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Olney welcomes Ben Fram as our 'Focus the Nation' Coordinator.
 Hi everybody, my name is Ben Fram and I hail from the wilds of Southern Jersey, about 10 minutes to the east of Philadelphia. I'm currently a sophomore at Oberlin College planning to double major in Environmental Studies and Chemistry and probably minor in Economics. In my free time, I'm usually listening to or playing music (I'm really into music and play a lot of guitar), playing Frisbee or racquetball, watching movies or learning foreign languages.
Oberlin College is a great place that provides its students with a lot of academic and intellectual freedom. This ability to choose one's own learning path can be seen most clearly through Oberlin's Winter Term. During the month of January, Oberlin students are given several options in which they can further their own knowledge; this involves taking a class on campus, performing a private study of a subject of their choice, or participating in the Oberlin internship program where students have a chance to learn career skills and improve their work techniques through different internships. After taking intensive German on campus last year, I (obviously) chose to apply for an internship this year and wanted to do something that involved the environment. To make a short story even shorter, I applied here, was contacted and offered a spot by Mary Ellen and then decided it would be fun to work at Olney.
So, I'm here at Olney working as the Focus the Nation intern, basically just trying to organize all of the events and get together a cohesive program. I have been working with Leonard's environmental science class helping them prepare their presentations on climate change issues. We are also planning to invite area junior high and high school students to campus to participate in the teach-in. Students will analyze and compare their environmental footprints and end with a graphic metaphor on the effects of energy consumption as they decimate a huge “glacier” cake. For those of you who don't know, Focus the Nation is a large-scale effort to mobilize climate change awareness education and induce a change in the way that we conduct ourselves when it comes to the environment. About 1,300 hundred institutions, companies and organizations are participating in this event which takes place on January 31st, 2008. Olney is one of only 31 Ohio participants something which everybody ought to be very proud of. Oberlin is also participating but since the majority of the student body won't be returning until the 3rd and 4th of February, I don't think they're doing an actual teach-in in the same style as Olney.
The atmosphere here at Olney is friendly to say the least, considering that I've only been here for about a week and I've met at least 50 people. There are stark similarities between Olney and Oberlin; both schools foster intellectual freedom and free speech and have very positive attitudes about an individual's ability to change the world. I feel very welcome here and would like to thank everybody who has made it such a warm reception and been open to me. This is a very unique and special place and I'm thankful that I've been able to become a part of it.
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