Io Triumphe! Spring-Summer 2018

Io Triumphe!

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF ALBION COLLEGE

THE FACULTY ISSUE

VOL. LXXXIII, NO. 1

SPRING-SUMMER 2018

Contents

SPRING-SUMMER 2018

Features LIVING HISTORY Wes Dick earnestly shows how Albion’s story is America’s story.

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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT English’s Jess Roberts and Nels Christensen build community.

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PLYING A NEW CRAFT Physics’ Charles Moreau helps open Albion Malleable Brewing Co.

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IN THE KEY OF A David and Lia-Jensen Abbott are always in tune with Albion.

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AN ENLIGHTENING DIALOGUE Dianne Guenin-Lelle’s French connections continue to inspire.

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A NEXUS FOR WHAT’S NEXT The Ludington Center: a footprint downtown for the College; a space for all of Albion to move forward.

Plus: One alum’s Main Street zeal.

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THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE 30 In short, it’s personal, and grads of the Institute for Healthcare Professions are ready to deliver.

Departments BRITON BITS 3 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS 34 ALBIONOTES 38 THE BACK PAGE 48

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BRITON BITS

LETTERS Shining More Light

A Rewarding Path

“Forever Flickering” in the FallWinter 2017-18 Io Triumphe! (page 48) reported the discovery of a duplicate “lamp of learning” from Albion College’s second gas-light era in 1966. I offer a couple of further impressions: The installation of gas lights did not come about because the College “sought to improve campus lighting.” I think it happened because Southeastern Michigan Gas Company was then promoting gas lights as residential décor. The campus was a conspicuous showplace. Of course, the College willingly accepted the gift and exploited it for its own publicity, as reported.

The project was widely derided on campus. For instance, a mimeographed broadside titled “Are You Troubled by Gas?” circulated as the lights were being installed. Among its observations was that “… once upon a time, some 50 years ago, a misguided senior class donated electric lights to replace the then antiquated gas lights of the previous century.”

The gas lamps stayed quite a few years. In time many were damaged or vandalized. The last of them were removed—I can’t say just when—with none of the fanfare that accompanied their installation. The last ones I remember seeing were on the grounds of Bellemont Manor.

The Power of a Choice Everyone has their own reason or reasons for choosing Albion College. Maybe it was a particular academic program, the fantastic professors, a great campus visit, the opportunity to play a sport at the intercollegiate level, the best financial-aid package, or any of a host of other reasons.

Our son Andrew Hasley was profiled in the Fall-Winter 2017-18 edition (“Undaunted Vision,” page 18). It is an impressive article.

We owe our son’s success at the University of Wisconsin to Albion.

Professor Dan Skean’s decision to come down off a ladder from painting his house to escort a Colorado family with a blind high schooler around campus one hot June day in 2003 started our son on an amazing academic career.

Ann Hasley, Whitewater, CO Letters to the editor may be emailed to communications@albion.edu or mailed to the Office of Marketing and Communications, Albion College, 611 E. Porter St., Albion, MI 49224. Please note letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Of course, “everyone” includes those fantastic professors.

They chose Albion as well, and like a lot of their students, many of them came from far and wide. They arrived here, to this liberal arts college in south-central Michigan, to teach and conduct research; to teach and help prepare young adults for life in a complex world; to teach because they are passionate about teaching.

And in their time here teaching—be it two years, 20 years, or 40 years (or 50 years, page 10)—the connections faculty love to make often extend beyond their classroom or lab or even the borders of campus. In this edition of Io Triumphe! we visit with several professors who have become dedicated contributors and inspiring leaders in their community of Albion (pages 1626). Across the issue, we also catch up with a number of their colleagues from across campus.

It’s not exactly paradoxical, but it can be a bit fascinating to think how such a personal, individual choice like where to go to college, or the choice to join a particular college as an employee, adds up to a compelling whole that is truly greater than… well, you know the rest. And rest assured that while Albion may be a small place, it is doing big things—it’s a micromacro mashup that is exciting to watch unfold.

John Perney Editor

David Moore, ’68 Albion

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BRITON BITS

Merry Month of Mae

“We basically had faculty from every department come in during the summer to help us plan and make sure we had all the curriculum,” says the retired Shurmur director and Albion Public Schools teacher and principal. The spring-semester course puts Albion students in elementary and secondary school classrooms for a couple of hours each week to observe and build a lesson-plan unit, which they teach over a threeweek period affectionately known as Maymester.

Only now, you can call it MaeMester.

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In 2012 Tom Johnson, associate professor emeritus of physical education, was asked to create a fitness program for College employees as its new director of campus wellness. He got things rolling in the small Grounds Building across the parking lot from the Ferguson Administrative Building, calling this spot “the Depot” because “it was right next to the train tracks. … You get off at the depot and get something.

When you come to our Depot, you leave with something.”

Six years later, Johnson sees more and more people leaving with “something.”

As word spread about the offering, what began in a 10-foot-by-12-foot room with a few exercise balls and about 10 visitors per day eventually expanded to 25 feet by 40 feet and nearly 75 daily visitors. The FITT Brits (Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Technique) exercise and education program features individual regimens personally designed

by Johnson and which often include kettlebells, physio balls, or one of five kinds of self-propelled aerobic machines.

Dunklin (front) with the 2018 students of MaeMester, which recently received a grant from the Meemic Foundation of Auburn Hills and Stowe Insurance of Jackson.

The 2005 creation of Boundary Crossings, a junior-year course within the Fritz Shurmur Center for Teacher Development that prepares Albion education students for the senior-year studentteaching assignment, had input from the entire campus. Mae Ola Dunklin remembers it well.

Stationmaster and FITTness Coach

At the 12th annual community Showcase event for the course, where 14 Albion students presented displays of their lesson units May 24 in the Science Complex atrium, Dunklin’s former colleagues in the Education Department announced the official name change. “I was really taken aback,” Dunklin recalls when she first heard the news. “Even though I’m retired, I still go by the Education Department. It’s just a part of my heart.”

But she quickly put the focus back on the students. “As they would go into their classrooms in January, when we started telling them what they’re going to do, they’re like, ‘How are we going to get all that work done?’ And I would always say to them, ‘Wait until the night of the Showcase Learning Fair—you’re going to be so proud of yourself.’”

Overall, Johnson says, more than half of Albion faculty and staff regularly use the Depot, which also features monthly fitness challenges and themed events.

“I just feel so much better,” says Renée Kreger, assistant director of the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program and a threeyear Depot regular. “I get fewer colds, I have more energy, and I just feel ready for the day.”

—Kent Davis, ’19

“We’re lucky to have Tom,” says Renée Harlow (left), administrative assistant for the Economics and Management Department, with Johnson and Kreger in the Depot.

Joining the Team

Randin Brown, ’06 (second from right), with her crew filming Clear Water.

During stretches of 1967 and ’68, turmoil took hold on many of Detroit’s streets. In October 1969 it re-emerged, this time off land: the Rouge River caught fire, sending flames 50 feet high.

culminating in the sold-out April premiere of Clear Water: Detroit’s River Revival at the Freep Film Festival. Randin wrote and directed the film; Mallory served as producer and Bob as executive producer.

“The city of Detroit, a city on a river—that was the source of life,” says filmmaker Bob Brown, ’77. “And how the river went, so did the city. In 1969, it was the worst it could’ve possibly been.”

Actors Pam Dawber and Tom Skerritt lent their voices as the narrator and the voice of the river, respectively, to the Browns’ work, which debuted on Detroit Public Television on June 26.

From that industrial pollutionladen low point to the Riverwalk rebound today, Brown and daughters Randin Brown, ’06, and Mallory Brown, ’08, collaborated on a two-and-a-half-year documentary project,

“Clear Water was a project that truly represented home, in every sense of the word,” says Randin, an established film and TV assistant director in Hollywood. “Not only because I was making the film with my family, but because I

learned so much about where I had grown up in the process.

The history of the river was inherently linked to the story of Detroit. The river’s story was our story, which is what made it so personal, and ultimately, so important to tell.” clearwaterdetroit.com Four hours north: In East Jordan, Raven Hill Discovery Center, founded in 1991 by Cheri Culver Leach, ’69, and the late Tim Leach, ’72, will present the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Water/Ways exhibit August 11 through September 23. Raven Hill is a hands-on museum connecting science, history, and art for all ages. miravenhill.org/waterways

“I’ve gained a passion for the liberal arts and what it does for kids,” says Albion’s new vice president for finance and administration, Deanna McCormick. “I’ve seen kids transform into outstanding young men and women thanks to the liberal arts.”

McCormick, whose first day was May 21, comes to Albion from a similar executive role at The College of Wooster. Another similarity: she and President Mauri Ditzler are colleagues again. Years ago at Wabash College, she was chief financial officer and he was provost.

“I didn’t take much convincing,” McCormick says. “There’s a lot of electricity and a lot of enthusiasm on campus. They’re buying into [Mauri’s] vision, and those I have met are ready to move forward in a big way. It’s an exciting time for the College.”

McCormick replaces Jerry White, who left Albion in February to become chief operating officer of Culver Academies in Indiana.

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BRITON BITS

Albion 24/7

16,020 The Elkin R. Isaac Student Research Symposium, an April campus tradition since

1990,

saw University of CaliforniaBerkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner, a leading scholar in the study of emotion, deliver the Joseph S. Calvaruso Keynote in Goodrich Chapel.

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servings of ice cream were scooped by students in Lower Baldwin during the 2017-18 academic year. Of the six flavors in regular rotation, the most popular were chocolate, vanilla, and chocolate chip mint.

In February, the second Albion Film Festival at the Bohm Theatre attracted V submissions from students and community members.

The organizers—rising juniors and Honors students Taylor Karns, Lucas Lusk, and Grant Smith—plan to do it again in 2019.

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nail-biting hours after clicking Start, professor Brad Chase and instructional technologist Sarah Noah successfully created, via 3D printer, a full-scale plastic replica of a Homo naledi skull that was part of a recent important paleoanthropological find in South Africa.

Among a trio of courses using a 55-inch, 4K Jamboard (a Googledeveloped interactive whiteboard), art history professor Bille Wickre taught Earth, Art, and the Environment this spring to students at Albion and at two other Michigan liberal arts colleges simultaneously.

4,000

school-age visitors will be on campus this summer for camps and activities ranging from youth leadership and music to pre-med, sports, and more.

HEARD ON CAMPUS “I was terrified to open the email at first. Then I screamed my head off for about five minutes and scared my roommates.”

—Elaina Braunschweig, ’18, upon learning she was awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Germany for 2018-19

“I was an avid reader growing up because I loved immersing myself in new worlds. It was when I started acting that I realized I got just as much if not more joy from telling stories.”

“The first show I did here that really impacted me was Top Girls (fall 2016). It was an all-female cast and to get the opportunity to work with such talented women was amazing. Another show that I loved was Clybourne Park (spring 2017).

That was my first time playing a character who was specified as a Black woman, so I felt a very intimate connection to her.”

“Acting is my first love.

It also provides a kind of escape for me. I love getting to know a character—what makes them tick—and then bringing them to life.”

“I did just recently start directing, and I really like that, too. Watching actors you’ve directed perform is the most wonderful feeling; I can only equate it to feeling like a proud parent.”

“The thing that stands out most about Albion is I don’t feel lost here.

Here I know that I have people who care about me and professors who actually do mentor me and are truly invested in seeing me succeed.”

THE CURTAIN RISES ON A CAREER “I’ve never seen anyone this young who is this advanced as a director,” says Zach Fischer, assistant professor of theatre and department chair, about Savannah Manning, ’19, who will direct the Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog September 21-23, 26-29. The Muskegon native is building on her keen stage interest through a costume-design internship in Rome this summer with visiting

assistant professor Stephanie Henderson. “It really comes from my love of stories,” says the theatre major, psychology minor, and newly elected president of Albion’s chapter of Theta Alpha Phi, the national theatre honors fraternity.

