Stetson Magazine by Stetson University

STETSON U

The INNOVATORS

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Innovation and Other Flights of Fancy

igher education can’t seem to escape trendy topics

like innovation. An entire book by Christensen and Eyring, The Innovative University, sets up scary scenarios about how every other industry has been “creatively disrupted” and now it’s higher education’s turn. Innovate or die seems to be the message. In fact, Christensen predicts that more than half the higher education institutions will be in bankruptcy in 15 years unless they adopt new technologies to educate more students at less cost. And that’s where Stetson comes in. Over the past five years, innovations have flowed in from many different departments. The innovators make this happen. They take courageous risks to further the university and its students’ learning experiences. In “The Innovators,” we asked colleagues to write about how a few of the people from the Stetson family use innovative techniques to advance the university. On the other hand, what innovation best suits Stetson? Should the university adopt trendy new ideas, such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), to show it’s hip? “Of course, we want to embrace innovation, but only that innovation that fits Stetson,” declares Stetson President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. “And private liberal education isn’t broken.” In that regard, one in-depth feature, “The Temptation of Innovation,” explores the topic from a national perspective while another article, “Stetson’s Temptation with Innovation,” presents the Stetson viewpoint. In “Innovation: An Imperative for Change,” Provost Beth Paul, Ph.D., writes about why innovation is such a central part of the university’s new Strategic Map (see it on Page 4). Business Professor Gary Oliphant, Ph.D., writes about how creativity and risk-taking are important to innovation in his article “Coloring Innovation With Creativity.” Fletcher Crowe ’65 is challenging the status quo by thinking outside the box to try to discover North America’s oldest fort. Finally, Libby explains why Stetson must innovate. In this issue, then, we offer an inside look at how Stetson embraces the right innovation for its special brand of rigorous, personal education. —Bill Noblitt Editor, stetson magazine wnoblitt@stetson.edu

On the cover: One of Stetson’s innovators, Associate Professor Alicia Slater, Ph.D., created a high-tech, flipped classroom called SCALE-UP.

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18 Coloring Innovation With Creativity A business professor writes about the importance of creativity and risk-taking in pursuing innovation. 20 The Innovators A few of Stetson’s own innovators.

13 First Person The Importance of Family

48 Inquiry Research and scholarship at Stetson 50 Games Three for “The Show”

52 Impact

56 Alumni 58 The Classes

32 The Temptation of Innovation The innovation experts set up scary scenarios for higher education. 38 Stetson’s Temptation With Innovation The Stetson community discusses the role of innovation. 44 Turning a Theory on Its Head A Stetson alumnus searches for the oldest fort in North America.

S t a ff President

Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D.

68 Endings President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D., discusses the importance of innovation.

Vice President of University Marketing

69 Parting Shot A sunny break

Editorial Assistants

Editor and Art Director

Photographers 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. stetson magazine

14 Innovation: An Imperative for Change Innovation is not just a hot trend in higher education. It’s an imperative for do-or-die change.

4 Strategy Stetson’s next Strategic Map 6 Beginnings News about Stetson

F e a t u r es

Inside First Words Cover Reflections on this issue 2 Letters Reaction to the last issue

Writers

Greg Carroll Bill Noblitt

Donna Nassick & Michael Sebastian Jones

Production Coordinator Contributing Staff

Will Phillips & Brendan Rogers

Heather Beach-Meinhardt

Janie Graziani, Mary Anne Rogers, Davina Gould, Brandi Palmer & Amy Gipson

Ronald Williamson, Trish Wieland, George Salis, Kalee Ball, Michael van Oppen, Grace Aguda & Mary M. McCambridge

Class Notes Editor

Cathy Foster

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A Lapse in Judgment I just finished reading David Stacy’s (’64) “Cynical” retort to his objections to the “emblazoned” words Acta Non Verba on the arm of a Stetson student. Not only am I stunned, but rather offended that a person who is portraying himself as educated has so boldly distorted, demeaned and criticized this student’s ideals as to how he wishes to live his life. Mr. Stacy has obviously not taken a look at Webster’s to see what those words actually mean. To state that Acta Non Verba is an “activist slogan” or is a sign of “intellectual decadence” is just plain ludicrous. Mr. Stacy goes on to say that the slogan is “feckless.” Acta Non Verba certainly is NOT lacking purpose, nor is it irresponsible. It happens to be the motto of the United States Merchant Marine, and I am sure that they do not consider what they stand for to be lacking responsibility. I know many Stetson students, and I am a parent of a Stetson student, and I know firsthand that they do not believe that a student’s tattoo is a sign of “liberal socialism” or that a tattoo has given way to pandering “the immature and agitated momentary interests of Stetson University students.” I also guarantee Mr. Stacy that the majority of these “inexperienced learners” could run circles around his intellect and his knowledge of what is really happening in the world, regardless of them living in this “social networking age.” I would also like to know when Mr. Stacy had the opportunity to speak with this student with the “emblazoned” “activist slogan” to actually find out who he really is or what he stands for. Those words, in fact, may have been 2

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“emblazoned” on his arm because he is tired of hearing meaningless words and would rather see deeds that actually have meaning. Does Mr. Stacy also know that this student has pledged eight years of his life to keep this country safe? I would bet the answer to that is “no.” I highly doubt that this student’s role as a soldier will be to “encourage ambiguous change” as Mr. Stacy believes these words mean. Mr. Stacy has chosen to create his own myth as to how today’s students view the world. Mr. Stacy should instead be pleased that today’s students would rather “do” and not just say words that end up meaningless. —Lisa Bennett Parent of a Stetson student A student, Scott Williams, was featured on the cover of the

magazine’s winter issue; the photograph displayed Mr. Williams’ tattoo that reads “Acta Non Verba” — roughly translated as “Deeds, not words.” In response, Stetson alumnus David Stacy ’64 submitted a letter titled “Cynical,” a defamatory criticism of the perceived meaning of Mr. Williams’ tattoo and the phrase’s implications for the contemporary liberal undergraduate education system. Mr. Stacy repeatedly attacks Mr. Williams’ tattoo as well as the kind of person he believes would get such a tattoo in the first place. According to Mr. Stacy: “Acta Non Verba is both an activist slogan and a rather cynical view of a classical liberal education. [… It is] a feckless slogan of encouragement to take up ambiguous change. […] a sign of intellectual decadence,” among other unin-

formed accusations requiring considerable mental gymnastics. Now, perhaps Mr. Stacy would contend that he meant no ill will toward Mr. Williams — merely using the tattoo to elucidate perceived problems in higher education. But his intended meaning aside, little reflection should have been necessary for Mr. Stacy to imagine how his scathing remarks might naturally come across as a pointed attack, how the venomous criticisms offered must ultimately fall on the man beneath the ink. Likewise, those responsible for the inclusion of Mr. Stacy’s letter might claim that since it focused on larger issues in education, it did not constitute an attack on Mr. Williams. But matters such as these are not so simple, and the representatives of Stetson University ought to understand that this is a matter of personal identity. This is because tattoos, like other forms of expression, represent the person who wears them. Mr. Williams’ choice to permanently adorn his body with the phrase “Acta Non Verba” for all to see is as sincere a statement about himself and his convictions as any; it is a representation of his identity in much the same way that religious convictions are inherently linked to the individual identities of countless persons of faith. When the university used the photograph of Mr. Williams, it placed him in the public eye, exposing him to potential risks. And, when a member of the magazine’s audience (Mr. Stacy) sought to attack this student, the university published it — actively facilitating an alumnus’s attempt at publicly humiliating a student, seemingly without regard for the welfare of Mr. Williams or the potential negative repercussions of becoming the subject of an

attempted public shaming, regardless of whether it proved successful. Going beyond a mere failure to protect Mr. Williams and actively placing him in a compromised position, such treatment of a student seems antithetical to the values of Stetson University. Of course, editors are human, and mistakes will be made; so, this should be seen as a learning opportunity such that, in the future, a bit more discretion is used when making decisions that could have lasting negative consequences for the young souls with which Stetson University has been entrusted. —Kameron Johnston St. Clare ’11 The editor does not believe that Mr. Stacy was attacking one particular student as the writer suggests but was using a student’s tattoo “Acta Non Verba” to make a point about “kids these days.”

Too Left-Wing For all your talk of inclusiveness and diversity, I didn’t see any evidence of that in the Summer 2014 edition on Stetson values. All I saw was a parroting by all the professors and staff of the ideologies of Leftism — social justice, equality, environmentalism, global citizenship, etc. Where was the article by the professor who happens to believe in the American value system of small government, entrepreneurship, faith in God, and freedom? You know, the one that has given its citizens the greatest level of opportunity, prosperity and freedom the world has ever known. So Stetson has simply become a bastion of left-wing ideology, not unlike so many of the other universities in our country.

How sad. I guess the next questions are: Is there still freedom of the press at Stetson? Will this comment see the light of day in the Fall ’14 edition? —Ann Beth Cotter Yergler ’82 I am responding to your Summer 2014 edition of the stetson magazine and its topic — A Question of Values. It states that Stetson’s website declares its mission “is to provide an education in a creative community where learning and values meet.” What struck me most was the collective theme of moral relativism and humanism that permeated most of the articles. The turning of Stetson University from its foundational principles exhibited in its motto “Pro Deo et Veritate” — For God and Truth. Stetson now says it is determined to integrate “the question of God” in its mission to educate. “Pro Deo et Veritate” is not a question — it is a statement and an answer, and it should be the bedrock of all of Stetson’s educational disciplines. I agree with author Stanley Fish — Save the World on Your Own Time — who sees universities as places oversaturated with political quests that get away from the search for truth, what he believes is the original mission of the university. Stetson University has replaced its Christian core requirements with “The Gathering” — an informal, warm service of no particular denomination to feel the spirit of the universe — whether Hindu, Bahá’í, Wicca or any other faith, or no faith “because faith comes in many packages and our mission is to be a fellow traveler.” “Good Without God” and other ways of making moral and value decisions are just the blind leading the blind down dead-end

streets. My own values-filled journey led me to Stetson University in 1968. I asked an upperclassman, “What about this Christianity stuff” (two semesters were required for graduation). He replied, “They did away with Chapel; they’ll do away with Christianity.” I regret to say that Stetson has since done away with this requirement. Fortunately, it was still a requirement when I got to my junior year and was blessed to study under the beloved Professor Earl B. Joiner, Ph.D. At the same time, my girlfriend’s roommate had an album that was popular at the time — Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock opera. I would listen to it quite a bit when I was taking Dr. Joiner’s classes and even gave it to him to listen to. He smiled when he returned it. There was a verse that I couldn’t get out of my mind — “Jesus Christ Superstar, do you think you’re who they say you are?” Easter of 1973, a year after graduation, I finally came to the realization that Jesus was who they said he was — the Son of God and that he died on the cross for our sins. Bill Noblitt’s excellent article begins with — “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” But if you don’t mind I prefer Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Being concerned environmentally, having sustainable food, fixing cleft palates, being global

citizens and making the world a better place are all no-brainers. Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” I thank God for Stetson University, and I hope and pray that it will return to its first love — “Pro Deo et Veritate” — For God and Truth, and that it may finish the race as well as it started. May God bless Stetson University! —Darrel L. Harman ’72

A Strategic Coup I have just read the latest edition of the stetson magazine. The progress you (President Wendy Libby) have made with the university is very impressive. Congratulations. Being far away and with no regular contact, it is easy to forget what a special place Stetson is. It is you and your colleagues that make it so, and I am deeply grateful for your success in not only maintaining but also enriching and enhancing your unique corner of the world. All of us are in your debt. —George C. Edwards III ’69 University Distinguished Professor of Political Science George and Julia Blucher Jordan Chair in Presidential Studies Texas A&M University

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 so please try to keep them under 200 words.

stetson magazine

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Leading Innovation In the last issue, we chronicled the Stetson community’s accomplishments under the 2011-14 Strategic Map. In this issue, we set a course for the future of Stetson University.

Our “central challenge” is to: Establish Stetson as a University of Choice for Innovative Approaches to Tackling Complex Challenges Our strategic priorities are: •Demonstrate Stetson’s Distinctiveness and Value Proposition •Enhance Excellence and Innovation in Learning •Empower Lifelong Success and Significance •Secure the Resources to Ensure Success •Increase Organizational Resilience and Adaptability •Expand and Strengthen Strategic Partnerships •Be a Diverse Community of Inclusive Excellence

Our Year-One (2014-15) Priority Goals are as follows: Strategic Priority A: Demonstrate Stetson’s Distinctiveness and Value Proposition Stetson University has a story to tell that speaks to our values and vision, and that will continue to attract the best students for Stetson. Our goal is to increase awareness and 4

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The 2014-19 Strategic Map for Stetson positive perceptions of Stetson among key constituencies in key geographic areas (locally, regionally and nationally).

Enhance National Reputation Using Strategic Communication • Build stronger relationships with media throughout Florida by taking Stetson’s messages to them with face-to-face meetings. • Train media-savvy, subjectmatter experts to deliver impactful, strategic messages and publicize them to national, state and local media. • Leverage print and Web publications and social media outlets to communicate a distinctive brand of significance and Above photo by Jason Jones

increase Stetson’s overall visibility to a national audience.

Strategic Priority B: Enhance Excellence and Innovation in Learning Stetson is committed to being a contemporary learning community that attracts and meets the needs and interests of intellectually motivated students.

Create a Learning Environment that Attracts Intellectually Motivated Students • Through the work of a task force, identify and strengthen experiential learning — including

research, internships, clinics — as well as three other high-priority components of the university experience. • Develop and implement a strategic enrollment management framework for graduate programs in law, education, counseling and business. • Develop articulation agreements with notable higher education institutions that expand the options for intellectually motivated students.

Strategic Priority C: Empower Lifelong Success and Significance Stetson’s educational environment

recognition and financial sustainability. • Implement cost-effective environmental sustainability measures. • Establish cost-effective practices in business operations. The university will offer its graduates a more robust Stetson Alumni Network that offers alumni opportunities to share their expertise and make industry connections, tap into Stetson’s Career Development services, volunteer their time, and support new generations of students in countless ways.

Implement a Best Practice Alumni Engagement Capability A key component in the new Strategic Map is to create a learning environment that attracts intellectually motivated students. Here, English Professor Terri Witek, Ph.D., engages her class.

will more deliberately support students’ career exploration, development, readiness and postgraduate success.

Strengthen Career Readiness and Graduate Success • Expand career programming and initiatives that engage students with majors, careers, alumni and employers. • Provide an educational on-campus student employment experience that is dynamic, efficient and intentional where the positions serve as areas of work discovery for students and help them become career-ready. • Roll out multiple internship initiatives related to increasing the

number of students participating in credit-bearing internships.

Strategic Priority D: Secure the Resources to Ensure Success Stetson’s policies, structures, processes and budget models will focus on maximizing cost-effectiveness and supporting the development of new revenue streams in new markets.

Diversify Revenue Streams and Maximize Cost-Effectiveness • Enhance existing programs and develop new programs that are directly linked to our mission and that will strengthen our mission effectiveness, brand

• Provide meaningful and beneficial alumni programming that supports Stetson graduates and connects them in lifelong relationships with their peers and with the university. • Strengthen Stetson’s alumni volunteer network in regions throughout Florida and the nation. • Develop a robust stewardship program that recognizes and thanks donors and also showcases the impact their gifts have at Stetson University.

Strategic Priority E: Increase Organizational Resilience and Adaptability Stetson will examine and streamline its systems, procedures and business practices, thereby strengthening the university’s effectiveness as One Stetson in carrying out its mission, anticipating challenges and leading change.

Streamline Systems and Processes • Streamline business processes

by incorporating technology to improve outcomes and reduce costs. • Ensure that university-wide processes, including budget and business processes, are integrated appropriately to produce accurate data and to ensure we work smart and efficiently. • Align policies, procedures and business practices with the Strategic Map. • Assess management and administrative processes to increase timeliness and improve results wherever possible.

Strategic (Foundational) Priority G: Be a Diverse Community of Inclusive Excellence Stetson will further develop a pervasive, sustainable learning and working community that not only includes individuals from a wide array of backgrounds but also proactively values and empowers them. • Through the work of a task force, engage the university community in reflection and discussion about diversity and inclusive excellence. • Facilitate structured learning about diversity and inclusive excellence for faculty, staff, administration and student leadership. • Encourage leadership at every level of the university to identify and enact changes on an ongoing basis to support and encourage diversity and inclusive excellence on campus. • Make specific measurable recommendations for three- and five-year goals for enhancing inclusive diversity at Stetson. Visit www.stetson.edu/strategic-planning for more information about Stetson’s Strategic Map and ongoing initiatives. STETSON

Be A House for Innovation

Something extraordinary is brewing in quite an ordinary little building tucked under hillside trees and off the beaten path in one of the farthermost corners of Stetson’s DeLand campus. Ideas become reality in this secluded place. There’s no wizardry involved. Just tinkerers, inventors, innovators and fabricators. Among others. These are makers, do-it-yourselfers with a heavy dash of electronics, computer-aided machines and robotics, creating connections between neuro, cyber and physical spaces. The old red-brick garage behind the Gillespie Museum has been turned into a workshop of power tools, electronic tools, old-fashioned hand tools and cutting-edge equipment. Innovation House opened as a “makerspace” for students, faculty, staff and alumni to meet, work and learn from one another. For example, computer science majors Katie Portfield of Atlanta and Melissa Abramson of Deltona worked with circuit boards, sensors, motors and microprocessors during an October workshop hosted by Innovation House. “Innovation House is a loose collection of like-minded people,” says William Ball, Ph.D., visiting professor of political science. He has a lifelong interest in tools and fabrication and created the workshop. The group isn’t part of any department or program. Two 3-D printers are in the workshop, as well as a computercontrolled router, a vacuum forming machine, table saw, drill 6

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press, Dremel, various cordless power tools, pliers, saws and hammers for working metal and wood. The tools also include heat guns, wires, soldering gear, multimeters, computers, microcontrollers, modules, and “many castoff robots,” says Ball. “It is truly a new, unique addition to campus,” says junior Mark Burton, a computer science and digital arts major. Burton is president of Stetson’s chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery, the organization providing space and encouragement to Innovation House. Startup money for tools and equipment came from the School of Business Administration’s Prince Entrepreneurship Program. “Innovation House is in its infancy now, but it’ll be the birthplace of many interesting projects,” says Burton, a native of New York City. “It’s liberating to know that if something doesn’t exist you can make it yourself,” says Katie Moore, a senior from Mims majoring in computer science and digital arts. “Not every gadget has to come from a big corporation with an engineering team and a factory.” Moore is one of about 60 people, mostly students, who have joined Innovation House. She wants to build a unique “gaming chair” as a controller for an immersive video game as part of her senior research. Without the tools in Innovation House, she’s not sure how or where she would build the chair. “It’s really great to have a place to work on larger projects with physical components to them,” she says.

“We hope it spurs students to be innovative and entrepreneurial in a broad sense,” says Ball, “and initiate collaboration and innovative thinking that will be picked up and reflected in the formal curriculum.” The workshop community cuts across all disciplines. Nationwide, there has been a resurgence of interest in making things and bringing ideas to life. It has spawned events like maker faires, barcamps and hackerspaces where people share knowledge, skills and creations. Innovation House organized a Stetson booth at the recent Maker Faire Orlando and plans to participate in Barcamp DeLand in November. In October, it hosted a SparkFun Electronics training session in making microchips read sensors, control motors, and create devices. Twenty “inventors’ kits” were given to Innovation House by SparkFun. The seeds of Innovation House were sown by Thomas Schwarz, D.B.A., business dean, whose entrepreneurship initiative stirred Ball to volunteer his time and expertise to start a makerspace. Students were interested but didn’t have tools and facilities. “I took up the idea and worked with Dean Schwarz to bring it to fruition. He guided, encouraged, supervised and found startup funds for the effort,” says Ball. Members help manage the space and have 24/7 access. Ball hopes Innovation House will make its users “comfortable creating cross-disciplinary teams and using contemporary technology to bring their ideas for innovative projects into reality.” —Ronald Williamson

Stetson Intern on the Front Lines This past summer, Nick Saffan, sophomore journalism major, traveled to Jerusalem to capture the moments most only hear about in the news. He interned for an Israel press

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Stetson student Nick Saffan’s photo shows Israeli police clashing with a dissident during a large protest against Arab terrorism in central Jerusalem in response to the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens. photography company called Flash90. At 19 years of age, this Stetson student’s photography managed to evoke the emotions of the Israelis well enough to be published by media outlets including The Jewish Press in Brooklyn and internationally in Actualité Juive in Paris and on TLV1 in Tel Aviv

before the summer was even over. Though he was interested in journalism for quite a while, it wasn’t until four years ago that Saffan picked up his camera to start capturing the world with more than just words. In high school, Saffan was a student at Poynter Institute for Media Studies, where he partici-

pated in their student journalism program, along with other aspiring journalists. Poynter Institute is a school dedicated to teaching and motivating journalists and media leaders by promoting excellence and integrity in the craft and the practical leadership of a successful business. Three years into this institution, Saffan

knew the direction he wanted to take in his career. During Saffan’s first year at Stetson, his interest in Israel was kindled when he took international journalism with Nick Tatro, adjunct professor of journalism. Saffan’s newly heightened interest and curiosity about Israel led him to Andy Dehnart, Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism, and Stephanie Ryan, internship coordinator, both of whom helped clear a path for him to find an internship with Flash90. “Flash90 gave me weekly and sometimes daily assignments,” says Saffan. “I had some freedom with what I was assigned, but mostly I was limited to where they sent me because of company insurance reasons,” Saffan explains. Because Saffan does not speak Hebrew, he was a true observer of the action going on in Israel. During his six-week internship, Saffan witnessed some violence in Zion Square. “They were calling for retaliation, calling for death to Muslims.” One of Saffan’s photos of this riot was his first to be published. Saffan is hoping to make photojournalism his career, traveling the world and taking in all the excitement. “Adrenaline is nice,” he says. He says the internship was an unforgettable experience with endless adventure and wonder packed into six short weeks that totaled in cost to be less than summer classes. “I’m a better photographer now than when I started.” To see more of Saffan’s work, visit www.nicksaffan.com/ Portfolio/ — Grace Aguda STETSON

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Associate Professor Emily Mieras, Ph.D., advises a group of students.

