Spring Hill the spring hill college magazine
How she and Matt D’Arrigo ’95 landed seats at this year’s Oscars
summer 2013
from the president
Dear Alumni and Friends,
Rev. Richard P. Salmi, S.J., speaks at Spring Hill commencement on May 4.
The year marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a historic document in which Spring Hill was cited for its leadership in the struggle for civil rights. As you peruse this edition of the Spring Hill College Magazine, you will learn more from Dr. Tom Ward, professor and chair of our history department, on the significance of Spring Hill’s being mentioned in Dr. King’s letter. For a more personal look into the lives of some of the first African-American students at Spring Hill, I encourage you to read Charles Stephen Padgett ’72’s story of Ella Dixon Carson ’59 and William “Kit” Carson. The foundation of our Ignatian roots is evident in our students, alumni, faculty and staff – be it through the story of our alumni and the direction their careers might have taken them, or the spirit of service that our students live out to the fullest. Our community works together; and we are compelled to focus on our effort to teach and act with justice, with care and in the service of others. Read how Spring Hill influenced Matt D’Arrigio ’95, founder of A Reason to Survive (ARTS), and learn more about the Oscar-winning documentary, “Inocente.” The College recently welcomed Rev. Gregory F. Lucey, S.J., back to campus as chancellor. Fr. Lucey, who served as Spring Hill’s 37th president, will be instrumental in providing ongoing education of our Jesuit identity, Ignatian spirituality, and the mission of the College, as well as other special projects. This is a timely addition to our community, and I know our students will look forward to his jovial presence on campus this fall. This spring we celebrated the class of 1963’s Golden Reunion during Homecoming on the Hill, and we saw the next generation of alumni begin a new chapter in their lives. Featured speakers George E. Barrett ’52 and Carolina Dominguez ’13 inspired the 2013 graduating class with their reflections on the meaning of their Spring Hill experiences. As we look back on the remarkable accomplishments of our students and alumni, we look forward to the new academic year that is upon us. This summer our new students will be further introduced to Spring Hill during Badger Connection as we gladly welcome them to our community. I hope you might make it back to Spring Hill in the coming year to enjoy the beauty of campus.You are always welcome; you are part of our family and the essence of the Spring Hill College story.
inside this issue table of contents
Features on the cover
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Finding A Reason To Survive
How Matt D’Arrigo ‘95 founded the nonprofit organization A Reason To Survive (ARTS) and ended up at the Academy Awards. Cover photography: Inocente pictured in front her artwork. Photo courtesy of A Reason To Survive (ARTS).
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Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
Love Blooms In The Early Days Of Integration
The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” and Spring Hill College’s place in history.
Ella Dixon Carson ‘59 and William “Kit” Carson reflect on their courtship as college students.
departments Alumni News
Homecoming on The Hill Alumni Awards Chapter Updates Class Notes In Memoriam Giving Alumni Involvement
26 28 30 32 35 36 37
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News from the hill 7
News from campus including commencement, awards, Gospel Fest, retirement honorees and more.
badger news 12
Softball makes history as NAIA Runner-Up. Additional coverage of baseball, track and field, tennis, golf, bowling and rugby.
The Legend of the Rubber Duckies 6 Service in Action: Run of The Hill 38
points of interest
www.shc.edu
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Matt Rainey Photography; inset photo courtesy of Amelie St. Romain ‘13.
view from the hill
“A lot of my paintings are about people I have met through social justice trips. Actually, this picture is about a boy I met on my immersion trip to Jamaica in the spring. He lived in the orphanage where we were staying. He is nonverbal, but we knew that he was trying to communicate. He held my hand and grabbed my bracelet, and I could tell that is how he was going to remember me. So, I took a picture of him when he was happy, and now I want to honor him with this painting.” – Amelie St. Romain ’13
Spring Hill
point of interest
the spring hill college magazine Volume 7, Number 2
The Legend of the
Rubber Duckies
Editor: Lindsay Hughes, MLA ’08
Art Director: Sharla Brink ’95
Photography: Jubilee Photography Seth Laubinger ’02 Jeff Nelson ’02 Matt Rainey Spring Hill College Archives
Matt Rainey Photography
Contributing Writers:
Pieter Favier explains the history of the rubber duckies to students from Denton Middle School.
More than 250 ducks have made their home on Spring Hill’s campus, in the ceramics studio of the Fine and Performing Arts Center. As their first assignment, students in Pieter Favier’s beginning ceramics classes are given lumps of clay and asked to fashion ducks that are reflections of themselves. “The great part is that all the ducks tell a unique story, just like every student on the Spring Hill campus,” said Favier, associate professor of fine art. “One duck is shaped like a female teacher reading a book. Another is playing in a sandbox. One looks like a creature from ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’” Students from local middle schools visited Spring Hill College in the spring, as part of an outreach program through the Foley Community Service Center. While on campus, they took a ceramics class with Favier and created their own versions of the classic rubber duck. Their finished products joined the varied collection of ducks that Favier’s students have created through the years.
Monde Donaldson Timmie Hathorn ’07 Bridget Oswald ‘14 Charles S. Padgett ‘72 Laura Reese Jim Stennett Tom Ward, Ph.D.
Contributing Designer: Abbey Roam ‘13
President: Rev. Richard P. Salmi, S.J.
The Office of Communications and Institutional Marketing annually publishes two printed issues and two online-exclusive editions of The Spring Hill College Magazine.
Comments: should be addressed to: Lindsay Hughes, Editor Spring Hill College Magazine, 4000 Dauphin Street Mobile, AL 36608-1791 (251) 380-2289 or (877) SPR-HILL lhughes@shc.edu
Matt Rainey Photography
To update your address or mailing preferences, contact Mindy Hovell, Director of Advancement Services, at (251) 380-2286 or hovell@shc.edu.
News from the hill “Four years ago God planned for us to start our own marathon, but he didn’t give us a smooth path–
Photos by Jubilee Photography
he gave us a hill”
Carolina Dominguez ‘13, elected senior class orator, addresses the graduates at commencement.
revealing tattoos and running marathons
by Lindsay Hughes, MLA ’08
George E. Barrett ’52 promised the class of 2013, gathered under the oaks on an unusually chilly morning in May, that if they paid attention to his commencement address, they would surely see his Spring Hill tattoo. “It was a different world at Spring Hill in 1952. No students of color. No women,” said Barrett, now 85 years old. “When I look out today, I realize that this gathering would have violated the laws and customs back then. Those laws and customs were evil and wrong. … Thanks be to the countless men and women who stood against those unjust powers and brought us to a better place today.” Barrett, who delivered the commencement address and received an honorary doctorate, credits his Jesuit education at Spring Hill College with inspiring his “zeal for social justice.” In addition to marking him with a tattoo, Spring Hill provided Barrett with a compass, which pointed him in the direction of advocacy for the rights of the disadvantaged. After earning a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University in 1957, he founded one of the first integrated law firms in the South, Barrett Johnston, LLC, in Nashville.
“Whether they be working people, or poor people, or non-white people, or just people without a voice, I have advocated for them against the powerful and the unjust,” he said. “And I get up every morning in pursuit of my mission, still following the compass Spring Hill College helped me develop all those years ago.” In 1968, Barrett’s compass led him to file a lawsuit that would last 38 years, the result of which was desegregation of public higher education in Tennessee. In 1994, he sued the Pirelli Armstrong Tire Co., after the company announced plans to eliminate health benefits for its retired employees who belonged to the local rubber workers union. As a result of Barrett’s tenacity, more than 3,000 people continued to receive health benefits. One of Barrett’s recent high-profile cases saved Gaile Owens from death row in 2011. Owens endured years of her husband’s abuse and served 25 years in prison for arranging his execution. “If you’ve been listening and paying attention,” Barrett reminded the crowd, “you’ve no doubt caught a glimpse of my Spring Hill tattoo. No needle and ink, but just as permanent and
www.shc.edu
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news from the hill
Rev. Richard P. Salmi, S.J., honors George E. Barrett ’52 with an honorary degree. Barrett, an advocate for underdogs and working people, founded one of the first integrated law firms in the South, Barrett Johnston, LLC.
“You’ve no doubt caught a glimpse of my Spring Hill tattoo.
No needle and ink, but just as permanent and indelible.” –George E. Barrett ’52
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Spring Hill College Magazine
indelible. And while you cannot see my Spring Hill tattoo with your eyes, I hope by now you understand that it is deep and it runs the length and width and breadth of me. You may not know it yet but you, too, have been tattooed. Spring Hill has left an indelible mark on you and you will never be the same.” Carolina Maite Dominguez, elected to speak on behalf of the senior class, told a story of how the Spring Hill community left its mark on her. Dominguez participated in last year’s Urban Plunge retreat, during which students ate with homeless men and women in Mobile and visited members of L’Arche, a community of people with intellectual disabilities. The interaction with these pure-hearted individuals sparked her decision to run the First Light Marathon, which benefits L’Arche Mobile. Though she was not as physically prepared as she wanted to be, Dominguez said, her mind and heart were set to run the race this past January. When Dominguez reached mile 19, she felt the pain and exhaustion. In a stroke of serendipity, the marathon course led her to the Spring Hill College campus. “As I was running down the Avenue of the Oaks, my friends, my fellow Badgers, were cheering me on. They grabbed my hands and we ran mile 19 together,” she said. “Right when it was getting tough, the SHC community was there to push me through.” Dominguez recalled the rainy move-in weekend four years ago, a time when she and her classmates were becoming more selfaware. “We did a lot of ‘me’ exploration,” she said. “We began by trying to define ourselves: ‘Who are we? Who are going to be my friends? What am I going to major in?’ “Now, after four years on the Hill, full of community service, classes stressing a greater worldview, traveling around the world and meeting people different than ourselves, we have realized that our lives are not just for us; we have learned the Jesuit ideal of being men and women for others.” During her time on the Hill, Dominguez taught English to immigrants in Mobile; tutored children and worked in a women’s domestic shelter; participated in service-immersion trips to Managua, Nicaragua, and Kingston, Jamaica; and studied abroad at the SHC Italy Center, where she worked at a boys’ refugee camp in Bologna. Like Barrett, whose zeal for justice was awakened more than 60 years ago, Dominguez leaves Spring Hill with a passion for serving others. This summer she begins her two-year journey as a Jesuit Volunteer in Belize City, Belize. “We have been fueled with the fire to fight for justice, the thirst to seek out knowledge, to think critically, and the passion to pursue our dreams,” Dominguez told her fellow graduates. “If God wakes us up today, then there is something we must do. Four years ago he planned for us to start our own marathon, but he didn’t give us a smooth path – he gave us a hill!”
