Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | summer 2008

SUMMER 2008

Cover Story:
>>Change the world

• Breaking the Ice
• ISU's environmental leadership
• A time for peace
• Corps cause
• Sweating the small stuff
• "The very best care"
• Flu fighter
• Healthy moms, healthy babies
• Hiking toward change
• Protecting the power
• Cross-cultural crime fighter

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Soggy end to a yearlong party

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Distinguished Awards Celebration

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CHANGE THE WORLD

It’s embedded in Iowa State University’s mission:
To “create, share, and apply knowledge to make Iowa and the world a better place.”

Iowa State researchers are looking for ways to ensure clean water, clean air, and safe food. The university is preparing its students to become conscientious global citizens. And Iowa State is building momentum in the areas of biorenewables and renewable fuels.

ISU is a world leader in addressing problems of developing countries in agriculture, malnutrition, community health, small business development, and sustainable resources.

“Incredible opportunities are arising to solve some of the world’s most challenging health and energy-related problems, while at the same time extraordinary innovations are resulting from our ongoing research and exploration,” said ISU President Gregory L. Geoffroy.

Indeed, Iowa State research has impacted the state of Iowa, the nation, and the global community. And its alumni are making a difference in people’s lives in such diverse areas as health care, climate change, international security, and human rights.

These individuals – and there are so many more like them – are making the world a safer, healthier, and more tolerant place to live.

They are changing the world.

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Sample Feature from
Summer 2008 Cover Story:

A TIME FOR PEACE

A child may not be born with a social conscience, but for Omar and Ramsey Tesdell, an emphasis on human rights and global awareness was passed down from their grandparents to their parents. And the brothers from Slater, Iowa, have embodied those ideals.

At Iowa State, Omar (journalism and mass communication ’04) founded the organization Time for Peace on Sept. 11, 2001, to build awareness and create a forum for dialogue about the terrorist attacks on the United States. The group held a silent vigil and later continued to provide a place for reflec-tion, discussion, education, and guest lectures on the world’s changing political climate.

Ramsey (technical communication ’06), who was still in high school during the Sept. 11 attacks, joined his brother in leading Time for Peace when he arrived as a student at Iowa State. The organization became “more intense” during the buildup to the Iraq war, and Ramsey helped organize a refugee campout and twice-weekly war protests on the corner of Lincoln Way and Welch Avenue in Campustown.

“People don’t have all that much contact with the Middle East,” Omar said. “It felt like it was really impor-tant to have a thoughtful and deliberate kind of space, to create space for people to think in other ways about their reactions to 9-11. Time for Peace really provided an important [outlet] for people to think and engage the issues we were dealing with, without the kind of knee-jerk politics.”

Following graduation from Iowa State, both brothers have taken paths that are less about money and success and more about working toward a world that is less violent and more tolerant of other people’s differences.

Omar studied in Peru on a Rotary Scholarship, working with an organization involved in urban agriculture in
shantytowns on the outskirts of Lima. He did a case study with participants in the program who were growing vegetables and raising small animals. The goal was to help them set up local food systems within the community, providing linkages between farmers and local markets to improve the quality of their lives.

Ramsey also received a Rotary Scholarship. He studied Arabic, diplomacy, and peace studies at a university in Jordan. He also got a job at the Jordan Times as an assignment reporter, and he helped set up a “citizen journalism” Web site called 7iber to allow citizens to contribute to the news system in their own voices as an alternative to the state-run media.

Currently, both brothers are working on advanced degrees. Ramsey is pursuing an MS in technical communication and an MA in Middle East studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Omar just
finished his second year at the University of Minnesota, working toward a PhD in geography and
sustainable agriculture.

They credit their grandparents and parents for giving them a solid base for becoming caring, socially conscious adults.

“Both sides of our family were pretty globally aware in the sense that they were either thrust in the mix of politics or made a conscious decision to be active in it,” Ramsey said. “There’s this long tradition on both sides of my family to be involved that kind of permeated the entire family.”

