Stetson Magazine

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FIRST WORDS

W

hen an international insurance company was charged

with massive accounting fraud totaling $3.9 billion, the corporation was bailed out with taxpayer dollars.

What better way for executives to celebrate than to reward themselves with more than $165 million in bonuses? It seems obvious what these executives valued.

This issue deals with liberal learning’s common attributes, such as teaching critical and creative thinking skills. However, we barely scratched the surface when discussing an exploration of values and ethics. To get that side, I talked to Bob Sitler, Ph.D., professor of modern languages and literatures and Stetson’s values commitment leader. “In the United States because of our consumer culture, we live life more superficially, and, to me, a lot of that is moving away from liberal learning.

“We’re dealing with a society unused to limitations and with a set of values centered around material well-being,” he added.

“Liberal education can give us a broader perspective and help us reflect on our responsibility to the world outside ourselves.”

Sitler walks the talk. He’s an environmentalist who walks to work and rarely uses a car. He asks himself: “What can I personally do to make the world a better place? What do my actions mean to the rest of the world?” It’s that kind of reflective thought and questioning that a Stetson liberal education is known for.

And although liberal learning (not to be confused with the liberal arts) is what this issue is about, many celebrate the advantages of a liberal arts education. They use the term in the context of the broad liberal education that Stetson offers.

This issue raises many questions. In fact, our magazine’s theme is even a question: “Is Liberal Learning Dead?” Provost Beth Paul asked that question of fellow travelers during a long layover in the Atlanta airport. The responses show just how few understand the value of liberal learning. Then three alumni write about what liberal learning at Stetson taught them.

We also ask, “Can Liberal Learning Save the World?” The research shows that indeed it can, because “out-of-the-box” thinking is exactly what is needed to solve our world’s most pressing problems. In addition, I had lunch with the academic leadership where they grappled with the value of a liberal education for Stetson students. A transcript of that conversation is included in this issue.

Values and ethics exploration is a crucial part of a Stetson liberal education. In that regard, we want you, our readers, to explore with us the value of liberal learning.

—Bill Noblitt Editor, stetson magazine All space photos in this issue courtesy of NASA.

Can Liberal Learning Save the World? Page 24

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Is Liberal Learning Dead? Page 14

S t aff

D e pa rt m e n t s

F ea t u r e s

President Wendy B. Libby

Inside First Words Cover Reflections on the issue.

14 Is Liberal Learning Dead?

The airport turns out to be a great place for a Socratic dialogue on the subject.

Vice President for University Marketing Greg Carroll Editor and Art Director Bill Noblitt

2 Letters

Reaction to the last issue.

Editorial Assistants Viviana Vasiu

Donna Nassick 4 Beginnings

News about Stetson.

Photographer Will Phillips 13 First Person

Production Coordinator Leslie Perkins A student discusses her nature writing experience.

Contributing Staff Janie Graziani Mary Anne Rogers Davina Gould Brandi Palmer Writers Renee Garrison Ronald Williamson Trish Wieland Kim Charles Maurie Murray Class Notes Editor Cathy Foster magazine is published three times a year by Stetson University, DeLand, FL 32723 and is distributed to its alumni, families, friends, faculty and staff. The magazine is printed on FSC-certified paper.

The College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business Administration and School of Music are located at the historic campus in DeLand. The College of Law is in Gulfport/St. Petersburg. The university also has two satellite centers: The Tampa Law Center and the Stetson University Center at Celebration near Orlando.

42 Inquiry

Research and scholarship at Stetson.

44 Games

A new football legacy begins.

46 Giving

A dean’s position is endowed.

48 Alumni

Joe Romano means so much to us.

stetson

50 Classes

60 Endings President Wendy B. Libby says that liberal learning is not only needed, it’s required.

61 Parting Shot

A photo of the Gulfport Law Center.

18 What Liberal Learning Taught Me Alumni tell their tales of its value.

24 Can Liberal Learning Save the World?

Can critical and creative thinking — key attributes of a liberal education — help solve our world’s most pressing problems?

32 The Professions & Liberal Learning Four professional program faculty tout the value of a liberal education.

38 Grappling With Liberal Learning The provost calls the academic leadership together for a light lunch of salad sprinkled with a conversation about liberal education today.

LETTERS

I am reading your current magazine with interest. But as I share Betty White’s opinion about Facebook, I did not see your request for comments on our favorite teachers from our time there.

I also noticed that no one earlier than ’68 responded. So allow me to do so.

In math, I was fortunate to have had Dr. Gene Medlin.

In physics there was Dr. Paul Jenkins. In the humanities was Dr. Kathleen Johnson, a marvelous energetic woman who was married to “Doc” Johnson (my baseball coach). In freshman English, there was Dr. Carter Colwell. Finally there were Brady Cowell and Wes Berner, athletic director and soccer coach, respectively.

Each of these people exhibited the qualities that were mentioned in the notes about those people’s professors. They had us in their homes and were obviously concerned about our progress. I guess this is intended as a long overdue public “thank you”... and a wish that these folks not be forgotten.

—Frank S. Clark Jr., ’63 I thought the stetson magazine looked great and was very well done. However, I am questioning why no one from the education department was featured, especially when the theme was “Why I Teach.”

When we were preparing materials for one of our accreditation visits, we discovered that Stetson was the first normal school for teachers in the state.

Our department has a long and rich history of providing exemplary teachers and school leaders.

Not only do we touch the lives of these undergraduate and graduate students, but they in turn touch the lives of thousands of other public- and private-school students.

Our graduates become teachers of the year; one recently was the Florida Social Studies Teacher of the Year. The Florida State Department of Education has referred to us in the past as “Stellar

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Stetson” or the “Stetson Stars,” as we have been models for successful programs and the assessment of these programs.

Finally, the initiatives of the Hollis Institute for Educational Reform have brought and continue to bring national and international recognition to our university. I am sorry our department was overlooked for this issue.

—Bette Heins, Ph.D. Professor of Teacher Education and Director of the Hollis Institute Stetson University Bette, thank you so much for writing this email. I just received my copy of the stetson magazine today, and that was my initial thought. I compliment you as well, Mr. (Bill) Noblitt (editor of the magazine) for the fine work.

Our department is at times forgotten, and I, as a member of the esteemed Department of Education, am extremely proud of the teachers and administrators who have matriculated through our undergraduate and graduate programs over Stetson’s long history.

—Deb Touchton, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Program Director, Educational Leadership Graduate Programs Stetson University The latest edition of the stetson magazine (Spring/May edition) is an outstanding publication. In my many years as an alumnus and employee, I have never seen a better publication from my alma mater. Thanks for your good work!

—Gary Meadows, ’59 Just got my stetson magazine!

WOW — It is the biggest one we have ever gotten, and there are articles in there that we will actually read. All kidding aside it looks great. Read most of the magazine last night—well done, enjoyed it.

—Richard Pistell, ’77 Greg (Carroll, Stetson’s vice president for university marketing) just sent me a copy of your

Our Stetson Facebook question: “Is a liberal education still relevant?” new magazine, and I wanted to send along my congratulations for a beautifully designed and edited publication! As I told Greg, my heart warmed when I saw the uncoated paper and FSC certification. It’s obvious, too, that you know how to design for an uncoated sheet, and your printer knows how to print on it.

—Nancy Spitler Editor, Clemson World Magazine Clemson University Beautiful stetson magazine!

Thank you for the great work.

Will love and be proud to pass this around. And the message about great teaching comes at just the right time.

—Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. President, Stetson University I had the thrill last week of a sneak peek at the stetson magazine — WOW! I am awed, Inspired, Proud, Excited for Stetson!

Thank you for your careful, creative, and thoughtful work in communicating the spirit of Stetson. I look forward to working with you on the next, and next, and next issues!

—Beth Paul, Ph.D. Provost and Academic Vice President Stetson University

A liberal arts degree is very relevant today.

In our modern world where information defines our everyday focus, the ability to communicate in and out of one’s cultural, religious and ethnic background enhances life experiences.

Social science provides the necessary tools to interact and interpret in a multicultural world.

Technological advances in Internet and television have created worldwide neighbors, where you can friend and interact with people thousands of miles away regularly.

Art, music and math still represent universal languages in which people from abroad congregate and socialize. Natural science still requires qualitative and quantitative data to advance our civilization. History and philosophy help us to better interpret how life experiences and expectations are changing.

As we really engage in the Information Age, liberal arts becomes more of a required field of research due to the world becoming closer and more intimate. In fact, the Internet allows for greater physical separation but provides greater levels of interaction. Long live liberal arts!

—Jason Gilliam-Alexander, ’97 Former SU Basketball Star Chief Executive Officer Mentoring Valuable Proteges, Inc. www.mvpinc.org I’d recommend that this question be asked after providing a clear definition of what you mean by a liberal arts education, that is if you intend to get meaningful answers. I’ve seen the term misused in many places and even seen it used to exclude mathematics (one of the quadrivium) and the sciences, including, for example, astronomy, which is also part of the quadrivium.

—Michael Branton, Ph.D. Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Stetson University Hi Michael: We’re focusing on why the world needs broadly

educated liberal arts graduates with their creative, analytical and critical-thinking skills. As you know, some books are critical of a broad liberal arts education. We’re exploring the question in another way too: Is liberal learning dead?

I’d appreciate your comments.

—Bill Noblitt, Editor, stetson magazine Here’s some background info: chronicle.com/article/GivingEmployers-What-They/13987 and www.aacu.org/leap/documents/ GlobalCentury_final.pdf In the Chronicle of Higher Education article titled “Giving Employers What They Don’t Really Want,” it says, “Why is there such a discrepancy between what employers want in a college graduate, and what we as educators think they want?”

The LEAP report was the foundation for the A&S curriculum change a few years back, and the move to the course unit system at Stetson.

— Michael Branton, Ph.D. Now retired after a successful career using my science doctorate to do neat electronics products.

Regrets? Yes, I should have taken more liberal arts and learned to appreciate more than the electron.

—Ken Wone, Ph.D. Certainly relevant. However, it’s more important that students come away with a sense of professionalism and, of course, competence in at least one marketable discipline.

— Hari Pulapaka, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Math Stetson University Absolutely — I’m a marketing manager for a national event technology company and regularly draw on theory from my communication studies major.

As long as you’re willing to teach yourself the technical and business skills necessary for whatever career you want to pursue, the foundations of a liberal arts

curriculum are not only suitable but even beneficial for “real world” application.

As a liberal arts major, you’re taught to be a thinker — you problem solve based on your research — and that is tremendously useful when coupled with the professionalism and marketable competencies Hari mentioned.

— Kathleen Smith, ’10 Unfortunately, in these changing times, education has too often been judged by what job it will get a student.

I think it’s essential to keep this a priority but not to “fill the cup” with that goal. Education, overall, is here to bring us a better appreciation of the world, to teach us how to think and appreciate, to make us citizens of a greater world of ideas. Liberal arts offers this opportunity.

If we eliminate that, why not just have trade schools and create a world filled with technicians ... brilliant technicians in many cases, but people who haven’t been taught to appreciate a poem, a Gothic cathedral, the nuances of a Bach Concerto, unless they learned it elsewhere.

I graduated from Stetson in 1963 and went on to get my Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Now I write and publish poetry. I’m still grateful to Stetson for the education it gave me in the liberal arts.

I still remember Miss Kathleen Johnson taking us into the music room, describing the components of a symphony, then setting us the task of writing the start of one.

She was amazing.

— Pris Campbell, ’63 stetson magazine welcomes letters to the editor. However, we ask that you focus your letter on a topic or article in the magazine. Send letters by email to wnoblitt@stetson.edu, by fax at 386-822-8925, or snail mail to Bill Noblitt, Office of University Marketing, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., 8319, DeLand, FL 32723.

Because of space limitations, we may edit some letters.

Your Response to the stetson magazine Email Readership Survey

W

e made some big changes to stetson magazine, including focusing on the theme of university teaching. You gave the magazine high marks for those changes.

First of all, the methodology. We sent a link to the survey to more than 2,900 alumni, friends, parents, faculty and staff. The response rate was about 6 percent. More than 170 of you responded.

Here’s what you told us: • 87 percent of you agree to strongly agree that “SU Magazine strengthens your personal commitment to Stetson.”

• 95 percent of you rated the quality of the magazine good to excellent.

• 65 percent of you rated the article titled “My Favorite Professor” the highest. “Why I Teach” came in a close second with 58 percent. “The Future of Teaching” was the third most read article at 45 percent.

• Class Notes continues to be your highest-rated department in the magazine at 68 percent. Next highest was news (Beginnings) with 58 percent.

• Only 25 percent of you say you would view additional content online if it was available.

• 55 percent of the survey respondents were men, and more than 40 percent of you who responded were over 65.

—Bill Noblitt Editor, stetson magazine STETSON

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BEGINNINGS Having fun while waiting to attend Commencement ceremonies.

Oh, Happy Day “Looming large on the other side of that doorway is your future — and the idea of achievement,” Stetson President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D., told more than 680 graduating seniors at the university’s two commencement ceremonies on May 11.

“In a material world, success is narrowly defined: at its pinnacle is perfection (the perfect job, spouse, dog) and a pile of money,” she added. “By now, because of what you have gained during your time at Stetson, I hope you realize that success is more than that — success may be at the mountaintop, 4

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but significance rests in the stars.”

During the morning ceremony, Elly Bludworth and Tara Formisano addressed 395 College of Arts and Sciences graduates, along with teachers, visitors, friends and family members.

Bludworth, a political science major, spent much of her time at Stetson in service to others.

While at Stetson, for example, Bludworth devoted four years to Hatter Harvest, publicizing events and planning on-campus farmers markets. She also spent three years with Housing and Residential Life, serving in both Emily and Gordis

halls. This experience inspired her to continue working with young people as a mentor with City Year after graduation.

Formisano, a Ridgefield, Conn., native and integrative health science major with minors in French and gender studies, received the university’s most prestigious student academic honor, the Etta McTeer Turner Award.

Following graduation, Formisano plans to work for Publicus Healthcare Communications Group in Manhattan as a medical drug researcher. At Stetson, she was active in the National Organization for Women, where she worked for social justice, gender equity and women’s rights. She also was able to present her senior research at the

National Autumn Immunology Conference in Chicago, an experience that, she says, “greatly helped hone my research skills and confirmed my goal to one day be a physician-scientist.”

The schools of Business Administration and Music held their commencement ceremony in the afternoon. Alisha Hoffman and Kirsten Shippert delivered the commencement addresses to 287 graduates, along with their friends and families.

Hoffman was a management major in the School of Business Administration and a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an international organization that honors academic achievement in business, and Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society.

She was also captain of the sand volleyball team, All-Academic Team 2011-13, All-Conference First Team 2013, and nominated for Atlantic Sun Conference student athlete of the year in 2013.

She plans to attend graduate school and earn her MBA. Shippert, a native of Atlanta who transferred to Stetson in fall 2011, has been a member of the Stetson Concert Choir. She also participated in multiple opera productions. She is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda and Omicron Delta Kappa. This summer, Kirsten began her MBA studies at Stetson and next year plans to pursue a master’s degree in vocal performance.

At the Stetson College of Law commencement, Florida Attorney

General Pam Bondi, J.D. ’90, addressed 353 College of Law graduates. “As Florida’s first female attorney general, I’m here to tell you that you can do anything you want to do, and don’t let anyone stand in your way,” said Bondi.

—From News Reports Top right: Law Dean Christopher M. Pietruszkiewicz, J.D., with College of Law commencement speaker Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, J.D. ’90, and Stetson President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. Middle right: Getting that Commencement hug.

Bottom right: Capturing the moment with Mom and Dad. STETSON 5

BEGINNINGS

Farrell. “More impressively, he also constantly inspires his students to do the same.”

—Mary Anne Rogers

Legal Writing a Winner

Chemistry Professor Harry Price.

Price Awarded Top Teaching Prize “I believe education is as important as personal freedom,” writes Associate Professor of Chemistry Harry Price, Ph.D., in a recent issue of stetson magazine.

“I decided to become a college professor so that I could pass on my love of learning, my love of science, and my knowledge and insights to my students just as my professors had done for me,” he writes. “Teaching for me is my way of giving back, my way of changing a life for the better.”

That teaching philosophy helped Price earn Stetson’s most prestigious teaching award, the William Hugh McEniry Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The honor is awarded to a faculty member chosen by students and other faculty. Excellence in classroom teaching is the primary criterion. Other factors, such as intellectual growth, professional competency, academic activities outside the classroom, and service to students and the university, are also considerations.

Terry Farrell, Ph.D., professor of biology and last year’s winner, presented the award at Stetson’s commencement ceremony.

“Price has an incredible ability to not only understand life in its most minute details — he can also relate biochemistry to the major challenges our society faces,” said 6

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Stetson’s legal-writing program is fifth-ranked among law schools by U.S. News & World Report. The program teaches students to be effective and ethical communicators. By developing solid writing skills, students can become better communicators, sharp critical thinkers and stronger advocates.

“Our legal research and writing program teaches students those things valued in today’s profession — problem solving, careful research and analysis, effective and ethical persuasion, and clear communication,” says Professor of Law Kirsten K. Davis, Ph.D., who directs legal research and writing at the College of Law. “Stetson students acquire a strong research and writing foundation that is recognized in national advocacy competitions,” says Professor of Legal Skills and Moot Court Adviser Brooke Bowman. “Learning to clearly convey the law and the facts of a case in writing is imperative in the practice of law.”

The College of Law hosts a Scholarly Writing Series for students in seminars and independent research courses, and the students frequently win national awards for writing excellence, including two consecutive Burton Legal Writing Awards.

This June, law student Kevin Crews placed first in the 2013 Florida Law Student Essay Contest. Crews won a cash award and complimentary registration at the Seventh Annual Solo & Small Firm Conference. His essay on the topic of maintaining confidentiality in the modern law office was published in the June Florida Bar Journal.

Stetson’s College of Law is

home to four academic law journals, the Stetson Law Review, Journal of International Aging Law and Policy, Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy, and Stetson Journal of Advocacy and the Law. The Stetson Journal of Advocacy and the Law, founded in May by recent law graduates Jamie Combee and Erik Johanson, is designed to be read entirely online.

Law professors Kate Bohl, J.D., and Timothy Kaye, Ph.D., are the journal’s faculty advisers. The journal invites a range of articles related to trial work and practical advocacy skills. The first issue will publish later this year.

In April, law students honed their client development writing skills while becoming published authors in a unique class newsletter project for Stetson’s advanced legal-writing course. The newsletter project gave Stetson law students the opportunity to learn how to write to retain clients and develop a business while writing articles for the newsletter Florida Ethics Update. Davis taught the course and supervised the project.

In March, Davis also spearheaded a Law & Rhetoric Colloquium, which included a dozen professors of law, communication arts, and the humanities from around the country.

The colloquium brought together professors from across disciplines to discuss the relationship between law and rhetoric and the value of introducing rhetoric into the legal writing curriculum.

More than three years ago, Davis launched “Virtual Legal Writing Conferences,” an annual webinar series for scholars.

Past webinar topics include learning outcomes and assessment in legal writing, coaching moot court teams, advanced writing course innovations, defining legal writing scholarship, technology for giving feedback, and new ideas and voices in legal-writing scholarship.

Read more about legal writing at Stetson by visiting storify.com/ stetsonlaw/legal-writing-at-stetson.

—Brandi Palmer

Stetson’s Fulbright Scholar Professor Jamil Khader heads to Palestine with open arms.

