Full Circle

Interior design that improves kids’ lives

Inside a quiet room on the Ball State campus, 5-year-old Camden wrinkles up his nose and frowns at the ceiling, looking for the source of a sudden noise. Seconds later he’s back at play, seemingly untroubled, but on the other side of the darkened glass, Dr. Shireen Kanakri closely watches the scene. Minutes later, as Camden shares a fun memory from last Halloween, more sudden noises occur. Monitors show the boy’s heart rate and blood pressure shoot upward in response. While Camden and other kids may not show a reaction to such noises, “their bodies tell us a story,” said Kanakri, assistant professor of interior design in the R. Wayne Estopinal College of Architecture and Planning (CAP). “There is evidence through changing behaviors and varying blood pressure rates that a child’s body is significantly impacted by his or her environment.”

Kanakri is leading the Healthy Autism Design Lab, created to help researchers observe children’s reaction to different environments. Several CAP undergraduates have assisted her research, as well as an undergraduate psychological science student and an audiology doctoral student.

Kanakri came to the U.S. from Jordan in 2008 to earn a doctorate in architecture at Texas A&M. She had an idea that she wanted

to pursue a career in health care design. She spent a lot of time observing hospitals. Several had centers for children with autism. Kanakri didn’t like what she saw. The centers looked cold and uncomfortable, with gray colors and huge, glaring windows — or rooms without any windows. She found there were no guidelines that Children with autism can would allow them to design rooms just for this be especially sensitive to special population. She wanted to know exactly their surroundings. Shireen how interior design affects people with autism. Kanakri’s life mission is to Her goal is to make their lives more comfortable find out how we can use color, lighting, sound, and when they are indoors. A mother herself, Kanakri knew how, with kids, sometimes small things can change their more to make kids on the lives. Her research offers proof that interior spectrum comfortable. design is about more than just enhancing a room’s look; it’s also about improving its functionality. In an ongoing immersive learning course, she leads students in designing and building an entire building at Children’s TherAplay Foundation in Carmel, Indiana, which provides physical and occupational therapies for children with diagnoses such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injury, and developmental delays. “We are specifically designing the pieces that will be used to help treat the children,” Kanakri said. “Everything will be tested here, in our labs, before they are implemented at the facility in Carmel.”

A quest to fight some of our biggest threats

Dr. Maoyong Fan researches diverse areas of economics and health. The topics of his studies are how pollution (studied separately in China and the U.S.) harms human health, whether subsidized food programs increase the incidence of obesity in low-income recipients, how the built environment affects children’s weight and obesity, and why fewer agricultural laborers are migrating in the U.S. His studies have a common theme: how economics can improve human life and how economic analysis can help us understand and frame public policies. “I was determined to study the impact of pollution since childhood,” said Fan, a professor of economics who started at Miller College of Business in 2009, shortly after earning his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

“I grew up in a small town in China that had problems with air pollution and water pollution. Many people I knew suffered from pollutionrelated diseases, including liver cancer and cardiac arrest.

“Environmental pollution is among the biggest threats to human health. The whole family is affected if one member gets sick, especially in developing countries. Yet research into the costs and consequences

of environmental degradation in developing countries is extraordinarily limited. “My hope is to provide research to policymakers to assist them in understanding the true costs and consequences of air and water pollution. With this knowledge, they can implement policies that improve the environment and their people’s well-being and welfare.” Policymakers have listened to him. Research Maoyong Fan researches he and his colleagues did on the effects of air the impact of water and pollution in cities north of the Huai River in air pollution on health China motivated the government to alter its to help inform policy decisions in China and winter heating program. Prior to his work, the heating policy had almost exclusively relied on coal. Fan’s research found that the particles the U.S. “Environmental emitted from burning coal shortened people’s pollution is one of the life expectancy by about three years. In biggest threats to human response, the Chinese government started health,” he says. a gasification campaign to replace coal with natural gas, a much cleaner fuel, for the winter heating program. Recognized as a leading expert in environmental health, Fan received Ball State University’s Outstanding Research Award in 2019. He said his research also makes him a better teacher. “My research projects provide a lot of real-world examples that enhance my students’ learning. These real-world examples encourage my students to think harder and analyze what happens in their lives. I hope my teaching leads them to have successful lives.” 

