Alumni

Coming Home to Chaminade and Paying it Forward

August 9, 2021

As part of an effort to open theological studies to more laypeople, Chaminade has significantly broadened its Master of Pastoral Theology (MPT) program to include opportunities for those interested in education, ethics, campus ministry, pastoral counseling and other direct service positions.

The MPT master’s degree at Chaminade has traditionally been geared toward a diaconate track.

But the program now welcomes those outside of that cohort—and is already seeing more students.

Dr. Dustyn Ragasa, director of the Pastoral Theology master’s degree program, said difficult philosophical and ethical questions facing our communities have driven up interest in theological studies programs nationally. He added that the MPT program at Chaminade is individualized to each student, offering a diversity of pathways and a curriculum designed to promote personal growth.

“Someone once told me that Hawaii is not a melting pot, but a mixed plate,” Ragasa said.

“Each culture’s specific contribution is not homogenized or boiled down to a set of common denominators, but preserved in their integrity so as to enrich through diversity. The MPT recognizes the specific gifts of culture that our students make to the learning experience. This kind of ‘mixed plate theology’ draws upon our heritages (and place-based theologies) so as to share them.”

Finding his way

Ragasa ‘07, who is also an assistant professor of Religious Studies at Chaminade, followed his own unique pathway to leadership at the university. He said he came to Chaminade a bit lost after dropping out of Waimea High on Kauai and then completing his GED. On his first day on campus—as the first student in his family to ever attend college—he wasn’t sure if he would be able to “hack it.”

“I thought, ‘I’m going to fail my first week.’ But the professors I had were so supportive from the beginning. When I was struggling, I knew they would be there,” he said, adding he was determined to succeed. And that’s exactly what he did—so much so that his professors encouraged him to pursue graduate studies and then helped him plot a course to a theology program on the mainland.

“They identified strengths in me that I couldn’t see in myself,” Ragasa said.

After graduating from Chaminade, Ragasa went on to earn a master’s degree from The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology and a doctoral degree from the Graduate Theological Union. He said while earning his graduate degrees, he pledged to himself to use all he was learning to do two things: “I knew I wanted to be of service to my community and I knew I wanted to help other students.”

And after receiving his doctoral degree, an opportunity at Chaminade just happened to open up.

Chaminade homecoming

He quickly applied and Ragasa joined Chaminade’s School of Humanities, Arts and Design faculty in August 2019.

For Ragasa, returning to Chaminade was an opportunity to give back—just as his mentors at the University offered guidance and inspiration to him. And he jumped at the chance to reimagine the MPT program, widening its scope and potential impact to bring in more students.

He said he wanted to focus on helping MPT students apply what they were learning to real-life problems. He also wanted to integrate laypeople in the program with those on the diaconate track, creating a rich and robust dialogue and building relationships that last long after graduation.

“Laypeople and candidates preparing for the diaconate learn side-by-side,” he said. “Contact with candidates helps laypeople to think more pastorally. Similarly, contact with laypeople helps candidates remain grounded, and many candidates will often learn from the academic insights of the lay students.”

Ragasa is also looking for new ways to expand and enrich the program.

Moving the MPT program forward

He said he’s interested in striking up partnerships with Chaminade’s Education and Data Science programs to offer Pastoral Theology students hands-on learning opportunities, such as in-classroom teaching experiences. And he wants to build relationships with theology programs on the mainland so that students who are interested could get the chance to study at another university for a semester.

Whatever the additions, Ragasa is confident the program’s faculty members—who come from a diversity of academic backgrounds—will continue to provide a rich and individualized experience for each student that includes both robust academic study and direct service opportunities.

With fieldwork and academic contemplation combined, he said, “it’s my hope that someone who reflects on theology will approach their ministry empowered by the intellectual tradition of the church.”

Alum and Domestic Violence Advocate Stresses Self-Care

July 20, 2021

Luana Moreno ’17 practices what she calls little “acts of self-care” every day.

It’s how the Hawaii Domestic Violence Action Center advocate ensures the difficult emotional and physical trauma she helps other people process doesn’t begin to impact her own mental health.

It’s also how she makes certain she can continue to be there for them, week in and week out.

