FYI Magazine, Spring 2013

elmhurst college alumni news spring 2013

FAITH, MEANING AND VALUES Elmhurst is rooted in a heritage of faith, service and the exploration of life’s ultimate questions. That heritage plays out across campus and in the lives of Elmhurst alumni today.

fyi in this issue

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02 W HAT’S NEW ON CAMPUS Elmhurst Professor Wins nsf Grant Plus: Irion Hall celebrates its 100th year, the Center for Professional Excellence turns 15, alumni flock to campus for Homecoming, and more.

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18 P ROFILE To Make a Difference in the World For social ethicist Ray Whitehead ’55, Elmhurst College sparked a lifelong international adventure.

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24 C OVER STORY Deep Roots The United Church of Christ and its forebears have played starring roles at key moments in United States history.

30 A LUMNI FOCUS The Spirit of Elmhurst Seven Elmhurst alumni describe how the College encouraged their personal and spiritual development and how their values continue to inform their daily lives.

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38 F ACE TO FACE To Engage a Complex World Elmhurst President S. Alan Ray explains how the College’s commitment to faith, meaning and values prepares its students for a changing world.

42 S TUDENT LIFE Helping Hands At the College’s fourth annual Partners for Peace, Elmhurst students pitch in to help residents of Chicago’s West Side.

46 T HE SPORTS PAGES A Banner Year for the Bluejays Two Elmhurst teams cap off sensational seasons with strong showings in the ncaa Division iii Championships.

48 C LASS NOTES Where Are They Now? Find out how your classmates are advancing in their careers and how they’re serving their communities.

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Faith, Meaning and Values Fellow Alumni and Alumnae, For many of us, college is a time for answering some important and di≈cult questions. I don’t mean the kind of questions that show up on final exams. Instead they are questions like, What should be my area of study? Or, What am I going to do with my life?

Or even, What do I really believe?

In this issue of FYI, you’ll meet some of your fellow alumni and alumnae, and learn how they answered questions like these.

You probably won’t be surprised to find that their Elmhurst experience continues to shape their lives.

Elmhurst has always encouraged not just students’ professional preparation, but also their personal development. This approach is rooted in the College’s United Church of Christ heritage. From the beginning, Elmhurst was both an intellectual and a spiritual community—one where, in the words of early College president and eminent theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, students might develop “an eΩective individuality.”

At Elmhurst, students of all faiths and of none meet and learn from each other, through service, dialogue and reflection.

Perhaps that’s one reason why so many of our fellow alumni continue to make such a diΩerence in the world.

Wishing you the best, Sara (Douglass) Born ’02­­ Alumni Association President

Alumni Association President Sara (Douglass) Born ’02 Members of the Board Sarah (Kiefer) Clarin ’04, Karl Constant ’07, E.J. Donaghey ’88, Tom DuFore ’04, Michael Durnil ’71, Dain Gotto ’06, Jacque (Kindahl) Hulslander ’72 and ’82, Heather (Forster) Jensen ’08, David Jensen ’00 and MPA ’02, Cami (Kreft) Rodriguez MA ’08, Megan (Suess) Selck ’03, Cheryl (Kancer) Tiede ’74, Frank Tuozzo ’72, Rick Veenstra ’00 Director of Alumni Relations Thomas Newton ’87 Assistant Directors of Alumni Relations Monica Lindblom, Beverley (McNulty) Krohn ’10 Secretary Pam Savino Office of Alumni Relations (630) 617-3600, alumni@elmhurst.edu Editor Margaret Currie Contributors Lu Aiello, Sara Ramseth, Linda Reiselt, Jim Winters Design Director Marcel Maas Design and Production Marcel Maas, Anilou Price

news faculty and student research

Elmhurst Professor Wins Prestigious Grant The National Science Foundation has awarded a research grant of more than $120,000 to Venkatesh Gopal.

Photo: Roark Johnson

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Venkatesh Gopal

Gopal’s research project studies how rats use their whiskers to detect and follow air currents, offering a window into the evolution and workings of the brain.

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he National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of more than $120,000 to Elmhurst College Assistant Professor of Physics Venkatesh Gopal.

Gopal’s research involves developing ways to better understand how animals track airborne odor plumes. Since joining the Elmhurst faculty in 2008, he has employed the talent and ingenuity of his top students, giving the undergraduates a rare and invaluable opportunity to do work usually reserved for graduate students.

The National Science Foundation grant, of $123,349 over three years, enables Gopal to pay his three-student team so that they can focus on their lab work without having to take on outside jobs. It also will allow them to participate in academic conferences, where they can learn about current research in their field and present their own findings.

“Dr. Gopal has integrally involved students in his research from the moment of his arrival at Elmhurst College,” said Alzada Tipton, senior vice president for academic aΩairs and dean of the faculty. “I firmly believe that the National Science Foundation approved this grant at least partially because of the eΩectiveness with which Dr. Gopal is training the next generation of imaginative and intelligent scientists.”

The grant project, a collaboration with Professor Mitra J. Hartmann and Professor Neelesh Patankar of Northwestern University, studies how rats use their whiskers to detect and follow air currents, oΩering a window into the evolution and workings of the brain. Gopal and his students are developing instrumentation that visualizes the air currents and measures the minute motions of a whisker as it interacts with the air current.

FYI/Spring 2013

Using tiny, soap-filled helium bubbles that ride the air currents, the researchers illuminate the bubbles with a laser, photograph them and then track their movements using computer software developed by Michael Meaden, one of Gopal’s students, now a graduate student in applied mathematics at the University of Arizona.

In his nearly five years on the Elmhurst faculty, Gopal has been committed to introducing undergraduates to research. While he develops and directs the projects and writes up the results, it’s the students who carry out the experiments, he said.

“The more they can do, the more I can do,” he said. “The students are the centerpiece of the project. Undergraduate students at large research universities rarely get to actually run projects the way they do here.”

His approach exemplifies the kind of collaborative faculty-student relationships Elmhurst College is known for and seeks to encourage, Tipton said.

“Receiving an NSF grant is an extraordinarily competitive process and a great honor, and it is nice to think that the core of the identity of the College—our focus on students—helped him, and Elmhurst College, receive this distinction.”

Tyler Wernecke ’13 conducts research under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Biology Eve Mellgren.

An Introduction to Research Tyler Wernecke is still working his way toward an undergraduate degree, but he has already experienced some of the milestones of a life in science research.

Wernecke, a senior pre-med and biology major, has worked with Assistant Professor of Biology Eve Mellgren in her plant biology lab since his first year at Elmhurst. He has applied for, and received, a grant to support his work from the American Society of Plant Biology (APSB). He has presented his research to other scientists at the ASPB national conference.

And, under his professor’s guidance, he has earned the autonomy to conduct his own investigations.

“Over time, she has given me more and more responsibilities,” Wernecke said of Mellgren.

“Now I am fully responsible for my own project.

If I come across a problem, we brainstorm together. She treats me more as an equal than as a student, which I really appreciate.”

Mellgren’s research uses genetic tools to study how bacterial pathogens survive in, and cause damage to, plants. Wernecke is investigating two genes in a strain of bacterial pathogen called pseudomonas syringae that wreak havoc on tomato plants. He says the experience has already given him skills he will use in medical school and beyond.

“Medicine is all about critical thinking and problem solving,” he said. “Conducting research has helped me to develop these skills, which will be vital in my success as a doctor.”

news academics

A Head Start on Success Celebrating its 15th birthday, the Center for Professional Excellence helps students prepare for life beyond college.

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Larry Carroll, executive director of Elmhurst’s Center for Professional Excellence, has made it his mission to educate students about the advantages of getting an early start on their post-graduation plans.

To find out how you or your business can get involved with the Center for Professional Excellence, go to www.elmhurst.edu/cpe.

“If our students develop their passions and their talents, they’ll find jobs and they’ll be better prepared for them.”

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mong the many lessons Larry Carroll that provide a head start in a crowded jobs and his staΩ at the Center for Profesmarketplace. They tap into the CPE’s shadowsional Excellence (CPE) have taught ing program, which lets them tag along with Elmhurst students over the last 15 professionals making their daily rounds to get years is this one about the center itself: The CPE real-world insight into a career that interests is a lot more than a career o≈ce. them. And the center provides practical instrucThe CPE, founded in 1997 as the College’s tion in everything from crafting a résumé to conhub for all things related to career preparation ducting job searches to networking successfully. and personal development, is celebrating its 15th Carroll says that even activities that students anniversary this year. From the start, Carroll, often don’t associate with career preparation the CPE’s executive director, has made it his help them prepare for life after graduation. For mission to educate students about the advantages example, the CPE oΩers international study of getting an early start on their post-graduation opportunities in 44 countries on six continents, plans. That can mean professional development providing experiences that teach students imporactivities like internships, job shadowing and tant lessons about themselves and the world connections with professional mentors. But, beyond campus. Then there’s the ServiceCarroll likes to remind students, it can also mean Learning Program, which puts students to work international study, Service-Learning experiences building homes for the needy, feeding the hungry and intercultural education. Elmhurst students and tutoring young people. can explore all these possibilities at the CPE. “We want to prepare students to move on to “We’re about a lot more than helping students the next stage of life, after graduation,” Carroll find jobs,” Carroll says. “We want to develop said. “The programs we oΩer are part of the the person. If our students develop their passions College’s eΩorts to help with students’ selfand their talents, they’ll find jobs and they’ll be formation and personal development. And they better prepared for them.” all enhance our students’ career-readiness.”

The center’s diverse portfolio has made it a From its inception, that approach has set destination for students from all corners of the center apart from some other college career the campus. The CPE is home to the College’s o≈ces. The Center for Professional Excellence internship, mentoring and career-guidance traces its origins back to an action plan overseen programs. It also hosts the College’s Honors

by Elmhurst President Bryant L. Cureton, who Program, its study-abroad and Service-Learning led the College from 1994 to 2008. Cureton’s oΩerings, and intercultural education, which plan noted that the College, throughout its celebrates diversity and promotes leadership history, had sought to blend its liberal arts orienskills. Carroll’s research indicates that some 70 tation with a focus on professional preparation. percent of Elmhurst undergraduates take advanThe CPE was created to extend that legacy. tage of the CPE’s oΩerings.

“At a lot of colleges, there’s the classic liberal In the midst of the current faltering job mar- arts education or there’s professional preparation, ket, Carroll says, many of those students turn and never the twain shall meet,” Carroll said. to the CPE looking for an edge over other “[Cureton] came here and said, ‘We’ve always job seekers. At the CPE, they find internships been about integrating the two, since the days FYI/Spring 2013

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when our mission was preparing students for the ministry.’ If that’s not professional preparation, what is?”

One example of that approach is the CPE’s First Leap program. Initiated in 2008, it gives first-year students an early introduction to the professional world, combining visits to businesses with classroom sessions. The program oΩers a glimpse of some of the realities of the working world and helps students clarify their career interests. It also provides a foundation for further exploration, through internships, mentoring relationships, networking and academic coursework.

“We want to help with students’ self-formation so that they can take charge of their own professional development,” he said. “The experiences they find here give students skills that they can articulate to employers.” For students and parents anxious about an unforgiving job market, that kind of head start on career planning makes sense.

“These are di≈cult times, and students want to do what they can to help them succeed,” Carroll said. “The one thing students fear is that they’ll have to move back in with their parents after graduation. They don’t want that, any more than their parents want them moving back.”

news campus life

Irion Hall Turns 100 At a music-ďŹ lled 100th birthday party, Elmhurst College celebrates Irion Hall’s past, present and future.

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In its century-long history, Irion Hall has served as chapel, library, gymnasium and dormitory. Today, Irion is home to the College's Department of Music.

Keep up with campus news at www.elmhurst.edu/news.

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rion Hall has been the most versatile of campus buildings, serving at various points in its century-long history as Elmhurst College’s chapel, its library, its gymnasium, and even as housing for a few generations of the College’s students. On September 29, to celebrate that history, the building took on yet another role. It was the scene of a swinging and charmingly crowded house party, with entertainment provided by the current tenants, the students of Elmhurst’s acclaimed music department.

The department opened its practice rooms and rehearsal spaces for the occasion, oΩering brief sets by 15 student ensembles on a variety of stages around the building. In the basement band room that once held the pommel horses and medicine balls of the College’s pre–World War I gymnasium, visitors got an intimate view of the renowned Elmhurst College Jazz Band at work. In the second floor choral room, formerly student apartments, they heard the College’s Concert Choir sing. And in Buik Recital Hall, once the College’s chapel, the Gretsch Electric Guitar Ensemble produced a spirited set under the stern gaze of a stainedglass Moses, one of four Biblical figures left over from the space’s previous incarnation.

The mashup of past, present and future was entirely intentional.

“We’re trying something diΩerent,” said Peter Gri≈n, the music department’s chair, as the party was getting under way. “We’re giving our students the chance to show what they can do, and we’re celebrating the history of this building at the same time.”

For fans of the College’s ensembles, the evening was a chance to hear students play in close quarters and in their natural habitats.

One of those fans was the College’s president, S. Alan Ray. Paraphrasing Hemingway, he called FYI/Spring 2013

“We’re giving our students the chance to show what they can do, and we’re celebrating the history of this building at the same time.” the creative work coming out of Irion Hall “a vibrating feast.” Ray recalled hearing the jazz band play for one of the College’s new student convocations. “The only way I can describe the eΩect of that performance is to say, ‘They rocked,’” Ray told the audience in Buik Recital Hall. “I told the new students that we value excellence here, and that if they wanted to see a model of excellence, they only had to look as far as the Jazz Band and the Elmhurst College music department.”

The department, which has about 200 music majors, has called Irion Hall home since 1928, but only recently did it take over sole tenancy of the building. The building was dedicated on June 2, 1912, and named for Daniel Irion, Elmhurst’s fourth president and the first American-born leader of the College. He taught religion and ancient history at Elmhurst and, as was the common practice at the school then, he addressed his students only in German.

Irion lived in the building named for him; the porch that still overlooks Prospect Avenue was called the President’s Porch. The building also housed about 100 students. Showers, however, were not added until 1924.

The last student residents moved out of Irion Hall in 1975, opening space for the growth of the music department, aided by a multi-milliondollar renovation in 1979. Improvements continue. The department recently upgraded its computer labs and its classroom technology.

It also added a new Kawai grand piano. The instrument made its Irion Hall debut at the 100th anniversary party, played by David DeVasto, one of the department’s composition and theory faculty members.

As the music department has prospered, it has filled every available square inch of the century-old building. Students learn to make way in the narrow staircases and corridors for

a passing tuba. “It’s a busy place, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Gri≈n said as he picked his way through the crowded lobby during the celebration. And even for students new to the department, the traces of Irion Hall’s history are hard to miss. “There are some odd spaces, but it’s kind of cool to have that oddity factor,” said Alex Whalen, a jazz studies major from Chatham, Illinois, who had just completed his first gig as a member of the Gretsch Guitar Ensemble in Buik Recital Hall. “It makes for a nice, relaxed environment. It’s a place where we can learn from each other and have a sense of community.”

