March 2003: Vol. 82, No. 2

The front of the pack

From Kenya to UGA, professor Rose Chepyator-Thomson sets a pace that brings everyone up to speed

by Alex Crevar (AB '93)

n the first day of spring semester, in a white cinderblock classroom inside UGA's Ramsey Student Center, Rose Chepyator-Thomson introduces herself to her "Curriculum Planning in Physical Education" graduate students. Her opening line: "I don't tolerate whiners." And then she quizzes them about her homeland. "How many of you know where Kenya is?" Most say nothing—stunned by this African ball of energy, whose lyrical, vocal cadence makes you want to laugh, sing, or straighten at attention in your desk, depending on where she places the high notes. The purpose of this graduate class is to investigate methods by which teachers create course plans and then decide how that process can be more equitable across race, gender, and cultural lines. Thomson continues her line of questioning: "Is it in Eastern Africa? Central?" Silence. "I grew up on the 'the Rift' at an altitude of 8,000 feet. It was here that I learned to run." She says this without a trace of the pretension that could—should—legitimately accompany the fact that she was an eleven-time track and cross country All-American at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and once considered Africa's fastest woman in the 1500 and 3000 meters.

Thomson has been a professor of physical education and sports studies—a department housed within the college of education and dedicated to scholarship and the preparation of future teachers and coaches—since 1996. According to Thomson, her job now is to cultivate student minds so they have a "tripartite" of consciousness, which includes upbringing, educational background, and their relationships with professors. "Dr. Thomson holds a very high expectation for her students," says graduate student Wenhao Liu. ". . . [She] is full of multicultural approaches . . . very important in this increasingly multicultural society." Thomson first teaches students information with which they are familiar—education concepts and corresponding examples from, for instance, Georgia—then she moves on to the unfamiliar, expanding students' education beyond state and national borders.

The idea of broaching perceived boundaries has been a recurring theme for Thomson. She has been setting trends for nearly five decades as a female Kenyan runner, then as part of a mixed-race marriage, then as a married runner, then as an All-American with two children (sons Patrick and Kip), and now as a researcher, exploring Kenyan athletic prowess.

"As the first-born in my family, breaking ground was nothing new to me," says Thomson. "What was strange, however, was the way I made a stand about women running in Kenya during the 70s—I did it on the track and by running in many races. The stand took the whole country by surprise. Basically, I was making a statement that women could take to the track or anything else to make for a different and rewarding experience for them and their families in postcolonial Kenya. In hindsight, it was a radical stand, indeed." or many Kenyans, Mexico City—even as much as Kenya's capital, Nairobi—could be considered the birthplace of pride and modern identity. It was there in 1968 that a five-year-old republic earned three Olympic gold medals from three different runners, the third of whom, Kip Keino, is regarded today the way Americans might honor Michael Jordan if he were also a returning war hero. With a gall bladder infection that doctors said was too severe to compete, Keino paid no heed and on the day of the 1500-meter final got out of a taxi, which was stuck in notorious Mexico City traffic, and ran the remaining distance to the Olympic stadium. He then beat the world record holder by 20 meters.

"[Kenyans'] path to world stardom is based on attitude, interest, and determination along with having a total commitment to where one is from," says Thomson, who shakes hands firmly when she greets someone. ("Kenyans shake hands. We are not huggers.") Her smile is flat and mischievous and her eyes squint as if including that person in an inside joke. "That [dedication] really separates the stellar runners," adds Thomson, who studies the sociology and psychology of Kenyan runners to learn, resolve, and dispel genetic myths that surround Kenya's folkloric rise on the international racing circuit. "Just like Shakespeare studied his own people, the English, I have focused on Kenyan runners to discover their way of running that has stunned the world at large."

Thomson needs little in the way of study subjects. She was the premier female Kenyan runner from 1971 to 1979, posting the fastest African time in the 3000 meters in 1978. And she did this amid an unflagging dedication that saw her bear two children (1975-76); suffer the jeers of countrymen who believed that for a woman to run after marriage was akin to open defiance; and miss two Olympic games during her prime due to boycott. Her determination led to an explosion of women who ran from the Rift and into the world arena. Runners like Tegla Loroupe, the two-time New York City Marathon winner, and Catherine Ndereba, who broke the women's world marathon record with a time of 2:18:47 in the Chicago Marathon. In Thomson's day, such female behavior—running for no reason but to run—was heresy. "Mrs. Rose Chepyator Thomson stunned the whole of Africa when she became the fastest woman to run the classic events of the 1500 and 3000 meters," says His Excellency Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, the President of the Republic of Kenya (1978-2002), from his home in Kabarak, Kenya. "She not only set an example for women in the country but also for other women across the continent. She is a role model both for her running and her achievements in education. We are proud of her, as a nation, and of her accomplishments in track and academics."

