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2022 PLV Scholarship Winner: Natalie Salvatierra on OCD, Anxiety & Striving to Make an Impact
Our second PLV Scholarship winner this year is Natalie Salvatierra, a recent graduate of Foothill High School in Tustin. My mother Patricia — in whose loving memory this scholarship program was founded — graduated from Foothill in 1970. There’s another parallel, too, connecting our paths: as individuals with lived experience of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), both Natalie and I have a keen interest not only in mental health, but in spreading hope and awareness to those who struggle. Having just returned from the International OCD Foundation’s (IOCDF’s) annual in-person conference in Denver, I was delighted to meet Natalie for coffee one sunny afternoon in mid-July. IOCDF conferences are unique…
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PLV Humanities Scholarship Winner: Ben Chlarson
I am proud to introduce Ben as the first PLV Scholarship recipient who applied as part of our recent partnership with the Newport Harbor Educational Foundation. Ben’s application essay on the importance of studying the humanities touched on many of the ideas expressed in the introduction to my Black Lives Matter post: namely the need to bridge differences in a polarized political climate by combating ignorance and hostility with curiosity, understanding, and an increased appreciation for diversity. As a Global Studies major, Ben hopes to examine the cultural frameworks that underlie our common humanity in order to someday make an impact on a national or international level. Global Studies is…
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Curb the Curve: COVID-19 Safety Tips
Please note that this article has not been updated since April 6, 2020. For more up-to-date information, please consult other sources. For once the doomsdayers were right: we are in the midst of a pandemic, a defining historic moment that may create a “new normal” with its indelible social, economic, and political reverberations. Its cost is measured in human lives lost to the virus. Governments around the world are struggling to stave off a worst-case scenario in which too many people get sick at the same time, leading to a shortage of medical supplies and the unnecessary and preventable loss of life. My best friend (who, might I add, has…
