OWL&SPADE
T H E A LU M N I M A G A Z I N E O F WA R R E N W I L S O N CO L L E G E WINTER 2009
Winner of Best Nature/Scenery in 2009 International Programs photography contest
ONE MAN’S QUEST TO SAVE THE HEMLOCKS WE NEED TO INSULATE! ADVANCING ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY
WARREN WILSON COLLEGE Editor John Bowers
OWL&SPADE WINTER 2009
Alumni Office P.O. Box 9000 Asheville NC 28815-9000 828.771.2046
alumni@warren-wilson.edu
Designer Martha Smith
Contributing Writer Ben Anderson
Alumni Director Jonathan Hettrick ‘88
Contributors Bates Canon Melissa Ray Davis ‘02 Laura Dison’10 Arlin Geyer Jack Igelman Laura Lengnick Chris Lininger ’10 Kent Priestly ’95 Lindsay Roberts ‘09 Diana Sanderson SG Seguret ‘84 Sallie-Grace Tate Kevin Walden Matthew Williams ‘09
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
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TRIAD NEWS
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FARM PROSPERITY: FACULTY DEVELOP TOOL TO SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE DECISION-MAKING • BOYD, COLLEAGUES RECEIVE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION RESEARCH GRANT • 2009 G.D. DAVIDSON ROUND TABLE FELLOW ANNOUNCED • DAVE DAVIS ’83 RETURNS TO COACH ALUMNI GAME • BRINGING BRYSON BACK
Copyeditor
TO LIFE • 2008 SERVICE DAY FOCUSES ON BLACK MOUNTAIN • NOVEL BY MFA ALUMNUS MAKES OPRAH’S
Jennie Vaughn
ALUMNI BOARD 2008-09 President
BOOK CLUB • MOUNTAIN BIKE TEAM EARNS BRONZE AT NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP • GREAT NAMES IN MUSIC
Faris A. Ashkar ’72
CULINARY ARTS • WARREN WILSON #4 ON SIERRA CLUB’S “10 COOLEST SCHOOLS” LIST • ADVANCEMENT: THE
CONVERGE AT 2008 SWANNANOA GATHERING • 2008 ALUMNI AWARDS • THE SWANNANOA SCHOOL OF
President Elect
“OTHER TRIAD” • ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM COMES OF AGE • ADVANCING ENVIRONMENTAL
Susannah Chewning ’87
LITERACY: FACULTY CREATE PILOT COURSES FOR HIGHER ED
Past President Sue Hartwyk ’66
Secretary Melissa Thomas Davis ’71
Class of 2009 Harry Atkins ’56 Britta Dedrick ’93 Mary Elfner ’85 Susan Harriot ’95 A. Eugene Hileman ’56 Peter Kenny ’82 James Oiler ’66
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FACULTY & STAFF NEWS
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WILL BLOZAN’S LIFE IN THE TREES
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WE NEED TO INSULATE!
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OSAKA, JAPAN—HOME AWAY FROM HOME
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ALUMNI NOTES
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GRADUATE SURVEY
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LOOKING BACK: THE WHITE BARN
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PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Class of 2010 Vijaykumar Barnabas ’82 Peggy Burke ’56 Suzanne Daley ’77 Matthew Goeben ’00 Jim “JD” Hilliard ’66 Adeeb Sayyar ’73 John Snider ’91
Class of 2011 James Bailes ’78 Charlotte Black ’70 Ben Kimmel ’91 Dancia Langley ’95 Bob Morano ’88 David Sullivan ’73 Megan Swett ’00
Graduating Class Rep. Ryan Morra ’08 www.warren-wilson.edu/~owlandspade
On the Cover: While studying abroad and traveling last semester, Emily Brigham ‘09 captured this image of a soaring gannet off the coast of northeastern Scotland. The photo won first place in the Best Nature/Scenery category in the College’s 2009 International Programs photography contest. Owl & Spade (ISSN: 202-707-4111) is published twice a year (winter, summer) by the staff of Warren Wilson College. Address changes and distribution issues should be sent to alumni@warren-wilson.edu or Jon Hettrick, CPO 6376, Warren Wilson College, PO Box 9000, Asheville, NC 28815. Printed on Environment by Neenah Paper (made with 100% post-consumer waste and processed totally chlorine free). Printed with vegetable oil-base inks. Compared to virgin paper, using this paper saved 81 trees, 29,261 gallons of water, 56 min BTUs of energy (224 days of power for an average American household), 7, 049 lbs. of emissions, 3,758 of solid waste recycled instead of landfilled! These figures calculated using Environment Savings Calculator at www.neenahpapers. com/environmentalsavings.
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
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ere in the Swannanoa Valley, the trees have once again shed their leaves, and most evenings the smell of wood smoke lingers in the air. As I write to you, the fall semester has drawn to an end and students are leaving campus for a few weeks of well-deserved winter break. By the time you read this, students in our award-winning MFA program for writers will be attending lectures, readings and spending time with their professors poring over lines of poetry and pages of prose. A select group of advanced undergraduate writing students will return to campus early to participate in the MFA program as well. These students engage in graduate-level discourse that offers them a sense of the graduate school experience. It is but one of many unique educational experiences open to students at this exceptional college. As you’ve likely noticed, the winter issue of Owl & Spade again includes the President’s Report, where we recognize the individuals and organizations that are making a positive impact on the lives of our students and the life of the College as a whole. If it weren’t for the people listed in those pages, many of our great opportunities in academics, work and service simply would not be available here at the College. Whether through the Warren Wilson College Fund, a bequest, or some other means, all gifts are vital to the College and its students. We thank you for your generosity. The key to success for Warren Wilson, especially in these challenging economic times, is straightforward: to remain focused on our mission of providing a Triad education of liberal arts study, work, and service, complemented by strong environmental and international emphases. That mission is why we are successful in attracting outstanding students; indeed, it is the envy of schools around the country. Our students know the value of a liberal arts education has never been timelier, especially in light of society’s need for critical and creative thinking to address complex global problems. Like you, I believe Warren Wilson College has a bright future. We will continue to do well if we work together as a community, stay focused on what we do best for students, and have a vision for our College that drives every decision. My best to you in the year ahead.
Sandy Pfeiffer
T R I ADNE WS Farm Prosperity: Faculty develop tool to support sustainable decision-making By Dr. Laura Lengnick It seems that everyone is seeking sustainability these days as the general public begins to accept the idea that social and economic welfare are inextricably linked to ecological welfare. Although the concept of sustainability is wellestablished, managing for sustainability is difficult and poorly understood. The long time frame and multi-disciplinary nature of sustainability challenges managers to think holistically and make decisions while keeping in mind the complex connections and interactions influencing the system under management. Regardless of the scale and complexity of the system, the same management questions apply: How do I manage for sustainability? What are the most important elements to keep in mind as I make decisions? How can I have confidence that my decisions have put me (or my organization) on a sustainable path? Warren Wilson professors Susan Kask and Laura Lengnick have focused their professional lives on the challenges of managing for sustainability. Kask
The Warren Wilson College Garden
is an environmental economist with expertise in decision theory—the science of understanding how people make choices. Lengnick is an agronomist with expertise in on-farm sustainability assessment and the 2
sustainable management of farming systems. Together, these two faculty members have spent the last three years conducting federallyfunded research on the application of sustainable decision-making strategies for farmers. Hoop houses at the Warren Wilson College Garden
Working in a collaborative, multidisciplinary effort called the Farm Prosperity Project, Lengnick and Kask took the lead on research and development of decision support for the sustainable management of farms in Western North Carolina. Other members of the Farm Prosperity Project include research and technical personnel representing North Carolina State University, the Land of Sky Regional Council, several land conservation groups, the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and over 25 cooperating farm families in the fourcounty region around Asheville. Using the results of two years of research involving farmer focus groups and individual on-farm interviews, Lengnick and Kask developed a new decisionsupport tool that encourages sustainable decision-making through a simple, threestage, do-it-yourself process. Farmers select a set of sustainability indicators relevant to their current farming operation, then create a “sustainability profile” (a simple picture of farm sustainability based on the selected indicators); determine the value of the indicators for the management options under consideration; and complete the process by evaluating the sustainability profiles of different management options before making a decision. The indicators are also useful for monitoring the impact of decisions, giving the farm manager crucial information about how decisions influence farm system sustainability. Such monitoring improves managerial confidence in sustainable decisionmaking and offers an opportunity to adjust to unanticipated events—positive and negative—both on-farm in response to the decision or off-farm as a result of circumstances beyond the farmer’s control.
Initial test results with Western North Carolina farmers are promising. They report the tool is easy to use and improves the clarity of their decision-making. State agricultural extension specialists in North Carolina and Georgia have expressed strong interest in the tool, which will be released in February 2009 at a sustainable farming conference at Warren Wilson. Faculty participation in this work benefits Warren Wilson students in a number of ways. Senior economics student Sophia Levin-Hatz gained valuable experience as a research assistant by conducting and analyzing on-farm interviews and managing the research database. Making Sustainable Choices is a new business/ economics course based largely on the knowledge Kask gained working on the research project. Lengnick revised two courses in the sustainable agriculture concentration to include a focus on the use of sustainability indicators in farm management and in community development of sustainable food systems. Lengnick and Kask plan to continue their collaboration on sustainable decisionmaking tools after the completion of the Farm Prosperity Project. Although initially created to aid farm management, they believe their decision tool process has the potential for wide applicability to many kinds of sustainable decision-making. For more information about this research contact Laura Lengnick, lengnick@warrenwilson.edu or Susan Kask, skask@warrenwilson.edu.
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T R I A D N E WS Boyd, colleagues receive National Science Foundation research grant By Matthew Williams ’10
Biology professor Amy Boyd and two other researchers have won a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to study an intriguing group of foul-smelling red flowers that bloom in the southeastern United States each spring. These flowers’ distinctive smell attracts insects that typically feed on decaying organic matter. When the insects land on the flowers, they pick up pollen, which they then carry to other flowers. Boyd and her colleagues, Michelle Zijhra of Georgia Southern University and Robert Raguso of Cornell University, will investigate the relationship between these flowers and their pollinators. While research for the project will span three years and occur as far away as Florida and New York, Boyd’s focus is very specific. She will be studying the Sweetshrub plant at locations on campus and at nearby Shope Creek. Biology/environmental studies department assistant Natasha Shipman will also be involved in the project, studying the Toadshade Trillium at the Asheville Botanical Gardens as part of her master’s thesis. Warren Wilson’s portion of the project will be funded with more than $32,000 in grant money over the course of three years. The long duration of the project is necessary, Boyd explained:
The foul-smelling red flowers of the Sweetshrub plant is the focus of Boyd’s research. The flowers’ distinctive smell attracts insects that typically feed on decaying organic matter.
Biology professor Amy Boyd
“Because pollination patterns vary from year to year, we need to study this process repeatedly to ensure that we have accurate data.” Boyd will begin field work for the project in March when Sweetshrubs bloom. She has selected six students to take part in a spring semester course in conjunction with the project. “The class will incorporate an outdoor curriculum that provides hands-on experience with pollination biology,” Boyd said. Students will read relevant literature, design experiments, and set out field plots,
as well as collect and analyze their data. Boyd envisions students being involved in the project throughout the next three years, through classes and other activities such as independent studies and Natural Science Seminars.
Creative writing program hosts Pulitzer Prize winner Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Madeleine Blais, a journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, visited classes and presented readings in October 2008 as part of her residency in Warren Wilson’s Master Writer in Residence program. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Blais won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing while at The Miami Herald, one of several large newspapers for which Herald she has written. Her books include In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in nonfiction. ESPN named the work one of the top 100 sports books of the 20th century. WINTER 2009
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T R I ADNE WS 2009 G.D. Davidson Roundtable This spring, Warren Wilson will host Robert F. “Bobby” Vagt as the 2009 G.D. Davidson Fellow. Vagt will be on campus for two days visiting with students and delivering a lecture aimed at helping them think of their lives as having a divine purpose. The diversity of his professional experience gives him broad appeal and makes his story fascinating and inspiring.
After a long, successful presidency at Davidson College, Vagt is now president of the Heinz Endowments, based in Pittsburgh. The organization’s mission is to uplift and enhance the southwestern Pennsylvania area through involvement in arts and culture, children and families, education, environment, and innovation economy.
