All Entries in the "Insight" Category

Tragedies can’t keep student down for long

By Kalee Vaughn

Change: to transform or convert. Throughout Travis Mohney’s life, change has been a recurring theme.

Mohney, 22, began his life on Aug. 1, 1987 in San Diego, Calif.  He was the first child for his parents.

“My parents may have been married and I may have been a planned child, but that doesn’t mean things were easy,” he said.

Both of Mohney’s parents were substance abusers. They were able to hide it from him during the early years of his life, but he eventually caught on.

His father decided to change his ways, which included filing for divorce and moving out of California.

In 2003, when Mohney was 15, he decided to go live with his father in Mississippi. His father had completely turned his life around and Mohney found that he had a new stepmom and two younger half-brothers.

The change Mohney saw in his father inspired him to invest more in his religious beliefs.  He began attending church regularly and even started playing guitar for the church’s Christian band.

However, life didn’t stay good. On April 7, 2004, Mohney’s father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

“Devastated doesn’t begin to describe how I felt,” he said. “It was completely unexpected. The best memories I have are of my dad just being a dad.”

Five months later, on Sept. 7, Mohney’s father died.

The next year, Mohney experienced another unexpected blow: Hurricane Katrina. He, along with his stepmom and half-brothers, had to stay in the Biloxi Veteran’s Affairs Hospital for five days. He slept in an exam room until his uncle, Ken Jones, flew out from Arizona to get him.

Jones landed in Birmingham, Ala., and drove a rental car to pick up Mohney. On the way to Arizona, Mohney drove along the coast while his uncle, who is a professional photographer, took pictures of the damage.

Before the Coast Guard advised them to take a different route, they stopped at the cemetery where Mohney’s father is buried.

“There were boats stuck in the cemetery from when the water levels went down,” he said.  “That was the last time I saw my dad’s grave.”

Arriving in Arizona promised a fresh start for Mohney. He enrolled in Pima Community College and had his tuition waived because he was a Hurricane Katrina survivor. Things seemed to be looking up once again.

After three semesters at PCC, however, Mohney dropped out. He became friends with people who introduced him to a new way of thinking.

The devastation of his father’s death and of the hurricane had shaken him loose from his Christian beliefs, so he welcomed this new lifestyle. Unfortunately, it involved drug use.

Mohney spent several months holed up in his apartment, experimenting with drugs that his new friends provided.

It finally got so out of control that he thought he might have severely damaged his brain. That night, he knew that he was done with drugs forever and quit cold turkey.

He is now attending PCC again, studying photography. He plans on transferring to Northern Arizona University and hopes to start his own photography business.

“I saw my dad turn his life around,” he said, “and I knew I could do the same.”

Travis Mohney

Photo by Abigail Oberg

War sparks Marine’s personal turnaround

Story and photo by Liza Porter

Bryan Bates enlisted in the Marine Corps right out of high school. He served in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, for a total of 15 months.

A self-professed “wild child,” Bates rides a Harley Davidson to school. Arrested several times as a teenager, he got in trouble in the Marines as well, usually while drinking.

Bates smoked while he talked, his tall, thin body perched on the edge of a cement bench outside the Santa Catalina building on West Campus. He wore Levi’s, a white shirt and black Converse shoes.

The Arizona sky glowed a deep blue. Several times the sound of a helicopter almost drowned out his voice, as if he were still in a war zone. He didn’t flinch.

“Starting school has calmed me down. Made me see that the time to raise hell is over.” He smiled. “And, you know, get on with my future.”

Near the end of his enlistment, Bates was transferred to another unit and got in trouble again. His commanding officer intervened and Bates got an honorable discharge.

“He’s the reason why I’m going to school right now,” Bates said. “He told me ‘you’re getting this, I want you to do something with your life. Don’t join the Border Patrol … don’t be a cop.’

“He’s, like, ‘go to college.’” Bates added. “He told me that and so I kind of took his advice. I owe it to him, you know.”

He also attributed his personal turnaround to his experiences during the two wars.

“To really function in that environment, you have to have a good level of compassion and a good level of violence,” Bates said. “You’ve got to be balanced.”

In Iraq in 2006, his unit helped turn the city of Haditha around after 24 civilians were killed by Marines in 2005 in one of the most controversial actions of the war.

“You can’t really tell what kind of person you are until you’ve seen the best and the worst,” Bates said. “And I’ve been able to tell that, you know, I’m not a bad person, and so that helps me care for people better.”

Bates wants to go back to the Middle East, this time as a photojournalist.

One thing that bothered Bates during the war was that Marines had to watch their backs when journalists were around.

“I think sometimes a reporter doesn’t truly understand what’s going on,” Bates said. “They can mix up the facts. And I think having the perspective, from somebody that’s been there and done that already, I can tell the story with more truth.”

A PCC photojournalism class gave Bates the “bug” to be a journalist.

“The teacher had been preaching to us to ‘always carry your camera on you’ and I was about to leave the house without the camera.” He decided to bring it with him.

As Bates drove down the road that day, he saw a boy standing outside of a motorcycle shop with a sign that said, “Lemons Sold Here.”

“I pulled over and I went and talked to the kid a bit and I snapped a picture of him.”

The boy’s bike had blown up after just a few hundred miles on the odometer, and the shop wasn’t going to fix it.

“What stood out for me is, when I took the picture, my hands were shaking,” Bates said. He felt the adrenalin rush that comes while doing something you know is right for you. It reminded him of his time in the Middle East.

“I miss being over there,” Bates said. “I don’t miss the bad things, I miss the good things. The sense that I was doing something important … was addicting.

“In war, there’s a lot of gray areas,” he added. “It’s made me a better person, it’s made me a more compassionate person, being in war.”

Bryan Bates relaxes with a smoke during a break between classes.

Bus rides more than just a journey

Story and photo by Gabi Piña

During a recent bus ride, I noticed a man looking at me. I smiled at him as I do with every stranger but he brushed me off. After my failed attempt at being friendly, my cell phone started to ring.

I usually try not to answer phone calls while I’m on the bus because others might find my conversations rather rude, but I saw that it was my mom calling. She would freak out if I pressed ‘ignore.’

Being from Nogales, I’m known to switch rapidly from English to Spanish to a mixture of both. The bus was semi-empty, so I figured a five-minute phone call with my mother wouldn’t bother anyone.

