. 

As an aspiring writer and a devoted linguaphile, I knew that I had to go there. I’d always loved writing. As a creative writing major at Vanderbilt, I thrived on the energy of our writing community and constant conversation about poetry and poets. New York was where so many of the writers we admired had explored their art in this same way. I felt the tug every time I read the poetry of Frank O’Hara or any of the countless versifiers who breathed the magic of New York into their work. Whitman, in typically effusive fashion, exclaims his love: “Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!”—and all I could do was turn my gaze northward and decide that this California native wanted to be a part of the madness. 

A New York summer 
Wears sunglasses that fog up
From its bazaar breath.

At the farmer’s market, crowds
Select greens for small kitchens.

Each of you is part 
Of the soil of this city
Which doesn’t hold roots.

Between my sophomore and junior year in the College of Arts and Science, I wrote to Alice Quinn, then-poetry editor at The New Yorker, where she had sifted through poems for as many years as I’d been alive. I admired her literary career and expressed interest in the path she took to get there. I then had the chance to meet her during fall break my junior year, which led to the opportunity to work as a summer intern at the Poetry Society of America (PSA), of which she was executive director. With vague directions from the PSA’s managing director to “let us know when you’re in town,” I moved into the New York University dorms on Union Square at the end of May, armed with two suitcases, a few books, and an endless supply of curiosity.

I live on the corner of a college street,
And the park keeps dancing, no matter the hour,
As the coffee shops and the flip-flopped feet
Get their second wind like electric power.

Surrounded by a World of Words

Then I ended up with three internships. 

It was as sudden as that. In addition to interning at PSA for the months of June and July, I worked at The Hudson Review as editorial intern and at the Guggenheim Foundation as Director Edward Hirsch’s project assistant. 

During the school year I had been in touch with Paula Deitz, editor of The Hudson Review, through my adviser for Vanderbilt’s creative writing program, poet Mark Jarman. Paula invited me to visit her office once I was in the city. I left the office with a job. A week later, when I was at a poetry reading featuring Ed Hirsch, a conversation with him became a month of research for his new book. I was working 9 to 5 and then some. So I managed one of the most challenging balancing acts of my life, because loving New York City is also a full-time job.

Surrendered to the City Beat

While I lived in New York, I took it upon myself to be a constant explorer, like some sort of urban, contemporary Christopher Columbus. In fact, like Columbus, I often thought I had found parts of New York that were already part of the vibrant network of the city. I once made a local Manhattanite laugh hysterically by expressing my enthusiasm about Chelsea, which I declared would be the next great neighborhood. Apparently others know it’s there. But my adventures weren’t limited to what one would expect of a visitor to NYC, although I did attend two Broadway plays and two musicals, frequented museums from MoMA to the Met, picnicked in Central Park, and rode the subway at least twice a day.

I once saw a man on the subway,
Who sat, fully nude, in a calm way,
Though the passengers glared,
He couldn’t have cared,
And, at the next stop, went on his way.

The memories that stick are unique: a visit to a slam at the Bowery Poetry Club, an experimental theatre production in a deserted public pool in Brooklyn, the two-hour adventure to find a slice of red velvet cake favored by a review in The New York Times. While others might remember Times Square, I remember the poetry reading held there. While others might savor a slice of New York pizza, I stood in two-hour lines at our local, legendary parlor Artichoke, which serves only artichoke pizza. Instead of going to the block-long Barnes and Noble on one side of Union Square, I became a regular at The Strand down the street, wandering its musty aisles with a cup of too-hot coffee from my friendly street vendor. 

The myth that New Yorkers are unfriendly 
Is a lie: New Yorkers are helpful, kind,
But they won’t invite you into their lives.
They’ll show you how to get where you’re going,
And wish you well on your parallel path.

photo credits: Marc Iserman

Written into the Poem of Life

My summer was about words, about poetry. At The Hudson Review, I found a family in the amazing editors under whose supervision I worked. I had the pleasure of reading dozens of past issues and categorizing the works within, a process through which I was introduced to wonderful poets, fiction writers, reviewers and critics. In my project for Ed Hirsch, I delved into the histories of limericks and ghazals, rengas and skeltonic verses, gathering materials for his follow-up glossary volume to How to Read a Poem. And at the Poetry Society of America, I saw how poetry could be brought to the people who wanted it, through events, contests and newsletters.

In my own little way, I brought poetry to the world. I scribbled verse, I observed, I shamelessly stole New York and wrote it into the poem of my life. I frequently sat my two roommates down—a Condé Nast intern and a Carolina Herrera-employed fashionista—and read them poems that moved me. I said, “Isn’t this beautiful?” 

I learned this summer what I want to do. I want to sit people down with a poem like I’m setting up a blind date. Poetry matters. I had three angles from which to view that one truth. Three lessons in what I love. Four if you count New York City.

When I left this city, I wrote a letter on the plane,
I love you—hate to leave you—but I’ll see you again.

“Well, that’s great you want to volunteer, but what do you have to contribute?”

This painful, yet relevant question was posed over the phone by one of a group of Italian doctors who were running a hospital in a remote part of Tibet. I was reminded of volunteering in an HIV clinic in Kampala, Uganda, not a year earlier. Because I had no medical or counseling training, my contribution in Kampala was limited to hours of pill counting in the dispensary.