Early in his career, Vagt served as warden of a North Carolina prison and director of clinical programs in an Alabama mental health center. Later, he was assistant director of the budget for the state of New York and executive director of several public benefit corporations in New York, including the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which was created to save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s. He also has extensive experience in the business world as an executive in the oil and gas industry for more than 10 years.
The G.D. Davidson Roundtable was established in 1987 at Warren Wilson College through a generous gift by Mr. and Mrs. George Donnell Davidson Jr., of Charlotte, to honor Mr. Davidson’s father, George Donnell Davidson 1902. You can read about the Davidson family in the winter 2008 issue of Owl & Spade. (warren-wilson.edu/~owlandspade).
Robert F. “Bobby” Vagt, president of Heinz Endowment, will give the G.D. Davidson Lecture on Thursday, April 16 at 7 p.m.
The annual G.D. Davidson Lecture takes place Thursday, April 16 at 7 p.m. For more information, email Julie Lehman, jlehman@warren-wilson.edu.
Dave Davis ’83 returns to coach alumni game By Kevin Walden, WWC sports information director Dave Davis ’83, head men’s basketball coach at Pfeiffer University, returned to campus Homecoming weekend to serve as the honorary head coach for the men’s alumni basketball team. “We were absolutely thrilled to have Dave return to Warren Wilson to coach our alumni team,” athletic director Stacey Enos said. “He is a valuable asset to our athletic department.” Davis graduated from Warren Wilson in 1983 with a sociology degree. As a student, he was a four-year starter on two conference championship basketball teams. He went on to earn a master’s degree from Gardner-Webb University in 1993, then returned to Warren Wilson as head basketball coach, leading the Owls to their highest win total in 15 years. Coach Davis is now in his twelfth season at the helm of Pfeiffer College’s men’s basketball program and no stranger to success as the Falcons’ leader. He has an overall record of 212-83, which includes 20 championships, two Sweet Sixteen appearances (2000, 2004), and an Elite Eight showing in 2004. His teams have averaged 21 wins per season under his leadership, and are among the top five in wins since 1990 in all NCAA Division II basketball. Coach Davis was named the Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference (CVAC) Coach of the Year in 1998, 1999, and 2004. He was also named the NCAA East Regional Coach of the Year in 2004. 4
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T R I A D N E WS Bringing Bryson back to life As many of you read in the summer 2008 issue of Owl & Spade, a section of Bryson Gym collapsed on May 22 just hours before the weekly Old Farmers Ball contra dance. Several weeks later, after a controlled collapse of part of the roof, engineers evaluated the structure and recommended repairs to make the building safe and usable. As this issue of the magazine went to press, workers were making progress on the rebuilding of Bryson Gym. Vice President for Administration and Finance Jonathan Ehrlich reports that construction will be complete by the end of March. A little history: Built in 1920 for $45,000, Bryson is one of the oldest wooden floor gymnasiums in Western North Carolina and one of the oldest buildings on campus. The gym is named for Holmes Bryson, an Asheville Farm School graduate and one-time mayor of Asheville. Ernst Laursen, a 1952 graduate of the Asheville Farm School and farm manager from 1958 to 1998, grew up on campus and spent lots of time in Bryson in the early thirties when his father, Bernhard Laursen, was the farm manager and gymnastics teacher. “The students had the greatest time flipping me over and tossing me up in the air,” recalls Laursen. “It’s a wonder I wasn’t killed,” he jokes. When Laursen was a student, the basement of Bryson housed the campus fire station with its bright red 1938 Ford truck used by students to fight campus fires. Back then, Bryson was the main venue on campus for sporting and social events. In the spring of 2009 Bryson will again be a central location for the College’s bustling wellness, music and dance scene. Bryson is one of the oldest wooden floor gymnasiums in Western North Carolina and one of the oldest buildings on campus. Repairs will be complete by the end of March.
The construction of Bryson gym in 1920.
2008 Service Day focuses on Black Mountain Junior Kate Freeman tills in the Black Mountain Community Garden at Service Day 2008 in Black Mountain, where several hundred faculty, staff and new students accomplished a range of tasks benefiting the Black Mountain Recreation and Parks Department, the Presbyterian Home for Children and the Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women.
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Novel by MFA alumnus makes Oprah’s Book Club The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, the first novel by MFA alumnus David Wroblewski ’98, was selected as a 2008 Oprah Book Club pick. On her website, Winfrey says: “It’s everything you want a book to be. It grabs hold of you, doesn’t let go until the last page. I guarantee you’re going to love it.” To find out more about Wroblewski and his acclaimed novel, visit edgarsawtelle.com.
Mountain bike team earns bronze at national championship By Matthew Williams ’09 Despite a recent string of top finishes at the collegiate national championships, Warren Wilson mountain bike coach Art Shuster didn’t know what to expect from the cycling Owls this season. Riders who had not only scored top finishes but also provided invaluable leadership graduated in 2008, and Shuster was expecting a rebuilding year. While he hoped for a national championship berth, it could not be guaranteed given the increasing competitiveness of collegiate cycling. A group of veteran and rookie riders came out for the 2008-09 team and despite a rash of sicknesses and injuries during the season, they were able to win the overall conference title ahead of national powerhouses Lees-McRae College and Brevard College. It was a win that gave the team a big confidence boost heading into what turned out to be a cold and rainy October national championship in Banner Elk, N.C. As he had done all season, Matt Williams ’09 led the team on and off the bike at nationals. Williams, who placed second in the individual omnium, rode to podium finishes in cross country and short track races and also led the Wilson men in dual slalom. Other riders came through with big rides for the team all weekend, and the Owls had multiple riders in the Top 20 of nearly every race. Their performances were highlighted by Hanna Waldman ’09, who 6
capped her collegiate career with a sixth place finish in the dual slalom, and Tallulah Winquist ’10, who rode to sixth place in the women’s short track. It was in the team competition that the Owls’ depth would prove vital. Four teams were locked in a tight battle for the national title all weekend, and when officials released the final point tallies on Sunday afternoon, Warren Wilson had earned the bronze medal, one point ahead of conference rival Brevard. “To be near the top of the podium in what was expected to be a rebuilding year well exceeds our expectations and bodes extremely well for next year,” Shuster said. “As collegiate mountain bike racing develops and becomes more competitive at the national level, our team continues to keep pace with other very strong programs. I’m blown away by our weekend at nationals and look forward to next year.” Also competing in a national championship was the Warren Wilson cross-country team. Twelve runners traveled to Buena Vista, Va., in October for the race. The team was led by All-American Chelsea Gay ’10, who ran to a third place finish in the women’s race. It was the highlight of an excellent day for the Owls, who took home fifth place in both the men’s and women’s team competitions.
Matt Williams ‘09 stirs up some dust during the national championship.
“To be near the top of the podium in what was expected to be a rebuilding year well exceeds our expectations and bodes extremely well for next year.” Art Shuster Warren Wilson Mountain Bike Coach
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T R I A D N E WS Great names in music converge at 2008 Swannanoa Gathering
Led Zeppelin mandolin/bass player John Paul Jones was picking a borrowed banjo and sawing his fiddle around campus during the Gathering’s OldTime Week.
Jean Ritchie, the legendary dulcimer player from the Kentucky Cumberlands, sat down for an interview at Warren
Two of the great voices in traditional and Celtic-roots music, each named Ritchie, came together during the College’s 2008 Swannanoa Gathering for a spellbinding interview sprinkled with traditional songs. Jean Ritchie, the legendary dulcimer player from the Kentucky Cumberlands, sat down for an interview at Warren Wilson with Fiona Ritchie, the engaging Scottish host of NPR’s The Thistle & Shamrock. A rapt audience in Canon Lounge listened and joined in on songs like “Amazing Grace,” sung as Jean Ritchie said it was in “Mom’s old church.” She also delighted the crowd with solo performances of songs such as “Shady Grove.” Jean Ritchie came to campus last summer for Traditional Song Week, the Gathering’s newest program. Asked by Fiona Ritchie why traditional and Celticroots songs have endured over the centuries and continents, Jean Ritchie had a ready answer: “They’re good songs,” she said. “They wouldn’t have lasted all these years if they weren’t. They’re still meaningful, still beautiful.” A couple of weeks after Traditional Song Week, Led Zeppelin mandolin/bass player John Paul Jones was picking a borrowed banjo and sawing his fiddle around campus during the Gathering’s Old-Time Week. He flew in from London with his wife and daughter to attend his first Swannanoa Gathering, on invitation from Rayna Gellert ’98, fiddler for the string band Uncle Earl, whose latest album Jones produced. Despite his status as a rock ’n’ roll legend, Jones was humble, wanting to be treated like any other Gathering participant. “Even when Zeppelin was in its heyday, I was never one who wanted to be recognized or
harassed,” Jones said. “The first two days of my classes here, nobody recognized me. After awhile it sort of leaked out [chuckling], and I got the occasional person asking for an autograph.” Jones has become interested in old-time music and instruments such as fiddle and banjo only in the past few years; not surprisingly, he has picked them up with great enthusiasm and skill. His interest in roots music can be traced to the influence shared by the other members of Led Zeppelin. During OldTime Week he attended fiddle and banjo classes. “I really enjoyed the campus,” Jones said. “When I went to school in London, we had nothing even closely resembling Warren Wilson.” The Gathering was started in 1991 by then Warren Wilson College President Doug Orr. “It’s long been a part of the culture of Asheville and Western North Carolina to honor and preserve its musical heritage,” says Orr, “and here is the perfect setting for a summer program built around the connection between Appalachian music and folklore and that of Scotland, Ireland and England.” Late in 2008 Acoustic Guitar magazine recognized the Swannanoa Gathering with a 2008 Players’ Choice Award. The Gathering received a Silver Award in the category of Music Camps and Workshops. The award is being noted in the February 2009 issue of the Californiabased magazine, which writes that Players Choice Awards are “voted on by the people who are out there using the products and making music, not doled out by the editors or experts in the field.” The Gathering also was nominated in 2004, when it received a Bronze Award. On the Web: swangathering.com
Wilson with Fiona Ritchie, the engaging Scottish host of NPR’s The Thistle & Shamrock.
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T R I ADNE WS Warren Wilson College Alumni Association presents 2008 Alumni Awards Anna Clyde Fraker ’53 received the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award. After graduating from Warren Wilson she continued her education at Furman University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1957. Fraker became the first woman to receive both a master’s degree and a doctorate in engineering from North Carolina State University. For almost 30 years she was a research metallurgist with the National Bureau of Standards—now the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)—working with the use of metals as surgical implants. Fraker then contracted with NIST and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission until she retired in 2000. An acknowledged leader in the field of biomaterials, she has published more than 50 articles, produced numerous technical reports and edited two books. Throughout her career she was an advocate in the promotion of other scientists, especially women and minority scholars. Charles Ross Hinkle ’70 received the 2008 Distinguished Service Award. At Warren Wilson he was on the Dean’s List all four years, held the position of freshman class president and won the Pfaff Cup. Hinkle received his master’s degree and doctorate in ecology from the University of Tennessee, with honors. He worked as senior ecologist, then manager of ecological programs, for Bionetics Corporation from 1982 to 1995. From 1995 to 2007 he was vice president and chief scientist for Dynamac Corporation at the Kennedy Space Center. Hinkle currently is professor and chair of the biology department at the University of Central Florida. His professional accomplishments and honors include being a certified senior ecologist for the Ecological Society of America and receiving the NASA Administrators Award for Distinguished Service to the nation’s space program. He has contributed to over 70 journal publications on ecological sciences and global climate change research. In Florida he has been actively involved with local conservation issues and chairs the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Program—a $15 million program that has conserved 28,000 acres. 8
Karen Hassall ’86 received a 2008 Distinguished Community Service Award. Her first job after graduating was as a reading coach for high-risk elementary school students. She returned to school in 1991 and received a nursing degree from the Watts School of Nursing at Duke University. Hassall worked in a shared home for the elderly who could no longer live alone, then as a hospice nurse in Durham, N.C., from 1993 to 2003. In 2004 she moved to Uzbekistan to join a community health education project where she trained nurses. When the Uzbekistan government closed the doors to western foreigners in 2006, Hassall moved to Kyrgyzstan and continued her work. She recently accepted the responsibility of setting up a guesthouse in the Kyrgyzstani capital of Bishkek. There she will serve alongside others, offering rest and encouragement to community development workers and other volunteers. Sam Ray ’56 received a 2008 Distinguished Community Service Award. An Asheville Farm School graduate, he was a boilermaker for eight years, worked in combustion engineering for 25 years and was a paper mill consultant for 13 years. Ray has been involved with fundraising for the Shriners— the hospital and the burn ward in particular. He is one of the Shriner’s leading clowns, known affectionately as “a big man with a big heart.” A member of the Kendron Lodge and the Valley of the Scottish Rite for 47 years and the Oasis Temple for 43 years, Ray has received the Doug Mayes Fundraising Award, the Don McAllister Membership Award and the Mark White Outstanding Shriner of the Year Award. He has been an active member of the Hendersonville, N.C., First Methodist Church for 43 years, and head usher for 15. His two sons, Mike White and Mark White, are also Warren Wilson alumni.