After my mother and I traded our goodbyes, the man turned to me and said, “Fucking wetback, go back to Mexico.”

I casually glanced around the bus to see if there was anyone else he could be talking to. Because there was no sign of another Hispanic person on board, I quickly realized he had picked me as his target. I told him that I wasn’t from Mexico and smiled once more.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he kept mumbling something. I didn’t want to risk being told off again, so I paused my music instead of removing my headphones.

Turns out, he was arguing with an older man who defended me. The older man told him there was no need to talk to a young lady in that manner and tried to get an apology.

Both men traded their fair share of “f-word this” and “f-word that.” Once the bus driver evicted the younger man, he followed the bus on foot, threatening to kill us.

That incident was the highlight of a recent weekend I dedicated to Tucson’s transportation services. I mostly rode buses I knew would be extremely packed and chose routes I knew attracted the weirdest people.

I was starting to lose faith because I hadn’t encountered anything other than homeless people with horrid body odors asking me for money.

Finally, since I had just gotten paid, I decided to go to the mall and give my adventure hunt one last shot.

In past bus rides, I’ve been punched by a drunken homeless man and have been told scandalous sex stories by crazy women but never had my life threatened.

Most people would never ride the bus again after an event like that, but where is the fun in that? If I stopped riding buses, I’d miss out on future adventures. I still consider public transportation safe and reliable most of the time.

I encourage everyone to ride the bus at least once. It’s a great experience to get a feel for the world around us. It’s also an excellent way to come in contact with all different types of people.

Even if some end up wanting to kill you.

Use more tech, not less

By Liza Porter

My 1950s generation was sold the same bill of goods as today’s kids—buy, buy buy. That will never change, since consumerism rules the world.

But now, the technology’s different. So different that many in my generation (and most of my parents’ generation) don’t know how to use it.

We’re moving from a print culture (thinking sequentially, “one block on top of another”) to a digital culture (thinking holistically, integrating more information at once, partnering, collaborating). It’s hard for us old folks to keep up. Our nervous systems haven’t adjusted.

Once a majority of the population began using the Internet, it changed the way people learn, the way the media and advertisers access us, and the way our children see the world.

But their brains can still think.

Many young people in my classes are interested and fully engaged. They’re not on Facebook and Twitter all day. They are involved in the world around them. Some even read newspapers.

Case in point: When the Tiger Woods story became “big news,” there were many exclamations of agreement in the Aztec Press class when one classmate said disgustedly: “That’s not news!”

I almost started clapping.

When there was talk of doing away with the paper version of the Aztec Press, my fellow staffers engaged in the discussion. These kids definitely know how to think logically, how to write coherent sentences and how to get their ideas across in creative ways.

It is also true that in another of my classes, there are only two people who actually discuss things with the instructor on a regular basis as he lectures—myself and one other student. We are both over 40.

There are one or two more traditional students (ages 18-20) in that class who will offer an opinion now and then. This has been true of many of my lecture-type classes since I came back to college in 2008. A few students get involved but most just sit, listening passively.

I tried to think of reasons why the kids won’t get involved in discussions. Are they afraid to be wrong? I remember feeling that way in high school and especially in my first attempts at college 30 years ago.

Is it because they’re ignorant? Did they learn nothing during their first 12 years of school? Are they in college only because their parents make them go?

Maybe they’re too busy texting friends or checking Facebook, hands on their phones under the table where the instructor can’t see them.

I had to ask one young man to stop texting because it distracted me from the lecture. He appeared quite chastened when I politely talked with him about it, maybe because I’m old enough to be his mother. I felt like applauding again!

The bottom line is probably that kids are bored by school because we are doing things the old way—with “pencils and books and teacher’s dirty looks,” to paraphrase an old nursery rhyme and Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” song of long ago.

Isn’t that exactly what our parents did? They insisted on doing it the old way, all the while complaining in a whiny voice: “I just don’t understand what is happening to our youth.”

If young people are so keen on using “new” media, then we must use new media to educate them. If books hold no interest (and are ultimately too expensive, as we all know), we need to find new ways of piquing their interest.

We need to teach with multi-media in every classroom.

Duke University gave 1,600 incoming freshmen iPods with coursework and other media on them. The first thing students did was download music, of course. But they also used the iPods to record lectures and download podcasts, and as portable hard drives to move research and other material from computer to computer for use in studying.

I’m not saying all colleges should buy all students iPods or transform themselves into one huge computer lab. I’m also not saying we should do away with books. God forbid that!

iTunes U is another solution. It has free audio and video—lectures, documentaries, radio interviews—from educational and other institutions around the world. College instructors can post and/or assign audio-visual material from iTunes U to their classes.

We’re the ones who invented a lot of the new media that distracts kids from learning. If we want to educate our young, the whole educational system needs to be converted.

We must teach in a method that draws young people’s attention and gets them interested in the world around them. Coherent thinking will follow.

Put another way: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

And this from someone who can’t imagine having text messaging on her phone and wouldn’t dream of Twittering!

Photo illustration by Gabi Pina

Porter is an Aztec Press senior reporter and copy editor.

We all need to escape cultural ‘bubbles’

By Jerry H. Gill

To borrow and paraphrase a line from the Beatles, “we all live in a cultural bubble.”

This is quite natural and even necessary. We are born into a particular family and place at a specific time. As we begin to grow into full human persons, we are shaped by the factors making up our individual “bubble,” such as our family, close relatives, friends and teachers.

These factors serve as the loom on which our early life patterns are woven. They provide the context that gives our lives structure and also confine us. Thus it is important that we all learn how to continually move “beyond the bubble” in which we find ourselves.

As we grow toward maturity, we participate in a variety of sub-cultures and larger processes that shape, define and confine us.

Sixty years ago my generation, like all previous generations, grew up waiting for the day we could move into the adult world. Young people essentially had no world of their own. We danced to the same music as adults and looked forward to someday getting married, raising a family and finding work in an established job market. Some of us even followed the socio-political developments taking place across the country, as well as around the world. Nonetheless, we were living in a sub-culture created and maintained by adults.

Most of that changed with the coming of the 1960s, when young people began to have their own music, fashions and lifestyles. Today, young people are preparing for jobs that did not even exist a few years ago, let alone for previous generations.

