A recent Drew grad aims to build a science lab in Kenya

Mark Stratton has 10 months to go as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching biology and chemistry at a secondary school in the hills outside Maua, Kenya. But he already knows the end will be bittersweet.

No more walking to work every morning, greeting the knots of small children who run toward him calling, “Mr. Mark, Mr. Mark,” or Mwalimu, the Swahili word for teacher. No more helping with activities after school. No more twilight evenings outside his home in Kiengu, a nearby village. “Every day brings new challenges and great opportunities,” says Stratton C’10. “I’ll be happy to have accomplished it, but sad to leave.”

Another goal he hopes to accomplish is raising enough money to outfit his school’s new science lab. The Kaurine Day School, founded in 2007, ran out of money before it could install gas and water lines, benches or work stations. Having a fully functioning lab would boost students’ chances of getting accepted into college, Stratton says. “I keep thinking, ‘Oh man, I have only 10 months left to raise the money,’” he says.

It was at Drew that Stratton fell in love with sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008 he traveled to Cameroon to study microfinance with math professor Kathleen Madden, a former Peace Corps volunteer. “That ignited the fire,” Stratton says. In 2009 he co-founded Drew’s Uganda Initiative, which sent students to build classrooms in the East African country. Until then, Stratton, a biological anthropology major, had planned to become a doctor. Two trips to Uganda changed that. “Being there just felt right,” he says. “I knew I wanted to come back.”

Now Stratton imagines a career in public health. “Or maybe medical anthropology. It’s a combination of culture and health care, and that’s what I like,” he says. “You can’t just come into a culture and say, ‘What you’re doing is wrong.’ You have to understand the culture, gain people’s trust, and then say, ‘This is a way to prevent malaria.’”—Mary Jo Patterson

An epiphany set the course of Charles Aye-Addo’s life as a scholar, minister, educator and now – after earning his PhD in Theology at Drew this year– founder of a higher education institute in his homeland of Ghana.

While in high school, Aye-Addo G’02, T’08, T’11 heard a preacher at a Christian conference recite a verse from The Book of Ezra: “For Ezra has set his heart to study the Word of the Lord and to practice and to teach…’’

“Those words pierced into my heart. I knew it was my calling into the ministry,’’ said Aye-Addo, now 49.

Aye-Addo became a teacher of math and science and pastor with the International Central Gospel Church. But a yearning to deepen his understanding of God and the world led him a world away, to Drew, in 2001. Selected as a Distinguished International Scholar, Aye-Addo earned two master’s degrees in addition to his PhD in Theology.

Aye-Addo got the idea for his Yeshua Institute of Technology while attending Drew. He had moved with his family to Worcester, Mass. in 2003 to work as a senior pastor while commuting once a week to the Madison campus.

Aye-Addo home-schooled his two younger children, who quickly finished their high school curriculum and enrolled in community college. “I realized I could take the community college model to Ghana,’’ he said. “There is a significant number of high school graduates who want to go to college but cannot because there aren’t enough schools.’’

Yeshua, a private Christian nonprofit, will open its doors in February with about 300 students pursuing four-year degrees, but Aye-Addo expects enrollment to reach 1,200 within a year.  Ten years out, Aye-Addo envisions Yeshua as a university with five campuses throughout the country serving as many as 20,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees. Aye-Addo is grateful to Drew, which has donated 6,000 books and library shelving to Yeshua.

Yeshua will teach applied sciences and develop students’ entrepreneurial skills.  “A lot of young people lack direction. I want to train youth to channel their ideas and bring them to reality,’’ Aye-Addo said. He is working with a provost who has helped start two other colleges in Ghana.

As an oil exporter, Ghana is seeing its economy soar, increasing the need for an educated, skilled workforce. Beyond high school graduates, Yeshua will also cater to working people by offering evening and weekend programs, Aye-Addo said.–Margaret McHugh.

Dr. Aye-Addo’s dissertation, “Akan Christology,” will be published in spring 2012 by both Pickwick Publications and Wipf and Stock Publishers.

When Zoe Crum C’10 started plotting toxic waste sites on her GIS map of the Ironbound section of Newark, N.J., this summer, she didn’t know that her work would help convince the city’s zoning board to drop a proposal for a medical waste treatment plant.

The proposed facility, the first of its kind in Newark, would have given the city a centralized place to treat medical waste, usually processed where it is generated at individual hospitals. But what Crum’s map showed was that the Ironbound is already home to hundreds of Superfund and brownfield sites, as well as facilities that emit hazardous air pollutants.

The map helped the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), a social services nonprofit, make its case that a facility receiving up to 100 tons of waste a day would have further taxed an area that’s home to a vibrant community. As part of ICC’s report, Crum’s map was sent to Newark Mayor Cory Booker, city councilors, the zoning board and the Environmental Protection Agency. In October 2010, the board voted 5 to 3 to defeat the proposal.

The collaboration between Drew and ICC grew out of the university’s environmental justice course, underwritten by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant in support of Drew’s Environmental Studies and Sustainability program. As part of the course, Joslyn Cassady, associate professor of behavioral science and anthropology, arranged for faculty and students to tour the Ironbound. Moved by the experience, Cassady contacted the tour guide, Ana Baptista, director of ICC’s environmental and policy division, to discuss a partnership. “We met a couple of times to discuss potential projects and collaborations,” says Cassady, “and one of the ICC’s areas of need was GIS.”

Crum, a biology major with a minor in political science, recently studied GIS with Catherine Riihimaki, assistant professor of biology. As a postgrad intern last summer, Crum worked on the map project under the guidance of Riihimaki, Cassady, and GIS Support Specialist Krista White.

Told of the proposal’s defeat, Crum, who is applying to graduate school for environmental science, was really surprised. “I didn’t expect to see results so quickly. It was a very rewarding experience,” says Crum. “The work I did this summer did good.”—Cara Swan C’11

Learn more about GIS at Drew.

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