David M. Eastis (CA '83), author of 7: The Magical, Amazing and Popular Number Seven, was kind enough to compile seven little-known facts about President Truman (along with a bonus seven-word quote):

• Harry S. Truman was ranked 7th most popular U.S. President in a Wall Street Journal poll in 2005.
• Senator Truman wrote Bess a letter in 1937 telling her about driving 70 miles and being so tired that he slept from 7 at night until 7 in the morning.
• The U.S.S. Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was christened on the seventh day of September in 1996.
• It was on 7 May 1945 that Truman made an announcement about the plan of Germany’s surrender.
• Truman served as President 7 after Theodore Roosevelt and 7 prior to Ronald Reagan.
• Truman gave his seventh State of the Union address in 1950.
• The same year, he ordered the Seventh Fleet to Taiwan.
• 7-word quote from HST:  “America was built on courage, on imagination...”

David M. Eastis (CA ’83), an enthusiast and authority on the number 7, is author of 7: The Magical, Amazing and Popular Number Seven, the first-ever book which explores the magnetism that the vastly popular number 7 has exerted, from ancient cultures to the present day. For more information visit: http://www.theSevenBook.com/

Lynn Boughey (ND ’77) now lives half time in Red Lodge Montana, the other half in Bismarck, ND, where he continues to practice law as a sole practitioner.  Many of his cases involve public policy issues, including a present case to determine if the ND economic development program violates the ND Constitution and federal Constitutional amendments.  He is also working on another novel, this one a murder mystery.  His twin daughters just started 2nd grade and his wife continues to teach criminal justice and social work classes, but now via internet through the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Pam Miller (MO '78) is now Development Manager - Planned Giving and Estate Administration for Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics in Kansas City, Mo.

David M. Eastis (CA ‘83) authored 7: The Magical, Amazing and Popular Number Seven, which explores the magnetism that the vastly popular number 7 has exerted, from ancient cultures to the present day. For more information, visit: http://www.theSevenBook.com.

Ted Deutch (PA ‘86) became the first Truman Scholar to serve as a member of the United States Congress when he was sworn in on April 13, 2010. A former State Senator, he represents Florida’s 19th Congressional District.

Dr. Christopher W. Kersey (SC ‘89) was elected to the Boards of Trustees of Johns Hopkins Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Hospital. For more information, see Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Debra Shulman Shushan (PA '96), Assistant Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary, and her husband have relocated to Doha, Qatar for the year so she could take up a fellowship at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service there. While in Doha, they would be delighted to host any Trumans who might be passing through!

Chiraag Bains (MA ’02) moved to Washington, DC, where he will be working as a Trial Attorney in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Claudio Simpkins (NY '05) is engaged to marry Paloma Zepeda.  He, his new fiancee, and their puppy, Gipper, are relocating to the Washington, DC area in October.

Brett Keller (AR '07) is pursuing an MHS in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control through the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Please submit Class Notes to news@trumanscholars.org.

by Jonathan Jones (NE '04)

In Clare Sierawski’s (PA ’04) Truman application policy proposal, she proposed a bilateral agreement between the United States and China on climate change.  As the Special Assistant to the Special Envoy for Climate Change, Sierawski pursued this vision and helped to develop the first official bilateral agreement between the United States and China on climate change. “It was amazing to implement my policy proposal and be a part of something so historic,” Sierawski said.

In between her first and second year in the MPA program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Sierawski was offered a job at the State Department to work on the international climate change team.  Her work on the team soon led to her role as the Special Assistant to the Special Envoy for Climate Change – a position established by the Obama administration.   For Sierawski, this was a major step in achieving her career goals.  “Since my days as an undergraduate climate activist, it was one of my dreams to work for the government on our international climate change policy,” Sierawski explained. 

The Truman Scholar experience has been important in shaping Sierawski’s vision and path on the issue of climate change.  As a recent graduate, Sierwaski worked as a Truman Fellow at the Department of Transportation on its climate change portfolio.  “As a Truman Fellow at DOT, I was able to deepen my understanding of climate change policy, as well as meet the people working on climate change at the State Department, which is in part how I was later offered my job at State," she said.

Sierawski believes that the Truman community has a powerful role to play in helping its members meet their career goals and aspirations for positive change.  “Most of us have a real and burning passion for a particular social issue or change that we want to see in our world,” she said. “At some point, however, the reality hits that it can be extremely difficult to affect even the most incremental change. This is where the Truman community comes in - we can inspire, guide and support each other to realize our goals.”  She added, “The values of the Truman Scholarship and knowing amazing Trumans inspires me to keep going and continually reminds me of the importance of public service.” 

