Professor William Easterly talks with students Kleydis Radomi, Vania Legall and Kayla Jackson (from left to right). Courtesy of Sophia Olsen.

As a freshman at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, William Easterly had no idea his career path involved economic development. He liked math and cared about social justice, but wasn’t sure exactly where those could be put to use until the end of his sophomore year.

Eight years later he was working at the World Bank.

For 16 years, Easterly was a Research Economist at the institution that distributes grants and loans to developing countries across the world.

But eventually he realized many of the projects financed by the World Bank weren’t working. This was what Easterly discussed in his lecture at the University of Hartford on April 27.

But let’s back up a bit. When Easterly arrived at the University in the early afternoon, he had lunch with Economics Professor Jane Horvath, Economics Major Natalie Dukette and… well, me. I was able to tag along so that I could ask questions to write this article.

When asked what motivates him to stay in economic development, Easterly remarked, “It’s a field that attracts a lot of bad ideas, so you can always find bad ideas to expose and keep trying to think of better ones.”

As a writer, I was intrigued by how clearly Easterly explains complex issues of economic development in his books and other publications. He told me that he got this skill from his time at the World Bank.

“We wrote things for the general audience so we had editors come in and make it more understandable. I would submit what I thought was good writing and it would come back with a lot of red ink.”

The writing lessons weren’t enough to keep him at the World Bank, though. Easterly left the institution in 2001 after noticing how much of their funds were being misused or were ineffective. He has also recently expressed views that Western donors tend to be coercive and patronizing, usually offering “technocratic solutions” that don’t address the root of the problem: poor people’s lack of economic and political freedoms.

When I asked if he knows anyone who left the World Bank for the same reasons he did, he laughed and exclaimed, “All my friends left!”

Easterly advocates for “homegrown solutions” where the people being effected by the policies “have the option for which path to choose.”

When Dukette mentioned that the reason for many donations from the West are for “the psychic aspect of helping others” rather than how well the aid actually works, Easterly nodded enthusiastically.

“Exactly. The thing about giving is it’s often more about oneself than the receiver.”

Later in the day, Easterly attended Horvath’s Economic Growth and Development class, a seminar with 12 Economics and Finance, International Relations and Politics and Government majors. Students had the chance to pose questions to the world-renowned economist in an intimate setting before his lecture later that evening.

Questions ranged from whether regional development banks would be more effective than the World Bank to whether autocracies can achieve economic development (to which Easterly responded “it would be hard to attract intellectuals to some” and “yes – just look at South Korea”).

Student Vania Legall told the economist, “Coming from a developing country myself, at first I was opposed to your arguments against giving aid…but after I kept reading I realized there is a lot wrong with the way aid is given, and the governments often misuse the money once they get it.”

Easterly noted that yes, governments often spend loans irresponsibly, but institutions like the World Bank are also at fault for continuously giving aid to corrupt governments. “There is responsibility on both recipient and donor. There is often too much blame on the recipient alone. The U.S. often supports corrupt leaders for personal strategic advantage.”

The group also addressed incentives, debt relief, cultural factors in development and how flexible aid should be.

At the end of the class period, it was Easterly’s turn to ask the students a question. He asked them to tell him the most important thing they learned from the Economic Growth and Development course.

Most students concurred that they learned there is no “silver bullet” to any development problem. Legall pointed out that economic growth doesn’t necessarily mean development and Manuel Barrientos stated that high GDP doesn’t necessarily mean that country’s citizens have a high standard of living.

Senior Kayla Jackson added, “I’ve learned that you need to look at individuals’ lives and put yourself in their shoes, because looking solely at numbers you can’t truly conceive the extent of the problem.”

Easterly was so fond of this answer that Legall suggested it be the topic of his next book.

After Easterly left the classroom, two students specifically noted how proud they were that they were able to hold a conversation with him.

Senior Economics and Finance major Eric Acheampong said, “During the semester we have read his work and hearing his opinions on foreign aid and economic development in person was a really cool experience. We were able to ask questions we wouldn’t have been able to before this course.”

Jackson, who is a double major in International Studies and French, agreed. “For me, it was really amazing to feel that we have learned so much this semester that we can have an intellectual conversation with such a famous economist. The youth is the future, and today showed me that we can not only be taught but we can teach.”

