Culture & Sustainability
TSPR Commentaries by Dr. McIlvaine-Newsad
Explore thought-provoking discussions on cultural and environmental sustainability from an anthropological perspective.
Listen To My Commentaries Below
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Commentary: The art of teaching
As a teacher, the constant cycle of grading papers feels endless. I fondly recall my mother, an exceptional high school home economics teacher, immersed in her work with a stack of papers at her feet. Now, as Western Illinois University wraps up its final week of classes, I find myself at 10 pm, alternating between…
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Commentary: I’m dead. Now what?
Last Christmas, our youngest daughter Maren gifted me a book titled “I’m Dead. Now What?” This wasn’t a gag or a mean-spirited present, but a heartfelt gift from a young adult not yet twenty. It stemmed from our decade-long, open family conversations about life and death, reflecting her deep love and compassion. Read more on…
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Commentary: The iron mermaid and the remarkable human being
I believe it was 1992. At that time, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, working on reforestation near San José de Ocoa. Despite deforestation issues in the DR, conversations often highlighted Haiti’s more severe environmental degradation, poverty, and healthcare challenges. My host-sister, Mayra, then a medical student, and I frequently discussed…
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Commentary: Vaccines
When I was around five or six, I came down with chickenpox. I remember having blisters in my ears, nose, and all over my torso, making me an itchy, grumpy mess for about a week. My sweet mother, a high school teacher, relied on Western medicine, while my Grandma Mildred, with her rich ethnobotanical knowledge…
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Commentary: When art imitates life
Like many during the holiday break, I indulged in a fair amount of Netflix and Hulu. I have a particular fondness for contemporary Scandinavian crime dramas and German and Russian series that delve into the daily struggles of the masses. It’s hardly escapism from our current reality, I admit. Perhaps this reflects my subtle appreciation…
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Commentary: What is a Good Life?
Since 2007, I have been teaching Introduction to Cultural Anthropology to small groups of First Year Experience (FYE) students at Western Illinois University. For most, it’s their first and possibly only encounter with anthropology. As professors and parents, we ask young adults to make significant life decisions—choosing a major, finding a job—while they seek meaning…
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Commentary: The Demise of Local News
For the past 17 years, a familiar “thump” has marked the arrival of my morning newspaper between 6:00 and 6:30. However, last week, I ventured out at 7:30, barefoot and in my pajamas, only to find no sign of my daily McDonough County Voice. I searched behind the chair, under the table, and even in…
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Commentary: The Lasting Legacy of Dr. Patricia Anderson
Lately, I’ve been contemplating the concept of legacy. A quick Google search revealed the Oxford dictionary definition as “an amount of money or property left to someone in a will,” but this didn’t capture what I was seeking. While material things like money have their uses, they don’t truly endure after one’s passing. Driven by…
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Commentary: 3 Days, 1000 Miles, College During COVID, and an Empty Nest
Michael and I are among the millions of parents in the US with children heading to college this fall. Last year, Willow and Maren attended their first semester remotely from their childhood bedrooms, as I believed their university, like many others, would switch to entirely online classes. I was wrong and gladly so. I underestimated…
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Commentary: Heroes are Compassionate
As we mark the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been reflecting on the stories that will endure from this period in history. A hundred or even a thousand years from now, how will humanity, if we are still around, view our response to this crisis? What narratives will emerge about our actions, challenges,…
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Commentary: Dole for Pineapple, Slick Willy, & Voter Suppression
In late July of 1995, Michael and I packed everything we owned into the back of a U-Haul and headed south to Gainesville, Florida. As newlyweds and poor graduate students, we rented an apartment on the outskirts of part of Gainesville called Porters Quarters. The upstairs garage apartment was spacious, surrounded by beautiful live oaks,…
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Commentary: Pandemic Burnout
I don’t know about you all, but I am beyond exhausted. This isn’t pandemic fatigue, but full on pandemic burn out. Pandemic fatigue is being tired of wearing my mask. Pandemic burnout is not being able to envision ever not wearing my mask. I had hoped that by the beginning of 2021 we would have…
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Commentary: Stop Being a Selfish Jerk
Courtesy Photo / Happier times when we could see each other in person. 2016. With Maren McIlvaine-Newsad & Willow McIlvaine-Newsad. Last year was rough. And to be honest, I am not sure that this year is going to be much better. Usually at the dawn of the new year, I feel a sense of relief. …
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Commentary: Prepare for Turbulence
Heather McIlvaine-Newsad Congratulations! We’ve made it to December and are that much closer to being able to say goodbye to 2020 in a few short weeks. We survived Thanksgiving however we chose to observe, or not observe the day. Whatever it ended up looking like, it is behind us now and in front of us…