Summer 2013
see more commencement coverage at www.shc.edu/commencement
A round of Applause Ignatian Awards Fulfill the ideals of Jesuit education for scholarship, leadership and service. These are the highest student awards bestowed by the College. Rebecca Grace Van Galder Christopher Joseph Lazarine
Toolen Award Highest grade point average Christian Stephen Durel Chaney Courtney McLauren Gibson Jessica Rae Logan
Edward B. Moody, S.J., Teacher of the Year Award Excellence in teaching Dr. Matthew J. Bagot, Assistant Professor of Theology
Dawson Research Award Excellence in scholarship Dr. Sarah L. Duncan, Assistant Professor of History
William J. Rewak, S.J., Service Award Represents the Jesuit ideal of service Mrs. Joan Brown Siegwald ‘69, Institutional Researcher
www.shc.edu
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news from the hill
gospel fest kicks off “letter from Birmingham Jail” celebration
SHC Earns Place on National Honor Roll for Community Service Spring Hill College was recently named to the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. This designation is the highest honor a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement. The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, launched in 2006, annually highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement by recognizing institutions that achieve meaningful, measureable outcomes in the communities they serve. The 2013 Honor Roll recipients were announced at the American Council on Education’s 95th annual meeting on March 4, in Washington, D.C.
Spring Hill College honored the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” with events throughout the spring semester. Gospel Fest, “A Time to Praise: Celebrating the Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” held in St. Joseph Chapel, kicked off the five-month celebration. The concert featured musical selections from Spring Hill College’s Continual Praise Gospel Choir, the Gentle Spirits of Toulminville-Warren Street United Methodist Church, and the mass choir from New Shiloh Baptist Church. The audience also heard excerpts from King’s powerful “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The celebration continued with student events to honor Black History Month in February and the Learning Communities’ civil rights tour to Montgomery in March. On April 16, the 50th anniversary of the “Letter,” the Spring Hill community was invited to listen to King’s sermons playing in St. Joseph Chapel and reflect on his messages of love and peace. The following day, the History Museum of Mobile hosted a public reading of the “Letter” and a lunchtime discussion panel, featuring Dr. Tom Ward, professor and chair of the history department, and Dr. Kathleen Orange, director of the Foley Community Service Center. The events culminated on May 4 with a commencement address by George E. Barrett ’52, a prominent labor lawyer and renowned crusader for civil rights. (See commencement story.)
Spring Hill’s Continual Praise Gospel Choir sings by candlelight at Gospel Fest in St. Joseph Chapel.
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Spring Hill College Magazine
Summer 2013
Retiring faculty and staff reflect on time at Spring Hill Dr. Ann Adams fell in love with the Spring Hill College campus several years before joining the faculty. “The first time I saw Spring Hill College, I had no idea that my husband and I would ever move to South Alabama or that I would leave the K-12 segment of education,” Adams explained. “But as we drove through the beautiful campus, my husband said, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could teach here someday?’” In July 2000, after moving to Fairhope, Adams was offered a position as chair of Spring Hill’s Division of Teacher Education. At the time, Adams planned to work for only three years and retire, but stayed as a member of the faculty for 13 years. Dr. Ann Adams “I deeply appreciate the privilege of teaching incredible pre-service Associate Professor of Teacher Education teachers and observing extraordinary interns at SHC,” Adams said. “Many of them have become very dear to me. Watching them develop into teachers has given me great joy. My time at Spring Hill has enriched my life immensely and brought me incalculable pleasure.”
Joan Siegwald ’69 Institutional Researcher
Lonnie Taylor Public Safety Officer
Joan Siegwald ‘69 joined Spring Hill’s staff 29 years ago as a donor prospect researcher in the Development Office. She later moved to the Institutional Research Office to share her expertise and contribute to the department of Academic Affairs. Siegwald was honored with the Rewak Service Award at Spring Hill’s 2013 commencement. “My work has been interesting and challenging, and I have enjoyed my years here,” said Siegwald, who comes from a long line of Spring Hill grads. “The best part of working here has been the people with whom I have worked; they are more than colleagues. They are family and they are what I will miss most.” Post-retirement activities include spending time with her first grandchild, Carter Alexander Skific, born March 29, 2013.
Lonnie Taylor began his career at Spring Hill College in 1990 as a contract security officer. Taylor also worked as a site supervisor for Securitas Security on campus for two years. “I really love all the changes that have taken place during my time here at the College, the new buildings and the beautiful landscape,” Taylor said, “but I can’t help but think about some of the things that are no longer here, including Murray Hall, which was used as a hurricane/ storm shelter, The Badger Den, with the outside swimming pool, and the famous Mirror Lake.” Taylor’s fondest memory from Spring Hill College centers on picking up Rev. Roy “Chief” Vollenweider, S.J., from Mobile Hall at 4:30 a.m. every morning and taking him to St. Joseph Chapel for 5 a.m. Mass, “which was attended by no more than five local residents.”
www.shc.edu
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Badger News
by Jim Stennett
The SHC community welcomed the softball team back to campus, after the Lady Badgers competed at the NAIA National Championship Tournament.
softball makes history as naia national runner-up The softball team made Spring Hill history by competing in their first-ever national title game on May 30. The Lady Badgers built a 4-2 record and fell just short of the NAIA National Championship with an 8-3 loss to top-seeded Concordia University (Calif.) in the championship game in Columbus, Ga. “This season has truly been a blessing for me,” said head coach Alison Sellers-Cook. “All year we knew what we were capable of doing, and we proved to everyone how good we could be. Heart, dedication to one another, and hard work are what brought us to the Championship. These girls knew what they wanted and didn’t settle.” The softball team finished the year ranked No. 2 in the final NAIA Coaches Postseason Poll. The ranking marks the highest final ranking for the Badgers in 16 seasons of program history. The 49 victories posted by the Badgers in the 2013 season is a new school record. They were also the first SHC athletic team in any sport to compete in a National Championship game. SSAC Pitcher and Freshman of the Year Caroline Sagrera of Baton Rouge, La., finished
the regular season leading the NAIA in wins (39) and total batters struck out (482). Sophomore catcher Jade Bourgeois of Geismar, La., set a school record with 24 doubles and was named All-Conference and Capital One Academic All-America 1st team while also winning the SSAC Infield Gold Glove. While at the National Tournament, senior left fielder Katelyn “KT” Hinson of Mobile appeared in the 203rd game of her career, the second most appearances in Badger history just behind the record of 206 held by Susan Rash set over the 1998-2001 seasons. Senior third baseman Mariha Partman of Biloxi, Miss., hit 13 balls over the fences this year to set a new school record for homeruns. Freshman pitcher Caroline Sagrera.
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Spring Hill College Magazine
Summer 2013
see complete athletic coverage at www.shc.badgers.com
tennis teams earn conference nods tennis
The men’s tennis team finished 2013 with a 9-11 overall mark and a 1-3 record in the SSAC West Division. The women closed the year at 12-8 and 1-3 in the SSAC West Division. Junior Jacob Neu of Lafayette, La., was named to the 2nd team of the 2013 SSAC All-Conference Team. Neu built an 8-6 season record playing mainly in the No. 2 singles court and a 9-10 record on the No. 1 doubles court with partner sophomore Meyer Schwartzberg of Lake Charles, La. Neu and senior Jake Lyons of Jacksonville, Ala., appeared on the 2013 SSAC All-Academic Team. Senior Shelby Fritscher of Covington, La., was named to the 2nd team of the All-Conference Team. Fritscher built a 7-4 season record playing mainly in the No. 1 singles court and an 8-4 record on the No. 1 doubles court with partner senior Tara Montegut of League City, Texas. Fritscher also appeared on the 2013 SSAC All-Academic Team as did fellow senior Caroline Hitt of Baton Rouge, La., junior Monica Castello of Mobile, and sophomore Elise Michaelis of Covington.
From top: Seniors Tara Montegut and Wil Amanor.
baseball sweeps ssac awards baseball
The baseball team (20-30, 10-20 SSAC) collected 14 postseason awards from the SSAC. Sophomore catcher Ryan Stevens of Theodore, Ala., was named to the All-Conference 1st team. Stevens hit .335 while starting all 50 games of the 2013 season at either catcher or designated hitter. He led the Badgers with 19 doubles, 4 homeruns, 34 RBI and a .518 slugging percentage. Behind the plate, he cut down 13 attempted base-stealers and committed just one error in 194 fielding chances. Junior second baseman Brian Sims of Mobile picked up two awards with selection to the All-Conference 2nd team and the SSAC Gold Glove Team. Sims also started all 50 games this season and hit a team-high .337 with 64 total hits, 33 runs scored, and 19 RBI. On the base paths, he stole 8-of-9 bases and committed just four errors in 259 chances in the field while turning 28 double plays. Spring Hill dominated the All-Freshmen Team with five Badgers appearing on the roster. Third baseman Willie Floros of University City, Mo., pitcher Johnathan Billings of Luling, La., pitcher Hunter Nowak from Alpharetta, Ga., right fielder Blake Toscano of Metairie, La., and left fielder Garrett Webb of Gainesville, Fla., each earned a slot on the list of future stars.