When things get a little too heavy, she takes a walk. Treats herself to a coffee. Picks up her coloring pencils. Sometimes, all she needs is to go outside, take in a deep breath and enjoy the sunshine.

“You can’t help other people become better if you are not helping yourself,” said Moreno, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies with a minor in Psychology from Chaminade.

Moreno, who is originally from San Diego, California, knew at an early age that she wanted to find a career that would allow her to help others—like she and her mother once needed help.

“I was raised by my mom, who showed me that there are ways to leave and survive abusive relationships,” Moreno said. “My work goes hand-in-hand with my journey because it has allowed me to learn and heal as well as help other survivors learn and start their own healing journey.”

When she was in high school, Moreno stumbled across Chaminade as she was looking online for potential universities to attend. She immediately felt a connection with the school—not least of which because of her name. “My great-grandparents’ best friends were from Hawaii and that’s how I got my name, Luana,” she said. “My great-grandmother was never able to come here and when she passed away I wanted to accomplish her dream and give more to the special place that provided me my name.”

Luana Moreno, BA Religious Studies '17, playing softball for Chaminade

Moreno jumped at the chance to play softball for Chaminade.

And she was delighted that she could pursue the subjects she was interested in at the University.

She combined Religious Studies with Psychology because she wanted to learn more about the impacts of trauma on people’s lives and unpack how belief systems can help people through difficult experiences.

“Having a religious upbringing, I was taught to see trials as a piece of a bigger picture, where you learn lessons and come out of it better and stronger,” she said.

“I wanted to know more about why and what people believe and how it can help throughout life.”

Moreno added that her Religious Studies degree gave her a broader perspective on the world, too. “The inclusive knowledge of religion, spirituality and psychology allowed me to approach people in crisis in a kinder and more effective way,” she said. “It made me more accepting and open to people.”

It was actually through the pageant world that Moreno found her role in domestic violence.

She was part of the Miss Latina Hawaii Scholarship Organization and learned about the Domestic Violence Action Center from a friend she was coaching high school softball with.

As part of Miss Latina Hawaii, she was challenged to think about her social impact.

And so she started to volunteer with the action center. In short order, she was offered a full-time position with the nonprofit as a campus survivor advocate.

Her advice to others seeking careers in advocacy is simple: “Self-care! Self-care! Self-care!”

That’s an especially important lesson, she adds, amid the pandemic—which has left many more members of the community in need of social services. “Be mindful of how heavy the work can feel and find an outlet that helps release the emotions that can be held giving to others,” she said.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can call the Hawaii Domestic Violence Action Center helpline at (800) 690-6200 or text (605) 956-5680.

MBA Alumnus’ Mission: Be a Force for Good

June 1, 2021

Ethan West works with local farmers to curate the ingredients for his baby food.

When entrepreneur and CEO Ethan West ’16 was getting his Master of Business Administration degree at Chaminade, he remembers encountering the kinds of questions that still resonate with him today. Like: “What does it mean to be a force for good as a for-profit company?” and “How do you make decisions grounded in ethics?”

“I came up with a personal mantra back then at Chaminade: profit should be a byproduct of a mission achieved,” West said, adding he recalls being inspired by professors and business executives who understood the importance of taking a “business for good” approach to making money.

West’s personal mantra is now baked into the mission of his fast-growing company, Piko Provisions, which produces organic baby food with a commitment to sustainability. The company uses only naturally- and locally-grown ingredients and shuns preservatives and additives (like sugar).

The baby food is produced 100% locally, too, before being sent off to Hawaii stores.

A Foundation in Farming

West’s journey to co-founding Piko Provisions in 2020 started years earlier.

Before he was an MBA student, or in banking on the mainland, he was a kid who lived on a farm.

In fact, West grew up on a small organic dairy and produce farm in Maine. He says he used to wake up at 4 a.m. to help tend to the animals before heading off to school. And on weekends, the whole family would head off to the farmers market to sell what they’d grown and made to their neighbors.

His dad was a chiropractor “but a farmer at heart.”

Ethan West inspects the ripeness of bunches bananas.

“That was how we would take care of our community,” West said, adding his dad would even tote produce into the office to hand out to his patients. “It really set the foundation for the rest of my life.”

