Miamian, Spring 2014

miamian The Magazine of Miami University

New Center of Campus Armstrong Student Center opens and shares its stunning spaces.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Cautious in Kabul Reclaiming Nefertiti from Nazis 3-D Anatomy

Spring 2014

DIGNITY OF THE SANDHILL CRANE As a sign of respect and show of gratitude to the Myaamia people, Professor Emerita Gail Della Piana’s architecture students created this sculptural piece during the Spring 2008 semester.

Miami University proudly shares the name of the Miami Nation, whose traditional homelands included western Ohio. Cecaahkwa (Myaamia word for sandhill crane) remains a powerful symbol among Myaamia people and appears on the tribal seal of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

Staff Editor Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96

Vol. 32, No. 2

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Art Director Michael Mattingly Senior Designer Donna Barnet Photographers Jeff Sabo Scott Kissell

STORIES

Web Developer Suzanne Clark

18 Picture Perfect

From the elegant grand staircase to the cozy Shade Family Room, the Armstrong Student Center shows off its signature spaces.

Copy Editor Beth Weaver Issue Consultant Lilly Pereira (Design) University Advancement 513-529-4029 Vice President for University Advancement Tom Herbert herbertw@MiamiOH.edu Alumni Relations 513-529-5957 Assistant Vice President for Alumni Relations Ray Mock ’82 MS ’83 mockrf@MiamiOH.edu Office of Development 513-529-1230 Senior Associate Vice President for University Advancement Brad Bundy Hon ’13 brad.bundy@MiamiOH.edu

22 Miami’s Monuments Man

A major donor to Miami’s art museum joined in history’s greatest treasure hunt.

24 Careful in Kabul Teaching in Kabul, Leslie Weiant ’11 learns many lessons. (see page 24).

ON THE COVER The dramatic dome on the towering Bicentennial Rotunda, the symbolic center of the Armstrong Student Center. Photo by Scott Kissell.

A teacher in Afghanistan, Leslie Weiant ’11 struggles to balance courage and cowardice within herself.

IN EACH ISSUE

2 From the Hub

Student life’s new soul.

3-D Anatomage table (see page 12).

3 Back & Forth

To and from the editor.

6 Along Slant Walk

www.MiamiOH.edu/alumni Address changes may be sent to: Alumni Records Office Advancement Services Miami University 926 Chestnut Lane Oxford, Ohio 45056 alumnirecords@MiamiOH.edu 513-529-5127 Fax: 513-529-1466

Spring 2014

The Magazine of Miami University

Campus news highlights.

10 Such A Life 30%

Wearing Miami pride on our sleeves.

12 Inquiry + Innovation 3-D technology gets to heart of the matter.

Opus Web paper features FSC® certifications and is Lacey Act compliant; 100% of the electricity used to manufacture Opus Web is generated with Green-e® certified renewable energy.

14 Media Matters

New words and works by alumni.

16 My Story

No longer “fake mom.”

30 Love & Honor

Donors and volunteers help to keep Miami at the top.

32 Class Notes

Notes, news, and weddings.

46 Farewells 48 Days of Old

Dusting off a historical gem from the archives.

Miamian is published four times a year by the University Advancement Division of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Copyright © 2014, Miami University. All rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Miamian is produced by University Communications and Marketing, 108 Glos Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, 513-529-7592; Fax: 513-529-1950; Miamian@MiamiOH.edu.

from the hub

Great Expectations

By President David Hodge

The start of every semester is always exciting as

students eagerly jump into new classes, but it will be hard to top the first day of this semester — the day Miami’s Armstrong Student Center opened its doors to our students for the first time.

I wish you could have experienced the marvelous mayhem of that day. We instantly went from a “building” to a “place,” a very special place that students quickly claimed as their own.

A new student center has been a longtime dream of our students — eight consecutive student body presidents vigorously advocated for it as vital to providing the co-curricular life so important to our graduates’ success.

It has been exhilarating to watch “The Armstrong students explore it for the first time.

Student Center Freshman Victoria Pace summed it up in her tweet, “The Armstrong Student Center is just wow.” is just wow.” Everyone who has experienced the center agrees — the architects and Miami have created something extraordinary. As a result, the Armstrong Student Center is the new heart and soul of student life on the Oxford campus.

Making all of this happen was not easy, especially with the challenges of the economic recession. We put aside the original architectural plans as too expensive and determined that by reusing the existing buildings, Rowan, Gaskill, and Culler, we would save tens of millions of dollars.

Not only would the new approach prove to be cost-effective, it would also prove to be far better architecturally, with inspiring spaces and a better fit into Miami’s campus. Miami’s “can do” spirit

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persevered, urged on by students and made possible by the generosity of our alumni and friends.

Entering at the entrance from the Hub, you see names of alumni and other donors etched into the floor tiles along the indoor Slant Walk. Look up and you’ll find thousands of additional donor names engraved on the glass walls enclosing student offices. Continue on to the Bicentennial Rotunda and you will see the names of more donors on the stones surrounding the incredible three-dimensional seal.

Observing this generosity between generations is heartwarming. It is also a long-standing tradition at Miami. During our Centennial celebration in 1909, alumni stepped forward to build Alumni Library, now Alumni Hall.

A century later and inspired You are invited to write to by our Bicentennial of 2009, President David Hodge at president@MiamiOH.edu. Follow more than 11,000 of our alumni, him on twitter @PresHodge. parents, and friends have stepped forward to make the Armstrong Student Center possible. On behalf of the countless generations whose Miami experience will be greatly enhanced by the Armstrong Student Center, thank you!

Stunning spaces in a place envisioned by students, designed for students, and now governed by students.

That is the Armstrong Student Center. We can’t wait for you to come see it for yourself.

back & forth was what drew me to it, but I did enjoy the entire publication cover to cover.

—Laura Benken Rusche ’02 Cincinnati, Ohio It looks great. I love the shorter pieces; it makes the entire publication so much more accessible.

I got it in today’s mail and stopped what I was doing to read it cover to cover.

—Beth Grimm Whelley ’87 Centerville, Ohio

Great new format I just wanted to send a quick note complimenting you all on the great new format for Miamian.

I have always appreciated receiving Miamian over the years, but now it brings me home.

I loved my years at Miami, and it helped set me on my course for an amazing 37-year career as a high school educator.

Miamian helps me relive those years and catch up with the new.

First-class publication. Thank you.

—David Morrison ’60 Midland, Mich.

Whoever chose the new layout for Miamian made a great decision.

The changes look fantastic.

—Chris Clark ’05 Los Angeles, Calif.

I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the last edition of Miamian. I graduated from Miami in 2002 and have to admit I haven’t read the magazine in years.

But, the new design is smart, easy to read, and the content was really valuable. The story on Adam Bain ’95 (“Flying High at Twitter”)

Map quest How about some help for the older folk. My wife and I were at Miami in the late ’40s and early ’50s. We have visited once or twice in the past 20 years, but we are lost!

What about publishing an annual map of the current campus with the buildings clearly named? The last map I saw could not be related to the Miami I knew.

The current Miamian refers to Maplestreet Station, which is said to be located in the South Quad, wherever that is. Please help!

—John Taggart ’53 New York, N.Y. Velocipede devotees I was delighted to see the picture and description of the “velocipede” on page 48 (“Days of old: Shake, Rattle, and Roll”) in the Fall 2013 Miamian.

While practicing architecture in London for two years, starting in 1960, I sometimes saw this type of bicycle.

On the rare fair day, in Regents Park, near my office, I would see these stately ships moving along.

The “penny-farthing” is difficult to mount and to ride, but oh so elegant

when done well. The “penny” was the largest coin in circulation in England at that time, and the “farthing” was the smallest. Thus the name.

Thank you for the interesting article about a long lost art.

—Estabrook “Skip” Glosser Jr. ’54 San Gabriel, Calif.

The article about antique bicycles in the Fall Miamian was interesting. It appears from the article that a high wheel bicycle (i.e. Ordinary) resides in the university archives.

If that is the case, I would like to make a suggestion.

The handlebars appear to be positioned incorrectly by being “pointed” forward whereas they should be sideways and downward.

A minor aspect is missing spokes. If desired, replacement spokes are available from members of The Wheelmen, a national organization of people restoring and riding such bicycles and tricycles.

