Feature: Then and Now

LVC caught up with some beloved emeriti faculty and learned about their current counterparts.

Dr. Tom Hanrahan, director of campus communications, recently invited a few distinguished Lebanon Valley College emeriti to share their fondest memories of LVC and tell us what they are doing now. He also talked to their current counterparts, who shared a few facts about themselves and discussed how they are engaging today’s students. What’s clear across the decades is the faculty and staff’s unwavering commitment to forging close connections with students and mentoring them to go further and achieve more than they ever thought possible.

Which LVC mentors would you like to hear about next? Let us know, and we’ll highlight them on social media and in upcoming issues of The Valley.

Catalyzing Excitement for Science

Alumni of the chemistry program have earned patents, national grants, advanced degrees, and other accolades. Catch up with a Chemistry Department legend and a current professor in the field—the first woman to be named a tenured chemistry professor at LVC—both of whom have contributed to The Valley’s enduring formula that sparks success and innovation.

THEN: Dr. Owen Moe, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry

Dr. Moe arrived at The Valley in 1973 after completing a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University. He taught at LVC for 42 years in three academic departments and four programs: chemistry, biochemistry & molecular biology, mathematics, and American studies.

What inspired you to become a professor?

More than anything else, it was the professors at my undergraduate alma mater, St. Olaf College. They were interested in me as a person, spoke about their ideas with excitement, andwere outstanding teachers. I wanted to be just like them.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

Our annual summer research program in the ChemistryDepartment is so powerful. The late Dr. Tony Neidig [’43, H’04, P’73] started it in the late 1940s—well before most small U.S. colleges. It was my favorite type of teaching—collaborative, one-on-one, and often involving on-the-fly solving of research problems with many students.

What are you up to now?

In retirement, I have continued my long-term involvement with local community groups. I serve as webmaster for Friends of Old Annville and help maintain Quittie Creek Nature Park in Annville. I also have given many public talks on various topics, including those on my research on Annville history and the science of climate change, as well as summer book reviews at Mt. Gretna.

NOW: Dr. Michelle Rasmussen, Associate Professor of Chemistry

Dr. Rasmussen and her students focus on using analytical chemistry to solve problems, specifically in the medical field and forensics. They develop sensors or analytical methods for determining the composition of biological or forensic samples and have worked on identifying biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease.

What inspired you to become a professor?

I had always considered a teaching career, but graduate school confirmed it was the right choice. While working as a graduate teaching assistant for an undergraduate analytical chemistry lab, I helped students study for exams. When they finally understood a concept that they had struggled with, those were the moments that cemented my decision.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

My favorite non-academic tradition is making the “periodic table of cupcakes” with the Chemistry Club every October 23 for Mole Day. Before COVID, the students came to my home to bake and decorate cupcakes, so I hope we can return to that soon. Everyone would gather in the living to work on their chemistry homework while waiting for the cupcakes to bake. It was a lot of fun.

Tell us about your interests.

My students know I love cats. I volunteer for PAWS at the Lebanon PetSmart, taking care of the cats and helping them find new homes.

Many Voices, in Concert

Graduates of LVC’s four music-related majors and graduate programs have taken center stage in their careers, having worked with U2 and Taylor Swift, performed with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, co-founded and directed the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, and ran sound and audio for the best-selling Titanfall video game. Here, we catch up with a veteran teacher of choral studies and meet one of The Valley’s newest teachers, both of whom share a passion for song and educating students.

THEN: Dr. Mark Mecham, Professor Emeritus of Music

Dr. Mecham arrived at LVC in 1990, intending to stay for about five years. Instead, he stayed for 25 years. He founded the LVC Chamber Choir, which is still going strong.

What inspired you to become a professor?

Mentors—from a third-grade elementary music teacher to graduate choral faculty. I started as a political science major, but my choral music experiences were so compelling that I switched majors in my junior year. My mom was worried about how I would make a living, but I don’t regret one moment of my career.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

The most distinctive LVC-centric tradition I was involved with was Christmas at The Valley [CATV], which dates to 1954. We commissioned new choral works to premiere at the 50th and 60th anniversaries. Alumni and friends can learn about this wonderful annual celebration in a historical sketch I wrote in 2019 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of this community-wide event.

What are you up to now?

I am mentally writing an article about an approach to choral music education relating the ideas of the late Pulitzer Prizewinning poet Stephen Dunn, a frequent Valley guest, to choral score preparation and pedagogy that leads to independently functioning choral musicians. I’m also focusing on a June 2022 reunion of our LVC Chamber Choirs members from when I founded the chamber choir in 1991 until I retired in 2015. The two-day gathering will culminate in a choral performance and the eating of pie!

