Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2014 | Page 17

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“Renewing the Spirit of the Liberal Arts,” by Nel Noddings. The Journal of General
Education: Vol. 62, No. 2-3 (2013), pp. 77-83.

by alaNNa fOxWell-baRaJas ’06

Frances Griswold ’13
gRaD sTuDeNT aT CeNTRal WashINgTON uNIveRsITy
maJOR: geOlOgy

d

uring March of her sophomore year, Frances awoke to her
roommate’s frantic attempts to call home to Japan after the devastating
earthquake and tsunami. The family was safe, but the ensuing
conversations and prayers instilled a desire in Frances: to help create
better warning systems to prevent the large-scale loss of life such as that
which most recently occurred in Japan, Haiti, and Southeast Asia.
“Geology is my way to impact God’s kingdom,” she says, noting that
her goals have shifted since coming to Wheaton. “I took geology my
freshman year because I needed to have a science credit and didn’t want
it to have anything to do with blood,” she says. Two weeks into that 101
course, she declared geology as her major.
Frances visited her roommate Marisa Foxwell ’13 in Japan, meeting
many of the survivors and witnessing the massive landscapes of rubble.
She saw evacuation zones below safe elevation levels, where people
had gathered and were washed away. “By looking at previous tsunami
deposits, the shape of the land, the shape of the ocean floor, we can create
better evacuation routes and know where people have to reach in order
to be safe.”
Awarded a prestigious summer internship with the United States

Frances
Griswold ’13

Marc Biundo, united StateS GeoloGical Survey (uSGS)

Nel Noddings—an educational philosopher,
decorated teacher, and mother of ten—describes
two societal expectations that have led us to this
place in higher education: first, a push for i