The Bucknellian

“Everyone knows about the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle. However, we’ve made progress in only the recycling but have yet to emphasize reducing and reusing,” Bloom said. 

He reinforces the idea that while not recycling is intolerable, food waste is commonly ignored and often accepted within communities.

“The United States, by far, is the largest food-wasting country in the world, in which 40 percent raised or grown in America isn’t consumed, which accumulates to about 160 billion pounds per annum,” Bloom said.

He believes the source of this immeasurable amount of food wasting traces back to farms that throw out slightly obscure looking produce because of consumer pickiness as well as supermarkets having to throw out expired goods.

“Listen to your instinct, not the dates on goods; if you think it looks good and smells good than it’s perfectly edible,” Bloom said. 

White also has much to say on this topic. She believes that wasting food is a cultural rather than an individual problem and there are various ways to tackle this problem. One method that she believes will make people more cognizant of the food they waste is encouraging them to grow their own food.

“Go home and plant a garden at home. When Bucknell students are at home during summer break, growing their own food will not only bring a sense of elatedness but also achievement and affection towards food,” White said.

White addresses other countries such as those in Asia like Japan and Korea.

“These countries learned how to be creative with food preservation,” White said. “It was a necessary skill to have because of their long-standing history over time, which required ways in preserving food for their own people due to war and lack of land when in contrast America is a young country which is abundant in land resources as well as extreme fast paced growth.”

Japan and Korea have mastered the art of food preservation through fermentation, such as kimchi, that allows food to stay edible for much longer periods of time.

The University with the strong aid of Janice Butler, director of civic engagement and service learning, and Rabbi Serena Fujita, have currently made plans on making a community garden downtown for University students and community members to experience the art of producing food. The garden will also aid the Lewisburg area by teaching residents how to grow their own food and prepare it as a meal. Though a small change, it is one step closer to preventing food waste in the Lewisburg area.

Nyambi Nyambi ’01, actor and former guard for the Bison men’s basketball team, shared his experiences of success with current University students.

“If you celebrate the other people around you and their successes, you can’t help but be successful yourself,” he said.

Justin Schwartz ’04, a roller coaster engineer for Universal Studios, also spoke about his success.  He explained that, in his experiences, the most difficult part of thinking of new ideas is applying logistical constraints while simultaneously using creativity.

Matt Hawley ’03, Senior Game Producer at Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of games such as World of Warcraft and StarCraft, echoed Schwartz’s advice.  

“Putting constraints on the beginning prevents further creativity,” Hawley said. “Sometimes you throw something away just to see it come back a year or two later.”

All four presenters agreed that to be successful in any career, one must have a true passion for whatever the project entails.

“At Blizzard, everyone is a hardcore gamer at their core, so they want to play [Blizzard’s] games. A lot,” Hawley said.

Innovative Projects Manager, Martine Worrall Stillman ’04, who works for Nike at Synapse Product Development, highlighted that passion was one of her virtues, as well. As innovative projects manager, Stillman tests Nike’s products so that she can understand the venture from the perspective of her target market.

“We try to understand the audience from the deepest level we can,” Stillman said.

To show how this goal is accomplished, Stillman explained that everyone at Nike wears Nike shoe products in order to better understand the needs and desires of consumers.

Nyambi viewed this idea of listening to the target audience quite differently. 

“The audience can make you feel great or it can make you feel horrible,” Nyambi said.  

He admitted that although he pays attention to the producers, he tries not to get caught up judging his quality of performance through customer reviews. Out of 100 positive reviews, Nyambi claims that he will distinctly remember the one negative one.

Although Schwartz agreed with Nyambi’s explanation, he felt that his career involves listening to the creator of the idea for the product he is working on. Schwartz said that in the construction of the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios, for example, the biggest concern for the engineers was upholding J.K. Rowling’s vision of Harry Potter within the ride.

The final topic of the series focused on the idea of failure. Each alumnus remarkably emphasized the advantages of failure.

Each speaker provided a different twist on their reasoning for viewing failure as a benefit. Together, they cited the importance of learning from one’s individual mistakes in the pursuit of success. 

“Failure is a wonderful gift. You have to risk failure in order to receive benefits from it. When you give yourself over to the idea of not worrying about failing, amazing things will happen,” Nyambi said.

Additionally, while many students worry that their undergraduate major will dictate their work for the rest of their lives, the four alumni presenters emphasized that this is not always the case. Nyambi serves as living proof.

“[Nyambi’s life] was very interesting because it showed that even though he didn’t study his actual career in college, Bucknell still provided him with an opportunity to find what he actually loved to do,” Taylor Sisti ’15 said.

Students who attended the forum believed that the lecture was both an informative and worthwhile experience.  

“It was insightful and inspiring. [The speakers] are a testament to Bucknell’s amazing alumni who are great at what they do,” Matt Terry ’15 said.

“They were beautiful photos. The pictures that the Jews brought with them before they thought they were going to be worked,” Weiss said.

There was a secret Nazi edict which ruled that all the photos people brought with them to the concentration camps had to be destroyed. Weiss saw only a few of the 2400 photos that were saved by the Jewish Underground.

When Weiss returned home to America, she could not get her mind off the photos. She hatched an idea to make a deal with the German government to give her the photos so she could make a montage and share them with the world. The government refused to give her the photos, but allowed Weiss to restore them and print them in her book.

“Unfortunately, they will never part with these photos,” Weiss said. “They are too precious to them.”
Before showing the film, Weiss told the audience stories she had learned about a few of the people in the photos. One was a story of a man named Ben Hirsch, who identified his baby brother and sister from a photo in the film. He told Weiss his own story and how he was shipped on the last Kindertransport to leave Germany.  His mother stayed behind with his two youngest siblings and continued to write him letters until she died.

She also told the audience a story of a husband and wife holding a baby in their arms. They both volunteered at an orphanage because they loved kids but could not have any of their own.

Her photos represented the positive nature of human love even in the worst of conditions.

“I believe goodness lives far beyond the life of the individual,” Weiss said.