Enrollment Jump Stetson is enjoying another banner year for enrollment, according to Joel Bauman, vice president for enrollment at Stetson. “I am excited to report that 878 new students started classes recently. This is the third largest entering class in Stetson’s history and arrives with excellent credentials as expected,” says Bauman. “With a record 2,841 undergraduates, we are on target now to reach 3,000 undergraduates by the fall of 2016.” This year, Stetson’s first-year student applications numbered 10,980, exceeding last year’s record of 10,507. Reacting to a larger-than-expected entering class last year, Bauman explains, Stetson’s administration targeted a smaller entering class of freshmen. “The entering class of 878 is composed of 773 freshmen and 105 transfer students, hailing from 43 states and 22 countries,” Bauman reports. “We were not immune from larger market forces that led to the highly cited trend of ‘summer melt,’ which is the cancellation of deposited students late into the summer,” he says. “But I’m confident that the Stetson community will respond appropriately and rally together to ensure the kind of quality service and support to secure a solid 8

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spring semester enrollment cycle and a fall class that we can be proud of.” “Guided by Stetson’s Strategic Map, we have been able to manage growth in undergraduate enrollment this fall,” says Resche Hines, Ph.D., assistant vice president of institutional research and effectiveness. This year, graduate students at Stetson, with the exception of College of Law students, number 336. A total of 950 students are enrolled this year at Stetson University College of Law. This total includes 865 enrolled J.D. students — 669 full time and 196 part time. There are also 20 LL.M. in Advocacy, 37 LL.M. in Elder Law and 10 LL.M. in International Law students enrolled. Additionally, there are eight visiting students, two exchange students and 10 certificate in U.S. legal systems students. There are 320 total new students entering this fall at the College of Law. This includes 215 new full-time and 36 new part-time J.D. students. There are an additional 14 LL.M. in Advocacy, 14 LL.M. in Elder Law and eight LL.M. in International Law students entering this fall. Moreover, there are 16 transfer students and five new visiting students. —Mary Anne Rogers

Business Professor Betty Thorne, Ph.D., discusses how to make business statistics global.

Culture Merges with Statistics When Betty Thorne, Ph.D., professor of statistics, first envisioned the idea of integrating foreign cultures into her business statistics class, even she wondered how that might be accomplished. “I asked myself, ‘How can I do that with statistics? How can I give the students the experience of watching a business presentation in another language and having it make sense to those who speak only English?’ ” What transpired was a combination of excellent statistical analysis and a classroom of engaged fellow students who

enjoyed a unique and well-developed presentation — in Arabic. Thorne, who is clearly passionate about her students and work, and her husband frequently travel to Romania, the land of her ancestry, on missionary trips where their lessons are translated from English into Romanian. She wanted to give her students a similar cultural experience, especially those who had not traveled outside the United States. The final assignment in her business statistics class was to develop a presentation by selecting a company and sharing its history, size, founders, products, mission, values, vision, financials and growth. Students were to develop data and choose five

Rave Reviews for Stetson

statistical procedures they learned during the semester and integrate them into their chosen company, acting as a statistical consultant to solve company problems. The cultural part of the experience happened when Thorne asked two students — Abdullah Alghamdi and Ahmad Altuhami from Saudi Arabia — to do their presentation in Arabic, while translating it into English. Alghamdi and Altuhami chose the company known as Al Baik, the equivalent of a U.S. fast-food restaurant, which serves chicken and shrimp dishes. Its founder had died of cancer at 48, and his two sons continued the business. “We chose this company because it is extremely well known

and is highly effective in how it serves its customers,” says Altuhami. “Located primarily in the western part of Saudi Arabia, many friends will always ask me to bring them food from Al Baik if they live too far from one of their restaurants.” To begin the presentation, Altuhami talked through a few slides in Arabic that Alghamdi translated into English; then they switched, moving back and forth throughout the presentation. Afterward, they injected a bit of Saudi Arabian hospitality into the moment with Arabic coffee and dates. Thorne was pleased by how the experience helped everyone see another side of the world. — Mary M. McCambridge

Stetson is the only Florida school on the U.S. News and World Report list for best undergraduate teaching. That’s just part of the story. Once again, Stetson University has earned national recognition for its attention to challenging academics and commitment to community service by ranking among the top universities in national surveys. U.S. News and World Report’s 2015 edition of “Best Colleges” ranked Stetson sixth in its Best Regional Universities (South) and sixth on the list of Best Value — Regional Universities (South). In addition, U.S. News and World Report named Stetson University the only school in Florida — and one of only four institutions in the South — to make the Best Undergraduate Teaching — Regional Universities (South) list. Although the average high school GPA for incoming freshmen at Stetson is 3.9, the university was also recognized by U.S. News and World Report for encouraging “B” students to apply, adding that “spirit and hard work could make all the difference….” “The Stetson community embraces the transformational power of learning that is both rigorous and collaborative,” says Beth Paul, Ph.D., Stetson University provost. “Our undergraduates — indeed, all of our students — benefit from working side-by-side with accomplished teacher-scholar faculty who are dedicated deeply to the love of learning,” Provost Paul continues. Washington Monthly’s 2014 Master’s Universities list places Stetson at 12 (out of 671 schools),

and its Best Bang for the Buck list puts Stetson at 120 with a net price of $18,901 and 38 percent of students receiving Pell Grants. Schools are rated based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories: social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.D.s), and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). These categories are in line with Stetson’s recruitment and support of students who often do not have access to private higher education. “Stetson’s personalized approach to an ambitious academic learning experience incorporates top quality faculty with a focus on learning outcomes,” says Stetson President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. “We are proud to be recognized as an institution that places a high value on global citizenship, personal growth and social responsibility,” Libby adds. “Stetson dares its students to become significant in their communities, the nation and the world, and they are up to the task.” Stetson emphasizes active learning with a low student/ teacher ratio of 12:1, and 57 percent of classes have fewer than 20 students. A key factor leading to a top ranking is the academic quality of Stetson students: 61 percent of students finished in the top 25 percent of their high school graduating class. Stetson’s undergraduate enrollment this year is 2,841, a 4.1-percent increase over 2013 enrollment, and 12.9 percent higher than 2012. Since fall of 2013, Stetson has hired 60 new, fulltime faculty members to ensure its low student/teacher ratio. —Janie Graziani STETSON

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Professor Honored With Fulbright

The Link Between Music & Language I’ve always loved music, playing bass in my junior high orchestra and singing in high school chorale. And I’ve loved words and languages. Could music have influenced me as a writer? Yes, according to a new study by Northwestern neurobiologist Nina Kraus, who published her research in the Journal of Neurobiology. She has studied the brain waves of 8-to-9 year olds who live in an impoverished area and who took music lessons for at least two years. Guess what? As the NPR reporter notes, “Learning to play a musical instrument appears to strengthen the brain’s ability to capture the depth and richness of speech sounds.” “The brain wave physically resembles the sound wave,” says Kraus in an NPR story. She studied the children and their brains at the Harmony Project in Los Angeles, a place where the kids can study and practice their musical instruments after class. “Since 2008, 93 percent of our high school seniors have graduated in four years and have gone on to colleges like Dartmouth, Tulane, NYU, despite dropout rates of 50 percent or more in the 10

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neighborhoods where they live and where we site our programs,” explains Margaret Martin, founder of Harmony Project. “Music plays an important role in improving the brain’s ability to process music and language skills,” says Clara Knotts, Stetson’s visiting lecturer of music education. “Research suggests that the absence of stimulation and sound leads to increased neural noise and the ability to hear fewer words by the age of 5 for children from poverty-stricken homes,” Knotts adds. “Since the early years are crucial for development, we could be proactive by offering earlychildhood music classes to families in low-income areas,” she says. “This is indeed important research,” says Stetson Professor of Music Education Ann Small. “When I was directing the Stetson University Children’s Choir, one parent persistently declared that her child, who was having auditory processing problems in school, continually improved as she participated in Children’s Choir. “While I never conducted a study as controlled as this one, I can imagine that most of the music teachers in Volusia County would attest to these findings,” notes Small. —Bill Noblitt

Assistant Professor of English Mark Powell has won a Fulbright Scholarship Award, allowing him to teach at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in Slovakia beginning in September as part of a sabbatical that will last the fall and spring semesters. Powell has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Vaclav Havel Fellowship in Playwriting to the Prague Seminar. Powell received his B.A. in English at Citadel, his M.F.A. in

creative writing at the University of South Carolina, and his M.A.R. in religion and literature at the Yale Divinity School. Powell came to Stetson in August 2008. “I’m excited,” says Powell. “My wife and I were in Slovakia for about a week in 2006 on our way to the Prague fellowship, but I think it’ll still come as a culture shock being there for a longer time. I love it there, though. It’s mountainous, and from that you can really get the Slovak atmosphere.” The Fulbright program, founded by U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright in 1946, provides meritbased grants for international

educational exchange, with the goal of increasing mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and those of other countries by supporting students, scholars, scientists and other professionals. The program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is one of the world’s most prestigious awards programs and operates in more than 155 countries. “The students taking the course will be American studies majors,” explains Powell. “I’ve been told to expect students with a high level of English fluency, which will be helpful. The course I’m teaching will be on contempo-

Stetson Assistant English Professor and novelist Mark Powell wins a Fulbright to teach in Slovakia.

rary American fiction, so we’ll be reading writers like Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Annie Proulx, ZZ Packer, Ben Fountain and Ron Rash.” Once Powell finishes teaching for a semester in Slovakia, he will leave for Mexico in January for another semester. “We’ll be a couple hours north of Mexico City in San Miguel de Allende,” says Powell. “It’s a wonderful little town in the mountains. I’m just going to hang out there and write and do what I love.” Powell is an established author with four novels. His just-published novel is The Sheltering. “I’m glad my novel was released before I left for Slovakia,” says Powell. “That way I can do a little bit of promotion in various bookstores across the Southeast. Otherwise, I’d feel pretty guilty.” According to the dust jacket of The Sheltering, “Powell broadens the southern backdrop of his earlier work into a sprawling thriller taking readers from the Middle East to Charleston, southern Georgia, Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, and into the storied American West. “In Powell’s dark vision of modern Americana, he masterfully engages with the vexing, bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the life-and-death chaos of the battlefield.” Novelist Ron Rash has deemed Powell “the best Appalachian novelist of his generation.” “All in all, I’m thrilled to be headed abroad. I’m very grateful to the Fulbright Foundation, and I’m very grateful to work at a place like Stetson University,” he says. “The university has done such a wonderful job of supporting its faculty.” —George Salis

Stetson Law Wins Best Brief Stetson University College of Law students Jeremy Bailie, Anisha Patel and Nick Sellars won the best brief award at the Robert Orseck Memorial Moot Court Competition at the Florida Bar conference on June 25-26 in Orlando. Nick Sellars, Anisha Patel, Jeremy Bailie, Melanie Griffin (president of the Young Lawyers Division), and Andrew Pickett (chair of the Moot Court Committee) were the participants. Stetson’s Moot Court team advanced to the final round of the annual competition, arguing in front of the justices of the Florida Supreme Court. “Throughout the competition, our team had the opportunity to argue in front of state trial and appellate judges,” says Stetson Law Professor Brooke Bowman, who co-coached the team with alumnus Larry Miccolis, JD ’09. “Participating in this competition is a remarkable experience in real-life oral advocacy. The appellate judges said that our students were professional, poised and extremely prepared,” says

Bowman. The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division and the Appellate Practice Section hosted the competition. —Brandi Palmer

New Joint Degree Announced Stetson College of Law will offer a new joint-degree program starting spring 2015, allowing students to earn both a J.D. and an LL.M. in advocacy. Students in the new program will save a semester of full-time study by applying up to 12 hours of prescribed J.D. courses toward the LL.M. degree. They can then complete the LL.M. degree in less than six months by taking 12 hours of LL.M. coursework. “This innovative new program allows Stetson to build on our strengths as America’s top-ranked law school for advocacy, offers students a focused learning environment to further develop skills that lawyers use every day, and distinguishes our students in an increasingly competitive legal marketplace,” says Stetson Law Dean Christopher Pietruszkiewicz. —Brandi Palmer STETSON

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Elizabeth Hall gets a new metal roof.

Board Passes Operating Budget Stetson’s Board of Trustees approved a $124 million operating budget for 2014-15, a new strategic plan that carries the university through 2019, and heard plans for two major capital investments: Sage Science Center and a proposed aquatic center. The $124 million operating budget for the next fiscal year is a 3.5-percent increase over the current year’s budget and includes campuses in DeLand and Gulfport, as well as the Tampa Law Center and the Center at Celebration. “Demand for a Stetson education remains high, and it is our goal to keep alive the dream of a quality education while working to find maximum efficiencies within the university,” says President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. “Through the hard work of my leadership team and this board, we have a budget that is balanced, provides for basic operating cost increases and holds tuition increases to a low level. Stetson remains on a strong footing and is well positioned to continue to 12

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thrive as one of the Southeast’s top private universities.” Strategic Planning Approval of the budget is key as administrators work to implement a new five-year Strategic Map, which has been in development this year. The plan, which covers 201419, is informed by five theme areas: Stetson’s distinctiveness and value as an institution of higher learning, excellence and innovation in learning, lifelong success and significance, resources to ensure success, and organizational resilience and adaptability. “Our success and progress over the past five years have been substantial,” says Provost Beth Paul, Ph.D., who with President Libby led the strategic planning process. “That is a testament to a team of people who believed in the direction we were going and our plan to reach those goals,” she adds. “Now it’s time to build on that success with boldness and character.” The first-year priorities include specifics, such as enhancing Stetson’s national reputation, creating a learning environment that attracts intellectually motivated students, strengthening

career readiness for students, and continuing to maximize cost-effectiveness and diversify revenue streams. In addition to the five areas, the plan commits to expanding and strengthening strategic partnerships as well as being a diverse community of inclusive excellence. Capital Projects The biggest environmental change on campus is the renovation to Elizabeth Hall. Elizabeth Hall’s roof was replaced with a metal one similar to that used when the building was first built in the early 1890s. Trustees also heard reports from the administration regarding two capital projects. A $3.25 million line item for Sage Science Center — which houses science, math and computer science classrooms and faculty offices — was included in the budget bill sent to the governor by the Florida Legislature but vetoed. The appropriation would have provided for expansion of the building to 11,000 square feet, allowing the addition of faculty offices and classrooms. Increased enrollment at Stetson has led to the hiring of 60 new faculty

members since 2009, and 50 more are needed by 2016. Stetson plans to grow enrollment within STEM disciplines by enhancing public health and environmental science programs. The second capital project is a proposed aquatic center on Lake Beresford, which received approval from Volusia County for rezoning the site to a Business Planned Unit Development. Plans for the site include a training facility and storage for boats used by the Stetson crew teams, academic programs, including classrooms and labs for the natural sciences and recreational facilities for the community. Prior to county approval, Stetson and an area homeowners’ representative met and agreed to a plan that covers parking and specific restrictions designed to limit hours of use, building height and noise. Other reports included: • Stetson is a tobacco-free/ smoke-free campus since August 2014 when a policy approved earlier in the year took effect. Smoking is already prohibited in buildings on Stetson campuses, and the new plan prohibits smoking in outdoor areas, as well as placing a ban on all tobacco products. There is no plan to provide smoking areas on Stetson’s campuses. • A new parking plan for the DeLand campus, including new signage will launch in fall 2014 enabling more parking for commuter students and making it easier for visitors to find parking on campus. • The board heard a report on additional housing solutions, including acquiring and renovating an existing facility, as well as building a new residence hall. All potential solutions are still on the table for future consideration. —Janie Graziani

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The Importance of Family By Michael Sebastian Jones Sophomore, Management Major My name is Michael Sebastian Jones. But that’s just a name. It doesn’t say much about who I am as a person or what I believe in, does it? My dad’s name is Michael, and as family lines would have it, his last name is Jones too. My great-grandfather’s name was similar: He was Mikal Martzel before he moved to America. The story, part of it about love, of how we became the Joneses highlights the importance of family and the histories of our names. My great-grandfather was considered royalty in Canada. His father had come from a line of successful statesmen in Croatia, and he exuded leadership and brilliance just as they did. However, Mikal was a romantic. His father had set a plan before him — even going so far as to arrange a marriage to a woman of similar social status, someone with poise and grace and who knew what to say and when to say it. But Mikal didn’t love her. In fact, he could hardly remember her name, let alone love her. Mikal loved a young woman named Anna, who was considered far below his social standing. In secret, Mikal would take her to an old oak tree on his parents’ property, and he would whittle her tokens of his affection from fallen branches. Soon, Mikal’s father found out about his

son’s affair and was furious. He forbade them to see each other. What was a romantic to do but run away with his darling muse and start anew in another country? Mikal Martzel and Anna moved to Chicago and became Michael and Anna Jones. Together they raised three children, one of whom was my grandmother. My great-grandfather worked, while his wife tended to the children. They didn’t become rich or famous and lived within their meager means. My grandmother grew up wanting more. She wanted the love that her parents shared and an education to live well. Her parents couldn’t provide the education she desired, but for herself she found the love of her life at a young age, and together they started a profitable printing business. With their profits, they bought a house and lived happily, raising three more children, one of them being my father. My father grew up in their home in a small neighborhood in Chicago. It’s said that their house was one of the first farmhouses in the area before it became a densely populated residential area. His parents worked tirelessly, and he and his siblings experienced a childhood full of freedom and exploration. Since my grandparents worked, my father was starved for attention and affection but saw little of it. He began to count all the things he

would do for his own children to make up for the shortcomings of his own parents. His parents never got out of the middle class and couldn’t pay for higher education for my dad, uncle and aunt. My dad vowed that he would save up but not work too hard so he could give his children the attention he missed as a kid. And now, here I am, Michael Sebastian Jones, at Stetson University. I’m here, and I’ve only told you half of the story of how I came to be. We are the products of our parents and grandparents: We take the good qualities they give us and reflect them. We also take the things they weren’t able to do for us and try to provide them for our own children. Family history is important. Good or bad, our families are our first teachers. They bring us into this world and give us our first glimpses of social interaction. They also teach us what to do and what not to do with our own kids. Each step we make echoes what has come before, but it’s up to each of us to decide what comes next. One more story: After my great-grandmother died, my relatives found those wooden toys her husband lovingly carved for her while they were courting. Michael Sebastian Jones is student editorial assistant for this magazine. STETSON

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Innovation at Stetson

Innovation: An Imperative for Change By Provost Beth Paul, Ph.D.

nnovation is not only a hot trend in higher education today; it is an imperative for

do-or-die change. Is it just an economic argument, or is there more to the value of innovation in higher education? Why is Stetson University emphasizing innovation in our new Strategic Map? Over the past four decades, cautionary messages have turned into sounding alarms about the unsustainable economics of higher education and disruptive innovation as the solution. Headlines urge higher education institutions to define a new, cheaper business model. Technological innovation is seen as the answer for education that is leaner and faster. Student recruitment has become a new competitive sport, complete with scholarship jockeying and amenity envy. Attention-grabbing innovation promises a competitive edge. There are elements of reality and truth in the hyperbole of the above-mentioned arguments: The financial accessibility and resiliency of higher education are essential to continuing to realize its societal impact and value. Methods of education need to consider carefully the ways in which students who have grown up as digital natives learn best. And new student recruitment is paramount to overall institutional success â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no students, no education. STETSON

Without a healthy business model for higher education, we put at risk the transformational value of advanced learning for society.

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A strong influence on the urgency for innovation in higher education is its power to fuel thriving new business ventures. Innovations are built to sell. Schumpeter’s 20th century concept of innovation as creative destruction is echoed in Clayton Christensen’s 21st century call for disruptive innovation — a call he has applied to higher education. Innovation can help businesses capitalize on new human interests, grab the attention of and break into new markets, and increase revenue. The field of higher education has much to gain from such economic expertise and wisdom. Without a healthy business model for higher education, we put at risk the transformational value of advanced learning for society. But are we just building higher education institutions to sell in the moment, as if we are selling the latest fad or widget, only to be replaced by the next new innovation in a year or two? Or are we building higher education institutions to sustain over the long term as a critical agent of social progress? The growing overemphasis on innovation for short-term gain creeping into higher education is why innovation is often a distasteful and uncomfortable concept for the higher education community. Newness or novelty may gain initial attention, but it may not help us attain our mission-directed goals. For example, the urgency of cries for technology as a disruptive innovation in higher education is amplified by enterprising venture capitalists who see significant financial gain in technological revolution of the education market. As a response, too many in higher education have defensively held fast to tradition, rejecting innovation as frivolous, unnecessary and even dangerous. Yet, institutions like

Stetson cannot be complacent and ignore healthy dynamism that is necessary for maintaining a strong position in the market and to fulfilling the university mission. How does innovation for sustainability, rather than the odds of immediate revenue gain, help us to realize the value of innovation for Stetson’s long-term health? Instead of innovation simply for the sake of newness or novelty, how can innovation be a positive strategy for Stetson now and into the future? I believe there are four core advantages of innovation for sustainability for Stetson: First is vitality. The civil rights leader Howard Thurman observed, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” A vital learning community is alive with people who are open, asking, thinking, challenging, risking, failing and learning. At its core, innovation is about fresh thinking. It is about being imaginative, creative and clever. It is about seeking out and sitting with differing perspectives and ideas, allowing them to marinate and mingle, opening new questions, ideas and solutions. Such a learning community creates energy and momentum that attracts diverse learners of all ages. Second, at Stetson our aspiration for our students — for all in the Stetson community — is that we dare to be significant in the world. In whatever our chosen spheres of influence, how can we make the world a better place? Innovation is a process of defining and effecting change: finding or defining a different and hopefully better way of doing something. Necessary for spurring each of us to dare to be significant is a vital learning community that facilitates innovative thinking and builds the

habits of heart and mind that fuel innovative action. Stetson’s core commitment to liberal learning is critical to this goal and is amplified by intersection with professional exploration and preparation and holistic student development. Fulfilling this promise will create graduates who are coveted employees, citizens and leaders. Third, at the core of our vital learning community are teacher-scholars who are vital lifelong learners. Through their chosen profession, teacher-scholars dare to be significant as agents of knowledge discovery and architects of students’ learning and transformation. Innovation has been celebrated since the 15th-century Renaissance when scientific thought spurred knowledge discovery. Vital faculty cannot help but ask critical questions about how better to facilitate students’ learning and to advance knowledge and society. Innovations in curriculum, pedagogy and scholarship, and creative activity — that achieve great learning through success and failure — are the lifeblood of a vital learning community. Fourth, in focusing on innovation as a leading learning virtue, it goes without saying that such a vital organization will also constantly think carefully about the best way to ensure its destiny well into the future. The definition and adaptation of a sustainable business model becomes clearly connected to long-term mission advancement, rather than short-term financial gain. The exciting challenge in front of Stetson University is to embrace innovation, not in response to the hyperbole in the press, but in response to these four values of sustainability. Beth Paul, Ph.D., is Stetson’s provost. STETSON STETSON

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Innovation at Stetson

C o l o r i n g Innovation With Creativity By Gary Oliphant, Ph.D.