Obviously, many young people find these changes liberating and challenging. However, they often do not realize they are still living and operating within the confines of a sub-culture created and manipulated by others.

Previous generations lived in anticipation of participating in the adult world. The current generation for the most part is oblivious to the fact that they live in a sub-culture created by other people who seek to manipulate young people for their own profit.

Three of the major factors comprising the sub-culture bubble that most young people live in are: (1) the pop culture of rock music and its stars, fantasy movies and novels, and the electronic world of cell phones, videos and the Internet, (2) the world of fashion, including clothes, body decorations and cars, and (3) the perpetual search for romance and sexual experience.

Within the last decade or so, young people have become virtually addicted to the world created by these influences. They have essentially shut out the larger world beyond the confines of their own immediate interests, including such things as world politics, economics, foreign cultures, the natural world and even spirituality.

As a teacher watching and interacting with today’s college students, I am astounded, both by the degree to which they are continuously tied to their cell phones or iPods and by the almost complete lack of any reference to the world outside of their immediate cultural bubble.

They seem unable to live without their phone messaging. When they do talk with each other, for the most part they are limited to the details of their personal lives or those of the current “American idols.”

They do not realize they are caught in a narcissistic bubble that is largely tangential to what really matters in the rest of the world. Even our classroom work often seems irrelevant to and disconnected from the lives of many, if not most, students.

What young people need to know in order to break out of this “youth culture” trap, in order to grow beyond the bubble that confines them to an extremely limiting quality of life, is that this essentially fantasy world is created and maintained by people who are driven by selfish profit motive.

They have been told that they are “unique,” “special” and “free” individuals by those who wish to sell them an unending supply of “cool” clothes, discs and foods, even as they are being fed and sold an ongoing stream of commodities that are essentially the same.

It becomes imperative for them to purchase the latest multi-tasking phone, line of “distinctive” clothes and hottest DVDs or videos, while their suppliers rake in the profits.

In “The Wall,” Pink Floyd gave us the line, “We don’t need no education, we don’t want no mind control.” If young people today want to avoid the sort of mind control their current cultural bubble imprisons them in, they had better get an education, and a good one at that.

This, of course, goes for those of us in the so-called “adult world” as well, since our lives too are also largely controlled by the designs of those running commercial enterprises at the highest levels, including the mass media and the professional lobbyists.

We all need continually to force ourselves beyond the imprisonment of our particular cultural bubbles and try to see the broader reality all around us.

One of the most difficult aspects of teaching young people today is trying to get them to think and speak sequentially. From “Sesame Street” on, young people have been presented with snips of images and sounds that are for the most disconnected from one another. Even the previews for films are so disjointed that one has little idea what the movie is actually about.

Many of my students are unable to write a coherent paragraph dealing with a single topic, let alone a three-page essay developing it. They often do not know how to ask about the presuppositions and implications of a given idea, or how to analyze its meaning.

Years ago, in a “Peanuts” cartoon, Linus comes home from kindergarden and exclaims that he had a grand day at school because they learned to place one block on top of another. He says: “I never would have thought to put one block on top of the other.”

I often share this with my students in order to explain what is meant by “sequential thinking.” One learns to place one block, or idea, on top of, or after, another so that the building process makes sense and holds together.

By learning how to actually think, we can all grow beyond our particular cultural bubbles.

Moreover, it should be clear that this sort of thinking involves both listening to and reflecting on the thoughts of those around us, no matter their age, gender or culture. Ultimately, we think best when we think together.

Jerry Gill is a Pima Community College adjunct instructor of humanities, philosophy and religion.

Depression: Don’t listen to ‘Fat Voice’

Illustration by Isabel Cardenas

Editor’s note: This is the final story in a four-part series portraying one woman’s personal experience of depression, with a bit of advice thrown in.

By Liza Porter

The Fat Voice is back. I hadn’t heard it in years, until the other day when I heard it say: “Don’t eat that. You’re too fat.”

That voice is part of my depression.

I’ll bet I’ve gained and lost several hundred pounds during my life. And that’s probably a low estimate.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve used food to help me deal with my depression. Binging on sweets made me feel better, for a while.

Dieting and starving, especially over a period of days or weeks or months, also felt good. There’s a high that comes with denying yourself sustenance. Just ask the yogis in India.

So, food has been a mood changer for me.

Even now, pushing 54, I’m known to “use” sugar and caffeine to get me through bad days.

When I was younger, I obsessed on my body and everything that went into my mouth.

I’d start on a diet, usually on a Monday, and stick with it for a week or so, if that long. I’d lose maybe five pounds and then “cheat” on my diet because I was always so—grrrr—hungry. Pretty soon, I’d start binging again.

Craving food and denying myself became an addiction.

Sometimes I’d binge and vomit every night when I got home from work or school. That became its own sort of addiction.

I even used to exercise compulsively. For a while in my early 20s, I swam so hard every day that standing up from a sitting position was painful.

When I deprived myself of food or exercised too much, I thought the world was a better place. I was on top of everything. I’d set a goal. I was following through, my stomach felt flatter, my insides were hollowed out. I could feel the weight stripping off my “fat” body.

The problem was, I wasn’t even fat! During most of the time I spent on diets, on the compulsive binging and vomiting, I didn’t even need to lose weight. My view of myself in the mirror was warped. The bathroom scale ran my life.

The National Institute of Mental Health’s guide for eating disorders says one in five women struggle with an eating disorder or disordered eating.

That’s 20 percent of women who are right now obsessing about food, about their body weight, about their looks.

With me, it was a full-time addiction. If I multiply all the years I spent dieting and binging—well, I don’t want to! It’s too much of a waste to think about.

We are supposed to eat to fuel our bodies so we can do what we need to do in the world. Eating is supposed be a pleasure, not some shameful, secret activity.

We are not meant to worry about every little thing that goes into our mouths. Or go exercise for two hours because we ate a donut.

And yet 70 million people worldwide have eating disorders. Thirty-five percent of “normal dieters” (whatever that is) progress to pathological dieting.

The American Journal of Psychiatry reported that a young woman with anorexia is 12 times more likely to die than other women her age without the disease.

Time Magazine stated that 80 percent of all children have been on a diet by the time they have reached the fourth grade.

