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Louder Than a Bomb Omaha Youth Slam Poetry Festival: “the point is the poetry, the point is the people”
If your usual reaction to poetry is along the lines of “Ugh” or “No thanks” than be prepared to undergo a conversion when you attend a slam poetry event. It’s hard to imagine not being carried away by the sheer exuberance, courage, passion, and talent displayed at one of these celebrations of words and ideas. The Louder Than a Bomb Omaha Youth Poetry Festival is a prime example of all this and more at work. My story about it in The Reader (www.thereader.com) is repurposed here. Check out the team finals this Friday, April 12 at Creighton University. The individual finals are April 21 at UNL. Even if you think you don’t like poetry, you’ll find yourself getting hooked and cheering and applauding poets the way you do musicians or actors or athletes.
Louder Than a Bomb Omaha Youth Slam Poetry Festival: “the point is the poetry, the point is the people”
©by Leo Adam Biga
Now appearing in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
As the Louder Than a Bomb Omaha Youth Poetry Festival draws to a close after weeks of preliminary bouts and last Sunday’s semi-finals, it appears slam poetry is a new outlet for that rite-of-passage known as adolescence.
The 2013 team finals pitting defending champion Duchesne, Lincoln North Star, Lincoln High and Omaha Central are April 12 at 7 p. dm. in the Hixson-Lied Auditorium at Creighton University‘s Harper Center. The event is free and open to the public.
Poets serve as coaches of participating teams from public and private, inner city and suburban schools and community organizations.
“I love the mix of different schools and geography we have represented,” says Omaha poet and festival director Matt Mason.
He also loves how slam poetry brings together cool kids and nerds. “There’s the football player and the chess player and the golf kid, all lined up on the same team helping each other,” says Mason. “Teachers report this is an approach to poetry that reaches students not reached very much in classes. Asking them to write and perform and tell their stories really opens something up in them and makes them appreciate what’s happening at school rather than sitting there with a bad look on their face.”
Teams prime themselves for a season of poetry concentration.
“We treat this as if it were a sports activity at a school where teams start practicing, getting ready for competition, doing workshops and scrimmages in the fall, and then there’s the big tournament (festival) in the spring,” he says.
There are scores and standings but Mason says it’s more a celebration of creatively expessing ideas and feelings.
Duchesne team member Gina Keplinger repeats a festival slogan “the point is the poetry, the point is the people,” adding, “Poetry is bigger than stages and pages and microphones.”
The often achingly intimate poetic reveries explore love and loss, identity issues, social woes, and everything human. Westside team member Lia Hagen’s “Inappropriate” is a satirical critique of gayphobia. Lincoln North Star team member Shatice Archie’s “My Two Inch Thick Mattress” is about homelessness.
“The thing that continually impresses me is the way the students so directly and honestly address the most challenging issues in their lives…nothing is out-of-bounds or too personal for them,” says Westside and Central coach Greg Harries.
The fest is put on by the Mason-led Nebraska Writers Collective, which sends poets into area schools. When a documentary profiling a Chicago youth slam poetry competition caused a buzz here he rode that impetus to organize the first LTAB Omaha slam in 2012. Twelve teams competed then. The field grew to 19 teams this year, for him a signal of slam poetry’s growing popularity.
“I think more and more it is getting into the culture. It wasn’t just the movie that got kids onto slam poetry teams. YouTube made more people aware of it. What we did last year created a kind of momentum, so that we’ve got students trying to get LTAB teams into their schools because they’ve got friends on a LTAB team. So it’s spreading now from the kids themselves. They are the best advocates because they’re excited about it and their friends see how excited they are.”
Slam’s competitive aspects are real but not paramount. Judges award points for individual and team performances. Performers with the highest cumulative marks keep advancing. Audiences are encouraged to express their appreciation and do so with applause, finger snaps, cheers. Mason’s impressed that competitors don’t seem as caught up in the winning or losing as they do in the shared experience.
“What’s really exciting for me is to see how these students support each other and support other teams. They’re cheering for their own team because it’s a competition but when somebody from another team does something they like they’re the first ones on their feet.
“These kids just want to see good stuff and so they get excited when they see it.”
Keplinger says, “Being cheered on, complimented and genuinely congratulated by poets who were not members of my team was a welcome surprise.”
“There’s a competition but there’s also a recognition and acceptance of each other’s talents,” says Lincoln High English teacher Deborah McGinn. “The camaraderie is based on words and language. The energy is just sky high.”
Mason’s enthused the fest is growing the state’s poetry community.
“We’ve held poetry slams for students for years in the area and they’ve been decent, we’ve seen some good work, but it hasn’t had anywhere near this level of talent and just really polished work. I mean, the talent level is just through the roof. I think that goes back to our coaches working with schools for months, not just coming in and doing a one-off workshop.
“A fair amount of our coaches are coaching a team for the second time. I think the work shows that these kids are growing and really speaking about issues the audience responds to and doing it in a way that really brings them alive.”
The individual finals are April 21 at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, For details, visit ltabomaha.org or http://www.facebook.com/ltabomaha.
Related articles
- Lincoln High slam poets to perform (journalstar.com)
- NYU Wins National Collegiate Poetry Slam (nyulocal.com)
Ex-Reporter Eileen Wirth Pens Book on Nebraska Women in Journalism and their Leap from Society Page to Front Page
Women journalists cover anything and everything today. They work in all facets of media. But there was a time, and not so long ago at that, when they were restricted to a narrow range of reporting topics and jobs. There were always exceptions to that rule. Here and there, pioneering women journalists defied conventions and overturned stereotypes to file assignments and fill roles traditionally prescribed for men only. A new book by Eileen Wirth profiles some of the revolutionary figures among Nebraska women journalists over the last century. Wirth is a pioneer or revolutionary herself. She became one of the first modern women in city news at the Omaha World-Herald in the late 1960s-early 1970s, then she broke the gender barrier in the public relations at Union Paciific, before becoming the first female chair of the Journalism Department at Creighton University, where she oversees what’s now called the Department of Journalism, Media and Computing. Her book, From Society Page to Front Page, is published by the University of Nebraska Press. It’s officially out in May. My story about Wirth and the female journalists she writes about whose lives and careers advanced the cause of women both inside and outside the media field will appear in the April 2013 New Horizons. This blog contains several stories by me about journalists in print, radio, and television.
Eileen Wirth
Ex-Reporter Eileen Wirth Pens Book on Nebraska Women in Journalism and their Leap from Society Page to Front Page
©by Leo Adam Biga
Soon to appear in the New Horizons
Eileen Wirth doesn’t seem to fit the part of a revolutionary but that’s exactly what she’s been during her three careers. Wherever she’s worked, whether as a reporter or public relations practitioner or academic, she’s broken gender barriers.
As the women’s liberation movement played out from the 1960s through the 1980s she fought the good fight for equal rights, only not in the street or in the courtroom but by challenging male chauvinism, sexism and discrimination in newsrooms, offices and boardrooms. Her feminist predecessors fought similar battles as suffragists from the late 19th century through the immediate post-World War II era.
She says the struggles women endured to open new opportunities in the workplace is a story she feels deeply about, especially the stories of women in her own profession of journalism.
In the course of researching her new book, From Society Page to Front Page, Nebraska Women in Journalism, Wirth developed a deep appreciation for and kinship with maverick women who preceded her in the field she loves. She documents dozens of women of high achievement, many of whom she never previously knew about, and the obstacles they faced to work as publishers, editors, reporters. PR professionals and media moguls.
Some ran small weeklies, some made their names as columnists with local newspapers, others as reporters with national wire services and major metropolitan dailies. One woman covered the White House. Three women covered the Starkweather murder spree in great detail. Beverly Deepe became the longest serving American correspondent of the Vietnam War.
Mildred Brown became one of America’s only black newspaper publishers. Cathy Hughes is still running a media empire. Other women are still doing their thing as well.
“In writing the stories of these women it became a journey of self discovery,” says Wirth. “I identified so strongly with these women and with their struggles and their achievements. Both of my sisters had national level careers and I’ve always been in Omaha, but I realized we need to redefine what we mean by female achievement. We have too often downplayed the local, the personal, the balancing act of career and family. I don’t think our society values that enough. One of the things I hope this book does is really give recognition to women who juggled both.”
She also hopes the book gets some deserving women elected to the Nebraka Journalism Hall of Fame, where there are cases of men inducted there whose wives are not, even though the wives were co-editors and publishers and full partners of small weeklies.
Wirth says doing the book proved both an awakening and an education for her.
“What was amazing to me is that we had so many absolutely remarkable Nebraska women in journalism. Even as someone who has spent her entire life in journalism and more recently teaching journalism history, if you had asked me to name them I probably couldn’t have named five or six, until you get to the ’50s when I knew some of these people. But even then I was finding people right and left.”
The finding took considerable effort. “It took a lot of digging to find most of them,” she says. “This book is nothing but a huge reporting process. I went to people and said, ‘Who do you know about, what am I missing?’ I went to sources and people would tell me stuff and I would follow up on leads.”
Elia Peattie, a popular Omaha World-Herald writer from the late 19th century into the and early 20th century, is a prime example of someone Wirth found..
“If I were going to pick one woman in the book I fell absolutely passionately in love with it was Elia Peattie. Hardly anybody has heard of her. I resonated to her. She wrote a column that in some ways is very similar to the Mike Kelly columns of today’s Omaha World-Herald. This was before they had social or women’s pages. She’s kind of the World-Herald’s entree into that.
“She came to Omaha in the 1880s. She had been a society girl on a Chicago paper. She got a woman’s column at the Herald. This is when women’s news was in its infancy and the reason why women’s news was created in the first place was for advertisers. Women could not vote and the headlines were mostly about politics and crime, and if you look at the lives of women in the 1880s this just wasn’t relevant to them. They were working incredibly long days, raising large families, taking in work. They had very hard lives.
“Advertisers pressured the papers to do something to attract women readers because women were the primary shoppers. This was in an age when advertising was exploding. And the Herald hired Elia Peattie to write a column about women and apparently they put almost no restrictions on her. It was up to her to define what would interest women. Well, what she thought would interest women was apparently anything that interested her, which was everything.”
Wirth admires Peattie’s range.
“A professor from the University of Nebraska-Kearney compiled her columns in a book and I was blown away because it was reading a social history of the city in the 1880s. I mean, she has everything from this wonderful description of a young Bohemian slaughtering cows down at the Cudahy plant to a nursing sister at St. Joseph Hospital to the people riding a streetcar to showgirls. She did a very sympathetic portrait of the African American community when racism was horrible.