Read more from Savannah, above, who plans to pursue an M.F.A. in acting and directing following her fourth Albion act in 2018-19.

BRITON BITS

JUST CHECKED IN

Supporting the Craft

Eight years in the imagining and nearly two in the construction, the new 75-room Courtyard

by Marriott opened in March at 200 S. Superior St., adding another dimension to downtown Albion’s momentum.

The hotel was the brainchild of Dr. Sam Shaheen, ’88, a surgeon and real estate developer who also led the creation of the Ludington Center two blocks north as well as several revitalization projects in his Saginaw hometown. First approached in 2010, the idea for a boutique hotel eventually took shape and, in cooperation and collaboration with the City of Albion and the College, groundbreaking occurred in May 2016.

Commencement 2018 saw the introduction of a new tradition—the procession through the Petherick Family Walk of Scholars, a new outdoor gathering space near the Observatory that formally recognizes transformational endowed scholarships and professorships.

“You can tell it is a real community of people who value education, diversity, and intellect.

There’s just something very special about Albion,” said Jeff Petherick, ’85, on campus with son Chad Petherick, ’10 (above left) for the Walk’s May 4 dedication. Jeff’s parents are also alums: Kip Petherick, ’59, and Wendy Wheeker Petherick, ’60.

The College currently awards eight endowed professorships to faculty, each spanning four years. Below, try to match each endowment to its recipient for 2017-18. (Answers on page 39.)

1. E. Maynard Aris Professorship in Economics & Management ­ 2. A. Merton Chickering Professorship in Biology 3. W.W. Diehl, ’24 Trustees’ Professorship 4. Herbert H. & Grace A. Dow Trustees’ Professorship in the Sciences 5. Stanley S. Kresge Professorship in Religious Studies 6. John S. Ludington Trustees’ Professorship 7. Howard L. McGregor, Jr., Professorship in the Humanities 8. Julian S. Rammelkamp Professorship in History

a. Deborah Kanter b. Zhen Li c. Ian MacInnes d. Anne McCauley e. Jocelyn McWhirter f. Marcy Sacks g. Ken Saville h. Thom Wilch

Shaheen, a College trustee, delivered the 2018 Commencement address May 5, touching on his personal connection to the town. “Albion became a special community for me, my first home away from home really,” he shared with graduating seniors. “I really believe my most formative years were here in Albion, learning to solve problems and making a difference.”

Robert Mahaney, ’80, president of the Marquette-based Veridea Group, which runs the hotel, recently recalled his time as The Pleiad business manager walking up and down Superior looking for businesses to buy ads for the student newspaper.

“It was a great experience for me and gave me my initial exposure to business,” Mahaney said.

“To see the slow demise of downtown Albion over the years was disturbing, and now to play a part in its rebirth is very rewarding.”

Staying connected to Albion just got even easier!

Download the newly released College app for your iOS or Android device and network with alums, refer and mentor students, register for on- and off-campus events, read College news, even request a transcript. Visit Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store and search for “MyAlbion.”

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The hotel’s vehicle entrance is behind Superior Street.

Two Minutes with . . .

THE FACULTY MARSHALS

Professors Lynne Chytilo (Art and Art History), Jocelyn McWhirter (Religious Studies), and Drew Christopher (Psychological Science) along with Stockwell-Mudd Libraries Co-Director Mike Van Houten help keep Albion’s academic convocations running smoothly. They talked about their unsung role moving large numbers of people two days before 2018 Commencement.

Io Triumphe!: So, how did you get involved in this?

Drew: Lynne asked me.

Mike: For me, [math professor emeritus] John Wenzel said, “You’re tall enough. Will you be a faculty marshal?”

Lynne: See, I had a different experience. [Theatre professor emeritus] Royal Ward asked me to do it. I think he said this at a faculty meeting: “What she lacks in height she’ll make up for in other ways.” (Laughs.)

Jocelyn: I was just asked by email—I can’t even remember who it was. I had been a marshal before at my previous institution, so it was an easy answer for me.

Is being a marshal a badge of honor in some way?

Jocelyn: The sticks really help.

Drew: The sticks are great. I love my stick.

Jocelyn: [Retired Provost] Susan Conner thought the marshals ought to have sticks. And then [her husband] Ron Conner actually made them on his lathe.

What’s your mindset as a marshal going into these events? It can’t be just like going into a class for an ordinary day of teaching.

Lynne: You make it sound like we’re astronauts or something. “Are you sure you’re going to make it back?”

Well, it’s a different kind of role, isn’t it?

Drew: It’s about being organized.

That’s why I wanted to join.

Mike: Our motto is, “We go for effortless grace but we sometimes end up with graceless effort.” You better not print that, never mind.

Jocelyn: It’s like life. You sort of prepare for it beforehand and then you just deal with the contingencies as they arise—like, a student fainting, students…

Drew: … hung over.

Jocelyn: No … shhh.

Lynne: Or the heel of their shoe falls off…

Jocelyn: Lynne keeps a glue gun in an emergency supply kit.

Lynne: And duct tape, some Imodium, Pepto-Bismol, tassels…

Jocelyn: Yes, extra tassels.

Can you talk more about the “being organized” aspect?

Mike: I think we all pay attention to detail enough to make things happen the way they’re supposed to.

Jocelyn: We’re not shy about telling people what to do. And at a moment’s notice.

Lynne: It’s all about staying on task and anticipating what will happen next. We’re really the handlers. Somebody’s got to do it.

Jocelyn: I once preached a sermon about the good shepherd and I used marshaling as an example of how to be a good shepherd and how to be good sheep. Trust the shepherd is the answer to that.

You get a different perspective at Commencement, watching another senior class graduate.

That must carry some extra meaning.

Jocelyn: Drew has a story about that. Before he became a marshal, we would often recruit him to help line up the seniors alphabetically and he would often say, “I want the Ms,”

From left: Chytilo, Van Houten, Christopher, and McWhirter. Van Houten, a “retired” marshal, filled in this spring for biology professor and longtime marshal Dan Skean, who completed a sabbatical. Read about some recent and upcoming faculty sabbaticals on page 48.

because he knew certain students, or whatever it was—he wanted to organize that group.

Drew: Good story, Jocelyn. Yes, that’s true.

Mike: When we have them stand up or head for the stage, and a student you know well goes by, you have one more chance to wish them well and say congratulations.

Lynne: A lot of this comes down to this (Commencement) week.

Yesterday, Drew and I probably spent two hours in my office talking about what to do. So, it doesn’t come at a great time. But it’s fine. (Smiles.)

Interview by John Perney.

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Living History

By Chuck Carlson

Since his first classes in fall 1968, Wes Dick has done much more than convey the nation’s past to his students. Once the Pacific Northwest native made Albion, Michigan, his permanent home, his teaching evolved to earnestly show how Albion’s story is indeed America’s story.

In 2018, the teaching continues.

Long ago and far away, Wesley Arden Dick realized life just couldn’t be a spectator sport.

It was a conclusion reached through experience and knowledge and practice and by asking the right questions at sometimes the exact wrong time and by realizing that getting involved in the human condition may not always be successful but it’s always correct.

“People know something’s wrong and should do something about it.” Dick adds: “We don’t simply want to change things, we want to fix things.”

Wes Dick is now 79 years old and has just completed his 50th year as a history professor at Albion College. But for the thousands of students who have taken his wide-ranging and eclectic courses over the years, he teaches more than history. He has taught students, often along with his wife of 58 years, Leslie, not only how to think but, more importantly, why they should think.

“We were taught it was not acceptable to be neutral,” says Nick Cuccinella, ’01, one of the students whose life was changed by Dick.

“It is not acceptable for you not to be angry at injustice and not take a position. He taught me that. When you meet someone in line with your beliefs, there’s a lot of emotion and power in that. You might not remember what people always say but you remember how they made you feel. I will always remember how Wes and Leslie made me feel.”

“He was always stirring the pot,” says Dan Clark, ’81, who has been a history professor at Oakland University for 19 years and came to know Dick as a junior, taking several classes with him and confiding in him. “He created divisions but they were divisions that needed creating.”

Whether it was civil rights or politics or the environment or social justice, Wes Dick has never stood on the sidelines.

He has walked through the South with civil rights leaders such as Julian Bond and John Lewis. He has marched in Washington, protesting wars and injustice, and advocating for women’s rights and the environment. He was in Washington for the inauguration of America’s first African American president and in January 2017 for the Women’s March.

He has fought for the rights of the disadvantaged, the unheard, and the unseen.

For years he has traveled to far-flung regions of the country—from the top of a mountain in Appalachia, decimated by mountaintop— removal mining, to the changing ecosystem in a once pristine Pacific Northwest forest.

And he has also tilted at his share of windmills, usually with a smile on his face.

“I remember the Iraq war protests here on campus and someone talked about lost causes,” he says. “The answer was it’s not a lost cause, it just hasn’t been won yet. There are always surprises and sometimes in a good way.”

With students, he hung out in Charlie’s Tavern with beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who was in town to give one of those campus talks that Wes Dick was known to arrange.

He sat with environmental icon David Brower in Cascarelli’s, after viewing with students and colleagues the debut screening of a PBS special.

He has planted trees in Rieger Park with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He has brought worldclass speakers to the Albion campus like labor leader Cesar Chavez, civil rights activist William Sloane Coffin, and Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers to the media.

“I don’t ever remember not being interested,” says Hilary Dick Barker, the oldest child of Wes and Leslie. “It was part of the family dynamic. I remember my dad going out of town to participate. He’d go to Boston to support the Berrigan brothers (antiwar activists Daniel and Philip); he went to Three Mile Island (site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history). In 1970, we helped plant a pine forest at the [Whitehouse] Nature Center. I think we wrapped ribbon around the Pentagon. There were a lot of dinnertime conversations about issues that were important to my parents.”

And perhaps no issue was more important than Albion itself—a town beset by the tribulations of many Rust Belt communities. But he earned the respect and love of residents by embracing the town, warts and all. His four kids—Hilary, Shane, Hadyn, and Hadley—all attended Albion Public Schools and grew up with the community.

And it’s where Wes and Leslie became civically involved.

“We grew to know each other and love each other,” says longtime friend and compatriot Bob Dunklin, president of the NAACP’s Albion Branch. “We felt this was our niche. We felt this was something we were supposed to do and we’ve been traveling that road together ever since.”

Becoming Involved Their first argument was about politics.

Imagine that.

Leslie Keller was feisty and opinionated and in that time and in that place in rural Eastern Oregon, thoroughly out of the mainstream. Wesley Dick was three years older, a senior at Hermiston High School and already known for his cool intellect.

“Wesley and Leslie,” Dick recalls. “I liked the fact that our names rhymed. I had to meet her.”

“The senior boys always checked out the freshman girls,” says Leslie. “I had a crush on one of his friends and I’m lucky it didn’t work out.”

Wes’s dad worked on the railroad, was a union man, and a Republican. Leslie’s parents had moved to Oregon from Oklahoma, ran a turkey farm, and developed a progressive streak she inherited.

“Dad always believed all that Woody Guthrie stuff,” she says. “It’s a Grapes of Wrath story.”

Wes and Leslie would marry after Leslie finished high school and he was already attending Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He earned his bachelor’s in history in 1961, though Leslie, who accompanied him to comprise one

Spring-Summer 2018 | 11

of the only married couples on campus, interrupted college to start raising a family.

She eventually earned her degree, also in history, from Western Michigan University.

But it was at the University of Washington, where Wes was studying for his master’s, when his evolution intensified.

It was a remarkable time, especially on the West Coast, as a progressive spirit moved north from San Francisco and enveloped Seattle. It was there that Dick studied with what was considered an extremely liberal History Department, led by professor Giovanni Costigan, who was an adamant anti-war protestor.

Dick taught, researched, and studied at UW and began to embrace social causes; one of those was a protest of Seattle City Light in a battle between public and private ownership of a utility. He also took an interest in the development, use, and ownership of dams on the Columbia River.