I cannot tell the condition of the tiring, but if it is old, it may be very dangerous if someone were to ride the bicycle. New tiring is available.

By the way, the Ohio Wheelmen ride in Troy’s Strawberry Festival parade each year.

—Richard DeLombard Ohio Wheelmen captain Huron, Ohio

Send letters to: Donna Boen Miamian editor 108 Glos Center Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45056-2480 Miamian@MiamiOH.edu; or fax to 513-529-1950.

Include your name, class year, home address, and phone number.

Letters are edited for space and clarity.

I’m smiling at the juxtaposition of the velocipede photo on page 48 of the Fall Miamian and the facing color picture of the student on a skateboard — two modes of “ecofriendly,” person-powered transportation. Funny.

—Lou Pumphrey ’64 Shaker Heights, Ohio

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back & forth

Fun photo I was delighted to find a photo on page 9 of the Fall Miamian of the fall Global Rhythms concert.

While the show was more than two hours long, Miamian featured the portion of the show that I was able to contribute to the mix. I had an incredibly fun time returning to Miami and working with current students, who were fabulously enthusiastic and energetic.

—Janine Tiffe ’00 Kent, Ohio

I had an incredibly fun time returning to Miami and working with current students, who were fabulously enthusiastic and energetic.

Rock of ages No offense to Mr. Zediak ’94, but I am embarrassed at Miamian’s fact-checking. Tiahuanaco and the “Sun Gate” are nothing like 14,000 years old. A simple Wikipedia search would indicate it is from no earlier than 400 A.D. In fact, it is still argued among archaeologists and anthropologists if man was even in South America by that time. This is a mistake well out of the academic traditions of Miami.

—John Fishman ’82 ’85 Huntsville, Ala. Editor’s note: Miamian erred in stating that the Gateway of the Sun at the ruins of Tiahuanaco was 14,000 years old. According to Jeb Card, a Latin American archaeologist in Miami’s department of anthropology, the gate is actually about 1,400 years old. Our apologies to Eric Zediak, John Fishman, and other Miamian readers.

Fruitful merger Thank you for displaying our newly created Upham Arch tile in the Fall Miamian. Through the sale of this tile, we have raised more than $14,000 for Miami

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scholarships to assist students in purchasing textbooks. We are also creating a hand-painted version that will be a gift to major contributors to our beloved university.

In addition, we have been working with Elizabeth Lokon MAT ’93 PhD ’97 MGS ’08 from the Miami University Scripps Gerontology Center, partnering with her to make a 9x6 Rookwood tile that her artists with dementia could hand paint themselves and display in their Cedar Village residence in Mason, Ohio. What a wonderful experience with everyone involved!

(For more, see “Shattering the Mold” on page 30 of this Miamian.)

We also had the privilege of working with Bryan Ashenbaum from the Richard T. Farmer School of Business. Three groups of his supply chain management class worked closely with our staff. These 20 students did an amazing job for us, and we are looking forward to collaborating with other Miami classes in the future.

Working with Dr. Lokon and Dr. Ashenbaum on these projects made me proud to be an alum from Miami University!

—Joe Wilhelm ’97 production manager The Rookwood Pottery Co. Thanks, Bowse and Pup When Miamian arrives I always smile thinking back to my first dorm floor and the guys — Tammy, Rick, Jack, Manny, Steve, Bowse, Ken, Pup, etc. We went our separate ways by our sophomore year as we swirled into the turbulent 1960s (yes, even at Miami), but they had helped me transition not just into college but into life. Now in my 40th year of teaching undergrads,

I just hope my students are getting the same support and challenges in their first year on campus.

—Bill White ’69 Rensselaer, Ind. New Etheridge Hall “tradition” As a former freshman resident of Porter Hall in South Quad, I was pleased to read that the new housestyle residence hall named for Dean Etheridge will be gracing the South Quad campus.

The photo chosen for the Fall 2013 Miamian article was perfect — showing the dean sitting along a wall while mentoring a student.

That is definitely who he was. He became almost a parental figure while letting students feel we were standing on our own two feet. He bridged our childhood life from home to our being responsible adults when we graduated.

Dean Etheridge was also a bridge to groups on campus, especially during the turbulent days of the Vietnam War, Kent State tragedy, and ROTC sit-ins on our campus.

When I was contemplating a paid role in a gubernatorial campaign headquartered in Columbus, Dean Etheridge made a phone call that permitted me to take advanced placement tests and enroll at Ohio State past the deadline. As I left his office the day he made that call, he said, “Rita, do not burn any bridges behind you. Don’t cancel your scheduled housing or classes here until you are certain this is what you want.”

Weeks later, while sitting in an OSU cafeteria, I felt God was telling me this was not a wise move. I went to campaign headquarters and did not take the position. Instead, I returned to my classes at Miami.

back & forth

The next term included my student teaching at Milford High School.

The candidate lost that governor’s race, and I met my future husband, who was a substitute teacher at the high school. I am certainly glad I took the dean’s advice and did not “burn that bridge.”

So, when you asked for ideas for an “under-the-arch tradition” for Etheridge Hall, I immediately thought of a bridge of some kind.

Then I recalled stories of two students at separate elementary schools who helped build a “friendship bench” for their schools.

What about a bench for under the arch? Perhaps it could be made of stone and brick to match both the arch and the top of the walls around campus where Dean Etheridge chose to sit while talking with students.

Having a bridge design embedded into the stone or the bench designed to literally mimic a bridge would be even better.

How appropriate this honor to Dean Etheridge would be! He was a bridge in many ways for students at Miami with his wise advice and caring spirit. This could become a place where others could sit to be a mentor, find a friend, or maybe even meet a sweetheart.

—Rita McKenzie Fisher ’70 Milford, Ohio Editor’s note: For more about Bob Etheridge, in the Student Affairs office for 30 years as dean of men, dean of students, and vice president, go to Miamian on the Web at www.

MiamiAlum.org/Miamian, and see “Dedication sparks fond memories of Etheridge Hall’s namesake,” written for The Oxford Press by Bob Ratterman ’71.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Learning to care When Leslie came to the front door of her family’s Columbus home and welcomed me in, I wondered whether I should look her in the eye.

In Afghanistan, direct eye contact is disrespectful.

Leslie had taught me that a few days earlier as we chatted by phone, me in my safe university office with an expansive view of south campus, Leslie in her tiny, third-floor bedroom in a gated compound in Kabul.

During the call, she tried to bridge more than the 9.5-hour time difference.

She wanted to talk about teaching art in the only international coed school in Afghanistan. I wanted to understand what motivates a recent college graduate to move to a place where bombs and bullets are the norm.

For that I admire Leslie Weiant ’11, the subject of this Miamian’s article “Careful in Kabul.” Even if I don’t understand.

She still tried to explain.

“While my stories of the woes of living in a war zone are limited to occasional explosions and some road closures, it’s a totally different story for my students, and keeping that in perspective is incredibly important.”

This experience has changed her, she acknowledges. After only two years, she struggles to assimilate back into Western dress and culture during holiday visits to Ohio, her latest being when we met.

She feels incredibly uncomfortable in shorts and T-shirts, and she’s careful not to run or laugh in public.

Never call attention to yourself in public.

A few days after Leslie returned to Kabul for the new semester, a Taliban attack against a restaurant popular with expats killed 21 people. It was reportedly the deadliest single attack against foreign civilians in the nearly 13-year war.

How does a 25-year-old find the courage to stay in Afghanistan and teach?

And at what point do I earn the right to worry and care about that 25-year-old? I hardly know Leslie. I can’t tell you her favorite color, author, or food. Yet, I was so relieved when I heard she was safe after that deadly attack.

Caring is so much more intense when a nation of many becomes a child of one. Leslie is teaching me that. —Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96

Leslie Weiant ’11 in Afghanistan

Spring 2014

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along slant walk

Student Center Abuzz Already In the Bicentennial Rotunda at the edge of the 3-D Great Seal, Miami University Student Foundation leaders pose with Miami President David Hodge during the Feb. 7 dedication of the Armstrong Student Center, the new heart and soul of student life on the Oxford campus.

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Miami’s new “family room” filled up fast when thousands of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends showed up Friday, Feb. 7, for the afternoon dedication of the new Armstrong Student Center.