As Sierawski returns to the Woodrow Wilson School this fall to finish her MPA degree, fellow Truman Scholar, Kelley Greenman (FL ’08), will be taking her place as Special Assistant to the Special Envoy on Climate Change.  At a regular meeting that the Truman Foundation hosts for recently graduated Scholars, Sierawski spoke about working on climate change at the State Department.  Greenman was in attendance.  “Kelley was interested in working more directly on climate change and wanted to explore the international side of the issue. When I was looking for a replacement, I knew that she would be perfect for the job,” Sierawski said. 

While at graduate school, Sierawski will continue to study climate change issues and consider how to push forward energy efficient policies and climate change legislation.  She is also interested in developing an informal Truman community around the issue.  Please contact her if you are interested and/or already work on the issue of climate change policy – claresophia@gmail.com.

Jonathan Jones (NE ’04) is pursuing his MPP at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.

by Jennifer Kimball (MO '08)

When I talk with people about my work at the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, they frequently ask if it’s depressing to hear about terrible abuses people inflect on other human beings. For me, the reality is quite different. While I do see some of the darkest aspects of human nature, I also get to see the some of the brightest and most inspiring aspects.

I met Wendi Adelson (FL ’00) at TSLW in 2008, soon after my selection as a 2008 scholar from Missouri. The following summer, I met Martina Vandenberg (CA ’88) during Summer Institute at the Truman Scholars Association Conference, and I recently had the chance to connect with Kristina Filopovich (OR ’96). Adelson,  Vandenberg, and Filopovich’s work focuses on the severe human rights abuse of human trafficking. We are only beginning to understand this global problem and its scope and extent in the U.S. As a relatively new scholar, I have been fortunate to learn from other scholars who have been pioneers, and whose anti-trafficking work has touched many victims and helped shape the field.

After finishing her graduate work at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, Vandenberg moved to Moscow, Russia, where she co-founded one of the country’s first rape crisis centers. Through this work, Vandenberg met an American attorney and filmmaker, Gillian Caldwell, who was developing a film about the trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union. “At that time, people were aware of trafficking in Southeast Asia, but it was a new issue in Russia,” Vandenberg says. Vandenberg helped Caldwell connect with the feminist activists in Russia working to combat violence against women, and started learning about human trafficking.  After operating a grant fund for women’s rights NGOs in Russia and Ukraine for nearly two years, Vandenberg returned to the United States and attended law school.

While in law school, Vandenberg received a human rights internship grant to conduct research for the Israel Women’s Network, an NGO based in Jerusalem.   Vandenberg spent seven months in Israel, documenting the trafficking of women to that country for forced prostitution.  She eventually published a report on the issue, including documentation of the trafficking victims’ detention in an Israeli women’s prison. After returning to the United States, Vandenberg accepted a position in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, continuing to work at HRW while completing her law degree.   Both during and after law school, Vandenberg documented violence against women in the former Soviet Union, as well as rape as a war crime and trafficking in the Balkans.    She enjoyed working while attending law school.  “While lots of folks went to Florida for Spring Break,” Vandenberg remembered, “I went to Bosnia to interview trafficking victims.  It provided some much-needed perspective.”

After five years at Human Rights Watch, Vandenberg was eager to use her law degree and to learn to litigate.  She approached former Truman Foundation Executive Secretary Louis Blair for advice. Vandenberg eventually landed at Jenner and Block LLP, a law firm known for its extensive pro bono work.  She seems to do “all pro bono, all the time,” pursuing civil remedies for trafficking victims in the U.S. federal courts, and helping women trafficked for forced labor apply for immigration remedies.  She and her colleagues at Jenner advocate for victims, helping them navigate the criminal prosecution process as witnesses. Many of the cases Vandenberg has worked on over the past few years involve exploitation by employers who enjoy diplomatic immunity or work for the World Bank.  Vandenberg calls the forced labor cases that she focuses on the “forgotten side of human trafficking.”

Like Vandenberg, Filipovich came to anti-trafficking work through previous work on violence against women. While an undergraduate, she founded a non-profit working on women’s issues, before pursuing a Watson Fellowship.  She encountered sex trafficking in Vietnam and Thailand while researching women’s issues internationally. Filipovich’s career path has taken her from working for President Clinton’s National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women reviewing results of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to researching gender issues, including trafficking, overseas through a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to working on micro-credit issues at Women for Women International, before coming to Jenner & Block two-and-a-half years ago.