Editor’s Note: You can view a CATV 65th-anniversary video on LVC’s YouTube channel. The video features Dr. Mecham, Dr. Kyle Zeuch, current director of choral activities, and two of the participants at the first CATV, Elma Jean Swope Kreider ’55 and Patricia Lutz Walter ’57.

NOW: Professor Jonathan Walker-Vankuren, Artist Teacher of Studio Voice and Musical Theater

Before becoming an educator, Professor Walker-Vankuren was a full-time opera singer traveling the U.S. He is in his second year at LVC.

What inspired you to become a professor?

I have always wanted to teach, but my mother was a great inspiration. She was my first “teacher.” She educated my siblings and me about the world around us for as long as I can remember. Secondly, Dr. James Rodriguez, my voice teacher, mentor, and friend, has been a significant influence. He is why I left performing to go into academia. I wanted to share the passion for teaching that he shared with me.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

I love that our faculty make it a point to develop a familial experience with their students. The best part about this is that it is not written down anywhere as a job requirement; it’s clearly instinctual. It’s beautiful to see so many different types of people come together with one common “person” in mind, and that is our students.

What is your scholarly focus?

My primary research goal and special interest is to spread the work of African American spirituals and promote their inclusion in the classical canon. I’ve been fortunate to develop a recital of spirituals, “Songs my mother taught me...,” that celebrates the journey of African Americans while also bringing more people that do not look like us (Black) into our world through song. This recital was titled and inspired by the love and lifelong education my white mother gifted me. I had the distinct pleasure of premiering the recital in Fort Worth, Texas, being sponsored by the Fort Worth Opera, an organization that prides itself on bringing all people to the arts.

What about personal passions?

I have been involved with summer camps since I was 19. I began working at residential sleep-away camps during my summers to take a break from music and recharge. Now, it has become so much more, growing from a camp counselor to camp director at Camp Waldo in West Virginia. Our team works tirelessly to provide a three-week summer camp experience to regional kids at a reasonable price so that they can continue to grow and learn about the beauty that surrounds them.

Sharing a Global Perspective

Though officially faculty in political science, these two treasured professors have taught across the social sciences, including starting a new program in global studies. Together, they, their colleagues, and predecessors have taught alumni who earned Fulbright Awards, the College’s only known Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow [Patrick Maxwell ’17], and Pennsylvania’s 46th Governor, the Hon. Thomas W. Corbett, Esq., ’71. And they practice what they teach, having studied, taught, lectured, conducted research, or presented in more than 30 countries.

THEN: Dr. Diane Johnson, Professor Emerita of Political Science

Dr. Diane Johnson began her professional career with an interest in history before moving into American and comparative politics. She also changed her regional emphasis from Europe to Latin America, which led to field research projects in Argentina and Uruguay.

Who inspired you to become a professor?

My dad and Aunt Shirl were professors, and I always thought they had the coolest jobs. I also was incredibly fortunate to have wonderful teachers from kindergarten through graduate school who made me love learning and were great models. I had several jobs before committing to a Ph.D. program and life as a full-time academic. By then, I just thought it was awesome that someone would pay me to read interesting books, spend a lot of time in classrooms, and do fieldwork in South America.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

I have loads of great memories from my 17 years at LVC! If I had to pick some favorites, I’d go with taking students to Washington, D.C., for the European Union Simulation every November, and teaching in Maastricht during the summer of 2017. Oh, and the time Jill Russell [director of global studies] and I took our first-year experience class that was reading Bill Bryson to walk on the Appalachian Trail. As far as traditions, my favorite was lining up to congratulate our graduates as they filed in and out of the Commencement ceremonies. It sounds hokey, but I always get a little choked up when I hear Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.”

What are you up to now?

I had to postpone some of my post-LVC plans due to the global pandemic, but I’ve continued as social sciences editor for the Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies and remain active in the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies. I’ll keep giving a summer book review at LVC’s series at Mt. Gretna as long as they’ll have me, and I’ve participated with Fair Districts PA, a nonpartisan citizens group working to stop gerrymandering and create a more transparent redistricting process in the Commonwealth. I love having more time to read, garden, and exercise, and my husband, David, and I are looking forward to lots of travel overseas once the pandemic eases. Meanwhile, we just brought a used RV so we can see more of the U.S. and Canada.

NOW: Dr. Chris Dolan, Professor of Political Science and Director of LVC’s Center for Political History

Dr. Chris Dolan created the College’s undergraduate Global Studies Program and this summer developed a new master of science in intelligence and security studies program, launching soon.

What inspired you to become a professor?