The three-story center, which offers a wide range of dining options, from create-your-own pizzas to a station for sundaes, incorporates the former Gaskill and Rowan halls and is located on Spring Street across from Sesquicentennial Chapel. Upham Hall is to its north and Slant Walk runs through it.

Its signature spaces include the Bicentennial Rotunda; a detailed, 3-D version of the university seal in the floor beneath the rotunda’s skylight;

the intimate 500-seat Harry T. Wilks Theater; the Shade Family Room, which celebrates Miami’s history through images chronicling its first 200 years; and the Bob ’52 and Doris ’52 Pulley Diner.

During the dedication program, Mike and Anne Gossett Armstrong, both Class of 1961, who provided the $15 million leadership gift for the center, announced that they have made an additional $3 million gift to Miami.

From this, $2 million will create the Armstrong Student Engagement and Leadership Scholarship and $1 million will support the center’s east wing expansion, which will incorporate Culler Hall into the center.

along slant walk

A New Term

I’M GLAD YOU ASKED

Miami 1st public university in Ohio to offer a winter term Filming psychological thriller The Torus Effect around Williams Hall.

During the 2014 winter term — a first for

Miami — students joined faculty for discoveries in Australia and Zambia and dozens of places in between.

Business students worked on a project with Suncorp in Australia Jan. 2–25, while other business majors traveled to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai to learn about Asian financial markets.

Jonathan Levy, associate professor of geology and environmental earth science, took students to Lusaka, Zambia, to research groundwater resources and study water quality in low-income, densely populated communities.

His students worked closely with Zambian students and spoke with Zambians from many different tribes.

“Through all these interactions, I hope my students gained deepened global perspectives on life, humanity, and diversity as well as poverty and environmental issues like water scarcity and pollution,” Levy said.

Miami is the first public university in Ohio to offer a winter term, giving students a chance to study abroad, complete a workshop or internship, conduct research, or take additional online or on-campus courses.

Students who opted to stay on Miami’s Oxford campus during the three weeks kept busy too.

Sarah Brumett, a junior in mass communication, was among 18 students who worked on a film set in and around Williams Hall.

“I thought it was a really wonderful opportunity,” said Brumett, digital imaging technician for director A.J. Rickert-Epstein ’05 and his psychological thriller, The Torus Effect.

“Politics. Remember the word. It came to us from the Greeks. Poli, meaning many, and tics, meaning blood-sucking insects.”

—Alan Simpson, former longtime Republican senator from Wyoming, on campus to give the 2013 Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Lecture with Erskine Bowles, his former co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

After the new winter term, called J-term by students, we asked them:

What is your favorite memory from the term?

We were getting cleared by security at ABC headquarters when Diane Sawyer passed by. Professor Newberry called her over, and she gave us 5 minutes of advice before heading off to work.

Not 2 minutes later, Robin Roberts was leaving for the day and also took time to speak with us — she tweeted at us later that day as well!

Taryn Neubecker, Chicago, Ill., business and strategic communications major, winter term class — “NYC Media”

Seeing Conan’s show filmed and getting to talk to him.

Britton Perelman (seen here on Friends’ set of Central Perk), Cincinnati, Ohio, media and culture and journalism major, winter term class — “Inside Hollywood”

Spring 2014

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NOTEWORTHY

Jayne Brownell is Miami’s new vice president for student affairs, coming from Hofstra University, where she was assistant vice president for student affairs since 2006. Starting at Miami March 1, she is responsible for the division’s strategic direction and leads more than 150 employees in residence life, academic support, student activities, health and counseling, student conduct, Greek Life, career services, and more. She replaces Barbara Jones, who left Miami last summer to become vice president for student affairs at Boston College.

RISING RANKS

2nd 91.1 most efficient school among national universities ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

Love and Honor a Record Success

Matt Myers is the new dean of Miami’s Farmer School of Business. He is currently associate dean of the Center for Executive Education and the Nestlé USA Professor in Marketing at the College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee. He will be Miami’s eighth business school dean and second Mitchell P. Rales Chair in Business Leadership when he starts May 1.

Chuck Martin, named Miami’s 36th head football coach Dec. 3, has more than 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, including six as head coach. He has twice been named American Football Coaches Association National Coach of the Year and has coached in seven national championship games the past 13 seasons.

He spent the past four at Notre Dame as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach and defensive backs/recruiting coordinator.

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Percentage of August 2012-May 2013 Miami graduates employed or in graduate school by fall 2013.

Cause for celebration Feb. 8.

Miami’s For Love and Honor campaign

officially concluded with a record total of $535,610,796, announced at a Feb. 8 gala in the Armstrong Student Center. More than 105,000 alumni, parents, friends, corporations, and foundations contributed.

“This campaign was launched with a $350 million goal, but, through the remarkable response of so many donors and volunteers, we were able to raise that objective and then, with one of our strongest years in 2013, exceed it,” said David Shade ’66, chair of the executive

steering committee. “This is a testament to the commitment of the Miami family.”

Its achievements include raising more than $131.8 million in student scholarships and creating 586 new scholarship endowments, securing more than $135 million to support and enhance academic programming, endowing 33 new professorships, and raising $107.7 million for capital projects.

In the process, Miami’s endowment more than doubled, from $182.8 million at the campaign’s beginning to more than $430 million.

along slant walk

“It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood”: One of William Shakespeare’s darkest and most powerful tragedies, Macbeth haunted Miami’s main stage in the Center for Performing Arts when the theatre department produced the play about war, witches, and murderous ambition fall semester. More than two dozen students comprised the cast and crew for the 15th annual John D. Yeck ’34 Production.

Muohio.edu Going Away On June 1, 2014, muohio.edu, Miami’s original domain name, will go away for good. Are you prepared?

As part of the university’s updated branding strategy, Miami launched a project in 2012 to transition the domain name from muohio.edu to MiamiOH. edu. The transition period ends June 1, when muohio.edu will no longer redirect to MiamiOH.edu.

For that reason, Miami community members are being asked to review their use of the muohio.edu domain name and

make sure everything is pointing toward MiamiOH.edu before the June deadline.

You may need to: remind email contacts that messages sent to an muohio. edu address won’t be delivered after June 1; update service or account profiles with a personal email address or your MiamiOH.edu email address; and update signage, business cards, and electronic sources such as web content.

To better understand what this means for you, go to MiamiOH.edu/domain for more information.

TALK BY ACTOR GEENA DAVIS Academy award-winning actor Geena Davis will give the keynote address at Miami’s inaugural Women in Leadership Symposium at 5 p.m.

April 3, 2014, in the Armstrong Student Center Pavilion. The lecture, sponsored by the Miami University Student Foundation, is free and open to the public. However, tickets are required. For more on how to obtain tickets and register for the April 3-4 symposium, go to www.

MiamiOH.edu/MIAMIWomen.

Winter Spring 2014 2014 Fall 2013

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such a life

such a life

MIAMI.

WE WEAR THE NAME PROUDLY. We loved our time on campus … listening to the Beta Bells as we walked through crisp autumn leaves on the way to class. We are proud of our alma mater and of what we accomplished during our college days. We show our Miami pride on our clothing as well as in our homes and offices.

We’re all connected through our experiences with our great university and the Miami logo.

And we want others to enjoy similar opportunities. That’s why when we purchase a Miami University item that bears the “Collegiate Licensed Product” label, hang tag, or hologram, a portion of our purchase price is returned to the university for scholarships, allowing a new generation to benefit by the Miami Experience.

To find a store near you that carries properly trademarked Miami gear and also check out our online retailers, go to www.

ShopMiamiOH.com.

SHOW YOUR MIAMI PRIDE … FOREVER AND A DAY

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inquiry + innovation

Down to the Bone Breakthrough technology gives students rare 3-D view of human anatomy.

By Denise Spranger

Imagine a giant, 7-foot iPad. Now imagine an app of the human body. With the touch of a finger, a layer of muscle appears, then the veins, then the heart.

Zoom in. Rotate. Explore. Tap again, and you can see right down to the bone.

New to the department of kinesiology and health (KNH), Anatomage (rhymes with massage) is a virtual dissection table that displays 3-D images of human anatomy with stunning detail in a multitude of layers, views, and perspectives.