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Commentary: Stressed Out
Creative Commons / To say that 2020 has been a stressful year is an understatement. The coronavirus pandemic, racial unrest, and a contentious presidential election have resulted in heightened levels of fear and anxiety the world over. My normally calm and even-keeled family is stressed out beyond belief. And while intellectually we all know that…
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Commentary: HONY and Humanity
I have long been a fan of Brandon Stanton and his blog Humans of New York. After he was fired from his job in Chicago as a bond trader, he moved to New York City and decided to see if he could make a living doing something that he loved – photography. His initial goal was…
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Commentary – The Best Laid Plans
The onset of a new semester generally greets me with a combination of excitement and dread. This semester however, has been a bit different, in that despite my decades of teaching and my dutiful mastery of online instruction, I find myself in full on panic mode. And while the adrenalin that courses through my veins…
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Commentary: We All Count and Need to be Counted
For the last two Saturdays, my daughter Maren and I have joined a small group of returned Peace Corps volunteers and friends from Macomb to help Genesis Gardens distribute food from the Loaves and Fishes pantry. Armed with hand sanitizer and attempting to keep 6 feet between ourselves at all times, we loaded copious bags of dried, frozen and…
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We Have a Choice
Science doesn’t care if we believe in it or not. From shrinking glaciers, to open water in the arctic, to trees flowering earlier than normal, the climate will continue to change regardless of our beliefs. We do have a choice, however, as to how to respond to the crisis we have created. And in order…
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The Impermanence of Everything
The end of the 2019 season marked the end of seventeen years that John Curtis and his family have made cultivating food and community the center of their lives. I will miss the leisurely Saturday mornings after yoga in the garden and the solstice celebrations filled with amazing people and wonderful food. But aside from…
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Compassion for Ourselves and Others
As we approach the holidays and the feelings of isolation that often accompany them, I think it is important to explore one of the many themes of the season and of the quote above – compassion. Compassion for ourselves and others. Listen on TSPR here: Compassion for Ourselves and Others
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New Year, New Resolutions
Ringing in the New Year and attempting to make positive changes in how we live seems to go hand in hand. According to historians, 4,000 years ago ancient Babylonians were among the first people to make New Year’s resolutions. The vows they made to their gods were pretty concrete – pay back debts and return…
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Lessons Learned at the Pool
As a swim parent, I have mixed feelings about the closing of this chapter. On the one hand, I will miss the alone time we have spent in the car, as we travel through all types of winter weather on our way to this meet or that. On the other hand, I would be lying if…
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Cannabis & Culture
We humans have a long and complex history with this plant. Indigenous to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, many scholars postulate that cannabis is perhaps one of the earliest plants to be cultivated. As trade routes linked Asia to other parts of the world, cannabis spread to the Middle East, Africa, and eventually to…
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We All Count and Need to be Counted
With the “stay at home” order that Governor Pritzker put in place in mid-March and which has now been extended through the end of April, we all have to change the way in which we move in the world. I think one of the most important adaptations is to determine how to continue to help…
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Roots and Branches and DNA
As a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, my Aunt Bea did a lot of genealogical research to trace part of our family back to ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. But others of us know little about the stories of how we arrived to this land and the people who made…
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Seasons of Change
Those first several years of parenting seemed like a never-ending winter. Michael and I were both sleep deprived, struggling to make ends meet, and trying to figure out this parenting thing on our own. But sooner than I could have imagined winter turned into spring and our children are nearing the time to move onto…
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Don’t Take Your Roommate’s Adderall
The older I get, the more introspective I have become, and the more I care about the success of each and every one of my students. I want to them to reach their fullest potential and to do good things on this earth. Yet, I also wonder, mostly as a parent and not as a…
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This is What Misogyny Looks Like
In many ways women have made substantial gains in the United States since its founding 242 years ago. We are citizens, can vote and own property, and compose 47% of the workforce. Yet, we still face inequalities on a daily basis. Listen on TSPR here: This is What Misogyny Looks Like
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Celebrating the New Year