It’s a topic still close to his heart.

“I’m known as the dam guy,” he says.

And he was now involved, whether he knew it or not.

But it was while he was on a job interview for a teaching position in Albion, Michigan, when everything changed.

The Myth of the Hippie Those who know Wes Dick at all know this story.

He was interviewing for a new professor position at Albion College in April 1968 when he heard that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dick had come to Albion, intrigued and ready for a change and all too aware of the civil rights issues in America. His plan to teach full-time included a course that this school had never seen before—Black history.

Flying back to Seattle after the interview, he looked out his window to see downtown Chicago on fire as African Americans vented their rage at King’s killing. It was an image Dick would never forget.

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“His epiphany was King’s death,” Leslie says. “I knew our lives had changed.”

And Wes—who arrived on campus with Leslie, Hilary, and a cat—was ready.

On the long drive to Albion, he had let the beginnings of a beard grow. “We forgot to pack his razors,” Leslie jokes.

“We had a faculty meeting before the start of class and people saw me and my beard and said, ‘My God,’” Wes remembers. “During the meeting, a school official mentioned that the College had many investments, including Gillette Blue Blades, and he looked at me. I never shaved again.”

At Albion, his plans for teaching history at the overwhelmingly white school (both in student body and faculty) left many amazed, skeptical, and intrigued.

“I remember the head of the department asked if I really wanted to do this,” Dick says.

“There wasn’t a field of Black studies at the time, but it really started to blossom at that moment. There was no canon for teaching it. We made it up. There was a vibrancy and compassion, and the students were ready for it, too.”

There have been thousands of students over the decades who have taken one of Dick’s distinctive courses. Whether it was American Dreams & Realities, or U.S. History Since 1977, or America in Crisis: Great Depression, World War II & the Cold War, Dick has made an impression.

But it is three courses in particular that his students remember most vividly: Environmental History, The 1960s, and his First-Year Experience seminar, taught with Leslie, A Sense of Place: Albion & the American Dream.

“Wes always says that Albion’s story is America’s story, and he’s right,” says Cuccinella, who remains close to both Wes and Leslie and has devoted his life to helping others in the form of nonprofit work.

Dick reveled in his reputation as the College’s hippie counterculture warrior who could be relied on to stand up to whatever injustice was on the horizon—be it through a national rally on Vietnam or a campus demonstration about the evils of apartheid.

“I think my reputation took root because it was such an activist time,” Dick says.

“Like many places, it was young professors challenging older norms.”

He smiles at the memory.

“I was young then,” he says.

And perhaps that’s why none of his children attended Albion.

Hilary and her younger sisters, Hadyn and Hadley, attended Oberlin College, while brother Shane went to Denison University.

And they’ve all excelled.

“I was determined not to put my kids through that,” Dick says. “I didn’t want them living in my shadow.”

Nor did he want students living in shadows either.

Clark, the Oakland professor, says he has never forgotten the Dicks’ home at the corner of Ingham and Michigan, facing Susanna Wesley Hall, and seeing the “Hippies Use the Side Door” sign.

“He just has a way of connecting with people,” Clark says.

The Dicks have lived there since 1986, moving down Michigan Avenue a few blocks from their first home, which they still own and which now serves as the family library.

Their current home has always been a meeting place, a conference center, a sanctuary for students.

“We had students stay with us at Christmas, and after graduation they’d be there all the time,” recalls Hilary, who moved to Washington, D.C., after receiving her bachelor’s in 1984 to work for Michigan congressman Howard Wolpe. She still works around the nation’s capital today, in the nonprofit sector, primarily on environmental issues. “There were different eras of students and sometimes Dad would say, ‘Do you remember so and so…’” and I’d say, ‘No, Dad, that was Hadyn’s time.’”

Clockwise from above: Wes Dick at the typewriter in the 1970s; Wes and Leslie Dick with retired Albion schoolteacher Bob Wall in 2016 at the History Hill at Holland Park exhibit, which displays the story of West Ward School, formerly on the site; Dick has gone on 19 trips with the Center for Sustainability and the Environment, including to the Cascades in 2017; Dick outside with a class in fall 1968, in the classroom in ’76, and with early colleague Wayne Sheehan in ’69.

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Former students, ranging from those who just graduated to those who have retired, remain in touch with Dick to this day.

“That’s the highest reward for a teacher,” he says. “In some respects, I’m not sure how much I teach them. I just give them the freedom to find themselves.”

Of Man and Nature Hazel Lias remembers the first time she saw Wes Dick. She was in the crowd watching the Festival of the Forks parade come down Superior Street in 1969 when she saw a sight she never expected.

“There are two white men holding an NAACP sign,” she says with a laugh. “That was surprising to me. Two white men carrying an NAACP sign. That was a rude awakening.”

The two men holding the sign were Albion College political science professor Bruce Borthwick and Wes Dick, in what may well have been Dick’s first foray into civil rights and into the rapidly changing Albion community.

Lias, like many of the African Americans who moved to Albion in the late 1960s, was part of the “Second Great Migration,” which saw more than 5 million African Americans move from the segregated South to the North, West, and Midwest from 1940 to 1970.

Many came to Albion to work in the foundries and factories, and to teach. Lias came from Arkansas to teach junior high and then elementary school.

She became part of a large group of African Americans who were drawn to Dick for his affinity to not only work with the Black community but to teach Albion College students about race in America. Dick would go on to join the NAACP and is now a lifetime member.

14 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

His relationship with Albion’s African American community runs long and deep, and started when Wes and Leslie made a point of educating their children in Albion Public Schools when many Albion faculty and staff lived elsewhere and schooled their kids somewhere that wasn’t Albion.

“There was a time when the College was disengaged from the town,” Hilary says. “And it seemed there was a time when my dad was the bridge between the town and the College.

I think recent administrations have realized the role the College plays in the town and they’ve learned to invest in downtown.”

Mae Ola Dunklin came to Albion from Louisiana in 1973 and made her mark in education, as an elementary school teacher and principal and later as director of the College’s Fritz Shurmur Educational Institute (now the Shurmur Center for Teacher Education). She and her husband, Bob, an Alabama native, grew to know Wes through his work with the NAACP and the community to the point where the Dunklins and Dicks, she says, “are like family.”

“It’s hard to put into words what Wes has meant to this community,” adds Bob Dunklin.

“He is truly a blessing to Albion College.”

“If you walk the streets of Albion, everyone would know who Wes is,” says Mae Ola, who currently serves on the College’s Board of Trustees. “And not just because he’s a professor, but he’s so involved in the community. He’s everywhere, and he cares about all the people of Albion. He’s very visible and he works to bring new ideas and new programs to the community.”

That led to one of his proudest accomplishments, the creation two years ago of History Hill, carved out of the middle of Holland Park and a tribute to the now razed West Ward School, the first school in town that educated children who had been part of the Great Migration of the early 1900s.

“Albion is a microcosm of the country and he’s always said that,” explains Bob Wall, who met Dick while teaching his kids history and who worked with Leslie and Wes on the History Hill project. “He’s seen the city decline but he also has an understanding that whatever the new Albion turns out to be,

it’s going to require people being constantly reminded that Albion’s diversity was one of its great attributes. He’s committed to making sure that’s not lost.”

Dick’s other passion, the environment, has been no less a struggle.

When Earth Day was created in 1970, Dick was already seeing the damage being done to the planet. In later years, he became part of Albion’s Center for Sustainability and the Environment and still travels yearly with students to far-flung parts of the country to study the environment and humans’ impact.

He vividly remembers a bright summer day in 2012 when he saw herbicides being sprayed on the grass outside Norris Science Center. The next day he observed how firstyear students on hand for orientation sessions were meeting in small groups on the very area the spraying had occurred.

He wrote an open letter to then College President Donna Randall asking for her to declare the campus a “pesticide-free zone,” and to declare later that year that Albion was an organic campus.

“She appreciated my spirit,” he says now.

“But nothing really changed.”

Similarly, nothing has really changed in Wesley Dick’s ongoing war against complacency, whether it’s the environment or civil rights or the way students need to learn and understand if they’re to confront the problems of the future. When he brings a sign to a demonstration, the words are still the same: “America, in search of its conscience.”

“Wes is a student of social movements and he knows you can’t get too up or too down,” Clark says. “Wes won’t let people forget what’s going on in the world.”

So the fight continues and, with a smile on his face and fire in his heart, Wes Dick wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hear more from Wes Dick and Leslie Dick in an episode of Albion College’s podcast series Town and Gown. Find the link at albion.edu/ iotriumphe.

An Uncommon Bond Wes Dick enjoyed a lasting friendship with a leader of the Civil Rights Movement.

They met in 1974, and over the next four decades Wes Dick and Julian Bond became friends. Yet, in the context of the time, they became something else: comrades in the struggle for civil rights.

“It turned out to be a unique and extended relationship,” Dick says. “It became a friendship.”

Bond was part of the Civil Rights Movement vanguard of the 1960s that spread the message of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., especially in the political realm.

A member of the Georgia legislature for 20 years (following a unanimous Supreme Court decision requiring the state to end its refusal to seat the newly elected Representative), Bond went on to co-found and lead the Southern Poverty Law Center and serve as chairman of the NAACP from 1998-2010.

He also taught for years at the University of Virginia and was a lifelong advocate and eloquent spokesman for human rights, a topic near and dear to a young Albion College history professor in 1974, who in six years had already established himself similarly on his campus. Alibon College invited Bond to speak at Albion in the fall of that year, a turbulent time in American history. A U.S. president had just resigned, Vietnam was still in the lexicon, and cynicism reigned. Bond spoke to Albion students about how a new generation would try to remake the country.

And it’s where Bond and Dick formed a connection that would last until Bond’s death in 2015 at age 75. “I was watching CNN and there was a scroll across the bottom that said Julian Bond had died,” Dick recalls. “It was a stunner.”

Julian Bond and Wes Dick at the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

It was especially stunning since Dick and Bond had spent more time together in later years. From 2008 to 2015, Dick participated in Bond’s annual Civil Rights South Seminar through UVA, walking the iconic Deep South sites that told the story of the Movement in the 1960s. Members of the Dick family often took part as well.

“That was larger than life,” Dick says.

“A Civil Rights tour with Julian Bond. That experience has permeated me.”

Over the years Dick has been impacted, impressed, and changed by many figures in 20th- and 21st-century American history: Cesar Chavez; David Brower, Howard Zinn, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Bill McKibben; Allen Ginsberg; William Sloane Coffin and Daniel Ellsberg. He has also met Civil Rights Movement icons Rosa Parks, Diane Nash, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Damon Keith, John Lewis, Andrew Young, and Cleveland Sellers.

But it was his relationship with Bond that went the deepest. And Dick still feels the loss today.

He recalls a story from 2009 when he was invited to attend the NAACP’s 100th anniversary celebration in New York, during which Bond would receive an award.

“The event was sold out and I remember

asking Pam [Horowitz, Bond’s wife] if I could get a ticket,” Dick says. “The next day Pam had a ticket waiting for me and it was a ticket to sit at the same table with Julian’s family.

The moral is if Pam Horowitz is looking out for you, that’s a good thing.”

Dick invited Bond to give the keynote at Albion’s 2014 MLK Convocation and Community Celebration, 40 years after Bond’s initial visit. Inside a packed Goodrich Chapel, Bond stirringly spoke of “The Dream: The Journey So Far and the Challenge Ahead.”* Afterward, mingling with community members at Wes and Leslie Dick’s home, Bond deepened his ties to Albion.

When Bond died, Wes, Leslie, and the Albion NAACP led a memorial in Victory Park, spreading flowers in the Kalamazoo River. A year later Dick was at UVA, invited to speak at a symposium honoring Bond, where he shared memories of his Civil Rights South travels.

“Not a day, not a class, goes by when I don’t think about those trips,” he says.

Or his friend.

—Chuck Carlson *Find a link to video of the event at albion.edu/iotriumphe.

