FYI Magazine, Fall 2012

elmhurst college alumni news fall 2012

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Reasons Why Chicago Loves

Elmhurst College

The College’s contributions to the life of its surroundings are many, diverse and profound— and gaining notice.

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fyi in this issue

02 W HAT’S NEW ON CAMPUS Introducing the New School for Professional Studies The College expands its oΩerings for graduate and adult students, launches a Chicago Club for alumni, and celebrates a record fund-raising year.

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12 Alumnus Profile What It Means to Be a Judge The half-century career of Judge William Bauer ’49 oΩers a grand lesson in the joys of living a life in law.

16 COVER STORY 25 Reasons Why Chicago Loves Elmhurst College The metro area provides limitless opportunities for Elmhurst students; in turn, the College serves the region as a vital intellectual and cultural resource.

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26 THE CULTURAL SEASON A Feast of Ideas In recent years, Elmhurst has become a cultural destination for mindopening discourse, the place to go to hear big thinkers talk about big ideas.

32 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS A Journey of Twists, Turns, Setbacks and Triumphs Speaking at the College’s 141st Commencement, Rita Athas ’76 counseled graduates to arm themselves with knowledge, character and courage.

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36 THE SPORTS PAGES It’s All About Effort Running back Scottie Williams excels on the football field, in the classroom and in the community.

40 C LASS NOTES Where Are They Now? Find out how your classmates are advancing in their careers and how they’re serving their communities.

48 FACULTY FACE TO FACE ‘A More Just Chicago’ Connie Mixon, director of Elmhurst’s Urban Studies program, talks about her new book and her passion for all things urban.

The Chicago Issue Fellow Alumni and Alumnae, The city of Chicago plays a vital role in the Elmhurst Experience. From the Art Institute and a worldclass theatre scene to miles of sparkling lakefront and champion sports teams, the metro area oΩers our students a world of culture, entertainment, recreation and career opportunities.

In return, the College serves as a valuable resource for area residents. Each year, hundreds of students make a diΩerence in local communities, feeding the hungry, tutoring underserved kids or providing shelter for the homeless. Our rich cultural calendar draws audience members from the entire Chicago area for thought-provoking lectures, enriching arts events and more.

In this issue of FYI, we celebrate the College’s vibrant relationship with the great city to the east.

Our cover story enumerates some of the countless reasons why Chicago loves the College, from our annual Jazz Festival to our focus on scholarly research to our contributions to the local economy. We also explore the evolution of Elmhurst’s cultural life and profile Judge William Bauer ’49, whose legal career in Chicago has spanned half a century.

Whether you live in the Chicago area or have moved farther away, I hope these stories will spark fond memories of your own college years and inspire you to reconnect with your alma mater. And I hope to see you soon, either on campus or at a gathering of one of our new regional alumni clubs.

Wishing you the best, Sara (Douglass) Born ’02­­ Alumni Association President PS: Visit us online at elmhurst.edu/alumni to reconnect and get involved.

Alumni Association President Sara (Douglass) Born ’02 Members of the Board Cathryn Biga ’98, Sarah (Kiefer) Clarin ’04, Karl Constant ’07, E.J. Donaghey ’88, Tom DuFore ’04, Michael Durnil ’71, Heather (Forster) Jensen ’08, David Jensen ’00 and MPA ’02, Cami (Kreft) Rodriguez MA ’08, Megan (Suess) Selck ’03, Cheryl (Kancer) Tiede ’74, Frank Tuozzo ’72, Rick Veenstra ’00 Director of Alumni Relations Samantha Kiley ’07 Assistant Directors of Alumni Relations Monica Lindblom, Beverley (McNulty) Krohn ’10 Secretary Pam Savino Office of Alumni Relations (630) 617-3600, alumni@elmhurst.edu Editor Margaret Currie Contributors: Lu Aiello, Sara Ramseth, Linda Reiselt, Jim Winters Design Director Marcel Maas Design and Production Marcel Maas, Anilou Price alumni news 1

what’s new at elmhurst

Elmhurst Dramatically Expands Options for Graduate and Adult Students The School for Professional Studies will oΩer innovative, flexible programs — and alumni stand to benefit.

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he doors are o≈cially open at the School for Professional Studies, a new division of Elmhurst College devoted to providing top-tier academic programs for busy adults eager to update their skills, advance in their professional lives or change careers altogether. For these “nontraditional” students—whose work, family and other life commitments often have kept higher education out of reach—the new School oΩers exceptional academic programs that are innovative and flexible enough to fit into their lives.

For Elmhurst College alumni, the School will oΩer all that and more: Starting this fall, any alumnus or alumnae interested in pursuing a graduate degree at Elmhurst can take his or her first course for free.

“We’re very excited to be able to do this for our alumni,” says Tim Ricordati, dean of the School for Professional Studies. “They’re the ones who know firsthand the value and meaning of an Elmhurst education, and they deserve a special incentive for coming back.”

Ricordati discussed the Alumni Free Course Voucher Program on September 12, during the first meeting of the College’s Chicago alumni chapter.

Planned throughout the Spring Term and launched on July 1, the School for Professional Studies oΩers bachelor’s and master’s degrees and certificate programs to working adults and others who don’t fit the profile of the traditional, 18to 22-year-old full-time college student.

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To find out more about the School for Professional Studies, go to elmhurst.edu/sps

New programs in the School will expand Elmhurst’s current array of oΩerings for adult and graduate students, with areas of study running the gamut from business to the computer sciences, education to the health professions.

All courses and programs in the new School align closely with the mission and tradition of the College while meeting the needs of today’s employers and the fast-growing population of nontraditional students. Because flexibility and innovation are especially crucial to serving these students well, the School will combine up-to-date technologies with the newest pedagogies for reaching and teaching nontraditional learners.

Programs and courses will be oΩered online and on campus, in accelerated time frames and, eventually, at satellite locations beyond the Elmhurst campus.

A new student will be able to start a program at multiple entry points throughout the year, and programs will be oΩered in both cohort and non-cohort models.

The School will assess and award academic credit for prior learning. Strong and experienced leadership by the faculty and administration will guide the School, presenting a model of energized, collaborative engagement. The School also will give online learning a new home on the Elmhurst campus, and oΩer faculty expert training in the design and delivery of online and hybrid programs.

“The mantra for us has got to be that we can’t expect these students to fit their lives around getting an education,” Ricordati says. “Instead, we have to enable them to fit their education into their lives.”

The quality of the new School’s programs will be consistent with that of the larger Elmhurst College curriculum and its hard-earned reputation for academic excellence. Maintaining high academic standards across the institution is a priority that has been voiced passionately and repeatedly by all of the

College’s stakeholders, including members of the Alumni Board.

“The board emphasized to me that the School must be committed to oΩering programs of the highest quality—that whatever we do, we must remain true to the Elmhurst brand of mission-driven, values-based, high-touch education,” Ricordati says. “The School for Professional Studies is and will continue to be part of the fabric of Elmhurst College; it will never sit outside it. The programs that we oΩer must be of the same quality as those we oΩer our traditional students.”

At a moment when Elmhurst, like all institutions of higher learning, faces financial challenges, the School will tap new student markets, providing an additional sustainable source of tuition revenue. These revenues are the primary source of financial support for the entire academic enterprise, including faculty, programs and facilities.

As the School expands the depth and diversity of Elmhurst’s curriculum, it will enable the College to become still more widely known. “People who live in Elmhurst and DuPage County certainly know about the College. But what about people in Waukegan? Wyoming?

London?” Ricordati asks. “Over the next few years, we’re going to expand the reach of Elmhurst College and, as we do, more people will see the Elmhurst degree and appreciate where it came from and what it means.”

by Desiree Chen

Programs of the School for Professional Studies Graduate Programs • Communication Sciences and Disorders • Computer Information Systems • Early Childhood Special Education • Industrial/Organizational Psychology • English Studies • MBA • Nursing • Professional Accountancy • Supply Chain Management • Teacher Leadership

Accelerated Majors • Business Administration • Information Technology • Organizational Leadership & Communication • Pre-Clinical Psychology

Certificate Programs • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) online • Clinical Medical Assistant • Medical Billing and Coding Program • Pharmacy Technician • Mobile App Development

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what's new at elmhurst

Getting to the Heart of Ethics Bill Nelson ’68 created an essay contest that encourages Elmhurst students to examine ethical problems.

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he essay that earned Michael Olsson first prize this year in Elmhurst’s annual William A. Nelson Ethics in the Profession Contest tells the story of a shattered life.

Olsson, a business administration major from Oak Lawn, got to know a 44-year-old man named Ken through a

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service project he did for a communication studies class.

“Ken looked like just another guy; he looked like someone who could easily fit in with my own family at Thanksgiving dinner,” Olsson wrote in his essay.

Ken’s story, though, would change the way Olsson thought about his own life,

and about society’s responsibilities to its members.

Ken was diagnosed as HIV-positive after being beaten and raped in prison.

Upon his release, he found him-self shunned by his own family, unable to secure a job, and rejected for disability coverage by the Social Security Administration.

But as grim as Ken’s story is, Olsson found in it the seeds of inspiration. In his prize-winning essay, he explained how Ken came to grips with his fractured world. And he wrote that Ken’s story motivated him to think about the ways people deal with upheaval in their lives.

Encouraging students to delve into ethical issues in original and thoughtprovoking ways is what the William A. Nelson Ethics in the Profession Contest is all about. The contest’s creator, Bill Nelson ’68, said he hoped to encourage students to think about the role of ethics in their future careers. Nelson teaches at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine and Tuck School of Business and at New York University.

“It’s not just window dressing or icing on the cake, but a core ingredient,” Nelson said. “Ethics is very important, whether you are a school teacher, a clergyperson, a physician or some other professional.”

Since 2003, the contest has inspired dozens of students to explore ethics through a variety of media—from a play about gay marriage to a visual art piece inspired by the Enron scandal to poetry and photo essays. The 2012 contest winners continued in that diverse tradition. Olsson’s winning essay combined

To find out how you can make an impact on today’s Elmhurst students, go to www.elmhurst.edu/alumni and click on Get Involved.

Bill Nelson has made a career of convincing professionals that ethical behavior is not only the right thing to do, but also good for business.

poetry and prose; he said he hoped it would help others understand that AIDS is “not a gay disease or a drug-user disease but a human disease” that can aΩect anyone.

The inspiration for an essay on pain management in older adults, by secondplace winner Allison Pietrusiewicz, came from the writer’s own home.

“I grew up living with my grandmother. As she has aged and her health problems have become more complex, she experiences nearly constant pain,” said Pietrusiewicz, a nursing major from Des Plaines. “Seeing her suΩer inspired me to do more research on why older adults often do not receive adequate pain medication.”

Nurses have an ethical responsibility to respect the worth, dignity and human rights of all individuals, Pietrusiewicz noted in her essay, and proper pain management can ensure that older adults maintain their independence and ability to function. Untreated pain can lead to depression, social withdrawal, higher health care costs and other adverse consequences.

“Ethical issues and the stance one takes are important to examine because

this aΩects practice and decision-making,” she said, adding that the stated mission of the College’s Deicke Center for Nursing Education is to prepare nurses for ethical practice and leadership.

For third-place winner Angela Cichosz, a psychology major from Carol Stream, the contest presented an opportunity to explore ethical questions while pursuing her interest in creative writing. She wrote a satirical poem that examined the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Her poem, “Wandering Eyes,” tells the story of an o≈ce Romeo who habitually harasses women, finally losing his job for blatant sexual advances toward a new employee.

Nelson, who met with some of this year’s contestants in March during his stint as an alumnus-in-residence at the College, has made a career of convincing professionals that ethical behavior is not only the right thing to do, but also good for business.

Nelson, who taught health care ethics at Elmhurst during several January Terms, said he has been interested in ethics in health care ever since he served as a hospital chaplain while he

was a theology student. That experience led him to teach a medical ethics course and earn a doctorate in applied ethics. He went on to a career at the Veterans Administration, where he became chief of ethics education services for the National Center for Ethics in Health Care.

“If you don’t treat your consumer in accord with basic ethical values, eventually you are going to suΩer for it,” he said. “When ethical problems occur, you really need to address them, figure out how they happened and prevent them from happening again.”

Trying to cover up unethical behavior through deception eventually backfires, Nelson added, and the consequences are often worse.

“When it does come out it becomes a more problematic issue because it erodes basic trust. People wonder, ‘What else aren’t they telling me?’”

by Rick Popely

Above from left, Michael Olsson, Allison Pietrusiewicz with Trustee Bill Nelson '68, Angela Cichosz. alumni news 5

what's new

at elmhurst

Try to Make Things Better Jake Meding ’12 spent a busy four years at Elmhurst College. The political science major led student and service organizations, helped build homes for the needy, and raised money for worthy causes. He was the president of the Student Government Association, president of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, and a member of the College’s Advisory Council for Strategic Planning. His work on campus and beyond earned him the 2012 Senior of the Year award. Meding, who is now pursuing a master’s degree in college student aΩairs at Eastern Illinois University, told FYI that getting involved was the key to getting the most out of his time at Elmhurst.