“She did some hilarious satirical columns about Omaha society people and why did they have to go back East to buy finery when they could buy anything they wanted in Omaha.”
Peattie’s community service involvement also appeals to Wirth, who has a strong service bent herself.
“Peattie ran for the school board when that was the only office women could run for or vote for. She was also one of the founders of the Omaha Woman’s Club. It was a way of localizing the city’s upper class women to do social work stuff. Nationally the woman’s club movement got behind the needs of working women in factories.”
All these activities made Peattie a popular figure.
“She became a larger than life personality,” says Wirth.
Another reason to like Peattie, according to Wirth, is “the work she did to bring together the handful of women journalists in the state. She documented a great deal about fellow women journalists. A lot of my best material came from work she did and recorded for history. She gathered the names of women active in journalism in the 1880s and 1890s. That was invaluable.”
Peattie’s become something of a hero to Wirth.
“One of the other reasons I resonated to Elia Peattie is that while she was writing this column her husband got very ill and it was up to her to support the family. She was writing everything right and left to make money to keep the family going and as a former working mother raising two children I just totally identified with her.
“If she was alive today she’d be running half the city, she’d be writing a blog.”
She might be publishing her own newspaper or magazine, ala Arrianna Huffington.
Wirth also writes about the one certifiable superstar among Nebraska-bred women reporters – Bess Furman.
“If you were going to pick a single woman that was our state’s most distinguished contribution to journalism it would probably be Bess Furman Armstrong,” says Wirth. “She was remarkable and she spanned a lot of eras. She was once referred to as a flapper journalist for her work in Omaha in the ’20s. She was what we would now call a liberated young woman writing rather risque satirical stuff about Omaha. She covered bootleggers and weird crimes down in Little Italy. She wrote this saucy column about Omaha’s most eligible bachelors.”
Bess Furman Armstrong
Furman was a product of her post-Victorian emancipated times.
“The ’20s were a wonderful period for women,” notes Wirth. “They had gotten the vote, there were more economic and education opportunities. She loved Omaha and she probably would have stayed except she worked for the Omaha Bee and when it was purchased by William Randolph Hearst she wanted out and when the opportunity came to leave she did.
“With women now having the vote the Bee needed somebody to write the women’s angle to politics. When Al Smith came to give a speech in Omaha in his 1928 campaign she got assigned to cover it and she wrote such a good story that she won a major journalism award for it and the head of the ;Associated Press who was in town with Al Smith offered her a job in Washington (DC) and she took it. Timing is everything.”
Furman made an immediate impression on Capitol Hill
Wirth says, “She was one of the first women to be allowed on the floor of the House of Representatives. She was assigned to cover First Lady Lou Hoover, who absolutely hated journalists. One time in order to write a story about what the Hoovers were doing for Christmas she dressed up like a Girl Scout” and infiltrated a troop visiting the White house. The ruse worked, too.
“When Hoover got beaten by FDR Eleanor Roosevelt started holding women’s only press conferences in order to force papers to give jobs to women,” says Wirth. “She and Eleanor Roosevelt hit it off wonderfully. Furman and her husband hit it off so well with the Roosevelts that they took home movies of the Roosevelts. When Bess became pregnant she decided she wanted her child to have a Neb. birth certificate, so she drove back here in the middle of the Dust Bowl to have her physician brother deliver what turned out to be twins. She brought with her a baby blanket Eleanor knitted her, and that got reported and went nationwide. Postmaster General (James) Farley sent her $10 worth of flowers and that was such a big order they had to send a special train.”
Furman later she did war information work during World War II and then joined the New York Times as one of its first female political reporters.
“She ended her career as the public information officer for the Department of Health Education and Welfare under Kennedy. Bess Furman may have gone to Washington but she was very deeply a Nebraska person and remained so for her whole life,” says Wirth.
Bringing to light women of distinction she feels connected to is satisfying to Wirth.
“Oh yeah, these are my people. We’re out of the same background, the same occupation. Yeah, I felt a very strong affinity with these women. I really found myself as I was writing about them feeling like I knew them and wishing I could actually have known them. I guess I felt especially this way with the women who wrote books, so you got a real feel for them, you weren’t just getting them second hand, you were getting their own take on the world.
“Their struggles were things I could totally identify with. You don’t have to be a journalist to feel this way about these women. Their humanity, their humor, the way they overcame obstacles with grace and courage and dignity, their persistence. To have careers like theirs was pretty daunting but they did it. I identified with the fact they juggled the personal and the professional and really probably never lost sight of either one.
“Culturally, anyone who has Neb. roots would identify with their style. Most of them let their work speak for them, which is what a journalist usually does.”
Mary McGrath
One that Wirth did get to know well is Mary McGrath, who preceded her at the Herald and labored 12 years in club news before becoming a highly respected health and medicine reporter. McGrath helped the green female reporters like Wirth negotiate the male-dominated newsroom.
“Mary McGrath was really the pioneer in city news at the Omaha World-Herald,” says Wirth. “She made a huge difference.”
Wirth recalls McGrath organizing potlucks for the paper’s women journalists and how these occasions became vital airing out and strategizing forums.
“It was a support system and an expression of solidarity. It was a safe place to bounce off ideas. If we would have said we were having a consciousness raising session the older women wouldn’t have gone, but to throw a potluck, how more Midwestern could you get? Mary knew the young women on staff were increasingly militant and she knew how smart and talented they were and she knew they were not writing about who was having who to coffee because they wanted to. She broke down the barrier between the two sections (city news and women’s news) by having those potlucks.
“The guys never had a clue what was going on.
Wirth says the Omaha Press Club served the same function for women in journalism across different media. “It was a great way to get to know other women journalists. You realized you were not alone.” Wirth adds, “A sociologist at Iowa State told me if you’re going to get social change made you have to have a cohort and in a sense you could look at the potlucks or the friendship ties that women journalists formed through the Press Club is how we had a cohort. There were enough of us who felt the same way to make a difference and it really made me feel for women of earlier eras who were one of a kind, out there on their own, whereas
I could go cry on Mary’s shoulder or vice versa .”
Each pioneering woman journalist in her own way contributed to the women’s rights cause and helped move their peers a little further along than before.
“There was a movement afoot. That was how this revolution was waged – one tiny step at a time.”
All those steps taken together made big changes, which is why Wirth was so offended when a feminist of high stature, former First Lady Hilary Clinton, was subjected to sexist coverage during her 2008 presidential campaign bid. The way Clinton was dismissed felt to Wirth like a slap in the face and a setback given how far women have come and what they’ve endured to get there.
“It was very disrespectful to women of our era,” says Wirth. It was like, Don’t they realize what we went through? Most of the Baby Boomers fought very quietly to infiltrate, to get a seat at the table, and nobody knew what it had taken to integrate the American workplace. That was my inspiration for writing the book.
“The women involved have kept silent about what they did because that’s how they were able to do it. We were a minority. The women were mostly just asking to practice the field they loved and were good at. They weren’t asking for special treatment.”
Much like the civil rights movement, the women’s movement gained its biggest victories through mass protests, the passage of new laws and court decisions, but there were many smaller, no less important victories won every day by ordinary women asserting their rights.
“When you look at coverage of the women’s movement it all focuses on things like lawsuits and militant demonstrations and you couldn’t do that in a city like Omaha if you intended to go on working in journalism. It wasn’t like you had a union that would protect you or a vast choice of employers, and for most of us that wasn’t our style anyway,” says Wirth.
Big, loud, public displays, she says, “weren’t the only way women made progress.”
Most of the change, she says, was the result of “the stealth revolution.” She adds that “KETV News Director Rose Ann Shannon said it very well when she told me, ‘I always felt I was dealing with reasonable people and we could work problems out.’ I too found that if you could have a reasonable conversation with somebody you could make progress. You were not going to change things overnight.”
She says there’s still work to be done, such as closing the pay gap between the sexes and shattering the glass ceiling that still limits women from advancing the way men do.
“But it’s sure better than what it was in 1970, and those changes were made nationwide by unsung young women quietly sticking their necks out on relatively small things over and over again.”
She says “it kind of boggles the mind” of her students to realize that as late as the 1970s women were still marginalized in journalism. “When you tell this to girls today they’re like, What? They can’t believe it, which I guess shows that we succeeded. They take it for granted.”
Wirth grew up in a large, high-achieving Nebraska City farm family whose parents set high academic standards and expectations for their children. Wirth loved reading and showed a knack for writing early on. She intended on being a history major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln until her father insisted she take a journalism course.
“What really made me into a journalist besides Dad ordering me to take the class was working on the Daily Nebraskan and I still think of as ‘the rag.’ It was so much fun. I fell in love with journalism people. The women were strong, funny, delightful, intelligent people and the guys wouldn’t have had us be any order way. I had found myself.”
When Wirth went to work for the World-Herald in 1969 she became one of the paper’s few female news reporters and right up to leaving its employ in 1980 she and women colleagues there, along with women at t countless other workplaces, waged that “quiet revolution” to bring about change.
“When women said, No, I’m not going to get you coffee, that’s not part of my job description, they were part of this revolution,” she says.
So was Wirth when she brought to the attention of an editor the fact that some young males colleagues hired the same time she was had received new section assignments while she was still in the religion beat she began in three years before.
“I’m a contemporary of Steve Jordon and Mike Kelly and both of them had had a couple of assignment changes, and I thought I was as talented as they were and I certainly worked as hard as they did. I told my editor, ‘If you’re doing this for the guys then you should treat the two groups the same. There shouldn’t be a difference. You should give young women the same opportunities as young men.”
She got the assignment change she desired.
At a time when female journalists were confined to covering only certain subjects, such as religion or society news or women’s news, her work made the case that women were capable of covering anything.
“There was a lot of hesitancy about assigning women to cover cops, which was fine with me because I hated it, but I covered them every Saturday for years simply because I wanted to show that a woman could do it.
“There was a lot talk that women couldn’t cover politics because they couldn’t get stories in bars and nonsense like that. There was real hesitancy about sending women to certain places. The ironical thing is that my religion beat in the early ’70s was at a time when the churches were heavily involved in the civil rights movement, so under the guise of covering religion I was actually doing a tremendous amount of civil rights coverage.
“I never regretting spending those three years on religion but I felt like I wanted to grow, to expand, to try new things.”
She also had the opportunity to take on occasional stories that struck a blow for women’s rights by shining a light on gender inequities.
“Quite a few of the stories I did were aimed at showing this inequality.”