From top: Third baseman Willie Floros; catcher Ryan Stevens; second baseman Brian Sims.
www.shc.edu
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badger news
golf teams compete in SSAC championship
Junior Katie Callahan
bowling to get rolling this fall
Club men’s rugby adds full-time head coach
Ben Hoefs has been hired as the first head coach of men’s and women’s bowling that will debut as a varsity sport in fall 2013. A United States Bowling Congress (USBC) bronze certified coach, Hoefs served as the head coach of the boys’ team at West Bend East High School for five years, winning conference championships in 2010 and 2011. In 1997, he was inducted into the Greater Milwaukee Bowling Association Hall of Fame and was inducted as a member of the Wisconsin State Hall of Fame’s Skilled Division in 2008. As a competitor, Hoefs has won numerous Wisconsin state titles along with regional and national championships in both singles and doubles competition. In team play, he has recorded several top 10 finishes at the annual American Bowling Congress (ABC)/USBC National Tournament. Hoefs holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in management from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The Badgers will join 42 men’s and women’s bowling programs that currently compete across the country in the NAIA. Spring Hill will be the first NAIA bowling program in the state of Alabama.
Spring Hill College has named Mollie McCarthy as the college’s first full-time head coach of its men’s club rugby program. McCarthy will also serve as the coordinator of club sports at SHC and develop the new women’s club rugby team that will begin play in fall 2013. McCarthy comes to Spring Hill following four years as the coach development manager with USA Rugby, where she was responsible for all aspects of coach education and development in the United States. A certified Level 300 USA Rugby coach, McCarthy is also a licensed International Rugby Board (IRB) Educator. She has served as the women’s rugby coach at the University of Colorado-Boulder since 2010 as well as coached rugby at various levels from youth to adult club. McCarthy holds a B.S. in communications from the State University of New York College at Brockport, where she was the captain/president of the women’s rugby club. In 2008, McCarthy earned her Master of Sport Administration from Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y.
golf
The men’s and women’s golf teams wrapped up the 2012-13 season at the SSAC Championships held in Montgomery, Ala., with the men finishing 10th of 11 teams and the women placing 4th out of a field of nine teams. For the men, seniors Chris Cartmill of Chesterfield, Mo., and Nathan Ceille from Hales Corner, Wis., each earned a place on the 2013 SSAC All-Academic Team as did junior Rickie Lee of Bayou LaBatre, Ala. On the women’s team, juniors Katie Callahan of Prairie Village, Kan., and Shelley Husband from Pass Christian, Miss., and sophomore Stephanie Lee from Mobile, were named to the All-Academic Team.
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Spring Hill College Magazine
Summer 2013
see complete athletic coverage at www.shc.badgers.com
track and field off and running track & field
The inaugural season of men’s and women’s outdoor track and field was a huge success this spring as Spring Hill competed in five meets, beginning with the Mississippi College Twilight Invitational in Clinton, Miss., on April 5, 2013. At the Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC) Championships on April 26-27 in Rome, Ga., the men finished in 3rd place with 138 total points, while the women finished 6th with 16 points. Freshman Maurice Abdur-Rahim of Marietta, Ga., won two events at the SSAC Championships with a leap of 1.96 meters in the men’s high jump and a time of 15.92 in the Men’s 110-meter hurdles. Freshman Jordan Travis of Poplarville, Miss., earned the first-ever victory in SHC track history earlier in the year when he won the men’s 800meter run at the University of South Alabama Invitational on April 13. Many of the 11 student-athletes on the women’s team took on multiple roles. Sophomore Esperanza Pace of Mobile, for example, handled all the throwing events for Spring Hill by participating in the javelin, shot put and discus.
Sophomore Esperanza Pace
alumni take on Badgers in 3rd annual soccer game The Spring Hill College men’s soccer team and head coach Tim Brooks hosted the 3rd annual Badger alumni men’s soccer game on Saturday, April 13, as part of the Homecoming on the Hill festivities. Past Badger players took on the current crop of Badgers at Library Field.
“I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.” –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Justice delayed is Justice denied honoring the 50th anniversary [1963-2013] of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and spring hill college’s place in civil rights history.
Spring Hill College Archives
by Tom Ward, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of History Fifty years ago, during the height of the protests in Birmingham for equal justice – remembered now mostly for the images of police dogs and fire hoses being turned on protesters – Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested for leading a march in defiance of a circuit court judge’s ban on demonstrations in the city. At the time of King’s arrest, almost two weeks into the demonstrations, the Birmingham protests were under heavy criticism both locally and nationally. The demonstrations in Birmingham were nicknamed “Project C” by King and his lieutenants, for “confrontation.” While devoted to nonviolence, King realized that he needed to create a media event in order to draw the attention of the American people and the federal government to his cause. Frustrated by the 1962 protests in Albany, Ga., where nonviolent demonstrations had failed to desegregate the city, in part because the local sheriff had not allowed violence to percolate, and national attention waned, King chose Birmingham for his 1963 protests not only because it was arguably the most segregated city in the country, but also because of the presence of Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, whom King was sure could be counted on to make a spectacle. The Birmingham movement was therefore a nonviolent protest designed to provoke a violent response, a strategy which drew criticism from whites and blacks alike.
In addition to criticism of the violence that had ensued in Birmingham, many observers attacked King for the timing of the demonstrations, which occurred right after Lt. Gov. Albert Boutwell – regarded as a moderate segregationist – had defeated Bull Connor in the city’s mayoral race. King was urged by many – including members of Birmingham’s black leadership class – to give the new administration an opportunity to work towards racial reconciliation in the city. The Rev. Albert Foley, S.J., professor of sociology at Spring Hill College and chairman of Alabama’s Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, had been active in civil rights activities in Alabama going back to the 1940s (see sidebar). Foley had a relationship with King going back a number of years, but he, too, criticized the protests as “poorly timed and misdirected” in TIME magazine. He was also quoted in a local paper of accusing King of using the protests as a means to raise money. King was stung by Foley’s criticism, and in a phone call between the two men (the recording of which is in the Spring Hill College archives), on April 8, King tells Foley that while he was used to criticism from the Klan and the White Citizens’ Council, he had never expected this “strong, personal attack” from “anyone who knows me.” Despite pleas to call off the protests from Foley, who begged King to “sit down and negotiate with
Opposite page: Baccalaureate Mass in St. Joseph Chapel, 1963. www.shc.edu
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Alabama Public Radio aired “50 Years Since King’s Letter Recalls Spring Hill as Civil Rights Leader” on April 10. Watch and Listen: http://www.apr.org/post/50-years-king-s-letter-recalls-spring-hill-civil-rights-leader
For years now I have heard the word
‘wait.’
It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This ‘wait’ has almost always meant
‘NEVER.’
Spring Hill College Archives
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
Rev. William Patrick Donnelly, S.J., delivers the 1948 Commencement address. “The highlight of the exercises was the address of Reverend Father President, William Patrick Donnelly, S.J., who set out to break the wall of silence behind which the southern colleges from Virginia to Texas had hid with respect to President Truman’s Civil Rights Bill. In the name of Spring Hill College Father Donnelly sounded the clarion bell. Father Donnelly’s address made one proud to be an American, and even prouder to be a Hillian.” – The Torch, 1948
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Spring Hill College Magazine
these people instead of making Easter in Birmingham a symbol of a bloodbath,” King pushed on with the demonstrations, eventually resulting in his arrest on April 12, 1963, Good Friday. The day of his arrest, an open letter written by eight of Alabama’s leading clergymen, titled “A Call for Unity,” appeared in the Birmingham paper. The authors, including Rev. Joseph Derrick, the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Mobile-Birmingham, while acknowledging that discrimination existed in Birmingham, condemned the “extreme measures” of the demonstrations, and labeled them “unwise and untimely.” While never mentioning King by name, the clergymen criticized the movement as “directed and led in part by outsiders.” A copy of the “Call for Unity,” was smuggled into King’s cell, and his response to “My dear fellow clergymen,” written on the margins of the paper and other scraps, eventually emerged on April 16 as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The “Letter,” unlike the hopeful “I Have a Dream” speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial four months later, is an angry condemnation of the second-class citizenship African-Americans in the South were still forced to tolerate in 1963, and, even more so, the willingness of the American people to continue to allow such discrimination to persist. In the “Letter,” King condemns “white moderates” (like the clergymen) who were “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice … who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom…” King went on to defend the charge that he was an outsider, stating that “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here … [and] injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” To the critics who condemned the protests as “ill-timed,” he retorted that, “I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’” To those who labeled him an extremist, he answered, “Was not Jesus an extremist for love?” King was critical of his fellow men of God for not supporting his actions in Birmingham, but also saw that some church leaders been agents of change in Alabama, and it is here that he recognized Spring Hill College: “I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. … I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.” The integration of Spring Hill College had taken place almost a decade before the protests in Birmingham, but the process of integrating the school started even earlier, beginning in 1948 when President W. Patrick Donnelly, S. J., announced that commencement, “let the college that was first … to raise the torch of education also light and lead the way to full democracy in Alabama
Summer 2013
Spring Hill College Archives
in the Southland. Civil Rights? Spring Hill College is for them, for ourselves and for every other citizen, regardless of creed and color.” While he received opposition from the school board of governors in moving forward with desegregation, Donnelly quietly admitted a number of African-American nuns into the 1949 summer session. In the spring of 1954, two years after the school officially went co-ed, Julia Ponquitte, a student at Loyola-Chicago, transferred to Spring Hill, becoming the first African-American in the regular undergraduate program, and the next fall nine black students were admitted as freshmen. Dr. King certainly saw the integration of Spring Hill as a beacon of hope during a time of strife in Alabama, and signaled it as such in what otherwise was an angry diatribe against the inaction of white people of good conscious who were “more devoted to order than justice.” If Spring Hill College could integrate quietly, peacefully, and successfully in 1954, why couldn’t the rest of the state do so as well? Similarly, if the Jesuit leaders at Spring Hill could take a stand for civil rights – often in opposition to both church leadership and alumni – why could not other people of faith take similar stands? The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and the Birmingham campaign of 1963 therefore remind us of the often central role that the faculty, students, and administration of Spring Hill College played during Alabama’s tumultuous civil rights era. As the first college in the state – and one of the first in the entire South – to integrate, and to do so voluntarily and without strife, Spring Hill has a legacy of which to be proud. And while Foley disagreed with King regarding his strategy in Birmingham, which precipitated a fall-out between the two men that would never be healed, the two men agreed on the ultimate goals of the movement. The fact that Foley had King’s ear at a time of such monumental change in our nation’s history speaks to the work that he had done fighting for civil rights during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, and the respect that King had for his work.