On a night filled with music, that was a sentiment worth celebrating.

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news events

Alumni Turn Out in Force for Homecoming More than 1,000 alumni, students and parents braved cold, wet weather to show their Bluejay spirit during Homecoming and Family Weekend 2012.

Photos: Genevieve Lee

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Top row, from left: President Alan Ray congratulates Bob Mills on receiving the Alumni Merit Distinguished Service to Alma Mater Award at Convocation, and the 50-Year Club tours the campus. Middle row: Alumni from the ’60s and ’70s enjoy brunch, and the Class of 1962 celebrates its 50th reunion. Bottom row: President Alan Ray cheers on the Bluejays with Jerry Schriver ’62, a member of the 50th Reunion Committee, and the football team participates in the first annual Homecoming Convocation.

Throughout the weekend, alumni across the generations shared stories from their own experiences at Elmhurst and expressed enthusiastic support for the College today.

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President Ray welcomes Nicole (Carlson) Perkins to the Bluejay Backers Hall of Fame; Sigma Kappa alumnae celebrate; and alumni enjoy the hospitality tent.

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he weekend’s festivities began on the evening of Thursday, October 11, with a welcome-back event for alumni who graduated six months ago and alumni who graduated 65 years ago.

Other highlights included class reunions, 13 a≈nity reunions, a special day of events for the 50-Year Club, and the football team’s upset 35-­30 win over Wheaton College.

This year, the College launched a new tradition with the first annual Homecoming Convocation. Held in Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel, the convocation honored the recipients of the Faculty Merit Award, Alumni Merit Award and Bluejay Backer Hall of Fame awards.

Elmhurst College Jazz Band Director Doug Beach received the Dr. Andrew K. Prinz Faculty Merit Award for his dedication and commitment to Elmhurst students. A performer, composer, arranger and Grammy award winner, Beach has taught at Elmhurst College since 1978.

Alumni Merit Awards, established in 1962 by the College’s Alumni Association, were given to Ronald (Ron) Koeppl ’61, Valerie Mazzone ’05 and Bob Mills ’64.

Koeppl, who received the College’s Distinguished Service to Society Award, is chair of the Norris Cultural Arts Center and co-president for the Fox Valley Retired Educators. He has been a dedicated alumnus of the College, serving as 1961 class representative and as a member of the Elmhurst College President’s Society.

Mazzone, a social worker and assistant principal of summer school for the Bensenville Elementary School District, received the

g.o.l.d. (Graduates of the Last Decade) Award.

Mills received the College’s Distinguished Service to Alma Mater Award. A senior sales associate with Koenig & Strey Realty, Mills is a strong supporter of the College’s football team. He also serves as a mentor through the Center for Professional Excellence and is a member of the President’s Society.

Nicole (Carlson) Perkins ’06 and Kim Meyer ’02 were inducted into the 2012 Bluejay Backer Hall of Fame.

Perkins was a two-time All-American and four-time all-conference selection as a member of the College’s volleyball team. In her four-year career, the Bluejays captured three College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Championships and played in the ncaa Tournament four times.

Meyer was a two-year member of the Elmhurst volleyball team and earned a pair of All-America honors during the 2000 season, in which she helped lead the Bluejays to their second cciw Championship.

Throughout the weekend, alumni across the generations shared stories from their own experiences at Elmhurst and expressed enthusiastic support for the College today.

“What a remarkable weekend! It was a time that I will remember for the rest of my life,” said Jerry Schriver ’62. “When I called classmates to encourage them to return to campus for Homecoming, I made it a point to say, ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime event.’ And was that right on target!”

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news events

A Lasting Legacy Elmhurst’s largest legacy family gathers on campus to reminisce—and to give back.

Photos: Genevieve Lee

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More than 75 members of the Koenig-Baur clan, the College’s largest legacy family, came together on campus last July for a week-long family reunion.

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he impact of the Koenig-Baurs, Elmhurst’s largest legacy family, is hard to miss on campus. Dedicated trees bloom in their honor and paver bricks bear their name, celebrating a 130-year association with the College.

Last summer, more than 75 members of the Koenig-Baur clan came together on the College campus for a week-long family reunion. Featuring everything from a talent show to guided campus tours, the reunion culminated in a July 25 dinner to raise funds for the John Koenig-Wilhelm Baur Memorial Scholarship, an endowed fund established by the family in 2007.

The family’s Elmhurst story dates back to 1879, when John Koenig enrolled in the German

Evangelical Proseminary at Elmhurst. The son of German immigrants from Indiana, John thrived in the tight-knit community of pretheological students, graduating in 1882 to become a parochial schoolteacher.

That same year, Wilhelm Baur arrived at Elmhurst from his native Germany, funded by a scholarship from the Basel Missionary Society.

He graduated in 1886 and enrolled in Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, where he would later serve as a professor of church history.

The two families crossed paths at Eden, where John Koenig’s sons, Elmhurst alumni John and Hermann, studied under Wilhelm Baur. Impressed with the boys’ dedication to scholarship and their strong moral character,

Wilhelm invited both Koenigs to Sunday dinner with his family, which included six daughters.

“It was Wilhelm’s way of ensuring that his daughters had proper suitors,” explained Robert Koenig, the grandson of John and Wilhelm and an Elmhurst faculty member from 1946 to 1954. The strategy worked, and both Koenig brothers eventually married Baur daughters: John married Rose, and Hermann married Martha.

The family that ensued continued John and Wilhelm’s commitment to service, with many pursuing careers in education, the ministry or both. They also maintained their forefathers’ strong connection to the College.

“We’ve always thought of Elmhurst as being ‘our college,’” said Elsa Weber ’70, Robert’s

Keep up with campus news at www.elmhurst.edu/news.

“We are grateful that we can give back some of what we received at Elmhurst in the form of the scholarship and at the same time honor some of our forebears.”

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Clockwise from top left: An ancestral tree maps the Koenig-Baur family’s extensive history with the College; Robert Koenig speaks at the reunion’s final dinner; scholarship recipient Seccoyah Williams ’13 shares her Elmhurst experience with donors; and family members share stories about their time on campus.

daughter and the great-granddaughter of John and Wilhelm. Born while her family lived on campus at Irion Hall, Elsa is married to Elmhurst College Professor Emeritus John Weber.

At the dinner, several generations of KoenigBaurs shared memories of their time on campus.

Barbara Englehart ’40, granddaughter of John and Wilhelm, said she still misses the sound of the organ in Irion Hall. And Jim Helm ’59, grandson of Wilhelm, will always remember meeting a young freshman on campus named Anne, who later became his wife.

Robert recalls teaching Old and New Testament classes and living at the College right after World War ii. “It was most exciting. I started in the fall of 1946 when the first wave of vets on the G.I. Bill came to Elmhurst, and they meant business, really demanding you put forth the work.”

One of his fondest memories is of returning to campus with his newborn daughter, Elsa. As he approached Irion Hall, he saw a big group of the hall’s student residents holding up a sign FYI/Spring 2013

that read “ECK.” It didn’t take him long to figure out that the acronym stood for “Elmhurst College Kid.” Elsa returned to campus for undergraduate studies at the height of the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. “It was a time of dramatic social change,” she said, recalling her work to promote social justice on campus with the activist group Students for a Democratic Society.

A Legacy of Service At the reunion dinner, family members had the chance to get to know some of the many students who have benefited from KoenigBaur Memorial Scholarships over the years.

Five current and past scholarship recipients attended the event to meet the family and express their gratitude.

“The award helped me both financially and personally,” explained Genesis Jelkes ’11. “It gave me the freedom to make my own choices, and it lit a fire under me to give back.” Inspired by the family’s generosity, Jelkes now works with

City Year Chicago, an AmeriCorps program that helps at-risk students stay in school.

The scholarship fund began with an ambitious goal. “We thought if we could raise $50,000, we could make a real diΩerence to Elmhurst students,” explained Robert. Within three years after sending out letters of explanation, the scholarship task force had collected $50,000 in pledges from 42 family members.

Today, the family is making plans to secure the fund’s future with an additional $50,000 in contributions. “We are grateful that we can give back some of what we received at Elmhurst in the form of the scholarship and at the same time honor some of our forebears,” said Jim Helm.

Despite their long and distinguished legacy at Elmhurst, the Koenig-Baurs remain humble.

“We don’t consider ourselves a ‘legacy family,’” explained Robert Koenig. “We just consider ourselves a family.”

news niebuhr center

A Message of Hope in High School Elmhurst graduates help Chicago students stay in school.

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Photo: Genevieve Lee

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hen the students of John Marshall Metropolitan High School on Chicago’s West Side arrive at school each morning, Genesis Jelkes and her colleagues from City Year, a national service organization, are waiting to deliver a message.

“We try to let them know that coming to school was the greatest decision they could make today,” Jelkes, a 2011 Elmhurst graduate, said.

So she and the nine other City Year corps members who work at Marshall launch into their Morning Greeting, a kind of daily pep rally that aims to energize the students for the school day ahead. Jelkes and the others chant and cheer and greet every student they see. For some students, the welcome is a bit of much-needed encouragement amid the crime-plagued streets that surround the school.

“We hope it helps keep the students going,” Jelkes said. “It definitely energizes us.”

City Year partners with public schools to defeat the epidemic of absenteeism and dropouts in America’s big cities, and to encourage students to stick with their studies. Each corps member is assigned to a school for the course of the academic year, where they serve as tutors, mentors and role models. They assist teachers in the classroom, counsel students about the challenges they face, oΩer homework help, and even call home to check up on those who don’t show up at school.

Another recent Elmhurst graduate, Jeremy Allen, Class of 2012, is a City Year corps member at Chicago Vocational Career Academy, on the city’s Southeast Side. He said that corps members take pride in arriving at their schools before the first student shows up and staying until after the last has left.

“We want to build their spirits up, first thing,” he said. “You don’t want the first thing they see to be a bunch of metal detectors.”

City Year corps members, in their trademark red jackets and khakis, work in 24 U.S. cities, usually in teams of eight to 15 members. And while their high-energy morning greetings are all about generating enthusiasm, some of the group’s most important work happens in quiet, one-on-one conversations between corps members and students.

Allen, who tutors in algebra and biology, said he encounters students who are discouraged by their lack of success in school. He tries to oΩer practical help and instruction, but he also lets them know that he is available if they just need someone to talk to.

“We try to take a load oΩ the teachers and encourage the students,” he said. Sometimes even the simplest positive message makes an impact. “The other day I said to one student, ‘Hey, you the man.’ And I could see it meant something to him. It’s something he didn’t hear too often.” But Allen admitted that it can be diΩcult to reach some students.

“There are definitely some that act like they don’t want your help,” he said. “But I try to keep winning their trust a little more each day. Every day that passes you are making a diΩerence. You have to keep focusing on those small successes.”

Both Allen and Jelkes said they were inspired to join City Year by their experience with the Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action. “The Niebuhr Center instilled the value of service in me,” Allen said. “It let me know that I can figure out what I want to do with my life through service.”

“Service changes lives. It’s a way of maintaining your idealism in everyday life, and I wouldn’t know that if not for the Niebuhr Center,” Jelkes said. “We’re here to help these students. We want them to get to school safely, and we want them to learn. We’re part of an organization that is directly helping those that need it the most.”

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Photos courtesy of Heidi Diaz

Above and Beyond In the high-altitude Bolivian city of Sucre, Heidi Diaz and other students learn to put faith into action.

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hen Heidi Diaz joined a group of Elmhurst students traveling to Bolivia last summer to work with children on the streets of Sucre, that nation’s ancient, mountaintop capital, she thought it would be a chance for her to help young people in need. It was only when she got to Sucre that she realized how much she herself would get out of the trip.

For Diaz, a third-year elementary education major from Lombard, the rewards became apparent every morning when she showed up to volunteer at a Sucre day care center.

“The children would run up to me and take me by the hand because they were so happy to see us,” she said. “I felt my heart growing every day.”

Diaz was one of nine Elmhurst students who joined 24 others from several Chicago-area colleges to travel to Bolivia for the two-week mission trip organized by the Diocese of Joliet’s Peace and Social Justice Ministry. This was the third year Elmhurst students made the annual trip. They fed and played with small children at an orphanage in Sucre, worked in a food kitchen serving children living on the streets, and assisted doctors and nurses working at San Juan de Dios Hospital. The students also distributed shoes, clothing, medical supplies and toiletries to more than 80 children in need.

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Still, Kevin O’Donnell, the trip’s coordinator, said that students who went on the mission received as much as they gave.

“There is real need out there and this trip helps meet that need, but there is so much value for the students, too,” said O’Donnell, Elmhurst’s Catholic co-chaplain and the head of campus ministries for the Diocese of Joliet. “You often don’t figure out what you want to do with your life until you’ve gone out and seen a little of the world. Only then can you say, ‘Yes, this is what I want,’ or ‘No, this is not right for me.’

Trips like this are a chance for students to serve the poor and to reflect on their experiences.”

For Courtney Ryan, a junior exercise science major from Algonquin who is planning a career in pediatric physical therapy, the trip oΩered an opportunity to help children in need. “It was heartbreaking at times to see children in the day care center not getting the attention they needed,” she said. “We were only there for a short time, but we did what we could to help.”

Diaz, who is working on a minor in Spanish, said that one of the highlights of her trip was a hike through the mountains outside Sucre. Along the trail she and her companions followed were markers designating each of the Stations of the Cross. Diaz said she had prepared herself for the high altitude of the Bolivian capital, so

the hike was not as taxing as it might have been.

What she was less prepared for was the emotional impact of the journey.

“When we reached the summit, I broke into tears,” she said. “To see Sucre below us, well, how beautiful. I can’t forget it. I felt so connected to my faith.”

And Diaz may not be finished traveling. After a 2011 January Term trip to Spain as part of a Spanish language immersion class, she set a goal for herself of visiting each of the world’s Spanish-speaking countries. Diaz is not sure when and where she will able to travel next, but she knows she would like to help people wherever she goes.

“For me, service is a way to say thank you to everyone who helps me in my life. And it doesn’t have to be traveling to Bolivia. It can be working in your local church or serving someone Thanksgiving dinner,” she said. That’s a philosophy Diaz said she has absorbed from her involvement with the Niebuhr Center.

“That’s why it’s called the Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action,” she said. “You have to believe in something, but you have to put that belief into action, too.”

what’s new at elmhurst

Elmhurst College Welcomes a New Director of Alumni Relations 14

Thomas Newton ’87 returned to Elmhurst in January to spearhead the College’s alumni engagement eΩorts.

Photo: Roark Johnson

A

Thomas Newton ’87 returned to Elmhurst in January to become the College’s new director of alumni relations.

fter graduating from Elmhurst College in 1987, Thomas Newton launched a successful career that revolved around engaging high school students—preparing them for college, work or whatever the next phase in their lives would be.