These are some horrible statistics. That last one makes me want to scream! Children ages 8 and 9 dieting!

Anorexia is a killer disease. I am lucky to be alive.

And none of this obsessing over food and body ever helped my depression. Feeling better lasted for a few hours, if that.

I hereby refuse to listen to the Fat Voice. I’m disgusted with it. Sure, all the compulsion and obsession probably got me through some tough times I might otherwise have used for something worse (like drugs or dangerous decisions) to get through.

And maybe I’ll forgive the part of me that wasted all that time, some day. Be a little gentler with that young girl inside me.

But today I’m pissed about it.

This is what I say to counteract the Fat Voice: I’m OK the way I am. A little overweight. Trying to eat healthily. Exercising regularly, sometimes. Trying to accept myself the way I am.

If you have problems with food, please ask for help. Anorexia is a serious illness. And your eating disorder might be masking chronic depression.

You are not alone.

See below for some places that can help with eating disorders:

• SAMHC Behavioral Health Services, 622-6000, 2502 N. Dodge Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85716-2675, www.samhc.com.
• Overeaters Anonymous, www.oa.org.
• Mirasol Eating Disorder Treatment Center for Women, (888)520-1700, www.mirasol.net.

Sexual assault contributes to depression
Depression: Don’t listen to ‘the Big D’
Depression: Talking back to ‘the Big D’

Going back: moving forward 1: Single parent makes college a priority

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo by Jessica Canchola

Jennifer Stockdale has had a difficult life, but is determined to earn an associate degree and go on to the University of Arizona to study political science. After that, she plans to attend law school.

The single parent is in her last semester at Pima Community College. Born and raised in Tucson, Stockdale earned her GED soon after dropping out of high school. She tried college then, but was working full time and couldn’t handle it.

In the midst of an abusive relationship, Stockdale woke up one day and saw what a bad place she was in. “I realized I didn’t deserve it,” she says. Starting over was a long process. She began believing in herself and enrolled in college.

Despite her difficulties, she maintains a positive attitude. Her laughter is contagious.

Stockdale, 34, has red hair and freckles. On interview day, she wore a green T-shirt that accents her eyes, and tan knee-length shorts. Like many women in the desert heat, she pulled her hair back into a scrunched-up ponytail.

Working part time, going to school and raising two daughters ages 6 and 14 is difficult. In fact, “it sucks,” she says, laughing.

Then Stockdale changes her mind. “It doesn’t suck,” she continues. She appreciates the opportunity to go to college and do something more with her life. She works very hard at her classes.

Money is tight but Stockdale and her daughters live with her mother. “She’s not charging me rent, which is a huge help,” Stockdale says.

Her mother raised Stockdale and her siblings alone. “She really did it on her own, so she understands.”

Stockdale is the only one of her siblings to go to college. Her mother was the first one in her family to get a degree, as well.

One reason Stockdale went back to school is because she read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand when her oldest daughter was a baby. The book affected her deeply, partly because the characters were older.

Stockdale realized, “I’m still young! I still have time to live.” She promised herself that when her daughters were in school, she’d go back to college.

A job provided another reason. While employed as a nanny, the couple she worked for told her: “We’re not renewing your contract. We love you and the kids love you, but what are you doing here?”

She laughs as she tells the story. “They said ‘Go back to school! You’re fired!’” She laughs again. She sees the couple as role models. They are several years older than Stockdale, and have become very successful.

Besides working as a nanny, Stockdale has a Montessori teaching certificate. She’s also worked in restaurants and retail stores, and she’s been a delivery driver. Sometimes she held two or three jobs at a time to support her children.

Now she works Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at Target, in addition to attending PCC full time.

Stockdale’s weekdays go something like this: Get up at 6 a.m., wake her daughters, make sure they have breakfast, get them to school. She uses the time before and between classes to do her homework, and schedules her classes so she can be with the girls in the afternoons.

“They’re very independent,” she says. She wants her daughters to be successful, and often tells them: “Get the scholarships, work hard now.”

Besides traditional classes, Stockdale has taken one online class in biology. She liked the class and recommends online instruction but says she “failed miserably at self-paced.” Laughing, she admit: “Can’t do it.”

Her favorite subject is political science, “though Plato was kind of crazy.”

Instructors at Pima have been very tolerant about her role as a single parent, she says. During a family emergency last spring, her instructors were understanding.

“But, you have to be a good student,” she says. In her experience, instructors aren’t as flexible with people who don’t take school seriously.

When asked what type of law she’d like to practice once she obtains a legal degree, Stockdale says, “not criminal,” and laughs. She might specialize in family law, estate planning or tax law. She wants to help people navigate the legal system, noting “that is really hard.”

She’s tolerant of other’s viewpoints and doesn’t have rigid stances on issues, so doesn’t think she’d be a good litigator or criminal attorney. “I don’t know,” Stockdale says. “We’ll just have to see.”

Stockdale notes there are more women in law school than ever before. “And older people,” she says. “They want me. I’m old.” She laughs.

By the numbers:
(Source: Pima Web site)
• Average age: 27
• 56% women; 44% men
• 71% part-time; 29% full-time
• 42% ethnic minorities

Originally published September 17, 2009

2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Going back: moving forward 2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo by Jessica Canchola

When Christina Lee worked in an orphanage in Indonesia for six weeks during the summer of 2008, it changed her life. It is one of the reasons she decided to go back to college.

The 28-year old is tall and thin, with long brown hair and piercing brown eyes. She pauses as she thinks about what to say next, and laughs easily as she relates her experiences.

Like the orphans in Djakarta, Lee knows about starting over.

“I’ve been in a lot of really bad, abusive relationships,” she says.

She did not believe in herself. If you’d told her a few years ago she’d be attending Pima Community College any time soon, she might have called you crazy.

“I didn’t see any purpose for the academic side of high school,” Lee says. “I think it’s just because of the way I grew up, without any structure.” She had a hard time focusing in school, with all the chaos in her home.

When Lee dropped out of high school she went to work. She has worked many different jobs: camp counselor, house framer and painter, bartender, waitress and pastry chef, among others.

When she was 18, Lee passed the GED. “It was pretty easy,” she says, laughing.

Lee believes a higher power was watching out for her during her troubles earlier in life.

