A new state-of-the-art building brings nursing students into the 21st century.

~In 1863, when Florence Nightingale journeyed to the Crimea to nurse injured British soldiers fighting the war there, she was appalled at the deplorable conditions in which her patients languished. “The hospitals were dark, the windows were wet and dark—it was really a breeding ground for infection,” explains University of Utah nursing student Ryan Harvey. “She went in and opened up the windows and the doors, let in the light and fresh air, and made it a much better place for healing.”

The first time Harvey stepped into the newly renovated College of Nursing’s Annette Poulson Cumming Building, he says, “I thought about this new building and how it opens up to let in so much light, and it reminded me of her.”

For four decades, nursing students have mastered the art of healing in the University of Utah’s familiar College of Nursing building. But in August 2010, after two years of taking classes in temporary locations during the building’s renovation, nursing students reentered an utterly new home. The transformation from that dark, brick building with its maze of dim hallways into a structure of glass, light, and open space would have dazzled even Nurse Nightingale.

“The opportunity to renovate this building,” says Maureen Keefe, Louis H. Peery Endowed Chair and dean of the College of Nursing, “was to say, ‘Let’s dream about what the future of nursing education should look like,’ and then design that into the building.”

That dream comprised three main objectives. One was “to create more faculty and staff workspace that was appealing and inviting,” says Keefe. With people stacked three and four to an office, cramped research space, and little natural light, the building—though considered stately in its day—no longer served to entice top-notch faculty to the college. “We have a faculty shortage nationwide,” Keefe explains. “We really need to attract other top talent from around the country to keep our faculty strong.”

The second objective led to stripping the building down to the studs. “The infrastructure was so outdated that we had to replace everything,” says Keefe. “Not only did we have to structurally reinforce the building [for seismic stability], but the wiring was so old—and the heating and cooling system and the ductwork—that they had to take out all the infrastructure and put all new in.”

Left: Adjacent to the student services department and a computer lab is the student lounge, which offers comfortable couches and café tables for individual or group study. Middle: Internationally renowned Utah artist and color theorist Anna Campbell Bliss custom designed paint shades to create a sunrise effect in the building's stairwell. Right: A glass balcony on the building's fifth floor gives a sense of connection between research and administrative teams.

Thanks to a generous $5 million lead gift from U of U supporter Ian Cumming (see sidebar) to name the building for his wife, Annette Poulson Cumming BSN’68 MBA’83—along with a donation from partner Intermountain Healthcare, and State funding—the renovation began in December 2008. Because of the onset of a recession and the resulting downturn in construction, dollars stretched farther than originally expected, allowing the design to incorporate additional hoped-for features. Keefe says, “It gave us a chance to look at how we could create a sustainable, open, light, energy-efficient building as we put it back together.” Originally planned to meet silver LEED certification, Keefe says the enhanced design may qualify for the gold certification level.

As important as the infrastructure and faculty work space are, they weren’t the renovation’s primary objective. “The first goal was creating a better learning environment for the students,” says Keefe.

Because the nearby Health Sciences Building provides adequate classroom space, “We could repurpose and redesign the function and flow of this building,” Keefe explains. That meant more room for research areas, as well as open, collaborative work spaces for professors and students.

It also meant there would be room for the building’s centerpiece: the new Intermountain Healthcare Simulation Learning Center, a 12,600-square-foot simulated hospital environment occupying the entire first floor.

“When I was educated as a nurse, we’d go into the skills lab and practice with a syringe injecting an orange, but nursing education has evolved since then,” says Keefe. “A nurse has to know a lot more about sophisticated technology and computers, such as the digital monitoring that’s there by the patient and the bedside computer. So how do you balance all this technology in health care delivery with the human touch, with the person in the bed?”

The building's auditorium was reconfigured, adding glass panels that allow more natural light to flood the space. The five-story facility now features large areas of glass throughout the facade.

The Simulation Learning Center, under the direction of clinical instructor Carolyn Scheese MS’07, with curriculum managed by Assistant Professor Allen Hanberg, is a state-of-the-art teaching environment that tackles that very question.

Stepping into the Basic Preparation Studio, which occupies the western half of the Simulation Center, is like entering a typical surgical ward, complete with a nurses’ station, 20 high-tech hospital beds (which resemble regular beds in the way the space shuttle resembles a go-kart), bedside computers, digital monitors, and wheeled cabinets of equipment and supplies.

In the Advanced Preparation Studio on the eastern side of the floor, nursing students use the technology and equipment in six intensive care rooms to handle critical-care scenarios. Two rooms open to form a pediatric/obstetric room, with a birthing bed and an infant Isolette.

Completing the realistic picture, every one of the beds in both studios is occupied by a life-size computerized mannequin.

“We try to make this as real as possible,” says Sue Chase-Cantarini MS’95, assistant clinical professor and faculty facilitator in the Simulation Learning Center. The mannequins, she notes, “can cry, cough, sweat, and have drainage from their ear, nose, or mouth. They have pulses in seven places. Vomit doesn’t come out, but they make the retching noise. [The mannequin] can have liver failure, diarrhea, pain, seizures, bleeding wounds, or we can make it react physiologically to any intervention. It can urinate on command, or dribble. It has heart sounds, lung sounds, and bowel sounds.” The mannequins come in various shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and ages, including child- and infant-size.

One of the mannequins even gives birth to a baby mannequin.

No one, especially not the professors, expects the Simulation Learning Center to replace the reality of working with actual patients in a live hospital setting. The Learning Center can’t supplant clinical experience. What it can do is focus learning in controlled scenarios, so nursing students experience diverse situations that may not happen when shadowing a nurse in a real hospital. As first-year nursing student Allie Zimmerman explains, “The hospital setting will always be different. It’s really fast-paced, and you don’t have time to go to the debriefing room to talk about what you didn’t understand.” The Simulation Learning Center complements the clinical experience, because it “makes you think more about the pathophysiology of the patient,” says Zimmerman. “It really challenges your learning. The mannequin asks questions, making you think about what you need to know and what you need to tell this patient. I think sometimes that gets missed in the clinical setting because you’re just trying to keep up.” Zimmerman appreciates the professors’ approach, too, when they say, “Go in there and try it. And if you make a mistake, that’s great. Next time you’ll go in and do it differently.”