hat most are aware of two Kenyan icons—1) Mt. Kilimanjaro, the continent's tallest peak, which straddles the country's southern border, and 2) great distance runners—is no coincidence. They are both products of the Great Rift Valley, which stretches 4,000 miles from the Dead Sea to Mozambique, due south of Kenya on the Indian Ocean. The Rift is an enormous depression and the result of inactive volcanoes interspersed with tectonic lakes and three tectonic plates that are believed to be moving away from one another. On either side of this "huge scar" are highlands, which in Kenya fall on the equator. These circumstances—altitudes of between 8,000 and 10,000 feet and mild temperatures—have created fertile conditions for a dominant breed of runner. It was in such an environment that Thomson was born, nine years before the Mau Mau insurrection helped earn Kenya its independence from Britain in 1963.

In modern Kenya, according to Thomson, women are the glue that holds the culture together. "They are responsible for raising the next generation. Many think that if a woman is involved in something like running, she will not be there to help the child graduate from childhood and into the community." It is in this environment that Thomson was raised. And in this paternal society the first great male Kenyan runners trained on the Rift's highlands and gained acclaim in Mexico City. That the same characteristics—lean, sinewy bodies, healthy diets, altitude training, and determined wills—might also help women succeed, was not taken seriously. Women did not even compete until 1968 and it was not until 1978 that a Kenyan woman would win a gold medal in an international competition (the Commonwealth Games). It was with a yearning to make a difference doing something she both excelled at and loved that Thomson began to run, and break away.

he oldest of 11 children, Thomson woke up every morning in Kapkon'ga village (260 miles northwest of Nairobi) to an assortment of chores, which changed as she "graduated from them," passing on the easier or less desirable ones to younger brothers and sisters. She milked and herded the cows and carried water on her head from the river more than a mile away. Her house was on a hill equidistant from the western edge of the Rift and the plateau of Uasingishu overlooking Mt. Elgon, that forms the border between Kenya and Uganda. "The landscape of my childhood was the undulating hills of the Cherngani and the Elgon mountain, which, at precisely 6:58 every evening, hid the sun." Thomson's school was three miles away. "So we had to run to school in the morning and run back home for lunch and go back to school and then really run home because if you were late for dinner, my father wasn't happy. When you are young, and as a Kenyan, you don't think about distances (12 miles to and from and to and from school) and wish you did not have to walk or run them. You just do it." According to Thomson, a Kenyan street scene is all together different than one in the U.S. "People are moving fast because everyone has somewhere to be. And they aren't driving—even expectant mothers. It's not like here where when you get pregnant you take the year off. Kenyan women do physical activities until they give birth. I was still training up to my ninth month."

Thomson's ethnic group, Kalenjin, is the fifth largest (9.8 percent of the population) of Kenya's 70 ethnic groups, but it is by far the most prolific in terms of runners. In an essay entitled "Kenya's Running Tribe," John Manners, who has researched the Kalenjin for years, believes that Kalenjin won 40 percent of the biggest international races in men's distance running from 1987-97. To which he writes, "I contend that this record marks the greatest geographic concentration of achievement in the annals of sport." Theories about this success range from genetics to altitude, but for Thomson—who speaks fluent English, Swahili, and Kalenjin—there is only one real explanation: hard work. "There are plenty of places in the world with high elevation to train," says Thomson. "But a Kenyan simply will not compete unless he or she is completely ready for competition. Kenyan runners train very hard and, in most cases, train as a group, and this encourages or challenges other runners to step up to the world of record breakers."

Thomson's first race was actually a punishment, when a teacher made her high school sophomore class run a timed three miles for misunderstanding a homework assignment. She won, and the next year, now a member of the cross-country team, she represented the Rift Valley in the 800 and 1500 meters. She continued to improve and raise the level of women's running, which was encouraged until her pursuit of championships intersected with a pursuer—future husband and Peace Corps volunteer Norman Thomson. Norman, now a UGA education professor, had finished two years in Uganda and was working in Kenya as a biology teacher when the two married in 1974. "Sometimes the lion does get the Buffalo," says Thomson of her marriage to Norman because her clan within the Kalenjin is the buffalo. "Marrying someone from a distant land was such a radical thing to do at the time but my family did not feel bad about this. They did worry about my being too far away from them. I remember my mother saying, 'Are we ever going to see you again?'" Thomson returns every year for research and to lead UGA's study abroad program in Kenya.