Most students in the class joined faculty, staff and community members at Easterly’s lecture in Wilde Auditorium. After giving his lecture, Easterly opened the floor for questions, and let Jackson ask the last one. She asked if more representative government in developed countries would make development efforts more effective.

Easterly agreed in a sense, though he reiterated his belief that development has to be a homegrown effort. “Middle-aged white men like myself need to stop trying to make policies for countries in Africa and Latin America. The women in those countries need to have a say, the poor in those countries need to have a say.”

As the development economist was riding back to his home in New York, students who had a one-on-one chat with Easterly were still geeking out, some of them posting pictures with him on social media and making their equally nerdy friends jealous. And I’ll admit, I was one of them.

Some days, we can’t help but feel small. No matter how straight we stand, no matter how high we jump, we’re just not tall enough. In a world overwhelmed by media’s ideals and society’s expectations, some days it’s really hard to feel like we are measuring up.

It doesn’t help that most days we hear about all the bad things going on in the world, and how not many people have faith in our generation to make it better.

But then you hear about Ana Alvarado, a 20-something-year-old who started a GoFundMe account to help a mother and her three children living off a dollar a day in Honduras. The goal was $100. Within two days, 1,600 people donated $33,000. They are currently building a small house for the family.

So our parents and grandparents might reminisce on the “better days,” but we’ve got a lot going for us.

Technology lets us help people thousands of miles away. Science and medicine are stronger now, and we are finding solutions to problems we never thought we could.

Connections we make extend farther in distance and last longer because of the Internet.

We are more accepting of different races and cultures because we have grown up with one another, every day proving another stereotype wrong.

We can travel to places that were unheard of traveling to 30 years ago because they are freer and safer.

We are beginning to see the world from a global perspective, rather than through the American lens.

Most importantly, we’ve grown up with our surroundings changing more rapidly than ever before in human history.

This is key, because we’ve learned to accept change.

There are a lot of people out there in the world right now who fear changing the way things are done. There are so many institutions that those before us have accepted as fixed.

Our generation sees nothing as fixed. Not only can we sway an election, but we can redefine our whole political system.

This world needs people who understand that the only thing that will fix inequality and poverty and terrorism and the climate is change.

And change is what we thrive on, what we seek.

I can bet I’m not the only one who has changed her mind about what she wants to do for a living. I came to Hartford wanting to be an author, then I wanted to be the president’s speechwriter, a Congresswoman, and now an environmental activist. For four years, I changed my mind every month.

But you know what? Not a single person at the University of Hartford ever told me I couldn’t do it. They never told me I wasn’t tall enough. All I received from faculty, staff and my peers was unwavering support.

But the real world isn’t like that. There are going to be people who tell you you can’t do things, who tell you you’re not tall enough. Those people are usually the ones who fear change.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re too small to make a difference.

Imagine if all of us seniors tried to change the same thing about the University. They would have to listen to us.

Imagine if we joined with other college students across the nation and tried to lower the price of higher education. We could get it done!

Imagine if everyone on Earth put all their manpower toward the same goal. We could solve the world’s biggest problems one at a time.

We did, after all, change the life of that family of four in Honduras just because a couple thousand people each donated $20.

Together, we stand taller. Together, we can jump higher. There’s beauty in the masses. There’s power in large numbers. There’s change when we come together.

As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Well, here we are, class of 2015 — a small group of people. We’re entering a world that needs to be changed, and essentially it’s up to us to change it. Every single one of us has a role to play.

So live up the next four weeks, take advantage of everything college has that the real world doesn’t. And on May 17, celebrate, because you did it.

But the day after graduation, start changing the world.

Dr. Katherine A. Black is now Interim Dean Elect of the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). When Dean Joseph Voelker begins his leave of absence in January 2014, she will become A&S Interim Dean.

Black has been the A&S Associate Dean for Budget and Finance since 2011. In this position she advised the Dean on all aspects of budget preparation, including faculty and staff merit raises, new and replacement faculty/staff positions, and requests for budget increases.

She also assisted Dean Voelker with fundraising, monitoring A&S corse enrollments and awarding faculty with funds and grants. Since she was also responsible for managing the A&S budget, she was the main resource for faculty and staff with budget questions.

From 2008-12, Black was the Chair/Co-chair of the Department of Psychology. Prior to that, she was the Assistant Provost for four years.

Black joined the University of Hartford community in 1998 as an assistant professor, and was tenured and promoted to associate professor in 2004. Last year she was promoted to professor.

