Graduation, changing your mind, and changing the world

Graduation Address for Global Health Technologies Minor

Last Sunday, I went out for a long run, and as I usually do, I tuned in to a podcast of This American Life.  Last week’s episode was called The Incredible Rarity of Changing Your Mind, and it was about both what it takes to change peoples’ minds and, more importantly, what it takes for people to change their lives. 

The first story focused on a new, grassroots advocacy strategy to get people to change their minds about deeply held beliefs.  They followed political canvassers as they went door to door trying to change peoples’ minds about two subjects that are really difficult to talk about – gay marriage and abortion.  It turns out that people are much more likely to change their mind if one simple thing happens - if they have a real conversation about the issue with someone who is personally affected by it.  The key to getting people to change their minds was not for the canvasser to talk, but for the canvasser to listen, to ask questions, to find out more, and see where it leads.  When people talk about an issue in terms of their own lives, it often leads them to different conclusions.  When canvassers used this strategy, they found that 15% of people changed their opinion about these very personal topics - and most importantly maintained this change more than a year after the initial conversation. The research was published recently as a case control study in Science – and there’s one critical fact that is relevant to global health – voters only changed their mind when they had the conversation with someone who was personally affected by the issue.

In this time of growing need but shrinking aid for global health, it made me wonder - how do people in Malawi and places like Malawi manage to be part of these conversations? In this day of global connectivity, it is still all too easy for the challenges of our global neighbors to remain invisible.  Too easy for us not to see the overwhelming challenges that babies, girls, and moms face. Through your coursework in the minor, you’ve learned the skills, developed personal tools to begin to identify and solve some of these problems.  Now it is time for YOU to put this knowledge to use and become agents of change. Your generation is the one that must address global health inequities and you have a big job ahead of you.  

In the second story This American Life visited a program in Richmond, California that is trying a controversial method to reduce gun violence in their city: paying criminals not to commit crimes.  It sounds crazy, but the even crazier part is that it is working.  The chief of police did an analysis that showed that 70% of shootings in the city involved just 17 guys.  He theorized that if he could get those guys to change it would make a big dent in the city’s crime program, so he invited them to a meeting. And offered to pay them to stay out of trouble. In effect, changing their lives could become their job. And the former criminals eventually got paying jobs and homicide rates in the city decreased by 67%.

Now at this point in my run, the endorphins were really kicking in, and it got me thinking, maybe this should be the message for today’s graduation. Not that I think you are criminals – but if we are asking you to be Agents of Change – we need to give you tools to be Agents of Change.  Some of those tools you developed in GLHT 201 and 360, some you developed late at night in the OEDK working on your senior design project.  And some of those tools you developed working in Ethiopia or Malawi or Brazil.  But you can’t be an Agent of Change without two important things: a t-shirt and resources.  And so, Maria and I decided to invest some resources in you.  We’ve given each of you a $100 gift card, with a special request.  We’re asking you to use this money as an Agent of Change – in the next year to make an investment to initiate change for something that you care about personally.  You might use it to buy books for grad school to get your MPH, you might use it to fund part of your travel to a volunteer experience, you might give it to an NGO, or use it to buy some supplies for the new design kitchen at Malawi Polytechnic – whatever you want.  All we ask is that you use the Rice 360 Facebook page to tell all of us how you invested the money and what is the change you hope to see from this investment.

We can’t wait to hear your stories from the next year.  We can’t wait to hear your stories from the brilliant careers we know you will all have.  Remember us when you come back to campus, have dinner with us when we visit your city. We are so proud of you.  Good luck and congratulations!

Sprint for Spring and Qualifying for Boston

This Saturday I’ll be running the Spring for Spring 5k together with my little Ethiopian pace team.  I love this event – it was the first race I ran - back in 2012 when Margaret was just a baby.  My only goal for this race was to keep up with my 80 year old neighbor and finish without stopping.  But it was so much fun to be out with everyone listening to the national anthem, waiting anxiously for the starter horn, having neighbors cheer me on, and gulping cold water from paper cups handed out by volunteers – I was hooked! 

I’m setting some ambitious running goals for the next two years.  I’m going back to the Marine Corps Marathon in October and my goal is to run in 4:30.  I’m running the Houston Half again in January and my goal is to run under 2:00.  And after that – gulp - I want to qualify for Boston.  I have to run under 4 hours – 26 miles at a 9:00 min/mile pace. 

    

What I’m Reading:  I just finished the Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham.  A memoir detailing the impact of her father’s suicide, she writes about how hard it was to let go of the many unanswered questions that lingered after his death.  A hard, sad read.  Also finished Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet – a great literary mystery and so much fun.  

Faculty Address to 2013 Matriculants

Finally finished the text for my faculty address  to the 2013 matriculants at Rice.  Summer is officially over...

Not that I'm taking it personally...

The reviews of my NIH grant are in and they can be summarized in three simple words:

"You ignorant slut."

I feel so misunderstood.

Snarky Irony, only $1.99

My youngest son turns 13 this week. And while I really do love being the mom of three teenaged boys, I’m afraid that I find myself turning to sarcasm far more frequently than I should. I’m thinking of writing a book called “Better Parenting through Sarcasm”.

My kids don’t always appreciate my snarcastic tendencies (especially when texting me close to curfew time), but a friend recently sent me the solution:

The SarcMark - - a new punctuation mark designed to emphasize a sarcastic message. The SarcMark website promises:

Never again be misunderstood! Never again waste a good sarcastic line on someone who doesn’t get it!

A lifetime supply of snarky irony for only $1.99. And here at Rice, I thought that was free.

What I'm reading this week:

Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway - I'm not far enough to recommend it yet, but it is off to a promising start. And it has a back cover quote from my hero, Anne Fadiman.

I Need Your Help

If you have taken Bioe 301, you know how much I love science news from NPR. Though I don't usually admit this in class, I also love Comedy Central's news. Because I go to bed early, I have to DVR The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and catch up the next day. Not only do I watch fake news, I watch it a day late.

Imagine my jealousy when I watched Emily Pilloton's appearance on Colbert last week:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/121580/the-colbert-report-emily-pilloton

But I got to thinking... I wrote a book. My students design cool stuff to solve socially important problems. Why shouldn't we be on Colbert? Along with our cool dosing syringe and salad-spinner-turned-centrifuge?

So I'm asking for your help. Let's start the "Get BTB on Colbert" campaign. Maybe you could e-mail the producers. Or edit his Wikipedia page to insert our names somewhere...

Next Week in BIOE 260: Oprah stops by class to announce that she is bringing back her book club and will feature Biomedical Engineering for Global Health as the next selection. We convince her to fund the international dissemination of the BTB curriculum. And I get a makeover. I really believe this could happen.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

This week is about beginnings. Today in class I will hand out a project binder to each group. One of my favorite things in life is buying new school supplies at the beginning of the semester. I love the sense of organization and possibility that comes from putting together a binder with fresh tabs and ink-rich felt tip pens.

This semester, you will use the binder to capture your group’s ideas, to refine those ideas, and to build and document your final project. We have selected the projects because we truly believe in the potential of each to make a difference in an impoverished setting. As we begin, I ask each of you to think about your project in this context. Rather than thinking about what will get the job done, or what will earn an A for your group, I’d like you to think about what will truly make a difference for the people targeted by your project. And to continually ask whether your intervention is “appropriate” in all the ways that we’ve defined appropriate. Will it make a difference?

I read an amazing book this weekend, which I think is highly relevant to this point. If you haven’t read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, go find a copy. Immediately. It’s that good. I already want to read it again.