West attended the University of Maine, majoring in Political Science, and after graduation found a position in banking. That was when one of his best friends, who was living in Hawaii, reached out to him with a question: want a change of scenery? West jumped at the opportunity to move to the islands and “immediately hit the ground running.” He found a job and enrolled in the MBA program at Chaminade.

There, he found professors and peers who were just as interested in becoming drivers of positive change in business. He recalls his mentors making it clear that while leadership in business is about making decisions, leadership in the community—leadership that considers the welfare of your family, friends, and neighbors—is about making decisions “grounded in ethics and who you are as a person.”

West took that advice to heart.

Inspired to Make a Change

After graduating from Chaminade with his MBA, he set to work on a passion that he first developed during those early days on the farm: helping to feed his community. He took a managerial position at Kunoa Cattle Company, where he focused on partnering with local companies to deliver a quality local product. And from there, he jumped out on his own to form what would become Piko Provisions.

He credits his young niece and nephew for the inspiration.

In late 2019, shortly after they were born, he stumbled across a report about toxic heavy metals contained in baby foods. Mercury, cadmium, arsenic and lead. As a new uncle, the findings appalled West. As a businessman, it galvanized him. Change was needed—and he was in a position to help.

“From that point on, there was no turning back,” he said. “It was a responsibility that I had to create a better option that honored Hawaii and used the incredible ingredients that are growing here. Ingredients like taro, ulu and Okinawan sweet potato that are perfect for babies.”

To get started, West enrolled in an online course about child nutrition and cooking. He started making and tasting baby food—lots of it—and partnered with local community groups to find parents who would offer feedback about what they wanted to see in baby food (and in a local company).

More Than Just Baby Food

Ethan West '16, CEO of Punahele Provisions

All that outreach was central to West’s mission-focused approach.

Because, West said, “we don’t want to just be a baby food company. We want to help shift the paradigm. We want to be resources for parents and oh, by the way, we make really great baby food.”

In early 2020, West and his team were just about gearing up for a crowdfunding campaign. But a roadblock stopped them in their tracks: the COVID-19 pandemic. “From a human aspect I could not in good faith ask anybody for money when so many people were struggling,” he said.

So West went back to the drawing board, picking everything apart.

The pandemic also redoubled his resolve to ensure he was keeping his money in the state. That prompted him to take a hard look at how his products were to be shipped off to the mainland and processed—a common practice because of a lack of infrastructure in Hawaii.

West was able to change things up and keep his processing in the state.

A Mission-driven Company

Piko Provisions was born shortly afterward. The brand bears the Hawaiian word that’s best translated as “to treat as a favorite” and it refers to how the company wants to “favor all the children of Hawaii and beyond by providing them with nothing but the healthiest baby food.”

It was also created as a public benefit corporation—a company, as West describes it, “beholden to a publicly stated mission.” That mission includes “strengthening the future” with healthy food and a more sustainable food system, supporting local agriculture, and caring for the environment.

West said that looking ahead, he’s optimistic about the change he—and others—can make with business and community actions. “I’ve been cursed and blessed with a case of eternal optimism. I think many entrepreneurs are, otherwise you wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning,” he said.

“But I am optimistic about the direction in which our food system is heading.” And that, West said, is because of a growing community awareness about where food comes from—and a desire to ensure it’s not only healthy but sustainable. “The market is demanding a better way of doing things,” he said.

His message to consumers: don’t be afraid to ask about the origins of your meal.

“That is probably the simplest and easiest things,” he said, “that you can do as a community member.”

Under the Sea: Into Challenger Deep

April 12, 2021

Nicole Yamase '14 and Victor Vescovo during Challenger Deep expidition — *^{Nicole Yamase and Victor Vescovo}*

Have you ever wondered what secrets can be found at the ocean’s deepest depths?

So has Nicole Yamase ’14. And then she got to travel there.

In March, Yamase was invited to jump into a special submersible and journey 35,856 feet below the waves (or as she likes to say, about 700 coconut trees stacked on top of one another) into the Challenger Deep—the deepest known spot in the ocean, located in the Mariana Trench.

Yamase, who is Micronesian, is the first Pacific Islander ever to make the trip.

She describes the place as nothing less than “unbelievable”—like an alien world.

“Once we slowly got to the bottom, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said, adding that the expedition down with ocean explorer Victor Vescovo—who organized the special dive—started about 10 AM. Four hours later, they were there, staring into the murky, dark and deepest known depths of the ocean.

