Conviction

Avi Ackermann
Plan II/Linguistics
I finished my sophomore year confused by how quickly two semesters had passed while I was still waiting for the first to begin. Eager to finish and undo a year of isolation, I came to New York for the summer of 2021. I’m in Brooklyn now, living here with friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends for two months, relishing my time in one of the best cities in the world.
This time last year, after hastily adjusting my expectations for a summer I was supposed to spend everywhere but inside my house, I threw myself into YIVO’s Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. Even though my planned six weeks in New York became six weeks in front of my laptop, my experience “at” YIVO was one of the most formative events of my life. Yiddish culture is now such an important source of meaning for me that it’s hard to imagine what I’d thought about it before I’d begun to take it seriously. YIVO was also the most intense and productive language-learning experience I’ve ever had–a year ago, I only knew a couple words, but last week, my Yiddish was good enough for a friendly argument with the owner of a Williamsburg bagel shop.
I wish I had more to say about the fall semester. Spending so much time in nonexistent classrooms made the days bleed together, and what I can recall most is the confusion I felt. Still, there was plenty to be happy about. I was lucky enough to take Intro to Mayan Hieroglyphs and audit a graduate-level course on linguistic field methods. I was also asked to be a teaching assistant for Intro to Linguistics. Being on the other side of the class taught me (and hopefully my students) a lot, especially sympathy for homework-graders.
The Spring semester was a huge improvement. I took Syntax, a class I’d been looking forward to since high school. Sufism and Islamic Mysticism was a constant source of beauty, and among the best courses I’ve taken at UT. Auditing a seminar-style class on Indigenous peoples of Siberia was my first chance to seriously study a topic I’ve been fascinated by for years. Outside of class, I worked as a research assistant on a project investigating the morphology of Quechua spoken by Spanish bilinguals. If our abstract is accepted, we’ll be presenting a paper at a conference this winter.
Across both semesters, the most important thing I attempted was unquestionably my work in Uyghur activism. Last summer, I became a founding member of the Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom, an international group organizing against the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in China. With JMUF, I helped write op-eds, organize fundraisers and campaigns, and plan cultural events. As a TA for Intro to Linguistics, I also gave a lecture on government repression of the Uyghur language in Xinjiang. In preparing my presentation, I realized how little I actually knew about Uyghurs themselves. After that, I began to spend most of my free time reading about Uyghur history and culture, as well as the modern policies designed to erase them both. During the Spring semester, I also began to work with Rayhan Asat, a prominent Uyghur-American activist whose brother, along with nearly all other Uyghur public intellectuals, has been imprisoned since 2016. One speech I wrote with her led to a genocide determination by the Lithuanian parliament, and another was delivered last week to the US Secretary of State.
Building on the Turkic fundamentals I learned with Tuvan, I also started studying the Uyghur language on my own, becoming serious about it after I was viscerally affected by contemporary Uyghur poetry. For JMUF, I organized an event to introduce Uyghur language and culture to people who might not otherwise know anything about it. As I write this, I’m about halfway through an intensive Uyghur language course at the University of Wisconsin’s Central Eurasian Studies Summer Institute, where I’m studying as a FLAS fellow. I’m still a little shocked by how quickly this topic has consumed my life and often wonder where it will take me.
At the end of last year’s reflection, I said that even if I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, I knew what my priorities were. Today, honestly, I know neither. A year spent inside has disenchanted many ideas I used to find vital, but it also gave me the chance to make unexpected personal commitments to an important cause. Whatever happens, I can’t wait for the fall semester, when I can finally return to real classes and the community which the Dedman family’s generosity created.
Pooja Enagala
Plan II/Biochemistry
Bio not submitted yet.
Ingrid Piña
LAH/International Relations & Global Studies
Are we already at the end of a year I was sure would move slowly? New beginnings fill my summer––I am taking Mandarin Chinese classes every evening through the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship program, and am writing every morning for Texas Global, UT Austin’s international academics office.