In January, Newton returned to Elmhurst to become the College’s new director of alumni relations. The role, while diΩerent from his previous positions, is familiar to him because it too is about engaging people—this time to remind alumni that their Elmhurst experiences shaped who they are today, and that the meaningful ties they created with the College need never be broken.

“This has been like coming home for me,” Newton said, “and it’s really good to be back home.”

Newton grew up in the Elmhurst area and attended York High School before enrolling at Elmhurst College. In college he majored in physical education, and as a high-jump standout he was inducted into the Bluejay Backer Hall of Fame in 1993.

Yet his favorite college memory is about a class; the last class he ever took at Elmhurst.

He had already attended the commencement ceremony but needed one more course to get his degree. It was a summer course, so he figured it would be a walk in the park. Then he met his professor—Barbara Swords, widely known as one of the toughest professors at Elmhurst. Her summer English class would be no exception.

“I never worked so hard in my entire life,” he recalled, “but it was the best class I had at Elmhurst. She was the best teacher—tough but

To find out how you can help today’s Elmhurst students, go to www.elmhurst.edu/alumni and click on “Get Involved.”

fair. I never felt as rewarded as I did when I was done and able to get my degree.”

For the next two decades, Newton worked in secondary education, serving as a teacher, dean of students, assistant principal and principal at high schools all over the Chicago area and in Arizona. He also coached a variety of sports, including football, track and field, cross country, basketball and swimming.

When he started as alumni director at Elmhurst, he immediately felt a similar team spirit: “I got a good sense of the camaraderie and team atmosphere that’s been created here.”

In his new role, Newton replaced Samantha Kiley ’07, who is now serving the College as a development o≈cer. The alumni relations team has been working hard “to make relationships happen so that people will want to be, and remain, engaged with the College,” Newton said.

“Our job is to find out what our alumni want and to make sure they understand that what we do is for them. We want people to know we’re here to help them and work with them whenever they want to come back to the College, whether it’s for Homecoming, an a≈nity event or a reunion.”

One of the o≈ce’s priorities is to continue to launch alumni clubs around the country.

Now that clubs have been established in St. Louis and Chicago, the o≈ce is making plans to launch a club in Washington, D.C. “We want our alumni to be proud of Elmhurst College and to be able to network with other people from the College—old, young, just graduated.” Newton said.

“We hope it ultimately will bring them back to the College, and encourage them to give their time and talents to help others come here and get that Elmhurst Experience.”

Another goal is to engage current students and help them to understand the role of the O≈ce of Alumni Relations and how it can help them.

“We want current students to know that when they graduate, they’ll join a lifetime network of people who’ve shared the Elmhurst Experience,” he said. “They’re only students here for four or five years, but they’re alumni forever.”

FYI/Spring 2013

15

President S. Alan Ray presented the Founders Medal to College Trustee Kenne Bristol (third from left), shown here with his daughter, Sarah Bristol-Gould; wife, Candy Bristol; daughter-in-law, Tammy Bristol; and son, Kevin.

Marilyn Graber and Kenne Bristol Receive Founders Medals Elmhurst College awarded the 2012 Founders Medal, one of its most prestigious honors, to two longtime contributors and supporters, Marilyn Graber and Kenne P. Bristol.

Established in 1978, the Founders Medal recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in philanthropic or personal service to the College’s mission. The medals were awarded on Friday, October 26, at the Frick Center during a ceremony attended by the College’s Board of Trustees and several previous medal winners.

President S. Alan Ray presented the medal posthumously to Marilyn Graber, who died earlier this year. Though she attended the College only in 1954, the Minnesota native considered herself a loyal alumna of Elmhurst. She was a longtime resident of Elmhurst who for years served as secretary/treasurer of the family business, Graber Concrete Pipe, and was a board member of the Elmhurst Memorial Hospital Foundation.

Graber was a frequent visitor to the campus and a strong supporter of Elmhurst’s nursing and science programs and the annual Jazz Festival. Over the years she donated lighted Christmas trees, wreaths and a nativity scene

that beautified Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel during the holiday season.

One of her more significant gifts to the College was a SimBaby, a life-size, robotic model of an infant that can be programmed to simulate a variety of symptoms and conditions. The SimBaby, nicknamed “Baby Boo,” is an important training tool used by students in the Deicke Center for Nursing Education.

The citation for her Founders Medal describes Graber as “a loyal, faithful friend and advocate” of the College. “Marilyn was a diΩerence maker,” Ray said. “She loved the interaction with Elmhurst students and embraced life to its very fullest.

Marilyn left the Elmhurst campus a better place.

We miss her in many diΩerent ways.”

Bristol, a trustee since 1993, concluded a fiveyear term as president of the Board of Trustees earlier this year and previously had chaired the board’s executive committee. He is a retired banking executive and an Elmhurst resident.

In 2005 he established the Kenne Bristol Scholarship, given annually to business students who meet high academic standards and demonstrate financial need.

Fellow Trustee Hugh H. McLean presented the medal and praised Bristol as a personal mentor and a steadying yet inspiring influence to him and other board members. McLean described Bristol as a “leader who is passionate about the College, about his community, about

what’s new at elmhurst

16

his family.” The citation for his Founders Medal notes that Bristol is “a successful banker and businessman, (and) his expertise has been invaluable to trustees and the administration.

He is a strong believer in the importance of strategic planning and helped to lead the school through its most recent planning process.

Kenne cares deeply about Elmhurst College, and it shows.”

In previous years, the College has presented Founders Medals as part of an event held in December, but the format for that event is being revised, said Joseph R. Emmick, vice president for development and alumni relations.

“When we learned that Marilyn and Kenne were this year’s winners, presenting the medals as part of our Board of Trustees weekend seemed like the perfect fit,” Emmick said. “It was a privilege for the College to recognize Marilyn and Kenne in front of our trustees and many of our past Founders Medal recipients.”

Regional Clubs Engage Alumni The College’s first two regional clubs made strong showings in the fall of 2012, with many more dynamic events planned for the near future.

St. Louis In September, the Elmhurst College Alumni Club of St. Louis celebrated its first full year with a weekend full of food, fun and reminiscing.

Alumni from the classes of 1948 through 2008

attended a variety of events, along with many legacy families.

On September 22, a group of alumni met at Chandler Hills Winery in Defiance, Missouri, where they shared stories of their Elmhurst experiences while enjoying good food and drink, great company, and a wonderful view.

The following day, another group met for brunch at Hendel’s Market Café and Piano Bar in Florissant, Missouri. Attendees shared their favorite Elmhurst College memories and heard campus updates from Paul Krohn, the College’s director of intercollegiate athletics, and other Elmhurst staΩ members.

Later in the year, St. Louis–area alumni cheered on the Elmhurst College men’s basketball team as they faced Washington University in St. Louis on December 15.

Chicago More than 80 alumni celebrated the o≈cial launch of the College’s second regional alumni club at a reception on September 12, along with Elmhurst President S. Alan Ray, trustees, faculty and staΩ.

Held at the Union League Club in downtown Chicago, the event featured live jazz, courtesy of the Elmhurst College Jazz Combo. President Ray delivered a State of the College address, and Tim Ricordati, dean of the School for Professional Studies, provided an update on the College’s adult and graduate programs and the new alumni voucher program.

Upcoming Chicago events include an April 17 reception at Orchestra Hall, where the Elmhurst College Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble will perform in concert.

Elmhurst Clubs are designed to foster connections among alumni, students, parents, friends and the College. Regional gatherings provide alumni and friends with information about Elmhurst and opportunities to engage.

The Elmhurst College Alumni Club of Chicago is the College’s largest club, serving 17,000 alumni and alumnae who live and work in the Chicago area.

IN MEMORIAM

Barbara Winchester Swords, 1925–2012 Barbara Winchester Swords had it all, long before pundits and societal observers began wondering whether it was even possible. She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was an active volunteer in the Elmhurst community where she and her husband, Robert W. Swords, lived for 60 years and raised their family. And as an English professor for 30 years at Elmhurst College, Barbara Swords had a fulfilling, meaningful career that made a significant impact on not only the hundreds of students she taught, but also the College itself.

Professor Swords died peacefully, surrounded by family, on Tuesday, October 23, 2012. She was 87.

Barbara Winchester was a student at the University of Chicago in 1942 when she met Robert W. Swords. Both graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English. In 1947 they were married, and Robert Swords began teaching at Elmhurst College in 1952.

Barbara Swords joined the Elmhurst College faculty in 1960, and she and her husband would go on to teach at the College for more than three decades.

“Barbara Swords was a strong, intelligent and forthright person,” said Elmhurst College President S. Alan Ray. “She loved Elmhurst College and its history, yet I recall her excitement when we discussed our plans for the future.

Above all, Barbara always insisted we observe the highest standards of teaching and scholarship. Her own contributions to the life of the College over a lifetime show she held herself

To catch up on campus news and events, go to www.elmhurst.edu/alumni.

to those same high standards. I feel privileged to have known her.”

As a professor during the women’s rights movement, she worked to increase support for and influence by women on the faculty, mentoring new female professors and serving on a number of academic committees, said her daughter, Susan Swords SteΩen, an Elmhurst College faculty member and director of the A.C. Buehler Library.

But above all, Professor Swords loved being a teacher. “She had a great ability to write, to communicate, and loved being able to teach people to do that,” Swords SteΩen said. “She loved people and telling their stories. She believed you could bring people to life through story.”

Barbara and Robert Swords retired in 1989 and were named professors emeriti in 1996.

After her retirement, Professor Swords remained a strong supporter of Elmhurst College. In 2006, after the death of her husband, she established the Robert W. Swords Memorial Fund. Through the fund, Professor Swords has assisted the College’s Honors Program, the English department and the A.C. Buehler Library.

She also remained a constant source of encouragement and assistance to individual students, insisting on living close to campus so that students and friends could visit her.

Only a few days before her death, she helped a student who was eager to join a study-abroad trip to Europe in January. The student, the first in her family to attend college, didn’t have enough money to go, yet “for her, this trip would make all the diΩerence,” Swords SteΩen said.

Professor Swords sat down and, without hesitation, wrote out a check.

In 2010, the College awarded one of its highest honors, the Founders Medal, to Professor Swords for her commitment of time and talent in service to Elmhurst.

“She had a huge impact on the College, and has always been a strong supporter of everything we’re about,” Swords SteΩen said.

After retiring from the College, Professor Swords also remained active in the Elmhurst community, serving as the library board observer for the Elmhurst League of Women Voters and leading a study that called for the construction of FYI/Spring 2013

a new public library. The League’s endorsement and active support led to a successful $18.7 million library referendum.

Professor Swords is survived by her daughter, Susan Swords SteΩen; her son, Stephen; five grandchildren, including Jason Swords SteΩen ’06; and a great-granddaughter.

Professor Emeritus David Lindberg, 1939–2012 David S. Lindberg, professor emeritus at Elmhurst College and former chair of the political science department, passed away on December 29, 2012. He was 73.

Professor Lindberg taught political science at Elmhurst College from 1967 to 2007, and served as chair of the political science department from 1998 to 2006. He also was a faculty advisor to pre-law students, as well as for the Progressive Political Students group and the Mock Trial Team. In 2002, he won the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“He brought to the political science department dedication and expertise in political philosophy and law, commitment to his students and their development as citizens and human beings, and a cheerful, gentle and agreeable spirit,” said Alzada Tipton, senior vice president for academic aΩairs and dean of the faculty.

He also was an active member of the Elmhurst community, serving on the Elmhurst Community Unit District 205 School Board for 16 years and as a Little League manager for 16 years. He was a member of Bethel United Church of Christ for 35 years.

Professor Lindberg is survived by his wife, Ardathe; two sons, Eric (Sunita) and Jonathan; and two grandchildren.

Fall Cultural Season OΩers Ideas and Inspiration Experts and advocates from a range of disciplines spoke at Elmhurst during the Fall 2012 Cultural Season, drawing capacity crowds and providing inspiration and new ideas. Here are some excerpts from a dynamic fall.

“All these systemic failures are soluble, but all the methods of solving them are very controversial. [Democrats and Republicans] are really at each other’s throats, and that makes it extremely di≈cult to deal with these problems.”

Judge Richard Allen Posner, speaking about the crisis of democracy in the Rudolf G. Schade Lecture on September 6.

“As a business, a baseball team is really a horrible economic investment. During my 32 years in the game, if I were to add up the years that we made money and lost money, it comes out to about zero. But I got into baseball because I love the game.”

Jerry Reinsdorf, majority owner of the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox, in a special appearance on September 20.

“The trend toward individualism is worrying.

You see it whether you look at the church of Joel Osteen or the church of Oprah Winfrey. We are self-satisfied in the red states and self-regarding in the blue.”

New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat, talking about the wane of mainstream Christianity at the Third Annual Niebuhr Forum on Religion in Public Life.

“There’s so many diΩerent ways you can use knowledge [in computer science] to make a diΩerence in the world today. It’s one of the most versatile set of skills you can have today. And the job opportunities are phenomenal.”

Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe in a September 13 speech about expanding opportunities for women in computer science.

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Photo: Genevieve Lee

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To Make

A DIFFERENCE

in the World

Ray Whitehead’s international life of service began at Elmhurst College. By Andrew Santella

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Whitehead’s work in Hong Kong caught the attention of reporters from Newsweek.

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I

t was the train ride that worried Ray Whitehead.

Whitehead, now retired and living in Toronto, was 18 when he left his hometown of BuΩalo, New York, for Elmhurst College in 1952. He was about to become the first in his working-class family to study beyond high school.

But what seemed really daunting to Whitehead wasn’t college itself but the journey that would take him there.

He had never been away from BuΩalo before, had never even boarded a train, so he made sure his pastor back home, an Elmhurst alumnus who had seen the promise in Whitehead and pointed him toward the College, gave him detailed directions.

Where would he change trains? Which way would he walk? Whitehead might as well have been headed halfway around the world.

“I was ready for an adventure,” he remembers.

The decades since he left home for Elmhurst have indeed been an adventure. A social ethicist, Whitehead spent decades teaching, researching and doing mission work in Hong Kong, China and the Philippines.

He found himself celebrated on the cover of Newsweek magazine as an exemplar of the young, faith-driven American serving the church abroad.

Later, he would help lead a pioneering delegation of western scholars to Communist China and would form an alliance with Christian leaders working there to keep their church alive amid the revolutionary tumult in that nation.

“I appreciate that his interest in Asia has been a long-term one,” said Kwok Pui Lan, who studied Christian ethics under Whitehead at Chung Chi College’s Divinity School in Hong Kong in the 1970s. She is now William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “He was a progressive and sympathetic teacher. Students at the time were particularly interested in trying to understand China, and his connections to Chinese church leaders were important in that regard. For me and for many students, he has been an enlightening presence.”

Whitehead’s international adventure began with that train ride west to Elmhurst.

“I came to Elmhurst as a student who had never been out of my hometown. But I met people at Elmhurst who had an international perspective,” he says. “There were children of missionaries, some of them born in India or Honduras or Africa. It was a small campus, but it was not at all isolated from the world. Elmhurst opened my eyes. That was what made me want to work internationally.”