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“I want to help other people get the most out of their college experience. For my thesis I’m going to look at why college dropout rates for men are greater than for women. Why are men falling behind?”

In what ways do you think you’ve grown in the last four years?

I was just talking about this with a few of my friends. I think the biggest change is that I have become so much more confident. To become a leader, to help organize things, that was a big step and a drastic change for me.

Where did that newfound confidence come from?

It came from other people seeing abilities in me, and pushing me to do more. I remember as a freshman being voted onto the Student Government Association board by upperclassmen.

That was a big deal to me. It built my confidence and made me want to fulfill their expectations of me.

Why was it important for you to be active on campus?

From the beginning, I knew I wanted college to be diΩerent from high school, where I’d basically just run cross country and track. I wanted to be more involved. I was fortunate because my sister, Brittany, came to Elmhurst three years ahead of me and she was very involved on campus. So I got to know people through her and they all encouraged me to get into student government. I’m so glad I did. The people I met through student organizations are going to be my friends for the rest of my life.

You were engaged in a lot of student service projects.

Can you tell me about one that was especially important to you?

One of my goals was to get the campus community working together. For example, my fraternity worked with the Niebuhr Center’s Partners for Peace program on a food drive. We collected more than 2,000 pounds of food from around the neighborhood. I remember Ron Beauchamp [director of the Niebuhr Center] calling to tell me how amazed he was at the work we’d done. I like the idea of connecting diΩerent student organizations to meet a need.

we’re going to smile the whole time.” That’s what we did, and it never felt like work, because we were doing it with people we loved hanging out with. That always makes it fun.

What about your studies? Tell me about a memorable class or teacher.

I took a class in American political parties with Lee Daniels [an Elmhurst professor and former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives]. We looked at how political parties got started and how they evolved. What was great was the way he brought his inside perspective to the class, and was able to say, “This is how it really works.” That made it a great class.

You’re now pursuing a master’s degree in college student aΩairs. What inspired your interest in that field?

My experience at Elmhurst. I learned so much, and now I want to help other people get the most out of their college experience. For my thesis I’m going to look at why college dropout rates for men are greater than for women and why men’s rates of engagement and success are lower than women’s.

I want to know: Why are men falling behind?

What advice would you give a student starting at Elmhurst?

I actually have a cousin who is thinking about coming to Elmhurst. I told her that if you want to just go to class and show up, you can do that, but the best way is to get involved.

And when I say get involved, I mean really get involved. Go to the meetings and try to make a diΩerence, try to make things better. Try to make your own college experience better.

Your fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, received the College’s Chapter of Excellence award. Was that gratifying?

It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. I always said, “We’re going to do twice as much work as anyone on campus, and alumni news 7

what's new at elmhurst

Alumna Funds Mill Theatre Renovations

College Launches Chicago Club On September 12, the O≈ce of Development and Alumni Relations will introduce the Elmhurst Club of Chicago, its second regional alumni club, during an evening reception at the Union League Club in downtown Chicago.

Alumni from across the Chicagoland area are expected to attend the event, which will feature hors d’oeuvres, drinks, networking opportunities and remarks by President S. Alan Ray. “Regional clubs enable us to engage alumni in meaningful volunteer opportunities, events and programs, so that wherever our alumni live they have a relationship with Elmhurst College,” said Samantha Kiley ’07, director of alumni relations. “And they provide alumni the opportunity to remain connected, expand their networks and have their stories heard.”

Future Chicago Club events will include everything from happy hours to professional events and lectures to a reception at Chicago’s Symphony Center in the spring of 2013, when the Elmhurst College Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble will perform in concert.

The College launched its first regional group, the Elmhurst Club of St. Louis, in the fall of 2011. Additional clubs are planned for other parts of the country, including Washington, D.C.

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This fall, Elmhurst College’s Mill Theatre will debut not only The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee but also an expansive new lobby, plush theatre seats and large restrooms that won’t have to be shared with the cast and crew.

The extensive renovations to the Mill Theatre, which took place over the summer, were made possible by a $250,000 gift from alumna Meredith Wollenberg Morrison, Class of 1972, a longtime supporter of the College’s theatre program.

“I am so grateful for the continued support Meredith has shown Elmhurst College over the years, especially to its theatre program,” said President S. Alan Ray. “Her wonderful generosity gives us an opportunity to make critical improvements that increase accessibility and enhance the theatre experience on our campus.”

The most dramatic changes are in the lobby, which has been completely remodeled and expanded by nearly 100 percent. The new space includes a permanent box o≈ce, and two new sets of entrance doors enhance tra≈c flow between the lobby and the theatre.

Just oΩ the lobby, new restrooms replace outdated facilities that were hard to find, shared with cast and crew, and inaccessible to patrons who use wheelchairs and walkers.

Inside the theatre, the seating has been refurbished and more than a dozen new seats added, bringing the total number to 180. The theatre also has a new lighting booth.

“For people who’ve been here year after year, this will be a huge change,” said theatre professor and department chair Alan Weiger.

Morrison’s gift, through The Wollenberg Foundation, follows a $50,000 donation made to the Mill in 2009 that paid for a new stage, a new ventilation system and ceiling fans, and upgrades to the costume shop.

A theatre and sociology major at Elmhurst, Morrison was an active participant in the theatre program’s Chancel Players and a member of its theatre recognition society, Theta Alpha Phi. “Providing this gift to Elmhurst makes it possible for the College to upgrade the Mill in significant, visible ways,” she said. “It’s very gratifying to know I’m making a diΩerence.”

To give online to Elmhurst, go to www.elmhurst.edu/giving

Mill Theatre renovations underway

2012 Evening for Scholarships at Elmhurst College

Evening for Scholarships Raises Most Funds Yet

for two years because of scholarships,” said DeFeo, a communications major.

Cullen, a supply chain management major, expressed his gratitude to those who support student scholarships—including the night’s guests, who he said inspire him “to pay it forward” once he graduates.

The College’s third annual Evening for Scholarships, held on “All of these people have come out tonight to support the March 17 in the Frick Center, raised more than $241,000 College and see their investment in its education,” he said. to support student scholarships—the highest amount ever “My experience at Elmhurst has been life-changing, to say the raised in the history of the event. least, and it’s because of people like tonight’s attendees and “The number of people coming together to support this their generosity.” cause and raise money for students is so inspiring,” said President Ray considered DeFeo and Cullen living examElmhurst College President S. Alan Ray, explaining that 95 ples of what the College’s education provides. “The way they percent of Elmhurst students depend on financial aid.

“This event really makes a diΩerence because it generates spoke reflects such maturity and growth,” he said. “I’m proud Elmhurst College had something to do with that.” direct scholarship contributions,” said Ed Momkus ’74, trustee The night’s Leadership Award recipients also reflected and event co-chair. He added that because of the event’s low Elmhurst’s values and commitment to the community, using overhead cost, accomplished with in-kind donations and their acceptance speeches to articulate the missions of their volunteer support, 90 percent of all proceeds from the gala organizations. go directly to scholarship funds.

“Although it’s a big honor to receive this award, it’s all The dinner celebrated not only student scholarships but about the recognition of ShelterBox and how it helps those in also the accomplishments of community leaders, with the need,” said Dyer, who has volunteered with the disaster-relief presentation of Leadership Awards to those who make a organization since 2007, delivering emergency supplies to significant impact on the community and embody the values global disaster victims in countries like Haiti and Colombia. of the College. Mercy Home for Boys and Girls received the Mercy Home President and CEO Father Scott Donahue organization award, for its residential and ongoing care acknowledged the value of his organization’s partnership programs for youth in crisis. Elmhurst resident Mark Dyer received the individual award for his volunteer work with the with the College, which includes many on-campus events for Mercy Home’s high school-age children. emergency aid provider ShelterBox International.

“The campus has really introduced our kids to the possibiliElmhurst students Francesca DeFeo ’12 and Jim Cullen ’13, ties of higher education and given them an attainable dream,” who hosted the evening’s events, spoke about the importance of financial aid in their own Elmhurst Experiences. “I’ve he said, echoing the night’s main mission: to make a quality education accessible to all. had access to a great education, and I was able to live on campus alumni news 9

what's new at elmhurst

College Surpasses Fund-Raising Goal On June 30, Elmhurst College closed the books on its most successful fund-raising year in recent memory. With the highest alumni giving percentage of the last five fiscal years, the College surpassed its alumni participation goal and received 272 more alumni gifts than in the previous year.

The College’s alumni also successfully met a challenge issued by a group of alumni trustees, who pledged to establish a Light of Knowledge Scholarship in honor of 2012 alumni donors if the participation goal was met.

“This is a significant achievement for Elmhurst College and its alumni,” said Joe Emmick, vice president for develop-

ment and alumni relations. “A growing alumni donor base is an important measure of how alumni view their alma mater.”

This year Elmhurst received gifts from 2,167 alumni and from a large number of friends of the College, including every member of the Board of Trustees and the Alumni Board.

Gifts support academic programs, scholarships and fellow ships, computer and laboratory upgrades, teaching grants, library improvements and other essentials of the Elmhurst Experience.

“We challenged our alumni, and they responded,” Emmick said. “I am grateful to our trustees who issued the challenge, and I am grateful to all of our alumni, friends, parents, students, faculty and staΩ who made philanthropic gifts this year.”

Joseph R. Emmick, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations 10 elmhurst college

“Abner always spoke his mind, and that’s rare today.

He wanted Elmhurst College to succeed by facing reality on its own terms, not how we’d like the world to be. He helped us become stronger though his close questioning. That’s crucial to the success of any organization.”

Abner S. Ganet, 1925-2012 Abner S. Ganet epitomized a life lived in service—to country, to community, and to posterity.

He was a trustee emeritus of Elmhurst College, a former mayor of the City of Elmhurst, a longtime civic leader, and a World War ii veteran who spent the later part of his life ensuring that younger generations would never forget the lessons of the Holocaust. Mr. Ganet died on Saturday, March 31.

He was 86.

One of the longest-serving members of the Elmhurst College Board of Trustees, Mr. Ganet was elected to the Board in 1976 and retired in 2010, when he became a trustee emeritus. He established the Abner S. Ganet Scholarship for Urban Studies and, along with Alan and Joy Baltz, the Julia P. House Endowed Scholarship, which honored his late sisterin-law.

Mr. Ganet was known on the Board for his outspokenness, and for raising questions that frequently inspired discussion and introspection.

“Abner always spoke his mind, and that’s rare today,” said Elmhurst College President S. Alan Ray. “He wanted us to succeed by facing reality on its own terms, not how we’d like the world to be. That’s crucial to the success of any organization, and I appreciate that he consistently helped us become stronger through his close questioning. We will miss his candor and perspective.”

In 2010 Elmhurst College awarded one of its highest honors, the Founders Medal, to Mr. Ganet for his work for the College and years of service to the community. In 2012 the College awarded Mr. Ganet a posthumous honorary degree.

Mr. Ganet was a two-term mayor of Elmhurst, serving from 1977 to 1985. A retired executive at the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, Mr. Ganet also owned Leonard’s Store for Men in downtown Elmhurst, and had served as

president of the Elmhurst Rotary and the Elmhurst Chamber of Commerce, as well as board chairman of the Elmhurst YMCA, and as a member of the Elmhurst Memorial Hospital Board of Governors.

But the man known for his outspokenness had always been silent about one thing: his tour as an American soldier in World War ii, and the day in 1945 when his 1st Infantry Division liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp. Mr. Ganet’s military service would earn him a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars for bravery.

It wasn’t until 50 years later, in 1995, when Mr. Ganet realized he could no longer remain silent. That year, he met Nobel Peace Prize recipient, acclaimed author and death-camp survivor Elie Wiesel, who had come to Elmhurst College to speak during the College’s annual Holocaust Education Project.

“Wiesel asked if I had been in the war,” Mr. Ganet recalled in a 2004 interview for the College’s magazine, Prospect. “I said, Yes, Buchenwald.’ He said, ‘You liberated me.’” Wiesel had been slated for the gas chamber on the day Ganet’s unit arrived and the camp’s guards fled.

“I was so overcome,” Mr. Ganet said. “[Wiesel] said, ‘You must talk about this. You witnessed it; there are people in the world who say it never happened; you must talk about it.’”

“Abner listened, and acted, and made it his new calling to go to high schools, middle schools, civic organizations, churches, synagogues, to anyone who would listen to him talk about the consequences of indiΩerence, and man’s inhumanity to man,” said Wes Becton, a close friend of Mr. Ganet’s and a fellow trustee of the College.

“I am honored that Abner would take such a strong interest in the Holocaust Project,” Ray said. “His firsthand account of liberating the infamous concentration camp was extraordinarily moving and has made him irreplaceable.”