I countered the doctor with a bold proposition. He answered back, “Well, if you get your EMT certification, then we could really use you. Call us when you are certified, and we’ll be waiting for you at the hospital in Lithang.”

So I spent January–February 2007 obtaining my certification as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). I also added Wilderness EMT training to help me deal with emergencies in isolated settings with minimal equipment. 

Then, one week before I was scheduled to leave for Tibet, I received a devastating phone call. The hospital had been taken over by the Chinese government. The Tibetan staff had been kicked out, and no foreigners, including the Italian doctors who had funded and built the facility, were allowed.

There I was, newly certified with a leave of absence for the spring semester and no prospect of work. I began a frenzy of e-mails and phone calls to every contact I had, as well as to any nongovernmental organization (NGO) I could find in Tibet. Determinedly, I decided to travel to Beijing as planned; make my way to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet; and use my medical skills.

By the time I arrived in China, I had leads, but nothing definite. After five gray and dismal days in Beijing, I managed to sneak onto a train going to Lhasa. I say, “sneak,” because I didn’t apply for or purchase the permit required by the Chinese government to travel to Tibet. I didn’t want to be screened out by the authorities as an undesirable visitor.

And so I arrived in Lhasa, the Forbidden City, the highest capital in the world. This strange, medieval town would be my home for several months.

On Top of the World

I spent three frustrating weeks trying to volunteer for every NGO in Lhasa, to no avail. The government crackdown left none willing to let me work with them. As I searched, I became familiar with the town, its customs, and its incredibly warm and generous people. Giving up my hopes to volunteer medically, I explored what the culture had to offer and what it needed from me in return. 

In my time in Lhasa, I taught English in three schools. My pupils ranged from 70 kindergarten students to 60 15–25 year-olds. Every afternoon I traveled outside of town to the famous Sera Monastery to study Tibetan language and Buddhism with Togme, a monk. I gave speeches and lectures to schools and youth organizations about first aid and emergency medicine. Thanks to the great work of the Hope Corner, a local youth program, I taught first aid to many of the tourist guides who drive Land Cruiser tours. Soon I could not walk half a block without running into people I knew or hearing a student yell, “Teacher, teacher!” from across the street. 

I spent many days simply walking the Kora (holy pilgrimage) clockwise around the Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s holiest. I sometimes played pool with young monks, wandered the area’s winding alleys, watched kung fu movies in small teahouses, drank yak butter milk tea, and wrote.

One of my most memorable experiences was camping in the snowy mountains with some new Argentinian and Israeli friends. Aside from a few yaks, we neither saw nor heard another living soul during our time there. Every morning we would select a peak in the distance, pack up dried yak meat and a bar of chocolate, and set out. Every night, we would heat some tea and watch the sunset from our 5,000-meter throne on top of the world.

Off to Katmandu

After three months, my visa was to expire. Still eager to get some medical experience, I decided to try Katmandu, Nepal, where regulations for foreign volunteers would be less strict. After I e-mailed a few leads, I was contacted by doctors at Patan Hospital. They were excited that I was an EMT and wanted to discuss a project. I hitchhiked to the border as quickly as I could. I managed to slip out of Tibet as unnoticed as I had slipped in by sticking with two English twin sisters who had all the necessary permits and forms.

After settling into my new lush, green and hot environment (I hadn’t seen a tree or shrub in three months), I met with the doctors.

Their still-theoretical project was to establish a central ambulance system for the Katmandu Valley, which had no emergency medical service. We would need to develop a free emergency number (like 911), create a dispatch and communication center,
get and equip ambulances, establish an EMT school, and convince people to use this system rather than take a taxi or bus or walk to the emergency room when they were in need of medical attention. Because I was trained to work on an ambulance in the United States, the doctors believed I was the most qualified person they had come across to handle the project. 

So I did. 

I planned, met with the directors of every hospital and emergency medical center in Katmandu, and inspected the existing makeshift ambulances (more like slow and expensive private taxi services). The few of us working on the project obtained a three digit number, convinced the Katmandu police to let us use their dispatch system and house our ambulances (the service now has three), and got the Nepalese army to make its retiring medics available as the first class of EMTs. 

Then I ran out of time. In August, I had to return to school.

The Return

The months I spent in Asia were the most incredible of my life. Not only did I see and do things I would have never imagined, but I gained life experiences that give me vivid and true insight into world issues. In classes for my major, medicine, health and society, I feel differently about most of the subjects we discuss because I’ve seen it firsthand. I have met people and experienced the topics we raise in public and global health courses, and this has motivated me more in the classroom. I’ve integrated all I learned traveling and working abroad into my studies at Vanderbilt. 

Today, I continue my work with my Nepali counterparts on what has become the National Ambulance Center–Nepal. I have also worked with several of my teachers on writing proposals and developing fundraising strategies for the National Ambulance Center. I registered our organization as a 501(c)(3), obtained training material for the EMTs, and have been fundraising until I return to Katmandu next summer. 

For I am returning. I have something to contribute. 

Senior David Amsalem is a medicine, health and society major from New York City. To add your own contribution to the National Ambulance Center—Nepal, visit www.hhnepal.org.

Photo by David Amsalem.