Juniata Spring Summer 2010

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JUNIATA 2010 Spring-Summer

Getting in Tune:

Conducting Instrumental Education

We’re a Juniata Band (of Professors): Out of the Classroom, Onto the Stage

Atten-hut! New GI Bill Brings Platoon of Veterans in Classrooms

Family Friendly: Mom and Dad, Can You Drive More Students to Juniata?

Ahead of His Time: Jacob Zuck, Juniata’s First Professor


Campus Conversations: Juniata faculty and students weigh in on issues of the day. Reporting by: Sam Stroup ’12, Helen Hu ’13, Aaron Adams ’11, Liz Roberts ’10, Erin Kreischer ’13, Moira Nugent ’11, Joe Aultman-Moore ’12 and Mary Munion ’12

looking up to an athlete in

terms of work ethic and the way he plays the game, but it is my husband’s duty and mine as parents to be role models for ethics and morals.”

—Amy Mathur ’96, assistant professor of English, on using athletes as role models.

“There were shortages of supplies everywhere, from gauze to Neosporin to water. You would not believe how horrible it was; we had nearly run out of supplies and still more people would come begging for help, with large gashes across their body, missing limbs, and more. It was absolutely devastating. It is very, very sad to witness this sort of disaster and be limited in your capacity to assist.” —Kristen Brewer ’09, residence director, on her experience during the Haiti earthquake.

“What is calm? I don’t remain calm… I haven’t figured that out yet. In my free time, I eat, sleep, and sleep and prepare myself for more studying.”

“I don’t think most people will get a job as they expected and it

will take longer to move up the ladder and earn higher

incomes. Certainly, it will prove to be more challenging and anything students can do to increase their chances of scoring a job—attending career fairs, or whatever else is necessary—do it. You need to differentiate yourselves.” —Bradley Andrew, associate professor of economics, on the job market for college graduates.

“My perfect date would be going to the big Sheetz in Altoona.” —Takako Yamamoto ’10 an international student from Kyoto, Japan, on his perfect date for Valentine’s Day.

“Athletes need to communicate with their coaches and teammates when they have a problem. A headache that lasts for a few days is not okay. In any sport, proper technique will reduce all kinds of injuries. Athletes must always wear the proper equipment.

—Jennifer Biggs ’13, of Arnold Md., on remaining calm during midterms.

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“Hydrologists use the term

snow/water equivalent to describe the relationship between the amount of water in the snow and the depth of the snow. This is obviously affected by many variables, but a snow pack like this winter would probably range from 15-20 percent, meaning that for every 15 or so inches of snow there would be one inch of water.”

—Dennis Johnson, professor of environmental science on heavy snowfalls.

“The Supreme Court tries very hard to maintain an image of being above the political fray; and when Justice Alito was confirmed, it was widely assumed he would be a very political justice. [His action] is not only out of line, but also imprudent because it reinforces the image of him as having a political agenda. We know President Obama has a political agenda, but we expect judges to be above that.”

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—Jeff Leydig, head athletic trainer, on athletes and concussions.

—Jack Barlow, professor of politics, on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s reaction to Barack Obama’s State of the Union admonishment.

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I would suggest that athletes know the symptoms of a concussion and communicate how they feel to someone so that they can get proper treatment.”

Juniata students Laura Hess ’11 and Molly Sollenberger ’10 collaborated on an internal ad campaign to publicize Campus Opinions.

Photo and graphic: Laura Hess ’11; Opposite page (left): Michael Black

“I would be fine with my son


President’s Note Dear Friends, As I sat in the audience this April and watched Juniata students play flawlessly in unison with the Altoona Symphony Orchestra, I was reminded how the College, like a musical ensemble, functions best when we give different instruments a moment in the spotlight while melding those elements into a pleasing melody.

Thomas R. Kepple Jr.

At Juniata we value the idiosyncratic soloist just as President much as the complementary instrumentalist whose notes kepplet@juniata.edu convey the composer’s intent to the audience. It’s the same policy we use to ensure Juniata remains the best liberal arts institution it can be. Rather than imposing rules and regulation, we listen to individual soloists—in campus forums, in the classroom, in chance meetings on the quad—and then incorporate those views into the larger issue. One of the things I like to talk about when discussing how Juniata has grown and improved over the years is the element of risk. We enjoy seeing our students, faculty and administration push the boundaries of existing policy. After all, if we keep doing the same thing over and over without taking a dazzling solo or a daring new passage, we’re playing Muzak. If we go beyond what has been done before and celebrate individual voices in concert with the overall mission of the College, well, that’s Mozart. The idea of finding our own voices and talents within the structure of Juniata’s educational model is reflected in some of the stories in this issue. One way to keep your “voice” honed is to continue to play music in one of our ensembles. By giving students the opportunity to continue something they love, without forcing them to choose between music and a career, our music and choir program defines the liberal arts tradition. Also see how many faculty play an instrument. Who knew Jill Keeney was a young scientist with a horn? Juniata is not averse to letting individual voices speak for us, even when recruiting prospective students. Read how Juniata parents Bob and Astrid Lehmann and Lou Browdy ’63 and Diane Satterthwaite have gone to college fairs and recruiting trips. See how our ambitious program for our parents is paying dividends. Some older, more mature notes also are sounding on campus these days as armed forces veterans take advantage of the new GI Bill. All too often, colleges and universities focus on discordant notes at the expense of encouraging the group to find its own voice. At Juniata, we look for the players who can rise above the cacophony of the conventional and see ideas that result in beautiful music. Warm regards,

Gabriel Welsch VP for Advancement and Marketing

Rick Stutz E-communications Coordinator

wallj@juniata.edu

welschg@juniata.edu

James Watt Director of Alumni Relations wattj@juniata.edu

stutzr@juniata.edu

Nathan Wagoner Director of New Media Communication

Angie Ciccarelli Publications Assistant Norma Jennings Marketing Assistant (814) 641-3128

—Photo by David Lamberson ’12 ATA COLLE G NI

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is published two times a year by Juniata College, Department of Advancement and to Marketing and is distributed free of charge to alumni and friends of Juniata. Postmaster and others, En aS ustainable please send change-of-address correspondence to: Alumni Relations, 1700 Moore St., Huntingdon, PA 16652-2196. Juniata can accept no responsibility for unsolicited contributions of artwork, photography, or articles. Juniata College, as an educational institution and employer, values equality of opportunity and diversity. The College is an independent, privately supported co-educational institution committed to providing a liberal arts education to qualified students regardless of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, marital status, sexual orientation, or disability. Its policies comply with requirements of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IV of the Education Amendments of 1972, and all other applicable federal, state, and local statutes, regulations and guidelines. Juniata

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Pete Lefresne Sports Information Director

Not every student needs to seek out quite this level of solitude, but the cliffs near campus can be a place for reflection, relaxation and even a workout.

Rosann Brown Executive Director of Marketing

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“Early one evening, after a snowfall, the statue was brought to

my attention because of how high the snow was piled atop its back. My intention was to immediately get my camera and capture the eagle with snow on it. Alas, it was gone. Since I was already equipped to take photos, I decided, why not? It’s such a beautiful day! I wanted the eagle to look as though it was actually soaring. The angle at which the eagle was sculpted allowed me to get right under it and capture the sky in the background. I tried to think of a way to include the unique shape of curve between the eagle and the water below it.”—Krystal

Juniata

Hope ’10, communication

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“This photo was taken while I was studying abroad in Greece. I was

visiting the island of Mykonos. Peter the Pelican is somewhat of a local pet. He walks all through the streets and even hangs out in some of the shops with their owners. My friends and I were startled at first to see a giant pelican on this tiny island, but quickly came to realize the character that he brings to this part of Greece. I was lucky enough to snap a shot as he walked right by us on the narrow streets of Mykonos.”

—Lauren Seganos ’11, communication

Photo Contest Winners 3

2010 Spring-Summer

Here we are at the third year of the photo contest and we can see that Juniata students have a discerning artistic eye in addition to their academic gifts. Check out the winner (left) and the runners up. For more photos go to the photo contest page on Flickr or follow the progress of the contest week by week on Facebook as we post the weekly winners.


Juniata

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international student, Argentina

There was a presentation about aliens and there were many things among the plants.”—Julieta Bustos ’10,

“I took this picture at Phipps Conservatory.


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of three of my favorite people, on a background which is aesthetically pleasing. This setting was basically constructed for a photography assignment I was working on. From left to right: Roy Holm ’11, John O’Donnell ’10, Quinn Daly.”—Erica Quinn ’10, English

“This photo was taken in the alley between Moore and Mifflin Streets. It represents a meeting


2010 Spring-Summer

On the Cover Concentrating fiercely on : e n u the score, Amanda Epstein g in T Gettin ’13, of Glen Head, N.Y., plays in the violin section of the combined Juniata Orchestra and Altoona Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal. Below, Joel Rhodes ’13, of Huntingdon, Pa., and Stephanie Schmid ’13, of Ellicott City, Md., flank a member of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra in the French horn section.

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Contents

Campus Conversations . . . . . . . Inside Front Cover President’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Campus News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Getting In Tune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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JUNIATA

Juniata’s instrumental music program won’t get you a degree in music, but it will allow talented and enthusiastic students the opportunity to keep playing music.

We’re a Juniata Band (of Professors) . . . . . . . . 32

Juniata faculty have a full slate of things to get done during a semester: teaching, service, research, advising, raising families and…donning a black leather jumpsuit and kicking out the jams onstage. Well maybe not, but many professors have musical talent and have entertained students by playing the piano, drums, guitar, clarinet, French horn—and the blues.

Atten-hut! New GI Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Juniata has always been veteran-friendly, dating back to the years after World War II, when the College provided veterans housing in Quonset huts on the site where Brumbaugh Academic Center now stands. In the recent past, many veterans could not afford to pursue a private college education, but all that’s changing with the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

Can You Drive More Students to Juniata? . . . . . 44

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In convincing prospective students to come to the College, Juniata has decided to enlist one of its most enthusiastic communities—parents. Mom and Dad are selling all things Juniata—from attending college fairs, to visiting high school counselors, to career counseling.

Ahead of His Time: Jacob Zuck and Juniata . . . 50

The story of how Jacob Zuck, one of the founders of Juniata and the first professor on the faculty, helped create the model for education that has driven Juniata to success throughout its history. Richard Mahoney, professor of peace studies, writes an epic story.

Faculty Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Alumni Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Class Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Reminders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Recruit a Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Juniata

End Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover 6

Photos: J.D. Cavrich

Faculty Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56


juniata.edu/extra

> > > > > >

Robert Granja video History of Food video Instrumental Juniata video The Full Story of Jacob Zuck Commencement Gallery Commencement Speech

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Art Reconsidered: Juniata Museum Conserves $40,000 Painting Over time, many precious possessions become aged and damaged. The art in the Juniata Museum of Art is no different. One of the most valuable paintings in the museum’s collection had deteriorated and was in need of immediate conservation. Fortunately, Judy Maloney, the director of the museum, met (at a conference) Barry Bauman, a renowned painting conservationist who provides pro bono conservation services for museums and other institutions. He had already treated, since 2004, 350 paintings from 80 or more institutions for free, charging only for the cost of materials.

—Molly Sollenberger ’10 is a media relations intern from Mechanicsburg, Pa.

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Angels Carrying the Vestments of Christ is the next painting from the permanent collection of the Juniata Museum of Art to be scheduled for a pro bono conservation effort.

Bauman went to work on a painting in the College’s collection titled, Commodore Perry Ship on Japanese Tour. The 11-inch by 17 1/2-inch seascape had an appraised value of $40,000. “The painting had three basic problems. It was cracking everywhere, the paint was falling off, and it was warped,” he said. “The painting was extremely dirty and covered in a century-and-a-half of dirt.” Quayton Stottlemyer ’51, whose father had collected the piece, told the museum how the painting was damaged when he wrote in a letter to the museum, “the paintings endured 45 years’ accumulation of dust, cobwebs, dead insects, some bird droppings, and mouse excreta.” “We chose the painting because of the combination of its rare historical subject, poor condition, high aesthetic quality and high appraisal value,” explains Maloney. The painting is set within the confines of a Japanese harbor. It depicts a commemorative moment when the Treaty of Kanagawa was signed on March 31, 1854, the first of the treaties signed by Japan and Western countries ending Japanese isolation. The next work due for conservation? A painting by Tiepolo titled, Angels Carrying the Vestments of Christ.


Campus News

Digging Deep: Student Reconstructs WW I Trench On a ho-hum college campus, “digging a deep hole” usually means you’ve fallen behind on a paper. At Juniata, digging a deep hole can be a senior project. Jacob Gordon ’10, of Altoona, Pa., inspired by a history class on World War I and a research paper he recently completed, reconstructed a crucial part of the World War I era; a trench where he lived for two days (or until cold caused him and a roommate to retreat). Gordon, who studies history and library science, dug a replica of a trench that the British lived in and fought from for years on the Western Front during World War I from 1914-1918. Gordon’s trench was on a hillside near the Elizabeth Evans Baker Peace Chapel on the corner of the Baker-Henry Nature Preserve. Gordon and his volunteers marched to the trench, much like the soldiers who manned battlefields in the First World War. The trenchers hit shale, but managed to get a three- to five-foot trench built with the help of sandbags. He created a website with photos of the location at entrenched.tumblr.com. “The point of this project is not for a class, club, or independent study or for any credits at all. I created this idea to get a better understanding of the daily conditions the British soldiers faced,” Gordon says. Gordon’s interest started his sophomore year when he took a class called “The Great War” and wrote a paper on Ivor Gurney, a British poet and composer who served in the Great War. Gordon learned that Gurney felt the war had given him a strong sense of structure in his life. Gordon’s personal admiration grew for the historical figure as he realized, “I could use some more structure in my life.” Gordon adds, “This project is not meant for us to ‘play soldier’ or glorify war, but to de-romanticize warfare.” —Molly Sollenberger ’10 is a media relations intern from Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Juniata

At far left, Jacob Gordon ’10 digs deep within himself to break ground on his World War I trench project. At near left, some of the keepsakes and supplies Jacob took with him for his brief sojourn in the trench.

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Two students relax at the edges of Juniata’s new labyrinth, an ancient method for reflection or prayer. The pattern on Juniata’s labyrinth is taken from the labyrinth at the Cathedral at Chartres.

On every college campus there is a student center, but where can students go to become centered? On the Juniata campus, stressed-out scholars can head to Beeghly Library and “walk” the newly installed labyrinth, an ancient aid to meditation or prayer. A labyrinth is a maze-like structure laid out on a flat surface, but the labyrinth differs from mazes in that mazes are complex puzzles featuring choices of path and direction, while a labyrinth has just a single path that leads to the center. Juniata’s circular labyrinth is constructed in paver bricks and forms a contemplative study space near the north end of Beeghly Library. “To ‘walk’ the labyrinth you start and follow the meandering path until it leads you to the center,” explains David Witkovsky, chaplain at the College. “The metaphor is that as you walk toward the center, you clear your mind and find your own center.” Juniata’s labyrinth was installed this fall as the class gift from the College’s class of 2009. The project cost

$15,000 and the class raised $13,380 for the gift. Labyrinths date back more than 4,000 years and archeologists have found the patterned structures in sites in Crete, India, Egypt and Goa. “The labyrinth doesn’t have to have an overtly religious connotation. It really predates Christianity and many other religions,” Witkovsky says. “As you walk out of the labyrinth, the idea is that you leave behind any worries or stress and then you’re ready to re-enter the world.” Students already use the space as a study site and Witkovsky held an educational talk and demonstration on how to walk the labyrinth in spring semester. In addition to its use as a contemplative aid, Witkovsky wants to make it clear that the space can be used for anything from studying to sports to socializing. “It’s meant to be used,” Witkovsky says. “It’s not like a flag. You’re not going to desecrate it by walking over it.” 9

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Photos (left): courtesy Jacob Gordon ’10; (right) J.D. Cavrich

Into The Labyrinth: Contemplative Space Created Near Beeghly Library


Campus News

Juniata

Robert Granja, an international student from Ecuador, may be one of the few Juniata students who makes part of his journey to return to school by canoe. After finishing his education, Robert hopes to return to his village in the Ecuadorean rainforest to help with sustainability and conservation.

In general, most college students consider it adventurous if they spend four years studying in another state. The journey to college for Robert Granja, a freshman international student at Juniata from Ecuador, included a trip in a dugout canoe and a flight out of a South American rainforest. Granja, who grew up in a small village called Mondana, situated along the Napo River, a tributary of South America’s mighty Amazon River, spent his entire freshman year of college at Juniata. Although his home village in the middle of the Ecuadorean rainforest has a population of about 150, Granja finds the larger environs of the Juniata campus different, but welcoming. “Juniata is very big compared to where I studied and the educational system is completely different.” says Granja, who attended a government-run high school in Puerto Napo, a city of about 10,000. “When I first came here I was afraid to talk at first because my English was not very good, but day by day I became more involved,” he adds. Granja’s own story of coming to Juniata is equal parts hard work and good luck. He attended the government-run school in Puerto Napo through high school and then returned to his village to participate in a new school created by the Yachana Foundation. Last year, several Juniata students who were studying abroad at St. Francis University in Quito, Ecuador, visited the Yachana school in Mondana. The school’s director established a connection with Juniata to encourage students to study in Huntingdon for a year. Granja eventually acclimated to Juniata’s culture and cuisine, particularly the desserts at the college dining hall. He never totally accepted Pennsylvania’s cooler climate, though. After his year at Juniata, Granja hopes to continue his studies at an Ecuadorean university in ecology and conservation. He then hopes to return to his home province to work as an educator. “I would like to organize youth in our community and other places to have a better life through sustainability and conservation,” he says. “Our youth is the future (of Ecuador).”

= video on juniata.edu/extra 10

Photos (left): Courtesy Robert Granja; (right) Andrew Meloney ’10

Long Journey: Finding Opportunity Far From Ecuadorean Rainforest


= video on juniata.edu/extra

History on a Plate: Students Dig Into the Story of Food

with classic Jewish foods ranging from matzo to gefilte fish,” says Zach Wakefield ’10, from Hummelstown, Pa. “The big idea for this course is that students come to understand the interaction between a person or a group identity through a shared history of food,” explains Tuten. As the course winds down, the topics become more specific, concentrating on regional cuisine in the United States. This part of the course covers Cajun food history, American Italian food and discussions of fast food, a major part of the American culture. Students base their final projects on recipes they have grown up with or are familiar with through family ties. The students select a dish, typically one that has become a tradition in their family, and write up both the recipe for it and an analysis of its history. “I really enjoyed the haluski dish a student made for us last semester,” says Tuten. “When there is history of a particular food within a family it enriches the entire project.” Tuten plans on collecting some of the student’s final project recipes and creating a “History of Food” recipe book. —Molly Sollenberger ’10 is a media relations intern from Mechanicsburg, Pa. 11

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Students typically chat about the quality of the food in dining halls or if a 30-minute trip to Taco Bell is worth the gas bill, but at Juniata students also see food as a way to study how major developments in global food history can produce a new perspective on the development of human life. “It’s finally being recognized that history is the study of what humans do, and food has been a huge part of that,” says James Tuten, associate professor of history and creator of the “History of Food” course. The course is designed to keep students interested using a number of appetite-inducing class activities. For example, at a class dinner at Tuten’s home, each student brings a different Italian dish they’ve cooked themselves. Instead of centralizing the course around tests and quizzes, Tuten has conceived his course as an academic version of Extreme Cuisine. Field trips also end up as conspicuous consumption. The class travels to a local coffee shop for a taste sampling and they travel to Altoona for a Seder during Passover week. “We sang traditional Jewish hymns, read Jewish scripture, all of which was followed by a large, large feast

There seems to be a slight lull in the avid eating during the communal meal at the home of James Tuten, associate professor of history. As part of his History of Food course, Tuten has each student prepare a favorite family recipe as part of a gastronomical celebration. Oh yes, the feast counts as a final project for the course.


Campus News

She Writes, She Scores: Sports Lit Analyzes Culture Through Competition the semester their responsibility is to determine how that event or person affected American culture in a significant and lasting way. Readings for the course include an inspirational story about Matt Steven, a blind high school basketball player; a Chronicle of Higher Education article about Perry Reese Jr., an African-American basketball coach in the middle of Amish country who changed a town’s idea about race; and Jesse Owens, a victorious African-American sprinter in the 1936 Olympics. The course is designed to branch away from textbooks and concentrate on features written in newspapers, magazines, autobiographies, case studies, and other media coverage. “The course is not really meant to teach content,” explains Mathur, “but rather to teach the students how to think and argue positions through class discussions and debates.” The class does not shy away from controversial or current topics over the semester. Segregation and integration, gender equality (Title IX), body image, criminal justice, homosexuality, and brand obsession are a few of the more serious topics in the class.

“Our culture’s development is mirrored in athletics”—Amy Mathur ’96

Amy Mathur ’96, assistant professor of English, channeled her love of competition into a course examining Sports Literature. Mathur had the class analyze and discuss how sports stories and literature reflect American culture as a whole.

Since it is an optional course, not surprisingly the class has drawn many athletes. “Sports Literature” enrolled 21 students last semester. Nineteen of them were Juniata varsity athletes. “My two great interests are sports and reading, and this is such a great way to put them together,” Mathur says. “Now the athletes who see me in the stands as the crazy person cheering can see another side of me in class.” “While there is the obvious love of competition and winning, we also love the underdog, love when hard work pays off, the rags to riches stories and more,” says Nick Talisman ’11, a sophomore former tennis player from Bethesda, Md. “Those concepts are present in all walks of life, but sports is an area that all Americans can relate to.”

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—Molly Sollenberger ’10 is a media relations intern from Mechanicsburg, Pa.

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Photos (left): Jason Jones; (center) J.D. Cavrich; (right) Bruce Cramer

Reading about sports has always been a popular pastime, but there aren’t many who see it as a topic relevant to the classroom. The new course, “Sports Literature,” creates a fresh outlook on sports, stretching students to think about athletics from a cultural perspective. “I want the students to be aware that sport is more than just a game,” says Amy Mathur ’96, assistant professor of English, who created the course in 2009. “Our culture’s development is mirrored in athletics and students will see that once they begin to argue positions and have debates on sports issues that have been chronicled in the past.” Each student begins the semester by pairing with a classmate and choosing a topic, such as a significant athletic event, sports controversy, or athlete. By the end of


Eyes on the Prize: Commencement Speaker Harriet Michel Urges Vision Harriet Richardson Michel ’65, president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, recalled that as a college student she faced life head-on, challenged assumptions and was “not willing to go quietly into that good night.” She also reminded the 2010 graduating class at Juniata that she was just a small part of a much larger social movement and urged them to “keep their eyes on the prize to achieve success” at the College’s 132nd commencement ceremony. Michel quoted philosopher Martin Buber in her opening remarks, saying “Every single man (and of course woman) is a new thing in the world and is called upon to fulfill his particularity in this world.” Citing the serious challenges facing new graduates such as budget deficits, cuts in jobs and education, global warming and an increasingly partisan political atmosphere, she asked the class to consider, “Previous generations had the luxury to accept or reject the belief that one must assume responsibility for the well being of the world. Your generation, for better or for worse, enjoys no such luxury.”