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Character Development

English professors Jess Roberts and Nels Christensen are stitching together their soulful connections with Albion College and grade-school students into a compelling community story arc.

“Making the Big Read work after annexation was the practical work of building relationships in Marshall.”

By Steven Marowski, ’18 Known during the summer as the Big Read room, Vulgamore 123 is home to eighth-to-10thgraders from Albion who train to be leaders for Albion’s Big Read in October. Normally the room is cluttered with creaky wooden desks, but on one July day last year, the desks—not the students—left the room.

Jess Roberts, professor of English at Albion College and director of Albion’s Big Read, said the first three training meetings went well, but that it was starting to feel a little like school.

Everyone could feel the drag. Then, as Roberts recalls, Emily Allison, ’18, one of the Big Read’s College volunteers, suggested they remove all of the desks from the room.

“It struck me as the most exemplary Big Read moment because it was a practical decision.

It was a small doable task, and it transformed the entire space,” Roberts recalls. “So when the students walked in, there was no place to sit down. They were initially confused; some of the students didn’t like it; some of them immediately lay down on the floor. It made them interact with that space and with each other in a totally different way, and we never went back. It made it really different.”

After that day, Roberts, Allison, and the rest of the College volunteers began every meeting by putting all of the desks out in the hallway.

Moving those desks—all thirtysomething of them—may have been a chore, but it allowed everyone in that space to do a different kind of work and use their bodies in a different way.

It’s an example of what Roberts is trying to facilitate with Albion’s now four-year-old Big Read—the creation of relationships between people of different ages and backgrounds who can come together and talk about a common denominator: literature.

Roberts and her husband, English Department colleague Nels Christensen, are two faculty members who are powering a closer connection between the College and its host community.

This is the story of how their work has helped redefine the impact a residential college can have on the local level. But as we’ll see, their investments of energy and talent inside and outside the classroom are motivated by more than just a vision of what it can mean these days to be an Albion professor. For Jess and Nels, doing good things around and beyond the Quad also couldn’t be more personal.

Easing the Pain of Annexation Initially, the Big Read came to Albion by way of a successful and inspiring collaboration between Albion College, the Albion District Library, and Albion Public Schools (APS). The result: in October 2015, the Albion community read, discussed, and celebrated the 1968 sci-fi fantasy A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. Just three months later, the Albion school board voted to shut down grades six through eight in APS and send those kids to Marshall Public Schools. By mid-2016, the rest of APS had followed suit. (Albion High School had been closed since 2013.) To keep the Big Read going, Roberts knew another huge effort would be required.

“Making the Big Read work after annexation was the practical work of building relationships in Marshall,” Roberts explains. “When I reached out to folks at Marshall Middle School, they reached back again. After annexation, the Big Read became an occasion to make relationships that would actually help, I think, make things more smooth after the tumultuous process.”

This is where Christensen comes in. The associate professor was a member of Albion’s Board of Education when the annexation vote came to a head. By early 2016, the board was not voting to actually annex APS (at this point a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade district), but rather to give Albion citizens an opportunity to

vote on the issue.

“I knew what I was voting for was to give the town of Albion a chance to vote for or against annexation,” Christensen says. “I was not deciding for the town to do that thing. I was deciding to move in that direction and that the town had that right, and must vote yes or no.”

Still, it wasn’t an easy decision to make, even in the face of years-long enrollment and state-funding declines. And for Christensen and Roberts, it was even more personal: their daughter, Emmylou, was attending Albion Middle School when it closed. Earlier, Christensen had registered one of the two votes to keep the middle school open, but they were outnumbered.

As a board, there were two options: give the choice to be annexed to the voters, or fight it out and all but certainly close at some point down the road. The eventual, collective decisions that brought annexation might not have been best for everyone in Albion, but students are reaping the benefits.

“As a result of annexation, way more Albion students are getting the kind of education we want our students to get,” Christensen says.

“At the same time, our students are going to school in a different town. That’s not ideal, and some of them, their situation is potentially worse because of complications of a bunch of different factors. They went from being in one of the worst school districts to one of the best.

That doesn’t mean it’s best for everybody. It’s just a fact.”

Roberts and Christensen are not the only faculty couple at the College, but they are two of the more proactive professors when it comes to working in the city and its surroundings.

Perhaps that is why people in town tend to identify Jess and Nels as community members first and foremost.

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Christensen and Roberts (back row, center), along with English Department colleague Ian MacInnes (front row, left), took part last October in a larger, student-led discussion about similarities and differences stemming from the 2017 Albion Big Read book, True Grit by Charles Portis.

of Environmental Studies; and Redneck Environmentalism. Now at the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Dussel employs on a daily basis some of Christensen’s methods and mannerisms.

Building Foundations and Structures

front of the room, commanding your attention, and I think Jess and Nels, like we’re laying on the floor with them; we’re reading with them.”

In the fall of 2014, Maddie Drury, ’15, enrolled in an English course called Practical Persuasion. It was taught by Roberts. The class of four (three students and Jess) designed the Big Read for Albion and submitted a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as additional proposals for local funding. Along the way, the class would attend area meetings to provide information about the program and see what nearby organizations could offer in return.

Albion’s fourth Big Read Youth Leadership Program will begin later this summer (this year’s book is the 2015 X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon). Yet, while working with Roberts, Drury has learned that they won’t necessarily create a “perfect Big Read where we will regurgitate that same program again and again.”

“At the very beginning it was hard work— going from meeting to meeting, giving the same pitch over and over again,” Drury recalls.

“But I think that laid a foundation. Without going there and showing our faces and shaking people’s hands, I don’t think the Big Read would be what it is right now had we not done that hard work up front.”

Similarly, laying the foundation is the first thing Roberts and Christensen do in class. They start with an idea, and from that idea comes a world of new possibilities and perspectives. Inside that structure, beautiful things can happen, and it’s not just the students doing the work.

Notes Drury, assistant director of Albion’s Big Read: “Jess and Nels and I, whatever we’re asking those kids to do, we’re truly alongside them. I think a lot of times, people imagine teachers being the person in charge, standing in

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The same goes for the courses Roberts and Christensen teach. Classes may have the same name, but they will never be identical. There will be different texts, different materials, and different students in the class. It creates new challenges for everyone, but that’s all a part of doing the work to create a special learning experience.

“There’s no set way to do it, which is why good teaching is all about imagination and creativity to get something done,” says Christensen. “If I had the same structure every time, it doesn’t work because the students are a different shape.

You’ve got to change the structure because of the students, because of the way I’m feeling, because of what we’re reading, all that stuff.”

Mike Dussel, ’17, learned about Nels’ changing structures quickly. Of his four classes with Christensen, three were in his first semester. After English 100, the others focused on environmentalism: Orcs, Elves, and the Environment; Fundamentals

“Given Nels and his reputation for being unorthodox, looking back, I did not see it as a challenge. It was an exciting way of breaking down problems and attacking them from all the angles,” Dussel says. “Nels is able to get students who have a certain weakness and turn that weakness into their strength.”

Each course each year may be different, but Christensen does bring a certain mantra into his classroom: “Be uncomfortable, press the boundaries, and know the rules of the game so you can break them,” as Dussel describes it. While bringing together rednecks and environmentalism sounds nearly impossible, Nels does just that. In the process he speaks to larger problems in today’s society, by deconstructing a concept “into its essential parts so he can get you to better understand what he is trying to teach you,” Dussel says.

Big Read, Bigger Picture Nancy Peters-Lewis, ’96, met Roberts through Albion Public Schools parent-teacher organizations and a program called Destination Imagination. While on sabbatical, Roberts was doing research, but she also “spent every Thursday baking muffins and preparing to go and work with seven fourth graders in an attempt to create vehicles that would be propelled by different energy sources, and to write a play that they would all perform about vehicles.”

For Peters-Lewis, a leader for an area nonprofit organization, the passion Roberts showed then was only a preview of what was to come.

“Jess started doing [the Big Read] in a very small manner, and she’s just built the capacity over the years to make it much larger, much more impactful,” says Peters-Lewis, the executive director and advisor for the College and Career Access Center in Jackson.

“Encouraging the students to be in different reading groups, having the festivities around, having the whole month [of October] for the Big Read, all these different arenas that she brings together to be able to be involved with the Big Read, and then the funding she’s been able to leverage—she has had a huge impact with her work and bringing that passion to students in an intimate way.”

The relationships Roberts formed through Destination Imagination have extended to the Big Read: three of the fourth graders she took under her wing eventually became Big Read student leaders. It circles back to the makeup of this community—Albion—and Roberts is rather in wonder about it all.

“The sort of serendipity in that situation,” she says, “that Nancy asked me, that I said yes, that all of these things happened—it created the opportunity to start the work of building relationships that changed my relationship to institutions, but then pushed me back into the community in ways that made me want to build more and more relationships, which then changed my relationships to institutions and caused us to live here in a different way. I can trace it right back to Nancy Peters-Lewis, who’s an alum, who decided to live here.”

Yes, Jess and Nels are professors at Albion College, but they are invested in the City of Albion. Although the College supports Albion’s Big Read, it has been, from its beginning, a program for and about the town and establishing relationships within it, between kids and communities through literature. Don’t expect that to change any time soon—that’s one plot twist you won’t find here.

Steven Marowski, from Farmington Hills, Michigan, graduated in May with a B.A. in English-professional writing and philosophy.

Page-Turners

This summer Albion schoolchildren will train on the Albion College campus to become student leaders for book discussions during the community’s fourth Big Read this fall (albionbigread.org). The works explored thus far:

2015

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) Ursula K. Le Guin Science Fiction/Fantasy

2016

Fahrenheit 451 (1953) Ray Bradbury Dystopian Fiction

2018

2017

X: A Novel (2015) Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon Biographical Fiction

True Grit (1968) Charles Portis Western Fiction

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20 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

B. REED PHOTO

PLYING A NEW CRAFT

In partnership with two alums, Physics chair Charles Moreau opens Albion Malleable Brewing Company.

By Paige Johnson, ’18

Set Up in a Strong Community

Keep Your Expectations Flexible

Malleable is a commonly known word around Albion, thanks to the old Albion Malleable Iron Company and now the Albion Malleable Brewing Company, a microbrewery launched this spring by Albion College associate professor of physics Charles Moreau and alumni Ben Wade, ’99, and John Rogers, ’15.

The word, which can describe the process of shaping iron, can also be applied to this adaptable city, whose history and personality are heralded by the new venture.

The location was never in question. “We are in Albion,” Rogers says. “There are things about to happen in Albion. How can we help a community rebuild and revitalize?”

There are always trials and tribulations when it comes to new-business certification and licensing. Eighteen months after the meeting at the 115, the Malleable received state licensing on April 5 and celebrated its grand opening on May 21. “We haven’t had any catastrophic problems,” Rogers says. “These things take as long as they take.”

Moreau’s timing may be auspicious, given the many recent renovations and additions downtown: the Ludington Center, the Courtyard Marriott hotel, the Bohm Theatre, and several new or revamped stores. But how exactly does one open a small business in an on-the-riseagain community while managing teaching and department-chair responsibilities?

Leverage Your Albion Network Wade and Rogers weren’t Moreau students, but their College connection brought them together. Moreau met Rogers off campus through a shared love of beer, and they were introduced to Wade through Jenny RisnerWade, ’98, operations manager in the College’s Career and Internship Center. It just so happens that her husband has a passion for brewing beer. In October 2016, the trio met at the 115 truck stop off of I-94 to get basic introductions out of the way and left with a business plan to open a brewery.

“It was remarkable how much Ben’s thinking matched mine and John’s,” Moreau says. “We were really on the same page with everything, from details like the size of the brewhouse to big-picture things like the focus on Albion.”

Moreau describes the venture as a privilege and adds that, as an Albion resident, he has a sense of responsibility. The community’s response, meanwhile, has been tremendously positive (3,200 Facebook followers before the opening) and the partners’ single biggest investor, Homestead Bank, sits right across the street from the Malleable’s 420 S. Superior St. location.