Whitehead wants to help today’s Elmhurst students share his experience. In memory of his wife, Rhea, he recently made a generous gift to the Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action that will provide for, among other things, opportunities for international study.

“I think students, if they have time, should study or do service in another country,” he said. “We have a tendency to think of our own culture as normal and universal. But there are many ways to see the world.”

Very little about Whitehead’s childhood could have predicted the work he one day would do. He grew up rooted in a hardscrabble BuΩalo neighborhood that had been hit hard by the Depression. His family’s poverty was relieved only when the U.S. entered the Second World War and his father found work in the local Bell Aircraft plant. His older brothers joined the service, and the school-aged Whitehead regularly made his way to the local movie house to watch newsreels, hungry for news from Guadalcanal and Anzio and the Kasserine Pass.

“The world suddenly became more real to me,” he says.

Something else changed, too. Amid the uncertainty of war, Whitehead started going to church. His family had never been particularly religious, but a friend invited Whitehead to join him at a local Disciples church.

In the sermons he heard there, Whitehead was exposed for the first time to a world of ideas and books and learning. Intrigued, he was baptized when he was 12. By the time he started high school, he had begun considering a life in ministry.

saved his money to take Rhea to performances at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, where they heard Maria Callas sing. Outings to the opera would remain one of the couple’s favorite activities, long after they married in 1957.

The two also shared an aptitude for academic success. Whitehead graduated magna cum laude from Elmhurst in 1955, taking just three and a half years to complete his coursework. Rhea earned her degree in 1957, summa cum laude.

Inspired by the spirit of international ecumenism he had encountered at Elmhurst (some of his fellow students had worked at the 1954 meeting of the World Council of Churches in Evanston and came back to campus excited about the international issues they heard discussed there), Whitehead embarked on a year of overseas service after graduation.

From Hawaii to Hong Kong to the northeast Indian state of Assam, he traveled some 25,000 miles by ship. In Hong Kong, he taught refugees from Communist China. In India, he helped build a new Christian college. Disturbed by the poverty he encountered, he also noted the local ambivalence toward Western missionaries, whose work seemed entangled with the legacies of imperialism and colonialism. The experience helped set the course for Whitehead’s future work.

“If coming to Elmhurst was one kind of life transformation, that trip was another,” Whitehead said. “It gave me a diΩerent view of the world.

I came to see that it’s hard to understand one’s own culture until you experience other cultures.”

Whitehead returned to the U.S. to enroll at Union Theological Seminary (where one of his professors was the renowned theologian and Elmhurst alumnus Reinhold Niebuhr) and do field work in East Harlem, earning an M.Div. in 1960. It was his wife, Rhea, who helped

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Photo: Genevieve Lee

“I was interested in problems of justice, and I thought the church could help. It seemed to be one of the few institutions that oΩered hope,” he said. “Coming from my background, I knew that workingclass people were looked down upon as lazy or stupid. But I knew that with a little vision or opportunity, people could accomplish things.”

Whitehead found his own opportunity at a church led by a pastor and Elmhurst graduate named John Steve who recognized Whitehead’s potential and urged him to apply to the College. Like most of the young men in his neighborhood, Whitehead had few ambitions beyond graduating from high school and finding a steady job. The idea of traveling a few hundred miles west to enroll in college was daunting.

“I had no experience of higher education,” he said. “I didn’t know how to do research, how to write papers, how to take notes.”

To his own amazement, Whitehead thrived at Elmhurst. He joined the track and cross country teams, edited the sports section of the student newspaper, and became involved in the campus community to a degree that he never had in high school. (“There was such openness and acceptance,” he remembers.) Finding himself for the first time stimulated by his coursework, he became an A student. To help fund his studies, he washed dishes in the kitchen of the Commons cafeteria (where one of his co-workers was the future Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann) and worked the night shift in an Elmhurst supermarket. When he was really short on cash, he would donate blood at the county health department, which would earn him enough to take a date to a school dance.

It was at one of those dances, during Whitehead’s third year at Elmhurst, that he met Rhea Menzel. Soon after, the couple met again at a student Christian group retreat in Wisconsin, and began dating. Whitehead

On a recent visit to Elmhurst, Ray Whitehead met with students and faculty from the Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action. Pictured here are (from left): Heidi Diaz, Ray Whitehead, Niebuhr Center Director Ronald Beauchamp, Stanley Washington and Kristen McWilliams.

FYI/Spring 2013

It was a heady time for idealistic, service-minded young Americans like Whitehead who dared to think about the possibility of world peace.

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Photos courtesy of Ray Whitehead

him see that their future lay in working overseas. It was a heady time for idealistic, service-minded young Americans like Whitehead. They were fanning out around the globe through the Kennedy-era Peace Corps and church missions, daring to think and talk about the possibility of world peace. The Whiteheads decided to settle in Hong Kong.

After completing a Cantonese language program at Yale, they found a walk-up apartment in a gritty neighborhood called Tsuen Wan. Whitehead’s work there—educating the young, tending to the ill, advocating for workers in the local textile factories—soon caught the attention of reporters from Newsweek, who were working on a feature about the new face of Christian service.

“Whitehead is one of the new breed of missionaries who knows that the saving of diseased bodies and disused minds must come before the saving of souls, that practicing Christianity can be more important than preaching it,” the magazine reported. The story quoted a diplomat who called Whitehead “practical, clean-cut, hard-working, and deeply concerned with the issues of his times.”

His engagement “with the issues of his times,” and his desire to better understand them, sent Whitehead back to Union to complete a doctoral program in ethics and economics. When he returned to Hong Kong, a

newly minted Ph.D., it was to serve as a research consultant for the National Council of Churches. One of Whitehead’s tasks was to monitor the state of Christian churches in China in the wake of that country’s Cultural Revolution. He and Rhea, who had joined him on the research staΩ, were part of a group called the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars that made a path-breaking visit to China in 1971. It was around this time that Whitehead began a correspondence and friendship with Bishop K. H. Ting, the leader of the Christian church in China.

Ting drew criticism from some western Christians for seeking a working relationship with China’s communist government. But to Whitehead, Ting’s approach placed the Chinese church squarely within Chinese culture and rejected the view that Christianity must be a Western, imperial institution. “There was no reason the Chinese church couldn’t be as Chinese as the Anglican Church is English,” Whitehead said. “[Whitehead] was able to open a dialogue with Chinese churches at a time when so many people harbored suspicions about anything to do with China because of its communist government,” said Episcopal Divinity School’s Professor Kwok.

Whitehead later edited a collection of Ting’s writings for publication and worked with him to organize a major international scholarly conference about the church in China in 1981. By then, Whitehead had relocated to Toronto, where he worked first on issues related to China for the Canadian Council of Churches and the United Church of Canada, and later as the director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at the Toronto School of Theology.

“What stood out was how much his experiences in China had shaped Ray,” said Lee Cormie, an emeritus professor at the Toronto School of Theology, who taught at the school during Whitehead’s tenure there.

“He was able to see more, hear more, learn more, be more sympathetic, because he had been there for so long. He had learned the language.

There is no substitute for that. His students were enormously appreciative of his commitment.”

Meanwhile, Rhea had established what Whitehead calls “a sparkling career” of her own. She oversaw Asia programs for the Anglican and

Left: Rhea Whitehead at a Christian conference in Asia in 1990. Right: Ray Whitehead in class.

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Above left: In Nanjing in 2005, the Whiteheads pose with the dean and a group of graduate students in front of a student dorm. Above right: In 2004, this human rights magazine published an article by Rhea about teaching in a theological school in Nanjing. The inset picture shows Ray and Rhea standing at the front gate of the seminary.

United churches of Canada. She helped initiate talks between the churches of North and South Korea, bridging a gap that had existed since the Korean War. She bravely visited and advocated for political prisoners under repressive regimes in the Philippines and promoted educational and professional opportunities for women in Asia. In recognition of her work, she received an honorary doctorate of divinity from Victoria University of the University of Toronto.

Even after Whitehead had putatively retired, he and Rhea continued to travel and teach in the Philippines and China. At Union Theological Seminary in Nanjing, at the invitation of Bishop Ting, he taught introductory ethics courses for undergraduates and a graduate seminar on Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr. His teaching there built on the lessons he had been developing for decades.

“It starts with a sense of respect for the church in China,” he said. “It follows the partnership model of missionary work. I encouraged them not to feel they had to copy any European or North American church model, but rather to take their own values and make their own path. It’s too easy to assume that we in the West have all the answers.”

The Whiteheads became fixtures on the Nanjing campus, where they often could be spotted eating in the student cafeteria or biking to morning chapel.

Their impact was powerful, not only in Nanjing, but wherever they worked. The couple was honored by the Canadian Churches’ Forum for Global Ministry in 2010. In his remarks at the award ceremony, Whitehead spoke of the need for professors and missionaries to listen rather than engage in polemics.

After Rhea’s death on June 14, 2011, tributes poured in from Japan, Korea, the Philippines and other spots around the globe where she and Ray had worked.

FYI/Spring 2013

Today Whitehead is, in his words, “living alone in a big house” in Toronto. Two of his three daughters, Cynthia and Beth, live not far from him in Canada. The third, Sara, lives in Thailand. He remains active in his Toronto church, Trinity-St. Paul’s, and helps arrange for students from China to come to Canada for advanced study. He also supports Elmhurst College. He and Rhea returned to campus for his 50th class reunion in 2005 and for hers in 2007, and were impressed with what they found.

“We were so pleased with what Elmhurst was doing, the direction in which it was moving, especially with regard to social consciousness,” he said. “We saw that this is one school that is not only about becoming successful, but also about making a diΩerence in the world.”

Later this year, Whitehead will travel to Hong Kong again, to attend the 50th anniversary celebration of Chung Chi Divinity School. It was there that he began teaching in the 1960s, a young man not long removed from Elmhurst College, ready for adventure. Ready to make a diΩerence in the world.

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Deep Roots The United Church of Christ has advanced the story of Elmhurst College, and of America.

D

on’t let the United Church of Christ’s o≈cial birthdate fool you. The church may have come into being, formally speaking, in 1957, but its roots extend deep into the heritage and tradition of American spirituality and of the larger American experience.

From this country’s colonial beginnings, through its mid-nineteenthcentury paroxysm over slavery, to its contemporary battles over personal identity and social inclusiveness, the UCC and its varied forebears have played starring roles at key moments in United States history. The church calls it “religion with relevance.” Over four centuries, few religious bodies in the United States have been more relevant, or had more impact on American life.

Today’s UCC is a distinctive, made-in-America blend of diverse but complementary Christian traditions. The Congregational Church was founded by Pilgrims and Puritans in colonial Massachusetts.

The Reformed Church grew from congregations of German settlers in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. The Christian Churches emerged after American independence as a frontier response to the rigid doctrines of more established Protestant denominations.

The German Evangelical Church Society of the West was a heartland church founded in the nineteenth century near St. Louis by a later wave of immigrants. In addition to these four main branches of the family tree, the UCC has welcomed congregations of African Americans, Native Americans, and seekers who found themselves alienated from other, less welcoming denominations.

Elmhurst College was founded 142 years ago to train preachers and teachers for one of the UCC’s primary precursors, Der Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenverein des Westens, the German Evangelical Church. Well into the twentieth century, in fact, the ministry remained atop the list of the most popular alumni occupations. Today’s students and alumni are a good deal more varied in their professional interests and personal identities; but the College’s spiritual roots continue to inform, in profound ways, the education it oΩers and the profile it presents to the larger society. In short, Elmhurst College is proud to embrace and share the heritage and tradition of this special church. Here’s a look at it.

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The Pilgrim’s Church When the men and women aboard the Mayflower sighted land after 67 storm-wracked days at sea, their leader William Bradford noted in laconic fashion: “They were not a little joyful.” The Pilgrims were members of the Congregational Church, a major branch of the UCC’s bountiful family tree. They crossed the Atlantic from England in the seventeenth century to escape the heavy hand of the Anglican state church. They established congregations that were self-governing and free to elect its own ministers—an early manifestation of American democracy. Their pastor, John Robinson, urged them to keep their minds and hearts open to new ideas: “God has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word.” It was a fitting start for a church that, four centuries later, would continue to insist, “God is still speaking.”

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Believers and Thinkers Starting with the Congregationalists, the UCC and its forebears shaped American intellectual history, producing profoundly influential leaders like Jonathon Edwards and founding many American colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, Smith, Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, Mount Holyoke, Howard, Elmhurst and many others.

Today, 18 American colleges and universities, including Elmhurst, are full members of the church’s Council for Higher Education, the closest attainable association. The church also founded seminaries, secondary academies, the first college for the deaf (which later became Gallaudet University), and the oldest publishing house in the United States (the Pilgrim Press).

Ring Out Liberty!

The men and women aboard the Mayflower were members of the Congregational Church, an important major branch of the UCC’s family tree.

The Pilgrims were members of the Congregational Church, a major branch of the UCC’s bountiful family tree. They crossed the Atlantic from England in the seventeenth century to escape the heavy hand of the Anglican state church.

Two years into the Revolutionary War, George Washington’s Continental Army was on the retreat and the British were marching on Philadelphia, looting and looking for metal to melt into cannon balls. Patriots removed the bell from the steeple of the State House, hid it under hay in a farm wagon and spirited it away to Allentown, Pennsylvania. There the bell was safely concealed under the floorboards of Zion Reformed Church, a congregation founded by German settlers in Pennsylvania that was destined to become a part of the UCC. The bell was destined to be known as the Liberty Bell.

The Liberty Bell found protection in a congregation that later became a part of the UCC.

Rationalists and Reformers The German Evangelical Church Society of the West was the branch of the UCC that, in 1871, founded Elmhurst College. The Society itself was founded in 1840 at Elmhurst was one of the first colleges Gravois Settlement in Missouri. founded by the German Evangelical The original fellowship of pastors Church Society of the West. and people were German immigrants, and the Society was an eΩort to transplant to America a reformminded Protestant denomination, the Evangelical Church of the Prussian Union. The Society was deeply informed by the Enlightenment. Many of its members were rationalists and “free thinkers,” with forward-thinking beliefs in science, education and culture. They started churches and schools in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and elsewhere, and established their first college in Washington, Missouri, in 1858. The prospects for a new college in a border state were doubtful during the Civil War, and the college soon failed. As the UCC website notes, however, Elmhurst College, founded six years after the war’s end, “endures with distinction.”

Theological Superstars Two of the twentieth century’s foremost theologians were products of the German Evangelical tradition and of Elmhurst College. Reinhold Niebuhr, Class of 1910, was the most famous and influential American theologian since Jonathan Edwards. H. Richard Niebuhr, Class of 1912, taught Christian ethics at Yale after serving as Elmhurst’s sixth president.

Later, Walter Brueggemann, Class of 1955, became one of the nation’s foremost scholars of the Old Testament.