L-R: Charles Ross Hinkle ’70, Anna Clyde Fraker ’53, WWC President Sandy dy Pf Pfeiffer, Karen Hassall ’86 and Sam Ray ’56 .
2009 Alumni Award Nominations If you would like to nominate someone for a 2009 Alumni Award, visit warren-wilson.edu/~advancement/ award_nomination.php or contact Alumni Director Jon Hettrick, 828.771.2046 or hettrick@warren-wilson.edu. Alumni awards are presented by the Warren Wilson College Alumni Association at Homecoming each year.
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The Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts Five years and flourishing Story and photos by SG Séguret ’84 Imagine an early morning walk around Warren Wilson’s mountain-encircled campus. As you step forth from the quiet of the EcoDorm, you see the cardinal red blossoms of a pineapple sage. You pick sprigs of the delicate leaves, still wet with dew, and place them tenderly in your basket. You will be using them later. Susi Séguret’s tomato and rosemary goat cheese ramequins surrounded by Mark Rosenstein’s roasted gruyère salad.
SSCA seeks to foster lifelong skills and friendships around the table, the heart of communion from ancient times to our world of tomorrow.
Tomato
These you will carry with fresh eggs and honey to Gladfelter, where croissants await from Asheville’s own French baker. Cutting boards are spread out in the sunroom; chefs
You wander down past the stately chapel, past Bryson Gym where a Swannanoa Gathering student is playing one last melody to the sun before catching a few winks of sleep and beginning the cycle over again. Your path leads you to the farm and the garden, mist rising from the valley where the Cherokee once lingered. Tiny, yellow, crooked-neck squash go into SSCA Kitchen Assistants (l to r): Kendra Cole ‘10, Alice Séguret, Meredith Doster, your basket. You can’t resist Stephanie Serago. adding a few black currants, having first and crew are waiting to escort you on an unforgettable culinary journey. ary
sem
heese and Ro
with Goat C Ramequins
er 2008
e from summ
A sample recip
rson Ingredients: r person dairy) per pe ripe tomato pe m your local ro (f one medium se ee ch t d of goa one half roun rosemary h es fr d choppe olive oil sea salt nd pepper on freshly grou and arrange with olive oil, s d de si an in er e pp th sh lt, pe Preparation: r person, bru sseason with sa e ramequin pe -inch cubes, se in half cros ½ ee to ch t in s oa g oe Assemble on at ce li m l S to oi e s. e th in iv p u ol ho eq h .C g ram zzle wit a baking tray stribute amon ) mequin. Dri y di ra rr d ch hu an ea a , y of in p ar e down, on to ll if you ar ri chopped rosem de g si r t de n cu , u r lf ary en (o one ha of fresh rosem Bake in hot ov wise, and lay with a sprig d rosemary. e tternut pe at bu op or of ec ch D s le . be tt n li and a turns golde steaming cu se y tr ee , ch atoes, t on m ti oa to g ta e ace the ter adap just until th t. (For a win g apart to repl ho in l ll il fa st ot le n hi t and serve w almost soft bu more robust cheese.) mpkin until a squash or pu ary, and try for the rosem e g sa te tu ti subs
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popped one into your mouth, and some brilliant orange day lilies, newly opened to the sunlight.
As the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts (SSCA) opens its fifth season in summer 2009, chefs and students will come from far and wide to share in this awakening handson adventure. Drawing on the freshest local ingredients, Asheville’s rich selection of talented chefs and celebrated Warren Wilson chef alumni, while embracing recipes from around the world, the SSCA seeks to foster lifelong skills and friendships around the table, the heart of communion from ancient times to our world of tomorrow. For more information about the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts, call 828.301.2792 or visit schoolofculinaryarts.org.
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T R I ADNE WS Warren Wilson #4 on Sierra Club’s “10 Coolest Schools” list A recent surge in green initiatives by public universities couldn’t dislodge Warren Wilson from another top four ranking among Sierra magazine’s 2008 “10 Coolest Schools” in the fight against global warming. The feature was the cover story of the September/ October issue of Sierra, the nation’s largest environmental news magazine. The ranking marked the second consecutive year that Warren Wilson has ranked first in the Southeast and in the top four schools nationwide. With an undergraduate enrollment of about 900, Warren Wilson is the only school in Sierra’s top 10 with fewer than 2,000 students—in stark contrast to huge public universities such as Arizona State (51,500 students) that also landed in the top 10. In the article “Cool Crowd,” Sierra writes: “Forgoing football games and frats, Warren Wilson’s Fighting Owls work 15 hours per week plowing the college’s organic fields or helping with eco-friendly building projects.” The top schools earned points in ten categories: policies for building, energy, food, investment, procurement, and transportation; curriculum; environmental activism; waste management; and overall commitment to sustainability. A perfect score in every area would give a school 100 points. Warren Wilson scored a total of 88.5, behind Middlebury College (93), University of Colorado at Boulder (91.5) and University of Vermont at Burlington (91). The only other college or university in the Southeast to crack the “Cool Schools” top 10 was the 50,000-student University of Florida, which ranked No. 7. Along with the Sierra Club ranking, Warren Wilson was ranked second by the magazine Plenty for having the “Greenest Cafeteria Cafeteria” among college and university dining halls nationwide. In the story “Green campuses 3.0,” the magazine says, “students spend 15 hours a week sweating it out on an organic farm that helps feed the school.” In addition to beef and pork from the Farm, a substantial amount of produce in Warren Wilson’s main dining hall and vegan/ vegetarian Cowpie Caf Café comes from the 10
College’s pesticide-free vegetable and fruit garden. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) ranked the College as the nation’s “Leading School for Waste Reduction and Recycling” in the NWF’s 2008 Report Card on Sustainability in Higher Education. The report notes that the recycling/solid waste operations at Warren Wilson “began in 1981 as a one-student operation. In 1987 an environmental policy class designed a solid waste management plan that created a partnership with Buncombe County and the Town of Montreat to set up the first recycling drop off centers in the county. While the program no longer operates county recycling facilities, it has grown into a multi-faceted operation that processes trash and over 25 different recyclables.” The ranking marks the second major recognition the College received in 2008 for its recycling/solid waste operation, which is run by a 20-student crew under the supervision of Jessica Wooten. Earlier this year, the Carolina Recycling Association, comprising both Carolinas, gave its first award for Outstanding College or University Recycling Program to Warren Wilson. Other rankings and recognition The Fiske Guide to Colleges chose Warren Wilson as one of its 26 “Best Buys of 2009” among private colleges and universities nationwide, the fourth time since 2005 the guide has selected the College for the distinction. The 2009 edition of America’s Best Colleges, published by U.S. News & World Report Report, cited Warren Wilson as one of only 25 schools in the “Service Learning” category of “Programs to Look For” in choosing a college. Blue Ridge Country magazine recognized Warren Wilson in a feature titled “The Future of Appalachia: 14 People and Places Making a Difference in the Region.” The September cover story of WNC Magazine, titled “Locally Grown,” featured the College Farm and sustainable agriculture program.
On the Web:
To read about more of Warren Wilson’s rankings, awards and recognition, visit warren-wilson.edu/info/news OWL & SPADE
T R I A D N E WS
ADVANCEMENT
l THE “OTHER TRIAD”
A
By Sallie-Grace Tate, Vice President of Advancement
W
e are all intimately familiar with Warren Wilson’s signature Triad of academics, work, and service. It is the cornerstone of the Warren Wilson experience, and the reason we turn out graduates who are well-rounded and strong of body, mind and spirit. But within Warren Wilson, there is another triad that comes into play: one that keeps the College itself strong, well-rounded and firmly grounded. This triad comes under the moniker of “Advancement.” What is Advancement? Many of us think of Advancement as synonymous with “fundraising” or “development.” Indeed, this is one of the three legs of the Advancement platform. But fundraising can’t happen in a vacuum. Its success is tightly intertwined with the activities of communications and marketing, alumni and other external relations. The role of the Advancement Office at Warren Wilson is to advance the mission of the College among all audiences, in all ways. In our work, “friend-raising” is just as important as fundraising. Our goal is to build long-term, close relationships with as many donors, alumni, parents, students, prospective students, faculty, staff, foundations, neighbors, churches, media outlets and policy makers as possible. These relationships are essential to achieving our mission and growing Warren Wilson over the longer term. Building them takes three things: money, messages and teamwork. Teamwork—Creating Relationships with Alumni and Community Long-term relationships don’t happen on paper. They are created when people communicate directly with one another, share stories, ideas and opportunities, and work together to achieve common and mutually beneficial goals. Our external relations department creates opportunities for WWC alumni, friends, parents, church partners and members of the surrounding community to engage with one another and with the College in meaningful ways. Events such as Homecoming, receptions in other parts of the country, Weekend @WWC, the Green Walkabout and the Swannanoa Gathering give graduates and WINTER 2009
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
ADVANCEMENT
FUNDRAISING
EFFECTIVE MESSAGES
community members an opportunity to visit our campus, forge personal relationships with individuals here, and feel a sense of kinship and shared identity with the Warren Wilson family. Being involved in a “hands-on” way with Warren Wilson brings the College’s brand and messaging to life, and helps to grow potential or modest donors into long-term supporters.
Messages—The Cornerstone of Communications and Marketing Much of the success of Warren Wilson depends on how much private funding we can secure. Although separate from Advancement, the communications and marketing staff is an inseparable partner for Advancement, creating the messages that cultivate the relationships we need to further the mission of Warren Wilson. Creating and sharing our messages about Warren Wilson is a two-way street. Our marketing and communications staff listens carefully to what special audiences have to say and prepares messages and communications tools accordingly. By providing clear and consistent messages, we pave the way for ongoing interaction with them as funders, partners and friends. Most importantly, communications and marketing protect and foster the Warren Wilson College brand. A brand is the promise of an experience that we provide
to each of our target audiences. The ways in which each of us delivers that experience has a direct effect on the success of the Warren Wilson brand. Our brand may evolve as time passes, but our commitment to deliver a positive experience can never waver. Funding and Giving—Focus of the Development Staff While Warren Wilson teaches students the value of life beyond money, finances are still a very real factor in the College’s dayto-day operations. Student tuition does not cover the full cost of providing the Warren Wilson experience, and increasing sources of private funding is absolutely critical to our existence. Within the Advancement Office, the development department focuses on myriad avenues for fundraising, including major gifts from foundations, businesses and individuals; annual giving at all levels from alumni, parents and friends; planned giving; and occasional large-scale capital campaigns for specific building projects or endowments. Fundraising is a step-by-step process; donors often will begin with small gifts and increase them over time as their relationship with the Warren Wilson grows. We help create positive engagement with donors through our communications with them and by providing opportunities to interact with the College. A Powerful Strategy At some institutions, the offices of development, alumni relations and communications work independently of one another. They may pursue similar goals, but approach those goals through different means. Often, when the work of one department complements that of another, it’s a happy accident. Warren Wilson wants to leave nothing to chance. By combining development, external relations and communications activities all under the umbrella of Advancement, we are more strategic, more efficient, and more effective in achieving the College’s mission. Every one of us has a role to play in helping advance the mission of Warren Wilson. By working together strategically, we are certain to succeed. 11
T R IADNE WS Environmental studies program comes of age By Jack Igelman When you think of cutting edge scientific research, seldom do small liberal arts colleges like Warren Wilson come to mind. But over the years, the College’s environmental studies department has produced a wide range of research on topics that include studies of the tardigrade, a minute water-dwelling animal in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to tracking endangered bears in Ecuador. In fact, researchers have discovered twenty new species of tardigrades and developed a technique to acquire fur samples from the elusive bear. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What’s even more impressive: much of the research was conducted by Warren Wilson undergrads. According to Lou Weber, chair of the environmental studies program, that kind of experience puts the Warren Wilson program among the top five in the country. In 2008 the program celebrated its 30th year, and since 1990 the major has been the most popular on campus. And it’s unlikely to lose that distinction anytime soon. In addition to choosing a concentration such as environmental education or sustainable agriculture, environmental studies majors choose a capstone experience. Most students opt for a research project known as the Natural Science Seminar (NSS). Beginning in their junior year, students take a research
Biology professor Paul Bartels is a lead researcher on Tardigrades or water bears—microscopic, multicelled animals that flourish in the thin film of water that covers mosses, lichen and liverworts.