Such cutting-edge, high-tech/high-touch training is attracting more than just nursing students to the new building. Intermountain Healthcare donated funding to create the Simulation Learning Center not just to train future nurses, but also because the healthcare giant believes the training center can help working professionals. “They want to send their teams of nurses and physicians here to experience better team training,” says Keefe. She sees the center becoming a resource for professionals from University Hospital, Intermountain Healthcare, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and all of the College of Nursing’s partners, both on campus and in the community, for team training, recertification, and continuing skills training.

Bliss envisioned the building's main floor as an Italian galleria, with smaller rooms flanking a spacious atrium. Installations representing the four elements adorn the walls outside the classrooms.

Just inside the Basic Preparation Studio hang two paintings, “Man” and “Woman,” created by artist Anna C. Bliss, who provided several striking paintings and design features for the building’s renovation. The two canvases depict figures wrought in geometric lines, resembling the wireframe used to model figures in computer animation. But these representations have energy and movement that grant the figures life. According to Katie Schrier BA’98, manager of public affairs for the College of Nursing, Bliss “wants to remind students that as technology continues to give them newer and better ways of doing things, they can never lose touch with human compassion and the human element.”

Echoing that message, the college’s beloved sculpture of Florence Nightingale, created by noted sculptor Avard Fairbanks in 1979, now stands in her place of honor in the open area between the Basic Studio and the Advanced Studio. With her marble lamp held high, she is poised to welcome a new generation of nursing students into the healing light of the new Annette Poulson Cumming Building.

—Kelley J.P. Lindberg BS’84, a freelance writer based in Layton, Utah, is a frequent contributor to Continuum.

A Nurse’s Gift

As Annette Poulson Cumming’s 60th birthday approached, her husband, Ian Cumming, faced a common husband’s dilemma: What kind of present to get your wife that is truly unique?

Ian, chair of the board and former CEO of Leucadia National Corp., had the means to do something extraordinary, so he did,  choosing to give her a legacy—a gift to the next generation of nurses, and, at the same time, one to the community. At a birthday dinner party for Annette, surrounded by family and friends, Ian announced a $5 million gift to the University of Utah’s College of Nursing for the renovation of the building that now bears her name.

Annette Poulson Cumming and her granddaughter Quinn with a mannequin used in the Simulation Learning Center.

In 1968, Annette graduated with a nursing degree from the U, just months before the College of Nursing moved into its now-familiar campus building. “I never attended classes in the old building, but I did go to meetings and other things there, so I knew it well. It was a dark and foreboding environment—that was the style at that time,” she says of the structure that nurtured four decades of nursing students. “What’s incredible is that they’ve learned so much about architecture since then, and now this building can be one of the jewels on the whole campus.”

Annette’s nursing career and her interest in the business aspects of nursing propelled her to hospital leadership positions, an MBA, and positions on boards and foundations dedicated to improving the health and lives of people, especially women, around the world. In 2000, Annette and Ian established the Annette Poulson Cumming Presidential Endowed Chair in Women’s and Reproductive Health; they have also endowed a chair in dermatology and donated a patient room at University Hospital. Active on the College of Nursing’s fundraising board for two decades, Annette was instrumental in helping the college become one of the first with a community outreach board. Ian, in turn, was a founding member of the John A. Moran Eye Center’s Advisory Board and served as campaign chair for the C. Roland Christensen Center at the David Eccles School of Business (and remains a member of its advisory board).

Annette’s commitment to nurses and their education remains unwavering. “It’s very often a thankless job,” she says of nursing, and yet, “a lot of what I think are my attributes now are things I learned as a nurse.” In 2001, the University of Utah awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Thanks to Annette and her husband’s generosity, future nurses will be able to build on those attributes, ensuring a healthier future for our communities.

Web Extra

As a faculty facilitator for the Simulation Learning Center, Sue Chase-Cantarini MS’95 gets to play the Wizard of Oz. From a hidden control room, she monitors students as they navigate through pre-determined scenarios. Using computers, she manipulates the mannequins, changing their blood pressure, giving them heart arrhythmias, or triggering any number of other conditions. Via a voice-changing microphone, she speaks through the mannequins, responding to students’ actions and questions. Sometimes actors join the scenarios, playing worried family members as the students juggle physical tasks like inserting a catheter or administering medication, along with the psychological tasks of calming the patient and relatives.

Afterwards, Chase-Cantarini meets with her students in a debriefing room, reviewing videos and discussing successes, challenges, and performance gaps, and reflecting on their experience in each scenario.

One of the Simulation Center’s goals, says Chase-Cantarini, “is to make it a very safe environment for students to make mistakes, discover new skills and techniques, and learn from watching each other. We make it safe for the patient and safe for the student. They’re learning that they can feel safe to speak up and share new learning strategies in a nonjudgmental way.”

Harvey, in his second year in the College of Nursing, agrees: “There can be a level of fear and anxiety when you walk into a hospital for the first time, not knowing where things are and how they’re laid out. There are sights, sounds, smells, and other things you don’t normally experience in everyday life. When you throw in the human element and you don’t know what to expect, it can be extremely overwhelming the first time. The Simulation Learning Center, with its actors and mannequins and technology, helps students get over that. It lets them practice in an environment where they can make mistakes and not have the consequences. Everybody makes mistakes when they’re new. To make those mistakes in a safe environment is invaluable.”

Photos by Douglas Pulsipher

UNP/Hartland works to weave the diverse cultures of Salt Lake City into the University fabric.

~ We all know the image of Ivory Towers—universities as places of esoteric knowledge, havens for the elite, separated from the real-world affairs of ordinary people.But we also know our society itself isn’t like that. It’s increasingly nonhomogenous. It’s multicultural. It’s wonderfully messy—a cacophonic parade of colors and cultures.

To remain engaged in educating future leaders and building knowledge, universities must change in the same ways that our society is changing, including differing voices and experiences that have been absent in the past, making room for the knowledge and talent that diverse populations bring.