“It’s mind-boggling,” says clinical faculty member Dean Smith MS ’99 PhD ’04. “One of the most difficult challenges for students of anatomy is to visualize a 3-D representation of the body. Anatomage opens a window to that perception.”

Having access to this breakthrough technology is giving Miami undergraduates an unusual opportunity.

“This instrument provides a learning tool rarely available to undergrads outside of medical schools,” Smith notes. “At this time, the College of Education, Health and Society has the only Anatomage table in Ohio.”

One of its primary tools is a virtual scalpel that allows users to cut various layers of body tissues, study the organs, and create segments that can be rotated and enlarged. By selecting a range of anatomical networks, such as the lymph and cardiovascular systems, students deepen their understanding of the complex relationships that form our inner ecology.

As part of an independent study research project with Smith, junior Kelsey Venis, a kinesiology major,

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inquiry + innovation

KNH clinical faculty member Dean Smith explores Anatomage with a student.

is investigating the value of Anatomage as a learning tool in comparison to traditional PowerPoints, textbooks, and lectures.

“I appreciate the chance to discover how students learn,” Venis says. “I chose Miami partly because of its focus on undergraduates, and I think it’s an important part of Miami’s goal to find the ways to teach undergraduates most effectively.”

One of the first steps in her research is to explore the table’s capabilities. Venis has enjoyed learning alongside her professors and KNH Chair Helaine Alessio. “It makes me feel elevated from the position of a student to someone who is incorporated into the new things happening within the department.”

Since the addition of Anatomage, discussions are under way to develop new courses for KNH students, expanding current anatomy classes primarily targeted toward neuromusculoskeletal structures to study internal organs as well.

Smith also envisions the potential that Anatomage presents for non-KNH majors. Beyond biology students, he suggests that speech pathology majors might study the inner workings of the ear while zoology majors may explore the table’s animalanatomy options.

“I see Anatomage expanding the wealth of knowledge on campus,” Smith says. “And we’re excited that Miami undergrads have access to this technology at its forefront.”

METIman In a lab two floors below Anatomage, a “man” lies on a gurney. His chest rises and falls with every breath.

Beside him, an EKG monitor displays the spiked line of his heart rate. As his eyes begin to blink, he asks for a glass of water.

The human-like form lying on the table is no ordinary man, yet he’s no ordinary mannequin either.

Developed by CAE Healthcare, METIman is a life-size patient simulator that allows students to practice crucial skills that, in some cases, could save a life.

“The great thing about METIman is his capacity to provide us with real-time physiology,” says Brett Massie ’87, director of the athletic training program and clinical faculty member.

Although students role-play emergency situations with each other as “athletic trainers and patients,” real humans cannot mimic key symptoms such as changes in pulse, blood pressure, heart rate, and pupil reaction. METIman can — thanks to a wireless router in his chest that communicates with a softwareenabled workstation.

Massie demonstrates by passing a penlight across METIman’s left eye. The pupil constricts and dilates with the movement. “Right now, he is programmed to respond as a healthy person would,” Massie says, “but if we change the preset to a head injury, we might see a pupil that is no longer reacting.”

A senior majoring in athletic training, Cody Costanzo performs chest compressions on METIman, he checks the EKG to measure his effect, and decides to add more pressure.

“He’s our Bionic Man,” says Costanzo, smiling.

“He responds like a patient might in the real world.”

“The ability of METIman to respond is of enormous value as a learning tool,” Massie says. “If a student provides incorrect treatment, he or she could ultimately ‘lose the patient’ through cardiac arrest or other life-threatening issues. The beauty of it, of course, is that the patient is only a simulator. No human life is at risk.”

To reinforce the lessons learned, Massie is videotaping student sessions with the simulator. Much like the athletes who study film footage to gauge why a quarterback’s pass fell short, students gain insight on how to improve vital skills.

It is rare that undergraduates in non-nursing or EMT programs have the opportunity to work with innovative technology like the simulator, Massie says. The patient simulator is also new to KNH this academic year.

In the near future, METIman will don his Miami hockey uniform (size XXX) to help students master the art of teamwork with athletic trainers and EMTs at local workshops. He may also pitch in at exercise physiology classes.

“Anatomage and METIman bring the human body to life,” says Alessio, department chair. “They make deep learning both fun and memorable. That’s a perfect combination for gaining knowledge.”

“One of the most difficult challenges for students of anatomy is to visualize a 3-D representation of the body.”

METIman

WATCH VIDEOS of both Anatomage and METIman at: www.

MiamiOH.edu/EHS/ANMM.

Denise Spranger is videographer and communications consultant for Miami’s College of Education, Health and Society.

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photo: Walter Iooss Jr.

media matters

A Way With Words Listen for the Squeaking Sneakers

By Donna Boen Ira Berkow ’63, during his reporting days at the New York Times, with Walt “Clyde’ Frazier, who played 10 years with the Knicks in Madison Square Garden, leading them to two NBA championships.

In Autumns in the Garden, Berkow writes of Frazier, “I came to appreciate not only his extraordinary physical skills, but also his insights into the game. … ‘Everyone,’ Frazier once told me, ‘has a certain rhythm that he dribbles to.’ ”

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Early in his career, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and columnist Ira Berkow ’63 realized he wasn’t seeing all he could when he covered sporting events, first as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, then as a 25-year columnist and feature writer for the New York Times.

“I came across a book by Winston Churchill called Painting as a Pastime. He said that until he began painting, he never noticed the shadows of buildings.

So I made an effort, when I went to a game, to see more, to see movements and things I might not have noticed otherwise, even the shadows on the court or the squeaking of the sneakers, and to bring the reader into the moment.”

Now retired from the Times, Berkow has finished books No. 21 and 22, Autumns in the Garden: The Coach of Camelot and Other Knicks Stories and Wrigley

Field: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Chicago Cubs, released to coincide with Wrigley Field’s 100th anniversary this year.

He’s also been working on a play for two years with Bill Madden, longtime baseball writer and George Steinbrenner biographer. It’s titled Steinbrenner.

Even a veteran reporter can come up against subjects who don’t want to talk. Berkow’s toughest was probably Major League starting pitcher Roger Clemens.

“I went to him one day and I said, ‘Roger, I have a question for you.’ He said, ‘I don’t speak on the day I pitch.’ I said, ‘You’re not pitching today.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t speak on the day before I pitch.’ I said, ‘You’re not pitching tomorrow either.’ I looked at him, he looked at me, and I said, ‘Maybe I’ll catch you another time.’ ”

media matters

A Man From Ohio Edward Clark ’49 Montpelier Press In the first volume of his threevolume autobiography, Ed charts the origins of his hardworking small-town Ohio family; his childhood, played out with cautious joy beneath the shadow of the Great Depression; an adolescence marked by hopeful confidence and uncertain prospects; the brief euphoria of college life at Miami, cut short by war; involvement in the Allied push for victory in Europe; and an emerging wanderlust and growing sense the Continent might be his true home.

The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again) P.J. O’Rourke ’69 Atlantic Monthly Press P.J. began writing funny things in 1960’s “underground” newspapers, became editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, then spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic Monthly as the world’s only trouble spot humorist, going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other “Holidays in Hell.” Born at the peak of the Baby Boom, he now turns his keen eye on himself and his 75 million accomplices in making America what it is today.

With laughter as an analytical tool, he uses his own average, if sometimes uproarious experiences as a

key to his exceptional age cohort.

He writes about the way the postwar generation somehow came of age by never quite growing up and created a better society by turning society upside down.

An Elf Mystery John Miller ’70 MEd ’72 Elf Publications This original story by Jennifer Miller ’00, illustrated by Ron Wheeler, is a softbound children’s picture book.

It begins with the elves snuggling into their beds for a long rest after Santa’s return from delivering presents. But, a series of loud creaks and one eerie squeak brings them to their feet in search of these strange sounds in their North Pole home.

The Spiritual Art of Raising Children with Disabilities Kathleen Deyer Bolduc ’75 Judson Press Kathleen, with honesty, humor, wisdom, and wit, invites caregivers of children with disabilities to steep themselves in Scripture and self-reflection.