I give my students in my entrepreneurship class. Students are divided up into two groups and are competing against each other. The rules are: Each person must touch the ball in the alphabetical order of their last name; the ball cannot touch the ground; and only one person can be holding the ball at a time. Who can go the fastest determines the winner. The goal is to get my students to solve the problem in a creative way. et me give you a problem

You might think this exercise a mere mind game, but it’s much more than that. It’s a way to get them to exercise their poorly used creative muscles. We are born to be inventive. As children, we naturally draw upon our imagination and curiosity in an attempt to make sense of the complicated world around us. At an early age, we begin by testing and exploring everything we see, touch and hear. Then as we get older, we begin to lose our creative drive because others prod us to emphasize planning and preparing rather than experimenting and exploring. We fall into routines and are urged to be efficient rather than waste our time fooling around. When I ask students whether they are creative, most respond that they are not. However, we can reteach them how to regain their lost creativity. They can relearn

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those neglected skills and understand how crucial they are to their success no matter what field they enter. Creativity allows us to thrive in an ever-changing world and unlock a universe of possibilities. Everything we have used has been conceived of and been invented by someone — the umbrella, the pencil, the pen, the hat, everything — through creative thinking. With enhanced creativity, we don’t just see problems, we see possibilities and opportunities and create breakthrough solutions. Look around, and it becomes clear that the innovators among us are the ones succeeding in every field, from science and business to education and the arts. Nevertheless, we rarely teach creative problem-solving in school or even consider it a skill a person should learn. Furthermore, the creative process involves thinking and by its very nature is problematic

since thinking is invisible. You can’t watch a tape and observe creative thinking like an athlete can watch tapes and see the right and wrong way to do something. To develop as a creative thinker you must be provided the tools to think through anything and everything that requires out-of-the-box thinking. What is wonderful at Stetson is its liberal arts education. It is an environment that stimulates your mind to be open to fresh ideas. By taking classes that you surely would not choose if left up to you, you begin the process of breaking down the barriers that have inhibited your creative capabilities. Remember the problem stated previously. We must plan for our future, and how does this class, which you would never have taken, help you get where you are going? When we take these classes with so many different students from so many different disciplines and subjects we know little about, we bombard our senses to new experiences and see the world through many different lenses. These types of experiences open our world to new and creative ideas. Studies have shown that when faced with a challenging problem it pays to have diversity of thought and a diverse group of people to solve it. Diversity beats the brightest almost every time when developing creative solutions to the problem. Of course, there are many ways to solve problems, but having different perspectives, along with a questioning mind, leads to creative solutions. The best creative thinkers are those who plod along, who ask questions, who pursue creative solutions, who are challenged by problems and opportunities and create the connections that these different perspectives provide. This process is crucial for the creative mind. Again, we are taught efficiency. When many think of the smartest students, we normally believe that those who are quickest to answer the professor’s question, those who finish the exam first, and those who are able to hand in the project first are the most creative problem-solvers. In some cases, this may be true. However, studies have shown that students who persist and who don’t give up become the true creative problem-solvers. Like them, successful entrepreneurs thrive in an environment of instability and problems, but they understand that most competitors will give up when it gets difficult. Thus, they welcome challenges and uncertainty. In this unpredictable environment, you must not fear failure. As Stetson History Professor Eric Kurlander, Ph.D., stated in his convocation speech at Stetson University (Fall 2014): “The

Relearning a Lost Skill Is Anything But Easy. It’s Also Crucial for Innovation. problem is that failure is a necessary precondition for success. To achieve, you must risk and with risks come success and failures.” In the Prince Entrepreneurship Program, we are trying to develop a multidisciplinary approach that brings Stetson’s three schools (Business, Arts and Sciences, and Music) together to encourage students to follow their passions and open themselves to creativity and exploration that will lead both to successes and failures. Entrepreneurs know that failure is a key ingredient to creative and innovative success. We are developing courses within each of these schools that encourage entrepreneurship and creative processes that will help students navigate this world of change. All three schools bring much to the table to help our students on the path to success after college. For example, artists, painters, photographers and sculptors are keen observers of our environment. That’s an important skill set needed to solve problems. Business students can benefit from their exposure to these students. As economist Bernard Baruch stated: “Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.” One of the stated goals of the Prince Entrepreneurship Program is to develop the skill set that enables the student to pursue their passion after school. Through creativity, students can see the potential to live a life of exploration and discovery in pursuit of their dreams. We are all inventors of our own future, and creativity is the heart of innovation. Associate Business Professor Gary Oliphant, Ph.D., teaches entrepreneurship. He recently spent a Semester at Sea with his wife, Associate Business Professor Becky Oliphant, and Desmond Tutu. STETSON

The Innovators Wendy

Libby, Ph.D. —

Innovation at Stetson

The Visionary President

By Don Lineback Former Colleague of Wendy Libby at Furman University Innovation, vision and collaboration have been a hallmark of Wendy Libby, Stetson’s president, since I first met her nearly 20 years ago. Any two of those without the third would not lead to the kind of remarkable success Stetson has enjoyed in recent years. To put it another way: Constant improvement, toward a goal that is widely agreed on, has had and will continue to have cascading consequences at Stetson — more students, greater generosity from friends and alumni, better programs and facilities, and growing national and global recognition. People want to connect with Stetson because it is successful, and it reflects their own values. Against a background of national economic challenges, Stetson has proven the value of a private liberal arts education. Everyone has had a role in this process. Because a well maintained, beautiful campus speaks volumes about the quality of work within the buildings, the campus maintenance team is on the front line. (Think of boarding a well maintained plane; you have confidence that the mechanics and pilots are doing their job well too.) Students are the best advocates for Stetson, sharing their enthusiasm by word-of-mouth and through social networking. Alumni demonstrate to the world the ability to think, express themselves, analyze and synthesize — skills they gained and refined at Stetson. And at the center of it all are faculty and the quality of teaching — the primary measure of a university and the wellspring of its global reputation. From my perspective after 40 years in higher education, I’d say, “Congratulations, Stetson! Do look back at your extraordinary progress, but don’t stare. The best is yet to come.” Don Lineback, Ph.D., taught at Hollins; was dean of development 15 years at Rhodes College; was vice president at Furman for 15 years; and is now retired. 20 A

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Fish Finder

Joel

Bauman —

Vice President, Enrollment Management

By Bob Huth Catching fish is not easy, even if you know where they are, compliments of an electronic fish finder. Seeing where they are may help you feel that you have a chance to “hook” them, but that’s all it is, a chance. I remember the time I “hooked” a fish … through its tail! Imagine that everyone has a fish finder and is fishing in the best possible spots, creating boat gridlock. Their lures are sharp, shiny, and meant to look appealing. The fish are confused, uninterested and do not seem very hungry. Any fish that is actually caught must meet certain standards to be a keeper — right weight, length, sex, or type. Most of those fishing leave disappointed. Finding the right student for Stetson is a lot like fishing. In fact, prospective students can be found in a “pool.” As Stetson’s Vice President for Enrollment Management Joel Bauman knows, it takes adaptability, an innovative approach, and perseverance to land the best catch. After researching where the best students for Stetson may reside, Joel makes sure that Stetson lures are cast into the area. To improve productivity and outcomes, he started using large fishing nets such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram in addition to print media and existing networks. This increased the number of fish caught (applicants) from 2,200 undergraduates in 2011 to more than 2,800 this fall, creating more choice in selecting the best students for Stetson. His fishing has yielded significant results as the quantity of Stetson’s undergraduate enrollment is at an all-time high with 2,841 students enrolled this fall. In addition, academic quality of those students continually increased during the past three years. The battle for great students is intense, and competitive advantage can be a temporary phenomenon, requiring continued diligence and innovation. I have no doubt that Joel is already planning new strategies to make sure the best ones do not get away. P.S. I wonder why they call them “Schools of Fish”? Bob Huth is Stetson’s vice president of business and chief financial officer.

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Trailblazer

Alicia

Slater —

Associate Professor of Biology

By Terry Farrell, Ph.D. Innovative people aren’t satisfied with the status quo. They question how things are done and consistently seek a better way. This is certainly true of Associate Professor of Biology Alicia Slater. She has approached both teaching and research at Stetson in a truly innovative fashion. While already a successful teacher, she decided to alter her introductory biology class to a more student-centered, active-learning style. Her plan included providing students with online videos that they could view before class and using class time for groups of students to think their way through biological problems. Innovators don’t let roadblocks slow their progress. Alicia needed a new classroom to support teaching in a new way. She obtained funding, researched classroom design, drew a floor plan, and picked paint and carpet colors. In short, she did everything needed to make the new SCALE-UP classroom in Sage Hall a success. Alicia also has innovative ideas about collaborative research with students. Her molecular biology research program uses DNA sequencing and state-of-the-art software to study the evolution of aquatic snails and insects. While many faculty at Stetson engage with seniors in collaborative research, Alicia has started adding first-year students to her lab by pairing them with more experienced students. I recently saw the power of this approach when I attended a scientific meeting in South Carolina with her research students. Afterward, one of them (John Massey, class of 2016) presented his research and was discussing his methods with a professor from another school. That professor was asking for John’s advice about the best software package to use for his own data analysis. You are a great research mentor when your sophomore students are advising Ph.D.s. Innovative people often enjoy repeated success and spread that accomplishment. This is certainly true of Alicia. In her new role as the Provost Faculty Fellow and program design and learning assessment coordinator, she is helping transform the way many Stetson faculty teach and perform research. Terry Farrell, Ph.D., is a professor of biology at Stetson.

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Gregory

Carroll —

Creative Strategist Vice President, University Marketing

By Joel E. Jones The Windy City lived up to its weather-changing reputation as Vice President for University Marketing Greg Carroll and I peered out a high-rise window at the unsuspecting crowd below. The mild July morning was pleasant, but that changed. “That storm is quick,” I said as we watched the dark clouds roll off Lake Michigan and turn into a downpour. Carroll remarked: “Now, see, I’ll bet you’re glad you’re not down there right now.” We smiled in silent agreement as we watched people scurry for cover. “It’s almost time for the next conference session,” I said while checking my watch. “Well, back to work,” Carroll replied simply. While at this marketing conference, I began to know my new boss a little better, and our close working relationship changed my life and ignited an energy that is still reshaping Stetson. During our next session, we heard college-bound students tell us what they needed to choose the right university for them. “My time is precious. Don’t waste it,” said one student. “You better surprise me,” declared another. “Give me something to remember you.” After that session, we compared notes. “Students don’t like to be pushed,” Carroll pointed out. “Good marketing is really about great storytelling.” With some give and take, we came up with “Dare to Be Significant” as the new branding effort for Stetson. This has become a chant in our marketing and student recruitment materials and even among our university leaders’ speeches. It’s a call to action for students and others seeking an education that goes beyond success and into the realm of significance. Carroll’s insight into higher education marketing coupled with his collaborative can-do attitude have made him an innovator at Stetson, someone who dares himself and others to go beyond success and reach significance. This creative problem-solving and collaboration with the marketing staff and with Enrollment Management have helped Stetson reach its student recruitment goals and, as President Wendy Libby says, “shout the university’s story from the rooftops.” Joel E. Jones is assistant vice president for university marketing.

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Yolany

Gonell

Collaborator â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Director, Diversity and Inclusion

By Rosalie Carpenter Innovation, inspiration and motivation are what Yolany Gonell has brought to the area of Diversity and Inclusion since she began at Stetson two years ago. Her innovative approach to multicultural programming has not only increased attendance, but has sparked collaboration and integration across the entire Stetson community. By focusing on the intersection of identities, Yolany has transformed how we approach diversity education, and many across the country are beginning to emulate that model. Yolany has also been innovative in partnering with faculty to maximize the time when her speakers and performers are on campus. She has worked to have her speakers do special lectures in the classroom with students and faculty and coordinate lunch-and-learns or special bookfeasts to foster additional dialogue and reflection. This is on top of the typical performance or lecture they give. If you attend a Cross Cultural Center program, or Tri-C as we like to call it, Yolany takes an innovative approach to promote audience interaction right away. She does a call out that the audience repeats back. It is a great signature piece that lets the audience know they have just become participants and are a vital part of the learning experience. Now thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s innovation! Rosalie Carpenter is dean of students at Stetson.

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Ellen

Podgor, J.D. —

Mentor Law Professor

By Jason S. Palmer I met Professor Ellen Podgor, the Gary R. Trombley Family White Collar Crime Research Professor, on July 8, 2008, my very first day at Stetson Law and have worked closely with her for the past six years. After six years, I can say several things definitively about Ellen: She is passionate about criminal law, she has a love of teaching, and she is devoted to her students. These passions join with her involvement in student organizations, her concern for the well-being of students, and most recently, in her development of an innovative new course, White Collar Advocacy, that Ellen offers to a select group of students who apply. The students who are fortunate enough to take this class from Ellen and Southern Illinois University School of Law Professor Lucian Dervan gain not only a broad, substantive knowledge of white-collar criminal law, but also a genuine understanding of white-collar criminal processes. She devotes considerable time to working with the students to get them “up to speed.” She wants her students ready to interact with the lawyers at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) White Collar Criminal Defense College, a “boot camp” held at Stetson for lawyers seeking to learn white-collar advocacy. At the end of Ellen’s course, the students are asked to demonstrate the advocacy skills they have learned by drafting an indictment and presenting a closing argument. Not only does Ellen offer her students this new and unique experiential learning, she also focuses on their well-being. My office is right next door to hers, and I see the steady flow of students who come to her for help. Her door is always open to them as she provides guidance and advice on class material, career options, or just day-to-day time management. Ellen’s concern and care are never more evident than during Stetson’s exam period. Ellen’s poodle, Hans, is a registered therapy dog, who regularly visits with students during exams, providing a means to reduce stress while preparing for finals. Working with Ellen has allowed me to see an innovative teacher, scholar and mentor in action, and she provides all of us with a role model worth emulating. Jason S. Palmer, J.D., is a professor at Stetson’s College of Law.

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The

Temptation of Innovation B

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i l l

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Innovation at Stetson

That luscious apple of innovation is just waiting to be plucked, and it’s within reach.

tetson’s new

Strategic Map puts as its focal point “to establish Stetson as a university of choice for innovative approaches to tackling complex challenges.” Will this five-year effort make Stetson an innovative university? Maybe so. In fact, the Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence, the Innovation House and the newly established entrepreneurship minor in the School of Business Administration plus experimentation in the classroom seem to show how Stetson is taking a bite out of the innovation apple. But what will Stetson give up if it follows the pack and innovates like the rest? And what is innovation anyway? “Innovation is a novel approach to solving a problem,” explains William Ball, Ph.D., visiting professor of political science and the creator of Stetson’s Innovation House, a makerspace place for all students and faculty. “But if innovation doesn’t help solve the problem, you shouldn’t be doing it.” STETSON

Why wouldn’t anyone want to be innovative and move ahead an organization? The temptation is too great not to. To fight innovation, in other words, seems fuddy-duddy, voiced by small-minded Luddites who fight progress, technological or otherwise. Traditional liberal learning places like Stetson might seem stick-in-the-mud, colleges that can’t move beyond the stationary classroom with a wise lecturer at the front dispensing the most up-to-date knowledge and where “real,” honest-to-goodness bound books are held in the hands and read. How passé it seems. How quaint. But national experts say that higher education in general must become innovative or die, and they believe that universities like Stetson are no exception. “To play its indispensable function in the new competitive environment, the typical university must change more quickly and more fundamentally than it has been doing,” write Clayton M. Christensen and Henry J. Eyring in The Innovative University. The authors assert: “Economists teach that disruptive innovation by newcomers and creative destruction of entrenched incumbents lead to better products and services.” They applaud for-profits as disruptors that are changing the way students are educated. In fact, a recent Atlantic Magazine cover story hits higher education with “Is College Doomed? Traditional universities are in trouble. How for-profit insurgents are trying to tear down higher ed — in order to rebuild it.” In The Innovative University, former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings says, “(Higher education) is an enterprise that has yet to address the fundamental issues of how academic programs and institutions must be transformed to serve the changing educational needs of a knowledge economy. It has yet to successfully confront the impact of globalization, rapidly evolving technologies, an increasingly diverse and aging population, and an evolving marketplace characterized by new needs and paradigms.” And that’s not the end of her indictment. “Without serious self-examination and reform, institutions of higher education risk … seeing their market share substantially reduced and their services increasingly characterized by obsolescence.” But hold on. “Of course, we want to embrace innovation, but only innovation that fits Stetson,” declares Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D., Stetson University president. “And private liberal education isn’t broken. “We have to be very skeptical about manA34

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agement theories applied to what we do,” Libby adds. “We are already seeing Clay Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory losing adherents in our industry; likewise with MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).” However, Libby believes that we should weave innovation into the fabric of the place. “We must honor the past,” she says, “but write the future.” Innovate or Die Christensen hasn’t had a good few weeks. For example, a recent New Yorker article all but calls his research spurious. “Disruption is a theory of change founded on panic, anxiety, and shaky evidence,” reports Jill Lepore in The New Yorker. “Ever since (Christensen’s book) The Innovator’s Dilemma, everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted.” Then the New Yorker article notes: “There are disruption consultants, disruption conferences, and disruption seminars. The University of Southern California is beginning a new degree program on the topic of disruption. And there’s Big Bang disruption and disruption so bad that it isn’t even disruptive innovation any longer but devastating innovation.” On the other hand, The Economist magazine cover story argues: “Now a revolution has begun, thanks to three forces: rising costs, changing demand and disruptive technology. The result will be the reinvention of the university.” But this issue of The Economist also undercuts its own argument: “For most students, university remains a great deal. By one count, the boost to lifetime income from obtaining a college degree, in net-present-value terms, is as much as $590,000.” So why innovate? And even Christensen admits that “federal financial aid seems to have gummed up the disruption: The easy revenue has encouraged some schools to indiscriminately enroll, often at the expense of quality, and has discouraged cost reduction.” For example, some former for-profit Wall Street darlings, such as Corinthian Colleges, have crashed and burned. However, many innovation experts have put higher education on notice. For instance, The Economist magazine offers this warning if universities don’t embrace innovative disruption: “The Internet, which has turned businesses from newspapers through music to book retailing upside down, will upend higher

‘We are already seeing Clay Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory losing adherents in our industry.’ — Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. President, Stetson University

education. Now the MOOC, or ‘Massive Open Online Course,’ is offering students the chance to listen to star lecturers and get a degree at a fraction of the cost of attending a university.” But the magazine also points out, “MOOCs will disrupt different universities in different ways. Not all will suffer,” noting that Oxford and Harvard should be fine. “But mediocre universities may suffer the fate of many newspapers,” the magazine article continues. In that environment, “universities’ revenues would fall by more than half, employment in the industry would drop by nearly 30 percent and more than 700 institutions would shut their doors. The rest would need to reinvent themselves to survive. “Like all revolutions, the one taking place in higher education will have victims.” The upside, according to The Economist: “The reinvention of universities will benefit many more people than it hurts. Students in this rich world will have access to higher education at lower cost and greater convenience.” Finally, The Economist observes, “Reinventing an ancient institution will not be easy. But it does promise better education for many more people. Rarely have need and opportunity so neatly come together.” In another article in this issue, “The Digital Degree — The staid higher-education business is about to experience a welcome earthquake,” the writer charges: “The highereducation model of lecturing, cramming and examination has barely changed for centuries. An explosion in online learning, much of it free, means that knowledge once imparted to a lucky few has been released to anyone with a smartphone or laptop.” Christensen piles on and calls MOOCs “a potent ‘disruptive technology’ that will kill inefficient universities. Fifteen years from now, more than half of the universities (in America) will be in bankruptcy,” he warns. How scary.

What will Stetson give up if it follows the pack and innovates like the rest?

