DEDICATION

I’d like to dedicate [my] dissertation and all the work that went into completing it to my Master of Arts advisor and mentor Dr. Rob Proudfoot. It is because of his confidence in me and my work in Honduras that I entered the Critical and Socio-Cultural Studies in Education (CSSE) program. Two days before he passed in 2006, he came to see me in my office; something that he’d never done before. He brought me a signed certificate for finishing my MA from the Center for Cultural Survival and a yellow rose. It was during that visit that he told me I was ready for the conversation about entering the new doctoral program in the College of Education. In the moment, I shrugged off the idea. His voice whispers to me “Go find out about the new program…Apply, this is the place for you…Go and see Spike…Listen, learn all you can from your professors and everyone around you…This is your journey; your cohort has their own…Find your voice…Choose when to use it…Cultural survival…Reciprocity…Do your part by telling anyone who will listen…Question everything…Enjoy the people around you…Go and do…Enjoy the journey…All-and-all, it’s just another brick in the wall.” Thank you Rob for pushing so many of us through the system of higher education, helping us realize who we are to the core, and encouraging us to make the world a better place. Your pebble of knowledge ripples and is making waves.

Dr. Rob Proudfoot, Haudenosaunee – Turtle Clan, June 30, 1943 – October 4, 2006. “Teacher, scholar, humanitarian. Advocate for equality and diversity. Here was his office away from the office. Here he counseled and guided students from the corners of the earth and from all walks of life. Here he met with friends, listened, talked, joked, told stories. Here he gave gifts. Here he made plans and composed speeches. Here he comforted those in distress and celebrated the accomplishments of students and friends. Here his spirit will always be, silently urging all of us to work for a better world free of prejudice and discrimination, a peaceful world, the kind of world he envisioned.” (Quote from the plaque at Café Roma, 13^th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon).

May 5, 2014