0 0 0 0 S 8B Wednesday January 19, 2011 The Statement PERSONALSTATEMENT THE REALITY OF POVERTY H CO KARU ER REEVEC A.Y CAROLYN KLARECKI grew up safe and sound in a middle class bubble. I wouldn't say I was privileged - my parents worked very hard and sacrificed a lot to give our family what we had. Still, I didn't have a job until late in high school, and my upbringing didn't prepare me for the culture shock that would ensue from the working experience. In high school, I worked for a Mich- igan State Housing and Development agencythat provides rental assistance for low-income families. Families from all over Michigan would send their applications to our office where we processed them and determined how much of the state's rental subsidy would be sent their way. On paper, the job looked really good. There were no public bathrooms to be mopped or vats of french fries to be cooked; it was just a less than tumultuous desk job. I filed paperwork, sorted the mail and fixed the copy machine in a quiet, air-conditioned building. What made it miserable though, was the constant ringing of phones. This is were I got a harsh dose of the low-income reality. I talked to homeless men and women, who had to collect change just to make the call on pay phones; single moms, who were only a few years older than me with four or five kids; elderly men and women, who were days away from eviction; and crack and meth addicts. Some callers had lost all hope and would unabash- edly sob into the phone while I sat frozen on the other end. Some were angry and didn't know what else to do but yell. I wasn't ready for any of this. I was just a teenage girl with absolute- ly no power, but they thought I could change their living conditions. Before this job, I thought I cared a lot about the world. I volunteered and wrote letters to local politi- cians and newspapers. I was living weeks of retrieving and sorting mail, I was given more responsibilities.When clients wanted to move, I crunched the numbers on their income and welfare and told them what the state would pay for. I argued with land- lords, looked for deductions in clients' paperwork and worked against their monthly rent due date. But the calls kept coming. I couldn't stop the sob- blindly in my own unexposed and bing desperation. I couldn't appease sheltered middle-class world. My the furious rants. volunteer experiences never really The work was long and monoto- delved beyond the superficial sur- nous. Worst of all, it was completely face of community service. I worked devastating - it wasn't worth my at blood drives, cleaned up local minimum wage check. I dreaded going to work each "I was living blindly in my own day. I fantasized about getting fired unexposed and sheltered middle- and kept a mental countdown of how class world.." many weeks were left until fall when I parks and donated school supplies to could return to school. In the begin- underprivileged children, but I never ning, I tried my hardest each day, but had the chance to interact with the as the summer months passed, my people I was trying to help. Working capacity for sympathy dwindled, and at this rental assistance agency was I became numb to the tragic stories. the first time I was ever immersed in I imagine that's how life is for the cold reality of life, and the real- the people striving for rental assis- ity was that my illusion of a perfect tance. Shock is followed by a desire world was shattered. to work hard to overcome the situ- The only thing I could do was work ation and eventually, when noth- as efficiently as possible. After a few ing changes, the numbness sets in. The low-income families go through motions seeking a better life, but the optimism is gone. Similarly, I con- tinued in the same fashion as before, but with no hope of actually making. a difference. It was during this time that a simple "thank you" or "God bless you" would catch me off guard as a powerful reminder that many people hadn't given up yet. As much as I hated my job, I hated myself more for building a numb, pes- simistic wall between myself and the people I was trying to help. Since that job, I have gained so much respect for the altruistic people who join the Peace Corps, volunteer with disaster relief efforts and dive headfirst into the dark gritty world that I know I wouldn't be able to handle. After that summer ended, I retreated back into routine during the school year, trying to forget my trying summer. And yet for some reason, when winter break neared, I picked up the phone, called my boss and asked if she needed any help during the holidays. I returned to that office, sat behind the desk, took a deep breath and answered the phone. - Carolyn Klarecki is an LSA junior and the Magazine Editor of The Michigan Daily. RESEARCH From Page 5B "If we're going to remain an effec- tive university - and of course we will - then we really have to take leadership in this and not just be sort of passive learners about how more advanced universities dothis," Forrest said. "We have to show the way." And while the University may be on the forefront of rethinking the traditional research model, Coleman, Hanlon and Forrest all stressed that m'iking such a move requires endorse- ment from faculty members and that a change would not be pushed from the central administration. Hanlon stressed that it's not the administration's place to dictate research topics. "We obviously can't tell people they have to go work on this problem," he