The World Will Benefit

LAST YEAR, SEVERAL UP nursing students and their professors held a garage sale to raise money to bring a special educational partner to campus. Her name is Martha Chizumila Nyondo, and she is the principal of St. Mary’s Secondary School, the top all-girls school in the Eastern African country of Malawi. Several of the nursing students had gone there last spring and would be returning this year, and they wanted the cultural exchange to go both ways. So they brought Martha to The Bluff.

Martha spoke to a group of nursing and engineering students on Founders’ Day, including some alums of the Malawi program and some getting ready to go in May. She praised the partnership with UP and the many great things that have come from it. The irrigation system that the Shiley engineering students and professors built on their seven-acre farm that has extended the school’s growing season and enabled them to grow more of their food. The solar panels being installed this summer that will ensure savings. The online gradebook and weather system developed by UP students and professors that have made life more efficient. And then there are the friendships. The hospitality of nursing professor Isabelle Soulé. Martha lightheartedly referenced the nickname—“Palibe Chabwino”—that locals had given to engineering professor Karsten Zuendel. The name, which means “Not Good,” is a phrase Karsten muttered often enough while solving engineering challenges that he gained something of a reputation (and gentle ribbing).

Martha was also forthright about how professionals from outside the Malawian culture could sometimes offer new perspectives and new avenues to discussing female health, and here she was looking to the nurses in the room. On the highway to the school is a sign that reads, “Educate Me, Don’t Marry Me,” which points to the hope to decrease the cultural practice of marriages of girls under fifteen years old. Nearly 600 girls matriculate at the school. Many St. Mary’s graduates go on to higher education. “The world will benefit from them,” Martha said.

In addition to meeting Martha, I also spoke with three UP nursing students who had gone to Malawi last year—their focus in 2023 was vision testing and nutrition, and they went to nearby villages and shadowed local nurses to learn from them in a clinical setting. I was so impressed by the care and awareness and sensitivity of these young nurses-to-be. They understand the need for humility and cultural context, and they were preparing for a range of careers in the field—one in clinical care, one in global health, and one has enrolled in OHSU to receive her master’s in public health and epidemiology (a decision directly inspired by her work in Malawi).

They all held Martha and the St. Mary’s students in such high esteem. They noted how inspired they were by the dedication and work ethic of the students at St. Mary’s who regularly got up at 3:00 am to start studying and doing chores for the day.

I want to echo Martha’s words. I have no doubt that the “world will benefit” from the brilliant students of St. Mary’s. I also have every confidence that UP students will offer the same. I have this confidence because I see their brilliance every time I step out of my office and encounter their scrappy, smart, kindhearted spirit.

And this issue is brimming with student stories. In addition to those who hosted a garage sale to raise money to bring a respected educator to Portland, there are the decades of students who built and rebuilt UP’s college radio station on a shoestring, the Pilot athletes reaching new heights, the biology student studying the behavior of ants, and the next generation of student inventors following in the footsteps of the UP alum who made a heart valve that saved hundreds of thousands of lives. UP students are remarkable, and they give us all kinds of reasons to feel hopeful. I’m grateful to them.