And while Albion’s present and future are at the forefront, the brewery celebrates town history as well. Beyond its name and homage, local residents have provided Malleable Iron memorabilia, including an employee pin that is being used to stamp the bottom of the mugs for the brewery’s mug club. The mugs are being made by local artist Ken Shenstone, ’84, and fired in his anagama kiln, which was constructed with bricks from the Malleable Iron foundry. (He also constructed the brewpub’s 15-seat bar.) But the history doesn’t stop there.

During the building renovation, the original floor joists were ripped out and repurposed as long tables and benches for community-style seating. The community focus extends to instate sourcing of brewing equipment (from Lake Orion) and local sourcing of produce, groceries, and other ingredients for the menu, created by chef Joe Marciano. Of course, that includes hops for the beer.

As far as an impact on other local bars and restaurants, like Charlie’s and Cascarelli’s, the Malleable partners believe in the aphorism “A rising tide lifts all boats.” And Moreau points out there is a distinction between bars and microbreweries: “We want them to be successful with us,” he says.

Albion Malleable Brewing Company features Belgian-inspired beers that have been perfected after years of home-brew experimentation by Wade, the brewmaster.

With the doors (and taps) now open, Moreau— whose expertise is in condensed matter experimental physics, physics in radiation oncology, and advanced manufacturing—finds time to reflect on the experience to date.

“When you’re a college professor, you have very specific things that are expected of you; nowhere in there does it say to start a business in town,” he says. With the pressure on professors to publish, Moreau applauds President Mauri Ditzler for his understanding and appreciation: “I owe Mauri for making the rules different, at least for a while, so different outcomes can happen. This is a good thing for the town and the College.”

The Malleable team, believing Albion is thirsty for a prosperous downtown scene, possesses a passion for the community and its people. Wade sums it up best: “If you want a simple answer for what makes us different, it’s Albion.”

Paige Johnson, from Highland, Michigan, graduated in May with a B.A. in Englishcreative writing and communication studies.

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IN THE KEY OF

On and off campus, the Abbotts and Albion are always in tune.

This fall will mark the 11th since piano faculty Lia Jensen-Abbott and David Abbott launched the Albion College International Piano Festival. In that time they’ve watched their small-town event become a Midwest-region celebration, drawing 60-plus students (including in some years from Albion’s Sister Cities of Noisy-le-Roi and Bailly, France) spanning a range of ages and skill levels.

The four-day festival sees the young pianists compete before an accomplished judging panel for a variety of prizes, from cash to a professional recording. But unlike other competitions, the Abbotts felt it was important to include beginners.

“We know that what we do is unique. There are no other competitions that start out with beginners like we do,” David says, adding that “competition” intentionally is not in the event’s name. “We use the word ‘festival’ instead because it’s about motivating a community to get better.”

And it’s a community that a decade ago motivated, and inspired, the Abbotts. They created the festival in the fall of 2007 as a tribute to Vera Reed, who taught piano in and around Albion through her 90s. She passed away in 2008 at age 108, and Lia and David felt it was important to honor her legacy. Vera’s son, Rob Reed, ’60, and his wife, Gail (Sedrick) Reed, ’63, open their home in town for festival fundraising

22 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

events each year, including a progressive dinner that features food, fun, and wonderful music. “It is a great social event, and it’s amazing how some of these people generously give,” David says.

On top of her teaching responsibilities and the piano festival, Lia is highly involved with St. James’ Episcopal Church. She has been the congregation’s organist, choir director, and music director since 2006. When her schedule takes her away from the church, David fills in.

“It’s a team effort,” Lia says, sharing a chuckle with her husband, whom she met at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. “It keeps us busy, but it is definitely a satisfying and giving relationship on both sides.”

Over the years, the couple has had the opportunity to perform in some of the world’s renowned venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York and premier concert spaces in Switzerland and Germany. On the Albion

campus, the future Richard and Marilyn Vitek Center for Musical Arts (made possible by a lead gift from the 1956 alumni) will provide an everyday top-tier space. The Abbotts have been very involved in the building’s preplanning, including the selection of Acoustic Distinctions, a highly regarded New Yorkbased design consultant. The recital hall will be intimate, seating approximately 250, and according to David and Lia, it’s hard to find the right people to create a college-campus music building that offers a range of important features, such as first-rate acoustically tuned large ensemble rehearsal rooms, something the Music Department’s current building, Goodrich Chapel, does not provide.

“This will be a big step,” David says. “This will help make the department more competitive.

It will be a great thing for the College.”

–Kaitlyn Hotchkin, ’18

An Enlightening Dialogue

By Mary Noble, ’19

In her classroom, in her town through Sister City efforts, and even in her own ancestry, French professor Dianne Guenin-Lelle bridges place and time—and builds understanding.

Dianne Guenin-Lelle was late to her own dinner. Or maybe she was running on French time. Either way, she had a valid excuse—she was downtown at Cascarelli’s for the Albion Everywhere alumni event— and as soon as she ushered everyone into her dining room she went to

work making sure the table was properly set and people were fed.

French wine and cheese optional, of course. As soon as the spread was ready, the ebullient host took her seat and the conversation shifted to the main topic of the night: the Sister City program.

Albion’s Sister City relationship with Noisy-le-Roi, and later, neighboring Bailly, France, began in 1997. It initially grew through the work of Sue Marcos, then president of the Albion Chamber of Commerce, who had lived in France for a time and maintained friendships there.

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Across two decades, the program’s evolution has been unusual. Traditionally, Sister Cities are connected at a local government level or through civic groups, and off-campus study options for undergraduate students are strictly run through their institution. It’s very separate.

In Albion it’s brought together, offering opportunities to both College students and community members to go abroad and stay with host families in France, as well as to host French students and their families here at home.

Dianne Guenin-Lelle in front of Albion City Hall shortly before the Sister City Committee’s monthly meeting around the corner in the Ludington Center.

“ Dianne has this ability to listen to everybody, take everyone’s point of view into account, and be respectful.”

—Mary Slater, Sister City Committee co-chair

The clearest example of this intertwining of college and community is Guenin-Lelle, professor of French at Albion College and cochair of the Sister City Committee. Mary Slater, owner of the Albion Heritage Bed and Breakfast, and Mae Ola Dunklin, a current College trustee and retired longtime educator in town, are also committee leaders, but Guenin-Lelle is arguably the face of the program—the person who, according to Slater and Dunklin, puts all of the puzzle pieces together.

“Dianne has this ability to listen to everybody, take everyone’s point of view into account, and be respectful,” Slater says. “She comes up with a solution or a direction that is honorable to all the people who have voiced an opinion.”

Guenin-Lelle’s first trip to Noisy-le-Roi was with her First-Year Seminar students in 1998.

Arriving into the community of nearly 3,500 in the area around Versailles, just west of Paris, confirmed her belief that the Sister City program could give her back the natural French connection that she had experienced in her home state of Louisiana.

“In Louisiana we identify as French, so it’s not foreign; it is part of the air we breathe,” she says.

7 Dianne Guenin was born in New Orleans of French ancestry and was raised in the French Creole culture, though she describes her family as “French-French” because her greatgrandfather came to the United States from France. She kept her base close to home, in Louisiana, throughout her undergraduate and graduate years, and indeed has always felt close

24 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

ties to the French-Creole community in New Orleans. But she discovered recently that her connection to this community is far greater, and far older, than she had imagined.

While conducting research for her 2016 book The Story of French New Orleans: History of a Creole City, Guenin-Lelle was in Paris at the National Library of France. There, she discovered a manuscript that included a letter

by Gerard Pellerin, a name that resonated strongly with Dianne as she knew she was related to the Pellerin family. When she asked to view the microfilm, she was informed it was destroyed. Instead, she was allowed to view the original, 300-year-old manuscript.

“So I had this amazing experience that very few people have the chance to have, which is I read the words and touched the page written by my ancestor who came to Louisiana as a colonist, and it felt like he was talking to me through the years,” Dianne recalls.

The letter, written in August 1720, described Gerard Pellerin’s journey to Louisiana. He was one of the first settlers of New Orleans, and his lineage is one of the most easily traceable, and notable, in the city. Dianne continues to discover how many connections she has within her French-Creole community because of her ancestor. A woman reached out to her because she had seen Dianne’s work on the Pellerin manuscript and wanted to learn more about Pellerin history—largely because she was a Pellerin herself and was attending a Pellerin family reunion. She even offered up her Airbnb to Dianne and her husband, Mark, if they needed a place to stay in New Orleans. “That’s just how we roll in Louisiana,” Dianne says with a laugh.

Despite a “French-French” family, Dianne didn’t begin to study French until she was in high school. She wanted to study abroad during her junior year at the University of New Orleans (UNO) but had to wait until her senior year when she had sufficient funds. The postponement paid off, as she was invited to stay a second year at the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier in the role of director of the off-campus program.

She also began a master’s program as part of

Research for her 2016 book, The Story of French New Orleans, only deepened Guenin-Lelle’s appreciation of home and community.

the deal, which required something she hadn’t previously considered as a career path: teaching students. “Once I found myself in front of a college French classroom, I knew that was my vocation, to teach,” Dianne says.

“Students often think that life is destined to take them down one avenue, and when they begin understanding that that is an illusion more than anything, very interesting connections sometimes happen,” she says.

Spending two years in France provided Dianne plenty of learning experiences, both culturally and personally. “I learned so much from the highs and the lows,” she says. “You’re going to want to stay at the highs, but it doesn’t work that way and you don’t want it to work that way even if it could. Because [the lows] are the areas where you learn.”

Nick Diamond, ’15, didn’t know what he wanted to do when he began French 301 as a freshman. He recalls being overwhelmed, especially because he was a little late due to some first-day confusion. Immediately put at ease by Guenin-Lelle’s friendly “Bonjour!” upon entering the classroom, Diamond now attributes his early career success to his experiences studying French at Albion.

He currently works for the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies through Massachusetts General Hospital, and has used his French while working in Senegal.

One of Dianne’s biggest lows occurred before she even arrived in Montpellier. In the equivalent of Albion’s French 301 at UNO, Dianne found herself hitting a language roadblock. Her professor pulled her aside and complimented her pronunciation, but explained, “You can’t say anything. You can’t express your thoughts.” To overcome the hurdle, she retook the course. Guenin-Lelle shares this story every semester in her 301 class as a way to consider how she can help her own students.

“What I try to do with students is, first of all, try to understand them, never tell them I don’t understand them, but try to figure out if there’s something that’s not easy for them, that they’re challenged by,” she says. “I figure out how they can keep at it so they do learn the skill, so they do understand the reading, or the assignment, or how to write the term paper in French.”

7 Guenin-Lelle began teaching at Albion in 1987 as an associate professor. More than 30 years later, she has seen students fall in love with the language and helped them pursue studyabroad and career options that allow them to use their French, even if they had never considered these routes as a first-year student.

7

“French students at Albion can really go outside of the four walls of a French class and see the world through a different lens,” Diamond says. “While I was there, I was really on the fence on going to medical school or pursuing a degree in global public health.

Going to France and Cameroon with Dianne and Emmanuel [Yewah, professor of French and Guenin-Lelle’s longtime colleague]—that’s what started to shape my career.”

The Sister City relationship creates teaching moments for all three locales involved. The history of Bailly (pop. 4,000) and Noisy-le-Roi provides lessons on how a community can endure—the first written mention of Noisy dates to the 12th century. Albion’s location in the Midwest, meanwhile, provides a unique experience to French visitors. They are dropped into an area they call l’Amérique profonde, or “profound America,” which is not usually seen

by French visitors to the United States.

Guenin-Lelle recognizes the importance these cultural exposures can have on students, especially as first-years. “You begin to understand how big the world is and how to connect to it, so that’s why Emmanuel and I take first-semester students abroad every year.

The aim is to give them these experiences early on, so they can chart their liberal arts journey building on that experience.”