Reinventing the Learning Paradigm According to a Newsweek article titled “Reinventing the Global University,” Arizona State University President Michael Crow abolished traditional departments. He lumped them into “transdisciplinary” institutes to “promote innovation and real-world problem solving.” Newsweek calls Crow’s effort “one of the most radical redesigns in higher education since the modern research university.” STETSON STETSON

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Moreover, Stanford University is getting into the act. The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford spent a year considering how to revamp that university’s undergraduate experience in what it calls a “reimagined future” and “Stanford 2025.” “Universities across the country are recognizing that they may need to reinvent the structures of learning in order to continue serving students well into the future,” says Harry J. Elam Jr., the Freeman-Thornton Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford. One of the proposals is called “the open loop university.” It looks at learning as a series of “loops” over the course of a lifetime. “No longer called ‘alumni,’ returning students would loop back into Stanford for a midcareer refresh, while younger students might take a loop outside of Stanford to test what they are learning in an external environment,” the proposal states. Similarly, the proposal calls for “paced education,” where the “class year is replaced by adaptive learning.” Additionally, “Students progress not through the freshman through senior years, but through personalized learning phases of varying lengths,” the proposal goes on to say. “The intended outcome? Better choices about what to study deeply, along with better understanding of one’s own learning styles and strengths.” This concept also calls for redesigning the campus around “competency hubs.” The “axis flip” is another idea mentioned in the Stanford proposal. “This concept would organize the curriculum around skill competencies that could be used in many contexts over the course of a lifetime, rather than around traditional academic disciplines.” Under “purpose learning,” students would “declare a ‘mission’ and couple their work with the deeper purpose fueling it. “The goal would be to accelerate the university’s transformative contributions to the world by grounding the undergraduate experience in personal, deeply felt meaning,” according to the Stanford proposal. The Online Model Forces Change After the 2008 economic collapse, many universities and colleges, especially private ones, suffered a financial downfall not seen since the Great Depression. Some universities and colleges then joined or renewed their efforts in the online game, hoping to boost revenue through an untapped source. In fact, The New York Times called 2012 the Year of the MOOC. California Gov. Jerry Brown praised them as central to democratizA36

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ing education. Productivity and cost-cutting are two key business terms that have bled into higher education. Therefore, many innovation experts look at online as a way to control tuition costs at the nation’s colleges and universities. In another New York Times article, for instance, Christensen says, “Already traditional universities are showing the strains of a broken business model, reflecting demand and pricing pressures previously unheardof in higher education.” You can teach many more students in MOOCs than you can in a typical classroom, thus cutting costs per student, but many believe higher education isn’t asking the right questions. “The problem with this MOOC-as-laborissue argument is that it has no place for students and learning,” says Phil Hill, an education technology consultant. “Our starting point ought to be what students need and whether this is an effective form of learning.” In addition, studies have pointed to the downside of buying into the online model. Completion rates and grades are often worse than traditional campusstyle classes, according to a University of Pennsylvania study, and MOOCs have few active users. About half who registered for a class ever viewed a lecture and only garnered a 4-percent completion rate across all courses. In that study, students complained about the lack of human connection. To be clear, many reputable universities, including Harvard and Yale, have online education, hybrid programs where students take courses online supplemented by classroom attendance, or MOOCs — and sometimes all three. Should Stetson get deeper into the online and MOOC models then? “MOOCs are not innovative, and online education is old technology,” declares Ball. “The problem is that innovation is associated with the latest technology, and innovation doesn’t mean grab the next BIG thing and use it in the classroom. Saying ‘me, too’ is not innovative.” Echoing the University of Pennsylvania study, Ball says, “There’s just minimal engagement with faculty in a MOOC or sometimes

‘Our starting point ought to be what students need and whether (online) is an effective form of learning.’ — Phil Hill Education Technology Consultant

Innovate, yes, but what innovations should Stetson pick for its special brand of rigorous education?

in online education in general.” Every Stetson person interviewed is convinced such an action goes against Stetson’s close faculty connection with students, especially undergraduates. Many at the university believe this Stetson ideal enhances learning. “I am like a lot of traditional faculty who are not terribly convinced by how MOOCs are going to help Stetson or its students,” declares Eugene Huskey, Ph.D., the William R. Kenan Jr. Chair and professor of political science. “We are dealing with undergraduates who are 18 and 19 years old who you need to look in the eye and see where they are.” It strikes Huskey that MOOCs, online education in general and the for-profits “may be on the decline because we are beginning to understand the negatives of these initiatives.” Stetson has four totally online degrees — Master of Laws (LL.M.), Elder Law (LL.M.), the MBAPharmacology, and a master’s in accounting. And during the summer, the university offers several undergraduate online courses. “Can we truly be innovative in this area?” asks Sue Ryan, the Betty Drees Johnson Dean of the duPont-Ball Library. Ryan has been charged with developing a proposal for new online course offerings, but she looks at online education as an “old technology” too. She doesn’t want this way of offering courses to hamper Stetson’s reputation as a residential university campus that offers a challenging and personal education to motivated undergraduates and graduates. Ryan also knows that any skills “we give our students are obsolete in 15 minutes. So, we have to give them the skills to be creative and innovative no matter what career they pursue. “We have to remember what Stetson does well and not do anything to muck that up,” Ryan adds. “Let’s create students who think critically, who can write clearly and with vigor and who can speak compellingly. “We already do this quite well,” she says. Her goal is to take that first-rate Stetson education and go after an entirely different audience online. “We will go after a more mature population probably for certificates and master’s,” she explains. “But if it’s an inferior product, we will shoot ourselves in the foot. Therefore, we need to proceed carefully.” Bill Noblitt is editor of stetson magazine. STETSON STETSON

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Innovation at Stetson

Stetson’s Temptation

with Innovation By Bill N

usiness

ob l i tt

Associate Professor Becky Oliphant’s (Ph.D.) office is spartan, with no pictures

on the wall and few books on the shelf. It barely seems lived in. But there’s a back story. After many years, she recently moved to this new office. She claims her old office was a mess, and she decided to cull her belongings when she moved to this new one. She seems unsettled. “Change is difficult for all of us,” she explains, “even for me.”

She understands that embracing change is important to innovation, however. “We’re proposing a new minor called ‘Entrepreneurship and Innovation,’ ” she says. Professors Gary and Becky Oliphant, then, are models for the innovative spirit at Stetson. They are also explorers of creativity. (See article on Page 18 titled “Coloring Innovation With Creativity.”) They believe creativity is crucial to innovation, and they’ve incorporated creativity exercises to get students to look at problems differently. “We all face challenges in whatever we do,” explains Gary Oliphant, Ph.D., “but it’s how we deal with those challenges with creative problem-solving and persistence that determines whether we will be successful or not.”

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So how can Stetson encourage innovation on its campuses? “You need to develop a creative culture and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration,” Gary Oliphant maintains, one that rewards risk-taking even when that risk fails. “In fact, it’s OK to fail,” he says, “because you learn from failure. We, as faculty, have to know we can fail too, and we can’t be married to our student evaluations in the short term if we’re to be innovative. For example, this semester we instituted the flipped classroom in our capstone entrepreneurship course, which has been challenging but quite promising.” In other words, Stetson faculty and staff need to become entrepreneurs, “and you have

to expect a lot of resistance at first because change is difficult,” the Oliphants note as they finish one another’s sentences. They call it the 80/20 rule. “You’ll get 20 percent of any population embracing an innovation, and 80 percent who will resist,” Becky Oliphant explains. “But as the university becomes more open to innovation, those 20 percent are going to rise to the surface and encourage it in others as it becomes successful.” In addition, the Oliphants understand that embracing a new way of doing something takes time — even a few years. “You also need to streamline the bureaucracy so that change and innovation happen more quickly,” according to the Oliphants. Illustration by Stetson junior Erin McCollum

The Stetson conversation about innovation focuses on keeping the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strengths and identity.

About the artist: Erin McCollum is a junior Stetson fine arts major. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Hand Art Center. She also works as a creative consultant to Universal Studios, where she assists with the artistic designs for attractions. STETSON STETSON

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The Stetson Conversation With innovation getting such mixed reviews in the media (see article Page 32), it’s a wonder that any university or college would want to embrace it. But innovation is blowing in the wind, and Stetson is trying to find the right innovation for it — one that permeates every department, academic or otherwise, on campus. However, as Sue Ryan, dean of the duPont-Ball Library, stresses: “I don’t want to throw every innovative thing against the wall and see what sticks. Stetson has to be strategic in whatever innovation it adopts.” How did our current lecture model begin? Centuries ago, the academy depended on an expert to tell students what they needed to know. Think Plato and Aristotle, whose Academy and Lyceum became the models. That’s no longer the case, according to Program Design and Learning Assessment Coordinator and Associate Professor of Biology Alicia Slater, Ph.D., “because a multitude of information, more than one person could sift through in a hundred lifetimes, is now readily available on your smartphone and on the Internet.” No one debates whether or not Stetson should be innovative, but as President Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D., maintains, the innovation should fit the university’s character and identity. In teaching and in administrative and staff work, innovation is happening at Stetson. Competition for students, talented faculty and staff, and for crucial alumni involvement and donor dollars have forced many universities and colleges to reinvent themselves. Stetson is no exception. New ways of thinking and teaching are flowing into all areas of the university, although maybe at a slower, more thoughtful pace than some would like. “We have to reach into the past and think about what a university and college should do,” believes Visiting Political Science Professor William Ball, Ph.D., creator of the Innovation House on campus. “Some disruptive change flies in the face of what we’re doing here,” Ball points out. “One of the primary reasons that higher education exists is to pass on the cultural traditions of a society and to conserve the wisdom and artifacts that have been accumulated for thousands of years. “So throwing those things away is not the kind of disruption Stetson needs,” he adds. Like many interviewed for this article, Ball believes that automating teaching through technology without a goal is wrongheaded. Likewise, he believes there should be a balance 40

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between technological innovation in the academy and the conservative goal of passing on the ideas of the ages. Ball admits that’s quite a juggling act. “The problem is that innovation often is associated with the latest technology,” he says, “but innovation doesn’t mean grab the latest, greatest thing no matter what it is.” It has to fit with what you want to accomplish. “It’s a one-on-one connection between the professor and a student that leads to true learning.” On the other hand, he says: “We have to be willing to embrace change where it makes sense.” But Stetson is the perfect place for innovation to happen, according to Religious Studies Professor Phillip Lucas, Ph.D., “because we bring creative people here, people who study the world and changing circumstances, whether it’s in history or in sociology or in business or in music. “We have our fingers on the pulse of human societies, cultures and civilizations,” he adds. “I think that’s inherent in what a university is, particularly our university.” Like the Oliphants, Lucas believes that the university must first “create a campus environment that is supportive and conducive to innovation.” Innovation at Stetson Many areas of the university value and put in place innovative best practices. Here are just a few programs that have taken unique and innovative approaches to enhance Stetson’s reputation and its students’ academic, learning and social experiences: • Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence — Although the center is still in the planning stages, new Associate Provost Rosalie Richards, Ph.D., believes that empowering faculty to take risks and encouraging experimentation, collaboration and mentoring among faculty will be important components of the center. The center will also inspire interdisciplinary work among faculty in different departments. Taken together, these efforts will encourage innovation in the classroom, according to Richards. • SCALE-UP Classroom — An interactive, high-technology classroom technique, which has been in existence at other universities and colleges for several years, SCALE-UP made its appearance last year in Associate Professor of Biology Alicia Slater’s (Ph.D.) introduction to biology class. Rather than the sage on the stage, this method requires the students to take a more active role in their education while the professor serves as the guide on the side. Over the summer, Slater taught other

New ways of thinking and teaching are flowing into all areas of Stetson, although maybe at a slower, more thoughtful pace.

faculty teaching best practices. • Entrepreneurship for all — The Oliphants are building a minor to help students, whether in business, arts and sciences or music, learn how to create a business or find ways to make a difference by following their individual passions. In fact, the Coleman Foundation recently awarded four professors a one-year, $20,000 grant to support entrepreneurial and self-employment education at Stetson. The Faculty Entrepreneurship Fellows are Gary Oliphant, Ph.D.; Eric Kurlander, Ph.D., professor of history; Daniel Plante, Ph.D., professor of math and computer science; Patrece Robinson, adjunct professor of music; and Nathan Wolek, Ph.D., associate professor of digital arts. They will make this collaborative entrepreneurship effort truly cross-disciplinary. • College of Law — Since its founding, says Dean Christopher Pietruszkiewicz, Stetson University College of Law has been innovative, the first to create a trial advocacy course in 1902 and the first law school in Florida to create a clinic in 1938. Its highly regarded advocacy, legal writing, elder law and veterans law programs remain a part of that legacy. The College of Law also plans a new joint-degree program, the J.D./LL.M. in advocacy, which will begin in the spring of 2015. Pietruszkiewicz notes that he had barely seen a courtroom when he was a law student. At Stetson, the opposite is true, with intense mock trial opportunities including the ability to appear in court on behalf of a client, along with externship experiences in the community. Innovative, practice-ready skills are an important part of Stetson College of Law’s education. And because of these efforts, Stetson law students get jobs with its employment rate for recent graduates at nine percent above the national average. • duPont-Ball Library — The library recently received the 2014 Florida NEFLIN Award for Innovation for collaboration with Stetson chemistry faculty using 3-D printing. The chemistry students developed 3-D chemical models in a lab activity. “No library can stand still,” Dean Ryan says. “When I look at technological innovation for the library, however, I want it to be a true learning technology. Learning and teaching are always in the back of my mind.” Now music students, math students and those from many other disciplines have used the library’s 3-D printing capability. The library also has Google Glass on hand for filming and other projects. “I am really big about libraries not being depositories anymore,” Ryan adds. “Our library is a learning center.” In fact, Ryan is considering openSTETSON

ing up an area 24/7 for technology-driven projects and transferring the Innovation House to the library. “And we are getting rid of thousands of hard-bound books and replacing them with more than 100,000 e-books in the last two years.” Moreover, the library will emphasize helping Stetson students become more information-literate and be able to separate good information from the shoddy. • Student Life — Collaborating with faculty, Vice President of Student Affairs Christopher Kandus-Fisher, Ed.D., and Assistant Provost for Student Success Lua Hancock, Ed.D., and their staffs have taken a holistic approach to the Stetson student experience. Stetson used to view its students’ academic and social lives separately. Within the past four years, however, the Stetson student life and success teams and their faculty colleagues began helping students by interconnecting the academic experience with success coaching and academic advising; student residential living; fun and fitness activities; volunteer and community engagement pursuits; spiritual life; intercultural, multicultural and study-abroad experiences; and internships, future jobs or graduate programs. • University Marketing — When Greg Carroll, vice president for university marketing, arrived five years ago, he found a university that primarily focused on three counties in Florida and with an enrollment shortfall that threatened the university financially. Using rich data mined from previous stakeholder opinion surveys, he began to work with his team to rebrand Stetson with the “Significance” campaign and to tell stories about the university in captivating ways, especially through Stetson Today, the university’s daily online newspaper (www.stetson.edu/ portal/stetson-today). Carroll remembers a one-dimensional marketing program that focused on electronic media. Today, with events, media relations, public relations, creative services, law communications, the Web, and stetson magazine, the university has broadened its marketing mix with razor-sharp messaging. In essence, University Marketing is modeled after an advertising/public-relations agency for the campus. • Enrollment Management — With Carroll’s assistance and collaboration, Vice President of Enrollment Management Joel Bauman brought deep data to student recruitment marketing, along with creating a face-toface effective sales team. The results have been impressive. Undergraduate enrollment is at record numbers this year, and Stetson is a year ahead of its goal of 3,000 undergraduates. • Innovation House — Although the library 42

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has dipped its toe in the water with 3-D printing, Innovation House in a garage behind the Gillespie Museum offers students 24/7 access to 3-D printers and other tools to work on projects for many disciplines. (See article about the Innovation House on page 6.) Students are building beehives for environmental study or actual prototypes for entrepreneurial pitch sessions. The original funding came from the Prince Entrepreneurship Program. More than 60 students across many disciplines have used the tools in Innovation House. A Quiet Revolution Associate Professor of Biology Alicia Slater, Ph.D., faced another sleepless night. When she closed her eyes, all she could see were hands raised and students shouting, “Dr. Slater! Dr. Slater!” That’s one drawback to being an innovator. You end up fretting over your innovation and how it can best work for your students. Slater knew when she brought the flipped classroom called SCALE-UP to Stetson that there would be growing pains. But she didn’t know at the time how that pain might seep into her nights. “The workload for me was insane. I was exhausted.” This type of flipped classroom relies on high technology to engage already prepared students in class. In this case, she thought she might have been a little crazy to bring this new form of teaching to this introductory biology class of about 68 students. Flipped classrooms have been around for several years, but Slater is adapting the method to Stetson’s character. “I pulled all-nighters like I used to do in graduate school,” she recalls. One of those long nights, she recorded an online lecture for her students in the garden level of the library. That night, she heard students heading to downtown DeLand at 10 p.m. She then heard those same boisterous students as they returned to campus at 4 a.m. And her students had to work just as hard as she did. In a flipped classroom, the students must know the material before they even consider entering class. If they don’t, the other students apply a “why-do-you-even-bother-tocome” pressure. Because the students have to take an active part in their own education, they at first think, “This is just too much work.” It’s easier, then, to be passive learners who listen to a sage on the stage lecture. Slater even admits it’s easier for her to give a lecture. Her SCALE-UP class, then, is challenging for everyone. She’ll tell you about the nightmare of flipping a classroom, but she also

‘Innovation doesn’t mean grabbing the latest thing. It’s the personal connection between a professor and a student that leads to true learning.’

knows that research about learning supports this technique. Students become more engaged in what they learn and hold on to that information longer. And they improve and master the subject better. By the end of the semester, student achievement on Slater’s tests and grades in general shot up from previous years. Why did she push for this method? “Technology in one way has drowned us with information,” she explains. “On the other hand, it’s allowed me to use time outside the classroom to deliver information to the students. “And that changes the paradigm for teaching.” She can then spend more time in the classroom asking more sophisticated questions and showing students how a scientist works to solve problems. In short, they begin to think critically about what they’ve learned. To Slater, therefore, the flipped classroom helps students practice what they learn. “You can’t ask a music student to play a really complicated piece of music at the end of the semester but never give them time to practice,” she explains. “People naturally get better with practice.” Once someone learns how to be a mature learner and not a passive listener, they are independent. “Their relationship with you as the teacher becomes very different,” Slater points out. “However, innovative approaches to teaching have to start with clearly defined learning outcomes, which most people find as interesting as a cardboard box,” Slater says. “It’s a backward way of doing things.” The students definitely pushed back, Slater remembers, but by the end of the semester, they began to understand the method to this madness. One student wrote on his class evaluation: “Dr. Slater is by far the most challenging instructor I have ever had. She holds students to a higher standard, and her methods can be quite shocking to those who expect to be given the answers. “I will admit I was not a happy camper at the start of the semester due to the perceived unrelenting demands,” the student continues. “She actually did me a favor by forcing me to put forth more effort rather than simply passively listening to a professor lecture and reading a textbook.” This particular student sums up how one quiet revolution is taking place at Stetson, and it began last year in this particular flipped classroom. Bill Noblitt is editor of stetson magazine. STETSON

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Innovation at Stetson

Turning a Theory

on Its HEAD B y R o n a l d W. W i l l i a m s o n

A Stetson alumnus looked at a 450-year-old problem from a different, out-of-the-box perspective, one that took an innovative approach to (maybe) find the (real) oldest fort in North America. He went to Paris and used his French language skills to study old maps and records. What he found challenges the status quo. Now, his search is on. STETSON STETSON

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START at the beginning. Examine primary sources. Do the math. Walk the ground.