Rev. Albert Foley, S.J. (1912-1990) A native of New Orleans, Albert Foley’s background did not portend his career as an advocate for racial equality. It would not be until he was teaching at Spring Hill in the 1940s that he had an awakening that defined much of his career. While teaching a course on “Migration, Immigration, and Race,” Foley began questioning both his own racial attitudes as well as the racial practices of the Catholic Church. In the 1940s he began interviewing black Catholics in Mobile as part of his sociological work, and organized interracial groups. Foley’s interracial work regularly put him at odds with the segregationist bishop of Mobile, Thomas Toolen, and when Foley proposed interracial bus trip for high school students, Bishop Toolen had him removed from the diocese in 1947. Foley used his exile to earn his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina, and was able to return to Spring Hill College in 1953, where he remained the rest of his life. In the 1950s Foley emerged as a central figure in the struggle for civil rights in Mobile and throughout Alabama. He served on a number of interracial councils, and helped to negotiate the integration of busses and lunch counters in Mobile. He is perhaps most famous for his infiltration of local Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens’ Council meetings, and for enlisting his students to do so as well. While not opposed to putting his own life at risk, Foley was an advocate of finding peaceful solutions to the racial situation in the South, and placed a great deal of faith in using negotiation to bring about change, which he had seen work in Mobile. His opposition to the violence that was often provoked by the direct-action protests of the early 1960s brought him in opposition to demonstrations organized by Dr. Martin Luther King, an old ally of Foley’s, in Birmingham in 1963 (see main article). Foley and King never reconciled following the Birmingham protests, nor did Foley ever acknowledge that King’s strategy in Birmingham – controversial as it was – was successful in shining a bright light on discrimination in the South, and helping to bring about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which dismantled legal segregation. Following the Birmingham movement, Foley began to drift away from civil rights activities and began focusing his time and energy on other issues of social justice, particularly the plight of the poor. The Albert S. Foley, S.J., Community Service Center at Spring Hill, which places students in service opportunities with numerous community partners, in named in his honor and carries out his legacy.
L ve
Courtesy of Kit and Ella Carson
Spring Hill College Archives
Spring Hill College Archives
by Charles S. Padgett ’72
Ella and Kit Carson celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in Montgomery, Ala.
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Spring Hill College Magazine
blooms in the early days
of integration
Ella Dixon ’59 may have gotten her first glimpse of future husband William “Kit” Carson on a winter day in 1957, when he buzzed by her and a group of day students in his car at a bus stop near Spring Hill College’s main gate. The Tuskegee, Ala., native was new in town and enjoying the freedom of owning his first car, but Dixon and the huddled coeds on Old Shell Road had hoped he would stop and offer them rides. Carson had just completed a stint with the army and was living with his parents and youngest brother near downtown Mobile, where his father now pastored the State Street AME Zion Church. His omission may have become the conversation starter next day on campus – “We were sitting out there in the cold and you passed us by!” It led to introductions and shared laughter. As a confident sophomore, Ella Dixon was poised to receive an award from the language department for excellence in French. However, her first months at Spring Hill, beginning in September 1955, had been fraught with misgivings. Under segregation, her only experience with white students had been in innovative exchanges of visits between selected classes from Central High School, Mobile’s flagship black high school, with classes from Murphy, the city’s white high school. A classmate at Central had given her an application to SHC, and Dixon completed it on a whim. As the second sibling in a family of nine children, Dixon knew her college must be affordable. Registration was Dixon’s introduction to Spring Hill College, and being around so many whites – feeling so conspicuous as a person of color – made her physically ill. “I had never been on the campus,” she remembered. “My father drove me out there for the first time, and I just went and stood in this line. And then that’s when I started getting the butterflies, because I just didn’t know: ‘Why did I get myself into this situation? Why did I do this?’ It was quite something. I was afraid.” A white student next to her in the line, Ann Crabtree ’59, struck up a friendly conversation that helped dispel Dixon’s fears. Black students from the segregated high schools in Mobile County – Central, Mobile County Training School, Saint Elmo High, Williamson High, and even Most Pure Heart of Mary, the Catholic high school – struggled to keep up their grades at Spring Hill, as did many white students. Only two of this second group of African Americans who enrolled in 1955, Dixon and Adolph Gayle ’59,
Summer 2013
“I was a big fish in a little sea, but when I got to Spring Hill I found out I had to study and apply myself.” – Ella Dixon Carson ’59 eventually graduated from Spring Hill, compared with seven from 1954, who had all transferred to SHC from other colleges. Reflecting on her academic success at Central, Dixon said, “I was a big fish in a little sea, but when I got to Spring Hill I found out I had to study and apply myself.” She got failing grades on her first three tests in Western Civilization from Rev. Roy “Chief ” Vollenweider, S.J., but was determined to prove herself to him and her other instructors. She recalled, “I went from D to C to B, and finally I started making A’s on all his tests toward the end. But it was just learning how to study. That was something I had to learn at Spring Hill. I dug and dug. I wrote and wrote, and I finally figured out how to pass.” Dixon grew accustomed to the fact that students of both races frequently approached her for assistance with assignments in French. However, she hesitated to cross the racial divide to ask for help from white classmates in other subjects. Instead, she would ask Bobby Buck, a black veteran who was adept at math, or Chauncey Williams, whose writing skills had secured him scholarship money in an essay contest. Meanwhile, four states away, Kit Carson was winding up a four-year enlistment at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where AfricanAmerican soldiers were being assigned to formerly all-white squadrons. Black soldiers could not go into San Antonio without experiencing racial prejudice, so they were restricted to base. Nevertheless, Carson’s military service had allowed him to see Times Square in New York City and Trafalgar Square in London. More important, it allowed him to enroll at Spring Hill in February 1957 as a veteran on the GI Bill. These were heady times for Carson, who had a car, money in his pocket, and opportunities to spend it. He recalled at least three good clubs in various parts of Mobile County that catered to African Americans, where his friends on campus could arrange to meet up after a study session or where they could take their dates. He experienced no uneasiness in the social experiment that was Spring Hill’s desegregation, and his confidence
no doubt made him attractive to Ella Dixon. They began a courtship. Unlike his sweetheart, Carson could not get a handle on the academic challenges he faced. How, he wondered, could he be successful in a foreign language when he could not pass the college’s proficiency test in English? What chance had he to pass a religion course when Joseph Burroughs, a graduate of Most Pure Heart of Mary who had attended Catholic schools his entire life, got a failing grade in religion? He knew that he could transfer to a segregated college, like Alabama State, and be successful there. Yet, he remained at SHC for two years. Perhaps Ella Dixon was the reason he stayed. Carson won her heart and eventually claimed her hand in marriage on Feb. 9 of her senior year. She graduated and began a teaching career at Saint Elmo, but the prize of a college degree had eluded him. Carson went to work for the U.S. Postal Service. “He always had that longing and yearning” to have a degree, his wife recalled, and in 1963 took the unusual step of allowing her to support their family while he completed a degree in Austin, Texas, at Saint Edward’s College, which had just desegregated. Along with a handful of Holy Cross Brothers, Carson served as residential advisor to a dorm housing mostly white male undergraduates. “I was convinced that a Catholic education is the greatest, and I wanted one,” Carson said. He matched his wife’s distinctiveness by becoming one of the first blacks to earn a degree from Saint Edward’s. By 1970 Carson had risen up the ranks of the IRS to a position as revenue officer, and he moved his family to Miami. When the youngest of their five children entered third grade, Ella Dixon Carson recertified her teaching credentials and embarked on a career in the public schools in Miami. They are now both retired and celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary this year. Charles S. Padgett ’72 interviewed the Carsons in 1999 for a doctoral dissertation that examined the experiences of Spring Hill’s first African-American students. Some paragraphs from this article appeared previously in volume 56 of The Alabama Review.
www.shc.edu
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Finding
a reason to survive (and an unexpected seat at the Oscars) Story by Lindsay Hughes, MLA ’08 Photographs courtesy of ARTS
Matt D’Arrigo ’95 believes in the transformative power of art. He has felt its effects firsthand, and has seen it in the faces of those who enter the studio feeling defeated and leave with a sense of release and empowerment. D’Arrigo had always struggled in school, until one day his sixth-grade teacher complimented a drawing he created. His classmates gathered around the drawing, clearly impressed with D’Arrigo’s skill. “All of a sudden I was the artist in the class – I had an identity,” he said. “It built my confidence and became my ‘go-to’ whenever I was feeling down or low.” During his freshman year at Spring Hill, D’Arrigo’s mother and sister were both diagnosed with cancer. He took the following year off from school to help care for them, relying on his art and love of music to get him through that difficult time. “I used to go up to my bedroom, close the door, put on music and paint. Everything would be better after that,” he said. It was then that D’Arrigo came up with the idea for A Reason To Survive (ARTS). If art and music could serve as a refuge for him, he surmised, then it could help other young people facing their own struggles. His mother, Pat, passed away later that year, in 1992; his sister, Kate, made a full recovery from lymphoma. “I returned to Spring Hill knowing that I was going to create ARTS,” said D’Arrigo, founder and CEO of the San Diego-based nonprofit.