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What It Means

To Be a Judge Judge William Bauer’s half-century career oΩers a grand lesson in the joys of living a life in law. By Andrew Santella

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hree years ago at a party in Edinburgh, Judge William Bauer ’49 found himself face to face with Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne.

Told during the introductions that followed that Bauer was a senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, His Royal Highness eyed Bauer, then 83 years old, and asked, “Are you still working?’

“Well, I’m the same age as your mother,” Bauer replied.

“And the last time I checked, she’s still working.”

A framed photograph of that encounter, showing the prince nearly doubled over in laughter, now occupies a place of prominence in Bauer’s chambers. And Bauer, should Charles inquire again, is still working.

He is, in fact, one of the most powerful jurists in the United States, outranked only by the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Bauer has been at his current job in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, which hears cases from federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin since 1974, when President Gerald R. Ford appointed him to the lifetime post.

He could have retired long ago, with full pay. He could have reduced his workload to a few token cases. But to this day, Bauer hears as many cases as any judge on the court. He writes about 90 opinions annually.

Bauer has become accustomed to people making a fuss over his productivity, his longevity. He waves a dismissive hand.

“It’s indoor work,” he said one morning behind his desk, 27 floors above Chicago’s Loop. “There’s no heavy lifting involved.”

The comment is typical Bauer: wry and unpretentious and ready to puncture the grandiosity that attaches itself to his

profession. Bauer works in a world of pomp. His uniform is a black robe and his workplace hushed as a temple. When he enters a courtroom, all rise. The high ritual of the court enables in some judges a tendency toward arrogance and haughtiness. In Bauer, it excites a sympathy for the ordinary person caught up in the trappings of the law.

“I try to make people feel at ease,” he said. “You’re in a room with all the rituals, all the formal language, and there’s a man there with a gun to make sure you do everything right.

No one is really used to that.”

Bauer’s kindness extends even to lawyers. He has been known to take pity on attorneys being questioned roughly by one of Bauer’s colleagues. (Judges on the court sit in panels of three.) Bauer may try to give the lawyer a break by tossing him a softball question. Sometimes the ploy doesn’t work.

Lawyers are so used to being bullied by some judges that they think Bauer’s softball must be a trick question.

“He is the most constant man you will ever meet,” says John Simon, a partner in the Chicago law firm of Jenner and Block who served as an assistant U.S. Attorney under Bauer in the late 1960s. “Because he treats everyone with respect, they respond in kind.”

Bauer’s humane style on the bench grows out of a philosophy of intellectual modesty.

“A good judge has to be a good listener,” he says. “You can’t be so confident of your own brilliance that you refuse to listen. The law gives us all frequent lessons in humility.

I’ve never heard a student tell a teacher that he was full of shit. But in our legal system that happens every day. You are not God.”

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Bauer likes to say that the profession of law obliges practitioners to prepare the next generation.

It was an approach that would come to characterize Bauer’s own work in the years to come.

Bauer graduated from DePaul University’s law school in 1952 and was soon serving as first assistant state’s attorney of DuPage County. When his boss was appointed to a judgeship, Bauer filed as a Republican candidate in the special election to succeed him as state’s attorney. Bauer’s Democratic opponent was Prentice H. Marshall, who went on to enjoy an acclaimed legal career of his own. Bauer remembers Marshall as “the best Democratic nominee ever in DuPage.” The admiration was mutual. During the campaign, Marshall took to calling Bauer “the Sage of DuPage.” The Sage won.

Bauer spent five years as state’s attorney and another halfdecade as a circuit court judge in DuPage County before becoming U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

It was there that he demonstrated a knack for hiring and grooming formidable young legal talent. His first assistant was James R. Thompson, later a four-term governor of Illinois.

Other members of Team Bauer included two future U.S. he roots of Bauer’s long legal career extend Attorneys—Dan Webb and Anton Valukas—and Tyrone Fahner, back to the pre-war neighborhood movie a future Illinois attorney general. Thompson has said that palaces of Chicago’s South Side. Born in he was at first reluctant to join Bauer’s o≈ce, but changed Chicago on September 15, 1926, Bauer grew his mind after spending a few hours talking with him over up in Brookdale, a tight-knit community martinis. The former governor has called the team of prossandwiched between Jackson Park and Oak ecutors assembled by Bauer one of the best ever.

Woods Cemetery. Like a lot of the neighborBauer’s crew distinguished itself by its unflinching willhood boys, he grew up working odd jobs—everything from ingness to attack public corruption, regardless of party washing dishes to delivering the Saturday Evening Post. But a≈liations. Years later, Patrick Fitzgerald, the current U.S. Bauer really enjoyed spending Saturday afternoons at the Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, told the Chicago show. There was the Jackson Park Theatre on Stony Island, Daily Law Bulletin that Bauer deserved praise for keeping and the Tivoli at 63rd and Cottage Grove. Watching the his o≈ce free of politics. “The o≈ce owes him a debt,” double features, he noticed something: A lot of the movies featured lawyers. And the lawyers in those movies talked a lot. Fitzgerald said.

Bauer still craves his independence. “I was appointed to “I knew I could do that,” he said. “Also, they were well dressed and well paid and didn’t appear to do much of anything.” two diΩerent jobs by two Republican presidents,” he says.

“And all I ever promised was that I was going to be the best Bauer began forming vague plans for a life in law. His possible judge I could be.” family moved to Elmhurst in time for Bauer to attend and The first of those appointments came in 1971, when graduate from Immaculate Conception High School there. A President Richard Nixon nominated him to a seat on the U.S. stint in the U.S. Army followed shortly; from 1945 to 1947 he was in Korea and Japan with the Seventh Infantry Division. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Three years later, Gerald Ford appointed Bauer to his current post.

Upon his return home, he enrolled at Elmhurst College, where he majored in history, played right guard for the football Bluejays, He moved into his chambers on the day after Christmas in 1974, and has been reporting for work there ever since. and drove a cab for spending money.

Bauer works in the Dirksen Courthouse, a glassy Miesian At Elmhurst, Bauer’s teachers included Paul Crusius, who cube set amid the Loop’s windblown plazas. His wide-angle taught history at the College for 44 years. Crusius taught a o≈ce view is appropriately lofty. It takes in the bobbing course called Civilization Past and Present, which covered leisure craft of Burnham Harbor and the industrial skyline of everything from the dawn of recorded history to the brink of the recently concluded war. Visits to Crusius’s o≈ce in Kranz the South Shore; the tourist bustle of Millennium Park and, almost at eye-level, the bright blue beehive atop what used to Hall left Bauer impressed with his professor’s intellect, but be the Encyclopedia Britannica building. also with his generosity.

Bauer will guide a visitor into a small antechamber oΩ his “He listened well,” Bauer recalled decades later. “When main o≈ce in search of one of the prized mementos kept on he talked, he was interested in your reaction. He wasn’t just his overflowing bookshelves. Along the way, he may point talking to impress you with his knowledge, although God out his small private stash of single-malt scotch. Every few weeks knows that came through. He was interested in what you or so, the judge hosts a pouring for his law clerks. Bauer feels said. What you took away from Paul was a sense of decency deeply the obligation to mentor the rising generation, and and intellectual honesty and the need to keep reading more not only in matters strictly jurisprudential. and more to arrive at a conclusion about a subject.”

T

14 elmhurst college

“It is one of my missions to teach them the joys of singlemalt,” he says.

It’s hard not to notice that when Bauer talks about his own mentors, he uses some of the same words—civil, decent, thoughtful, humble—that his own colleagues and former assistants use to describe him. A small crowd of them assembled last year in Wheaton—the town where Bauer’s legal career began—to see a building in the DuPage County courthouse complex dedicated to Bauer. One of the speakers at the ceremony was Thompson, Bauer’s erstwhile first assistant, who said that he and other prosecutors had been drawn to work with Bauer by his “humility, lack of arrogance, great credibility, wisdom, knowledge and sense of humor.” He also warned Bauer that having a building named in one’s honor carries a certain burden; every time the air conditioning fails, it’s your fault.

Bauer likes to say that law is one of the professions that oblige practitioners to prepare the next generation. One of Bauer’s mentors was a DuPage County judge named Bert Rathje. Bauer’s first appearance as a lawyer before a judge in court came in Rathje’s courtroom, and Bauer still has not forgotten the kindness with which the judge treated a rookie lawyer that day. Bauer also remembers Rathje as a judge not afraid to show leniency to defendants when warranted.

“What a class act,” Bauer says of Rathje. “He was exceedingly kind and fair.”

Rathje’s example was not lost on Bauer. In 1975, Bauer was considering the appeal of Masanobu Noro, a former Chicago police detective convicted of participating in a scheme to shake down West Side taverns. Noro had already been sentenced

to 15 months in federal prison, but Bauer decided that Noro had already been punished enough. A Japanese-American, Noro had spent more than two years behind barbed wire in relocation camps during World War ii. In 1944 he volunteered for service in the Army and served with distinction in Europe, winning four Bronze Stars. Bauer took that history into consideration in deciding to sentence Noro to probation, not prison.

“I felt that it was time the United States gave him back a piece of what it owed him,” Bauer explained at the time of the appeal. The sentence surprised many and won praise from some. “By his compassion and understanding of the human circumstance, Bauer demonstrated what being a judge is all about,” columnist Bob Wiedrich wrote of the Noro case in the Chicago Tribune at the time.

Having been shaped by role models like Rathje, Bauer has made a point of trying to guide the rising generations. He has been a frequent visitor and guest speaker on Elmhurst’s campus, delivering commencement addresses, lectures and, most recently, participating in a dialogue on justice with journalist Bob Woodward, an old family friend from Wheaton.

One of Bauer’s favorite themes is that professional success carries with it the obligation to teach.

It’s an obligation that Bauer has fulfilled for nearly a halfcentury now. He has been at it so long that his students—the dozens of former law clerks, assistants, colleagues and others he has guided—have become teachers themselves.

“In a profession like this, you become a teacher,” Bauer says, leaning forward over his desk. “And most of the time, you teach by example.” alumni news 15

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25

Reasons Why Chicago Loves

Elmhurst College

Illustrations by Anilou Price

16 elmhurst college

M

any great colleges are set in tiny towns, amid apple orchards and cornfields. Elmhurst emphatically breaks the mold. We’re

located near the geographic center of one of the world’s most dynamic urban regions. Just 16 miles west of the Loop and eight miles from the city line, the College draws many students and abundant energy from Chicago and its 200 suburbs. The metropolitan area provides our students with limitless opportunities for internships, exploration and entertainment. In turn, the College serves the region as a vital intellectual and cultural resource, and as a source of capable graduates with a well-developed sense of social responsibility.

The College’s contributions to the life of its surroundings are manifold, diverse and profound. They also increasingly are gaining notice. Jim Edgar, the 38th Governor of Illinois, has spoken to campus audiences twice in the last three years. He says, “Elmhurst College has emerged as a leader among Illinois colleges for its determined focus on civic engagement Illustrations by Anilou Price

and service to the community.”

We decided to try enumerating the countless ways the College has earned the Chicago area’s affection. The problem, it turned out, was limiting our list to a number that would fit in our pages. We settled on 25.

alumni news 17

cover story Here they are:

Our Jazz Festival

is among the 1

best in the land.

Year after year, it’s stocked with the kind of national talent that can make an audience forget that it’s sitting in church pews.

Louie Bellson has performed at the festival. So has Lee Konitz, Clark Terry, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderly and Dizzy Gillespie, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Diana Krall. Each February, the pros assemble in Hammerschmidt Chapel to hear and evaluate some of America’s top college jazz bands, and oΩer advice.

The pros cap each of the festival’s three nights with feature performances, as if to show the kids how it’s done. For audience members, it’s a welcome blast of jazz heat in the midst of a Midwestern winter, and “the best buy for your jazz dollar” (as Chicago Magazine tells its readers).

2 In scores of Chicago suburbs and neighborhoods, our students are making a difference.

On any given day of the academic year, you’ll find hundreds of Elmhurst students working on service-learning projects.

The campus’s social action activities have been varied and impressive enough to catch the attention of The New York Times. “Nursing students work with the poor during clinical rotations,” the paper reported. “Education majors teach in schools with a high number of poor students.” Students across the majors tutor schoolchildren, assist senior citizens, work with DuPage County PADS to provide shelter for the homeless and with Habitat for Humanity on home-construction projects. They travel to churches to provide free produce to some of the neediest citizens of the West Side. Even in an economically powerful region like Chicago, the human needs are everywhere, and our students are working to meet them.

“It’s sad to say, but you don’t have to go far to find hunger and need,” says Jazmine Martinez, a senior from West Chicago.

“People here lack access to health care and fresh food. Those are things that no one should be denied.”