Learn more about Ball State University Dance Marathon at bsudm.org. K ids from Riley Hospital for Children playfully policed the collegians at Ball State’s Jo Ann Gora Student Recreation and Wellness Center, making sure every person was up and dancing.

The University’s 2020 Dance Marathon (BSUDM) kicked off at 1 p.m. February 16 and ended at 2 a.m. the next day with a big reveal: The event raised $566,207 for the Indiana University Health hospital, based in Indianapolis and home to the state’s largest pediatric research program.

Fundraisers such as BSUDM ensure that expert, family-centered pediatric care is available at Riley for every child who needs it.

Since 2003, BSUDM has raised more than $4.3 million for children at Riley, according to Alli Kimmell, the group’s president.

Every Spring, Ball State Dance Marathon students stay on their feet for 13 hours to raise funds and spirits on behalf of Riley Hospital for Children.

By Melissa Kraman

$566,207

Funds raised in this year’s BSUDM

Total number of registered dancers for 2020

More than $4.3 million

Amount BSUDM has raised over the past 13 years for the Palliative Care Department and the Magic Castle Cart at Riley Hospital for Children.

300,000

Number of visits made by children each year to Riley.

Christian Daugherty

(right) was among Riley patients who attended the February 2019 Dance Marathon. He died that July. For the 2020 event, his father, Brad, spoke to students, thanking them on behalf of Christian and all the other Riley kids.

In 2015, the hospital named one of its stem cell unit rooms the “BSUDM Therapy and Recreation Room” to honor Ball State’s philanthropic efforts.

Each year, the fundraising goes specifically toward two programs at Riley: palliative care, which treats children with severe illnesses, and Magic Castle Cart, delivering free toys and gifts to children at the hospital.

BSUDM, Ball State’s largest student philanthropic event, began in 2008, raising $12,808 that year. Nationwide, more than 450 colleges and high schools participate in Dance Marathon, all benefiting Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, a nonprofit that provides funding to more than 170 U.S. children’s hospitals. The first Dance Marathon took place at Indiana University in 1991 in honor of Ryan White, who died of AIDSrelated pneumonia the previous year.

This year, Ball State students in vibrant costumes and face paint joined the families of 40 Riley kids to hear their stories, honor their triumphs, and build lasting relationships. The night included live music, a talent show with Riley kids, dancing competitions, and more.

To respect the adversity faced by each Riley patient, participants were highly encouraged to stay standing during the 13-hour marathon — and, of course, to keep dancing. Behind the scenes of the marathon, teams of committee members secured tens of thousands of dollars in donations every hour, part of the committee’s year-round fundraising efforts.

One of the most impactful parts of the event, said many past and current participants, is hearing the testimonies from Riley kids and their families. At 2019’s BSUDM, Riley patient Christian Daugherty participated because he was receiving palliative care for brain cancer. Christian passed away peacefully July 27, 2019, surrounded by his family at Riley Hospital. His father took the stage at this year’s Dance Marathon to speak about his son in front of the crowd of attentive students.

Ball State students participate in Dance Marathon for myriad reasons:

Some have had family members successfully treated at Riley, while others want to be a part of one of the University’s largest student-led events. All are united in the mission to enhance the lives of patients at Riley Hospital for Children, and most walk away feeling an extraordinary impact. “I’m telling you, after four Dance Marathons, you can’t tell me Walt Disney World is the happiest place on Earth,” Jason Towe, BSUDM committee member, told the Ball State Daily News. “Some of my best friendships, some of my best memories, some of the most breathtaking, life-changing moments happened right here.” 