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“Seeing kids finding joy and purpose is extremely rewarding.” After graduating from Spring Hill with a degree in fine art, the Boston native moved to San Diego in 1998 and worked for Pacific Event Productions, where he started out as a scenic artist for the Super Bowl XXXII pre-game and halftime shows. In 2001, with $5,000 in donations, guidance from his father, Joe, and a book on how to start a nonprofit, D’Arrigo started an outreach program at the Ronald McDonald House. The program provided art projects for children and families who stayed at the house while receiving medical treatment at Rady Children’s Hospital. The hospital heard about the program and asked D’Arrigo to start a program there as well. Thus, ARTS was born. Soon, a wide variety of community agencies began to request ARTS’ services. By 2006, the program grew to 15 sites, facilitated by more than 30 trained artists and volunteers. ARTS was founded on D’Arrigo’s philosophy that art can heal and change lives. The center offers programs in visual arts, media, music, theater and dance for people ages 3-23 who are experiencing challenges, including homelessness, domestic violence, poverty, illness, parents in the military, or physical and mental disabilities.
Matt D’Arrigo ’95
“Kids are born with natural talents and passions. For some it’s sports, others academics, or science, technology, etc. For thousands of kids it’s the arts and creativity,” D’Arrigo said. “It’s a travesty that the arts are being cut in schools, and kids are denied being their true selves and using it as positive outlet. We’re setting them up for failure if we try to plug them into other areas.” ARTS employs a purposeful, sequential program model. The “Heal, Inspire, Empower” framework provides therapeutic arts programs, formal arts education, and then college and career preparation. “The most rewarding thing is watching the transformation in the kids,” D’Arrigo said. “It can be during one art workshop when a kid comes in sad and then leaves laughing or smiling with pride, or a major transformation over years of being in our program. Seeing kids finding joy and purpose is extremely rewarding.” In 2007, ARTS opened the Pat D’Arrigo Arts Center, named in honor of D’Arrigo’s mother. The center moved in 2012 to a new location in National City, Calif. The vision is for this space to become a national training center for others who want to do similar work in their communities.
Founded in 2001, ARTS offers progams in visual and performing arts for people experiencing some of life’s most diffcult challenges.
www.shc.edu
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SAVE THE DATE: Matt and Inocente will be on campus Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013 for a screening of “Inocente.”
Spotlight on Inocente
Matt D’Arrigo ‘95 and Inocente Izucar attend the 2013 Academy Awards, where “Inocente” took home the Oscar for “Best Documentary (Short Subject).”
D’arrigo on the Oscars:
“To be in that theater with all these stars and seeing her up on that stage– there’s not a word strong enough to describe how I was feeling.”
When filmmakers Sean and Andrea Fine discovered the staggering statistic that 1 in 45 children in America is homeless, they set out to make a film featuring a homeless teenage artist. After a year of searching the country for their subject, they came across an article online about ARTS and contacted D’Arrigo “out of the blue.” “We have numerous teenage artists we serve, but as they explained the type of story they were looking for and type of teenager, Inocente popped into mind,” D’Arrigo said. “Not only did she have an incredible story and was an incredible artist – but she was ready and willing to tell it, which was very important.” Inocente Izucar, who was 15 at the time, had been homeless for the last nine years. An undocumented immigrant, Inocente and her two brothers lived with their alcoholic mother. Their father had been deported for domestic abuse. The family was shuffled from one overcrowded homeless shelter to another, with the constant threat of deportation looming over them. Inocente’s art is a bright contrast to her dark past. Canvases explode with color; hearts, landscapes, animals and other creatures are embellished with jewels and buttons. Inocente’s face, painted with swirls and dots, is another opportunity for artistic expression. The 40-minute documentary, “Inocente,” began filming in fall 2009 and follows the teenager for a year and half. “Told entirely in her own words,” the documentary’s website explains, “we come to Inocente’s story as she realizes her life is at a turning point, and for the first time, she decides to take control of her own destiny.” D’Arrigo describes “Inocente” as “the little film that could.” The documentary was shelved numerous times and then rejected at the first few film festivals. MTV bought the television rights to the film, and it aired on the station last summer. In the fall, the Fines learned it was on the “short list” for an Academy Award, and in January “Inocente” was nominated for an Oscar. “We were thrilled!” D’Arrigo recalled. “That was enough for us, really. We didn’t have expectations going into the Oscars. There were two heavy favorites and ‘Inocente’ wasn’t one of them. So, we were just going to have fun and enjoy the experience.” D’Arrigo and Inocente, now 19, attended the 2013 Academy Awards in February; and the little film that could took home the Oscar for “Best Documentary (Short Subject).” “When they pulled Inocente’s name out of the envelope, it was surreal,” D’Arrigo said. “To be in that theater with all these stars and seeing her up on that stage – there’s not a word strong enough to describe how I was feeling. We all went to the Vanity Fair after-party and celebrated until the sun came up.”
To learn more about ARTS, visit www.areasontosurvive.org. For more information about “Inocente,” visit the documentary’s website at www.inocentedoc.com. 24
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Alumni News
alumni news
Spring Hill College welcomed its graduates back to campus on April 12-14, 2013, to celebrate milestone reunions at Homecoming on the Hill.
Save The Date April 4-6, 2014 Honoring graduates in class years ending with “4” or “9” Special recognition for the Golden Badgers (1964) and Silver Badgers (1989) Become a fan of the Spring Hill College National Alumni Association www.facebook.com/SHCNationalAlums
For further details, call (877)-SPR-HILL or go to www.shc.edu/alumni/homecoming
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Summer 2013
see more photos at www.flickr.com/photos/shcalumni
Wyatt Esteves ’12, Mike Logan ’11, Jim Love ’10 and Eddie Smith ’12.
HOTH Zoghby DeVaney Winners 2013 An alumni team took first place at the annual Zoghby-DeVaney Golf Tournament. The tournament raised more than $10,000 to benefit a memorial scholarship.
Members of the Delta Delta Delta classes of 1987, 1988 and 2013 gathered for a group photo outside of the Stars and Crescent reception. The event honored the founding members of Tri Delta at Spring Hill College.
On hand for the event were, from left: Mark Hubbard ’95, Sam Coates ’94, Kirk DePriest ’92, Kevin Andrews ’94, P.J. Thelen ’93, Stephen Sterling ’96, Chris Graefe ’94, Brad Copenhaver ’93, John Pitman ’49, Marc Allen ’94, Chad Frazier ’97, Eddie Timmons ’97, Rick Pietri, Doug Layman ’93, Derek Wright ’94, Todd Garner and Joe Niland.
Members of the men’s ’92, ’93 and ’94 basketball teams honored their friend and mentor, Dr. John Pitman ’49, during HOTH festivities. The players and their families announced the establishment of the Dr. John Pitman Endowed Scholarship for the children of athletes. Team members and former coaches shared their “Doc Pitman” stories at a dinner in the Arthur Outlaw Recreation Center.
Former players of Coach Frank “The Colonel” Kearns reunited at Homecoming on the Hill 2013. Kearns was the head basketball coach at Spring Hill College from 1971 to 1979.
From left, are Tim Murphy ’78, David Totzke ’79, Tom McMahon ’80, Coach Frank Kearns, Anthony Shelley ’80, Francis Murphy ’79 and John Campbell ’77.
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alumni news
Spring Hill college recognizes alumni Paul Cussen ’89
Ignatian Award – Recognizes alumni who dedicate their lives to upholding the ideals set forth by St. Ignatius Loyola through selfless acts of humanitarianism to make differences in the lives of others. After earning his degree from Spring Hill in 1989, Cussen returned home to Cincinnati, where he worked as an appraiser in the county auditor’s office. In 1990, he married Spring Hill alumna Peggy Fink ’89, and in 1993 the couple moved to Chicago. For the past 20 years, Cussen has worked for the National Bureau of Property Administration, a consulting firm handling property tax issues for manufacturing companies throughout the U.S. He now serves as the company’s executive vice president. Since 2005, Cussen has dedicated his time to volunteering with METROsquash. The organization’s mission is to use the game squash, education, mentoring, cultural enrichment and community service to empower under-served Chicago Public School students to realize their full academic, athletic and personal potential. He recently assumed the role as chairman of the board and continues to help the organization with its expansion, as they now serve more 125 students in the area. For the past seven years, he has mentored two METROsquash students. This summer the Cussens will take four students to El Salvador to compete in a squash tournament. Cussen is a fervent supporter of Spring Hill College alumni events in the Chicago area and organized the alumni golf tournament in Chicago for several years. He has served as president of the Chicago alumni chapter and as a member of the National Alumni Association Board for six years.