But trying to integrate diverse human beings into a rigid university framework will never be as successful as transforming the institution’s traditional structures into a more open, global web made up of individual talents and multicultural knowledge. It is no longer a “square peg/round hole” problem. It’s more of a “myriad threads in a single tapestry” issue.

Earlier in this decade, the University of Utah became aware that its tapestry was marred by a hole in the fabric. Two Salt Lake City ZIP codes comprising seven west-side neighborhoods were clearly underrepresented at the U. Historically working-class and ethnically diverse, these neighborhoods are home to more than a third of Salt Lake City’s population, including 70 percent of the city’s Latino community. Eighty percent of Salt Lake City’s growing populations of refugee background also live there, alongside longtime residents as well as recent immigrants from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. A year of interviews with residents and community leaders revealed that increasing enrollment from these ZIP codes wasn’t just a matter of helping residents get into the U of U. It went deeper. Much deeper.

Rosemarie Hunter, director of University Neighborhood Partners

“If the University really wants to change the face of people at the U, or wants the impact to be more inclusive of the community,” observes Rosemarie Hunter, “you can’t expect to just approach it from the education side.” Hunter, special assistant to the president for Campus Community Partners and director of University Neighborhood Partners (UNP), believes universities must be involved in the larger issues that prevent so many people from going to college. “You have to be around the table when we talk about affordable housing,” she says. “You have to be around the table when we talk about health care.” For families struggling to cover the basics of everyday living, people just learning English, or immigrants adapting to a new country, the goal of obtaining a college degree—while often highly valued—remains out of reach.

That’s a significant loss that society can ill afford, considering what some of  those people’s talents, experiences, professions, and knowledge may have been in their former countries, not to mention what they could become here.In 2002, the University Neighborhood Partners program began connecting the University’s resources to the city’s west-side residents in a new sort of collaboration. “It’s important to build on the capacity and existing goals of the communities and organizations here,” Hunter says. “That’s where the University’s resources—in terms of information, people power, and money—all come to bear.” UNP brings faculty and students from various University colleges— such as Humanities, Education, Social Work, Law, Science, Health Sciences, and Nursing—to the table with community residents, organizations, and schools to share knowledge in both directions. “It’s investing in the community instead of operating a program or project, so that the community and the University can both grow to their full potential.”

PARTNERING, NOT OUTREACH

That distinction between investing in the community versus operating a project is important.

“There was a lot of input from the community early on that sometimes in the past the University would come in, do a sort of short-term outreach program, and then leave. But the community would still be here,” notes Hunter. Through UNP, the University of Utah set out to change its profile from a remote presence on the eastern foothills to a partner in community-building on the west side.

That meant, in part, becoming a west-side resident. So the U moved in. A city-donated house next to Jordan Park became UNP’s main offices, its basement renovated into a meeting space for community organizations such as a Girl Scout troop, a library planning committee, and the organizers of Jordan Park’s weekly People’s Market.

Another important UNP presence is the 300-unit apartment complex now called The Seasons at Pebble Creek, though many still refer to the complex by its original name, Hartland, as does the UNP project based there. For six years, housed in a donated apartment, UNP has facilitated partnerships operating programs for residents and the surrounding community. This year, the University is purchasing a 10,000-square-foot building adjacent to the complex so that the work UNP/Hartland does can grow in a dedicated space. From these two offices, UNP manages 33 partnerships in 25 community locations.

But why is it important for the University of Utah to embed itself in this community?

“The goal of this was not just to impact the west side, but to change the structure of the University and how it works, so that across the institution we begin thinking about how we tie teaching and research to the communities where we live,” says Hunter. If the communities in which our graduates will live and work are increasingly multicultural, then the education we provide them must be more multicultural, too, or we’re sending them out underprepared, she asserts. Not everyone learns, thinks, or navigates society the same way; different cultures bring different strengths and knowledge to the same situations. According to Hunter, the University of Utah is vitally interested in tapping into those strengths and that knowledge.

COMMUNITY RESIDENT IN ACTION: BRINGING THE COMMUNITY TO THE TABLE

To forge stronger partnerships, UNP sought out community residents who were already considered formal or informal leaders. “Community partners and residents were saying, ‘We don’t particularly want the University to come here and lead us. We actually have our own leaders. What they need are more opportunity, more access, and the skills to know how to negotiate the formal systems,’ ” explains Hunter. The city is rife with agencies chartered to serve immigrants, non-English speakers, and populations of refugee background. But learning how to find and use those agencies can be a significant hurdle in itself. By training community leaders to navigate those systems, UNP partnerships have watched the knowledge ripple successfully out into the community.

Maria Barajas, UNP Community Resident in Action

Maria Lourdes Barajas is one such community leader. A mother of four, Barajas became interested in UNP’s work encouraging young students to plan for their futures and consider college. With her oldest daughter at West High School, Barajas has been selected as a UNP Community Resident in Action. Her role? To introduce other West High students and parents to the University’s Leap to the U program, which helps students prepare for the University experience.

“Some parents are very difficult to work with because they work and they have other things to do, but also because they’re not aware of the opportunities they’re letting pass by,” Barajas explains in Spanish. “Once they become aware, they become more involved.”

UNP’s influence reaches not just the individual, but also a network of family members, who in turn network to more friends and families, spreading the word. This helps school administrators and teachers, who struggle to find paths through cultural barriers.

Another element critical to UNP’s vision is understanding that these communities have an incredible amount of existing talent and leadership. “What’s key is that we create space, we create access, we make connections, we create opportunities, we share resources. But the knowledge and the potential—that already exists,” says Hunter.Community leaders like Barajas are the direct line into that knowledge and potential.