“It looks like a desert down there,” Yamase said.

Reinforcing passion for environmental studies

Yamase, who graduated from Chaminade with a B.S. in Environmental Studies and a B.S. in Biology and is now seeking a doctoral degree in Marine Biology from the University of Hawai‘i, was chosen for the journey because of her deep passion and previous work in helping to advocate for the oceans.

Nicole Yamase '14 (BS Environmental Studies, BS Biology) doing field work

Vescovo, she said, “thought it was time” that someone from the Federated States of Micronesia was invited down to the Challenger Deep, which can be found in their country’s waters. And not just “someone” was chosen, but a young leader who is studying diverse marine ecosystems.

She got additional support for the journey from the Waitt Institute and Micronesia Conversation Trust.

Yamase said the experience of traveling to Challenger Deep was life-changing. It confirmed the incredible love she has for her research—she’s focused on studying the impacts of climate change on indigenous macroalgae important to Pacific reefs. And it underscored her other major academic focus: raising awareness about how climate change and rising sea levels are already impacting the Pacific.

“Humanity needs to improve its relationship with the world’s oceans,” Yamase said.

Because even the Challenger Deep wasn’t free of humanity’s fingerprint. When she was down there, nearly 7 miles below the surface, she saw boating tethers—human trash. “The fact that trash has made it all the way down to the deep is very alarming,” Yamase said. “It’s just a really pressing problem.”

Yamase knows that better than most.

Nicole Yamase '14 being a part of a beach clean up

Climate change is a problem now

When she returns to her hometown of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, she sees the rising sea levels lapping up higher than they ever have before. Friends and loved ones post photographs on social media of ocean water going into homes and of cemeteries being washed away.

Climate change isn’t a future problem for her country, she says, it’s a problem now.

And it will take everyone, including her generation and future ones, to fix it.

Opening doors for Pacific Islanders

“Through this expedition, I really just want to promote STEM—because Pacific Islanders, we need us,” Yamase said. “We’re the ones who are going to be in the field. We need local mentors, local role models because that’s what we lack. It really has a huge impact to see your own succeed in the field.”

Nicole Yamase '14 and Dr. Grail Grabowsky — *^{Dr. Gail Grabowsky and Nicole Yamase}*

As she continues to make her mark, Yamase is grateful to her own mentors, including those at Chaminade. She said it was Environmental Science and Studies Dr. Gail Grabowsky, dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, who encouraged her as a freshman to apply for a summer internship at UH-Mānoa focused on marine biology. “From that first experience, I was like, ‘oh my goodness, this is for me,’” she said. She continued to be selected for internships and other opportunities, including a chance to study macroalgae in Miami’s Biscayne Bay.

That research formed the basis of the dissertation she’s now working on.

She said Biology Professor Dr. Jolene Cogbill, her adviser in the department, was also hugely instrumental in getting her linked up with opportunities that honed her skills—and bolstered her confidence. “They both really pushed me out of my comfort zone,” she said. “My first year, I never raised my hand. I couldn’t do it. After these summer internships of really participating in these opportunities with other Pacific Islanders, I thought, ‘I’m not alone in this.’”

Nicole Yamase '14 showcasing her research at Chaminade's event in 2012

Yamase said she also got the chance to present her work at conferences and symposia.

She said she hopes to be that same inspiration to other young Pacific Islanders, especially those in environmental science, marine conservation and biology. She said her expedition into the Challenger Deep “was such a great opportunity to show young Pacific Islanders that we can do it.”

“There’s not that many of us in the science fields. Hopefully, this opens up doors.”

Returning Home to Chaminade

March 19, 2021

Dr. Lupita Ruiz-Jones, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Chaminade University, wants students to plan their careers with intention, so they end up doing work they love.

The key, she says, is pursuing and doing the things you are interested in, even when you don’t know where they will lead. After all, that’s what worked for her.

She was in high school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when she learned about Chaminade University at a college fair. “I don’t think I ever would have heard of Chaminade except for that booth.”

She wanted to study human impacts on the environment, and she wanted to move away from the desert. Chaminade offered a major in environmental studies, and she was sold.