Using her professional experiences, her work for civil rights and her experience as an African-American woman as an example for the graduating class, she explained that people who wish to return to a simpler, romanticized America are simply wishing for an America that never was. “The America of yesterday can never return (and) the America of tomorrow depends on you like never before,” she told the graduates. Michel quoted author David Cottrell’s book 12 Choices That Lead to Your Success, urging the students to make bold choices when it comes to character, actions and investment in the future. She concluded her address by reminding the graduates, “times of challenge and controversy are also times of extraordinary opportunity…a time when fresh perspectives and new ideas are most needed. …remember ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.’”

= video on juniata.edu/extra

Michael Boyle Beachley Award for Distinguished Teaching, William J. von Liebig Chair in Biomedical Science Mike Boyle went back and forth on what to list. Five greatest grandchildren? (In order, Britton, Brycen, Gideon, Breanna and Evelyn.) Or how about Nobel laureates with whom he has eaten breakfast, lunch or dinner? (Rodney Porter (1972, Medicine), Peter Medawar (1960, Medicine), Francis Crick (1962, Medicine), Rosalyn Yalow (1977, Medicine) and Richard Roberts (1993, Medicine)). He ended up listing his top five mentors. Con O’Callaghan: My high school chemistry teacher who taught concepts not facts. Robert Creighton, Department of Biochemistry, University of Glasgow: He was my undergraduate research advisor and got me infected with the research bug.

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Tibor Borsos, Chief Humoral Immunity Section: He was my mentor at the National Cancer Institute who taught me how great scientists think. Jerry Schiebler, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Florida: He taught me how academic politics actually works. Carla Boyle: My wife of 37 years, who has taught me more and kept me out of more trouble than the rest of them put together.

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Juniata presented five alumni-related awards during Alumni Assembly at “Alumni Weekend 2010.” Gerald Wogan ’51, director of toxicology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was awarded the Alumni Achievement Award; Sandy Loughlin ’67, a retired teacher at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, received the Harold B. Brumbaugh Alumni Service Award; Johanna Holtan ’04, a development consultant, received the Young Alumni Achievement Award; Robert Dintruff ’77, commercial development director for virology for a major health company, was awarded the William E. Swigart Jr. Alumni Humanitarian Award; and Dr. Terry Eccles ’92 received the Health Professions Alumni Appreciation Award.

Five Alumni Honored for Achievement Gerald Wogan, Underwood Prescott Professor of Toxicology emeritus at MIT, has been honored countless times for his research on cancer. Most recently, he received the Charles S. Mott Prize, a $250,000 award given annually by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for the most outstanding contribution to researching the cause or prevention of cancer. His work on aflatoxin and liver cancer is often cited as a trendsetting model for molecular toxicology and epidemiology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, chosen in 1977, and one of five Juniata graduates to be named to the academy. He was named a Fellow in 1992 by the American Academy of Microbiology. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Juniata and went on to earn a master’s degree in physiology in 1953 and a doctorate in physiology in 1957, both from the University of Illinois. In 1978 he was named director of MIT’s Environmental Health Sciences Center and in 1988 he was named the Underwood Prescott Professor of Toxicology

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Gerald Wogan ’51 (right) receives award from President Kepple.

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Celia Cook-Huffman

Books are a fundamental part of my life. They are work and play, full of knowledge to be absorbed, stories to be shared, sometimes challenging, sometimes pure fun. The Temple of My Familiar, Alice Walker This book challenged everything I thought I knew about family, friendship, love and growing old. It is fanciful, creative, and demands that we think about who we are in the world and how we come to know ourselves.

Sandy Loughlin ’67

Saraunda Andoniades “Sandy” Loughlin earned a bachelor’s degree in English. She went on to earn a master’s degree in secondary education from Towson State University. She has been an educator her entire professional career, starting as a high school English teacher in the Baltimore (Md.) Public School Sysytem in 1967. In 1982, she started teaching at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, a public school focused on college preparatory courses in engineering, math and science. In addition to her teaching duties, she served for 18 years as faculty representative on the Poly Parent Faculty Association. In 1989, she was named Teacher of the Year at the school. Upon retirement, she took a job at the Baltimore Polytechnic Foundation and Alumni Association. Loughlin has been an extraordinarily active volunteer for Juniata. Each year since 1999, she has brought students from Baltimore Polytechnic to Juniata for an overnight enrollment visit. In 2009, 15 students participated, and over 10 years eight students from the high school have attended Juniata. She also organized the effort to create a Juniata College alumni license plate for Maryland. She has been class fund agent for the Class of 1967 since 2005 and served on the college’s Alumni Council from 2004 to 2008. Robert Dintruff has worked in the medical diagnostics and pharmaceutical industry for the past 29 years, where he has overseen the development of programs that offer assistance to children orphaned by HIV and AIDS in developing nations. He has also managed programs that supply HIV diagnostics and therapeutics at no profit in 69 countries including all nations of Africa and those defined by the U.N. as Least Developed Countries.

Beloved, Toni Morrison This book is so painfully vivid sometimes I could only read a page at a time. It was also completely absorbing. Morrison captures in compelling narrative the costs of slave violence for individuals, families, societies, and ultimately, for humanity. Woman: An Intimate Geography, Natalie Angier Woman is a celebration of women’s bodies and by extension women’s diversity, strengths and contributions to the world. Angier is a beautiful writer who begins with biology and science and moves on to philosophy, myth, psychology and common sense to challenge essential notions of the feminine, offering instead fresh possibilities of what it means to be a woman. Contemporary Conflict Resolution, Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall It’s my field. What can I say? If you want to understand intractable conflict, this is a great book. It provides a comprehensive overview of the field, up-to-date theory, key models and tools for analysis and lots of case studies. The authors don’t sacrifice depth or pretend that conflict isn’t tough and complicated. Traveling Light: Stories and Drawings for a Quiet Mind, Brian Andreas Andreas is a philosopher, poet, and artist whose sage advice about love, work, aging, existential dilemmas and the meaning of life is delivered in quirky, entertaining prose, sometimes with startling clarity, often accompanied by his own unique illustrations. He is always a great companion. I’ll leave you with a poem... Weight Training “This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry and trust me on this, you’ll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that’s exactly what you want to do most and then it won’t weigh a thing anymore.” (Brian Andreas in Traveling Light)

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2010 Spring-Summer

Photos (left and center): Laura Hess ’11; (right) J.D. Cavrich

and director of the toxicology division of MIT’s Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology. He has been an active volunteer for Juniata, where he served on the Trustees Council and took part in the Uncommon Outcomes Campaign for Science.

Beachley Award for Distinguished Academic Service, W. Clay & Kathryn H. Burkholder Professor of Conflict Resolution


Campus News

Kathleen Biddle Gibbel Award for Distinguished Teaching, Assistant Professor of Education Kathleen Biddle is deeply interested in how the brain processes information and how and why that process can go right or wrong. Here are five “brainy” books she recommends.

Describing the fascinating evolution of the reading brain, Wolf integrates neuroscience, psychology and linguistics in a reader-friendly manner to explain the incredible accomplishment of learning how to read. She also addresses the cognitive and emotional challenges faced by children who struggle to learn to read. The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould Gould provides an historical account and cautionary tale of the misuse of psychometrics to promote preexisting prejudices concerning race, class and gender. His compelling book, a must-read for anyone interested in social equity and the nature of intelligence, forces readers to reflect on the overly-simplistic, narrow explanations for and measurement of “intelligence.” The Short Bus: A Journey BEYOND Normal, Jonathan Mooney Mooney, an adult with dyslexia, travels the U.S. in a “short bus,” much like those used to transport children with special needs to school. He interviews a series of individuals, some of whom were also “short bus” riders. Readers of this book will enjoy Mooney’s witty and thoughtprovoking perspective on special education, labels, and what is considered “normal.” An Anthropologist on Mars and The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks Sacks, a clinical neurologist, makes neuropsychology and neurology accessible to the layperson. He explains his case studies with such insight and empathy that the reader is drawn in to the world of the brain and perception. Sacks describes a “colorblind painter” for instance and interviews Temple Grandin, an accomplished professor with autism. The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls

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This memoir of Walls’ childhood speaks to the incredible resilience of children. Despite the clearly dysfunctional patterns of behavior her parents exhibited, Walls also speaks to her parents’ creativity and love for her. Walls captures the complexity of human nature in sharing her family’s dynamics.

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Johanna Holtan ’04

In addition, Dintruff developed a program to provide free HIV antibody tests to programs aimed at the prevention of mother-to-child transmission. The Determine HIV Testing Donation program has provided more than 10 million tests in Africa over the past six years and operates in the same 69 countries where antiretroviral drugs are provided at no profit. Abbot International and the Abbott Fund, a philanthropic foundation founded by the pharmaceutical company, has invested $100 million over five years to combat HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Dintruff also earned a master’s degree in business administration in 1979 from the University of Michigan. In 2009, he returned to Juniata to give a talk on his work managing programs that supply HIV diagnostic tests and therapeutics. His career spans a series of management positions, including marketing manager for the Far East Area, located in Hong Kong, and his current role as commercial development director at a major healthcare firm. Johanna Holtan, currently a charity consultant in Edinburgh, Scotland, has been deeply involved in international charity work since graduating in communication and women’s studies. She has been particularly active in the Republic of Georgia as a Peace Corps Business and Social Entrepreneur Volunteer. In 2008, the Peace Corps left Georgia when Russian troops invaded the former Soviet country. Holtan stayed in country to help in the relief effort and continue her work with the local groups. She co-founded the Megobari Project to channel funds, clothing and other supplies to Georgian refugees. After the Peace Corps, Holtan worked as a programming consultant on the USAID and John Snow Research & Training Institute’s Healthy Women in Georgia. She chaired Georgia’s first-ever Race for the Cure event in collaboration with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and the local Georgian organization HERA.

Photos (far left and right): J.D. Cavrich, (top left, middle and right) Laura Hess ’11

Proust and the Squid, The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf


Robert Dintruff ’77

In 2006, Holtan received a master’s degree in international service from Roehampton University in Britain. She studied abroad in Kingston, Jamaica and worked in the communications department of the human rights watchdog group, Jamaicans for Justice. At Juniata, she organized the campus’ first VDAY campaign, and as a student-athlete, she earned American Volleyball Coaches Association Second Team All-American status in 2003 and National Strength and Conditioning Association All-American recognition in 2004. Dr. Terry Eccles, a private practice pediatrician, received the Health Professions Alumni Achievement Award. After Juniata, she went on to the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and later transferred to

the University of Nebraska Medical School, graduating in 1996. Dr. Eccles entered private practice in Stafford Springs, Conn. in 1999 and has continued to grow her private practice since then. She also has an active teaching career as a clinical instructor in Quinnipiac University’s Physician Assistant Program and at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center Pediatric Residency Program. In 2008, Dr. Eccles started a summer internship in pediatric care medicine for one Juniata student per year. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Eccles also is very active in her community, where she has served as school Dr. Terry Eccles ’92 physician for Tolland Public Schools in Tolland, Conn., since 2008. While at Juniata, she co-founded the Huntingdon, Pa. chapter of Habitat for Humanity and served as a Big Sister for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Huntingdon.

Phil Dunwoody

Gibbel Award for Distinguished Teaching, Associate Professor of Psychology Phil Dunwoody plays bass in a local band, but we thought asking him to list his five favorite psychology-related rock songs was a bit too specific. Instead, he listed some of his favorite books. Bones of the Master, by George Crane This book is a great East-meets-West story that involves two neighbors who struggle to understand each other. One is an aging hippie struggling to find meaning in his life, and the other is a monk who fled China and desires to return to pay his respects to his dead master. The book chronicles their travels together in China and offers a tale of friendship, culture, and spirituality. Ethics for the New Millennium, by the Dalai Lama

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig I read this book while in college and it had a profound influence on me. At the time, I didn’t understand it. So after reading it, I read many of the works discussed by Pirsig (Kant, Plato, Descartes, and more) and then reread this book. It is about a journey across the country on a motorcycle by the author and his son. The author struggles with mental illness, the meaning of life, and the differences between quality and quantity. Human Judgment and Social Policy, by Kenneth Hammond This intellectually engaging work reviews research on human judgment to explain the limitations of human

cognition. This book applies this research to understanding policy decisions and errors in human judgment through a variety of historical examples. The Essential Gandhi, by Mahatma Gandhi & Louis Fischer This book inspired me to be more proactive in my life. Gandhi was a man with deep convictions who consciously wrestled with what it meant to human and compassionate. This collection of his writings offers a window into his self-empowering philosophy to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

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2010 Spring-Summer

The Dalai Lama has a powerful life philosophy rooted in his understanding of both Buddhism and modern psychology. Buddhism, more than any other philosophy, focuses on the power

of our mind and our perceptions in creating our reality. It has many parallels with modern cognitive psychology.


= See WTAJ-TV story on Alyssa and Sarah at

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bit.ly/softballextra

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They’ve Got Each Other’s Back: Softball teammates Alyssa Erb ’10 (left with ball) and Sarah Eckard ’10, both from Hollidaysburg, Pa., have known each other since they were in kindergarten. Both women have excelled at Juniata both on the softball field and in the classroom. Alyssa, who became Juniata’s most dominant pitcher in school history, is headed for medical school, while Sarah, who is going to graduate school, holds many of the College’s hitting records.


RARE BOND Softball Teammates Relationship Journeys back to Kindergarten

By Molly Sollenberger ’10 Photography: J.D. Cavrich

I

t has always been true that in order to develop in what you love, practice is necessary. Likewise, if you practice with the same person in whatever it is that you do over the course of your life, a unique bond will grow.

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2010 Spring-Summer

Sarah Eckard and Alyssa Erb are currently college softball stars, but that stardom was achieved by hard work and going through countless experiences together dating back to kindergarten. Memories of the beginning of their softball careers bring laughter to both women. Starting out at age six and advancing through different leagues together, Sarah and Alyssa began creating their strong relationship on and off the field. When they weren’t playing softball, they were trick-or-treating together, performing plays in elementary school, and playing computer games. Rather than drifting apart, as years passed by Sarah and Alyssa’s relationship continued to grow. Sarah says, “Although there were a core group of the same girls on each team, Alyssa was with me from the beginning and it gave us a common history that strengthened our relationship.” In high school, Sarah and Alyssa played on the Hollidaysburg Area High School Tigers softball team, but were involved in separate club teams. Not for long. Alyssa introduced Sarah to her club coach during their junior year of high school, and yet another team team bond was forged in their last two years of high school. Both extraordinary athletes, Sarah and Alyssa also were involved in other sports. Alyssa played volleyball in high school and Sarah was involved in soccer, and track. When the time came to prioritize a particular sport for their college careers, Alyssa immediately chose softball, but Sarah was on the fence.


NCAA National Chair: Sitting Pretty One way to keep Juniata’s name in front of the sports-loving public is to make sure all your sports teams win national championships, but with almost 20 sports competing under the College colors, that’s a pretty tall order to fill. Another way to tout Juniata to those “in the know” is to have College coaches serve on NCAA Division III competition committees for their sports. Now, that’s an easier goal to attain. Over the past two years, however, Juniata has had the opportunity to help “set the agenda” for women’s soccer and cross country and track and field as Juniata coaches Jon Cutright and Scott McKenzie served as national NCAA Division III chairs for their respective sports. “To be on the committee you Scott McKenzie, soccer coordinator have to apply for it,” McKenzie for Juniata, helped oversee season explains. “Once you are on the rankings as NCAA Division III committee, you can be nominated to chair for soccer this year. become national chair.” Each member of an NCAA committee represents the colleges and universities within a geographic region. Although national chairs have a variety of duties, among the “glamour” tasks McKenzie and Cutright were asked to do were: ● Overseeing selections and rankings for the season and the national tournaments or track meets. “When coaches wanted to complain about a ranking or a tournament seeding, they called me—all the time,” McKenzie says with a smile. ● Selection of the site for the national tournaments or track meets.

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● Committee members attend the final tournament or track meet every year. “It’s been great to watch the best coaches at work and to know how the system works, so I can be able to put our soccer team in the best position on (NCAA Tournament) Selection Day,” McKenzie says.

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Jon Cutright, among other duties, helped select the site of the NCAA track meets and cross country meet as Division III chair for track in 2008-2009.

The same effort Erb uses to launch one of her signature pitches also is channeled into her studies in science and theatre.


“Alyssa helped me narrow my focus to softball,” Sarah said, describing how her close friend influenced what would be a major decision. As time progressed, both girls became sounding boards for each others’ decisions. The college search came easily to Alyssa. Both her mother and father went to Juniata and played for the baseball and softball programs. Alyssa introduced Sarah to the College, secretly wishing she would show some interest. “I really hoped she would come to Juniata because I knew that’s where I wanted to go,” Alyssa says. “Since Sarah and Alyssa have been friends forever, during the recruiting process we considered them what we call a package deal,” says John Houck, the softball coach at Juniata, who invited the girls to attend an overnight visit together. “I was interested in Juniata because it was somewhere I could play and also have a good academic experience,” says Sarah. “I also knew I would have a good friend at Juniata and that had something to do with my choice.” Once on campus, the girls were roommates, weight lifting partners, and running pals. Although, maybe they should have thought twice about being running partners since they both got lost in Huntingdon during a team run their freshman year. Alyssa jokingly remarks, “Sarah and I were like ‘we survived a night in Huntingdon getting lost with our best friend!’” Alyssa made an impact immediately, pitching as a freshman. There were several outfielders Sarah had to compete with, but by the end of her freshman season she earned a starting spot as leftfielder. Houck says, “Alyssa had more experience and talent from the start as a pitcher, and Sarah was more raw on individual ability.” They both continued to advance their skills, which lead Alyssa to become the star pitcher and Sarah to become the leadoff hitter on the team. At the end of their careers, Sarah is Juniata’s all time leader in runs (120)

—Sarah Eckard ’10

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2010 Spring-Summer

“I was interested in Juniata because it was somewhere I could play and also have a good academic experience.”


and hits (174). Alyssa has become the College’s leader in strikeouts (592), innings pitched (567), and wins (53). “I think Alyssa has improved my game because she is a great pitcher and I am able to hit off of her during practices,” Sarah says. Alyssa says Sarah helps push her to improve, “Sarah knows how I throw and it’s always a challenge pitching to her because she knows how to put a bat on the ball.” Knowing each other’s tendencies gave them more of a challenge, but it also created some competition between the two. In an aggressive tone Sarah says, “When Alyssa is pitching I think in my mind that I have to hit the ball, Alyssa cannot strike me out! My friends call me ‘Captain Competitive.’” The pitcher is a bit more circumspect. “We have friendly competition. There are certain people who go up to hit and I know it will be a challenge, and Sarah is one of them,” Alyssa admits. Houck adds, “There is definitely a sense of competition between the two. One always likes to try and outdo the other; you could almost say it’s for bragging rights.”

On the field is a different story than the classroom. They rarely spot each other in the same building. Sarah studies communication and public relations, while Alyssa concentrates on theatre performance and health sciences. Although both fields of study require managing time well with softball, Alyssa had to put time aside for theatrical rehearsals. Fortunately, her longtime friend was there for her during the more difficult times such as spring performances. Alyssa says, “It is hard to focus your time and compartmentalize things. I want to do everything. Sarah keeps me connected to the team.” It’s funny how time changes things. At first, Alyssa narrowed Sarah’s focus towards softball. As they matured through college and learned more about themselves, Sarah has been more connected with the team. Additionally, time changed the way Sarah and Alyssa viewed themselves as players on the field. Although Sarah thinks she has matured more as a person through the relationships she has made and the educational background she has formed, she says, “Softball has taught me teamwork, leadership, and respect.” Alyssa unquestionably believes the number one thing she has learned has been time management, but in

“They are both a coach’s dream: socially well rounded, good

Above the Rim: Curley Exceeds Doc Greene’s Record Greg Curley marked his ninth season as head coach by posting the most wins in Juniata basketball history. He tied Doc Greene’s record of 103 wins in a game against Scranton, Jan. 15, 2010 and on Jan. 16, against Moravian College he exceeded Doc Greene’s record. The quality of people and type of driven and goal-oriented student athletes he receives remind him, everyday, just how fortunate he really is. Did you play basketball in high school and college? “Yes, I played basketball throughout high school and college. I attended Allegheny College.”

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How long have you been coaching at Juniata College? “This is my ninth season as head coach. Before that I was an assistant coach for more than three years.” 22

Greg Curley has improved Juniata’s basketball program by recruiting local and regional athletes who seek to excel in the classroom.


Eckard says she was able to grow and improve as a softball player and as a student through hard work and dedication.

addition to that she says, “I learned a lot about softball maturity-wise in that I learned how to deal with certain things.” Those “certain things” were pointed out to Alyssa by her friend. Alyssa says, “(Sarah) knows how I react in certain situations when things are going badly and in most cases Sarah says, ‘OK just leave her alone.’ If something happens she is good at keeping me focused.” That focus may finally get a bit fuzzy as Sarah and Alyssa are going their separate ways to different graduate schools. Wherever they go, they will be genuinely missed at Juniata. Houck loves their competitiveness and determination, saying, “They are both a coach’s dream: socially well rounded, good self-esteem, positive mental attitudes, and outgoing.” Alyssa says, “Although we are going our separate ways for graduate school, having my best friend at college with me was the right decision because it made things easier for me. It also made college one of the best and most fun experiences of my life.” >j< —Molly Sollenberger ’10 is a media relations intern from Mechanicsburg, Pa.

d self-esteem, positive mental attitudes, and outgoing.”—John Houck, softball coach

What type of program do you run and what are your expectations? “I expect to bring to Juniata committed student athletes who will continue to get better as athletes, students, and people.” What is the most important part of the program for you and what do you want your athletes to take from this program? “Ultimately, I hope my athletes can get something out of the program that will better the opportunity for their future.” What was your most successful season of basketball? “Two of the most successful seasons were back to back in 2007 and 2008. In 2007, the team lost in the MAC game and in 2008, the team lost at the buzzer in the playoffs.