COMMUNITY SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE:BRINGING THE U TO THE TABLE

A flyer on the bulletin board outside UNP’s Hartland office advertises partnership programs such as Head Start preschool, life skills classes, health clinics, job search assistance, English classes, citizenship programs, youth sports and educational programs, college planning, and a Youth Center where kids can go for everything from homework help to a boys’ poetry slam. The flyer is repeated in English, Spanish, Russian, and Somali, with pictures for residents who can’t read those languages. There isn’t room on the bulletin board for versions in Arabic, Karen, Kirundi, or any of the other 15 languages spoken here. A steady stream of residents find their way to the UNP/Hartland’s offices every day to ask for help with résumés, child health care, or English, or to teach and work at the centers.

With community leaders, UNP performs ongoing community assessments to identify priorities. Then UNP finds departments at the University to partner with residents and community organizations to address those needs.

TrinhMai, special assistant to the dean on Community-Based Research in the College of Social Work

Trinh Mai, special assistant to the dean on Community-Based Research in the College of Social Work, received a UNP Community Scholar in Residence faculty award this year to recognize and support her work at Hartland. Her project is only one example of University of Utah scholars participating in community-engaged scholarship.

The project, called “Voices of New Americans: Bridging the Cultural Gap between Schools & Communities,” includes the 12-member Hartland Resident Committee and Rai Farelly, a Department of Linguistics doctoral candidate. Mai explains that although community residents “are very interested in learning about the cultures here and how systems work here, they also have a lot to teach. Institutions here in areas such as education, criminal justice, health, and social services could benefit immensely from residents’ and leaders’ backgrounds, knowledge, and experience.” She adds, “Often in cultural trainings or diversity trainings, the communities the presenters are talking about are not represented. They are being talked about instead of talked with.”

To address this, the resident leaders, Farelly, and Mai give cultural presentations to teachers and administrators, promoting dialogue on how to bridge cultural differences and make schools more culturally relevant. Mai and her partners also study cultural issues impacting education, seeking effective ways that communities and schools can collaborate to address these issues.

Mai, who was 9 when her family was sponsored out of Vietnam, also co-teaches a class derived from UNP’s work at Hartland, called “Immigration and Resettlement.” She says the class “aims to bring community and interdisciplinary knowledge that came from our partnership work into the University setting.” Mai co-teaches the course with Yda Smith from the Division of Occupational Therapy, and with Juan Lopez, a teaching assistant who is also a resident leader working in the Hartland Partnership.

A SOLID BRIDGE

Lopez isn’t the only Hartland resident who’s reached the University of Utah. Pausing before a collage of photos in UNP’s Hartland offices, Mai ticks off face after face, describing the undergraduate and graduate programs a growing number of residents are enrolled in. Then there are the names of individuals she rattles off who’ve gone on to head up or participate in their own community and youth organizations. Some have joined the very agencies they once came to UNP to learn about, effecting the changes they could see were necessary and reaching more people in their community.

UNP positions itself as a bridge of partnerships between the University and the city’s west-side neighborhoods. Through UNP partnerships and the efforts of students and professors such as Mai, the University helps the community strengthen itself through education and skills training, with an eye toward encouraging higher education to ultimately benefit the community even more. The community, through neighborhood organizations and resident leaders like Barajas, helps the University by integrating professors and students into a rich research and practical environment of knowledge and background, helping the U shape more effective curricula and support systems—and making campus more inclusive and diversified.

And as the U adapts its curricula and systems, its graduates will carry that knowledge back into the community and create additional change there, too. Says Hunter, “We see it having remarkable impact.”

—Kelley J.P. Lindberg BS’84, a freelance writer based in Layton, Utah, is a frequent contributor to Continuum.

Meet five diverse freshmen embarking on academic careers at the University of Utah.

~ Once again, the days are becoming shorter. Nights bear the cooler edge of approaching autumn. The sun-baked mountains are a breath away from donning fall colors. And nearly 29,000 students have just arrived on the University of Utah’s scenic campus to begin a new academic year. For 2,600 of these students, it will be for the very first time—as freshmen.

The first day of their freshman year will mean something different for every one of these students. Anxiety, excitement, pressure, freedom, curiosity, dread, ambition, hesitation…. Looking for a snapshot of the entire spectrum of human emotion? You’ll find it here on the first day of class.

But where will that first day lead? Will those freshmen’s dreams ultimately be achieved? Exceeded? Transformed? Deferred?

We asked five of this year’s incoming freshmen to share their University of Utah journey with us. Stephanie, John, Destanae, Sean, and Lauren—representing the wide range of students at the U—welcome us into their worlds, giving us a glimpse of what it means to be today’s University of Utah student, from freshman to (hopefully) graduate, and maybe even beyond. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, academic interests, family situations, and goals, these five students represent some of the best their class has to offer. And they share one thing in common: They are each embarking on an adventure into their own future.

But it all starts with that very first day. So let’s meet our five freshmen and give them a hearty Ute welcome to the U of U campus.

Destanae’s Destiny

Shotput and discus thrower Destanae Howerton-Davis has it all mapped out: the field she wants to study (exercise and sport science), the career she wants to follow (pediatric physical therapy), the siblings she wants to help, the family she someday wants to rear. As a student at Southeast Career Technical Academy, a magnet high school in Las Vegas, Destanae set her future in motion by majoring in health occupations, focusing on nursing assistance. “I could get certified as a nursing assistant right now if I wanted to,” she says of her specialized high school education.

All that was missing was the location for her next phase of education. Her parents attended UNLV (her father on a basketball scholarship), but she wasn’t interested in following in their footsteps quite that closely. “I wanted to go away,” she explains. After five college visits to narrow her choices, she chose the University of Utah. “When I saw the campus,” she says, “I fell in love with it. It was all green, and there were trees! And I loved the track team—the girls were really nice.” To top it off, Utah seemed like a good choice for her long-term future, too: “After college, I could establish a career and a family and live here. Utah seems like a great place to raise a family and have a nice job.”

Career and family seem equally important to this energetic and enthusiastic freshman. With three younger siblings, she sees herself as blazing the trail, showing them that if she can strike out on her own and forge a dynamic career, so can they. She’s looking forward to Skyping (making voice and/or video calls over the Internet using special software) and texting them regularly as she settles into her new life of school and track. But what she’s most excited about is… well, just about everything. “It’s a whole new world. I get to become my own person, experience life by myself, and really get to know myself.”