Gina Pambianchi ’11
Karopczyc Award – Named in remembrance of Lt. Stephen E. Karopczyc, class of 1965, a Medal of Honor recipient killed during service in theVietnamWar.The award acknowledges young alumnus for outstanding service to the college or community. Pambianchi graduated from Spring Hill with a degree in biology/pre-med in 2011. During her four years at Spring Hill, she was a member of the women’s tennis team, Phi Sigma Tau (International Honor Society in Philosophy), and Beta Beta Beta (National Honor Society in Biology). Pambianchi was also very active in the college’s International Service Immersion Program (ISIP), acting as a student leader twice out of the four times she served abroad. She volunteered in Nicaragua for three months as an English tutor at an after-school program and at the San Francisco de Assisi Clinica in Managua; at 15 Place Homeless Day Center in downtown Mobile; and at the Little Tree Preschool. After graduating, Pambianchi was accepted into the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. She was placed in Belize City, where she teaches remedial reading to first- through third-graders at St. Martin de Porres Primary School and serves as the school’s librarian. She started a group at St. Martin in which the girls discuss self-esteem, watch documentaries, and talk about their lives in Belize. As the end of her two-year commitment to JVC approaches, Pambianchi has decided to stay an additional year to become more immersed in the Belizean culture.
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Summer 2013
nominate noteable alumni at www.shc.edu/alumni/awards
Does someone you know deserve an award? Please help us recognize them! Spring Hill College presents honors annually to outstanding alumni who, through various acts and achievements, have shown their commitment to SHC and their communities. We encourage you to take a few minutes to nominate outstanding individuals who deserve recognition in these areas.
Darryl McPherson ’97
Gautrelet Award – Presented to an individual of high integrity who has demonstrated outstanding professional achievement.The award was established in honor of Rev. Francis Gautrelet, S.J., the first Jesuit president of Spring Hill College. After graduating from Spring Hill in 1997 with a degree in political science, McPherson served for two years as a deputy U.S. marshal in the Southern District of Alabama (Mobile). For 13 years, he served with the U.S. Marshals Service in Chicago, where he began as a deputy U.S. marshal and was later promoted to a judicial security inspector. In 2010, McPherson was sworn in as the U.S. marshal for the Northern District of Illinois. He was one of the founders of the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, which combines law enforcement resources throughout the Northern District of Illinois to apprehend violent fugitive offenders. Under McPherson’s leadership, the agency participates in numerous volunteer initiatives that encourage community involvement and promote positive interaction between the public and law enforcement, including the United States Marshal Shadow Program, Just the Beginning Foundation, Readers and Leaders Program, and the Special Olympics. McPherson led the effort to form a national partnership between the U.S. Marshals Service and the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation’s Badges for Baseball program, a juvenile crime prevention initiative. As a volunteer host for Safe Families for Children, McPherson and his family offer their home as a sanctuary where parents can safely place their children in times of need. He is also involved in the Union League Boys & Girls Club, where he has served as chair of the security advisory committee, merging his professional skills with his passion for volunteering. McPherson has received the “From the Heart Award” for his ongoing commitment to the work of the Union League Boys & Girls Club.
The deadline for application is Aug. 23, 2013. Nominee____________________________________ Date Submitted______________________________ Class Year (if known)__________________________ Address_____________________________________ City/State/Zip________________________________ Email_______________________________________ For the following award_______________________ Reasons for Nomination ______________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Submitted by: _______________________________ Address:____________________________________ City/State/Zip________________________________ Email_______________________________________ Fill out the online nomination form at: www.shc.edu/alumni/awards Or, mail this completed form to: Office of Alumni Programs 4000 Dauphin Street Mobile, AL 36608 In either case, please include a nomination letter and supporting documentation (if applicable). Questions? E-mail alumni@shc.edu or call the Alumni Office at (877) SPR-HILL.
www.shc.edu
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alumni news
chapter udates Atlanta Brewery Tour 2013
Kansas City Mardi Gras 2013 Kansas City alumni gathered at the home of Billy ’96 and Mara Hodes ’95 to celebrate Fat Tuesday with friends.
Mary Kate McCarthy ‘13, Alex Salvatore ‘13 and Kathryn Land ‘13 attend their first-ever alumni event in Atlanta in mid-May.
Baton Rouge Crawfish Boil 2013
Mara Ford Hodes ’95 and Jean Marie Bosley Lystad ’86.
Memphis Crawfish 2013 Mike ’90 and Jennifer Adams hosted a crawfish boil at their home for Memphis area alumni.
Conner Bueche ’16 enjoyed the hospitality of Byron Patareau ’99 who hosted the event. Andrew Forsdick ’93 and Gaven Fechter ’95 enjoy the crawfish boil.
Chicago bowling Party 2013
Miami Mardi Gras 2013 Miami Badgers enjoyed a King Cake Happy Hour at Fadò Irish Pub in January.
Michelle Brochu ’09 and Patrick Shanahan ’11 catch up on their SHC days at the Chicago Bowling party held in early March.
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From left, are Monica Diaz ’10, Chapter President Carlos Smith ’04, Jorge Saladrigas ’03, Shelley Baer Smith ’06, Tere Manrara ’06, Dani DeLeon ’05, Eugene Ramirez ’05, Monica Martinez Schinker ’04 and Greg Schinker ’04.
send us your news and photos at alumni@shc.edu
New Orleans Mardi Gras 2013 Mary Wallace and Jonathan Shaver ’02 hosted a Mardi Gras party for New Orleans alumni. Guests enjoyed muffalettas, jambalaya and watching the Iris and Tucks parades.
Pensacola Mardi Gras 2013 Mardi Gras was celebrated in style in Pensacola with Cajun food and spirits.
Shown enjoying the festivities are Vann Hibberts, Greg Whibbs ’80, Margaret Whibbs and Debbie Hibberts ’78. The event was held at the Hibberts’ home in Gulf Breeze.
St. Louis Mardi Gras 2013 St. Louis area alumni gathered to celebrate Mardi Gras and raise funds for the Daniel C. Aubuchon Memorial Scholarship.
Clockwise from top: from left, Mary Kathryn Wendt ’08, Chapter President Sara Bradford ’08 and Anne Couvillon ’08; Katy Phelan ‘75 and Timmie Hathorn ‘07; Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.
New Orleans Crawfish 2013 Judge Lauren Lemmon ’85 hosted a crawfish boil for New Orleans area alumni. Rev. Gregory F. Lucey, S.J., celebrated Mass before the group enjoyed swapping stories over mudbugs.
From left, sitting, Lisa Howe Chassaing ’76, Karen Powers Wientge ’78, Christy Adams ’74; standing, Mary Russell Reedy ’75, Jimmy Dunn ’79, Pat Postal ’76, Leo Gamp ’76, Joe Wientge ’80 and Betsy Wetmore Sausville ’74.
President’s Reception for Class of 2013
Among those enjoying the afternoon in the Bayou, from left, are: Anna Pate ’10, Kristin Alvey ’10, Jeff Jules ’10, Alex Coppejans ’09, Justin Zimmerman ’09, Staci Sternberger ’12 and Andrew Bovine ’10. From left, are Erena Connon ’13, Tara Montegut ’13, Burke DeFraites ’13, and Rev. Richard P. Salmi, S.J. www.shc.edu
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alumni news
class notes
1950s
Rev. Richard McGowan ’52 celebrates 52 years in the priesthood this year. He lives in Albuquerque, N.M., and serves as the parochial vicar for the Immaculate Conception Church.
1960s
Dr. James M. Hill ’64 recently presented biomedical research findings and is an advisory board member of the International Herpesvirus Workshop. He was also an invited speaker and session chairman at a conference held in Beijing, China. Bill McAtee ’65 received the St. Mary Catholic School’s National Catholic Educational Association Distinguished Graduate Award. John Barter ’68 was elected to serve on the Charleston County School Board in South Carolina.
1970s
Jay York ’77 was appointed district court judge for Mobile County, Ala.
1980s
Emmett Duffy ’81 of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science was selected as one of the commonwealth’s outstanding faculty members by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
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Compiled by Bridget Oswald ’14 Marc Pelham ’81 is the CEO at Naman’s Catering in Mobile. India Hadley Mattox ’86 and her husband, Tim, celebrate the 15th anniversary of starting Bay Nursing Inc. Their sons Cole and Tyler both attend the University of Alabama. Gerald T. Roden ’86, managing partner for the Ft. Pierce and Melbourne offices of the Roden Law Firm, PLC, was recently appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to serve on the board of Volunteer Florida. Volunteer Florida promotes community service, education and assistance to those affected by natural disasters. As a former assistant public defender, assistant attorney general and congressional aide, he focuses his law practice on DUI and criminal defense. Jannea Rogers ’86 has accepted the invitation to join the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance. She has worked with Adams and Reese LLP, in their Mobile office since 1989. Jaime Betbeze ’87 is a shareholder at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., in Mobile. Spencer Gillen ’89 and Mikaela Lindberg welcomed their daughter, Helen Gurli, in January. The family resides in New York City.
Summer 2013
1990s
Win Stuardi ’90 was awarded the Volunteer Alumni of the Year Award by McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile. Donna Gottstine Morgan ’92 is the new assistant principal at Christ the King Catholic School in Daphne, Ala. She taught second grade at Christ the King for seven years. Lori Franklin Middleton ’93 and Alex Guajardo were married on Nov. 10, 2012 in Houston. Mary “Trin” Ollinger ’93 is the new athletic director for Christ the King parish in Daphne, Ala. Lori Zawistowski Greene ’94 and her husband, Greg, announced the birth of their daughter, Gillian Lorraine Greene. She was born on Nov. 5, 2012, and they reside in Chicago. Shayla Beaco ’97 and her husband, Rory Beaco, announced the birth of their son, Joseph, on Aug. 15, 2012 at 7:42 a.m. He was 9 pounds, 15 ounces. Tanner Johnson ’98 accepted a position of Gulf Coast director with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Kevin M. Morris ’98 and Templa Sens Morris ’99 welcomed their third daughter,
send us your news and photos at alumni@shc.edu
Regan Alexis, on Feb. 10, 2012. She was 8 pounds, 3 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. Regan joined her big sisters, Micah, 9, and Rylan, 7. The family resides in Huntsville, Ala. Patrick Sprague ’98 and his wife, Rene, celebrated the birth of their daughter, Lucy Margaret Sprague, born Feb. 4, 2013. Lucy joins her older siblings Elijah, 8, and Henry, 4.