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Lemuel Haynes, the first African American to be ordained to the Christian ministry, was ordained in a Congregational church.

Liberating the Christian Ministry (Part 1) The son of a white mother and an African father, Lemuel Haynes grew up as an indentured servant on a farm in Massachusetts. During the War for Independence, he served as a Minuteman; and around 1776 he wrote “Liberty, Further Extended,” a seminal essay that condemned slavery as a sin and called for the liberation of African Americans. “Liberty is equally as precious to a black man as it is to a white one, and bondage as equally intolerable to one as to the other,” he wrote. In 1785, after studying with ministers in Massachusetts, Haynes was ordained a minister in a Congregational church. He was the first African American to be ordained to the Christian ministry.

The Amistad Mutiny

Reinhold Niebuhr, Class of 1910 (left), was the most influential American theologian since Jonathan Edwards. H. Richard Niebuhr, Class of 1912, taught Christian ethics at Yale after serving as Elmhurst’s sixth president.

FYI/Spring 2013

In 1839, 56 Africans of the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone were seized by slave brokers and forced aboard the schooner Amistad for the passage to America. Near Cuba, the Africans revolted, seized the ship and ordered its crew to sail back to Africa. The crew headed north instead, and the ship was captured by American authorities two months later oΩ Long Island. The Africans were held in a Connecticut jail on charges of murder and piracy; their owners sued to have them returned as property.

Then a group of New England Congregationalists, active in the growing abolitionist movement, organized to help the Africans finally regain their freedom. The group convinced former President John Quincy Adams to argue the captives’ case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled that the Mende had been held illegally and should be freed.

After the ruling, members of the First Church of Christ in Farmington, Connecticut, sheltered the Mende and planned their safe return to their homeland. In 1842, the 35 surviving members of the group returned to Sierra Leone, with five American missionaries. The Mende’s story became famous once again in 1997 thanks to a film by Stephen Spielberg.

The chapel at the UCC’s headquarters building in Cleveland is named for the Amistad.

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In 1770, Samuel Sewall wrote The Selling of Joseph, the first anti-slavery tract published in the United States.

The UCC’s history includes an array of examples of congregants acting straightforwardly and often courageously to break bigoted barriers and advance human rights.

Breaking Bigotry The UCC’s history includes an array of examples of congregants acting straightforwardly and often courageously to break bigoted barriers and advance human rights. In 1770, Samuel Sewall wrote The Selling of Joseph, the first anti-slavery tract published in the United States. In 1773, Phillis Wheatley, a member of Boston’s Old South Church, became the first African American to write a published book. In 1862, members of the First Congregational Church in Oberlin, Ohio, organized to defy the Fugitive Slave Act and liberate John Price, a runaway slave. Between 1862 and 1877, the church’s forebears founded six historically black colleges: Dillard, Fisk, LeMoyne-Owen, Huston-Tillotson, Talledega and Tougaloo.

In the twentieth century, many leaders and pioneers in the fight for racial equality, both black and white, emerged from the UCC’s pews, including Andrew Young, Hubert Humphrey and Jackie Robinson. In 1976, the denomination elected Joseph H. Evans as its president, the first African American to lead a racially integrated church in the United States.

The Evangelical Synod’s Deaconesses modeled lives of compassion and simplicity.

Liberating the Christian Ministry (Part 2)

Honored Sisters

In 1850, when Antoinette Brown completed her seminary studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, school o≈cials refused to grant her a degree.

Women, they reasoned, were unsuited to the ministry. Undaunted, Brown pursued a career as a lecturer and preacher. Even in those roles, she often was compelled to shout down audiences unwilling to tolerate a woman in a public role. In 1853, at the First Congregational Church in South Butler, New York, Brown became the first woman to be ordained to the Christian ministry in the United States. She continued to preach and to write prolifically, arguing for the abolition of slavery and, later, for women’s suΩrage.

Antoinette Brown lived to see the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, and voted for the first time in 1920, at age 95.

In 1889, members of the Evangelical Synod organized the first Deaconess Society. Like a Roman Catholic nun, a deaconess adopted a formal garb, lived on a small stipend, developed her spiritual and intellectual capacities, was consecrated in a service of worship, and was called “Sister.” The Deaconess movement established an array of ministries—especially hospitals and homes for the aged—in the Midwest and beyond, through which they modeled lives of compassion and simplicity.

Antoinette Brown was the first woman ordained to the Christian ministry in the United States.

Preaching the Social Gospel At the turn of the twentieth century, with the working poor of the industrialized cities enduring squalid living and working conditions, Christian reformers sought to apply ancient Biblical concepts to emerging social problems. The Congregational minister Washington Gladden led the Social Gospel Movement in taking a stand against economic injustice and the exploitation of the poor. He supported labor unions, pushed for child labor laws, sought to improve working conditions for women, and supported urban settlement houses. Something of an absolutist, he denounced a congregation for accepting a $100,000 gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr., calling it “tainted money.” Another minister, Charles Sheldon, expressed the creed of the Social Gospel Movement in 1896 when he coined the motto, “What would Jesus do?”

The modern UCC takes seriously the Gospel call to acceptance, witness, openness and simplicity. It emphasizes a few fundamental truths and allows great freedom in other matters.

And Today…

When Bill Johnson ’68 was ordained a UCC minister in 1972, he became the first openly gay person to gain ordination to the Christian ministry.

Liberating the Christian Ministry (Part 3) In 1971, when Bill Johnson ’68, an openly gay seminarian, stood for ordination in the United Church of Christ, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder by the American Medical Association. Some in the church stubbornly opposed his ordination, and Johnson had to argue for his ministry in a series of contentious hearings that made national headlines. The following year, Johnson was ordained a minister in the UCC, the first openly gay person to gain ordination to the Christian ministry.

Sing a New Song

The UCC has over a million members in about 5,000 congregations. Its General Synod often favors progressive positions on social and theological issues; but its constitution states plainly that “the autonomy of the local church is inherent,” and many local churches and individual congregants respectfully go their own way. Like the church of the New Testament, the modern UCC takes seriously the Gospel call to acceptance, witness, openness and simplicity. It emphasizes a few fundamental truths and allows great freedom in other matters. Its o≈ces are for service, not for domination. It takes its motto from the Gospel of John—“That they may all be one”—and sees its mission as to all and for all. Colleges related to the UCC, in their own ways, share the church’s values and its social and interfaith commitments. For these colleges, being open to all persons, all faiths, and all doubts, is not a rejection of the United Church of Christ but an expression of it.

In 1995, the UCC published The New Century Hymnal, a collection of 617 hymns and psalms that emphatically embraces a variety of styles, meters and languages, including German, French, Spanish, Dakota, Samoan, Hawaiian and Japanese. Fifty-three of the hymns were written over the years by UCC members. Hymn Number 593 is the most famous.

Written in 1893 by Katharine Lee Bates, the daughter of a Congregational minister in Massachusetts, it’s called “America the Beautiful.”

A≈rming the Dignity of All Committed Love In 2005, the UCC’s General Synod overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting marriage equality for gay and lesbian persons. It was the first mainline Christian denomination in the United States to do so.

UCC President John Thomas said the church had “acted courageously… a≈rming the civil rights of same-sex couples to have their relationships recognized as marriages by the state, and encouraging our local churches to celebrate and bless those marriages.”

FYI/Spring 2013

Today, the UCC has over a million members in about 5,000 congregations. It takes its motto from the Gospel of John—“That they may all be one”—and sees its mission as to all and for all.

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The Embracing Spirit of Elmhurst

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“We value the development of the human spirit in its many forms,” pledges Elmhurst’s strategic plan for 2009–14. A college of the United Church of Christ, Elmhurst is rooted in a heritage of faith, service and engagement with the world. How does that heritage take shape in the lives of alumni today, in an ever more complex world? We asked seven alumni how the College encouraged their personal and spiritual development and how their values continue to inform their daily lives.

Interviews by Andrew Santella Photos by Roark Johnson

FYI/Spring 2013

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Reverend Dr. Joseph J. Richardson Sr. ’89 Pastor, St. James Community Baptist Church Broadview, Illinois Former Co-Chaplain and Student Advisor Elmhurst College I’m celebrating my 50th anniversary in Christian ministry this year, by the grace of God. The young people I worked with at Elmhurst became very important in my life. They gave me the opportunity to learn. They came from so many diΩerent religions and backgrounds, and each one of them taught me something.

I love all that Elmhurst did for me. They said, “Okay, we will take you in and give you a chance.” There is no way I can understand the impact, the ways Elmhurst helped me improve myself. And when I finally graduated, I had it in my heart to stay involved on campus and help the young people.

All the warmth and compassion I found here made me want to do more.

Back when I was chaplain for the football team, the coach asked me to say a few words after practice. So I asked the team, “Why do you think I spend so much of my time trying to encourage you and help you?” And one of the big linemen finally spoke up. He said, “Because you love us?” And I said, “That’s right, and don’t ever forget it!”

Trish DeAnda ’01 Vice President of Finance and Operations The Resurrection Project I came to Elmhurst as an adult. I was a single mom working full time and going to school. There was not a lot of sleep in my life. I had a good, stable management job, but I wasn’t very happy. The faculty at Elmhurst challenged me to live the life I wanted to live, the life I was supposed to be living. They challenged me to examine my life from a values perspective. So I searched inside myself and decided to make the shift from the corporate world to nonprofits.

At The Resurrection Project, I’ve found fulfillment. I’m doing what I was called to do, using the skills I learned in school to accomplish a mission I really believe in. We work on housing, safety and social justice issues. It’s work that feels right for me. We open all our staΩ meetings with a prayer. It helps remind us why we’re there and puts us in a frame of mind to make the right decisions for the communities we serve. It’s so nice to be able to exercise those values in my work.

FYI/Spring 2013

“When I graduated, I had it in my heart to stay involved on campus and help the young people. All the warmth and compassion I found here made me want to do more.”

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Kaiser Aslam ’12 National Coordinator, Young Muslims

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Interfaith work is about people of diΩerent traditions working together to find common ground. Elmhurst provides a place for that to happen. The most productive conversations are the ones that happen when you’re doing relief work or working at a shelter or a soup kitchen. That’s when you really get to know people and what their faith means to them. You’re able to draw parallels to your own experience. That’s the goal.

Besides the obvious point that the diΩerent belief systems and values are nearly identical, you learn that misunderstandings exist on all sides. People have misconceptions about how Muslims live their lives, and too many Muslims have doubts about non-Muslims and don’t understand the world beyond their community. So you have to play a mediator role.

I want to be part of the American Islamic narrative. Young Muslims is a national network of youth groups that is helping to shape upright young people for society. They are the up and coming leaders. To me, that’s a comforting thought.

Jacque Hulslander, Ph.D., B.S. ’77, B.S.N. ’81 Professor Emerita, Triton College In 2000 and 2001, I volunteered as an international nurse with the Diocese of Joliet’s Peace and Social Justice Mission in Sucre, Bolivia. Working in the surgical/post surgery areas of a new hospital, I saw how nursing principles and techniques are influenced by culture and the availability of supplies. Before surgery, we would pray the “Our Father” (in Spanish) with our patients and their families, and we witnessed miracles that are still remembered today.

In keeping with Elmhurst’s goal of educating the whole student for life in a global society, my B.S.N. prepared me to educate and to do mission work in a Third World country. Nursing is something you feel in your heart.

It becomes a passion that tells you, “This will be your life!”

I am currently mentoring two nursing students at Elmhurst: Katie Boals and Greta Wischmeyer. Greta also participated in a mission trip to Bolivia when she was a freshman. When she shares her clinical experiences, she beams as she discusses diagnoses, treatments, medications and nursing interventions. It is wonderful to see the passion of patient care ignited. I feel I am fulfilling the mission of the College by passing the baton of nursing to these two young ladies.

Herb Washington ’97 Director of Partnership, Aspire of Illinois I was the first person in my immediate family to attend college. I was determined to get the whole college experience, so I jumped in, full-steam ahead. Union Board.

Residence Hall Council. Campus Life Council. Black Student Union. Track team.

What stood out was the welcome I felt from everyone.

Due to a serious injury incurred in high school, I thought I’d never again be able to run track competitively. The support I found, and the encouragement I received to persevere, were so important. I worked hard, and although it was really grueling at times, in the end I qualified as an All-American in the 55 meters and the 100 meters. Just as important was the sense of community and belonging here that helped me to grow into an adult.

At Aspire of Illinois, we provide services to children and adults with disabilities. I’d like the people we work with to have in their lives what I found at Elmhurst. I want them to have the same opportunities, the same feeling of belonging.

“Interfaith work is about people of different traditions working together to find common ground. Elmhurst provides a place for that to happen.”

FYI/Spring 2013

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Sara Born, ’02 Teacher, Washington Elementary School, Park Ridge Teaching isn’t for everyone, but I always knew it would be for me. Growing up in the United Church of Christ, we talked a lot about serving and leading and doing what is best for all.

That has been a good foundation for me. I try to pass along some of those core values, to teach my students what service is, what giving is, what understanding is. I try to model that for them.

So much of what a teacher does goes way beyond the math lesson or social studies lesson of the day. You are concerned with your students’ emotional well-being, their social well-being.

You are teaching life lessons. I like to say that the best professional development I ever did was becoming a mother. I think now I better understand the needs of students and the concerns of parents.

My first students are just starting to graduate from high school and go on to college. I cannot wait to see them move into adulthood and see what choices they make in their lives.

I hope I’ve given them something meaningful that they can take with them.

Matt Kelly ’08 Director of Field Ministry York and Willowbrook Young Life At Young Life, we try to enter the world of adolescents and focus on fun, adventure, friendship. We want to earn the right to be heard. We want to earn the right to talk about what matters most of all—the truth of the Gospel. I got to my ministry through the discernment process I experienced at the Niebuhr Center at Elmhurst. You do readings, reflections, meetings, and then you take that step of faith. Of course, there’s an inherent chance of failure. There’s a gulp factor.

Here I am, recruiting and training hundreds of volunteers, running a huge fundraiser, all the things that go into nonprofit work. How do I navigate that? It’s the experiences I had at Elmhurst that give me confidence.

The Spring Break trips we made for Habitat for Humanity are such vivid memories. I learned that I could convince other college students that it would be a good idea to spend their Spring Break not on the beach, but building houses.

That was an incredibly valuable experience. And completely worth it.

FYI/Spring 2013

“Growing up in the United Church of Christ, we talked a lot about serving and leading and doing what is best for all. That has been a good foundation for me. I try to pass along some of those core values.”

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“To Engage a Complex World” How does the College’s commitment to faith, meaning and values prepare its students for a changing world? Elmhurst President S. Alan Ray explains. The following conversation is condensed and edited from a series of interviews conducted over the past year.

Interview by Andrew Santella

Photo: Roark Johnson

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he College’s commitment to faith, meaning and values is expressed in the Strategic Plan that you initiated on your first day as president of the College back in 2008. Has any one idea from the planning process proven particularly significant?