Far greater than her family's protests of her departure though were the many Kenyan reactions to Thomson's running after marriage. "They would say things like, 'Why aren't you at home?' and 'Why are you competing against young school girls—it's not fair.'" In 1979, the Thomsons left for the states and Thomson, 25, chose Wisconsin over UCLA because Norman's family lived 16 miles from the Madison campus. Despite the new cold weather conditions (Her first meet was in October; wind chill: -10. "I thought the snow was bugs coming out of the sky."), Thomson was a two-time national champion (1500 meters outdoors, and 4 x 800-yard relay), a six-time Big 10 track champion, and a three-time Big Ten cross-country champ between 1979-83. She also excelled in the classroom as the 1983 Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient and a 1983 NCAA post-graduate scholarship winner.

After completing her undergraduate degree, rewriting the track record book, and bolstering the reputation of Wisconsin's track program, Thomson stayed on to earn two master's and a Ph.D. She was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. "Rose could not help but be an excellent role model for our young athletes," says Kit Nordeen, UW's first director of women's athletics. "She was an especially outstanding example because she was excellent in both [athletics and academics]. Her name is now indelibly engraved in the history of Wisconsin athletics and will be there for all to see and appreciate."

Another of Thomson's fans was Bill Clinton's former secretary of health and human services, Donna Shalala, who was the first woman to head a Big 10 university when she became UW's president in 1988. "Rose represents all that is good about opportunity in this country," says Shalala, who is now president of the University of Miami. "A serious academic, hard working, and a gifted athlete. She brought a wonderful background to the University of Wisconsin-Madison."

fter five years as a professor and track coach at the State University of New York-Brockport, Thomson came to UGA to concentrate solely on academics. "I have gone to the highest level in running and now I want to get to the highest level in scholarly writing." Her experience and dedication make that a likely goal, and one which UGA students, who follow her to Africa during research jaunts for the Kenya Study Abroad Program, also benefit from. Paul Schempp, head of the sports studies department, agrees, "[Her] background and initiatives in her native country provide a valued perspective for both our faculty and students."

Thomson is typically matter of fact and modest about her role in the country regarded as the birthplace of the human race: "I helped to change the views of women in sport. But everything I did was mainly because I love to run. I ran for my family, clan, village, nation, and now just to stay healthy."

Election night is his night

Political analyst Chuck Bullock is one of the University's most-quoted faculty members

by Joel Gibson

t's Nov. 5, 2002—election day—and Chuck Bullock has just arrived at Channel 13 in Macon for a TV appearance on the 5 o'clock newscast.

"For some people, their greatest fear is speaking," says Bullock, who will be introduced to Channel 13 viewers as the premier political analyst in the Southeast. "But as a professor, that's what I do. I get in front of classes and speak. TV's even easier because they ask you the questions."

Bullock had spent his morning on the phone fielding questions from half a dozen reporters on topics ranging from redistricting to what kind of impact rain might have on the elections. On this afternoon, he can look forward to being in the studio for seven hours with brief commentaries during regular newscasts and 20-minute blocks during special election coverage, all while returning reporters' calls on a studio phone during breaks.

"In the past decade, Chuck Bullock, along with economic forecaster Jeff Humphreys and demographer Doug Bachtel, have probably been UGA's most-quoted faculty members," says Sharron Hannon, special assistant to the provost and former director of the UGA News Service. "With the South becoming increasingly important in national elections, Chuck provides much-needed perspective on the region's politics—and he's very quotable."

One reason Bullock is approached so often is that he gives reporters the same open-door policy he employs with his students. James Salzer, a political writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, credits Bullock with foreseeing the dramatic gains made by Republicans in Georgia.

"He's one of, if not the only, political scientist who's consistently predicted a trend toward Republicans making gains in the state," says Salzer. "He looked at how the state always voted Republican in presidential elections and said eventually that would filter down to other elections."

"Finding someone with his level of expertise willing to talk despite all the other demands of his job is pretty special," says Dick Pettys, state house reporter and 35-year veteran at the Associated Press. "I'm thankful he doesn't charge me for his time!"