Fulbright Scholar Heads to Palestine A Stetson English professor plans a personal journey into the rocky hills north of the Dead Sea. His quest? To spend the next year seeking uncommon literary voices on the edges of Palestinian culture.

Traveling on a Fulbright Program research grant, English Professor Jamil Khader, Ph.D., will explore facets of the deep, multilayered Palestinian society to promote greater comprehension of the universal human condition and social justice.

“I hope to contribute to a more complex understanding of Palestinian culture and the humanity of Palestinians beyond the destructive stereotypical representations that dominate media and public discourse,” says Khader, gender studies director; former Diversity Council co-chair; and recipient of the Stetson University Hand Award for Scholarship (2006) and the Stetson University Hand Award for Community Impact (2011).

Khader, one of six Fulbright scholars from Stetson since 1998, has authored one book, co-edited another and is writing a third.

He’s an expert in postcolonial studies, transnational feminism, human rights, globalization, literary theory and popular culture.

This project, “The Part of No Part: Marginality in Palestinian Literature,” ties into his work on postcolonial turbulence and restrictive social orders in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and the Americas. Specifically, he’s interested in those writers largely marginalized by the dominant forces of their world — even generations after traumatic and lifeshattering events.

They’re a real part and reflection of their culture, but they’re

not part of the mainstream, don’t want to be, and couldn’t be even if they wished, Khader says. They are “a part of no part.”

Teaching at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah is part of the Fulbright fellowship. While there, Khader will search out, meet and interview a broad base of Palestinian writers. These writers aim to resolve contradictions between dominant narratives of neoliberal economic policies and the collective memory of the traumatic scattering and ethnic cleansing of 1948, commonly known as the Nakbah. Taking into account the controversial and political

nature of these issues, Khader will examine the range of ideological positions adopted by Palestinian writers. Some adapt hybrid and cosmopolitan strategies; others reimagine new forms of communal coexistence in Palestine and Israel.

Khader’s own history and character are shaped by the memories of his family who were caught in the destruction, diaspora and death along the coast south of Haifa. A native Palestinian, he was raised in a resettled community and educated in Haifa before he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to attend Penn State University where he earned a Ph.D. “My scholarship cannot be disconnected from my own social and political views and commitment to social justice,” says Khader, who has published on wide-ranging cultural problems, such as sexism, racism, colonialism, homophobia and Islamophobia, identifying possible ways to form solidarities across differences.

Academics like himself, explains Khader, may not change the world, but “we can help illuminate invisible pockets of existence and humanity that deserve urgent attention.” That’s a worthy purpose, he says, echoing the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“What interests me,” Khader says, “is the question of how those individuals and communities who remain inherently excluded articulate their experiences and what these experiences teach us about the limits of universality and the possibility of meaningful social change.”

Even though Khader is familiar with the territory, has friends and family there, and speaks Hebrew and Arabic, the project poses many challenges. One will be to find and build relationships with writers in a volatile, military-occupied area of armed patrols, checkpoints, no man’s lands, curfews, endemic suspicion and walls that inhibit free movement.

—Ronald Williamson STETSON

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Law 3+3 Program Announced Aspiring attorneys can reduce the time they spend earning a law degree through a new “3+3” program announced by the University of South Florida and Stetson University College of Law. Students seeking a J.D. degree typically complete a four-year undergraduate program followed by three years of law school.

The new 3+3 accelerated path allows qualified students to earn both their bachelor’s and J.D. degrees within six years. Students spend three years at USF and three years at Stetson Law. Students’ first year in the fulltime J.D. program at Stetson also serves as their final year of study at USF. Interested students must enroll in USF’s Honors College and meet the program’s eligibility requirements.

“Through our agreement with the USF Honors College, students can graduate with an undergraduate degree and a law degree in six years, save a year of tuition, and attend the top-ranked advocacy program in the country — a program that blends foundational law with the legal skills necessary to succeed in today’s marketplace,” says Stetson Law Dean Christopher Pietruszkiewicz.

“Together, Stetson and USF will help to create not only the next generation of lawyers but also the next generation of leaders.”

The 3+3 program also provides partial scholarship support for students once they start at Stetson.

Once admitted into the 3+3 program, students will be paired with a student, graduate, and/or faculty member mentor from the College of Law. “The partnership between the University of South Florida and Stetson University College of Law is a great opportunity for highly motivated and focused students to achieve their goals,” declares USF System President Judy Genshaft.

“Our brightest students are eager STETSON

to take on the challenges of advanced degrees, and we are confident the excellent undergraduate education they received at USF will prepare them for the rigors of Stetson’s exceptional program.

“These talented students will move more quickly through their education — incurring less debt — and be on their way to reaching their goals,” she adds.

—Brandi Palmer

Investment Programs Win Big Stetson’s Roland George Investments Program (RGIP) bond portfolio, yielding 11.7 percent for 2012, has won two national competitions: the RISE competition hosted by the University of Dayton and the GAME competition hosted by Quinnipiac University.

Stetson students and the Roland George Investments Program have placed first in the GAME competition every year since it started three years ago.

In the RISE competition, Stetson has placed first in 10 of the 13 years the competition has been around. Stetson took second place the other three years. More than 100 universities participate in each of the two competitions.

“George students know that they represent a proud 33-year tradition and a lifelong exclusive club, because of the long consistent winning record,” says K.C. Ma, professor of finance, Roland George Chair of Applied Investments, and director of the Sarah George Investments Institute.

In each year’s competitions, the winner is determined solely on the audited, actual portfolio performances on real money investments for the previous year. The RGIP portfolio began in 1980 with $500,000 and now is valued over $2.9 million. Although it was not a winner in 2012, the RGIP stock portfolio was up 12 percent.

“Managing the $3 million Roland George portfolio helps jump-start students’ careers by at

least five years, because our money is as real as others’,” says Ma. In another finance contest, Stetson undergraduates placed in the first Institutional Investors All-America Student Analyst Competition.

Katrin Dagge, Samantha Hahn, Bonnie Harper and Christian Roeder each were ranked in either a sector or as an overall finisher.

All of them participated in the contest through the investments class taught by Chris Tobler, Ph.D., assistant professor of finance.

The competition had nearly 700 students, representing 34 colleges and universities from all over the United States, to manage a faux portfolio of investments in an environment representative of those used by professional traders.

“Competitions like this are great because they give the stu-

dents a chance to apply the theory they’ve been learning in class to a real-world situation,” says Tobler.

“I was happy with how well they did, outperforming students from some of the best schools in the country. It really speaks to the strength of the finance program at Stetson and the caliber of the students.”

Using the cloud-based AlphaSeal system developed by Mark My Media, a personal portfolio was created for each competitor, tracking the equity value, net asset value, and profits and losses on a daily basis, and marking to market all positions, as a prime broker would, according to Institutional Investor.

Harper, a junior majoring in finance and minoring in psychology, says her strategy in the game was to diversify her holdings as much as possible to minimize risk.

“The competition was based on

a short-term time segment, so I chose stocks based on their performance in the next few months instead of the long term,” explains Harper.

Students started their portfolios with $100,000 each and had to follow Regulation T, the Federal Reserve Board rule designating a 50-percent margin requirement on initial stock purchases.

They were then free to trade in any of the seven industry sectors: Basic Materials, Capital Goods/ Industrials, Consumer, Energy, Financial Institutions, Health Care, Technology, and Media and Telecommunications.

To determine the overall ranking, analytical data was compiled on six investment factors: net benchmark out-performance, volatility, balance sheet impact, net exposure impact, long alpha and short alpha.

—Janie Graziani

A few years ago, the AT&T Foundation gave Stetson University’s chemistry department a grant to fund the development of a new online learning resource for introductory chemistry. One of the big successes of that project was the development of an online game called Mahjong Chem.

And just last year, the chemistry department hosted its Third Annual Mahjong Chemistry Tournament.

“I don’t have any plans to make a version available for purchase,” says William “Tandy” Grubbs, Ph.D., chemistry professor and chair. “One of the main reasons that the game has been such a big hit in the science education community is because it is free. My father was fond of reminding me ‘you get what you pay for.’

“I finally proved him wrong.”

Since its release in fall 2010, new developments of the game now include free app versions for the Android and Apple phones and tablets.

However, the online computer version, according to Google Analytics, has been accessed by more than 150,000 users from 178 different countries (including all states and territories in the United States) and is still being used worldwide. To play the game, go to www2.stetson.edu/ mahjongchem.

Android app downloads total about 5,000 while Apple app downloads total about 50,000.

“The iPhone and iPad numbers are pretty impressive,” says Grubbs.

With its tremendous popularity, the idea of promoting Mahjong Chem internationally was long overdue. During the past six months, Grubbs worked with Luciano Violante, a chemistry major at Stetson, as well as a collaborator in Brazil, to create translated versions of the game. Languages include Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian.

— Kim Charles

Photo by David Hansen

Business Professor K.C. Ma (standing at right) and his Roland George team win again.

Mahjong Chem Goes Viral

Classical guitarist Stephen Robinson celebrates 30 years at Stetson. His new CD is titled Imagine.

Robinson Celebrates 30 Years For everything that worldrenowned classical guitarist Stephen Robinson has accomplished — and that list is quite impressive — teaching for 30 years at Stetson certainly is a feather in his cap. But he might say his greatest joy in life was marrying a true partner, Patrece, who shares his busy life that includes four sons, a recording career, guest lecturing, hosting workshops, teaching at Stetson, and performing at numerous concerts around the globe.

A New York native, Robinson began playing guitar when his parents took him to pick out an instrument for his ninth birthday. “This was a time in history when the Beatles were emerging in America, and everything related to guitars and rock was very cool,” Robinson explains.

“But in college, a friend of mine took me to a classical guitar concert,” he adds. “From that point on, I changed my focus on the guitar from rock to classical performance.” Robinson went on to do graduate study at Yale University and returned to FSU, where he and Patrece earned master’s degrees. He earned the first-ever doctorate in guitar performance from FSU as well.

Robinson founded the guitar program at Stetson in 1983, his inaugural year on campus.

Over the years, he has accumu-

lated many awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalists Awards, a National Endowment for the Arts Recording Award, a Fulbright Fellowship for Performance and Research in Canada, and two Stetson Hand Awards for Excellence in Research and Creativity. He received the first Hand Award for his outstanding work with children and seniors, and the second for his unparalleled performances and recordings.

Even with all the accolades, the Robinsons remain grounded. “The most important thing to both of us is family and maintaining balance with everything we juggle,” he says. “As a professor, I strive to teach not only music but life skills — much like a parent. The best lesson many of my students tell me I’ve given them is understanding how to ‘do it all’ and be successful.”

“What his students admire most is the balance with performing and teaching at such an incredibly high level,” explains Patrece. “This is evident in the quality of students he’s taught and the fact that they are still in contact with him over his 30 years at Stetson. That’s his legacy.”

“When I look at what I do, it’s a privilege,” Robinson points out.

“I get to go to college and work with talented students every day.

I get to practice guitar every day.

I married my best friend, and we enjoy working together every day.

I am a very lucky guy!”

—Trish Wieland STETSON

9

BEGINNINGS 10

Accounting, Law Grads Ace Exams Stetson graduates with a bachelor’s degree had the highest overall pass rate in Florida (84.6 percent) on the Uniform Certified Public Accountant exam in 2012, according to results released by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA).

According to NASBA, the next highest pass rate was only 63.4 percent; Stetson was first out of 24 schools reporting.

In addition, the overall pass rate for Stetson graduates with a bachelor’s degree who were taking the CPA test for the first time was 75 percent, the highest pass rate in Florida. These are typically students who have earned a bachelor’s degree and take sections of the CPA exam while enrolled in the master of accountancy (M.Acc.) program.

For Michael Bitter, Rinker Distinguished Professor of Accounting and chair of Stetson’s M.E. Rinker, Sr. Institute of Tax and Accountancy, the results of the CPA exam reflect the dedication of the program’s students.

“I think that the strong pass rates are indicative of the quality of our accounting program and the quality and tenacity of our accounting graduates,” Bitter says.

The overall pass rate for all test takers with a bachelor’s or advanced degree is 48.9 percent worldwide.

Offered throughout each year, the Uniform CPA exam is a 14-hour, computer-based exam comprising four sections: auditing and attestation; business environment and concepts; financial accounting and reporting; and regulation. Candidates take one section of the exam per sitting and must pass all four parts of the exam in order to be eligible to obtain a CPA license.

Nearly 100 percent of students who earn an M.Acc. from Stetson secure a position, primarily in public accounting, before graduation. To assist students in finding STETSON

a position, Stetson hosts recruiters from big three firms (PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young), regional CPA firms, corporations and government agencies.

Stetson’s accounting curriculum provides the 150 credit hours required for a CPA license. Each year, undergraduate and graduate students at Stetson take the CPA exam.

Finally, among first-time takers of the Florida bar exam, 93.9 percent of Stetson University College of Law graduates passed.

Stetson Law placed second among Florida law schools on the exam, according to the Supreme Court of Florida’s recently released exam scores and statistics. Only Florida State University had a higher firsttime bar passage rate with a total of 96 percent of graduates passing the exam.

—Janie Graziani

SU Partners with Public Health Integrative health science/ communication students at Stetson created two coloring books and videos that promote the importance of public health.

The school projects were presented to the Florida Department of Health in Volusia County and will be used to raise awareness of public health in the community.

“Our students were excited about this community service learning project because it gave them an opportunity to explore the many aspects of public health on campus and in our community,” says Tara J. Schuwerk, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies and integrative health science.

“The students produced and edited their video projects and designed interesting coloring books with creative characters,” she continues.

“They made valuable connections between their coursework and the service they provided to the community.”

—Mary Anne Rogers

Rosalie Carpenter (at right), the new dean of students, does what she does best: helping Stetson students.

Carpenter Named New Dean of Students Rosalie Carpenter, ’98, former assistant dean of students at Stetson University, was promoted to the position of dean of students at the DeLand campus, Vice President for Student Affairs Christopher Kandus-Fisher announces.

In her new position, Carpenter reports to Kandus-Fisher and provides oversight to various units within the university’s Division of Campus Life and Student Success. Those units include the Intercultural Initiatives (which includes the Tri-C), Spiritual and Religious Life, Student Clubs and Organizations, Leadership Development Programs, First Year and Transition Program (which

includes FOCUS) and Student Judicial Affairs.

“I am thrilled to have Rosalie serve in the role of dean of students,” says Kandus-Fisher. “She embodies the true heart of Stetson, and I am confident that her leadership style will enhance the already vibrant Stetson community.”

“I am very grateful for the trust and confidence people have given me in this important role,” says Carpenter.

“Our students are the centerpiece of our work and reflection of our institutional mission, so to be selected to represent and advocate for them at this level is an honor and privilege,” she adds. “I look forward to working collabora-

Big Brother Censorship Bomb

tively across campus to continue to impact the student learning experience.”

Carpenter, a Stetson alumna, was awarded the Robert D. Bradshaw Small Colleges Student Advocate Award from the National Association of Student Affairs Administrators (NASPA) at its 2013 Region III Awards program earlier this summer. The award honors the significant role played by those who champion student issues in a small college setting and beyond.

Carpenter has provided strategic leadership to the student development and engagement team, while also providing a vision that not only supports a vibrant campus, but connects student engagement to success and retention.

—Janie Graziani

Accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia among the cast of CBS’s hit show “Big Brother” have the program’s producers defending their decision to censor some comments. Andy Dehnart, visiting assistant professor and director of Stetson’s journalism program, weighed in on the latest drama surrounding the reality TV show now in its 15th season.

Critics of CBS’s decision accuse the network of presenting a false image of the show as well as missing an opportunity to highlight these issues in society.

“These (comments) will probably never air on television if history is a guide,” Dehnart says, “so we’ll likely get a sanitized version of the houseguests instead of editing that reflects their actual personalities, attitudes and comments.”

Dehnart, reality show critic and author of the blog “Reality Blurred,” recently posted several of the offensive comments in his analysis of the insensitivity of some cast members, as well as CBS’s explanation for keeping certain footage off television.

His opinions on the situation are featured in several major media outlets, such as The New York Times and NPR. Contestants on “Big Brother” live together in a house for three months while cameras are rolling 24/7. Even though more than 100 hours of weekly taped footage are edited out of a show’s broadcast, viewers can watch the contestants live, 24/7 on CBS’s website.

Viewers who tuned in to the live webcast witnessed several of the cast making offensive racist, homophobic and sexist insults toward each other.

On his blog, Dehnart provided examples of the offensive language that had stirred up trouble for CBS, which originally didn’t want to help perpetuate bigotry.

However, social commentators viewed hiding bigotry as a way of

Assistant Professor Andy Dehnart cites censorship on the TV show “Big Brother.”

endorsing it. “By not broadcasting the bigoted comments — which I understand would be challenging to do with sensitivity — the television version presents distorted images of the cast members,” says Dehnart.

CBS answered its critics by airing some of the offensive remarks in newer episodes, as well as releasing this public statement: “We are very mindful of the important issues that have been raised by these recent comments. With regard to the broadcast version, we are weighing carefully issues of broadcast standards, an obliga-

tion to inform the audience of important elements that influence the competition, and sensitivity to how any inappropriate comments are presented.”

Still, Dehnart and other critics believe CBS is being disingenuous as it pertains to the issue. “The important discussion that I hope people have as a result of this is about how a broadcast television show has for years been presenting a different reality and hiding behind a pretend moral high ground while continuing to profit from awfulness,” says Dehnart.

—Maurie Murray STETSON

11

BEGINNINGS The classic cool look of Nathan Cox, senior finance major.

The longboard (with Stetson green wheels) look of Danielle Grisham, sophomore fine arts major.

The D-1 look of Lamonte Walker, freshman student in the Discovery Program.

enjoying my man fuzz (beard).”

Danielle Grisham, a sophomore fine arts major, from Katy, Texas, loves her longboard. She wears her Happy Face Tee because “it makes me smile.” Her leather backpack doubles as purse. She created the artwork for her longboard because “hey, I’m an art major.”

Lamonte Walker wears his D-1 garb with style. “I like wearing my Guy Harvey Tee, black shorts and black socks with my Nike sandals,” he says.

“I wear a smile,” says Lauren Couturier, a junior in marketing from Ashburnham, Mass. “It’s Florida after all.”

Couturier wouldn’t go any-

where without her catch-all TriDelt canvas bag.

“I wore boots today although this is Florida, and I didn’t have to,” Couturier explains. “It’s more a fashion thing.

“My skinny jeans go well with my boots,” she adds. “Don’t you think?”

—Bill Noblitt

What We Wear Most Stetson students wear Florida cool, clothes that go well with the seasons (Florida has three: cool, warm and warmer). These Stetson students show off their best threads, along with items that define them.

Those items could be longboards, bow ties or paintbrushes.

The choice is theirs.

Nathan Cox, a senior finance major and Roland George Investments Program student from Naples, Fla., likes classic casual with a Stetson T-shirt, comfy cargo shorts and Sperry Top-Siders.

“I normally dress up for my business classes,” he says, “but today I’m dressed down and am 12

STETSON

The Greek cool look of Lauren Couturier, a junior marketing major.

Photos by Joel E. Jones, Director of Creative Services

FIRST PERSON

Looking back now, I wish I had let the Florida scrub jay land on my head.

READY. SET. NATURE. B y V i v i a n a Va s i u Stetson Junior

A

Apparently, it’s all about their extremely social character, and, well, they enjoy landing on tall people’s heads for food… Let’s just say that a 5’ 9” individual was the perfect target for a Florida scrub jay. Looking back now, I wish I had let it land on my head. Lesson learned: Embrace nature with everything you have.