Connie Claussen
Take the time that former University of Nebraska at Omaha women’s coach and athletic director Connie Claussen called to say she was fed up with the unfair and unequal treatment she experienced at the beginning of her career there. Claussen, whom Wirth describes as “a force of nature, a great lady.” was an equal rights champion who served on the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women.
Claussen eventually built a much envied women’s athletic department at UNO featuring championship programs but that legacy almost ended before it started because of how frustrated she was with the short end of the stick offered her and her student-athletes. Before Title IX was passed women’s athletics were separate and unequal in every way.
Wirth recalls, “Connie called one Saturday and said, ‘I’ve had it, I’m not going to do it anymore, I’m not going to teach a full load of physical education classes and coach two or three sports for nothing extra.’” Wirth was sympathetic. “No male would ever coach a (college) sport for free. Women’s athletics were housed in a quonset hut with no showers. I thought, Well this is a sports story and I went over to the UNO beat reporter and he yelled at me, ‘Women sports are a joke, there’s no story here.’ He practically threw me out of the sports department. So I went over to the city desk and they said, Oh yeah, great story. I wrote it and they put it on page one of the Sunday paper. It stirred up enough indignation and attention that Connie ran with it and she got the support she needed to build an outstanding program.
“And I think that was one of the major things we did as women journalists – we were approachable, we were interested in the problems.”
Another story resulted when Doris Royal, a farm wife from Springfield, Neb., called Wirth and in her gravely voice asked, “Are you interested in stories on women?”
“She told me a lot of farm women were losing the family farm operation because of inheritance taxes. The IRS said farms belong to the husband. The only way a woman could escape paying inheritance taxes on a family farm or family small business if she became a widow was if she had worked in town, so she could show she made an economic contribution or if she had brought family inheritance into it.
“A lot of women on farms had worked side by side, they’d driven the tractor and milked the cows, they’d done all the farm work, plus kept the books, and of course that doesn’t account for all their work in the home. But the IRS in effect said, You have made no contribution. Well, that was driving women off the farm because they couldn’t afford it. Land prices had gone up. So Doris started a petition drive and she wanted me to cover a story on it, so I did, I looked into all this stuff. I grew up on a farm and I was horrified, I was shocked, I had no idea. I wrote the story and Doris leveraged my story in the World-Herald to get the Farm Journal, which is the nation’s largest farm magazine, to take up the crusade.
“Doris got petition signatures from every state, she testified before Congress. This woman’s amazing, and they got the law changed.”
Wirth did an entire series on inequitable credit practices that devalued and punished women. “If a woman got married and changed her name she immediately lost all of her credit history,” says Wirth. “Banks assumed the credit rating belonged to the husband even if the women worked full time and could document it.”
With stories like these to file, Wirth’s work was fulfilling enough but when she and her then-husband Ron Psota decided to start a family she knew the demands of her work and the inflexibility of her employer would make motherhood and reporting incompatible. Besides, she was ready for a change.
“It was still the era when women were fired if they got pregnant. My ex-husband and I had been approved to adopt a child and at the World Herald at that time there was no way you could be a reporter and a mother. You had to work 12 and 15 hour days at the drop of a hat if some story broke.”
Making it easier to leave, she says, was the fact that “after 11 years I was burned out on reporting. It was time.”
When hired as the first woman outside of secretaries or receptionists to work in the Union Pacific public relations department she broke down the doors of what had been an exclusive boys-only club. She didn’t appreciate it when one of the old gang complained that she was a token hire to conform with Equal Employment Opportunity and affirmative action policies.
“A crusty old guy who didn’t begin to have my educational credentials and who couldn’t write protested that they had had to hire a woman.”
The bosses set him straight, she says by stating, ‘We hired someone who could write.’ Period. End of story.
Then in 1991 she joined the teaching staff at Creighton University, where in addition to her professor’s role she later became that Jesuit institution’s first female chair of the Department of Journalism (now called the Department of Journalism, Media and Computing). Teaching college is something she always knew was in her future and making a difference in the lives of her students is what most satisfies her about academia.
She’s glad that her book gives students an appreciation for who came before them.
“I think it is very important for my students, especially my female students. You want to give them a sense of what went before so when they invariably face some challenges they will do so with grace and with confidence knowing that women like themselves have conquered similar challenges.”
Wirth’s book, published by the University of Nebraska Press, is available starting May 1.
Related articles
- More women are needed in investigative journalism (cjr.org)
- Bob Hoig’s Unintended Entree into Journalism is Six Decades Strong Now (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Journalism: Fellowships for female journalists (thenewstribe.com)
- Pakistani women journalists recognised (dawn.com)
Live Wires: Institute for Career Advancement Needs (ICAN) Nurtures Leadership
With the Institute for Career Advancement Needs 30-plus years old now and its annual Women’s Leadership Conference celebrating 20 years April 3, the not-for-profit has entered the ranks of established Omaha institutions.
ICAN’s footprint
ICAN’s reputation as an effective leadership accelerator has led the organization to expand its coaching, mentoring and training into new geographic areas, including Denver, Colo. and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The organization’s goal of developing inspired business leaders and equipping them with the tools to transform the communities they serve is carried out in many ways, including Defining Leadership programs.
ICANs biggest splash is the all-day women’s conference held at the CenturyLink Center, where attendees from around the nation hear national and international thought leaders and innovators. This year’s keynote speakers come from vastly different backgrounds but have in common lives and careers built around self-improvement and empowerment. Model-turned-CEO Kathy Ireland has become a design mogul, best-selling author and philanthropist. Muslim studies consultant Dalia Mogahed is a White House advisor and the author of the best selling book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Humanitarian Tererai Trent is the founder of Tinogona, which builds and repairs schools in her native rural Zimbabwe, and she’s a staunch advocate for education and women’s rights as empowering tools to lift people out of poverty and oppression.
More than 2,000 attendees are expected at what is one of the region’s largest women’s conferences. There’s been a surge of partners and sponsors.
ICAN board member Katrina Becker says the conference gathers globally connected individuals representing a diversity of thought, behaviors and locations. Participants share a desire to grow and serve. ICAN president and CEO Mary Prefontaine says her organization’s leadership programs invite participants “to engage with others regardless of place or space or credentials,” adding, “That’s a really important principle ICAN stands on. It offers an opportunity to be engaged regardless of career level. It’s more about the level of curiosity and interest to evolve one’s self.”
Core values
ICAN’s curriculum of emotional intelligence and behavioral science is the framework that guides participants on a self-reflective journey of discovery. Prefontaine says those discoveries are enhanced when participants interact with each other.
“What we’re doing is allowing people to connect in the most meaningful way around the things most important to them – their values, their life’s purpose, their ability to succeed in their organization or career or family or community.”
The curriculum draws on the latest neuroscience and behavioral findings.
“Science has provided us more and more tools we use in our programs that help people assess their emotional intelligence and understand where they’re strong and where there are opportunities for growth. Through that we create programs where graduates can step more fully into their own wisdom to impact the results for their company, for the people they lead and for their community,” says ICAN board president Scott Focht.
ICAN encourages participants to share their self-inventories with their peers.
Prefontaine says, “The opportunity to have a meaningful conversation within a safe context of peers is a really unusual things for most leaders in business today.”
“The curriculum really provides the structure for the dialogue to happen around the networking and the connection. The most important thing that happens is the actual dialogue,” says Focht.
Why?
“Because you learn from that dialogue,” says Becker. “You have to talk and dig deep on yourself but you also learn from other people talking and digging deep around themselves. There’s a two-way symbiosis of learning. Our learning programs teach you how you react, what you value, what’s important to you and how to become better at recognizing that in other people,
“As important as it is to learn about yourself you have to learn how to pull that out in other people. For people to grow in an organization they need to build to inspire and motivate and align people around common goals and objectives. It can’t be all about you. You have to know where other people are coming from. That becomes important if you’re going to take an organization to the next level because you have to help people come together to achieve those objectives.”
Emotional Intelligence
The emotional intelligence ICAN teaches strives for harmony.
“The work of ICAN gets participants to look at things from the heart and head levels,” Becker says.
“Emotional intelligence is where fact and emotion come together to create something that’s real and truthful,” says Focht. “So let’s say there’s an economic issue a company is facing. There are the facts surrounding that economic issue. There’s also the emotions triggered by having to take some action. Well, there’s this space where it’s not just about the fact or the emotion, but where the two blend together beautifully, where you come up with the right direction to go that is a good balance between the two and that represents and respects both sides.
“When you’re pursuing the most wise thing, the results are going to be optimized.”
Focht says it’s all about finding balance.
“If I say for example it’s just and only exclusively about the bottom line there could be some downstream consequences that are more negative and far reaching than you had anticipated that actually could have a longer term negative effect on the bottom line if you don’t pay attention to the emotional side. But if you just go with the emotion you might not be able to manage your way through the financial part of it.”
Maximizing potential
Prefontaine shares a testimonial by a recent graduate that perfectly sums up for her what the organization seeks to do:
“You hold a mirror up for me to see who I truly am and who I hope to become.”
She says that sentiment is not an isolated experience but expresses “really what occurs for many if not all of our participants in these programs.” She adds that many graduates tell her “that without ICAN their career and life trajectory would perhaps have been much more narrow.”
Focht says ICAN has proven its worth again and again.
“Thirty years ago a conversation began because a couple of community leaders really saw a need for the leadership dialogue here to shift and to change to really become something about authenticity in leadership and moving away from some older models of leadership.
“And I think the fact the conversation has lasted for so long tells us we have the right conversation going and that is – How do we as leaders show up authentically to make a contribution to impact the communities we serve? People keep showing up and participating in the conversation. It’s something people clearly want to have.”
Prefontaine terms ICAN’s evolution and growth, especially its recent expansion of services outside Omaha and the adoption of its programs within companies, “gratifying and exciting.” She fully expects the organization to continue adding value for existing and new customers.
Focht suggests the most fundamental impact ICAN will continue making is the personal and professional transformation its graduates experience.
“I’ve seen people transformed in terms of not only how they’re showing up at work but also how they’re showing up in their families and communities and in whatever groups they’re serving. It makes them more effective all-around. They understand what they can bring to the table and how they can make a contribution.”
For ICAN program and conference details, visit http://www.icanglobal.net.
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Salvation Army Kroc Center and Omaha Conservatory of Music Partner to Give Kids New Opportunities
Nonprofit organizations that share similar missions can find greater efficiencies and impact more people when they partner, sometimes even reaching new audiences and delivering new services in the process. That’s what’s happened with the partnership between the Omaha Conservatory of Music and the Salvation Army Kroc Center that’s expanding music education and performance opportunities for youth thanks to agency one lending its expert instructors to students at agency two. My Metro Magazine story about this collaboration follows.