Do you have any regrets? “I regret not being a better coach for the guys I have and also regret not having better seasons.” —Mary Munion ’11 23

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How does it feel to be honored with this achievement? “I am proud of what was accomplished here; however passing the record is a byproduct of having great players and support.”

After all of your years at Juniata College, what do you take from coaching the athletes you have been blessed with? “The quality of people we get here, as I see the type of kid who wants to come to Juniata—driven, goaloriented—all of these things remind me of how fortunate I am. I’m looking forward to getting back to where we were in previous years, continuous growth, consistently being in the playoffs, and sustaining a level of success.”


Jo

e n u T , p U in

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The Juniata College Orchestra and Altoona Symphony Orchestra rehearse together in Altoona’s historic Mishler Theater.

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Playing in Perfect


Up, Move Up an Ensemble is Accompaniment to Juniata Education

By John Wall

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2010 Spring-Summer

Photography: J.D. Cavrich


B

Baton poised in mid-air, the conductor bows her head slightly, as though gathering her thoughts, and snaps her head and her arms up, cueing the music as the orchestra swells to the otherworldly sounds of “The Planets.” Teresa Cheung, conductor of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra, is not only creating an aural portrait of Gustav Holst’s tone poem to the galaxy, she also is expanding the musical universe for Juniata students.

Above, in a meeting of the maestros, Jim Latten, director of the Juniata Orchestra, and Teresa Cheung, artistic director of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra, interact at a rehearsal for a combined performance of Gustav Holst’s The Planets. The concerts were made possible by a gift from Marlene ’62 and Barry ’65 Halbritter.

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At right, cellist Matt Bailey ’10, of East Petersburg, Pa., with Altoona symphony bassist Ian Saunders, concentrates on a particularly intense movement of the Holst work.

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In an unprecedented musical collaboration, members of the College’s orchestra played two concerts with the musicians from the Altoona, Pa. ensemble: one at Altoona’s historic Mishler Theater (April 10) and another at Rosenberger Auditorium on April 11. The concerts cap an extraordinary run of accomplishment for the College’s instrumental music program that began in 2004 with the 100th anniversary of the College orchestra, and culminates with the 75th anniversary (which was celebrated at Alumni Weekend June 11-13) of the Juniata “Band,” a musical group that has morphed over the decades from a stage ensemble, to marching band, to Wind Symphony and Jazz Ensemble. Although Juniata does not offer a music major, more and more students are coming to campus intent on keeping music an instrumental part of their college experience. “We have a couple students who play at a junior high level and we have a couple students who could have studied music anywhere they wanted to,” says James Latten, associate professor of music. “We want the music program to be a place where they can get away from the pressure of books, labs and tests, but I also want to bring these students together in whatever (ensemble) they play in and bring them to the next level—sometimes without them knowing it.”


2010 Spring-Summer

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In addition to the choir program, which has been a steadily superb musical program almost since its inception more than 78 years ago, Juniata has sought to create a musical experience for students that also complements the College’s academic mission. Because Juniata has never had a music major or POE, playing in a College ensemble has always been a personal choice for students. “I didn’t play my freshman year because I thought I would be too busy,” says Matt Bailey ’10, from East Petersburg, Pa. Bailey, who plays the double bass in the orchestra, also runs cross country and track and is involved in biochemistry research. “I played music my whole life and when you let it go for a while, you start to miss it.” Perhaps because the instrumental programs at the College are not designed to be the focal point of a student’s life, participation in the various ensembles is reaching a crescendo. “In all, about 10 percent of the student body is in the band or the orchestra,” Latten says. “Typically, at colleges or universities, that figure is about 1 to 3 percent.” Of course at institutions that have a music degree program, students are expected to play in various ensembles, attend countless solo practice sessions and carve out time for many rehearsals. By keeping time commitments manageable, Latten believes the

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A

“A solid music program gives

students a chance to develop

their musicality while earning a degree in another field.

Unlike some of my friends

from band in high school, who went to universities where groups were open only to music majors, I was able to continue to play.”—Doug Schunk ’04


instrumental ensembles have gained players eager to continue their musical careers. “The magic number is about 3½ hours a week for rehearsal,” Latten explains. “If I required more, we might sound better, but we would lose players.” Although there is some attrition from freshman year through graduation, not many Juniata musicians get out of tune with the program. Since 2002, the Wind Symphony has grown from 24 players to 87 and members of the orchestra string sections increased from eight performers to 35. Latten drummed up enough interest from percussionists to increase their number from three to 14. “That’s about a 391 percent increase,” Latten says. “Instead of trying to survive in a chemistry class of 200 students I found strong friendships with many of the band members, which includes meeting my future wife,” says Doug Schunk ’04, a Juniata percussionist who teaches chemistry at State College Area High School and currently coaches the drumline for the school’s band. (Doug’s wife, then Renae Watkins ’04, was a trumpeter for Juniata.) “A solid music program gives students a chance to develop their musicality while earning a degree in another field. Unlike some of my friends from band in high school, who went to universities where groups were open only to music majors, I was able to continue to play.” Besides orchestrating a ready-made social circle, Juniata musicians also earn one fine arts credit per

semester. Students each week must attend a two-hour rehearsal for whatever group they perform with, as well as a one-hour instrumental section rehearsal. “Being part of the band probably helps socially but I think it differs between the sections, “(The saxophonists) are really close,” says Abby Kress ’10, an alto sax player from Lancaster, Pa. “We also don’t have ‘chairs’ (that signify levels of talent) because it helps give us a sense of unity and it’s not as competitive.” Such explosive growth in numbers does not just come out of nowhere. Latten admits that during his first year in 2002, he waited for students to come in as players. He got eight bodies. He knew he had to channel his inner Woody Hayes, or rather Woody Herman, and start recruiting.

Stephanie Schmid ’13 was chosen to play French horn in the combined Juniata and Altoona ensembles. About 50 students were able to play in the two concerts featuring both groups. Center and right: Steve Schmitt ’11, of New Providence, Pa., played clarinet for The Planets and switched to cello for another composition during the concert. Monica McGrath ’13, of Warrington, Pa., plays in the violin section as Destiny Waller, a Huntingdon Middle School student, plays in the background.

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Jim Latten, associate professor of music at the College, conducted the Juniata Orchestra at the concert. Here he conducts the Aaron Copland piece, Outdoor Overture. Latten also plays percussion in the Altoona Symphony Orchestra.

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“I now get a list from Enrollment of all the incoming students who have an interest in music,” Latten explains. “Then I call all their music teachers to check on their skill levels and then I cold-call the students. Our yield has gone up from about 15 players per year to about 50.” Convincing music students to attend Juniata turns out to be as specialized as athletic recruitment. However, instead of looking for a quarterback who can throw a 70yard spiral, Latten is looking for students proficient at the double bass, oboe and the bassoon. “Double reed players are in short supply,” Latten says. (Note for parents seeking scholarships: high school students who excel at the oboe or bassoon can probably get a full-ride scholarship to many universities and some colleges without searching very hard—if they want to major in music.) Performing in the Wind Symphony and Orchestra are not the only options for musical students. They also play in the Jazz Ensemble, the Percussion Ensemble and four instrumental quartets: string, brass, saxophone and woodwind. Seniors can go solo too, performing a recital. Recent recitals include flutist Erica Rhodes ’08, clarinetists Allyson Edington ’12 (of Aaronsburg, Pa.) and Stephen Schmitt ’11 (of New Providence, Pa.), and cellist Katerina Korch ’11 (of Shillington, Pa.). Students who want to explore musicianship more deeply can take one-credit private lessons for a $335 fee per semester, which works out to about $45 an hour. 30

Adjunct instructors deliver lessons in guitar, strings, piano, woodwinds, brass, even jazz improvisation. And unlike larger music programs, every so often Latten gets hit with problems Leonard Bernstein never dreamed of. “Last year all the trombones studied abroad at the same time and this year my entire bass section runs cross country so we have to be careful to schedule concerts that don’t conflict with races or games, especially in championship season,” Latten says. Bailey agrees, recalling, “My sophomore year we had a cross country meet in the morning and my parents had to drive the orchestra members back.” “We were literally running to get to the concert on time.” Juniata’s low-key approach to music often tips the scales for prospective students who are considering the College for its science programs or humanities POEs because it allows the players to continue their musical careers without forcing a compromise to their career goals. Latten points out that many high school musicians often are high academic achievers as well, which makes them a good fit at the College. “If you walked into a high school and looked for the smart kids, sure you’d go into AP Physics, but you’d also look in the choir, the band and the orchestra,” he explains. “Music is as academic as anything else, because you are training the mind and the body.” That is not to say that everything in Juniata’s music


L

“Last year all the trombones studied abroad at the same

time and this year my entire bass section runs cross country so we have to be careful to schedule concerts

that don’t conflict with races or games, especially in championships season.” —James Latten, associate professor of music

Caroline White ’13, from Chambersburg, Pa., plays next to Altoona Symphony Orchestra member Herb McKinstry, who also happens to be a lecturer in music at Juniata.

program is high-minded and abstruse. After all, student musicians regularly play in the PVC Pipe Ensemble, a sort of Rotor Rooter-Meets-Ringo Starr drumming group. “It’s a different way of looking at music,” says Katy Vanderau ’10, a percussionist who occasionally plays with the group. “Not a lot of people here have heard that kind of music—outside of the Blue Man Group.” Whatever the musical style, Latten is willing to have the ensembles perform it if enough students ask for it. Vanderau remembers asking if the group could play some Aaron Copland (“He wrote great percussion parts”) and was pleased when it appeared in the concert repertoire. This year Latten put together a World Percussion group because a student group wanted to explore those rhythms. Searching out such new and varied musical experiences is the essence of the Juniata instrumental music program, whether by quirky and challenging repertoire, playing alongside symphonies and guest artists, or by performing music ranging from Rhapsody in Blue to The Pink Panther. Ultimately, students keep sitting in on the program because Juniata makes it easy to continue playing their instrument and deliver high-level performances. “I secretly want to be the demanding conductor because I am a perfectionist, but the students don’t want that—they want a performance they can be proud of,” Latten says with a smile. “The key is to bring the students up to a series of levels of perfection—and that’s really how a good coach, a good teacher or a good conductor should work.” >j<

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By John Wall Photography: J.D. Cavrich

rofessors of Notes Faculty Stay in Tune with Their Musical Backgrounds

While Juniata is hardly the sort of “hey, let’s put on a show” campus folks associate with the television shows Glee or High School Musical—where teachers are more likely to belt out Defying Gravity than exploring Newton’s Second Law—many faculty on campus can rock the house, pedagogically speaking of course. Not all the professors who can play an instrument are pictured here (we left out all the music faculty because it’s their job to play or sing), but it’s a good cross section of performing profs. Oh yes, we threw in the Blues Brothers, too. After all, the College’s founders were all soul men, too.

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= video on juniata.edu/extra 32


Jill Keeney, Goodman-Rockwell Professor of Biology “My husband Marty and I were both involved in music from the time we met, married and started a family. I think we both find it to be a relaxing challenge. Once our children reached elementary school and started an instrument, we bought trio and quartet music that we could all play together as the ‘Keeney Brass.’ With full time teaching and raising a family, I would not be playing if I didn’t have the opportunity to play on campus. And playing with students that you know from class adds to the social fun.”

At various times French horn players and scientists Jay Hosler and Jill Keeney have played with the Juniata Orchestra and other ensembles. Tara Fitzsimmons ’00, a mobile science educator with Science in Motion, plays clarinet with the Wind Symphony and the Orchestra.

Larry Mutti, professor of geology

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“Music is enormously significant in my life. Music, even if I create it solely for my own personal and private ‘enjoyment,’ meets so many personal needs. It gives me a creative outlet, it energizes me, it calms me when I am distressed or agitated, it allows me to vent my rage, it provides inspiration and motivation, it allows me to dig deeply into my emotions and feel them more intensely and at the same time to arrive at emotional or


spiritual closure. Music is my poetry, sometimes it is my vision or my way forward. It is a respite from my normally harried, fragmented, intensely analytical, and sometimes confrontational day-to-day activity. There is the opportunity to learn discipline, to develop a sense of responsibility to and for others, to feel that one played a role in creating something bigger, more dramatic, more profound than one can pull off by one’s self.”

Grace Fala, professor of communication “Music was my faithful friend and confidante. Music saved my life. And that’s not an exaggeration. What was once my musical ‘diary’ has become more of a philosopher’s ‘journal.’ Sometimes the students want to run away from me (when I’m playing), as far as they can. They wonder ‘Who is that wild, wacky woman playing the blues?’ If I play for a class, I intentionally wait until the end of the semester, when students know me better. Nonetheless, I think it’s important that they see faculty in ‘playful’ mode.”

Ben Sunderland, professor of mathematics

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“Music feeds my soul. It sometimes seems as vital as air, food, and water. While playing in instrumental ensembles, the usual verbal communication is replaced by a language that stands apart from the ordinary, and often stands above it. I spent a lot of years at Penn State, attended more than 1,000 class sessions (mostly mathematics) and taught almost that many. But when I think back to my days in ‘Happy Valley’ the memories that invariably come to mind involve choir rehearsals, concerts, our collaborations with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the special people I met there.”

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Kim Roth, associate professor of mathematics “Music is a nice change of pace from what I do professionally. I chose my undergraduate institution, Oberlin, partially because of its strong music program despite that I had no intention of majoring in music. I think anything that expands the students’ notion of a faculty member from someone in a classroom to someone with a life and outside interests makes them more approachable.”

Loren Rhodes, Dale Chair in Information Technology “Music, starting with piano lessons at age 6, has always been a part of my growing up and church life. I knew early on that music wouldn’t be a vocation but an avocation. Computers have been my passion since high school, of course, and in a way, now that nearly all recorded music is digital, the two have merged back together.”

Above: Perhaps channeling a Mariachi band, or at the very least a wandering troupe of troubadors, guitarists Grace Fala, Andy Murray, Henry ThurstonGriswold and Larry Mutti entertain a group of students at Baker Refectory. Fala and Thurston-Griswold often bring their guitars into the classroom as an educational aid. Left: Math professors Ben Sunderland and John Bukowski work out the geometry of playing side by side. Sunderland often plays piano at College events and Bukowski recently performed a solo recital on piano.

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2010 Spring-Summer

Right: Loren Rhodes, Dale Chair in Information Technology, and Kim Roth, associate professor of mathematics, seek to find the right key for mixing piano and pedagogy.


Tara Fitzsimmons ’00, Science in Motion mobile educator “Music has been part of my life since I began playing the clarinet in fifth grade. I can’t imagine being without it! During college, playing with the wind symphony provided me with a class that was enjoyable and relaxing. I could go to rehearsal and enjoy my time there without feeling guilty about not studying during that time.”

Andy Murray, Baker Professor Emeritus of Peace and Conflict Studies “Working together to create something, especially when it produces fruit that nourishes the spirit, is a joyful experience. We all bring different levels of talent and expertise to a joint musical effort but when what we contribute actually works, that is when the fun begins. Whether the final product is beautiful, raucous or simply swings, it is there for the moment, then it is gone, and life seems a little sweeter for it.”

Henry Thurston-Griswold, professor of Spanish “I never seriously considered making a career out of music, at least not for very long, but making and listening to beautiful music with others is one of the great joys of life for me. Although I have had a lot of fun leading the Madrigal carol sing and performing in coffee houses or other campus events, I actually use music in Spanish for teaching. Music is a wonderful tool for motivating students, but it also can be used in world language classes to help students develop their listening comprehension skills, improve their pronunciation, explore various aspects of the target culture, as well as to practice and reinforce a variety of grammar points.”

Dom Peruso, associate professor of accounting “I’m fortunate that I have both a vocation and an avocation I enjoy. There seems to be a strong and direct correlation between my involvement in music and my overall enjoyment of life. It mirrors life and work in that music can be

Left: Murray and Mutti (hey that’s a great name for a showbiz act!) enthrall a table of Baker diners with their music. Center: Accounting professor Dom Peruso gets down to business behind his drum kit. Peruso plays in a heavy metal band in his free time.

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Right: Striking a very album cover-like pose, Three Quarter Blues is a band comprised of mostly Juniata-based employees, including, from left, Phil Dunwoody, associate professor of psychology; Jeremy Santos, manager of Follett’s Juniata Bookstore; Dan Cook-Huffman, assistant dean of students; Jon Guyer ’09, a local musician and producer; and Hal McLaughlin, general manager Sodexo (food services). 36


guy who also plays the drums. Many of our students tend to be lots of different things besides being a student—musician, athlete, club leader, actor, employee, roommate, etc.”

Dan Cook-Huffman, assistant dean of students “For me, music is one of those timeless, creative activities that simultaneously brings pleasure to both the performer and the listener. I love the camaraderie of playing with friends and colleagues and I love to play for a familiar audience. Music feeds my soul in a way it is not fed otherwise.”

creative, fun, technical, spontaneous, mellow, aggressive, exploratory, happy, and depressing. A faculty colleague upon learning I played drums in a heavy metal band referred to music as my dark side. I would argue it’s my light side. Often it can be a conversation starter for a new student and me. I’m not just a faculty advisor but a

Jeremy Santos, manager of the Juniata bookstore “Music can be a common language between young and old. I’m always pleased to see that many incoming students enjoy the music I grew up with.” >j<

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ď‚š= video on juniata.edu/extra

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Soul Men: On a Mission from Founders Comin’ To You, On a Dust Road, Good Learning, They Got a Truckload: Channeling the soul of Sam and Dave and the charisma of Jake and Elwood Blues, Andy

Murray, left, and President Tom Kepple (Provost Jim Lakso, the third Blues Brother, is off frame in this photo) entertain the students on All Class Night with an adept take on classic soul music. To see more photos from the Blues Brothers tribute, go to www.juniata.edu/extra. Photography: Alex Loughran ’12

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Ready,

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Willing and Able New GI Bill Helps Juniata Welcome Student Veterans By John Wall

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This description can be applied to more and more students walking through the hallways at Juniata as many more veterans from the United States armed forces are taking advantage of the revamped Post-9/11 GI Bill, the latest incarnation of the veteran’s educational benefit conceived in the aftermath of World War II. That benefit helped the Greatest Generation achieve greatness. “I was surprised by how affordable (Juniata) was,” says Chad Davis ’11, a former U.S. Army Ranger sergeant from Wellsboro, Pa. studying math. “I was intrigued by going to a private college because I was looking for the added value of personal attention. I also was looking to (graduate) with no debt.” In recent years, the College has had perhaps one veteran a year work toward a degree on campus. That has been quickly changing in the past 18 months. Combining the increased educational benefits of the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Program for Area Residents (PAR), a Juniata program that offers half-off tuition to returning students from the counties surrounding Huntingdon who have been out of school for five years or more, has created a great opportunity for vets who seek Juniata’s unique blend of experiential education and personal interaction with faculty and students. 41

2010 Spring-Summer

Photo: Ellen Santa Maria ’12

earing a nondescript brown hoodie, jeans and sneaks, he looks no different than the 700 or so male students on campus. But once you talk to him, clues emerge. There’s a confidence and sureness of manner—an ease with people—not usually seen in the typical college student. There is a command of opinion, revealing that this is someone used to being listened to.


“(The vets) are much more mature and focused as students and I think they see education as a gift rather than an entitlement,” says Athena Frederick, Juniata’s registrar and the College’s point person for veterans’ issues. Up until several years ago, Juniata, and indeed almost all private colleges, did not attract many veterans because the existing veterans benefits often did not cover the cost of tuition. During the past 30 years—particularly as tuition levels for private and public institutions rose— veterans tended to flock to state universities, in part because they were more affordable, but also because public institutions generally had veterans affairs offices able to handle administrative requests and problems. “When veterans saw the (sticker price) of a private college they tended to go to publics, but there also was a perception that private college was unattainable,” Frederick says. “With the new GI Bill, if the student and a college are a good match, they should be able to afford most colleges.”

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Athena Frederick, Juniata registrar and the point person for veterans on campus, talks with two Juniata students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill to attend college. Adam Steele ’13, (center) served in the U.S. Army and is studying information technology, and Ben Souders ’13, served in the U.S. Navy and plans to earn a degree in wildlife conservation.

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Making private colleges more attainable to privates, corporals and other veterans changed with the unveiling of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Taking effect Aug. 9, 2009, the benefits include:  The Veteran’s Administration will pay the costs of tuition and fees equal to the most expensive in-state undergraduate tuition at a public institution.  Veterans receive a monthly housing allowance based on the geographic location of the college or university.  A stipend of $1,000 is paid for books and supplies. Today’s veterans also are eligible for the Yellow Ribbon Program, an offshoot program that allows approved colleges and universities to make up part or all of the tuition that might be higher than the most expensive in-state institution. The institution can contribute funds to cover the tuition and the VA will match up to 50 percent of the same amount. Valerie Rennell, director of student financial planning, explains the program simply, using roundedup figures. In Pennsylvania, the most expensive instate tuition is Penn State at nearly $15,000. Juniata’s tuition is almost $30,000. The 9/11 GI Bill covers $15,000 of the tuition. Under the Yellow Ribbon program, Juniata would additionally contribute $7,500 and the VA matches $7,500, essentially zeroing out the veteran’s expenses. If the veteran is eligible for the PAR program, which reduces Juniata’s rounded off tuition to $15,000, the veteran doesn’t have to bring the Yellow Ribbon benefits into play. “The way it works out makes a private college education very affordable,” Rennell explains. “I knew I would get a more specialized education at Juniata,” says Adam Steele ’13, a former U.S. Army telecommunications specialist from Huntingdon, Pa. who served in Iraq. “I think the liberal arts approach is close to the service experience. Seeing the world and visiting other cultures made me appreciate education. When I was younger I might not have been that focused on education.” Once on campus, however, veterans are much more focused on classwork and homework than many of the underclassmen, partly because as PAR students or adult students they don’t live on campus and participate less


“Under the Yellow Ribbon program, Juniata would contribute $7,500 and the VA matches $7,500, essentially zeroing out the veteran’s expenses.”

in the activities and social life of the College. In general, student-veterans have already experienced dorm life in barracks and have lived with roommates during their time in service, so the socialization college life offers younger students is not as important to the former soldiers. “I was used to having people working for me and now that role has been reversed,” says Ben Souders ’13, of Maddensville, Pa. Souders served as a naval special warfare operator in the U.S. Navy from 2000 to 2009 and served in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Panama, Spain and many U.S. postings. “I’m used to being held to a high standard where if you don’t perform they get rid of you. (At Juniata) they really hold you to high standards too.” Most of the returning veterans on the Juniata campus have connections to the area, either as Huntingdon County natives or as residents of the surrounding counties. Michelle Bartol ’84, dean of enrollment, says Juniata is now attracting students with military backgrounds that previously would have gone to Penn State. “Juniata is set up for students to live on campus as undergraduates, so I don’t think we are going to get a lot of veterans from outside the area, but I do think we will attract more returning adult students who are originally from here.” “(At Juniata) there are very few unmotivated students,” says Davis, who attended a public university before transferring to the College. “The students have a lot of pride in being here.” While the veterans on campus also have great pride in attending Juniata, most prefer to keep a low profile in classes and on campus. Davis has joined Null Set, the math club, and Steele works as an information technology technician. “I did go and watch the Storming of the Arch,” Steele says, laughing. And, while older than almost all their fellow classmates, most vets blend in, effectively forgoing wearing uniform items or paraphernalia. It helps that some still look like students.