FUTURE-PROOF YOUR CAREER

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Whether you’re ready to climb the career ladder or change direction, Ball State offers master’s degrees 100 percent online. Ball State Online programs are: • Consistently ranked among the nation’s best by

U.S. News & World Report • Designed to impact your career from the first day of class • Taught by the same faculty-mentors who teach on campus and remain active in their fields • Convenient and affordable—alumni pay no application fee

From Survivor to Warrior

Theresa Flores, ’87, endured sex trafficking as a teenager. Now she’s helping others find justice.

By Nick Werner, ’03

At 15, Theresa Flores developed an innocent crush on an older boy. He had jet black hair and a beautiful smile. Whereas the other boys she knew wore blue jeans and T-shirts, he wore pressed slacks, Ralph Lauren shirts, and gold jewelry.

They attended the same high school and church.

At the time, Flores lived with her white-collar parents in an affluent Detroit suburb called Birmingham. One day, that boy offered to give her a ride home from school in his Trans Am. Flattered, she agreed.

“It wasn’t like he was a stranger,” she said.

The teen turned the wrong way out of the parking lot, suggesting they go to his own home “for a second.” Raised in a strict Catholic household, Flores responded the way all parents hope their child would in an uncertain situation. “Take me home,” she said. “My mom is waiting.”

But the boy disarmed Flores with three simple words, “I like you.”

At his home, Flores was offered a can of soda that turned out to be spiked with drugs. Falling unconscious, she was raped by the older boy while his cousins photographed it.

“What followed was blackmail through pictures,” Flores said.

They threatened to post the photos at her school, send them to her father’s work, and even show them to her family’s priest. Riddled with shame and the fear of disappointing her parents, Flores stayed quiet. She was taken out and sold to men at night with the promise that, by doing so, she could earn back the pictures.

Flores holds a SOAP (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution) fundraising event in Miami. At major events nationwide, she encourages the search for missing children and young women, gathers volunteers to help with SOAP’s mission, and assists survivors.

“But there were always more pictures being taken. I feared it was never going to end.”

To keep her in their grip, her traffickers told her they would kill her family.

Flores, now 55, has committed her adult life to fighting human traffickers and advocating for survivors. Human trafficking is using physical force or coercion to exploit victims sexually or through labor.

The Ball State alumna and licensed social worker now lives in Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of The Slave Across the Street. Published in 2010, the memoir was a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller.

But the book is just one element of Flores’ high-profile personal battle.

In 2009, the Ohio attorney general appointed Flores to the state’s Human Trafficking Commission. Her testimony to its Senate convinced lawmakers to create Ohio’s first law against human trafficking; it was made a felony. Neighboring Michigan got tougher. The Theresa Flores Law eliminated the statute of limitations on some trafficking cases and lengthened it for bringing charges.

One year later, she founded the Columbusbased SOAP Project (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution).

In 2017, L’Oreál Paris, the cosmetic manufacturer, recognized Flores with a Women of Worth award. The honor celebrates women

Photo courtesy of Recoil Offgrid Magazine who “selflessly volunteer their time to serve their communities.”

Her story has even been featured in an exhibit called Invisible: Slavery Today at Cincinnati’s National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

In sharing details of her experience, Flores has helped shed light on a crime that some assume happens only in other countries, or in rough neighborhoods.

Human trafficking is the second-largest criminal enterprise in the world today, according to the United Nations. Some child victims are runaways or kidnapping victims. But many, like Flores, live at home with unsuspecting parents.

“Texas believes 79,000 kids in its state are being trafficked at any given time,” she said. “If you extrapolate that, it’s potentially a huge number nationally.”

Flores was a good Catholic kid who came from a functional family.

She was a virgin. She didn’t do drugs. She attended Mass and ran track.

Her dad made good money as an engineer with General Electric. Her parents loved their children but were also strict. They did not allow Flores to shave her legs or date until she was 16.