18 elmhurst college

3 We’ve been green for 141 years.

On our original campus, a working farm provided students with vegetables, fruit and opportunities for some healthy after-class activity. Today, the west side of campus features a prairie and woodlands restoration as well as an environmentally friendly parking lot. Our newest building, West Hall, is our greenest building ever, one that puts the principles of sustainable design to work in the daily lives of students. It’s loaded with environmentally friendly features, including energysaving, motion-sensitive lighting; 42 rooftop solar panels that reduce water-heating costs; even dual-flush, water-saving toilets. Professor of Chemistry Gene Losey calls West Hall “a natural laboratory. Even when it was being built, we knew it would give us a chance to educate people about sustainability,” he says. “We talked about what a great science project this would be.”

Even our

4 We’re always looking for new ways—and people— to serve.

This fall, we started a completely new academic division, the School for Professional Studies. It’s designed to reach the big, growing population of busy people who otherwise would be shut out of bachelor’s and master’s programs. This includes working moms, career changers, people in their 30s, 40s and 50s who need a second or third professional act, and many others for whom the traditional, full-time model of higher education has become an impossible dream. What’s more, our new school builds on a long tradition at Elmhurst. We’ve had adult programs since 1949 and graduate programs since 1998. We’ve always been determined to find new ways to enable bright, capable people to fully prepare for service in today’s workforce and society.

5

trees

are kind of special.

The collection on our arboretum grounds isn’t confined to the usual campus suspects, the elms and oaks and lindens. Instead, we oΩer students and visitors alike a varied and exotic display of plant life: shadblow, sweetgum, bald cypress, gingko, the dawn redwood, the weeping European beech, and on and on.

The arboretum got its start when many of our original grand old elms succumbed to disease in the 1960s. In response, a local plantsman named Herbert Licht worked with our longtime groundskeeper, Ragnar Moen, to create a living and fabulously varied museum of trees. All year round, these species and cultivars put on a show that delights our visitors and makes our campus a wonderful place to go and grow.

6 We’re a center of a great athletic ideal.

On some campuses, the ideal of the student-athlete is a myth, a joke or both. At Elmhurst, it’s alive, well and winning. To see the ideal in action, Chicago-area sports fans need only to check out one of our 19 (soon to be 20) varsity teams. Our student-athletes play with the same finesse, smarts and discipline that they bring to their academic work. Since 2000, they’ve won 25 Academic All-American awards. Most teams have a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher. That’s our notion of a winning record. alumni news 19

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7 For those who live among the bright lights of a big city, learning to read the night sky often means long journeys to remote observatories. At Elmhurst, it requires only a quick walk up a ight of stairs. When the motorized door of the Bates Observatory opens to reveal the night sky, a powerful, fourteen-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope brings into focus some amazing sights: Mars, Jupiter, the Ring Nebula, the rings around Saturn—even the splits between the rings.

Perched atop the Schaible Science Center, the observatory is a favorite stop for campus visitors, especially on Homecoming weekends.

We make

the Stars seem

close to home.

20 elmhurst college

Our

art collection

is a real

eye-opener.

8 We’re changing the lives of young adults with developmental disabilities.

The American system of higher education has long neglected the needs and aspirations of young adults with developmental disabilities. The Elmhurst Learning and Success Academy— ELSA—is working to change that. Now in its seventh year, the four-year academy serves young adults with developmental, cognitive and learning disabilities. ELSA students sharpen their skills in math and reading, participate fully in campus activities, gain hands-on paid work experience, learn how to apply for long-term jobs and, in general, enhance their capacity for independent living and lifelong learning. ELSA is a great example of Elmhurst College getting ahead of the pack in identifying a real need of a segment of our society and addressing it creatively and eΩectively.

9 Our chapel is a cultural hub for the western suburbs.

When President Robert Stanger dedicated the chapel 53 years ago, he called it “a graceful and distinctive edifice.” Perhaps what has been most distinctive about Hammerschmidt over the years has been how gracefully it has served myriad purposes and multiple audiences. As you might expect, it’s the scene of baptisms, weddings and funerals. It’s also a classroom building and a lecture hall that has hosted speakers as renowned as Martin Luther King Jr. and Elie Wiesel. (A plaque marks the occasion of Dr. King’s address on July 8, 1966.) In addition to the two Nobel laureates, Hammerschmidt’s list of luminaries includes writers (Edward Albee, Joyce Carol Oates), journalists (Bob Woodward, Anna Quindlen, David Gergen, JeΩrey Toobin, Lou Cannon, Frank Deford), historians (Taylor Branch, Robert Dallek, John Meacham, Michael Beschloss), social activists (Jesse Jackson, Marian Wright Edelman), religious leaders (Cardinal Francis George, Sister Helen Prejean), the explorer who found the Titanic (Robert Ballard), and at least one certified heavyweight (Muhammad Ali).

10 Buehler Library is home to an outstanding collection of Chicago Imagist and Abstractionist work dating from about 1950 to the present. Not all the art is familiar, but even casual enthusiasts will recognize the psychedelic colors of an Ed Paschke or the crisp cityscapes of Roger Brown. Altogether the College’s paintings, drawings and sculpture—more than 100 pieces— comprise one of the most extraordinary art collections in the Midwest. “There’s rarely a retrospective of the so-called Imagist artists that doesn’t include Elmhurst,” says the art critic Jim Yood. “It’s the best single overview of art from 1966 to 1985 in any public institution.”

11 We’re reinventing the church-related college.

Our historic and living a≈liation with the United Church of Christ plays a part in all of our eΩorts to serve our students and community and live out our institutional values. “The UCC has a long and proud history of shattering our society’s color and gender barriers,” President Ray notes. “It frequently has been at the forefront of ecclesiastical eΩorts to embrace the whole of humanity.” In the eighteenth century, the UCC was the first church in the United States to ordain an African American to the Christian ministry. In the nineteenth century, it was the first to ordain a woman. In the twentieth century, it was the first to ordain an openly gay person—William R. Johnson, Elmhurst Class of 1968, who became a UCC minister in 1972. The tradition of the UCC resonates with our own tradition in ways that make for a highly distinctive institution of higher learning. The church describes itself as “extravagantly welcoming.” We are, too. alumni news 21

cover story

we how put a show know

12

to

on

Staging a musical in a converted sawmill may not be easy; but when the curtain goes up on opening night, everything about it is appealing. Our Mill Theatre oΩers a full season of productions each year, including musicals, plays, and an assortment of projects directed and designed by students. The fare is eclectic: everything from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Sweet Charity to Zombie Prom. The musical is especially well-suited to the College, with its strong programs in vocal music and theatre.

13 Each spring, we seek to teach the unteachable.

Since 1991, the Holocaust Education Project has been part of the intellectual and ritual life of the College, speaking to its soul, posing questions that defy answering. Each April, the College brings prominent scholars to campus to talk about survivors, perpetrators, rescuers, hidden children, Holocaust denial, Christian complicity in the genocide, and other troubling and essential issues. The mantra of many scholars, survivors and experts is: “The Holocaust cannot be understood or imagined or taught. But it must be.” Elmhurst is doing its part.

15 We strengthen the local economy.

Elmhurst employs 520 full-time and 250 part-time professionals. It meets an annual payroll in excess of $41 million, and an annual budget in excess of $65 million. It injects an estimated $81 million into the Chicago area’s economy.

14 In America’s foremost city for architecture, we build with discernment and care.

Eighty-six years ago, President H. Richard Niebuhr launched a comprehensive eΩort to expand and transform the Elmhurst campus. First, he engaged a young Chicago architect, Benjamin Franklin Olson, to create a meticulously considered long-range campus plan. It included a proper college quadrangle—the now-familiar sunken mall surrounded by red-brick, English colonial buildings. The plan was “designed to make theirs one of the most attractive little colleges in the Midwest,” the Chicago Sunday Tribune reported in its editions of May 9, 1926.

The plan worked. The living campus of today stands as a monument to Niebuhr’s foresight, and to an enduring institutional commitment to build space that enriches human experience.

22 elmhurst college

16 We enhance the local workforce.

About 70 percent of Elmhurst graduates choose to live and work in Illinois. Our 16,000 local alumni have achieved uncommon success in a vast variety of careers—as doctors and teachers, artists and nurses, lawyers and leaders in corporations and organizations. They contribute in special ways to their workplace and society because their Elmhurst Experience has prepared them well to engage new ideas, respect diΩerent viewpoints, collaborate with others, and create original solutions to problems old and new. They serve their colleagues and their communities each day with creativity, compassion and competence.

17 We work to ensure that academic talent and commitment, not money, opens our doors.

That premise governs our robust student financial aid program.

The College works hard to oΩer financial aid packages that bring down the cost of an Elmhurst education to levels that are aΩordable to the greatest number of students and their families. Among our current students, 95% receive some kind of financial aid. We’re trying to oΩer an excellent education to people who come from a wide range of backgrounds that aren’t necessarily underprivileged—though they sometimes are—but certainly are not elite. That’s a key part of our mission—and it’s why we’re consistently ranked as a “best value college” by U.S. News & World Report.

18 Our unique Niebuhr Center puts faith into action.

Religious faith is a motivating force for many Elmhurst students, just as it was for the College’s founders more than 140 years ago. The Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action helps students put their beliefs to work. Its mission is inspired by Reinhold Niebuhr’s pragmatic, socially involved theology and by Richard Niebuhr’s injunction that to be faithful means “engagement in civil work for the sake of the common good.” The center oΩers courses, provides internships and connects students with opportunities to serve others, in the Chicago area and around the world.

We work hard

20

to get our students to the

finish line.

Some colleges and universities are starting to give higher education a bad name. The rap is that they’re allowing students to roll up big college debts without enabling them to earn the degree that they need to get ahead in life. That does happen, and it often is a scandal. It is not what Elmhurst is about.

We’ve moved our graduation rate up 20 points over the last 20 years. That puts it 20 points above the national average. And we’re still not content with the progress we’ve made. We never will be. We enroll every student with the goal of doing what it takes to enable each of them to get to the finish line. We know before we admit them that they can do it; we are determined to work with them to make it happen.

19 We help deserving high school students master the hard stuff.

Our Summer Math and Science Academy is a kind of boot camp for high school kids devoted to those academic subjects that one academy student describes as “the hard stuΩ.” The academy aims to give young women and minorities—the groups that tend to be underrepresented in college math and science courses— a running start on undergraduate work in those disciplines.

Professor Evans Afenya has directed the academy for each of its 18 years. “Some of these students come from desolate situations,” he says. “They deserve better than to sit around and think they have no future. But first they must realize that they can do the work.”

alumni news 23

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21

Summer is

swing time

We like to find ways to make ourselves useful.

Just ask the youth soccer clubs and high school varsities that practice at Langhorst Field… the small companies that tap into the resources of the Hardin Institute for Market Research… the families that use the aΩordable services of the SpeechLanguage-Hearing Clinic… and on and on. We take pride in our role as good neighbors.

22 We create new knowledge and find new solutions to human problems.

Our faculty engage avidly in scholarly research. They’re at work every day: on an analysis of split-brain syndrome, on an investigation of the environmental viability of salmonella cells, on an examination of the impact of gender roles on self-concept—on scores of scholarly inquiries that will inform humanity’s collective understanding of its frailties and possibilities. Our students often form a significant part of the research team. Side by side, in the lab and in the field, Elmhurst faculty and students study pollen germination, cancer cell metastasis, the epidemiology of the West Nile virus, the impact of war on the environment, and myriad other topics.

24 elmhurst college

23

around here.

Every June since 1996, the Elmhurst College Jazz Band has entertained huge and appreciative audiences at Summer Extravaganza, an evening of free music for the community on the College Mall. Over the years, Extravaganzas have paired the band with such big names as Maynard Ferguson, Diane Schuur, Dee Dee Bridgwater and Patti Austin, whose performance so charmed the crowd that more than a few picnickers felt compelled to get up and dance.

Our society

is facing an acute shortage of

health-care professionals.

24 Over the next decade—as the population ages and continues to grow—the United States is anticipating a shortfall of 210,000 doctors and more than 1 million nurses. Elmhurst College is ideally positioned to meet this challenge. Our academic programs in the sciences and health care are renowned, innovative and growing. More than one-third of our graduates pursue careers in the sciences or a related health-care field. Over the last five years alone, the number of science and health majors at Elmhurst has increased by more than 20 percent. What’s more, we take a distinctive approach to preparing our community’s future health professionals. Our Patterson Center for the Health Professions, with its “Team Health” approach, brings together students with complementary career interests for internships, research opportunities and much more. Our graduates begin their careers at hospitals, clinics and medical centers around the Chicago area knowing from learned experience how to serve as eΩective members of today’s health-care teams.

We’re on the case.

25 We know what we stand for, and we act on our values.

Elmhurst has always been a place of values and conviction. We were founded by nineteenth-century reformers who believed in human potential, loved learning and had standards. More than 141 years later, we still do. We still attract students and teachers who think for themselves and act on their principles, who challenge and respect one another, who engage, serve and celebrate their diverse, dynamic, interdependent community.

alumni news 25

Robert Putnam, the Harvard social scientist, packed the chapel for a talk on religion in American society.