Chad Davis ’11, a U.S. Army veteran, will earn a degree in math. He hasn’t decided if he will continue on to graduate school, the working world, or re-enter the military as an officer.

“Everybody’s surprised when they find out my age,” says Souders, who left the service as a Petty Officer First Class and now is working toward a degree in wildlife conservation. “The guys in the Navy used to kid me about looking young, and now it’s helping me out.” The new education benefits package has also made it easier for small colleges to monitor and administer benefits. Up through the Vietnam War, the Veteran’s Administration had administrative offices where veterans had to track their progress and maintain paperwork files. These days veterans’ benefits applications and administrative forms are all online. “The online element means we have to notify the VA of each student’s progress every month, (whereas) before we would notify the VA at the end of the year that the student was still in good standing,” says Frederick, who is Juniata’s point person on veteran’s benefits. “That takes a bit more time for us, but it helps the VA track how well the students are doing.” The website also is intended to make the process of applying for benefits less confusing while making it easier for veterans to apply to the college of their choice. As for veterans enrolled at Juniata, few, if any, regret their choice. “The people here really make an effort to be helpful,” Souders says. “It feels as though they want you to learn, but they’re not going to just hand it to you. They’re giving us the tools to make it.” >j<

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Photos: J.D. Cavrich

—Valerie Rennell, director of student financial planning


Pare

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Astrid and Bob Lehmann have to keep hopping to serve all the inquiries about Juniata at a College fair held at a high school in Long Island, N.Y. The Lehmanns are the parents of current Juniata student Kyra Lehmann ’11. 44


rents Know Best By John Wall Photography: J.D. Cavrich (unless noted)

Mom-and-Pop Marketing Brings Juniata to Prospective Students

2010 Spring-Summer

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The Lehmanns are part of a growing team of Juniata parents who have volunteered to work a booth at a College Fair, host an accepted students reception, or work in other ways to get students to experience the same Juniata benefits their children have.

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T he bell rings and students pour into the cafeteria space like tourists off a cruise ship. But instead of looking for dutyfree leather goods, these shoppers are looking for colleges. As in most college fairs, representatives from more than 30 institutions anxiously await inquiries from the high schoolers looking for their dream college. At Comsewogue High School, on New York’s Long Island, the scene is typical: gaggles of gabbing students wander around the booths, not really engaging the counselors. Suddenly a bit of order emerges from the throng of milling students. There’s a line forming at the Juniata booth. Soon it’s five people deep and there are so many seniors and juniors filling out Juniata information cards that the spillover has spread to two or three adjacent booths.


Most people are looking for a college where their child is not going to fall through the cracks,” explains Astrid. Bob adds, “We know the demographics of the local high schools, what kind of kids go there and what the strengths and weaknesses of all the colleges are.

The Lehmann’s were so impressed at their daughter’s experience at Juniata that they have asked to maintain a regular schedule of College Fair events in Long Island and New York. Bob even suggested Juniata air an enrollment commercial during a high school football event.

at events is a good idea because our parents can talk to people who have already worked through the process and that’s an advantage.” Astrid agrees, saying, “It’s not about reciting facts to people, it’s about making a human connection.” Making connections using enthusiastic volunteers like the Lehmanns is only the latest and most widespread of the parent-centered initiatives used by the College to spread positive buzz among prospective students, high school counselors and other parents. The idea evolved over time, with no one “eureka moment,” but just a gradual realization that few people are more enthusiastic about what their children are doing than parents. After all, they’ve ferried their kids to every appointment, seen every game, signed every permission slip and bragged 47

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A counselor from a competing college sidles over and asks one of the Juniata reps, “Do you guys have a quota or what?” “Just trying to get the name out there,” replies the friendly counselor. Incredibly the same scene above plays out at two more Long Island high schools, as the casual observer sees a lot of competing college counselors noshing bagels and talking to each other and more and more students engaging the Juniata booth. The College’s reaction? Give them a raise! We can’t, they don’t work here. The two counselors staffing the Long Island fairs are Bob and Astrid Lehmann, a 30-year police officer and a nurse-turnedschool administrator respectively, who were so impressed by the experience their daughter Kyra ’11 is having at Juniata that they decided to volunteer for the College. Many colleges and universities use alumni who live in an enrollment target area to work college fairs, but Juniata has realized that parents not only have a unique perspective that other parents and their children can identify with, they also have an up-to-the-minute knowledge of the campus that outstrips even College enrollment staff. “Most people are looking for a college where their child is not going to fall through the cracks,” explains Astrid, who has worked countless College events with Bob, as well as solo stints and one with Kyra, a field hockey athlete and education POE. “We know the demographics of the local high schools, what kind of kids go there and what the strengths and weaknesses of all the colleges are,” Bob adds. Although the Lehmanns had never heard of Juniata before Kyra decided to consider the College (In fact, Kyra had committed to another college before deciding that Juniata was the right place for her.), once they came to campus for orientation, they were mightily impressed. Bob was taken with the immaculate facilities and Astrid liked the safety and caring atmosphere of the campus. Almost as an afterthought, Bob signed up to be a Juniata ambassador during Juniata’s orientation. Within a few months the Lehmanns were outambassadoring Hillary Clinton. Bob and Astrid visited counselors and staffed college fairs; Bob even notified the marketing office of an advertising possibility during a televised Long Island high school football game of the week and the College aired four commercials to huge sports-oriented audiences. It didn’t stop when Bob went to work. He talked Juniata up to his fellow policemen on the Suffolk County Police. Rebekah Bennett ’11, of Rocky Point, N.Y., considered Juniata largely because Bob rhapsodized about the College to her dad, gave him tons of literature and talked to Rebekah at an informal meeting. “He knew all the students and he’s a really comfortable person to talk to,” Bennett says. “Having a parent (ambassador)


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Juniata parents Darlee and Amy Sill, both attorneys in Hollidaysburg, Pa., answer questions as mentors at Career Day. They are the parents of student David Sill ’12.

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Parent participation is not limited to college fairs. Elaine Swaintek, mother of Rebecca Swaintek ’13

of Alburtis, Pa., held an accepted student reception in her home, and Marcia Sloat, mother of Scott Sloat ’10, of Ridgefield, Conn., has done college fairs and helped recruit other parents for volunteer opportunities as well. If parents know of a college fair or college event in their area, Bartol encourages them to call the College to attend an event. Juniata will provide literature, indentification tags and other materials, the parents are just required to bring their knowledge and enthusiasm. If parents would like to volunteer, Bartol asks that they call their child’s admission counselor or Tara DelBaggio at (814) 641-3434 or e-mail delbagt@juniata.edu. In some cases, particularly in areas far removed from Pennsylvania, parents have teamed up with alumni to participate in recruiting events. Lou Browdy ’63, a computer support specialist in the University of California-Santa Barbara accounting office, recently spent a day at a college fair event with Diane Satterthwaite, mother of Erin Satterthwaite ’10, of Santa Barbara, Calif. Browdy had met Erin on campus at his class reunion and he cold-called Diane to see if she wanted to help him out at a local college night. “I was a little apprehensive at first, but once I got there and saw the people from other colleges answering questions, I started to get excited about it,” Diane recalls. “We did draw a lot of people away from the booths, I think because we looked very approachable.” The use of parents as surrogate marketers is not particularly new and Juniata only recently started its parents program. Katie Dickey ’97, assistant director of alumni relations and director of the parents program, says the College started the program in 2006 and named its first Parents Council in April 2009. “What’s unique about Juniata’s parents program is that we are working to engage parents with what’s happening on campus right now,” she says. “Last fall, we studied parents programs on a number of other campuses and found that most parent councils or

Photos (left) Timothy Carn ’12; (center) Andrew Meloney ’10

about every achievement. If a student is successful at Juniata, who is going to crow that from the rooftop? Not the kid, that’s for sure. “Their sons and daughters are current students so they’re well-versed on what’s happening on campus,” says Tara DelBaggio, associate director of admissions, who has participated in enrollment events with Carri Cohen, mother of Lauren Cohen ’12, of Short Hills, N.J. “Carri knew every third person at the event and she had recently gone through the process of enrollment, so she could give very specific answers to parents’ questions.” Mrs. Cohen represented Juniata at six college fairs and has made phone calls to prospective students. Juniata’s enrollment office started recruiting parents in the summer orientations in 2008 and has built up its list of volunteers slowly. Michelle Bartol ’84, dean of enrollment, says that students tend to react to parents or enrollment counselors similarly, whereas other parents find it easier to relate to other parents. It’s that camaraderie or instant connection that helps sell the College, but at the same time, the enrollment office wants their parental initiative to remain informal. “The Lehmanns do their events because it’s fun for them,” explains Ryan Hollister ’08, who works with the Lehmanns in his Long Island, N.Y. recruiting territory. “We don’t want to take that away by saying ‘You’re required to do (x amount) of events.’”

Bruce Moyer ’74, father of Juniata graduate Brittany Moyer ’09, participated in a Parent’s Panel focused on how to help students make the transition from home to college.


It’s the Wheel Thing

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hile the idea to incorporate parents into Juniata events and programs is relatively new, colleges and universities have been holding alumni-related events and program since the days university graduates paid their tuition in guilders or some other Renaissance currency. Leave it to Juniata to modernize this classic process by, well, inventing “The Wheel.” “The Wheel” is sort of a shorthand way of describing how the College is building the Juniata Network by revamping the structure of the College’s regional alumni clubs. “In the past regional clubs were much more focused on event planning—happy hours, picnics, taking in a baseball game,” explains David Meadows ’98, assistant director of alumni relations. “These events were fun but it didn’t really help us build a network that not only benefits the College but also benefits the alumni in the regional clubs.” Using the JC-DC Alumni Club, Meadows and other members of the alumni office have established an organizational model in which a leadership team of 15 members are divided into six committees, each designed to address as aspect of networking: recruitment, service, careers, social activities, athletics and an executive committee. The idea behind the new organization is still to organize events, but also to include some aspect of networking in individual events, or to schedule their own events based on their committee mission. “The recruitment committee can invite prospective students to an event or drop off information at a high school, the athletic committee can schedule an event around a nearby game, or the career committee can build a database of alumni contacts in the area,” Meadows says. “The most important piece of this model is that all these committees are expected to work together. Of course the social committee is still planning social events. We’re not getting rid of the fun, it’s just not the main focus.” While the JC-DC group is the laboratory for this effort, the concept will soon be expanded to all eight regional clubs over the next three years. And why is the idea called The Wheel? Because the organizational chart forms a circle—the simplest image is always the best.

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organizations were started and exist today as financial entities for donations. By engaging parents in the College community they can see the direct impact they are having on their son or daughter—which in turn will affect the College as a whole.” Dickey explains that Juniata tries to focus activities for parents into three areas: recruiting, mentoring and engagement. The work the Lehmanns and other parents are doing is the major part of the recruitment initiative, but one other project stands out as the “poster child” of the parents program. Starting this year, all 26 members of the Parents Council (12 couples, two individuals) asked their son or daughter to participate in the College’s poster project. The program uses photographs of current students and a cogent quote about Juniata from each person and designs a poster to be used in the counseling offices of their home high school. “All 26 members of the council participated with their student and at the end we gave them an 8-by-5 framed version of the photo,” Dickey says. The mentoring element of the program emerged at the spring Career Day, where more than 10 parents signed up, five of which were alumni. The event, which was divided into a mentoring section and an employment recruitment section, was staffed by current parents in both sections, including Bob Thomson ’78 and Audrey Seasholtz ’78, both professors at the University of Michigan; and Darlee Sill, a Hollidaysburg attorney and father of David Sill ’12, wrote two students letters of recommendation for Temple University Law School. Some of the events designed to engage parents are centered around Homecoming and Family Weekend. Dickey organized a Parents Panel Discussion (two couples and two individual parents) aimed at discussing how to deal with the transition from home to college and ways to help students cope with change. “We sent a letter to all our parents after the panel summarizing it,” Dickey explains. “Parents Council members also greeted people at the start of tours and we also had a parents table at each orientation.” While enlisting parents as agents for the joys of a Juniata education is akin to the recent advertising method known as “buzz marketing” (where people talk up products in social situations), the Juniata twist to the method uses satisfied customers to convince others that what they’re selling is indeed the best. “What you have to remember is that parents have a vested interest in how a college is educating their child,” says Diane Satterthwaite. “If you’re buying a car do you want to talk to a car salesman or someone who had owned and driven that car—it helps to talk to someone who has been through it.” >j<


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Jacob Martin Zuck and the Founding of Juniata College By Richard Mahoney, Professor of Peace Studies Illustration by: Grace Canfield ’10

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ow did the Brethren (traditionally opposed to higher education as representing a perilous road that led to arrogance and materialism) break with that tradition and begin establishing colleges after the Civil War—institutions that remain living, growing monuments to the moral idealism of a handful of men and women?

Was it because—having been ripped apart and scattered by their stubborn adherence to pacifism and abolitionism during that war—the Brethren chose to go mainstream thereafter, to create “our own forts, our own armies,” as one elder put it? Or was it something else, something that reached back 150 years to a potent current near the headwaters of their founding, Pietism? The small man hobbling down Mifflin Street in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on New Year’s Day, 1876 certainly didn’t look like a 19th century Dunker. He wore no beard, had plenty of buttons, and probably was sporting the alpaca coat he reserved for important meetings like the one he was going to, even if no one had invited him or even knew he was coming. Whatever may be said about Jacob Martin Zuck, one thing was certain: he was different—very different. Zuck, then 28, headed, uninvited and unannounced, to the 14th and Washington Street home of John Brumbaugh. He had come to pitch Brumbaugh on the idea of starting a college. Now. That particular dream had been bandied about for years by Brumbaugh’s brother, Henry, older cousin, Dr. A.B. Brumbaugh, and another reformist stalwart, James Quinter. But the timing was terrible, the problems difficult to overcome.

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Of the 18 Academies and Normals (teacher training colleges) started by the Brethren since the Civil War, every one had collapsed. After the Panic of 1873, the country remained mired in a major depression, with widespread bankruptcy and massive unemployment. Brumbaugh, who knew and admired Zuck, would later describe his idea of launching a college as “an absurd proposition.” Then, of course, there was the strange aspect of Zuck himself: he said he was Brethren but had no beard; and if his deformed hip be overlooked, John Brumbaugh, who knew him from their time together as students at the Millersville State Normal School (1868-70), must have also known about the rumors of his depression and nervous breakdowns. Zuck was, in the freighted term of his age, “frail.” But why not indulge the impassioned little man, Brumbaugh must have thought, if he was willing to do it anyway, that is to say, for free? Brumbaugh offered to advance him six-months of room and board. There was some empty space on the second floor of the “Pilgrim,” the Brumbaugh brothers’ building. So, why not?

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n terms of what later happened, it is worth describing the forbidding context in which this venture was being attempted. The German Baptist Brethren, while generally tolerant and humane on most subjects, traditionally abhorred higher education, which they equated with pride, social division, and the production (as in Germany, whence they hailed) of an arrogant and overreaching clergy. Quinter and the Brumbaughs had argued the case for colleges (as had Zuck) in two Brethren monthlies that they edited and published, the Pilgrim and the Gospel Visitor, to no avail. (The backlash over higher education was serious enough to split the Dunkers apart in 1881.) By 1876, when Zuck showed up, they were deeply discouraged, going nowhere. As Quinter and the Brumbaughs warmed to the idea after Zuck’s visit, the irrepressible school principal began sending them missives that were to prove enormously formative. Women would be admitted as students and hired as faculty. The normal college would be Brethren but “non-sectarian”, another absurdly radical stance inconsistent with every private American college founded between the Civil War and 1880. How could you raise the money, hire teachers, bring in students, find them work, and when times got tough not have an established series of loyal congregations to look to? But this was, in fact, what Zuck was proposing and the older men were, at least initially, acquiescing to. “I feel sure we need a school, and if you brethren go in sympathy and will stand by my work, I am willing to try it,” wrote Zuck.

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rriving in April four days before classes were to begin, Zuck found that instead of having 10 to 15 students, as he had been told, he had only three. John Brumbaugh at the end of the first day expressed his regrets. “I’m not scared,” replied Zuck. “And if these pupils leave, I will go out and compel others to come in.” It turned out that he didn’t have to. For if there was one thing Jacob Zuck could do—incandescently—it was to light up a room when he taught. The Normal College soon evidenced an abnormal curriculum drilled into the students with Zuck’s headlong style. It wasn’t just the range of subjects (six) that he taught them, but their depth. “The Human Form Divine” (Anatomy) required illustration from memory. In “Mental Science” (Psychology), Zuck’s lesson plan showed that they were studying the unconscious (even though this did not become academically respectable in America until 20 years later). Outside of anatomy, Zuck’s favorite course was drawing (he himself was a brilliant illustrator). The “Literary Society” he insisted on forming was the avenue by which his three students—and especially his “Dunker belles”—could learn to declaim and debate on the controversial subjects of the day. Huntingdon Normal (renamed the next year, Brethren’s Normal) promised students in print that it was dedicated to educate everyone “regardless of creed, sex or social distinctions.” If this were not sufficiently repugnant to Victorian ideas about race, class and religion in America, Zuck set forth in the first catalogue that there was “no spy or police system” at the school. Professors (thereby projecting himself in the plural) were “personal friends” of students. They would work with them, not “watch over them.” It is difficult for us to appreciate how incendiary such a posture was to both the elite and popular idea of colleges as authoritarian institutions dedicated to the preservation of virginity, temperance and a great raft of controlling paternalisms. To us, Zuck might seem clairvoyant—100 years ahead of his time—but his papers seem to reveal just the opposite: he was instead more than a century behind his time, a living and breathing avatar of Pietism. What must have stunned 19th century Pennsylvania had, in fact, a solid, if largely buried, theological base among the Brethren—radical Pietism, “the religion of the heart, not the head.” As Dr. Carl F. Bowman has noted, Brethren theologians of the 1960s liked to conclude that Anabaptism and Pietism had formed a concurrent. Bowman calls them instead a “cross-current.” The distinction is significant if one is to understand Zuck. >j<

Read the rest of Jacob Zuck’s story at: more➤ www.juniata.edu/extra


“I’m not scared, and if these pupils leave, I will go out and compel others to come in.” —Jacob Zuck

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Jacob Zuck was an influential teacher to Juniata’s first graduating class in 1879. Of the three graduates two became doctors and one became a teacher. They are, from left: Linnie Bosserman, a teacher; Gaius Brumbaugh, a doctor; and Phoebe Norris, another physician.


Faculty Feature

Juniata’s Music Professor In Tune with Students

By John Wall Photography: J.D. Cavrich

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Musicians are often a sum of their influences filtered through the prism of their own experience. The progression goes something like this: Muddy Waters begets Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry begets Keith Richards. Or for drummers: Gene Krupa begets Buddy Rich. Buddy Rich begets Keith Moon. Jim Latten, associate professor of music at Juniata, is a drummer. Some of his influences are listed above, but the important ones are far less famous and far more significant in completing the portrait of the percussionist as a young man. The road to Wellsville, N.Y., some miles west of Corning, is hardly a crammed throughway and the road leading out of town to the rural house where Jim Latten grew up is even more isolated. Growing up there, Jim did typical kid things; started a stamp collection, hung out with friends, started fooling around on a musical instrument. “One Christmas I got a chord organ, a real small keyboard that came with a music book, and I taught myself to read music,” Jim recalls. “I still have the song book. It has Misty, the George Harrison tune Something, and a lot of other ’70s era pop.” Music was not a major chord in the Latten household. Jim remembers his mother singing to him as a kid, but he can’t think of a single relative who played an instrument. Soon though, the little keyboard was replaced by a console organ in the living room and then—a fateful day with his dad shopping in the local five-and-ten store. “I remember looking up at this child’s drum set and I guess I must have kept looking at it because eventually my dad asked ‘Do you want that?’ and we brought it home,” Jim says. It takes a parent of great patience to willingly bring an entire drum set into a house, but once Jim had mastered the rhythm of percussion there was little discussion in the family about whether drumming was an apt choice. Then, when Jim scored highly on a standardized music test, it was decided that music lessons were in order. Before he knew it, Jim was playing in more bands than Eric Clapton: marching band, stage band—everything but a rock ‘n’ roll band. “I would have loved to be in a garage band, but it wasn’t in the cards for me to ask my dad to drive me to yet another band rehearsal,” he recalls. He did, however, 54


Jim Latten is a drummer by trade and he spends a good deal of his time drumming up enthusiasm for Juniata’s various instrumental ensembles. Here, he gives a marimba lesson to Katy Vanderau ’10. When he has some spare time, he also plays percussion in the Altoona Symphony Orchestra.