“Some people are taught what they’re supposed to do,” she says in a reflective voice. “Some people have to learn everything on their own.”

It’s almost unexplainable, Lee says. “When things got really bad and scary, something would happen to get me out of the situation.”

One relationship made her fear for her life.

“You’re so blind when you’re doing this stuff… you have to be slapped in the face” to realize you should be doing something different. “Sometimes several times.” She laughs again. Her sense of humor is part of what keeps her going. She feels lucky to be where she is today.

Working in the orphanage in Jakarta opened her heart to a different world. She’d worked with children before, but “never with kids that had been through the things these children had been through.”

The children in Jakarta were so afraid they had to sleep with their eyes open. “Some of the kids are beaten so badly, they can’t talk,” Lee says.

She realized her problems paled in comparison. “It’s one thing to hear about stuff like that, it’s another to see the effects, you know, of the horrible things that happened to the kids.”

Lee thinks people in the United States don’t know how good they have it. “You can do anything you want here and get help. There are resources for almost everything. It’s not perfect, but there’s no perfect place, anywhere.”

When Lee got back from Jakarta, her roommate kept telling her to go back to school.

“I had somebody who made me believe that I could do it,” she says. “And once I started thinking like that, that’s when I took the first class. It’s like you can’t go backwards.”

Lee tried an eight-week online psychology class. Her mind was “just a huge bubble of confusion and emotion,” she says. Studying psychology helped narrow things down, made her think about “why this might happen, why that might happen.” And she got a good grade in the class.

Her first on-campus classes at PCC were perfect. She wasn’t anxious, which surprised her. This time she was going to school for herself, and that’s all she cared about.

Political science opened her mind to a wider world. Her favorite part was “the study group. It was fun, it’s more fun to have somebody to talk to about what we’re supposed to be learning.”

In her financial accounting class, she learned the ways a business has to be organized in order to be successful. Though the class didn’t cover non-profit corporations, Lee would like to start one someday.

“Something to do with the homeless,” she says. “Giving someone a chance to kind of clean up and find a job, the people who are serious about it.”

But Lee is not yet sure what major she wants to pursue. As she goes through school, it changes. She’s only taken a few classes so far and feels it’s narrowing her path “to do what I need to do. Or want to be,” she says thoughtfully. “I kind of think everything’s going to fall into place.”

Finishing her first full semester with good grades made her realize, “I can do anything!”

Originally published October 1, 2009

1: Single parent makes college a priority
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Going back: moving forward 3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo courtesy of Barney Hilton Murray

Barney Hilton Murray is a man of many talents. He is a photographer, videographer and writer, and a self-described, self-taught “techie.” He is also a furniture maker. Most importantly to him, he is a family man.

Murray has an open, inquisitive face that reflects his curious mind and his compassion for others.
He’s a dignified middle-aged man who looks like he works in the Silicon Valley, which in fact he did at one time.

He enrolled in classes at Pima Community College last spring after working for IBM in California as a Web administrator and designer for more than 20 years. He also has been a software engineering and test engineering consultant.

When the economy tanked, he was laid off from two jobs in 18 months.

What’s the main reason he went back to school? “I took a look at what my career has been and how things have changed,” he says.

Murray has become quite accomplished at photography and graphic arts, but has no proof of it. There are certain educational requirements he needs to become employed again.

“It was obvious that I’d have to reengineer myself for the future,” Murray says. “The bottom line is if I have to work for somebody else, there are certain minimum credentials that I feel I would have to have.”

He took journalism and digital art classes because he wants to become “a photographer that writes.”

“I’m in a constant learning mode,” Murray says. A lot of his education takes place in the leisure of his living room, through reading dozens of magazines—on photography, video and business.

Besides traditional classes, Murray has also taken on-line computer software classes through the University of Arizona. He likes both.

When asked if he felt out of place at PCC as a nontraditional student, Murray laughs and says, “I always have found myself for one reason or another in the minority group, going through college.”

There weren’t many blacks in technical programs when Murray first went to college 30 years ago. Now he’s often the oldest person in the class.

“I don’t think it’s a problem for me,” he says. He enjoys the younger students and “the fact that they are so willing to openly challenge the norm.”

He likes the dialogue that happens in class, depending on how students present their opinions and whether they show respect for others.

“Some of them can’t articulate themselves in a diplomatic manner, let me put it that way,” he says with a chuckle.

Murray’s greatest influence is the silent power of his father.

“He was one of those men that showed you priorities but never told you,” he says.

Through this silent presence, his father taught Murray and his siblings that family comes first. Murray has two daughters and four grandchildren.

The last several years have been hard on Murray and his family. In addition to the job layoffs, his wife was treated for a rare form of cancer.

“Through the grace of God, I kept my sanity,” Murray says. “We were able to stay afloat.” His wife is now cancer free.

He thinks he will move away from a job in corporate America. “I’d like to be able to take everything I’ve learned, from the journalism to my photography skills, graphics, whatever I’m learning, to better the lives of people,” he says.

Murray currently writes articles for a San Diego magazine called Chocolate Voice, Good News Tucson and examiner.com.

When asked what he does in his “spare” time, Murray says, “I’m so right now in a transformation space, I don’t feel like I’m entitled to … reward myself yet.”

He emphasizes the word yet.

Originally published October 15, 2009
1: Single parent makes college a priority
2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Going back: moving forward 4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo courtesy of Amirault family

Claire Amirault is about as busy as one woman can be. She is in the Air Force, stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. She is married with two children and is going back to college. Her sense of humor helps keep her sane during the pressures of her life.

“My husband, he describes me as controlled chaos,” Amirault says, laughing. She usually doesn’t show a lot of emotion. But when it hits, “it’s just whew, he knows my head, it’s completely chaotic, but it’s controlled chaos.”

Amirault is 28 years old and has long blonde hair. She exudes a certain self-acceptance. She has traveled the world. She and her husband were both stationed in Japan when they met. They got married there and had their children there.

“I lived in northern Japan,” Amirault says, “so it wasn’t like Tokyo, where everybody is rude.”

She lived in a farming area and Japanese people would approach them because they wanted to learn English. “It was really nice.”

Amirault took her first Pima class this past summer—an online writing class. It had been 10 years since she had taken anything except military courses.

