Grads

Grads

The Dartmouth School of Graduate and Advanced Studies held its annual investiture program on June 10 in the Spaulding Auditorium in the Hopkins Center. The student speakers were Evelyn J. Zablah (MALS’17) and Gilbert Joseph Rahme (Adv’17). The prizes awarded included the Byam Shaw-Brownstone Thesis Excellence Award for the outstanding thesis in each M ALS concentration. Katie E. Brown (MALS’17) won the award for cultural studies. The creative writing award went to Steve A. Dragswolf (MALS’17),Sam T. Williamson (MALS’17) won the globalization studies award and Brian A. Estrada (MALS’17) the general liberal studies award. The excellence in the art of thesis writing award was given to Michael R. Rodriguez (MALS’17). A reception for the graduates, faculty and guests was held on the Baker Library lawn after the ceremony.

Now back to Jennifer Currier (MALS’12), who was in the middle of her 23-day journey around the world when I wrote my last column. Her trip was a contest that involved a scavenger hunt at each stop as the group of 11 teams traveled the world with an ultimate goal of raising money for charity. Jenny was half of Team Thundersnow (the other half was Mark, a friend of friends) and reports that they were given a four-hour notice ofwhere they were going next. At each stop they would be handed a list of what scavenges they needed to accomplish. At that point they were free to consult maps, guidebooks and question the locals, but not hotel employees. They could use smartphones only for taking pictures. Their scavenge booklets listed small-point items (10 points) as well as arduous bonus scavenges (up to 500 points). There were always mandatory food scavenges. “If we failed to complete the mandatory challenge, none of our points in that country would count.” There were also bonus scavenges. Jenny’s favorite was to become a street performer in Europe and earn three donations. She played piano in St. Pancras Station in London and made 3 pounds!

One of the trip organizers’ mottos was “Trusting strangers in strange lands.” Jenny reports that they almost always had to ask the locals for help. “Frequently we had no idea what the questions even meant until we asked locals. For example: Take a picture of someone (in Egypt) wearing a tarbush, which turns out to be a specific hat. We were blessed to find so many people willing to help, even people who knew no English.” Jenny made Facebook friends in almost every country she visited and became a pen pal with an 8-year-old girl on a train in Sri Lanka.

In Jenny’s summation of the trip she states, “It was exhausting. It was a mental, social and physical challenge, and to do all of those things with a stranger added a whole other element of challenge to it. I’m glad I did it, but it’s not on my list to do again! The best thing that came from it was gaining the confidence to travel anywhere in the world, by myself (if need be), with nothing—no map, no friends, no language, no plan—and know how to survive.” However, the trip also awakened Jenny’s desire to return to Greece. “Greece was not on the list of places we went, but every time we boarded a plane I was praying that’s where we’d end up.” She spent a summer in Greece two years ago and now, “I feel so fortunate to have circumnavigated the globe and now I feel at peace to settle in the place that stole my heart.”

—Jane Welsh, 175 Greensboro Road, Hanover,

NH 03755; (603) 643-3789; m.jane.welsh.gr@ dartmouth.edu