Stephanie’s Opportunities

“My mom and dad worked really hard for me to have the life they never had,” says Kearns High School graduate Stephanie Cardenas. As immigrants from Mexico living in California, her parents didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. When Stephanie was very young, her family moved to Utah, where her parents strongly encouraged her love of school. “My mom said, ‘I’d rather you focus on your studies and I’ll worry about working,’ ” Stephanie recalls.

Her parents’ hard work is paying off. In high school, the vibrant, self-proclaimed “history nerd” became involved in student government. That experience ignited her passion for political science, law, and ethnic studies. After exploring other schools, Stephanie decided that the University of Utah offers what she’s looking for. The number of diversity groups on campus and the ethnic studies programs especially appeal to her. “My high school had a lot of diversity. I want my college to be that way, too,” she says.

Stephanie is making the most of programs that the U provides to help high school seniors transition to college life. During U-Night, she stayed overnight in the residence halls. At Preview Day, she learned more about the U’s programs and services. She was one of 15 students selected for Jump Start 2010, a summer live-on-campus program for low-income or “first-generation” students that includes three courses (eight credit hours’ worth) on essential math, writing, and study skills. And this fall, she joined the pre-law LEAP program, a three-year venture that encourages a learning community by allowing students and professors to remain together through multiple semesters.

As the first in her immediate family to attend college, Stephanie is taking her education seriously. Although she hopes to get involved in student council at some point, she wants to start out focusing solely on her coursework, adding activities as she learns to balance the rigorous demands of her studies. “College is an opportunity, a privilege given to me,” she says. “I need to take advantage of it.”

Sean’s Pathway

On September 5, ShaoHao Yin, who goes by “Sean” now that he’s in the U.S., will turn 18. At some point during the day, Sean and his parents will negotiate the 14 time zones between Salt Lake City and Beijing and connect, as they frequently do, via Windows Messenger so that they can send him birthday wishes and he can tell them about his first two weeks at the U.

Sean is one of 39 Chinese freshmen enrolled in the University of Utah this year, thanks to the US-Sino Pathway Program (USPP). Designed by a consortium of top American universities to attract promising young Chinese scholars, the program offers a year of courses in China that apply toward a bachelor’s degree, plus English and American Studies instruction and guaranteed admission to one of four partner universities, including the University of Utah.

Sean, who plans to pursue a computer engineering major, chose the U of U for its reputation in that field, as well as its size and scenic beauty. “The mountains—I can’t wait to climb them,” he says enthusiastically.

The USPP’s final preparatory step is a summer bridge program in Boston. Housed in a dorm with other Pathway students, Sean spent this summer there getting used to American student life. Communication has been his biggest adjustment. “You have to think about [what you want to say] and translate it into English. It is even hard to communicate when I get some food from the dining hall,” he says, laughing.

But he’s learning quickly and looking forward to all that the U offers, from badminton (“It’s a good way to get friends, and it’s a good sport”) to the University’s museums—especially the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

While other freshmen are learning their way around campus, Sean will be continuing to learn his way around a new culture and the American way of life, too. But he is undaunted. He dreams of building a career in computer engineering and establishing his own company in China that will do business with the U.S.

For Sean, the U of U represents a gateway to the cultural and business aspects of his future. He’s excited about “the opportunity, of course. It’s important for me to study in a good environment,” he says. “I think it’s wonderful.”

John’s Journey

Listen closely at the next Ute football game. You’ll hear him, there in the stadium’s MUSS section with other rabid student fans, belting out the Utah fight song. And that’s only one of the diverse U of U experiences John Peterson is looking forward to.

At Skyline High School in Salt Lake City, John swam, played water polo, and was a student body officer. But the high school experience he’s most proud of is the Service Learning Scholar program, which required 170 hours of community service. His hours included an individual project leading a food drive, and an internship at Shriners Hospital. “After I volunteered at Shriners Hospital,” he says, “I realized that this is something I could really enjoy, and it gave me ideas of where to go in medicine.”

As a recipient of an Eccles Distinguished Scholar Award—the U’s most prestigious scholarship for freshmen—John is enrolled in the Honors College and, through the affiliated Early Assurance Program (EAP), is guaranteed admission to one of the U’s graduate programs (learn more about the EAP in the introduction to Lauren, following). “I chose the University of Utah because I felt like it was stronger in the things I was interested in doing, and it has an excellent medical school,” he says. But rather than majoring in chemistry or biology like many pre-med students, John is following advice from a U of U medical professor. “He said to choose a major that we would enjoy doing or something that’s more diverse. So I’m considering political science.”

Combining political science with a medical degree could lead to remarkable possibilities for the future, and that suits John and his wide-ranging interests just fine. As for his immediate educational goals, he’s spending his freshman year living at Sage Point, the on-campus living-learning center, with other Honors students, then will go on a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When he returns to the U, he’ll pick up where he left off (and his scholarship will still be waiting for him). He thinks he’d enjoy a Hinckley Institute internship at the state capitol or in Washington, D.C. And because he wants to see more of the world, he’s intrigued by study abroad programs such as one that sends U students to Uganda on a public health service mission. He believes a program like that would give him valuable experience. “I’d learn more about medicine while serving people in need.”

Lauren’s Opening Doors

This summer, while other teens from Omaha were working at fast food joints, Lauren Keller signed up for an EMT course, adding practical experience to her considerable academic strengths and interest in medical professions.

The well-rounded and high-achieving daughter of a University of Utah alum, Lauren has been accepted into the U’s Early Assurance Program (EAP) in the Honors College. The EAP guarantees select freshmen admission into one of the U’s graduate programs after they successfully complete a bachelor’s degree. What sets this program apart from others in the country is that students have two years to decide on a major and graduate program, encouraging them to explore a variety of options before locking into one.

Lauren is confident that her future will involve her affinity for math and science. “I am considering bioengineering at the U,” she explains. “I have a sister who is missing part of her X chromosome and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and Turner syndrome. I feel that by studying bioengineering I could be a helping hand in the development of technologies that can truly change a person’s life. The opportunities are endless, and by pursuing this particular major, it will keep many doors open for the future, no matter what I end up doing.”