At Jenner and Block, Filipovich works with Vandenberg, pursuing civil remedies for trafficking victims in the United States, and is working on her fourth trafficking case. “We’re able to do cutting edge litigation work on these topics,” says Filipovich, noting that many times the government does not formally prosecute the cases, so the civil law suit may be the only repercussion the trafficker faces.

Adelson first became aware of human trafficking through her interest in international relations and humanitarian immigration work. After finishing her undergraduate work, Adelson worked for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. She then received a Gates Fellowship to study comparative immigration policy at Cambridge University. Following training in law, Adelson started working for the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights (CAHR) in 2007 after spending a year as a clinical fellow with the Children & Youth Law Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. On her first day there, Adelson worked on a case for a teenage victim of trafficking. “I see human trafficking as part of a continuum of human exploitation,” says Adelson. “Training in law gave me a discrete set of tools to help people,” she said, adding that she gets to work with and know her clients personally and professionally, and is able to see the direct impact of her work.

Adelson’s anti-trafficking work centers on immigration remedies for foreign national victims of trafficking in the United States. Adelson helps trafficking victims apply for and navigate the T and U visa process, special visas for victims of trafficking and victims of crime. Adelson also advocates for the people with whom she works, and helps them navigate the service process. Like Vandenberg and Filipovich, Adelson’s work doesn’t end with the case work. The CAHR was asked by the Governor of Florida to help create the state’s strategic plan to combat human trafficking and serve victims in Florida, and through her work on this project, Adelson has conducted hundreds of interviews of service providers. Adelson will be teaching a course on human trafficking this fall and Filipovich currently works as an adjunct law professor at American University where her gender and law course includes a focus on human trafficking.

When asked what keeps her motivated, Vandenberg answers without hesitation, “My clients. They are totally inspiring, after all that they have survived.”

Adelson concurs, citing the relationships she builds with individual clients as sustaining. “I feel like I’m part of the solution,” says Adelson. “I work with people at a turning point, and I can help them reclaim their lives.”

“I’m lucky,” says Filipovich. “I’ve always thought I was really lucky to find my passion [for gender issues/women's rights] early and know that I can make a difference.”

I also count myself as extremely lucky. Human trafficking is a terrible crime against people, and hearing their stories and seeing the abuse they suffered can be almost immobilizing at times. However, I draw strength from seeing the resiliency of survivors and from the inspiration of others working in the field to continue to do what I love: working to end this human rights abuse.

Jennifer Kimball (MO ‘08) is the regional specialist for the Northeast for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

by Kate Otto (RI '07)

I would imagine that for most people, a group of HIV-positive recovering heroin addicts playing a football (soccer) match may not appear to be public service.  And before beginning my year-long consultancy at an Indonesian drug rehabilitation and HIV/AIDS center (as a Luce Scholar), I must admit that I also did not yet understand the unique service these young people had to offer.

Yet over the past year working with Rumah Cemara as a management and program consultant, I have come to learn that it is indeed the most marginalized members of society, in informal settings like the football pitch, who have the greatest power to meaningfully serve their community.  Particularly on an issue as controversial as HIV/AIDS in Indonesia.  

Inside the office, more than 80 percent of Rumah Cemara staff are living with HIV, and more than 90 percent are recovering drug addicts, taking the concept of "Peer Support" to the next level!  RC thus allows people most affected by HIV and addiction to transform their challenging experiences into valuable education and counseling services for their peers in need.  On the football field, every week, Rumah Cemara strategically engages young audiences first in sport and then in education, effectively decreasing the stigma surrounding the virus by opening their own statuses - and space for discussion - after the game.

I am thrilled to have helped support Rumah Cemara's application in the recent Nike/Ashoka "Changing Lives Through Football" Competition, and even more excited that they were recently awarded the Grand Prize of $30,000, and significant institutional support.  

Although I was one of the only members of an office who did not have HIV and who did not have a history of drug abuse, I was still able to channel their philosophy of "peer support", because at the end of the day we were all committed to achieving the same public health goals.  While I offered strategic programming, data management, marketing, and organizational advice, I received in return deep insight into the best (and oftentimes most underfunded) HIV prevention and care techniques and strategies, from the front lines.

When I first became a Truman Scholar in 2007, it was my work on various HIV/AIDS initiatives that most defined my leadership in public service.  Three years later, I am happy to report that while still in the HIV/AIDS field, my own experiences have gained breadth and depth, as I have the privilege to work alongside leaders in public service from all walks of life.  

Please take a look at Rumah Cemara's application to learn more about their philosophies, vision, and plan here, and thank you to all who participated in voting for Rumah Cemara's victory!