Basic tenets of investigation aren’t innovative in themselves, but the simple, elemental approach can be a powerful innovation when it swerves off the beaten path to challenge long-held, predominant beliefs. A challenge to pillars of wisdom can be an audacious and potent innovation. It can be a bit bruising too, says Fletcher Crowe, Ph.D., B.A. ’65, a historian, former professor and career writer whose research touches a mystery at the deepest roots of United States history. His off-the-path work contradicts an important bit of established wisdom about short-lived “French Florida” and as such, he says, has been misrepresented, misunderstood and marginalized. The scholarly snubs bother him a little, but A 46

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his confidence is unshaken. “They’re wrong, and we’re going to prove it,” says Crowe, project historian for the Fort Caroline Archaeology Project, a nonprofit that’s now involved in searching southeast Georgia for indisputable evidence of the 450-year-old fort. He’s certain the project is looking in the right place, and that history will be rewritten as a result of this work. “Opposing opinions are expected since we take such a controversial and unorthodox position,” explains Crowe of Gainesville, “but our work is sound and scientific, well researched and carefully backed by years of study of historical documents.” Traditional View Wrong? The project’s array of evidence argues that the traditional view is wrong about the place where hundreds of French settlers, many fleeing religious persecution, landed in 1564 to build houses and a fort they named for their king’s Carolingian dynasty. Fifteen months later, the Spanish king ordered the fledgling colony sacked. Hundreds of settlers were killed, the colony annihilated, and French ambitions on the North American coast were squelched forever. It had been Europe’s first attempt to build a permanent colony in what is now the United States. The course of North American history changed there, but the site of that defining European clash is lost. Numerous theories exist, but the prevailing view of historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and others is that the bloody clash of cultures occurred on the south bank of the St. Johns River, just east of Jacksonville. The place is St. Johns Bluff, location of the National Park Service’s 1953 Fort Caroline National Memorial, a site backed with voluminous documentary evidence and maps — but not archaeological evidence. An outdoor interpretive exhibit of the fort stands near the museum at the memorial, but no one has discovered hard proof of a fort or colony there, despite many excavations and searches to prove the 150-year-old belief. The failures are understandable, says Crowe. “It’s because Fort Caroline was not near Jacksonville!” he declares. “It was on a river in southeast Georgia!” That’s where archaeology project field studies are underway and led by principal investigator Anita Spring, Ph.D., a University of Florida anthropology professor emeritus who admits they have “a highly unorthodox thesis.” The project’s focus in southeast Georgia has drawn skeptics, but they don’t dampen the

convictions of Spring and Crowe. “We are convinced that the evidence we have is clear,” asserts Crowe. “We hope to prove them wrong.” The project has conducted several expeditions in the Altamaha Delta but has found no Fort Caroline artifacts. “The team is making big plans for future investigations,” Crowe says in late summer. “We will make another grant application for further work and will keep our fingers crossed, while expanding our archaeology efforts to other rivers.” Crowe learned of Fort Caroline long ago from his European history studies at Stetson and Florida State University graduate school, but his interest intensified two years ago when he read a book written by 16th-century French explorer Jean Ribault. Soon Crowe immersed himself in the subject. It surprised him that most research came from Spanish perspectives, not French. “I found this to be too biased,” Crowe points out, realizing he had the skills to research the original texts himself. “I am fluent in French and had taken all those courses at Stetson under Malcolm Wynn, Ph.D., that dealt, in one way or another, with Renaissance France, and I could read 16thcentury French.” The Tipping Point A tipping point came when he read of French mutineers who told Spanish soldiers that the fort was at 31-degrees latitude, Crowe recalls, about the same as Brunswick, Ga., and 1-degree north of the St. Johns. “That was a huge discovery,” he remembers. “I was captivated, hook, line and sinker, and that moment cascaded into two years of scholarship on the fort. “I came to the conclusion that the story of Fort Caroline had not been told very well from the French point of view. Everything about the French in Florida seemed to have a Spanish bias.” He began work on a French perspective. Crowe did not accept the conventional wisdom at face value. He started at the beginning, sought out primary sources and applied basic research principles first learned at Stetson. Crowe flew to Paris to study relevant 16thcentury materials at the Bibliothèque nationale, seeking eyewitness narratives and navigation details. The search for maps, documents and original source manuscripts took him to other institutions with significant primary materials in French, Spanish, English and Latin. He

questioned earlier translations. He and his research partner, Spring, reconstructed words from extinct languages spoken by Native Americans near Fort Caroline. They pored over the earliest maps and applied precise calculations from later GPS readings and detailed coastal charts of today. They walked miles on the sandy shorelines of the Altamaha Delta. “The Fort Caroline Archaeology Project has developed a checklist of 42 characteristics of the fort’s location,” says Crowe, “and any proposed site for the fort can be tested and scored using those criteria. Many of the purported claims for the location of the fort do not even come close to meeting those site requirements.” Sharing Their Rationale Since the research went public in February 2014, Spring and Crowe have continuously shared their findings and rationale at town meetings, historical societies and scholarly conferences in Georgia and Florida. Their work meets with mixed reviews, as one might expect of a theory that questions the status quo. Crowe plans to use project research to publish a book about Fort Caroline, “from its enthusiastic inception to its woeful conclusion” and based on the belief that the fort was along the Altamaha — not along the St. Johns. The book, he says, will be dedicated to the Stetson professor who introduced him to Renaissance France and helped him in a personal sense as well. “He was a major influence in my life,” Crowe now says. “I remember Stan,” Wynn, now 88, says. “He was an excellent student.” Crowe was known by his middle name while at Stetson. “He took four of my classes and got A’s in all of them,” recalls Wynn. “He had a very high GPA.” Wynn retired in 2000 after 48 years on Stetson’s faculty. A scholarship for history and political science students is named for him, and now he’ll have a book dedicated to him. “Dr. Wynn introduced me to myself,” Crowe says. “He believed in me and my potential. He encouraged me; he honored my talents and promoted the development of my skills. He made me feel that I could become a successful and capable adult.” “It’s very kind of him to dedicate a book to me,” says Wynn. “Stan says I helped interest him in this subject, and I’m glad I did.” Wynn expected his students to exhibit exceptionally good writing skills, Crowe remembers. He was strict about grammar, vocabulary, organization and construction.

“Being held to standards like that can be tough, but those standards stay with you for the rest of your life,” notes Crowe. Another influencing professor was Hugh McEniry, Ph.D., an English professor who became university dean over the span of 1940-67. Crowe was one of the select students regularly invited to McEniry’s home to contemplate and discuss democracy, law, enlightenment and other important concepts. “It was magnificent,” Crowe says, recalling the circle of scholars. While at Stetson, Crowe participated in the Junior Year Abroad Program and enrolled at the Center for Advanced European Studies in Strasbourg, France. Crowe knew he wanted to be a historian. His passion for history grew when his family vacationed at historic sites and when he worked as a United Nations staffer one summer in the Gaza Strip traveling in neighboring countries. “The strongest and most lasting influence Stetson had on me,” says Crowe, is a “solid grounding in the humanities.” Now that he’s retired and more reflective of life’s values and meaning, Crowe realizes the great value of the “true liberal arts” education he experienced at Stetson and is grateful for that unfailing foundation. And the Fort Caroline Archaeology Project infused new purpose into his life. “I find deepest meaning and significance in trying to find this fort and have it preserved and protected for the legacy of generations to come,” he says. This fort predates St. Augustine, the nation’s oldest city, he contends, as well as predating the Lost Colony of Roanoke by 21 years, Jamestown by more than four decades and the landing of the Pilgrims by 56 years. Children are taught about these places and their founders, but the story of Fort Caroline and its characters tends to be lost. “We need to set the record straight,” he insists. His project colleague says Crowe’s dedication is remarkable. “A highly unorthodox thesis like our Fort Caroline work,” says Spring, “demands great dedication, and Fletcher exemplifies that spirit admirably. He is an excellent researcher, questioning and examining every hint and clue.” Something Out of the Ground “Dr. Crowe is a tremendous scholar and historian whose research is very sound,” adds coastal ecologist Phillip Flournoy, now retired from a career with the University of Georgia

and the state’s Department of Natural Resources. Flournoy has confidence in Crowe’s work and believes he’s right about Fort Caroline on the Altamaha, “but the final determination will come when something of a concrete archaeological nature comes out of the ground.” That “something out of the ground” perspective echoes the thoughts of many authorities who disagree with the Altamaha theory but admire valuable research. One is the renowned colonial-era historian Daniel Schafer, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of North Florida, who applauds the work but wants to see archaeological evidence. A Fort Caroline on the Altamaha would be fine with him, says Schafer, who sees the current debate as a possible basis for creative disruption of old tenets. “What really matters is locating the fort,” says Shafer. He has an innovative notion about that: establishment of a dream team of top multidisciplined scholars and specialists to work tirelessly until the mystery is set to rest, and the story properly told. Crowe and Spring aim to set the mystery to rest without a dream team and tell a more accurate version of the old story, an Altamaha River story. But the old St. Johns River story told at the Fort Caroline National Memorial won’t be easily changed, says Barbara Goodman, the National Park Service superintendent who oversees the memorial and the museum there. “The work on the Altamaha won’t change the story told at the memorial unless the lost fort is found elsewhere,” says Goodman. “A theory is only a theory until it is proven. The mystery of Fort Caroline remains a mystery.” Goodman lauds the Crowe/Spring work. “Questioning leads to discoveries,” she says. Skeptics like Goodman and others don’t shake the resolve of Crowe or Spring. “Sometimes I can feel a little dispirited and frustrated that we have not found anything concrete in the seven or eight places we’ve tested,” says Crowe. “There is a lot of chicanery related to Fort Caroline, but the simple truth is this: Our evidence is scientific and sound; the fort was constructed near the delta of the Altamaha,” Crowe also notes. “This means that despite all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, we are certain that we are right, and we must carry on.” Ronald W. Williamson is a freelance writer living in DeLand, Fla., and a frequent contributor to this magazine. STETSON

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Stopping the Slaughter

Banned Books and Bad Behavior Reading for pleasure can positively affect a student’s GPA. Required reading for school? Not so much, according to a recent study by Professor Chris Ferguson, Ph.D., chair of the psychology department at Stetson University. Ferguson, who is probably best known for his ongoing investigation on the effects of violent video games, decided to conduct research on “banned” books because so little is known about the effects such books have on readers. “Many books targeted to young readers are banned or challenged in school and public libraries because of ‘edgy’ violent, sexual or occult content,” explains Ferguson. “Little is known about the possible relationship between banned books and negative outcomes in children,” he adds. For the research, Ferguson studied the responses of 282 12to-18-year-old students who were asked whether they had read any of 30 banned or challenged books. Included on the list were The Hunger Games, the Harry Potter series, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, And Tango Makes Three, and Thirteen Reasons Why. 48

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“Concerns about objectionable content usually posit a relationship between consuming such content and some form of harm related to mental health, or aggressive or anti-social behavior,” says Ferguson. “These arguments are common when dealing with censorship,” Ferguson adds. Among the results: • Banned books did not predict GPA or violent/nonviolent crime. • GPA was predicted by increased reading for pleasure, but not required school reading. • Banned books are associated with increased civic behavior (doing good for society) and low risk of anti-social behavior. “A relationship does exist between banned book reading and mental health symptoms in a small subsample of readers,” says Ferguson, which was an unexpected outcome. “Whether that relationship is causal or cathartic requires further research.” Ferguson’s research, “Is Reading ‘Banned’ Books Associated With Behavior Problems in Young Readers? The Influence of Controversial Young Adult Books on the Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents,” was published this year in the American Psychological Association’s magazine, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts. —Janie Graziani

When Stetson Law student Ethan Arthur began researching an independent study project on ways to end the ivory market and slaughter of African elephants, he had no idea that the project would take him to Arlington, Va. As part of his project in Law Professor Lance Long’s Environmental Advocacy course at Stetson, Arthur was asked to collaborate with a government agency on finding a solution to an environmental crisis. He spent his spring break presenting his solution to African elephant slaughter and ivory trade at an Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking meeting. “The U.S. is considering more stringent regulation of its own ivory trade, and many people took advantage of the public comment portion of the council meeting to voice their opinions,” says Arthur. According to a New York Daily News article, 96 African elephants are killed by poachers every day for their tusks, resulting in the slaughter of about 35,000 elephants per year. The African elephant will face extinction in a decade if the slaughter is not curbed, according to the article. “While most people at the council meeting seemed to agree that stemming the demand for illicit ivory is vital, there is still some disagreement about the best way to accomplish this goal.” Stopping the legal trade within China could curb the demand for ivory that elephant poachers are working to supply, he explains. His proposal on how to stop elephant poaching in Africa was published in the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy. —Brandi Palmer

Jennifer Gooch, a senior majoring in marine biology at Stetson, with one of her water friends, a leatherback turtle.

Water Friends Through the years, Melissa Gibbs, Ph.D., associate professor of biology, has conducted research on the armored catfish species, particularly around two ways catfish are impacting the environment at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Fla. One of the issues is that catfish attach themselves to the manatees that come into the spring to enjoy

the warm water. The catfish graze on algae on the manatees, disturbing and stressing the mammals. The other issue that is affecting the spring ecosystem is the catfish feces, which act as a powerful fertilizer and bolster algae growth in the area, altering the nutrient and oxygen levels of the spring run. “There are a couple of initiatives centered on armored catfish, which is a nonnative, invasive

species,” explains Gibbs, who also has conducted this research with Kirsten Work, Ph.D., associate professor of biology. “I’ve been researching and publishing on the basic biology of this species, including the reproductive patterns, how long they live, how fast they grow,” Gibbs continues. “This research allows us to understand the species better and help manage it better in our ecosystem.”

Research on armored catfish is one of many Stetson University freshwater initiatives. These initiatives seek to integrate faculty and student research, management and policy pertaining to water locally and regionally, along with international connections. While promotion of sustainability is an overarching goal for Stetson, the study and research of water issues provides a distinctive opportunity for interdisciplinary teaching, research and community engagement. “You look at a map of Florida, and there is water all over the place,” Gibbs points out. “When you look at institutions that study water, it is usually marine-related. We have always had an aquatic and marine biology program, because aquatic — freshwater — is really important, but it is often not studied as much as marine systems are. “Studies show that if you don’t have enough green space and an appealing natural environment to view it lowers the quality of life for humans,” Gibbs adds. “We need freshwater for the health of the wildlife and the environment, so having a healthy ecosystem is not only important for a biologist, it is important for everyone,” says Gibbs. Students are actively involved in the study of armored catfish as well as other projects related to Stetson’s freshwater initiatives. Jennifer Gooch, a senior majoring in marine biology at Stetson, is working alongside Gibbs on her most recent project. “Jennifer is researching the age and growth of catfish, particularly looking at males versus females. She is analyzing the catfish otoliths (ear-stones) to determine growth rate and age,” says Gibbs. “Jennifer will separate males and females and compare them to available data and develop a paper

with the results, hopefully something we can later publish. “We have had seniors in the department working on previous research, so the study Jennifer is conducting will provide enough data to improve upon studies already done and will allow us to demonstrate more accurate findings,” Gibbs says. “As a marine biology student, one of the most rewarding things is making a difference through your work,” says Gooch. “This research will allow us to help Blue Spring by providing sufficient data to design a plan to control an invasive species. “The practical experience I’m getting through this project is not only giving me an in-depth look at the scholarly world of freshwater studies,” maintains Gooch, “but it is also teaching me the necessary skills to continue researching other species of fish throughout my career, and that is very rewarding.” Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Gooch plans to pursue a master’s degree in marine biology after graduating from Stetson in May 2015. As a senior, Gooch continues to intern and volunteer in the marine biology field, both locally and internationally. “After volunteering at the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, Fla., last year, I had the opportunity to do an internship in Grenada this summer working with leatherback turtles, which are the largest species of sea turtles,” says Gooch. “We were based in Levera Beach, the third-largest nesting area for these turtles in the world. Studying the nesting habits of this species helped me determine that I definitely want to work with larger animals and outdoors as much as possible.” —Michael van Oppen STETSON

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Three for ‘The Show’

Yes, There Are Hatters in the Major Leagues.

B y T e d T rox e l ’ 67 Stetson baseball has enjoyed great success over the past 35 years under the guidance of legendary Coach Pete Dunn. Under Dunn, the Hatters have garnered eight conference championships and an amazing 16 NCAA postseason appearances. And there’s a behind-the-scenes success story to tell as well. A total of 10 Stetson players have reached Major League’s The Show. However, never in Stetson’s illustrious baseball history have former players enjoyed the success of three former Hatters. The longest-tenured Major League Baseball player is Chris Johnson of Fort Myers, the son of Ron Johnson, a longtime player and coach who currently manages the AAA Norfolk Tides. While a Hatter, Chris had a lifetime batting average of .380 and was named to several All-America teams. Johnson reached Major League Baseball in 2010 with the Houston Astros and enjoyed immediate success, hitting a rookie best .309. CJ, as he is known to fans and teammates, was traded to the Atlanta Braves and became their regular third baseman in 2013, coincidentally replacing the recently retired Chipper Jones, the son of former Hatter Larry Jones and Dunn’s godson. CJ had a breakout performance in 2013, contending for the National League batting crown, ultimately finishing with the 50

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league’s second best average at .321. This season, he is hitting .276 with 25 doubles, eight homers and 51 RBIs. Notably, he has greatly improved his defense and currently leads the National League in fielding percentage, having made only four errors in Atlanta’s first 124 games. CJ was recently rewarded for his outstanding performance with a three-year, $23 million contract. “Looking back, I realize what an honor it was to have had the opportunity to play for Stetson,” CJ asserts. “Stetson’s baseball program is unsurpassed and certainly continues to be one of the best in the nation. That, coupled with the outstanding academic program, offered the best of both worlds to me. I will always have great memories of the long-term friends I’ve made during my college years and am grateful for the impact that Stetson has had on my life both then and now.” Another star player, Corey Kluber, a Texas product, was an outstanding pitcher for the Hatters 2005-07. He helped the Hatters reach the NCAA regionals all three years. The San Diego Padres drafted and later traded Kluber to the Cleveland Indians, where he first reached MLB in 2012. The next season, he became a mainstay in the Indians’ starting rotation with an 11-5 record. In mid-September, Kluber

Chris “CJ” Johnson, one of three Hatters in the Majors, thinks about stealing base.

continued his bid for the American League Cy Young Award by winning his 16th game and striking out 14 Houston Astros. He had two strikeouts in each of the seven innings he pitched. “My three years playing for Stetson were an invaluable experience that really laid the groundwork for my professional career,” says Kluber. “The things I learned from Coach Dunn and his staff have been lessons that have stayed with me and guided me through my path to the Major Leagues,” Kluber says. “Looking back, I’m not sure I’d be able to be where I am had it not been for my time at Stetson.” This year established Kluber as one of MLB’s best pitchers. The Indians’ “ace” recently became the first pitcher in MLB history to pitch consecutive games facing only 28 batters. Still another star player is Jacob deGrom of DeLeon Springs, a Hatter infielder 2007-09. In his senior season at Stetson, Dunn asked Jake to change to pitching. At first, deGrom was reluctant, but the change proved advantageous as Jake enjoyed a successful season. The New York Mets drafted him shortly thereafter. deGrom reached MLB in 2014, and after a slow start, he has emerged as one of the Met’s best starting pitchers. In mid-September, deGrom tied a MLB record by striking out the first eight batters of the game against the Miami Marlins. Jake ended up with a career best 13 strikeouts. The Sporting News named the Met’s deGrom NL Rookie of the Year for 2014. Ted Troxel played for the Hatters under coaches Doc Johnson and Bob Weickel. He is a semi-retired attorney who divides his time between Pensacola, Fla., and Pueblo, Colo. STETSON

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Promoting Teaching Innovation “The irony of the college professor is that we’re not taught to teach,” says Terry Farrell, Ph.D., professor of biology and a Brown Faculty Fellow. “We were just thrown into classrooms during graduate school and expected to teach our discipline.” Farrell figured it out well enough over the ensuing 25 years at Stetson, enough to have garnered the university’s highest honors for outstanding teaching. Today, however, with the recent launch of Stetson’s new Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence, new faculty will have a shorter learning curve — and readily benefit from a wealth of resources right on their own campus. “Stetson’s academic atmosphere has over the years produced wonderful learning opportunities for many young people,” says Trustee Hyatt Brown, who with his wife, Cici, also a trustee, provided the funds to establish the Brown Center. “We are proud to support Stetson’s talented faculty and students by creating a center that champions the infusion of new ideas into the community. We view the Brown Center as the spark that will elevate the university as a nationally recognized authority in teaching and learning.” The Brown Center not only will support all faculty as they immerse themselves in and become refreshed by their own learning, but it will also enable faculty to share new knowledge with their students, connecting with them in ways that tangibly improve learning. A distinctive feature is the 52

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addition of visiting postdoctoral faculty — “who bring fresh ideas and up-to-date skill sets in from the outside world,” Farrell says. They place high value on effective teaching, often seeking careers in environments similar to Stetson. John Freedman, a Brown Visiting Scholar, was one of these. In short, “the Brown Center is a hub of empowerment to nurture faculty vitality and vibrancy,” says Rosalie Richards, Ph.D., who is leading its development. Richards joined Stetson in July

‘The Brown Center is a hub of empowerment to nurture faculty vitality and vibrancy.’ —Rosalie Richards Associate Provost as associate provost for faculty development and professor of chemistry and education. Two new visiting post-doc faculty have also come on board: Patrick Guilbaud in learning technology and Damian McCleod in integrative health. One of the Brown Center’s first activities is replicating the success of Associate Professor of Biology Alicia Slater’s (Ph.D.) project that involved technology usage, current research on how people learn, and classroom design. Last summer, Stetson transformed a classroom in Sage Hall into a SCALE-UP learning environment — meaning a StudentCentered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down (or “flipped”) Pedagogies. A year later, it’s resulted in pathbreaking

changes in how Stetson teaches introductory courses in biology and chemistry, long chided as “weed-out” courses with which many students struggle, says Provost Beth Paul. In just one semester, students achieved remarkable gains in learning in these redesigned courses. This summer, Slater conducted a Brown Faculty Development Workshop for four faculty teams from across the university to help

them “flip” other important gateway courses to enhance teaching effectiveness — and extend the ripple effect to more students. “Stetson’s faculty have pushed my education in directions that I never would have thought possible,” says Joe Palermo, a junior digital arts major. “Stetson is different: Professors know their students and can focus and direct education in a way that matters.” — Amy Gipson

Deep learning in the deep thanks to the Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence. Upper right, Brown Visiting Scholar John Freedman. Lower right, a spotted sea hare (sea slug) with an unusual defense strategy.

Enthusiasm for All Things Fishy Last year, Biology’s Brown Visiting Scholar John Freedman taught a fish ecology course in the same semester I taught invertebrate zoology. John, with his boundless enthusiasm for all things fishy, suggested we take our students to a marine lab in the Florida Keys

over Spring Break. Each day, we spent 12 hours on the beaches and in the water. Each night, we examined books and websites to learn more about the huge biodiversity we had encountered. A student remarked that he was surprised that a large sea slug he found released a load of ink when disturbed. His observation and ideas about why this might occur set off a frenzy of activity, research and discussion.

On some spring breaks, students party a lot; on this one, we debated the adaptive significance of inking and swam with sharks and moray eels. The Brown Program not only brought the talented young scholar to Stetson that made this trip happen, but it also provided funds to subsidize the trip so that it was an affordable opportunity for each student. I can’t predict what educational opportunities the Brown Visiting Professors will provide Stetson in the future — that’s the genius of the program. —Biology Professor Terry Farrell, Ph.D.

‘When provided the opportunity to learn, the opportunity to grow, the opportunity to try new things or teaching methods, a faculty member will almost certainly come away from such an experience enriched, invigorated and eager to pass their knowledge on to their students and colleagues. I love learning for the sake of learning. In general, I believe most academics have the same view. We do it because that’s who we are.’ —Harry Price, Associate Professor of Chemistry, 2013 recipient of the William Hugh McEniry Award for Excellence in Teaching STETSON

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Student Rowan Littlefield was able to experience a chemistry internship in the U.K. thanks to the A&S Dean’s Fund.