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design course where faculty share interests and suggest projects. Students then zero in on a topic and, working with a faulty mentor, conduct research and design experiments to test a hypothesis. The NSS concludes with a public presentation and written report. “Having students do independent research is really the best teaching tool there is,” says biology and environmental studies professor Tim Meehan. “The NSS program is such a natural fit for the school,” says Weber. “Environmental studies programs are a dime a dozen. What makes us different is the Triad, the natural resources near campus and the field experience. Other schools are so jealous of the school’s culture. We are lucky—the students come here with it.” Recently, Weber has noticed a change in the makeup of applicants who are interested in Warren Wilson and the environmental studies field in particular. Part of that, she says, is due to the attraction of recently renovated facilities at the school and a mandate in North Carolina that high schools include earth science in the curriculum. But there may be another explanation. “A major shift has come with Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth,” Weber says. “We are not just getting the hippies. I’ve noticed a much more serious student. They aren’t just concerned with ecological change, but economic and social change, too.” That passionate interest has many advantages, but keeping up with the demands of such a popular program isn’t always easy to manage. Department faculty instruct five to six courses per year and each advise from three to five research projects annually. “Our challenge is to figure out how to continue improving the quality of the program while maintaining a small student to teacher ratio,” says Meehan. He also says that a major strength of the College’s program is the synergy between the different academic
Environmental studies students practice a citizen science lesson outside Morse Hall.
departments such as economics, biology and chemistry. “Environmental science is multidisciplinary—students really need to understand all aspects of an environmental problem,” he adds. Despite the popularity of the field nationwide, environmental studies is a very green academic field in more than one sense of the word. Under the leadership and vision of former faculty member Alan Haney, the Warren Wilson curriculum was among the first wave of environmental studies programs in the country. The field’s pioneers were inspired by the conservation and environmental movement of the 1970s, and true to the times, sidestepped the academic establishment. As a result, the discipline has been criticized for its lack of focus and shallow curriculum. Weber points out that only this year has the field launched a national academic society and programs around the country are just now beginning to share information and best practices. The emphasis on experiential learning and independent research at Warren Wilson may help hush critics of the field, and already, alumni of the program are putting their skills and knowledge to work addressing complex environmental problems. OWL & SPADE
T R I A D N E WS Advancing Environmental Literacy: Faculty create pilot courses for higher ed Ultimately, the course designs will be shared with faculty at other colleges and universities to help them develop an environmental curriculum of their own.
As we reported in the winter 2007 issue, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations have awarded the College a $193,265 grant to develop a new curriculum called Advancing Environmental Literacy. Faculty members participating in the three-year initiative are developing three sets of theme-based, multidisciplinary, team-taught courses focused on sustainability. Ultimately, the course designs will be shared with faculty at other colleges and universities to help them develop an environmental curriculum of their own. For the 2008-09 academic year, the theme is “land”; in subsequent years, energy and water will serve as the focus for courses. This spring Warren Wilson students have the chance to take one of three land-themed courses, including Land and Sense of Place with John Casey (philosophy), Holly Rosson (mathematics) and Laura Vance (sociology); Deep Mapping the Land and Community with David Abernathy (global studies), Gwen Diehn (art) and Siti Kusujiarti (sociology); and Land Use Decisions in Southern Appalachia with Paul Bartels (biology), Janice Jackson (business/economics) and Catherine Reid (writing). “That the courses filled quickly during registration is an indication of the high level of interest among students,” says John Casey, philosophy professor and grant manager. In addition to the courses holding combined sessions and sharing guest speakers, each has a servicelearning project connected with a local land issue.
Catherine Reid, writing
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“The students I talked with were as interested in the multidisciplinary approach and experiencing team teaching as they are committed to promoting sustainability,”
David Abernathy, global studies
Casey says. “Having designed three excellent ‘land’ courses, the faculty teams are now focusing on providing stronger interconnections between the courses. That done, we will all be anxious to engage the sustainability issues with students.” The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations were established by the late industrialist and philanthropist Arthur Vining Davis to promote private higher education, secondary education, graduate theological education, health care and public television. Warren Wilson College is the first recipient of a major grant for environmental studies that the foundations have awarded.
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FACULT Y&STAFF NE WS Theatre professor Ron Bashford directed an evening of performance art called “Out There Out Here” at North Carolina Stage Company in Asheville. Warren Wilson faculty members Julie Gillum (theatre) and John Crutchfield (creative writing) performed. The article “Comparison of Homemade and Conventional Sprays as Aphid Control on Lettuce,” by Sarah Rawleigh ’06 and biology professor Amy Boyd, appeared in the Journal of the North Carolina Academy of Science. The article was a product of Rawleigh’s Natural Science Seminar. Boyd’s article “Collecting for Education: Herbaria at Small Liberal Arts Colleges” was published in Plant Science Bulletin. While on sabbatical during the 2007-08 academic year, social work professor Alison Climo established the North Carolina Colleges Aging Network (NC-CAN). This network includes nearly 20 gerontologists from a variety of disciplines and representing more than 16 small and/or independent colleges across the state. An initiative of the UNC Institute on Aging, the Network provides a resource for connection, collaboration and mutual support among college faculty who are interested in aging and gerontology. Climo serves as chair of NC-CAN. Outdoor leadership professor Marie Graven ’02 has received her master’s in community counseling from Western Carolina University. Political science professor Dongping Han’s book The Unknown Cultural Revolution was published by Monthly Review Press. He was interviewed by Free Speech Radio News in Richmond, Va., about China hosting the Olympic Games. Han also wrote both a Chinese and English preface for a new edition of the book China and America. Creative writing professor Gary Hawkins’s poetry manuscript “Paradise for the Rest of Us” was a finalist for the 2007 Snake Nation Poetry Prize and a semi-finalist in the 2008 Pleaides Press Poetry
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Contest. Hawkins presented the workshop “Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?: Reinventing Realities in Creative Writing Pedagogy” at the 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication. He also presented the paper “Making Something Out of Nothing: Two Tales of Program (Re)Building and Asserting Variable Power” as part of the panel “Learning From The Past, Building For The Future: What the WPA Workshop Taught Us To Expect... and What It Couldn’t Anticipate” at the Writing Program Administrators 2008 convention. Farm Manager Chase Hubbard was one of 35 North Carolina farmers invited to participate in the Agricultural Leadership Development Program at N.C. State University. The two-year program, led by N.C. State faculty, consists of 50 days of training, including seminars in Raleigh and trips to Brazil, California and Washington, D.C. The program is designed to increase farmers’ understanding of problems and policies related to agricultural commodities and agricultural issues and enhance their ability to provide leadership in the resolution of agricultural issues. Interim Assistant Dean of Service Learning Michelle Kaiser completed her graduate certificate in public health at the University of North Carolina. Art professor Louly Konz and her father, Dr. James Peacock, professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, have coauthored a chapter in the art and anthropology textbook Visual Anthropology published by University of Texas Press. The chapter is titled “Art History and Anthropology.” In the chapter, Konz and her father compare their different approaches to teaching about two places: Borobudur in Java and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. Social work professor Lucy Lawrence, sociology/anthropology professor Christey Carwile and French/Spanish professor Angela Phillips all received faculty
development grants to participate in the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) International Faculty Development Seminars during summer 2008. Lawrence participated in the seminar “Revolution and NeoLiberal Reform” in Nicaragua, Carwile traveled to Ghana for the seminar “Challenges of a Developing Nation,” and Phillips attended “Exploring the Coexistence and Challenges of Neighboring Cultures” in Spain and Morocco. Art professor Leah Leitson received a faculty development grant to participate in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) International Symposium “Shared Journeys: Chinese/American Ceramic Art & Education” held in Jingdezhen, China. The symposium featured ceramic artists and historians from the U.S. and China. Leitson exhibited a piece of her work at the symposium. Paddling coach Will Leverette’s book A History of Whitewater Paddling in Western North Carolina: Water Wise is now in its second printing. The first printing sold out in less than two months. Director of Peace and Justice Studies Paul Magnarella received a Mellon Grant to participate in the Salzburg (Austria) Global Seminar on “Islamic and International Law: Searching for Common Ground.” He was also awarded a scholarship from the Vermont School of Law to study environmental law. Magnarella was awarded a Plowshares grant to participate in the Institute on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia. He also published “Attempts to Reduce and Eliminate Nuclear Weapons through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Creation of NuclearWeapon-Free Zones,” in the journal Peace & Change. Creating writing professor Sebastian Matthews has had work accepted in the American Poetry Review and The Book of Dads,
an anthology of American writers on fatherhood. Outdoor leadership/environmental studies professor Mallory McDuff presented “Faithful Environmentalists: Working with Churches To Save the Natural World” at the Ecological Society of America annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She shared results from interviews conducted during the summer 2008 for her upcoming book under contract with Oxford University Press. Library director Christine Nugent’s article “The Fischer Controversy: Historiographical Revolution or Just Another Historians’ Quarrel?” was published in the Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians. Assistant Dean of Student Life Tawan Perry was selected by Prince George’s Community College as one of their Fabulous 50 Alumni. Perry’s book, College Sense: What College and High School Advisors Don’t Tell You about College,” was chosen by USABookNews.com as the winner in the “College Guides” category of the National Best Books 2008 Awards. The book offers students advice on how to successfully make the transition from high school to college and then on to college graduation. Outdoor leadership professor Ed Raiola was invited to participate in the international conference 360 Degrees on Overseas Youth Expeditions: Exploring the Educational Values of Overseas Expeditions at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Raiola also authored a lesson plan, “Minimizing Fire Impact” in the book Leave No Trace 101: 101 Ways To Teach Leave No Trace, published by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. Mountain bike coach and counselor Art Shuster placed first in the 50-mile veteran’s division of the Fool’s Gold 100 event, part of the National Endurance Series.
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FAC U LT YP RO F I L E Psychology professor Bob Swoap was a guest on the Voice of America national radio program “One Hour at a Time.” He was interviewed about his research on recovery processes in mental illness, focusing on the therapeutic community approach to recovery. The education department hosted Camp Earth for Buncombe County middle school students. The camp was made possible through a grant received by Buncombe County Public Schools to address issues that lead local students to drop out of high school. The 35 students (rising sixth and ninth graders) who participated in the camp were from the Erwin district. Laura Turchi, former chair of the education department, wrote the grant proposal and organized the delivery of the camp, along with help from education department administrative assistant Nancy Hofmann, environmental studies professor Laura Lengnick, and garden volunteer Michael Gentry. Seven Warren Wilson students served as the teachers and counselors for the camp. Activities included learning about recycling, investigating the campus archaeological dig, participating in a soil study, gardening and making meals from food gathered at the campus garden. Students in sociology professor Laura Vance’s Gender and Social Change course collected data regarding the availability of emergency contraception from pharmacies in Buncombe County for Planned Parenthood during spring 2008. The data are being used by Planned Parenthood’s national office to document availability of emergency contraception. Students in Vance’s Women in Society class helped to create and performed a community readers’ theatre, “Voices for Change,” which they presented at the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association meeting.