The answer was go to Penn State, where he worked with the Penn State Blue Band. As he earned his doctorate he also looked away from the football field and saw that the university’s concert bands offered a different musical experience. Even after his first post-Penn State job, as band director for the University of Dayton from 2000 to 2002, he was torn between the marching field and the concert hall. His concert hall inclinations were cemented by taking conducting lessons from Mark Scatterday, band director at Cornell University. “I never thought I’d walk off the field, but I asked myself if I really wanted to spend another fall out in the rain, the cold and the wind and put on a show for an audience who weren’t very interested in it,” he says. In 2003 when Juniata advertised its professor of music position, Jim decided to leave his marching shoes behind and take on a new challenge, increasing participation in Juniata’s band program. He was familiar with the College and had taught here as an adjunct during his Penn State days. His students seem to think he doesn’t miss the football stadiums much. “He’s a very thoughtful person and does a good job in picking pieces that give everybody a chance to play,” says Abby Kress ’10. “Like any conductor, as the concert gets closer he gets a little frantic, but he is really good to work with,” adds Katy Vanderau ’10. Despite a colorectal cancer health scare early in his tenure at Juniata that is fully in remission, Jim Latten has created a composition of contentment at the College. His wife Kelly is the choral teacher at Altoona Area High School and they have two children—Emily, 7, and Tyler, 6. Emily is a singer and Tyler is a drummer, showing an almost perfect genetic inheritance diagram. Jim’s daughter Bethany, of Cortland, N.Y., age 16, plays oboe and studies and teaches dance. After a lifetime of following his own influences, he’s content to influence others. >j<

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master the rock ‘n’ roll attitude—by writing a letter to the superintendent of schools outlining why the administrator should buy the high school a drum kit. “He called me into his office—I expected to be in trouble—and he picks up the phone and orders the drum kit,” he laughs. By his senior year in high school he had not decided on going to college—after all, no one in his family had pursued higher education—until he met the new band director at his high school. Taking the place of an older band director who had retired, the teacher deeply influenced Jim’s idea of music education. “His personality was great and how he related to us made me think, ‘This would be a nice career if I could be like this guy.’ He told me I should audition for college music programs.” Jim’s musical path led him to Mansfield University (then a college), a Pennsylvania college near the New York border. They had a music major program and a marching band. He was lead drummer in the marching drumline, which helped him hone the teaching techniques he was learning in coursework—except his classroom was mobile. Jim’s career was on the move as well. He was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Indiana—considered one of the best band music programs in the country—where he wrote all the drum parts for the 30 percussionists in the 290-member band. All of a sudden, Jim’s classroom had turned into Big Ten football stadiums. At the same time he was in college and graduate school, the would-be music maestro had been invited to play in the Empire Statesmen Drum Corps and later the Garfield Cadets, where he participated in the group’s 1985 national championship, an influential experience Jim characterizes as, “like someone calling me and asking if I want to be the kicker for the New Orleans Saints. It was there I learned about excellence in music-making.” After Indiana, Jim achieved his dream of leading and teaching a high school band program. He taught in the New York school system for 10 years and eventually started inviting college bands to perform at his high school. He saw college band directors doing more with music and creating dazzling shows and thought “What do I need to do to teach in college?”


Faculty Notes

W

hen we ask, So What—we’re not being rude. It started when we asked the faculty to explain a little more about the work they do in research, developing courses, consulting, and the like.

We wanted the info behind the paper title, the story behind the curricular change, the life and the thinking that make Juniata profs as interesting as they are. Read on—

So What?

Juniata magazine: How did this project come about? Peruso: Steven was looking for an independent study project and I had a bunch of data from my doctoral research on higher ed finance. I’m looking at the relationship between tuition and financial condition. JM: How many colleges did you look at? DP: We used publicly available data from nearly 400 colleges during 1998-2007, which was right before our current financial downturn. JM: Did you find out trends that were interesting or odd? DP: Yes. All colleges took on more debt during that time, which we thought was because colleges were in a more competitive environment and they were “keeping up with the Joneses” by improving campuses and building new buildings.

of accounting, business and economics,

presented a paper, “Financial Condition of Private Colleges,” with Steven Liong Wee Kwong ’10 at the Social Challenges of the 21st Century Conference in February at Lebanon Valley College. The paper examined trends in tuition rates, tuition discount, tuition dependency, liquidity, leverage, operating results, and asset efficiency.

Peter Baran, associate professor of chemistry, gave an invited lecture on “How to Maintain Competitive Coordination Chemistry Undergraduate Research at a Liberal Arts College” at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah in March. Bethany Benson, assistant professor of art, had an artwork “Blue Stein,” featured in the March issue of Ceramics Monthly to illustrate an article on the “2009 History In The Making” exhibition at Genesee Pottery in Rochester, N.Y. Benson also had solo exhibition, “Intimate Interactions,” at Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh from March to September. Celia Cook-Huffman, Burkholder Professor of Conflict Resolution, was a panelist for “Divided Societies and Conflict Resolution: Does Theory Meet Practice?” at the BCA International Student Conference on Divided Societies in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in November 2009. Doug Glazier, professor of biology, received recognition for a paper (written with two co-authors) on metabolic rate scaling as a “must read” paper by the Faculty of 1000, an organization of top biologists reporting the best current papers in biology. Glazier, also (with two co-authors published a paper on metabolic rates in fishes in Ecology Letters. He also was invited to be a plenary speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Experimental Biology in Prague, Czech Republic in June.

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Richard Hark, professor of chemistry, published a paper (with two co-authors) on analyzing medieval and 56

The tuition discount also increased slowly over time. Juniata’s had been pretty high at the beginning of that period and the rest of the colleges caught up with us. All colleges became more tuition dependent over that time. That means they relied more on incoming tuition for their operating budgets. JM: Do you think having Steve work on a project on colleges made the assignment more interesting? DP: Steve worked in the finance office on campus and I do think it made things more tangible for him.

Renaissance manuscript cuttings using X-ray fluorescence and a Raman microscope in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Hark also published a paper (with two co-authors) on work he did at the Victoria & Albert Museum entitled “The Bourdichon Nativity: a masterpiece of light and colour,” in the 2010 V&A Conservation Journal. Jay Hosler, associate professor of biology, was invited to be a panelist for an online symposium sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences called Visual Culture and Evolution: An Online Symposium. Dennis Johnson, professor of environmental science and assistant provost, published a paper (with two co-authors) modeling several dam failures in the Proceedings of the 2010 American Water Resources Association GIS Specialty Conference in Orlando, Fla. in March. Pat Kepple, manager, Juniata College Press, in November 2009 was named to the Home Nursing Agency Huntingdon Advisory Committee for a three-year term. In January she was asked to rejoin the board of Huntingdon Area Habitat for Humanity and serve as co-chair of the Habitat’s fundraising committee for a two-year term. Jerry Kruse, associate professor of mathematics and computer science, was featured (with two other math professors) in the March issue of Change magazine in an article on Performance Task Academies. For a more inclusive list of faculty achievements, please go to extra➤ juniata.edu/extra.

Monika Malewska, assistant professor of art, exhibited artwork in the following shows: “Works on Paper,” at the 3rd Ward Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y.; “Between Realities,” Principle Gallery, Alexandria, Va.; “Mid Atlantic New Painting 2010,” J. Ridderhof Martin Gallery, University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Va.; “NURTUREart,” Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, N.Y.; “Invented Memories,” Anton Art Center, Mount Clemens, Mich.; and “22nd September Competition Exhibition,” Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, La. Malewska also published artworks in Direct Art Magazine in the Fall/Winter 2009 issue. Alexander McBride, professor emeritus of art, exhibited his paintings based on images from the Hubble Telescope at the State Theater in State College, Pa., in March. Jennifer Streb, assistant professor of art history, received a Marshall Fishwick Travel Grant to Popular Culture Studies/ American Culture Studies Research Collections to travel to Denver, Colo., to develop a traveling exhibition of the American artist Minna Citron’s paintings and prints. William Thomas, associate professor of information technology, received the First Place Award in the poster competition for “Using Virtualization in the Computer Lab to Solve Sticky Problems” at the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Eastern Conference at Villanova University.

Photos: (left) Jason Jones; (top & bottom right) J.D. Cavrich

Dominick Peruso, associate professor


So What?

Juniata magazine: When you’re asked to be a speaker at a meeting of scientists, what kind of presentation are you aiming for? Informative? Entertaining? Entertaining and informative? Buonaccorsi: I’m never entertaining (laughs). I’m a mechanisms man—I’m about how things work. My object for the talk was to present these technologies and talk about how they can be integrated into the undergraduate (biology) curriculum. JM: If you are presenting to both scientists and students do you make any allowances for the level of detail or information in the talk?

Vince Buonaccorsi, associate professor of biology, also was invited to be “Education Speaker” at the Allegheny Branch American Society for Microbiology meeting in November at the College, and gave a talk about a transformative technology for DNA and RNA sequencing.

Belle Tuten, Long Professor of History, presented “Crepuit medius: Privy Death and Justice in Medieval Monastic Literature,” at the 2010 International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Mich., in May. Tuten also co-edited a volume of essays, Feud, Violence and Practice: Essays in Medieval Culture in Honor of Stephen D. White. James Tuten, associate professor of history, published “ ‘Don’t Want to see no more... like that:’ Climate Change as a Factor in the Collapse of Lowcountry Rice Culture,

VB: You really make an assumption about the general level of biology knowledge. Most of the students at these meetings can understand what I would be talking about. The real story of the talk is the technologies. There’s really an incredible leap in sequencing DNA. Essentially you can sequence the human genome in about 15 minutes for about $100. At the talk, only one person fell asleep. If two fall asleep I usually try to tell a joke to wake everybody up. JM: What was the weirdest follow-up question to your talk? VB: This may have been the strangest question I’ve ever been asked. Some biologists asked if it was possible to DNA-sequence cat dung. Evidently they were doing a study on blue birds and their bluebirds were disappearing. They did find some cat dung in the area and wanted to test the dung to see if there was any bluebird DNA in it.

1893-1920,” in the book Historical Climate Variability and Impacts in North America. Jamie White, Book Professor of Physics, published a paper (with two co-authors), based on research by alumni Dan D’Orazio ’09, Justin Schultz ’08, Dan Sidor ’07, Michael Best ’06 and current student Kenneth Goodfellow ’11, of Duncansville, Pa., on measuring the speed of light using a specific type of laser in the May issue of The American Journal of Physics.

David Widman, professor of psychology, published a paper, with two students Rachel Nagy ’10, of Nazareth, Pa., and Katherine Corcoran ’09, “Belonging to the Same Religion Enhances the Opinion of Others’ Kindness and Morality,” in the December 2009 Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology. Dave Witkovsky, chaplain, was elected to the Board of Trustees of Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, Ind., representing the Brethren Colleges.

So What?

Juniata magazine: This is an online journal. Do you think online is the wave of the future for academic journals? Cockett: I don’t think so. I think there is still an academic bias toward print in that it is perceived as being more prestigious. JM: Why did you opt to publish your piece in this online publication? LC: My article is one of eight authors, all of whom are writing from their own perspective on the same piece of video. The online journal allows (readers) to click on the YouTube (source) video so you can clearly see what we are writing about. It’s a great venue for people who do analysis of live communication. JM: As more and more people read online do you think eventually most academic journals will make the leap into the digital age?

communication, published “Territory, Identity, and Conflict in a Public Meeting: A Natural History Approach” in Special Issue: The Practice of Public Meetings issue of the International Journal of Public Participation.

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LC: I’m coming at this as a former librarian. I like books, bricks-and-mortar and papers. I do think it eventually has to change, though.

Lynn Cockett, associate professor of


Alumni Feature

Alumnus Works to Help Juniata Students By Sarah Ruggiero ’10 Photography: J.D. Cavrich

In the serene atmosphere of Huntingdon’s Standing Stone coffee shop, Frank Pote ’73 is relaxed. While sipping coffee, he lounges amidst a steady flutter of Juniata students, alumni and faculty, many of whom excitedly welcome Pote back to his alma mater. Professionally dressed in shirt and tie, an American flag pinned to his lapel, Pote seems right at home.

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He might as well be at home. It is only fitting that Pote, best known as a mentor to countless students at the College, would frequent the alumni-owned business. A current trustee and past president of the Alumni Council, Pote lives for Juniata students. “I get so much out of helping students,” explains Pote. “There’s something to be said about mentoring. My true passion is the students; the satisfaction in knowing that I possibly had some impact on the future of a Juniata student.” Pote is interviewed on a return trip to Huntingdon to attend a campus-sponsored job fair. Not only will he spend the day mentoring, but he also will guide students with his experience and wisdom. “I’m here because I want to help students cope with transitioning out of Juniata,” says Pote. “My main focus is making students into better alums. Even if I am not successful in helping that student find a job, perhaps my guidance will leave them with a positive impact, and hopefully energize them to someday ‘pay it forward’ with a future student.” Emily Gray ’10, of Hummelstown, Pa., attended the job fair and found Pote’s experience helpful. “I think Frank [Pote] holds great respect for Juniata because of his willingness to help students achieve their goals,” says Gray. “It is very apparent that he had a great experience at Juniata and he continues to support the College.” 58


Sarah Ruggiero’10, of Bangor, Pa., was editor of the Juniatian and a former media relations intern.

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Pote views his dedication to the College as a mission to mentor current students, while also urging alumni to do the same. “I feel that if the alums get involved with student life, they will realize they get so much back,” says Pote. “Alums don’t need to physically be on campus either—there are so many ways to help.” Pote does more than his fair share of helping. In addition to his activity in the Juniata community and as an alumni Trustee, he still dedicates time to the College’s Alumni Council, volunteers as an Alumni Ambassador, is a member of the Career Team and is a class representative for the College’s annual fund. He also served on his class reunion committee. “I am very fortunate to have met Frank Pote during an Alumni Council Meeting,” says Morgan O’Dellick ’09, now a communications assistant for the U.S. Marshals Service. “Frank, along with others who were on the Alumni Council, gave me inspirational advice about my future and helpful information about how to network and find jobs in the Washington, D.C. area. Frank in particular went above and beyond. He made sure that everyone followed through, and checked in to ensure the hiring process went well. Frank is a kind, respectful and wonderful person, who I can never thank enough for helping me find a position right out of college.” Although some would argue that Pote’s commitment to helping others correlates with his personality, Pote deflects credit elsewhere. “There is a theme of service at Juniata,” says Pote. “That really helped define me as a person.” A theme of service extends throughout Pote’s life. He is the past president of the board of directors for the Spina Bifida Association of America, becoming involved when Frank Pote ’73 never forgot the help he received as a student at his son was diagnosed with a severe form of Spina Bifida. Juniata and vowed to always give back to the College if he had Additionally, he serves as a deacon, elder and treasurer for the opportunity. These days, he’s helping students and alumni his church. On top of that, he spent his youth and college find opportunities to interact with the College. years as a volunteer fire fighter for his hometown of Pennsgrove, N.J., and in Huntingdon. Pennsylvania state correctional system. Yet, after attending Pote has dedicated much of his life to service in the four accredited colleges and universities, Pote affiliates with government. A current foreign language program manager only one: Juniata. for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pote oversees “I firmly believe that if I hadn’t received the personal media translations. attention Juniata gave me, I never would have graduated,” says “Government agencies and law enforcement have a Pote. “My minister’s son was at Juniata and he took me under requirement for linguistic support. We provide that. We are his wing. I loved the campus. People cared if I came here, and responsible for translating any media we get that is in a foreign personally interceded on my behalf.” language,” explains Pote. “We have six program managers, Additionally, Pote explains that Juniata provided him with each of which are responsible for a geographic area and the a solid foundation on which he built the rest of his life. “It’s languages that correlate with them.” not measuring what we’ve done, but what we can do. I want to Before committing to life in the FBI, Pote served as say thank you to everyone for getting involved and embracing Unit Chief of Translation and Deployment for the CIA from the family unit of Juniata and the small college atmosphere 1968-1973. His first “service” career was in, well, the service. of the Juniata community,” says Pote. “With Juniata there is a He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1976, eventually retiring real student connection. We can keep you and bring you back. as a lieutenant colonel in 2000. That’s what Juniata can do for you.” However, Pote began his career in the ultimate form of Pote will continue to mentor students, dedicate his time to service, education. He spent his four years at Juniata studying helping others and inspiring the rest of us to the same. sociology with an emphasis in corrections. He completed “Be flexible. Look at me for instance. I don’t speak any his sociological fieldwork by interning as a counselor in the foreign languages, yet I draw on everything I’ve learned Smithfield prison. “It was intimidating,” explains Pote, “but it throughout my life. Keep your mind open and don’t limit was a continuum of hands-on experience and classes.” yourself. You never know where you’ll go.” >j< Upon graduation from Juniata, Pote earned a master’s degree in education from Lehigh University and a master’s degree from National University while teaching in the


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celebrated his 100th birthday on Oct. 27, 2009. He enjoys listening to the radio and watching television, as well as his daily walks and going out to eat. Adam attends church at Five Forks Brethren in Christ Church in Waynesboro, Pa.

is a member of a 100-voice community choir at Western State University in Oregon. He auditioned for a 20-member caroling group and performed in more than 20 concerts between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2009.

chaired an antique quilt documenting committee in Franklin County, Pa. She co-authored Quilt Treasures of Yesterday, which was published in October 2009.

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Be sure to mark your calendar for your 55th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011.

has coached football for 53 years. He is an assistant football coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, working with the defense and grading game films each week. Bernie plans to continue coaching until he finds something he has as much passion for as football.

Adam M. Byers Sr.

Pauline (Kauffman) Maxwell and LeRoy S. Maxwell ’36

celebrated 70 years of marriage. They were married Dec. 28, 1939 at the Stone Church of the Brethren in Huntingdon, Pa. They have two children, LeRoy S. Maxwell Jr. ’63 and Ann Maxwell and enjoy traveling, golf and bridge. The couple resides in Waynesboro, Pa.

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Herbert N. Brownlee

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has retired after 73 years in the gospel ministry. During the past 10 years, he was the pastor of the Mikesville Presbyterian Church of Lake City, Fla. He and wife Trevy live in Gainesville, Fla.

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Daniel M. Long

William S. Fegan

has been voted one of the three “most influential” persons in Raton, N.M. He has managed the Chinese Golden Dragon Acrobats for 33 years. In the historic Shuler Theater, he continues to produce and present dance and music artists.

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Patricia (Beale) and Charles R. Dillen ’50

enjoyed their 63rd Mountain Day at Shawnee Park in November 2009. They also celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in August 2009 with a family dinner at Bedford Springs Resort in Bedford, Pa.

Miriam (Myers) Huffman

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Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu). Klare S. Sunderland

was awarded the 2009 West Shore Chamber Business Achievement Award. As the president of Sun Enterprises Inc., he was honored with the award for creating jobs and opportunities for central Pennsylvania. (row 1, l-r) Lea and Klare S. Sunderland ’56, (row 2, l-r) Donna Sunderland Benson, Daniel K. Sunderland ’88, and Debra Sunderland Ritchey.

Bernard L. McQuown

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Nancy (Crowell) Reinbold

has retired and now enjoys line dancing, Tai Chi, watercolor classes and teaching English as a Second Language to adults part time. She also enjoys traveling, photography and golf.

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Be sure to mark your calendar for your 50th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).


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and wife Nancy hosted a crab picnic at their home in Colora, Md. and celebrated 50 years of friendship with Juniata alumni and spouses. In attendance were George R. Patrick ’62, Janet (Peters) Patrick ’64, Elliot F. Brumbaugh Jr. ’62, Janet (Meadows) Brumbaugh ’63, David G. Oliver ’63, Marion (Kercher) Oliver ’64, Stanley C. Butler ’63, Marlene (Fisher) Butler ’64, J. Gawen Stoker ’63, Patricia Stoker, Ronald J. Poruban ’63, Rita Poruban, Christopher E. Harlow ’63, Philip M. Rohn ’62, Roseann Rohn, Harold L. Royer ’62, Mary Royer, Vincent J. Valicenti ’63, Marlene Valicenti, Michael A. Kolitsky ’62, and Carol Kolitsky. Marion (Kercher) Oliver ’64 made a needlepoint of Juniata’s seal in honor of the occasion. It was a wonderful day to enjoy good friends and re-tell old stories.

has retired after 45 years of service with the American Red Cross.

J. Thomas Congersky

Jeffrey M. Varnes

1965

Jesse H. Wright III

is the vice chairman for academic affairs and director of the Depression Center in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He has written many books on cognitive-behavior therapy such as CognitiveBehavior Therapy for Severe Mental Illness: An Illustrated Guide. High Yield CognitiveBehavior Therapy: An Illustrated Guide will be published in the spring of 2010, and his most recent book, The Depression Fighter Workbook, will be published in 2010.

1966

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 45th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

1967

Mary C. Kraft

retired in 2008 and relocated to Chapel Hill, N.C. She built a workshop for the Ruffled Grouch, a woodworking arts and crafts business. Mary wishes there were more hours in the day to achieve all of her ideas. Leroy D. Mell Jr.

and wife Brenda, have obtained healthcare positions in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after residing in the northern states for many years. They enjoy not seeing the snow on the ground and spending the winter weekends in the Keys.

1968

Lila (Eggert) Darling

retired from the Pennsylvania Department of Health in December 2009. Her career spanned 41 years as a registered dietitian and licensed dietitiannutritionist. She now resides in Hummelstown, Pa., with husband Dennis.

Class of 1960 50th Reunion

61

2010 Spring-Summer

(l-r) Row 1: Edith Campbell Williamson, Carole Miller Calhoun, Betty Newbold Biehl, Beverly DeJanney Pfrogner, Elizabeth Claar Thomas, Carolyn Wiant (l-r) Row 2: Anne Scheib Fattman, Carole Schenck Kimnach, Jane Brumbaugh Gough, Marcia Sweet, Shirley Hunsicker Gallagher, Gail Dickerson Fouse, Carol Stiffler Coughenour (l-r) Row 3: Cary Shaner, Edward Jones, Mary Jane D’Zmura Dellafiora, Dianne Klebe Turpin, Bobbe Savage Maas, Richard Quinn, Philip Brown (l-r) Row 4: James Copenheaver, James Gibbel, James Swarr, Lawrence Derstine, Lucy Kriebel Derstine, Frank Hrach, James Woomer (l-r) Row 5: Robert Solomon, Jay Maust, Robert Doyle, Wallace Berkey, James Berrier, James Orr (l-r) Row :6 Melvyn Wenger, Melvin Kreps, William Berrier, Robert Schwalenberg (l-r) Row 7: Richard Johnson, Henry Crocker, Jay Getting, Ernest Davidson, Warren Braunwarth, Ray Pfrogner


1975

Carmen E. DeFrancesco Jr. Theodore E. Mozer III

purchased a townhouse in Murrells Inlet, S.C., and lives there part of the year with wife Anne Marie. Family pictured at son Ted’s wedding on Sept. 26, 2009 (l-r) Kimberly Mozer, Anne Marie Mozer, Ted Mozer IV, Lauren Mozer, Theodore E. Mozer III ’71, and Ashley Mozer.

1973

Courtney J. Graham

R. Clifford Berg Jr.

1969

James A. Hamilton

Juniata

was awarded the 2010 Avanti Award in Lipids on Feb. 22, by the Biophysical Society at its 56th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. for his innovative contributions in the application of nuclear magnetic resonance methods to phospholipids and fatty acids. The Biophysical Society is a professional, scientific society established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. Its 8,600 members are located throughout the U.S. and the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry. James is a professor of biophysics and physiology at the Boston University School of Medicine. In March of 2010, he founded a biotech company VascuVis that will develop new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests to detect lifethreatening “vulnerable” atherosclerotic plaques in human vessels, the type that killed the NBC correspondent Tim Russert.

