Honoring Alumni
9/6/2005 3:15 AMPearl Lam Bergad
2003 Outstanding Achievement Award
Pearl Lam Bergad (M.S. '69) says her inspiration is simple: When she sees a need, she feels compelled to do something about it. And she asks for nothing in return.
Bergad has been a volunteer for longer than she can remember-devoting countless hours to the Chinese Senior Citizen Society and the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota. In May 2001, her two worlds of service came together in Hun Qiao: Bridge of Souls—a musical program of remembrance and reconciliation for Asians who died during World War II.
Bergad was born in Hanoi and grew up in Hong Kong, where her parents fled to escape the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. She came to the United States to attend Carleton College, earned a master's in biology from the U, and worked as a researcher in the Academic Health Center.
Through her volunteer work with elderly immigrants, Bergad saw a need that went beyond planning daily activities and visiting shut-ins. “We needed to bring about awareness of the tremendous tragedy in Asia during World War II,” she says. “The older generation was very silent about their sufferings, and I felt a need to bring about some healing and closure.”
Bergad brought the idea to her colleagues at the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, who “thought a musical commemoration would be a wonderful thing to do.” The mission was to combine remembrance and reconciliation. “Not to judge,” she explains, “but to move beyond just acknowledgment of what had happened. Hopefully we can learn from it and do something different in the future.”
Hun Qiao: Bridge of Souls was six years in the works. The Chamber Music Society of Minnesota commissioned pieces from four composers-from China, Japan, Korea, and America. Famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma agreed to perform. Although the concert was a huge endeavor for the small music society, a group of committed people invested in it and pushed it forward. “It was a great experience of cooperation and collaboration,” she says.
Bergad is finishing a documentary about the creation of Hun Qiao. And she's excited about a new project: creating a Chinese Heritage Foundation that will preserve and promote Chinese culture and history in Minnesota. “My real satisfaction comes from seeing people come together, and to feel their commitment to move forward in peace and friendship,” she says. “That's what I am most proud of.“
Leonard Parker
2005 Outstanding Achievement Award
When Leonard Parker (B.S. '48) was 14, a buddy mentioned a building he wanted to check out-in Racine, 45 miles away from their hometown of Milwaukee. “I didn't care about the building,” says Parker. “But I thought riding a bike to Racine sounded good!”
The boys started out at 4 a.m.; six hours later they arrived at the Johnson Wax headquarters, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. “I'd never seen a building like that,” says Parker. “It was incredible! The building engineer showed us around, and he spoke of Mr. Wright with such deference. I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to design buildings like this and have people talk about you with such respect!' I made up my mind right there-I was going to be an architect.”
Over a career spanning more than 50 years, Parker has designed many a great building-and earned great respect. He received his B.S. in architecture from the U, and followed it with a master's degree from MIT and a job in Michigan working for renowned architect Eero Saarinen.
But when his wife became pregnant with their first child, the Parkers returned to Minnesota. Borrowing $8,000 from his aunt, Parker started The Leonard Parker Associates in 1957. He began a 34-year teaching career at the University two years later. “I love teaching,” he says. “It forces you to examine alternative ways of resolving building design issues. . . . It illuminates ideas. I learned a lot. I still do.”
Over the years, Parker's firm gained international acclaim, earning more than 100 design-excellence awards. One of the most challenging projects was the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile, built in the mid-1980s. “They wanted us to build a fortress that looked like a palace,” he says. “But it turned out to be an extraordinarily good building.”
Other Parker favorites include the Minnesota Judicial Center on the State Capitol grounds: “It's sympathetic to the existing architecture, yet done very much in the modern mode.” His designs for the U of M Law School and the Humphrey Institute form an “excellent gateway” to campus from the west, he says, despite the “ugly apartment buildings” that now block the approaching view.
Last year, The Leonard Parker Associates became Parker Durrant, and 82-year-old Parker moved on-not to retire, but to work with his son's architectural firm, still seeking the type of projects he's famous for: inspirational buildings that make a difference. “All kinds of people in the construction industry can put up buildings,” he says. “But we architects don't just build buildings. We create works of art.”
Ismael Abu-Saad
2004 Outstanding Achievement Award
Ismael Abu-Saad (Ph.D. '89) was born in a Bedouin tent of woven goat hair on the Negev Desert in southern Israel. He rode a donkey four kilometers to school. His father was a truck driver who couldn't read or write, but who made sure all of his 11 children went to school. “My dad invested in education,” says Abu-Saad. “He was a wise man.”
In 1989, Abu-Saad became the first Bedouin to earn a Ph.D., and he's spent his life following in his wise father's footsteps-on a grand scale. As a professor of education at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, and the founder of the Center for Bedouin Studies and Development, he has devoted himself to creating educational opportunity for all Bedouins. The 400 Bedouin students at Ben-Gurion University today represent a tenfold increase in less than a decade.
The Bedouins are an ancient people whose nomadic, herding culture focused on survival in the desert-not literacy. When Israel became a state in 1948, Bedouins were sent to live in seven government-created towns in the desert. But the schools were poor, jobs were scarce, and poverty ruled.
“Education is the solution,” insists Abu-Saad. “Only with decent education can the Bedouin integrate into Israeli society.” Abu-Saad is especially pleased that half of the 400 Ben-Gurion students are women. “Women prepare the next generation,” he says. “When educated women go back to the Bedouin community, other mothers see them and think, 'Why not my daughter?'”
After earning his M.A. in education from Ben-Gurion, Abu-Saad could have left the desert behind. But he lives his belief that educated professionals can become the bedrock of more prosperous Bedouin towns. He spent 10 years as a teacher and school principal in Bedouin schools. “It was easy for the government to blame it on the culture,” he says. “But the Bedouin community was not anti-education. They needed role models. That's why I moved back.”
Abu-Saad pursued a Ph.D. in educational policy and administration, with the larger goal of eliminating the Israeli education system's discrimination against Arab minorities. The Israeli government refused his request for a scholarship, but Abu-Saad found a more welcoming environment at the U. “I owe Minnesota a lot,” he says.
Today, Abu-Saad combines teaching, research, and lobbying for Bedouin education. “I have two full-time jobs,” he says, laughing. For the past year and a half, he has served on a national task force for improving education in Israel. In January 2005, the Israeli government agreed with its findings and promised to correct the huge budget inequity between Arab and Jewish schools. “Now I have to work very hard to make sure our recommendations are implemented,” says Abu-Saad. “But it's a good step, and I'm glad I was a part of it.
Patricia Kelly is a freelance writer based in Hopkins, Minnesota.
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