26 elmhurst college

A Feast of Ideas, Open to All Elmhurst College’s Spring Term had barely begun, and already Amy Krukowski’s calendar was filling up with reasons to come to campus. Krukowski, an Elmhurst resident, is a fan of the College’s public lecture series, and she had penciled in, among all her work obligations and family gatherings, a list of visiting speakers that she just had to see: the legendary Washington journalist Bob Woodward, political scientist Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone), editor Wendy Wolf (Malcolm X) and New Yorker writer Louis Menand.

“I

love hearing intelligent, articulate people talk about ideas,” Krukowski said. “I think everybody needs that intellectual time-out, that time to hear other ideas, and just to be with other people who are interested in the same thing.”

For Krukowski and an ever-growing number of people around the Chicago area, Elmhurst has become a destination for mind-opening discourse, the place to go to hear big thinkers talk about big ideas. Each year, thousands come to campus to hear some of the world’s most provocative, profound and inspiring speakers. In the last academic year alone, Elmhurst welcomed the renowned scholar of religion Martin Marty and the crusading columnist Dan Savage; best-selling medical historian Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee and CNN legal analyst JeΩrey Toobin; Catholic media evangelist Father Robert Barron and U.S. Senator Mark Kirk.

This diverse and ambitious roster of speakers is the result of the College’s ongoing eΩort to enhance the intellectual and cultural life of the campus—and to reach out to the region beyond. alumni news 27

The lecture series is one way the College engages the larger society.

28 elmhurst college

“T

he lectures are one way that the College engages the world,” says James Winters, vice president for communications and public aΩairs. “This is where we really open our doors to the larger community. We welcome our neighbors to join the conversation.”

The neighbors have indeed joined in.

Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, who has spoken at Elmhurst twice in the past two years, observed that the College “has emerged as a leader among Illinois colleges for its determined focus on civic engagement and service to the community.”

“I’m so impressed with what’s going on at Elmhurst College,” says Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, who lives in nearby Riverside. “It’s becoming a real destination for cultural programs in the Chicago area.”

Larry Braskamp, an Elmhurst College trustee and professor emeritus at Loyola University Chicago, has heard compliments from colleagues at Loyola, as well as from fellow worshippers at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, which boasts one of the city’s most prominent congregations.

“They tell me they’re amazed by the range of speakers; that it’s just phenomenal, what the College is doing,” he says, adding, “This is one of the best intentional ways for Elmhurst College to be an even better neighbor to all of the western suburbs. It’s just really impressive.”

To add a wider range of voices It took time, and no small amount of research and development, for the College’s various lecture series to come into their own. For many years, Elmhurst’s main claim to fame was its music oΩerings, in particular the internationally acclaimed Elmhurst College Jazz Festival, which is about to enter its 45th year, and Summer Extravaganza, which brings thousands to the Mall each June to hear the Elmhurst College Jazz Band and such headliners as Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bobby Floyd.

Public lectures started to become better established in the 1980s, most notably when the Dr. Rudolf G. Schade Endowed Lecture Fund was created in 1984 as a lasting tribute

by Elmhurst alumni to Schade, the longtime, revered professor of history, Greek and philosophy.

The Schade lectures, whose topics pertain to history, law or ethics, always have been popular, though initially that may have been due largely to Dr. Schade: He always attended KT McFarland spoke on national security; she served in President the lectures, and his former students flocked there to see him, recalls his son, Rudy, a Chicago attorney and Elmhurst Reagan's Defense Department.

College trustee.

“The main purpose of the intercultural lectures is to add “After his death, it became much more about the quality a wider range of voices to the vibrant conversation that of the lectures,” he says. “Generally, we’ve always had very Elmhurst College is daily carrying on about intercultural issues,” interesting people and very interesting subjects. They are says Russell Ford, an associate professor of philosophy at the relevant, they often deal with current events, and there is a College and coordinator of the Campus Guestship Program. lot to them. People are looking for relevance, variety and a way to learn something. I think we’ve done a very good job “The lecture series are occasions for us to invite a new voice, and often a very prominent voice, into our dialogue with the of oΩering that.”

In 1996, a significant endowed lecture fund was established aim of engaging them directly with our questions and observations, and adding theirs to our continued reflections.”

by Roland Quest, Class of 1936, an aerospace engineer who performed design work on the original space shuttle. At about the same time, the College created still more new lecture Amplifying the impact series that aimed to deepen the intellectual life of the campus. Building on those established lectures, the College began to Three annual talks had religious themes—a Catholic look outward. In 2003, Elmhurst undertook a more focused lecture, named for Joseph Cardinal Bernardin; a Jewish lecture, eΩort to attract larger audiences by bringing in high-profile named for philosopher and theologian Abraham Joshua speakers in the fall and spring, and by promoting the events Heschel; and a Muslim lecture, named for 12th-century theomore widely and strategically. The eΩort was an immediate logian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. The religious lectures, especially success, judging by the huge turnout for a Schade lecture the Heschel and the al-Ghazali, allow those faith traditions to with historian and author Robert Dallek, who spoke about be explored on campus in a way that transcends generalities. his book, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917–1963, For example, “even without a body of Jewish students here, shortly before the 40th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination. through the Heschel lecture we still can think and talk about The Chicago Tribune wrote a full-page editorial about the Jewish life beyond the Holocaust,” says Chaplain H. Scott anniversary, and noted the lecture at Elmhurst.

Matheney, who launched the series. “The lectures let us talk “It was clear then that we had begun to join the cultural about the joy, the historical integrity, the intellectual life, the conversation on these types of topics,” Winters says. “With worship life, of the faith.” the Dallek lecture, we saw that our new approach would Other new lecture series addressed themes of race, gender really work, and we understood the potential for lectures to and ethnicity, and have brought such luminaries to campus provide a service, not just to the campus but also to the as poets Maya Angelou and Gwendolyn Brooks, each of larger community.” whom spoke as part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. The most dramatic changes began after 2008, when Guestship. More recently, an LGBT guestship joined the Dr. S. Alan Ray took o≈ce as the 13th president of Elmhurst intercultural lectures; last November it was named in honor and led the College on a course to develop the most compreof the Reverend Dr. William R. Johnson ’68, the first openly hensive strategic plan in its history. One of the plan’s goals gay person in modern history to be ordained to the mainwas to achieve a higher level of service “to students and stream Christian ministry. (He was ordained in 1972 by the society” by enriching the public intellectual and cultural life United Church of Christ, the College’s a≈liated denomination.) of the campus.

alumni news 29

Best of all, the College’s lectures make a world of ideas widely accessible.

By this time, the College already had established a strong record of oΩering well-known speakers and bringing in significant audiences to enjoy them. What seemed to be needed was a way to develop and coordinate the programming in a more intentional way.

The idea of concentrating cultural events under an annual theme emerged in 2009, when the College awarded its highest honor, the Niebuhr Medal, to Roman Catholic priest and theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, a champion for the “poorest of the poor.” Looking to extend its students’ contact with Gutiérrez’s message beyond that one event, the College created the Poverty Project, a yearlong examination of “the everyday scandal of material poverty.” The project included speakers and other cultural events, and highlighted ongoing campus-led eΩorts to confront and alleviate poverty.

Such annual themes became a staple of campus discourse.

The following year, President Ray selected interfaith engagement as the subject of the yearlong theme. Still Speaking: Conversations on Faith examined the issues that unite and divide people of faith. Still Speaking also celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Elmhurst graduation of Reinhold Niebuhr (1910) and H. Richard Niebuhr (1912). The series took its name from a motto of the United Church of Christ, “God is still speaking.”

The opening event was the Inaugural Niebuhr Forum on Religion in Public Life, which brought an impressive roster of scholars and writers to campus to discuss the relevance of Niebuhr’s message for the 21st century. New York Times columnist David Brooks delivered the keynote address, speaking about politics and the influence of Reinhold Niebuhr.

Overflow crowds packed campus venues both for Brooks’s lecture and for a panel discussion on the persistence of evil.

“I was impressed by how hungry people were for serious talk about religion,” President Ray recalls. “Not everyone agreed with everything that was said. But people avidly joined in because they believe these are important topics.”

Best of all, for Amy Krukowski and others, the College’s lectures make a world of ideas more accessible. A former Chicagoan, Krukowski thought she had given up cultural events—plays, lectures, concerts—when she moved to the suburbs to raise a family. But at Elmhurst, she finds a feast of ideas, close to home.

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“I would’ve been willing to drive a couple of hours to see people like Robert Putnam,” says Krukowski, an English teacher at Maine South High School in Park Ridge. “So I find it really exciting now to be able to step out of my house and then, a few minutes later, to hear these great authors, the same people who are at the [Chicago] Humanities Festival.”

Encouraging lifelong learners With government in gridlock, rampant cynicism about politics and a presidential election campaign gathering steam, the natural theme for the 2011–2012 academic year was democracy and civic engagement. The Democracy Forum brought speakers such as journalist and author Jon Meacham and author and political consultant Naomi Wolf to campus.

Their visits oΩer richer educational opportunities for Elmhurst students, too; many speakers not only give lectures, but also meet and talk beforehand with students and faculty.

When Wolf came to campus last October, she screened and discussed her documentary, The End of America, and held a workshop for students on how to make democracy work before giving her public lecture, “Citizen Empowerment 101.”

“The opportunities to meet in small groups with a speaker, or even have a speaker visit a class, have enabled students to engage in discussion and debate on a broad range of issues,” says Connie Mixon, director of the College’s Urban Studies Program. “These opportunities have stimulated deeper conversations, which have resulted in enhanced critical thinking and analysis.”

Some faculty members have incorporated lecture series themes into their coursework. During the Poverty Project year, Dr. Mary Kay Mulvaney, director of the Honors Program, led a course that viewed poverty through several disciplinary

President S. Alan Ray

lenses: theology, education, political science, health care, geography, biology and literature/film.

And then there is the benefit to students of simply attending the lectures. Mulvaney has required it in some of her classes. “I think it’s important, as part of a whole liberal arts education, that students engage with topics of current public interest or historical significance,” she says. “The lectures are a great way of extending their classroom experience, even if it doesn’t relate directly to the topic of the course.”

As part of an eΩort to better engage students and develop more academic opportunities in conjunction with the lecture series, faculty members have become more involved in the selection of themes and speakers. Based on faculty suggestions, President Ray recently announced that the 2012–2013 theme will be Science, Technology and Society. Fall lectures in this theme include “Giving Women the Access Code,” by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, and “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength” by Roy F. Baumeister. The theme the following year will be The Future of Education.

“I hope that as a result of our lecture series, Elmhurst College will not simply become better known, but our faculty and students will be moved to think and act in new and collaborative ways,” he says. “We are, after all, a place of learning and research. Our various lecture series are first and foremost oΩered in the service of that fundamental mission.”

Mulvaney believes that, in the longer term, helping her students to develop an appreciation for cultural lectures will start them down the road to becoming lifelong learners. “When students go, they see community members who are there because they want to be there, because they’re interested and still want to find out new things,” she says. “Hopefully when these students leave college, they’ll be more engaged citizens and want to keep attending these kinds of events. To me, that’s what lifelong learning is all about—staying intellectually engaged.”

And culturally aware and informed. Today’s more polarized political and ideological environment makes it especially important that colleges like Elmhurst “take an active role in providing a stage for thoughtful voices from all sides of charged social issues,” adds President Ray. “I believe those attending our events want to understand better the complexity of that world and learn how some people—our speakers— are making a positive diΩerence. It is my hope that, as a result of these lectures, some in our audience may be moved to engage the world in a new way and make their own contributions to the common good.”

Fall Lectures Free. Just tell the usher that you are an alum.

Wednesday, October 3

From Cloning to Cell Therapy: A Life in Science Lydia Villa-Komaroff An internationally recognized molecular biologist and former vice president for research at Northwestern University, Dr. Villa-Komaroff was only the third MexicanAmerican woman to earn a science doctorate in the United States.

4:00 p.m., Frick Center, Founders Lounge

Thursday, October 4

Justice and Compassion in an Age of Demonization Bishop V. Gene Robinson Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.

Ordained in 1973, he made history three decades later when he became the first openly gay person to be consecrated a bishop in the worldwide Anglican communion.

His appearance is presented in cooperation with The Church of Our Saviour, celebrating its 150th anniversary in Elmhurst.

7:00 p.m., Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel

Tuesday, October 9

The Science of Sexual Orientation Simon LeVay The neuroscientist Simon LeVay trained at Cambridge University and served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1991, he reported on a difference in the brain structures of gay and straight men. He provides an update on the brain science and considers whether the science of sexuality is relevant to the societal status of sexual minorities.