She walks her readers through the process using spiritual disciplines to help them recognize God’s presence in their lives and regain needed balance. Kathleen writes from personal experience as she and her son now approach yet another new life phase, adulthood, and all that entails.

The Worst of Times John Eric Buckley ’00 CreateSpace In John’s first crime novel, the streets of Queen City belong to the Durrant crime family until the emergence of a shadowy figure known as the Stranger. As police track a deranged serial killer, Detective Patches O’Brien must overcome personal demons for the good of the city. Meanwhile, the Stranger imposes his own twisted brand of justice upon the Durrant crime family, becoming a thorn in their side — a thorn that must be removed at all costs.

The Summer Fairy Elizabeth Kelly Gillihan ’01 Cherished Reflections With a shiver and a stir in the petals of a flower, a pixie is born — she has magical power! So begins The Summer Fairy.

More than 30 years ago on the last day of school, two children hopped off a rowdy school bus, full of summer dreams. The next morning, they awoke to goodies and a witty poem left by the Summer Fairy.

Her endearing gesture became a Gillihan tradition. Now Elizabeth shares that tradition through the story of a pixie who visits young families and bestows seasonal gifts and poetic wisdom about summer safety. A collapsible, reusable vase in the back pocket inspires readers to leave a flower for the fairy.

NOTED Love Like This Ashley Brandenburg ’10 Ashley has signed a deal with Nashville-based BE Music and Entertainment to write and record country music. Her debut album, Love Like This, came out Feb. 18 on iTunes.

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© Bull’s Eye/www.fotosearch.com

my story

MY STORY is a place for you to share reminiscences and observations about everyday happenings.

Submit your essay for consideration to: Donna Boen, Miamian editor, “My Story,” 108 Glos Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056 or Miamian@ MiamiOH.edu. Please limit yourself to 900 words and include your name, class year, address, and home phone number.

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Fostering Love

By Jane Prendergast ’85

My husband and I were eating lunch one afternoon in downtown Cincinnati when we got the call: There’s a 6-year-old girl we’d like you to meet. Dennis and I had prepared for this with weeks of foster parenting classes, background checks, a house inspection. Still, we were nervous. But the little blonde girl with pink toenails had only one question: Do you have any pets?

my story

Luckily, we did. Our husky, Bella, slept alongside her bed that night.

Chloe has been part of our family since that day in May 2010.

More than 900 Hamilton County kids live in foster homes. They go into foster care because authorities think they’ve been abused or neglected, or while their living conditions are being investigated. The goal is to reunify them with their families whenever possible, after the parents have completed parenting classes, drug treatment, or other court orders.

Our agency, Lighthouse Youth Services, has roughly 180 kids in foster homes. It’s the largest in Hamilton County, but leaders there are always recruiting more foster parents.

We started looking into it in early 2010, a few months after we got married. My husband comes from a big family with lots of kids, so adding a few more seemed like a good idea. We took classes two nights a week for six weeks. We got certified in CPR and first aid. We learned about behavior management, the effects of fostering on the foster family, advocating for kids at their schools, attachment and separation.

Teachers urged us to think about what it would feel like to be handed a garbage bag and told you have a few minutes to gather up your belongings before you get taken to a stranger’s house to live. We learned that, no matter how much better life with us might be, the kids almost always want to go back anyway. And even if they start to feel comfortable, they might never show it. It’s hard for them to trust you and let those defenses down.

Once you get a foster placement, there are new and different challenges, some of them emotionally difficult. It’s so hard, for example, to take a child to a visit with her biological mother only to find the mother doesn’t show up. The moods that follow are sour, and you struggle to find words to explain to a 6-year-old why her mother couldn’t make it.

Chloe called my husband “Daddy” almost right away. I spent some time as “Second Mom” and, teasingly, as “Fake Mom.” I knew she was trying to figure out what worked for her.

As much as the system can be daunting, it also gave us the opportunity for some of the parenting joys that biological parents experience. Otherwise, I might not

have had the privilege of watching a child learn to read.

I might never have known what it’s like to try to teach somebody to ride a bike or practice spelling words in shaving cream.

We have met wonderful people. There’s a 23-yearold man who fosters his five younger brothers and a cousin. I met an empty-nester who quit her job and cleaned out her five-bedroom house so she and her husband could take groups of siblings.

There are different ways to be a foster parent. You can accept one child or more. You can pick up newborns and take care of them knowing you’ll give them back or to an adoptive parent. You can take teenagers and help them “age out” of the system to live on their own. You can do respite, which means you take the kids when their foster parents need a break.

Our situation became what they call foster-to-adopt.

Chloe became available for adoption and we knew we wanted to keep her.

She and her stuffed bunny sat between us in a courtroom in July 2011, and she became officially ours. I teared up as I heard my father-in-law testify that he loves Chloe as much as he does his biological grandkids.

The question I get most often: How do you handle giving the kids back after getting attached? We have only done that once so far, with 4-month-old twins we’d had since they were 5 weeks old. Letting them go live with a relative was somewhat of a relief — caring for newborn twins was difficult. We took some last pictures and told each of them how much we wished them happy lives. Then my husband, Chloe, and I talked about the positive — their departure would give us room to take other children we might be able to keep.

It seems like so long ago now that we met Chloe and became parents. She’s such a funny kid with a good heart. She’s a Rainbow Loom queen and a wonderful artist.

She’s now the oldest of four in our house — we have three foster boys, ages 4, 2 ½, and 14 months.

They’re frustrating and high-energy and whiny. If I had a penny for every fight over a toy I have refereed, I wouldn’t need to work. I am exhausted at the end of most days.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I spent some time as “Second Mom” and, teasingly, as “Fake Mom.”

Jane Prendergast ’85 (janep5@ yahoo.com) has been a writer for The Enquirer in Cincinnati for almost 25 years. She left the newspaper in January to use her foster care experience as a public relations specialist for Hamilton County Job & Family Services.

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OPENING THIS SEMESTER, THE ARMSTRONG STUDENT CENTER REVEALS ITS STUNNING SPACES.

BY DONNA BOEN '83 MTSC '96

MORE ONLINE For more about the Armstrong Student Center, go to http://MiamiOH.edu/student-life/ armstrong-student-center/.

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For several months before the highly anticipated opening of the Armstrong Student Center Jan. 27, university photographer Scott Kissell donned a hard hat and dodged hammer and saw to take photos of the custom-designed elements that make the new student center on Spring Street uniquely Miami. With this photo spread, Miamian shares dramatic angles of the building’s architecture along with thoughts from people who led the center from dream to reality.

The Armstrong Student Center is awe-inspiring.

The building and the meaning behind it are amazing. Miami prides itself on always putting students first, and this student center now grounds that idea. Love and Honor is a two-way street: Students take pride in our Miami, and our Miami takes pride in us. Armstrong will give all students a place to be themselves and find their home among the red-brick buildings.

CHARLIE SCHREIBER ’14.

STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT

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THE ARMSTRONG STUDENT CENTER DAVID HODGE MIAMI PRESIDENT

“I had really high expectations for this building, but it is so much better than I ever could have conceived. It is unique.

You don’t walk in there and feel like, ‘OK, this could be a campus center anywhere.’ ”

VALERIE HODGE UNIVERSITY AMBASSADOR

“The Armstrong Student Center has been a dream of students for more than a decade and also a dream for my husband and myself, once we realized what it would mean to the students. The transformative nature of the Miami Experience will be amplified tremendously with the addition of this facility.

I cannot wait to see the beehive that will be student use of this building!”

KATIE BRYANT WILSON MS ’94 DIRECTOR OF THE ARMSTRONG STUDENT CENTER

“Students were at the center of planning for the Armstrong Student Center from the early design stages to the policies and operations now in use as the center opens. Their leadership and enthusiasm were inspiring and brought to life one of the most studentcentered places on campus.”

ROBERT KELLER ’73 UNIVERSITY ARCHITECT EMERITUS

“Walking through this building I see six years of effort by students, faculty, staff, alumni, and contractors culminating in an exciting new heart of campus activity. Multi-level spaces opening onto each other buzz with energy presenting an invitation for students to meet and discover new opportunities to learn and grow.”

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MIKE ARMSTRONG ’61 AND ANNE GOSSETT ARMSTRONG ’61 PROVIDED THE PRIMARY LEADERSHIP GIFT OF $15 MILLION FOR THE BUILDING.