Every couple of years, my notoriously socially adverse family and I mask our traits that mark us as introverts for one evening and host a New Years Eve gathering. In the tradition of the peoples of Puerto Rico and South Africa, we spend the days in advance of the gathering cooking and cleaning, and sorting…
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Teaching is the Greatest Act of Optimism
I keep a quote from Mark Van Doren pinned to a bulletin board in my office. It reads: “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” At this point in the semester, up to my neck with papers to grade, I look at this often to remind myself why I assign so much…
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Feeding Bodies & Souls
At the intersection of East Calhoun and Dudley streets in Macomb, in the northeast corner of the First Presbyterian Church is a magical cupboard. This cupboard doesn’t hold clothes or shoes or forgotten treasures. This cupboard is full of food and with it hope for a better tomorrow. Listen on TSPR here: Feeding Bodies &…
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Anthony Bourdain Would Have Loved This
I was leading a study abroad course in Puerto Rico when I heard that Anthony Bourdain had died. My immediate thought was, “Damn it, we lost another good one.” Like most, I had never met Anthony Bourdain, yet he felt like a friend to me. From his very first foray into ethnographic filmmaking and eating…
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As Important as Air
The same day that Western Illinois University President Jack Thomas and the Board of Trustees announced that Tri States Public Radio will “become a self-funded department within the University structure and will be responsible for generating its revenue needs, including personnel expenditures, effective March 1, 2019,” the lead story on the WIU website lauded the accomplishments…
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Learning to Surf
Last week I led my last regular classes of the semester. For all of my courses, whether they are introductory level or advanced seminars, I like to leave my students with a solid idea of what they have learned and how they can carry their newly acquired knowledge and skill-sets outside of the classroom and…
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Teachers Make a Difference & Deserve Respect
Last week I spent four days in Philadelphia at the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings. I must admit, that while I don’t normally lack self-confidence, these meetings always leave me feeling a bit like a charlatan. The SFAA is a professional organization that brings together people from a wide variety of backgrounds (not only anthropology)…
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Values
Mark Manson, a blogger and NY Times best-selling author writes, “Pain in all its forms is our body’s most effective means of spurring action.” There has been a lot of pain in my world lately. The grief of discovering too late that was no farm legacy to leave to my daughters. The agony of watching…
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The Grieving
Guest Author: Maren McIlvaine-Newsad Grieving; “To feel grief, or great sorrow.” Death to me is something that happens every day. Whether be a plant, or animal, people and things die all the time. My mama says that it’s a part of life, so on January 20, 2018 when my grandpa Opa died, my reaction was…
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Dios Te Bendiga
Porque no veine mas mujeres a mis charlas? “Why don’t more women come to my meetings?” I complained to Doña Columbina after returning from yet another sparsely attended community forestry gathering in the rural mountain village I had been placed in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was fresh out of training and ready to…
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Listening to the Universe
“It all went just too fast.” This is something I have heard over and over again these last couple of weeks. As I told the freshmen in my classes in August: don’t blink, because before you know it the fall semester will be gone. Listen on TSPR here: Listening to the Universe
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Disasters – Natural and Manmade
A couple of weeks ago, Gloria Delany-Barmann and I returned from a short trip to Puerto Rico. We went to check up on our colleagues we’ve been working with the last couple of years and to take a few supplies and funds so generously donated by members of our community to those in need. And…
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Change for the Better is Always Possible
I believe that optimism is a moral choice. Lately the news has been overwhelmingly grim – hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and senseless gun violence. It is a reminder to us all that we are living in an increasingly volatile world. And while it is easy to be discouraged, in the midst of every tragedy and disaster…
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Dodging the Bullet
The last several weeks have been full of weather – wildfires in Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho; drought in North Dakota; flooding in Texas; and most recently Hurricane Irma in Florida. Weather related events like these happen all the time, but they only become disasters when they cross paths with humans. Listen on TSPR here:…
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Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming
This semester I’ve been one step ahead of my students while teaching a course that is new to me called Religion, Magic, & Shamanism. Using an excellent textbook and a couple of really good ethnographies, the students and I have explored how religions around the world provide people with various cosmologies or frameworks for how…
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Where Are You Local?