Seeking out opportunities and going after them has been a life-long pattern for Ruiz-Jones. It’s especially impressive when you learn she was raised by parents who didn’t complete college in a family without the trappings of success.

Her mother was always supportive but struggled with bipolar disorder. Ruiz-Jones’ father went to prison when she was 12, which she says had a significant impact on her. “I really appreciated the ability to choose where I put my attention,” she says.

In one of her first classes, Dr. Gail Grabowsky, now dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, told the students it was great they were there. “She told us, ‘You’re going to love what you do, you’ll make an impact, but you’re not going to become rich.’”

“That was fine with me,” says Ruiz-Jones. “I felt like as long as I loved what I did and made an impact, that was what was important to me.”

During her freshman year, she applied and was selected for a five-week summer program in India. “The goal of that trip was to see what small non-profits were doing in India,” she says. “It was really about human well-being and the different ways people were contributing by doing service to the really poor. It was an incredible experience.”

But the summer after her sophomore year at Chaminade, she started doing undergraduate research at Kewalo Marine Lab. That’s where she first got excited about biology and organisms in coral reefs.

Dr. Lupita Ruiz-Jones, professor and alumna

At the end of her summer research at Kewalo Marine Lab, her advisor Dr. Mike Hadfield invited her to continue there in an internship. He also encouraged her to take all the science courses she could, which pushed her into a fifth year of college.

She didn’t mind, though, because she wanted to participate in a Sea Education Association summer-at-sea sailing program that focused on environmental studies. She spent four weeks sailing from Hawai‘i to San Francisco on a tall ship sailboat.

“Wow, that was a really powerful experience,” she says. “We did biological oceanography research. I focused my project on invertebrates that live on the surface out in the middle of the ocean.”

After graduating from Stanford University with her PhD, she received the Thinking Matters Teaching Fellowship and spent four years team-teaching there. That, she says, is where she developed her identity as a teacher and her love for teaching.

During the summers, she started collaborating with scientists at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology.

That’s how she ended up back at Chaminade, as an assistant professor this time, in Fall 2020.

Right now, she says, her goals are to find ways to integrate her passion for research, coral reef ecology, and restoration into her teaching. And she’d love to take students on field trips to neighbor islands or other Pacific islands. “If we could do something like that where we took students to more remote Pacific Islands for environmental education, that’d be very cool.”

Service in Action, A Peace Corps Volunteer’s Story

March 12, 2021

“When I’m older, I want to join the Peace Corps.”

Her uncle’s stories of the Peace Corps, living in a faraway place called Togo (West Africa) among people very different from him yet who became lifelong friends, had captured the imagination of Alice Potter ’18, a precocious 4-year-old. It was in her blood.

Potter and her family grew up in California while her father worked as a software engineer, and they also spent years living abroad, in Italy, Germany and France. Returning to the United States for college was never part of Potter’s plan; however, her mother did an internet search for colleges in the U.S. “with a good record of acceptance and graduation rates,” and Chaminade University of Honolulu popped up. The positive reviews about Chaminade’s student-to-faculty ratio, affordable tuition, overall quality, coupled with its location and Hawai‘i’s mild weather, all sounded very appealing. Her mother told her that if she got in, she would be going to the Marianist university. And to Potter’s surprise, the acceptance letter came. She was anxious to be going back to the U.S. and of all places the most remote 50th state.

There’s no place like Hawai‘i

Intimidated at first, she soon made new friends and began thriving in Chaminade’s customized learning experience. She also shared its values of serving the community by volunteering at the Waikīkī Aquarium. Aside from her studies, Potter also fell in love with Hawai‘i’s marine life and flora and enjoyed learning about the islands’ rich history. “Never before had I encountered a place so profoundly connected to its people like in Hawai‘i,” she says.

Living her dream of joining the Peace Corps

Alice Potter '18 with her counterpart in the Peace Corps — *^{Alice with her counterpart Mrs. Irma}*

Potter graduated with a bachelor’s in communication degree with an environmental studies minor in 2018. At age 23, ready for a new adventure, she jumped at the opportunity to live her dream and join the Peace Corps. Because she spoke conversational French, Potter had hoped to be assigned to Africa specifically in Senegal; however, there was an opening to teach English in Southeast Asia. She had lived in a variety of places, yet she remembers experiencing culture shock when arriving in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country with more than 267 million people with a Muslim majority. She was immediately struck by the language barrier and the lack of personal space in this bustling yet conservative, spiritual society.