For the first time since the pandemic, I’m no longer living with my family. As I speed walk city streets to see friends and chase ideas, my excitement battles my nostalgia for simpler days of COVID cancellations. In a one-on-one meeting with my Chinese teacher, I expressed my life’s exponentially-multiplying stressors. She inquired, was I carrying too heavy a load? I assured her––though the load is heavy, I’ve been waiting all year to carry it, to take it on adventures, to deliver it to my wildest dreams!
I refer to this past year as a “pause,” but now that I reflect, and pull memories from the blur, I see growth of which I’m proud. In the fall of 2020, a mobilities studies course swept me off my feet; for the final, I made a mini-ethnographic film about moving back home. For my digital media productions course, I teamed-up with classmates to record a song and make a music video. On Public Lands Day, I spoke at the Continental Divide Trail Coalition’s storytelling event. In the midst of creative projects and loving my anthropology readings, I heard of an identity that sounded fitting––more fitting than any other job title I had considered in the past (astronaut, museum curator, pastry chef, etc.)––“artist scholar.” That I consider a future of claiming either of these words is a testament to the boundless support of the Dedman program.
The enrichment fund provided for an illustration tablet and computer that could run Adobe Creative Suite, for enrollment in an Awful Good Writers poetry course, and for any other passion I could think of. With many thanks to Dr. Musick, Julie Casey and Mary Cone, I organized for DDSP scholars and mentors to take the Clifton Strengths Assessment test. We then zoomed to laugh/debrief over the resulting insights. When I made my first investment in the spring, then excitedly told Dr. Musick, another zoom was planned! With Dedman alum Travis on board to give advice, us scholars left the liberal arts to consider all things finance (then quickly returned, haha). Spring also saw the first meeting of the DDSP’s own “Ded Poets Society.” For all the pandemic distance of the past year, I feel closer to my Dedman friends. DDSP continuously brings joy into my life (and wisdom, supplied by my awesome cohort mentor Nina Palmo).
This past semester, I interned for the Office of eDiplomacy and the Foreign Service Institute––researching, writing, and making videos. The flexibility of the Dedman scholarship allowed me this time, for which I’m so grateful! I’m excited to return to classes this fall, and end this soliloquy with curiosity for what will follow.
Sophie Ryland
Plan II/Journalism
Sophie Ryland is a Plan II and Communications Major. She is native Austinite and loves any class that discusses civic engagement. Sophie has been a student journalist for over six years and has engaged in local organizations to educate and promote inclusion and diversity. Virtual classes and engagement with her cohort during the pandemic provided a crucial life line during a time of great need.
Marisa Tiscareño
Plan II/Business Honors Program
At this point last summer, I could not have imagined what two full semesters of college in a pandemic would look like, complete with 100% virtual classes, a remote internship, Zoom “social hours,” and life lived behind my 13-inch laptop screen. It was a tough year, but I have a lot to be grateful for.
I loved the contrast between my liberal arts and business classes–in Plan II math I learned about Platonic solids and topological distortions, and my innovation and entrepreneurship class allowed me to understand and actually go through the design thinking process. My philosophy and managerial accounting classes also helped me think about ethics from different viewpoints, whether through Kant’s categorical imperative or the idea of corporate & social responsibility.
Outside of the classroom, I interned with USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security through the Virtual Student Federal Service program. Collaborating with my fellow interns to communicate the work of international mission teams was an amazing experience, and I also broadened my knowledge of international development and agri-food systems.
Through CBHP’s Ethics Board and the Recruitment and Retention (R&R) committee of Senate, I developed my leadership skills to successfully guide my teams through the obstacles of a virtual environment. Online event planning was difficult to say the least, but I am proud of how our R&R team created a meaningful first-gen college readiness workshop and advocated for underrepresented and non-traditional students during an especially challenging time.