“At this point in Albion’s history, at this point in our Sister City relationship, what we can learn from them is how do you sustain a city, through the years, through the centuries,” Guenin-Lelle says. “What they are learning from us is living in the American heartland. That our Sister City takes them, and they land in the middle of l’Amérique profonde, is something that they value.”

Diamond remembers how Guenin-Lelle always incorporated various points of view into her teachings as well. “Dianne has the unique ability to open students’ eyes to diversity,” he says.

All of Albion’s travel costs are covered by grants, donations, and fundraising alone.

Albion Area Philanthropic Women, a local giving circle, recently gave $5,000 to the Sister City program, which could send another delegation of students and adults a year earlier than planned. Overall, the exchange has seen nearly 1,000 students and Albion community members visit Noisy-le-Roi and Bailly, and nearly 1,000 students and community members from France make the trip to Albion.

“ She brought every voice from the Francophone world into the classroom, and helped students see the world through a different lens.” —Nick Diamond, ’15

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“It’s allowed a sense of real pride in Albion because people come here from France for us,” Guenin-Lelle says. “They’re coming to the United States for Albion. It’s not to come to Albion after they’ve come to Chicago or on the heels of a trip to New York. Their destination is us, and that brings a lot of happiness.”

In the dining room, the group is partaking in the pungent cheeses as Delia Visan, a NoisyBailly Sister City representative, reflects on what she has seen of the Albion community during her two weeks in town as a College scholar-in-residence. “You understand that community is stronger than the individual,” she comments, adding that she is amazed by the involvement and support that each person in the Sister City program brings to the table.

An interesting statement coming from someone who lives in France, where the significance of community does not carry the same sentimental meaning.

“The word community is actually quite charged,” Guenin-Lelle says. “In France, to talk about communities, they see that as divisions, and they see that as segregation and isolation and going against their ideals of a republic.”

Albion is proving to French visitors and friends that community has a positive side. As Visan says, a community cannot be strong built on an individual alone. Yet for the city of Albion and Albion College, there is an individual who keeps the cross-Atlantic dialogue wellconnected, robust, and bright. Her name is Dianne Guenin-Lelle. She is a Pellerin.

Mary Noble is an English-professional writing and Spanish double major from Midland, Michigan.

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The Britons visited Paris during their 2017 Sister Cities trip.

Hoops and Host Families “It gave me not only a perspective on the outside world, but [the trip] also taught me to never underestimate someone,” says Aquavius Burks, ’20, of the May 2017 visit he and his men’s basketball teammates made to Albion’s Sister Cities. The studentathletes stayed with French families, as Britons head coach Jody May wanted the team to become fully engulfed in the local culture: “Everything from eating home-cooked French cuisine to what the families

did on a day-to-day basis— our team did everything they did,” he says.

Albion’s varsity athletic teams are able to go on an overseas trip every few years.

In 2012 the men’s basketball team traveled to Italy, and coach May set up last year’s visit after establishing a relationship with a Noisy-leRoi coach who twice brought teams to Albion.

This past May, it was the women’s basketball team’s turn to venture to Noisy-le-

Roi and Bailly. Said head coach Doreen Carden shortly before the trip: “I’m hoping while we are there and with all the experiences we have together, it will help us grow and bond more as a group.”

Carden’s players were just as excited. “Especially on a team-building aspect, being in a different country with your team can really bring you together,” said Emily Bernas, ’20.

—Victoria Dulock, ’18

A Nexus for What’s Next

The opening of the Ludington Center a year and a half ago gave the College an official downtown footprint. Now, in its own way, the space is enabling the entire Albion community to open more paths forward.

for them. We have comfortable spaces for clients to wait. We have very usable spaces for students to work. Clients sit in on the sessions so we can ask questions and they can observe, and perhaps correct, as we develop the returns.

Ludington is just a very comfortable and usable space. And props to our IT folks for making sure we have fast, secure connections and redundant copiers and printers.”

Multipurpose Marvel

By John Perney It’s a late Tuesday afternoon in early April, the peak of tax season, and the second floor of 101 N. Superior St. is abuzz in conversation.

The Ludington Center building, which dates to 1899, received a complete makeover.

In past years, this talk of deductions, credits, and gross income—Albion accounting students working on community members’ returns—has occurred in Robinson Hall.

But for the last two years the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, run through the College’s Economics and Management Department, has operated out of the Ludington Center, the College-andcommunity collaboration hub that opened in January 2017 in the heart of downtown Albion.

“I think that we are up in foot traffic, but it is because we have more students and are able to handle more clients,” says John Bedient in the midst of that busy Tuesday. The E&M associate professor has served as a VITA advisor for eight years following in the footsteps of professor emeritus Gaylord Smith, who brought the IRS program to Albion. Assistant professor John Carlson works the Wednesday shift, from 3 p.m. until the last client is helped and files are cleaned up.

“We have more students because they may get credit for doing VITA, but the value of VITA to students is becoming more and more well understood,” Bedient says. Interestingly, their new location may have something to do with that.

“Being in Ludington is better for several reasons,” Bedient continues. “Most of our clients are older and it is so much easier

If the Ludington Center is still trying to find its identity, it may just need to accept that it has multiple identities that are working together harmoniously.

The 20,000-square-foot, century-old corner brick structure, which had stood vacant adjacent to City Hall, was redeveloped by the Saginaw-based real estate firm run by Dr. Sam Shaheen, ’88. The building, with its new life and role, is named in honor of Jack and Dorothy (Lamson) Ludington, ’51 ’51, and bedecked by Grand Rapids-based Steelcase.

As a “collaboration hub” it features two tech-infused, whiteboard classrooms, but in some areas it has a distinct office air, with its glass-walled conference room and sweet kitchen setup upstairs. Elsewhere it has a library look and feel, with fresh and inviting work and study spaces. Then there is the customer-service, how-can-I-help-you vibe at the front desk, and just to the left, dedicated space for the local Michigan Works! branch.

Meanwhile, the wide-open main ground-floor area has proven especially versatile—hosting everything from Sister City Committee meetings to TEDx-style talks to receptions before and after events at the Bohm Theatre across the street.

Governor Rick Snyder was in the house in March, as more than 60 community members, business people, and local politicians joined him for a second-floor roundtable discussion about Project Rising Tide, a state initiative that supports development of vibrant, thriving communities to attract business investment and talent.

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From far left: E&M professor John Bedient advises the College’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.

Austin Baidas, ’92, a recent Albion College Visiting Scholar.

Gerstacker Institute Director Laurel Draudt (left) with Marissa Nieman Cardon, ’02, and Melissa Church, ’02. Cardon, senior director, people programs, for AdRoll Group in San Francisco, and Church, vice president, client consulting, for Nielsen in Chicago, were in town in February and met with students.

In essence, while it probably couldn’t accommodate a baseball diamond, the Ludington Center is emerging as something a scout might call a five-tool player.

“The good thing about this building is that its use has evolved based on needs and feedback,” says President Mauri Ditzler. And while its wideranging functionality lends Ludington a bit of a workmanlike (or perhaps workhorse) presence, Ditzler notes that Shaheen’s team “anticipated that and built it with a certain elegance.”

Perched against the top of what certainly could be called Ludington’s elegant center staircase, Austin Baidas, ’92, takes a break to chat about his experience in the College’s recently launched Visiting Scholar initiative. But first he describes his surroundings. “It’s a cool space; it’s well done. You look at the layout, you have space for independent study, studygroup space, meeting space,” he says. “It’s very symbolic—it’s a statement that the College is part of the community.”

The Chicago-based former business executive, who transitioned into the realm where policy meets politics as a senior advisor for pipeline and hazardous material safety in the Obama Administration, spent time last November and again in February meeting students, connecting with local business leaders and economic development officials, and building a case for Albion College to take back with him to Chitown.

“As a human, we’re always learning, and it’s always refreshing to come back to campus,” Baidas says. “Everyone is passionate about Albion, and with the steps that have been taken so far, I really like that the College and community see each other as partners.”

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Gerstacker and Ford’s Front Door The formation of partnerships goes to the heart of what’s often called experiential, or cocurricular, learning. Impactful internships and job shadows, or simply an engaging conversation with a community leader, add that much more to a liberal arts education—and make Albion graduates that much more attractive to employers, graduate and professional schools, and volunteer-oriented programs like Teach for America and the Peace Corps.

For decades, Albion’s Carl A. Gerstacker Institute for Business and Management and Gerald R. Ford Institute for Leadership in Public Policy and Service have established and nurtured relationships to surface those experiential opportunities for their students. Being able to do so within the center of their host community makes sense in theory and is starting to click in execution as well—the institutes along with the Career and Internship Center (CIC) have made Ludington their second home to the point where Gerstacker Director Laurel Draudt, Ford Director Patrick McLean, and CIC Director Troy Kase are the building’s co-managers.

“I think in some respects there were some growing pains as we figured out what actually works here,” Draudt says. “Our College boundaries are expanding, and as institutes we need to be leaders in that.”

The Greater Albion Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau has held meetings in the Ludington Center, she adds, “and with Gerstacker there, I see more opportunities for a higher level of working together.” Additionally,

the AmeriCorps VISTA national communityservice program, soon to enter its third year in town, uses the building as its home base, yielding more collaborative possibilities.

A spring-semester open house for faculty aimed to inspire ideas for future classes and events in Ludington, and five Gerstacker students conducted senior-capstone surveys on ideal uses for the building as it settles into its role of being part of the pulse of downtown Albion.

And indeed, in many ways, it still is just settling in. But after 18 months, the campus community is realizing more fully the resource standing at the corner of Superior and Cass.

“I spend a lot of time studying in the Ludington Center,” says Gerstacker member Alex Carducci, ’21. “The professional feel of the building helps me focus on subjects and stay on task. The best feature, in my opinion, is all the conference rooms open to students so that we can easily bounce ideas off of each other and create plans and proposals.”

Grace Forster, ’21, a Ford member, says Ludington “is a great place to remove myself from campus and feel connected with the community.”

Count on more and deeper connections in the months and years ahead.

“There are so many directions we can go,” Draudt says, “to be engaged in an even greater way with the community. Having a presence downtown makes it easier to do that.”

‘Albion Was My Subject’ For Isaac Kremer, ’01, the community served as a syllabus toward a rewarding career in the revitalization of downtowns.

By Chuck Carlson On his first day in Albion, Isaac Kremer got lost. That same day, he found himself.

“I got lost on the way to campus,” he recalls.

“I would drive up and down Superior Street and I was amazed because I had never seen a main street like that with that kind of architecture.”

It was something approaching love at first sight for Kremer, who was born in Lansing, lived in Wisconsin and California, and then settled back in the Detroit suburbs with his family and knew early on that working to revitalize cities was something he wanted— and needed—to do.

Albion sparked that desire, and that love continues today.

“For me Albion was just the right size that I could wrap my arms and head around,” he says. “I could understand it as a place and also get involved.”

To Kremer, who majored in economics and management and went on to earn his master’s in historic preservation planning from Cornell University, Albion—the City and the College—was a stepping stone.

“Albion was my subject the time I was there,” he says. “My undergraduate thesis was about the changes after Corning Glass left town and how the community was changing. I came here studying international business and ended up studying local history. Everything was right at my doorstep. To work in a downtown and helping a downtown grow is what I wanted to do, and I figured that out in Albion.”

Gaining Expertise For two decades, Kremer has helped towns take steps forward in Michigan, New York, Texas, and Kentucky. He went to Louisiana and assisted after Hurricane Katrina. At each stop, he has carried Albion with him.

He remembers E&M professor Larry Steinhauer, who admitted him to the Gerstacker Institute and Honors Program.

And even though Kremer didn’t graduate from Gerstacker, its impact shaped him.

Kremer also remembers history professor Wesley Dick, who served as his thesis advisor and showed him that his love of history should be his calling.

“I didn’t take a single history class at Albion but my interest in local history made it logical for him to be my advisor,” Kremer says.