“I am most inspired by all that the Armstrong Student Center will be to students for generations to come. It’s where students will meet, study, talk, eat, or just relax.

It’s where students will share experiences of engagement, teamwork, and leadership.

It’s where they will remember each other.

It’s where dreams will turn into the reality of potential.”

JOHN SEIBERT ’90 MIAMI’S DIRECTOR OF PLANNING, ARCHITECTURE, AND ENGINEERING

“It has been an honor for the design and construction team to bring into being the student dream of a new union for engagement and social interaction. The Armstrong Student Center represents the embodiment of a new heart and soul of campus life that is uniquely Miami’s, now and for future generations of Miamians to enjoy!”

WILLIAM RAWN PRINCIPAL AND FOUNDER, WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES, ARCHITECTS, BOSTON

“An important campus connection was made with the continuation of Slant Walk through the Student Center thereby linking the Hub to Spring Street. Gaining inspiration from President Hodge’s commitment to student engagement and goals of leadership and entrepreneurship, we placed student function spaces front and center along this new vibrant interior campus artery.”

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By Betsa Marsh

MIaMI’s Monuments

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Major donor to MiaMi’s art MuseuM joined in

history’s greatest treasure hunt architect by training, interior designer by trade, Walter Farmer ’35 fit no one’s image of a soldier when he joined the Army in the midst of World War II. With his corps returning to the U.S., Capt. Farmer asked to stay in Europe and be part of the world’s greatest treasure hunt as one of the Monuments Men. Allied art experts dedicated to preserving the world’s cultural heritage during and after the war, the Monuments Men corps was small but mighty. About 345 men and women from 13 nations eventually returned more than 5 million artistic and cultural items stolen by the Nazis.

Author Robert Edsel celebrated these cultural heroes in his 2009 book, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. Their legend soared with the February release of The Monuments Men, a film co-written and directed by its leading man, George Clooney.

MFAA Capt. James Rorimer supervises U.S. soldiers at Neuschwanstein Castle recovering looted paintings.

photos: (left) National Archives and Records Administration/Public Domain. (right) Monuments Men Foundation website

At Miami, the link to a real-life Monuments Man is as close as the university’s art museum. The late Walter Farmer, a Monuments Man from 19451946, gave much of his personal collection to help launch the museum in 1978.

Works from his collection are currently on exhibit at the museum.

After college, Farmer took his 1935 Miami degrees in architecture and mathematics into the world of interior design in Cincinnati. He joined the Army in 1942, serving first in the Medical Corps, then the Army Corps of Engineers.

As his 373rd Engineers prepared to return home from Germany in June 1945, Farmer asked to join the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) operation. It would be, Farmer wrote in The Safekeepers: A Memoir of the Arts at the End of World War II, “a kind of personal redemption.”

“This was the work I had waited all my life to do,” he wrote. “I was thirty-five and an architect by training, but in spirit, I was a collector and a student of beautiful objects. To have this assortment of riches at hand and the opportunity available to arrange them with care and sensitivity was the experience of a lifetime.”

“Farmer was put in charge of the Wiesbaden Collecting Point after two months, even without museum credentials,” says Robert Wicks, director of Miami’s museum. “That tells you how capable he was.” By Farmer’s return to the U.S., 28,000 crates of artworks had been inventoried, and much of it conserved.

“As an interior designer,” Wicks says, “Farmer had a wonderful eye. He may not have been trained as an art historian, but he knew good art when he saw it.”

Each day, Farmer’s team received priceless paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, and Botticelli at the warehouse that was once Luftwaffe headquarters in Wiesbaden.

Masterworks were coming out of hiding for return to German museums.

“this was the work i had waited all My life to do.”

U.S. Army Capt. Walter Farmer ’35 in Germany in 1945 with the reclaimed bust of Nefertiti, which today intrigues visitors at the Egyptian Museum Berlin.

Everyone stopped and stared in awe the day the bust of Queen Nefertiti arrived in her crate, destined for return to Berlin’s Egyptian Museum.

Farmer saw his share of Nazi loot too: Polish church treasuries, 700 Torah scrolls, and the crown jewels of Hungary.

Some of the art was returned immediately, some was, as the Nazis labeled it, “ownerless.” Ownerless because they had stolen collections owned by Jews and then killed the Jewish owners.

The Monuments Men group raced to save Europe’s cultural heritage — first during combat, working with no orders, supplies, transport, or funds. They hitchhiked between monuments, sometimes overshooting into enemy territory.

Then, as the Reich fell, the group scrambled to prevent Hitler’s minions

from carrying out his Nero Decree that “nothing of value … would fall into the hands of the enemy.”

One of the war’s final cultural threats was the division of Berlin into American, British, French, and Soviet zones. The Soviet Trophy Brigades were ordered to take anything of value back to the Motherland.

The difference between the Western Allies and the war’s other combatants couldn’t have been sharper. Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower underscored it even more when he decreed that all the art would be returned — even German art to Germans.

Farmer believed in the Monuments Men mission. When the U.S. government ordered him to send 202 Germanowned treasures, including works by Rembrandt, Titian, and Dürer, for “protective custody” and exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Farmer fumed.

“Plunder is the only word,” he wrote.

“Better yet, make that systematic plunder.” Farmer mobilized his fellow Monuments Men to craft a protest that became famous as the Wiesbaden Manifesto of Nov. 7, 1945. He sent the art, but also the petition with its 25 signatures to the U.S. Senate.

After a blockbuster exhibit at the National Gallery and a 12-city tour, the Wiesbaden pieces were returned to Germany in 1949. Many art historians believe Farmer’s protest prevented further shipments of German art to the U.S. The German government presented Farmer the Federal Order of Merit, honoring him as “a model of civil courage.”

“It is my eternal wish,” Farmer wrote, “that all the missing art treasures will be recovered and that they will be available for the whole world to see.”

Betsa Marsh is a freelance writer in Cincinnati.

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Kabul Careful in

LESLIE WEIANT ’11 struggles. Despite living in a gated and guarded compound in Kabul, the capital of war-weary Afghanistan, she doesn’t want to be afraid.

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ĆŤ ĆŤ ĆŤ Ä‘ ĆŤ ĆŤ ĆŤ ĆŤ ĆŤ

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F

riends and strangers pepper her with questions about the bullets and the bombs. She’d prefer to talk about the “stunningly beautiful country and its extremely hospitable people.” When pushed, she insists that the “little booms really don’t faze her.”

She half-heartedly jokes about owning body armor and a helmet, which she rarely wears. Nobody laughs at her joke. She doesn’t either.

When Weiant was majoring in art education at Miami University, she never imagined she’d be teaching at the International School of Kabul, the only internationally accredited, coeducational K-12 school in Afghanistan.

She’s always considered herself a homebody. Unlike her older sister and younger brother, she never sought to go far from her childhood home on Cemetery Road in the Columbus suburb of Hilliard. She didn’t have a desire to travel, didn’t even consider studying abroad in college.

Yet here she is living in a plain room on the third floor of what she calls the “Marble Mansion.” Her bedroom is so small that her 4-foot rug almost passes for wall-to-wall carpeting. Her window compensates for the limited space by offering expansive mountain views. She lives with 40 other teachers in this small compound and walks two minutes from her home to her classroom, a converted living room in what was once a house.

Her adventure actually started as a college graduation gift when her parents paid her way to Kenya where her older sister, Kate ’08, was finishing three years of teaching English, theater, and communications courses at an international school in Nairobi. Leslie went with two empty suitcases to help move Kate back home. During her 10-day stay, she shared long talks with Kate’s roommate, who was leaving to teach in Kabul. The roommate recommended a book on Islam and encouraged Leslie to consider Kabul as well.

The book touched her heart, as did the roommate’s message. At the end of her visit, Leslie realized she wasn’t going to be happy staying in Columbus.

“I wanted to do something purposeful with my teaching, but I didn’t know what that looked like. Everything in my heart was saying that this is the place where I should be.”

She came to this foreign land to promote literacy. Now well into in her second year at ISK, she is the only art teacher and works with children in every grade from kindergarten through 12th.

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Still, there are many days when she chafes under her chador — the large cloth she wraps around her head and upper body out of deference to the Muslim culture. Her biggest trial is living in Kabul as a Christian.