Kate Otto (RI '07) is a public health consultant, and graduate of NYU Wagner with a Masters in Public Administration program in International Health Policy and Management (2009).  For more information on Rumah Cemara please visit: http://www.rumahcemara.org/

Ted Deutch (PA '86) was elected to represent Florida's 19th District in the U.S. House of Representatives by a Special Election on April 13, 2010. Deutch is the first Truman Scholar to serve in the U.S. Congress.

Click here to read Congressman Deutch's biography.

by Melissa Boteach Kaplan (MD '04)

In his 1949 state of the union address, Harry Truman laid out the cornerstone of his domestic policy agenda, underscoring that “Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal." By a Fair Deal, Truman implied that that all Americans should have access to health insurance, fair wages, affordable housing, and a rising standard of living.

Unfortunately, the numbers released by the Census Bureau earlier this month imply that a “Fair Deal” is still a far ways a way for too many Americans. The most recent data reveal that last year 3.7 million additional people fell into poverty, for a total of 43.6 million, the largest number since the Census began keeping track in 1959. Median incomes declined, as did the number of Americans with health insurance coverage.

While these trends would have been significantly worse without the emergency assistance measures enacted in the Recovery Act, we can’t exactly pat ourselves on the back when more than one in five (20.7 percent) of America’s children lived in poverty last year, and racial and ethnic disparities widened at an alarming rate.

Often when we read these types of depressing numbers, our eyes glaze over. The problem of poverty is too big. Poverty will always be with us. These numbers are sad, but it doesn’t impact me.

Yet, if we look back at our history, we can see that poverty is not an intractable problem. There have been periods when economic gains were more equitably shared and we were able to significantly reduce poverty—periods when a strong near-full-employment economy was combined with governmental and private initiatives to lift all Americans up. Between 1964 and 1973, for example, poverty fell by more than 40 percent. Between 1993 and 2000 it fell by 25 percent.

Half in Ten, the campaign I manage at the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action), believes that we can achieve this kind of progress again, cutting the U.S. poverty rate by half in ten years. A study by our partner, Center for American Progress, underscored that this isn’t some pie in the sky target, but a goal within reach if we muster the political will to make sensible policy reforms. In fact, the study revealed that just 3 policies: raising the minimum wage, making the tax code work better for low-wage workers, and ensuring that childcare assistance is more broadly available could cut poverty by 26 percent over the next decade. 

Moreover, we believe that reducing poverty in America is not only the right thing to do, but also in our national self-interest. A recent study we commissioned from noted economist Harry Holzer revealed that child poverty alone cost the U.S. economy more than half a trillion dollars every year. Cost-effective interventions now could increase our economic growth and result in lower fiscal deficits in the future. 

How does the Half in Ten campaign work to achieve its goal to halve poverty over the next decade? Together with our three convening partners: CAP Action, The Coalition on Human Needs, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, we:

• work with  local groups to organize and train low-income families to advocate on behalf of themselves, and to build state-wide antipoverty campaigns;
• provide timely information and policy recommendations to lawmakers on legislation impacting low-income families
• recruit, educate and mobilize grassroots activists to advocate on behalf of policies that create decent-wage jobs, strengthen families, and promote economic security for families who fall on hard times.

 Why advocate for a national poverty-reduction goal? Having a target is important because it can encourage collaboration across various agencies working to reduce poverty and engage the private sector. Moreover, a target provides focus and accountability in our efforts to rebuild the middle class, encouraging lawmakers to judge proposals before them in relation to progress toward a larger goal.

Much of last year’s increase in poverty was caused by the lingering effects of the Great Recession. It is not surprising that more people fell into poverty as unemployment remained near record highs. It is important to remember, however, that poverty was a problem even before the Great Recession. Between 2003 and 2007 we experienced the first-ever economic “recovery” on record where productivity and profits grew but poverty went up and median incomes fell. The middle class and low-income families did not benefit from the gains accrued over the last decade.

We can and must do better this time around. A shared goal of cutting poverty in half provides that focus. As we rebuild our economy we must tackle poverty’s root causes. This means creating more decent-wage jobs, strengthening work supports, and investing in children early on so that everyone can participate in the economy. I invite all Truman Scholars to join us in achieving this Fair Deal for all Americans and endorsing a national goal to cut poverty in half in ten years,

Resources:

• Click here to access our interactive map, where you can find poverty data for your state and congressional district
• Click here to endorse a goal to cut the U.S. poverty rate in half in ten years and get involved in the campaign.

Melissa Boteach Kaplan (MD '04) is the Half in Ten Manager at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza (NC '09), published a piece in The Huffington Post entitled, "The End of Term Limits Means the Decline of Democracy in Sri Lanka." Click here to read the full article.