Top Hillsborough grads confident they can fix things

The world has a ton of problems, and the class of 2011 is ready to take them on.

The smartest kids in Hillsborough's senior class say they are confident they have the tools they need: technology, education, science, compassion, resilience, faith and their ingenuity.

"We have an advantage," says Chase Hammack, a top scholar at Newsome High School.

"We have more opportunity to gather information through technology. We have more exposure to the wisdom of previous generations. We see an opportunity, almost a sense of pride, in fixing these issues."

The Millennial generation, born between about 1981 and 2003, is confident, connected and open to change, a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center shows. It is the biggest, most diverse generation in American history — and the class of 2011 is coming of age smack in the middle of it.

"This is the crystallization of the generation," says Morley Winograd, co-author with Michael D. Hais of "Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America," to be published in September by Rutgers University Press.

This generation has great focus and purpose, "and it will become even more so."

They are, says Hais, "very different than any other generation that has preceded."

They are also a paradox. They are the most liberal, least overtly religious American generation in modern times. Parenthood and marriage trump career and financial success, and they respect their elders. Despite the economy, they are upbeat.

About four in 10 have tattoos, and most sleep with their cellphones nearby, the Pew report found. They also are on track to become the most educated generation in history.

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Just how committed and compassionate a group this is resonates through the more than 200 essays submitted this spring in The Tampa Tribune's annual R.F. "Red" Pittman college scholarship competition.

Few of these top scholars from 35 public and private schools are untouched by adversity.

One has lost both parents, another is profoundly deaf. Families with terminal illness, home foreclosures and unemployment have not stopped these students from making it to the top of their class and heading for college.

The seniors, who were about 8 at the time of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, were asked where they find hope for the future in light of childhoods marked by wars, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and recession.

From finding a way to detect earthquakes sooner to cleaning oil spills and containing radiation, students look to science and technology. The world's brightest minds can and must share information and cooperate to end wars and address natural disasters, the students say in their essays.

Those who work with them see this resolve.

"They say, 'Give us a problem and we will fix it,'" says Helen Turnquist, college and career counselor at Alonso High, which had two of this year's four scholarship winners. "They were told, 'This is what you've got to do,' and they did it."

Although she can't pinpoint when students became more practical and more focused, it is a definite shift from even a few years ago.

"They have learned to set more realistic goals. When they reach them, they set the bar higher."

The poor economy has created a new dynamic within families, Turnquist says. Local and state unemployment rates have hovered at 11 percent to 12 percent — above the national average — and Florida is in the top three states for home foreclosures.

"It got bad and they realized they were all going to have to pitch in to help. They are working together. Parents are much more involved."

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One of Alonso's Tribune scholarship winners is Elizabeth Shields. She is headed to the U.S. Naval Academy this summer with plans to become a doctor. Her brother is a junior at West Point.

Shields said she expects to serve in a war zone.

"I'm scared of the unknown," she admits. "But that's not a good enough reason not to do something."

Shields' $1,000 Tribune scholarship gets the family half way to the $2,000 needed up front for the Naval Academy, a concern the family had struggled with.

Shields' mother, Susan, says she is both afraid for her children and proud of them.

"I don't know if Sept. 11 had not happened if my kids would be interested in serving their country," Susan Shields says.

A nurse-practitioner married to a school behavioral specialist, both parents say they see a new appreciation and a changing attitude in their children and their friends.

"There isn't that sense of entitlement," Susan Shields says. "They all have to work, they all volunteer. They're a pleasure to be around."

Another essay winner from Alonso, Alexander Misarti, was also affected by Sept. 11.

Misarti was living on Long Island when "we saw the smoke above my house."

He says his drive to succeed in accounting and finance is tied to how the terrorist attack changed his family's lives and took 70 people from his community.

Misarti works with fourth- and fifth-graders as a child care counselor. A return to teaching and other work that invests in future generations is common among this group of Millennials.

Shields plans to become a pediatrician, the same goal as two other scholarship winners, Jordan See from Gaither High and Jensen Le from Sickles High.

"For the majority of us, it's not about the money," says See, who has volunteered at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and with the Tampa Thunder wheelchair soccer league. "Our senior class sees there's more to life than just us."

Le says simply, "I love kids."

He speaks Vietnamese, like his parents, as well as Spanish, and thinks that will be a great advantage. He tutors in both languages and sees strength in cultures coming together.

"I think we can pull through anything. We're so diverse," he says.

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Fadwa Lina Hilili, a top senior at Tampa Bay Technical High, is typical of how background, experience and compassion converge with global awareness.

Hilili's mother was born in Greece, her father in Morocco. She attended a private Islamic school in Tampa until the middle of ninth grade, then transferred to a culturally diverse public school, which she says changed her life.

"You definitely learn not to be quick to judge people," Hilili says. "You become more understanding of their circumstances, their experiences, their different values and beliefs."

In her essay, Hilili wrote of influences cited by a number of other scholars:

"I personally find hope all around me," including the world's response to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the patience and selflessness of the Japanese after a tsunami in their country this year.

"Most recently, the protests in North Africa and the Middle East give me the greatest amount of hope," she wrote. "The Arab people will no longer lie complacent while their human rights are being trampled on."

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Boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation have blurred, and are of little interest to this generation, says author Hais, a political scientist and audience researcher living in Los Angeles.

"They don't care," he says.

One reason may be that since they were young children, they have worked together in groups with many cultures.

Another is the increase in exposure and absorption of media, says Winograd, also of Los Angeles, who was an adviser to former Vice President Al Gore.

"The Internet tends to blur the distance and boundaries in favor of causes and people," Winograd says.

"They see the stuff more or less directly, they communicate directly with one another and interpret it one person to another. It fits with the group orientation."

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Patricia Steele, guidance counselor and department head at Durant High, agrees.

"This year's class seems to be more worldly minded," Steele says. "They're thinking of others, about the impact, what's going on in the rest of society. They're a little more mature."

Though the students may be connected 24/7 with news, family and friends worldwide, they look to their communities first when they become involved.

They also vote.

They were 17 percent of the electorate in 2008 and are projected to account for 24 percent in 2012 and 36 percent in 2020.

They are required to log volunteer hours to graduate from high school, and studies show their civic mindedness is sticking through college and beyond.

"Community service is part of this generation's ethics," Winograd says.

They love their parents and have a bond that stays, research confirms, although there is a disconnect in their political belief systems.

In that regard, "They are as likely to change their parents as their parents are to change them," Winograd says.

"They really do want to get involved and fix the world."