What has most strongly resonated with me and with many people is the idea of the Elmhurst Experience. It has become part of the parlance around here. The Elmhurst Experience refers to the collective invitation we make to students to engage in early professional preparation and self-formation.

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What do you mean when you talk about students engaging in self-formation?

Self-formation is about students coming to understand themselves in relation to a complex world. There’s a very social aspect to self-formation.

Students work together to interpret, understand and reflect on shared and diΩering values. It’s much more than just navel-gazing. In self-formation, you change yourself and by doing so, you incrementally change the world.

Our emphasis on self-formation is, I think, unusual in higher education at a time when so much attention is being paid to job preparation, cost and value for the dollar.

Should higher education be involved in the personal development of students?

It says a lot about our world today that one even has to ask that question.

It suggests that there are alternative ways of education that are devoted only to preparing for careers—which, of course, there are. We believe, though, that Elmhurst College should not only provide opportunities for job preparation, service and other kinds of productive engagement with the world, but just as importantly, we should create contexts in which students reflect on their service and ask themselves questions about the world they’ve encountered and how they might best meet its needs as well as their own. Learning, in other words, is intrinsically ethical.

Photo: Genevieve Lee

How does self-formation at Elmhurst connect to the kind of formation you participated in as a student in Catholic seminary?

In Catholic education, formation is a way of discerning a vocation through the systematic, experience-based exploration of beliefs and values.

During my four years as a student in a Catholic seminary in the mid-1970s, I was involved in academic training, social engagement and prayerful reflection. That highly intentional process helped me think about what

to do with my life in response to my own abilities and the circumstances around me. It’s interesting that, aside from Harvard Divinity School, the other academic settings that I subsequently encountered as a student [at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law] did not have personal formation, in the sense I’m using it here, as part of their raison d’etre. It was not their mission to help students find their way or discern a vocation. They were about truth-seeking and professional training, neither of which, in and of itself, is in any way objectionable. At Elmhurst, however, we believe truth-seeking and professional training are intimately bound up in the intentional development of our students as mature, thoughtful, ethical individuals. We like to use the phrase “leading with values” to get at this mission. Further, our concept of self-formation emphasizes the student’s agency. It places the responsibility for student formation on the students themselves, who, with our help and in light of the College’s core values, shape themselves in response to the world’s needs and opportunities and their own talents.

Dean of Students Eileen Sullivan and President S. Alan Ray cheer on first-year students completing a team-building activity during the College’s Big Questions Orientation.

We come at the student’s eternal question, “What should I become?” from the position of the liberal arts, which assumes the potential of human beings to enrich themselves spiritually, intellectually and morally by studying an exceedingly and increasingly complex world through the sciences and humanities, as well as in preprofessional tracks. That’s a very diΩerent focus than some of the strictly career-based approaches coming at us from the for-profit world, for example.

How does Elmhurst encourage the personal development of its students?

I like to say that we have the audacious ambition of graduating better people, not just smarter, or more skilled, people. It begins early on in a student’s time here with the Big Questions Orientation, which has the subtitle, “What Will You Stand For?” We try to stimulate in our students an awareness of their own values and start them asking questions about meaning and values in their own lives. We encourage that within all our activities. We want students to understand the values they come to us with, but also to critically reappraise those values over the course of their time with us.

Next fall, we’re launching the President’s Leadership Academy, which will build on Orientation and allow some number of our students to follow a developmentally appropriate co-curriculum from first year to graduation that builds upwards from values identification to citizenship.

If successful, we’ll expand the program to many more of our students.

Is there any tension between this focus on personal development and a focus on purely academic or disciplinary achievement?

No. In fact, attending to personal development is a precondition to students realizing the most they can from their discipline-based studies.

Students who are cognizant of their values and are taking charge of their lives can choose career paths that are consistent with those values.

They make better choices, because they’re better people.

As someone who has made a career in colleges and universities, was it ever made di≈cult for you to be a person of faith in higher education?

I’m always questioning my own religious constructs, so I feel right at home in higher education! In my experience, higher education, understood as an essentially humanistic endeavor, reflects and respects the spiritual dimension of students’ lives while challenging them to examine—and, if necessary, reject—the inherited verities of our culture and times. I personally feel that performing this kind of perpetual critique and reconstruction of oneself and the world is an ethical obligation, and it is what religion, at its best, does for whole communities. The assumptions and aims of the liberal arts and faith, as I have described it, are not so diΩerent as they may first appear.

What’s the value for students in attending a college that, like Elmhurst, is rooted in a religious heritage?

It starts with a sense of community, of people working to engage a complex world. Because our United Church of Christ heritage is important to us, we understand faith to include, but not be limited to, religious traditions.

Faith can mean a willingness to confront the world without ultimate FYI/Spring 2013

“Students who are cognizant of their values and are taking charge of their lives can choose career paths that are consistent with those values.”

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answers in hand. Religious faith is a species of that. It utilizes religious language, rituals and symbols to order the world of our experiences, while subordinating all human constructs—moral, economic and political— to the great principle of universal compassion. Through adherence to our stated core values as a college, we encourage our students, as members of an ethically committed community, to explore their faith through whatever lenses they bring, and invite them to make the College’s core values a centerpiece of their personal growth.

How does an Elmhurst education prepare students for life beyond college?

Let me put to one side the accurate but practical response that we oΩer multiple opportunities for early professional engagement, advising, internships, and of course excellent academic preparation by an outstanding, caring faculty. I think what distinguishes Elmhurst graduates is their recognition that the complexity and diversity of the world is best addressed when they act on individualized values that are consonant with—not necessarily identical to—the College’s core values: intellectual excellence, community, social responsibility, stewardship and the importance of faith, meaning and values. Getting to those individualized values is a creative, not deductive, process. We contribute to our students’ maturation when we help them negotiate large social diΩerences—not pretend those diΩerences don’t exist, or are irrelevant to their lives. By constructively engaging very diΩerent perspectives—be they religious, political, gender, geographical or sexual orientation, to name a few—our students become informed, self-critical advocates for certain values over others because they’ve seen the alternatives and consciously selected the ones they will operate out of. That can only be done if you’ve had the opportunity in college to dialogue with other people, maybe argue with them, and maybe be converted to their points of view. If you’ve had that kind of dress rehearsal in college, you’re better prepared to engage a complex world.

Conversely, I believe we would be failing our students if we pretended to be value neutral or if we approached their education as a commodity for sale. Thankfully, Elmhurst College is and has always been about making better human beings, or in the words of my presidential predecessor, H. Richard Niebuhr, promoting the “light of knowledge and the warmth of high idealism.”

Helping Hands 42

Elmhurst students pitch in to help residents of Chicago’s West Side.

By Andrew Santella Photos by Genevieve Lee

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The College’s annual Partners for Peace project invites students to make a difference and reflect on their values.

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ami Leibforth, shovel in hand, was beginning her third hour of manual labor on a recent Saturday morning in an empty lot on Chicago’s West Side when someone pointed out that some of her fellow college students were likely still in bed. As if in response, Leibforth sunk her shovel into a pile of wood chips and broadcast more mulch over a freshly turned garden bed.

“Why sleep in when you can help out?” she said. Leibforth, a senior intercultural studies major from Palatine, was one of 115 Elmhurst College students who had risen early to do their part in a pair of community service projects. At Christian Valley Baptist Church in North Lawndale, she and a few dozen other Elmhurst students were making over a rock-strewn and sinkhole-marred lot that doubles as a playground for neighborhood kids. The Elmhurst students carted in six truckloads of topsoil, filled in a few dangerous holes, cleared debris and spread grass seed. Around the lot’s edges, they created beds and planted greenery: asters, daylilies, black-eyed Susans and native grasses.

Inside the church sanctuary, more students were at work painting the fellowship hall and baptismal font. And a few miles away, in West Garfield Park, another four dozen Elmhurst students were working at West Garfield Corinthian Temple Church of God in Christ. They handed out more than 260 bags of fresh produce—corn, green beans, tomatoes, bananas—to residents of a neighborhood that contends with a dearth of grocery stores, making it hard for families to find fruit and vegetables. Elmhurst nursing students, working with professionals from the Compassionate Care Network, also helped oΩer health screenings to residents at the church.

The work was the latest eΩort of Partners for Peace, a hands-on social justice initiative that deploys students, faculty and others from the Elmhurst College community to serve the College’s neighbors.

“We talk so much about the violence and the despair in these struggling neighborhoods. Our response is to try to oΩer some hope, by letting people know that we care about them and want to partner with them,” said the Rev. Dr. Ronald K. Beauchamp, director of the College’s Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action, who organized the projects. “We try to use the resources we have to address their needs to the best of our ability.”

Each fall for four years now, participants have been making the short journey from Elmhurst to the impoverished neighborhoods of Chicago’s West Side to work on projects addressing gun violence, hunger and other problems. The projects have become so popular with Elmhurst students that organizers this year decided to work on two sites in one day.

“It’s too easy for us to get stuck in our own little bubble on campus,” said Margaret Sumney, a sophomore theology major from Lexington, Kentucky, who was preparing a garden bed on the edge of the lot for planting. “Even if you’re active on campus, there’s nothing like reaching out to the community around you. This is a chance for us to do something for this church and for this community.” At Corinthian Temple, members of the congregation thanked the Elmhurst students for their work by oΩering them a soul food dinner. They also presented an energetic performance by the gospel choir Joshua’s Troop that had church members and students alike dancing and clapping along.

Jazmine Martinez, a senior from West Chicago who was working alongside Sumney, is a veteran of Partners for Peace projects. Last fall, she was part of a group that spent a day at Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in West Garfield Park, oΩering fresh produce and assisting with health screenings.

“People talk down to our generation sometimes,” she said. “They think all we want to do is party. But everyone here is trying to make a diΩerence and do something good. I’m super excited about this.”

It wasn’t only students at work. Judy Buban, a receptionist in the College’s O≈ce of Student Accounts, was transplanting daylilies and asters into the beds the students had prepared. Buban had donated the plants from her backyard garden in Elmhurst.

Even while the landscaping crew was completing its work, another group of students was getting ready to do its part on the opposite side of the church sanctuary: The Elmhurst College Jazz Band was tuning up for an outdoor concert on the church’s front lawn. The band has been a fixture at Partners for Peace projects, acting as cultural ambassadors for the College. When the players finally launched into their first tune—the Ella Fitzgerald standard “I’m Beginning to See the Light”—passersby on Homan Avenue stopped to listen and nod their heads appreciatively in time with the music. A sleepy Saturday morning in the neighborhood was starting to feel a little bit like a party.

The student service projects were part of the College’s ongoing participation in the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, a White House initiative that promotes cooperation and community service among faiths. Elmhurst is one of 250 colleges and universities committed to service that, in the words of a White House document, builds “understanding between diΩerent communities and contribute[s] to the common good.”

By now, on the lot next to the church, the grass seed had been spread and the flowers planted. The students who had spent the morning hunched over shovels and rakes were walking over to hear the jazz band play. “This is the best part,” someone said. And Jazmine Martinez was already planning a return visit.

“I can’t wait to come back,” she said. “I just have to see what it looks like when the grass comes up.”

45

More than 100 Elmhurst students participated in community service projects at two churches on Chicago’s West Side. The students planted flowers, painted walls, distributed fresh produce, offered health screenings and enjoyed fellowship with community members.

FYI/Spring 2013

news sports

A Banner Year for the Bluejays Two Elmhurst teams cap oΩ sensational seasons with strong showings in the ncaa Division iii Championships.

46

The Elmhurst volleyball team celebrates after winning the NCAA Regional Title.

T

his fall, a pair of Bluejays teams capitalized on the momentum of recent seasons to capture conference titles and soar to new heights in the ncaa Division iii Championship tournaments.

The women’s volleyball squad and the men’s football team drew on exceptional talent and experience en route to each program’s best finish in at least a quarter-century.

For the football team, it was the first time in Elmhurst history that the team won a postseason playoΩ game, and the first time it landed atop the College Conference of Illinois and

Wisconsin (cciw) standings since 1980.

Meanwhile, the volleyball team captured a perfect 7-0 record in the cciw and earned a trip to the national Final Four, a feat last accomplished in 1987.

Coming into the fall competition, Volleyball Coach Julie Hall knew her team was ready for big tests and primed for a great season. The previous year’s Bluejays had lost to Carthage in the cciw championship, then went 1-1 in the ncaa tournament as Carthage marched through to the Final Four.

“We scheduled a lot of tough competition

this year,” Hall said. “This group had very high expectations after coming so close the year before.”

Following a strong start, the Bluejays traveled to Missouri to take on four top-25 teams, ultimately losing three of the matches. But the team recovered to win 13 of its next 14 matches.

According to Hall, the real gut-check came in the midst of that run, after losing to Emory University on day one of a tournament in Atlanta, and then falling behind two sets to none to Randolph-Macon College on the second day.

“We really struggled with Randolph-Macon,”

Follow the Bluejays online!

Live video streaming of selected athletic contests is available at www.bluejaytv.com.

Trophy Winner

Elmhurst College running back Scottie Williams ’13 won the 2012 Gagliardi Trophy, an annual award given to the most outstanding football player in NCAA Division III. Williams is the first Elmhurst player to earn

Hall said. “We went into the locker room, and the girls made the decision to support each other and just get into the mindset of winning.”

The team rallied to hand Randolph-Macon only its second loss of the season. Elmhurst closed out the regular season and conference tournament on a month-long, 11-match tear, rarely dropping even a game. The team continued that streak into the postseason, avenging previous losses to University of Wisconsin– Whitewater and perennial power Washington University and winning the ncaa regional championship for the first time in Hall’s tenure.

A 14th straight victory put the Bluejays into the national semifinals, where the team dropped a tight match to the eventual national champion, the University of St. Thomas.

“They’ve really found their niche, and they just get it,” Hall said. “It’s a great group.”

The team finished the season ranked #4, and Hall was named the Midwest Region's Coach of the Year for the third time. Megan Reynolds and Kaitlyn Wilks both earned All-Region and All-American honors. Antonéya Veasy Smith also earned All-Region honors.

While the volleyball team enjoyed its return to national prominence, the College’s football program shattered all expectations and several records as it compiled a 10-2 record, a share of the cciw title, an ncaa tournament victory and a Top-Ten national ranking.

Pegged as a fourth-place finisher by cciw coaches, Elmhurst’s now-former head coach Tim Lester was certain he could build around his returning core of seniors and establish the team as a real contender.

“We had a good year in 2011,” Lester said before the season started. “We’re bringing back a wealth of experience on both sides of the ball. Having seniors on the field doesn’t make your team perfect, but it certainly helps FYI/Spring 2013

you in high-pressure and critical game situations.”

Those upperclassmen, including Joe Furco, Gagliardi Trophy winner Scottie Williams, and All-Region selections Charlie Homoky, Chris Kirkpatrick, Peter Stamos, Wayne Tuckson, Jamall Lane and Vince Gabris, helped Elmhurst make its push to the top of the conference and national prominence. The team won its first three non-conference games, outscoring its opponents 100-13.