Time to change gears. Next stop: Blue Spring State Park. “There’s a cluster of manatees there!” declared one of the students running excitedly toward the river. Blue Spring State Park is home to dozens of manatees, an endangered species, also known as sea cows.

As I sit down, I take in all that nature has to offer. No phone, no distractions. Just my group, the emerald river, Spanish moss, the manatees and me.

The Spanish moss slowly moves left and right to the motion of the breeze. According to one legend, a Spanish soldier pursued a Native American girl that he fell in love with. She wanted nothing to do with him, and as he followed her, he climbed onto an oak tree, slipped and died. Since then, his beard has been growing and growing for centuries.

pair of onyx eyes scrutinized me.

Black claws and a pair of sapphire wings flew toward my head. Gasps and whispers from the group surrounded me.

After a few tense seconds went by, I carefully looked up and was frightened. The Florida scrub jay was sitting on a branch, gazing at me.

Birds scare me.

What better way to learn about nature, understand our quintessential relationship with it, while enhancing our writing skills than to go out and live and breathe the great outdoors?

That is precisely what I do every two weeks in my Stetson nature-writing class. Whether we head to Blue Spring State Park, Lake Woodruff, Lyonia Preserve or New Smyrna Beach, we never cease to be in awe of our environment.

Real Florida. Shut off your phone. Sit down.

Breathe deeply. Reflect. Write.

You don’t commonly get the opportunity to do that in a class, right? But in English Professor Mary Pollock’s nature-writing class, you do.

Time for adventures now. From my journal: It was a rainy day in Florida. We traveled to Lyonia Preserve, also known as the “jewel of Deltona.” As we walked on the sandy tracks, we encountered several birds and plants, such as bloodshot cardinals,

playful sapphire scrub jays, desert stars and imposing sand pines. I wonder why the scrub jay had tried to land on my head …

Even when I close my eyes, I still feel nature is speaking to me, caressing me with its embrace of scents.

Nature lesson: To find your inner core, you need to be observant of your surroundings.

Now, let’s travel to Lake Woodruff. Mission: great egret. “Look, it’s like a ballerina!” I said excitedly to my friend as I spotted a white, graceful great egret.

It was slowly treading through the pond, searching for its next prey. After minutes patiently and strategically preparing my position, I saw the egret rapidly catch its next prey in one deadly motion.

On every trip, we have experts guide us and help us fully understand and enjoy nature.

For instance, we had a guide show us around Lyonia Preserve. Experts from the Audubon Society gave us bird-watching tips, while our professor offered loads of information on every aspect of our excursions.

What do all these field trips have in common? You build a stronger connection to nature through personal observation. You gain a sense of delight and exhilaration about our world.

Where else could you possibly make the world your classroom and walk out feeling energized and better able to understand how vital nature is to our lives?

STETSON

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Is Liberal

14

STETSON

Learning DEAD? Ø

ur Leaders and the General Public Rarely Understand the Value of a Liberal Education

By Beth Paul, Ph.D.

Stetson Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

A detail from Raphael’s painting “The Sistine Madonna.”

STETSON 15

W

hile traveling from New York back to Florida this summer, I found myself stuck in Atlanta’s airport for an extended delay. A one-hour connection grew quickly to an eight-hour hiatus.

Checking my email led me to review the recent higher education news feeds — no surprise, I found a continuing march of headlines decrying higher education as out-of-date, less valuable for students, and urging rapid change.

Make it cheaper! Make it faster! Make it easier for students to get through as quickly as possible and land their first jobs! I felt such dissonance when I then shifted to a review of the world news, with alerts sounding about urgent and complex challenges that are jeopardizing our future. I feel a deeply disconcerting disconnect between the increasing lack of clarity about education’s purpose and goals and the needs and challenges in our world that require novel thought and enterprising action.

Then, I received an email from Bill Noblitt, stetson magazine editor, tossing forward a theme idea for the next issue: “Is liberal learning dead?”

This tantalizing question was just what I needed to exorcise these concerns about our decaying sense of the purpose and value of higher education. It also provided me an opportunity to make good use of my unexpected stay at the airport.

I looked around the terminal and saw a wonderful cross section of people. “Maybe I could ask them if liberal learning is dead?” I thought.

So, off I went, asking a wide variety of people, “Is liberal learning dead?” The conversations were telling, thought-provoking and instructive. These conversations underlined why higher education institutions struggle to clarify and articulate publicly their purpose and goals in a world that now needs, more than ever, transformative and liberating learning.

Not surprisingly, the term “liberal learning” is often misunderstood in public discussion.

As such, I heard others frequently echo the common assumption that “liberal” describes a left-leaning political ideology. Here are some examples of spirited political musings my question, “Is liberal learning dead,” provoked:

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STETSON

Liberal education suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous misinformation.

“You bet! The conservatives are gonna win!”

“Oh no, I got a whole slew of calls during the last presidential election trying to educate me on the liberal candidates.”

“It should be. I don’t know why we should have liberal or conservative education. We’ve got to get back to reading, writing and arithmetic.”

When I think about the purpose of education in the face of today’s challenges — minus the jargon — several key elements of a liberal education were there: broad knowledge of the world from different ways of studying it; openmindedness and an ability to hear and consider the perspectives of others; good communication skills of all kinds — writing, speaking, relationships.

One individual concluded, “Young people need to care about the world, and college needs to help them figure out how they are going to help make it better.”

A current student at a regional state university overheard my conversation and began tell-

A detail from Raphael’s painting “The Triumph of Galatea.”

ing me what he thought about my question.

“You’re talking about general education, right? No, that’s not dead. I’ve had to take a bunch of courses that aren’t related to my major or anything.”

When I asked him why he thought he was being required to take those courses, he replied, “I don’t know. There’s just this checklist I have to finish before I graduate.”

Unfortunately, his reply was familiar.

General education is intended to be an essential part of a liberal education, a sentiment he and others fail to grasp.

Moreover, liberal education exposes all students to an array of disciplines and modes of inquiry. Through general education, in fact, our professors guide their students in development of essential intellectual, civic and practical capacities. But all too often, students are not guided in the purpose and goals of their liberal education. They, therefore, miss opportunities for further development, integration and transferability of knowledge. For example,

M

ake it cheaper!

Make it faster!

Make it easier for students to get through as quickly as possible and land their first jobs!

students learn critical-thinking and problemsolving skills from studying natural science, and these have meaningful application in all realms of life. Studying different world cultures adds dimension to learning in any discipline and fosters perspective-taking and intercultural communication skills.

I then began a conversation with a professor who had recently made a transition from a small liberal arts college to a small university with degree programs in an array of disciplines.

Some of these were professional disciplines such as business. She discussed the unfortunate disciplinary turf wars that often obscure the meaning and significance of liberal education or liberal learning.

“I’m finding that there’s real confusion between ‘liberal arts disciplines’ and ‘liberal learning.’ They aren’t the same thing. It’s as if liberal learning is only for, and accomplished through, students studying the liberal arts disciplines. Liberal learning is essential for all students, and any and all disciplines can and

should be part of it. I’m also tired of the false dichotomy between ‘liberal’ and ‘practical’ or ‘professional.’ I’ve never met anyone, in any field, who doesn’t find skills like critical thinking, communication and problem-solving essential!”

After relocating near the computer-charging hub, I posed the question to a woman who seemed primed for continuing the discussion.

“If liberal education is dead, then my business will be dead. My business is successful because I hire college graduates who are broadly educated, know how to communicate, love a good challenge, and who have a hunger to make a difference,” she declared.

She told me she was a CEO of a technology company and that when she interviews prospective employees, “I don’t want to know what their major was in college. I want to know what else they studied, what else they did, and how they see value in that.

“The last thing I want are narrowly trained people — experts in a specific programming

language or experts in specific business practices,” she continued. “I will train them in the cutting-edge specifics. I need people who can think outside of the box, who can bring something they learned in biology or art or English to help the company think in a new way.

That’s what keeps our competitive edge. That’s what makes my employees and my company successful.”

As I expected, my question also prompted some people to gather their belongings and change seats. Surely, there were many reasons for this response, including violations of expectations about social behavior.

But I can’t help but think that in some cases it was because people were unfamiliar with any notion of liberal education. They felt discomfort with not knowing and perceived me as a privileged questioner.

I was soon alone with my thoughts about liberal education.

It is sadly telling to observe how so many people in our country rarely understand why liberal education is important, why the discussion about it is crucial, and why access to it is not happening.

If we know that liberal education opens possibilities for social and economic advancement over a lifetime, then we must confront the ethics of restricting access. Is it right to offer narrow job-preparation-focused, skills-based education when we know that the job they prepare for is likely to become obsolete?

Finally, I boarded the plane headed for Florida. As I buckled in, I posed the question one last time to my seatmate.

“Oh, liberal learning cannot be dead! Our world needs human compassion, leadership and action. That’s what liberal education is all about. I’m so lucky that I learned that at my university. And now, as a teacher, I do my best to plant the early seeds of a liberal education — it’s not as easy as filling in a bubble on a test sheet, but it’s a lot more fun!”

I then asked where she went to college. She replied, “Stetson University.”

Ah, now I was sure I was finally heading home.

STETSON

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STETSON

WHATMY LIBERAL EDUCATION TAUGHTME Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

By Chris Brigham, ’77 As a marketing major at Stetson, I had every intention of pursuing a “business” career once I graduated. Truth be told, I wasn’t really sure what I would do and certainly did not have a passion for the likely choices. That all changed in my final semester at Stetson.

My roommate and I both had an elective to fill, and he suggested we take “Film Appreciation” from the highly respected English Professor Carter Colwell, Ph.D. I had no idea that the random nature of my choice of elective would change my life in such an incredibly significant way.

Walking into the class on the first day was as if I fell down the rabbit hole.

My life experience with movies before the class was quite simple. I went to the movies to be entertained — not educated, not to have my life broadened or my understanding of the world deepened — but merely entertained.

What Dr. Colwell knew and shared with his students was a tremendous passion for eminent filmmakers and renowned films. He introduced us to the greatest storytellers of the cinema: American directors, such as John Ford, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks. The geniuses of silent films — Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and D.W. Griffith. And, for me, the most eye-opening, the works of the giants of foreign cinema — Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock and so many, many more. Hundreds of films, hundreds of stories beautifully told. These movies took me places I didn’t know existed.

It was such an amazingly transformative experience. I found the “business” I was looking for.

When I look back now, I consider how lucky and blessed I was that Professor Colwell shared his deep knowledge and appreciation of the art of cinema with me. I have been so fortunate to have a life where I love what I do every day, and I credit that to Dr. Colwell, a professor in the liberal arts.

Chris Brigham, ’77, was executive producer of Argo (2012), the film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Inception (2010), Shutter Island (2010), The Aviator (2004) and many others.

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A Whole New World B y R e n é e L aw l e s s , ’ 8 3 “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

—William Shakespeare I began my Stetson education as a vocal performance major and planned on a career in opera. Although I was growing as a musician, I was curious about other courses outside the School of Music.

I knew there was a whole university I never saw. But something happened that opened up a whole new world for me. Winter semester required students to expand their coursework outside of their major and take courses in other departments and schools. I took advantage of this opportunity and made sure that I took courses in many other subjects across the university. For example, I took calligraphy from the art department, a skill that later assisted me while doing event planning between acting gigs.

Because of my love of theater, I attended all the Stover Theatre productions during my freshman year. During the summer, Theater Professor Bruce Griffiths (aka “Coach”) cast me in Stetson’s summer-stock production of Guys and Dolls.

By the middle of my sophomore year, I changed my major to a Bachelor of Arts–Music. I changed my major because I could then take other arts courses, as well as many other academic classes. During the next few years, I strengthened my musical knowledge and skills at Presser Hall, home of the School of Music, and then spent countless hours participating in and taking courses in costumes, sets, lighting, stagecraft, makeup, acting, directing, public speaking, humanities and others at Stover Theatre.

I credit Coach Griffiths for the constant words of wisdom about the wonderful world of the stage. Whether opera, theater or film, he taught me to respect all aspects of the theater, not just performing. I quickly became part of 17 productions in my four years at Stetson, on and off stage.

Larger college campuses do not give undergrads this kind of opportunity in the theater.

Opera did not turn out to be my career path, but now, after many years on the stage, Broadway, film and television, I have the utmost respect for my crew and the part they play in making my “role” a whole lot easier.

Coach Griffiths always said, “If the crew likes you, you’ll have nothing to worry about. But if they don’t, you’re sunk.”

As well as helping me gain insight into my craft as an actress and understand character, my liberal education at Stetson has also opened many doors outside of the performing arena that otherwise would have been closed.

Renée Lawless, ’83, has performed all over the country, including on Broadway with Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and the national tour of WICKED. She is currently starring in Tyler Perry’s The Haves and Have Nots on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

2020 STETSON STETSON

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2222 STETSON STETSON

Liberal Learning Opened the World for Me

By Rich Cheston, ’79 When I entered Stetson in the fall of 1974, I majored in chemistry, but I really had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated. Why chemistry? Well, my favorite teacher in high school was my chemistry teacher, but I felt, rightly or wrongly, that potential employers would be impressed that I majored in chemistry. As it turns out, I was only partially correct. Ironically, the other areas of my Stetson liberal education opened up more of those doors.

My freshman year, I was excited about the opportunity to play baseball for Stetson, an upand-coming powerhouse. Unfortunately, I got hurt that year playing basketball against one of the biggest players on Stetson’s basketball team. I caught an elbow in the nose, and that was the end of my baseball career. My nose was shattered, not just broken, and would ultimately require multiple surgeries.

But my bad luck actually turned out to be good luck. The NCAA granted me a hardship redshirt season, or an extra year of eligibility. With the extra time, I decided to double-major in both chemistry and business and take as many classes as possible. In short, I used that extra year to broaden my education, and it opened up worlds for me. In fact, most of the success I’ve had in my life is connected to those choices I made many years ago to broaden my education. IBM gave me many opportunities early in my career because of my background in liberal education and business. For example, I began to make a name for myself as someone who could grasp facts, see the bigger picture, and negotiate the best outcome. As a result, IBM gave me the challenge to negotiate the closure of a $1 billion partnership — by myself. My liberal education prepared me to understand and deal with a broad range of subjects and successfully close a complex partnership.

I found out my initial major and early career experience helped me land that first killer job.

But it’s that broader set of skills and a background in liberal education that helped me for the long haul. I’m grateful to Stetson for the many opportunities I had to take liberal arts classes along with my major. One of those classes I took during “mini-mester” turned out to be extremely valuable: “Man and Nature in China.” When Lenovo (a Chinese company) acquired my IBM division, I began working for a culturally diverse global company. That class helped me be effective quickly.

Lenovo is often referred to as an example of the new generation of global corporations. If that’s so, then I’m convinced liberal education classes are as valuable today as they’ve ever been.

While a technical or professional degree will probably improve your odds of getting your first job, it will be a well-rounded liberal education that will continue to open up the most career doors for you.

Rich Cheston, ’79, spent 23 years at IBM before becoming chief technical architect, distinguished engineer and master inventor at Lenovo. Distinguished engineers are rare and have the attributes of being deep in one field or area, perhaps the recognized expert in the world, but broad in many other areas.

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23

The challenges are daunting. Climate change heats up, and a recent Rolling Stone article, “Goodbye, Miami,” predicts our oceans will rise, leaving the city a North American Atlantis by 2030. The housing bubble pops, and a global economic meltdown takes place. Unethical business and banking practices led this economic downfall. Terrorists threaten our lives and our way of life. Although research has made progress, cancer, Alzheimer’s and HIV continue to plague humankind around the globe. There are wars and rumors of wars.

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STETSON STETSON

All space photos in this issue courtesy of NASA.

S

Can Liberal Learning ave the

World?

By Bill Noblitt

STETSON 25

If

some books, articles and political speeches are any indication, no way. According to several of these viewpoints, liberally instructed graduates are too broadly educated to get their heads out of the clouds long enough to get meaningful jobs to pay off their college loans.

On the other hand, many say, “Yes.” The few problems listed above are complex ones, requiring liberal learning, proponents say, to find new ways of looking at them that will lead to meaningful solutions. They say liberal learning teaches us not only how to think critically, analytically and creatively, but also to communicate our ideas clearly and effectively.

First, let’s be clear. Liberal learning, according to Stetson’s General Education Requirements, “has nothing to do with political ideology.” It’s about liberating the mind from the shackles of its own ignorance and prejudice.

“And liberal learning is not just about the liberal arts and especially not just about the humanities,” explains John Pearson, Ph.D., assistant vice president for General Education at Stetson and a professor of English. “Liberal learning is multidisciplinary, and true liberal learning would incorporate all of the disciplines.”

Robert Shoenberg, a senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, clarifies liberal learning and the liberal arts in his article “How Not to Defend Liberal Arts Colleges.”

“Study exclusively in the liberal arts disciplines does not guarantee a liberal education,” he writes. “Indeed, many liberal arts majors are as narrowly specialized as any professional program. Conversely, many career-specific programs are insistent on liberal learning.

“But the thrust of liberal education (and of the liberal arts when they are part of a liberal education) should be toward addressing human dilemmas: those that we have always faced because we are human, those that loom large

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now, and those we can anticipate,” Shoenberg continues.

One more point. “Liberal learning is not dead!” declares Pearson. “It’s just being challenged.”

The Naysayers The argument against liberal education — those cross-disciplinary courses that many believe make us think — is a simple one. The naysayers advocate tying college coursework to the needs of business. The result, they claim, will help graduates find jobs, while helping to fuel economic development by recruiting businesses to their states.

The liberal learning critics are being led by politicians, who want education and training focused on what they believe employers need right now. For example, North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory questioned whether taxpayers should underwrite programs that he said were created by an “educational elite” but don’t lead to employment.

In Florida, a task force has recommended the state’s public universities charge more for such majors as history and English that it said are in less demand, while charging less for degrees in science, technology, engineering, math and the health professions.

And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to tie technical-school and university funding to filling high-demand professions and “not just the jobs that the universities want to give us.”

Nowhere has the debate been more fervent than between the two titans of the tech industry: Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, and the late Steve Jobs, Apple’s innovator and savior.

In a speech before the National Governors Association, Gates said we should spend our limited education dollars on disciplines that produce the most jobs. He implied, says one observer, that we should reduce our investment in liberal learning because liberal education degrees don’t correlate well with job creation.

At the unveiling of the iPad 2 a few days later, Jobs countered: “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing, and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.”

What Employers Truly Want Several surveys shatter the stereotypes about what employers truly want from university graduates. As pointed out above, one stereotype argues that employers need graduates who have skills in professional majors that translate into business needs now. In fact, according to surveys commissioned by the Association of

“What does business need from our educational system? One answer is that it needs more employees who excel in science and engineering…

But that is only the beginning: one cannot live by equations alone.”

—Norman Augustine Former CEO, Lockheed Martin

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American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U– 2009 and 2013) and the newspaper The Chronicle of Higher Education, employers want liberally educated employees.

“Research from employers shows that liberal learning works,” explains Beth Paul, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs at Stetson. “Our students learn to communicate their ideas and see problems and opportunities from different perspectives. They are able to work with diverse people with diverse ideas.

These are our learning virtues, and these virtues are important to employers.”

Norman Augustine, former chair and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corp., agrees: “So what does business need from our educational system? One answer is that it needs more employees who excel in science and engineering. The remainder of a workforce should be exposed to enough science and mathematics to function in the rapidly evolving high-tech world.