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Paul Magnarella: From Peace Corp to Peace Studies by Jack Igelman In 1997, Paul Magnarella, now professor of peace and justice studies at Warren Wilson, was in Tanzania researching and observing the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He was part of a large team charged with serving justice in one of the most horrifying human tragedies of the twentieth century when ethnic tension led to genocide. By chance, on the same visit Magnarella met Pete O’Neal, a former Black Panther living as a fugitive in Tanzania. O’Neal asked Magnarella to review his trial. He did, and found it troubling. Magnarella believed the former Panther, who was sentenced in the United States for a gun conviction, was not given a fair trial. While O’Neal’s case is small relative to the scale of ruin in Rwanda, it wasn’t insignificant. In both instances, fundamental human rights had been violated. Compared to participating in war tribunals and defending a Black Panther, teaching introductory courses in peace and justice to undergraduates may seem a bit dull. Not so, says Magnarella. In fact, serving students who champion human rights and peace is what he relishes most. But global peace and justice are lofty ideals. Ethnic tension is again stirring in central Africa and O’Neal has yet to receive a new trial. Grim reminders that the world has an excess of inhumanity and injustice—and why Magnarella needs all the help he can get. While teaching English as a foreign language in Turkey as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 1970s, Magnarella was drawn to the range of customs
and conventions across the globe to resolve conflict. “To really grasp how societies deal with conflict you have to understand the political and socioeconomic traditions of a culture,” says Magnarella, who earned a doctorate in anthropology and Middle East studies at Harvard. Later, he earned a law degree from the University of Florida. At first glance those may seem disparate interests, but they’ve served him well. His expertise has taken him to far-flung places and given him a unique prism to examine conflict. In addition to serving with the Tribunal for Rwanda, he served as legal council with the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He publishes and lectures on a wide range of topics including nuclear disarmament, human rights and international law. His book Justice in Africa won the Association of Third World Studies’ Book of the Year Award in 2000. In 2004, he landed at Warren Wilson after many years at the University of Florida. While moving to be near family in Western North Carolina was a major factor, it wasn’t his sole motive. His passion for serving justice seemed a good match with the students’ concern for the environment and human rights. “I was attracted to the philosophy of the school,” says Magnarella. “I find that students here really empathize with people who suffer.”
In the classroom his students explore alternatives to violence and consider strategies for peace building and social justice. “People all around the world want peace and respect. War isn’t built into our genes; it’s not inevitable,” argues Magnarella. “I want students to understand the consequences of war. The true opportunity costs of war are lives that could have been lived, and schools and hospitals that could have been built.” While the College now offers a minor in peace and justice studies, his current students may have a greater impact than some of his students in Florida. “Many of our Ph.D. students at Florida were not finding jobs,” he says. “I felt it was immoral to keep producing new graduates.” There are hundreds of nongovernmental organizations with entry-level opportunities for students interested in human rights and peace, he adds. And there is no shortage of issues. That’s what makes his teaching at Warren Wilson as relevant as serving with war tribunals. He believes the skills from the classroom will serve students well. “More students armed with peaceful approaches to conflict will enrich many lives,” says Magnarella. “Rarely does peace get a chance.”
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Will Blozan’s Story and photos by Kent Priestly
Blozan’s childhood ambition has led to two decades in service of the woods as a professional arborist, researcher and advocate.
Life
Trees
Last year on the occasion of his fortieth birthday, Will Blozan ’90 took a drive with his nine-year old son, Aven, to Cataloochee Valley on the eastern side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When they reached the park, they unloaded several bags of climbing gear, cinched up their backpacks and hiked for a few miles beside Hoglen Branch. For their birthday climb, Blozan and his son picked a 115-foot specimen with a four-foot diameter that tapered only slightly toward its apex—what Blozan refers to as a “stovepipe” tree. The tree’s crown had been toppled in a storm several years ago, leaving a hollow chamber near the high point of the trunk. Once they reached it, Blozan and his son dipped inside, out of sight even of the birds soaring overhead, and had lunch.
Kent Priestley graduated from Warren Wilson College in 1995 with a degree in environmental studies and earned his MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte in 2006. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, and works as a freelance writer. He only climbs trees in order to escape predators.
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While it’s probably a safe bet that few people would think of climbing, much less dining in, the top of an old-growth tree, for Blozan it was nothing out of the ordinary. “Since I was five years old, I knew I wanted to climb trees,” Blozan says. “That was it. That was what I wanted to do with my life.” Blozan’s childhood ambition has led to two decades in service of the woods as a professional arborist, researcher and
in the
advocate. In particular, his recent work with the Eastern hemlock, an evergreen whose future is imperiled because of an exotic parasite called the hemlock woolly adelgid, has earned him the respect and attention of scientists and resource managers around the country. Since the insect was discovered in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park six years ago, Blozan has emerged as a chief advocate for the preservation of what is left of both the Eastern hemlock and its sister species, the much-rarer Carolina hemlock. His efforts have garnered attention from the regional and national press, in Blue Ridge Country, the Raleigh News & Observer and The New Yorker. “I look at it as my legacy work,” Blozan says. “It’s something that no one else was doing. I saw the need, and I knew I that could make a difference.” Born in 1967, Blozan grew up in Rockville, Maryland. His father, Carl, a certified public accountant by training, spent much of his career in government service. His mother, Kathie, is an artist. Running strong in the family is a keen appreciation of nature, which both Will and his younger brother, Ben (WWC, 1991), inherited.
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In his late teens, Blozan began apprenticing with an arborist in Maryland, a monthslong training that culminated 60-feet up in the top of a Norway spruce. Blozan’s job was to limb the tree and cut its top out to prepare it for felling. “It was very simple, really. It was a straight tree, no strange branching,” he recalls. But, straight or not, the tree was also nestled against a house—a fact that lent the operation certain gravity. “So I go to cut the top out of the tree and I’m all shaky and scared to death,” Blozan says. “I’m up there with a chainsaw thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is stupid.’” He got through it and each climb after seemed to go better than the one before. After a year at another school, Blozan transferred to Warren Wilson, entering as a sophomore. “As soon as I pulled onto campus, I knew I wanted to go there,” he says. Blozan regarded the school’s famously leafy property as both a threat and an opportunity. “You’ve got this large central campus with all these kids, myself included, walking and parking and playing Hacky Sack under mature trees that had been neglected for a long, long time.” Many of them needed a good pruning; others needed outright removal because of disease and decay. WINTER 2009
Blozan found a sympathetic ear in Steve White, who at the time was supervisor of the Landscaping Crew. “I’d be driving around campus with Steve saying, “Gosh—I need to prune that, I need to cable that, and hey, something’s wrong with this tree. And he’d say, ‘Look, you need to get this off the ground.’ He was very supportive.” With White’s help, Blozan drafted a proposal for a dedicated campus Tree Crew, and after only a semester of wheedling, they convinced the College administration of the need for one. Blozan would train and lead the crew. For a vehicle, they were given a hand-me-down truck from the Solid Waste Crew with a door that didn’t close. “It was kind of a rough beginning,” he admits. Of course there were other, more subtle inducements to attend Warren Wilson, not least of which was the sight of the woman who would become Blozan’s wife, Heidi Erickson ’90. “The day I came as a prospective student I saw her when we were walking around in the garden, and she kind of swayed me,” says Blozan with a laugh. “I didn’t get to meet her then, but I was like, yeah, I want to go here.” They married in 1998 and have two children, Aven, 9, and Cora, 7.
Warren Wilson served as a living laboratory and training ground for Blozan, offering him an experience rare in the world of professional arboriculture—being in one place long enough to see how trees responded to his work. After graduating in 1990, he remained in the Asheville area and went to work for a local arborist. Eight years later he started his own business, Appalachian Arborists, in nearby Black Mountain. The company has grown to include client list of 3,500 residential customers, as well as routine contract work with private landowners and government agencies. Blozan continues to work with the College on a consultancy basis, bringing his expertise on tree health to bear on many of the campus’s older specimens. The crew he helped start in 1986 continues under the direction of Landscape Crew leader Tom LaMuraglia. In the past decade, the program 17
The Eastern hemlock, an evergreen whose future is imperiled because of an exotic parasite called the hemlock woolly adelgid, has been the focus of Blozan’s recent work.
has graduated three certified arborists and saved the school tens of thousands of dollars it would otherwise have needed to spend on contracted arborists. “It’s an integral part of what we do here,” says LaMuraglia.
Eastern hemlock yet recorded at 173.1 feet. And the records keep coming. Recently, Blozan discovered what he believes may be a new world record hemlock along McKee Branch in the Cataloochee section of the park.
More so than his busy professional schedule, it is Blozan’s advocacy for the hemlock that consumes most of his time and is his passion. Native to 23 states and eastern Canada, the Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) has been devastated in much of its range by the hemlock woolly adelgid, a tiny insect native to Japan and introduced to North America in the 1950s. The insect has no native predators and abetted by drought and warmer winters, it has marched throughout the hemlock’s range with breathtaking speed. The hemlock’s ecological role is singular and its absence from the forest will be keenly felt. The tree’s shade moderates the temperature of trout streams, its crowns lend nesting space to a number of songbird species and its roots are vital to keeping forest nutrients in place.
Sadly, though, most of the Smokies’ largest hemlocks are already dead, sucked dry by adelgids in just a matter of seasons. The adelgid’s damage to trees can be waylaid through the application of a pesticide, a fact that in narrow professional terms means that Blozan has benefited from the pest’s arrival in the Southern mountains. “Honestly, if the hemlock woolly adelgid had not arrived, I wouldn’t be in business,” he says. “Controlling it is 80 percent of what I do.” To date, Appalachian Arborists has treated 180 acres of Eastern hemlocks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 150 acres for a private landowner near Hendersonville, and just over the border in South Carolina, virtually every Carolina hemlock that grows.
In view of the adelgid threat, in 2005 Blozan began a largely self-funded effort called Tsuga Search. The purpose of the study, done in partnership with the Eastern Native Tree Society (nativetreesociety.org), was to find the largest Eastern hemlocks and document their size and role in the forest. In 2007 in the Smokies, Blozan and study partner Jess Riddle discovered the tallest 18
Regardless of the business opportunity it presents, bearing witness to the hemlock’s demise is heartbreaking. “The lack of interest and response to the plight of these species is unbelievable,” Blozan says. “Take the Carolina hemlock, for instance. It’s on the verge of extinction in the wild. At the same time, there’s so little of this tree out there that it could probably all be treated within the space of a year. But it’s not
happening. It’s like, ‘C’mon people. We’ve got a moral obligation to save this species.’ ” So Blozan has begun a campaign of awareness, talking to garden clubs and civic groups, conference attendees and more or less anyone else who will listen, both about the need to preserve the hemlocks in their own backyards and the need to keep alive what’s left of the species in the wild. “I try to lead as many walks and give as many talks as I can to try to get people interested and empowered,” he says. Invariably, Blozan’s presentations drift to images of formerly green hemlocks now dry, dead, on their way to being gone forever. “I’m able to show, graphically, what’s being lost. It’s a perspective people aren’t getting anywhere else.” The presentations can be emotional. It’s not uncommon, he says, to finish a talk and look up to see several in the audience crying. If future generations know anything of these majestic trees, it’s no exaggeration to say that much of that knowledge will grow from the work and attention of one man who looked up more than three decades ago and caught a glimpse of his own future.
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Hemlocks on the big screen A few years ago, Will Blozan’s quest to find and save the last of the Smokies’ old-growth Eastern hemlocks came to the attention of filmmaker David Huff, managing partner of the Charlotte-based production company Back 40 Films. The result of their collaboration will soon be a feature-length documentary, The Vanishing Hemlock: A Race Against Time. On the Web: back40films.com
WINTER 2009
19
NE WFACULT Y&STAFF JOHN BARRY Faculty, Business & Economics
Hometown l Boston, Massachusetts Education B.S., Boston College M.B.A., Northeastern University Why Warren Wilson? “We love the community, the area, and the College. My wife and I came down here a few years ago. We traveled and camped along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I proposed around Mile 300. We returned to the area for our honeymoon and decided we had to move here. After teaching as adjunct at Wilson last fall, I knew it was the perfect fit for me.”
