Sigma Tau Deltans Raise Cultural Awareness
The Alpha Theta Epsilon Chapter at Stephens College is committed to helping Vessels International (run by department alumnae Renee Reed-Miller, ‘02) with Home of Love in the Tamil Nadu state of India. Home of Love is a Christian orphanage that houses 30 to 35 children who come from backgrounds of poverty and violence.
Stephens College Deltans have organized and are currently executing the E-Pal program in conjunction with the Audrey Webb Children's School, a private elementary school located on the Stephens campus. The E-Pal program gives the Indian children a chance to practice using their English skills, along with learning about American culture. It also helps to open the American students’ eyes to a culture and life very different than their life in middle Missouri. Before starting the program, Sigma Tau Delta organized an hour lesson on Indian culture and other useful knowledge for the elementary school children to prepare and educate them about the part of the world with which they are communicating.
The chapter hopes that this program continues into next year and years after, providing the participating students a unique experience that cannot come from a textbook or a teacher’s lips.
Article and photograph courtesy of Katie Nicholson, Stephens College
Theta Zeta's Stories Continue Post-Convention
When the 2010 International Convention has come to a close and the end of the semester is finally in sight, the Theta Zeta Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire gears up for its spring events. The biggest event of the spring is our annual Children and Young Adults’ Writing Contests, for which we received a Sigma Tau Delta Project Grant. While our members were away at the convention, submissions from students throughout the state of Wisconsin poured in. In the coming weeks we will be reading, judging, and selecting the best poetry and prose written by these local students. Once the winning submissions are selected, we create booklets of the Children’s (Kindergarten through sixth grade) and Young Adults’ (seventh through twelfth grade) winning submissions, which we distribute at our awards ceremony. The ceremony is held during the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s Honors Week, where the winning students read and are recognized for their works and receive their awards and booklets.
As a recipient of the Outstanding Chapter Award, Theta Zeta is also excited to participate for the first time in Bowl for Kids’ Sake, a fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters. We will organize several teams, take pledges, and participate in a fun-filled night of bowling for this worthy cause.
In April, we will attend the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s Honors Banquet where honor society members are recognized for their outstanding service in our chapter and accomplishments at this year’s international convention.
On a final note, the Theta Zeta Chapter would like to extend many thanks to the new High Plains Regent, Gloria Hochstein. Her many contributions as the Midwestern Regent of Sigma Tau Delta include her support of regional conferences and chapter activities for the common reader. She encourages students of English to pursue activities outside of the classroom that enhance their education. Gloria has been an influential and inspirational presence in our chapter; she constantly supports all of us in all of our endeavors not only in Sigma Tau Delta, but in our overall academic careers. We thank her for all of her hard work and dedication and look forward to working with her again next year.
Article and photograph courtesy of Amanda Hendricks, Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Articles for Africa: Sigma Tau Deltans in Burkina Faso
I was remembering all of that as I looked at my drawer crammed full of clothing. I was remembering, too, how happy Mariam had been with my castoff clothing, how grateful she had been for the bent, tarnished, grease-encrusted pots and pans we gave her, how touched Tao and Idrissa had been by our measly monetary gift with which they purchased the tin and cement and goudron and windows. – Rebecca Belcher-Rankin, “Subsistence Living,” Kankakee Daily Journal (July 10, 2006)
Tau Theta sponsors Rebecca Belcher-Rankin and Dave Johnson in photo
If you haven’t heard of Burkina Faso, that’s probably all right. You have a good excuse: the country does not receive much attention, yet Burkinabes suffer from all the same economic, social, and health issues with which many other African nations wrestle, and for which those many other African nations get much more press.
Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, and has both a poor literacy rate (21.8%, reports the CIA's World Factbook) and low numbers in the higher education system (according to Belcher-Rankin, 10,000 out of every 3.9 million people are accepted into university each year).
Dr. Rebecca Belcher-Rankin, professor at Olivet Nazarene University and one of two faculty sponsors for Olivet’s Tau Theta Chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, earned a Fulbright scholarship to teach American Literature and a handful of other classes at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso’s capital city for the 2005 to 2006 school year. The differences in the educational systems of Burkina Faso and the United States were vast, according to Belcher-Rankin.
“Each class [in Burkina Faso] is required to meet so many hours during a semester…That means that I must meet my class that many hours, regardless of whether an act of man or God interferes with the schedule,” Belcher-Rankin said.
An “act of man” Belcher-Rankin referred to is the student strike: “The student union at the university is a strong arm of the student body. If the union says ‘Strike tomorrow,’ no one shows up for class.”
Despite the difficulties Belcher-Rankin faced in Burkina Faso, the experience left such an impression on her that for three of the last four academic years at Olivet Nazarene, she has spearheaded “research nights” in which she and the Tau Theta members gather in the English department’s computer labs and research paper topics that Belcher-Rankin receives from the university students in Burkina Faso, with whom she has maintained contact through university officials and the American embassy.
Belcher-Rankin and her Olivet students have, through the university, access to dozens of online databases and therefore thousands of articles—in English—on the topics the African students are researching that those students simply cannot access. “All they have [in Burkina Faso] is Yahoo France,” Belcher-Rankin said, “and that’s all in French.”
Belcher-Rankin sends the database articles to Burkina using funds from Tau Theta, Olivet’s English Department, and funds granted to her from Olivet’s Vice President of Academic Affairs.
Although the articles Belcher-Rankin and the Tau Theta Chapter collect are useful to the students over in Burkina Faso, Belcher-Rankin says that her dream has always been to take a team of students and travel back to Burkina Faso to help the students there with the actual writing of their papers.
This May 10th, Belcher-Rankin, two of Olivet’s other English professors (Dr. Kashama Mulamba and Professor Kristy Ingram), and eight Olivet students (including four current Tau Theta members and one alumnus) will travel to Ouagadougou to do just that.
For three weeks, the eleven team members will be meeting with the seniors at the University of Ouagadougou to assist in thesis and introduction formation, overall organization of the papers, MLA citations, and other structure and formatting issues.
Furthermore, the team members will be teaching ESL classes, holding “culture panels” to introduce literature, music, and other aspects of American culture to the citizens of Ouagadougou, and other service activities.
But the itinerary doesn’t end there. “This is a service trip,” Belcher-Rankin said, “we’ll do whatever they need us to.”
Article and photograph courtesy of Tim Stephansen, Olivet Nazarene University