She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses, and has supervised honors theses, master’s theses and dissertations. At the same time, Black has maintained a strong research and publication record.

Her focuses are the long-term impacts of parent-child relationships and people’s judgments about responsibility and consequences of sexual violence.

During her time at the University, Black has contributed a lot to both academics and administration. She has received multiple awards for her hard work, including the Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Award for Distinguished Service to the University and an Innovations in Teaching and Learning Award.

This year Black is participating in the Wellesley Institute for Women Leaders in Higher Education led by Higher Education Resource Services (HERS) in addition to her new role as Interim Dean of A&S.

Provost Sharon L. Vasquez expressed her gratitude for Black taking on the responsibilities that come along with being the dean of a college, and is eager to work with Black in her new position.

Elizabeth Kramer | The Informer

One of my biggest pet peeves is when students ask professors if their papers are graded. Some students even ask the question the class after the paper was handed in.

I’m sorry, are we back in first grade believing that teachers don’t exist outside of the classroom?

Professors have lives and they don’t revolve around us. They have families to spend time with and other obligations to attend to. Most of them are doing research or writing their own papers for their field of interest. Not to mention they have several other classes that they have to grade things for.

Let’s make some calculations: a five page paper times the twenty students in the class equals one hundred pages of reading and grading.

Imagine if the readings you had to complete for your classes were written poorly, terribly organized and not even factually supported. That is probably what about fifty of those hundred pages look like, and the remaining fifty no doubt have numerous grammatical errors, structural issues and citation errors.

It’s not easy and it sure as hell is not going to get done in 48 hours.

In my opinion, there is nothing ruder than students asking when their assignments will be graded because it basically implies that the professor is not putting enough effort into the course, and that is entirely false.

These professors put an incredible amount of time and effort into planning each and every lesson. Summarizing Macroeconomics or Microbiology or American Foreign Policy or an entire century of history or any other subject in one semester can’t be an easy thing. They have to decide what information is most important and relevant to you, decide what order the information should be taught in and in what way they can convey the information so that you understand it.

They have to choose the books and the readings that are most appropriate and create assignments that will make you think more deeply and make connections between events or concepts that you might not have made otherwise. They have to create PowerPoint presentations and exams and a Blackboard page for each of their course. They have to prepare labs, simulations or other class activities to get the students engaged.

This is all before the semester even begins! Within the first couple of weeks they are expected to memorize a boatload of names and majors and begin giving these lectures and assignments they have so meticulously planned out.

Then, not until all of this has been in progress for a while, they need to start grading assignments. All of a sudden they have sixty midterm papers stacked on their desks that need grading. Then at least one student in each of their classes asks them the following day if they are graded yet.

Here is where I commend professors the most. Because not once have I witnessed a professor go off on a rampage, as I surely would if I were in their shoes.

With extreme calm professors respond that no, unfortunately they do not have them all completed yet but they will make sure to have them back to us within a week or two. Some of them even apologize.

Then there are always the couple of students who sink their shoulders and sigh heavily to imply that this is an exorbitant amount of time and it is so incredibly unfair that they have to wait so long.

The world does revolve around them, after all.

Maybe it makes me so angry because I come from a family of high school teachers and I have witnessed how hard my parents and sister and aunts and uncles work outside of the classroom to make sure things run smoothly in the classroom.

Maybe it is because I have seen how much they care for their students and want them to do well and want to provide them with the best possible feedback so that the students improve and learn something valuable and are prepared for the next year.

The debate rages on about whether or not teachers and professors should have higher salaries. Well, we can’t change how much our professors are paid, but we can change how much they are appreciated.

I urge my peers to remember, the next time they are tempted to ask when they are getting their papers back, that professors are people too.

Foundation of the Future (FOTF) is a process that reallocates funds between programs, both academic and administrative, in order to augment the University’s competitive quality and cost efficiency. When it was introduced to us last year, there was much controversy over it.

As fall semester 2013 winds to a close, many students are wondering where the University stands with FOTF and what they can expect in the near future. They are also wondering how the University is saving costs, especially since the Strategic Plan will require sufficient funds to implement.

Provost Sharon L. Vasquez and Vice President for Finance and Administration Arosha Jayawickrema answered these questions and more, and want to remind students that most of the details are available to them online.