Neither of my parents went to college and discouraged me from pursuing a college degree. They wanted me to work at the local Ford Motor plant, but I began thinking about college when the plant closed when I was in high school. I made a lot of bad decisions up to that point, but Siena College in New York accepted me on academic probation due to my SAT scores, and certainly not my grades. There, I studied abroad and graduated summa cum laude with double majors in political science and economics and double minors in Russian and statistics.

Tell us about your current research.

My research flows from my Kosovo and North Macedonia Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards. I just submitted a co-authored manuscript to an academic journal on the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. I began this work during my first Fulbright to Kosovo during the 2019–20 academic year at the University of Prishtina [UP]. My colleague from UP and I are also researching NATO expansion in the Western Balkans. When I start my second Fulbright U.S. Scholar award in North Macedonia in January 2022 at South East European University in Tetovo and Skopje, I will research security sector reform, Euro-Atlantic integration, and disinformation operations. Also, I am finishing up two books. The first book is on the future of U.S.foreign policy and NATO and the second is on NATO resilience and credibility in the digital Cold War. These will be my fifth and sixth books.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

The flexibility to teach and research different topics in the ever-changing and evolving fields of foreign policy and national security is appealing. I get to teach students, and research and publish articles and books about complex security-related issues and ideas. For me, that’s cool.

Advancing STEM

Three-quarters of a century and counting: Drs. Wolfe and Goodman have a combined seven-plus decades of teaching at Lebanon Valley College, including 22 overlapping academic years. Together, they have mentored and guided generations of Valley alumni to medical school, prestigious Ph.D. programs, high school teaching careers, and science industry professions. Though their research interests are vastly different, these professors place their students at the forefront of their teaching. Their influence continues a Valley legacy of excellence in the sciences and liberal arts.

THEN: Dr. Allan Wolfe, Professor Emeritus of Biology

Dr. Wolfe taught at LVC for 48 years. He was known across campus as a sharpshooter during the Friday faculty-student basketball games.

What inspired you to become a professor?

I enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating high school and spent two years in Germany. My commanding officer, Captain Larry Ogden, convinced me to attend college after I completed my tour. I enrolled at Keystone Junior College intending to become a high school biology teacher, but Dr. Harry Miller, president of the college, told me to aim higher and get my Ph.D. to become a professor. I later learned he was an LVC graduate [Class of 1943] and classmate of Dr. Tony Neidig [’43, H’04, P’73].

When I arrived at LVC in 1968, I was fortunate to be guided by another group of knowledgeable mentors. Tony, chair of chemistry at that point, Dr. George “Rinso” Marquette ’48, dean of students, and Bob Wonderling, director of development, showed me how to navigate various college teaching situations, student advising, and college committees. Much of this advice occurred during our daily games of squash or racquetball. And Dr. Paul Wolf, chair of biology for more than 40 years, taught me numerous lessons regarding teaching, science, and leadership.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

Working with students on independent study and research projects tops my list. I was fortunate to have supervised more than 100 projects during my tenure. Starting the Science Education Program for elementary school teachers is another fond memory. We provided lab experiences for teachers from most of the school districts in the surrounding counties.

What are you up to now?

I still have a lab in Neidig-Garber where I am continuing my research on Artemia (brine shrimp).

I remain active with St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church, serving as the Minister of Eucharist and on The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and I volunteer at the Caring Cupboard in Palmyra.

NOW: Dr. Stacy Goodman, Chair and Professor of Biology

Dr. Goodman has taught at LVC for 26 years. She is a co-investigator with Dr. Courtney Lappas [professor of biology] on a research project centering on sweet perception in rodents, and mentors students throughout the academic year and summer.

What stands out about your LVC experience?

We have a beautiful campus and wonderful facilities, but the thing I like best about LVC is the people. There is nothing like getting to know the students and seeing them discover their passions. I was very touched and surprised to receive LVC’s Student Government Teaching Award twice. I distinctly remember hearing the description being made for the awardee and realizing that the person being described was me. To have my students go out of their way to let me know that I was a positive influence on them was a blessing I will never forget.

Any special interests?

I have served as a mentor for STEM-UP for several years. We pair junior and senior faculty members throughout Pennsylvania to help advance women in STEM fields.

Tell us about your research.

Our project, which includes three student-alumni researchers— Krysten Ford ’21, Keyri Sierra ’21, and Robbie Moul ’22—aim is to understand the function of adenosine 2B receptors in sweet perception in rodents. In the project’s first phase, the taster preference of female C57BL/6 mice was established through choice tests utilizing sucrose solutions of varying concentrations. The next phase will involve the introduction of an adenosine 2B receptor antagonist to examine how this preference may be altered.