Salvation Army Kroc Center and Omaha Conservatory of Music Partner to Give Kids New Opportunities
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in Metro Magazine
A perfect fit
Last fall a meant-to-be match became reality when the Omaha Conservatory of Music began offering music classes at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in South Omaha. OCM provides top-notch instructors and instruments and the Kroc eager students and first-rate facilities.
OCM’s been looking to do more outreach with underserved populations and the Kroc Center’s been seeking to expand its music offerings. So why not bring the Conservatory’s resources to the Kroc?
“It was kind of a perfect fit because the Salvation Army needed a music piece to offer the community and the Omaha Conservatory of Music had expertise in that.
It made sense,” says Mike Cassling, a Kroc advisory board member who brokered this marriage with OCM board member Betiana Simon. The pair got the two organizations talking and before long a full-fledged program was designed and launched for youth ages 3 to 18. Cassling, CEO of Cequence Health Group, helped fund the program.
“We didn’t have the instructors in house for the music, and music is something the Army loves, so it seemed like it would be a good fit if they could provide instructors and we could provide students,” says Major Catherine Thielke, the Kroc’s officer for program development.
The classes are free to Kroc Center members and $10 for nonmembers.
“Parents are loving the fact this is available to their children and that it’s not breaking their pocket,” says Kroc Center arts and education manager Gina Ponce, who adds that music is a vital part of Hispanic culture and having affordable classes right in heart of the community is a welcome addition.
OCM executive director Ruth Meints says there’s good congruence between the center’s community focus and the conservatory’s mission of building artistic community through education and performance.
Thielke agrees, saying, “The Salvation Army’s mission and purpose here at the Kroc Center is to inspire people to discover their God-given talents and to develop those talents. We saw that the Conservatory was helping kids start very young in finding their giftedness in music.”
Music adds enrichment
“I’m a huge proponent that the arts, which music is a part of, are a wonderful way to increase self-esteem, well-being and self-worth,” says Kroc arts and education coordinator Felicia Webster. “The classes are just perfect to introduce young people to music and to help them feel good about themselves.”
Where the Salvation Army has a long tradition of brass band music, it’s lacked much in the way of woods and strings.
“We’re about finding out what children’s spark is, and that expands much broader than a brass band and into the strings and other types of instruments,” says Thielke. “We’re just very excited to be partnering with the Conservatory and we’re really glad Mike and Betiana saw what benefit this would have to both groups.”
“They’re very visionary people who helped it become a reality,” adds OCM’s Meints.
Classes strike a chord and fill gap in music education
The classes have proven more popular than anyone imagined. Ever since the first round began in early September sessions have filled, new spots have been created and waiting lists have formed.
Meints says there’s been “overwhelming response” and she adds “it’s great to see so many people get involved right away.” She expects enrollment for the next round of classes in January to increase.
In January a new guitar class will complement the brass, cello/bass, percussion, violin/viola, woodwinds and voice beat-boxing classes.
“In the Hispanic community the instruments that are very prominent for mariachi are violin, trumpet and guitar and so that will be a very neat addition,” says Meints.
More classes may be in the offing.
At the conclusion of each six-week class a concert’s held featuring student performers from both organizations. The first concert, on Oct. 27, was packed.
Meints says the individualized instruction offered youth helps them grow faster musically. Some Kroc students are already showing great potential and may be eligible for OCM scholarships, according the Meints, who’s excited about nurturing this previously untapped talent.
Officials with both organizations say the classes for very young children fill a vital need because music education doesn’t start until middle school. Studies show getting kids started early in music can improve cognitive development and academic performance, says Meints. She and Thielke emphasize that the Sprouts class promotes family interaction by requiring parental-guardian participation.
For details and to register, visit http://www.omahakroc.org or call 402-905-3579.
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Saving One Kid at a Time is Beto’s Life Work
He goes by Beto. Though middle-aged now Alberto “Beto” Gonzales can relate to the hard circumstances youths face at home and in the barrio because he faced difficulties at home and on the streets when he was their age. He knows what’s behind kids skipping school or getting in trouble at school because he did the same thing to cover his pain when he was a teen. He can talk straight to gang members because he ran with gangs back in the day. He knows what addiction looks and feels like because he’s a recovering addict himself. His work for the Chicano Awareness Center, the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Midlands, and other organizations has netted him many honors, including a recent Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award from Creighton University. Beto is a South Omaha legend for the dedication he shows to saving one kid at a time. My profile of him for El Perico tells something about the personal journey of transformation he followed to turn his life around to become a guiding light for others.
Saving One Kid at a Time is Beto’s Life Work
©by Leo Adam Biga
Soon to appear in El Perico
Alberto “Beto” Gonzales believes working one-on-one with youths is the best way to reach them. His work as a mentor and gang prevention-intervention specialist has earned him much recognition, most recently the Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award from Creighton University.
Gonzales grew up in the South Omaha barrio he serves today as a Boys and Girls Clubs of the Midlands counselor. He does outreach with truants, many of whom come from dysfunctional homes. He knows their stories well. He grew up in a troubled home himself and acted out through gangs, alcohol and drugs. He skipped school. He only turned things around through faith and caring individuals.
“I was just an angry kid,” says Gonzales, who witnessed his father verbally abuse his mother. Betro’s internalized turmoil sometimes exploded.
“At 17 I almost went to prison for 30 years for assault and battery with the intent to commit murder. Then I got hooked on some real heavy drugs.”
“My mother prayed over me all the time and I think it’s her prayers that really helped me get out of this. I just decided to give my life to the Lord. “
When he’d finally had enough he completed his education at South High at 20.
The Chicano Awareness Center changed his life’s course. A social worker there saw potential in him he didn’t see in himself. Then he was introduced to a nun, Sister Joyce Englert, who worked as a chemical dependency counselor.
“She heard me out,” he says. “I talked to her about my drug addiction, how I couldn’t keep a relationship and all kinds of crap going on. What’s cool about that is she asked me if I would go talk to kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol even though she knew I was an abuser. She said, ‘I think it’s important kids hear your story.’ I found myself crying right along with the kids as I shared it.
“She told me I had a passion for this and asked what I thought about becoming a counselor. Well, I’ve done a lot crazy, dangerous things in my life but the most frightening and hardest thing was to tell the truth that I couldn’t read or write that well.”
Sister Joyce didn’t let him make excuses.
“With her help I got a chemical dependency associates degree from Metropolitan Community College, which led me into working in the schools with adolescents dealing with addiction issues, and I loved it, I just loved it.”
He also got sober. He has 33 years in recovery now.
Then he responded to a new challenge.
“When the gangs started surfacing I changed my career to working with gang kids,” he says. “That’s been my passion.”
He worked for the center until 2003, when he joined the Boys and Girls Clubs.
Having walked in the shoes of his clients, he commands respect. He uses his story of transformation to inspire.
“I had a faith my mother blessed me with, then I met a woman of faith in Sister Joyce who gave me my direction, and my job now is to give kids faith, to give them hope.”
He says it comes down to being there, whether attending court hearings, visiting probation officers, providing rides, helping out with money or just listening.
“It really takes a lot of consistency in staying on top of them. All that small stuff really means a lot to a kid who’s not getting it from the people that are supposed to be doing it for them, like mom and dad.
“Gangs ain’t never going to go away. The only thing we can do as a society is to find the monies to hire the people that can do the job of saving one life at a time. That’s what Jesus did. He then trained his disciples to go out and share his word, his knowledge, and they saved one life at a time. That’s all I’ve been doing, and I’ve lost some and I’ve won some.”
His job today doesn’t allow him to work the streets the way he used to with the hardcore kids.
“I’m not out there like I used to be.”
However, kids in his Noble Youth group are court-referred hard cases he gets to open up about the trauma, often abuse, they’ve endured. Talking about it is where change begins.
In a high burn-out field Gonzales is still at it, he says, because “I love what I do.” It hasn’t been easy. His first marriage ended over his job. Then tragedy struck home.
“There was a time in South Omaha when we were losing kids right and left and one of the kids killed was my cousin Rodolfo. It’s painful to see other people suffer but when it’s in your own family it’s a different story. Rodolfo was a good kid, I loved him, but he was deep in some stuff. When he got killed I lost it. That was a struggle. I told my employer, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I took a sabbatical, I just had to get away. I did a lot of meditation and praying and it only made me stronger.”
He’s not wavered since.
“I’ve got my faith and I’ve learned you’ve got to hand everything over to God, Don’t try to handle it yourself because you will crumble.”
Related articles
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Heartland Latino Leadership Conference Features Dynamic Speakers for Networking, Motivational, Recognition Events
Each year the Who’s-Who of Latino Omaha gather for the Heartland Latino Leadership Conference and as I’ve done the last few years I wrote an advance piece about the event and some of its keynote speakers, and my story previewing the 2012 conference and select presenters follows.
Heartland Latino Leadership Conference Features Dynamic Speakers for Networking, Motivational, Recognition Events
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in El Perico
Motivational speakers will draw on personal stories of achieving high educational and professional goals in the face of hardships at the annual Heartland Latino Leadership Conference & Expo. Now in its 13th year, the November 8-9 event will focus on the themes of authentic leadership and community success in talks by local and national presenters.
Conference highlights:
Thursday Career Expo, 1-4 p.m.
CoolThink Youth Rally, 4-5:30
Welcome Reception, 5:30-8:30
Friday Registration and exhibitor booths open, 7:30 a.m.
Scholarship Luncheon, 11:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. (Sixteen local students will receive college scholarships)
Latino Leadership Gala Awards Reception, 5:30-6:30
Latino Leadership Gala Awards Dinner, 6:30 to 8:30 (Community service awards will be presented)
Keynote speakers and personal, community and corporate development workshops are scheduled throughout the day on Friday.
All of it takes place at the Omaha Hilton, 1001 Cass Street.
Conference chair Julissa Lara, a Mutual of Omaha distribution compensation specialist, says she’s eager to hear speakers address topics close to her heart.
“An authentic leader to me is talking the talk and walking the walk. It’s doing (things) to benefit not only yourself but others and that will grow your community.”
About the “great” lineup of presenters, she says, “You may not remember their names but you’ll remember the content of what they say, I can guarantee you.”
Life change artist Shayla Rivera is the featured speaker at Thursday’s 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Welcome Reception. The Puerto Rico native went from knowing zero English to earning an aerospace engineering degree to working as a NASA astronaut to becoming a motivational speaker and corporate trainer to remaking herself into a successful standup comic.
