Paying It Forward
Andrea James ’89 returned to campus in October to meet with students and faculty and to screen her film Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy. The documentary employs comedy to take on a serious subject: It focuses on a gay couple who adopts a foster child.
“Comedy is the canary in the coal mine,” James says. “It redraws the lines in society.
“Through the process of making this film, we learned that there are 400,000 children in foster care right now, and of those, 100,000 need permanent homes.
“There are so many gay and lesbian couples who would love to have a child, but in some states it is legal to discriminate against them and not let those couples have a child.
“I think that’s a crime.
“I was adopted myself, so making this film felt like I was paying it forward.”
Same Major, Different Paths
THE VARIED PATHS BIOLOGY MAJORS TAKE was on full display when the department invited back Class of 2012 classmates Andrew Goodman and Cameron McDougall to deliver last fall’s Cole Lecture.
Goodman has followed his passion for science education through Bradley University, where he directed seminars for Illinois educators to encourage the incorporation of inquiry-based learning into the classroom. He talked about his current role as a science teacher at Dunlap High School in Illinois, where he practically learned alongside his students in creating the school’s first forensic science course.
McDougall veered from his earlier plans to attend dental school to a career in homeland security. He is currently Presidential Management Fellow at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investi-gations. He spoke about his recent work studying the vulnerability of the country’s rivers to terrorist threats.
McDougall says he now realizes that what drew him to studying biology was the systematic, formalized way to look at problems. He uses the same thought process now on a daily basis, including providing security at last year’s Indianapolis 500.
A Nontraditional Journey
Joshua Johnson ’11 is taking a nontraditional path to becoming a doctor, and he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I had a fraternity brother who knew I was a Spanish major and who knew I wanted to study medicine, and he posted a link to my Facebook page to this program in Cuba,” Johnson tells Richard Paige during a Wabash On My Mind podcast. “I followed the link, did some research, checked out the program, and applied. And lo and behold, as God would have it, here I am.”
Johnson is in his second year at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana, Cuba. Established in 1999 and operated by the Cuban government, ELAM is one of the largest medical schools in the world, with an enrollment of more than 10,000 students from more than 100 ethnic groups.
“All the different conversations you get from being in a classroom with people from 10 or 11 different countries really changes your perspective,” Johnson says. “This salad bowl of different cultures is definitely liberal arts, definitely nontraditional.”
Johnson plans to practice community medicine in low-income areas when he completes his residency.
“I came here knowing that Cubans don’t have the level of medical technology we have in the U.S., so I expected to learn how to make the most with what you have. They do that very effectively.
“I’m being trained to not rely on technology—to know how to use it, yes, but to be able to rely on the personal face-to-face aspect of medicine.
“Considering the neighborhood I expect to serve, if I can learn in Cuba how to treat my patients holistically and without having to always give my patients drugs—if I can bring that back to the States, to where I’ll be serving, it’s a win-win.”