UPDATES FROM AUM ALUMS ALISHA SULLIVAN AND BOB GENETSKI

ALISHA GRADUATED A YEAR OR TWO AGO; HERE IS HER REPORT FROM RENO, NEVADA:

Well, this weekend I have mostly been avoiding the streets of Reno in order not to run into any playa dust-coated "Burners" (people who have attended the week-long Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert).

More relevant to the blog update, perhaps, this fall I am starting on my second year in the Literature and Environment program at UNR, working on my MA in English. I have some interesting courses to look forward to this year, including "The Transcendentalist Tradition" and "Ecocriticism." I taught freshman composition last year, but this semester I'll be a discussion leader for Core Humanities.

Over the past summer I presented a paper at an academic conference for the first time. I also worked as a research assistant for a professor putting together a graduate seminar in environmental justice literature -- a topic that was especially interesting to me after my AUM internship with WildLaw.

I had some non-academic fun out here in the West, too. I did some hiking in the Sierras, went swimming in Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe (SO cold even in mid-summer!), and made a trip or two to San Francisco to hear music at the Fillmore and see the sights!

Hope all is well back in Alabama. I hear it was a very hot and dry summer. It was a very dry year here on the eastern slope of the Sierras, too. We had several bear and mountain lion sightings as they ranged farther out looking for food and water.

BOB GRADUATED IN 1991; HERE IS HIS REPORT:

I am well. I am still teaching at-risk students in Grandville, MI. It is still a wonderful challenge that humbles me on a regular basis. It is very humbling to be cussed out by a 15 year old kid.

I have created a few short fiction pieces, which, when I get the courage, I will submit somewhere!

Soon I will formally declare my candidacy for the Republican nomination for State Representative for the 88th District of Michigan (Michigan has the worst economy in the nation at present). It will be an exciting and challenging race.

I earned my M. Ed from Grand Valley State Universityin Technology during 2004. However, I will apply to a university of greater esteem. The first master's was to appease my school district. The next one will be for me.

I live in Saugatuck, MI - where I regularly write"letters to the editor" to complain about the taxes here (which no one changes). I have published a guest editorial appearing in the Holland Sentinel and Grand Rapids Press. The editorial slammed state universities for the tuition increases we have seen for 6 years straight. I have also penned an article for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which called out teacher certification in Michigan as a waste of time and taxpayer money.

I am blessed to be playing ice hockey twice a week.

HERE IS BOB'S POLITICAL WEB SITE; IF YOU VISIT, YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN AN ON-LINE VOTE: http://voteforbobg.com/