The Bluejays came crashing back to earth during the conference opener, losing 44-10 to North Central. But the team quickly found a rhythm behind steady oΩensive output and fierce defensive eΩort. Furco threw for 14 touchdowns this season and Williams capped his record-setting career at Elmhurst with 22 rushing scores. In the process, Elmhurst rattled oΩ six straight wins to join Wheaton and North Central in forming 2012’s cciw triumvirate at the top.

“This was a special season for us,” Williams said. “I told people four years ago that Elmhurst was going to win a league championship. I couldn’t be more proud of what we accomplished on the field as a team, and I hope that our returning players next year can build on what we achieved this season.”

The Bluejays won their first-ever playoΩ game against Coe College before falling in the Sweet 16 to the University of St. Thomas.

Lester, who is now the quarterbacks coach at Syracuse University, said 2012 was a banner year for his football players.

“At the beginning of the season, I told them that this was the 93rd season of Elmhurst football and that every year is remembered diΩerently,” Lester said. “I don’t think people are going to forget number 93 any time soon. They played their hearts out this whole season, and they should be proud of what they accomplished.”

the prestigious award, which honors excellence in athletics, academics and community service.

He also is just the fifth running back to receive the honor over the past 20 seasons.

The award was presented in December in Salem, Virginia, during a banquet that kicked off the festivities surrounding the NCAA Division III Championship Stagg Bowl. Williams attended the banquet with his family and Elmhurst College head football coach Tim Lester.

“I am truly speechless right now,” said Williams. “I am grateful for this honor but am more blessed to have been around a fantastic group of coaches who helped me achieve all of this.”

Named the CCIW’s Offensive Player of the Year and a National Football Coaches Association All-American in 2012, Williams set new Elmhurst single-season records for rushing yards (2,046) and rushing touchdowns (22) in 2012. He earned Academic All-Conference honors twice, and was a first-team Capital One Academic All-American in 2011.

Off the field, Williams participated in President Barack Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, a nationwide initiative to promote interfaith dialogue and cooperation, and helped build homes as part of the College’s Habitat for Humanity chapter.

He also participated in the College’s annual Relay for Life fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and helped raise money for the Ray Graham Association, a local organization that provides opportunities to people with disabilities.

“There are a lot of awards that only recognize athletic achievement,” said Williams. “Winning an award that also recognizes your accomplishments as a student and for giving back to the community makes this honor that much more special.”

alumni catching up

Class Notes Let us hear from you! Send us a note to alumni@elmhurst.edu, or call us at (630) 617-3600. Better yet, stop by the O≈ce of Alumni Relations on the first floor of Lehmann Hall.

48

1940s and 1950s Lois Harris ’48 is in her 70th year of active Girl Scouting and continues to serve as a Girl Scout troop leader. In 2011, she attended the Girl Scout National Convention in Houston.

Lois continues to stay in touch with classmates Florence Shigeno Kawagoge ’48 and Dr. Himeo Tsumori ’48, who was featured in a story in the Winter 2011-2012 issue of Prospect magazine.

Donald Vogel ’50 served for 25 years as a chaplain in Wyoming County, New York, before retiring at the age of 86. Now 90, Don still preaches occasionally. Don has been a member of the American Legion since 1946.

Russ Campbell ’52 has retired from a 34-year career at Abbott Laboratories.

Dorothy (Hardt) Swanson ’53 has been retired for 21 years. She volunteers actively with a number of hospitals, schools and churches.

Pat (Deutsche) Bode ’58 has retired. She and her husband, William, enjoy traveling across the United States in their vintage 1976 GMC motor home. For the past seven years, Pat and William have taught at Kumulani Vacation Bible School in Maui. An avid quilter, Pat has several projects in the works.

Bruno Schroeder ’59 was recognized by Home Church in New Braunfels, Texas, for 50 years of ordained ministry.

1960s Les Marriner ’62 has retired after a career with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Illinois Air National Guard.

Jean (LaPorta) Luke ’63 has retired, but she still works as an artist. Married since 2007 to Tom Luke, Jean has one granddaughter and three grandsons.

Joan (Yokel) Ellis ’63 retired in 2012 as a licensed clinical social worker and vice president at Community Treatment Inc. in JeΩerson County, Missouri.

Jack Monson ’63 has been retired for 13 years.

Roy Stuerzl ’65 and Janice (Pedersen) Stuerzl ’67 recently celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. Now retired from a long career as a vice president of sales for a banking software company, Roy enjoys playing golf and o≈ciating softball and basketball games. Janice, who retired from a career in medical social work, has spent the past 10 years doing research for a series of interior design books. Janice regularly sees her Elmhurst College roommate and best friend, Andrea (Eimer) Andrik ’67.

The Stuerzls live in Overland Park, Kansas, and enjoy spending time with their twin daughters and many friends.

Dale Hempen ’66 is retired and living in New Hampshire. He is expecting two grandchildren in 2013.

Dr. Richard Nyako ’67 recently received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the

University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Medicine in honor of his outstanding community outreach in Ghana and the United States.

Rev. Jean (Eyrich) Pennell ’69 retired from UCC ministry in January 2013.

1970s Bork Maronn ’70 retired in 2008 after a 30-year career with the Social Security Administration. An avid sailor, he has sailed in 27 races to Mackinac Island from Chicago.

Keith Meyer ’70 has retired from the company where Elmhurst College placement services helped him get a job 42 years ago.

Joni Davenport ’71 has successfully completed training as a physician assistant. A regular volunteer at community health fairs, she looks forward to volunteering at the Daniel Hale Williams Preparatory School of Medicine in Chicago and traveling to Haiti with Doctors without Borders. Joni is a retired teacher and assistant principal with more than 34 years of dedicated service.

Mollie Sluss ’74 is a psychotherapist in private practice in Florida. Under her pen name, Mollie Skilss, she has written two books: How to Be Happy and Flamingos Can’t Tap Dance.

Marsha (Pepmeier) Peek ’76 has retired from 34 years of teaching in the St. Louis area. In retirement, she enjoys traveling, playing golf, spending time with family and friends, and volunteering at a nursing home and her UCC church.

For more information on alumni giving, go to our giving site at www.elmhurst.edu/giving

Keeping the Spirit Alive

Photo: Roark Johnson

49

With support from Professor Janice Pohl (left), Michael Manocchio ’10 and Melanie Giannosa ’09 established a scholarship fund in the memory of adjunct faculty member Kristin Spangler.

The Kristin Spangler Scholarship

K

ristin Spangler, an adjunct faculty member at Elmhurst, had a profound impact on the theatre program and on the students who knew and loved her. So several years after Spangler’s death in 2007, a group of those students decided to honor her memory by raising funds for a scholarship fund in her name.

“Kristin was so passionate about her work and her students,” recalls Michael Manocchio ’10, who spearheaded the fundraising eΩort. “She had such a powerful impact on those of us who knew her. We set up the fund because we wanted future students to be touched by her in some way.”

The group raised $5,000 in its first year of fundraising and is currently working on the next $5,000. “We’ve had significant support from alumni and friends beyond the Elmhurst community,” says Janice Pohl, who was instrumental in setting up the fund. “It’s wonderful for our students to see people giving back and supporting our program.”

“Kristin had a lot of faith in the Mill Theatre program and put a lot of energy into it,” says Melanie Giannosa ’09, another of the fund’s organizers. “Our goal is to keep the program going strong—and to keep Kristin’s spirit alive.”

The Kristin Spangler Scholarship provides funding for students in the theatre program at Elmhurst.

For more information about the fund, please contact the Annual Fund at (866) 794-1075.

FYI/Spring 2013

alumni catching up

degree, and then coached for Ohio Northern and Grand Valley State universities before taking the job at BuΩalo.

Chris Bruzzini ’89 played the lead role in Dracula at the Theatre of Western Springs. He also has appeared recently in area performances of 8, It’s a Wonderful Life and God of Carnage.

50

Alumni Celebrate Homecoming in Colorado A group of Elmhurst graduates from the late 1950s gathered on October 11 for an Elmhurst Homecoming lunch in Colorado.

Gary and Marcia (Andres) Burianek hosted the event, which featured a potluck lunch, a few pom poms, a beanie and Elmhurst College yearbooks. Joining the Burianeks at their home in Loveland, near Denver, were Fred and LaVerne (Rathert) Seybold; Barbara Engelhardt (Koenig) and her husband, Tom Ryan; and Erv and Jo (Grollmus) Bode.

“We were thinking of having Neapolitan ice cream in honor of Inge, who fed it to us for dessert every single Sunday at noon,” writes Jo. “Sorry we’re not in Elmhurst in person, but we’re with you in spirit.”

Suzanne Carlstedt ’77 has retired from the Internal Revenue Service after 35 years of service, primarily in human resources.

Ted Augelli ’78 works as a cemetery counselor for the Diocese of Joliet. He and his wife, Deborah, have been married for 30 years, and they have four children.

1980s JeΩrey Quinn ’84 is the head football coach for the State University of New York at BuΩalo.

JeΩrey started his career as an assistant coach for DePaul University, where he earned a master’s

1990s Paula (Akouris) Burzawa ’92 has been selected as one of only a handful of new, up-and-coming authors to attend Sirenland, an international writer’s conference in Positano, Italy, where she will be mentored by top authors. A proud sister of Sigma Kappa sorority, Paula plans to visit Elmhurst College in the spring of 2013 to facilitate a poetry workshop for Dr. Ann Frank Wake.

Richard Iozzo ’96 graduated from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management with an MBA in June 2012. The co-valedictorian of his class, Richard was named a Hotchkiss Scholar, the highest honor conferred upon a graduating student at the school.

Vito Parise ’99 is the chief operating o≈cer at Freight Management, Inc. 2000s Candice (Engelbrecht) Assell ’02 has two children: Noah, age 6, and Moriah, age 3.

Jen Camden ’03 is the facility manager and treating physical therapist for Athletico Physical Therapy in Elmhurst.

Lindsay Young ’05 is a nurse practitioner in the bone marrow transplant unit at Rush University Medical Center.

Hank Rauschenberger ’06 graduated in December from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, with a master of education in educational administration.

John J. Dorhauer ’08 received a 2012 Plus Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ascap). This award reflects ascap’s continuing commitment to assist and encourage composers, and to support growth and development of the nation’s musical future.

Laura Mignerone ’08 graduated from Eden Theological Seminary in May 2011 with a master of divinity degree. She was ordained at Ivy Chapel UCC in Chesterfield, Missouri, in 2012, and now serves as a pastor at Zion United Church of Christ in Troy, Michigan.

Christopher Pazdernik ’08 was promoted to annual fund coordinator for Chicago Shakespeare Theater, a Tony Award-winning company.

Recently he choreographed the Chicago premiere of the Broadway musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson for Bailiwick Chicago.

Tyler Ferguson ’08 graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law in May 2011.

Andrew Behling ’09 played the role of Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the Classical Theatre Project of Toronto’s U.S. tour during the 2012–2013 winter season. After earning a B.A. in theatre from Elmhurst College, Andrew completed an MFA in acting at Western Illinois University. During the 2012 season, he performed in Inherit the Wind and Richard iii with the Oak Park Festival Theatre. Andrew recently began teaching applied theatre at Elmhurst College.

Genevieve (True) Lee ’09 has launched TrueLee Photography, a business that specializes in event and portrait photography, and often photographs events for Elmhurst College. In 2011 she married Douglas Lee. Alysa Lewandowski ’09 has been promoted to resource development director at The LeaderShop, a youth-advocacy agency where she has worked for nearly five years. She is also pursuing a master’s degree in leadership and policy studies at DePaul University’s School of Public Service.

JeΩ Teppema ’09 teaches music at Park Junior High in LaGrange. Together with a friend, Dave Gorman, JeΩ is raising funds to send 500 bicycles to children in the Kingdom of Lesotho, an impoverished nation in Africa with more than 100,000 orphans from HIV/AIDS. Avid cyclists themselves, JeΩ and Dave hope that the bikes will serve Lesotho’s children as a source of transportation, independence, empowerment—and fun. To raise the money, they have

partnered with Mike’s Bikes Africa, a Californiabased nonprofit that delivers bikes directly into the hands of children in Africa. This summer, JeΩ and Dave plan to travel to Lesotho, where they will bike 300 miles in nine days.

2010s Adam Frank ’10 works as a warranty service coordinator for the Band and Orchestra Division of Yamaha Corporation of America. A saxophonist who performed with both jazz and classical ensembles at Elmhurst College, Frank was a recipient of the DownBeat Student Music Award.

Beth (Brychta) Frederick ’02 and her husband, Adam, welcomed their third child, Wade Thomas Frederick, on September 11, 2012.

Melanie (Luna) Gotto ’02 and her husband, Tim Gotto, a former wrestling coach at the College, welcomed a daughter, Mary, on July 17, 2012. She joins her older sister, Clara, who was born on October 6, 2010.

Mark Roberts ’02 and Michelle Applebee, associate professor of chemistry at the College, welcomed their second child, Alexandra Dean Roberts, on September 24, 2012. Alexandra joins her big sister, Emma.

Shauna Potrawski ’10 has moved to California, where she works for an organization that fights sex tra≈cking.

Amanda (Salzinger) JeΩrey ’04 and her husband, Andrew, welcomed a son, Logan James JeΩrey, on July 15, 2012.

Maria Marotta ’11 is an art teacher at Emerson Elementary School in Elmhurst. She told FYI that she is excited about “motivating and connecting with my new students,” and that she plans to “inspire them by sharing works from artists and art collections to enhance their understanding and appreciation of the arts.”

Kara Waletzko ’04 and her husband, Scott, welcomed a son, Finley Scott Waletzko, on September 12, 2012. Finley joins his big sister, Olivia, born December 22, 2010.

Jennifer Ozanic ’11 teaches seventh grade language arts at Churchville Middle School in Elmhurst. She says that she looks forward to leading extracurricular activities at the school and fostering an environment where students can grow academically, socially, emotionally and physically.

Angelo Paparo ’11 received the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society’s 2012 Love of Learning Award.

This award helps to fund post-baccalaureate studies and/or career development for active Phi Kappa Phi members.

Rebecca Zumpf ’11 works at Plano High School and is planning a June 15 wedding.

Births Joan (Heinrich) Cann ’80 welcomed her first grandchild on June 6, 2011.

Brian Andrusyk ’96 and his wife, Kelly, welcomed a baby girl, Maeve O’Halleran Andrusyk, on July 1, 2012.

FYI/Spring 2013

Matthew Kuschert ’05 and his wife, Jaime, welcomed Daniel Matthew Kuschert on January 19, 2013.

Danielle Reinhardt ’08 mba, and her husband, Randy, welcomed their first child, Nolan Joseph Reinhardt, on September 4, 2012.

Dana Gallichio ’12 and her husband, Matt Bacaling ’11, welcomed a son, Leonardo Joseph Bacaling, on August 2, 2012.

Marriages Lisa Sommario ’02 married Christopher Dembosz ’05 on September 8, 2012.