She’s used to working hard, but at first was unsure about the class. As she watched her progress in the points column of the Web site, she thought: “Maybe I’m not doing as bad as I think I am.”

To earn her associate degree, Amirault plans to take all of her classes online. “It’s because I have a crazy work schedule. It’s easier to do it online.” She had to switch from days to nights recently, and her position doesn’t allow her to take time off to go to classes.

At Davis-Monthan, Amirault works in a command post. This translates in civilian terms to a 9-11 operation. Her 12-hour shifts are stressful and she does not see her children as often as she likes.

Amirault’s husband deployed to Afghanistan in August, and will be there at least six months. “It’s good money when one of us goes but it’s better if he goes, because I don’t want to leave my kids,” she said. Her father-in-law has moved in to help take care of the children while her husband is gone.

She defines herself as mother and wife. “Being a mother is the first thing in my life that felt like it fit. That I was good at.”

Amirault has thought about leaving the Air Force to be with her children, but will probably stay in for nine more years to reach retirement. Getting a degree will help her have something lined up so she can leave the military if she wants to.

She tried going to community college when she was 18. “I just wasn’t responsible enough to go to the classes,” she says, laughing. Like many young people, she joined the military “to grow up.”

Amirault and her husband would like to eventually move to Maine. They want to buy five acres and build their dream house. “There’s also talk about owning a restaurant/bar,” she says, “but the goal is to get ourselves to Maine and build a house.”

About school, she says “I don’t know what I want to do. This year, I want to be a social worker, but who knows? Last year I wanted to be a lawyer.” She laughs.

The difference between going to college when she was 18 and now is that she’s willing to do the work. “I understand that it only benefits me,” she says. “I didn’t understand that before.”

She’s more willing to learn, Amirault says, because “when I was 18, I knew everything, and now I know that I don’t.” She laughs one more time.

Originally published October 29, 2009

1: Single parent makes college a priority
2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Going back: moving forward 5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo by Jessica Canchola

“We teach what we most need to learn” is a well-worn New Age cliché. But clichés become clichés because they’re true, right?

Sally Curd knows that learning never stops. Teaching and learning have walked hand-in-hand during her life.

Curd taught high school English in Tucson for more than two decades. About 20 years ago, she began taking Pima Community College classes for her personal satisfaction.

She started with non-credit classes.

“I love their community classes,” Curd says. “I started taking those, there were some little short things on writing.”

Curd has studied humanities, creative writing and history at PCC. The history class at Downtown Campus was “a dynamite class. It covered both World War I and World War II,” she says.

“The sciences I haven’t tried,” Curd adds. “I definitely want to do that. I want to take a plant sciences class.”

Curd also attends PCC weekend writing workshops and the Pima Writers Conference that takes place at West Campus each May.

She attended a poetry weekend workshop at PCC several weeks ago conducted by Steve Kowit, a California poet and teacher.

“It was very substantive,” she said. “We did a lot of writing, we did critiques of each other’s pieces.”

This semester she is enrolled in a literature class.

“I really think that at Pima the non-traditional students are as much the rule as the exception,” Curd says. “Most of the classes, there have been a very good number of … shall we say, students over 30?” She laughs.

“The lit class I’m taking right now would be a very definite exception. I am definitely the oldest one in there. There are two other people who are mature adults, but not near as old as I am.”

In the literature class, the career teacher interacts with kids close to the ages of her former students.

“They probably think I’m a blabbermouth,” she says. “I’d like to get more from their point of view about things. Quite often, especially with literature, I think the age that you’re coming from really has a lot to do with your interpretation, your perception. I’m very interested in what the younger ones think.”

Curd has thought about taking on-line classes, but enjoys being in a classroom. “I like the interactions. That’s one of my reasons for taking classes.”

She bases her class choices on interest and when the class meets. She’d rather attend classes during the day.

However, she’s heard good things about a nonfiction writing class that meets once a week in the evening for almost three hours. She might enroll next spring.

“It’s so long,” Curd says. “You’ve really got to be motivated. On the other hand, it forces me to write.”

Curd says she loves having Pima so accessible, and appreciates having access to the PCC library.

“It’s been my experience that the quality of teaching at Pima is outstanding and I’ve heard from some people that it’s even better than the U of A,” she said.

Though she already has a master’s degree in education, Curd says if she could afford it, she would go to UA for a master’s in rhetoric.

“A study of the way language is used,” she says. “Word choice, sentence length, introductions, endings… formal or casual.”

That sounds suspiciously similar to high school English class.

1: Single parent makes college a priority
2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Going back: moving forward 6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo by Daniel Gaona

Lynda Gibson’s wanderlust keeps her trying new things. It all comes down to books and learning.

And writing, history, art, scholarship, travel.

Gibson is a renaissance woman.

Raised in a military family, Gibson lived in Europe and all over the United States, including Hawaii.

As an adult, she’s lived in New Mexico, Texas and California. She eventually settled in Arizona, where she graduated from high school. She has been to England, and on cruises to both Alaska and Greece.

“I love history,” Gibson says. She got to see some of the Greek islands and ancient ruins. “Going to Knossos on Crete was just wonderful.”

Gibson retired in 2003 from Tucson Unified School District, where she taught high school English and was an elementary school librarian. She then taught part-time at Pima for several years. She’s been taking classes at Pima for many years.

This semester she’s enrolled in an art history class at Downtown Campus.

“I love the class,” Gibson says. “And sitting next to me in class is a girl who remembered me as her librarian when she was in elementary school.” Gibson gets a kick out of that.

“I frequently run into former students. It’s nice because now they all like me,” she jokes.

She likes to think she instilled a love of learning in some of her students.

“I’ve also taken a curating class, working out of the Bernal Gallery,” she says. The Bernal is Pima’s art gallery in the Center for the Arts complex on West Campus.

“I’ve taken digital photography. I took the beginning design class, Art 100 or whatever it is. I learned so much in that. I like experimenting with origami, paper folding,” she adds. “And fiber art. Mixed media, that sort of thing.”

It makes sense that someone with Gibson’s education would have such eclectic interests. She earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Arizona State University, and her master’s in library science at University of Arizona.

She has also done graduate work in several fields, including folklore. She has an education specialist degree in educational administration.

Gibson has taken many of the writing classes offered at Pima, including short story, poetry and creative nonfiction. She has written a novel.