Their mother’s family was forced to flee as Palestinian refugees in the 1940s. The family later settled in Jordan. Grandparents on their father’s side were involved in international relief work in China and in the Gaza Strip, helping in the aftermath of the same war that displaced their mother’s family. Their father’s father took a job in Egypt, and their dad later met and married their mother in Jordan.

The family moved to Iowa, and Omar was born in Ames. Two years later, Ramsey was born in Saudi Arabia, when their father, Lee Tesdell (MA English ’82, PhD ’99), was teaching at a university there. After five years in the Middle East, the Tesdells moved back to the family farm in Slater, Iowa, where both boys grew
up and attended school.

As teenagers, the brothers’ lives were inextricably altered when their mother died of breast cancer. Ramsey had just turned 17, Omar 19.

Omar says his mother’s death had a profound impact on him.

“It affects every aspect of your life, and the kinds of feelings you have for suffering that’s associated with that kind of pain, you have to redirect in some way. I think we really felt like we needed to find some ways to contribute. It was very much in her spirit that we were doing things.”

At Iowa State, and since graduation, the brothers have followed similar but separate paths. Although they haven’t lived near each other physically for a number of years, they remain in almost daily contact.

“If I don’t talk to my brother or my dad in a day, it’s an unusual day,” Omar said.

Neither brother has concrete plans for the next steps following graduate school. Omar hopes to explore the implications of the human-environment-nature-society relationship. He might teach, or perhaps work for an international organization. Ramsey would like to use what he’s learned about technical communication to bring together people in social networks. He’d also like to be a community organizer and work with children.

“I’d like to provide some flame of hope, some little spark of hope,” Ramsey says. “It’s like, if you give a woman in Indonesia 20 dollars, that takes her from dire poverty to something where she can succeed. Twenty dollars. Something that means almost nothing to us. And just like that, you give them this teeny spark and it’s really powerful.”

Both brothers are open to the idea of working abroad, but they’re equally rooted to the Midwest.

“I’m not in the ‘Get Me Out of Iowa as Fast as I Can’ Club,” Omar says. “There are a lot of people in that club, but I’m just not in it. I feel like there’s a lot of richness in living in a rural place.”

When Ramsey graduated in 2006, he told an Ames Tribune reporter that on each of his “to do” lists, the last thing he always writes is, “Save the world.”

Two years later, it’s still on his list.

“It’s still there,” he says. “I haven’t checked it off.”

About the Writer | Carole Gieseke is the editor of VISIONS magazine.

More "Change the World" Features in the Summer 2008 issue of VISIONS:

Breaking the ice:
Adventurous alumna Elizabeth Andre hopes to start a positive dialog about global climate change

ISU researchers contribute to global climate study:
ISU professors Ray Arritt, Bill Gutowski, and Gene Takle received a piece of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on global climate change

Corps cause:
Peace Corps volunteer Sara Birkenholz (marketing '04) raises $24,000 for a Benin orphanage

Sweating the small stuff:
Alumnus and ISU staffer Roy Salcedo gets involved in the little ways that make a big difference

"The very best care:"
Marc Urquhart (biology '89) has a medical career that has taken him around the world, where he has developed a philosophy of providing equal and excellent care to all patients, regardless of ability to pay

Flu fighter:
CDC Influenza Division head Nancy Cox (bacteriology '70) was named the U.S. 2006 Federal Employee of the Year for her work on the nation's avian flu response

Healthy moms, healthy babies:
ISU alumna Ann Bryant Borders strives to make the world a better place by providing excellent OB-GYN care, one patient at a time

Hiking toward change:
Alumnus Keegan Kautzky hikes across South Africa to raise awareness of the African AIDS epidemic

Protecting the power:
ISU researcher Arun Somani is conducting research that could help protect the nation's electricity transmission system

Cross-cultural crime fighter:
ISU student Cilia Maria Ruiz-Paz interns at Interpol's Operations and Command Center

Read all these articles, and much more, in the summer issue of VISIONS magazine, a benefit to members of the ISU Alumni Association. Join today!

Members: Log in and read the summer issue online now!