By Kate Rix
An award that promotes hope and idealism, the Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize is given to graduating Berkeley seniors who dream of making the world a better place. Five 2008 graduates received the award this year, the third year of the prize program. Each of them will be using the award money to make a difference, whether close to home or far away.
Samma Ishaq will travel to Jammu and Kashmir to help find alternative sources of income for women who previously wove shahtoosh, shawls made from the down hair of the recently protected Tibetan antelope. Jeffrey Martin will go to southern Arizona to interview tribal members and other parties involved in the historic Gila River Indian Community Water Settlement Act of 2004. Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt will develop culturally relevant teaching methods to bring drama instruction to young students of color in the East Bay. Yoram Savion-Royant will train young people from East Oakland in media literary in order to offer new insight into the criminal justice system. Michael Uy will study the success behind “El Sistema,” Venezuela’s free music program for children, then share his insights with a Los Angeles-based music instruction non-profit. Another senior, Chrystina Serrano, received honorable mention for her proposal to mentor student-parents making the transition from community college to UC Berkeley in pursuit of a four-year degree. A seventh student, Sasha Pippenger, declined the prize for her work studying climate change, after receiving another award that precluded using other prize funds.
The Stronach Prize supports intellectual and creative pursuits that enhance social awareness and the public good. Graduating seniors propose projects that are creative in the broadest sense, building on their undergraduate studies at Berkeley to work on what constitutes humane and effective participation in our worldwide community. Prize recipients are selected by a panel of faculty, researchers, and artists and are granted as much as $25,000 each to cover project costs, materials, and living expenses for up to one year.
“The Stronach Prize exemplifies the ideals that make Berkeley so special,” says Janet Broughton, dean of the division of Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters and Science and chair of the Stronach Prize selection committee. “When I see the imagination, talent, and spirit of these prize-winners, I think how lucky we all are to work with such extraordinary students.”
Established by Berkeley professor of architecture Raymond Lifchez, the Stronach Prize celebrates the achievements of his late wife. Trained in art history, Judith Lee Stronach was a journalist for Amnesty International, an East Bay poetry teacher, and a patron of numerous arts, education, and charitable organizations. The Stronach Prize commemorates her commitment to lifelong intellectual and creative growth.
“Ray’s generosity, values and dedication are reflected in this Prize, and it is a marvelous tribute to Judith Lee Stronach’s life and career,” says Broughton. “Ray cares about the social impact of the prize-winners’ projects, but he also cares about the impact of the projects on the students. They come to realize that they really can make a difference, that they really can draw upon their Berkeley experience to make the world a better place. That changes their lives.”
Samma Ishaq
Documenting the Effects of the Shahtoosh Ban on Women in Jammu and Kashmir
Situated in the Himalayan mountains, Jammu and Kashmir form the northernmost Indian state. Some 50,000 workers in the rugged region (74 percent of them women) lost their livelihoods when the local government issued a ban on hunting the Tibetan antelope. For many years, skilled weavers had crafted the antelope’s short, downy hair into fine shawls, but when the animal became endangered, protection laws prohibited all trade in shahtoosh products.
As an undergraduate studying history, Ishaq earned high honors for her work on South Asia and her minor in Global Poverty and Practice. Ishaq was born in Kashmir and co-founded the non-profit KashmirCorps in 2006 to develop economic, education, and public health projects. She has also collected oral histories about mental health and gender issues and tutored orphans in Kashmir.
Using the Stronach Prize, Ishaq will work with local agencies to investigate employment options for the women and to alleviate their poverty. In addition, Ishaq plans to set up a diabetes clinic in Vellore, India, with the support of the Global Sciences Department at UC San Francisco.
Jeffrey Martin
Understanding the Gila River Settlement as a Historical Milestone
For nearly 30 years farmers, Native Americans, and other groups have battled over water rights in southern Arizona. The Gila River Indian Community Water Settlement Act of 2004 concluded more than a century of struggle by the Pima and Maricopa peoples to bring water back to their land after the river was diverted in 1866. Jeffrey Martin will seek the perspective of tribal leaders and representatives of local business, agriculture, and government on the long-awaited settlement. He also plans to write a historical study of the Gila River settlement, investigating the origin and attitudes toward the legislation as a window into understanding attitudes about Indian sovereignty in the West.
Martin received his B.A. with honors in peace and conflict studies with a focus on sustainable development and social change in the Americas. His senior thesis, which he hopes to publish, formed the basis for the work he will do with his Stronach award.
Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt
Acting Up to Empower Young People of Color
Drama is used effectively as a pedagogical tool, yet it is often unavailable to students of color or is offered in ways that are unappealing or inaccessible to them. Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt plans to use her Stronach award to research socially conscious drama methods and develop a curriculum for several East Bay middle schools. She will teach a wide range of skills, including performance techniques, memorization, public speaking, and English acquisition, while exploring with her students issues of race, power, teamwork, and anger management.
Rosaldo-Pratt received her B.A. with high honors in ethnic studies and theater and in dance & performance studies. Her senior thesis was about drama education for students of color. Her Stronach Prize will build upon drama courses that she created and taught at two East Bay schools in 2006-2007.
Yoram Savion-Royant
Youth Multimedia Literacy and Production
Teaching at Youth UpRising community center in East Oakland, Yoram Savion-Royant will lead a team of young people in producing multimedia articles for the Oakland Tribune, the Alameda County Behavioral Services, and other websites. His work focuses on promoting restorative justice and documenting the experience of urban youth, highlighting both problems and solutions.
Savion-Royant earned his B.A. in his individual major in “new media, art and social change.” He laid the groundwork for his Stronach Prize project while working as a McNair Scholar, reporting his reflections about Youth UpRising’s mission in the Spring 2008 issue of Berkeley McNair Research Journal.
He attributes his ability to see how local issues connect to the global struggle for change to his bilingual upbringing in France and the Bay Area. He explores similar themes in his creative projects, which include his film Grounded shown at San Francisco’s Intersection of the Arts in 2007, and a video about TURF dancing that he made with his students for the 2008 Oakland Museum of California exhibit “Cool Remixed.”
Savion-Royant’s work can be seen on these websites: http://www.youtube.com/yumedialp and http://www.opentosolutions.com/poetry.
Michael Uy
El Sistema
Offering free instruction, the Venezuelan government is currently training more than 250,000 youths in instrumental and choral traditions of classical music. Through visits to sites in and around Caracas, Michael Uy will document the organizational, pedagogical, and financial structures of this program, called El Sistema, which has an impressive track record of helping juvenile offenders, street kids, and children with disabilities.
Uy, who double-majored in music and political economy of industrial societies, will go on to share his insights with the Harmony Project in Los Angeles, a nonprofit that offers free music training to children in underserved communities.
His work anticipates the arrival of Gustavo Dudamel, a 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor of international repute who begins his appointment as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2009. Dudamel began playing violin at 10 and conducting at 12 as part of the El Sistema program.
For more about El Sistema, visit http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1955176,00.html.
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For additional information about the Stronach Prize and this year's winners, please visit the prize website.
