06-MAR-B-8
AN INVITATION EXTENDED, AND ACCEPTED,
TO VISIT SIMPSON COLLEGE,
AS THE MCBRIDE LECTURER
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: Jan Everhart
Date: 3/23/2006 8:40:32 AM
Subject: Re: possible visit to Simpson
Dear Jan:
Thank you so very much!
Your invitation is most kind and at a very appropriate
timing! I have just returned from a
mission to Rwanda, in which Virginia Croskery, through the partial support of
the Simpson faculty, participated as the single most valuable member of our
medical mission team through her facility in language and her skill in
codifying the music of the Rwandan people.
I accept! I am
aware of the Lilly endowment's Initiative for Vocational Exploration, and I do
what it is that they are most interested in‑‑I am the "dream
weaver" for a large group of medical and pre‑medical students
(including some who are not yet sure about what they wish to do other than to
be part of some "helping profession") and motivate them into and
guide them through encounters with the real world of disadvantaged people,
problems and potentials.
We might
discuss the topics and program after the securing of an appropriate date, but I
like the earlier timeframe you had suggested and would try to set the dates in
September as the students are freshly returned with the kinds of enthusiasm a
new school year provides before the exam season modifies that to a more
primitive survival mode!
I may have
taught un‑numbered students in a quantity some university accountant is
keeping track of somewhere, but I judge my own reward in teaching from the
qualitative and more richly enhanced smaller number of those I may have
inspired
I would be delighted to visit and speak with Simpson
students and faculty.
If it can be
arranged, and Virginia might introduce me, I can supply pictures and stories
about her experiences in supporting medical missions from the Himalayan
"Roof of the World" in Ladakh to tropical Africa in Malawi and
Rwanda, to help "indigenize" the humanitarian efforts on Simpson
Campus.
Thank you for your contributions to her and of her to
support the Common Cause!
Yours truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed
>>> "Jan Everhart"
<everhart@simpson.edu> 3/23/2006 8:04 AM >>>
Dear Dr. Geelhoed,
I'm writing to explore the possibility of your
presence on our campus during
the 2006‑2007 academic year as part of our
Simpson Forum program,
cosponsored by our Lilly Initiative. Your work with global health issues
and your commitment to sharing your extensive training
with people in need
would be inspiring for our students, particularly
those interested in health
professions. We
have some flexibility about dates as long as we plan well
in advance and avoid our break times, etc. Our semester starts August 29
and I think that mid‑late September, or perhaps
early November, might be
good times.
Early October also works well for us.
If none of these dates
fit, perhaps we could think about the spring.
I look forward to hearing from you. Virginia Croskery speaks very highly of
your work!
Jan
Janet S. Everhart, M.Div., Ph.D.
Lilly Initiative for Vocational Exploration
Simpson College
701 North C Street
Indianola, IA 50125
(515) 961‑1243
(515) 961‑1292 (FAX)
The Lilly Initiative seeks to help students think
critically, lead wisely,
serve generously, and live faithfully.
Wonderful!
I will
forward a couple of items for your Biology Chair, Pat Singer. She is not alone.
Yes, the two chairs in front of my desk have always
been occupied by students hoping to get out somewhere and with a lot of
guidance "help mankind." But
they have been increasingly displaced recently by disillusioned faculty
colleagues who are asking if this race in a tunnel is what they had signed up
for when there is so much else around that is more urgent. I attach a NYT editorial from today, as well
as a few musings of my own.
I will work out both date and honorarium with you
according to whatever standards are customary--it is all spent on the same
process in any event--and will only prime the pump for the next mission!
If you wish to suggest a couple of dates as options,
I will fill in the blanks!
Cheers!
GWG
>>> "Jan Everhart" <everhart@simpson.edu> 3/23/2006 8:48 AM
>>>
Dear Glenn (if I may):
Thank you for your swift reply! I'll look forward to hearing about some
possible September dates, and I agree that it would
be a good time of the
year. Please
let me know what your honorarium requirements are, as well, so
that I can work on putting that together from our
end. Of course we are
prepared to pay travel & lodging costs as we do
for all speakers coming from
out of state.
The professor who chairs our biology department, Pat
Singer, is particularly
passionate about world health issues and has long
been committed to social
justice. In
her early 50s, she is thinking toward her own future and I'm
eager for her to have some time to chat with
you. I discover that this
vocational exploration process is very important for
faculty as well as
students.
Look forward to hearing back from you, and thanks
for sending the additional
information.
I don't know Virginia that well yet, but am very impressed
with her skill and passion!
Jan
Janet S. Everhart, M.Div., Ph.D.
Lilly Initiative for Vocational Exploration
Simpson College
701 North C Street
Indianola, IA 50125
(515) 961-1243
(515) 961-1292 (FAX)
The Lilly Initiative seeks to help students think
critically, lead wisely,
serve generously, and live faithfully.
Welcome home. I thought you might want to see this
and even pass it along to others:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 19, 2006
'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly
The Poverty Puzzle
Review by VIRGINIA POSTREL
MALARIA infects 300 million to 500 million people a
year, causing severe pain and debilitation. A million of those taken ill die,
mostly infants and young children. Of the deaths, which amount to a child every
30 seconds, more than 80 percent occur in the poor countries of Africa.
Insecticide-treated mosquito nets, which cost $5 or less, could prevent most
infections. A mere $2.50 in medicine can treat the deadliest form of the
disease, the World Health Organization reports.