“But that is only the beginning: one cannot live by equations alone,” he continues. “The need is increasing for workers with greater foreign language skills and an expanded knowledge of economics, history and geography. And who wants a technology-driven economy when those who drive it are not grounded in such fields as ethics?”

The AAC&U survey found that: • 93 percent of employers surveyed want graduates to have a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems, and this is more important than [a candidate’s] undergraduate major.

• More than nine in 10 employers surveyed believe it’s more important that graduates “demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity; intercultural skills; and the capacity for continued new learning.”

• More than 75 percent of employers say they “want more emphasis on five key areas, including critical thinking, complex problemsolving, written and oral communication, and applied knowledge in real-world settings.”

• An overwhelming majority of employers (80 percent) surveyed in 2013 agreed that, regardless of major, every college student should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences.

A Chronicle of Higher Education survey independently found similar results with: • “Only 19 percent of employers look for specific majors and do not consider candidates without them, while the majority — 78 percent — will consider any major.”

• Executives are least interested in candidates with specific majors (14 percent).

In the surveys, employers didn’t say that 28

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majors are unimportant. They simply believe that the liberal learning values of thinking critically, communicating clearly, being innovative, and having strong values and ethics matter more.

“The overwhelmingly positive response from surveyed executives shows that they value the liberal learning skills over other attributes,” says Joe Protopapa, executive director of career development and academic advising at Stetson.

“These executives believe they can teach someone the job skills they need, but that they can’t teach the skills of analytical and critical thinking.”

Protopapa cites several transferable skills that employers want, and “these are at the heart of a liberal education, and they are woven into Stetson’s curriculum.”

Protopapa does point out, however, that someone narrowly trained in a job skill may make more money initially, but that “over the course of a lifetime, liberally educated graduates make an average of $1 million more with a degree from a place like Stetson.”

Alumnus Rich Cheston, ’79, a Distinguished Engineer with Lenovo, speaks from personal experience when he says, “A technical or professional degree will improve your odds of getting your first job. However, it will be a well-rounded liberal education that will continue to open up the most career doors for you.”

A chemistry and business major while at the university, Cheston, a Stetson distinguished alumnus award-winner, credits his extra year taking courses across the curriculum with boosting his career. “At IBM, I began to make a name for myself as someone who could grasp facts, see the bigger picture, and negotiate the best outcome,” he says. “The more I think about it the more I realize how much more I use my liberal arts education than my technical. And it’s not just me. I would say all or nearly all executives.”

But will the jobs we train for today be around tomorrow? “The jobs that were plentiful 20 or 30 years ago no longer exist or are being outsourced,” explains Pearson. “I’m sure that in the 1800s people were trained to make buggy whips, but then Henry Ford created the Model T and all that changed.”

Or as School of Music Dean Thomas Gilmore Masse, D.M.A., succinctly put it: “Today’s ‘ism’s’ are tomorrow’s ‘wasm’s.’ ” “Liberal learning has to prepare students to be able to change and be nimble analytical thinkers who, in fact, become leaders of that change,” Protopapa adds. “New petroleum engineering graduates, for instance, make six figures but with new energy technologies, will

that job even be around 20 years from now?”

A Brave, New World Pearson paints a large canvas when he talks about how this period in economic history is different from any other. “In the Industrial Age, we needed people to work in factories and put things together,” he explains. “But we’re moving into a new age that requires different skills — the ability to think across disciplines and approach problems from many different perspectives.”

Pearson points to a recent book by Daniel H. Pink titled A Whole New Mind: Why RightBrainers Will Rule the Future. In his book, Pink writes: “We are moving from an economy and society built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age. “The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind—computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers,” Pink adds.

“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind.”

—Daniel H. Pink From his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers,” he writes. “These people — artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers — will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

“That fits perfectly with a liberal education, where our students and graduates learn to think outside the box and bring many different disciplines to bear on a problem,” says Pearson.

What skill sets should our students have?

“The world belongs not only to right-brainers, as Pink suggests,” says Pearson, “but to those people who can synthesize both sides of the brain. If we do our jobs well, we’ll prepare our students for this brave, new world.”

The Discussion at Stetson The debate at Stetson is more a conversation about how to infuse liberal learning across the curriculum, particularly in business, music and other career-focused majors. During a spirited conversation with Provost Paul and the Stetson deans, for example, Noel Painter, Ph.D.,

interim music school dean and music professor, says: “Generally, liberal learning in the School of Music is considered a four-letter word.”

Painter remembers when his colleagues in music would object to calling Stetson University a liberal arts institution. They would avoid that direct link and say instead, “the School of Music lived within a liberal arts tradition.”

“That’s because within the school we have history, we have theory, we have ensemble work, and these become their own liberal entity,” Painter points out.

However, don’t musicians need to understand works in more depth and their place in human history? “I would say yes,” Painter adds, “but many in our area would say no. Luciano Pavarotti, the greatest tenor in the world, would not know the kinds of things you’re talking about. He was successful in his area. He pursued a very narrow track. It’s not what we do here, but there are many places that teach like that.”

Painter’s solution? “We’re talking about the inclusiveness of what liberal learning means.

We’re talking about how it’s about depth. We

are slowly changing the culture of learning at Stetson through first-year seminars and these types of things.”

Masse understands Painter’s point and says, “We need to liberate our students and show them all that is out there and tell them to go and grab it. As a young artist, you can’t just lock yourself in a room. You need to be able to talk and write about what you do and bring that historical context to it.”

(For more on the academic leadership’s discussion, see “Grappling with Liberal Learning” on Page 38.)

General Education at Stetson The problems our country and the world face require a new kind of education, according to a report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP).

Instead of pulling back from liberal learning, however, the report, “College Learning for the New Global Century,” recommends broadening the scope of a liberal education across the curriculum and across all four years of an undergraduate’s career.

“In recent years, the ground has shifted for Americans in virtually every important sphere of life — economic, global, cross-cultural, environmental, civic,” the report states. It calls liberal education necessary for “expanding horizons, building understanding of the wider world, honing analytical and communication skills, and fostering responsibilities beyond self.”

The report’s writers believe that liberal education is for every field of study and that students should tackle the big perennial questions during their undergraduate years.

Furthermore, the report recommends “an education that intentionally fosters, across multiple fields of study, wide-ranging knowledge of science, cultures and society; high-level intellectual and practical skills; an active commitment to personal and social responsibility; and the demonstrated ability to apply learning to complex problems and challenges.”

In the past, according to the LEAP document, students took their liberal arts courses during their first one or two years and then focused primarily on their majors. Not so today. Critical thinking and analysis, the feeling goes, doesn’t change once students choose their major. In fact, it intensifies, deepens and becomes more integrated, according to the LEAP report.

In addition, no longer does liberal learning have that elitist wash to it. In fact, the Association of American Colleges and Universities represents two-year colleges as well STETSON

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“Leaders from across disciplines, institutions and specialties are finally competing against cancer instead of each other, as research moves from bench to bedside to benefit patients more quickly.”

—StandUp2Cancer Website

as four year and comprehensive state universities. The LEAP document recommends a firm foundation in liberal education no matter the major or career emphasis.

The document, in fact, does not label such majors as engineering and nursing, for example, as vocational subjects. They are career fields, sure, but the LEAP document recommends that the liberal arts and liberal education be deeply embedded in these professional courses. (You can view the entire LEAP document at www.aacu.org/leap/documents/ GlobalCentury_final.pdf.)

Actually, the report serves as a blueprint for Stetson’s General Education Requirements.

(See the chart comparing the LEAP recommendations with Stetson’s current General Education Requirements on the facing page.)

Now, Stetson is truly a comprehensive university with professional programs in music, law and business. And there are career-focused majors, such as those in teacher education, counseling and integrative health science. These programs teach students to pursue careers in these professions. Yet, Stetson students — especially in the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business Administration and School of Music — have stringent General Education course requirements that include Foundation Courses, Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Natural World, and Personal and Social Responsibility. These include first-year and junior-year seminars as well as a Capstone senior project.

All professions need these cross-disciplinary critical-thinking skills, according to the LEAP report. That’s especially obvious in the law profession, says Stetson Law Professor Timothy Kaye, Ph.D. “It’s very difficult to make something of a law education without a liberal arts background,” he says. “So no, it’s not old hat.”

Kaye lists several subjects he believes lawyers need. “We have to understand how the law responded to different events in history. Law is closely tied to the economy, so lawyers need to 30 30

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understand how the law works in society.

“And most important, lawyers need to be able to read and write well,” he adds. “They have to read and understand a lot of difficult material in a short amount of time. Lawyers primarily write and rarely stand up in the courtroom to try a case. Judges rightly criticize lawyers for being bad writers.”

Moreover, Stetson’s College of Law values and teaches liberal learning skills. For example, Kaye points to the law school’s top five ranking in legal writing and its No. 1-rated advocacy program that focuses on speaking and writing.

“Liberal learning encompasses all,” he says.

“Some say you don’t need to read Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger or Mark Twain, but then how do you know what good writing is?”

Pearson’s charge as assistant vice president is to promote and continue to integrate General Education across the university.

“We want to hold onto best practices and break down barriers,” he explains. “After all, General Education is what all students do at Stetson, and it’s dynamic and changes. This is an opportunity to create and promote a more integrated way of learning, and we want our General Education program to be a model for the whole country.”

Can Liberal Learning Save the World?

The global problems mentioned at the beginning of this article are in many ways perennial ones and, thus, require a new kind of thinking. Current cancer research is a case in point in how cross-disciplinary thinking can solve the cancer puzzle. Just a few years ago, many cancer researchers worked in isolation, guarding their research like a jeweled box.

At the time, this was the model for producing breakthroughs in medical science. Think Jonas Salk working in his lab to find a cure for polio. Picture the medical researcher as hero who struggled alone in his or her lab to help humanity one small grant at a time.

Just in the last couple of years, however,

cancer research grant-authorizing organizations began requiring groups of scientists and other experts to work together across disciplines to investigate and develop targeted therapies.

Looking at cancer from more than one disciplinary perspective has helped bring about breakthroughs that were unimagined just a few years ago. Some of these breakthroughs include using nanoparticles that target specific cancers, treating each person as a unique individual, and building treatment plans based on that person’s genome.

StandUp2Cancer grants to research “dream teams” have led this new, innovative approach through collaboration, innovation, acceleration, targeted therapy and translational research.

“Leaders from across disciplines, institutions and specialties are finally competing against cancer instead of each other, as research moves from bench to bedside to benefit patients more quickly,” explains a news release on the StandUp2Cancer website.

“Many of the most important innovations, breakthroughs and even incremental steps forward are coming more and more frequently from collaborative efforts,” says Joan Brugge, professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School. Looking at problems across disciplines and collaborating with others are hallmarks of a liberal education.

Can someone without a liberal education have these analytical and critical-thinking skills?

Of course. Nevertheless, many experts and employers believe the rigorous liberal learning environment helps students and graduates hone these skills.

“Our university mission is one of growing free thinkers,” says Paul. “It’s one of helping our students realize they have a social and personal responsibility to the world and that they can use liberal learning skills to effect positive change in that world.”

Bill Noblitt is editor of stetson magazine.

You can email him at wnoblitt@stetson.edu.

Side by Side

Comparing LEAP Recommendations with Stetson’s General Education Requirements LEAP Recommendations

Stetson General Education Requirements

Students should prepare for 21st-century challenges by learning to live significant lives through: Knowledge of Human Cultures in the World *Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages and the arts Focused by engagement with the big questions, both contemporary and enduring.

Intellectual and Practical Skills, including * Inquiry and analysis * Critical and creative thinking * Written and oral communication * Quantitative literacy * Information literacy * Teamwork and problem solving

Practiced extensively across the curriculum in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects and standards of performance.

Personal and Social Responsibility, including * Civic knowledge and engagement — local and global * Intercultural knowledge and competence * Ethical reasoning and action * Foundations and skills for lifelong learning Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges.

Integrative and Applied Learning, including * Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems.

Foundation Courses * First-Year Seminars focus on topics of broad interest and are designed to improve a student’s ability to analyze ideas and express them persuasively in oral presentations and writing. * Writing skills are critical for success in college and life after graduation. * Quantitative reasoning skills are also critical to a student’s success during and after graduation.

Knowledge of Human Cultures & the Natural World * Courses in Creative Arts; Culture and Belief; Historical Inquiry; Individuals, Societies and Social Systems; Modern Languages; and the Physical and Natural World enhance a student’s understanding of the world.

Personal & Social Responsibility * Environmental Responsibility; Ethical or Spiritual Inquiry; Health and Wellness; Human Diversity; and Social Justice courses develop capacities for reflection and action in a student’s personal, professional and public lives. Students will learn to analyze their principles and beliefs and develop skills for active civic engagement. Students must complete two courses from the five. * The Junior Seminar will focus on one of five of the above areas.

Students will join Stetson’s intellectual and creative life outside of the classroom by participating in Cultural Events and Campus Engagement.

Majors, Minors and Electives The Senior Capstone Project will draw on understandings and skills students have developed both in General Education and their Major.

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The Professions Liberal Learning

&

Four Professional Program Professors Write About the Importance of Liberal Education 3232

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Music and Liberal Education

By Lynn Musco Yes, a liberal education is absolutely relevant today for any major. In fact, I think the depth and breadth that a liberal education gives a person is more relevant in our world today than ever before. Today’s world cares little about what degree is engraved on a diploma.

What will define successful individuals in

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the future? Will it be their ability to adapt to a work environment that is constantly changing, along with having decision-making abilities that are supported by a broad and comprehensive knowledge base?

A strong liberal arts education, coupled with deep liberal learning, provides that foundation.

The arts are an integral part of any liberal education experience. When someone is involved in an artistic project or activity, that person’s mind is stimulated in many different ways.

You have to be creative — think originally — to make each experience unique. When involved with live performances, you react to the moment with decisions that will directly and immediately affect others involved, so you

learn quickly to make good decisions.

All of these elements are crucial to success regardless of the description of the desired job, and all are integral to a broad liberal learning curriculum.

When I think about the value of a liberal education, I remember two former students.

Both received music education degrees at Stetson.

The first augmented her music education degree with a minor in Russian studies and then completed a master’s in music performance. She also studied German, spent two years teaching English in Japan, taught in a Montessori school in Russia, published a children’s book in Russian, and is now pursuing a doctorate in education, leadership and policy.

The other completed a master’s in educational Web design and finished a full tour of duty in the Peace Corps, helping to bring clean water to isolated Third World communities, provided consultation services for online instruction to institutions worldwide, and is now pursuing a doctorate degree in interdisciplinary ecology.

The undergraduate degree did not determine or define their futures.

Their actions and desire to make a difference did. Stetson’s commitment to liberal learning directly influenced both of their current career paths.

Teacher Education Professor Bette Heins: “At Stetson we depend on the liberal arts courses to provide the foundation of what to teach in our program, which focuses on the ‘how to teach.’ ”

Lynn Musco, D.M., is professor of music in Stetson’s School of Music.

Liberal Learning & Great Teaching

By Bette Heins

Music Professor Lynn Musco: “I think the depth and breadth that a liberal education gives a person is more relevant in our world today than ever before.”

How can you be an exemplary teacher if you do not love literature? How can you be a passionate writing teacher if you cannot write?

How can you incorporate the arts into lessons if you have no knowledge of them?

A broad liberal arts education prepares great teachers. This is important for elementary teachers who are generalists teaching science, English, literature, math, social studies, as well as lessons incorporating music, art and movement. This is also important for secondary teachers in middle school and high school who are prepared as experts in certain disciplines.

I believe one of the reasons Stetson produces such exemplary teachers is the strong foundation in liberal arts education. At Stetson we depend on the liberal arts courses to provide the foundation of what to teach in our program, which focuses on the “how to teach.”

Many of our education students minor in subjects, such as art, modern languages, psychology, theater and religious studies.

They travel abroad, take courses outside their “comfort zone,” and bring these experiences into our classes and K-12 classrooms.

Most of these students would not have discovered these interest areas had they not explored other courses as part of their undergraduate programs. These experiences expand horizons,

enrich them as individuals, and enhance their teaching of students.

Why not a robust liberal education for teachers? I am probably the wrong person to ask this question. If you visit my office, you will find not only educational texts but an entire bookcase of children’s literature.

Interspersed among these books are my favorites from my undergraduate courses, such as the complete works of Shakespeare, Flaubert’s Oeuvres, and a Poe anthology alongside Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, as well as a whole raft of books on statistical methodology and design.

I believe a liberal arts background is essential for great teaching. The recent book on Apple genius Steve Jobs states that he felt his liberal arts studies made him more creative, and he tried to hire people with broad liberal learning backgrounds, particularly in the fine arts.

Further, I especially like what the renowned neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Ben Carson, says about liberal learning. He explains that no knowledge is ever wasted since you never know when you may need it.

Where do you need to be more grounded and creative than in teaching students who represent our future? Carl Hiaasen, environmental author recently interviewed on NPR, said he is comfortable with our future since he receives many letters from middle-school students who write to him about his books on sustainability. Thank the teachers who bring these books into the classroom and encourage this type of communication.

I can safely bet that teachers like this have a solid liberal education.

Bette Heins, Ph.D., is professor of teacher education and director of the Hollis Institute.

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Finance Professor James Mallett: “More than ever business majors will need to be broadly educated in the liberal arts if they are to be successful.”

Business Majors Need Liberal Learning

By James Mallett As a young professor, I met a man without a high-school diploma who was well read in the classics. I remember thinking that he was better educated in critical thought than those with doctorates like me. In other words, one can have a specialized education but still not be able to see the big picture and understand how ideas connect.

More than ever, therefore, business majors will need to be broadly educated in the liberal arts if they are to be successful.

Some of our finance majors become skilled financial planners. But what happens when online financial planning service companies reduce demand for their services?

One of our recent graduates is a case in point. She has a major in finance and German.

She played golf on the Stetson team and studied abroad in the Summer Innsbruck Program.

She now works for a major U.S. firm and travels internationally as a project manager.

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The skills she picked up at Stetson — finance, liberal arts, her German language skills, and teamwork in golf — have aided her career.

We’re already seeing how technology growth disrupts companies — creating new careers and reducing jobs in other areas. Thus, our students and alumni will need critical and creativethinking skills that will help them adapt to change as their careers evolve.

Stetson’s freshman and junior seminars give our business majors priceless skill development in writing, oral communications, critical thinking and social responsibility. I teach a junior seminar with the title Collapse or Abundance: Prospects for the Environment, the World’s Poor, and Accelerating Technology. By the time students enroll in my course, they have had two intensive writing courses, a communications class, math, history, economics and basic business courses. They are prepared to investigate critically and write and do oral reports on current factors impacting our environment, people and business today.

They can’t get these skills at universities that only require students to graduate in a specialized major. Moreover, this type of education prepares students for their careers and for life.

Liberal learning enriches them as individuals, and this is what Stetson is all about.

James Mallett, Ph.D., is professor of finance in Stetson’s School of Business Administration.

Law Professor Kristen David Adams: “Liberal arts students also have a distinct advantage in fully developing arguments, counter-arguments, and even alternative arguments when analyzing a case.”

The Ideal Law Student

By Kristen Dav i d A d a m s Recently I had lunch with two colleagues, Law Professor Jeffrey Minneti and Dr. Timothy Kaye, to talk about whether liberal arts training is relevant for law school and law practice and, if so, how.

As lawyers often do, we began by challenging the parameters of the question and, in fact, altered it a bit. First, we tried to define what qualifies as a liberal arts education.