Fund Leads to UK Experience Rowan Littlefield had been searching for a chemistry internship when his professor William “Tandy” Grubbs, Ph.D., told him about a six-week summer exchange program with the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom. “I thought that pursuing an internship outside the United States would ensure an invaluable experience inside and outside the lab,” Littlefield says. “It would also give me a more international perspective suitable for a career in science research, which often involves collaboration with people from many different countries and backgrounds.” The Arts and Sciences Dean’s Fund for Undergraduate Research and Creativity helped finance his internship abroad. “These funds give Stetson students financial access to life-altering experiences that make us more competitive and successful in post-undergraduate endeavors,” Littlefield says. “It made my internship possible.” While at UCLan, he worked with a group of scientists who are studying drug release from lipid nanostructures. Specifically, he 54

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collected kinetics data to help characterize drug release in buffered and non-buffered ISAsomeloaded hydrogels. Put simply, “I helped work on designing new vehicles for drug delivery in the human body,” he explains. He says that many promising novel pharmaceuticals suffer from problems (e.g., poor solubility in water) that either prevent them from reaching their destinations or otherwise limit their therapeutic potential. A drug delivery vehicle (DDV) is one possible method to overcome those obstacles and capture and transport functional molecules to their targeted, desired destinations. “I helped prepare, characterize and test the ability for some types of lipid nanoparticles to encapsulate and release different functional molecules under various, potentially physiologically relevant conditions,” says Littlefield, who was in the lab during the week carrying out experiments and analyzing collected data. The best part? Several of the results collected appeared fairly promising and are likely to be incorporated in a paper that the group plans to publish soon. As for Littlefield, he’s applying

to several graduate programs across the country with the intent of pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry and a career in chemical research, in either an academic setting or in a research and development division in industry. “In addition to being a great résumé booster, my experience at UCLan helped me acquire many new lab-related skills,” he says. “I learned about several areas of chemistry of which I previously had only a limited understanding. Most important, getting the opportunity to meet and work with UCLan faculty and students with similar interests helped to reinforce my passion for chemistry.” The fact that the internship was in another country had added benefits. “I experienced a change in perspective seeing the cultural differences between the United Kingdom and the U.S. and interacting with individuals from all over the world studying at UCLan,” Littlefield reflects. “I made several new friendships and connections. My experience there will have a lasting impact on my future by better preparing me for my postgraduate studies and by giving me a more internationally minded outlook.” —Amy Gipson

Richard Swartz ’68 and his wife (Gena Medrano Swartz ’67) at a crater lake in the Central Highlands near Pleiku

Remembering Vietnam In December 1968, when Richard Swartz graduated from Stetson and the ROTC flight program, there were 540,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam. A month later, he was one of them, commissioned into the infantry, the 134th Assault Helicopter Company. Swartz spent a year in Vietnam piloting helicopters before serving as a flight instructor at Fort Rucker in Alabama. By the time his four-year stint in the military ended, he had received the

Distinguished Flying Cross for “heroism and extraordinary achievement” when he rescued the crew of a downed medevac chopper under enemy fire. He was only 23. “I should have been a history professor,” says Swartz, whose wife, Gena Medrano Swartz ’67, is also a Stetson graduate. “I have a lot of memorabilia. Gena has built a shrine for me in our house that holds what I’ve collected from my days in Vietnam.” It was this love of history combined with Richard’s time in ROTC that recently compelled the Swartzes to help support a

planned Vietnam Era Veterans Memorial at Stetson. The memorial, envisioned as a set of benches and trees marked by a plaque, will honor students and graduates who served in the military in Vietnam or elsewhere during those years. “The war was a critical part of the Stetson experience in the ’60s and ’70s, and it is still present in our politics,” says Jay Mechling ’67, emeritus professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis. While not a veteran, Mechling is heading up the memorial efforts along with English

Professor Grady Ballenger, Ph.D., and Oak McCullough, senior instructor of military science and director of Army ROTC at Stetson. “The plan will be developed as we see exactly how much funding we can raise,” explains Mechling, whose goal is to unveil the memorial at Homecoming in fall 2015, which marks the 40th anniversary of the end of American military action in Vietnam. “We want this to be a meaningful campus space, one that honors veterans and their families and offers students, faculty, staff and alumni a quiet place to reflect on

their service.” The memorial is part of a larger veterans history project they are planning that could support student research projects, the gathering of veterans’ oral histories, and an archive of information about the experiences of our students and graduates in the military during the war and their reflections afterward. If you served and would like your name added to the archive, please email jemechling@gmail.com or grady. ballenger@stetson.edu. To donate to the memorial, visit www.stetson.edu/ give and mark your gift for “Campus Vietnam Memorial.” STETSON

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Laura Bernal Luzniak

Allison Foster

Derek Jansante

Patty Kimmel

Stetson’s Soldiers

two territories. Representing and serving the Washington, D.C., area are two alumni whose respective stints at Stetson were more than 30 years apart. “We represent quite an age difference. Derek is a young New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and I am an aged French Bordeaux, but we share a passion for this great university,” explains Patricia “Patty” Simpson Kimmel ’75, president/CEO of one of the largest federal credit unions in the state of Virginia, who is serving her second three-year term on the board. “We both have a deep respect and love for the Stetson University mission and accomplishments.” Her co-chair, Derek Jansante, graduated from Stetson in 2011. He is currently attending George Washington University and began serving on the Stetson alumni board last year. “Over the past year or so, Patty and I have held more than a dozen events, ranging from an afternoon at a Northern Virginia winery to a Nationals baseball game to happy hours and more,” says Jansante. “Alumni know that we hold events fairly often, so if the timing of an event doesn’t work out or the event itself isn’t as appealing,

the next opportunity is just a short time away.” In addition to the event invitation emails, Jansante and Kimmel launched a Facebook group and send a newsletter every few months. They have received numerous emails from alumni who move into the area and have made it a priority to acquaint them with other alumni as well as answer some of their questions. The other co-chairs who captured the district award honor this year hail from Broward County, Fla. One of the honorees, Laura Bernal Luzniak ’93, has been a member of the board since 2009 and says that the great sense of camaraderie is the key to her involvement with fellow alumni. “Being a part of the alumni group gives us more networking chances for professional and social aspects to our lives,” explains Luzniak, who works as a group tour coordinator for Sonshine Educational Tours in Coral Springs, Fla. “No matter the graduation year, we have so many things in common, such as professors, sporting events and extracurricular activities. It keeps us connected with the school and its happenings, especially since so many great changes are occurring

with Wendy B. Libby (Stetson president) at the university.” Luzniak’s co-chair, Allison Foster ’04, joined the board in 2012. “I can tell from each individual who attends an event and reconnects with a classmate or a fraternity brother or sorority sister that they are truly happy to see one another and catch up,” says Foster, who is the director of student leadership and civic engagement at Nova Southeastern University. “Our group is not about ‘giving money to Stetson’ as many may think. It is about continuing to foster the experiences you had at Stetson throughout your life.” According to Amy Dedes ’04, assistant director in the Office of Alumni Engagement at Stetson, alumni would rather hear from their peers than from a staff member at the university to start the relationship. “Alumni board members can get one-to-one, much like our ‘soldiers’ throughout the country,” she notes. “They can spread the word about Stetson and help bring alumni back and engage them so they, in turn, can reconnect with the university.” —Trish Wieland

Alumni outreach is not just lip service at Stetson University. An entire team of people — some of them employed by the university and others who are dedicated volunteers around the country — are implementing exciting ideas and energy to bolster SU alumni involvement like never before. “Alumni want to be a part of something meaningful and why not invest in the place that shaped and influenced their own lives?” asks Jeff Ulmer, Stetson’s vice president of Development and Alumni Engagement. “Stetson exists today because others gave forward.” Particular excitement culminates this fall with the announcement of District Service Award winners from the alumni board, a group of about 50 people of whom two-thirds are district representatives (the “main go-to people” of a given geographical district). Normally awarded to one in-state district and out-of-state district annually, the award, which recognizes high marks in alumni engagement, leadership and development and student recruitment, is again being split four ways this year among co-chairs of 56

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New Vice President for Development and Alumni Engagement Jeff Ulmer discusses his plans to strengthen and grow Stetson’s alumni network.

Great Expectations Since taking the job of vice president for Development and Alumni Engagement five months ago, Jeff Ulmer is already putting his vast experience to work. Learn more about his plans in this question and answer session. Q. What are the specific challenges with fundraising at Stetson, and how will you approach those challenges? A. I see our challenges as opportunities. Stetson’s history has been interspersed with times of prosperity and periods of financial challenges. But in those

challenging times, the leadership always came through to secure critical financial resources. Today, we have a larger staff of development officers who understand the importance of strengthening and growing our alumni network. We just need to engage our alumni in a more meaningful way. Q. What specific ideas do you have to engage the Stetson alumni? A. We have to be creative and conscious about what our alumni want from their relationship with the university, because the relationship shouldn’t end once you cross the platform with your degree in hand. Alumni should have a full array of services avail-

able to them throughout their lives, including lifelong learning, career services, skills training and inspiring programming. Q. How has the role of university fundraising changed, and how does your vision for Stetson fit with addressing these changes? A. Donors are more prudent in their philanthropy than they were 25 years ago when I entered the field of development. Stetson is committed to stewarding each and every dollar well. We plan to expand our stewardship initiatives so our donors are well aware of the impact they have at Stetson University. Q. The Stetson mantra is not only

being successful but also significant. In what ways can former students be significant in their role with their alma mater? A. Stetson set the standard for significance in higher education in Florida when Mr. DeLand opened the doors of the DeLand Academy in 1883. Stetson produced the leaders who developed what was once considered an uninhabitable wasteland into the state of Florida as it exists today. That is a legacy alumni should be proud to embrace as we work together to shape the future of Stetson for the next generation of leaders. —Trish Wieland STETSON

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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 Stetson University in DeLand or Celebration, send your class note to the Office of Alumni Engagement at Stetson University, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., Unit 8257, 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 the College of Law’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations, 1401 61st St. South, Gulfport, FL 33707, or email your class note to alumni@law.stetson.edu. For the DeLand campus, you can fill out the online form for class notes by going to stetson.edu/ hatternet and clicking on submit class notes 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 high resolution, and because of space limitations, we cannot guarantee use of all photographs. 58

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1950s Donald C. Hancock ’55, Augusta, Ga., has 18 books published on Amazon. The latest is titled The Angel At Your Service: A Conversation With My Angel, in September 2013. Henry C. Turner ’55, Orlando, retired from SunTrust Bank in 1999 and has continued to work on a contract basis for Old Florida National as an auditor of large loans secured by accounts receivable and inventory. Bruce R. Jacob, JD ’59, St. Petersburg, is quoted in the Highlands Today article “Residential backyard shooting – what you can and can’t do.”

a former U.S. Senator. John R. Francisco ’64, Macon, Ga., having retired after 30 years from the U.S. Army Reserve and also from the practice of law, is now spending time with his wife, Elizabeth, enjoying a winery on the island of Crete in Greece.

eastern half of the United States in 1974. It will travel to four additional venues through 2016. Jack S. Butler ’67, Blairsville, Ga., has received the Silver Buffalo Award from the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo Award is presented for noteworthy and extraordinary service to youth on a national basis. Ned B. Ricks ’68, Gurnee, Ill., recently co-starred in Bachelors Grove, a 2014 horror movie available in its entirety for viewing on YouTube.

1960s Betty Lee Wuenschel ’61, St. Augustine, is celebrating her 25th year as a member of the Board of Directors at Community State Bank and was recently elected chairwoman. Joseph D’Alessandro, LLB ’64, Fort Myers, has been reappointed vice chairman of the board by the Housing Authority of the City of Fort Myers.

▲ Joseph Max Cleland ’64, (pictured right) celebrates his birthday and the anniversary of the start of his service to our country with Richard D. Libby, Ph.D., at the Cafe de la Paix in Paris. Cleland, a veteran of the Vietnam War, was a recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for valorous actions in combat. He is also

▲ Sandra Newton Lassen ’64, West Jefferson, N.C., has published her second book of poetry, The Teeth of Southern Smiles, available on Amazon. She has been a Poetry Fellow at Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach twice, studying with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg. She is a former columnist for the Jefferson Post newspaper in West Jefferson and a professional genealogist. Charles S. Liberis, JD ’64, Pensacola, has been named to the Stetson University College of Law Board of Overseers, which advises and counsels the dean of the College of Law and the university president on academic programs and financial matters. Raymond W. Smith ’64, New Haven, Conn., has just published a book, In Time We Shall Know Ourselves, with essays on the photographs by Richard H. King and Alexander Nemerov. The book consists of 52 photographs taken during a three-month road trip in the

▲ Dean Bunch ’69, Tallahassee, a partner in the Tallahassee law office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, has been elected by The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee as its chair. The committee is composed of three district court of appeal judges, four circuit judges, three county judges, and two lawyers. He has served on the committee for six years. Previously, he was a member and chair of the Florida Commission on Ethics, which adjudicates complaints against all Florida public officials other than judges. Nathan E. Eden, JD ’69, Key West, has maintained the AV Preeminent® Rating, MartindaleHubbell’s highest possible rating.

1970s John C. Giel ’73, Leesburg, was appointed to the advisory board of the Catholic Academy of Communication Professionals at the annual meeting of the Catholic Media

Conference in Charlotte. Fr. Giel is the founder and executive producer of CCTN, the Catholic Community Television Network that broadcasts in Central Florida. Christian D. Searcy, JD ’73, North Palm Beach, appeared as an expert on the March episode of NewsTalk 980. Scott C. Renwick ’74, MBA ’75, Jacksonville, has recently joined United Way of Northeast Florida as the director of human resources in Jacksonville. Renwick previously spent over 35 years in the banking industry. Elizabeth “Betty” Smith Blanton ’75, Lenoir City, Tenn., completed a Ph.D. in literacy studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in March 2014. Robert S. Schumaker, JD ’75, Tampa, has joined GrayRobinson, P.A.’s Tampa Real Estate Practice Group. Bryan S. Henry, JD ’76, Dillon, Colo., has been elected president of the Continental Divide Bar Association for the 5th Judicial District of Colorado and has been appointed Associate Municipal Court judge for the Town of Frisco, Colorado. Carol Hunstein, JD ’76, Atlanta, Ga., was honored by The AntiDefamation League with its Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to the judicial system and the community. Kent S. Pratt, JD ’76, West Palm Beach, received his AV Preeminent rating. Pratt also has been a Supreme Court certified circuit mediator since 2011. J. Brent Walker, JD ’76, Falls Church, Va., gave the 2014 James A. Auchmuty Lecture at Samford University. Jerry G. Groendyke ’77, Fort Pierce, retired in January 2014 after working for 33 years for the FAA at numerous locations as an air traffic controller, trainer, supervisor, and for the past nine years as the manager of the St. Lucie County International Airport Control Tower in Fort Pierce. In late February 2014, Jerry and his son, Grant, left Fort Pierce on bicycles and pedaled 3,040 miles to San Diego, Cal.

Michael Marder, JD ’77, Orlando, has been selected as a finalist for the Daily Business Review’s 2014 Top Dealmakers of the Year award in the real estate finance category. Luis Prats ’78, JD ’81, St. Petersburg, has been named chair of Stetson University’s Board of Trustees. David B. Bennett ’79, Pittsburgh, Pa., associate professor of learning resources/systems library at Robert Morris University, received the 2013 Jefferson Award for Public Service for his work with Venture Outdoors, a Pittsburgh-area organization that focuses on getting the community outside. Lewis R. Cohen, JD ’79, Miami, has been named a Top Power Leader in banking. J. Allison DeFoor, JD ’79, Tallahassee, a former environmental adviser to Gov. Jeb Bush and former board member of statewide business and environmental groups, has been appointed chairman of the political committee backing a proposed constitutional amendment for conservation lands. Rhea Law, JD ’79, Tampa, CEO of Tampa-based law firm Fowler White Boggs, P.A., was featured in an article by the Business Observer.

1980s Rebecca Morgan, JD ’80, St. Petersburg, wrote multiple blog posts for the Elder Law Prof Blog including the March 4 “Ann F. Baum Memorial Lecture on Elder Law at Illinois Law,” the March 3 “New Factsheets in Financial Exploitation in LTC Facilities,” and the March 5 “Surrogate Decision-Making in Hospitals: A Report.” She also blogged about “NORCs, Zoning and Services” and “Caregiving in Graphic Memoir—A New Book” on Law Professor Blogs Network. In addition, Professor Morgan also wrote “Boomers keep on working… and working… and working” and “How many deaths from Alzheimer’s” in the Law Professor Blogs Network. Michael S. Mullin, JD ’80, Fernandina Beach, of Rogers Towers was featured in the Daily Record’s

Whistleblower Elin BaklidKunz spoke at Stetson.

Whistleblower Talks About Struggle Elin Baklid-Kunz, MBA ’98, says her multiyear struggle to right numerous wrongs by her former employer, Halifax Health, was very difficult. Her struggle finally ended with Halifax Health agreeing to pay $85 million to the United States federal government to settle the qui tam lawsuit jointly filed by BaklidKunz and the U.S. Justice Department. Baklid-Kunz says the struggle to persevere in the role of a whistleblower takes its own toll in the form of disillusionment, isolation, marginalization and mental and emotional strain. The former compliance specialist and director of physician’s services at the Daytona Beach area’s largest health care provider, spoke recently on “Whistleblowing in a Business Environment” to the Stetson community. Against a backdrop of her experience of more than 20 years in the healthcare industry, Baklid-Kunz discussed how she depended upon her inner moral courage to see her through the ordeal of being painted as a disgruntled employee and a disloyal agent of her employer. “In the end,” she says, “I honestly felt that I had no choice but to report my employer’s wrongdoing.” Baklid-Kunz is a national speaker and published author on topics related to medical practice compliance, medical coding and reimbursement, chart audits and federal regulations. She has presented workshops for the American Academy of Professional Coders and has delivered keynote addresses for Eli Research Coding Institute and Audio Educator. She has also served as adjunct instructor at Seminole State College, where she taught courses pertaining to healthcare reimbursement and data analysis. “In their course work in Stetson’s School of Business Administration, our students consider issues such as the ethical justification of whistleblowing, the challenges whistleblowing poses to employers and the high price that whistleblowers sometimes face,” says Jim Beasley, Ph.D., professor of business administration and faculty adviser for SOBE. John Tichenor, Ph.D., co-adviser for the business ethics organization and associate professor of management, says, “To hear a corporate whistleblower like Elin Baklid-Kunz tell her story can be a powerful learning experience for all of us as we strive to promote moral courage and ethical decision-making.” —Grace Aguda

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“Lawyer Snapshot.” Mullin is a former president of the Board of Family Support Services. John H. Pelzer ’80, Plantation, an attorney at Greenspoon Marder Law has been selected as a 2014 Florida Super Lawyer. The Florida Super Lawyer recognizes those individuals that have earned a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement within their legal practice area. Murray B. Silverstein, JD ’80, Tampa, has been appointed chair of the Florida Rules of Judicial Administration Committee by Florida Bar President Gregory Coleman ’85, JD ’89. Glenn D. Storch, JD ’80, Daytona Beach, has been recognized as one of the 55 most influential people in Volusia and Flagler counties by MyCoast magazine. In addition, Storch was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Daytona Blues Festival. R. Bruce Anderson, JD ’81, Naples, has been named by Best Lawyers as “Lawyer of the Year” in land use and zoning law for the Ft. Myers, Fla., Metropolitan area. Anderson also received Best Lawyers distinctions for his work in environmental law and land use and zoning litigation. Peggy Hoyt, JD ’81, Oviedo, has written the book What’s the Deal With Estate Planning?

▲ Janet Moulton Conner ’82, MEd ’94, Jacksonville, worked as a public school teacher and union leader after earning her master’s degree in elementary education. After serving as the vice president of the Volusia Teachers Organization, state executive board member of the

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Florida Education Association United, and president of her local central labor council chapter, Conner became a full-time staff member of the Broward Teachers Union in Ft. Lauderdale, working as the government relations manager. Timothy A. Knowles, JD ’82, Bradenton, has joined the Manatee Glens Board of Directors. Catherine McEwen, JD ’82, Tampa, has accepted an adjunct position at Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Tampa Bay campus, teaching bankruptcy law. John S. Clark ’83, Orlando, was recently promoted to director, International Business Development for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. He retired from the United States Air Force in 2011. Edward J. Kertis ’84, Waipahu, Hawaii, has been named to the National Board of Directors of the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting beach access and water quality. G. Donald Thomson, JD ’84, Bonita Springs, managing attorney with Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt, P.A.’s Bonita Springs office, is the newest member to the Speakers Assembly of Southwest Florida’s Board of Directors. Thomson has also been elected to the Centers for the Arts Bonita Springs Board of Directors. Gregory W. Coleman ’85, JD ’89, West Palm Beach, is the new Florida Bar president. Sherrille Bailey Akin ’86, JD ’89, Westerville, Ohio, was awarded the Columbus Bar Foundation’s outstanding pro bono service by an individual award. Kenneth R. Brown, JD ’86, Bell, received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. Brown plans to consult with attorneys on veterinary law, maintain a practice in Pinellas County, and engage in rural veterinary medicine practice in North Florida. Wendy Hunt, JD ’86, Milford, N.H., is the new executive director of The Milford Improvement Team. Thomas G. Portuallo, JD ’86,

Daytona Beach, was a candidate for circuit court judge of the 7th Circuit. Jennifer Dakin Andone ’87, Dalton, Ga., has been appointed to be the pastor of Elizabeth Lee United Methodist Church in Chickamauga, Ga.

▲ Edward E. Boner ’87, Fernandina Beach, was elected to the City Commission for Fernandina Beach in 2013 and is serving as mayor in 2014. He is representative to Nassau County Economic Development, North Florida Regional Planning for 2014. Before this, he was juvenile justice representative for 2013, passing the synthetic drug civil ordinance. Mary Hatcher, JD ’87, Bushnell, has been elected circuit judge, Group 3, in the 5th Judicial Circuit.

