September 2011 Archives

How To Live Your Life At CSP

By Amy Abrigo on September 25, 2011 8:12 AM | 2 Comments
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Describe

At 11:45am on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, Concordia University Saint Paul put on its first Convocation of the year titled CSP's Mission in Action. The Convocation was led by Concordia students, faculty, and staff, but was open to any and all people within the community of the University, and it was focused on CSP's mission and taking a look into how it translates into each member of the community's day-to-day activities.  The host of the convocation, Joel Schuessler, and President Ries asked the audience, "What do students say makes CSP different from other colleges and universities? How do we serve both students and the community?". President Ries also gave an update on the progress in producing the CSP Promise Statement, and he asked each audience member to share how the CSP mission affects them and others, using The Promise Statement to clarify "what is compelling, differentiating, and true" about CSP.  The purpose of this convocation, according to the Concordia University website, is to discover what Concordia University does for others and what makes the university unique, according to those who know the University best--its students, faculty, staff and alumni. 

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Interpret

The Honors course name, "Being Human and Christian in an Interconnected World", was emphasized throughout the convocation just as it is emphasized throughout the Concordia University Saint Paul Mission Statement: 

The mission of Concordia University, St. Paul, a university of The Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod, is to prepare students for thoughtful and informed living, for dedicated service to God and humanity, for enlightened care of God's creation, all within the context of the Christian Gospel.

        Concordia's convocations are put together with the mission statement in mind, and usually are meant to display methods in which students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members of Concordia can use in order to live out the mission statement in our daily lives. After completing the Promise Statement update, President Ries asked a panel of four people on stage to share some of the discoveries they made during the "Uncover the Promise" process in reference to the Concordia mission statement and its current visibility on campus through the daily activities of the Concordia community. One member of the panel, Kyle Sorkness, explained the new perspective of "enlightened care of God's creation" that was discovered through the Promise process. He told the audience that it is more than just recycling or sustainability, but that it is also about taking care of each other, as humans, and, therefore, as part of the creation of God. 

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Evaluate

The idea that taking enlightened care of God's creation by caring for each other as a human race might sound nice to some, but to others it has a very frightening, unappealing, and revoltingly selfish outlook on life. Concordia University might have a total of ten recycle bins on campus. Three located in one room of the Math building, one located in the Pearson Commons, at least two in the Gangelhoff Center, and maybe the last four somewhere spread out in various offices. Yes, the food services program here has compostable plates, cups, and to go boxes, but Concordia has zero compostable disposals on campus. A lot of the communication of events is done through about ten posters per event, there are sometimes paper handouts are given out for the event, and most of the time plenty of waste is created during the event. We currently have no visible limits on electricity, water, food, or alternate resources on campus, which sends students the message that there are infinite resources on this planet for the Human Race to consume as often and long as possible. How could administrative officials on stage allow for the message to be sent out be not that we have a necessity to increase this school's sustainability as a service to God in the care of God's creation, but instead to be something to the effect of do not worry about the planet that surrounds us and provides us with the nutrients we need to survive and thrive from, instead care about each other because that's all we have left. This convocation left me inspired, skeptical, and frustrated, but it helped me understand why I believed this piece of the mission statement has not fully been lived out on campus--I was thinking of the wrong definition of "God's creation".
 

Works Cited

Ries, Tom. "CSP's Mission in Action." Wednesday & First Friday Convocation series.                           Conncordia University. Buetow Music Center Auditorium of Concordia University, Saint Paul. 21 Sept. 2011. Address.

"Wednesday & First Friday Convocation series." Concordia University Saint Paul. Concordia University Saint Paul, n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. <concordia.csp.edu/facultyscholarshipcenter/Convocation.html>.