Leaving everything behind she knew in Puerto Rico for America sent her into a depression. She determined to learn English. She says experiences like these taught her the power of “making a true decision,” adding, “I’ve made a lot of pretty radical changes in other people’s eyes but they seemed logical to me. You have to listen to yourself. It’s easier not to do that. It’s easier to listen to the voice of your parents or of obligation or of what’s ‘realistic.’ That’s ca-ca. You gotta listen to yourself and not just listen but take a step and be kind of bold about it.”
“The people who are really following themselves are the trendsetters,” she says. “We’re not taught how to do that and we’re not given permission. You kind of go through life not thinking about what you believe. You kind of march in step. Latinos especially, We’re expected to be all of a certain political inclination and religion and all that stuff. We have to foster individuality and let people be whatever they are.”
As “an awareness expert” Rivera challenges us to uncover our beliefs “because our beliefs determine our lives. The process is painful but learning how to laugh at yourself will keep you sane.”
She says despite all she’s done “I still feel like I have a whole lot more to do.” She’s sure she’ll” reinvent herself again. Each new path, she says, “found me because I was open to it.” In today’s fluid world she says “it’s imperative we embrace change – life and technology demand it. We’re used to asking our children, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and what we need to ask anymore is, ‘What do you want to be first?’”
Friday’s 8:15-10 a.m. session keynoter Joaquin Zihuatanejo went from award-winning classroom teacher to world champion poet. In finding his bliss he’s living proof education can be transformational. He made it out of the east Dallas barrio with the encouragement of his grandfather, who forced him to read aloud to him nightly. At first resisting the ritual, Zihuatanejo says, “I came to find the beauty in what I was reading. I just became enamored with words. It was my salvation “
He says it can be for others, too.
“Reading and writing and education are the great equalizers. If you become good with reading and writing you in turn become a strong student and thus you become good at education and when that happens I don’t care where you come from, it makes you equal to any other student on the planet because you can excel.”
It’s a message he drives home with youth.
“If I can talk young Latinos into empowering themselves through the act of reading and writing, they may not grow up to be a world champion poet but then again they may grow up to be a dentist or a doctor or an accountant or a lawyer. Anything you do you have to be an effective communicator.”
He acknowledges many Latino youths face obstacles that make learning difficult but he adds, if they can just find that book that makes them think, ‘This is me, they’re telling my story…’ For me that book was Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.”
He says he’s always encouraged young people to chase their dreams but it wasn’t until one of his students challenged him to follow his own advice that Zihuatanejo quit teaching to become a full-time poet. That makes two callings, teaching and poetry, he’s cultivated and he’s committed to inspiring others to find theirs.
HLLC Chair Julissa Lara says as the annual conference has grown over its 13 years so has the number of high caliber keynote speakers. Friday’s Scholarship Luncheon keynoter, Graciela Tiscareno-Sato, is the author of the best-selling book Latinnovating: Green American Jobs and the Latinos Creating Them. Tiscareno-Sato will discuss “Grabbing Opportunity in the Green Innovation Economy” through real stories of “creative Latino entrepreneurs” and innovators rarely featured in mainstream media.
“We need to show who we really are and how we’re really contributing economically,” she says. “Something that isn’t known is we start businesses at twice the national average.”
In Omaha she’ll offer case studies of Latinos on the cutting edge of America’s transition to a green economy and share ideas for education-career paths that best prepare Latinos to tap into this new paradigm,
“There’s a lot of different ways to participate and some of them are technical and some of them are not,” she says.
She enjoys inspiring audiences with her tales of Latinnovators. She says two typical reactions her stories elicit are: “Wow, I didn’t know that,” and “Hey, that person’s just like me.” She says the only way these stories get the attention they deserve is if Latinos communicate them.
“Latinos, due to culture and tradition, are told we don’t talk about ourselves. We’re not used to telling our stories and proclaiming from the rooftop and being loud and proud. That’s not what we do. But it’s up to us, we own this responsibility, we own telling our stories and getting them out there.”
Marie Quintana, president-CEO of her own management consultant business, Quintana Group, is a success story in her own right. For her Friday Gala Awards Dinner keynote she’ll discuss strategies for tapping the inner leader in us all. Her talk “Embracing Authentic Leadership: Unleashing Your Strongest Life” draws on her personal and professional empowerment experiences.
“I will share some stories from my life that reflect times when I had to really reach deep down to ensure I was being authentic,” she says. “I think it’s important to be an authentic leader but it’s also important to be first of all an authentic person and to do that you have to start with a strong awareness of who you are, your roots, your values, your integrity.
“I was born in Cuba. I came to this country in the ’60s. In trying to navigate through these two worlds I had a difficult assimilation. So I had to be sort of the trailblazer. I think every Latino is always going to have that – where you’re very connected to your roots but then you go to work and maybe it’s not as familiar. I think the balance of that is very important.”
She advises doing self-appraisals.
“I think the first thing a person needs to do is to look at their life as a story. I call these defining moments. There’s been defining moments in every single stage of my life. Something happened at each stage that reminded how important it is to connect to who I am, to where I came from. That has built a foundation for me to take on whatever challenges and opportunities have come in my life. I think our strength comes from these moments.
“That (process) helps you become authentic and more aware of who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing, so your life takes on a much more deeper meaning. Through my journey I’ve become a better person and a more authentic leader because I really call out my Latina heritage. I use the best I’ve been given through my roots and family and who I am and I bring that to my work.”
She says whether you think so or not leadership has something to do with you.
“I think we’re all called to be leaders in one way or another. People who don’t believe they’re leaders don’t believe in themselves. It really starts with you. You have to believe in yourself for other people to see you as a leader. Once you develop your gifts, then you’re ready to operate from your strengths and not your weaknesses. You get courage, you can take risks, you’re much more capable moving your life forward.”
She advocates Latino youth find mentors and sponsors to guide them and she reminds adults they need guidance too.
The public may register for the entire conference or purchase event-only tickets. Visit http://www.heartlandlatino.org for details.
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A Different Kind of Bistro
For a long time I had in mind experiencing the Sage Student Bistro that’s part of the Institute for Culinary Arts at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Neb. It’s reputation for fine dining precedes it. I finally got around to eating there late this past summer and the experience fulfilled all the expectations I had built up over time. You can read all about my experience there in the following piece that I filed for The Reader (www.thereader.com). The food is entirely prepared by Metro culinary students under the supervision of instructors. The results are divine. A visit to this different kind of bistro is well worth it.
A Different Kind of Bistro
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Among the first things you notice at Sage Student Bistro is the staff’s earnestness. Greeters, servers and cooks are all students in Metropolitan Community College’s respected Institute for Culinary Arts, whose sleek building is the face of the Fort Omaha campus’ south entrance.
This hidden dining gem occupies an intimate corner space just off the lobby. The contemporary, neo-industrial decor is accented by warm touches. Windows help open up the room and overlook the horticulture department greenhouse, the main supplier of Sage’s locally-sourced produce. Some of that fresh goodness is grown in a herb garden surrounding a small, semi-secluded patio outside the bistro.
Culinary students rotate from kitchen to dining room any given night as part of a well-rounded experience both in back and in front of the house. Students don’t have to worry about job security there but their performance in this live, public venue is graded and has everything to do with getting them ready for food industry careers. That aspirational motivation translates into eager-to-please service.
Diners are asked to fill out an evaluation form to offer much-valued criticism.
“Sage Student Bistro is an essential part of the student curriculum here. Having a paying customer that expects a restaurant quality meal makes for some honest and direct feedback,” says chef instructor Oystein Solberg, “Giving students as close to as possible real life experience hopefully takes away some of the dear-in-the-headlight feel once they’re out in the world getting paid for their craft.”
If you go on a slow night as I did you’re in for a pampered, privileged fine dining experience that could easily spoil you for your next eating-out adventure. The set-up included white linen tablecloths, lit candles and soft recorded music.
Wait staff did a good job explaining the menu’s dishes, including ingredients, preparations and techniques. For an appetizer I chose the bistro’s play on a BLT, a delightful deconstruction of the staple sandwich with bacon, toasted brioche, tomato relish and shredded butterhead lettuce.
The entree selections variously featured chicken, beef, salmon and duck. Following my servers’ suggestions, I ordered the free range chicken breast, well-complemented by chipolata apple sausage and a nice medley of beets and broccoli flowers, all tied together by an apple gastrique. Everything practically melted in my mouth.
A basket of piping hot brioche spread with sage butter added a final satisfying note.
The gourmet meals and sensible portions are reasonably priced, with appetizers at $5 or $6 and entrees from $16 to $18.
I found my table-side servers engaging. For instance, I learned my charming wait person, Yuka VanNorman, is from Okinawa, Japan. She says she was attracted to come from half way around the world to train at the Institute by the quality and affordability of its offerings. My other server, Forrest Whitaker-look-alike Jason Mackey, is a well-traveled Omaha native who one day hopes to impress diners like me at his own eatery. Their heart and passion overflowed.
All of it, the ambition and proving ground and attention to detail, result in a one-of-a-kind, give-and-take transaction that found me rooting for the students to wow me. If my one visit is any indication, they have the chops to pull it off, too. By the end, I felt as invested in the students as they seemed invested in me and this practicum.
It’s just what Metro’s culinary faculty hope for.
“I really believe culinary arts education must be guest-entered in order to be effective,” says chef instructor Brian O’Malley. “We have to learn to ply our craft to the expectations of others and Sage has grown to really drive that home throughout our curriculum.”
He says the bistro’s come a long way from its predecessor student operation, which served mainly Metro students and faculty in a no-frills cafeteria-like setting in Building 10 and was only “a side piece” of the culinary program. Now it’s a full-fledged public forum and integral training component all students participate in.
O’Malley, who helped found Sage, says, “It moves the classroom into a working restaurant-like environment. It brings an enormous sense of realism without actually being the real thing. As an industry professional I saw the great deficiency in culinary school grads was knowledge without application, and here we’ve worked hard to move towards that application. We’ve added this very deep middle layer (between test kitchen and internship) of operating a restaurant in-house.”
There’s a fine balance at play to make sure students are challenged, not crushed.
“We want them to get their butt kicked, we want it to be tough and difficult and hold their feet to the fire but we don’t want them to actually get burned,” is how O’Malley puts it. “We’re supposed to still be a safe place for a student to kind of push and grow and develop, so when they fall down it’s supposed to still be quiet to the rest of the world.”If missteps happen, and they do, he says “we kind of have to ask for your forgiveness.”