We agreed that architecture, engineering and pre-law studies are not liberal arts subjects in the truest sense.

Photo by Brian K. Van Der Vliet

A degree in the classics, on the other hand, we saw as perhaps the purest form of liberal arts study. These were relatively easy boundaries to set. We then debated the closer question of whether psychology qualifies.

Although we ultimately decided psychology was not a liberal arts major, we also felt strongly that a student who studies liberal arts for two years and then earns a psychology degree should be considered liberally educated.

Next, we discussed differences we had observed between students with liberal arts backgrounds and those without one.

In doing so, we started with the attributes of the ideal law student. We believe they should be critical thinkers who read and write well; can solve problems; are open-minded; have self-discipline and a strong work ethic; have the ability to articulate their ideas orally and in writing; and have creativity, self-awareness, intellectual curiosity, emotional intelligence,

and situation management skills.

Because the law is at its core a series of stories about human experience, we believe any studies that help the student understand the human condition, especially liberal arts studies, will make them better lawyers.

We agreed that liberal arts students were better prepared for the skills of comprehensive, written legal analysis that lawyers must master.

Liberal arts students also have a distinct advantage in fully developing arguments, counterarguments, and even alternative arguments when analyzing a case.

We believe they also have an edge in finding creative solutions to problems. From our perspective, liberal arts studies also invite exploration and self-critique as well as helping students become grounded in the social aspects of learning, such as collaboration.

Because we believe so strongly in the value of liberal arts education, we also believe it

should be continued through the study of law, not through specific classes, such as jurisprudence and rhetoric, but also through the discussions of why the law is how it is that take place in almost every course.

Our advice for prospective law students not proficient in the liberal arts? They can gain some of these skills by engaging in critical reading and dissection of text, writing about those observations and taking interdisciplinary courses, especially those emphasizing problem-solving.

Kristen David Adams, J.D., LL.M., is associate dean for academic affairs and a professor of law in the College of Law. Jeffrey Minneti, J.D., M.B.A., is currently researching work ethic and how that pertains to success in law school and later in life. Timothy Kaye, LL.B., Ph.D., developed the National Admissions Test for Law in the United Kingdom.

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Grappling

with Liberal Learning A Conversation with Stetson’s Academic Leadership

P

rovost Beth Paul, Ph.D., called Stetson’s academic leadership together for a light lunch of salad spiced with big ideas about liberal learning at Stetson. To begin the conversation, Paul posed the provocative question, “Is Liberal Learning Dead?”

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Karen Ryan, Ph.D., new School of Music Dean Thomas Gilmore Masse, D.M.A., and Interim School of Music Dean and Associate Professor Noel Painter, Ph.D., gave their thoughtful responses. School of Business Administration Dean Thomas Schwarz, Ph.D., and College of Law Dean Christopher M. Pietruszkiewicz, J.D., joined the conversation later.

Paul: Is liberal learning dead?

Stetson Magazine: And should Stetson’s education be more tied to specific careers?

Masse: No, because today’s young person has to be a flexible thinker and be able to think in so many different ways. They have to be able to communicate their thoughts compellingly in a clear, precise manner. For these and many more reasons, they need to be exposed to as broad and diverse a range of studies as possible. In my opinion, a highly intense specialization at the undergraduate level without having the liberal arts education is doing our students a disservice.

Ryan: The premise of closely connecting education with careers seems wrongheaded. The idea of a singular career is just not viable anymore.

We know our students are going to have multiple careers. To train them

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Raphael’s painting “The School of Athens,” featuring the world’s great thinkers, including Plato and his pupil Aristotle.

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If you’re training students for what you think is going on today and for what the job market is anticipating right now, you’re doing them a terrible disservice.

—Thomas Masse Dean, School of Music for only one career path is to do them a disservice. We know that they’re going to keep on learning, and we need to give them the tools to do that.

Painter: It seems that during my 13 years working here we have talked increasingly about the struggle to teach kids how to teach themselves. That is one of the prominent goals for our first-year students. I think that’s universal, whether you’re in the School of Business Administration or the School of Music. That’s what we have to do here at Stetson.

Paul: Of course, a powerful root of liberal learning is liberating minds. Liberating our minds from the constrictions that had been developed at an earlier time. Helping us to think in directions, in intersections and in contexts in ways we haven’t before. To experience depth of that thought but also to experience the interconnectedness of that thought.

To me, that’s a fundamental root of a Stetson education. For social progress, we need people who have liberated minds and who can be the creative visionaries of a future that will be different. And we need people rooted to integrity and to values, the values that will advance our society. Learning too narrowly is too restrictive.

Painter: We’re starting to talk about what liberal learning means, and in the School of Music that’s generally been a four-letter word.

To have the title of this magazine “Is Liberal Learning Dead” and to have that associated with Stetson as a whole will be negative to many in the School of Music. That is, unless it’s defined in the way we’re talking about it here. We (many in the School of Music) used to really object to calling Stetson University a liberal arts institution. In fact, we worded that association very carefully and said that the School of Music lived within a liberal arts tradition. We avoided that direct link with liberal learning because at some point it seems to be somewhat exclusionary of what we do in the school. It makes us seem like we’re a technical 40

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school. In the School of Music, we have history, we have theory and ensemble work, and these become their own liberal entity. And following along this line, we’re talking about the inclusiveness of what liberal learning means.

We’re talking about how it’s about depth. We are slowly changing the culture of learning at Stetson through first-year seminars and these types of things.

Masse: What we do as classical musicians is very much a Western European sort of model.

When I was at Yale, we called schools like the School of Music the professional schools with a capital “P” and a capital “S.” Law School and Medical School were professional schools. The schools of Music, Architecture and Drama were professional schools. Therefore, I agree that we come from a tradition where we study intensely a highly specialized piece of classical music, for instance, and where we become experts in a specific area. That has been our education, and that is the education that we oversee and administer here.

At the same time, since we’ve graduated, the rules have changed, and the educational system has changed. And I think in our faculty’s eyes we need to provide our students a greater means of thinking, of opening their eyes to the rest of the world. We need to liberate them and show them all that is out there and tell them to go and grab it.

So I think the nature of the professional school has evolved in a certain way. As a young artist, you can’t just lock yourself in a room.

You need to be able to talk and write about what you do and bring that historical context to it.

Stetson Magazine: How can you really understand a musical composition unless you understand what happened at the time and put it in an historical context. Don’t you need to understand your profession, your craft and your art across many disciplines?

Painter: I would say yes, but many in our area would say no. Luciano Pavarotti, the greatest tenor in the world, would not know the kinds of things you’re talking about. He was very successful in his area. He pursued a very narrow track. It’s not what we do here, but many places do teach like that.

Ryan: I think this isn’t as much an issue in the College of Arts and Sciences. I think it’s more at the basis of what we do in the breadth and depth of the liberal arts. Students will sample subjects across disciplines, get intellectual depth in a major and then have the opportunity to do research. So, I think in Arts and Sciences that it isn’t as controversial a subject as it is in music or business.

Painter: What is unique is to see the way the

deans encourage that discussion through curricular and non-curricular ways.

Stetson Magazine: But it doesn’t sound like the School of Music has rejected the General Education Requirements?

Painter: Well, our accrediting body requires them. I can’t say it was easy. It continues to be more limited in the School of Music and to be more closely managed there than in the wider population.

Paul: We do have a university mission that leads all of us to help our students develop the habits of mind and heart essential for realizing their goals. Our university mission is one of growing free thinkers. Our university mission is one of helping people to realize personal and social responsibility to the world and to effect positive change. No matter what you study as a Stetson student, it’s important that you have an array of learning experiences that expand and embolden you.

Masse: What I’ve heard from my colleagues and the faculty in the Stetson University School of Music is that educating the whole person is important but also hearing words like “service” and “community.” That’s the basis of a liberal education. It’s not that we’re just educating you to be the best violinist, just to be able to play the fastest with the most precision and with the most beauty and the greatest style.

But, again, we want to educate them to be able to stand in front of a group and talk about that concerto in the context of what was going on in that composer’s life. We want them to be able to draw upon the world and to visualize and understand the socioeconomic trends in the world.

Ryan: Our students and graduates do such a wide variety of things. Many of them go into the workforce while many others go to professional and to graduate schools. And more and more students are inventing their own careers.

We’ve been talking a lot about social entrepreneurship, and this isn’t just a business concept anymore. We want to help our students find a way to focus their passion and make a living while doing it. We’re helping them obtain the creative thinking, the ability to analyze, the oral and the written communication skills to prepare them for that.

Paul: At its core, Stetson is a liberal learning institution, and this matters to me. But Stetson also offers a variety of academic programs — those being in the traditional arts and sciences disciplines but also those disciplines we have labeled professional. Being in this environment causes you to have conversations like we’re having now, or it ought to. It ought to lead to this kind of critical conversation.

What does it mean to be liberally educated?

What is our mission, and how does that get translated into coursework? What does that mean for our students’ futures? There’s a lot of passion being expressed here about the value of liberal learning from a lot of different perspectives. This conversation is about big learning goals that we have for our students and how these are necessary for their future.

Stetson Magazine: What if Stetson made the decision that every student would train for a specific job? How would that change the nature of Stetson?

Paul: We wouldn’t be Stetson University any longer.

Masse: Let me quote the Yale architect Robert A.M. Stern: “Today’s ‘ism’s’ become tomorrow’s ‘wasm’s.’ ” That if you’re training students for what you think is going on today and for what the job market is anticipating right now, you’re doing them a terrible disservice. You’re straitjacketing them into a career path that may or may not be around. A liberal arts education is a time for discovery. I believe the biggest and greatest challenge for young students today, particularly in the music field, is having enough hours in the day to meet the demands of the major while satisfying their intellectual curiosity in other subjects.

Paul: I do think, though, that we have an obligation to help our students understand the value of this learning enterprise for employability and their future. What is our obligation to our students’ futures? We are obligated to help them understand the why of their learning and how to translate that learning into opportunities that are next year, 10 years from now, 25 years from now, and even 50 years from now.

Therefore, we have an obligation to talk about employment here. We have an obligation to help our students make transitions throughout their lives. We would be failing that obligation if we train someone for a narrow, current specialty.

Stetson Magazine: Is liberal learning dead as far as the College of Law is concerned?

Pietruszkiewicz: Well, I hope not. Liberal learning informs what we do as a law school.

We don’t want to simply produce technical people. We want to produce people who can solve problems, and the only way they can do that is by understanding our past and being a well-rounded individual. It would be difficult for a lawyer to solve problems without dealing with the real world.

Therefore, the way we solve real-world problems for real-world people is essentially to be able to understand that liberal learning establishes the foundation on which we grow.

In other words, a lawyer can’t simply have the technical skills without the ability to inter-

Our focus and core values of liberal learning, along with diversity and a global mindset, help our students acquire analytical abilities they might not get somewhere else.

—Tom Schwarz Dean, School of Business act with other disciplines — interdisciplinary work, multidisciplinary work, cross-disciplinary work. If liberal learning is dead, I believe the practice of law is dead.

Stetson Magazine: Is liberal learning dead especially as it applies to the School of Business Administration?

Schwarz: Not at all. We very strongly believe that the liberal foundation gives our business students pivotal skills. Our focus and core values of liberal learning, along with diversity and a global mindset, help our students acquire analytical abilities they might not get somewhere else. We want our students to be employed but also be flexible and adaptable.

Liberal learning helps the business student, and entrepreneurial impetus helps the non-business student.

The School of Business Administration is getting more engaged in entrepreneurship integration throughout the university. We want to work, for example, with our College of Arts and Sciences students. We want to help them take their passions and merge those with entrepreneurial abilities so that they can earn a living in their areas of interest — now and into their future.

Paul: Business wouldn’t be business without interdisciplinary learning. Business is an interdisciplinary venture. You have businesses that specialize in music, in nanotechnology, in whatever. There are ways in which our world is demanding this of us and of higher education.

When you cut through those surface headlines, you see a world that’s screaming for this kind of learning. Another perspective on this is from that of the employer. Research from employers shows that liberal learning works. Our students learn to communicate their ideas and see problems and opportunities from different perspectives. They are able to work with diverse people with diverse ideas. These are our learning virtues, and these virtues are important to employers.

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INQUIRY 42

Sports Incentive Arms Race Matt Wilson, Ed.D., sports management program director and assistant professor at Stetson, conducted research on incentives for intercollegiate men’s basketball coaches that has been published in the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics and garnered attention from USA Today.

Wilson collaborated on the study with Kevin Burke, dean and professor at Queens University of Charlotte’s Blair College of Health.

In their research, Wilson and Burke compared the contracts of 65 intercollegiate NCAA Division I men’s basketball head coaches from the 2009-10 school year with the contracts of the 68 coaches from the 2011-12 school year.

The results reveal extreme inflation in incentives for head coaches of competing NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams, specifically for non-automatic qualifying (nonAQ) teams — teams that come from conferences whose football teams do not automatically qualify for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).

In their research, they found that among coaches at the nonAQ conference schools, the average total pay in 2009-10 was $357,440, while in 2011-12, it was $513,872, a significant increase of almost 44 percent.

The incentive for athletic and academic team performance is often the reason for these huge increases. For example, if a team’s GPA goes up, then the coach’s financial reward is higher. If Louisville head coach Rick Pitino’s team has an average GPA of 2.5, he receives a $50,000 bonus; 2.75, $75,000; 3.0, $100,000. In addition to GPA, coaches’ contracts also can include incentives for academic progress and graduation rates.

The research also reveals an increased gap between automatic qualifying (AQ) schools (teams that come from conferences whose football teams autoSTETSON

matically qualify for the BCS) and non-AQ schools in the potential compensation for both athletic and academic incentives. AQ schools increased their potential pay for athletic incentives by 70 percent between 2009 and 2012 but dropped in average academic incentives by 45 percent during the same time period.

However, the non-AQ schools’ potential pay for athletic achievements increased 118 percent between 2009 and 2012, while the potential pay for academic achievements increased by nearly 1,000 percent.

The statistics demonstrate the extreme differences between what the AQ and the non-AQ schools pay for both academic and athletic achievements.

Wilson and Burke state in their journal article that the success of non-AQ teams could “explain the increased amount of athletic and academic incentive clauses being placed in non-AQ conference schools’ coaching contracts.” To retain top coaching talent, according to Wilson and Burke, non-AQ conference schools might become more “creative” in contract structure. They believe this will add more athletic and academic team performance incentives to coaches’ contracts as a way to increase overall compensation.

“Furthermore, non-AQ conference athletic directors may be increasing the amount of academic incentives in these coaches’ contracts as a means of continuing to emphasize the term ‘studentathlete,’ ” they write in the journal article.

“The business of college athletics has grown exponentially in the last 20-30 years,” says Wilson.

“Athletics directors are now CEOs of multimillion-dollar programs.

Coaches are getting paid three to four times as much as university presidents.” He points out that more schools are entering the “arms race” — increasing coaches’ salaries, building new athletic facilities, keeping up with the Joneses to attract the top recruits.

—Janie Graziani

A Strong Case for Single-Gender Classrooms As any parent or educator knows, boys learn differently from girls. But few have explored those gender differences as thoroughly as Stetson’s Nina B. Hollis Institute for Educational Reform. Ten years of study — in partnership with local schools — reveals that by organizing classrooms to address these differences, single-gender classes have unique advantages for boys and girls. A change in classroom structure may provide improved educational experiences for all students.

“The fact that this kind of program is available right here in Volusia County Public Schools is amazing, but I don’t think enough people are aware of it,” says teacher Laurie LaMonde. “We had film crews from Japan and Switzerland shooting footage in Woodward Elementary School. I think that’s a pretty big deal.” In addition, the study appeared on NBC Nightly News and prompted an article in People magazine.

“It’s brought a lot of national recognition for Stetson University,” according to Kathy Piechura-Couture, Ph.D., a professor of education at the Hollis Institute. Stetson’s research was well ahead of the recent surge of interest in single-sex public education.

“The seed really began one spring when some of my teachers said, ‘If only we could separate the boys and the girls, we wouldn’t have as many problems,’ ” recalls JoAnne Rodkey, former principal of Woodward Avenue Elementary School in DeLand, who is now retired. “Beyond discipline issues, we started realizing the academic differences between them and wondered whether changing the classroom climate might facilitate better learning.”

Test scores revealed an academic gender gap favoring girls: boys were lagging behind, particularly

in reading and writing and to a lesser extent in mathematics.

As part of the professionaldevelopment program that exists between the schools, Rodkey and her faculty approached Stetson about taking gender differences into account when designing and implementing instruction.

“The relationship between Woodward Elementary School and the university allows for innovation and research to occur,” Rodkey says.

First, the administration requested a waiver from the School Board to offer single-sex classrooms as a parental choice under the “No Child Left Behind Act.” After receiving it, the school implemented a pilot study of three single-gender classes at various grade levels.

Photo by Doug MacIsaac

“My son was in the program for fourth and fifth grade,” says LaMonde. “Reading was more difficult for him, and he needed the structure that a single-gender classroom offered.”

One example: the all-boys class took “Brain Breaks,” twominute, structured activities such as throwing a squishy ball around the classroom. “Sometimes these brain breaks have an academic focus. You throw the ball and give a math fact, or story detail, or letter sound. In this way, we use the movement in brain breaks to reinforce the content,” explains Bette Heins, Ph.D., teacher education professor and director of the Hollis Institute. Once the activity ended, boys were better able to focus their attention back on academics.

Two years after participating as

a parent, LaMonde herself volunteered to teach an all-girls thirdgrade class at Woodward Avenue Elementary School.

“Girls are more chatty,” says LaMonde, who currently is working on her educational specialist degree in curriculum and instruction at Stetson. “For their ‘Brain Break,’ I’d give my girls two minutes to talk to their friends.”

After three years of data analysis, researchers report two clear patterns: • Only the single-gender classrooms were found to have statistical significance.

• The effects of placing a student in a single-gender classroom were more beneficial to boys than girls.

Admittedly, the program is not for every boy or every girl, explains

Heins. “Children process information in different ways. But I do believe that our work in elementary- and middle-school classrooms enhances what our faculty bring into Stetson classrooms. It enriches all of us.”

—Renee Garrison

Technology Tied to GDP Growth Developing nations that invest in building robust information and communications technology (ICT) — such as Internet and broadband — will see an increase in their GDP and improvement in the national economy and quality of life for the citizens, according to Stetson researchers.

Stetson MBA student Kate MacFarlane presented a research paper at The Finance, Global Management, Economics & Information Technology Research Conference in New York on “Information Communication Technology and Gross Domestic Product of Communities and Nations.” The Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge (JAABC) organized the event.

MacFarlane’s research is expected to be published in JAABC in September.

Shahram Amiri, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Decision and Information Sciences at Stetson and co-author of the research, has previously completed extensive studies on the impact of information and telecommunication technology in communities and developing nations. His research provided the foundation for MacFarlane’s case study and subsequent findings.

“The significance of Kate’s research is that she moved beyond the hypothesis that ICT has an impact only on the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes and the economy,” says Amiri.

“She examined the ICT impact in a larger context as a catalyst for socioeconomic improvement and GDP. Only 13 percent of research submitted to the JAABC is accepted for publication and presentation, so this is a great accomplishment.”

MacFarlane completed her research by conducting a case study over several months on Singapore’s growing information and communications technology resources. Her report analyzed networked readiness, government involvement, education and human capital development, and technology utilization.

