It was a busy Week of Welcome for our new group of Carnegie Global Oregon students. All 22 students comprising the CGO 16  arrived safely and were immediately thrown into a whirlwind of activities. On Tuesday night we launched the year with introductions over a meal of Middle Eastern food, fitting in that one of the classes for the CGO this term will be the Geography of the Middle East and North Africa. On Wednesday afternoon some members of the CGO 15 joined us in  a cake decorating competition. Wednesday evening we ate the cakes ( which I have to say were delicious) followed by a discussion via Skype with Lee Pera, an U of O alumnus. Lee is a member of Boneyard Studios, a community of what are known as “Tiny Houses” in Washington D.C. Lee gave the students , who had just spent their first night in their dorms, some practical advice on living in small spaces . We continued the evening watching and discussing some the movie “Three Kings”. Thursday the new students, at that point veterans of the dorms, assisted other incoming freshmen move in by participating in Unpack the Quack.  We ended the week with the CGO 16  being joined by many of the CGO 15 on a fascinating tree tour of the U of O campus hosted by  Denis Lueck from the University’s Landscape Architecture Department. A busy, informative and enjoyable week to mark the beginning of the new academic year.

In late July a small group of CGO students visited the Oregon State Penitentiary. We attended a regular meeting of the 7 Step Club, an inmate run rehabilitation group within the prison. The students who had also attended a similar event in May were asked to speak about their previous experience–thoughts, feelings, and how it had impacted their perspective. My fellow speakers and myself took different approaches to our few minutes, but with a common theme of respect and the desire to connect. The inmates were very receptive to each speaker, and were eager to share stories and interact on a real level. This openness was refreshing.

The most impactful part of the evening, for me, was mingling with the inmates. I talked to a man who had graduated from the University of Oregon in 1953. He had been a wrestler and had studied dentistry. Another man was studying Spanish, and we discussed how we both secretly watched Telemundo. There was a genuine desire to connect from the men that I don’t often encounter in other settings. However, the experience did not leave me with any resolute opinions or ideas. After discussing politics with one man, he revealed to me that he was a registered sex offender. He had been sentenced to 85 years without parole for rape. As he told me his story, and explained that this woman liked to falsely accuse men, mentioning the fact that she was a single mother as if this somehow bolstered his story, I had no response. And as I sit here writing this, I cannot remember his name. Sensing my discomfort he quickly shifted conversation back to our discussion of taxes. I still do not know what to make of that minute and a half story. I so wish I had something impactful or powerful to say apart from “I just don’t know.”

The experience as a whole compels me to try and answer, what function does prison serve in a society? What function would it serve in an ideal world? I had spoken to men whom I had no doubt could be contributing members of society, in part because they had learned to be so within the prison walls. But I am not sure how my feelings toward this man fit into this puzzle. I can point to flaws in the system, one being the lack of rehabilitative services available to inmates. But I can’t say resolutely to what extent punishment should be involved. I certainly can’t say who truly deserves to be there and who shouldn’t. This experience more than anything has left me curious and wanting to return. In part this desire is selfish. I want to resolve the dissonance in my mind, and connect with people who change my perspective because they affect me positively. However, the motivation to return also stems from what I believe we owe the incarcerated. We owe a comprehensive understanding of those that have been disenfranchised and treated as an undeserving fringe group.

This week the CGO had its final class of the year, concluding with a conversation with Ross Kari, the Chief Financial Officer of the Freddie Mac Corporation, who came out from Washington, D.C. to speak with us about his career and the ethical issues he has faced as a principal figure in the banking industry and now at one of the most controversial organizations caught up in the financial crisis.  As per our custom, we began with a classroom conversation and then continued our dialogue over dinner in the adjacent dining hall.  As always, the give-and-take was lively, and we shifted back and forth between focuses on Ross’s work and the broader questions of ethics, finance, the housing crisis, and human rights.  It was great to learn from Ross, and interesting to follow his path from his hometown of Medford, Oregon, through the University of Oregon, and on to a career that has brought him to the corridors of power.  Ross described for us the links between the mortgage industry in the United States and the global economy, and his enduring interest in math, problem solving, and being involved in critical challenges that face our country.  Student questions probed the difficulty that Ross faces in the tension between maximizing profit/success and acting ethically, and he detailed for us his effort to determine the right path.  Particularly poignant were his reflections on the issues that arise in relation to the differences in serving the board of a public corporation and serving the public.  With Ross as our guest we closed out the term in style, enjoying a great conversation and then our meal together.  We began the year with twenty-one bright and dedicated students, Mika and Miriam, our undergraduate assistants providing tremendous support, and Leslie our Graduate Teaching Fellow providing leadership and cohesion.  We wind up the year wiser, stronger, committed to one another and the CGO community, and more dedicated in our pursuit of ethics near and far!