2000s
Maryann Bullion ’01 is a senior attorney in the Professional Liability and Financial Crimes section of the FDIC and a judge advocate for the United States Army Reserve. Nicole Nagel Sotolongo ’02 married Sergio Sotolongo on May 5, 2012 at the Epiphany Church in Miami. Sergio works as the assistant manager at Rialto Capital, and Nicole is the assistant director of advancement services for the University of Miami. Coreil Ryder Dickinson ’03 and her husband, Charles, welcomed their daughter, Jules Mae, on June 22, 2012. Jules weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and measured 19 inches. Melissa Seward De La Fuente ’04 recently joined the production systems team at ThyssenKrupp Steel USA. She worked with ThyssenKrupp for
ADG Golf Reunion 2013 Members of Alpha Delta Gamma Fraternity reunited in May for a golf outing in John’s Island, Fla. The reunion was hosted by Eddie Pohrer ’95 and Kevin McDaniel ’93. From left, first row, Eric Strauss ’96, Gary Pohrer ’01, Jay Christoff ’93, Kevin Casper ’95, Chris Lafrance ’93 and Steve Kocian ’94; second row, Matt D’Arrigo ’95, Michael O’Meara ’95, Kevin McDaniel ’93, Andrew Forsdick ’93, Paul Chandler ’91, Frank Lamanna ’93, Jim Walsh ’93 and Jonah Dowling ’94; third row, Rob Dunkel ’94, Larry Lenning ’93, Chris Kurzweg ’91, Eddie Pohrer ’95 and Kevin McConville ’96.
Benjamin S. Goldman ’98, a partner with Hand Arendall, LLC in Birmingham, Ala., was recently honored with the Daniel J. Curtin Young Public Lawyer of the Year Award by the International Municipal Lawyers Association. In addition to the traditional qualities of excellence in the practice of law, the award seeks to recognize a person who exhibits qualities of openness and humility coupled with a sincere concern for the interests of others. Goldman was recognized for his work in Tarrant, Ala., a small town that struggled with blight, deserted property and environmental problems. He worked with city leaders to design and facilitate programs to remediate urban blight and revitalize the town. Goldman is involved with numerous community service initiatives, including serving on the board of directors of the North-Central Alabama Board of Directors and as a volunteer for the Alabama State Bar Volunteer Lawyers Program. Among his recognitions, he was named in Birmingham Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2012.
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class notes three years as a contractor and operations specialist before moving into her new position. She and her husband, Jonathan De La Fuente ’05 reside in Mobile with their children Katie, 11, and Jack, 5.
Laura Jelf ’08 graduated from the University of South Alabama College of Medicine and was chosen for a general surgery residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Kari Kant ’04 works as an executive assistant in the government relations division of Goldman Sachs in Washington, D.C. This summer, Kari will showcase her paintings at her art show, “Abstraction: Acrylics on Canvas.”
Emily Smith ’08 and Joshua Hornady were married in St. Joseph Chapel on March 12, 2013. They reside in Birmingham, Ala.
Carlos Trujillo ’04 was elected to serve as the state representative for the Florida House District 105. Jeremy Koen ’06 and Lindsay Quick Koen ’06 announced the birth of their daughter, Charlotte Grace, on April 24, 2013. Charlotte weighed 8 pounds, 2.5 ounces. Conor Gee ’07 married Becky Terlep on Nov. 16, 2012, in Chicago. Elisabeth James ’07 and Chad McFarland were married in St. Joseph Chapel on April 20, 2013. Brad Hentschel ’07 and Patti Archer ’08 were married in St. Joseph Chapel on Aug. 25, 2012.
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Nicole Anderson Etheridge ’09 was awarded the Mississippi Gulf Coast Women of Achievement Young Careerist of the Year 2012 award by the Lighthouse Business Professional Women Association of the Gulf Coast. Ryan Hall ’09 and Mary “Gussie” Altman ’09 were married on November 10, 2012, in St. Joseph Chapel. Ryan teaches history and coaches baseball at St. Patrick High School in Biloxi, Miss. Nolan James Jr. ’09 recently joined The Fedeli Group in Independence, Ohio, as an account executive. Christopher S. Williams ’09 joined Hand Arendall LLC as an associate in Mobile.
2010s
Evan Parrott ’10 and Abby Cowart ’12 were married on Oct. 13, 2012, at the Fairhope Inn in Fairhope, Ala.
Summer 2013
Matthew Tyler Sullivan ’10 and Courtney Davis ’12 were married June 16, 2012, at Moffett Road Baptist Church. The couple resides in Mobile, Ala., where Matthew works as a registered representative with NYLIFE Securities LLC, and Courtney works as a registered nurse at Providence Hospital. Katelyn Foster ’11 is an admissions support specialist at Spring Hill College. Evan Lindley ’11 is the associate aquatics director at the Town North YMCA in Dallas. Chris Link ’11 and Lynne Fritscher ’11 were married on April 6, 2013, in St. Joseph Chapel. Victoria Rodriguez ’12 will attend The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia for her first two years of medical school, followed by two years of clinical training with Ochsner Health System in New Orleans. Melissa “Missy” Williams ’12 is a fifth-grade teacher at Christ the King Catholic School in Daphne, Ala., and recently completed her first year of teaching.
let us know! Email your news and photos to alumni@shc.edu or submit your Class Note online at www.shc.edu/alumni
send us your news and photos at alumni@shc.edu
in memoriam Charles J. Ahern ’42 John “Jack” William Ardoyno ’64 Sister Mary Alda Balthrop R.S.M. ’43 Fr. Christopher A. Billac S.J. ’58 Milton J. Bolling III ’64 Milton Oliver Booth ’49 Paul H. Boudreaux, Sr. ’50 Thomas E. Brennan, Jr. ’54 Kenneth E. Brouilette ’56 Charles E. “Buddy” Butler, Jr. ’49 Richard Cheseldine ’68 Lilian M. Collier ’57 Elizabeth Ann Collins ’69 John “Son” Patrick Courtney Jr. ’42 Yvonne-Marie Deese ’75 Andre Jules Dumas ’68 Thaddeus M. Francis Jr. ’12 James Ferdinand Fruge Sr. ’46 Carolyn “Carol” Gideon ’57 Mary Ellen Ham ’55 Karen R. Hemauer ’58 Thomas “Tom” A. Hendrich, Sr. ’89 Rev. Theophilus Louis Herlong ’52 Anthony F. Hopp, Jr. ’60 Dr. Raymond Leslie Houck ’57 Rev. Dr. Edgar N. Howell ‘53 James P. Hughes, Sr. ’42 Rev. Thomas J. “Dutch” Jenniskens ‘49 Myrna Kennedy Kinsey ’56 William Robert “Bill” Lauten ’43 The Honorable Daniel W. LeBlanc ‘51 Charles E. Littlefield ’47 Kermit Reed Littleton ’61 Ron Lowery ’53 Edward Janion MacNichol ’67 Happy Mahfouz ’55 James McCarthy, Sr. ’59 Emily Henry Mackin ‘09 Rose Marie “Tutta” McKay ’74 John Daniel “JD” Mese, D.D.S. ’50 Capt. James P. Morgan Jr. ’48 Ruth Mary Morley ’79 The Honorable Bernard Mulherin, Sr. ’54 James Wernsing Muscat ’66 Charles Lawrence O’Brien ’50 James F. O’Hayer ’39 Mary “Pat” Osborn ’61 Frederic G. Patout ’41 Barbara Anne Pierotti ’58
Rev. Robert Ratchford, SJ. ’53 Alfred G. Robichaux, Jr. ’50 Vincent DePaul Sarra ’55 William J. Schaffer Jr. ‘47 Laura Mattis Sherman ’65 Donald H. Shurtleff ’54 Ret. Maj. Robert William Tanner ’59 Joseph E. Teahan ’77
Thomas Jackson Terrell ’50 Leo Riley Trehern, Sr. ’56 Timothy Coogan Truxillo ’70 George J. Wetzel, Jr. ’57 Dr. Charles Fox White, Sr. ’50 Jere Elsworth Woolsey, Jr. ’68 Warren Joseph Yemm ’63 Charles William Young ’61
C. Diane Thompson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology Cynthia Diane Thompson, Ph.D., died June 2, 2012, at age 75. She was vacationing with her children and grandchildren when she experienced a cerebral aneurism. Better known to her students as “Dr. T,” Thompson taught psychology at Spring Hill College from 1973 to 2002. She was named Professor Emeritus in 2002-2003. She also taught at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. She was highly regarded for her comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter, her creative teaching methods, and her concern for her students. Thompson earned a master’s degree in research psychology from the University of Illinois in 1960 and received her doctoral degree in 1963 from the University of Arizona. In 1978, she earned a Master of Science from the University of South Alabama. Thompson was a world traveler and journeyed to every continent. When she was not on one of her adventures to such varied places as Tibet, Africa, and the Antarctic, she sought peace and solace at the Visitation Monastery in Mobile. In her retirement, she spent a great deal of time in service at the Wings of Life Rehabilitation Center in Mobile. She is survived by her son, David A. Burke, Ph.D., of Auburn, Ala.; her daughter, Katie Bryan (nee Burke) of Springville, Ala.; and husband, David R. Bryan; son, Logan Patrick Bryan; and daughter, Katherine "Elaine" Bryan. Glenda Godwin McConnell Glenda McConnell, 67, passed away unexpectedly on March 23, 2013. For the past 10 years, McConnell served Spring Hill College as secretary of Campus Ministry. A dedicated and beloved employee, she was known for her warm smile, kindness, and love for students, faculty and staff. For McConnell’s support of the International Service Immersion Program, the Run of the Hill 5K was dedicated in her honor. She is survived by her daughter, Julie McConnell Simpson, and son-in-law, Dr. Royce Simpson, associate professor of psychology at SHC; niece Michelle McKee Silcox (Tommy); nephew Chris McKee (Candice); grandnephews Max Silcox and Dillon McKee; and numerous friends and relatives.
