The Maverick magazine is a great way to stay in touch with current events at your alma mater, old classmates and the bright future of Colorado Mesa University.
Issue link: https://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1133083
Five alumni are positively changing their communities, the nation and the world. A trait common to alumni of Colorado Mesa University is a tendency to be driven, innovative and compassionate, and to employ those qualities to make a positive impact in the world. Almost invariably, alumni reminisce about professors and mentors whose teachings transcended the traditional — encouraging critical thinking and social responsibility. The education they received at CMU quite literally changed their lives. CMU boasts a proud legacy of difference-makers among its graduates, five of whom are profiled here for the lessons of humanity and benevolence they have applied to their lives and careers since graduation day. Volunteer to Humanitarian CEO: Katie Hilborn, ‘06 Since 2006, Katie Hilborn has traveled to 28 countries. Her love of exploring and serving those in developing countries all started with the CMU Outdoor Program (OP). The program, along with former director Chad Thatcher, transformed the way Hilborn saw her role on planet Earth. The OP allows students to explore remote parts of the globe and Thatcher taught students how to feel comfortable in cultures that were unfamiliar to them. Hilborn spent six weeks of her senior year in East Africa, where she went on safari, rafted the Nile and saw Kilimanjaro. But she said she was impacted most by the time Thatcher encouraged her to spend on her own, soul searching and self-actualizing, which led her to live with a Maasai tribe and volunteer at schools in Tanzania and Uganda. “It was so rewarding that I realized I wanted to continue that kind of work,” said Hilborn, who was unable to reconcile the comfort and wealth she knew from life in the United States with the strife she had witnessed in Africa. In subsequent summers she raised money through donations and volunteered in multiple capacities in other overseas countries, where she saw more of the same. At the same time, she attempted to pursue a full-time career with international nongovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and World Vision International. “I found that I couldn’t even get past the gatekeeper at those organizations without 10 years of experience or a doctorate. They wouldn’t even talk to me,” she said. “And that was the turning point: I decided to start my own nonprofit.”