An OpenTable poll recently named Sage the best overall restaurant in Nebraska, a recognition Solberg says “we don’t like dwelling on” and he takes with a grain of salt given the small voter pool. Just as Solberg finds surprisingly few people in the metro know about the Institute, O’Malley says Sage is a best-kept secret on purpose.
“We certainly want to be known,” he says. “I mean, there’s a piece of the reputation of the school that rides on the quality of Sage, so we want it to be excellent, but we also don’t really want it to be crowded. We’re not trying to run Upstream Brewing company, we’re trying to get our students ready to work at Upstream.”
He says Sage does enjoy a regular following and business generally picks up as the quarter moves on and word gets out the bistro’s open again (it closes when school’s not in session). Thirty dollar prix fixe five-course dinners, resuming in October, have proven popular.
Sage is open Monday through Thursday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For hours and menu details, visit http://www.mccneb.edu/bistro.
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Freddie Gray Stands Fast on Her Handling of Sebring Scandal, OPS School Board President Survives Vote to Continue Her Mission
By definition, news happens without warning, which can make it tough for media periodicals that only come out once a month or once week. I recently wrote a dual profile of an Omaha power couple – Omaha School Board President Freddie Gray and Omaha City Councilman Ben Gray – for the August issue of the New Horizons, a monthly newspaper I regularly contribute to. That issue was put to bed when all hell broke loose concerning Freddie’s handling of the already controversial Nancy Sebring incident that saw Sebring resign shortly after being hired as Omaha Public Schools superintendent when sexually charged emails she exchanged with her lover came to light. Newspaper reports revealed that Gray and school board counsel didn’t share some information they had about the emails with the rest of the board. Gray suddenly found herself the target of allegations that she’d breached the public trust and some even called for her to resign or to be removed. Her side of the story is that she didn’t know the full extent of Sebring’s communications and, besides, this was a personnel issue that there’s a whole set of protocols for handling. Also, Gray didn’t want to prejudice the board should they have had to convene a termination hearing over Sebring’s employment. Sebring’s resignation saved herself and the district futther embarassment. The timing of this brouhaha meant there was no chance to update or revise my story. So be it. But I did get the opportunity to do a new interview with Freddie after she was retained by the board in a special vote. The result is this story for The Reader that tries to lay out what it was like for her to be on the receiving end of vitriol and rancor. Through it all, she kept her composure and never engaged in the kind of name calling and reputation bashing that others subjected her to. You can find my earlier, dual profile on Freddie and Ben Gray on this blog, under the title Gray Matters or in the Omaha Public Schools or Education categories.
Freddie Gray Stands Fast on Her Handling of Sebring Scandal, OPS School Board President Survives Vote to Continue Her Mission
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Freddie Gray knows being second-guessed and scrutinized comes with the job of Omaha Public School Board President. But when she came under fire over her handling of the Nancy Sebring scandal she got more than she bargained for, including allegations she’d violated the public trust and calls for her resignation or removal.
Sebring is the former Des Moines Public Schools superintendent OPS hired in the spring only to resign after sexually charged emails she exchanged with her lover became public.
The controversy about what Gray did and didn’t do in response to the scandal culminated at an August 6 school board meeting where a special vote retained her by an 8 to 4 count.
Until the blow up Gray slipped under the radar as a veteran but low profile public servant. She certainly never found herself on the hot seat quite like this. Often overshadowed by her husband, Omaha city councilman and former television journalist Ben Gray, she endured a public referendum on her character despite a seven month record as board president even her detractors don’t fault.
Gray was appointed to the board in February 2008 to replace Karen Shepard and ran unopposed that fall to retain the seat. She serves on local, state and national education initiative boards. Her Omaha school board peers thought enough of her to name her president at the start of 2012. Amidst the recent storm that led to Gray facing removal she refused to say she erred and balked at apologizing.
“Whatever the pleasure of the board was going to be that night it was something I needed to live with,” she says, “but I was not going to compromise my integrity and myself and say I was wrong when that’s not true.
“You can’t buy me that way. I did the right thing, I know I did the right thing.”
Gray asserts she and OPS board counsel Elizabeth Eynon-Korkda acted properly based on what they knew at the time about the nature of Sebring’s emails. Gray says she and Eynon-Korkda treated the matter as a personnel issue and therefore outside the board’s purview because Sebring was already a district employee when the emails surfaced as an issue.
“The personnel issue was the context of what was done and why it was done the way it was done,” says Gray, adding she “didn’t want to poison the well” and risk biasing the board should Sebring come before a termination hearing
When the full extent of the sexually charged emails came to light, Sebring stepped aside.
Gray can live with the “differing views” critics voice but she describes as “troubling” and “disturbing” the anonymous, expletive-filled postal letters and phone messages she says she’s received at home.
“There are people who took advantage of the situation. They didn’t talk about what the issue was, it was just name calling, ugliness. I have grandchildren that were exposed to language totally inappropriate for them to hear.
“I just find those people to be real cowards. You know, if you’ve got something to say to me then man up or woman up and say it to me.”
The negativity was counterbalanced by expressions of support, including her mate’s presence at the July 30 and August 6 school board meetings.
“I have a fabulous husband. He was very supportive. My family of course, not just my children but my sisters, my nieces and nephews. my extended family in Cleveland. The prayer chains people had going on. I had so many emails, phone messages, Facebook posts from people saying they had my back.”
She says her “trust and belief in a Supreme Being was never shaken” though “there was that question of why me and why now.”
Encouraging words too came, she says, from other school district leaders and from peers at the state and national levels. The morning that decided her school board presidency fate she spoke before an assembly of district principals who gave her a standing ovation upon her introduction.
“That blew my mind. I had no clue what to expect when I walked in that room. It was quite moving and a great way to start the day.”
She says perhaps the most hurtful thing in this episode was that her “very long line of public service,” including the Douglas County Board of Health, the African-American Achievement Council and years of mentoring, became obscured.
‘”In a very long history of being actively engaged with the community my detractors tried to define me by one thing. It was heartbreaking that people would do that. It was like everything else I had done in my life was valueless.”
She says she regrets the imbrogolio distracted from the “great progress the board’s been making” and to the “gains” the district’s made in graduation and truancy rates. Her overriding concern now, she says, is moving the district forward, something she expects to still be doing after this fall’s district elections. She’s running against fellow Democrat James M. English, a former OPS teacher and administrator .
Gray says no one can legitimately question her devotion to the district.
“My reason to be there is nothing more than pure academic success for all students . If you look at what I’ve done, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, the messages I’ve carried through the community, statewide and nationally you’ll see I’m working very hard for the children of Nebraska and specifically for children in my district.”
Gray oversaw the board’s recent hiring of interim superintendent Virginia Moon and will oversee its search to find a permanent replacement for the retiring John Mackiel. Though she concedes repair needs to be made to a divided board, particularly among members who wanted her out, she foresees no problem getting the work of the district done.
Related articles
- Gray Matters: Ben and Freddie Gray Fight the Good Fight Helping Young Men and Women Find Pathways to Success (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
- Omaha school board votes to retain president (sfgate.com)
Creighton College of Business Anchored in Pioneering Entrepreneurial Spirit and Jesuit Philosophy
What follows is a historical narrative I was commissioned to write for the Creighton University College of Businesss. The gist of the assignment was to articulate how the enterpreneurial focus and service to society mission of the college is in alignment with the enterprising and giving natures of the university’s pioneering founders, including businessmen and staunch Catholics Edward and John Creighton and the Jesuits.
Creighton College of Business Anchored in Pioneering Entrepreneurial Spirit and Jesuit Philosophy
©by Leo Adam Biga
Enterprising Spirit Animates the Creighton Story
Creighton University was founded in 1878 thanks to a confluence of figures whose pioneering, entrepreneurial, for-the-greater-good spirit established a caring, comprehensive academic institution on the Great Plains.
As Creighton has grown, so has the city it is situated in, Omaha, Nebraska. The Jesuit school and campus provide an anchor in the north downtown district. Graduates of Creighton’s professional schools and colleges of law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and business, for example, are recognized leaders in their fields. Creighton is lauded for being a good neighbor and a vital asset to the community.
The university makes contributions to many quality of life areas and some of the most visible are made by the Creighton University Medical Center, which combines teaching, diagnosis, and treatment in a real-life, critical care setting.
Community service is a vital facet of the Creighton experience. Students, faculty, and staff donate time and talent through health care and legal aid clinics. Service-learning efforts address myriad needs at home, around the nation, on Native American reservations, and in the Dominican Republic, where Creighton maintains an Institute for Latin American Concern mission.
Community collaboration and partnerships are other dimensions of Creighton’s outreach. The Werner Institute is a model initiative for negotiation and conflict resolution in the conduct of business, in relationships within and among organizations and communities, in the workplace, and in health care settings.
The Halo Institute is a collaborative that provides incubator space and professional consultation for emerging start-up businesses with a social or bioscience entrepreneurial bent. Halo is located in a complex of buildings in Omaha’s Old Market, a historic district whose warehouses were home to the city’s wholesale produce and outfitting businesses. Creighton University’s founders, brothers Edward and John Creighton, did business out of the very 19th century structure that Halo occupies today.
Creightons Set a Precedent for Being Entrepreneurial and Community-Minded
It is only fitting that the university retain a tangible connection to the Creightons, as the family’s lives and careers embodied the same principles that underscore the institution’s core mission and the way in which it’s carried out.
Edward and John Creighton were business magnates and devout Catholics from the East who settled in Omaha in the years immediately prior to the Civil War. The Creightons amassed a fortune through various business interests and invested significant portions of that wealth into bettering the community through charitable support.
Builder, developer, and visionary Edward Creighton, the older of the two, got in on the ground floor of the burgeoning telegraph and railroad industries. He and his companies played a major role in supplying and constructing the transcontinental lines and rails that grew America’s communication and transportation networks.
Edward’s vast commercial empire was also built on bank, mine, cattle, and land holdings. His many business partners included fellow movers-and-shakers in the development of Omaha and in the settling of the West. Concurrent with Edward’s capitalist impulses was a desire to give back. It had long been his wish to form a Catholic school that prepared young people through a quality, values-based education program. After Edward’s death, his widow Mary Lucretia Creighton, and his younger brother John, a successful entrepreneur in his own right, carried out his wishes by founding Creighton University, which was originally called Creighton College.
Respected for their expertise as educators and for the rigorous morals and ethics-based course of study they administer, the Society of Jesus was given rein over the university. The Jesuits have continued guiding Creighton throughout its existence.