62

is the vice president of Financial House in Centreville, Va. He serves as a volunteer member of the American Cancer Society’s new Nationwide Gift Planning Advisory Council. Clifford assists with the development of promotional strategies and serves as a resource for the society’s marketplace introduction to potential donors.

1970

Larry N. Osborne

has been appointed provost of Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he has been an administrator since 2001. He also was a retired faculty member at the University of Hawaii.

1971

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 40th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

and Timothy Sponseller formed Sponseller/Graham LLC law firm in January 2010. They concentrate their practice in real estate planning, administration and general commercial and business law. Frank L. Pote III

was promoted to unit chief in the FBI’s Language Services Section.

1974

Daniel C. Herzog

keeps busy in his retirement by juggling his stock and bond portfolio, collecting and selling postcards, selling antiques and playing bridge with the same group of people since 1982. In September 2010, he will run the 51th Annual Garden State Postcard Club Show. It will be his 20th time running the largest two-day Club Show in the U.S. He also travels around the country developing his entrepreneurial talents.

is coaching football at Mount Carmel Area High School in Pennsylvania after three years at Upper Dauphin Area High School. He is trying to restore the luster of one of the most winning football programs in the U.S. Before embarking on his own head coaching career, Carmen worked as an assistant at Mount Carmel for legendary Red Tornadoes coach Joe “Jazz” Diminick.

1976

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 35th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

1977

Michael D. Johnston

completed his 18th medical mission trip with Rotaplast International in Shijiazhuang, China. Rotaplast International provides cleft lip and cleft palate surgery to children in developing countries. They operated on 116 children, performing more than 160 procedures while in China. (See story, page 66.)


1979

Carol (Eichelberger) Van Horn

was presented with the Sylvia H. Rambo Award in February 2010. The award is given by the Penn State University’s Women’s Law Caucus. The award honors her work in the legal profession and in society as a whole.

Medical Outreach:

Alumna Works on Haiti Relief Effort In December 2009 the island nation of Haiti was devastated by a major earthquake leveling several cities, killing more than 200,000 people and causing major damage in the capital city of Port au Prince. Thousands of charitable organizations mobilized to help. A Juniata alumna, Jennifer Sill Novelli ’95 and her organization, Global Links of Pittsburgh, assisted in the effort to help Haiti.

1980

Lisa (Masood) Giles

has been named a finalist for the Enterprising Women magazine award. This award honors women entrepreneurs. Lisa is the founder and CEO of Giles & Associates Consultancy, a leading healthcare consultancy. She was chosen as a finalist because her leadership helped grow her business and her philanthropic activities. Cherise L. Kent

has worked more than 15 years in technology transfer with academic institutions and biotechnology in the Philadelphia, Pa. area. She received her master’s in business administration from Drexel University. Cherise enjoys traveling, cooking and spending time with family, friends and her partner, Henry Hudes, who enjoys carpentry.

1981

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 30th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

1982

Beverly J. Supanick

received a gold medal in the 45-to 49-year-old age group with her partner Gladys Leonard at the July National Master’s Racquetball Association’s International Championships in Champaign, Ill. She has won six other medals at Nationals, but this was her first gold.

Q: What exactly is Global Links? A: It is a not-for-profit organization that recovers surplus medical materials from U.S. hospitals and makes them available to hospitals that serve the poorest members of society in less developed countries.

Q: Your group has been intimately involved in providing aid for the Haiti disaster. How did you get involved with that disaster relief?

A: We’re not really a disaster relief organization, but a second-tier development

organization with longer-term collaboration to assist with medical infrastructure. It was so sad to see Haiti suffer this disaster, and we were glad to be able to immediately deliver medical material because we already had a partnership developed. One of our current Haitian efforts is to help 400 newly graduated Haitian physicians by providing supplies to get them started in practice. We also have worked in Jamaica on a project to provide dialysis, and we hosted a Cuban pediatric transplant team for training purposes.

Q: How did your experience at Juniata prepare you for this field? A: I focused on anthropology and international studies at Juniata and was able to secure a

certificate in international studies, one of the first students to do so. That definitely added credibility to my credentials. Also, I spent a year studying in Germany while a Juniata student and I went back as a Fulbright Scholar later. I was given the great opportunity to travel to Mexico on a mission trip with Juniata’s Campus Ministry Team. That was one of the reasons I chose Juniata, and it’s gratifying to see that Juniata has a strong experiential focus still today.

Q: What did other Juniatians do to help you with the Haitian effort, and can alumni and friends of the College help now?

A: Members of Juniata’s Health Occupations Affinity Group responded to a call specifically

for suture and provided much-needed supplies. For Juniata alumni across the U.S., we are continually searching for new suture donors. Global Links Suture Donation Program collects current, sealed, sterile suture from hospitals around the U.S. and sends it to hospitals in developing countries. Surplus, unneeded suture in this country can save lives overseas. Please contact Ellen Wilson at suture@globallinks.org for more information. And let her know that you are a Juniatian. —Linda Carpenter executive director of constituent relations 2010 Spring-Summer

63


Swimming With Sharks: Alumnus Explores Reality TV “Nurture the genius. Unleash the goofball.” No, it’s not Juniata’s latest enrollment marketing slogan; it’s the motto behind Romp n’ Roll, a one-stop destination that offers gym, art, music and “adventure” classes for children, founded by Michael Barnett ’89 and his wife Babz. Six years ago, Michael put his career in sales and marketing to the test and opened the first center in Richmond, Va. Since then, Romp n’ Roll has become a national franchise with 10 locations in the United States and plans to expand to China. This CEO knows how to find the spotlight and did so by competing in ABC’s Shark Tank in January, where he, Babz and other entrepreneurs attempt to convince five multimillionaires to provide the funding needed to jump-start their breakthrough business concepts.

Q: Where did you get the idea for your business? A: Our kids were the inspiration. At that time, Babz was at home with the kids, and she

noticed a missed opportunity when she’d take them to traditional classes. She would say, “I wish they had…” or “They should really think about…” We’d sit around the dinner table and talk about our ideas, and before long we realized we had a business plan.

Q: How do you make it work? A: We’re very focused on different areas of the business. I’m behind the scenes doing the franchise work while Babz is in the field hiring and training the staff.

Q: What’s the most rewarding part of your work? A: As we grow, I feel we are making an impact on even more people’s lives. Parents always comment on the noticeable growth in their child’s development. This is uninterrupted playtime between the parent and their child. There are no cell phones allowed during play, so they can build their relationship without distractions.

Q: What’s the best piece of advice you would give to a budding entrepreneur?

A: It’s almost a cliché, but I believe it’s true: enjoy what you do and the money will follow. Oh, and sales and marketing skills are very important when building a new business.

Q: So, let’s talk about your recent appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank . How did you get your big break?

A: I learned about the show on the Internet. We weren’t actively pursuing an outside

investment, but it seemed like a good PR move. I sent an e-mail, we got a call from the casting director and after several conference calls we were on our way to Los Angeles for three days to tape for the show. The first day went spent in meetings with the producers, the second day we rehearsed and then we finally filmed on the third day. We talked with the “sharks” for an hour and a half, and they boiled down that and the filming they did back in Virginia into a 10-minute segment.

Beth (Wertz) Garver

received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award as an Iredell-Statesville School educator. The ceremony was held in Washington, D.C. Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke presided over the ceremony. Burdett R. Porter

is a Republican candidate for three four-year council positions on the South Waverly Borough Council ballot in South Waverly, Pa. Burdett has already completed one partial and one full term as a council member.

1986

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 25th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

1987

Clayton G. Carlin

has been appointed the new football defensive coordinator at Bucknell University. In addition, Clayton will coach the linebackers. Previously, he was an assistant coach at Cornell University for six years and within that time, he was a defensive coordinator for four seasons.

1991

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 20th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011.

Q: What are some of the perks of being a guest on a national television

Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

A: They picked us up in a limousine and we had our own trailer at the sound stage, which

1992

program?

happened to be the same stage where the Wizard of Oz was filmed! It looked like the stereotypical television set with about 50-60 people running around wearing headsets and carrying clipboards.

Q: What was the final outcome? Are you satisfied with your decision? A: We’re pleased with the way it turned out and the way it was portrayed. One shark offered $300,000 for 51 percent, but we declined the offer. The main reason we did it was to generate publicity and it definitely did. During the segment, our Website was getting so much traffic, it crashed! All in all we had over 500 requests for franchise information.

—Katie Dickey ’97 assistant director of alumni relations Juniata

1984

64

Todd S. Emrick

conducted a chemistry seminar, “Hydrophilic and Amphiphilic Polymers and Particles: from Therapeutics to Materials Repair” at Juniata on Oct. 28, 2009. He is an associate professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.


1993

1998

2000

was board certified in general surgery in October 2009. He is now a full partner with Cove Surgical Associates in Roaring Spring, Pa.

received her second master’s degree in curriculum and instruction in May 2009 from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. In June 2009, she was appointed to the National Education Association as a NEA director for Pennsylvania.

is a physician with Gettysburg Family Practice in Gettysburg, Pa.

George W. Cummings III

Jennifer M. Myskowski

has been promoted to associate professor of English at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Schnecksville, Pa. Jennifer and husband Scott M. Beatty ’91 reside in Lake Ariel, Pa., with their children Finnegan, 4, and Hope, 3.

1996

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 15th Reunion Celebration— June 9-12, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

Marsha L. Fabian

1999

Ryan T. Mellott

participated in Juniata’s mathematics department alumni panel on Oct. 30, 2009. He gave a short presentation about his occupation as an actuary at Jackson National Life Insurance in Lansing, Mich. Christine (Vrabel) Zlupko

joined Sepich Eye Care PC in State College, Pa. in January 2010. She is especially interested in glaucoma management and pediatric eye care.

Eradicating Disease: Legacy of Healing Dr. Wayne Meyers ’47 started his medical career in an African bush hospital. After medical school, Dr. Meyers joined the American Leprosy Missions in 1961 and moved his family to Africa where he served in a one-doctor hospital in Burundi. He worked mainly with leprosy patients and did research on leprosy, buruli ulcer, filariasis, and other infectious tropical diseases. Later as a professor of pathology at the University of Hawaii, he worked at the famous leprosy hospital on Molokai. Since 1975, Dr. Meyers has been on the medical staff of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, first as Chief of Microbiology, and then as Chief Mycobacteriology, at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Q: What was it like working in a bush hospital in the middle of the jungle?

A: Every day in a developing country is a new experience. I had many

airplane flights that didn’t go according to plan, came across scary new tropical diseases that you were not prepared for, and tried to help many people.

chemist in Pittsburgh. I soon found out that was not for me. I wanted to devote my life to working on helping human beings in medicine and missionary work.

Khara L. Koffel

was featured in an art exhibition in the Women Made Gallery in Chicago, Ill. She earned a master’s degree in fine arts sculpture from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 2003 and now teaches at MacMurry College in Jacksonville, Ill.

2001

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 10th Reunion Celebration at Homecoming & Family Weekend— Sept. 30—Oct. 2, 2011. Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu).

Charles P. Gilman

gave a lecture on the mechanisms of memory consolidation in the fruit fly on Jan. 19, 2010 at Juniata College. He continues his research on the separate stages of memory at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla. Richard E. Kerpovich Jr.

was promoted as audit supervisor with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare in November 2009. This was Rich’s second promotion in the past year and a half. D. Althea Rodgers

is the consumer educator for the office of the Oregon Attorney General. She focuses on employment and family law. She gave a presentation, “Current Developments in Consumer Fraud” at Portland State University on Jan. 7, 2010.

Q: Can leprosy and the Buruli ulcer be cured? A: Yes, even the most ill individual can become noninfectious with treatment. The key is early diagnosis and treatment, which can prevent the disabilities traditionally associated with leprosy. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, lack of adequate education, fear, and social stigma prevent many from seeking treatment or feeling completely cured.

Q: Why is leprosy so misunderstood? A: The stigma with leprosy has been present since the earliest

suspected cases of the disease, documented more than three thousand years ago, before any treatment. In the original Hebrew text, Tsara’ath was the word translated to Lepra in Greek and then leprosy in English in 1384. Perhaps because leprosy at the time was common in Europe and Great Britain, it seemed to portray an image of an unholy and loathsome human condition. This stigma has been handed down from generation to generation and the origins are based on the disease as it appeared hundreds of years ago; this stigma has no place in modern society.

Q: Is the term “leper” politically incorrect? A: Please don’t use it. The term invokes a negative image. That term defines a person solely on the basis of their disease. The correct term is “Person with Hansen’s Disease.”

Q: What is the future of leprosy? A: The focus is treatment and education. Q: What advice would you give future Juniatians? A: Find something you are passionate about, do all you can to inform

yourself about that subject, and find opportunities to make the lives of others better as a result. —Jim Watt director of alumni relations

65

2010 Spring-Summer

Q: What brought you to study leprosy? A: After World War II, I worked at U.S. Steel as a research physical

William J. Adair


Q: How did you become interested in medical missions? A: At Juniata, I was exposed to the service philosophy and its roots in the Church of the Brethren. Years later, in 2000, a Rotarian asked me to serve in this way and I jumped at the chance. I went to the Philippines and it was the most rewarding thing I have ever done personally or professionally.

Q: Why cleft lip and cleft palate surgery? A: Clefts occur mainly in developing countries—one in 700 to 1,000

births—which makes it one of the most common major birth defects. Children with a cleft lip or palate are more susceptible to ear infections and hearing loss, speech defects, and severe dental problems. Feeding can be another complication for infants. In the U.S., a child gets treated before the age of three months, but in a developing country, you only get treatment if you can afford it.

Building Smiles:

Through Service and Surgery When Dr. Michael D. Johnston ’77 left Huntingdon for medical school at Temple University, he never imagined his journey would eventually lead him to Asia to participate in almost 20 medical mission trips with Rotaplast International, which treats children with cleft lips and palates who would otherwise not receive surgical intervention. Johnston may earn his living as an anesthesiologist at the Kauai Medical Clinic in Lihue, Hawaii, but his passion for serving others has led him to lands where his benevolence and expertise are desperately needed. More than 3,200 procedures later, Dr. Johnston has operated on close to 2,500 children in China and other developing nations.

Q: Other than physical challenges, what other problems do children with clefts face?

A: Society often focuses on appearances, and this can make childhood very hard for someone with a physical difference. These children are often ostracized from their family, kept hidden, unable to get an education, and we can help them become integrated into their community. It’s like Rotaplast International says, “Building Smiles, Changing Lives.”

Q: Based on your experiences, what life lessons would you share with current Juniata students?

A: You don’t become whole until you have given of yourself. I get more out of doing these trips than I give. I don’t have the skills or the background to be the next Dalai Llama or Martin Luther King Jr., but I can make a real difference in the life of one child just by doing what I know.

—David Meadows ’98 assistant director of alumni relations

Luke J. Widich

2002

Kathleen (Minor) Guglielmone

has been a registered nurse at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Md. for seven years and has worked at several Maternal-Child subspecialties. She has clinical experience in pediatrics, fertility, postpartum and neonatal intensive care. Kathleen also is an ambulatory surgical center supervisor.

2003

Kyle J. Custer

Juniata

landed his dream job with the Philadelphia Eagles as the Eagles’ fan development coordinator. Kyle’s responsibilities include overseeing training camp, game-day promotions and managing off-season events. He was featured in the Eagles Insider Magazine, for his marketing efforts to the fan base. 66

had his article, “A Paradigm of Poverty,” published in the Heinz Journal of Carnegie Mellon University. The article analyzed the analysis of the International Trading System and “Special and Differential Treatment.”

2004

Rachel M. Donahue

received her master’s degree in library science in spring of 2009 from the University of Maryland. She began a doctoral program at the University of Maryland in the fall of 2009 and was elected to the Society of American Archivists’ Electronic Records Section Steering Committee in August 2009. Sean R. McCready

participated in Juniata’s mathematics department alumni panel on Oct. 30, 2009. He gave a short presentation about his work as a scientist at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Richmond, Va.

Nicole W. Reed

received a master’s degree as a specialist in school psychology from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C.

2006

Lindsey (Habel) Frailey

Be sure to mark your calendar for your 5th Reunion Celebration at Homecoming & Family Weekend— Sept. 30—Oct. 2, 2011.

participated in Juniata’s mathematics department alumni panel on Oct. 30, 2009. She gave a short presentation about her career as a math teacher at Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pa.

Please contact the alumni office if you would like to volunteer and serve on your reunion committee. (1-877-JUNIATA; alumni@juniata.edu). A. Javaid Zeerak

Jayme T. Fye

gave a lecture on issues in Afghanistan, “Prospects for Continued U.S. and International Engagement in Afghanistan” at Juniata on Oct. 22, 2009. Javaid is head of Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Program, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

2005

graduated cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law. He was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. and currently works for Michels Corporation in Brownsville, Wis.


2007

Casey R. Dale

has been named one of the nation’s top coaches under the age of 30 by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. He is the head volleyball coach at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky.

Fraud Unfurled:

Alumnus Illuminates Corporate Misdoings

2008

Shannah R. Boring

has been promoted to staff accountant, level two, at SF & Company in State College, Pa. At Juniata, she received the 2007 Glen P. Holsinger Award for Academic Excellence in Accounting and the 2008 Charles M. Rice Accounting Prize. Ashley D. DeMauro

has been honored by being chosen to be profiled in a video project for the National Conference of State Legislatures. The project will inspire young people to become involved in state government. Ashley currently lives in Harrisburg, Pa., and is working toward a master’s degree in school counseling at Millersville University. Ashley L. Musgrove

is pursuing a master’s degree in landscape architecture at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.

2009

Kelly A. Gibson

received the 2009 Kay Wilson Leadership Award for her excellence in leadership of a local chapter of Psi Chi, the international honor society in psychology. She is the president of the Juniata chapter of Psi Chi. The award was presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in New York, N.Y. Kelly M. McLin

entered into the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. As a first-year medical student, she will train and prepare to serve as a physician for the Army, Navy, Air Force or the Public Health Service. Allison L. Welch

is attending Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Lake Erie, Pa.

Life’s best lessons often come from experiences gone horribly wrong. Working at the famously fraudulent Enron energy firm was just such a learning experience for Todd Kulp ’80. As Executive-in-Residence to the College’s business department at Juniata in March, Kulp lectured to business classes and counseled Juniata students in creating resumes, interviewing for jobs and more. “Take a look at those sitting around you. Now close your eyes and imagine,” Kulp said to a Senior Seminar in Business. “They might be a crook. They might be a felon one day. My boss’s boss stole $100 million.” Kulp discussed his week-long residency with Juniata magazine.

Q: What did you love about Juniata? A: I enjoyed building truly strong relationships and learning how to do so. More than anything, I enjoyed the professors who made me see reality.

Q: What about Juniata translated to your career? A: Jim Lakso, Janet Lewis and Mark Hochberg—my professors. They taught me that life

is tough and you can’t be overly sensitive. I also learned that business ethics are just a subset of our total ethics. We can no longer say, “It’s their problem.” It’s time to look at ourselves as a society. Look at yourself—Juniata’s motto is veritas liberat. The truth will set you free.

Q: What made you come back to Juniata? A: I want to let students know what I found out in the world. I’ve been through a lot of

corrupt companies. But, I’m giving more than just Enron insight. I want to provide advice on how to get a job, on what you do to succeed. And, I’m trying to get students to feel what I felt: that you can wake up one day and the people sitting next to you are felons.

Q: What tipped you off about Enron? A: There was a condescending, “I’m smarter than you,” atmosphere. There was an

expectation: Don’t ask questions that might embarrass. After winning the Employee of the Quarter award, I left. When I left I said, “This place is going down.” That was 1997. As time went on and stocks were still booming, some of the guys would call me and laugh, “This place is going down, huh?” Now they call me and ask if I have any jobs.

Q: What advice do you think students need to know? A: Avoid a sense of entitlement. The Enron workers could’ve succeeded, but wanted to

succeed faster than anyone else. It was their sense of entitlement, a lack of rigor and selfknowledge that destroyed them.

67

2010 Spring-Summer

—Genna Welsh Kasun ’06 Staff Writer for Marketing and Development


Reminders

Alumni Shed Light on the Legal Field

Alumni Weekend 2011 June 9-12

Bring five successful alumni to campus to share their experiences and students will want to listen. On April 15, 2010, at the Law The class reunion volunteers and the alumni Careers Panel organized by the Politics Department and the Alumni Relations Office, more than 30 of Juniata’s budding legal office are busy preparing for next year’s fun-filled professionals got advice about which law schools to attend, family-friendly Alumni Weekend. Each year more what classes to take and why pursuing a career in law can be so than 500 people come to College Hill to enjoy good rewarding. After the panel discussion, the group mingled in food, friends, and fellowship. Offered once again will an informal setting, sharing not just business cards but plans for the future. be the popular Alumni College program.

The date has been set for Alumni Weekend 2011— June 9-12. Special reunions will be held for class years ending in 1 and 6, with the exception of the five-year and 10-year reunions, scheduled for Homecoming & Family Weekend Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, 2011. These special reunion classes are highlighted in red in the Class Notes section. If your reunion is coming up and you would like to work with your reunion committee, please contact Evelyn Pembrooke at (814) 641-3440; pembroe@juniata.edu.

One student commented, “I’m not as scared about law school. Everything seemed to work out for the [alumni].” Special thanks to our panelists (pictured l-r) Marissa Gunn ’05, Dave Andrews ’74, Ray Ghaner ’01, Henry Siedzikowski ’75 and Stephanie Haines ’92. Affinity program activities like this provide Juniatians who share a common interest with an avenue to stay connected to former professors, interact with current students and meet alumni from across the years.

Remember … Alumni Weekend isn’t only for reunion classes—it is open to the entire alumni body to enjoy. For more information and to keep abreast of your reunion class activities, check out the Web site at www.juniata.edu/alumni.

Making Connections that Count At Juniata Career Day on Feb. 26 nearly 500 students connected with more than 50 alumni and parent mentors and employers. As a student in Marketing Communication and Digital Media, Grace Canfield ’10 admired the eye-catching display of Empiristat, Inc. and inquired about the design firm that produced it. Empiristat’s founder, Dr. Nicole Close ’92, connected Canfield with the firm, which extended an interview and soon hired her. This is just another successful connection courtesy of the Juniata Network!