s2id. Coleman also emphasized that she doesn't want the administration to centralize research by trying to man- date what research faculty members should do, though she added cluster- ing research could be beneficial to all University parties. "We never want to be in a position where we are dictating to the faculty," Coleman said, "but this is an opportu- nity that we shouldn't ignore." Hanlon doesn't think the University should ignore the opportunity either. are interested in and how they are "What we can do - what we could thinking about the needs of the gov- hope to do - is significantly increase ernment to really do research in these the resources to the University from areas, then we want to make sure that external people who understand the we're tuned in," she said. "If we can importance of solving these problems bring back those ideas to the campus, and then saying to our faculty and stu- and if there's interest, then when can ents, 'Look, we have funding to sup- lelp. We can be the conveningsupport port your work on this problem, and to help people get together." it's a really important problem and here's why,"' Hanlon explained. THE GREAT LAKES "And if you say that, you'll actually get a lot ofinterest," he added. "I mean, everyone wants to have an impact on the world. And so I'm kind of hopeful that if we can get the external sources Building clusters of research at the to support the work, it's not going to University has already begun. Cur- be that hard to get an interested group rently, there is an effort to encourage of experts." faculty members to focus research on But no matter how successful the sustainability. It's a broad effort on an buy in is, Coleman doesn't think clus- even broader topic,but there are several tering research "will happen for all concrete efforts within the cluster. One disciplines or for all faculty members such initiative is revitalizing the Great - that's not the goal. Lakes. "I can see that happening in certain Researchers at the University like select areas," Coleman said. "but it Allen Burton, director of the Coopera- won't happen in every area." tive institute for Limnology and Eco- However, with the anticipated systems Research and a professor in the financial incentive of being able to School of Natural Resources and the leverage the breadth and depth of the Environment, have already seen federal University's faculty to attract more funding to back this effort. research dollars to the University, it's in addition to numerous other grants something Coleman thinks could help received by researchers at the Univer- the University. sity, Burton was one of seven principal "There may be some real opportu- investigators who received a $835,000 nities out there, and as we hear what federal grant that is helping research- the various agencies in Washington ers to develop better methods of detec- tion for bacteria and algal blooms in the Great Lakes - both of which have numerous harmful effects. The research is just one of many efforts underway to figure out how to revitalize the Great Lakes - a problem that requires several different research fields to tackle effectively. The diversity of researchers' expertise is something Hanlon calls essential. "In (this) example, there were approximately 10 technical problems that, if they could be solved, would really have a big impact in magnifying the effect of all the investment that's being made by the federal government and the state," Hanlon said of the Great Lakes research. "Some of these are biological prob- lems like the biology of Ecoli, some of them are policy problems, some are economic problems," he continued. "They're intertwined problems. They aren't sort of sitting by themselves." But for as far as the work on the Great Lakes has come - with funding already rolling in from the federal government and a private donor interested in the project - Hanlon seems to want more. "Right now, I'm sure we have researchers that arelooking at Ecolijust on their own, but what we haven't tried to do is sort of simultaneously address these problems which are interrelated problems and often problems that can't be solved with a single area of exper- tise," Hanlon said. Coleman agrees, saying she has confidence that the clustered research method can be well utilized in the work being done around sustainability and the Great Lakes. "I think that one of the opportuni- ties that we have at Michigan, because we are so big and we do research in 'so many areas, is that we have the opportunity to tackle some really big problems, and the Great Lakes is a big problem," she said. "I have every confi- dence that (our researchers) can make great strides to solving some of the pollution issues and the threats to the Great Lakes." Forrest agrees with Coleman's assertion. "Obviously a pressing issue in today's world, making the footprint left by humans less noticeable is one issue researchers at the University - in nearly all disciplines - are working toward," Forrest said. However, Forrest counters his sup- port with a caveat that at the end of the day, the faculty will determine what results materialize. "Really good scholars who are able to communicate theirscholarship at all levels, are really the prize of research universities," he said. "By those people learning and doing and teaching simul- taneously, the students get engaged in this and, when they leave, they have not a static concept of the world, buta living concept of the world."