“We found numerous data that showed that there was a positive correlation” between ICT and growth in GDP, MacFarlane says.

“Future research can build on this to examine and measure the impact of ICT on the economic growth of developing nations.”

—Janie Graziani STETSON

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GAMES

A NEW 44

It’s special and cool being a part of bringing back football to Stetson. My personal goals are to overachieve and win games.

This is definitely a new experience.

It’s an opportunity to build something new and establish a winning tradition for Stetson University.

Ryan Powers Free Safety Sophomore, Discovery Program Jupiter, Fla.

Fletcher Eldemire Center Junior, Pre-Med and Biology Orlando, Fla.

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Design and Photos by Joel E. Jones, Director of Creative Services

This fall, football returns to Stetson after 57 years. We asked four players how it feels to be part of this historic occasion.

More at gohatters.com

LEGACY It’s exciting and nerve-racking.

After last year’s hard scrimmages, we know we will pull together and win games for our fans and for Stetson.

It’s awesome how everyone’s excited.

Many fans come up to us and tell us how important Stetson football is to them. We won’t disappoint.

Bill Walsh Nose Tackle Sophomore, Social Science Orlando, Fla.

Dylan Rutledge Defensive End and Long Snapper Sophomore, Discovery Program New Port Richey, Fla.

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A Significant Education Takes All of Us “More than anything, Stetson allows me to believe in my abilities as a leader. It’s truly an environment where you can take a good idea and run with it. From organizing TEDxStetsonU to participating in the Washington Semester at American University this fall, I’m developing the character and leadership skills in moments that I will take with me throughout life. My faculty really make the Stetson experience what it is, and they are tireless in their efforts.”

—Michelle Vergara ’14 Behavioral Economics (self-defined major) Honors Program West Palm Beach, Fla. The Stetson Fund supports all we do at Stetson University — from academic innovation and engaging environments to exceptional faculty and students who are making a difference in the world.

Help fund the moments that matter. Help support the Stetson Fund in building solid foundations for significant lives.

To make a gift, contact us at:

www.stetson.edu/give

(386) 822-7455 fax (386) 822-7467 development@stetson.edu 421 N. Woodland Blvd., Unit 8286 DeLand, FL 32723

Our updated online giving form is now mobile-friendly, making it easier than ever to donate to Stetson wherever you are!

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GIVING Trustee alumna Betty Drees Johnson’s (pictured right) gift will fund the Betty Drees Johnson Dean of the duPont-Ball Library and Digital Learning Resources Endowed Chair held by Sue Ryan (at left) as well as library innovations.

Unleashing Innovation: How We Achieve Significance An endowed gift names the first dean position in Stetson’s history.

As you would expect after nearly a quarter of a century, they finish each other’s sentences in fluid conversation. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1989 when Sue Ryan became the government documents librarian at Stetson’s duPont-Ball Library.

Betty Johnson, BA ’59, MA ’62, was associate director of technical services and wouldn’t become the library’s director until 2002.

“She has always been a great mentor to me,” Sue admits, acknowledging Betty’s national reputation, her presidency of the Florida Library Association (that honored her with the first lifetime achievement award in 2006) and a stint as one of 10 librarians selected nationwide for a White House Conference on Library and Information Services in 1991. “I definitely wanted to emulate her.”

Over the years, their strengths complemented each other: Sue’s in operations and working with the public, and Betty’s in budgets, acquisitions and cataloging.

“I took the directorship on the condition that Sue would become my associate director and Debbi Dinkins head of technical services,” Betty recalls. The trio embarked on a transformation that included renovations, archive digitization and the purchase of books, technology and electronic databases. Fundraising efforts garnered $2 million in nine years, including several large endowments.

“But we never felt free to really experiment with our limited funds,” Betty emphasizes. “I told Sue that I expect my new innovation fund to ‘unleash’ her. I challenge Sue and her successors to be imaginative and to experiment.”

Sue asked her seven librarians to bring her “crazy ideas,” and they will see what emerges. Innovative learning technology, after all, is the future. It was back in the 1980s that Betty experienced a paradigm shift at a conference that gave her a glimpse of that future. She realized you don’t need to own knowledge material as long as you have access.

“Of course, back then access meant interlibrary loan,” laughs Betty, who also shelved the rule of No Food or Drink in the Library.

She says that revelation in the ’80s freed her in many ways.

“As librarians,” says Provost Beth Paul, “Betty and Sue grasp the importance of innovation — and the library’s integral, interdisciplinary role in learning and student success, rather than a repository past its prime — in preparing students to live in a rapidly changing world.”

“I really want to get back Stetson’s reputation as a showcase library,” Sue reflects. “We were the source of expertise, professionalism and leadership, and that was on a regular budget that we managed efficiently. We had a good library. Now, with this gift, we can be an excellent library. It’s critical for Stetson, because you can’t be excellent in your academic programs without excellence in your academic support structure.”

When Betty announced her

retirement in 2011, Stetson conducted a national search for a dean, but an experienced librarian outside Stetson was not to be found. Betty urged Sue, then acting director, to apply.

“I didn’t apply originally because I knew hers were big shoes to fill, and then I realized I didn’t have to be Betty Johnson. I could capitalize on my strengths in different ways,” Sue says. “Betty left me a library in good condition.

Now, with her help, I get to move it forward. I get to innovate and experiment.”

Betty wouldn’t have it any other way. “I would not have given this gift if I were not confident in Sue, Beth [Paul] and President Wendy [Libby]. They have the vision to move Stetson forward. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.”

To make a gift to the library, faculty innovation or the library’s planned Student Success Center, call Development at (386) 822-7455 or development@stetson.edu.

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ALUMNI Stetson legend Joe Romano at his vegetable stand on Old New York Avenue.

Joe Was Such a Big Part of Our Lives Joe Romano is as much a part of Stetson as the bricks and mortar that comprise the buildings on its campus. His Ohio Avenue restaurant welcomed students, faculty and staff for nearly 30 years.

“Lunch was very popular with the faculty, and at night, students hung out there,” recalls Betty Johnson, ’59, MA ’62, who retired from Stetson’s library faculty in 2011. “The food was wonderful and not expensive. Mano’s Italian Restaurant was like an appendage to the university.”

Today, the 83-year-old Romano sets up a vegetable stand on Old New York Avenue at 8 every morning and doesn’t pack up his boiled peanuts until 6 p.m. If you visit near closing time, you’ll meet his handsome grandson, Joey Anderson, who stops by after work every day.

“I can’t just sit at home,” Romano explains. “I haven’t watched TV in over 10 years.”

According to Colleen Cooper, director of Alumni Engagement, “Joe Romano is kind of an icon to our alumni from the 1960s, 48

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’70s and ’80s. Our alumni know he’s out there and visit him when they’re in town.”

Ned Skiff (’75, Marketing) did just that when he attended a Stetson Leadership Conference last February.

“Joe was such a part of our lives,” says Skiff, a landscape designer and contractor who lives in Ft. Lauderdale. “He might have flour up to his elbows in the kitchen, but he’d always give you a smile and a wave when you walked in.”

On one occasion, he also gave Skiff money.

“My fraternity had a party at New Smyrna Beach one Sunday afternoon,” Skiff recalls. “I stayed at the house to finish a term paper, but I got a call from my roommate. They were all at the police station and needed $500 for bail money. Remember, it’s 1971, and there are no ATMs nor banks open at 3 in the afternoon on Sunday. I drove over to Joe’s restaurant and said, ‘I need help.’

“Without any hesitation, he went to the safe, pulled out $500

and handed it to a 19-year-old kid,” Skiff adds, gratitude still evident in his voice. “I’ll never forget it.”

Film producer Rob Word (’70, Theater) is among Stetson alumni who stay in touch with Romano.

“Mano’s Restaurant was a great place to work because he fed you as well,” Word says in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. “Even on the days you didn’t work, if you stopped by, Joe would feed you.”

Word spent two years at the restaurant, working as a dishwasher, a cashier and eventually, as a cook’s assistant.

“Dishwashers wore those heavy rubber gloves,” Word recalls. “But if you broke a dish or dropped something, Joe never got mad.

He had such a nice demeanor — warm, friendly and open. He talked to everybody. And he served the best lasagna I’ve ever had — his wife made it.”

Dee Romano died in 2001.

“She taught me all the recipes, and I got all the credit,” Joe says, shaking his head. “I thought of that after she died. I should have given her credit.”

They met while working in the same restaurant in South Bend, Ind. In 1962, the couple moved to Florida and opened their first restaurant in DeLand. Joe opened a second location in Orange City but closed it in the late 1990s when competition from nearby Olive Garden and Pizza Hut restaurants reduced his business.

“Hiring Stetson students was the best thing I ever did,” Joe says with a smile. “They were good workers. Our assistant state’s attorney used to be my dishwasher.”

Undoubtedly, students were good workers because Romano was a good boss — and a good friend. “Before their parents sent some from home, a lot of kids would run out of money at the end of the month,” he says. “I asked them to sign a ticket, and when their money arrived, they’d come in and settle up. Nobody ever cheated me.”

—Renee Garrison

Travel Scholarships Help Students Career Development and Academic Advising uses Internship Travel Fund Scholarship Program dollars to help students with their internship costs. Experiential education, including internships, is an integral part of a Stetson education.

Through generous alumni and organizational donations, career development offers scholarships in support of internship experiences. This year, 11 students were awarded scholarships totaling more than $14,000.

The Karen Schmitt Roberts Career Development Travel Fund, sponsored by Stetson’s Alumni Association Board of Directors, provides need-based travel scholarships for student interns.

Preference is given to students with unpaid internships.

The scholarships provide funds for all or part of a student’s travel expenses or other aspects of an internship the committee deems appropriate, enabling the student to participate in an experience that might not otherwise be possible.

Likewise, Bank of America awarded a grant supporting students pursuing on-the-job experiences, while completing their post-secondary education.

The Target Campus Grant provides financial support for students pursuing internship opportunities that foster learning and development of leadership, mentoring and communication skills.

The Becker Professional Educational Scholarship assists in meeting the financial obligations of those preparing for the CPA exam by covering 50 percent of the enrollment fees for the Becker CPA preparation course.

The Boulevard Tire Center Summer Internship Program offers Volusia County college students the opportunity to work in a professional setting while learning from an industry-leading corporation in the Volusia County area.

—Renee Garrison

Friday, November 8 6 a.m.—ROTC Fun Run with Cadets 8:30 a.m.—Wes Berner Golf Tournament: Victoria Hills Golf Club

STETSON HOMECOMING

10 a.m. – 7 p.m.—Information & Registration Desk: Meadows Alumni House

4:30 p.m.—A Florida Original: Celebrating Dr. T. Wayne Bailey’s 50 Years at Stetson

4 p.m.—Hatter Howl Carnival: Rinker Field

5 p.m.—ROTC Reunion

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Saturday, November 9 8 – 11 a.m.—Homecoming Registration: Meadows Alumni House

5:30 – 7:30 p.m.— Class of 1958 Reunion Get-Together

8:30 a.m.—University Update

by President Wendy Libby and Alumni Awards Presentation

5:30 – 7:30 p.m.—Class of 1963 Drop-In Reception

10 a.m.—Edmunds Scholar Reunion

5:30 – 7:30 p.m.—Class of 1993 Get-Together: Palm Court

10 a.m.—Volusia County Veterans Day Parade: Downtown DeLand

5:30 – 7:30 p.m.—Class of 2008 Welcome Reception 8 p.m.—Hatter Howl Pep Rally

3 p.m.—Football Game vs. Davidson: Spec Martin Memorial Stadium, 260 East Euclid Avenue, DeLand

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6 p.m.—Stetson University Jazz Ensemble: A Tribute to George West: Palm Court

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6:30 p.m.—Class of 1958 – 55th Reunion Dinner 6:30 p.m.—Class of 1963 – 50th Reunion Dinner 6:30 p.m.—Class of 1973 – 40th Reunion Get-Together

8 p.m.—An Evening of Improv: Second Stage Theatre, Museum of Florida Art 8 – 11 p.m.—Class of 1993 – 20th Reunion 8 – 11 p.m.—Class of 2003 – 10th Reunion Get-Together: Café Da Vinci, 112 Georgia Ave.

9 p.m.—Class of 2008 Pub Crawl

Sunday, November 10 9 a.m.—Alumni Chapel: Lee Chapel, Elizabeth Hall 10 a.m.—ROTC Farewell Brunch: Spring Garden Restaurant, 900 Spring Garden Ranch Road, DeLeon Springs

For an updated Homecoming schedule, visit http://bit.ly/145fiH2 or scan:

7:30 p.m.—ROTC Alumni & Cadet Open House

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THE CLASSES

Send Us Your Class Note Stetson University is proud of its alumni and their accomplishments. Therefore, we want to hear about your achievements. If you are a graduate of the Stetson University in DeLand or Celebration, send your class note to the Office of Alumni Engagement at Stetson University, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., DeLand, FL 32723, or email your news to alumni@stetson.edu. If you are a graduate of the Stetson University College of Law, send your class note to John Knowles, executive director of the College of Law’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations, 1401 61st St. South, Gulfport, FL 33707, or email him at johnknowles@law.stetson.edu. For the DeLand campus, you can fill out the online form for classnotes by going to stetson. edu/hatternet and clicking on submit classnotes in the side menu. For College of Law graduates, you can fill out the online form at https://www.law.stetson. edu/forms/alumni-newsupdate.php. We will only use photos that are at least 300 DPI.

50 STETSON

1960s

▲ Jack W. Jones, ’62, West Palm Beach, organist-director of music at the Royal Poinciana Chapel in Palm Beach, retired in June 2013. He held that position since 1989. After 31 years, he retired as the director of the Masterworks Chorus of the Palm Beaches. He holds the honorary position of founder-director emeritus. He retired to his home in Franklin, N.C., where he will install a 21-rank pipe organ in a music room addition built specifically to house the organ.

Norma Howell Hagan, ’63, Jacksonville, retired at the end of May 2013 after more than 40 years as staff pianist at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church. A 40th-anniversary concert at the church was held in February. She performed a wide-ranging repertoire of hymn arrangements, classical pieces and selections from Broadway musicals.

▲ A. William Breyer, ’64, Indian Harbor Beach, retired in October 2009 after 37 years as a civilian with the federal govern-

ment, Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force Space Command, in the Range Safety Office, Patrick Air Force Base, and two years with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, D.C. Two of the combined 38 years was with the 8th Infantry Division and the 508th Airborne Battalion in West Germany during the Cold War. Before joining the federal government, he was a launch systems safety supervisor for the Boeing Company through the Apollo Program at Kennedy Space Center.

He now enjoys volunteering for the National Veterans Homeless Support (NVHS) group in Brevard County, whose mission is to eliminate homelessness among veterans in Central Florida. He is also a certified tour guide for the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at Complex 26, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and the Air Force Space and History Center in Port Canaveral.

1970s Gilbert W. Atnip, ’70, Henryville, Ind., received the Indiana University Medal for Distinguished Service from IU President Michael McRobbie upon his retirement after 37 years of service to Indiana University Southeast as a faculty member and academic administrator. He was also awarded the titles professor emeritus of psychology and dean of faculties emeritus.

▲ David O. Cushman, ’73, New Wilmington, Pa., Westminster College Captain William McKee Chair and pro-

fessor of economics and business, published an article in the January issue of the online journal Econ Journal Watch. The paper, “Paul Krugman Denies Having Concurred With an Administration Forecast: A Note,” is a follow-up to a paper he published in the September 2012 issue of the same journal. The paper analyzed conflicting real Gross Domestic Product forecasts made in 2009 by several prominent economists, including Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman.

Rex E. Moule, JD ’76, Merritt Island, recently taught a wills, trusts and estates certification review course for the Florida Bar Continuing Legal Education Committee at an Orlando seminar in April 2013. Moule presented “Tenancy by the Entirety and Jointly-Held Property” that touched on the topics of taxes, probate and trust litigation, elective share and homestead, and trust accounting. He is board certified by the Florida Bar as a specialist in wills, trusts, and estates law and tax law. An AV-rated lawyer, he was also selected by his peers in 2012 and 2013 to be included in The Best Lawyers in America.

Stephen C. Page, JD ’77, Stuart, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a 2013 “Florida Super Lawyer.” Page was also recognized by Martindale Hubble this year for maintaining the AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating for 20 consecutive years. In addition, he has been named one of Florida Trend’s 2013 Florida Legal Elite.

David B. Mitchell, JD ’78, Coral Gables, received his advanced diploma in local English history with honors from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and co-authored Family Law Strategies in Florida published

by Aspatore/Thomson Reuters in 2012.

Russell P. Schropp, ’78, Fort Myers, was selected for inclusion in the 2013 Florida Super Lawyers magazine. Schropp is chair of the law firm’s land-use, zoning and environmental practice.

▲ Jeptha F. Barbour, ’79, JD ’82, Ponte Vedra Beach, has been named one of the 2013 Super Lawyers’ Top 100 Attorneys in Florida.

Stephen K. Brooks, ’79, JD ’85, Winter Haven, has released his new book, Insider’s Guide to Winning Your Social Security Disability Claim.

Lewis R. Cohen, JD ’79, Miami, of Gray Robinson, P.A., has been honored as a “Top Lawyer” by South Florida Legal Guide.

Rhea Law, JD ’79, Tampa, has received her honorary degree in medicine from USF. Dean J. Trantalis, JD ’79, Fort Lauderdale, has been elected to the City Commission of Ft. Lauderdale, serving District II. Trantalis had previously held that position as well as vice mayor during 2003-06.

1980s Joseph “Jay” W. Fleece III, JD ’80, St. Petersburg, has been selected chairman of the Board of Trustees for All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. Fleece is a partner at Baskin Fleece in Clearwater.

Stacey Willits McConnell, JD ’80, Newton Square, Pa., has been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Academy.

Katherine Phillips Cobb, ’81, JD ’83, of Melbourne, serves as provost of Eastern Florida State College, formerly known as Brevard Community College.

William M. Corley, JD ’81, Atlantic Beach, has been listed among the 2013 Super Lawyers.

Vasti Torres, ’82, Tampa, has

been named the new dean of the College of Education at the University of South Florida. She has served as professor of educational leadership and policy studies and director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Robert L. Lord Jr., JD ’83, Jensen Beach, has joined the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida Board of Directors.

Frederick P. Mercurio, JD ’83, Sarasota, has been elected to the 13th Judicial Circuit. He was also profiled in the Feb. 28 edition of WooEb News.

Donna Remsnyder, JD ’83, St. Petersburg, has been appointed a compensation claim judge.

Alumna Kristina Tsipouras presents ZOOS!

ZOOS Is ZOOS-rific!

▲ Fred P. Taylor, ’83, Fort Leavenworth, Kan., retired from active duty military service after a 30-year career in a ceremony in June 2013, effective September 2013. His awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Defense Meritorious Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster), the Meritorious Service Medal (with Silver Oak Leaf Cluster), the Army Commendation Medal (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Army Achievement Medal (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), Iraq Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Overseas Service Ribbon (third award), Global War on Terrorism Service Ribbon, and Master Parachutist Badge.

Julie Ozburn, JD ’84, Daytona Beach, is the new legal counsel for the Domestic Abuse Council.

Inspired by her small-business owner Greek immigrant father and excited by the Greek yogurt craze, one 28-year-old is about to launch what could very well be a best-selling iced tea.