Digital Photos

If you’d like to help students land a job or internship, or offer advice and tell your story, mark Feb. 25, 2011, on your calendar and attend next year’s Career Day.

Juniata

We love photographs of alumni. If you would like to submit a photo digitally, please be sure that it is high resolution: 300 DPI when sized to about 3 inches wide. If you set your camera to the highest or best quality setting, this will produce a high resolution image. Lower resolution photographs may look sharp on your computer screen, but will not work in the magazine. Please save the photo as a JPEG or TIFF file and include your name in the file name. 68


Now Appearing in your Inbox The Juniata NewsGroup! The NewsGroup e-newsletter will keep you up-to-date on campus happenings, student and alumni news, Juniata sports, and regional event schedules. Be among the first to know it’s Mountain Day through the special edition sent on the morning of this longstanding tradition.

Juniata Where You Live

This entirely volunteer-driven initiative has informed thousands of alumni for more than 10 years. Don’t miss out on the Juniata news that connects you and the more than 6,000 current NewsGroup members. Invite your fellow classmates, parents and friends of the College to catch the Blue and Gold spirit. Register now online at: www.juniata.edu/alumni/newsgroup or e-mail the volunteer editor Jodie (Monger) Gray ’88 at jmonger@metrics.net.

Career and social networking. Educational and cultural opportunities. Fun and food. Tap into the Juniata Network and explore the benefits of a continued relationship with the Juniata family in your area.

Alfarata

Yearbooks

are available

There’s no need to travel back to Huntingdon. Join alumni, parents, family and friends across the country for one of our many regional events. Visit juniata.edu/ alumni/events/calendar.html for event information or contact David Meadows ’98 at meadowd@juniata.edu to learn about the Juniata Network where you live.

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2010 Spring-Summer

If you missed buying a Juniata yearbook while you were a student or if you have lost yours in the years since graduation, the Alumni Office is giving you the opportunity to recapture your precious Juniata memories. Most yearbooks from 1921-2007 are available for $25 plus $4 for shipping and handling. To order your yearbook, please contact alumni@juniata.edu or call (814) 641-3441.


Liza R. Westrick ’03

and Jim Rieke were married Sept. 5, 2009 at Tom’s Country Place in Avon, Ohio. Juniata alumni in attendance were Kyle B. Slabik ’03, Nicole L. Kline ’04 and Andrea M. Denkovich ’04. Colleen N. McLaughlin ’01

Marriages Andrea L. Abel ’01 and Adam R. Faller ’04

were married Aug. 15, 2009 at the Elizabeth Evans Baker Peace Chapel. The reception was held at Lake Raystown. Juniata alumni and faculty in attendance (row 1, l-r) Beth A. MacAleer ’01, Melissa (Emore) Taibi ’04, Andrea L. Abel ’01, Adam R. Faller ’04, Maria E. Mandas ’01, Silas Dudash and Janine Dudash, (row 2, l-r) Marybeth E. Markiewicz ’01, Ann R. Parry ’01, Paula Wagoner, Henry Thurston-Griswold and Andrew Dudash. Todd A. Fortney ’01

Juniata

and Melody English were married Aug. 5, 2006 at the First Methodist Church in Mount Union, Pa. They now reside in Shirleysburg, Pa.

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and David Bauer were married Sept. 12, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Juniata alumni in attendance were Lisa A. Shaffer ’02, Jesse R. Ault ’02, Melissa Mullin-Steuer ’02, Kathleen (Ceonzo) Ashcraft ’02, Andrew R. Ashcraft ’02, Brandi BottigerYachtis ’02, Seth A. Yachtis ’02, Meredith (Boyle) Metzger ’02 and Lisa Ann Dumansky ’02. Ryann L. Houseknecht ’02

and Mark Schultz were married Oct. 4, 2008. They also welcomed the birth of their son, Alex Ryan, on April 13, 2009. He weighed 9 lbs. 14 ozs. and was 22 inches long. Matthew L. Bochman ’03

and Julia van Kessel were married on Dec. 11, 2009. The bride and groom, pictured middle, were joined by Juniata alumni: (l-r) David M. Hayes ’03, Shannon (Wenzel) Brown ’04, Christopher M. Deats ’04, Kevin Soviak Flagg ’02, and Jared B. Miller ’03. Jamie V. Griffith ’03

married Andrew Maginnis on June 2, 2007. She is an adjunct professor at Neumann College, in Aston, Pa., in the Intelligence Studies program.


Melanie J. Cegelski ’04

Sara A. Lombardi ’07

married David Weaver on April 25, 2009 in Moon Township, Pa. Pictured are (row 1, l-r) Beth Ann (Bono) Holsopple ’05, Jeanie J. Miller ’04, Melanie (Cegelski) Weaver ’04, Christine Robins ’04, Alissa N. K. Schneider ’03, and Joanna M. Acri ’04. (row 2, l-r) Cynthia (Long) Roberts ’03 and Danielle M. Hart ’04.

and Dilip Venugopal were married on Oct. 10, 2009 in Milford, Conn. They met while she was a Juniata student studying abroad in India. Juniata alumni and faculty in attendance were Neil Pelkey, Scott R. Thomas ’09, Karen A. Lombardi ’00, Megan N. Thro ’07, Jenna (Taylor) Peter ’07, Justine T. Schultz ’08, Jacqueline “Eve” McConnell ’07 and Melissa A. Bell ’05.

Kerryann Shemeley ’04

and Ryan Hershberger were married Nov. 21, 2009. Juniata alumni in attendance were Daniel J. Sahd ’01, Jennifer L. Sadlowski ’04, Carrie L. Serman ’02, Colleen (McShane) Pennoc ’04, Mary E. Baxter ’01 and Amber (Helsel) Ickes ’04. Kerryann works for Pfizer in regulatory affairs and the couple resides in Camp Hill, Pa. Jennifer L. Norviel ’04

and Luis Ponce were married Jan. 15, 2010. Jennifer started her master’s degree in applied linguistics at the University of Newcastle in England in March 2010. Jennifer L. Shafer ’05

married Thom Halverson on Aug. 15, 2009. Bobbi J. Albright ’07

and Adam Hicks were married Nov. 28, 2009 in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Juniata alumni in attendance were Shawn D. McDonald ’08 and Caitlin Hinson ’08. Kathleen M. Kopco ’07 and Kevin M. Warner ’07

were married Sept. 12, 2009 in the gardens of the Historic Civic Club in Harrisburg, Pa. Lindsey A. Merilli ’07 was the maid of honor and Mariel Marlow ’07 was a bridesmaid. Jared D. Hamilton ’07, Benjamin R. Waxman ’07, and brother of the bride, Brian J. Kopco ’04, were groomsmen. The couple now resides in Harrisburg, Pa.

Bobbi J. Rickenbaugh ’07

and Matthew Leister were married Sept. 19, 2009. Billie (Rickenbaugh) Haines ’05 was her sister’s matron of honor and Bobbi (Albright) Hicks ’07 was bridesmaid. They honeymooned in Bora Bora, and now live in McAlisterville, Pa. Bobbi is a corporate relations/marketing specialist at The First National Bank of Mifflintown. Kristen L. Robinson ’07

and Benoit Nesme were married on July 17, 2009 in Fontainebleau, France. The couple met while working in Shanghai, China and now reside in Paris, France. Heidi A. Hedrick ’08

and Richard Calhoun were married May 30, 2009. Rebecca M. Krauss ’09 was the maid of honor and Allisa (Laughlin) McCloskey ’08 was the matron of honor. The couple honeymooned in Nags Head, N.C., and now reside in Chambersburg, Pa. Kristina Ledyashova ’09 and Stephen A. Yeager ’07

were married Oct. 24, 2009. As a second-year international student from Russia, Kristina came to Juniata in January 2006 and met Stephen in a public speaking class. They maintained an international, long-distance relationship for three years before they were married. The couple now lives in Willow Street, Pa.

2010 Spring-Summer

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Births

Mark E. Longenberger ’96

and husband Derek welcomed son, Joshua Youmgmin, adopted from South Korea on May 29, 2009. Joshua celebrated his first birthday Aug. 4, 2009 in Anacortes, Wash. where the family resides.

Danielle (Clark) Almeida ’97

Beth (Angerole) Leney ’90

Kristie (D’Amico) ’93 and George W. Cummings III ’93

are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Claire Alexandra, on Oct. 11, 2009. She joins big sisters Emma, 7, and Erin, 3, and big brother, Georgie, 5, who all love their new sister. Krista (Hawbaker) ’93 and David L. Maxwell ’92

are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth Anne, on March 19, 2009. Big sister Katie, 3, welcomes her new sister home. Michael R. Kertes II ’94

and wife Lindsey are proud to announce the birth of their son, Jacob Marshall, on April 10, 2009. Kelly (McCrum) Robinson ’94

and husband Craig proudly announce the birth of their son, Austin Lucas, on Jan. 4, 2010. He weighed 7 lbs. 5 ozs. and was 20.5 inches long. Austin is the nephew of President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. He joins two older siblings. Bashiru Mohammed ’94

Juniata

and wife Ruki are proud to announce the birth of their son, Rayan J. Katz, born Dec. 4, 2009. He weighed 7 lbs. and 3 ozs. and was 19 inches long. The couple has stayed in touch and has become good friends with Judy Katz, associate professor of English at Juniata. They named the baby after Judy. Rayan was welcomed home by big sister Rashida, 8.

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and wife Tara welcomed Paige Olivia into their family on Sept.29, 2009. Big sister Maia loves having a little sister. and husband Juan welcomed their son, Jaydan, on July 7, 2009. He weighed 6 lbs. 12 ozs. and was 20 inches long. Danielle is a financial analyst for L’Oréal USA in New York, N.Y. They reside in Franklin Park, N.J. Jennifer (Heaster) Chadwick ’98

and husband Jon welcomed their third daughter, Isabella Grace, on March 9, 2009. She weighed 8 lbs. 7 ozs. and was 20 inches long. She joins big sisters Sophia, 4, and Olivia, 2. Zsofia (Varadi) ’98 and Andrew J. McMullin ’98

are proud to announce the birth of their first child, Samuel Benjamin, on Dec. 31, 2009. He weighed 7.5 lbs. and was 19 inches long. Andrew is the community relations manager at the engineering consulting firm, Burns & McDonnell. Zsofi is the Web coordinator at Stenhouse Publishers. The family resides in Saco, Maine. Emily (Sterne) ’98 and Donald J. Sentman ’98

are proud to announce the birth of daughter, Lillian Grace, on May 12, 2009. She joins big brother Joseph, 3. In January 2007, D.J. was promoted to corporal of the Lower Allen Township Police Department in Camp Hill, Pa. Erin (Frazier) Anderson ’00

and husband Taniel welcomed their daughter, Eliza Louise, on Aug. 11, 2009. She weighed 3 lbs. 14 ozs. and was 17 inches long. Whitney (Cramer) ’00 and Jeffrey R. Bellomo ’00

are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, DeAnna, on June 9, 2009. They enjoy parenthood and DeAnna’s giggles and smiles.

Erin (Kirby) ’00 and Adam R. Titter ’01

are proud to announce the birth of their son, Liam Paul Channing, on Aug. 27, 2009. He weighed 9 lbs. 7 ozs. He was welcomed home by big sister Anna, 4. Nicole (Waddle) Magee ’01

and husband Michael are proud to announce the birth of their son, Liam Keith, born Jan. 1, 2010. He weighed 7 lbs. 9 ozs. and was 20 inches long. He was welcomed home by big sister Lilly. Tammy (Chaloux) Tosti ’02

and husband Edward are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Sydney Grace, on Jan. 30, 2010. She weighed 5 lbs. 7 ozs. and was 18 1/4 inches long. Angela (Montag) ’01 and Christopher M. Jones ’03

welcomed their first child, Desmond Thomas, on April 24, 2009. Kylie (Gensimore) Santini ’01

and husband Joseph welcomed their son, Anthony Walter, May 31, 2009. He weighed 6 lbs. 8 ozs. and was 18 1/4 inches long. Jennifer (Colland) ’02 and Luke J. Widich ’03

welcomed their daughter, Ava Caroline, on Dec. 23, 2009. Heidi (Neuhauser) Seelal ’03

and husband Reginald are pleased to announce the birth of their first child, Ryleigh Rose, on Jan. 21, 2010. She weighed 6 lbs. 15 ozs. and was 19.5 inches long. Susan (Doyle) Colvin ’04

and husband Michael had twin daughters Kathryn Emily and Laura Elizabeth on Sept. 15, 2007. They celebrated their second birthday this past fall. The family resides in Hollywood, Md.

Jodi (Reiter) ’04 and Anthony J. DeStefano ’02

are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Zoe Paige, on Feb. 21, 2010. She weighed 7 lbs. 12 ozs. and was 20 inches long. Kodi B. Hockenberry ’04

and wife Sara welcomed their son, Blake William, on Jan. 4, 2010. He weighed 9 lbs. and was 20 inches long. Melanie (Short) Spence ’04

and husband Joshua are proud to announce the birth of their first son, Landon Alexander, on Jan. 29, 2009. He weighed 9 lbs. 12 ozs. and was 22.5 inches long. Jaime (Schwartz) Stevenson ’04

and husband Colin happily announce the birth of their first child, Claire, on June 8, 2009. Heidi (McCracken) Stewart ’04

and husband Doug are proud to announce the birth of son, Caden Nathaniel, on April 6, 2009. He weighed 7 lbs. 12 ozs. and was 20 3/4 inches long. Carrie (Youtzy) Miller ’05

and husband Bryan welcomed their son, Logan, on Nov. 28, 2009. The couple was married on May 23, 2009. Renae (Hobbs) Suchan ’06

and husband John happily announce the birth of their son, John Luke, on Aug. 17, 2009. He weighed 9 lbs. 2 ozs. and was 20 1/2 inches long. The family resides in Mount Union, Pa. Courtney (Kosanovich) ’07 and Nicholas A Wade ’07

welcomed their first child, Benson, born Oct. 26, 2009. He weighed 8 lbs. 10 ozs. and was 21 1/2 inches long.


Photo: j.D. Cavrich

Agog About Blogs

A sampling of student blogs from spring semester

On eating well studying abroad “Eating fresh, seasonal, organic food that makes you feel good and keeps you healthy doesn’t have to be hard, expensive or time consuming. For example, at the beginning of the week I made a soy ginger salad dressing that I put in a glass jar and keep in the fridge. When I’m hungry I break out some veggies maybe some chicken and throw some great dressing on top! I’m reading my dad’s favorite book, A River Runs Through It, or maybe novel is a better word. It’s special to me because out of all the thousands of books he’s read in his life it’s right up there at the top and I’m trying to read it through his eyes. And it’s not exactly my style, it’s more of a ‘Hemingway man’ kind of story but, I’m determined to like it and appreciate it. It’s about two brothers who fly fish on the banks of Montana rivers. And I can see why my dad loves it, it appeals to the transcendentalist in him.” —Caitlin Bigelow ’11, La Mesa, Calif.

“I have learned a few things these past couple of weeks. If you are serious about obtaining a specific position, you have to be persistent. You also have to stress your flexibility, even if you have deadlines for papers and projects coming up. Explain that you are willing to come on any day at any time for an interview. Sometimes employers forget that we are in college. I have also learned that sometimes it isn’t what you look like on a resume but more who you know that gets you an interview. Once you have an interview, it is up to you to market yourself to the company and explain how they need you and what an asset you will be to them. I would suggest to underclassmen to really start networking hard-core because it will only make your senior year smoother. I have found that alumni are always willing to help graduating students. Also, job fairs are beneficial because you put your face in employers’ minds and if you make a good impression, they won’t forget you.” On a spring break trip “We are going to go to Disney World (The Magic Kingdom) for a day and then for the rest of the time just explore Orlando. I have never been to Disney so I am sooooo excited! And the best part of it is that I get to meet Goofy!!!!!!!!!” —Kaysee Hale ’10, Altoona, Pa.

If you’d like to follow our bloggers, go to: www.juniata.edu/life/blogs

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2010 Spring-Summer

Photo: Edward Sinnes ’12


Photo: Laura Hess ’11

Myrtle (Minnich) Shepherd ’38

Carrie (Moser) Rodamer ’36

May 2, 2009—Carrie was a school teacher for the Salisbury-Elk Lick School District in Salisbury, Pa., for 42 years. She taught Sunday school and was the junior choir director at Meyersdale Church of the Brethren. Carrie was a member of the Pennsylvania State Teacher’s Association, Springs Historical Society and Fifth Society of Farm Women. She is survived by husband Earl, sister-in-law Nancy (Phennicie) Moser ’59, niece Shirley (Hoover) Hercules ’66 and nephews Andrew W. Moser ’97, Alan D. Hoover ’69 and Larry J. Hoover ’76.

Obituaries

Ellamae (Hadley) Wilkins ’34

February 1, 2010—Ellamae married Charles H. Wilkins in 1945. She taught in the Palmyra School District for 33 years. She was also a member of the Calvary Presbyterian Church and taught Sunday school for many years. She was preceded by her husband, daughter, and son-in-law. She is survived by her daughter, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Melvin L. McCreary ’35

January 29, 2010—Melvin was a former executive of Westvaco Corp. in New York City. He was a member of the Sparta Presbyterian Church and was also a member of the Newton Country Club, Lake Hopatcong Historical Society and the Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club. He is preceded by first wife Carolyn, son Melvin, granddaughter Andrea Kilan and sister Mary (McCreary) Ohl ’35. He is survived by wife Ruth, daughters Mathilda Latham and Ann (McCreary) Kilian ’73, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Josephine (Everhart) Hanna ’36

August 21, 2009—Josephine taught English and French at Warriors Mark High School in Pennsylvania. She was an active member of the Dunbar United Church of Christ in Hamden, Pa. for many years. Josephine is survived by son Rick and daughter Constance. R. Harry Hummel ’36

Juniata

October 18, 2009—After graduation, Harry worked for the Reading Railroad Company. Later he joined the staff of Schuylkill Haven High School in Schuylkill Haven, Pa., where he was a math teacher, athletic official and athletic coach for 37 years. Harry is survived by daughter Nancy.

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Helen (Holler) Dilling ’37

April 20, 2009—Helen was a volunteer for more than 30 years with Meals on Wheels, the American Cancer Society and the American Red Cross. She also was a lifelong member of the Crooked Billet Women’s Club in Hatboro, Pa. Her hobbies included gardening, bowling, reading, crossword puzzles and bridge. She was a member of the Lehman Memorial Methodist Church in Hatboro. She was preceded in death by husband John. She is survived by three children, nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Francis W. Helfrick ’37

December 13, 2009—In 1941, Francis began a lengthy association with John Hopkins Medical School, receiving his master’s degree in 1941. During World War II, he helped to establish medical clinics and a hospital in Castaner, Puerto Rico. He set up his pediatric practice in Manchester, Conn. In 1943, Francis married Sylvia Merrill and they were together until her death in 1994. Francis played the trombone with the Manchester Symphony Orchestra for 19 years. He also enjoyed plants, especially flowers. In 1999, he met Marjorie Gerstung at the Arbors retirement home and they were married in 2001. He is survived by six children, Elizabeth Barnard, John, Sylvia Smith, Dorothy Helfrick, Christina Baldwin, 12 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

March 9, 2010—Myrtle married George Shepherd in 1940. After graduating from Juniata, she taught Latin, English and French at South Whitehall High School in Allentown, Pa. She also taught in Hays, Kan., and Tucson, Ariz. An active member of the Redeemer Lutheran Church, she sang in the choir and served as the superintendent for Sunday school. After a long, full career of teaching, she retired in 1979. She is survived by her daughter and granddaughter. Mildred (Sollenberger) Gates ’39

September 13, 2009—Mildred was a retired elementary school teacher. She was involved with the Martinsburg Grace Brethren Church, Pennsylvania State Teacher’s Associations and Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees. Mildred enjoyed traveling, flowers, church and nursing home activities. She is survived by children Jeryl and Dianne. Daniel S. Geiser ’39

November 8, 2009—Daniel was a professor of physical education for 20 years at both Bridgewater College in Virginia and American University in Washington, D.C. He served in the U.S. Navy as lieutenant commander in World War II and received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the American Defense Medal. Daniel is survived by daughters Judith K. Geiser ’66 and Jean, niece Elizabeth A. Shearer ’59 and nephew John D. Keiper ’55. He was preceded in death by wife Elizabeth (Graybill) Geiser ’37.


Ruth (Pewterbaugh) Walter ’43

Florabell (Duvall) Richardson ’42

November 9, 2009—Florabell was an elementary school teacher for 30 years in the Altoona Area and Philipsburg-Osceola Area school districts in Pennsylvania. She was a member of Osceola Mills United Methodist Church, where she served as a Sunday school teacher. She also was a member of the church’s board of trustees and the United Methodist Women. Florabell is survived by five nieces and a nephew.

Janet (Pelan) Ayres ’41

January 30, 2010—Janet married John A. Ayres ’42. She was a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Tyrone, Pa. She taught at Huntingdon High School from 1941 to 1945. She later worked for a year in the emergency room at Germantown Hospital in 1945. She enjoyed fishing, gardening and reading. She is preceded by her husband, sister, L. Helen Pelan ’39 and brother, John F. Pelan ’53 and is survived by daughters Judith Daly and Christine Po-Chedley, sons, John Ayres Jr. and William Ayres, six grandchildren including Nathan C. Ayres ’03 and two great-grandchildren. William D. Ake ’42

Lola (Kensinger) Bowser ’44

Ellis Van Orman ’42 November 19, 2009—Ellis pursued postgraduate work in education at the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout his life he had various teaching and administrative positions. After retiring in 1979, he enjoyed seeing former students, teachers and district employees. Ellis is survived by sons Paul Van Orman ’68 and Philip.

December 11, 2009—Lola was married to husband Daniel L. Bowser ’46 for 64 years. She was a lifelong member of the Church of the Brethren. She had a beautiful alto voice and often sang hymns to herself while she was working in the kitchen. As a pastor’s wife, she served as a Sunday school teacher and a church chorister and pianist. Lola enjoyed gardening, music and reading. She is survived by her husband, sons Thomas L. Bowser ’68 and J. William Bowser ’79, daughter JuliAnne (Bowser) Sloughfy ’71 and two grandchildren.

Betty M. Glenny ’43

Mary (Herbert) Guilles ’44

June 10, 2009—Betty retired in 1985 as a teacher in Huntingdon, Pa. She enjoyed making and giving away afghans, growing African violets and canning and freezing produce from her garden. Betty is survived by daughter Susan (Griest) Truss ’72, sons Richard, Donald, Thomas and stepdaughter Irene.