That same early spirit of aspiration, invention, and service is still imbued in Creighton more than a century later. Consistently rated one of the top institutions of higher learning in the Midwest, Creighton is rooted in its Catholic and Jesuit identity and mission of educating the whole person and leaving the world a better place. Creighton graduates are prepared to lead purpose-driven lives and careers.
College of Business Reflects the Creighton Legacy and the Jesuit Tradition
This mission extends to the university’s College of Business, founded in 1920 as the College of Commerce. Guided by the school’s Jesuit heritage, Through its highly respected undergraduate and graduate level programs he College of Business forms leaders who promote justice and use their business knowledge to improve the world.
Michael Jung, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Cantera Partners, has used his MBA from Creighton to assist nonprofits develop public-private partnerships aimed at building economic development and sustainability in emerging and Third World nations.
“It is rewarding work, not only financially but from seeing the difference these programs can make in the world,” says Jung. “Some of the work that I have been involved in is feeding children in Afghanistan. We were feeding 75,000 school kids on a daily basis for five years. Just seeing the impact that can have on those children, mothers, families is very rewarding. I like being part of work that is actually making a difference with those not as fortunate as us here in the United States.”
The Creighton College of Business advances values-centered conduct through its courses as well as through its Academic Integrity Policy, Dean’s Honor Roll for Social Responsibility, Executive Partners Program, Anna Tyler Waite Center for Leadership, Leadership Conversations series, and other programs.
The business college is a founding member and active participant in the Greater Omaha Business Ethics Alliance. This partnership with the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau advocates ethics in business.
Creighton MBA graduate Laura Larson is associate director of the Business Ethics Alliance.
“I think Creighton’s Jesuit focus prepared me so well for my job now in the business ethics industry,” says Larson. “I saw a focus in my classes on looking out for each person individually, the good of every person, taking the time to think about how a decision affects all stakeholders involved.
“Values have always been very important to me and acting morally and ethically has always been very important to me. When I came to Creighton and got the opportunity to work with the Business Alliance it really was a dream job to me because I’m making a difference in Omaha organizations every day. I’m bringing knowledge, skills, and resources involving ethics that organizations may not already have. I feel like I have a dream job just because I get to help others. “
Pat Lazure is president of World Interactive Group, an Omaha World-Herald company. He founded a hyper-local Web platform, WikiCity, whose breakout success led the Omaha World-Herald Co. to buy it and bring him into the fold.
Holder of a Creighton MBA, Lazure appreciates the solid foundation he received in ethical business practices during his Creighton graduate studies.
“Business ethics is doing the right thing, sometimes even when it is uncomfortable to do,” Lazure says, “and in my education at Creighton business ethics was just a common ingredient, categorically, in every class I attended. It was just engrained in you. I think a Creighton graduate is conditioned to take that moral compass into their career.
“The Jesuits have always engrained being men and women for others. In a business career especially I think you can fall into a trap of being self serving, of only looking at what can I do to climb that corporate ladder. Or what can I do to promote my own stock. Or how can I cut corners. I think the Jesuit way instills in people a focus of being that man or woman for others, and seeing the broader landscape of things. Perhaps that’s through philanthropy or community service. Whatever it may be, it’s commingling the philanthropic aspects of life with the drive to turn a profit.”
Imagination, Innovation, Integrity Find a Home at Creighton
The College’s Social Entrepreneurship and Bioscience Entrepreneurship programs emphasize business models that feature sustainable new practices and technologies that can positively impact society and community.
Omaha native Sameer Bhatia graduated from medical school in India and then earned his MBA from Creighton’s Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program. That experience led him to the Halo Institute, where his start-up business, Guru Instruments, found a nurturing space. Guru is focused on designing and marketing tools for medical professionals that improve surgical and other procedures, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing costs. Bhatia dreams of automated devices that can serve as “virtual physicians” in patients’ own homes or in nursing homes by feeding data to doctors’ offices to help inform diagnostic or treatment options.
Creighton Entrepreneurship Program director Ann York says Bhatia fits the model of a socially conscious entrepreneur who is not only motivated to succeed with products that have a humanitarian utility but who will likely “give back.”
For York there is a clear throughline from what the Creighton brothers did as early social entrepreneurs and the way Creighton University graduates learn to apply social entrepreneurship today. She says the principles and lessons of social entrepreneurship taught at Creighton dovetail with those of the Jesuit tradition and its challenge to students to be stewards of society.
“Given the mission and the values of our university as a Jesuit institution it makes perfect sense that social entrepreneurship would capture the hearts and minds of our students,” says York.
She cannot help but see the connection between the way Edward Creighton conducted business and the way Creighton students and graduates learn to engage with each other and with community.
“The older brother, Edward, was sort of a maverick,” says York, “but he was very into social causes. He was very concerned about Native American rights and education and respecting the integrity of the Native American people. In working on the railroad routes and telegraph lines, negotiations with Native Americans occurred all along the way and he was very concerned about some of the things he saw going on and actually was pretty outspoken about it. He was also an abolitionist, and pretty vocal about that, too. That’s very socially conscious.
“Entrepreneurs are the most socially conscious of all business people. Entrepreneurs who make money often want to give something back to the community that helped them grow and flourish, and the Creightons were very much that type of family.”
York also sees a parallel between the technological pursuits of the Creightons and the university’s bioscience entrepreneurship efforts. Just as that pioneering family helped to advance rapid communication through the telegraph and to further mass
transportation through the railroad, the school’s entrepreneurial success stories are forging new frontiers of their own.
“I think the Creightons would embrace very much what we’re doing in the biosciences,” York says, “because I think they would recognize it as an emerging industry like the ones they were involved and they would see the potential for future entrepreneurs like themselves.”
Nurturing Creatives and Leaders
After experiencing success with its undergraduate Bioscience Entrepreneurship program, Creighton has developed a professional science master’s program in Bioscience Management. College of Business Dean Anthony Hendrickson says the emphasis in this graduate-level program “is really the management of that bioscience innovation process — the research and development.”
The Halo Institute is a supportive proving ground for social and bioscience entrepreneurial business models generated by Creighton students and faculty, although the incubator is open to applicants outside the Creighton community as well.
“The distinguishing thing about our Halo business incubator is that it is tied to our Jesuit mission,” says Hendrickson. “When as a board we look at different businesses the first question we ask ourselves is, ‘Relative to this service or product, what is its impact on society?’ Not its money making potential, but its impact on society. We consider that first and then after addressing whether it’s a good thing for society, we look at its business viability aspects, which is a different orientation. Most business institutions don’t do that because of their secular focus on business viability and profit potential. Most organizations ranking those things wouldn’t necessarily look at that social impact issue first.”
Halo Institute chair Roger Fransecky says participants in the incubator benefit from “the sponsorship, direction, and guidance of a values-based staff, and it’s all a reflection of what Creighton is about as an institution.”
Fransecky has an interesting perspective on the principled way Creighton approaches business precepts. Founder/CEO of the global leadership firm, Apogee Group, he serves on the College of Business advisory board and teaches a special course in personal leadership in the Creighton MBA program.
“I share deeply the values that Creighton espouses,” says Fransecky. “My students are doctors, lawyers, dentists, bankers, accountants, business people, and the common denominator is — they’re in this program not simply to get an MBA, they’re in this program to find work with meaning and to then link that work to the larger values of their lives. I’ve been very touched and moved by these grownups — they’re really smart and they care a lot. The thing that links them together is their aspirations and their values.
“I’ve taught at New York University and UCLA and Princeton and a lot of other places, and these (Creighton) students are very unique in my experience.”
ESPN reporter Paula Lavigne, who does enterprise piece’s for the cable sports network’s investigative “Outside the Lines” series, was a college graduate and working journalist when she decided to enhance her marketable skills. She decided to pursue a master of business administration degree and after considering several graduate schools she opted for Creighton’s MBA program.
“I chose Creighton because it has a wonderful reputation,” says Lavigne. “I appreciated the values it disposes. It was the Creighton faculty that really won me over. It was a wonderful blend of experienced faculty leading a discussion of people from all different backgrounds and engaged in really thought-provoking material.
“I feel like since I’ve gotten my MBA from Creighton I am more confident in my job and in the ideas I come up with. I feel that my MBA has really given me skills as a leader as well as a sense of credibility and business savvy I didn’t have before.”
Lavigne says she struggled with leadership until a breakthrough at Creighton.
“I think one of the most powerful moments from my Creighton experience was a personal leadership class I took. The professor really encouraged us to bring forth a lot of things from our past that were uncomfortable. By doing that it allowed me to see what I had been doing wrong as a leader and what strengths I could pull from to be a better leader going forward. It felt like a very cleansing moment for me.”
She says she learned leadership “is not just about numbers and board meetings, it’s really about people and it’s about your individual skills. This class really helped me come to terms with a lot of that. ” She says she now practices leadership on the job and as a presenter of workshops and training seminars for other reporters.
A Moral Compass
In addition to honing her leadership skills, Paula Lavigne says Creighton’s MBA program gave her a new, healthier perspective of business.
“Before I started the MBA program at Creighton I had a pretty cynical view of business, especially big business not really having much respect for business ethics or morality or social justice. In my view those values really didn’t have a role in the business community. My MBA classes at Creighton taught me that’s not really true. Professors were very good about incorporating that sense of justice, ethics, and morality into business, and really teaching us as students that there is a role for that. It is not just a dog eat dog world.
“I mean there is definitely a role in business to follow a moral compass of sorts and still be successful. I think that really plays into those Jesuit values, and I know that that sense of the Golden Rule is not just for Sunday school, but it’s for the boardroom as well. Our professors instilled in us that you don’t just have to run over everyone, you can respect your competition, you can respect your customers, and at the end of the day you can still profit from the bottom line.”
Creighton business professor and Robert Daugherty Chair in Management Robert Moorman says the College of Business encourages students not to be satisfied with the status quo. He says students are challenged to look beyond merely making a profit or returning a dividend to shareholders by asking questions that go deeper than bottom line numbers. He says students are trained to look at larger considerations; What’s next? What else is there to do? How are you going to use shareholder value to drive changes in the world toward justice, toward the improvement of society for the many?
“It’s that sense of responsibility to take one more step,” says Moorman. “Gathering the knowledge is a necessary important first step. Using the knowledge completes the circle. So I think this is a place where we try to ask the question, How are you going to use the knowledge, what are you going to do with it? Leadership is the method, the lever or the device that links knowledge to the outcomes we wish to see.
“I often say to students, ‘We want you to take ethics classes and really think about the ethics side of it, because we want you to be leaders who influence the world.’”