Kristina Tsipouras, ’07, a first-generation Greek American from Boston, is getting ready to unveil her new all-natural Greek iced tea beverage line called ZOOS. “We are beyond excited and just secured our funding to move forward with production,” says Tsipouras, the president and CEO of ZOOS Teas. “As many Greek Americans know, the benefits of Greek Mountain Tea are huge. We are positioning ourselves as the next Greek yogurt and Greek hidden gem being introduced to the American consumer market.”

Greek yogurt is flying off store shelves as more and more consumers opt for healthier food choices. Will ZOOS follow suit? Tsipouras is ambitious enough to make sure it does. “My father came to the United States from Thessaloniki when he was 25, and he started a dry cleaning business,” she says. “So, I come from a family of entrepreneurs.”

But she also has the marketing and promotional skills — a communications major from Stetson with professional experience as an event planner — to help her break into the American health-food and beverage markets with a big splash. “Mountain tea — tsai tou vounou [as it’s called in Greek] has always been my family’s favorite beverage. In the summers, we always serve it cold over ice,” she says. Already popular in Greece (no Greek household is without a pot), Greek mountain tea is an all-natural immunity booster and is believed to relieve flu and common cold symptoms.

The scientific name of the Greek mountain tea is sideritis syriaca (also called ironwort), and it is a member of the mint family. It has a sweet, earthy taste with citrus undertones. “The tea leaves are coming straight from the mountains of Greece, and we are producing [brewing and bottling] here in the United States,” Tsipouras says. “We will have three flavors — original, lemon and peach.”

Tsipouras has also done her share of market research. The findings were encouraging. “I don’t believe there’s anything like this,” she says.

Find it at facebook.com/DRINKZOOS. — Kathy Tzilivakis, The Pappas Post STETSON 51

THE CLASSES

Flashback Takes Off If anyone had told three budding moviemakers back in high school that their first feature film would be represented at the Cannes Film Festival in France one day, they probably would have looked at you strangely, raised their eyebrows and tilted their heads in surprise.

But that is exactly what happened for alumni Brendan Rogers, ’07, William (Will) Phillips, ’05, and John Mondelli in April 2012. More recently, they signed a contract with Vanguard Cinema to distribute their film, Flashback, on DVD and on video on-demand throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Eastern Europe and China, with additional markets in the pipeline.

These three ambitious men played various roles in both high school and Stetson theater, including The Fantasticks and as characters in numerous videos to fulfill class requirements.

Brendan Rogers, whose father, Gary, has worked in the film business since the 1980s, received his bachelor’s degree from Stetson with a double major in theatre and philosophy and also studied at Oxford University. Later, he completed his M.F.A. in acting, and he has been teaching acting at Stetson as an adjunct instructor.

Will Phillips graduated in 2005 from Stetson with a bachelor’s degree in English and also studied at Oxford. He spends the majority of his time building the company all three men have created, AndYouFilms, assisting individuals and corporations with video production, Web design and other support to help build their businesses.

In the movie, Rogers plays the second villain, Skitulz, and serves as the picture’s director, co-producer, co-writer, VFX and editor.

Phillips plays Lamar Garret, the sinister studio executive, and is also co-producer, co-writer, VFX, production designer and editor on the film.

Mondelli, who plays Rufus Lucas (a parody of Star Wars’ George Lucas) and whose character consistently spouts quotes from the famous film, also is a co-producer, cinematographer, VFX, production designer and editor.

Jack Taylor, played by Andrew Ramos, is the studio lot’s only human janitor whose amorous advances to the starlet Tiffany Sloane, played by Alexa Cappiello, ’08, are, at first, rejected. They find themselves timetraveling in Back to the Future-type flying vehicles with paparazzi on their heels.

As Mondelli recalls, “We were young, ambitious, naive and tenacious.” The movie trailer can be viewed at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=y4nP3Bls29Y. — Mary M. McCambridge 52 STETSON

▲ Todd C. Richardson, ’84, JD ’86, DeLand, was recently installed as the president of the Rotary Club of Daytona Beach for the 2013-14 Rotary year. He is currently serving as an assistant professor of paralegal studies at Daytona State College.

Greg W. Coleman, ’85, JD ’89, Palm Beach, was elected presidentelect of the Florida Bar on June 28.

Theodore J. Wolfendale, ’85, Naples, and his nursing agency, Dial-A-Nurse, has been selected for the 2013 Best of Naples Award.

Bennett J. Braun, JD ’86, Joliet, Ill., has been appointed circuit court judge in Will County, Ill. Gregory M. Dasher, ’86, Chicago, Ill., was recently promoted to assistant vice president – product and underwriting policy, for CNA’s small business division.

▲ Alison Evans, ’86, Macon, Ga., has been selected to serve as the next president and CEO of

The Methodist Home. Before this, Alison was with the Florida Youth Ranches for 28 years, her last position being vice president of donor relations. During her time there, she was honored for her dedicated service as the recipient of the Leadership Award by the Florida Association of Child and Family Agencies and the Friend of Children Award by the Florida Coalition for Children. The Methodist Home was founded in 1872 in Macon, Ga., and serves children, youth and families in crisis.

Diana Moreland, JD ’87, Bradenton, participated in the Manasota Trial Lawyers Board meeting to discuss courtroom skills and conduct.

Matthew A. Towery, JD ’87, Smyrna, Ga., has written a guest column in Townhall. Towery is a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives.

Stephen T. Parascandola, JD ’88, Cary, N.C., has been recognized by Chambers USA for environmental law. He chairs the environmental, health and safety practice group of the Smith Anderson law firm in Raleigh, N.C., where he lives with his wife Kelly (Keller), JD ’88, and their three children.

Karen Morinelle, JD ’89, Sarasota, has joined Jackson Lewis, LP, as partner.

1990s J.S. Lucas Fleming, JD ’90, St. Petersburg, has been featured in Bay News 9 “Everyday Heroes” segment for Lawyers for Literacy, a program that helps children learn to read.

Steven N. Gosney, ’90, Ormond Beach, received his board certification in criminal trial law from the Florida Bar. Jon P. Hansen, ’90, Rapid City, S.D., is the new interim vice president for enrollment management and marketing at Chadron State College. For the past two years, he has been an independent contractor with Chadron State recruiting active duty and retired military

service members as well as ROTC students and incoming undergraduates from South Dakota.

Before this, he was based in Rapid City, S.D., serving as a professor of military science for CSC and three other colleges in the Black Hills.

Hansen has more than 22 years of executive leadership, including 10 years of enrollment management, academic and administrative experience at state colleges and universities in Illinois, South Dakota and Nebraska. He is a retired Army Signal Corps officer who has led organizations from platoon to battalion level.

Kent L. Hipp, JD ’90, Orlando, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a 2013 “Florida Super Lawyer.”

David M. Doney, JD ’91, Tampa, was profiled in an article “David Doney: From the start, encouraged in law” in the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

Martin A. Fitzpatrick, ’91, Tallahassee, was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to the Circuit Court of the 2nd Judicial Circuit (consisting of Franklin, Liberty, Gadsden, Wakulla, Leon and Jefferson counties). He has practiced with Broad and Cassell since 2001.

William R. Holley, ’91, JD ’97, Jacksonville, was profiled in the Jacksonville Daily Record.

He received the Stetson College of Law’s Outstanding Alumni Representative Award at the Stetson Lawyers Association Annual Alumni and Friends Reception on June 27 in Boca Raton.

Robin Hoyle, JD ’91, Treasure Island, serves as executive director and launched a medico-legal notfor-profit society serving physicians, attorneys and investigators with a professional interest in forensic imaging.

David F. Mack, ’92, Roswell, Ga., a senior vice president in the GCIAS Wealth Management Group at Merrill Lynch in Atlanta, was recently recognized by Barron’s as one of “America’s Top 1,000 Advisors: State-by-State,” which was published in the February

edition of Barron’s magazine.

Mack is one of the four founding members of GCIAS and is a senior leader in the group. He is a certified financial planner as well as a certified financial manager.

He was also named to Barron’s Top 1,000 financial advisors in 2013.

He specializes in concentrated stock management, 10b5-1 plans, estate work, and complex private planning.

Cheryl Payne, JD ’92, Naples, was featured in the News-Press.

Frederic Rand Wallis, JD ’92, Orlando, has been appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to the 5th District Court of Appeals.

Jeffrey A. Luhrsen, JD ’93, Bradenton, has been selected to join a group of attorneys to write the book Protect and Defend: Proven Strategies From America’s Leading Attorneys to Help You Protect and Defend Your Business, Family and Wealth.

▲ Michael S. Pinckes, ’93 Carlsbad, Calif., was hired by the Professional Golfers Association tour as director of sales, digital and entertainment. He will manage the sales in the western region for all PGA Tour new media. He was also invited to become a member of the exclusive Century Club of San Diego. The Century Club of San Diego is a nonprofit corporation organized for the main purpose of administering and promoting San Diego’s annual PGA Tour event, the Farmers Insurance Open.

William “Tripp” I. Gulliford III, JD ’94, Jacksonville, has

Isa Adney, ’09, was named among the top 100 people by GOOD magazine.

Magazine Honors Alumna Isa Adney, ’09, author and speaker, was selected for GOOD Magazine’s list of 100 People Pushing the World Forward. GOOD Magazine focused on Adney’s rising status as a motivational figure in the collegiate world for their April issue.

The global progress-based publication praises Adney for her work as a motivational speaker, consultant and author of Community College Success, a guide for first-generation, low-income and minority students financially and emotionally struggling in their collegiate years.

Adney credits her two years at Stetson University as providing motivation for her to write and publish her own book.

“The biggest influence was the undergraduate research project. I loved the process and found it invigorating and challenging,” Adney says. “I knew the steps to take after completing the research project and started getting mentors to help with my book just like I did at Stetson.”

In particular, Adney credits her mentor and senior research adviser Rebecca Watts, Ph.D., associate professor of communications and media studies, for preparing her to take on the challenge of writing a book.

“It was really her mentoring, meeting with her every week and seeing that a big project, when broken down into small steps, week by week, is absolutely doable,” she elaborates. “Having her there made it feel less scary.”

While Adney’s book is centered on community colleges, her tips and analysis are universal for students at any institution.

“Even though I only attended Stetson for two years, I got many opportunities because of my professors,” Adney states. “Use your professor’s office hours, and take their advice. Build a solid relationship with them.” After her community college experience at Seminole State College, Adney was awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship to attend Stetson.

Recognized by the White House as a “community college superstar,” Adney’s official website is dedicated to helping college students maximize their educational experience in order to prepare for the future.

In addition to her website and her book, Adney hosts a YouTube show where she gives money management advice. While Adney works through different media channels, she puts forward a plan of success for all college students and young adult professionals.

“The main message is that opportunities happen through people — through friends, mentors, professors. Contrary to popular opinion, the best time to network is when you are young,” Adney points out.

— Maurie Murray STETSON 53

THE CLASSES

Ah, Living the Romantic Life Perhaps it’s every woman’s dream to spend her days lying on the sofa, getting caught up in romance novels and fantasizing what it might be like to live a life similar to the characters in those books.

But imagine if you wrote them. Now, that might be even more fulfilling.

That’s exactly what Stetson University alumna Kait Ballenger, ’09, has the pleasure of doing each day. Her first work with Harlequin Books is published and available for sale. To introduce Ballenger’s books, Harlequin asked her to write a short story, which would be the prequel to her books. This prequel, titled After Dark, features two stories: “Shadow Hunter” by Ballenger and a story by Gena Showalter.

“Shadow Hunter” tells the story of Damian Brock and siblings Mark and Tiffany Solo, vampire hunters, and the romance that ensues between Damian and Tiffany.

Another story, Twilight Hunter, was sold to Harlequin as Ballenger’s first novel. Set in Rochester, N.Y., Jace McCannon is a werewolf on the hunt to catch a killer of young women. Frankie Amato is a female werewolf who is the pack master and a strong, powerful heroine in the story.

After Dark is available now, and Twilight Hunter, Ballenger’s first fulllength novel, hit the shelves Aug. 27. The three full books in Ballenger’s series will be completed by February 2014, and she expects Harlequin to also commission an additional three in the future.

Raised in Taylor, Mich., a Detroit suburb, her father’s profession brought the family to Central Florida when she was 15.

Ballenger quickly realized the smaller class sizes at Stetson and the ability to truly know her fellow students far outweighed the offerings of larger state universities on her initial list of colleges to check out.

After receiving a scholarship for her work as a Spanish major, Ballenger made a trip during her sophomore year to Vilcabamba, Ecuador, where she realized what her life’s work would be.

“I’m sitting in Ecuador, but all I could think about was my writing,” she recalls.

With the mission to find an agent for her writing and to make this her profession, she joined the Romance Writers of America, which helped her learn the industry and the necessary steps for success. While at its 2011 conference in New York City, she met the head of an agency in an elevator who ultimately referred her to a colleague, Nicole Resciniti, who became her agent.

—Mary M. McCambridge 54 STETSON

accepted the position of managing director of CBRE real estate services in Jacksonville.

Peter J. Matulis, ’94, Orlando, CPCU (Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter), was promoted to senior vice president/ sales team leader of the Brown & Brown Inc. office in Maitland. He has been with Brown & Brown, a commercial insurance broker, for 16 years.

Alain Rivas, JD ’94, Orlando, of the firm Skubiak & Rivas, PA, has a new office located in Kissimmee, Fla. Andrea Tevis Smith, JD ’94, Lakeland, has become the newest circuit judge in the 10th Judicial Circuit. Smith was also profiled in Watchdog and News-Chief.

Karen Beckett, ’95, Miami, was appointed the university registrar at the University of Miami in October 2012.

▲ Byung J. Pak, ’95, Lilburn, Ga., has been named one of Georgia’s most influential Asian Americans by the Georgia Asian Times. He is one of 25 Asian Americans from Georgia awarded this honor. The list recognizes Asian Americans who improve their communities through leadership in the professional world or involvement in civic activities that affect the daily lives of Georgians, such as arts, politics, social work or education. He is a trial lawyer at Ballard Spahr, a partner in the litigation department, and practice leader of the Korea Initiative. He

focuses on representing individuals and corporations in government investigations and prosecutions (both criminal and civil), conducting internal corporate investigations, and advising clients on regulatory compliance matters. He is also the state representative for District 108 in the Georgia House of Representatives. There, he is the deputy majority whip, vice chair of the Judiciary Non-Civil (Criminal) Committee, and secretary of the Code Revision Committee.

Janna Warner Rodgers, ’95, DeLand, has opened a vintage home and gift store in downtown DeLand called Pretty Little Things.

Greg W. Meier, JD ’95, Winter Park, has been named among Florida Trend magazine’s Legal Elite.

▲ Lee-Anne (L.A.) Perkins, JD ’96, Boca Raton, has announced the opening of L.A. Perkins Law Firm, PLLC, in Boca Raton. The practice focuses on counseling, litigation and mediation in the areas of trademark and copyright law, employment law and business disputes. She is a Florida Supreme Court certified circuit mediator in circuit civil and family court. She holds a Foreclosure Mediation Certificate and is AV-rated from MartindaleHubbell Peer Review. She is also active in and has held numerous leadership positions in the Florida Bar, the South Palm Beach County Bar Association and the Florida Association of Women Lawyers.

She was recently re-inducted into the South Palm Beach County Bar Association as a member of the Board of Directors.

William A. Watson, ’96, Jacksonville, president, chairman of the board and founder of Watson Realty Corp., which recently won the Diamond Award at the “Leading Real Estate Companies of the World” summit in Las Vegas. The Diamond Award is the top award of the 500 real estate firms participating.

Stephenie Bernacki Anthony, JD ’97, St. Petersburg, has been chosen as incoming president of Tampa Bay Bankruptcy Bar Association.

Vicki Joiner Bowers, JD ’97, Jacksonville, has been featured in the Lawyer Snapshot in the Financial News & Daily Record.

She is a member of Elder Law Attorneys and specializes in elder law.

Harvey V. Cohen, JD ’97, Orlando, former state prosecutor for the 9th Judicial Circuit of Florida, is on the board of directors of Punch Media Inc. Kristi Neher Davisson, JD ’97, Tampa, has been named partner at the Anthony & Partners firm.

Karen Kelly, JD ’97, Tampa, received certification from the Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States program.

Eddie Stephens, JD ’97, West Palm Beach, has joined Ward, Damon, Posner, Pheterson & Bleau, PL. Vince A. Citro, ’98, MBA/ JD ’00, has received the Stetson College of Law’s Distinguished Alumni Award at the Stetson Lawyers Association Annual Alumni and Friends Reception in Boca Raton.

Michael J. Colitz, JD ’98, Tampa, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a 2013 “Florida Super Lawyer.”

Tammy Baldwin Denbo, JD ’98, Tampa, has received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award.

Melodee Devevo, ’98, McDonough, Ga., a member of

a contemporary Christian band Casting Crowns, recently took home awards at the K-LOVE fan awards for Group/Duo of the Year and Movie Impact. Casting Crowns also had three Grammy nominations, as well as an album going double platinum and one gold.

Jason E. Dimitris, JD ’98, Coral Gables, has been appointed to the Miami-Dade County Court

by Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

Michael L. Smith, JD ’98, Orlando, has been named 2012 Pro Bono Champion by the American Health Lawyers Association.

Michael C. McGinn, JD ’99, Tampa, has been featured in the Osprey Observer article “Michael McGinn is Committed to excellence in Family Law Disputes.”

▲ Tamara Glickman Parker, ’99, Port Orange, completed her first marathon in January 2013 at the Walt Disney World Marathon, helping to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of her father, Ken Glickman. In January 2014, she will participate in the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend Dopey Challenge: four races, four days, 48.6 miles.

Leslie Schultz-Kin, JD ’99, Tampa, has joined Akerman Senterfitt as a counsel in the firm’s healthcare practice group, where she will concentrate on professional liability in the defense of hospitals and physicians in medical malpractice lawsuits and administrative actions.

Matthew D. Westerman, JD ’99, St. Petersburg, was featured in the Bradenton Herald’s “Names and Faces.”

2000s Amy Bellhorn, JD ’00, St. Petersburg, has opened her own law firm in St. Petersburg.

Tyra Read, JD ’00, Fort Myers, has been appointed to the Cape Coral Community Foundation Board of Directors.

▲ Jason W. Searl, MBA/ JD ’00, Orlando, has been reappointed by Mayor Buddy Dyer to the City of Orlando Municipal Planning Board. The Municipal Planning Board holds public hearings to review and report recommendations to the City Council.

Christopher D. Donovan, ’01, JD ’04, Bonita Springs, is certified in appellate practice by the Florida Bar of Legal Specialization.

Nina Ferraro, JD ’01, Palm City, has joined the law firm of Jordan Fields, PA.

▲ Elizabeth Cloer Jones, ’01, Atlanta, Ga., and her husband, Christopher, recently opened Abode Atlanta, a destination for distinctive, authentic furniture in Atlanta. (www.abodeatl.com) Susan L. Ojeda, JD ’01, Mason, Ohio, has joined the firm of Gibbs & Associates law firm as counsel for the Christian Law Association.

Lori Baggett, JD ’02, Tampa, has been named shareholder at Carlton Fields and is joining the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity Fellows Program, developed to help identify, train and advance the next generation of leaders in the legal profession.

▲ Scott T. Brazdo, ’02, Viera, had his company Black Tie Digital Marketing, a full-service digital marketing agency, recently featured on the cover of Spacecoast Business, a prominent Central Florida business magazine.

Robert “Bob” A. Gualtieri, JD ’02, Palm Harbor, has been profiled on ABC Action News in a news story, “Getting to know Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gaultieri with This Week’s 10 questions.”