“These students, more than any students I’ve ever seen, are forced to consider why people of their country do what they do … in a culture where they’re hyperaware of who they are and where they come from and what will happen in their country. That challenges me to consider who I am, why I believe what my convictions are.”

“I wanted to do something purposeful with my teaching, but I didn’t know what that looked like.

Everything in my heart was saying that this is the place where I should be.”

Cultural lessons Talking via telephone from Kabul, where it’s 9.5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in Oxford, Ohio, she goes into more detail about the lessons she’s learning as well as teaching.

The semester has been hectic. Her students have cut out more than 100,000 paper dolls to break the current world record of 8,803 feet or 2,683 meters for longest paper doll chain ever made.

The school wants the attention that a Guinness World Record will bring to demonstrate how people can accomplish almost anything when they work

together. Weiant’s students used different colors of paper to represent each of the major ethnicities of Afghanistan linked together in unity.

Calling the week after her children completed their chain, Weiant says, “The world record? We’ve unofficially broken it. We’ve broken it by 2,000 meters, but the paperwork has to go through. So we’re hoping.”

The school, owned by nonprofit Oasis International Schools, has approximately 360 students from all major ethnic groups and economic strata. Classes run from Saturday through Wednesday, Afghanistan’s workweek. Although the students are required to speak English and all lessons are in English, they can find it hard to follow Weiant. She talks fast when she’s passionate about a topic, which is most of the time.

After her first couple of weeks in the classroom, one student finally worked up the nerve to raise his hand. He was hesitant to question her, an authority figure, but he finally told her, “I literally don’t know what you’re saying.” For her kindergarteners, she pantomimes half the time because of the language barrier.

She believes showing rather than telling is making her a better teacher.

Her older students test her language skills in other ways.

“I’ve realized that I have a tremendously difficult time telling the difference between sulky teenage boy mumbling with an accent and an actual different

language, which is unfortunate since we’re supposed to report students who aren’t using English.”

Another eye-opening lesson for her has been the cultural difference in values.

Whereas U.S. teachers emphasize right and wrong, in Afghanistan, they focus on honor vs. shame.

“The big thing that I reiterate when I talk with educators in the States — especially because of the growing Muslim population in the U.S., I’ve been communicating with some teachers back in Hilliard — it’s really important to understand the difference between right and wrong and honor and shame because it will help teachers understand why their Muslim students make the decisions they do.

“They are much more willing to lie to avoid shaming themselves or someone else, perhaps in their family.

If you copy someone’s work in an American school, that is plagiarism and you have cheated. But here, their mindset is that that is resourcefulness.

You are thankful and grateful to that person for coming up with such a great idea and you can use it because they made it public.”

As the teacher, she must be careful never to be seen as shaming her students even as she corrects their work. She also must not look them directly in the eyes.

“In American culture, that’s a sign of respect. Here, heck, no, you don’t look a person of authority in the eye. Ever. It’s

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18 OF THE LAST 9

combative, it’s disrespectful. Generally they look down. And so do I. I have an incredibly difficult time looking people in the eye now. It’s physically painful because it feels wrong, especially with men. It’s very difficult, even when I go to America, to look them in the eye.”

Off the compound Her life within the gated compound, barely the size of two football fields end to end, is comforting and confining at the same time. Confinement is hard on her, as she likes being active, so she’s taking up new hobbies. Last semester they were piano lessons and running. She’s also the proud owner of a mischievous dog, Hazel, who sneaks out of the house to chase the neighbor’s pigeons and roll in the largest available mud puddle.

Weiant and her friends would like to go out more often during the weekends, which fall on Thursday and the country’s holy day of Friday, but leaving the compound requires extensive planning.

First, she must be in a group of at least four women. Even then, it’s safer and more culturally acceptable if a man is with the group. It’s also not appropriate for her to go anywhere with a driver, who is always a man, unless there’s one other woman with her. An unmarried man and woman should not be alone together.

“We don’t have the luxury of trusting strangers here, and part of my heart really aches over that. I’ve learned to reach out as far as I can without getting into trouble. Whether it’s just saying hello to the guy scanning my items at the grocery or talking about living here with a friendly stranger at dinner, I’ve realized how important it is for me to feel like I’m making an effort. I never realized how much I’d miss the ability to sit down and strike up a conversation with a stranger.”

They enjoy good times, too. She feels as though the teachers have a lot of freedom within their own community,

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Leslie Weiant ’11 is one of 18 young Miamians recently recognized through Miami’s new program, “18 Of the Last 9.” In November the Miami University Alumni Association brought back to campus 18 outstanding young alumni who have graduated in the past nine years (2004–2012 this first year) to honor them and ask them to share their experiences and successes with current students, staff, and faculty.

If you know Miamians who have graduated in the past nine years and who have started a business, been recognized in their fields, or made a significant impact on a movement, please consider nominating that person for “18 Of the Last 9.”

To send in your nomination and also meet all of the 2013 honorees, go to: www.MiamiAlum.org/18of9.

frequenting 30 or 40 locations in the city of 3 million people. Those are places where their security has gone ahead of them to examine the security system and to see if there is a safe room should there be an attack.

Illusion of safety On Jan. 17, a suicide bomber and two gunmen, reportedly Taliban insurgents, made international headlines and rocked the Kabul community when they killed 21 people in a commando-style attack on la Taverna, a popular Lebanese restaurant. The Washington Post reported that it was one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul in years.

Among those killed was the beloved owner. The news shook Weiant’s carefully crafted sense of safety. Like many expats, she spent dozens of nights in the company of friends at this restaurant, sipping spicy chicken soup and fighting over the

last spring roll, “laughing wildly in the comfort of such a safe place.”

The day after the attack, she wrote in her blog, “Compound Words,” “I thought of how I had friends who had been there early this weekend.

I thought of the three doors you have to get through to enter the restaurant and the young men who always greeted us with a quiet ‘Salam.’

“I thought of the other places, like this one, in this city. Places that have been an escape, a retreat, and a reminder of home.

I thought about working up the courage to go out again, out past our big gates and walls and careful guards. I realized how hard that would be for me, and I felt like a coward. Knowing that there are men who do not just see me as an innocent bystander, or in the wrong place at the wrong time, or an unarmed civilian, but as the target? Yes, I felt the cowardice creeping on.

“Change in this world won’t happen unless you actually do something about it. And don’t wait for somebody else to do it.”

“Is it okay to be afraid? Do I have to keep on a brave face? Or do I have some kind of responsibility to hold myself together and pretend that this didn’t affect me?”

Just a few days earlier she had been in Columbus, enjoying her holiday break and assuring family and friends that life as a teacher in Kabul is worth the risk.

Friendship and freedom She’d returned to her family’s historic 1860s home the Saturday before Christmas. The next day, sitting in the family room with her parents, Chip ’81 and Anne ’83, she fought off jet lag to explain why she must teach in Afghanistan. She plans to spend this summer in the States and then return to Kabul for a third year, to the students she adores.

However, much depends on security conditions after the Afghan presidential

election April 5 and the U.S. combat troops pullout, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014.

Listening to her parents, there’s no doubt that they are focused on family, faith, and freedom.

Chip is national director for the Better Business Bureau Center for Character Ethics. Anne, a Spanish teacher at Hilliard Davidson High School, likes to think that maybe in some small way she initiated her children’s desire to go out into the world. (Their youngest, Sam, is a second-year student studying Arabic and international studies at Ohio State.)

A Rotary Scholar who lived in Mexico before attending Miami, Anne fully expected to live internationally. Then she met her Miami Merger at a sororityfraternity party and plans changed.

When friends question how she can allow her daughter to teach in Afghanistan, Anne is incredulous.

First, she points out, Leslie is an adult making her own decisions. Second, she and Chip raised their children to look for such opportunities.

“You hope your kids will have a life of consequence and purpose. And that’s exactly what she’s doing. Just to have a mindset that all culture has value and to love it and embrace it, it just has kind of been a natural part of our lives.”

Leslie is adamant about so many things: She is not a martyr and does not

want to be portrayed as one; nor does she believe that teaching in Afghanistan makes her special.

“My biggest struggle in all this is not to think I know everything or to feel like I’m doing something better than any teacher in America is doing.