The transition from Nebraska to Utah will be eased for Lauren by the nearby presence of two of her five siblings. “It’s nice that I have an older sister who lives just down the street from the University while she attends [the U’s] pharmacy school,” says Lauren. “Also, my twin sister is heading off to BYU, so we should be able to get together every once in a while.”

Lauren is excited about living in the dorms with other EAP students. “I am most looking forward to new experiences and new people,” she says. “Becoming involved at the U will help open doors to a wide-open future.”

—Kelley J.P. Lindberg BS’84, a freelance writer based in Layton, Utah, is a frequent contributor to Continuum.

Web Exclusive

The U’s new Brazilian Studies Program fills a niche in helping students understand the country and forge connections.

Photos by Douglas Pulsipher    Illustrations by Scott Greer

In 2014, a half-million visitors will descend upon Brazil for the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. In 2016, the world will stampede to Rio de Janeiro to experience the summer Olympics.

But this summer, University of Utah study abroad students will beat the crowds and spend several weeks exploring the culture, language, and history of Brazil in a far more intimate fashion. Sure, there won’t be banner-waving sports enthusiasts, throngs of reporters, and hordes of snappily dressed volunteers mag-and-bagging them at the entrance to every venue. But there will be art, architecture, music, food, one-on-one experiences, conversation in the Portuguese language, and an authentic taste of what it means to be in Brazil and what Brazil means to the rest of the world.

And that’s precisely what the Brazilian Studies Program in the U’s College of Humanities is all about.

Alessandra Santos (left) and Rebecca Horn of the U’s Brazilian Studies Program

For two years, Rebecca Horn, director of the Latin American Studies Program and associate professor in the Department of History, has been overseeing the building of the U’s innovative Brazilian Studies Program. “Brazil is the economic powerhouse of Latin America,” says Horn. “It’s one of the world’s largest democracies, and it has enormous cultural influence. Brazilian music, art, dance, literature, and film are crossing many boundaries, exerting a tremendous influence in the United States. Brazil is critically important to us on many levels.” With an estimated 1.5 million Brazilians living in the United States and trade relations with Brazil expanding, Brazilian Studies programs are becoming a vital part of university internationalization efforts across the nation.

As important as Brazil is to the United States, the South American country has particular significance in Utah. According to the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce of Utah, 8,000 to 10,000 native Brazilians live in Utah, and 30,000 Americans in the state speak Portuguese.

Many Portuguese-speaking Utahns are LDS returned missionaries who served in Brazil and wish to stay connected to their Brazilian experiences and maintain their language skills. But a growing number of Utah residents are interested in Brazil and its language because of business ties, its increasing importance in the global economy, or for cultural, environmental, and scientific interests.

This translates into a significant desire from students and employers for courses in Portuguese language and Brazilian culture. “There’s a market demand for students who have linguistic and cultural competency,” Horn explains. “Those businesses in Utah with ties to Brazil want to hire employees who speak Portuguese and who have some understanding of Brazil.”

The Latin American Studies Program itself is fairly young; a minor in Latin American Studies was developed in 2002 and a major offered for the first time in 2009. Now, Horn says, “We have been working the last couple of years to expand the program and announce that we are making Brazilian Studies a central component of Latin American Studies.”

To support this fledgling program, the University administration awarded a tenure-track position in Portuguese Language and Brazilian Studies last year, and Assistant Professor Alessandra Santos was hired into that position in the Department of Languages and Literature. While her department has taught Portuguese language courses for several years, Santos, a native of the Porto Alegre area in southern Brazil, is the first tenure-track professor hired to teach upper division classes on Brazilian literature and culture. Next year, along with Elena Shtromberg (Department of Art and Art History) and Angela Espinosa (Department of Languages and Literature), she will co-teach an interdisciplinary course exploring “Utopia in Brazil.” “In that class, we’ll be combining visual arts, architecture, urban planning, cinema, literature, and history,” she explains.

Santos is also charged with helping develop the entire Brazilian Studies Program. It’s an ambitious goal. Horn and Santos are working toward establishing a minor in Portuguese, and eventually, they hope, a major. They’re also attracting a diverse cadre of professors, in disciplines ranging from biology to economics to art history, who are interested in incorporating Brazilian aspects into their curricula and developing a more global perspective for their students. In addition, says Horn, “There are faculty on campus who already have research interests in Brazil, and we seek to support that and deepen our institutional ties to Brazil.”

Another benefit is the recent acquisition by the Marriott Library of the Brazilian Cultural Collection, a compilation of films, videos, and music that Horn says “has been a great addition to our resources on campus for both teaching and research.”

A key development piece of the Brazilian Studies Program is the Gary J. Neeleman Chair in Brazilian Studies. Once fully endowed, Horn says, this chair “would allow us to recruit someone of national prominence in Brazilian Studies, who could bring academic experience and reputation to the program.”

“Given our community’s unique connections with Brazil, this program is a great fit in our Latin American Studies Program,” says Robert Newman, dean of the College of Humanities. “We owe much to the beneficence of Gary and Rose Neeleman, and to relationships we have fostered with universities in Brazil over the last few years.”

The program’s Roberta Vasconcelos (left) and Elena Shtromberg

The Brazilian Studies Program has already attracted a Fulbright language teaching assistant, Roberta Vasconcelos, who spent this year working as a TA and teaching beginning Portuguese.

Vasconcelos, from Recife in the northeastern region of Brazil, was also asked to start a Brazilian Club, which “is not only for students,” she notes, “but for anyone interested in Brazilian culture and language.” The club provides an opportunity for students, faculty, and community members to gather monthly to enjoy food, games, movies, conversation, and other activities related to Brazil. In March, it hosted a Brazilian percussion and dance group. Students aren’t required to attend club meetings, according to Santos, but many do because of the unparalleled opportunities “to practice Portuguese, to interact with others, and to meet other students who are also interested in Brazil or who have lived there.”