The Peace Corps helps new volunteers acclimate to their new country through an intensive two to three months Pre-Service Training (PST) program. Potter explains this included language lessons, cultural classes, as well as learning about Peace Corps procedures and the country’s rules and local customs, providing the skills and knowledge you need to thrive on your own. During this time, she lived with the first of three host families.

“My host family during PST was especially kind, patient, helpful and accepting, and I became very close to them,” Potter says. Her host family warmly welcomed her into their home, introducing Potter to many delicious Indonesian dishes, such as sate (marinated meat skewers), cap cai (stir-fried vegetables sometimes mixed with meat), nasi goring (fried rice) and rawon (beef soup), which became her favorite. Potter was relieved that one of her host twin sisters, Dhea, spoke English, helping her with the transition and translating for her twin, Adhe, and their parents.

Once her assignment began, Potter lived with two other host families: a single mother with grown children, a driven career woman who worked as a caterer for weddings and funerals, as well as a seamstress and a make-up artist; and a young couple who introduced her to carp rearing, bird catching and coffee time. A neighboring family acted as her “mom and dad” when Potter needed adult assistance and they took her on day trips.

Teaching is learning

Potter was assigned to a vocational training high school near East Java, where she taught English to 15 to 18-year-old students, 85 percent of them male and the rest female. School was held seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with extracurricular activities held on Saturdays. Potter says she taught two or three classes each day; class periods were two hours long for sophomores and juniors and one hour for seniors. The school offered career paths for students in fields such as auto mechanics, electrical work, computer work and broadcasting.

Alice Potter '18 with her students while in the Peace Corps

“Most of the time my students called me ‘Mister,’ or ‘mbak’ or ‘kak,’ which is equivalent to saying young miss or older sibling,” explains Potter. “I was the youngest teacher at the school,” she adds.

Halfway through her service, Potter was riding her bicycle back to school after a lunch break when she was hit by a motorcycle from behind. “Even though I was wearing a helmet, I had a pretty serious concussion. A piece of asphalt got inside one of the helmet vents and cut my scalp,” she says. “I also had cuts on my upper lip, under my eye and the edge of my forehead and some gashes along the right side of my face, arms and legs. Fortunately, I only needed stitches,” she adds.

The Peace Corps kept her in the capital for a few weeks for regular check-ups at the hospital. When she returned to school, she smiles as she remembers how the entire community—her host family, students and teachers—all offered to drive her home so she wouldn’t have to walk. “Student after student kept begging me to ride home with them,” she says with a laugh. The community was close-knit, reminding her of her ‘ohana at Chaminade.

“The insight I gained from the students was invaluable,” she readily admits. As a teacher’s assistant, Potter adds she learned so much more from her students than she could have ever imagined. “My students taught me patience and acceptance. They also taught me to acknowledge the cultural differences of education in Indonesia versus in the U.S. and that young adults, no matter where you are in the world, want to be heard. It was amazing to watch them blossom,” Potter says. Their hospitality and intelligence impressed her day in and day out.

Potter learned to speak English, French, Italian and German while growing up and could now count Bahasa Indonesian as her fifth language.

A lasting impact

Alice Potter '18 with her fellow faculty members while in the Peace Corps

The Peace Corps profoundly changed Potter’s life. She learned the importance of keeping an open mind and welcoming others from different backgrounds with appreciation and understanding. While the Peace Corps may not be for everyone, Potter believes everyone could benefit from broadening their perspective by experiencing other cultures. “Immersing yourself in a different country with a foreign language and culture will humble you, and you’ll learn so much about yourself,” she confesses. “The Peace Corps was a beautiful, eye-opening experience that made a lasting impact,” she adds.

Potter keeps in touch with her first host family and hopes to go back to Indonesia as soon as it’s safe to do so. Saya meninggalkan sesuatu istimewa. “I left behind something special,” she translates.

What’s next?

After her 27-month stint in the Peace Corps, Potter moved back to California. Today, she continues to serve youth by teaching part-time in an after-school program. What’s next for Potter? She hopes to put her communication degree to use and strive toward her next goal of becoming a producer or film director.