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giving
SHC Archives acquires Bishop Michael Portier’s last will and testament
Portier remains a central figure in Mobile’s history. In addition to founding Spring Hill College, he established the Visitation Convent and girls’ school in Mobile, oversaw construction of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, and founded a hospital, presently known as Providence.
The Friends of the Spring Hill College Library have acquired the last will and testament of Michael Portier (1795-1859), SHC’s founder and Mobile’s first Roman Catholic bishop. Representing a private collector, the Neal Auction Company in New Orleans contacted the College to determine its interest in obtaining the Portier will. Immediately, the Friends of Spring Hill College Library purchased it. The will outlines Portier’s wish to give his estate to Spring Hill College, and directs the College to provide $50 yearly to each of his two sisters. The document is now housed in the archives of the Marnie and John Burke Memorial Library. Born in France in 1795, Portier immigrated to the United States in 1817. After completing his studies at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, he was ordained for the priesthood in the Diocese of St. Louis and was consecrated bishop in 1825.
planned giving benefits generations of future badgers One way John Zollinger ’89 and his wife, Christina Marie Taulli Zollinger ’91, give back to Spring Hill College is through planned giving. By naming the College as a beneficiary in his will, Zollinger helps to provide a Jesuit education for future generations. When drafting your will, we hope you’ll support Spring Hill College by including a charitable bequest that will benefit our students after your lifetime. For more information, contact the Office of Advancement at (251) 380-2285, toll free at 877-SPR-HILL (777-4455), or Rmueller@shc.edu. We would be glad to answer any questions and assist you with your philanthropic plans.
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“You get what you give. Being involved with Spring Hill has allowed me to stay in closer touch with my friends as well as meet and develop friendships with Badgers from other generations.The lessons that we took away from Spring Hill are amazingly similar, no matter if it was 10, 25 or 50 years ago. Participation can take many forms, but I choose to participate by giving my time, talent, and the little bit of treasure that I might have. So far, I feel that I have been generously rewarded.” – John Zollinger, Class of 1989
Summer 2013
Get Involved alumni involvement
alumni welcome incoming students across the country
Among the alumni representatives at the Baton Rouge student reception were, from left: Jenny Hall; Chapter President Patrick Box ‘07; Angele Davis-Kelley ’90, a former member of the governor’s staff; and Dr. Patrick Hall ‘01.
Alumni can get involved with the Spring Hill Alumni Recruiting Partners (SHARP) in a variety of ways. One way the Baton Rouge alumni group stepped forward was with a student reception at the Governor’s Mansion, made possible by Angele Davis-Kellley ‘90, a former member of the governor’s staff. Accepted students from across the state were invited to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s home for a festive affair in which key alumni and past parents, SHC President Richard P. Salmi, S.J., and College staff welcomed new freshmen and their parents. Among the alumni who helped sponsor the event were: Kelley and Michael Olinde ’88, Harold Bahlinger ‘57, Chris and Krista Valluzzo ‘91/’92, Cynthia and Eric Waguespack ’91, Nancy and Ed Hardin ’90, and D.R. Atkinson ‘57. Similar accepted student receptions were held in Dallas at the home of Joe and Linda Ackels ‘79/’79, Lafayette at Randol’s Restaurant hosted by Kathy and Frank Randol ’68, and in Chicago at the home of current parents Terry and Susan Hayes.
Become an alumni volunteer and connect with potential students. Spring Hill College is experiencing record numbers of prospects, applicants and accepted students. As a result, we need your help to connect with these students and share how Spring Hill helped shape who you are today. The new Spring Hill Alumni Recruiting Partners (SHARP) is a great way to get involved, regardless of your class year or where you live.
Ways you can help: 1) Personal phone calls A personal phone call from an alumnus provides a unique networking opportunity and goes a long way in the college selection process. 2) Handwritten notes A handwritten notecard congratulating a student on their acceptance is a powerful way to demonstrate the Spring Hill community. Other ways SHARP volunteers can help in the future: • Host events • Attend college fairs • Adopt a high school For more information on how to get involved in SHARP, visit www.shc.edu/sharp.
Hannah Mulvey ’12
Alumni volunteer, Dallas, Texas “I volunteer because Spring Hill is and forever will be a part of me.Walking across the Avenue on graduation day did not mean I was saying goodbye. I believe in Spring Hill and I want other people to enjoy and understand all that this great place has to offer. Helping the admissions office gives me the chance to speak with prospective students and share with them the experiences, relationships and opportunities that come with SHC.”
point of interest
5K run on campus benefits Spring Hill’s International Service Immersion Program by Lindsay Hughes, MLA ’08
Emily King had an ambitious goal for her senior seminar project: plan, market and execute a 5K race on Spring Hill’s campus, with a goal of raising $3,000 for the College’s International Service Immersion Program (ISIP). The immersion program is close to King’s heart, as her experiences in El Salvador her junior year reshaped how she sees the world. “When I went to El Salvador, I learned what it really means to live in solidarity with and to accompany people very different from myself,” she said. “I learned what Jesuit philosophy really means, and it made me so proud to go to a school that centers itself on this philosophy.” King became more involved in the program her senior year and served as a student leader on the trip to Nicaragua this past spring. “I don’t think I can really explain how much ISIP means to me,” she said. “It’s hands down one of the best things that Spring Hill offers.” The expenses for the service-immersion trips total more than $100,000 each year. Campus Ministry considered organizing a 5K as a fundraiser for ISIP last year, but the race proved to be too large an undertaking in a short timeframe. King, a communication arts major concentrating in public relations and advertising, determined that taking on the fundraiser would be the ideal project for her senior seminar.
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Summer 2013
During fall 2012, King spent the semester working through the logistics of hosting a race on campus and starting a fundraiser from scratch. She approached businesses for title sponsorships and started marketing the race via social media. As the race day drew closer in the spring, King amped up its media presence, worked with graphic design major Allison Patrick ’13 to create a new logo, ordered race T-shirts, and delegated volunteer responsibilities. “I learned just how much goes into planning a fundraiser – way more than I expected,” King said. A partnership between Campus Ministry and the Office of Alumni Programs, the Run of the Hill 5K was set for Sunday, April 14, the last day of Homecoming on the Hill, to draw greater alumni participation. However, 10 minutes before the race was to start at 8 a.m., heavy rains and lightning forced race officials to postpone the 5K until the following Sunday. Although postponing the race was disappointing, particularly since most out-of-town alumni who registered were unable to participate, King maintained a positive outlook. “The rain on the race day was the most concrete challenge,” she said. “But, the volunteers’ positive attitudes and willingness to help and come out again the next weekend was really awesome
Matt Rainey Photography
From left: A group of runners and volunteers get ready for the Run of the Hill 5K; scenes from Emily’s Immersion trip to Nicaragua in spring 2013.
For information on Run of the Hill sponsorship opportunities, contact Campus Ministry at (251) 380-3496 or campusministry@shc.edu.
and made the whole rescheduling business a lot easier. I definitely can’t thank the volunteers enough.” The skies were blue the following Sunday, and King and her team of volunteers – mostly ISIP students and faculty/staff advisors – were ready to make the day a success. And it was. The Run of the Hill 5K made $6,465.02 in profit – more than double King’s goal. Alumni connections helped to secure title sponsorships through Joe Zarzaur ’93 of Zarzaur Law, P.A., and Gary D.E. Cowles ’85 of Cowles, Murphy, Glover & Associates. Artist Kathleen Kirk ’11 donated signed prints of the Avenue of the Oaks as race prizes. “Since the race was successful this year and will only grow from here, companies now have the opportunity to actually see how their business will be promoted through sponsoring the Run of the Hill 5K,” she said.
King’s senior seminar project gave her the opportunity to hone her leadership skills and taught her a great deal about fundraising, event planning, marketing, public relations, and the power of social media. But, the biggest lesson she learned was the importance of volunteers. “This race really showed me that I’m not making people do something they don’t want to do. They believe in ISIP and want to raise money for a program that is important to them,” she said. “That puts a whole new spin on fundraising when you think about it as not me raising money, but creating an opportunity for people to work together to benefit a cause. That’s what I think makes fundraising fun.” The Run of the Hill 5K will be a regular event during Homecoming on the Hill. Next year’s race is set for 8 a.m. Saturday, April 5, 2014.
emily king ’13 Emily’s senior seminar project helped to raise more than $6,400 for Spring Hill’s International Service Immersion Program.
“I learned just how much goes into planning a fundraiser – way more than I expected.”
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On your mark. get set. Save the date for next year’s
Run of the Hill 5K Saturday, April 5, 2014 at 8:00 a.m. on the Avenue of the Oaks during Homecoming on the Hill, April 4-6, 2014