CARLI DAMIEN Accounts Receivable Supervisor
Hometown l Miami, Florida Education A.S., Computer Science, Santa Fe Community College (Fla.) B.S., Business Administration, St. Leo University Why Warren Wilson? “I love it here. I live here—I followed my husband (James, the College Locksmith) up from Florida.”
RENEE FORTNER Assistant Supervisor, Landscaping Services
Hometown l Grassy Creek, North Carolina Education A.A., Horticulture, Haywood Community College B.A., University of North Carolina Asheville Why Warren Wilson? “I am excited to be at Warren Wilson because of the beautiful campus, community atmosphere and campus-wide dedication to sustainability.”
JUSTIN GARDINER MFA ’05 Beebe Teaching Fellow
Hometown l Eugene, Oregon Education B.A., English and Philosophy, Whitman College M.F.A., Warren Wilson College Why Warren Wilson? “I am the 2008-09 Beebe Fellow in Creative Writing, a fellowship open only to graduates of the MFA program. Besides that, I’m from Oregon, and the students, the town, and the surrounding foothills around here suit me perfectly.”
ELLEN GRAVES ’06 Administrative Assistant, Work Program
Hometown l Orange, Virginia Education B.A., Psychology, Warren Wilson College Why Warren Wilson? “I know that Warren Wilson is an amazing place full of amazing people. I am excited about the opportunity of being able to help once again provide for the College.”
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THOMAS HODGES ’05 Assistant Supervisor, Building Services
Hometown l Fairbanks, Alaska Education B.A., Art, Warren Wilson College Why Warren Wilson? “The Work Program was a huge influence on me and taught me the leadership skills needed to run a crew. I’m at Wilson now because it’s a wonderful place and it’s been my home for most of my life. I intend to earn a graduate degree in art and I’ve considered coming back here to teach afterward.”
MICHELLE KAISER Interim Assistant Dean of Service-Learning
Hometown l Waterloo, Iowa Education B.A., Social Work, University of Iowa M.A., Social Work/Non-profit Management, University of South Carolina Graduate Certificate in Public Health, University of North Carolina Why Warren Wilson? “Warren Wilson’s mission and values combine all that I believe in personally and professionally. I became involved with WWC through the Social Work Advisory Board and the Social Work Department. I love the energy of the students, the interdisciplinary liberal arts curriculum, the emphasis on sustainability (and the extension of this definition beyond the physical environment), as well as the focus on service.”
KAREN KYLE Administrative Assistant, Dean of Service-Learning/Office Manager
Hometown l Daytona Beach, Florida Experience Law office administrative assistant, Volusia County, Fla. Why Warren Wilson? “I believe in working hard, respecting and caring for others, and preserving what we have to pass along to the next generation. Being a part of the community with shared values is the best place to feel you are doing your part.”
JASON LACKEY Supervisor of Painting Services
Hometown l Sanford, North Carolina Experience Owner and contractor, JML Painting Why Warren Wilson? “The Triad interested me. Now I love it after knowing more.”
LEAH MCCULLOUGH Director of Spiritual Life
Hometown l Charlotte, North Carolina Education B.S., Physical Education & Psychology, Appalachian State University M.A., Sport Management, Appalachian State University M.Div., Iliff School of Theology
OWL & SPADE
NE WFAC U LT Y &S TA F F Why Warren Wilson? “To serve at an institution of higher education that ‘gets it’ in seeking to integrate transformational learning across the areas of academics, work and service. To live into my vocational call as a minister in an institution that holds communal values, particularly around environmental and social justice, in line with my own personal values. To return “home” to the North Carolina mountains, the sacred geography where my soul is nourished and I love to play. And, most importantly, on my interview visit I met some really fabulous and passionate students with whom I wanted to work, learn, serve, and play.”
TIMOTHY MEEHAN Faculty, Environmental Studies & Biology
Hometown l Athens, West Virginia Education Bachelor of University Studies, University of New Mexico M.S., Wildfire Biology, Humboldt State University Ph.D., Biology, University of New Mexico Why Warren Wilson? “Nice people; engaged students; the Triad; emphasis on sustainability; perfect campus for teaching life science.”
TAWAN PERRY Assistant Dean of Student Life
Hometown l Rocky Mount, North Carolina Education A.A., General Studies, Prince George’s Community College B.S., Elementary Education, Morgan State University M.A.Ed., Higher Education Administration, University of Massachusetts Why Warren Wilson? “This was a great opportunity to work at a progressive school that is ahead of the game with regard to sustainability. I think in the next few years, higher education as a whole will be forced to think about this issue in a more critical manner. It’s good to know that I’m affiliated with an institution that not only understands this but also has fully embraced the idea. This also seemed like the next logical step in my own professional development. Lastly, I get a chance to really get to know the students that I am serving. In my position, I am at the table but I’m still in the trenches.”
ANDREW PULSIFER Director of Aquatics
Hometown l Woodbridge, Virginia Education B.A., Communication Studies (Television Broadcasting), Virginia Tech University M.S., Education (Collegiate Sports Administration), Georgia State University Why Warren Wilson? “Compatible ideology, community oriented, liberal, really caring people, beautiful area and weather, coupled with a job I enjoy and can be challenged by.”
WINTER 2009
BRIANNA QUICK ’07 Interim Campus Visit Coordinator Hometown l Asheville, North Carolina
Education B.A., Global Studies, Warren Wilson College Experience Admission Crew member, Warren Wilson College Why Warren Wilson? “I get to work in a great office, with great co-workers, at an amazing school. I’m very happy to be back here for the next year as the interim campus visit coordinator, greeting folks every day who are just discovering Warren Wilson and are excited to be here.”
JOHN VERBA Office Manager/Motor Pool Supervisor
Hometown l Kings Park, New York Education B.S., Business Administration, Concord College Why Warren Wilson? “My experiences in college were some of the most memorable in my life. I fell in love with the Warren Wilson setting. The philosophy described on the website seemed to have improved based on the college life I was exposed to by adding work and service as a graduation requirement. After participating in my first interview with the College, I felt the attitude of the many different people I met in alignment with the school philosophy. It seemed the more I learned of the College and the people, the more I felt it was the right place for me.”
KEVIN WALDEN Head Men’s Basketball Coach and Sports Information Director
Hometown l Peoria, Illinois Education B.A., Elementary Education, Knox College M.A., Organizational Leadership, St. Ambrose University Why Warren Wilson? “Because of its friendly atmosphere and reputation as an excellent academic institution. There’s no better place for a student-athlete to receive an excellent education, gain valuable, real-life work experience, and compete in varsity athletics.”
JULIE WILSON Writing Center Coordinator
Hometown l Winston-Salem, North Carolina Education B.A., English, Oberlin College M.A. and Ph.D., Education, University of North Carolina Why Warren Wilson? “I’m always searching for the right relationship between learning and action. I was drawn to Warren Wilson’s Triad curriculum as a place to continue this search.”
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We Need to INSULATE! By Laura Dison ‘10
of Asheville. The College’s own ServiceLearning Office is a vital partner as it facilitates student service for the program.
The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association reported in 2008 that homes of those living 50% below the poverty level consumed a disproportionate amount of energy. Households below 50% of this level pay 59.3% of their annual income on energy bills. Homes built ten or more years ago consume up to 60% more energy than newer homes.
A
t a Warren Wilson College community meeting in fall 2007, senior Brittany Cusworth posed the questions: “Regarding the environment, what is the campus doing well? What could we be doing better?” Students, faculty and staff split into small groups to address the question. Nathan Ballentine ’08 stood up to represent his small group. “Helping low-income families improve energy efficiency in their homes,” he said. “We need to be insulating Swannanoa.” “I thought that was right on,” recalls Phillip Gibson, director of community outreach for Warren Wilson’s Environmental Leadership Center (ELC). The ELC began researching the needs within the community and the viability of a program. It was revealed that funding opportunities for organizations such as Community Action Opportunities had been cut over the past few years. A partnership with WWC would assist this organization by allowing it to serve more homes with fewer dollars. Mountain Green, an ELC program, was already hosting a monthly guest speaker “Lunch & Learn” series, Green Walkabouts 22
of the campus and an annual green building conference. In 2007 the College had committed to apply principles of sustainability in its planning and practices —INSULATE! would meet them all and create positive environmental, economic and community impacts. In addition, the relationship between the ELC and the Asheville Homebuilders Association had been strengthening. Out of that alliance, and grounded in student interest and College principles, the INSULATE! program was born. Cusworth ’08 and Gibson spent last summer planning the project and in August, students Rachel Buedel ‘09 and Nina Otter ‘10 joined the ELC as its INSULATE! Work Crew. On August 28, 2008, the ELC formally launched INSULATE!, which reaches out to homeowners living below the poverty level in Asheville and Swannanoa, and insulates their homes at no cost to reduce utility bills and carbon footprints. INSULATE! is supported by the Council on Aging of Buncombe County, the Asheville Homebuilders Association and Community Action Opportunities. Other partners include Progress Energy and the City
“INSULATE! fills such a valuable need for our community,” Martha Thompson of Progress Energy says. “There are dozens of homes with low or no insulation. This program addresses not only the comfort of the residents, but it also allows less fuel consumption to bring the home to a comfortable level with minimal waste.” Warren Wilson students and community partners insulated two homes in October 2008 and a final home in November to complete INSULATE!’s fall agenda of three homes. On a typical workday, students prepare a house for the blowing of insulation. At one home students dug tenby-two foot trenches to stop the basement from flooding after heavy rains. “Part of weatherization,” Gibson says, “is that we are closing the gaps in a home and making it tighter. So, indoor air quality is also of concern.” Junior Callie Baruch took part in one of the workdays led by Service-Learning. In her work on the ELC’s Campus Greening
Wrapping hot water heaters with insulation reduces fuel consumption.
Oven vent installation eliminates carbon monoxide in the home.
OWL & SPADE
Margo Flood appointed to serve as sustainability official
Warren Wilson students gain valuable service-learning experience while volunteering with INSULATE!
Crew she helps lower the College’s energy use by recording and communicating campus energy consumption. “I already have a sense of how expensive energy can be and how little things, like unplugging appliances when you are not using them, can make a big difference,” Baruch says. “Participating in INSULATE! is helpful for my campus work because I’m learning about hands-on methods to lower energy use and cost.” Baruch worked in the basement of one home, filling spaces around ductwork with spray foam. “I really enjoyed getting off campus and meeting people outside a college community,” she says. “Interacting with the family and listening to a little of their life story reminded me that the world did not revolve around me and my activities at school.” “The program has had a great start,” says Chloe Stuber ’11, a Service-Learning crew leader. “Students are definitely happy to be doing the work. Meeting with the homeowners is usually a highlight for everyone, and seeing the conditions they live in is a true eye-opener. The students have been eager to do more work than is needed.” After students complete the prep work, contractors undertake the insulation work. Otter and Buedel, the INSULATE! Work Crew members, are working to make the results from the homes available to the public. “It’s a big undertaking,” Otter says. “The two workdays have been really successful. Analyzing the data is a challenge, but I’m learning about how to determine energy efficiency in a home. These are calculations that few people WINTER 2009
know about because it is still a relatively new field...it feels like we’re pioneers.” “INSULATE! is just the type of project our region needs as a reminder that work based in true sustainability philosophy is the only way to ensure a resilient community,” Margaret Ullman from the City of Asheville says. According to Ullman, the City’s Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment is eager to see the program spread as a national model. Buedel also envisions INSULATE! as a model for other communities. “It’s important because it educates the public about the growing need for these projects and the importance of efficient homes. It also allows for collaboration within a community, which is healthy and good. It is very moving when you become part of something bigger than yourself.”
Warren Wilson President Sandy Pfeiffer has appointed Margo Flood, executive director of the College’s Environmental Leadership Center (ELC), to expand her role and serve as the College’s chief sustainability official and member of the President’s Advisory Council (PAC). In this role Flood will provide leadership and coordination to advance sustainability discussions in all aspects of campus life, fulfill the College’s climate change commitments, assist PAC in planning for sustainability, provide leadership to a diverse Sustainability Task Force, and implement a sustainability metric. “We are committed to honor our pledge as a signatory of the Talloires Declaration and to create a culture of sustainability at Warren Wilson,” President Pfeiffer said. “These steps will ensure progress toward that goal.”