“It’s one of the most deserving of staying in the bottom drawer novels that you’re ever going to see.” Gibson laughs.

She’s writing short stories now, and calls it great discipline since a good short story must be concise.

What has she not done that she still would like to do?

“I want to become the Great American Writer and I haven’t done that yet. I’d like to run a marathon.” She laughs again. Becoming an award-winning French chef is also on the list.

“One thing I am going to do is get back to my violin. I still have it. I just haven’t played in years. I realized that I miss it.”

Gibson belongs to a book club that reads mostly novels. It saddens her that most of the independent book stores in Tucson have closed—the Bookmark, the Haunted Bookshop. “I loved the Bookmark.”

She doesn’t think she’ll jump onto the electronic Kindle bandwagon—she likes to hold an actual book in her hands—and she doesn’t think books will go away any time soon.

She still frequents Antigone Books and the Bookstop on Fourth Avenue, as well as the two big chain stores, Barnes & Noble and Borders.

“They’re full of people,” Gibson says. “That’s a good sign.”

She doesn’t approve of people pirating books from the Internet. She argued with a friend once, who thought it was perfectly OK.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Gibson says, sarcastically, “but authors need to make money, that’s why they sell these things.”

She does download books from the Gutenberg Project Web site (www.gutenberg.org), a cooperative project that scans books with expired copyrights onto the Web.

“They add them constantly,” Gibson says. The only problem she’s found is that if the book is a translation, you can’t be sure which one you’re getting.

Some translations are hard to read because English has changed so much over the centuries. The newer translations won’t be on Gutenberg yet because they’re still copyrighted.

Gibson’s favorite writer is Terry Pratchett, a British author of the “Discworld” science fiction series.

“This is fantasy, where magic works,” Gibson says. “This disk sits on top of, is held up by, four enormous elephants who stand on the shell of a turtle. A great turtle that swims through space.”

The series is comedy satire, Gibson says. “It’s almost all satire. And he is a very funny writer.”

Plus, it feeds her wanderlust.

What better place to travel than in space?

Originally published December 1, 2009

1: Single parent makes college a priority
2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Going back: moving forward 7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the regional Society of Professional Journalists 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three at the national level, making it a national finalist.

Story and photo by Liza Porter

Breyman Schmelzle was a sportswriter for the Tucson Citizen for 22 years until the newspaper went out of business earlier this year.

He hadn’t made any preparation for a second career. But near the end of his Citizen days, another reporter stopped by Schmelzle’s desk and said, “You ought to teach, you’d be really good at it!”

It clicked.

At 63, Schmelzle decided to become a high school teacher. He’s taking classes at Pima Community College, and working to become recertified by taking Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessments.

He taught language arts in Illinois his first year out of college, but was more interested in becoming a sportswriter. He wrote for a couple of papers in the Midwest before coming to Tucson.

Schmelzle’s journalism career was long and fruitful. He started at the Citizen as a copy editor and went on to cover just about everything in the sports world: basketball, football, softball, tennis, wrestling and gymnastics. His favorite assignment was covering Olympic athletes at the University of Arizona.

“It was very rewarding, being able to associate with that type,” he says. “You learn from people.”

After Gannett, the newspaper chain that owned the Citizen, announced it planned to sell the newspaper, staffers waited months to learn their fate. “Morale was horrible. It was a tragedy,” Schmelzle says.

“Newspapers are just so much fun to work at. And of course we were convinced we were much better than the morning paper,” he adds, laughing. “Nobody wants to read an afternoon paper because by the time they get it, it’s not news anymore.”

Journalism is definitely taking a turn, Schmelzle says. But he doesn’t think journalism itself will fail.

“Maybe newspapers,” he says. “The paper part, I think, may be like a black and white TV some day.”

Schmelzle is grateful that Pima is here. Deciding to take classes at Pima was part of the process of deciding to become a teacher. “Without Pima, this thing wouldn’t be going, I don’t think.”

He started last summer with Tom Speer’s modern literature class. “It was great. I had never, ever been so into school.”

Schmelzle quit high school in the spring of his senior year because he knew he wouldn’t graduate. But he went back the next fall and completed his graduation requirements, then went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame.

The way Speer conducted the literature course was just fabulous, Schmelzle says.

“I just felt that energy.” It transformed him. “Wow! This is it!” he thought.

Schmelzle had never considered himself an academic, but he got so involved in the class he became completely convinced that he wanted to teach.

“And things have just happened, one thing after another,” Schmelzle says.

This semester he’s enrolled in a humanities course and an American authors course. “I’ve always been a reader and always interested in characterization,” Schmelzle says.

When he was a journalist, he loved doing personality sketches. He could talk with someone for 20 minutes and grasp who they were and what they were about.

“I was pretty competent at that. The game and the competition were fine, but it’s the people that I was interested in.”

That interest in people will certainly help Schmelzle in the classroom.

He’s not nervous at all about relating to high school students, he says “because I’ve actually been relating to kids, to late teens, all my life.”

And he is excited about being a teacher this time around. His words almost trip over themselves. “I think understanding history, understanding literature … and math trains the brain … and logic …”

Schmelzle wants to be one person in kids’ lives who will help them find themselves.
The purpose of education is about becoming, he says.

“For the student to grow, you know, to find themselves somehow. Through all of the problems and the peer pressure and the culture.”

He tries not to think about the future too much, or to dwell on the past. When the Citizen folded, Schmelzle decided he wasn’t going to panic.

“I think it’s a blessing. I’m not cynical about it,” he says.

He told himself, “It’s not going to cause depression. I don’t care, it’s just not going to do it.”

Schmelzle thinks everything has a purpose.

“I’m a late bloomer at the age of 63, that’s pretty late,” he says, laughing. “Maybe I needed that much preparation.”

Schmelzle knows it could take a while to find a teaching position. He had one offer, but it fell through because of budget problems.

“Right now, I can take—so to speak—failure,” he says. “If you consider what failure is—not reaching the goal—I can take it.”

But he won’t be denied.

“A person has to do that,” Schmelzle says. “No matter what realm they’re doing it in, they have to keep going. They have to say ‘I will not fail.’”

Originally published December 10, 2009

1: Single parent makes college a priority
2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning

Sexual assault contributes to depression

Editor’s note: This series portrays one woman’s personal experience of depression, with a bit of advice thrown in.

