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SUMMER 2016 CaLIFORNIa’S HOMELEss, EXPLOITED YOUTH 18 Alumni work to rescue lost children. 12 WHaT IS HOME TO YOU? With luck, it's a haven of peace and safety. COVER OUR FIRST HUMaN HOME Dance explores the umbilical connection between mother and child in utero. SSCENE MadDi LarSEN ’17 Larsen is a communication major who is active in the Mission and Ministry Center, a bustling core of activity for Catholic and Lasallian culture on campus. (Pictured left to right: Larsen; Brother Christopher; Vince Nims, assistant director of liturgy, prayer and faith formation; Katrina Repar ’19; and Drew Gai ’19.) A Center for Mission The Mission and Ministry Center lounge is a great space for students, faculty, and staff to relax, catch up, and do some work. This space is also used for meetings and Solidarity Suppers, as well as Fair Trade Fridays. During a recent community time, Brother Christopher Brady, FSC, princi- pal of La Salle High School in Pasadena, told us a story. GERRY SERRaNO SUMMER 2016 1 THE VOICE IS YOURS Read Saint Mary’s magazine online at Spring 2016 stmarys-ca.edu/saint-marys-magazine. Dive into Saint Mary’s social media at stmarys-ca.edu/getsocial. Beneath the Surface 14 What happens backstage in a theater production makes all the difference. 20 Behind the Big idea What does it take to transform a passion into a product? 12 Who are you? Can you really know another person? CORRECTION: We inaccurately identified the photographer who took the photo featured on the cover of the spring Saint Mary’s magazine. The photographer is Annie Dao ’17. My name is Brother Brendan, and I have been associated with Saint Mary’s since 1940. I wanted to send you a note Carmen Terlaje ’16 shares a moment with her grandmother and parents at the Latino Cultural Graduation, where she won the student scholar award for earning the highest GPA of Latino graduates. of congratulations on the quality of the most recent issue of Saint Mary’s magazine CULTURaL GRaDUaTION REFLECTIONS Ken while doing homework at his house, [spring 2016]. It is one of the best issues I Black Graduation gave me a chance to then having Guinness steak pie for dinner! recall seeing. Keep up the good work. reflect on the many sacrifices my parents CHUCK DaVIS BROTHER BRENDaN KNEaLE, PROFEssOR EMERITUS and grandparents made for me in order to Mont La Salle, Napa pursue higher education without fear of Setting their dinner table Sunday through discrimination because of the color of my Thursday, serving them their dinner plates I’m a graduate of Saint Mary’s gradu- skin or my gender. My grandmother was and dessert, and then clearing their table ate MBA program and enjoy receiving born in Alabama during the peak of the when finished. They were all so friendly. your magazine. My amazing 90-year-old Great Depression. She did not have access It was my on-campus job SAGA!! mother-in-law, Mary Van Diepen, often to quality education and was limited by COLLEEN O’NEIL REILLY likes to read my copy. She was so inspired the segregation laws that prohibited her by the article in fall 2014 called “Writing from truly exploring her full potential as at the final round of #SMCSeminarMadness! a Life,” she decided to write the memoir a black woman. of her first 20 years of life in the Nether- We asKED: SONYa LEE ’08 lands, when Hitler invaded their country Will Don Quixote take the crown, or will The and took over her family’s farm. Odyssey prevail again? It was more about family and less about Caught in the Fuik: Tales From My Past is pomp and circumstance. As a first- YOU SaiD: an amazingly cheerful and awe-inspiring generation college graduate, it was impor- Is this really fair? The Odyssey by a mile. story about her perfectly peaceful life BRIaN STaNLEY tant to me that my family could understand and how it changed. She wanted me to what the past four years were about. share that her book is now on Amazon, Some wise Gael needs to write the play BRaNDON BIRR ’07 and because of your about when Odysseus met up with inspiring program Quixote at the Moraga Barn, and all kinds of students helping of values-based sallying forth occurred! seniors write their FRaNCES M. SwEENEY stories, her story and We asKED: I love The Odyssey…There could have been the history behind it What are your favorite memories of the Brothers? is preserved forever. no better starting point for Seminar and KaTHERINE VaN DIEPEN YOU SaiD: my time at SMC in general. ’14 EMBa Drinking artichoke liqueur with Brother SKYLaR COVICH 2 SaiNt Mary’S magazINE FEATURES CCONTENTS STaFF PUBLISHER Hernan Bucheli EXECUTIVE EDITOR Michael McAlpin EDITOR Jo Shroyer aSSOCIaTE EDITOR DEPARTMENTS Sarah Weld CreaTIVE DIRECTOR Karen Kemp DESIGN 4 aRCaDE Diablo Custom Publishing Tomorrow’s Teachers • Shooting Stars • Commencement Splendor • Indomitable Spirit • CONTRIBUTORS Greg Clark Diversity Officer Debuts • Heal the World • You Amy DerBedrosian Did It! • New Grad Student Center • Poetry Profs Zack Farmer ’08 a National Sensation • Distinctions • Instagael • Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig A Catholic Force • Old Bones and Gardens • Room Paige Gilliard ’15 SMC senior Jin Su Seo, center, volunteered at a Christian Brothers home for boys in J.A. Gray for Research Iasi, Romania, as part of a Lasallian Service Internship during January Term 2016. Sofia Jeremias ’17 Richard Kilwien Emily Klein 6 INTERVIEw Maddi Larsen ’17 Diego Rios ’16 Danielle Moye ’16 Ginny Prior Autumn Stephens 14 Winning Ways 9 SEMINaR oarei l Sex and War: Lysistrata The Saint Mary’s College F A successful basketball season offers lessons of California experience u A u in leadership and teamwork. ad inspires learning that lasts : R : 10 COMMENTaRY a lifetime. The College’s Left Coast Clichés rigorous education page engages intellect and THIS ; ; 18 Young, Lost, and spirit while awakening the 12 ROUndtaBLE desire to transform What Is Home? society. We are all errano S Exploited learners here—together working to understand ERRY SMC alums devote themselves to helping 27 QuaD and shape the world. l: G l: Aiming to Be Best in Show • Olympic Gaels • For more information: ra u homeless and exploited youth in California. T Teacher of the Year Award • The Hero’s Journey • stmarys-ca.edu. , Cul , Game for Anything • Alumni Events • Helping Those on the Margins • The Spirit of Saint Mary’s Saint Mary’s magazine page is published three times 22 Home Safe • The Flip Side • Meet the Brothers a year. Please send comments to magazine@ PPOSITE Finding love, stability, and joy at a Christian stmarys-ca.edu, or call ; O ; 31 IN MEMORIaM (925) 631-4278. eth Brothers home for boys in Romania. S Submit status and address ERI changes to info4smc@ v A On the cover: Choreographed by Kaveri Seth, a student in the MFA in Dance program, 32 GLIMPSES stmarys-ca.edu and R: K R: E this dance, using Bharatanatyam gestures or mudras from her native India, symbolizes provide a contact number. v O C the connection between mother and children in utero, arguably their first home on Earth. 36 VIEwPOINT SUMMER 2016 3 aarCadE SHOOTING STaRS The men and women’s basketball teams Tomorrow’s Teachers lived up to their stellar reputations this New director focuses on closing opportunity gap in season, each advancing to the postseason the classroom. and setting program records. The men won 29 games, claimed their third West Coast Conference (WCC) title in six years, and advanced to the National Invitation Tournament quarterfinals. The women set a record for points scored in a season and played in the Women’s National Invitation EMENT: BORIS ZHaRKOV; ZHaRKOV; BORIS EMENT: Tournament for the seventh straight year. C Combined, the teams placed seven play- OMMEN ers on all–WCC teams, and several earned C academic awards from the league. FERNIER; FERNIER; D COMMENCEMENT SPLENDOR The 2016 Saint Mary’s Commencement Weekend—which celebrated 680 seniors and 624 graduate and professional studies students—recognized students’ impres- OMITaBLE: GERRY SERRaNO GERRY OMITaBLE: sive accomplishments. Actor Mahershala D IN Ali ’96 and State Superintendent of Public D Instruction Tom Torlakson delivered the Assistant Professor Tamara Spencer recently took the reins of Tamara Spencer (above, undergraduate and graduate Commence- IVERSITYaN D the innovative master’s program Teachers for Tomorrow (TFT), right) grew up in a ment speeches. TO SHOOTING: TORRES; DE CaRL TOMORROw’S: which combines an undergraduate major in justice, community family that believed in education. She knew and leadership in the School of Liberal Arts and a master’s degree early on that she would in education from the Kalmanovitz School of Education (KSOE). become a teacher. The program offers students extensive experience in urban and other Bay Area schools. The new director hopes to expand the 17-year-old program’s impact on the lives of the area’s young children. For Spencer, who grew up in Los Angeles during the civil rights movement with a family whose roots are in the segre- gated South, education represents the path to social progress, access, and equity. “These are values that are rooted in my family’s history and beliefs that were passed on to me at a very young age,” Spencer said. “They grounded my desire to become an urban school- teacher.” Spencer honed her skills in graduate studies at Columbia University and in New York, Philadelphia, and Raleigh, N.C. classrooms where she worked to foster literacy and reading excellence. —Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig 4 SaiNt Mary’S magazINE A DIVERSITY OFFICER DEBUTS Saint Mary’s named Tomas Gomez-Arias as the College’s first chief diversity officer in November 2015.