This week we had the opportunity to see performances of the UO student show Tangled Roots, featuring CGO’s own Brittany Lang.  This was a student written, directed, and acted production dealing with issues of identity in the United States.  The show drew attention to the challenges of navigating the internal and social dynamics of race, place of origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of our individual makeup.  I was impressed that Brittany and her fellow performers had the courage to infuse the show with elements of their autobiographies, and to share their pride and pain, their confidence and apprehension, with the viewing audience.  Tangled Roots is a powerful production, and I felt the intensity all the more for having Brittany on the stage and for sharing a row in the theater with some of her CGO colleagues.  I applaud Brittany and all of our students for looking for ways to make their mark in relation to issues of ethics and social justice.  As we draw rapidly toward the end of their freshman year I am very proud of these students, who volunteer in the community, take positions of leadership on campus, contribute to the education and welfare of at-risk youth, and create and perform in a variety of meaningful ways.  Thanks Brittany for sharing Tangled Roots with us; to you and all of your fellow Carnegies, break a leg!

We recently had the pleasure of visiting by Skype with Dr. Ann Laudati, Professor of Human Geography at Utah State University’s College of Natural Resources. Ann’s research focuses on the economies of natural resource extraction in North and South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She talked to the CGO about ethics in research encompassing the times prior to, during and after research.  The bulk of her work is in contested areas that have been marked by a lot of violence, and often her research brings her into conversation with the leaders of armed militia or rebel groups.

First she focused on the actual selection of research questions and field sites. Do you chose a place where you can get into a hammock on the beach at the end of the day, or do you chose a place that will be less comfortable but address the hardships face by others? She asked who gets to decide which are the most important research questions – the researcher or the people being researched? She also discussed how policymakers are often in the field for relatively short periods of time, and that it is impossible to understand issues such as resource conflicts in the DRC within a few weeks or months. Ann’s view is that academics have an obligation to spend the time on the ground to really understand what is happening.

As noted, Ann works with armed groups, and she often brings them goats or money so that they will talk to her. She does not send their names to the International Criminal Court or even local authorities. She eats and drinks with them and she has to constantly ask herself if she is perpetuating violence by giving a voice or legitimacy to such groups.  She also talks with victims. Ann is white, and when she visits families she has to be aware that they might get in trouble with armed groups for talking with her. She cannot promise safety. This is one of her main ethical dilemmas in her research.

As far as post-research presentation, Ann says that one of the main problems of academic work is that academics don’t present their work in a way that is accessible to the public, meaning that academic work is often seen as making little difference. New generations of academics are becoming more action oriented and Ann discussed how she has been criticized because her research is ‘too activist.’ But that is the entire point of doing research for her, to be active and promote change. There is also the problem of who is considered an expert. In response to a student question, Ann discussed the problem of representation. As a white American, too often people in Sub-Saharan Africa assume she is more of an expert than locals. As a way of contributing to building the confidence of expertise in DRC, she always teaches courses at a university in the DRC and she hires local students and advocates as her research assistants and translators.

Finally, Ann stressed the problems of representations of Africa in the media create problems for researchers. She has trouble getting funding because people think it’s too dangerous, but this is all based on media accounts and people who have never even been there. Ann loves her work in what is often considered one of the most violent and chaotic places in the world.

The CGO students had a chance to skype with Captain Chad Plaisted of the US Army who is currently in special forces training in North Carolina. We asked him to talk about what ethics means in the context of the US military, and how that dovetails with or departs from his own personal code. Captain Plaisted focused initially on the more formal values of the army, which include things like loyalty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. He then articulated his personal approach to life as one that comes from Bill Hayward, former UO track coach: Live your live so that every day you can look someone straight in the eye and tell them to go to hell. The idea is that if a person lives their life with the proper values that they don’t have to  worry about justifying their actions and will always be ready for evaluation or judgement.

While our discussion included the complicated issue of what one does in combat, Chad also wanted us to realize that ethics infuse many other aspects of military life – from dealing with PTSD, counseling troops on deployment to treat their families back home with fairness, and his own approach to the troops serving under him. He stressed that a lot of what people see in the media is not how the military is, and that as a whole the military as an institution holds itself to a high moral and ethical code.

Captain Plaisted noted that may not always agree with the politics of a particular policy, but affirmed that he made a commitment to the institution of the army and he will go where they tell him to and execute his assigned mission. He made a point of saying that soldiers are forbidden to carry out illegal orders (like kill civilians),and that he is sworn to carry out the mission of the army to the best of his ability. Chad used his experiences in witnessing injustice to make an impassioned argument that the US has the responsibility to help people who are victims of oppression. His favorite part of deployment in Iraq was visiting villages and giving pencils and soccer balls to the children there. He firmly believes that there is something innately human that says “this is not right and we need to do something about it.”

 

This past week, in light of some of the heavy topics that the CGO community has been addressing, we decided to take a breather. Spring term is always the most intense, and with the sun coming out after so many weeks of rain and heavy discussions, we decided to have a special dinner off campus at Dr. Cohen’s house. This event was intended to celebrate all that we have worked for this year and to enjoy time in each others’ company in a lighter atmosphere. Food was arranged (as was the weather) and we enjoyed an evening of discussion about the year and celebration of people’s accomplishments. Students brought cupcakes and ice-cream for dessert and we all went home mightily satisfied.