So why don't we just buy the nets and medicines? If
we cared as much about the poor as Bono does, couldn't the rich countries wipe
out malaria and also eliminate the world's worst poverty?
It's not that simple, William Easterly argues in
"The White Man's Burden." Take those mosquito nets. When aid agencies
hand them out in poor countries, he writes, "nets are often diverted to
the black market . . . or wind up being used as fishing nets or wedding
veils." Free nets don't get to the people who need them.
But in rural Malawi, clinics serving new mothers
sell insecticide-treated bed nets for 50 cents each. The nets come from a
program developed by local Malawians working for Population Services
International, a Washington-based nonprofit organization. In Malawi's cities,
the group sells nets for $5 each, using the profits to subsidize sales in the
countryside.
The program, Easterly reports, has "increased
the nationwide average of children under 5 sleeping under nets from 8 percent
in 2000 to 55 percent in 2004. . . . A follow-up survey found nearly universal
use of the nets by those who paid for them." By contrast, when a Zambian
program handed out free nets, "70 percent of the recipients didn't
use" them. Charging for nets may sound hardhearted, but prices provide
vital information about commitment.
The world's poor need more focused, trial-and-error
programs like the Malawian net distribution and fewer ambitious plans to cure
poverty, Easterly argues. There are two tragedies of the world's poor. The
first is the one we hear about: that so many people suffer so much for lack of
inexpensive remedies.
The second, he says, "is the tragedy in which
the West spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades and
still had not managed to get 12-cent medicines to children to prevent half of
all malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to
get $4 bed nets to poor families. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had
not managed to get $3 to each new mother to prevent five million child
deaths." The West is not stingy. It is ineffective.
A professor at New York University and a senior
fellow at the Center for Global Development, Easterly spent most of his career
as an economist at the World Bank. He had to leave that job after publishing
his iconoclastic 2001 book, "The Elusive Quest for Growth," which
skillfully combined a history of economists' growth theories with a devastating
empirical analysis of the failure of international efforts to spur third world
development. The book's theme was "incentives matter."
In "The White Man's Burden," Easterly
turns from incentives to the subtler problems of knowledge. If we truly want to
help the poor, rather than just congratulate ourselves for generosity, he
argues, we rich Westerners have to give up our grand ambitions. Piecemeal
problem-solving has the best chance of success.
He contrasts the traditional "Planner" approach
of most aid projects with the "Searcher" approach that works so well
in the markets and democracies of the West. Searchers treat problem-solving as
an incremental discovery process, relying on competition and feedback to figure
out what works.
"A Planner thinks he already knows the
answers," Easterly writes. "A Searcher admits he doesn't know the
answers in advance; he believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of
political, social, historical, institutional and technological factors."
Planners trust outside experts. Searchers emphasize homegrown solutions.
Local details matter, Easterly argues again and
again. Consider a project to teach farmers in Lesotho agricultural techniques.
Sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency and the World Bank,
it was a complete flop. The range-management techniques conflicted with local
law, which guaranteed open grazing, and the farming plans were doomed by the
region's bad weather.
In fact, the locals already knew the area wasn't
good for farming. "The project managers complained that the local people
were 'defeatist' and didn't 'think of themselves as farmers,' " Easterly
reports. "Perhaps the locals didn't consider themselves farmers because
they were not farmers - they were migrant workers in South African mines."
Failure is, of course, part of trial-and-error
learning. The problem is that aid programs rarely get enough feedback, whether
from competition or complaint. Instead, Easterly notes, advocates measure
success by how much money rich countries spend. Praising the G-8 industrialized
nations for doubling aid to Africa, he says, is like reviewing Hollywood films
based on their budgets.
Easterly acknowledges that not all foreign aid has
failed. In public health and school attendance, where results are relatively
easy to measure, focused efforts have made a huge difference. The easier it is
to see whether aid is working, he argues, the more likely it is to succeed.
"The White Man's Burden" does not match
"The Elusive Quest for Growth" as a tour de force. Easterly is doing
something harder here: not merely cataloging past failures but trying to
suggest a more promising approach. Unfortunately, his alternative is still
underdeveloped, devolving at times into slogans.
After all, Searchers plan, too. The question is not
whether to plan, but who makes the plans, how they are changed and where
feedback comes from. "The White Man's Burden" underplays the
essential role of competition, not only in markets but between political
jurisdictions.
Easterly is better at documenting the failures of
planning than analyzing the successes of searching. He examines the problems of
post-Soviet Russia but offers nothing about why countries like Poland, the
Czech Republic and Estonia have successfully made the transition to capitalism
and democracy. Nowhere does he discuss whether the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, whose funding comes from one of the world's most effective
Searchers, is any more effective than traditional agencies.
Easterly is understandably skittish about
generalizations, but extracting lessons from experience is quite compatible
with decentralized searching. Businesses in radically different industries
learn from one another. Searching includes discovering the day's best
practices. Not every situation is unique.
Still, "The White Man's Burden," like
"The Elusive Quest for Growth," is an important book. Easterly asks
the right questions, combining compassion with clear-eyed empiricism. Bono and
his devotees should heed what he has to say.
Virginia Postrel is the author of "The Future
and Its Enemies" and "The Substance of Style."
--
Christopher Tate
703-836-8905
chris@wfa.net
http://wfa.net