Introducing students to the local Brazilian community is an important facet of the Brazilian Club, but it has a reciprocal benefit: Members of the community are pleased to find an appreciative young audience interested in Brazil.

In April, the Brazilian Studies Program hosted a theatrical performance by BYU students who performed Auto da Compadecida by Brazilian playwright Ariano Suassuna. The performance was the first of what Horn and Santos hope will be numerous collaborations with Brazilian and Portuguese programs at other Utah universities.

Biologists Thomas Kursar and Phyllis Coley

Faculty are discovering the rich benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration with the Brazilian Studies Program, too. Phyllis Coley and her husband, Thomas Kursar, both professors in the Department of Biology, have spent 25 years at the University of Utah investigating how tropical rain forest plants defend themselves against insects. A year ago, they contacted Horn about applying for a grant to fund their research in the Brazilian Amazon region. “Part of the grant said you have to make a difference at your university in terms of international studies,” says Coley. “We called Rebecca Horn and said, maybe we could put together a rain forest ecology course for non-majors. Tropical rain forests are incredibly important for biodiversity, a source for useful products and medicines we haven’t discovered yet.”

According to Coley, the meeting with Horn was fortuitous. “We found all sorts of connections that we never would have thought of. It’s been mutually very beneficial. Previously, humanities and the sciences never talked to each other,” Coley explains. “One of the Brazilian Studies’ goals is making these connections across campus.”

Forging connections between the University of Utah and colleges in Brazil is another important goal. Kursar believes these institutional connections will help researchers. “The Brazilian Studies Program can facilitate two-way interchange,” he says. “In particular, Brazil restricts access by foreign researchers, and there is no simple mechanism that will allow us to bring American students to Brazil to participate in research. One goal of Brazilian Studies could be to develop a program that will facilitate exchanges.”

An invaluable first step in those exchanges will happen this summer, when Shtromberg, director of the Summer Study Abroad Program in Brazil, takes the first group of University of Utah students to Rio de Janeiro. An assistant professor of art history, Shtromberg specializes in Latin American art, and her experience and knowledge will bring a unique perspective to the five-week course. “We’ll teach the [Portuguese] language component in the morning. Then they’ll meet with me in the afternoon for excursions to the city and outside the city, and we’ll have artists come talk to us,” she says, outlining the adventure awaiting these students.

An unmistakable devotion to teaching, research, and all things Brazilian resonates from all the professors involved with the Brazilian Studies Program. The students setting foot on Brazilian soil this summer may not realize that they’re also laying groundwork for future University of Utah research opportunities. They almost certainly won’t recognize the long-term ramifications their visit may have for trade relations between Utah and Brazil.

But being able to experience the art, language, and culture of Brazil in such a unique way is something they will appreciate for a lifetime.

—Kelley J. P. Lindberg is a freelance writer based in Layton, Utah.

Connection Established

Gary Neeleman BFA’74, for whom the chair in Brazilian Studies is named, is currently president of Neeleman International Media Consulting Inc. Neeleman spent 27 years with United Press International, first as a correspondent for seven years in Brazil and later as vice president and general manager over editorial and business in the Latin America and Caribbean areas. He then joined the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International in 1985 and served as executive worldwide VP for syndicate operations. He also worked for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate International for four years before retiring and establishing his own consulting company. He is currently the Honorary Brazilian Consul for the State of Utah and is well known for his lectures and articles about Brazil. In 1985 he authored the book Farewell My South, which tells the story of the Southern Confederate migration to Brazil after the Civil War. Neeleman is the father of seven children, three of whom were born in Brazil and carry dual citizenship.

U of U School of Music teaching assistants Lindsey Wright (left) and Cassandra Olsen (right) instruct students in the after-school piano classroom at Franklin Elementary. Photos by Douglas Pulsipher

The U’s School of Music helps elementary and high school students hit all the right notes.

The third-graders wait in the after-school classroom for their piano teacher. But one little boy is so excited he’s casing the hallway to learn what’s holding her up. The instructor scoots him back into line, and he sighs impatiently.

In the music room, he and his pint-sized compatriots sit before the whiteboard. Well, “sit” might be the wrong word to describe what they’re actually doing, which is perching, fidgeting, squirming, hopping, draping, and wiggling. But they’re answering questions, too.

“That’s the G-clef!”

“That’s a half-note!”

Then they’re scampering to their pianos—sturdy black digital models, eight in the small room. Each kid grabs a pair of headphones, flips open a book, and begins to play.

Because of the headsets, the room is quiet for a minute, despite the busy fingers. Then one child begins chanting, unaware that she’s speaking out loud. “Quarter, quarter, quarter, rest.”

The child who scouted for the teacher carries on a running monologue about the book, the headset, and the notes, and is kinetic energy personified—but he’s playing, and playing well, and is pages ahead of the others.

A third has her hand in the air, ready for the teacher to sign off on her current page so she can move on to the next.

This isn’t a private school for musically inclined protégés. It isn’t an arts-themed charter school. It isn’t Juilliard’s little cousin.

It’s Franklin Elementary, a Title I school on Salt Lake City’s west side. A school where the majority of students are defined as at-risk, either through economic circumstances or as children of single-parent families. Where kids are already being recruited into gangs.

Where twice a week, kids enrolled in the after-school program play the piano, thanks to the University of Utah’s School of Music.

Susan Duehlmeier and Skip Daynes

More than a decade ago, the Youth Enrichment Foundation (YEF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing music and art into Title I public schools, began piano lessons at Whittier Elementary, expanding to Glendale Middle School and East High School. In 2000, Bonnie Gritton BFA’70, Public Service Professor and an associate professor of music at the U, partnered with YEF, coordinating teaching assistants from the University of Utah’s School of Music and volunteers from her Career Development class to help teach. The Warner Foundation provided funding. Gritton’s volunteers also prepared music programs designed to teach music concepts in fun, unique ways.

