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If you’re one of our alumni, we’d love to hear from you! Please let us know what you are doing now. Alumni News Michael Aguilar. We have just heard from former Philosophy major from the Class of 1995. Michael is president and owner of Five Tool Group, Inc., a small special event transportation consulting company, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since October of 2003, Michael has been the Programme Manager of Transport & Signage for the Doha Asian Games Organising Committee for the 15th Asian Games, to be held in Doha, Qatar in December of 2006. Congratulations, Michael. We are very proud of you! Annie Neri. Congratulations to Annie Neri, Religious Studies major from the Class of 2005, who has been awarded a Graduate Teaching Assistantship at the University of Kansas starting next Fall. That is wonderful news Annie. We’re very proud of you! Please keep us up-to-date on how you are progressing. Ed Lucero. We have just heard from Ed Lucero, a philosophy alum from the Class of 1976 (!), who has been working in the aerospace industry. What a terrific surprise, Ed! It’s great to hear from you, and great to hear you are doing well. Please continue to keep us up to date. Deborah Privett. We have just heard from former Religious Studies major Deborah Privett, who is now teaching English full-time at Ridgeview High School and part-time (Eng 110) here at CSUB. She is also finding time to coach mock trial at Ridgeview. Great work, Deborah! John Pinheiro (1992). John Pinheiro, former Religious Studies major (1992) makes history (literally) and meets President Bush! John is now Assistant Professor of History at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. Keep up all the good work, John. We’re very proud of you! Wim Laven. Wim Laven, a former Religious Studies major who went on to receive his M.A. in Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, has passed along an update from Sri Lanka, where, among other projects, he is helping to rebuild from the tsunami. The update contains, in part, a poignant description of the ongoing ethnic violence between the Tamil Tigers and the Sinhalese government forces. It is also preceeded by a heartfelt letter from Wim’s father. You are doing good, noble, and important work, Wim. We’re very proud of you! Rebecca (Jones) d’Angelo. We have just heard from Rebecca d’Angelo, a former Religious Studies major, from the Class of ‘97. Rebecca completed an M.A. degree in Statistics in 20001 and has recently been formally accepted into the Ph.D. program at the University of Kentucky, where she intends to pursue her interest in the exercise of end of life wishes, particularly with respect to spiritual fulfillment and emotional closure for those living in nursing facilities. Thank you for keeping us up-to-date, Rebecca. We loved hearing from you. Congratulations on your M.A. in Statistics, and we wish you all the best as you pursue your interests at UK! Peter Kight. Here is a link to a profile of former philosophy major, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of CheckFree Corporation, Peter Kight, who mentions his time here at CSUB. Congratulations, Peter! We’re very proud of all that you have accomplished. Scott Sorrell. We have just heard from a former major, Scott Sorrell. Scott is a speaker and trainer, and is CEO and Founder of Sales Adrenaline. Congratulations, Scott! We’re very proud of you.
Here are what some of our alumni are doing now! Dustin Adams, Bakersfield Christian High School Here are some recent alumni who have gone on to law school or graduate school in Philosophy or Religious Studies! Michael Aguilar, The Ohio State University
Letter from Wim Laven and His Father Dear Bruce [Jones], I am so proud of Wim for what he's doing this summer, I wanted to share this letter from him. He's come such a long way since he started CSUB. I am grateful for the generous guidance he received from the faculty in the then Religious Studies and Philosophy Departments. I am certain what he is doing is consequent to learning the values displayed by the faculty. Please pass it along to any you might think interested. Written by Wim Laven from somewhere near the east coast of Sri Lanka: Greetings all, It has been a while since I have had the chance to sit down and write a good letter. I have had a few problems. The hard drive on my laptop crashed, and I have been away for a while as per my usual. My trip is almost half over. On Thursday, I will have been here six weeks and I will have six weeks left--time really flies. The report for the first village for which we installed solar powered lighting systems is now available on the web. You can check it out at: http://www.sarvodaya.org/2005/07/29/472. It might give you a sense of some of what I am doing here. I do not know if any of our other reports are going to be made available. The villages here are all very different. I would have to say that going to the relief villages has been the most gratifying part of my trip. As my responsibilities with my other project increase, I am afraid I might not have as many chances to get my hands dirty. However, I know I will still have the chance sometime. The next installation I go on I have asked to sleep in the village, and I am very excited about being able to spend more time with the families. Times are tough in Sri Lanka, and it amazes me that none of what happens here makes the news, or, rather, so little of it does. Perhaps, there just is no interest in reporting all of the assassinations that take place (I don’t know if the newspapers here can keep up with them all). But, the reason I mention it is because there have been a couple recent assassinations of particular significance. Last week a state of emergency was declared in Colombo because the Foreign Minister was killed. I was told 7,000 troops were dispersed there. Of course the LTTE have been blamed for the death and of course they denied responsibility. The Cease Fire Agreement continues to be questioned, mostly because particularly high ranking officials continue to be targeted, and many people are asking for the Norwegians to come back (they negotiated the three year old agreement). Perhaps, they will make it to the table before I leave the country. While I was in Jaffna, there was a particularly interesting chain of events. Apparently there was a group of soldiers getting haircuts. They were bored and started cleaning/playing with their guns and, oops, one of them accidentally shot the barber. What made matter worse was that the barber happened to be Tamil. I don’t know what the rumors surrounding the event were but it only took a few hours before an angry mob had formed. I am also not sure exactly at what point it was officially termed rioting. In any case, the chief of police was asked to calm down the angry mob and he was asked to do so unarmed. Needless to say it didn’t work. The chief was abducted and in the morning his dead body was discovered. The picture in the newspaper showed the trickle of blood coming out of his mouth, but it did not show that he had both been shot and had his throat cut. We learned about all of this our first morning there and we were informed about the curfew. It meant that no one was allowed out after 10 at night or before 5 in the morning. For lack of better terms, this would be their basic curfew. On our way to work we had to change roads because there were demonstrations in the road with roadblocks and flames. In Point Pedro things were calmer and we were doing installations in one of the smaller relief villages. Seventeen families got solar power that morning. One man lost thirty one members of his family to the three waves that hit there. They were tremendous people who were very excited to see us and eager to help. Anyway, as soon as we finished that village we were informed that we needed to go back to our hotel. The curfew had changed; all the shops were closed and everyone was advised to stay home. You get used to hearing the words, “Change of plans” and “Whattado.” Last week I went to the Parahera in Kandy. I have absolutely no idea how to describe this event, so I will try two different ways. First, the Parahera is like a cross between the Disney light parade, the Superbowl, and Mardi Grah. The only difference is that here they use real elephants, instead of having teams they have Buddha’s tooth, and the women keep their clothes on. Second, the Parahera is a festival celebrated on poia, otherwise known as full moon. It is the most important full moon of the year. Many cities in Sri Lanka celebrate with smaller Paraheras but the festival in Kandy is the largest. It features over a hundred elephants and by the looks of it several thousand people who dance, play with fire, and beat drums as well as the already mentioned Buddha’s tooth. It is a time for renewing vows; however, I am not sure which ones. Between two and three hundred thousand Sri Lankans make it to Kandy for this celebration and many people will sit for twelve hours to reserve good seats. Tourists and the aristocracy can pay for good seats on the balcony at the Queen's Hotel. So, I miss home, but I am having a good time here and I hope everyone is doing well. Wim |
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