Moorman says that if students are going to be successful entrepreneurs they must know finance, marketing, strategy, and underlining business principles. Just as they must have a complete grasp of such business models, he says if f they are to be socially responsible entrepreneurs they must know and apply sound ethics. It’s this holistic approach to doing business, he says, that differentiates Creighton’s focus.
“Everything is kind of tied together that way,” he says. “I think the entrepreneurship major is really about fostering a drive towards innovation that makes a difference for society.”
Hendrickson sees plenty of evidence that Creighton business graduates implement the social consciousness taught in school in their own careers.
“It seems like there’s a number of Creighton grads that embrace this idea of social entrepreneurship, mostly because that’s the ethos from which they spring,” he says.
That ethos is one embodied by the Jesuit philosophy, past and present, and it’s certainly an ethos the Creighton family manifested.
Building on a Foundation of Serving the Greater Good
According to Creighton archivist David Crawford the Creightons were visionaries who saw the need for quality higher education that was broad in scope, yet specialized. The family’s philanthropy made possible the addition of the schools of medicine, law, pharmacy, and significantly, business. He says Creighton University added the then-School of Commerce at a time when there was growing recognition of the need for “scientific training” in business administration.
Whether donating the money to establish Creighton University or providing funds to build out the campus, including St. John’s Church, or financing the creation of professional schools, or supporting St. Joseph Hospital, Crawford says “the Creightons acted out of “a sense of responsibility” to serve their community and faith.
“Through a lot of their charitable works the Creightons took care of a number of voids in Omaha and Nebraska. I think they just saw this as part of giving back to the community.”
Crawford says this outward focus still resonates today with the social justice and community service work that Creighton students, faculty, and staff do in accordance with the school’s Jesuit mission.
“You see a strong sense that that’s what you do here — that’s the norm, and I think that really ties directly back to the Creightons. The commitment to putting a school here was part of a larger commitment. The leadership role of the Creighton family was very much in that mode of noblesse oblige (nobility obliges) — of feeling a responsibility to people in the area,” says Crawford. “There was a sense of, We’ve been blessed, there’s a lot of people in our community who are less fortunate, and we need to take care of them.”
Omaha is well known for its generous business and entrepreneurial sector and Creighton College of Business graduates are among the major players who make community service a priority here and wherever they live.
Laura Larson of the Greater Omaha Business Ethics Alliance credits Creighton University with nurturing a focus on others.
“Something that was really emphasized at Creighton was giving back to the community,” she says. “One way Creighton helped me to grow was that it really gave me the opportunity to make a difference in the MBA program. When I had an idea for a project I’d go to a faculty member to talk about it, and they were completely open to hear what I had to say and they gave me the tools necessary to implement the project. I was able to start a graduate student association and plan the first hooding ceremony for graduate business students.”
“After I was done with my MBA I got involved with a mentoring program in the Omaha area, so I now mentor a group of four to six kids twice a month. Serving others is something I was always very passionate about. It is something that has been instilled in me from a young age and Creighton emphasized it as well as I went through the program. “
Robert Moorman says the example of the Creightons and university graduates giving back demonstrates how trailblazers can assert leadership that goes beyond selfish business interests to serve much wider community and societal interests.
“It’s really about the drive that prompted the Creightons to explore new territories, new business ideas, new endeavors and not stop at perhaps a simple way station and say, I am successful now, that’s good enough, and I’m resting on my laurels. It’s about a very forward leaning entrepreneurial notion,” says Moorman, “and at least being comfortable with accepting the mantle of responsibility that comes with opportunity.
“Responsibility comes with those benefits. Leadership is the way in which influence is exercised. At the end of the day it’s all about exercising influence over the actions and views of other folks, and the Creighton brothers did that, the Creighton wives did that, and that I think is the connection we want to have to that legacy. It’s the what’s next — what else are you going to do now? outlook.”
An Unbroken Chain of Ingenuity and Inspiration
The holistic approach the Creightons modeled has remained a constant at the university and in its business college, whose graduates cultivate a sense of responsibility and concern they carry with them, paying it forward in their personal and professional lives.
“Getting my MBA at Creighton has made me more of a whole person,” says ESPN’s Paula Lavigne. “It has made me a better contributor in the workplace. It has made me a better leader. It has given me opportunities at ESPN and I believe it has opened up my opportunities for the long term as well regardless of what I do.
“One of the things we learned in our leadership classes was the importance of being authentic. You can’t be authentic if you have one face at work and a different one at home and a different face in your spiritual life. You have to make sure the person you are at work is true to the person you are at home because that makes you a better leader. As long as you’re being authentic to yourself, you can be a better person, you can be a better leader with your coworkers, with your supervisors, and the customers that you deal with.”
Balance, congruence, integrity, innovation, integration, service. These qualities have been a hallmark of the Creighton experience since its start. They remain a cornerstone of the values taught there today.
The enterprising and philanthropic spirit of the school’s founders has been taken up year after year, generation after generation by new mavericks animated with the same desire to achieve and lead.
Like the Creightons who began it all, the university continues producing men and women of substance, vision, and conscience who succeed in business and in life not in spite of their compassion and generosity but because of it.
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The Garcia Girls
Success runs in certain families and most of America loves nothing better than classic immigrant success stories. That’s what the Jesus and Beatriz Garcia family of Omaha represents. Their success starts with the now elderly but still active parents who came from Mexico to make a better life for themselves and their six girls, who were all born in Mexico but primarily raised in America. My story for El Perico focuses on how the sisters have achieved much educationally and professionally, always guided by the hard-working, aspiring example of their parents. Just as the parents are inspirations to the Garcia girls so are the sisters inspirations to each other.
The Garcia Girls
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in El Perico
When Jesus and Beatriz Garcia left Mexico for America decades ago their fervent wish was to give their family a better life. In that, there’s no doubt they succeeded. The couple captured the American Dream by working hard, owning their own home, becoming fixtures at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and raising six girls.
The Garcias have seen their daughters, all born in Mexico, grow into accomplished women with families and careers of their own. The Garcia Girls carry on their parents’ tradition of serving others. At the 2011 Latino Heritage Awards the eldest, Magdalena “Maggie” Garcia, was honored for her work as El Museo Latino founder and executive director. Baby sister Maria Vazquez, associate vice president of student affairs at Metropolitan Community College, was named Latina of the Year.
“I’m amazed at Maggie’s and Maria’s accomplishments, and at all my other sisters.
They’re all working hard and continuing their education, and I’m doing the same thing,” says Silvia Wells, El Museo Latino managing director.
The sisters have all attended college as nontraditional students. The only one without a degree, Lori Ramirez, is working on it. Some have multiple degrees. Each has a chosen profession. It all stems from strong parental guidance. Maggie recalls, “My father sat me down and said, ‘My responsibility is to provide for you what you need. Your responsibility is to do the best you can.’ He never said you have to do this or that, he just said, you have to do the best you can. The demands were what each one of us placed on ourselves.”
Jesus and Beatriz Garcia
Education was always stressed. “They put all six of us through Catholic school. They both worked. My dad sometimes had two and three jobs,” says Maggie.
Jesus trained in fine woodworking and construction in Mexico and his expert craftsman’s skills made him employable here. He repaired furniture for Nebraska Furniture Mart. Later, he opened his own shop, Jesse Garcia‘s Repair, at 13th and Vinton Streets in South Omaha, where the Garcias are an old-line Latino family.
He also built custom display cabinets for daughter Maggie’s museum. He closed his shop last year but still keeps his hands busy for select customers.
Beatriz, who learned seamstress skills in Mexico, labored 30 years at Pendleton Woolen Mills. She started as a sewer and retired as a supervisor. A talented cook, she makes her famous enchiladas and burritos for museum and church fundraisers. She marvels at what her daughters have made of themselves.
“I’m so proud of all my girls.”
In turn, the Garcia Girls admire their parents. Beatriz “Betty” Garcia Gonzalez, a licensed clinical social worker and mental health professional with two degrees, is struck by their “humility and determination.” She and her sisters appreciate the effort their folks made taking them to Mexico every summer for two-week immersions in family, heritage and culture. They value their devotion to church and their legendary work ethic. Wells says these values are “deeply rooted” in them all.
“Those pillars of lessons” says Vazquez, shaped the Garcia Girls. That example now shapes four generations of Garcias, “Mom and Dad are still healthy and they’re still very much a part of our lives. They still encourage us,” says Patty Tello, an Educare Center of Omaha family enrichment specialist.. “They worked so hard so that we could have an education. Always in the back of my head was that I had to make them proud of me because of their sacrifice.”
“I’m very happy my parents had the desire for us to complete our education and go further than just high school,” says Wells.
Maria says, “They’re the smartest people I know. They valued education. They always certainly encouraged us to do our best and to work hard and give back, and with that foundation we were able to do anything.”
Indeed, Silvia says her folks made her feel “I’m capable of reaching any goal I wish to attain.” She can count on “always having their support.” And the support of her sisters. “It is nice to always have someone encouraging you and I think we all encourage each other.” “We’re there for sounding boards,” says Maggie.
Tello says the family always pitches in to babysit as needed.
There’s some sisterly prodding, too. “If I’m thinking, This is difficult, there’s always someone there to say, ‘I know you can do it,’ or, ‘I did it, you can do it, too,” says Silvia. Patty was inspired to go back to school after seeing Silvia do it.
“I think we’ve challenged each other,” says Betty.
The striving continues. Silvia is midday through graduate studies at Bellevue University. Patty is studying for her master’s in childhood education at Concordia (Seward, Neb.) University. Vazquez is going after her Ph.D. in educational administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Betty says the family’s left “a legacy.” “And there’s still more to come,” says Patty, adding, “We’re still pushing the envelope and seeing what more can we do.”
“We all try to be a part of the community we live in and make it a better place to live,” says Silvia.
As the oldest, Maggie led the way by embarking on a corporate career, then becoming the first in her family to attend college.
“Maggie was working full time and married when she started at UNO. I remember her taking me when she registered for classes. She wanted to expose me to that environment, to that other world,” says Maria, who went on to earn degrees from Metro and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Magdalena “Maggie” Garcia, right, with her Latino Heritage Award
Maria Vazquez making her Latina of the Year acceptance speech at Latino Heritage Awards
photos ©2007 – 2010 Barrientos Scholarship Foundation, http://www.barrientosscholarship.org
After Maggie completed her master’s at Syracuse University she was unsure what to do next. “My father told me, ‘Whatever you decide to do you have our support in whatever way we can, but find something that makes you happy and you’re passionate about.’” She fulfilled her dream opening the museum. The whole family’s volunteered there.
As each Garcia Girl’s found success, the whole family’s shared in it. The legacy lives on.
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