From 2011-12, the Academic Task Force of faculty members evaluated 152 undergraduate and graduate programs. Its goal was to reallocate $3.8 million, seven percent of base financial reports.

The Administrative Task Force, which comprised of faculty and staff, evaluated 98 administrative units and had a goal of reallocating seven percent of the administration budget: $3.1 million.

Each task force based their decisions on five criteria, including University-wide importance, external and internal demand, quality and benefit over cost. Report templates were completed by department chairs and program directors of each program.

Once all programs were evaluated, the task forces placed each one into one of four categories: invest, maintain, restructure or divest.

In total, 41 programs were recommended for divestment. Provost Vasquez moved 27 of these programs to the Senate to vote on it. During this process, the Dean, Department Chair and Program Director of each program under vote spoke to the Senate about the program. The Senate voted to divest in 18 of the 27 programs proposed for divestment. Of those 18 programs, six are currently under appeal.

When asked why these 18 programs were divested in, Vasquez responded that student demand was a large deciding factor for many of them. Anthropology, for example, was cut because not a single student had declared the Anthropology major in three years. One student every three years majored in Organ and one student every five years majored in Cantoral Studies. The cost of these programs was higher than their benefit.

Nine of the 27 divestment proposals before the Senate were voted down and referred to President Walter Harrison. He decided whether or not these programs would be divested; as of now he has made decisions on all but one of them. His decisions were made public and the students involved in the programs were specifically informed.

Fourteen of the 41 programs recommended for divestment by the task forces were deferred to Vasquez instead of being immediately passed to Senate. These 14 programs are currently being restructured and are under continuing evaluation. Department chairs submit progress reports to Vasquez and she assesses them based on what the programs are doing to improve the cost-efficiency, quality and impact of their programs.

Students involved in programs that were chosen for restructure by the task forces may notice slight changes, but any changes to curriculum will take longer to review and hence will not affect current students.

Most of the restructuring is happening on an administrative level, such as merging smaller units into larger ones or offering a minor through a different department.

Maintained programs will not see any changes and programs invested in will see improvements over the next few years.

Overall, FOTF will redirect $5-7 million between programs over the next five years.

FOTF maintains the same budget, it simply restructures how much money each program receives. Yet the University is constantly finding ways to save costs.

Automating a lot of services such as payroll saves time and investment. The University is also improving the school’s printing service so that it can complete more printing jobs and the University can rely less on external printing services.

Most impressive is the University’s recent refinancing of its long-term debt, decreasing its debt service (interest, essentially) by $1 million per year.

Another way the University has saved money is by improving energy efficiency. UHa has reduced its utility cost by 20 percent since 2009.

A wellness program that provides reductions in the health care costs of faculty and staff members if they exercise healthy behavior has also been invested in. This focusing on saving individuals money, not just the University as a whole.

This wellness program is just the beginning for numerous incentives the University is planning on offering faculty and staff. Administration officials plan to offer higher salary raises to high-quality faculty and staff members in order to incentivize staying at UHa.

The University is considering doing the same for students, and administration members are beginning to ask themselves, “Are we giving sufficient financial aid to the students we want to keep because they can contribute a lot to this University?”

In the meantime, “We want to be reasonable with tuition increases and not go above what inflation demands,” said Jayawickrema.

Jayawickrema stresses that the finance administration is also planning to invest more in international and non-traditional students to increase the diversity of the student population. Furthermore, Saturday term, summer term, winter term, online and graduate classes will receive more attention in the future.

One way to do this, Jayawickrema asserts, is to maximize the housing stock on campus and offer housing for graduate students.

The University also plans on fundraising by getting alumni more involved.

Whether they donate financially or network the University with their personal connections, alumni have the potential to be great investors in the future of the institution. “Long-term, endowed gifts like the Shaw Center” are huge contributions to the University that have a lasting impact on the whole UHa community, Jayawickrema stated.

Why did none of these ideas take priority in FOTF?

“The goal of FOTF was to invest in capital,” answered Jayawickrema. “So we focused on improvements to the freshmen complexes.” Investing in first-year students’ experience increases the likelihood those students will return to the University for a second year.

Overall, the University wants “to reach financial equilibrium,” Jayawickrema said. “Simply ‘balancing the budget’ does not mean we are reaching the desired outcome.” And a part of doing so is cutting some programs so that other programs can expand and new programs can be added to improve the University.