“I didn’t look like the typical person this sort of thing happened to. I didn’t fit the mold, if there was one,” she wrote in her memoir.

Like a military family, though, the Flores family bounced around the country. Every two years, GE transferred her father to a new post. With each move, Flores struggled to fit in, despite being smart and pretty with beautiful, strawberry-blond hair.

Having recently moved to Birmingham, she was socially disconnected and — above all — vulnerable.

The blackmail worked like this: Her abuser would call a separate phone line that rang into Flores’ room only. Dressed in her pajamas, she would sneak out of the house, sometimes in bare feet, to meet the boy and his cousins in the Trans Am parked nearby. From there, they would drive her to meet men at motels and private homes.

To the men who bought Flores, she was less than human, she wrote. They celebrated in her degradation and pain.

Flores endured it all in silence, partly out of fear, but also out of humiliation. She became withdrawn and anxious. She developed migraines and stomach problems. Her grades dropped. Even on nights when she was at home and in bed, she didn’t sleep well.

Her parents noticed the changes and sent Flores to counseling. But she still stayed quiet.

The trafficking lasted two years. Then, GE transferred her dad again, this time to Connecticut.

She had escaped. But the pain was far from over.

Miraculously, Flores resumed a normal teenage life, or, at least, the appearance of one.

She applied to Ball State. She was familiar with Indiana, having lived with her family in Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Evansville. And she knew the school’s social work program had a solid reputation.

Professor of Social Work Ronald Dolon, EdD ’77, taught Flores at Ball State. He remembers her as bright, conscientious, and quiet.

Today, her pioneering social justice efforts are inspiring a new generation of Cardinals.

“Theresa is a role model for our students and all social workers,” Dolon said. “Theresa inspired my social work immersive learning class to choose human trafficking as the course topic, and the students developed training materials to raise public awareness.”

Flores graduated from Ball State in 1987 as a social work major, background that she says “really helped me to do what I do. I don’t think I could run a nonprofit without my education.”

Her Ball State experience was valuable for a different reason — it was therapeutic.

A solid group of friends and classmates helped her heal and feel accepted, even though they had no idea the horrors she had endured. She became a resident assistant. She attended football games.

In her senior year, Flores finally opened up about her past. Through tears, she told her story to her boyfriend, a fellow student. She wasn’t even sure what to call the crime committed against her. The word “trafficking” didn’t exist back then.

He encouraged her to go to the police in Michigan.

She did. But the police told her the statute of limitations had passed and there was nothing they could do.

She focused on beginning her career as a social worker in Toledo, Ohio, helping pregnant teens. She got married and had children.

About Human Trafficking

1Instead of violence, most human traffickers defraud, manipulate, or threaten victims into commercial sex (pay or goods for sex) or exploitative labor (working while being coerced, deceived, etc.).

2There’s more labor trafficking than sex trafficking globally, experts believe.

3Males make up to half of sex trafficking victims, one study estimates.

4People can be trafficked in their hometowns.

5Any minor in commercial sex is a human trafficking victim. Adults are victims when coerced or forced.

6Victims won’t necessarily seek help in public; they may fear traffickers’ retribution.

7Traffickers can include romantic partners and family.

From National Human Trafficking Hotline, Department of Homeland Security.

After graduation from Ball State, she decided to tell her parents what happened to her as a teen.

They were stunned.

With no way to get justice, she did her best to forget the past. But that changed in 2007, when Flores signed up for a law enforcement conference on human trafficking. Worried a client of hers might have been a victim, she attended to learn more about the signs of trafficking.

“I realized that was me, too.”

Flores began work on her bestselling book while pursuing a master’s degree in counseling education from the University of Dayton.

She graduated in 2007 and began pouring her soul into advocacy and awareness.

Flores has been a keynote speaker and a panelist almost too many times to count.