Amanda Dodge and Julie Saffan on June 26 at the Studio@620 in St. Petersburg. Terry was a member of Stetson’s Trial Team and Black Law Students Association. Christopher T. Vernon, JD ’87, Naples, was reappointed to the Edison State College District Board of Trustees by Gov. Rick Scott. He will represent Collier County. Wendy Loquasto, JD ’88, Tallahassee, was selected as “Volunteer of the Month” in March 2014 by Legal Services of North Florida Inc., where she does pro bono work and is former president. Stephen T. Parascandola, JD ’88, Raleigh, N.C., a partner at Raleighbased Smith Anderson and leader of the firm’s environmental, health and safety practice, has been recognized by Chambers USA as one of “America’s Leading Business Lawyers” in North Carolina for environmental law. Marie Tomassi, JD ’88, St. Petersburg, was named to the Florida Super Lawyers Business Edition. Nancy Alfonso, JD ’89, Dade City, was appointed by the Supreme Court to the Florida Board of Bar Examiners for a five-year term. Steven N.J. DeLaroche, JD ’89, Ormond Beach, ran for 7th Circuit judge. Marisa Midkiff Neal ’89, Louisville, Ky., was honored by the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Kentucky district office as one of four 2014 Kentucky Women Business Advocate of the Year. She is president of MMN Consulting in Louisville. Karen Stanley, JD ’89, Tampa, ran for Hillsborough Circuit judge, Group 20.

1990s ▲ Peter J. Krotec, JD ’87, Sarasota, recently celebrated his 25th anniversary of practicing law with the Sarasota law firm Syprett Meshad. Rated AV Preeminent® by the Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™, Krotec joined Syprett Meshad in May 1989 and was named partner in 1994. Jaye Terry, JD ’87, St. Petersburg, presented a play she co-authored with

Jon P. Hansen ’90, Rapid City, S.D., has been named the new vice president for enrollment and marketing at Chadron State College. Timothy P. McFadden, JD ’90, Arlington, Va., was recently named president of the State Farm Indemnity & Guaranty Insurance Companies. Peter J. Preston ’90, Wauchula, a guidance counselor for Polk State

College, is a city commissioner for Wauchula and has coached four FHSAA state championship academic teams. He has released two albums with his band Zen Fuse Box (www. zenfusebox.com), available on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, and more. Thomas A. Snyder ’90, Orlando, is associate athletics director for facilities and event operations at the University of Central Florida. He will be the lead in the day-to-day supervision of the facilities, sports turf and grounds, and event operations departments. He has been responsible for logistics, operations and customer service initiatives for over 250 UCF athletics events annually. Camille Iurillo, JD ’91, St. Petersburg, is pleased to announce that Sabrina Beavens, JD ’02, Portsmouth, N.H., has been promoted to partner at Iurillo Law Group, P.A, with offices in St. Petersburg and Portsmouth, N.H. The firm’s practice areas include complex bankruptcy, creditors’ rights, business law, business litigation, real estate, and personal injury. D. Wayne Olson, JD ’91, Sewanee, Tenn., published his book titled Big Gifts Small Effort – Unleash the Power of Planned Giving and Change Your Nonprofit Forever. He was also named “Most Inspiring Speaker of the Year” by Fundraising Success magazine. Stephanie Vaughan, JD ’91, Treasure Island, a professor at the Stetson College of Law, conducted intensive teacher advocacy training for two days at the University of Buffalo Law School with Stetson Law Professor Charlie Rose. Marcus A. Buckley ’92, Taylors, S.C., graduated in May 2014 with a Doctor of Ministry degree from North Greenville University. He is currently the lead pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Greer, S.C. Prince A. Donnahoe ’92, Hollywood, was admitted to practice as an attorney before the United States Supreme Court. David F. Mack ’92, Roswell, Ga., a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch in Atlanta, was recently recognized on the 2014 Financial Times “Top 400 Financial Advisors” list. He is charged with developing relationships with

key executives of the group’s Fortune 500 clients. Jeffrey M. Bauer ’93, Casselberry, ran for the District 1 seat on the Seminole County School Board. He is chair of the Seminole County Early Learning Coalition. He also serves as a member of the Seminole State College Board of Trustees, the Seminole State College Foundation, and the Florida Early Learning Council. Delphine Pontvieux Brummel ’93, Chicago, Ill., founder and designer of Miss Nyet Jewelry, a Chicago-based boutique company that specializes in crafting unisex jewelry made of hand-dyed leather and metals, has been commissioned to design equestrian jewelry for the 10th edition of “La Martina’s Beach Polo World Cup.” Cynthia Mikos, JD ’93, Tampa, has been named to Florida Legal Elite for 2014, a prestigious recognition published by Florida Trend magazine. She is one of 1,165 people to receive this honor nationwide.

▲ Frank E. Morreale ’93, Jacksonville, joined Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Jacksonville. He is a member of the business litigation group and has represented banks, insurance companies and participants in the mortgage industry in arbitration, litigation, and technology-related disputes. He is licensed in all state and federal courts in Florida, as well as in New York state courts and three federal courts

Alison Aster (Ali) Kearney is an All-Star Teacher.

People Features Alumna Teacher All-Star This year, Target teamed up with Major League Baseball (MLB) and People magazine to give teachers who are hitting home runs in the classroom a ticket into the Hall of Fame. Alison Aster (Ali) Kearney ’08, a teacher at Bonita Springs Charter School, was one of 30 representatives to be featured in People magazine when she won a competition to represent the Tampa Bay Rays at the MLB All-Star game in July as an All-Star Teacher. According to People, All-Star Teachers are all-stars in the classroom making a difference in the lives of students and their communities. “Teachers are essential to helping kids reach their full potential and keeping them on the path to high school graduation,” says Laysha Ward, president, Community Relations at Target. An English major, Kearney was not always planning to be the inspirational teacher she is today. “Many of my sisters (of AXO) were education majors, so I took an education psychology course with some of them and got to spend time observing in a classroom,” she says. “I never really considered the possibility of teaching until later. “Actually, I didn’t realize I wanted to be a teacher until my last semester at Stetson when I took Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales with Dr. Farrell.” Thomas Farrell, Ph.D., professor of English, was one of her favorite professors at Stetson. “That course made me want to become a teacher,” she says. “The other students encouraged me and said I was a natural teacher, and that moved me to want to teach full time. And Dr. Snook, whose classes I took multiple times, was my senior colloquium professor, and my other favorite professor at Stetson.” Lori Snook, Ph.D., is associate professor of English. “I enrolled in grad school in the Proteach program at the University of Florida and earned my master’s in English education — sixth grade through 12th in 2009.” Now five years into her teaching career, Kearney has made significant impressions at Bonita Springs Charter School as a reading and writing teacher. Thousands of Internet voters from across the nation voted her an All-Star based on her efforts in the classroom and in the community. Not only is she dynamic in the classroom, but Kearney is also the Bonita Charter volleyball coach. “Kearney is an ideal role model for students, because she is an athlete and avid runner and practices the healthy lifestyle she teaches,” says Bonita Charter Principal Carissa Carroll. —Grace Aguda

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in New York. James G. Vickaryous, JD ’93, Lake Mary, has been elected by peers to the Central Florida Trial Lawyers Association Board of Directors. In addition, Vickaryous recently raised almost $50,000 for the Rescue Outreach Mission of Central Florida, Seminole County’s only homeless outreach and shelter, where he also serves as board president. George H. Bovenizer ’94, Los Angeles, has been nominated for a daytime Emmy Award for his production work on the Emmy nominated program E! News. Douglas A. Peebles, JD ’94, Bradenton, has received the Community Service Leader Award from the Manatee County Bar Association. Beth Cronin, JD ’95, St. Petersburg, has been named to the 2014 Florida Trend Legal Elite. Jane Fleming Kleeb ’95, Hastings, Neb., was interviewed by Ed Schultz on MSNBC regarding the Keystone Pipeline controversy. Gregory W. Meier, JD ’95, Orlando, has been named to the 2014 Florida Trend Legal Elite. James L. O’Leary, JD ’95, Bonita Springs, received his AV Pre-Eminent Rating by Martindale-Hubbell. Byung “BJay” Pak ’95, Lilburn, Ga., has been named a “Georgia Business Champion” by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. John F. Schutz, JD ’95, West Palm Beach, of Schutz & White, LLP was appointed vice chair of the Advisory Board of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of the Palm Beaches. Thomas Andrew “Andy” Zodrow, JD ’95, Safety Harbor, was elected to the Safety Harbor City Commission. Jean-Paul “JP” Durand, JD ’96, Clearwater, has been appointed as vice president, chief ethics and compliance officer in Tech Data’s worldwide ethics and compliance program in Clearwater. Sheila McDonough Gugliuzza ’96, Western Springs, Ill., was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in two articles: “Getting Your Estate Plan Right, Parents With Disabled Children Might Need More Than a Will” (Aug. 3, 2014) and “Can You

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Really Afford a New Child? Many Parents Fail to Plan Fully for the Financial Impact of a Newborn” (July 20, 2014). She was also awarded TIAA-CREF’s 2013 Working Mother of the Year award.

▲ Gregory D. Lee, MBA ’96, JD ’99, Orlando, and his BakerHostetler partners were ranked by Chambers and Partners 18 of the 39 Orlando offices in the 2014 edition of the prestigious Chambers USA Guide: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. Gregory Lee was ranked in the area of real estate: zoning and land use. He has also been appointed as chair for the Central Florida Sports Commission Board of Directors. Sarah Crossman Sullivan, JD ’96, Atlanta, Ga., was recently featured in Entrepreneur magazine for an impactful article she wrote called “5 Ways to Slay the Enemy of Entrepreneurs: Fear.” Adam D. Warren ’96, JD ’99, Daytona Beach, is a candidate for 7th Circuit judge. Tangela Hopkins Barrie, JD ’97, Stone Mountain, Ga., Dekalb County Superior Court, was the speaker during the Albany State University National Alumni Association’s Founder’s Day Luncheon on April 4, 2014. Samuel Bookhardt, JD ’97, Cocoa, is a candidate for 18th Circuit judge, Group 13 seat. Jonathan C. Chane, JD ’97, West Palm Beach, has been elevated to shareholder of Greenberg Traurig LLP and also has been awarded the 2014 Robert S. & Ceil N. Levy Young Leadership Award, presented by the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach

County. Benjamin H. Hill, JD ’97, Tampa, is president of the Hillsborough County Bar Association. Mitchell C. Robiner, JD ’97, Tampa, has developed an iPhone App for Apple App Store. Stick Texting (www.sticktexting.com) allows iPhone users to send funny stick figure animations by text and email to add fun to communicating. Alan S. Rosenthal, JD ’97, South Pasadena, was a candidate for Circuit Court judge, 6th Judicial Circuit, Group 2. Kim Hernandez Vance, JD ’97, Tampa, was appointed to the Hillsborough County Court by Gov. Rick Scott. Hobel Florido, MBA/JD ’98, Miami Lakes, was reappointed by Gov. Rick Scott as part of the South Broward Hospital District Board of Commissioners. Patricia Kemp, JD ’98, Tampa, was elected to the Hillsborough County Commission, District 7.

▲ Michael L. Smith, JD ’98, Orlando, attorney with The Health Law Firm, is now on the Executive Council in the Health Law Section of the Florida Bar. The Executive Council governs the divisions and standing committees of the Health Law Section. He was also recently named a 2013 Pro Bono Champion by the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA). This is the second consecutive year he has received this recognition. Throughout the year, he has represented several veterans and their families through the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program, a project he has devoted himself to since 2005. He has also performed legal services for individu-

als through the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association — AIDS Special Will Project. Nicolette Corse Vilmos ’98, JD ’00, Orlando, is chair of Broad and Cassel’s bankruptcy and creditors rights practice group. Stephen M. Whyte, JD ’98, MBA ’04, Sarasota, has joined the law firm of Kirk-Pinkerton, P.A. as a shareholder.

▲ Leszek Banham, MBA ’99, Windermere, is vice president, financial planning and communications for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Cora Richardson Hodge, JD ’99, Anguilla, British West Indies, is profiled in the Aguillian. Amanda Sharkey Ross ’99, Miami, along with partner, David Ross, presented a seminar to more than 25 residential and commercial property managers and executives on the topic of “Responding and Reporting Incidents” in February 2014. In March 2014, they presented a seminar to the membership of a local sailing club, titled “Florida Boating Liability Basics.” Richard B. Weinman, MBA/JD ’99, Orlando, of the law firm of Winderweedle, Haines, Ward & Woodman, P.A., was recently named a firm partner.

2000s Charles R. Gallagher, JD ’00, St. Petersburg, has been appointed vice chair of the Programs Board for the American Bar Association’s Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division. Amy Singer, JD ’00, Tampa, has been named to Florida Legal Elite for 2014, a prestigious recognition

published by Florida Trend magazine.

▲ Jamie Blucher ’01, Orlando, an attorney at Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliffe law firm was recently awarded the 2014 New Attorney Award of Excellence by the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association. The award is presented to attorneys practicing law for less than five years who have provided noteworthy and significant pro bono service to the community. She is also a recipient of the Young Lawyer Pro Bono Award of Excellence from the Young Lawyers Section of the Orange County Bar Association. As a member of the Legal Aid Society, she provides pro bono representation to abused and neglected children and has logged more than 250 pro bono hours representing children and minors. Blair H. Chan, JD ’01, Tampa, has been selected for the highest AV rating given by Martindale-Hubbell. Amy Drushal, JD ’01, Tampa, of Trenam Kemker, was recently elected to the council for the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Division. She was also named to the 2014 Florida Super Lawyers Business Edition.

▲ Patricia Maddox Fleming ’01, Brooklyn Park, Minn., received her

Ph.D. in sociology from Loyola University Chicago. Katherine Schnauss Naugle, MBA/JD ’01, Jacksonville, was selected a member of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers’ 2014 class of Leaders in the Law at the organization’s annual convention. Jack White ’01, Daytona Beach, appeared in The Daytona Beach NewsJournal’s MyCoast magazine in an article about Volusia County’s most influential people. Scott T. Brazdo ’02, MBA ’10, Viera, CEO of Black Tie Digital Marketing, has now opened its second office location in Lake Mary, Fla. The firm offers comprehensive web design and search engine optimization services to clients looking to reach new customers online through a powerful Web presence. Alicia Polk, JD ’02, Dade City, was elected Circuit Court judge, Group 2. A. Courtney Cox, MBA/JD ’03, Tampa, has been promoted to vice president, litigation, at WellCare. Christina Sanchez, JD ’03, Melbourne, was a candidate for 18th Circuit judge, Group 13 seat.

▲ Kristi Soutar ’03, Jersey City, graduated from Drew University with a master of divinity in May 2014. She is pictured with husband Ral Turbeville. Sozon C. Vatikiotis ’03, JD ’05, Lakeland, has been promoted to CEO of Alltrust. Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse ’03, JD ’06, White Plains, N.Y., has joined Goldberg Sagalla as an associate in its New York office. He is a member of the firm’s risk and litiga-

Angelica Millán in her studio.

Art Grad Lives Stetson’s Core Values Through her passion for art, community engagement and cultural awareness, Angelica Millán ’13 exemplifies Stetson University’s core values of personal growth, global citizenship and intellectual development through her commitment to social engagement. She was part of Stetson’s Bonner program, an experience that permitted her to work with community partners in the area to address societal issues through service. Millán believes she didn’t “discover” art, but rather, it was a progressive involvement in creativity that developed into a career. “As a young girl, I spent a lot of time coloring books, mixing and matching forms on arbitrary surfaces. I would draw spirals on eyes or add polka dots on faces. My parents encouraged me to explore our surroundings, which led me to paint with flower petals on tree trunks. My childhood was basically a constant fascination with color and form,” she recalls. Millán identifies experience and identity as common themes in her work throughout the years. She represents Stetson’s value of personal growth as well. She recalls her immigration to the United States at the age of 12. “This experience made me culturally versatile,” she says. “The change was a rewarding one.” Thanks to this experience, Millán says she relates and communicates with a wider group of people while reaching a larger audience through her work. “I began to look at art from a conceptual standpoint,” she explains. “From contemporary art, I understood the theories and concepts that were often influenced by philosophy and psychology, like Giacometti’s thinly carved sculptures that questioned existentialism. Also, my understanding of social issues through art influenced the intent behind my work. For example, learning about Kahlo’s life as an evolving feminist and her impact on the art world and culture continues to motivate me to have a similar impact on my audience.” Millán hopes to travel to and reside in remote indigenous areas in South America and around the world to learn more about their textile culture. She plans to create an art series using these textiles and techniques with the goal of exhibiting her work in galleries and donating part of the proceeds back to help develop these local communities. “For me, art is work, commitment and daily pursuit,” she says. “I believe the challenge is a matter of balance.” —Michael van Oppen

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tion avoidance strategies, business and commercial, and product liability practice groups. Anne Weintraub, JD ’03, Sarasota, was named Humanitarian of the Year by Temple Sinai. Rhia Winant, JD ’03, Tampa, joined Paramount Title Corp. and will represent Hillsborough Title as legal counsel. Erin Banks, JD ’04, Tampa, was elected to shareholder at the firm Carlton Fields Jorden Burt. She is a member of the firm’s construction and real property litigation practice groups. Tara Carroll, MBA/JD ’04, St. Petersburg, was named Woman to Watch for the St. Petersburg Chamber’s 15th Annual Iconic Women of Saint Petersburg. Jason M. Ellison ’04, JD ’07, Pinellas Park, was chosen for the Florida Bar’s Leadership Academy. The program’s goal is to reach out to lawyers from across the diverse state of Florida and help give them the skills and resources to become leaders, not only in the legal profession but in their communities. Dana Harris, JD ’04, Maitland, has joined elder-abuse law firm Garcia, Artigliere & Medby. She has extensive experience in nursing home negligence and wrongful death disputes, having successfully obtained multi-million-dollar settlements for her clients. Jason C. Logan, JD ’04, Albany, Ga., was promoted to partner in the Macon, Ga., office of Constangy, Brooks & Smith LLP. Tara Calderbank Batista ’05, DeLand, graduated from Columbia University with a Ph.D. in May 2014. H. Brendan Burke, JD ’05, Norfolk, Va., has earned the master of laws degree in energy and environmental law from the George Washington University School of Law. Patricia Calhoun, JD ’05, Tampa, was elected shareholder at the firm of Carlton Fields Jorden Burt. Calhoun is a member of the firm’s healthcare, national trial practice, pharmaceutical, medical device, products and toxic tort liability, and white-collar crime and government investigations

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practice groups. Brandon T. Crossland, JD ’05, Valrico, has become a partner in the Orlando office of BakerHostetler’s complex commercial litigation group. Albert T. Reeves, JD ’05, Marietta, Ga., has won the Republican primary for State House District 34 for the Georgia Legislature. Gary E. Williams, JD ’05, Clearwater, founder of The Law Firm for Family Law, has been designated by the Florida Bar as Board Certified in Marital and Family Law.

▲ Elizabeth Barber ’06, Sebring, was hired as the president/CEO of the Greater Sebring Chamber of Commerce in her hometown of Sebring, Fla., in February 2014. She has previously served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee for the Chamber. Suzanne Boy, JD ’06, North Ft. Myers, has been elected to the Canterbury School Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees governs the Canterbury School in Ft. Myers, a well respected college preparatory school dedicated to preparing students for success while emphasizing character, leadership and service.

▲ Alyson George Bulnes, JD ’06, Tampa, partnered with Stechschulte

Bulnes in the Tampa Bay area. In addition, she has been litigating personal injury cases for more than seven years with two of the most prestigious personal injury law enterprises in the Tampa Bay area. Zachary Chalifour ’06, MAcc ’07, Port Orange, has been promoted to senior manager at James Moore Certified Public Accountants and Consultants. In his new role, Chalifour will plan, execute, direct, and complete audit engagements in a variety of industries. As a result of his extensive governmental auditing and accounting experience, Chalifour is a member of the law firm’s government segment team and has been instrumental in working with numerous clients to assist in the early-implementation of new Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) standards. Philip D. Handyside ’06, DeLand, received his Ph.D. from Cardiff University in 2013. Handyside’s first book, The Old French William of Tyre, is being published in late 2014. Lonetta Wilson Hanson ’06, Falcon Heights, Minn., received her master’s of public policy from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Michelle Lajoie Hermey, JD ’06, Sarasota, of Fergeson, Skipper, Shaw, Keyser, Baron & Tirabassi P.A., has received her board certification from the Florida Bar. Katherine Hurst Miller, JD ’06, Daytona Beach, was named the 2014 “Woman of the Year” by the Volusia Flagler Association for Women Lawyers. Woodrow H. Pollack, JD ’06, Clearwater, has been named vice chair of the Florida Bar Business Law Section Intellectual Property Committee. Andrew Abramovich, JD ’07, Jacksonville, has been elected partner at Boyd & Jenerette, P.A. Dominique Heller, JD ’07, Tampa, has been elected to the Ferguson-White Inn of Courts’ Board of Directors. In addition, Heller will perform duties as co-chair of the Hillsborough County Bar Association’s Securities Section for the 2014-15 Bar year.