“That was the whole trajectory of my Albion experience—Dr. Steinhauer brought me in and Dr. Dick sent me out.”

In 2008 Kremer was named executive director of the Oyster Bay Main Street Association.

Forceful and confident—traits he honed at Albion—he would secure some $20 million in development money over four years that led to more than a dozen renovation projects in the Long Island community not far from New York City. That included restoration of the 1854 Octagon Hotel where Oyster Bay’s favorite son, Theodore Roosevelt, campaigned for governor of New York.

Kremer also led one of the first Better Block projects in the country, one that Billy Joel participated in. Later, Joel opened his 20th Century Cycles in a building downtown, and Kremer found himself squarely on the map as a leader in his field.

“To be able to restore Teddy Roosevelt’s hometown? They wanted to tear down the hotel where he started his campaign for governor,” Kremer says. “My first week on the job I said no.”

Place Maker In Appalachian Kentucky, Kremer implemented three more Better Block projects and attracted $1 million in grants to assist a town heavily impacted by job losses in the coal industry. Today, he and his family live in Metuchen, New Jersey, 24 miles southwest of New York City where he leads a public-private partnership that follows the Main Street Approach® to commercial district revitalization. It’s a strategy that emphasizes grassroots action in organization, promotion, design, and economic vitality.

“It’s liberal arts at work,” says Kremer, who passed through Albion last summer and saw the early steps of its own revitalization. “It’s creative problem-solving. You identify the interests of the people you’re working with and see where they overlap. My job is matching people with opportunities in a community.

I learned that at Albion. That’s where I first started developing plans to revitalize downtowns and I’ve never stopped.”

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Clockwise from top left: Brad Rabquer, associate professor of biology and director of the Institute for Healthcare Professions; biochemistry major Zerick Dill, ’20; biochemistry and molecular biology graduate Tristan Budd, ’18; biology major Matthew Stander, ’19; and biology graduate Taylor Alpert, ’18.

THE

FUTURE

IN A WORD, IT’S PERSONAL. AND TOMORROW’S PRACTITIONERS, AS HIGH-ACHIEVING ALBION STUDENTS TODAY, ARE ON TRACK TO MAKE THE BIGGEST IMPACT UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONS.

of healthcare

By Jake Weber

For decades Albion has communicated, with pride, its track record of getting students into medical school. And with good reason.

Brad Rabquer, associate professor of biology and director of the College’s Institute for Healthcare Professions (IHP), notes that the Association of American Medical Colleges keeps data on students’ Medical College Admission Test scores, grade point averages, and acceptance into medical schools. With a 507 MCAT and 3.7 GPA, “74 percent of students nationwide get into medical school. For Albion students with those numbers, the acceptance rate is 100 percent over the past three years,” says Rabquer. “There’s more to med school than scores and grades, and that’s what we do through the IHP.” To be clear: Rabquer isn’t discounting the importance of good grades and scores. But where they might have been the key for med school applicants of earlier generations, today’s schools—not to mention hospitals and patients— want their doctors, nurses, and therapists to possess skills and traits that weren’t necessarily expected of these professionals even 15 or 20 years ago. It’s the reason Albion’s health institute has a very different approach to a very traditional goal, with great results for students and the patients they’ll one day serve.

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WE TELL THEM UP FRONT, THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. IF YOU ARE A 4.0 STUDENT WHO DOESN’T DO THESE THINGS, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GO TO MED SCHOOL. THEY’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE YOU.” —DR. BRAD RABQUER, ON THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDENT COMMUNITY SERVICE, RESEARCH, CLINICAL EXPERIENCES, AND EXTRACURRICULAR INVOLVEMENT IN THE APPLICATION PROCESS A CAPACITY FOR CARING

LIBERAL ARTS INFLUENCE

Empathy and compassion top the list of graduate student traits that have gone from “ideal” to “required” over the past few years.

Medical school admissions programs and even the MCAT have been redesigned to assess a student’s capacity for caring. As a result, the IHP has both curricular and extracurricular activities designed to develop and reinforce the practical aspects of caring.

It sounds a little backward, but professional and graduate programs are also less interested in the students who are most interested in them. For one thing, students who are too focused on “getting in” to a program may lose sight of why they want to be there in the first place. Also, even the most specialized of specialists needs to have a wider range of general skills in the areas of communication, psychology, and patient advocacy. Practicing “medicine”—as opposed to practicing patient care—is now considered an outdated model.

In conjunction with Kellogg Community College, IHP students can earn a Certified Nurse Assistant certificate, which allows them to work for pay, caring directly for patients.

Along with gaining a “working” perspective of patient experience, Rabquer notes that many students gain an employee perspective that doesn’t come with one-semester courses or internships.

“A lot of students with their CNA work for two or three years for the same care facility, on weekends and breaks,” he explains. “The facilities are happy for the help, and the students get a real idea of what it means to be part of a clinic or an office, and not just a shortterm intern.”

The institute also works with students doing EMT training and has others volunteering at a local hospice. “It’s allowing students to build empathy and compassion and figure out if they can be caregivers,” Rabquer explains. “Given their ages, a lot of students haven’t had the experience of dealing with death, but that’s a part of any work in health care.”

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In contrast, the health institute produces great professional and grad school candidates because their preparation is informed by the liberal arts and the reasons they come to Albion overall. Of the 61 IHP members in the Class of 2018, just over half were not biology majors.

What’s more, anthropology, Spanish, and economics majors as a group outnumbered the chemistry and math majors.

Similarly, IHP students are equally dispersed among extracurricular pursuits, another increasingly valued part of the professionaland graduate-school application. “Service and leadership development is extremely important,” Rabquer explains. “Med schools want to see that students in their programs have a history of service. You can’t just say, ‘I want to help people.’ You have to show that you’ve been doing it all along.”

Grosse Pointe Woods native Matthew Stander, ’19, found that this service “requirement” sharpened his desire to become a doctor.

“Initially, medicine stood out to me because of my interest in biology and my strength in the classroom,” he says. “Albion and the IHP encouraged me to become involved in groups like Asian Awareness Group, the Nwagni Project, and Student Volunteer Bureau. My leadership roles altered my motivation from purely an academic standpoint to a more holistic one: medicine allows me to devote myself to helping others, continually learn, express my sense of curiosity, and demonstrate responsibility and autonomy.”

“I have friends who had great GPAs and that wasn’t enough for getting into medical school,” says Nichole Schnabel, ’16, a third-year medical student at Wayne State University. “I made a special point of doing research at Albion and I thought that would impress the schools. I’m sure that contributed to my application, but when I went to my medical school interviews, all they wanted to talk about was Euphonics and what I had learned working in Admission and SVB. The fact that I did more than prepare for grad school was more important than I realized.”

ALBION STUDENTS = PREPARED STUDENTS Ironically, as graduate and professional programs seek applicants with more diverse experiences, getting into one is tougher than ever. Each school has a unique set of prerequisite courses, which, Rabquer says, can cost students an extra undergraduate year or more to complete.

Students at other schools, that is—not so much at Albion. A primary focus of the IHP staff (Rabquer, health professions adviser Lauri Maurer, experiential learning coordinator Maggie Meier, and secretary Maggie Haugen) is ensuring that students are prepared to enter their future program after eight semesters at Albion.

“I don’t know how anyone gets in on their own. It’s impossible,” says Schnabel. She notes that even before he became IHP director two years ago, Rabquer, as her academic adviser, was invaluable in helping her prepare for her medical career. “Every question I had, he came at with ‘My wife is a doctor and she …’ or ‘I had a student who did this …’ I could just tell that he had been advising med students for years. It was such a huge boost to my confidence to have this person who knew how I should do what I should do and knew exactly what to say.”

Originally hired as the Biology Department’s physiologist, Rabquer did his doctoral and post-doctoral work in hospitals and is enthusiastic about Albion’s role in supporting what hospitals do. He has opened a joint teaching and research lab with associate

BY THE

NUMBERS Over the past three years, Institute for Healthcare Professions graduates have matriculated at graduate and professional programs in the following fields: Human medicine – 27 Physical therapy – 9 Nursing – 8 Dentistry – 6 Occupational therapy – 4 Physician assistant – 3 Pharmacy – 3 Veterinary medicine – 2 Other programs – 15

professor of kinesiology Heather Betz, expanded the IHP speaker series for the entire campus, and with professor of psychology (and former IHP director) Barbara Keyes launched “Camp Med,” a three-day, college-level course for high school students.

“We work with students in high school and with alumni who have been gone for years,” Rabquer says. “We work with students when their plans change, as they hit a roadblock, when they’re not getting the grade they need.

We’ll build a plan for four years at Albion, or extending well past graduation.”

Speaking of alumni, Rabquer notes that hundreds of doctors, dentists, researchers, and other health professionals are needed to provide the thousands of job-shadowing, internship, and patient-interaction hours required for graduate program applicants.

Albion’s alumni network also opens a wide array of career options, bringing students into university research, hospital clinic, and private practice settings. Of course, alums also visit campus to share their expertise.

“Alumni are vital to the success of the institute,” Rabquer says. “They help our students identify their passions and solidify their career choice.”

And, as it turns out, even their stories of struggle can provide inspiration. “An alumnus who has had a phenomenal 50-year career met with our seniors this year,” Rabquer says, adding that when the alum was in their shoes, “he hadn’t been accepted to med school and didn’t know what to do. It’s important for students to see that even when things don’t go your way, they can still turn out awesome.”

VETTING A POSSIBLE PATHWAY With just 30 veterinary schools in the U.S., Albion’s rate of one new DVM candidate per year is remarkable, especially considering what it takes just to get to the application process.

Local veterinarian Jennifer Aschenbrener notes that most of the eight to 10 students in her annual quarter-credit Introduction to Veterinary Medicine IHP course are thinking about the profession, but by course’s end only one or two are still on the path.

Aschenbrener packs in everything from academic planning to financial management (student debt can reach into six figures), animal diseases, and communicating with clients to help her students prepare for a rewarding—but very rigorous—career.

“It’s not all puppies and kittens, unfortunately,” she says, “but veterinary medicine is an amazing profession when you know what you’re getting into. The Institute for Healthcare Professions provides an excellent opportunity for students planning to attend veterinary school.”

One could almost call that a second opinion, but it speaks to the same prognosis: that the Albion/IHP prescription remains just right.

Aschenbrener (far left) and her students recently visited an alpaca farm through a connection with professor of education Suellyn Henke.

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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS

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The Run of the Place From Wesley Hall to Cascarelli’s, fond memories resurfaced as alumni came Back2Campus May 16-20. The spring gathering featured 50th and 45th reunions for the classes of 1968 and 1973, respectively, and more alums from the ’66 through ’75 graduating years, as well as from the last decade, also took part—revisiting their treasured college days in a whole new way.

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1. Fiftieth-reunion dinner attendees came together for a photo outside Schuler’s in Marshall. Front row, from left: Sherry Watts, ’68, Marilyn Goodrich, Blaine Goodrich, ’68, Beth Zahnow Rosin, ’68, Linda Amrein, ’68; second row, from left: Kathy Kopchick, Lois Marquis, Mary Dee Rankin Dryer, ’68, Joan Warriner; third row, from left: Joe Kopchick, ’68, Ron Marquis, ’68, Richard Dryer, John Wilder, ’68; top row, from left: John Freud, ’68, David Moore, ’68, Neil Warriner, ’68.

2. Marcia Fast, ’66, makes a new friend at the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center.

3. Britons of the Last Decade got a BOLD sneak peak of Albion Malleable Brewing Co. two days before its official opening.

From left: Mariella Ortiz-Reyes, ’14,

Kaitlyn Downey Blanchard, ’13, Emily Werner, ’14, Rachel Kohanov, ’14, Claire Van Raaphorst, ’14, and Kelsey Van Loon, ’14.