She has spoken to Kiwanis chapters, to a small room of retired Catholic nuns in Ohio, and to auditoriums full of college students. She has been a keynote speaker at numerous forums, has been interviewed by Natalie Morales of NBC News, and more.

“It’s difficult for any survivor of any trauma to talk about it,” she said. “Fortunately, I’ve done this for a long time. This has become my mission. I have a great counselor and have learned techniques on how to handle it.”

In addition to the Michigan and Ohio laws, Flores’ experience and expertise played a critical role in passage of the federal Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) in 2018. The act allows the government to hold websites accountable for facilitating online sex trafficking.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, credits Flores for inspiring him.

“Theresa Flores has done something incredible,” he said in remarks on the Senate floor. “She has channeled her frustration and all of the trauma she went through into something very constructive.”

Despite the accomplishments and accolades, Flores said she still lives with fear.

Two of her three abusers are dead. One is still alive and in Michigan. Police know who he is and what he did, she said. They keep an eye on him.

Despite all the progress in recent years, Flores said she gets disheartened when powerful men in high-profile prostitution and trafficking cases escape justice.

Regardless, Flores isn’t anywhere near giving up the fight.

“We have to battle this on all fronts,” she said. “We have to hit the johns. We have to hit the traffickers. We have to do prevention and education. There needs to be a national campaign similar to what happened to domestic violence 20 years ago. It worked. It wasn’t overnight, but it worked.” 

2020 One Ball State Day THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

$534,000+

FUNDS RAISED

$ 6,300+

GIFTS

local businesses donated gift certificates for thank-you’s

Gifts From All 50 States

Top 5 giving states in red

TOP 3 GIVING TO COLLEGE

• College of Fine Arts • College of

Communication,

Information, and Media • College of Sciences and Humanities

TOP 3 GIVING TO ACADEMIC AREAS

• Theatre and Dance • Journalism • School of Music

$80,000 and 420 gifts

given for Beyerl Emergency Aid fund

Potentially 6.8 million

reached through social media $65,000 and 124 gifts

given to the Take Flight fund

Cardinals Helping Cardinals

One Big Day for Ball State Students

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and rapidly turned our lives upside down, many Ball State University students unexpectedly found themselves in need of critical resources for living and learning.

Early in the health crisis many universities, including Ball State, were planning their annual giving day, and a majority postponed. Ball State instead opted to shift its fundraising efforts to focus solely on our students’ needs. The results were record breaking and a demonstration of what happens when Cardinal Pride meets beneficence.

While much of the population of our nation and the world was practicing social distancing, One Ball State Day on April 7 brought thousands of Cardinals together, virtually, to make an investment in students at a time when they needed it most.

Alumni, friends, faculty, staff, and students representing all 50 states contributed more than 6,300 gifts totaling over $530,000.

Last year, the University had 4,100 gifts and received more than $425,000 for scholarships, academic programs, student organizations, and other Ball State causes.

“I want to thank all of our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends who made One Ball State Day donations,” said Ball State President Geoffrey S. Mearns. “We demonstrated how Cardinals help Cardinals, and I am so very grateful for your investment in our students.”

The Jack Beyerl Emergency Aid fund and Take Flight were among the gifted funds providing critically needed aid to current and matriculating students. The Emergency Aid fund had 420 gifts totaling more than $80,000 while Take Flight had 124 gifts and over $65,000 in contributions. And you can still contribute to these and other funds at bsu.edu/give.

“As a student who is personally impacted by the support of alumni, I am humbled by the fantastic response of One Ball State Day,” says journalism student Madison Surface, who is a member of the Philanthropy Education Council (PEC), a student-run organization that promotes peer giving and engagement at Ball State. PEC members also sharpen their leadership skills by helping plan One Ball State Day.

“It is inspiring to know that people who may never meet me or my fellow students still want to give gifts that are beneficial to us and our University,” Surface added. “It motivates me to want to give back as well.” Madison Surface