Kimberley Schmidt ’04 married James Serio on October 20, 2012.

Lisa Denman ’04 married Bill Sligh on July 28, 2012. The wedding party included Regina Morrone ’05, Katie Bequette ’04, Johanna (Anderson) Benevides ’04 and Carly Bearwald ’07.

Robert Bast ’07 married Mandy Seibel on August 4, 2012.

Heather Forster ’08 married Matt Jensen in Hammerschmidt Chapel on January 14, 2012.

51

Subscribe to The Leader Stay up to date on campus happenings by buying an alumni subscription to The Leader, the College’s awardwinning student newspaper. Published biweekly throughout the academic year, The Leader publishes the latest news about the College and the surrounding community, unflinching opinion pieces and comprehensive coverage of Elmhurst College sports.

Annual subscriptions are $20. For more information or to sign up, call (630) 617-3320 or email leader@elmhurst.edu.

Heather’s parents, Jean Forster ’74 and Charles Forster ’73, ’98 and ’04, also had their wedding in the Chapel in 1983. Heather and Matt’s wedding party included Matt Forster ’10 and ’13, Nina Talge ’08, Katie Palandri ’09, Katelyn Weil ’09, Ashley Bonk ’10, Greg Rohatsch ’07, Steve Dembowski ’11 and Erica Skibbie ’08. Many other College alumni were also present, representing the 1970s through 2010.

Tyler Ferguson ’08 married Abby Gammage ’10 on June 2, 2012. The wedding party included Whitney Heinzmann ’10.

alumni catching up

52

Amanda Tolan ’09 married Nick Testin ’09 on September 29, 2012.

Eileen (Landon) Albertsen ’50, of Glen Ellyn, on November 3, 2011.

Arthur J. Habermehl ’56, of Port Huron, Michigan, on March 31, 2012.

Sara Williams ’09 married Brian Ranger on June 23, 2012.

Ralph Baur ’50, of Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, on May 4, 2011.

Beatrice D. Pulver ’56, of Homer Glen, on May 20, 2011.

Jennifer Paul ’10 married Bill Cramer on July 29, 2012.

Lee W. Davey ’50, of Glenview, on October 24, 2011.

Donald N. Kelly ’57, of Anoka, Minnesota, on April 21, 2011.

Callie Jo Schriner ’10 married Ryne Michael Plager on August 18, 2012.

Martha J. (Nisi) Mulch ’50, of Raymond, Illinois, on October 29, 2012.

Elmer R. Rabun ’57, of Ruskin, Florida, on March 3, 2011.

Chris Halvachs ’11 married Katie Haylock ’12 in May.

Rev. Harold Potts ’50, of Kansas City, Missouri, on May 30, 2011.

Gerhart “Gary” Schamberger ’57, of Wheaton, on August 29, 2012.

John H. Thomas ’50, of Kailua, Hawaii, on June 16, 2011.

Rhea Hildegarde (Menzel) Whitehead ’57, of Toronto, Ontario, on June 24, 2011.

Chara KauΩman Harders ’51, of Brawley, California, on May 19, 2011.

William J. Decker ’58 and ’59, of Waupaca, Wisconsin, on August 20, 2012.

Mary Elizabeth (Teichen) Johnson ’51, of Deerfield, on October 15, 2011.

Rolf I. Fritz ’58, of Wheaton, on July 28, 2011.

Deaths Ernest F. Nolte ’31, of Munster, Indiana, on January 29, 2011.

Dorothea M. (Ernst) Boldt ’38, of New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 3, 2011.

Antone E. Hotle ’38, of Manchester, Missouri, on November 15, 2011.

Theodore Kross ’38, of Elmhurst, on August 21, 2011.

Edgar G. Prasse ’38, of Bloomfield, Connecticut, on October 7, 2012.

Rev. Dr. Carl C. Rasche ’39, of Lakeland, Florida, on October 21, 2011.

Anna L. (Susott) Grossman ’40, of Lakewood, Colorado, on July 31, 2011.

Donald A. Cash ’41, of Pacific Palisades, California, on August 18, 2012.

Dorothy (Davis) Dosier ’42, of Santa Cruz, California, on June 21, 2011.

Elaine C. Forrest ’42, of River Forest, on October 3, 2011.

Robert M. Kross ’42, of Elmhurst, on November 18, 2011.

William Pitt Shattuck ’45, of Falls Church, Virginia, on July 22, 2012.

Elaine (Franke) Ellibee ’46, of Madison, Wisconsin, on November 17, 2012.

Janet E. (Mallinson) Egeland ’49, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on May 21, 2011.

Mart E. Mitchell ’51, of Lake City, Florida, on April 19, 2012.

Robert G. Pierson ’51, of Villa Park, on October 9, 2011.

Joseph H. Sebestyen ’51, of Chicago, on July 9, 2011.

Alice (Wing) Byers ’52, of Lawrenceville, on November 27, 2011.

Robert E. Grunlund ’52, of Norway, Michigan, on July 12, 2011.

Louise H. (Miller) Osada ’52, of West Dundee, on August 2, 2011.

Ardiene C. Tilly ’52, of Tryon, North Carolina, on September 6, 2012.

Robert James “Jim” LeGros ’53, of Prescott Valley, Arizona, on September 25, 2012.

Frank W. Roberts ’53, of Bigfork, Minnesota, on September 20, 2011.

Dorothy V. Longley ’54, of Orlando, Florida, on August 21, 2012.

Richard E. Simonson ’54, of St. Louis, Missouri, on October 9, 2011.

Charles W. Spencer ’55, of Naperville, on February 28, 2012.

Carole S. (HoΩmann) Kierspe ’58, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 25, 2011.

Rev. Jack LaMar ’58, of Elcho, Wisconsin, on November 23, 2012.

Anna M. (Mueller) Riebeling ’58, of St. Louis, Missouri, on August 20, 2011.

John A. Clow ’59, of North Riverside, on August 3, 2012.

Alexander I. Kouvalis ’59, of Chicago, on September 2, 2011.

Dr. Lyle E. Herness ’60, of Ramona, California, on June 30, 2011.

Donald A. Weiss ’60, of Mesa, Arizona, on August 13, 2011.

Curtis J. Surkamp ’61, of Festus, Missouri, on September 10, 2011.

Donald Arthur Beckman ’62, of Schaumburg, on March 31, 2012.

Melinda G. Barnes ’63, of Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 10, 2012.

Jean Edgar Molenda ’64, of LaFarge, Wisconsin, on July 25, 2012.

Paulette Hatmaker ’65, of Elmhurst, on December 3, 2011.

For more information on alumni giving, go to our giving site at www.elmhurst.edu/giving

Why I Volunteer

Photo: Genevieve Lee

53

A minister in the United Church of Christ, Bob Ullman ’71 volunteers his time and talents to Elmhurst College by serving on the College’s Board of Trustees.

Bob Ullman ’71 Sussex, Wisconsin

E

lmhurst expanded my world. It introduced me to lifelong friends. And it inspired in me a love for learning that still shapes the way I live. It’s like the old hymn says: Because I have been given much, I too must give.

You don’t have to be wealthy to help the College. Everyone has something to oΩer.

We all have time, talent and treasure to some degree, along with networks and relationships that can benefit Elmhurst. That could mean helping an outstanding prospective student get to know the College, connecting a student with a life-shaping internship, or even introducing a generous prospective donor to Elmhurst.

The students I meet at Elmhurst are growing, learning and expanding their world view just as I did. I make available my time, talent, treasure and connections to Elmhurst so that lives may be touched and the world changed for the better. One of the central insights of nearly every faith tradition is that the meaning of life is measured in how much we give, more than how much we receive. Volunteering, for me, is not so much an obligation as a privilege.

Rev. Robert O. Ullman ’71, the pastor of Redeemer United Church of Christ in Sussex, Wisconsin, serves on Elmhurst’s Board of Trustees.

FYI/Spring 2013

alumni deaths in the family

54

Gerald R. Stolt, ’65, of Saugatuck, Michigan, on August 31, 2011.

Dorothy G.Yahner ’74, of Lehigh Acres, Florida, on February 19, 2011.

Thomas S. Ferry ’85, of Grafton, Wisconsin, on April 4, 2011.

Stanley Schmidt ’66, of Elmhurst, on October 29, 2011.

Andrew E. Burt ’75, of Henderson, Nevada, on May 26, 2011.

David C. Szczypinski ’87, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 29, 2011.

Theodore R. Kuyper ’67, of Elmhurst, on March 1, 2012.

Anthony K. King ’75, of Tucson, Arizona, on July 17, 2011.

Jeneene M. Hook ’90, of Algonquin, on September 2, 2011.

Nancy M. (Vogler) Vosahlik ’67, of Batesville, Indiana, on August 8, 2011.

Harold M. Michalsen ’75, of Elmhurst, on October 16, 2011.

Michelle A. Niziolek ’90, of Sun City West, Arizona, on August 7, 2011.

Carmen M. Romanowski ’68, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on June 7, 2011.

William G. Mladic ’75, of Trinity, Florida, on February 10, 2011.

Linda (Suske) Korta ’92, of Bolingbrook, on September 29, 2011.

Marianne R. ShaΩer ’68, of Sun City West, Arizona, on November 21, 2011.

Kay W. Vasey ’76, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July 2, 2012.

Peter E. Johnson ’94, of Round Lake Beach, on July 24, 2011.

Esther M. Shaw ’68, of Glen Ellyn, on August 17, 2012.

Lois E. Zipple ’76, Lansing, Michigan, on September 22, 2012.

Kenneth B. Suwanski ’95, of Cary, on April 6, 2011.

Barbara A. (Schmitt) Webb ’68, of Washington, D.C., on November 10, 2012.

Beverly Ann (Haney) Lamphier ’77, of Elmhurst, on October 29, 2012.

JeΩrey Richard Kafer ’96, of Normal, on April 19, 2012.

Mary Ann (Olson) Berry ’70, of Johnson City, Tennessee, on September 28, 2011.

Gary O. Bergling ’78, of Bensenville, on October 20, 2011.

Donald J. Wajda ’96, of Hillside, on June 20, 2011.

Michael Buechin ’70, of Pentwater, Michigan, on July 4, 2011.

Lois J. (Horton) Parker ’78, of Tierra Verde, Florida, on September 3, 2011.

Cleveland A. Anderson ’01, of Portage, Indiana, on June 15, 2012.

Steven Fry ’70, of Maple Park, on November 5, 2012.

Ellen E. Schade Lambert ’78, of Bourbonnais, on January 9, 2011.

Judith A. (West) Dobniar ’02, of Winthrop Harbor, on June 27, 2011.

Gary Rude ’70, of Normal, on December 6, 2011.

William E. Blake ’80, of Batavia, on January 28, 2011.

Michael Kelly Frye ’10, of Chicago, on July 18, 2012.

Adele M. Heuser ’71, of Elmhurst, on August 1, 2012.

Georgene (Werner) Kreinberg ’71, of Green Valley, California, on October 6, 2011.

Ronald A. Marten ’71, of Lombard, on September 8, 2011.

Denise A. Andre ’74, of Chicago, on February 6, 2012.

Charles L. Culotta ’74, of Bartlett, on September 6, 2011.

Barbara Ann King ’70, of Memphis, Tennessee, on July 24, 2012.

James F. Kovarik ’74, of Georgetown, Texas, on April 11, 2011.

Leniford A. Wimmer ’74, of BuΩalo Grove, on September 16, 2011.

Rose R. (Fitzgerald) Finlayson ’81, of Peoria, Arizona, on September 19, 2011.

JoAnn (Kurtz) Welling ’81, of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, on November 14, 2012.

Donald C. Brown Jr. ’85, of Bensenville, on August 23, 2012.

Dale E. Dunning ’82, of McKinney, Texas, on June 9, 2011.

Robert D. McFarland ’82, of Elmhurst, on November 7, 2012.

Lisa C. Bauer ’84, of Elmhurst, on September 20, 2012.

Jesus E. DeLaPena ’84, of San Antonio, Texas, on July 29, 2011.

Margot Brockman Schweppe ’84, of Alexandria, Virginia, on July 15, 2012.

Professor. Mentor. Friend.

The inuence of a favorite professor lasts a lifetime.

Faculty members Barbara Winchester Swords and Robert Swords established a legacy of academic excellence at Elmhurst. In four decades of teaching, the Swords had a powerful impact on generations of students.

To honor these two exceptional teachers, the family has created the Barbara and Robert W. Swords Endowment, a fund that will support the current needs of students in music, English and the Honors Program. In a challenge to Elmhurst alumni, the Swords family has pledged to match all contributions to the Endowment up to $100,000.

Will you honor the Swords by making a gift today?

Gifts of any amount are appreciated and easy to make.

Simply designate your gift to the Barbara and Robert W. Swords Endowment Fund.

How to Give Online: www.elmhurst.edu/giving

By Phone: (866) 794-1075

By Mail: O≈ce of Development and Alumni Relations 190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst, IL 60126

THE BARBARA AND ROBERT W. SWORDS

ENDOWMENT FUND

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID

Chicago, Illinois Permit Number 5525

Office of Alumni Relations 190 Prospect Avenue Elmhurst, Illinois 60126-3296

events the spring season

Mark Your Calendar Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection Thursday, April 18 The best-selling author A.J. Jacobs immersed himself in a series of radical lifestyle experiments, including an attempt to become the world’s healthiest person. This event is co-sponsored by the Elmhurst Public Library and the Friends of the Elmhurst Public Library, with support from Elmhurst College.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.

Free admission Why Go to the Movies?

Thursday, April 25 Michael Phillips, the film critic of the Chicago Tribune, explores trends in the entertainment industry, the impact of technology, and what it all means for Hollywood and the rest of us.

Frick Center, Founders Lounge, 7:00 p.m.

General admission $10

The Comedy of Errors Thursday, April 25, through Sunday, April 28 Thursday, May 2, through Saturday, May 4 Elmhurst College Theatre presents Shakespeare’s classic tale of mistaken identities.

The Comedy of Errors takes no prisoners as it skewers marriage, friendship, identity, laws and villainy.

Mill Theatre Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation Sunday, April 28 The best-selling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan examines the special place that cooking occupies in human life, standing squarely between nature and culture.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.

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For a full list, visit us at www.elmhurst.edu/events.

You also can follow us on facebook.com/elmcol or twitter.com/elmhurstcollege

Mayor Richard M. Daley: An Appraisal Wednesday, May 8 Keith Koeneman writes about Chicago history, politics and culture. His forthcoming book, First Son: The Biography of Richard M. Daley, tells the story of a complicated leader who as mayor not only ran but also embodied Chicago.

Frick Center, Founders Lounge, 7:00 p.m.

General admission $10 The Rudolf G. Schade Lecture on History, Ethics and the Law Thursday, May 30 Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court, retired in January 2006 and continues to speak passionately on the central importance of an independent judiciary in a robust democracy. Sponsored in part by bmo Harris Bank.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.

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