November 23, 2009—Mary had a long nursing career, working as an operating room nurse, a recovery room nurse and head nurse for the West Shore School District. She enjoyed camping, swimming, traveling, reading, her collections of nurse dolls and charms collected in her travels. Mary is survived by grandchildren Shannon and Fred.

Ruth (Smith) Van Brakle ’43

January 17, 2010—Ruth was married to Reverend Van Brakle. She enjoyed cooking, weaving, teaching classes and caring for children. She was a registered dietitian serving several area nursing homes. Her publication dealing with special Kosher diets was seen as a milestone in the profession. Ruth helped start the Frey Village Auxiliary and was its first president. She is survived by daughter Karen Worley, sons John and James, and seven grandchildren.

Photo: Samuel Karzen ’12 75

2010 2010 Spring-Summer Fall-Winter

February 14, 2010—William married Elizabeth Greenleaf on Feb. 23, 1941. He began his career as an accountant in 1943. In 1962, he was named senior systems analyst. He retired in 1989 from GTE Sylvania after 43 years of service. He was a member of the Memorial Church of the Brethren in Martinsburg, Pa. and also enjoyed golf, square dancing, traveling in his motor home, skiing and attending Penn State football games. William is survived by his wife of 69 years, daughter Constance Rishell, son William, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

December 11, 2009—Ruth was married to husband Charles June 19, 1943. She earned a master’s degree in library science from Drexel University. She taught English at Dallastown Area High School for two years and was a librarian at the York Suburban High School for 26 years. She also was a longtime member of the Trinity United Methodist Church. She was an active member in the Retired Teachers Association and the United Methodist Women. Ruth is survived by daughter Jane (Walter) Loucks ’71, sons Hoyt D. Walter ’68 and Dwight, seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.


December 16, 2009—Mary starred in both high school and college basketball. After graduating from Juniata, she worked as a food inspector for the USDA. She married husband Clarence on Nov. 16, 1947. Mary loved cooking, shopping and traveling. She also enjoyed a good romance novel and was an avid ice skating fan. She is survived by daughters Janice Primus-Wickett, Mary Schmidgall, Laurie Dougherty, Julie Crook, son Joe, 17 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. M. Phyllis (Jamison) Replogle ’44

October 18, 2009—Phyllis enjoyed music and tea parties. She received the Volunteer of the Year Award in 2008-2009 from the Hayner Cultural Center. She loved helping children and participated in the Child Care Disaster Relief after the hurricanes in Florida. Phyllis is survived by daughters Phyllis and Alyce and sons Gary, Glenn and David. She was preceded in death by husband David A. Replogle ’42. Moris Quint ’45

December 15, 2007—After attending Juniata, Moris went to fight in World War II. After returning home, he completed his degree at Muhlenberg College. He was also a Korean War veteran, but on the return home aboard ship, he broke his neck. During his long stay in a hospital, he decided to pursue education. Later, he was appointed principal of Gettysburg High School in 1964. He remained there until the early 1980s. During his retirement, he was the president of The Hanover Hebrew Congregation for more than 30 years. He is survived by wife Janice, two children from a previous marriage Walter and Louise, and two grandsons.

William P. Keller ’46

December 1, 2009—William worked at RCA as a chemical engineer for 39 years. He was a member of the Hershey and Lancaster County Historical Societies and was secretary and trustee of the Keller Reformed Church in Canoe Valley, Pa. William is survived by wife Mary, daughters Christine, Karen, Catherine and Gretchen and granddaughter Caroline E. Weisser ’09. E. Percy Blough ’47

February 2, 2010—Percy was the former owner and operator of Cambria Motors in Johnstown, Pa. He was also a World War II Army Air Corps veteran. He enjoyed motor boating, sailboat racing and playing golf. He was a member of Mechanicsburg Presbyterian Church and Calabash Presbyterian Church. Percy is survived by wife of 64 years Betty (Cochrane) Blough ’45, daughters, Gerry Sechrist, Nancy Peterson, Patricia (Blough) Straub ’71 and husband James R. Straub ’71, son Randolph Blough and wife Debra (Trotter) Blough ’73, seven grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. Peter M. Guillard ’47

January 16, 2010 – Peter married Cecelia Groblewski on Jan. 7, 1950. After graduating from Juniata, he went to Thomas Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pa. He accomplished his internship at Allentown General Hospital. He was also a World War II Army veteran. He started his medical practice in 1952, and retired in 1984. Peter is survived by daughters Jacqueline Barner, Genya Bannon and Janine Guillard, sons Frank, Paul, Karl, and Jon Guillard ’85, 14 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. Martha G. Kring ’47

Juniata

December 20, 2007—Martha was a retired elementary school music teacher of Chestnut Ridge School District in New Paris, Pa. She also was the former pianist and choir director of the Elton United Methodist Church in Elton, Pa. and attended the Day Spring Christian Fellowship. Martha is survived by sister Carol (Kring) Vogt ’60 and was preceded by her twin sister Marian Kring ’47.

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Photo: Clare Coda ’10

Mary (Fisher) Primus ’44

William R. Rosensteel ’48

November 26, 2009—He is survived by sister Jane (Rosensteel) McKown ’42, daughter Martha, sons Bill and Ron, and granddaughter Lisa. Harry C. Crosby Jr. ’49

November 30, 2009—Harry was a freelance writer publishing more than 100 science fiction short stories and novels under the pen name Christopher Anvil. He enjoyed quiet conversations, reading, time spent at home with his family and quiet walks in the woods. Harry is survived by wife Joy (Douglass) Crosby ’50, daughter Mary S. Crosby ’80 and son John. Ruth (Armentrout) Felix ’52

July 2, 2009—Throughout her life, Ruth was a recreation director at a nursing home, a teaching assistant for special needs children and a food research technician at the University of Florida. She enjoyed cooking, caring for others and spending time with her family. Ruth is survived by husband Glenn A. Felix ’52 and children Cyndi, Kevin, Jan and Lyle. Frederic S. Park ’52

November 28, 2009—Fred worked for Owens Corning Fiberglas and Sybron Chemicals as a cost accountant. He was a 33rd Degree Mason, a member of the Haddonfield-Cherry Hill Lodge in New Jersey and also sang with the Cherry Hill Pine Barons. Fred is survived by wife Nancy and daughters Melanie and Betsy.


Richard R. Price ’52

October 6, 2009—Richard worked as a loan officer and manager for Bank of America until his retirement. He was also co-owner/operator of Sunrise Mobile Home Park in Bellefonte, Pa. He was a member of the Jaffa Shrine Band, Veterans of Foreign Wars of State College Post #321 and Bellefonte Trinity United Methodist Church. Richard is survived by wife Sherry, daughters Ruthann, Sherry, Marina and Virginia and step-brother Jesse A. Corbin ’70. Peggy (Dell) Tritle ’52

January 12, 2010—Peggy is survived by husband Robert, daughter Pamela Lacsny, grandchildren Amy, Matthew and Sean, and great-grandchildren Devin and Karissa. Harold L. Frederick Jr. ’53

January 18, 2010—Harold was a self-employed accountant who also worked at Swarthmore College. He was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and a Scoutmaster for 50 years. He was a member of Zion Mennonite Church. His interests included world traveling and hosting exchange students. He is survived by three nieces and seven great-nieces and nephews. Nancy (Newman) Conville ’54

October 30, 2009—After graduation from Pierce Business School, Nancy worked at Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pa., until 1961 and later in retail for many years. She is survived by daughter Elizabeth, son Thomas, sister Barbara (Newman) Fisher ’62 and brother-in-law Richard L. Fisher ’61.

John W. King ’54

July 24, 2009—Correction to the obituary section of the fall/winter issue of the Juniata magazine. John’s wife of 15 years, Ann (Huston) King, who survives him and lives in Huntingdon, Pa., was inadvertently omitted from the obituary. John also served in the Navy during the Korean War. Juniata magazine regrets these errors. Keith J. Birmingham ’56

October 18, 2009—Keith lettered in golf and football during his time at Juniata and played in the 1956 Tangerine Bowl. He retired as vice president of sales for NAPCO aluminum products. Keith is survived by wife Peggy and children Beth, Amy and Tom. William H. Burchfield ’57

March 26, 2008—Bill joined West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company as a financial analyst. He then accepted a position with Champion International Paper in Hamilton, Ohio and was later promoted to executive vice president. After retiring, Bill and wife Marilyn moved to Naples, Fla., where he continued his passion for sports. He is survived by his wife, daughter Elizabeth and son Jonathan. Kenneth W. Fassnacht ’58

December 29, 2009—Kenneth and wife Anne Enck enjoyed 52 years of marriage together. He was involved with Weist United Methodist Church in Shoeneck, Pa., and Rock Creek Baptist Church in Nashville, N.C. He also was a member of the Central Cross Masonic Lodge #187 in Peachtree, N.C. Before retiring in 2002, he enjoyed a successful career in accounting and worked 28 years with Inco Inc. in Rocky Mount, N.C. He enjoyed church, athletics, hunting and cooking out. He is survived by sons Robin, Scott and Bill, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

E. William Stump ’60

November 11, 2009—After graduating from Juniata, he married classmate Carolyn A. Wiant ’60, and entered Temple University Medical School. He graduated four years later placing in the top 10 in his class. He then began his internship and first year of residency in internal medicine at St. Elizabeth Hospital. He later started his own practice, and continued there until his retirement. Dr. Stump was a respected diagnostician in the Southern California area where he spent time at 11 hospitals. He and Carolyn had five children, Bill, David, Dane, Amy and James, before divorcing in 1978. Dr. Stump is survived by his five children, eight grandchildren and ex-wife. Virginia L Kalp ’63

October 10, 2009—Virginia played the organ and piano at various churches in Virginia. She also taught music and piano. John L. Tobias ’64

December 23, 2009—John taught history at Red Deer College in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada for more than 30 years. He met his wife of 45 years, Beatrice, at the University of Alberta, where he was studying history. He took thousands of pages of notes on the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians which later turned into several historical articles. He enjoyed reading, golfing, barbequing, hiking Johnson’s Canyon and listening to classical and folk music. He is survived by his wife, son Mike and grandson Cole.

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2010 Spring-Summer

Photo: Elliot Haney ’09


Richard M. Madore ’80

Loetta (Farrar) Kline ’68

March 2, 2010—Loetta married Clyde Kline on March 2, 1947. After graduating from Juniata, she received a master’s degree in education from Shippensburg University. For 30 years, Loetta was an elementary school teacher in the Juniata Valley School District. She also was a member of the 15th Street United Methodist Church in Huntingdon, Pa. She is survived by two children, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband and son. Reba (Clymer) Alwine ’70

October 16, 2009—Reba was a member of First Baptist Church in Slatington, Pa., where she sang in the choir and played the piano for Sunday school. She was an independent and free-spirited woman who loved her family and gardening. Jane (Logan) Vesztergom ’70

Robert B. Chronister ’65

February 16, 2010—After graduation, Jane spent several years in England and Brussels, Belgium, working as an au pair. Jane and husband John sponsored two children through the Christian Children’s Fund. She also was an election poll worker. She is survived by her husband.

October 25, 2009—Robert graduated with a doctorate in psychology from the University of Vermont and continued his postdoctoral studies at the University of Florida, College of Medicine. He taught for more than 35 years at the University of South Alabama’s College of Medicine. He enjoyed rebuilding Triumph TR250 cars, debating and quoting everything from Nietzsche to John Cleese. He is survived by wife Martha Stober and stepdaughters Donna (Chronister) Derk ’62, Karla, Lauree and Aimee. Also, surviving are former wife Lynne Ulrich and their sons Ian and Adam.

December 1, 2009—Kermit worked as a psychological counselor for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Elizabethtown, Pa., and a member of the Brownstone Lodge. He enjoyed golfing, baseball and was an avid Penn State fan. Kermit is survived by wife Carol and son Adam.

David R. Steinhart ’65

James S. Grady ’74

August 15, 2008—David earned his master’s degree from the University of Vermont. He was a professor at Community College of Allegheny College Boyce Campus and also was a member of the Pittsburgh Dickens Society. He will be greatly missed by his two cats, Ellie and Abby. He is survived by his loving partner, Kathy Marchewka, daughter Jennifer, son Jonathan and grandchildren.

Kermit J. Black ’73

November 7, 2009—James worked as a certified financial planner for 20 years. He is survived by wife Carol.

Juniata

December 20, 2004—Joseph graduated from Hollidaysburg High School. He also retired from Hollidaysburg Area School District.

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Photo: Caitlin Bigelow ’10

Joseph L. Wilt ’65

January 18, 2010—After Juniata, Richard went on to receive his dental degree from Temple University. He began his practice in State College, Pa., in 1986. He enjoyed family vacations in the Pocono Mountains, times filled with laughter and summer activities. He served as a volunteer dentist for the Centre Volunteers in Medicine and as a State College Area School Board member. He is survived by wife of 26 years Patricia, daughters Mckenzie and Madison, and son Andy. Susan (Garner) Warner ’80

July 15, 2008 Stanley P. Whitsel ’83

February 16, 2010—Stanley was the son of Paul E. Whitsel ’50 and Barbara (Jensen) Whitsel ’48. He worked as an operations supervisor for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. He also was a U.S. Navy veteran and an Eagle Scout. He is preceded in death by his aunt, Joan (Jensen) Betts ’48. Stanley is survived by his parents, wife Rhonda, brothers Bradley C. Whitsel ’85, Randy Weaver, Jon Weaver and Chris Whitsel, aunt and uncle, Boyd C. Jensen ’45 and Lois (Nale) Jensen ’51, cousin, Eric C. Jensen, ’77 and 13 nieces and nephews. Melinda (Donawick) Tillett ’91

December 14, 2009—Melinda married William Tillett in 1998. In 1999, her daughter, Billie Katelyn, was born. In 2008, the couple adopted Richellena Rule, 10, and Freedom Rule, 8. She is survived by her husband and children. Alexandra E. Rhines ’98

October 30, 2009—Alexandra is survived by her father, sisters and a brother.


In Memoriam

Thomas J. Nolan

After my high school graduation, I applied for jobs and heard the same words: “I am sorry but you have no experience.” I was interviewed by Tom Nolan for a position in the Registrar’s Office. Tom hired me. I was thrilled that I had gained employment due to the need to support my young child, myself and later in life, my mother. I found Tom to be an extremely supportive and kind supervisor. At that time, there were four secretaries in the Registrar’s Office and Tom treated all of us with the highest respect. Because of Tom’s personal qualities and his ability to supervise four women who interacted without one bit of tension attests to his abilities as a supervisor. One day when Tom attempted to leave the office without a coat to play handball with President Binder, we all chimed in with “It’s cold out there! Get a coat.” Tom grumbled, “It’s like having five wives,” but Tom put the coat on. Mission accomplished. After 39 years, there are two stories that I still remember. The first was when a student entered the Registrar’s Office to inform us that he was one credit short of graduation. Tom’s first remark was, “it’s not my problem.” These were the kind of remarks that helped him to earn the reputation of being called “Black Tom.” Tom’s next step was to suggest how the student could earn that one credit needed to graduate. Again, the soft side of Tom Nolan always took over in the end. As I mentioned, I was “green” when Tom hired me. Once I typed a letter and failed to proof it well. I had typed the word “sex” instead of “six”. For those of you who knew Tom, you can easily believe that I heard about it for a year. In 1990 as my daughter walked across the stage to receive her Juniata College degree, I remembered that it was Tom Nolan who gave an inexperienced secretary a chance and was indirectly responsible for my daughter being able to further her education with a college degree.

Tom will be missed by many who knew the real Tom Nolan. —Susan LaVere, health professions program and educational services assistant

He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1951 from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. and went on to earn a master’s degree in economics in 1953 from Penn State University. He taught courses as a graduate assistant at Penn State from 1952 to 1953. He took a sabbatical in 1988 to the University of Washington to take economics courses that would enhance his own teaching. He also took graduate courses at Penn State during his long career at Juniata. Nicknamed “Black Tom” for his “lovably irascible” persona, Nolan loved politics, sports and all things Irish.

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2010 Spring-Summer

Thomas J. Nolan, professor emeritus of economics and former registrar at Juniata College from 1953 until his retirement in 2000, died March 29 at age 80. He was hired as an instructor and was promoted to assistant professor in 1956. Nolan served as registrar from 1970 to 1981 and returned to the faculty as a professor of economics. He is survived by his wife, Sue Esch, professor emeritus of mathematics at Juniata, and three children, Thomas, Christopher and Barbara. He was previously married to Marilyn Maher, who passed away in 1979. A daughter, Beth, passed away in 1983.


Recruit a Student

Gold Star Recruiting Totals A Gold Star Program Alumni and Parents Refer Future Juniata Students Juniata’s Gold Card program has a simple concept. Those who know Juniata best are most qualified to identify future Juniata students. Alumni, parents and friends of the College refer high school students, and Juniata contacts the students and updates the referrer on the students’ admission progress. The student even earns a $1,000 scholarship in the name of the alumnus/a. Although Cathy (Gross) Hetrick ’99 does not know many high school students, she still wanted others to experience the value of a Juniata education. When Sylvia Martinez, Cathy’s co-worker at Restek Corp. in State College, Pa., mentioned that her daughter, Rachel Krantz, was looking at colleges, Cathy praised Juniata’s small class size and familylike atmosphere. After relocating to central Pennsylvania from South Carolina six years ago, Sylvia and her family soon learned that church members, co-workers and even their dentist had something in common—Juniata! “The professionals in the workplace are very well-prepared, and that’s a product of the environment (at Juniata),” she commented. Rachel said, “All Juniata alumni (I have met) have nothing but good things to say, especially concerning the genuine interest the professors and staff express toward the students and the high level of academics. (This) greatly influenced my decision.” Cathy and her colleague (and Juniata roommate) Rachel Kowalski ’98, referred Rachel with the Gold Card, and everyone anticipates that Rachel will excel at Juniata.

Fall 2009 103 admitted students 53 in the class 13.7% of the entering class Fall 2010 131 admitted students 62 in the class 14% of the entering class

As an 8th grade science teacher and football coach in Bellwood-Antis School District in Bellwood, Pa., Rick Schreier ’98 taught Grant Martin, a future Juniata freshman and football player, in the classroom and on the field. Rick encouraged Grant to choose Juniata because “academically, socially and athletically, Juniata is a good fit.” Grant is one of four Bellwood-Antis football players who will join the Juniata team this fall. “The Gold Card program is a great way for me to help Juniata find the right students,” Rick said. Since the inception of the program two years ago, more than 100 new students, representing approximately 14 percent of the Classes of 2013 and 2014 will be on campus as a result of alumni and parent referrals. If you’d like to refer a student, please fill out and mail the Gold Card attached to centerfold of this magazine. The student you refer just might become a future Juniata alum. Miss 360°? we do too . . .

Tell us the most unusual place or circumstance where you met another Juniata alumna/us and we will highlight it in an upcoming Juniata.

Juniata

Please send your story to . . .

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Evelyn Pembrooke, Juniata College, 1700 Moore Street, Huntingdon, PA 16652 Fax: (814) 641-3446; Email: pembroe@juniata.edu


End Paper

Julie Costa-Malcolm ’97 was looking at Juniata’s Facebook page about six months ago when a mother posted a question, “My daughter is considering (Juniata), convince me why she should go there.” We thought Julie’s answer could stand on its own.—Editor

All I can tell you is why I chose Juniata, and what I got out of it.

Photo: Jim Judkis

When I entered college in 1994, I was an overachiever (with self-esteem issues). I wanted a

school at which I would be challenged without being made to feel inadequate - a school where the students learned collaboratively and cooperatively instead of competitively. I wanted a top-notch education, but I didn’t want to have to spend my entire college career on the edge of a nervous breakdown from the workload and associated stress. Juniata gave me everything I wanted. A phenomenal education, a fantastic community, and the space and support to figure out who I was and how I fit into the world. At Juniata, I learned to challenge myself. To ask the next question instead of just answering the question I was asked. I learned to think big and to solve problems creatively. My professors encouraged me to question, helped me find my footing, offered me opportunities to grow as a learner and a person. And sometimes they let me sit in their office and cry because I felt lost or overwhelmed. When things went wrong, I was surrounded by people who cared about me. When things went well, I was surrounded by people who showed their pride in me. When I made bad choices, there were people there to hold me responsible, and when I made good choices, there were people to appreciate it. My students at Pitt don’t have the closely-knit community I had, and they have to work harder to find their place, personally and academically. Many of their professors don’t know their names. Many of their classmates don’t, either. It’s a lot harder to get praise for a job well done here, and it’s a lot easier to get away with slacking off. I chose to attend Juniata because, when I visited, they made me feel like I mattered. Everyone took the time to listen and talk to me. And it wasn’t just a sales pitch. I could see the everyday interactions between

students, professors, staff—meaningful interaction was the standard, not the exception. I think living inside that kind of a community has made me a much better person (and a much better teacher).

As for what I got out of it...

I took a wide array of courses, particularly since I changed my POE midstream from math, computer science & secondary education to English, creative writing, and theatre. My professors were, across the board, amazing. Loren Rhodes allowed me to take an entire programming class as an independent study so I could have the opportunity to take Women in Literature with Judy Katz. A group of faculty members invited students to participate in an experimental, team-taught course in women’s studies. Jack Barlow led a mixed group of political science and theatre students through a class about Shakespeare and politics. I learned to love learning by experiencing the passion for learning in my professors and my fellow students. I learned critical thinking, leadership, time management. I learned to deal with a variety of opinions and to stand my ground with confidence. And there were personal things. I met my husband and my dearest friends at Juniata. I grew up, from an awkward overachiever afraid of failure into a confident and competent young woman. The life skills I learned are ones I use constantly, and ones I attempt to instill in my own children. Juniata was a haven for me. A place where I knew I could be myself, even when I wasn’t entirely sure who that was. Why should your daughter choose Juniata? Because she can complete her academic studies anywhere, but at Juniata, she can discover her full potential in a community that will give her the tools to reach it. >j< —Julie Costa-Malcolm is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh studying theatre history and performance studies.


NON PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

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JUNIATA COLLEGE Office of College Advancement 1700 Moore Street Huntingdon, PA 16652-2196 www.juniata.edu

The Class of 2010 arrives for the first full outdoor Commencement ceremony since 2004. Commencement speaker Harriet Michel ’65 urged the class to “keep their eyes on the prize.”

Photo: J.D. Cavrich

Member Institutions: 271


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