July 19, 2007
8,606 miles, 54 days, 26 cities: Udall Scholars come to UW on eco-friendly tour
Kayanna Warren has traveled abroad and even lived a year in China. But this summer the UW alumna is seeing the continental United States from end to end in a biodiesel-fueled bus, both learning and teaching as she goes about environmentally friendly practices and Native American issues.
Warren, a 2006 UW graduate in international studies and conservation biology, is a former two-time recipient of a Morris K. Udall Scholarship. The scholarship of up to $5,000 is awarded annually to 80 undergraduate college students aiming at careers in environmental public policy and Native American and Alaska Native students working toward careers in health care and tribal public policy. The scholarships are given by the Morris K. Udall Foundation, named for the well-loved congressman from Arizona who died in 1998.
Warren and 12 other former Udall Scholars are crossing the country on the Udall Legacy Bus Tour, a seven-week, 8,606-mile trip that will stop in 26 cities and six Native American communities along its way. The tour kicked off in Washington. D.C., on June 12, and will wind up in Tucson, Ariz., where the foundation is headquartered, on Aug. 4.
“For me personally it’s a great opportunity,” she said of her scholarships and the orientation sessions in Tuscon, Ariz., where she got to meet the other 79 scholarship awardees. “It’s amazing energy to be around all these people who care so much and are so passionate about what they’re doing,” she said by cell phone from somewhere in Oklahoma.
The group has seen many examples of sustainable living so far on the trip, she said, “from chicken farming in Mississippi to green building in Boston.”
The tour will arrive in Seattle on Friday, and will be officially welcomed by Provost Phyllis Wise, other campus officals and invited alumni on the HUB lawn at 8 a.m. Saturday. Local visits fill the remainder of the weekend. On Monday the students’ bus will be parked on campus and the Udall Scholars will tour Merrill Hall, the UW’s first building with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. There will be a panel discussion of UW sustainability practices with several UW officials from 9:45 to 11:30 a.m. Monday in the Merrill Hall Commons.
Warren said she is still thinking about what exact career to follow, but said she is drawn to conservation work, and in fact worked with EarthCorps, a Seattle-based conservation nonprofit.
Key to the trip, she said, is not only the biodiesel-fueled, “green-certified” bus they’re traveling in, but also the focus on a decade of public service work performed nationwide by Udall Scholars.
Warren spoke highly of Mona Pitre-Collins, director of the UW Undergraduate Scholarship Office, who assists and advises students in pursuing various scholarships.
Pitre-Collins said the UW’s first Udall Scholar was in 1999, and that there have been six in all over the years. Currently, UW’s Emma Noyes, a member of the Colville Confederated Tribe double-majoring in anthropology and public health, is a Udall Scholar for 2007.
“These students are already there” in terms of their commitment to environmental and other issues, Pitre-Collins said. “The best part of the Udall Scholarship is that it gives them a little boost. And it gives them the opportunity to come together nationally … for networking that will be important to continue the kind of work they are doing.” The program enables them to meet other young people of similar ambitions, as well as the supportive Udall family, she said. She said, adding that the Udall Scholarship program is like the Truman Scholarships, in that it “reinforces the work they are already doing.”
Morris K. Udall is remembered as an environmentally conscious public servant who worked to secure millions of acres of federal land as wilderness and authored legislation controlling strip-mining and nuclear waste management, among many accomplishments in a 30-year public career. He also sponsored legislation protecting the practice of Native American religions on public lands and establishing standards for the placement of Indian children in adoptive homes to prevent the breakup of families.
He was also known for his self-deprecating wit, and even titled his 1988 book Too Funny to Be President. He often told the story of when he was running for president and stopped in a small New Hampshire barber shop. “I’m Mo Udall and I’m running for president,” he said, and the barber replied affably, “We were just laughing about that this morning!”
During the 1992 Democratic National Convention Udall recalled an old prayer that seemed appropriate for the moment: “Lord give us the wisdom to speak tender and gentle words — for tomorrow we may have to eat them!”
You can learn more about the Udall Legacy Tour online at http://udall10.udall.gov/. Read blogs written by tour members at http://blogs.udall.gov/.