▲ Collin Jewell ’07, Murrells Inlet, S.C., has been named partner and shareholder at The Floyd Law Firm’s Surfside Beach office. He has been a valued asset and leader, managing a substantial part of the firm’s criminal, civil and personal injury workload. He is an active member of the Georgetown County Bar Association, the Horry County Bar Association, the South Carolina Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He also serves as vice chairman of the board of directors for the Cultural Council of Georgetown County, secretary of the Board of Directors for the Georgetown County Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, member of Murrells Inlet Rotary and coach of the Waccamaw High School Mock Trial team. Sarah Oquendo, JD ’07, Naples, has been appointed for 2014-15 as chair of the Family Law Section of the Collier County Bar. She is an associate attorney with Nicole L. Goetz, P.L., where she practices exclusively in the area of family law. Brian E. Smith, JD ’07, Orlando, has joined BakerHostetler as an associate. He spoke on condemnation blight at the annual Florida Bar convention in June. Erica Smith, JD ’07, St. Petersburg, was a co-recipient of the “Rockin’ Chair Award” in recognition of her dedication as the 2013-14 chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the St. Petersburg Bar Association and has been reappointed chair of the Young Lawyers Section for 2014-15 and as a member of the St. Petersburg Bar Association Executive

Committee. Matthew L. Snyder, JD ’07, Gulfport, has been named director of business operations for the Austin Bruins of the North American Hockey League in Austin, Minn. Jonathan T. Gilbert, JD ’08, Orlando, is an attorney at Colling Gilbert Wright & Carter LLC, practicing personal investigation, medical malpractice, product liability and nursing home abuse. Krista Anderson, JD ’08, Dade City, has been named an attorney at Brock Law LLC in Tampa. Alison Aster Kearney ’08, Ft. Myers, recently won a competition to represent the Tampa Bay Rays at the MLB All-Star game as an All-Star Teacher. Ryan J. McGee, JD ’08, Tampa, is a judicial law clerk for the Hon. Elizabeth A. Kovachevich, federal district court judge. Mark J. Rose, MBA/JD ’08, Boca Raton, is partner at Roig Lawyers in their Deerfield Beach Office. Forrest J. Bass, JD ’09, Ft. Charlotte, has joined the Charlotte State Bank & Trust advisory board. Derrick R. Connell, MBA/JD ’09, Palm Shores, and Hunter A. Higdon, MBA/JD ’10, St. Pete Beach, formed a new law firm, Connell Higdon, in Melbourne. Marissa Pilson ’09, Sanford, completed an MBA at Crummer School of Business, Rollins College. Kyle M. Schmitt ’09, Miami, has completed his third year of medical school at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami. Christopher J. Sprowls, JD ’09, Clearwater, was elected to the State House of Representatives.

2010s David E. Little, MBA/JD ’10, St. Petersburg, has joined the firm of Brown & Doherty, P.A. as a criminal defense attorney. Eileen McGee, JD ’10, Tampa, is corporate counsel for the Home Shopping Network. Paul M. Messina, MBA/JD ’10, Tampa, has joined the Tampa office of Greenspoon Marder, P.A., as an

associate in the litigation group. Paul T. Sabaj, LLM ’10, New York City, was a featured panelist speaker for a third year in a row at the Inn of Court meeting that took place at the Brooklyn Bar Association in February 2014. He addressed the ethical considerations of third-party non-recourse litigation financing. Everett A. Stern, MBA ’10, Norristown, Pa., is the HSBC whistleblower who was featured in Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail, Matt Taibbi’s exposé of HSBC’s role facilitating money laundering and international terrorism. He has founded Tactical Rabbit, which provides clients in law, finance and insurance with regulatory compliance solutions, enhanced due diligence, vulnerability testing, corporate espionage and fraud investigations. He is also a commentator whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, American Banker, Reuters, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Russia Today. William “Bill” Allen, JD ’11, Ft. Myers, has joined the Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt, P.A. firm as an associate in the business and tax practice area. Erin Londraville, JD ’11, Alachua, is a senior attorney for Florida’s Department of Children and Families. William “Webb” Shephard, MAcc ’11, Flagler Beach, has been promoted to senior accountant at James Moore Certified Public Accountants and Consultants. As a senior accountant, he will perform audit and accounting procedures necessary to complete financial statement audits. He will participate in various phases of audit, compilation and review engagements, including budgeting and planning. He will also be responsible for directing and reviewing the audit work of associate accountants and staff accountants. Amy Tucker, JD ’11, LLM ’13, Winter Haven, of P. Tucker, P.L. Elder Law & Estate Planning received her degree in elder law from Stetson. Christopher D. Breton, JD ’12, St. Petersburg, is now the managing attorney for the Tampa Bay branch of Peyton Bolin, PL. Grant R. Gillenwater, JD ’12,

Robbie Carelli ’10 (far right) opens Persimmon Hollow with Andy Sistrunk (middle) and Stetson alumnus Sam Slaughter, MA ’14.

Alumnus Opens Brewery in DeLand Persimmon Hollow was the name of DeLand before Henry DeLand came along, because of all the persimmon trees that grow around the springs. Now, it’s coming back in the form of a craft beer brewing company founded by Robbie Carelli ’10 and Andy Sistrunk. Three years ago, the pair met and started playing music together. “We decided we weren’t spending enough time together, so we started brewing beer and never looked back,” says Carelli. Now, they’ve opened up their own brewery: Persimmon Hollow Brewing Company. They both feel strong connections to DeLand and to Florida, thus the reason for the name. Carelli grew up in the area and is a Stetson alumnus. They are strong supporters of local businesses. Since they started brewing, Carelli and Sistrunk have made a point to use local and organic ingredients, from the grains and spices they use to the oranges. The oranges are from Vo-LaSalle Farms in DeLeon Springs, while the spices are from a DeLand spice shop called Spice of Life. These local beer brewers have received incredible support from the DeLand community, especially at the Craft Beer Festival in February. According to Persimmon Hollow’s blog, people came to their booth over and over again to try their beer. The same thing happened at the Indie Market. Florida itself has been a source of support as well. A few weeks ago, the company joined the Florida Brewers Guild, a group that works to make craft beer more readily available. They also received a grant from the Community Redevelopment Agency. Both are self-taught brewers, so it is a big step for them to open their own 5,000-square-foot brewery and enjoy their beer as well as provide a stage for local artists. There is glass paneling between the tasting brewery and the rest of the pub. It has an attachment known as the “tasting room” that has places for people to sit so that customers can see the beer being made. They’re transitioning into a 15 barrel system, meaning that they’ll go from brewing 5 gallons at a time to about 450 gallons per batch. Luckily, they have had the chance to work with fellow craft beer brewers all over Florida, learning how to use bigger systems and the secrets to brewing great beer. According to Carelli, “It’s almost like a fraternity of craft beer brewers.” They have five or six flagship beers that they brew on a regular basis, one of which is their most popular: the Belgian Wit White Boy. They also have seasonals. For every Artisan Alley Farmers Market, held on the fourth Friday of every month, they brew a limited-edition small batch beer. This is where they get to experiment with new recipes and gauge how the public responds to it. If it’s popular, they can brew it on the bigger system. —Kalee Ball

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Vero Beach, has joined Graves Injury Law Group. Sabsina Karimi, JD ’12, Naples, is a felony assistant state attorney in the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida. Jessica Sally ’12, New York City, graduated in May 2014 with a master’s in urban education policy from Brown University. Shannon Strasser, MBA/JD ’12, Boca Raton, is now an associate at Segal McCambridge Singer and Mahoney, Ltd. in its Chicago office.

▲ Shane C. Thomas ’12, Stuart, has completed his master’s of music in choral conducting with distinction from Westminster Choir College in May 2014. In addition, Thomas was recently hired by the Martin County School District to teach choral music at Martin County High School in Stuart, Fla. Stephanie Dominguez, JD ’13, St. Petersburg, has joined Gallagher & Associates Law Firm, P.A. as an associate attorney and will focus on real estate litigation, mortgage foreclosure and consumer law. Michael J. Finegan, JD ’13, Wesley Chapel, has joined the law firm of Carman and Bevington P.A. Ed Narain, JD ’13, Tampa, was elected to the District 61 state House seat opening. Evan D. Rosen, JD ’13, Tampa, has been selected to serve as an assistant attorney general for Florida’s Suncoast region. Anthony D. Tilton, JD ’13, Gulfport, a construction law associate at Trent Cotney, P.A., has successfully earned safety certifications and training from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

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Marriages & Unions

Births

Peter Preston ’90 to Jesslin

Nicolette Corso Vilmos ’98, JD ’00, and husband Peter, a son, Miles Benjamin, in September 2013.

Williams on March 15, 2014.

▲ S. Renee Bowling ’96 to Jeremy Agler on March 29, 2014.

▲ Lacy Nobles ’07, MBA ’08 to Christopher Beauchemin ’06 on Nov. 30, 2013. David J. Brunell, JD ’11, to Nolan Kline in October 2013. Virginia Byerts ’11 to Brett Anderson on June 6, 2014.

▲ Jeanine Parisi ’03 to Allen Ng on Dec. 31, 2013. Kevin Notaro ’04 to Katy Reid on June 22, 2014.

▲ Kristina Larsen ’11 to Brian St. Amour on April 19, 2014. Melanie Ginsberg ’12 to Edward Maharam on Nov. 30, 2013.

▲ Jamie Parrish Doehne ’01, MS ’03, and husband Jeffrey ’01, a daughter, Avery Kate, in April 2014. Sabrina Beavens, JD ’02, and wife, Juli a daughter, Grace Anna, in September 2013. Marisa Davies Powers, JD ’04, and husband Justin, a daughter, Amelia Harber, in December 2013. Phoenix Ayotte Harris, JD ’07, and husband Issac, a son, Leopold Honor, in June 2012.

▲ EmmaLee Schmidt Legler ’07, and husband Kennedy ’08, JD ’11, a daughter, Brynn Emma, in March 2014.

▲ Takeata King Pang ’04 to William Herbert on Nov. 12, 2013. Cristin Byrne ’05 to Tom Grossi on June 21, 2014.

▲ Chelsea Whalley ’13 to Mitchel Brennan ’13 on April 4, 2014.

▲ Melody Benbow Lynch, MBA/ JD ’07, and husband Brendan, a daughter, Katherine Delaney, in March 2014. Rachael Wood, JD ’07, and husband Jonathan Barnes, a son, Hawthorne Isaac, in March 2013.

Paula Duke Raymer ’58 Glen H. Thompson ’58 Thomas C. Weldon ’58, MA ’64

▲ Lauren Guindon Peacock ’08, and husband Reese, a daughter, Penelope Grace, in June 2014. Mark J. Rose, MBA/JD ’08, and wife Cali, a daughter, Emma Jane, in May 2014.

In Memoriam ’20s Kathryn Moore Rhinehart ’29, MA ’30 ’30s Voncille Mercer Shepard ’34 Margaret MacDonough Shaw ’38 John G. McCall ’39 ’40s Robert E. Karns ’40 Margaret Wegner Dyson ’45 Betty Williams Owens ’47 George Borysewich ’49 Phoebe Faulkner Humphries ’49 Roland L. Jarrard ’49 Julian McInnis ’49, MA ’50 Thomas L. White, LLB ’49 ’50s Herschel P. Barrington ’50 Bland B. Simmons ’50 Marvin H. Tinsley ’50 Margaret Oldford Waddell ’50 Mary McCullough Weeks ’50 Edna Schmidt McEwen ’51 David C. Murray ’51 Virginia Davis Spencer ’51 Helen Lowe Torbert ’51 Martha Finney Aug ’52 Larry G. Bottom ’52, MA ’62 Ernest M. Breed, LLB ’52 Annette Willcox Gillespie ’52 Cliff B. Gosney, JD ’52 Basilia Haygood ’52, JD ’68 Kelby E. McColister ’52 U. H. Parrish ’53 Nancy Smith Yarbrough ’53 Donald E. Bohren ’55 Charles A. Cook ’56 Caroline Hodges, MA ’56 James B. Annis ’57 Betty Flood Foy ’57 James W. Winters, LLB ’57 Carroll J. Abernathy ’58, LLB ’63

’60s Thomas A. Cleary ’60 Ben Daniel ’60, LLB ’60 Norman B. Fizette ’60 Robert L. Munn ’61 Charles A. Belote ’62 Ann High ’63 Linda Gilder Morgan ’64 Anthony J. Visconti ’64 Wayne I. Bowen ’67 Zane Y. Dekoenigsberg ’67 Owen H. Holmes ’67 Michael Kuziv, MA ’67 Michael A. Reichman ’68 Joseph F. Hand, JD ’69 Andrew L. Ringers, JD ’69 ’70s Jerome L. Adams ’71 Pamela Morris Adams ’71 James E. Taylor, JD ’72 Robert L. Burt, MBA ’73 Ronald W. Drathman, JD ’73 Richard T. Merrill ’73, MBA ’74 Pamela Bachman ’74, MEd ’80, SPCen ’85 Arthur Johnston, JD ’74 Mary Taylor, JD ’75 Michael D. Allison ’77 William T. Morris, MEd ’77 Patrick K. Caddell, JD ’78 Russell P. Martin ’79, JD ’82 ’80s Mark V. Harllee ’81 Patsy Ruth May, MEd ’82 Brian E. Durst ’83 Larry D. Houston, JD ’83 Nina Regor ’84 Gale Silbermann, JD ’84 Lois Chatham, JD ’87 Charles A. Lundell ’87 Robin Elliott ’88 John J. Von Staden, JD ’88 Mary Sue Hawkins, MEd ’89 ’90s Glenn Gilpin, JD ’94 James C. Dauksch, JD ’96 Alexander E. LaTour ’96 Jacqueline Mazza ’98 ’00s Diane Kauffman-Boyer, JD ’00 Trevour G. McIntosh ’06 Lawrence S. Aarons, JD ’08

Four Esteemed Stetson Professors Die Rev. Jefferson Parramore Rogers, former founder and director of Stetson University’s Howard Thurman Program, died Friday, Aug. 1, in Daytona Beach. Born in Quincy, Fla., on Jan. 24, 1917, he was 97. Rogers lived a lifetime devoted to social justice and civil rights. In 1996, Rogers, with the support of Stetson’s then-President H. Douglas Lee, established the Howard Thurman Lecture Program honoring the legacy of Rev. Howard Thurman (1899-1981), a theologian originally from Daytona Beach. Stetson’s Thurman Lecture Series, designed to unite people in a search for social justice and an end to discrimination wherever it exists or persists, featured world-class scholars, authors and civil rights stalwarts. These lectures broadened the understanding of the civil rights movement and strengthened Stetson’s commitment to social justice and community engagement. In 1998, Stetson honored Rogers with an honorary doctorate of divinity. In 2004, Rogers received the Stetson Doyle E. Carlton Award, one of the university’s highest honors presented annually to an alumnus or friend of Stetson University in recognition of devotion to Christian higher education. Rogers founded the Church of the Redeemer in September 1958 and was its pastor until 1970. He was also head of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The Rogers home often served as a center for strategy sessions with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, Wyatt T. Walker, Jesse Jackson and other leading members of the civil rights movement. In 1981, Rogers and tennis legend Arthur Ashe founded New Birth Corporation to promote Thurman’s teachings and foster a cultural renaissance in the African-American community. Another esteemed professor, Edwin Channing Coolidge, Ph.D., was a former chemistry professor at Stetson University (1961-95), who died Aug. 15. Coolidge was born Jan. 30, 1925, in Gambier, Ohio. After working as a research chemist with Procter & Gamble Co. and service in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps (Dugway Proving Ground, Utah 1950-53), Coolidge became a chemistry educator, teaching at Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y. (1954-58), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, N.M. (1958-61), and Stetson University (1961-95). During his tenure at Stetson, Coolidge was active in many university committees, including long-term service on the Faculty Senate (four terms as chair), director of faculty adviser for the Year Abroad Program in Freiburg, Germany, and returned to Freiburg (1982-83) as Fulbright Lecturer in Chemistry at the Paedagogische Hochschule. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honorary societies. For several years, Coolidge played viola in the Stetson Symphony Orchestra. He had an abiding love of classical music, particularly German lieder and chamber music. In lieu of flowers, a remembrance should be made to: Stetson University (for the Chemistry Department in memory of Dr. Coolidge), 421 N. Woodland, Blvd, Unit 8286, attn. Kate Pearce, DeLand, FL 32723. Edgar Bryan Gillespie, Ph.D., former professor of English at Stetson University from 1966-95, died Sunday, Aug. 24, at the age of 82. Diagnosed in 1995 with Parkinson’s disease, Gillespie had worked with the DeLand Area Parkinson’s Support Group. In 2009, he received Stetson’s George and Mary Hood Award, one of the university’s highest awards presented annually to a member or friend of the university community in recognition of his/her passion for, and commitment and contributions to, Stetson and its core values. Stetson University College of Law Professor James J. Brown, J.D., Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund Professor Emeritus, died at his home on May 26 in London, England. Brown was the first Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund Professor at Stetson, where he taught property, real estate law, land use planning and local government for more than three decades.

STETSON

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We Innovate Because We Must By Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D. We are deep in the midst of the Information Age, and the opportunity to access knowledge and interact with content is at nearly everyone’s fingertips. We sift for meaning in data, collaborate with teams that bridge oceans, languages and cultures, and strive to communicate above the noise. How does Stetson best prepare students for success amid this complexity? How does the university itself flourish? Within this world, in an industry that is reinventing itself as rapidly as higher education, we know this: Incremental change is the path toward oblivion. Do or die is the mantra. We must be more compelling, more relevant, more relationship-driven than ever before. As the world changes, Stetson must as well. It is not in our nature, however, to merely keep pace but to be a pacesetter, an innovator, shaping the world. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso engaged in a decades-long boxing match, as Matisse once called it, a dance that provoked and inspired each other at every turn, drew on other artistic influences, and pushed boundaries with color and crude form. In the process, they shaped modern art. That’s the other thing about innovation. 68

STETSON

While creativity can be a solitary endeavor, innovation often involves community — uniting individuals in an environment that stimulates the “what if’s.” Stetson then becomes an incubator, where diverse, fresh perspectives come together with a mission, a long-term vision, a few resources, a sense of urgency, an injection of energy, and the audacity to imagine anything is possible. Once you take the top off, there are no limits to what can be achieved. Isn’t that how we should all approach the world every day? Innovation breeds more innovation, becomes part of the fabric of an organization, and we become so much better at what we do. In the 18th and 19th centuries, developments in steam engines helped fuel the Industrial Revolution. Steam also put energy into motion, which led to the development of jet turbines and internal combustion engines for cars, and the sprawl of our waterway-independent cities and life as we know it. All of these innovations were the result of a gap between where we were and where we wanted or needed to be. It wasn’t until Henry Ford made the Model T that automobiles became affordable mainstays, his “car for the

great multitude.” Now we experiment with superconducting magnets to produce floating cars with zero emissions. Where would we be without innovation to move us forward, or even right the errors of our past? While the discovery of penicillin was a fortunate accident in Alexander Fleming’s lab, its refinement for effective use as an antibiotic in the human body and for mass production took teams of scientists learning, failing, adapting and trying again. What are we, as students of lifelong learning and as a university, to understand from all of this? Above all, innovation is a process rooted in education and driven by people with a passion for discovery. People seeking to realize their significance in this world. Stetson provides a forum for them to tackle the Information Age head on, to focus on what matters most, to problem-solve, analyze, collaborate, communicate. To ask the tough questions and go down the rabbit hole. To learn and grow. To become better, and more compassionate, at what we do. We innovate because we must. Wendy B. Libby, Ph.D., is Stetson’s president. Above photo by Jason Jones

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Shot

Time to relax at Griffith Hall on Stetsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s DeLand campus. STETSON Photo by Bill Noblitt

Office of University Marketing 421 N. Woodland Blvd., 8319 DeLand, FL 32723

STETSON is printed on FSC-certified paper.

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MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Faculty Recital, Lynn Musco, clarinet; Michael Rickman, piano

November

ART – Continuing through Dec. 5, Oscar Bluemner’s America: New England Images, Hand Art Center

February

ART – Continuing through Dec. 5, Annual Juried Exhibit – Hand Art Center

M USIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Sounds New, Featuring William Bolcom, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and pianist

15-16

13 -15

MUSIC — Saturday: 7:30 p.m., Sunday: 4 p.m., Lee Chapel, Florida Bandmasters Association Concert

THEATER – Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Saturday: 8 p.m., Sunday: 3 p.m., Stetson’s Second Stage Theatre inside the Museum of Art, 600 N. Woodland Blvd.

MUSIC – 4 p.m., Lee Chapel, Florida Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame Concert featuring University Symphonic Band, Douglas Phillips, conductor

MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Sounds New - Faculty Composers Recital

MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Stetson Room, CUB, Stetson University Jazz - Patrick Hennessey, director

MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Gillespie Museum, Guitar on the Rocks - Stetson guitar students in concert

MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Stetson University Symphony Orchestra - Concerto Competition Winners, Anthony Hose, conductor

MUSIC – 3 p.m., First Baptist Church, DeLand, Stetson University Choral Union, Andrew Larson, conductor

December

4-6

MUSIC - Christmas Candlelight Concert – Lee Chapel, Concert Choir, Stetson Men, Women’s Chorale – Timothy Peter & Andrew Larson, conductors – A traditional concert of music celebrating the Christmas season • 4 and 5 – 7:30 p.m. • 6 – 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

M USIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Stetson University Community School Youth Strings Concert, Stephanie Sandritter and Sandra Hill, conductors MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Stetson University Community School Young Singers Concert, Sandra Peter, conductor

January

A RT – Jan. 16 – April 28 – Oscar Bluemner’s Europe: The Mediterranean, Hand Art Center

A RT – Jan. 16 - Feb. 28 – Just Plain Folk: Works From the Collection of Michael Murrell— Hand Art Center

MUSIC – 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel, Faculty Recital, Jesus Alfonzo, viola; Michael Rickman, piano

M USIC – 4 p.m., Lee Chapel, Stetson University Composers Symposium Concert M USIC – Annual Piano Scholars Festival, Great Pianists at Stetson series – Friday and Saturday: 7:30 p.m., Sunday: 3 p.m., Lee Chapel

19-22

THEATER – Master Class by Terence McNally, Thursday-Saturday: 8 p.m., Sunday: 3 p.m., Stetson’s Second Stage Theatre inside the Museum of Art, 600 N. Woodland Blvd. See more Stetson University events at www.stetson.edu/cultural-calendar. Learn more about Stetson arts events at www2.stetson.edu/creative-arts. For more on Stetson’s School of Music, visit www.stetson.edu/music.

Detail from a painting by Early Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca