standardized food to much more local and sustainable food that what’s “useful,” my degrees were amazingly important to my is better for us to eat. writing. Everything you study about the world around you is going to be useful whatever career you choose. It’s good to be If we are what we eat, then what are we in this country? aware and not live in a state of ignorance and denial. unhealthy. The obesity rate connected to our diet, and the epi- demic of diabetes, are evidence that we are doing something So, you are a product of a liberal arts education. How does this really wrong. type of education equip Whitman students and alumni to fix the problems you write about? Why are we addicted to fast food? A liberal arts education gives you a deeper understanding of the The industry spends billions of dollars in marketing each year. If world and how it works – it gives you awareness. Graduating you spent billions of dollars convincing people to eat cardboard, from someplace like Whitman gives I’m sure some would, especially if you make it sweet. Fast food is you access to power in this society. On the Web designed to make you want to eat it, and eat it again. It’s cheap, Having a college degree makes you a Go to tinyurl.com/ch4aw8r convenient and tastes good. Most of the fast food I ate while re- privileged member of society. you to read speeches from the searching the book tasted really good. of course, it tasted weird are better equipped than most to do 2012 Commencement and an hour later. something about these problems. It’s Baccalaureate, along with a not about having a selfish life, but story on the ceremonies. How can we avoid eating cardboard? recognizing how you’re connected to It’s impossible to be perfect. I’m certainly not. Start by surrender- these other selves around you. It’s very old-fashioned stuff, but ing the possibility of being pure. Then ask, “How can you be it’s stuff that’s been forgotten as selfishness and greed have been effective?” to the degree that you can spend money on food that’s promoted as being noble. produced the right way, supporting companies and farmers and chefs trying to do things the right way. People have to get in- What project are you working on now? volved in the political system, and in the community working It’s a book about our relationship to nuclear weapons. It’s a tech- with other people for change. That’s how problems are solved. nology we invented and perfected and a technology that ultimately, I’m wary to spell out a blueprint for what people threatens us profoundly. There’s an entire generation that’s should do, but my mantra is that, at the bare minimum, you need reached maturity without knowing about nuclear weapons. Most to be aware. That’s why I write what I write. people in their 30s or younger don’t have memories of the Cold War and the risks we faced. The book will be a profound remind- you studied American history at Princeton and earned a gradu- er of what most people are now living in denial about. ate degree in British imperial history from oxford. yet you became an investigative reporter and an author of best-selling The danger of nuclear proliferation is some depressing stuff, no? books. Speak to college graduates’ anxiety about finding jobs re- It scares the hell out of me. But I’m just one of those people who lated to their degrees. would rather know about the threats we face. The work I’ve done I thought about teaching history, and then my degrees would gives me an appreciation for the simple pleasures of life: I love have been practical. But when you step away from the notion of my family and like to go hiking in the hills. Sarah E. Hurlburt ’91 Timothy Machonkin Pat Sorenson ’86 Thomas D. howells Award for Distinguished G. Thomas Edwards Award for Excellence in and Travis Congleton Teaching in the humanities and Arts Teaching and Scholarship Janice Abraham Award Assistant Professor of Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages Chemistry Timothy and Literatures Machonkin joined the – French sarah Whitman faculty in Hurlburt joined the 2006 and is a recent Whitman faculty in recipient of a grant 2004 and specializes from the National in 19th century science Foundation French literature and for enzyme research. classic French In nominating him, a cinema. A faculty student wrote: “As a member wrote the teacher, Tim has following in nominat- pushed his students ing her: “I had the to think for them- privilege of visiting sarah’s classroom several selves. Everybody is willing to devote copious The Janice Abraham Award is presented to times in the last few years, and was always very amounts of time to Tim’s classes because we Whitman staff members who have made impressed not only by her warm, engaged know that Tim puts just as much time into significant contributions and provided interactions with her students but also with her teaching the classes. There have been many outstanding service to the college.Pat incredible energy …Because the activities she weekday nights at the science building when, Sorenson ’86, Division II assistant, has been at designed fit together so beautifully, students stumped by his assignment, I would just walk Whitman for 31 years. Travis Congleton, reach a really rich and sophisticated level of up to his office and he would be more than publications designer, has been at Whitman for learning in her classroom.” willing to sit down and talk it out with me.” six years. July 2012 9
Whitman Magazine July 2012
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