FOTF prepared the University for the upcoming five-year Strategic Plan, partially by reallocating resources. “The strategic planning process is informed by FOTF, along with other major planning processes we have undertaken in the past several years.”

Town hall meetings about Strategic Plan will most likely occur in December and the official document of the plan will most likely come out in February 2014, Vasquez said.

More information about the Strategic Plan will follow in December.

Courtesy of Unotes

Former Hartt School Dean Malcolm Morrison passed away last Friday, Nov. 8.

Those in the UHa community who worked with Morrison during his time here are expressing their regrets. Morrison “left his stamp on the Hartt School and the University, and changed so many of our lives for the better,” said President Walter Harrison.

Morrison came to the University as theatre professor in 1996 and became Dean just two years later.

He served as Hartt School Dean from 1998 to 2008. During that time Morrison oversaw the expansion of Hartt “from a distinguished music conservatory to a comprehensive performing arts conservatory including dance and theatre divisions,” says current Hartt School Dean Aaron Flagg.

“He also oversaw the design and construction of the Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center, which observes its fifth anniversary this month.”

Harrison states that these developments “enhanced the school’s national and international standing and dramatically (pun intended) improved its finances.”

Before joining the UHa community, Morrison served for ten years as the founding Artistic Director of the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival.

He also directed at the Utah Shakespearean Festival and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, where he received a Best Director award for his production of Shakespeare’s “Loves Labours Lost.”

Harrison notes, “I will forever be thankful for his production of ‘King John,’ which allowed me to complete my life-long goal of seeing all of Shakespeare’s plays performed live.”

Morrison’s passion for the performing arts was unmistakable. Him and his wife Johanna, along with his friend Alan Rust, showed unremitting care for the theatre program. Morrison “cared lovingly for the [Hartt] School, and poured his energy into nurturing talent and providing opportunity,” says Harrison.

“He attended student and faculty performances of all sorts almost every evening,” Harrison reminisces. “I marveled at his energy and real enjoyment of so many genres of art.”

“The last play under his direction that I saw was ‘Antigone’,” Harrison stated. “[It was] the most stirring performance of that classic Greek drama I have ever seen … I thought then, as I watched the play in the Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center, that Malcolm had had the real privilege of creating a performance space and then using it to such perfection.”

Harrison expressed that this in itself is “a real testimony to [Morrison’s] genius and leadership.”

While Morrison was dean, Alfred and Primrose Fuller donated $18.6 million to the Hartt School. Harrison notes that while it is due to the extreme generosity of the Fullers that made the Hartt School is what it is today, “it was Malcolm’s deep understanding of the needs of the arts that applied it so well.”

Morrison was probably one of the most involved deans this University has ever seen, and his legacy will live on through the accomplishments of Hartt students for years to come that would not have been possible without the contributions he made to the performing arts programs.

Harrison says that Morrison “was more than the dean of the Hartt School; he was an educational leader of the entire University. He was someone who understood intellectual curiosity and learning in many, many forms, and his colleague deans, three provosts, and I all benefited from his academic leadership. The entire University is deeply in his debt.”

Last spring, the University presented Morrison with the University Medal for Distinguished Service. This followed a similar honor presented to him by his alma mater, Rose Buford College of Theatre and Performance in England.

Dean Flagg acknowledged that even while battling illness, Morrison was a beacon of wit and good humor in the Hartt School.

Other administration members agree that Morrison was a pleasure to work with. “He had a brilliant mind and a wicked sense of humor,” said Arosha Jayawickrema, Vice President of Finance and Administration, who was fortunate enough to work with Morrison for several years.

The UHa community sends its deepest sympathy and support to Morrison’s wife, Johanna, his daughter, Nikki, and their entire family.

On every college campus you’re going to have people making stupid decisions. I would argue that this is one of the things that makes college so great.

In the real world, you can’t play leap frog in the middle of the road because it’s “dangerous”. I guess it’s relatively dangerous on a road on a college campus too, but cars are only going fifteen miles an hour (or are supposed to be, anyway). Either the driver or the leap froggers are bound to stop or get out of the way in time to avoid an accident.

The best part is a lot of college students, if they were the one behind the wheel, would probably just laugh and take a video of it on their phones. Some might be bothered or annoyed, but they would most likely find it humorous enough to laugh about later.