4. Of course, Back2Campus means back to class. Attendees listen to Lisa Newland, ’97, present The Gift of Time.

Earlier, they discussed Marilynne Robinson’s essay “Why True Generosity Is an Act of Courage” with English professor Jess Roberts.

5. Alums from 1973 met for dinner at the President’s Home at 501 E. Michigan Ave. From left: Reginald Trombly, Sam Wibberley, Charlie Brown, Alice Wiley Moore, Jane Greenawalt Westbrook, Cheryl Bennett Fox, Jan Sperry Baumgras, Brian Fox, and Rebecca Shafer Tuuk.

6. The Rock salutes the Class of 1973.

Young Alumni Award honoree Brian Hearns, ’08, is dean of students at Chicago’s Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy.

Young Alumni Award recipients Christin Spoolstra, ’11 (left), and Courtney Meyer, ’11 (right), caught up with former political science professor Dyron Dabney, who is now at Earlham College. Spoolstra is deputy country director at Caring for Cambodia, and Meyer is a communications specialist for the Arlington, Virginia-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

Joel McDade, ’08, a Boston-based field application scientist for IncuCyte by Sartorius, speaks during a Q&A panel featuring Young Alumni Award winners.

WITH HONORS

Albion College Euphonics gave a rousing performance during dinner.

Amy Elaine Wakeland, ’91, the first lady of Los Angeles, received the Distinguished Alumni Award for her two-plus decades of work in public policy and social justice advocacy.

Distinguished Alumni Award recipient George Martin, ’52, encouraged and inspired thousands as a principal and administrator for Royal Oak Public Schools.

Skot Welch, ’90, founder and president of Grand Rapids-based Global Bridgebuilders, offers remarks after being presented with the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Always a special evening on campus, this year’s Distinguished Alumni and Young Alumni Awards dinner and ceremony saw the College celebrate the accomplishments of eight impactful graduates. Here, a selection of snapshots from the April 20 gala in Upper Baldwin.

Beverly Hannett-Price, ’58, English teacher at Detroit Country Day School, shares a moment while listening to her introduction for the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Spring-Summer 2018 | 35

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS

One Big Shindig

You can’t keep a 183rd birthday party within one four-walled room. That was the genesis behind the debut of Albion Everywhere on March 22, which saw 638 Brits (not counting welcome partycrashers) get together in 52 locations across 29 states—and even abroad in Germany and New Zealand.

“The first Albion Everywhere event went better than we could have hoped!” said Bailey Wilson, an

36 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

engagement officer in Institutional Advancement who collaborated with 66 alumni hosts for the celebration.

“We’re excited to begin planning for next year, with hopes that an event will be hosted in all 50 states and beyond.”

Catch a glimpse of the festivities on this page, then visit flickr.com/ albioncollege for many more photos in the Albion Everywhere 2018 album.

UPCOMING EVENTS July 13: Petoskey, MI – Back to Class July 19: Des Moines, IA – Presidential Celebration in Iowa July 22: Minneapolis, MN – Surly Brewing and Minnesota United Gathering Visit albion.edu/alumni/events for information on these and future regional events!

HC18

S AV E T H E D AT E

HOMECOMING OCTOBER 5-7, 2018

The tailgates and reunions. The big plays and cheers.

The music and fun. The friendships and memories.

Information on events, registration, and more at albion.edu/homecoming

Spring-Summer 2017 | 37

‘He Saw My Abilities’ taught me some more about business and economics simply through watching him work his arguments.

—Lisa Lewis, professor of chemistry, who worked with Steinhauer as Honors associate director He was absolutely the best professor I had and one of the finest people I ever met.

I became a partner in a Big Four accounting firm and the skills he taught me—preparing for and dealing with difficult subject matter—helped me my entire life. I had a lot of great teachers, but he was the best.

—Kevin Nixon, ’77

Larry Steinhauer, professor emeritus of economics and management and former director of the then-named Honors Institute, passed away December 25, 2017. (See page 46 for highlights of his 32-year career at Albion.) Former students and colleagues shared thoughts and recollections about their mentor and friend after hearing the news.

Dr. Steinhauer was a friend and mentor who opened my eyes to a world of possibilities that I didn’t know existed. He was kind and nurturing and my relationship with him changed my life forever. I will never forget what he did for me.

—Marty Nesbitt, ’85 The Honors Program was my first home at Albion. Many thanks to Dr. Steinhauer for his

role in helping so many Albion students discover their interests and aptitudes as young scholars.

—Natalie Dubois, ’97 Larry was a master at program review and data. He monitored every trend, from the number of recruits to the [Honors] program to the actual number that matriculated to the number of theses completed by these students. Larry

Larry Steinhauer was very smart, and he pitched his classes at a high level.

Academically strong students considered his courses among the best that they took at Albion College. As Honors Program director, he doubled enrollment while simultaneously raising admissions standards.

More importantly Larry was a mensch—a good person. My first day at work at Albion, he volunteered to help me carry heavy book boxes from my car to my office. He mentored both faculty and students. I considered him a friend, and I miss him.

—Greg Saltzman, professor of economics and management and department chair Before arriving at Albion, I would have never believed that

I would be an economics major in college. As my advisor, Dr. Steinhauer suggested human resources as a career and assisted me in obtaining an internship. He later encouraged me to apply to Michigan State for a master’s degree. The self-confidence that I gained from being successful in Larry Steinhauer’s classes has served me well through my years in human resources and now as a small-business owner.

—Susan Hibbins Carroll, ’85 Dr. Steinhauer was one of my favorite professors at Albion.

When you were around him, you knew right away that he was the smartest person in the room, but with his demeanor, that was somehow never intimidating.

He found a way to make macroeconomics interesting, which, given the subject matter, was no easy task!

—Michael Kobylarz, ’96 Professor Steinhauer was one of the most influential teachers for my life after Albion. He saw my abilities, listened to me for who I was, and helped me make the decision towards graduate school in economics at UMass Amherst that gave me the lovely life and career I have today. I often wonder what path I would have taken if it weren’t for his guidance and knowledge. Now, when I teach my undergraduate students, I wonder if my help and understanding meet the standards he set.

—Valerie Voorheis, ’86

Spring-Summer 2018 | 47

THE BACK PAGE

PASSION PURSUIT The sabbatical, with rigors all its own, maintains a special place in our hyperconnected, always-on world.

By Chuck Carlson Sometimes, even college professors need a little “me time.”

Maybe more than a little.

Enter the sabbatical. A timehonored opportunity for professionals in many fields, it is perhaps most notable in academia—a chance to pause and regroup, to think, to study, to write, to explore new fields or concentrate on a familiar one, and, perhaps, find out what else the world has to offer.

More succinctly, it’s a six- or 12-month stretch when a little bit of that “me time” can go a long way toward the advancement of knowledge. And for many on the Albion faculty who have the tenure and experience, it is not to be missed.

“It’s the College granting you time to do something you wouldn’t normally accomplish,” says David Reimann, professor of mathematics and computer science, who completed his third sabbatical this spring. “It’s a chance for some in-depth study.”

Albion professors with tenure and seven years of experience are eligible to take either a semester or a year off from the rigors of teaching—pending review of their plan from the College’s four-person Faculty Development Committee. After the sabbatical ends, results in the form of studies and presentations are expected.

48 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Heather Betz, associate professor of kinesiology, will take her first sabbatical this fall. Her interest lies in the cardiovascular system, and she plans to study the incoming class of first-year students. With help from student volunteers, she will chart their daily habits—how and what they eat, their exercise, stress levels, and sleeping patterns—and see how they change over four years at Albion.

“When we think of cardiovascular health we think of the elderly,” Betz says. “But heart disease starts developing when we’re little and signs don’t show up until we’re older. It’s eye-opening to students that what they’re doing now can have a huge impact in what their health looks like 40 years from now.”

Math professor Mark Bollman took his second sabbatical in fall 2017 and used his time to research and write a book, Mathematics of Keno and Lotteries, due out later this year. Part of his work took him to the University of NevadaLas Vegas and its Center for Gaming Research.

“It was three very full weeks,” he says. “I blew out my eyes reading everything I could. I got the time to devote to scholarship. In fact, I got enough information that I started research for another book.”

The toughest part of the sabbatical, Bollman adds, isn’t returning to the routine but learning a new one. “There are new students, new colleagues,” he says. “I was gone in the fall, so when I came back you have a bigger sense that something’s been going on without you.”

Reimann concentrated on his passion—mathematical art. “The goal of my work is to provide a visual connection to abstract images,” he says. “Good art tells a story. It provokes a response in the viewer. And there’s a mystical side to math that some people adhere to.”

Planetary scientist and professor of physics Nicolle Zellner is taking her second sabbatical a step further. She will take a full year, starting this summer, with plans to visit the mountains of Chile to do research at one of the world’s largest telescopes. Later, she will attend a conference in Hawaii, travel to another in Germany, and then make her third trip to Australia to conduct research on her specialty, lunar impact glass.

“This will be my third once-in-alifetime trip to Australia,” Zellner says with a laugh.

She will also research and write, in cooperation with College archivist Justin Seidler, about four long-ago Albion graduates who went on to teach and make significant contributions to astronomy: Wesley Underwood, Class of 1886; Forest Ray Moulton, Class of 1894; Wilbur Cogshall, Class of 1895; and Charles Huffer, Class of 1916.

“I think it’s a story some people need to know because history matters,” Zellner says. “Their story needs to be told. These are people who grew up in Albion and they are attached to Albion.

These are just cool stories.”

Io Triumphe!

EDITOR John Perney DESIGNER Katherine Mueting Hibbs CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chuck Carlson, Kent Davis, ’19, Victoria Dulock, ’18, Kaitlyn Hotchkin, ’18, Paige Johnson, ’19, Steven Marowski, ’18, Mary Noble, ’19, Jake Weber (Special thanks to ENGL 306 Magazine Writing professor Glenn Deutsch) CLASS NOTES WRITERS Tyler Eyster, ’20, Kim Fisher, Jake Weber, Kathryn Wright, ’19 MARKETING/COMMUNICATIONS John Thompson, Brian Coon, Matt Ray, Eric Westmoreland Io Triumphe! is published twice annually by the Office of Marketing and Communications. It is distributed free to alumni and friends of the College.

MAKE YOUR IMPACT TODAY, AND IN THE FUTURE.

Letters to the editor may be sent to: Office of Marketing and Communications Albion College 611 E. Porter Street Albion, MI 49224 communications@albion.edu www.albion.edu ABOUT OUR NAME The unusual name for this publication comes from a yell written by members of the Class of 1900. The beginning words of the yell, “Io Triumphe!,” were probably borrowed from the poems of the Roman writer Horace.

In 1936, the alumni of Albion College voted to name their magazine after the yell, which by then had become a College tradition.

For years, Albion’s incoming students have learned these lines by heart: Io Triumphe! Io Triumphe!

Haben swaben rebecca le animor Whoop te whoop te sheller de-vere De-boom de ral de-i de-pa— Hooneka henaka whack a whack A-hob dob balde bora bolde bara Con slomade hob dob rah!

Al-bi-on Rah! FIND MORE ONLINE: www.albion.edu

Connect with students, faculty, staff, and alumni through Albion College’s social media channels.

You can change the lives of many future Britons by planning a gift to Albion College today. Our development staff makes giving from your estate a simple process and will ensure your gift provides you with meaningful benefits.

Interested in making a more immediate difference? A scholarship gift allows you to see your generosity at work with current students, and can begin now!

Help create an even brighter tomorrow for our students — contact our Development Office today.

517/629-0446 | advancement@albion.edu | albion.edu/giving

Office of Marketing and Communications 611 East Porter Street Albion, MI 49224

Going National In late May, Cassie Vince, ’19, and Jephte Jean-Claude, ’19, competed in the women’s 10,000 meters and men’s triple jump, respectively, at the 2018 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Earlier in the month, the Albion men’s lacrosse team captured its fourth consecutive MIAA tournament title to qualify for the NCAA tourney. Follow Briton Nation all year long at gobrits.com.