Along with the ELC’s Phillip Gibson and Executive Director Margo Flood, President Sandy Pfeiffer, the Asheville Homebuilder’s Association’s Caroline Sutton, and Community Action Opportunities’ Sybil Schaerer, Buedel was present at the October 28, 2008 Asheville City Council Meeting. There, Mayor Terry M. Bellamy declared October 30 as INSULATE! Day in the City of Asheville. “As one of our partners,” says Buedel, “we are thrilled that the Asheville City Council recognized the importance of this program.” “It was a perfect day to receive the proclamation,” Buedel says. “The wind and cold had been increasing all day—a perfect representation of why insulation is so important.” Students dig a trench to stop the basement from flooding after heavy rains.
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S T UDENTPROFILE
OSAKA, JAPAN Home away from home
A day with Lindsay Roberts ’09
Psychology major Lindsay Roberts ’09 studied at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Ohayoo, good morning, my host father says Japan, during the fall 2008 semester.
as he bustles around the room getting ready for the day. A bowl of raw cabbage and tomatoes and a hard boiled egg wait for me at the table. I grab a giant piece of white bread, Texas toast style, and crack open my egg. Breakfast is eaten with chopsticks, as are all meals. Soon I am pulling my shoes on at the front door, where all the shoes in the house are kept, and letting my family know that I’m leaving. Ittekimasu, I’ll go and come back, I say. Itterasshai, please go and come back, my family members respond.
This picture where I am holding a stone symbolizes me holding all of my future hopes in my hands. If the stone is too heavy for you, if it is heavier than you expected, then your hopes and wishes will not come true. It was heavy, but as you can see I could handle the weight of my future... or something like that.
On the Web:
To read more about Lindsay’s semester at Kansai Gaidai, visit her blog: japanlindsay.blogspot.com 24
I pass giggling middle and high school students all in uniform, a different one depending on grade or school, as they walk in massive groups stretching across the entire sidewalk. The square between the two train stations is a two-way highway of continuous human motion; get off at one station, get right back on at the other. Here and there a businessman runs late, tie and briefcase flying as he sprints through the crowd. I am one of many students commuting since the majority of college students in Japan still live at home with their families. I catch the 8:30 express train or the 9:06 limited express train, having found that any train before 8:30 is so packed with businessmen and high school students that my backpack and I won’t both fit. Reliability is the word to describe trains, consistently on time and always making the same stops. I join the neat line formed where the train doors open and slowly file in with everyone else. The 25-minute train ride is the perfect time to study flash cards of Japanese vocabulary or practice reading hiragana, one of the three written Japanese alphabets, on the signs in the train. On the walk to school I find myself alongside Japanese students also migrating up the huge hill toward Kansai Gaidai, my university. It is a flurry of activity. Buses barrel down the hill, passing close enough to ruffle my hair. Bicyclists
zoom past, sometimes just inches away. In Japan, mopeds, scooters and bicycles often share the sidewalk with pedestrians, so I must constantly be on the lookout. Ohayoo gozimasu, a polite good morning, says the guard on duty at the front gate of the university. From there it is like any other school day at any university—classes, chatting with friends, lunch in the cafeteria. The normalcy is only slightly broken by the menu of food options in the cafeteria and the constant staring of the Japanese university students and international students at each other—even after two months. We international students have all our classes in one building, the Center for International Education or CIE. The CIE lounge is like a fish tank, all glass and windows, where at any time you can see international and Japanese students talking, sleeping, or studying (often helping each other with language class homework). There are about 430 of us in all, so the classes are the same size as at Warren Wilson and foster the same sense of community. I feel the same sense of mutual respect with my professors here also. These factors have helped me understand why Warren Wilson and Kansai Gaidai have a relationship; they complement each other and share many of the same values. At the end of the day I leave the campus through the main gates. Sayonara, goodbye, says the guard. The sun sets behind the city and the neon signs come to life. I exit the train station and walk into a world of street performers, flashing lights and big-city sounds. The city of Osaka holds a beauty all its own. It’s completely different than the beauty of Warren Wilson but no less magnificent. Tadaima, I’m home, I say as I open the front door and remove my shoes. Okaerinasai, welcome home, my family replies.
OWL & SPADE
My okaasan (mother) said I should stay in Japan and teach Belly Dancing because it is supposedly getting very popular.
Host family—my host sister Yoshiko, me, my other host sister Reiko, and my host brother’s girlfriend.
My friend Ayako looked lovely in her kimono.
Osaka at night.
Tori gates are a Shinto symbol and always appear at the entrance to shrines.
This is my house. I live on the top, the area attached to the roof, which makes me very happy.
WINTER 2009
There was so much food it was impossible to take photos of it all. They really like custard here, and all the custard (left) is very much like flan, so that’s what the pretty little cups are. Center, lichee nuts. Right, sake in crab shell.
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A LUMNI NOTES ’50s
Marjorie Jennings ’50 co-hosted
dinners for Natalya, a visitor from Samarra, Russia. Natalya arranged travel for 225 high school students from Samarra to visit Orlando and Jacksonville, Fla. Ilene (Swartzel) Crites ’54 and her
husband, Don Crites, celebrated 50 years of marriage on June 22, 2008.
’60s
Judy (Hensley) Hulvey ’64 now
spends most of the year in her Mars Hill, N.C., home after her husband, Dr. Larry W. Hulvey, died in April 2007. She would like to hear from classmates. You can contact her by email at hwmgp@hotmail.com. James Dedman ’65 was awarded
a Gold Record for his continued collaboration with the Recording Industry Association of America and leadership in the creation of an informational training video to assist prosecutors responsible for handling music piracy cases.
’70s
Enrique Alonso ’71 thanks God
and good doctors that he is doing much better now. While he couldn’t make it this year, he hopes to be at Homecoming next year. Beth ’71 and Cecil Leslie ’72
have stayed busy traveling. Beth is preparing a manuscript to be published and Cecil helps run an art gallery. Cecil is also a regionally recognized authority in folk art pottery and does some estate appraising. They would love to hear from any and all. David Briscoe ’74 has written a
book called Statements of Courage, Hope, and Triumph. Ryan ’75 and Kim Kamchan ’79 have Ryan’s nephew from
Thailand living with them. Ryan is partner/owner of a Thai restaurant in Daytona Beach, Fla., named Zen Bistro. Kim self-published a Christian book, A Closer Walk, sold with an inspirational CD. If you would like a copy, send an email to KimmyMay@cfl.rr.com.
26
Ann Piccard ’76 completed
a Master of Laws from the University of London with a concentration in International Human Rights law. Ann has been on the faculty of Stetson University College of Law for ten years. Patricia Eakins MFA ’77 hosted a
Sunday Best Reading at Hudson View Gardens on October 5, 2008, which included readings by Lorna Knowles Blake, Charles Martin, and Linda McCarriston.
’80s
Robby Henson ’80 lives in
California. His new film “House” is out this winter. Steven Kane ’84 was appointed
the new chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Atlanta Medical Center. He will oversee the post-graduate training of orthopedic interns and residents and direct musculoskeletal-related research. Joey Revis ’84 is a licensed clinical
social worker. He works for Hospice of Rutherford County and lives in Spindale, N.C., with his wife, Amy, and children, Lauren (10) and Evan (8). Rashmi Misra ’87 and her
husband, Ethan, are very proud of their two daughters, Anastasia Caton (21) and Supriya (10). Anastasia was a finalist for the Morehead scholarship at UNC and is a senior at Duke University, while Supriya is in middle school. James Phippard ’87 says hello to
alumni from the classes of 19831991. He would love to hear from friends at jim28778@yahoo. com and is happy to host visitors anytime. Chris Hill ’88 reports that his sister, Karen Cress ’88, passed
away January 1, 2007, from breast cancer. She was a kindergarten teacher for 18 years.
’90s
Laura Luce ’90 is still working for
Heifer International as a training manager. She just bought her first house with an extra room for all her WWC friends. Send her an email at wandrer85@gmail.com.
Suzanne Burnes ’91 and her
husband, Chuck, welcomed Sadie Shultz to the world December 12, 2007. They live with Sadie’s brother, Walker (4), in Atlanta, where Suzanne manages the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Partnership for a Sustainable Georgia. She would love to reconnect with her old WWC friends via email at suzanne.burnes@p2ad.org. Britta Dedrick ’93 sends her best
and greenest wishes to all. Changes in her life have led her to live in a beautiful LEED-certified house in Portland, Oregon. She took part in the local “Build It Green!” tour in September 2008. Check it out online at portlandonline.com/osd/ builditgreen. Coco Dolce ’93 welcomed a son,
August Kieran Palmer Dolce, in January 2008. Heidi Berkovitz ’96 is back in
school studying herbal medicine at the One World Healing Arts Institute. She’ll be collaborating with Susan Harriot ’95 to revise the 1994 publication Hidden Treasures: Traditional Culinary and Medicinal Herbs. James Munn ’97 is a third
grade teacher at W.D. Williams Elementary in Swannanoa. He married Emily Elizabeth Dunford on June 28, 2008. Jane Bradshaw ’98 was chosen as
a delegate for Sen. Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Sally Robinson ’98 and Michael Talbot ’04 married on February
2, 2008. Sally obtained a master’s degree in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and runs a private practice, White Pine Acupuncture, in Asheville. Michael started Standing Stone Masonry and is working toward dry stone mason national certification. Rebecca Patt ’99 recently relocated
from Santa Cruz to Minneapolis and is enjoying exploring the area’s many lakes. For the last five years, she has been working at an executive search firm. She asks alumni living in the Twin Cities and elsewhere to contact her at rebeccapatt@gmail.com.
William Hamilton ’99 has been
working with landowners to preserve farmland in partnership with local, state and federal organizations at the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy for three years now. He and Molly have two little girls, Anne (3) and Evva (1). Elaine Brinkley ’99 has been
appointed as executive director for Camp Fire USA Georgia Council. Sarah Roosa ’99 and Chris Collins ’00 had their third child, Nolan
Stephen Collins, on September 4, 2008.
’00s
Ben Edson ’00 and Emily Mahowald ’00 married last spring
surrounded by many WWC alumni. They live in Asheville where Emily works as a nurse in the Neurotrauma ICU at Mission Hospitals, and Ben works at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. They both find themselves on the river frequently. Melanie MacNeil ’00 transitioned
from working in public and private mental health into owning her own business, ashevillehoops. com. She is a certified yoga teacher, hoopdance instructor, and fire performer. Contact her at melmacpink@hotmail.com. Matthew Goldfarb ’02 is the
executive director at the Farm Institute in Edgartown, Mass., and works alongside his brother who serves as development director. The Farm Institute is an educational working farm focused on sustainable agriculture. Derrick Blodgett ’03 married
Carrie Blodgett on June 14, 2008, in West Glover, Vt. Derrick works at Washington County Mental Health and Carrie is working toward her graduate degree in education. They live in Montpelier. Sarah Cox ’03 and Josh Karpen ’04 married on July 1, 2007, at the
Morris’ Community Pavilion in a smallish Jewish ceremony. Morris Karpen, who designed and helped build the pavilion on campus in 2000 and 2001, was Josh’s grandfather. The editor apologizes for the omission of this note in the last issue.
OWL & SPADE
A LU M N I N OT E S Joey Vance ’05 and Amanda Davis ’06 married October 4, 2008.
Ginelle Heller ’04 and Adam Fajardo ’05 both attend Indiana
University. Adam is pursuing a Ph.D. in English and Ginelle is working toward an M.S. in environmental science and public affairs. Ginelle works for the I.U. Outdoor Adventures program, coordinating outdoor trips and experiences. Adam is teaching composition courses. Heidi Stucker ’05 is currently
Courtney Cochran ’08 spent the
month after graduation helping to organize the second Mountain Green Conference, which was held on campus in late June. She then moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the National Wildlife Federation as a Campus Ecology Program Assistant.
working at a farm in Massachusetts as the CSA (community supported agriculture) manager. She is happy to have visited with other WWC alumni at the Vermont WWC reunion and thankful to all those who organized a gathering for Northeastern alumni.
Ryan Morra ’08 loves his first year
of teaching science at the Eagle Rock School in Estes Park, Colo. The first snow came the second week of October, the aspens are golden, the air is crisp, and life is good.
MFA BOOKSHELF
Publications and awards by alumni of the MFA Program for Writers Idris Anderson ’06
Anderson won the May Swenson Poetry Award for Mrs. Ramsay’s Knee (poems), which was published by Utah State University Press. Robin Black ’05
Random House will publish Yesterday’s News, a collection of short stories, in 2009. Beverley Brahic ’06
Unfinished Ode to Mud Mud, a translation of Francis Ponge poems, was published by CBEditions, London, UK. Hyperdream, a translation of Hélène Cixous’s work, was published by Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Majka Burhardt ’07
Vertical Ethiopia: Climbing Towards Possibility in the Horn of Africa (nonfiction) recounts Bunhardt’s trip to Ethiopia with four other women to climb virgin sandstone rock towers. It has been published by Shama Books. Linda Nemec Foster ’79
Ten Songs from Bulgaria (chapbook) was published by Cervena Barva Press. Joan Frank ’96
U P CO M I N G
2009 C L A S S REUNIONS
1949 1954, 1959 1964 1974, 1979 1984, 1989 1994, 1999 2004 Contact Miranda Hipple at mhipple@warren-wilson.edu
or 866.WWC.ALUM to find out more.
Frank won the Richard Sullivan Prize from the University of Notre Dame Press for In Envy Country (stories), which will be published by the press in 2010. Ellen Hawley ’87
Open Line (novel) was published by Coffee House Press. Publishers Weekly called it “a deft and hilarious send-up of the media and political culture.” Hal Herring ’96
Famous Firearms of the Old West: From Wild Bill Hickock’s Colt Revolvers to Geronimo’s Winchester, Twelve Guns that Shaped Our History was published by Globe Pequot Press. He describes this work as not just a gun book, but “deeply American stories.” Roy Jacobstein ’01
Fuchsia in Cambodia was published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. Susan Katz ’78
Oh, Theodore!: Guinea Pig Poems (children’s book) was named to the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing. Gary Copeland Lilly ’02
SIGNME UP! Email alumni@warren-wilson.edu to subscribe to the Warren Wilson College E-newsletter. You’ll get monthly news, feature stories, event notices and links to keep you updated and in tune with Warren Wilson College.
Alpha Zulu (poems) was published by Ausable Press. Dale Neal ’89
Cow Across America (novel) won the Novello Literary Award from Novello Festival Press. The press will publish the book in 2009. Nate Pritts ’00
Shrug (chapbook) was published by Main Street Rag. Leslie Walker Williams ‘94
The Prudent Mariner was published by the University of Tennessee Press as the winner of the Peter Taylor Prize. The novel also won the Morris Hackney Literary Award. Compiled by Kathryn Schwille MFA ’99
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WARRE N W I L S O N CO L L E G E
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OWL & SPADE
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A LUMNI&FRIEND LOSSES HOBERT “BERT” CRITES JR. ’56 Dec. 28, 1935-Nov. 7, 2008
MARGARET “DANNY” VERNER June 3, 1923-June 23, 2008
Hobert L. Crites, Jr., 72, died November 7, 2008, at his assisted living home in Burnsville, North Carolina. Mr. Crites graduated from Warren Wilson Junior College in 1956 and served on the Alumni Board from 1968-1978, 1987-1990 and 2003-2006. He was the board president from 1973-1975. After graduating from Warren Wilson, he served in the U.S. Army from 1958-1959, worked as a retail and merchandise salesman at Sears Roebuck Co. and worked with Interiors by Decorating Den as corporate retail and marketing manager. He was a member of the Norfolk Scottish Rite of Free Masonry and the president of the Land of the Sky Shrine Club in Swannanoa. A talented bagpipe player, Mr. Crites piped at many Warren Wilson events throughout the years, including homecomings, former College President Doug Orr’s installation and retirement, and President Sandy Pfeiffer’s installation. He was a talented singer and a member of the Asheville chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society. He was valued for his dedication and enthusiasm by the Warren Wilson alumni board and his friends at the College. Mr. Crites is survived by his wife, Ethel Crites, his son, Robert Dale Crites, his daughter, Cherrie
Margaret Oberdorfer Danny Verner, 85, a close friend of the College from Montreat, North Carolina, died June 23, 2008, at Mission Hospital in Asheville after a short illness. Mrs. Verner was born in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1923 to Lutheran missionaries and came to the U.S. at age 17 to earn her master’s degree in nursing at Capitol University. Hoping to return to India to establish a nursing school for local women, Mrs. Verner fell ill and was taken to an infirmary where she met her husband, Dr. Hugh Verner, a resident there. They were married in 1945 and shortly afterwards moved to Charlotte where they remained for 44 years. In Charlotte Mrs. Verner helped establish many community organizations, including the Piedmont Courts Mothers’ Club, which helped organize and unite women living in public housing projects; Each One, Reach One, a reading program for children; and the Shepherd’s Center, which helps organize older people as volunteers. She was on the founding board of directors for Habitat for Humanity of Charlotte. Mrs. Verner was active in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), serving as an elder at Myers Park Presbyterian Church. Through the church, she helped resettle a Vietnamese refugee family and worked with the Mecklenburg Presbytery to build a canal in Haiti. After the Verners retired and moved to Montreat, Mrs. Verner, with help from her husband and others, founded the Swannanoa Valley Voice for Children (SVVC), which addressed childcare, family services, teacher education and health services. After raising $3.6 million the SVVC built the Mountain Area Child and Family Center located on Warren Wilson College land. The center opened in 2001. Mrs. Verner continued to serve on the board of directors of the Mountain Area Child and Family Center until she became ill. Mrs. Verner is survived by her husband, former chair of the Warren Wilson College Board of Trustees Dr. Hugh Verner, sons David, Jon and Scott, and three daughters-in-law.
Foster, and his son-in-law, Rob Foster.
THOMAS HINTON CRUMPLER Dec. 5, 1936-Dec. 8, 2008 Thomas Hinton Crumpler died December 8, 2008, at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Tom was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and lived there in his youth. He graduated from Pfeiffer College in 1960 and received his master’s degree from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia. Tom served as director of Christian education several years before taking a staff position at Montreat-Anderson College. He especially enjoyed hiking and camping in the mountains with youth groups. Tom moved to Morganton in 1972 with his wife, Pat, and his two children, Cynthia ’90 and Jonathan. He became an active member of the First Presbyterian Church serving as deacon and elder and teaching the adult Clower Bible Class for many years. A stroke in 1992 forced early retirement; this adversity became a blessing when he joined the volunteer staff at Warren Wilson, where he worked with the physical plant and church relations office. Tom also was a service-learning advisor at the College and coordinated service trips to Washington D.C., Jacksonville and New Orleans. In 1999 he and Pat moved into St. Clair Guest House and managed it with love and warmth for nine years before retiring in 2008. Tom’s commitment to social justice, civil rights and the value and dignity of service endured his whole life and made him a natural fit in the Warren Wilson community. The College recognized his contributions with the staff service-learning award in 2006 and in 2008 bestowed the honor of renaming the award the Thomas Crumpler Staff Service Learning Award.
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BEATRICE RICE WELLS Dec. 17, 1901-June 6, 2008 A 1920 graduate of the Asheville Normal and Teachers College, Mrs. Wells was a teacher in several Asheville schools and active member of the community. Mrs. Wells’ daughter, Mary L. Powell, created the Ada Rice and Beatrice Rice Wells Memorial Scholarship at Warren Wilson College in honor of Mrs. Wells and her sister, Ada Rice, a 1922 graduate of the Asheville Normal and Teachers College. Alumnae of ANTC, warmly welcomed by the Warren Wilson community, provided funds for a dormitory on the Warren Wilson campus and also created the Asheville Normal and Teachers College Scholarship.
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2008 Graduate Survey
B
Y THE NUMBERS
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In the spring of 2008
percentage of graduates who find full-time employment within six months of graduation
after extensive planning by Career Services, Institutional Research and Alumni Relations,
13 percentage of graduates who enter
the College’s first comprehensive graduate survey was launched. With about 1500 email addresses
graduate or professional
of four-year graduates from 1969-2003,
degree programs within
the team distributed the survey to a pilot group
six months of graduation
that included graduates from every fifth year.
98
Slight modifications were made, and the revised survey
A+
was distributed to the remaining classes.
percentage of
graduates who feel the College
The results shown here are just a small sampling
lived up to
of the information gleaned from the graduate survey,
its mission
which is helping to develop a composite view
statement.
87 percentage of graduates who said
of the Warren Wilson experience since becoming
service experiences at
a four-year institution in 1967.
Warren Wilson had a
“Our graduates overwhelmingly report that the Triad of academics, work and service has served them well,” Bates Canon, Director of Career Services, says.
significant impact upon their lives
“Their stories are compelling and their message is clear: The Warren Wilson College experience is one that
7 graduates
alumni value long after they graduate.”
65
percentage of graduates
who enter graduate or professional degree
are seven times For more information on the survey,
more likely to report
contact Bates Canon,
that they are
bcanon@warren-wilson.edu.
better prepared
programs at some point
than their peers
after graduating
in graduate school
74 percentage of alumni who are involved
with volunteer work
98
percentage of graduates who are satisfied with their present employment
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LookingBack “One of the greatest assets to the school is the dairy, which furnishes milk and butter for the dining room. This is managed by Mr. Verser, and two boys work here. The herd consists of nineteen Holstein cows. About 15 gallons of milk are brought to the dining room each day, and about fifty pounds of butter every week. A new dairy barn and three-room milk house are under construction. This will enable the school to keep a larger herd.” Owl & Spade, May 1926
S
ince 1926, the White Barn on Riceville Road has been a familiar landmark for the Warren Wilson College Farm. It was the center of the College’s dairy production for over 30 years, ending in the fall of 1955. Now, the Farm Crew uses it as the main location for caring for the cattle herd and to store hay. While the White Barn remains an icon of the College Farm, major renovation is needed to keep it safe and structurally sound. A new roof, lead abatement and interior concrete wall repair will cost the College approximately $85,000. The Office of Advancement has begun an effort to raise funds for this project. So far, about ten percent of the needed funds have been collected. If you are interested in helping restore this special landmark, please contact Janet Doyle, Director of Development: jdoyle@warren-wilson.edu or 828.771.3756.
Share the Word on Wilson
Your referral of prospective students will enable Warren Wilson to introduce young women and men to meaningful work, thoughtful service-learning, stimulating classroom discussions, caring faculty and a wealth of opportunities both here and abroad. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
Let us know.
Call 800.934.3536 or email admit@warren-wilson.edu
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OWL & SPADE
Picture yourself at Weekend@Wilson
June 26-27, 2009 Plan to... • learn something new • share family adventures & memories • enjoy the beauty of the WWC campus • relax with old friends Watch for details in forthcoming emails and at
alumni.warren.wilson.edu/weekend.shtml
W
HAT’S GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE? A new job, a new home, a wedding or birth of a child? Please take a few minutes to let us know about the latest developments in your life by filling out this form. Please print clearly and indicate dates and/or places of events so we get the facts straight. We generally refrain from publishing events that are expected to occur in the future to avoid any mishaps. If you have a picture of an event or child, please send it along. ❏ I would like the news below printed in the Class Notes section of the Owl & Spade. ❏ It is not necessary to print this news in Class Notes. Name (Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms.) ___________________________________________________________________ Class ____________ Street address ______________________________________________________________________ City ____________________ State ____________ Zip _________________ Country __________________ Email _____________________________________ Home phone ________________________ Office phone _______________________ Cell phone ___________________________ Job title _______________________________________ Company ___________________________________________________ Marital status ________________________ Spouse’s name ___________________________________________________________ Class Notes News: Please limit to 50 words or less. Alumni Office reserves the right to edit for space and content. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Please fill out this form and send it to: Alumni Office, Warren Wilson College, CPO 6324, P.O. Box 9000, Asheville, NC 28815-9000 Fax 828.771.5850 • alumni@warren-wilson.edu Fa WINTER 2009
WARREN WILSON COLLEGE
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