YEF’s success convinced Susan Duehlmeier BFA’70 MFA’73, chair of the Piano Department in the U’s School of Music, to create a new program to reach additional Title I schools. In 2007, the School of Music partnered with Daynes Music Company, with help from Rotary International, to make after-school piano lessons available to students at Franklin Elementary. In the fall of 2009, the program expanded to Newman Elementary. Two U of U teaching assistants still teach at East High School in the YEF program, and more schools are interested in joining. In all, six teaching assistants and 14 volunteers from the U’s Piano Department are involved.

The reason?

“This opportunity is making a difference in the lives of students,” says Dahlia Cordova MEd’83, principal of Franklin Elementary during the program’s first two years. “It opened the doors to music appreciation and the love of music. It also identified students with an innate type of talent who never would have been exposed except through this program.”

With today’s pinched academic budgets, the arts have been redlined out of many public schools in the United States, unlike in Japan and many European countries, according to Skip Daynes ex’66, CEO of Daynes Music. “We are the only country where we see music as an add-on, not as a core, important part of the curriculum,” he says. Study after study shows a high correlation between learning music and developing reasoning skills in math and language, yet the U.S. continues to eliminate the arts from public education, including Utah, dead-last in the nation in per-student spending.

Left to right, Dahlia Cordova, principal of Franklin Elementary; Samantha Salazar, Franklin’s assistant principal; and School of Music teaching assistants Lindsey Wright and Cassandra Olsen.

In Title I neighborhoods, private music lessons are often unattainable in any economic season. “Our student population does not have the exposure [to private music instruction] that other students in more affluent families might have,” says Samantha Salazar BA’94 MSW’97 MEd’04, assistant principal at Franklin Elementary. “So this program does give exposure to our students who otherwise might not get an opportunity to do it.”

“The Piano Lab is a remarkable program that has brought a 10 percent average gain in reading scores using the Scholastic Reading Inventory, a school-based assessment of students who have had the opportunity to participate in the program,” explains Cordova. Teachers at both schools report fewer behavior problems and less truancy, because the kids don’t want to miss their piano lessons.

In the first year, an article in a local newspaper described how two particularly promising boys drew a keyboard on paper and took it home to practice. After reading that article, an anonymous donor gave a used piano to each boy. “These two boys who had been identified as very talented were from rival gangs,” notes Duehlmeier. “They performed a duet at a talent show and within the district. This was an amazing outcome. It was a way of breaking down barriers.”

Although it is unfortunate that elementary-aged students are already joining gangs, in some neighborhoods, positive options for filling free time while parents work long hours are hard to come by. Poverty, loneliness, lack of role models, boredom—the reasons are as numerous and varied as the students themselves. The U’s after-school piano lessons are an effort to combat at least a few of those reasons.

“Students need some way to express themselves. Without a positive outlet, some may do so inappropriately,” Duehlmeier observes. The piano program “gives them an outlet for self-expression.”

Cassandra Olsen BMu’05, doctoral candidate and teaching assistant at the School of Music and the energetic third-graders’ instructor on this particular day at Franklin Elementary, describes a child she taught last year. “I found out from one of the teachers at the school that they had had problems with him—with tagging and gang-related incidents.” The teacher noticed that his behavior began to change for the better, and, says Olsen, “They thought it was because he was involved in the after-school piano program. He was so excited about it he would go home and play on his keyboard instead of getting into trouble. We love hearing stories like that. That’s the most rewarding part of the job.”

The question, then, is: If the piano program makes such a noticeable difference in these children’s lives, both academically and emotionally, why isn’t it in more schools? The answer isn’t surprising. It takes money for pianos, instructors, and materials—and that’s in short supply.

Both Duehlmeier and Olsen credit Skip Daynes with being the program’s chief benefactor. In addition to donating pianos to the schools, Daynes tirelessly champions the cause. “It’s a hope we have,” he says, “to bring music education back to schools.” When describing the academic benefits of music instruction, his passion is clear. “It’s a fact. It’s not a theory any more. We know [music instruction] is something wonderful to have.”

Daynes also worked with Steinway & Sons to provide rent-free pianos for The Ladies in Red, a five-member piano group that performs benefit concerts to fund the outreach program. Group members—Cassandra Olsen, Lindsey Wright BA’08, Stella Markova, Ruby Chou, and Mary Anne Huntsman—are all School of Music teaching assistants or volunteers in the after-school piano program.

Because introducing piano lessons to a school is expensive, Daynes is also sponsoring the development of software, called Uplay Piano, that tracks an individual’s lessons, progress, and accuracy. The software works with the PNOscan device, which uses an optical scanner under an acoustic piano’s keys and a USB port to connect it to a laptop, making the notes visible on the monitor. Digital keyboards can also be used, fitting well in computer classrooms. The 15-week introductory software course is being developed by U teaching assistant Lindsey Wright. It’s nearly complete, and the students at Franklin and Newman have begun testing its unique storybook format.

Daynes hopes eventually to open the course to the public, encouraging schools everywhere to absorb it into their computer curriculum. But that will require continuing investments in time and money.

For now, Duehlmeier and Olsen are planning additional fundraisers and seeking donors for immediate needs, such as new workbooks for advancing students. Current donors, like Daynes, are already stretched thin, and new donors are scarce. So for now, the U’s after-school piano program is limited to Franklin, Newman, and East High.

This afternoon at Franklin, however, the focus isn’t on money. It’s on finding “D” on the keyboard, counting beats, and earning stickers that show a new song learned. And then there’s a special performance—Olsen has asked two sixth-grade boys to play a song or two. Last spring, they performed at a Salt Lake Rotary meeting, and then in an assembly in front of their entire school. In December, they performed at the Duehlmeier-Gritton Christmas concert at Libby Gardner Hall. Now they’re back in the classroom, playing just for fun. Rafael plays first, smiling shyly when he’s done. Then Christian plays an energetic boogie that had everyone at the assembly clapping along. He finishes confidently, then flashes a smile that could melt the ivory off the keys.

“Children sometimes do better expressing themselves with music than in other ways,” says Cordova. “It helps them build self-confidence and self-esteem, explore other experiences, and develop a sense of achievement. It’s so powerful.”

—Kelley J.P. Lindberg BS’84, a freelance writer based in Layton, Utah, is a frequent contributor to Continuum.