4:00 p.m., Frick Center, Founders Lounge

Thursday, October 11

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics Ross Douthat A Catholic conservative and the youngest opinion columnist in the history of The New York Times, Ross Douthat’s is the author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, a compelling critique of contemporary Christianity. In the face of self-centered spirituality (on the left) and wealth-obsessed evangelicalism (on the right), he advocates a return to authentic tradition and a sense of genuine community.

7:00 p.m., Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel

alumni news 31

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A JOURNEY OF TWISTS, TURNS, SETBACKS AND TRIUMPHS

Rita Athas ’76 is president of World Business Chicago, a public-private partnership that promotes the city to international businesses. Previously, she served in the administration of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley as deputy chief of staΩ for external aΩairs. On May 26, Athas spoke at the College’s 141st Commencement and received an honorary doctorate of laws. Here is an excerpt from her speech.

alumni news 33

‘Take the time to be grateful,

or you will miss the very essence of life’s meaning.’

J

ohn Lennon was right when he said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” The truth is, there are no formulas, no sets of directions and no assembly kits. Your “career ladder” will be more of a career lattice. The journey you embark on today will have twists, turns, detours, setbacks and triumphs.

Your challenge is not to construct a plan etched in concrete, but to arm yourself with the weapons needed to successfully navigate the maze that will be your life. Here are three things that I think will serve you well along the way.

Knowledge I arrived at Elmhurst College well over 30 years ago as a nontraditional student. I had interrupted my education for a five-year sabbatical to get married and have two wonderful children, and I entered Elmhurst as a frightened 25-yearold without much confidence. Was I up to the task of a college education?

What I found here was an extraordinary place that wrapped its arms around me while challenging me to think harder and deeper.

Elmhurst gave me the skills to master the academic work necessary for my degree, but far more important, it gave me the ability to develop insights and to challenge assumptions.

These are skills that will serve you throughout your life. While we are rightly celebrating your intellectual accomplishment today, it doesn’t end here—you need to keep doing your homework.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, with whom I worked for 12 years, is one of the finest examples of continuous learning that I’ve ever seen. In o≈ce, he was an absolute sponge— constantly observing, asking questions, and besieging staΩ members with stacks of articles torn from newspapers, books and periodicals. I still receive articles from him today. Seeing the mayor of the fourth most economically powerful city in the world take notes as he talked to an intern or a worker in China taught me a great deal about continuing to seek knowledge. You can’t be aware of endless possibilities if you don’t continue to investigate what’s out there.

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Character You also need to arm yourself with character. Everyone tries to define character, but it’s really not hard—character is doing what’s right even when no one is looking. It’s listening to that inner voice formed by your family, your friends and your faith.

At Elmhurst, you have been blessed to attend a college where character is a legitimate topic of academic discourse.

As Albert Einstein said, “Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.”

You will face multiple temptations as you weigh the endless possibilities ahead of you. At times it will seem very attractive to take the instantly gratifying route, the quickest way to move up, the easy way that avoids the truth. But don’t do it. That route may result in fame or wealth, but you will have lost the core of yourself and the key to a successful life.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give,” as Sir Winston Churchill said. Be true to your best character, no matter what, throughout your life.

Courage You also need courage to travel life’s maze. By this I don’t mean the courage to run into a burning building to save a life, though that is certainly an admirable action. Rather, I mean the courage to face life head on. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that you should do something every day that scares you. I think that is good advice; the fullness of life can’t be achieved with hesitation.

Throughout my career, I’ve experienced the impact of pushing through fear and working through doubt. Conquering a fear of flying allowed me to experience the wonders of Russia, China, Dubai and other places I never dreamed I would see. Tackling projects I wasn’t sure I could do allowed me to play a part in uniting the mayors of the Great Lakes and establishing a successful program providing hundreds of jobs for unemployed middle-class workers.

In your life you will face many situations that require courage. To lead a full life—to embrace its full possibilities— jump oΩ the cliΩ, dive into the water and let go of the secure and comfortable. If you are not living a little bit on the edge, you’re probably taking up too much room.

At Commencement 2012, Rita Athas ’76 gave students advice on navigating the maze of life.

Gratitude I said I would talk about three things you need to navigate your life, but today I have the power of the podium, and there is one last thing I would like to add: Take the time to be grateful, or you will miss the very essence of life’s meaning.

Be grateful for the big things: a country where you can choose your education, chart your own path and state your opinions loud and clear; a place where a hesitant woman in her mid-20s, the first in her family to graduate from college, can end up giving the commencement speech at the school that instilled the confidence and knowledge to launch a career she never dreamed of. Be grateful for your family and friends who have nurtured, challenged and loved you.

But don’t forget to be grateful for the small things, too: the beauty of a picture, a perfect spring day, a song that makes you smile or cry, the sparkle in the eyes of your grandchildren. Taking the time to stop and be grateful will enrich your life like nothing else.

In conclusion, don’t ever stop learning—knowledge gives you power, but more important, it gives you understanding.

When you look in the mirror, smile at your true reflection.

Have the courage to fully embrace all the endless possibilities that life oΩers. And don’t forget to stop, look around, take it all in and say thank you.

alumni news 35

the sports pages

It’s

All

About

Effort Scottie Williams was a quiet, under- sized running back when he arrived on Elmhurst’s campus in 2009 for his first summer of football workouts with the Bluejays—the kind of player it might be easy to overlook.

But whenever the team lined up to run sprints, Williams became hard to ignore.

36 elmhurst college

alumni news 37

the sports pages

I

t wasn’t just that Williams won most of the races. It was the way he ran.

“We would tell everyone to run hard through the finish line, to go two yards past it,” remembers Kyle Derickson, a Bluejay assistant coach. “Scottie would go five yards beyond the finish. He was all about eΩort.”

Doing more than is asked of him has been Williams’s style ever since he came to Elmhurst. It has produced impressive results, on and oΩ the football field.

Williams entered his senior year already holding the College record for single-season rushing yards (1,374 yards in 2011), a total that ranked him 11th in the nation among ncaa Division iii ball carriers. He was an all-conference honoree in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in each of his first three seasons at Elmhurst. He needs just 405 more rushing yards to become Elmhurst’s all-time career rushing leader.

Williams has excelled in the classroom, too. A marketing major, he was named a Capital One First Team Academic All-American in 2011.

More impressive still, Williams has achieved all this while maintaining a busy schedule of community service projects in Elmhurst and beyond. During his time at the College, Williams has helped build homes for the needy, worked with children at a summer Bible school, raised funds for programs that support people with disabilities and even sorted through trash on campus as part of an audit of the College’s recycling eΩorts. His eΩorts have earned him a nomination to the Allstate Good Works Team, an honor that recognizes outstanding community service and volunteerism among college football players.

38 elmhurst college

Williams maintains a busy schedule of community service projects in Elmhurst and beyond.

Williams says his commitment to service and hard work was instilled in him by his parents. The son of a pastor and a teacher, Williams was raised to go out of his way to help people.

“Ever since I was little, my parents have been teaching me that if you see someone who needs help, you hop up and take it upon yourself,” Williams says. “They taught me that it doesn’t hurt to do the small things that make a diΩerence.”

Williams was raised in Alabama and Mississippi, before his family moved north in 2001, when his father became pastor of Chicago’s Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church.

He grew up contending with the unique pressures of being a pastor’s son.

“In some of the communities I grew up in, the church is all you have,” he said. “People watch the pastor and his family closely. It’s like living in a microscope.”

Williams welcomed the scrutiny. And as he matured into a standout prep football player at Downers Grove South

Elmhurst Athletics:

The Season Ahead

Tournament Play for Softball Team In 2012 Elmhurst’s softball team made its first CCIW Tournament appearance in 15 seasons and set a College record with 25 victories. This year, the team has a new head coach, Mike Paulo, a former assistant coach for the Bluejays who helped Elmhurst win more than 20 games in two of the past three seasons.

High School in Woodridge, he increasingly became a center of attention. His football skills attracted the interest of some Division I colleges, but his diminutive size (5’6”, 170 pounds) made him a better fit for a Division iii program. He settled on Elmhurst partly because he wanted his family to be able to attend his games without traveling. But he was also sold on the recruiting pitch of then-new coach Tim Lester.

“I wanted to be a part of starting a new winning tradition at Elmhurst,” Williams said. “That’s what drives me. If we don’t get a championship this year, it will be a major disappointment.”

Williams has been doing more than talking about championships. Derickson calls Williams a tireless worker and a team leader.

“He’s been in here more than anyone this summer, looking at game film,” Derickson said. “His peers see how he works.

He doesn’t say a lot, but when he talks, it’s like they’re standing at attention.”

Williams’s work ethic extends beyond the football field.

One of the highlights of his time at Elmhurst was the spring break trip he made this year to Starkville, Mississippi, where he built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The trip was a kind of homecoming for Williams—he lived in Starkville as a boy.

“This was my chance to give something back to the community in Starkville,” he said. While in Mississippi, he helped build two homes. “We helped make someone’s life better. It’s great to be able to say that.”

After graduation, Williams hopes to launch a career in marketing. But before then, he has some unfinished business to complete—helping bring a football championship to Elmhurst College.

Three Coaches Win Awards Elmhurst baseball coach Joel Southern was named the CCIW’s 2012 Coach of the Year after guiding the Bluejays to their first CCIW Tournament appearance since 2007. In addition, women’s soccer coach Paul Webster and wrestling coach Steve Marianetti also won CCIW Coach of the Year awards, while Elmhurst volleyball coach Julie Hall was named the Division III Midwest Region Coach of the Year by the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA).

High Expectations for Volleyball Squad Coming off a 31-6 record and a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2011, expectations are high for the Elmhurst volleyball team in 2012. In a preseason poll of the league’s coaches, the Bluejays were expected to win their first CCIW title since 2005. Elmhurst is also ranked 11th in the nation in the AVCA Division III Preseason poll.

Football Builds on Success The Bluejays are aiming to build on last year’s successful season, in which they averaged more than 450 yards and 34 points per game. The Bluejays return eight starters on both offense and defense and were tabbed for fourth in the CCIW Preseason Coaches’ poll.

alumni news 39

alumni catching up

Class Notes Let us hear from you! Send us a note to alumni@elmhurst.edu, or call us at (630) 617-3600. Better yet, stop by the O≈ce of Alumni Relations on the first floor of Lehmann Hall.

1940s Don Buckthal ’45 celebrated his 65th wedding anniversary with his wife, Ruth, on September 7, 2012. They have three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Rev. Kenneth B. Wentzel ’45, an ordained minister in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, has served parishes in Indiana, Maryland, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He was instrumental in starting two hospice movements in New England, the Hospice Care of Rhode Island and Hospice Care, Inc., of Arlington, Massachusetts. In 1980 he authored a book, To Those Who Need it Most, Hospice Means Hope. In 1990 Eden Seminary, where he earned his graduate degree, awarded him the Reinhold Niebuhr Servanthood Award in honor of his outstanding service to humanity.

Armin Klemme ’46 and his wife, Norma, were recently recognized as members of the year by the Franklin County Service Providers, a network of professionals representing agencies, organizations, schools and concerned citizens to help address the needs of the underserved in Franklin County, Missouri. Charter members of the Franklin County Service Providers, the Klemmes have served on many committees of the Missouri Mid-South Conference of the United Church of Christ and were delegates to the national General Synod meeting 40 elmhurst college

of the UCC. An ordained minister, Armin has served four UCC churches in Missouri. He was the first chairman of the Senior Housing Corporation in Franklin County and worked with the JeΩerson City Parole O≈ce to help women succeed when re-entering public life after prison. Active volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, the Klemmes helped launch the organization’s Franklin County a≈liate. The couple celebrated 57 years of married life in June and have four grown children.

George Fanslow ’49 and Barbara (Swanson) Fanslow ’49 wrote to say they’re getting older but are still very happy!

Floyd Gibson ’49 is the author of Beyond the Orthodox Box, a book of poetic essays published in 2008.

Dr. August ‘Gus’ Molnar ’49 was honored by the American Hungarian Foundation with the 49th Annual George Washington Award. The award honors individuals who have made eminent contributions in human knowledge, the arts, commerce, industry, the sciences and understanding among men and nations. Co-chairman of the foundation’s board of directors, Gus served as its founding president from 1955 to 2010. Under Gus’s leadership, the foundation initiated and funded student and scholar exchanges, publications, academic programs, fellowships

and research at American universities and colleges.

1950s Warren Erickson ’50 still keeps in touch with former classmates Phil Desenis ’50, John Serrith ’50, Sue McGovney ’50 and G0erry Deufel ’50.

Roy Joellenbeck ’50 is a long-retired minister but still preaches occasionally.

He enjoys participating in audio and video courses available through The Great Courses. A widower, he enjoys living near his two daughters and their families.

Lee Brooke ’56 and his partner, Marcy Kubat, are the authors of a recently published collection of interviews with Oak Park police o≈cers. The collection is their 25th book on Oak Park and River Forest.

Justin Kneeland ’58 recently retired from the Education for Employment Explorer Divisions at Boy Scouts of America, Southeast Wisconsin Council.