I’m not. I’m just doing it differently and I’m doing it in a different place.

Still, it’s really hard for me when the conversations that I overhear in my classrooms are of my kids talking about getting driven off the road by gunmen as opposed to hearing about who’s going to the prom with whom.

“The point of what I’m doing is to take things from a policy level to a heart level.

Change in this world won’t happen unless you actually do something about it. And don’t wait for somebody else to do it.”

Anne looks at Leslie and tells her, “You have paid a price.”

“Yeah and my students know that.

They get that. They’re so family oriented.

The idea that I’ve gone there to teach them and choosing to be away from my family for that purpose means so much to them. That I would sacrifice my comfort and safety and family to be with them boggles them. But I made an active choice to come to a country where I know I have to limit my freedom. Is it hard? Heck, yes.

But is it worth it? Absolutely.

“There are so many things I want people to know. The main thing is these are not a people absorbed in themselves and wanting a handout. They’re people wanting to right themselves so they can become a part of this world and be able to finally step outside of their own conflicts and contribute to the good things that are happening that they see and get excited about.”

Leslie Weiant ’11 struggles. For her, that’s what makes life worthwhile.

Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 is editor of Miamian.

Spring 2014

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love & honor

Shattering the Mold People with Alzheimer’s Show Stunning Artistic Ability Connor Wilkinson, a junior majoring in sociology, assists Roxie as she creates her Rookwood tile masterpiece.

Reprinted with permission from the November 27, 2013, issue of The American Israelite Newspaper. All intellectual property rights remain with The American Israelite Newspaper.

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People with Alzheimer’s disease shattered stereotypes today when they created strikingly beautiful artwork in a program designed to stimulate their minds and enrich their lives.

About 35 residents of Cedar Village Retirement Community who suffer from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia produced sophisticated one-of-akind Rookwood tiles with the help of The Rookwood Pottery Co., an iconic Cincinnati brand.

For the first time, the pioneering Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University and Cedar Village in Mason partnered with Rookwood Pottery in an ongoing Scripps research and therapy program called Opening Minds through Art, also known as OMA. The program shows that many people with dementia retain access to their creativity and imagination, despite having impaired memories and often lacking the ability to perform some everyday tasks.

OMA has created a structured, failure-free art-making technique that allows people with cognitive challenges to produce original works of visual art with the help of Miami and University of Cincinnati students and other volunteers.

OMA’s workshops typically involve painting, printmaking, or making collages. The Rookwood tile-painting gave the Cedar Village residents, who participate in OMA’s weekly art program there, an opportunity to express themselves in a new medium.

The tiles will be taken to the Rookwood Pottery in Over-the-Rhine, where they will be fired.

Afterward, they will be returned to Cedar Village for a Dec. 5 gallery exhibition, which will be open to the public. More than 100 people have attended prior exhibitions at Cedar Village.

“People tend to underestimate the creative capabilities of people with dementia,” said Elizabeth “Like”

love & honor

Lokon MAT ’93 PhD ’97 MGS ’08, OMA’s founder and senior research associate at Scripps. “We’ve shown that they have much to offer. When logical thinking and verbal expression are impaired, art is still available as a way for these individuals to express themselves in remarkable ways.”

“People tend to Another OMA feature is the way it creates relationunderestimate ships between specially the creative trained college students and older adults, breaking capabilities of down barriers between people with generations. Some students have described their work dementia.” with older adults in the pro— Elizabeth “Like” Lokon gram as “transformational,” MAT ’93 PhD ’97 MGS ’08 changing their attitudes toward aging, giving them purpose, and convincing them that they can make a difference in people’s lives.

OMA shows that people with dementia can contribute to society as artists, as teachers to the younger generation, and even as learners who develop new skills.

OMA offers programs for people with dementia at nine retirement communities and nursing homes in Greater Cincinnati. The program at Cedar Village is OMA’s largest.

“At Cedar Village, we’re constantly looking for ways to enhance our residents’ lives,” said Carol Silver Elliott, Cedar Village’s president and CEO. “It is our obligation to provide as rich and fulfilling of an experience for our residents as humanly possible. OMA is one of many ways we do that.”

In 2011, LeadingAge Ohio, which advocates for nonprofits that serve older adults, presented Cedar Village and OMA with its Excellence in Service for Nursing Facilities Award. The award is given to organizations displaying outstanding initiative, motivation, and leadership in quality skilled nursing services.

Cedar Village, OMA, and others caring for older adults focus intensely on enhancing the lives of people with dementia, in part, because there is no cure and the number of people afflicted is growing rapidly. More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. By 2050, up to 16 million are projected to be living with it.

Deaths from Alzheimer’s increased 68 percent between 2000 and 2010 while deaths from other major diseases decreased.

ROOKWOOD POTTERY OWNERS SUPPORT SCRIPPS

By Vince Frieden A $1 million commitment from Marilyn (Scripps) and Martin Wade of Cincinnati will support Miami University’s Scripps Gerontology Center and advance a profound family legacy.

Marilyn is the great-granddaughter of E.W. Scripps, a pioneering newspaper publisher and founder of the Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. In 1922 he endowed the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems at Miami. In 1972, the Scripps Foundation became what is now the Scripps Gerontology Center, a pre-eminent source of research in the field of aging. The center’s mission is to produce work that makes a positive difference in the lives of aging individuals, their families, and communities.

“Our history and the legacy of the renowned demographic researchers that E.W. Scripps brought to Miami remain a source of pride at today’s Scripps Gerontology Center,” said Suzanne Kunkel MA ’79, director of the Scripps Center. “This latest investment by Marilyn and Martin Wade allows us to expand the reach of our research, service, and educational programming. We are deeply appreciative of this support from Marilyn and Martin, and we remain committed to honoring, through our work, the Scripps family legacy at Miami.”

Designated as an Ohio Center for Excellence in the category of Cultural and Societal Transformation, Scripps Gerontology Center also helps educate tomorrow’s global leaders in aging by providing hands-on research training to graduate students and thousands of hours of undergraduate servicelearning opportunities.

Earlier this year, the Wades — owners of Rookwood Pottery Co. in Cincinnati — were instrumental in the creation of a limited edition Miami UniversityRookwood tile featuring Upham Hall. Part of the proceeds for that sale supported scholarships for Miami students.

Vince Frieden is associate director of development communications within Miami’s Division of University Advancement.

Spring 2014

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days of old

That’s the Spirit Harry Thobe leads the cheers at a Miami football game in the late 1940s. His hat and shoes, seen above, as well as his suit and umbrella, are on display in Miami University Archives.

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Decked out in a white suit and red-banded straw hat

during game days, his one shoe red, the other white, Harry Thobe proclaimed himself Miami’s No. 1 sports fan during the first half of the 20th century. His antics were hard to miss as the Oxford stonemason paraded along football’s sidelines waving a white umbrella and shouting through a red and white megaphone. He was particularly fond of predicting home-team wins, announcing to the crowd, “I had a dream last night …”

He claimed to have attended 54 consecutive Homecoming games. The familiar figure was loved by the student body, but his headline-grabbing stunts were a source of misery for administrators.

He moved to Oxford in 1895 to build the town’s train depot at Spring and Elm streets. He also laid brick for several campus buildings.

Perhaps his best-known work was “Thobe’s Fountain,” which he crafted from rough stone in the early 1900s and donated to the university. Located beside Slant Walk between what is now King Library and Harrison Hall, the fountain became a popular meeting spot for students. It fell into disrepair after his death in 1950 and was replaced by a smaller one in 1952.

In 1959 this fountain, too, was removed. Today the Kappa Kappa Gamma centennial memorial sits on top of the fountain’s remains.

Legend has it that his spirit still resides near Slant Walk, ready to greet all passersby. Supposedly if you stand west of the fountain’s remains, face the nearest oak tree, and call Thobe’s name, Harry will answer.

Now that’s what you call spirit.

days of old

Spring at last, when gorgeous weather allows for studying outside at the Hub. Elliott Hall is in the background.

Fall 2013

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Rescued treasure U.S. Army Capt. Walter Farmer ’35 helped reclaim the bust of Nefertiti, which today intrigues visitors at the Egyptian Museum Berlin. See page 22 for the story.