Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 2001)
JE Feature ______________ L WedNEsdAy, J anurary 24, 2001 CI ac I c AMAS P r ÎNT Adventurous librarian brings experience to Clackamas JENNY CHAVEZ to access and evaluate informa tion for just about any endeavor you pursue.” Halliday wasn’t always a librar Karen Halliday, former teacher, ian. Her first degree was in biol sheries biologist and Peace ogy education and in 1976 she orps member, has brought a joined the Peace Corps to teach ickground of adventure with math and science in Nepal for ;r to Clackamas College as its three years. “ It was the Peace Corps expe :w academic librarian. Halliday started at the college rience as advertised,” remarked st fall as a foil time librarian. She Halliday. ;cided to relocate to Oregon She taught in two villages - one om Utah to be close to her par- Tibetan and the other a High lts and found this job while Caste (Brahmin) village - after re ¡arching through a library job ceiving an intense three-month sting website. She left a tenure cross-cultural training session. osition as a Part of her train :ience librarian I ing was total : the University | immersion in the Nepali lan I Utah to come | "I ork at ’ guage, includ that to ing living with a a Nepali family lackamas. who didn’t library is liberat I “I like the speak English. people here,” I Karen Halliday Halliday said Eid Halliday. “It she was glad to librarian ally does have have had that nice commu- experience. ity feel here “I wanted to nd I really like experience life without running ealing with be- water or electricity,” said inning students.” Halliday. “It was an opportunity Part of her job description is to step outside your culture and o give reference instruction to realize you’ve got one.” tudents, helping them learn how In Nepal, Halliday taught o research various topics. Ac- grades 6-10 in government-run ording to Halliday, learning how schools. An average of 25 stu o do research in the college’s li dents was in each class and most brary will put them way ahead of consisted of boys. Sometimes nany students at the university there would be one girl in a class evel. of 22. The girls were usually “I really believe that learning needed as child labor because o use a research library is liber- the women did most of the agri iting for a student,” said Halliday. “It gives you the power Copy Editor really believe learning use research ing- cultural work. School costs were also a factor since families had to pay for education beyond the third grade. There were other reasons as well. “Parents were afraid of their daughters sending love notes,” said Halliday. “There was a signifi cant fear that edu cation was moral contamination.” Halliday went back to Nepal in 1985 and saw a total change. Besides finding running water and elec tricity in parts of the vil lages, she also observed that 50 percent of the stu dents were girls. One theory for the big turn around was because of the marriage market. “I have nothing to back this up, but an an ecdotal reason was that educated young men wanted educated young ladies,” exclaimed Halliday. After returning to the states, Halliday worked in Seattle as a fish eries biologist while pursuing her master's in fisheries. She discov ered this wasn’t the field she wanted to stay in. • “You go into biology because you like critters,” said Halliday. “You end up torturing animals. Our mission was to come up with esti mates of various fish populations in the Serring Searand to do this we had to kill thousands of fish.” She then reactivated her teach ing credential to teach biology Below: Karen Halliday, the new librarian at Clackamas. She welcomes students' questions and is eager to teach research skills. GILBERT BARRETT I Clackamas Print Though .Halliday liked teaching, she didn’t like all that went along with teaching, especially discipline problems. She went back to school and earned her master's of library science at the University of Wash ington. As an academic librarian, Halliday can still enjoy being in the educational setting by using her talents in teaching and service to help students better their own education. She encourages stu dents to pomp to theJitjrajy more often and use the services avail about asking for assistance,” said Halliday. “Always ask. That’s why we’re here.” able. “People are often very timid Writer of natural sonal history books becomes new leader of support group TAM OLIVER essays. I did one about when A&E OLIVER Editor TAM my husband and I changed our last names when we got married; another about the birth of my daughter.” Lichen is also looking forward to' having three books published by Sasquatch Press. "They are natural history books that focus on a specific plant, ani mal or natural event, such as the red cedar, ladybugs or lightning,” she said. According to Lichen, one of the most interesting aspects of the re search for her | books was delv- | ing into the folk snnal essavs I did nnp about whpn Chrysalis, a support group at Clackamas Community College for women writers, has a new leader this quarter. The group was formed eight years ago when a few students in Kate Gray’s women’s literature class at Clackamas Community College wanted to continue the writing they had been doing for the class. Ac cording to Gray, the women wrote up a constitution for the group, and she has been you leading it ever lore. For instance, I she relates one of since. However, Gray, who still | the stories about writing, you I how ladybugs teachers at the I were named. college, decided can't wait for she wanted more !| When farmers inspiration" time for her own Pat Lichen I prayed to the Vir- I gin Mary (Our writing. writer [ Lady) to save Pat Lichen I their crops, she jokes that she in herited her new sent beneficial position as leader on the basis of bugs to help them. These little longevity: she has been a dedicated beetles became known as ladybugs. group member for six years. She has Asked how she got published, had articles published in Northwest she replied, “I really did my home Travel and Canoe & Kayak maga work.” zines as well online for First, she took a trip to the library citysearch.com. Additionally, she to look up regional publishers as she has done commentaries on OPB ra felt this was where her essays be dio. longed. Also, she borrowed a book “They call them commentaries,” on how to write book proposals. she said “but I think of them as per- “You can do that [submit a pro- "When begin to get serious about JENNY CHAVEZ / Clackamas Print Pat Lichen is the new leader of Chrysalis, a support group at Clackamas for women writers. She is the author of three books and several published articles. posai] with nonfiction books, not like how you would submit fiction,” she continued. At home, she wrote her proposal and sent it, along with a couple of samples of her essays, to Sasquatch Press. “I have some of their books,” she explained. “I like how they were done.” And Sasquatch liked what they saw. They hired an artist to add il lustrations to the books, which will be published in June. Lichen is equally excited by her continuing commitment to Chrysa lis. “One of the first things you learn when you begin to get serious about your writing is that you can’t wait for inspiration. It [Chrysalis] sort of gooses you to write more,” she explained. “Also, the view point of all these people helps you to understand what’s clear in your own writing and what’s muddy.” Clackamas Federal Credit Union 270 Warner Milne Road Oregon City 503-656-0671 10400 SE Main Milwaukie 503-653-7788