Andrew R. McKillop ’59 is in his 14th year as administrator of Okeechobee Health Care Facility in Florida. In August 2011 the Florida Health Care Association honored him with the Arthur H. Harris Government Services Award in recognition of his hard work with long-term care residents. Andrew has worked in health care for more than 50 years.

For more information on alumni giving, go to our giving site at www.elmhurst.edu/giving

Why I Give

Mike Wagner ’87 Mokena, Illinois

I

chose Elmhurst mainly for the football program, and I had some great experiences during my four years on the field under Coach Beck and Coach HoΩman.

The College gave me much more than just the opportunity to play sports, though. Not only did Elmhurst help me get my first full-time job, I gained the skills and knowledge I needed to be successful throughout my life.

Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to have those opportunities. Now that I’ve reached a stage in my life where I can give back, I’m happy that I can express my appreciation for what I was given. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that I’m helping today’s students benefit from a life-changing college experience.

Michael Wagner is director of Taft-Hartley sales and services for LSV Asset Management in Chicago. He and his wife, Lisa, have three children. Actively involved as a volunteer with the College’s football program, Mike supports the College through annual gifts designated to athletics.

alumni news 41

alumni catching up

Darrell Raber ’59 has worked as a pharmacist at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis since 1965, the same year he graduated from the University of Tennessee’s College of Pharmacy.

1960s Ronald Maxon ’62 retired from Ameren Energy Generating in 2001. Currently a school bus driver in Jasper County, Illinois, he enjoys traveling and visiting with his 12 grandchildren. His son and daughter both served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005.

Lou Kulchytsky ’63 retired from Sherwin-Williams Tech Center in 2009.

Previously, he worked for Navistar (formerly International Harvester).

Alyce Litz ’68 was a recent contender for the West Suburban Philanthropic Network’s Humanitarian of the Year award. Former president and current member of the board of LOVE Christian Clearinghouse, a nonprofit organization that serves the needy in DuPage County, Alyce is also the founder of a refugee program that serves approximately 25 families from Myanmar and Africa. Alyce and her husband, John, live in Wheaton and have one daughter.

Teresa (Terry) Schreiber ’69 recently published Pink-on-Pink: Writing My Way Through Breast Cancer, a collection of poetry and prose that chronicles Terry’s life-changing journey from Stage 3 Triple Negative breast cancer diagnosis through treatment to post-treatment eΩorts to redefine her identity. In addition to describing Terry’s life with breast cancer, the book outlines the many unexpected ways a disease can empower a person to live fully and bravely. Terry, who brings her message of hope and inspiration to breast cancer support groups in New York and Florida, lives in Spencerport, New York, with her husband, Don.

42 elmhurst college

1970s Patricia Reiser Gherardini ’71 recently celebrated her 25th year as executive director of Wayne/Winfield Area Youth Family Services in West Chicago.

Harry Augensen ’73, a professor of physics and astronomy at Widener University, has been a professional astronomer for 35 years. In June, he witnessed the transit of Venus in front of the sun, a spectacular event that will not occur again until 2117.

Doug Mayfield ’73, a retired English teacher from northern Minnesota, recently co-authored Angle of Declination with his wife, Sally. It was released as both paperback and e-book in February.

Kirkus Reviews describes the novel as “Beautifully written, expertly constructed… thoughtful, evocative and rewarding.”

Loren Jay Tiede ’73 retired from Center Cass School District 66 in Downers Grove after 39 years. During that time he served as a music teacher, director, principal and, for the past 12 years, superintendent.

Carol A. Barth ’74 served two years as interim association minister at the Eastern Ohio Association of the United Church of Christ. She now serves as interim minister of First Congregational UCC in Lake Mills, Wisconsin.

O. Ruth Najacht ’75 is an active volunteer at the Morton Arboretum as well as a member of the Sierra Club and the DuPage Birding Club.

Joanne Eckler ’77 retired from Elmhurst Memorial Hospital in 1994. She has 16 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

John R. Quigley ’77, president and CEO of the Elmhurst Chamber of Commerce, received the annual Distinguished Service Award from the Elmhurst Jaycees on May 23.

Sara Guralnick ’78 and ’81 owns and operates a handmade jewelry business and writes children’s books. Her first book, Annie’s Mystery Gift, teaches children the importance of heirlooms through a story inspired by her childhood and that of her niece. Sara credits her Elmhurst education in early childhood education and child psychology with helping her develop the tools she uses as a writer.

Glenn Lid ’79 was one of five teachers nationwide to be inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame in 2012.

A chemistry teacher at Proviso East High School in Maywood since 1979, he coaches boys’ varsity basketball and is the assistant coach for wrestling and golf.

1980s John Muszynski ’80 has been named to the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. Formerly CEO for Starcom Media Vest Group, John currently serves as the chief investment o≈cer at SMG Exchange.

Kenneth F. Yarosh ’82 is the global service line manager for the specialty chemicals business of Dow Corning Corporation in Midland, Michigan, where he has worked since 1985. He is also the chairman of the board of directors of ASTM International, a global leader in the development and delivery of international consensus standards.

In 2001 Kenneth was honored with the C24 Sealants Hall of Fame Award.

Charles G. Orcutt ’84 is the owner of Orcutt & Co. CPAs, Ltd., in Milford, Ohio. He is the co-author of Six Steps to Small Business Success (2011), a book of financial advice on how to start, operate and exit a small business. The book won the Professional Association of Small Business Accountants’ Book of the Year award.

Pam Walker Ryan ’84, who has four children and a 3-year-old granddaughter, is a special education teacher in Community School District 200 in Illinois.

Danny Goeres ’85 retired from United Airlines in January after 35 years of service. He is looking forward to fishing, hunting and traveling.

Jim Knapik ’86 has been appointed CEO of Vantrix, a global leader in mobile video mediation, video optimization and delivery solutions. He has more than 20 years of industry experience, including serving as president and CEO of OZ Communications, a leading solution provider in mobile messaging.

Matthew P. Lindquist ’86 is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner with Mid-America Psychiatric Consultants in Granite City. Past president of the Missouri Chapter of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, he serves on the speakers bureau for Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Division for Psychotropic Medications.

Christina Collins ’92 has earned the professional designation of CPWA (Certified Private Wealth Advisor), a highly advanced credential created specifically for wealth managers and advisors who work with high-net-worth clients. Nationwide, only about 500 advisors currently hold this prestigious designation. Christina works as a wealth management advisor at Northwestern Mutual Financial in Chicago.

John Seifried ’99 has been appointed assistant vice president at Community Bank of Elmhurst, where he has worked for 13 years.

Vince Doran ’92 is the head coach of York High School’s boys basketball program in Elmhurst. Before joining York, Vince coached at Hinsdale South High School for 10 years.

Melissa J. Grom ’00, a clinical psychologist with a master’s degree from Roosevelt University, recently published her first book, Love Gone Wrong.

Donna Sognefest ’92 recently earned an MBA at Kaplan University.

Stephanie (Mansfield) Konen ’95 is married with two sons and two daughters.

A stay-at-home mom, she is drawing on her Elmhurst degree in education to run a small home day care. Her husband also runs his own business, Konen Custom Carpentry.

Laura Weber ’86 is a reading specialist for School District 88A in Crest Hills.

This is her eighth year of teaching.

David Gaul ’97 has been appointed executive vice president at Community Bank of Elmhurst after 15 years of service.

Lynda Nadkarni ’87 has been named the 2012 West Suburban Chamber of Commerce Community Volunteer of the Year. A teacher in La Grange Park, Lynda serves as vice president of the board of directors for The LeaderShop, formally CEP Youth Leadership, and was the first female president of the Elmhurst College Alumni Board. She is a longtime member of the La Grange Kiwanis Club and participates in monthly service projects at Riverside Presbyterian Church.

Jim Crowther ’99 is an accomplished guitarist and songwriter who performs pop and jazz music with fellow York High School graduates as the Jim Crowther Band. He got married in 2003.

1990s Jay Cunningham ’90 celebrated his 20-year milestone with General Electric in April 2011. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and three children.

Kelley Krowczyk ’99 is a tax partner with the accounting and consulting services team of Porte Brown LLC, a Chicago CPA firm that oΩers accounting, audit, tax, technology and wealth management services. Kelley holds a master of science degree in taxation from Northern Illinois University. A Certified Public Accountant, she has more than 13 years of experience in tax consulting and accounting services.

2000s Emily Kline Cavalcanti ’00 was promoted to executive director of communications for the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California.

Rene Hernandez Jr. ’00 is a senior sales representative for a Lake Forest electrical supply company. Rene campaigned to become the first-ever Latino American member of the Lake County Board for District 16 in Round Lake, but lost in the primary election.

Julie Miller ’00 was recently elected to the board of directors of the Elmhurst Chamber of Commerce.

Terisa Thurman ’00, director of news and special events at Tri Valley Community TV in California, interviewed Vincent D’Onofrio at the San Francisco Tribeca Film Festival in April.

Josie Juncal, M.S. ’01, was named vice president of new commercial operations for SkinMedica, the fastest-growing professional skin care company in the United States. With more than 10 years of sales experience, Josie holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine, and a master’s degree in industrial/ organizational psychology from Elmhurst College.

Ragasri Kumar ’02 passed her board exams to become a neurologist. She is currently doing a fellowship at Loyola Hospital in Maywood.

alumni news 43

Anthony Molaro ’03 is the new associate dean of library and instructional technology at Prairie State College.

He was previously the CEO of Highwood Public Library.

Kelly Stone ’03 has left Lakeland College in Wisconsin, where she was chaplain, to begin her new job as Protestant chaplain and director of multifaith programs at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Tamara (Frank) Condon ’04 plans to complete her master’s degree in curriculum and educational technology at Ball State University in the spring of 2013.

Jeana Pavoni ’04 is the new o≈ce manager at BMO Harris Bank in Elmhurst.

Becky (Sherrick) Harks ’05 founded Band Back Together, a nonprofit website and group blog that provides resources and forums for people suΩering from mental illness, baby loss, job loss, rape and other traumas. Becky credits her education at the College’s Deicke Center for Nursing with teaching her the importance of community and giving back.

Roberta Mroz ’05 works at Holy Trinity School in Westmont as music director, band director and grade school music teacher. A founding teacher in the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory program in the Chicago suburbs, she is working on a master’s degree at VanderCook College.

Erin K. Joyce ’06 is the citation editor for the 2012–2013 editorial board of the New Mexico Law Review (nmlr). The nmlr is a student-edited legal journal published twice a year at the University of New Mexico School of Law. James Kryshak ’06 performed a supporting role in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Lyric Opera of Chicago in January.

He is a member of the Ryan Opera Center, the professional artist-development program for Lyric Opera of Chicago.

44 elmhurst college

Eliza Stoddard Leatherberry ’06 was ordained on November 5, 2011, at First Congregational ucc in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

Stephanie Cassa ’07 is a support and resource teacher at Waubonsie Valley High School. An educator for five years, Stephanie specializes in working with students who are considered at risk. She holds a master’s degree in educational leadership and administration from the University of St. Francis. Among her many awards are the Community Builders Award from Naperville Masonic Euclid Lodge (2011), Most Inspirational Teacher from Western Illinois University (2011), and the Educational Leadership Award from Illinois Directors of Student Activities (2008).

Tim Kou ’08 is a design and visual production specialist at Imagineering Studios, Inc., in Arlington Heights, a family-owned company that oΩers photography services, audio and visual products, sound recordings, graphic design, web design and other services.

Laura Mignerone ’08 graduated from Eden Theological Seminary in May 2011 with a master of divinity degree.

Ordained at Ivy Chapel ucc in Chesterfield, Missouri, on January 29, 2012, Laura serves as a pastor at Zion United Church of Christ in Troy, Michigan.

2010s David Cuomo ’10 is studying law at Loyola University and training to be an LSAT instructor at Kaplan University.

Ljubica Mijatovic ’11 has recuperated from recent surgery on her shoulder and returned to work in guest services at Target in Lombard. Eventually, Ljubica hopes to work in health care.

Rachael Starkovich ’11 is an active volunteer, serving on three committees at Family Shelter Services, a Wheaton-based resource for domestic violence victims.

Justin P. Bequette ’12 was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army on May 26, 2012. An o≈cer in the Nurse Corps, Justin and his wife, Tabitha (nee Kane), have two sons.

Births Robert M. Schmidt ’57 welcomed his first great-grandson on December 15, 2011.

Barbara WulΩ ’64 welcomed a new grandson, Garrett August WulΩ, on November 29, 2011. She also welcomed Mudeleine Leona WulΩ, a granddaughter, on July 16, 2009.

Jennifer (Crawley) O’Keefe ’94 and her husband, Jim, welcomed Jacob Michael O’Keefe on August 26, 2010.

He joins big brother Justin and sister Kaitlyn Lorayne.