Illustration by Isabel Cardenas
Story by Liza Porter

I’m going to talk about a difficult subject.

Rape.

Better to just say it out loud than tip-toe around it. Which is what I’ve been doing for too many years.

I’m pretty sure I can say that being raped contributed to the depression of my teenaged years and beyond. I know that not dealing with it did.

I interviewed a staff member at the Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault (see story below) and learned that many sexual assault victims aren’t ready to get emotional help for six or seven years after they have been raped.

They go on with their lives as best they can. They survive it.

Survivor. That’s a better word than victim.

And I am one. I am a survivor.

But it’s been a lot longer than seven years since it happened. More like 30.

I didn’t even realize it was rape. There was no such term as acquaintance or date rape back then. Out of ignorance, I thought it wasn’t rape because I knew the guy.

I thought because I was drunk, it was my fault. In my habitual self-destructive way, I chalked it up to me getting what I deserved.

And because I blamed myself, I didn’t tell anyone about it.

No one.

I hadn’t even told my husband of 23 years about the rape until the topic came up for the investigative reporting I’m doing for the Aztec Press and for this column.

It’s about time he knew. But more than that, it’s about time I dealt with it.

I was 17. Joe was a high school acquaintance who came to a party my sister and I put on one Friday night. A big pot of spaghetti and a gallon of Gallo wine. And probably several bottles of cheap whiskey.

I got drunk, as usual. Joe and I flirted all evening.

After everyone left, my sister and her boyfriend went to bed. Joe and I made out on the living room floor, and he raped me. He got up, pulled up his pants, tucked in his shirt and walked out the door.

For decades, I didn’t remember struggling under him on the floor. I didn’t remember the helplessness and pain. I didn’t remember the blood stain on the carpet.

The SACASA Web site says 73 percent of female victims are raped or sexually assaulted by people they know.

An American Association of University Women research study on sexual assault found that 20 to 25 percent of women will be raped or experience attempted rape during their college career.

If you have been raped, don’t wait as long as I did before dealing with it.

You don’t have to keep it a secret. There is help.

Tell someone, but only someone safe. Watch the video on the SACASA Web site: http://www.sacasa.org/aboutus.htm. Call them when you’re ready.

I’m dealing with my rape now. It’s worth the pain.

Center helps sexual assault survivors

Next: Talking back to the “fat” voice.
Depression: Don’t Listen to the Big ‘D’
Talking back to the big ‘D’

Center helps sexual assault survivors

By Liza Porter

Numerous statements flash on the Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault’s Web site under a heading titled “Did you Know?” Most have to do with the statistics of sexual assault.

• 17.7 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape.

• One in six women will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault in her lifetime.

• Only 40 percent of sexual assaults in 2005 were reported to the police.

• Victims of sexual assault are three times more likely to suffer from depression.

• Victims of sexual assault are four times more likely to commit suicide.

One statistic that might cause surprise: 80 percent of all people who have been abused know their abuser.

“It’s not stranger rape like it’s perpetuated through the media, on TV shows,” says Becky Holton, development director for SACASA. “It’s someone the person knows and trusts.”

Date rape can be a problem on college campuses. Though more people have heard of date rape than in years past, Holton says there’s still a lot of victim-blaming.

“Whether it’s what the female was wearing that night or she didn’t go to her car with her group of friends—it’s perpetuated in our society,” Holton says of victim blaming.

Though date and acquaintance rape are much more common than stranger rape, they are no less painful. Especially when a victim’s story is not believed.

One of SACASA’s primary missions is to make sure victims know that they’re believed, that there’s help available, that it’s not their fault.

“That’s first and foremost,” Holton says. Making sure they know they’re believed “goes so far in helping a survivor.”

SACASA maintains a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year crisis line staffed by center employees on weekdays and by volunteers overnight and on weekends.

“We have a Spanish crisis line and an English hotline, as well as an access and safety line, which is for those who are deaf or hard of hearing and they can text in their issues,” Holton says.

When sexual assault victims contact SACASA, an advocate will help them through the medical care process and forensics exam, if one is necessary.

“The volunteers are the back-bone of the organization,” Holton says. “We could not offer the services we do 24 hours a day without volunteers.”

Crisis line volunteer training involves 46 hours of learning about cycles of violence and role-playing how to handle a call on the crisis line.

After volunteers finish the training, they commit to taking at least two shifts a month. Lately, the classes have had up to 20 enrollees, which Holton says is more than in years past.

The SACASA office in midtown has five therapists and six or seven interns who do individual and group therapy. The South Tucson office has two therapists.

It often takes a long time before a rape survivor is ready for therapy.

“On average, six to seven years before someone who’s been assaulted will come in for therapy,” Holton says. There are many reasons why victims remain silent, and SACASA respects those reasons.

All services are free. “We think it’s really important that our services are free and accessible,” Holton says.

SACASA also does outreach to area middle schools and high schools. The core of the program is to help kids become aware of social and cultural myths, and get them to talk about them.

“Really talk about how media perpetuates certain images and certain beliefs,” Holton says. “Maybe change their perspective a little bit about how they view, you know, a music video or magazine art.”

SACASA teaches kids the difference between coercion and consent. Speakers try to get students to start looking at things differently, both for themselves and so they can become “active bystanders.”

Active bystanders are people who are willing to speak up. They might say, “This isn’t OK,” or “You don’t have the right to touch her that way just because you think you’re her boyfriend. She doesn’t like it.”

Since SACASA has only one person on staff who can visit schools, the Center applied for and received a grant to conduct an online Pima Community College course specifically aimed at teachers.

“It’s a one-credit class a teacher can take online and learn to implement our curriculum in their classroom,” Holton says.

Risk reduction is another part of SACASA’s program, Holton says, but it is definitely different from victim blaming.

“Risk reduction is saying, ‘Take these steps to help make yourself feel more safe,” Holton says. “But certainly if something happens to you, it was not your fault.”

She wants survivors of sexual assault to know there is an organization that will believe their story and will do everything in their power to get them the help they need.

FYI
Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault
Web site: sacasa.org
Crisis line: 327-7273 or 1-800-400-1001
TTY/TDD/SMS line: 327-1721
Office phone: 327-1171