I spent the year going between my apartment in Austin and my house in Dallas, enjoying the extra time with my family and taking advantage of Austin’s food scene and the lake. Some personal highlights include voting for the first time in a presidential election, volunteering at two COVID vaccination sites, and finally visiting Mount Bonnell with friends.
This summer, I am interning with Pfizer alongside a great team in the Emerging Markets group. The pandemic has completely transformed the pharmaceutical industry, and I have really enjoyed learning and working for a company involved in such impactful work. The internship has also been the perfect opportunity to expand on my business/healthcare interests, helping me get one step closer to figuring out what I want to do post-graduation.
Looking ahead to the fall semester, I am excited about in-person classes and the opportunity to see my cohort and other Dedmans after more than a year apart, hopefully over our classic FoodHeads boxed meals or in the office on the bean bags.
Thank you to the Dedman family for your generosity, and to the program faculty and other scholars for your kindness and acceptance. Our community provided so much necessary support over the past year, and I can’t imagine my college experience without this program.
Bronson Zhou
Plan II/Mathematics
Sophomore year wasn’t the year abroad I had been hoping for, but now that it’s over, I can honestly say that I’m glad it happened. On the one hand, staying at home the entire year meant I didn’t get to see my friends or fellow scholars, I paid rent for an apartment that I didn’t set foot in once, and I had to trade the busy streets and city life of Austin for the considerably less exciting streets of Colleyville. But on the other hand, I didn’t have to cook! (Thanks, Mom and Dad.) Bad banter aside, I am incredibly thankful for the time I was able to spend with my family this year, which would have been difficult to set aside under more typical circumstances.
While there might not have been as many things to do, the peace and quiet at home let me focus on my classes and academic goals. This year was the beginning of a new academic journey, as I decided to swap my major in neuroscience for math. This change has not been without consequence; now, instead of people being interested to hear about what I study, I instead get reactions that more resemble fear and disgust. While there were times that I, too, felt afraid of a particularly nasty homework problem, the number of engaging classes I took and the many inspiring faculty members I met make me feel confident in this decision. On the Plan II side of things, Professor Evans’s year-long Plan II philosophy course was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. Each week we learned about new arguments from all sorts of different philosophical branches, ranging from metaphysics to epistemology to ethics, and each week made for wildly entertaining discussions that left me questioning my worldview.
Speaking of outstanding faculty, this year I joined the lab groups of two professors who are in different departments but are both doing incredible research. With Professor Kileel in the math department, I’ve been implementing numerical methods to analyze data in the field of cryo-electron microscopy. With Professor Lee at the iSchool, I’ve participated in a variety of research threads centered on creating predictive tools, such as tools to prevent homelessness or student dropouts. As a result, I’m busier than ever, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Outside of classes and research, I’ve participated in the same organizations that I found my freshman year, only in more active roles. I served as president of the Dean’s Scholars tutoring program and as an officer for CS Roadshow, the computer science department’s outreach organization. The remote situation prevented our groups from using our typical approaches to tutoring and outreach-ing; however, it also gave us the opportunity to expand and improve upon our programs. Since we no longer had to be in-person to tutor or to give presentations, I recruited tutors from colleges beyond just UT and coordinated Roadshow presentations with schools in places that we would’ve never thought to visit. Throughout these changes, I’ve continued to enjoy the process of teaching and helping students learn and realize their passions, and I’m looking forward to being able to see them all in person next year.
But having spent more of my college years at home than at, well, college, I can’t help but be a little anxious about the future. I’ve grown accustomed to the comforts of being at home, and unfamiliar with the lifestyle and environment of being away at college—it almost feels like starting over again. Plus, with the pandemic not exactly gone yet, who knows what will happen during the year? Although I can’t help feeling concerned, I also know that I can always count on the Dedman community to support and guide me through whatever difficulties and obstacles may lay ahead. I’ve enjoyed my time away, but I’m more than ready to finally enjoy our first year all together.