Zachary Jordan ’03 and his wife, Tara Cappelletti-Jordan ’06, welcomed London Jordan on May 5, 2011.

Sarah (Kiefer) Clarin ’04 and Ryan Clarin ’05 welcomed their second child, Myles Kiefer Clarin, on February 24, 2012.

Michael Himmes ’04 and his wife, Cassandra, welcomed the birth of their twins, Aaron Everett Himmes and Tyler Evan Himmes, on November 27, 2011.

Rebecca (Thompson) Mackay ’06, ’09 MBA welcomed a boy, Conner Samuel Mackay, on June 20, 2011. He joins big brother Jake, born May 23, 2009.

Ashley Smith Pawlowski ’07 and her husband, Eric, welcomed a son, Camden Richard Pawlowski, on May 12, 2012.

Timothy Kou ’08 and his wife, Lydia, welcomed a boy, Tristian Kou, this year.

Cami (Kreft) Rodriguez ’08 and her husband, Phillip, welcomed a baby girl, Noelle Mae Rodriguez, on January 6, 2012.

For more information on alumni giving, go to our giving site at www.elmhurst.edu/giving

Why I Volunteer

Photo credit: Steve Becker, beckermedia.com

Barbara J. Lucks ’73 Bexley, Ohio

E

lmhurst College gave me a great deal. As it has done for so many students, the College helped me focus my values, discern what I wanted out of life, and build lifelong friendships. It also prepared me well for law school and a rewarding career.

I have always felt that I owed the College something, so when I was invited to join the Board of Trustees, I knew it was time to pay back. Everything I loved about the College as a student is just as meaningful to me as a trustee. I love the relationships, I love the value systems, and I love what we are trying to do in an ever-changing world.

I’m honored to have been chosen to lead the trustees, and I’m looking forward to working with the faculty and administration to expand our opportunities even further. This College has a long history of extraordinary leaders—and that’s a humbling legacy for me, both as an alumna and as chair of the Board.

alumni news 45

alumni catching up

Justin Teliga ’04 married Heather Finn ’05 on July 9, 2011.

Cortez Watson ’06 married Ellayne Famatid on August 13, 2011, at Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel. A youth leadership coordinator at CEP Youth Leadership in LaGrange, Cortez also works as a community field organizer in Chicago.

Donald Skenandore ’10 earned a master’s degree in biomedical science at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in May 2012, and began his studies at Rosalind Franklin’s Chicago Medical School in the fall. A member of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, Donald participated in the “Native Americans into Medicine” program in 2009 while completing his undergraduate work at Elmhurst College in exercise science and Spanish. Last year he was one of many who volunteered for disaster relief in Joplin, Missouri, after tornados ravaged the area in May 2011. He has also served as a caregiver at Home Instead Senior Care and volunteered at Elmhurst Memorial Health Care for three years.

Marriages Jamie Maslowski ’01 married JeΩ Laski on May 28, 2011. They met at a local tennis club tournament at Oak Brook Racquet Club.

Julie Nearing ’01, ’06 married Danny Gonzales on July 7, 2012.

Al Connelly ’02, MS ’08 married Heather Sawyer ’04 on August 21, 2010.

The wedding party included Ben Blaiszik ’03 (best man), Chris Foley ’03 (groomsman), Terresa Byrd ’07 (maid of honor) and Shaundra Draper ’04 (bridesmaid).

46 elmhurst college

Carolyn Klocek ’07 and Derek Zielinski ’08 were married on July 2, 2011. The wedding party included Rachel Karijolich ’07 and Nicole Keiter ’08.

DEATHS Betty (Roefer) Haude ’36, of New York, on December 31, 2011.

Edward C. Meiller ’37, of Elmhurst, on February 1, 2012.

Persis (Warren) Roos ’37, of Carol Stream, on May 12, 2012.

Hilda E. (Breuhaus) Wendland ’37, of Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, on December 28, 2011.

Louise E. (Zander) Westrom ’37, of Bradenton, Florida, on February 1, 2012.

Ashley Smith ’07 married Eric Pawlowski in 2011.

Dr. Eugene L. Bauer ’38, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 25, 2011.

Julious Okine ’08 married Nefeteri Williams on August 6, 2011.

Russell L. Malchow ’39, of Franklin, Tennessee, on May 9, 2012.

Brett Palmer ’08 and Carolyn Jakes ’10 were married on June 4, 2011.

William F. Wawak ’40, of Algonquin, on December 21, 2011.

Kevin Samp ’08 and Sarah Phelan ’10 were married on June 18, 2011.

Ilona (Magada) Poutre ’42, of Canoga Park, California, on March 14, 2012.

Dyana Washington ’08 married Jonathan Van Wyngaarden on August 12, 2011.

Margaret A. (Hatch) King ’43, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 6, 2012.

Daina Zemaitis ’08 married JeΩery Hunt on March 23, 2012.

Aggie Plawsiuk ’09 married Matthew Hanni on July 30, 2011.

Marguerite R. “Peggy” Mahneke ’42, of Santa Barbara, California, on November 11, 2011.

Mary K. Ormsbee ’44, of River Forest, on March 7, 2012.

Stacy Balmes ’10 married Chris Hutchcraft ’10 on June 11, 2011.

Dorothy Sarshad ’44, of New York, on March 28, 2012.

Katie Lynn Sulita ’10 married Joshua Benes on January 1, 2011.

Eleanor (Lithgow) Dillon ’45, of Saint Charles, on May 16, 2012.

Angela Radovanovic ’10 married Brian Beusse on June 11, 2011.

Raymond M. King ’45, of Saint Louis, Missouri, on November 21, 2011.

Kyle Robert DeMus ’11 and Autumn Amber Olsen were married on June 2, 2012.

Kenneth Wentzel ’45 of Brunswick, Maine, on February 21, 2012.

Marion Engelsdorfer Hanebutt ’48, of Danville, on March 2, 2012.

Lenore (Franzen) Fairchild ’67, of Naples, Florida, on January 1, 2012.

Arline Joy Vlastnik ’83, of Heber Springs, Arkansas, on June 14, 2012.

Dr. Frank R. Kerkoch ’50, of Bend, Oregon, on April 13, 2012.

Theodore R. Kuyper ’67, of Elmhurst, on March 1, 2012.

Joan (Murray) Olafs ’84, of Wheaton, on February 2, 2012.

Dr. Emil W. Menzel ’50, of Birmingham, Alabama, on April 7, 2012.

Donald Russell Rose ’69, of Largo, Florida, on January 25, 2012.

Paul A. Frazer ’89, of Glenview, on December 26, 2011.

Rev. Dr. Louis R. Taylor ’51, of Edmonds, Washington, on February 11, 2012.

Carol E. (Martin) Swartwood ’70, of Rushville, New York, on April 4, 2012.

Raymond F. Munday ’89, of Carol Stream, on December 9, 2011.

Robert A. Rayner ’71, of Oak Park, on January 30, 2012.

Katherine M. Dieke ’90, of Punta Gorda, Florida, on December 16, 2011.

Richard M. Ferguson ’72, of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, on January 23, 2012.

JeΩrey Richard Kafer ’96, of Normal, on April 19, 2012.

James T. Tarabiilda ’72, of Portland, Oregon, on February 18, 2012.

Sharon L. (Marrano) Scaglione ’97, of Darien, on December 13, 2011.

Sandra K. Helms ’73 of Bloomingdale, on January 16, 2012.

Stacy R. Sorrill ’03, of Glen Ellyn, on May 7, 2012.

Stephen S. Rice ’74, of Sebastian, Florida, on June 8, 2012.

Meghan L. Henry ’11, of Itasca, on May 6, 2011.

Ross Edward Barney ’78, of Barrington, on February 5, 2012.

Colin Pascoe ’13, of Joliet, on November 24, 2010.

Arlene M. Knop ’78, of Forest Park, on February 1, 2012.

Clint D. Sizmann ’14, of Galena, on July 9, 2012.

Carol E. Kuzera ’80, of Dayton, Ohio, on December 26, 2011.

Kathryn Langstraat, secretary in the College’s O≈ce of Advising, on February 15, 2012. She is survived by her children, Kristy Langstraat-Bolte ’05 and Randy Langstraat ’05.

Daniel J. Hromada ’52, of Reseda, California, on March 4, 2011.

Martha “Marty” Ostenkamp Johnson ’52, of Indianapolis, Indiana, on February 8, 2012.

Barbara Hann Murphy ’52, of Wheaton, on June 11, 2012.

John E. Vargo ’52, of Toledo, Ohio, on March 27, 2012.

Warner H. Siebert ’53, of Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, on May 24, 2012.

Marilyn A. (Fruechte) Graber ’54, of Elmhurst, on February 20, 2012.

Lois A. (Billings) Lamborn ’54, of Elmhurst, on April 1, 2012.

Alfred L. Southon ’54, of Antioch, Tennessee, on December 8, 2011.

Joni Lance Glassford ’55, of Downers Grove, on May 25, 2012.

Eric A. Gass ’56, of Columbus, North Carolina, on December 13, 2011.

Rev. James J. Reagan ’56, of Northbrook, on April 22, 2012.

Arthur J. Reynolds ’59, of South Berwick, Maine, on January 8, 2012.

Leo M. Stephanides ’59, of Wheaton, on May 30, 2012.

Kent T. Richardson ’80, of Lombard, on November 26, 2011.

Nancy Wijas ’80, of Chicago, on January 19, 2012.

James J. Halla ’81, of Rolling Meadows, on December 17, 2011.

Edna F. Noddings ’82, of Ballwin, Missouri, on November 21, 2011.

Jeannette Irene Estrada ’83, of Ferris, Texas, on March 25, 2012.

alumni news 47

faculty o≈ce hours

Is Chicago still a machine city?

Machine politics has continued, but it’s a diΩerent kind of machine. The first Mayor Daley was dependent upon an army of precinct workers with city jobs to get the vote out. Things have changed. We’ve had legal reforms like the Shakman Decrees, which made political hiring and firing illegal. Now we’re seeing a diΩerent kind of machine that is more dependent on the global economy and downtown business for campaign contributions. Rahm Emanuel spent $12 million to win the mayor’s o≈ce, and about half of that total came from out of state.

“A More Just Chicago”

C

onnie Mixon is a self-described “city kid” who grew up in Chicago, listening to her family talk local politics. Today, her passion for all things urban animates her work as director of Elmhurst’s Urban Studies program. She is also the co-editor of Twenty-First Century Chicago, a recently published collection of essays and readings that examines the challenges facing the city. She told FYI why she is optimistic about Chicago’s future.

As a native Chicagoan, did your personal experiences with the city shape your professional interest in politics and urban studies?

I think my experiences growing up did spark my interest in politics and especially urban politics. My grandfather and uncle were both Chicago precinct captains, under Mayor Richard J. Daley. To keep their city jobs, both had to turn out the vote for the Daley machine. My mother, however, was fiercely independent and often worked to elect candidates who opposed the machine. So Chicago politics were frequently and passionately debated at family gatherings. As a political scientist, I have found myself drawn to the politics not only of Chicago, but of cities in general. What I learned at the family dinner table has become more and more indisputable to me: All politics is local.

48 elmhurst college

One of the things your new book makes clear is that the field of urban studies is concerned not only with cities, but with suburbs as well.

When we talk about urban, we often think of big cities like New York and Chicago. But the field of urban studies really looks at entire metropolitan regions. For example, Chicago is dependent on Schaumburg, just as Schaumburg is dependent on Elmhurst. They’re part of a larger economic whole.

How are suburbs changing?

Our old perceptions of suburbs no longer apply. Poverty is increasing more rapidly in the nation’s suburbs than in core cities. Here in the Chicago area, poverty is increasing by 11 percent in Cook County, but by 56 percent in DuPage County.

That’s a shock to most people, because poverty in the suburbs is largely invisible. We know what city poverty looks like, but poverty in the suburbs is more dispersed. Our safety net was developed for cities. Services like soup kitchens either don’t exist in the suburbs or if they do, you can’t get to them without a car.

Are you optimistic about Chicago’s future?

Yes, I am optimistic about our future and our citizens. During the past several decades Chicago has been transformed into a global city. Foreign Policy magazine recently ranked Chicago the sixth most important global city in the world. People come from all over the world for entertainment, education, shopping and vacations. The downside of globalization is a shrinking middle class and a widening wealth gap. The forces of globalization have produced fewer jobs that pay middleclass wages and more that pay higher- and lower-class wages.

This is often referred to as an hourglass economy. We need a sustained commitment from our citizens and our leaders to create a more just Chicago, one that is both livable and humane.

by Andrew Santella

Non-profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Chicago, Illinois Permit Number 5525

O≈ce of Alumni Relations 190 Prospect Avenue Elmhurst, Illinois 60126-3296

Don't Miss It!

Homecoming & Family Weekend October 11–14

For more information visit us at www.elmhurst.edu/alumni.

You also can follow us on facebook.com/elmcol or twitter.com/ elmhurstcollege.

2012