In the real world, on the off chance that this did not cause a legitimate car accident, someone would probably call the cops on the leap froggers.

The real world seems so dull compared to a college campus. We need to be quieter, and act less weird and maybe even wear sweatpants less than five days a week.

Students complain about a lot of things about this campus, but I think if we look at the larger picture we would realize how lenient the rules are around here. We are allowed to sing at the top of our lungs, and I think a college campus is one of the only places where singing is more encouraged the worse you are at it.

We’re even allowed to play instruments in stairwells in any building we so choose. Try finding a building outside of a college campus where you can do that without getting kicked out!

Okay, so the food isn’t great. (I think it is, but I’m getting the notion that is not the majority opinion.) But once you get into the real world, you’re going to be hard-pressed to go to a buffet-style restaurant every night.

You can’t beat buffet-style. Enough said.

Saving the best for last, living within a five-minute’s walk of all your friends. Paying for rent and utilities and only being around the same couple people (if you are living with anyone at all) is simply not the same as living on campus.

Being able to flit from one friend’s apartment to another every night is an opportunity no one can manage outside of college. The floors may creak and the showers may shriek, but facilities will come fix anything that’s broken within a couple of days… free of charge. Again I say, try finding someone to do that off campus.

What I’m trying to say is that we should appreciate the time we have here while we can. Before you know it you will be graduating and the real world will be a lot less flattering than staying on campus.

You’re going to miss being able to do, wear and say stupid things whenever you want.

So… long story short… be stupid while you can and appreciate all the stupid around you!

Elizabeth Kramer | The Informer

Does anyone else feel like the busier they are, the happier they are?

We all complain about midterms and finals, but I personally would rather have a lot of work to do than none at all.

Between six classes, being an editor for The Informer, being a Senator in Student Government, working at the Sports Center, and applying for internships and a visa so I can study abroad in the spring, I have very little time to sit down and relax during the week.

But that makes me appreciate those rare moments I do get to spend with my roommates and friends much, much more.

And it also makes me appreciate the few hours of spare time I have over the weekends to sleep, run some errands and hang out with friends some more.

Not only that, but being busy also prevents me from spending my time in useless ways like watching vines and YouTube videos and scrolling through my News Feed on Facebook.

I have found that I am much happier when I am not wasting my time doing these things.

When I have a few minutes to spare waiting for a class to begin, I have a choice: I can either check to see if I have any updates on my multiple social networks or I can read an article from the Top News section in the New York Times, which is a free app on the iPhone by the way.

You would think that in the middle of an extremely busy day I would opt for social networking in order to take a break from academia, but it’s actually the opposite. After studying or doing homework, I am on such a roll, and in such a reading-mode that I prefer to read the newspaper article.

And an added bonus? I am informed of the latest update on the national debt crisis rather than how much my friends love their boyfriends.

Everyone wins.

Plus, I work best under pressure. So though I usually don’t wait until the last moment to start an assignment, I do leave the major revisions to a paper for the night before it is due.

That way I am forced to concentrate and I am much more productive.

Moreover, managing my workload is much easier when I have a jam-packed schedule than when I have a lot of free time.

When I have several hours to complete one assignment, I fool around for a couple hours before even attempting to tackle it.

By that point it takes my mind so long to focus that I wind up not having enough time to finish it.

On the other hand, when I only have an hour to read a chapter of a book for one of my classes, I crack down right away and don’t allow my mind to wander. I get much more done in a shorter amount of time when I have a tight schedule.

To be honest, I have complained a lot this week about the amount of work I have to do. Two tests and three essays due this week was not something I was looking forward to.

My fifth semester and this is the first time I’ve ever truly had midterms – it was a difficult concept to grasp.

But it has been much easier (so far) than I thought it would be, specifically because I am so busy.

I recommend trying it – get busy. If you are not in enough clubs or taking enough classes or applying for enough positions or working enough jobs to feel overwhelmed some days, then you are not taking advantage of what this university has to offer, and you might also be missing out on performing at your full potential.

Okay, yes, I enjoy a long shower and a big meal and I sometimes (okay…often) get aggravated over a spilt drink or a hole in my shoe or a virus on my computer.

But the same thing calms me down every time: I just remind myself that I have water and a pair of shoes… and yes, even a computer.

Then I remind myself that I’m in college. And what the hell could be better than that?

We get lost sometimes in our little worlds here at the University, and I think we are all long overdue for a reality check.