STETSON 55

THE CLASSES

Rachael Greenstein, ’02, JD ’05, Tampa, was honored in June 2013 by the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division with the 2013 Lynn Futch Most Productive Lawyer Award. This award is one of the most prestigious awards given by the Young Lawyers Division each year. The award is given to a young lawyer who is not a member of the Florida Bar YLD Board of Governors, who has worked most diligently in the past year in Bar activities and/or lawrelated public activities, and who has an excellent reputation for legal abilities and integrity.

Monica Barnes, JD ’03, Miami, has been named to the 2013 “Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers under 40” distinction by the National Bar Association.

Grant A. Kuvin, JD ’03, Winter Park, has obtained a $1 million verdict in a medical malpractice case at Morgan and Morgan.

▲ Anne Weintraub, JD ’03, Lakewood, has been appointed by the University of South Florida Board of Trustees to its SarasotaManatee campus board. The fivemember campus board, established in 2001, is charged with reviewing and approving the annual campus budget and developing an annual operating plan. Her four-year term began in July 2013. She has also been selected as a “Rising 56 STETSON

Star” in the current issue of Super Lawyers magazine and named one of Tampa Bay’s “Top 25 People to Watch” in 2013 by the Tampa Bay Business Journal. She frequently speaks at public forums and television news programs on the subject of real estate.

Jessie Zucnick-Kimbugwae, ’03, Huntsville, Ala., recently won the Alabama Athletic Trainers Association (ALATA) Collegiate Athletic Trainer of the Year award.

She has just completed her fifth year as head athletic trainer at Alabama A&M University after being promoted to the position in May 2009.

Joshua W. Ballance, JD ’04, Washington, D.C., spoke at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) webinar.

Joshua Ferraro, JD ’04, Stuart, returns to Lesser, Lesser, Landy & Smith.

Justin R. Giles, JD ’04, Memphis, Tenn., has been profiled in the Memphis Daily News for attending Stetson and its highly ranked trial advocacy program.

Cheryl Smith Lucente, MBA/ JD ’04, Tampa, was named one of the 2013 Florida Rising Stars.

Eric E. Page, JD ’04, St. Petersburg, has joined the Shutts and Bowen law office in Tampa as a litigation partner.

Marisa Davies Powers, JD ’04, Bradenton, received the AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell.

Courtney Nicholson Rettew, JD ’04, St. Petersburg, has joined the Marone Law Group.

Robert S. Stroud, JD ’04, Bradenton, has received an AV Preeminent rating.

Rena Upshaw-Frazier, JD ’04, Tampa, has been named to the 2013 Florida Rising Stars.

Kelly Gay, ’05, Gainesville, received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Florida Levin College of Law and is also certified by the Florida Supreme Court as a county court mediator.

Carey W. Meldon, JD ’05, Gainesville, has become the 8th Judicial Circuit president-elect of the Florida Association of

Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Jo Ann Palchak, JD ’05, Tampa, was named to the 2013 class of “Leaders in the Law” by the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.

Suzanne Boy, JD ’06, Fort Myers, has been selected for the 2013 Florida Super Lawyers and Rising Star lists. She also received an AV Preeminent rating.

Alexandre Dammous, LLM ’06, Tampa, started MobAdWin, a Tampa Bay-based mobile app for subscribers and advertisers offered exclusively to iOS and Android users.

▲ Jane Geddes, JD ’06, Stamford, Conn., an ex-LPGA golfer, was featured in Newsday discussing her work as vice president of talent relations for World Wrestling Entertainment. She was also featured in Inside Sports Illustrated’s “Where Are They Now?” She’s pictured with her twins Karson and Madison.

Paul M. Gloersen, ’06, Sanford, has been named development director of the Central Florida Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Brett M. Henson, ’06, JD ’10, Sarasota, has joined Dickinson & Gibbons, P.A., as an associate.

Henson’s practice areas with the firm include construction litigation, motor vehicle negligence, premises liability and personal injury litigation.

David Keith, ’06, Delano, published his book IT WAS 1975: Rags to Riches and Sometimes Voices.

“It is a memoir, but I added about 20 percent fiction — including the ‘riches’ part,” he tells us.

Marc L. Levine, JD ’06,

Orlando, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a 2013 “Florida Super Lawyer.”

Elizabeth Zeller Mitchell, JD ’06, Dalton, Ga., was mentioned in the April 16 Rome News-Tribune Small Business Snapshot.

Woodrow H. Pollack, JD ’06, Clearwater, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a 2013 Florida Super Lawyer. He’s also been recognized as an Up & Comer on Florida Trend magazine’s annual 2013 Legal Elite list.

Josephine Watson Thomas, JD ’06, Indian Rocks Beach, has been selected as a federal prosecutor by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

E. Dawn Thompson, ’06, Raleigh, N.C., has been promoted to vice president of National Legislative Affairs and associate counsel by the North Carolina Bankers Association.

Lavern Wilson, JD ’06, Tampa, has been named partner at Ford Harrison LLP. Alyssa Benitez, MBA/JD ’07, Orlando, has co-authored the forthcoming book Against The Grain: The World’s Leading Experts Reveal How They Achieved Positive Results in a Down Economy.

Paula Bentley, JD ’07, Tampa, is licensed as a health-care risk manager by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Justin B. Davis, JD ’07, Clearwater, has joined Blank Rome as an associate.

Ashley Hodson, JD ’07, Naples, has joined Hahn Loeser & Parks in its Naples office.

Melody Benbow Lynch, MBA/JD ’07, Orlando, was elected by the Orange County Bar Association to the Board of Directors for the Legal Aid Society.

Traci McKee, JD ’07, Fort Myers, has been listed among the 2013 Florida Super Lawyers.

Tyler K. Pitchford, JD ’07, Tampa, was interviewed by TechRepublic on the legal implications of cloud computing.

Brian A. Watson, JD ’07, Orlando, has been selected as a 40 Under 40 winner in the Orlando Business Journal.

Ashley Allen, JD ’08, River-

view, was profiled in the July 5 Tampa Bay Times article “Lawyer presents her case as Cosette in Les Miserables.”

Jason S. Becknell, ’08, Arlington, Va., accepted a new job as a diplomatic security special agent candidate at the Department of State in March 2013. Upon completion of the basic training course in September, he will officially become a diplomatic security special agent for the Department of State.

Adam J. Fernandez, JD ’08, Gulfport, has joined the law firm Clark & Martino, P.A. James-Allen McPheeters, MBA/JD ’08, Sarasota, joined the William Parker firm in Sarasota.

Silviya Tsankova Mateva, ’08, Norman, Okla., is one of 110 finalists for the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition. Organists from all over the world come to compete for first prize at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

John M. Miller, JD ’08, Fort Myers, has been selected for the 2013 Florida Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists. Miller has also received the highest AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell.

Carly Badke, ’09, Philadelphia, Pa., graduated with a Master of Science in Higher Education Administration and Organizational Management in December 2012 from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

J. Christian Barker, MBA/JD ’09, Franklin, Tenn., founded the law firm Barker Nashville, PLLC, which specializes in entertainment, copyright and trademark law. In January 2013, he launched his artist management firm Capri Nashville. The firm is committed to taking a well-rounded approach to developing artists through strategic planning and brand development.

Forest J. Bass, JD ’09, Port Charlotte, has been awarded the AV Distinguished Rating by Martindale-Hubbell.

Anthony Cangelosi, ’09, Celebration, was just promoted

to assistant general manager of a baseball team in Australia. The Australian Baseball League is owned by Major League Baseball.

Antonius M. DeSisto, JD ’09, Tampa, co-founder and managing director of Citizinvestor, is hosting a webinar on “Best Practices for Citizen Engagement Initiatives.”

Eric Lamontagne, ’09, JD ’12, Tampa, was mentioned in the Tampa Bay Times article “For fun and low-impact fitness check out rowing.”

Danielle Lassiter, JD ’09, Jupiter, has joined Cathleen Scott & Associates.

Wendy Rivera, JD ’09, Orlando, ran an opinion article “Immigration and Its Deep Roots in Social Justice” in Politic365.

Christopher J. Sprowls, JD ’09, New Port Richey, has been named one of the “30 under 30” rising stars in Florida politics.

Aaron L. Watson, JD ’09, Pensacola, was mentioned in a Pensacola News Journal story, “Meet the Buppies: A New Generation of Black, Urban Professionals.” Watson was also featured in another article, “Car Accidents Surge in 2012 Costing Over $250 Billion.”

2010s Victoria Bowa, JD ’10, Clearwater, has opened a women’s shoe, jewelry and handbag boutique in Hyde Park Village in Tampa.

▲ Robert B. Gilbert, ’10, Tamarac, is CEO of Parliament Tutors, a private tutoring and test preparation company located in over 100 cities across the country.

Robert J. Smith, ’10, Spring

Hill, having directed the documentary Undersize Me, recently appeared on The Daily Buzz in a live interview to promote the documentary.

Angela Benyon Sneed, ’10, Rock Hill, S.C., graduated from Winthrop University with a master’s and specialist in school psychology.

Lindsey Wagner, JD ’10, Jupiter, has been named Labor and Employment Committee vicechair for the ABA Young Lawyers Division.

Natalie Wearstler, ’10, Atlanta, Ga., recently wrote a story for LearnVest, a finance website, called “5 Money Lessons I Learned From Part-Time Jobs.” The article is about how her part-time jobs helped to prepare her for her career as a full-time writer and editor.

Hannah Choi, JD ’11, Tampa, has joined the Tampa office of Constangy, Brooks & Smith.

Catherine Jaczkanin Hollis, JD ’11, Altamonte Springs, has joined The Health Law firm as an attorney in its Altamonte Springs office.

Steven R. Pribramsky, ’11, Islamorada, received his certified fraud examiner credentials from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in January 2013. He is a Florida licensed CPA and a principal in Pribramsky & Company, CPAs, a Keys-wide certified public accounting firm.

Ashley Goggins, MBA/JD ’12, Jacksonville, has joined the Juvenile Court Unit in the Office of the Public Defender, 4th Judicial Circuit.

Erik M. Hanson, JD ’12, Sarasota, joined the law firm of Norton, Hammersley based in Sarasota.

Shanika Hillocks, ’12, Brooklyn, N.Y., is now the editorial and marketing assistant at the Center for Human Reproduction, where she assists in the marketing of original research from the center’s physicians, composes content on company happenings, and helps to create marketing initiatives.

Patrick S. McArdle, JD ’12,

Bradenton, has been named an associate attorney at Grossman Roth and Partridge David A. Mervine, JD ’12, St. Petersburg, has spent 10 weeks in Guatemala as a volunteer at an orphanage.

Mark St. Louis, JD ’12, Sarasota, has been hired by New College as general counsel.

John M. Stratton, JD ’12, Tampa, joined the firm of Anthony and Partners as an associate.

Katherine Zerkel, JD ’12, Medford, Ore., has joined the Medford law firm of Fowler and McNair LLP. Michelle Bartells, JD ’13, Tampa, has joined P. J. Harris Law as a law clerk.

Marriages

▲ Elizabeth Sullivan, ’01, to Matthew Rountree on June 22, 2012.

▲ Kara Duysters, ’04, MED ’06, to Edmond Blaskowski on Nov. 9, 2012.

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THE CLASSES Alumni Fun at the Kentucky Derby: From left are Brian J. ’93 and Keri Hunt ’93 Elwell, Kim and Grant W. Davis ’93, John C. ’96 and Shannon Cook ’95 Durrant, and Frank ’93 and Tammy Morreale. (Not pictured but also at Derby: Eric K. ’93 and Denise Kubick ’95 Cinnamond, Geoff R. ’91 and Monica Stam, and J. Wesley ’94 and Michelle Litrell ’94 Scott.) ▲ Nicole Nowlin, ’08, to Judson Valentine on April 13, 2013.

Julia Smith, JD ’09, to Gregory Allen Kummerlen on Dec. 1, 2012.

▲ Amanda Dorsett, ’12, to Jeffrey Brooks, ’11, on March 23, 2013.

Anniversaries George I. Chassey, ’51, MA ’55, and his wife Mary celebrated their 70th anniversary in January 2013.

Births

Joan Bunnell Badzinski, ’68, and Dr. Keith Hansen, ’49, MS ’50.

Alumni Share Memories at Stetson Mini-Reunion A mini-reunion was held June 21 with Dr. Keith Hansen ’49, MS ’50, and Joan Bunnell Badzinski, ’68, and three former students — Hollis Flint, ’60, Roy Paulson, ’59, and their roommate George VanHorn, ’59. Favorite memories of Stetson University in the late 1950s were shared and enjoyed.

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▲ Hali Herbert, ’10, to Blake Marsocci, ’09, MBA ’11 on Dec. 15, 2012.

▲ Kelly DiDomenic Barnes, ’01, MAcc ’02, and husband Patrick, a son, Cason James, in June 2013.

Elizabeth Rigby Heim, MA ’56 Gloria Bell Byrd, ’58 Jacquelyn Hogue Gentry, ’58 Carolyn Skinner Aulls, ’59 Blanche Alligood Horne, ’59

▲ Charles Sano, ’01, and wife Meaghan, a son, Michael Richard, in June 2013.

▲ LeAnne Gallick, ’94, adopted a daughter, Pamela, in April 2013.

Deaths 1920s Bernice Thompson Eigenrauch, ’25 1930s Floanna Burrows Anderson, ’37 Alton G. Martin ’37 1940s Victor L. Baer, ’41 C. Dekle DeLoach, ’42 Betty Smith Taylor, ’48 Starr W. Horton, LLB ’49 1950s Philip C. Sangster, ’50 Joan Bolle Vosburgh, ’50 Myra Southward Doudney, ’51 Jimmie Fleming Stuckey, ’51 Barbara Hill Rogers, ’52 David L. Early, ’53 William M. McBrayer, ’53 George F. Jochem, ’54 James E. Yonge, ’54 Shirley Lowe Blackwell, ’55 James P. Hahn, ’55, LLB ’57 Oren R. Smith, ’55 Dorothy Moore Broadwater, ’56

1960s Donald E. Ray, ’61 Roland E. Williams, ’63, JD ’66 Robert J. Falconetti ,’64 Wayne M. Ellis, ’66, JD ’69 Bobby L. Hughes, ’66 Eugene C. Grenci, ’69 Saralyn Stripling Korey, ’69, MED ’78 Donald J. Maurer, ’69 Helen Davidson Solomon, ’69 1970s Robert E. Gawley, ’70 Robert W. Hollowell, ’70 Kenneth A. Jones, ’70 Robert M. Focht, JD ’73 Nicholas W. Prokop, ’74 James A. Pickering, ’75 Harold E. Armstrong, ’76 Phyllis Baldwin Stafford, ’77 Leroy Wilson, ’77 John S. French, MA ’78 1980s Paul H. Kohmescher, ’80 Frances Barlow, MED ’81 1990s Michael E. Goodbread, JD ’93 Ronald J. Williams, ’93 Karen Williams, JD ’94 William J. Banks, ’97, JD ’01 2000s Charles S. Glore, ’02 Brittany Bumpus, ’09 2010s Gregory J. Ashpaugh, ’11 MEMORIAL FUND ESTABLISHED A memorial fund has been set up in memory of Robert E. Gawley, ’70. It will support chemistry student travel to present chemistry research findings. Gawley’s sisters, alumnae Sally Gawley Ginn, ’76, and Janice Gawley Esterbrook, ’72, set up the fund.

Music Dean Remembered The Paul T. Langston Memorial Endowed Organ Scholarship has been established at Stetson to honor the memory and legacy of the former dean of the School of Music. Paul Truett Langston died at his home on Dec. 20, 2012, in DeLand, Fla., at the age of 84.

With degrees from the University of Florida, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctorate in sacred music from the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, Langston was on the faculty of Stetson’s School of Music from 1960 until his retirement in 1993.

Langston served as dean of the School of Music from 1963 to 1985.

During his years at Stetson, he received the McEniry award for excellence in teaching in 1991, the Hand award for outstanding research in 1993, and an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Stetson. His oratorio, Petros, premiered in 1983.

Together with longtime Daytona Beach News-Journal editor/publisher Tippen Davidson, Langston was instrumental in bringing the London Symphony Orchestra to Daytona Beach for a month each year from 1966-69. Among other programs he instituted at Stetson was the Community School of Music for adults, senior citizens, and children, which continues today and includes a Young Singers Choir.

“He thought it would be important for the community to have that resource and to have music education taught at the university for people who were not university students,” says Jean West, former Stetson School of Music dean. He also organized the School of Music Advisory Board, made up of music alumni, former faculty members and those interested in promoting the school’s programs, as well as the Friends of Music. Langston is survived by his wife of 62 years, Esther, and by three children, Claire Beth Link, Erin Langston and Howard Langston.

Gifts to the Paul Langston Memorial Scholarship, providing a meritbased scholarship for Stetson organ performance majors, can be made in any amount and sent to the Stetson University Office of Development, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., Unit 8286, DeLand, FL 32723. Gifts can also be made online at www.stetson.edu/give, and a notation about the gift’s purpose can be made in the Special Instructions box.

—Mary Anne Rogers STETSON 59

ENDINGS

One of the chief reasons our students’ liberal education will always be relevant is that it will always be timeless.

A Timeless Education B y We n d y B . L i b b y , P h . D .

A

re you old enough to remember a time before the personal computer?

Do you recall when advertising was mostly done in print and on television? What about when political races were not “called” on the basis of big data? Or when music wasn’t played on a synthesizer? How about when equities were traded on the stock floor by verbal agreements and handshakes?

I remember those days. And now I hear myself say time and time again to our students that one of the chief reasons their liberal education will always be relevant is that it will always be timeless.

Whatever the issues of whatever age, regardless of all the iterations of technology, students who have been liberally educated — freed by their education — will have a treasure trove of knowledge and its context to apply to problems in society and in their professions and avocations, as well as in their personal family situations.

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Significance in one’s life grows from a strong base of broad, deep knowledge imparted through skills acquisition, interchange, reflection, research and application.

More than 50 years ago, Louise Dudley wrote a groundbreaking textbook about a new way to look at the humanities. Art, music, architecture, literature, language were all entwined — not viewed as separate and distinct disciplines. What emerged from looking at the world in this interwoven, interdependent way was quite new.

Likewise, in the late 1960s, Bill Keeton revolutionized the study of biology. Why study each phylum on its own? Why not study the systems (nervous, digestive, circulatory and so on) across phyla to learn what is common and what is unique?

If you change the way you look at something, does it change what you see? Simply, it changes everything.

This is core to a liberal education and why it

is relevant, maybe even more so now than ever before. We’re living in a world linked not just by air travel but by bits and bytes. It’s a world where learning to find primary sources and think for oneself may be the only way to the truth. And it’s a world where today’s jobs and processes can easily become “so yesterday.”

Because of this complex and ever-changing world, we must ensure a citizenry that has learned broadly and freely, with an understanding of the world and her people. A citizenry that can comprehend the cascading effects of decisions and the multiplicity of options and directions. Problem solvers who can see new linkages, think critically, reason wisely, imagine without boundaries or fear.

Only through liberal learning can we ensure the success of a world we cannot imagine.

Liberal learning is not just relevant today: It’s required.

Wendy B. Libby is president of Stetson University.

PARTING SHOT

The Stetson Gulfport Law Center is framed by palm trees.

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Office of University Marketing 421 N. Woodland Blvd., 8319 DeLand, FL 32723

STETSON is printed on FSC-certified paper.

Living it up at Stetson’s Commencement 62

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