As the spring semester sprints to an end, I find myself preparing to travel again. First, back to Germany with students to spend two weeks immersed in an ever-changing culture. The second group of students will be traveling to rural Puerto Rico to do a month long internship with WIU alumni as part of a…
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Being a Good Sport
For the last six or seven years, most of my weekends have been spent at some sporting event or another. The early years included weekends at Harper College for Shotokan Karate tournaments. These days I travel to exotic places like Bloomington for three day swim meets. Listen on TSPR here: Being a Good Sport
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Making the World Safe for Human Differences
One of the things I love about my job is the daily opportunity to interact with students. In sitting and listening to them I am constantly amazed about how they make sense of their world. Anthropologists call this method ethnography. And while it is somewhat out of vogue and deemed by many to be something that…
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The Gift of Carpool Karaoke
2016 was a hard year. And while I am generally an optimistic person, I am not convinced that 2017 will be much better. In fact, I am pretty sure it won’t be. Take a look at my desk and you can begin to understand why I am concerned and often feel overwhelmed. Listen on TSPR…
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On Compassion
3 years, 8 months, 1 week and 6 days. Between April 6, 1992 and December 14, 1995 the most brutal conflict in Europe since WWII took place in Bosnia Herzegovina. Listen on TSPR here: On Compassion
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Rockin’ It with True Grit
To paraphrase children's author Judith Viorst; It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. Listen on NPR here: Rockin' It with True Grit
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Democracy & Debates
I hate yard signs. I dislike them almost as much as I loathe those inflatable, blowie-uppy-thingys that people put in their yards for Halloween and Christmas. Listen on NPR here: Democracy & Debates
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Water Wars
A little over 850 miles west of Macomb a war is being waged over something that is necessary to all life on earth. Water. Listen on NPR here: Water Wars
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The Choices We Make
I've been thinking a lot about choices lately. My autonomic nervous system makes decisions each and every minute to keep me alive that I am only remotely aware of. Listen on NPR here: The Choices We Make
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Grieving for Sean
Grief is a curious sensation. To me it feels like a combination of hollowness and heaviness seeping into the cells of each and every muscle. It sits across the tops of my shoulders and bleeds into the space behind my heart.
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Gaining Control over Stress
Somehow I thought that as I entered my 49th trip around the sun, my life would be a little less stressful. Ha!
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Disasters, Tough Decisions, and the New Normal
I never wanted to be a disaster researcher. In fact, I tried my hardest to avoid it. The first site for my dissertation research was supposed to be near the town of Campeche in the Yucatan Peninsula. In October of 1995, while preparing to go to the field, not one but two hurricanes made landfall…
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And the Stars Look Very Different Today
David Bowie died this past Sunday. Like many, I was shocked and saddened to hear of his death. His music has been an influential part of my life, although not always in the forefront.
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Stop the Nonsense & Let’s Get to Work
Stop it. Just stop it. Stop pretending to care about those harmed by gun violence when you fail to address the root of the problem.
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Memories of Bacon
Mornings are not easy in my house. Amidst the chaos of fighting for the bathroom, misplaced shoes and socks, and readying ourselves for the day ahead there is one that thing that brings everyone to a dead stop and allows us to pause and savor the moment.
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It Keeps You Running
Standing on the edge of a hay field on a cool September morning I fell in love again. It wasn’t a hard, fast, impassioned fall like those felt by first time lovers, but rather a slow fall — deep with appreciation and wonder of seeing the familiar in a new light.
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Big Shoes to Fill
The photo got me. Red shirt, blue shorts, and little shoes. It’s been a long time since I have helped my children put their shoes on, but in an instant I was sitting on the floor lacing up Willow and Maren’s tiny floral trainers before taking them to pre-school. Three year old Aylan Kurdi’s parents…
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PARCC is Ccrap Spelled Backwards
I am an educator and a parent with daughters in the 7th and 8th grades in the Macomb Public Schools. Like many others schools – although not all – throughout the nation, Macomb schools will be administering the PARRC exam this month to its students.
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War and Reverse Culture Shock
A couple of weekends ago, my husband Michael and I did something we havent done in years.
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The Affordable Care Act and Social Injustice
My family and I have spent the past couple of weeks visiting our doctors. All four of us have had our annual physicals, eye and dental exams. Each time I enter a doctors office I am grateful that we have access to affordable health insurance. There was a time not long ago, when I was…
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Running for Peace
In their 2004 article in the journal Nature, Bramble and Lieberman write Striding bipedalism is a key behavior of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages . Dr. Daniel Leiberman, a biology professor from Harvard also known as The Barefoot Professor suggests that a massive environmental change that…
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Promoting Change Through Non-Violent Means
This past January, Sarah Haynes and I took 9 intrepid WIU students to India for a study abroad course. We spent two weeks living and working at Navdanya, an organic farm that is the headquarters for Vandana Shivas national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources through the promotion of organic farming…
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War and Peace and WIU Guest Speakers
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the University Theme at WIU. By bringing internationally renowned speakers to campus, the University Theme offers students, faculty and community members the opportunity to enjoy candid and personal interactions with world leaders. Discussions that begin with the lectures often continue days and weeks later in residence halls, coffee…
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