If you don’t think you are, forgive me.

If you never take more food than you can eat or don’t buy a new pair of shoes every year or don’t get a little frustrated when you’ve been standing in line at Burger Studio or Hawk’s Nest for a half hour, then you win – this doesn’t apply to you.

Let’s face it: we joke around saying “first world problems” but not actually considering how offensive our daily actions can be to some people around the world.

If everyone lived the way Americans did, we would need five Earths to provide for the world’s population. The U.S. makes up five percent of the world’s population but uses 30 percent of its resources.

I mean it’s not entirely our fault. We’ve grown up in a world where things have been handed to us and so we take these things for granted and keep asking for more.

I’m not saying phones and computers and cars have been handed to us – I know that a lot of us had to work “hard” to acquire these amenities for ourselves. But these aren’t the essentials.

I’m talking about water and shoes. No matter what stage of life you were at, no matter what financial situation your family was in, I can guarantee that you had access to water and shoes if you are in college right now.

Reality check: Over 300 million children around the world don’t have shoes. That’s the population of our entire country. Imagine our entire country without shoes.

Reality check: 783 million people in the world don’t have access to clean water. So all those times you’ve refilled your cup at Commons and then only drank half of it… well, you get my point.

I think maybe, just maybe, it’s time we reevaluate our daily routine.

Things that we do on a regular basis are seen as extravagant to the majority of the world’s population.

One of my professors told me that when her friend from India first came to the United States and walked into a grocery store, she had to rush out of the store immediately because she was so overwhelmed. She had never come close to seeing so much food in one place before.

It’s not just food and water we take advantage of. Here we are, sitting around in a library full of books, complaining about this paper due at the end of this week or this test we have tomorrow.

I’m sure a twenty-year-old in India or China or Brazil would be overjoyed at having just one book in front of him or her.

I know damn well that if he or she could read and write, he or she would not be complaining about it.

And he probably wouldn’t waste the time he could be spending on his education watching TV or scanning Facebook.

I consider myself appreciative of my education, but I would be the first to admit that I frequently complain about how much work I have certain weeks throughout the semester.

So my counterpart from India or China or Brazil who has not been as fortunate as I probably wouldn’t want to be my friend because he would be ashamed by how ungrateful, selfish, entitled and lazy I am. That makes me so, so, so unbelievably sad.

I’m trying to change. It’s hard to change for the better in a world that keeps inventing technologies that make us worse.

It’s hard to be grateful some days when it seems like nothing is going your way.

But every time I stub my toe or have a headache or get mad at someone for talking in the library, I’m a little less mad than last time.

Try to remind yourself of this: “simple” for us might refer to a flip phone or dial-up internet while “simple” for other people is a cup of water a day and a pair of shoes to last ten years.

We are in college. What more could we ask for?

Hillyer  College will present this year’s Outstanding Young Alumnus Award to Lon Seidman.

Seidman graduated with his associates degree from Hillyer in 1996 and received his bachelors degree from the University of Hartford in 1998.

Since then he has been successful in a number of fields, including business, politics and electronic media.

While enrolled at UHa, Seidman served as President of the Student Government Association. He also took advantage of the Connecticut Legislative Internship Program, which is an opportunity the university offers students interested in pursuing political careers.

Seidman continued his political success even after graduating from college. He successfully managed a Congressional campaign in his early twenties. Next he went on to be elected to political office in his hometown. He served on the Board of Education and the Economic Development Commission.

Much of Seidman’s success in business and politics stems from his understanding of the emerging power of social media. He also stresses emphasis on the impact of technology on economic modeals.

He worked at a global safety equipment company that his father founded. While involved with this company he contributed to its goal of expanding opportunities in the U.S. and China.

Several of Seidman’s titles are “innovator” and “entrepreneur” in the world of electronic media. He is also sometimes called a “creative thinker” and an “early-adopter of new gadgets.” His most current title is President of CT Tech Junkie, an online news site that focuses on technology.

CTTechJunkie.com is a publication of Dig and Scoop LLC. Seidman launched it in 2011 “to fill a void in traditional news coverage in Connecticut.”

Connecticut companies are “leading the way in many areas” of technology and Seidman was determined to channel this information into one news source. And of course, being such a “tech junkie”, he did so by creating a website.

The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Wilde Auditorium. All members of the UHa community are invited to attend.