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would become a nurse.” Phillips’ perspective began to change when she became close friends with J.W., who was a physician at the hospital where she worked. “J.W. took his mother traveling the globe and Karen would go along as a companion to both of them,” Hille said. “As the years went by, the two of them, Karen and J.W., continued to travel together. They didn’t live together, but they lived as together,” he said. Phillips was not close to her brother and his family later in life, but he was part

a huge motivator, the sacrifice I saw,” he said. So he began writing emails home to friends and family. The emails began to circulate and before he knew it, traction had built with people wanting to read about what he saw. Those emails became a journal of his stories. He sent one to Veteran’s of Foreign Wars magazine that was asking for first-hand experiences. There were more than 3,000 submissions and 86 were published in 2006. One of the submissions was his. That led to some of his journal

. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Croft) With family and friends, the couple founded PlayUp, and with the board ran a weeklong soccer-empowerment program for 200 children in Namuwongo in Kampala, Uganda. (Before running out of funding, PlayUp also ran a supplemental education program in Namuwongo elementary schools for two years.) “I fell in love with the game again—and with why I fell in love with it,” Croft said. Back in the states, in the winter of 2012, Croft accepted an offer to train with the Tacoma

newspaper as a bullet storm. Shumaker retired from the military in 2013 and says that during his 12 years of service, each deployment was an experience of its own. “Those are significant life events,” Shumaker said. “When you are saying goodbyes to your family for a year or more, it really sticks in your head.” First Deployment: Afghanistan, April 2004 (Duration: 12 months) The most memorable event of this deployment, Shumaker recalled, was an assignment on the day Afghanistan held its very first

before coming to PLU. Luckily now, after completing my first one in 2015 during a University Chorale tour, staying in a stranger’s home didn’t seem as scary. Homestays are important because they allow us to get to know the community, and vice versa. My homestay partner and I enjoyed staying up a bit after the concert and just talking with our homestay family. We exchanged pictures of our animals, talked about our common likes and dislikes, and discussed the most important part of life — breakfast

Washington, all of our students, regardless of their immigration status, are invaluable to the teaching we provide in our classrooms, the research we perform in our labs, and the discoveries we make in medicine. These students and those who came before them are not strangers on our campuses, in our communities, and in our homes. They are our [children], our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and our family. They are us.” At PLU, it’s ingrained in our mission to educate and sustain communities through

these are students who haven’t had experience with reaching out and asking for help for themselves,” Mitchell said. “And much of the time that is because they haven’t had those resources available to them.” SCN helps students on multiple levels, from those who may suffer from diminished mental health to students struggling with academics, and everything in between. Issues that arise could include a death in the family, sleeping through a lecture, failing a class or financial aid worries. In an era

key — not overwhelming students, but communicating regularly. Some challenges they identify include “having a hard time concentrating on my work at home since my whole family is home working/doing school.” Another recognized that their classmates might be struggling because “While some students have the resources to keep a relatively normal schedule, some students do not have that luxury.” I will reiterate with my students going forward that they can watch the Zoom lessons offline if the

competitive advantage when entering the workforce, but research from 2019, shows that 43 percent of internships at for-profit companies often go unpaid. This creates an advantage for students from privileged backgrounds as they are more likely to accept these positions while getting financial assistance from family. Meanwhile, students from lower-income communities can find experiences like these far out of reach.   With the students’ recommendation, PLU launched the Student Ambassador Program to educate

technologies. It was a huge lift, and I was so impressed by the good work they did.  And our students! This was a really tough year—many of our students were caring for family, working extra hours, attending classes online, or dealing with isolation. It was tough. I was so proud of how they pushed through, created spaces for online community, kept in touch in safe ways, and kept moving forward. What are the benefits of having interdisciplinary programs? Interdisciplinary programs are where students