D.I.E. Henrietta Lacks

By Amy Abrigo on September 21, 2011 2:11 AM | 1 Comment
Henrietta Lacks

Description


            

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is about the challenges and triumphs shared between the author  and the Lacks family as they each took on the mission to discover the true story of Henrietta and the HeLa cells. HeLa cells happen to be the first cells to be cultured in the world. They were shipped worldwide for researches, rocketed to the moon, and in the end, were used for various cures and vaccinations. Many people in and around the medical science field were affected by the availability of these cells, including the millions of patients whose lives were saved in the process of research and discovery, but no one knew the true story behind HeLa cells, nor did they have any reason to seek out one. It seems that throughout their lifetime the cells have always been thought of as nothing more than cells. When doctors refer to them as HeLa cells, instead of human cells, they have no reason to remember from whom these cells came. Why would someone researching the polio vaccine care about where he got the cells used in experimentation. This is one of the many questions raised in the book. The true problem is that the cells were stolen, according to the family, from Henrietta Lacks at the Colored clinic of the John Hopkins Hospital. She claims to never have signed any consent forms, but yet the cells were taken, cultured, and made millions of billions of dollars for many people worldwide. Unfortunately, the families were never told about the cells nor were they educated about them, and this caused many problems between sources of authority and the Lacks Family. Thus, the family never received any type of compensation for their mother's large contribution to science. The most disappointing fact is that the family did not have any Health Insurance of any kind, so they were unable to get routine checkups or have certain medical procedures done because of the high prices of medical care. How could the family still not have Health Insurance when their mother was such a large contribution to medicine and science itself?


Interpretation




            During the many hours spent within the Honors classroom, students have discussed various ways to interpret this text, both as a humanitarian and a Christian. First it is important to understand one's personal perspective, biases, presuppositions, and morals or values. Then it is possible to perceive the perspective, biases, presuppositions, and morals or values of others.  Instead of just exclaiming what students understood about the book, students were forced to think about how these thoughts and understandings came to be. In this process, students can look at the book through many different lenses, including that of a scientist and a theologian. One might say that the Bible, as scripture, clearly tells us to take care of the poor and wounded because that is the example that Jesus Christ sets for us to follow as his Christian disciples in the New Testament; therefore, as a Christian it is our duty to assist the Lacks family with their financial issues in any way possible. However, most humanitarian morals or ethics do come from those set forth in Christianity, or if they don't, they seem to have some relation to those that do. Even if readers have not gone through exact experiences of the Lacks family, most will do their best to relate to the situation or the feelings that the family went through. Most readers will have been to the doctor at some time in their life, or have been sick and can understand what it feels like to not have medical care due to a lack of finances. Or perhaps the reader will have had some sort of surgical medical procedure performed on them personally and now they begin to question the location of their body parts. One of the many questions this book invites the reader to ask is: Are HeLa cells still a part of Henrietta, and, therefore, belong to her family members alive today?


Evaluation

            As a student and history major, throughout the discussions in Honors, the word presentism has been repeating over and over in my mind. Presentism, for those who were not sitting in our Honors class last year, is the unintentional (and sometimes intentional) process where people force their present culture and or social ideas on the past and attempt to seek reason through the eyes of a modern person, without taking time to evaluate the context of the historical event. As a student who has also sat in an upper-level history course, I find it extremely frustrating to sit through a discussion filled with ideas of presentism. But, in reading this book, I believe that because I understand this concept and how it can be extremely problematic, it is my responsibility to make others aware of it especially in close-knit discussions such as those that take place in the Honors program. The book also gave me a better understanding of my faith through its narrative stories. 


            For example, the strong faith of the family, and the various methods of spiritual praise, inspired my faith and caused me to re-evaluate my method of worship. The book does not necessarily cause me to question the way I currently give praise to God, or pray to him. But, it does open my eyes to see that there is something more powerful in this creative method of worship.  In order to design my own method of worship, I need to fully understand my faith which forces me to self-evaluate my reasoning for worship.So many questions are raised by this book, but it is not these questions that enhance my faith. It is the questioning process that causes me to self-evaluate, and I believe that this self-evaluation is crucial to understanding how to be prepared "for thoughtful and informed living, for dedicated service to God and humanity, and for the enlightened care of God's creation, all within the context of the Christian Gospel."


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