Alumni Profile: Ann Campbell '04

Building awareness through art

The culmination of the School of Education and Human Development's "Cross-Cultural Perspectives: Senegal" was a three-week trip to Senegal. For art major Ann Campbell '04, the trip became an opportunity to pair her lifelong desire to help people with her artistic talents.

Campbell remained in Senegal an additional two months and together with Samantha Wapnick '03 (who now works for Oxfam), took more than 40 hours of video footage. This experience was turned into a capstone project in earning her certificate in international studies when Campbell edited those 40 hours down to a 40-minute narrated documentary on the culture of Senegal. This, coupled with a show of her photographs from a trip to Peru, gave her a platform to promote a deeper understanding of the distribution of the world's resources. In addition, Campbell strives to share an appreciation of the inspiring qualities she has witnessed in other cultures.

" I met a woman with such an advanced case of athlete's foot that her toes were cracking," Campbell said. "The cost for medicine to treat it is equivalent to the cost of a pack of cigarettes. But the woman couldn't afford it."

" We need to think about how we impact the world," said Campbell, who believes awareness of the inequalities in the distribution of the world's resources will galvanize people to help share them. In Senegal's culture, the urge to help others is a strong, integral element, and one that Campbell found very inspiring. "In Senegal, whenever people make food, they make extra for whoever might come by," she said. "It's part of a notion of hospitality called taranga. It's a recurrent theme -- although they have little, people share what they have and are supportive of one another."

Campbell is a Reiki master (Reiki is a method of natural healing based on the application of universal life force energy) who has been a guest speaker on the topic for several semesters in the Decker School of Nursing's holistic health class. In Peru, she studied traditional medicine and worked one summer for a rain forest health project as part of a floating medical clinic on the Amazon River. Now her plan is to broaden her abilities as a health care provider by becoming a nurse.

Campbell decided to study nursing because "I see such a need," as she put it. She was accepted into the Baccalaureate Accelerated Track Program at Decker and began there this fall, although Yale and Columbia were her other top choices. She visited both campuses, but neither place could offer her anything more than the nursing program at Binghamton, she said. And in her view, neither had Binghamton's rich diversity. Campbell said Binghamton's varied and active student unions -- especially the Black Student Union, Latin American Student Union and Chinese Student Association -- help foster deep discussions about race and inequality, both in and out of class. That's something she values about the campus. "I've met students from across the country and all over the world at Binghamton," said Campbell. "Here, I've been able to come to terms with my identity as a white woman in this world. I learned to discuss race in ways that don't cast blame, and identify systemic problems we need to look at to change things."

Furthermore, at Binghamton she'll have the opportunity to take classes toward a master of arts in social science degree, something else she's interested in. Ultimately, Campbell plans to pursue a career that combines nursing, human development and social work.

Binghamton University runs in the Campbell family. Campbell has two siblings who are also Binghamton alumni, and who also appreciate the University for its diverse character. Her sister, Elizabeth Campbell, MA '00 in sociology, is on a Fulbright Scholarship in Kenya; and her brother, Jean D'Arc Campbell '02, MA '03, is multicultural director at Cornell University. In fact, Jean became a part of the Campbell family as a result of those convictions. A refugee from the Congo who lost his own family at age 4, Jean was befriended by Elizabeth when she was studying in Kenya. He was subsequently adopted as an adult by the Campbell family, who sponsored him to come to the United States by providing him with a home and a job. Jean later chose to pursue his graduate studies at Binghamton rather than at Harvard, although he'd been offered a full scholarship there.

The Campbell family is one that shares deeply held convictions about helping others and making
the world a better place. And it seems, they are doing just that.