Bullock got interested in politics as a kid when a family member took him to see Harry Truman, who had spoken at a graduation ceremony at William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. During his undergraduate years at William Jewell, where his parents had gone to school, he involved himself in a "very low level amount of grassroots politics" by serving on the interfraternity council and as the vice president of the senior class. He also ran campaigns for a number of fraternity brothers. Bullock received his master's and Ph.D. in political science from Washington University in Washington, D.C.

During the 5 o'clock newscast in Macon, Bullock is asked what makes this year's campaigns unique and abut the possible effect of undecided voters on the outcome of the election. "Some of our contests are probably already resolved," says Bullock, "but our senate contest and perhaps as many as three of the congressional contests and some of the state senate and state house contests aren't."

By the 11 o'clock newscast, Bullock is asked what he makes of the Republicans' strong showing. "This is really surprising to most folks—certainly it is to me—to see Sonny Perdue continue to lead this late in the evening."

Bullock is also asked where the Republican momentum has come from. Co-anchor Frank Malloy suggests it could stem from undecided voters, basing his assumptions on recent polls that showed Barnes in the lead. Bullock corrects him in the gentlest way and adds his own evaluation of the situation: "There is a general tendency for the undecided votes to break against an incumbent, but the latest polls that we saw were showing less than say a 10 percent undecided vote. So that probably is a part of it, but I've been able to see, in looking at some of the county returns, that the challenger, Sonny Perdue, is running surprisingly well in some of the middle and south Georgia counties, counties which have historically been Democratic. The fact that Perdue comes from middle Georgia and Republican senatorial candidate Saxby Chambliss comes from south Georgia may have created a symbiotic effect where one is feeding off of the other and they're both doing much better in parts of the state which have traditionally stayed with the Democratic Party."

uring print interviews, Bullock constantly amends his word choice and inserts clarifications when appropriate.

On the air, however, he never backtracks during a thought and he never stumbles. He knows his statements are final and he makes them count. His TV demeanor was developed in the late 1980s when he hosted his own public affairs show on local Athens cable. Bullock offers his time freely to reporters. He even gives them his home phone number. "News happens at all kinds of times, and some reporters, just judging by when they call me, generally work late afternoon and on into the evening," says Bullock. "I see this as part of the education function. By talking to reporters you can reach a much larger and diverse audience than you can in a classroom."

Because many people take only one course related to political science in either high school or college, Bullock feels a responsibility to help those interested in the political process to make some sense of it. In talking to reporters he helps people to develop a context for their choices in the voting booth and an interpretation of political events.

In the classroom, Bullock is completely at ease with his students. On the last day of his winter semester southern politics class, he has scheduled two guest speakers—Clint Austin, a campaign consultant in his 20s who ran the Steve Stancil campaign for lieutenant governor this year, and Jim Galloway, senior political writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Bullock regularly invites guest speakers, many close to the age of his students, to demonstrate the level they can reach in politics shortly after graduation.

"You can be very young, but if you're a hard worker and you're reasonably bright there are all kinds of things you can do," he says. "In many businesses it takes 10 or 15 years to get the same kind of responsibility."

Bullock's students are aware of the role he plays in the media and the contact he has with the political world. His background commands respect and sparks interest in the classroom. "I was dead-set on law when I came here," says 19-year-old sophomore Clint Bearden. "Now I'm not so sure. He's changed my perspective. I was only majoring in political science to get into law school. He's opened my eyes to a new route I can take."

Bullock remembers the surprise he felt the first time a reporter contacted him—in 1971, to comment on the death of Sen. Richard B. Russell (BL '18). But it wasn't until the late '80s or '90s when Bullock began to have regular contact with the press.

"His attitude toward reporters is wonderful," says Loch Johnson, a colleague in political science. "He understands that those in academe have a duty to inform the public and that journalists are a part of carrying out that duty."

Bullock considered politics as a possible career. He went to law school for a year at Emory before beginning his graduate work for that very reason. But after finishing graduate school at Washington University and coming to UGA, he knew that other than running for school board or county commission it would be hard to become a candidate. "Not being independently wealthy, it might have been a bit difficult to sustain a family with a couple of kids while I was running for political office," says Bullock. "As a faculty member, you have to take a leave of absence literally from the time you become a candidate."

Despite past political aspirations, Bullock is not affiliated strongly with one party. His original reasoning behind avoiding partisanship lay in the intimidating effect it might have in the classroom. At this point in his career, that attitude also aids in his relationship with the press because political affiliations would only put reporters on their guard. In the same way, Bullock says it's no surprise that he votes for candidates in both parties—he calls it the way he sees it.

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