Monmouth College Magazine - Spring 2016

VOL 31 | NO 1 | SPRING 2016

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

PAMELA MALONE MEANES ’90

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

10 WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS After more than 160 years, Monmouth College’s proud tradition of inspiring and empowering women remains strong.

A Monmouth College class in surveying, 1890s. From its founding, Monmouth admitted women on an equal basis with men and maintained a uniform curriculum for both sexes.

Monmouth College Archives

VOL. 31 | NO. 1

SPRING 2016

EDITORIAL BOARD Stephen M. Bloomer ’83 Vice President for Development and College Relations Trent Gilbert Vice President for Enrollment and Communications Duane Bonifer Executive Director of Communications and Marketing Jeffrey D. Rankin College Editor and Historian Barry J. McNamara Associate Director of College Communications Hannah Maher Director of Alumni Engagement

23 McMICHAEL HERITAGE CIRCLE 26 MONMOUTHIANA: LENA MORROW LEWIS

Monmouth College Magazine is published three times per year for alumni and friends of Monmouth College. All opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff or the College.

We welcome letters about the College or the magazine. Letters will be printed on a space-available basis and may be edited for length, style and clarity. Send letters, queries or submissions to: Monmouth College Magazine, 700 East Broadway, Monmouth IL 61462-1998, or email jrankin@monmouthcollege.edu.

EDITOR Jeffrey D. Rankin ASSOCIATE EDITOR Barry J. McNamara

DESIGNER Winter Agency BOARD OF TRUSTEES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE William Goldsborough ’65, Chairman Mark Kopinski ’79, Vice Chair Gerald Marxman ’56 (Emeritus), Treasurer Robert Dahl Larry Gerdes Bradley Nahrstadt ’89 Gail Simpson Owen ’74 Stanley Pepper ’76 Jack Schultz Mark Taylor ’78 Ralph Velazquez ’79 Jean Peters Witty ’88 Richard Yahnke ’66 ALUMNI BOARD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mary Corrigan ’82, President Danette Bagley-Thierry ’86, Vice President Jerri Picha ’75, Secretary

28 HOMECOMING REVIEW campus news sports books class notes last word

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ON THE COVER: Photograph by David Gilbert Other photographs in this issue by Kent Kriegshauser, George Hartmann, The Parrish Group, Jeff Rankin and Barry McNamara.

CONTACT US Magazine Editor 309-457-2314 jrankin@monmouthcollege.edu NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATION

Monmouth College does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, military service, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy or other factors as prohibited by law.

Monmouth College admits students of any race, religion, color, sex, national or ethnic origin to all rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to Monmouth students.

Monmouth College, an Equal Opportunity Employer, is committed to diversity and encourages applications from women and minority candidates.

Any inquiries regarding Title IX or the College’s Policy Prohibiting Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation (www.monmouthcollege.edu/nondiscrimination-policy) should be directed to the Title IX Coordinator identified below. The Coordinator will be available to meet with or talk to students, staff, and faculty regarding issues relating to Title IX and this policy.

Jacquelyn Condon Vice President for Student Life/Dean of Students Room 123, Poling Hall (main level) 309-457-2114 jackiec@monmouthcollege.edu Individuals may also contact the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights for additional information.

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Monmouth College Magazine is printed on Cascades Rolland Enviro 100 paper, made with 100 percent post-consumer fiber.

Office for Civil Rights U.S. Department of Education-Chicago Office 500 W Madison St., Suite 1475 Chicago, IL 60661-4544 312-730-1560 ocr@ed.gov

FIRST LADY’S MESSAGE

BUILDING ON

OUR LEGACY OF

EMPOWERING WOMEN When Clarence and I first became acquainted with Monmouth two years ago, one of the aspects of the College that impressed me most was its legacy of empowering women. Women were full members of the student body at Monmouth from its founding–a rarity for colleges established prior to the Civil War. I have been pleased and honored to meet many of the great women that Monmouth College has nurtured over the years. Some of them are featured in the pages of this issue of the magazine–many others could have been highlighted here as well. Some of these women attended the College years ago, and have had successful careers in business, the sciences, the arts, public service, education and many other fields. Others, only recently removed from their student days, are already showing the same drive, the same caring, the same vision, the same leadership, that their sisters before them have.

And some of them are still with us as students. Working with young women on campus to continue and enhance that legacy has been a major focus of my volunteer work on behalf of the College, along with campus beautification and supporting the visual arts. Last year I started “Lunches with Lobie,” a series of informal gatherings with different groups of young women. As I took the leading role in planning the activities around Clarence’s inauguration last April, I worked with Susan Twomey ’76, then director of the Buchanan Center for the Arts, to create a photographic exhibit called Monmouth College: Celebrating Women. These photos showed women leading and excelling in the classroom, in athletics and in student life for more than a century. Late last fall, I was honored to speak to “Girls Night Out,” the final event in a project in Professor Stacy Lotz’s citizenship class. More recently, I have been asked to speak to other groups of young women on campus. I love this opportunity to engage in conversation with our smart, talented young women!

I cherish every chance that I have to engage with all of our students, but especially our young women. I was blessed to have two wonderful parents. My father, a World War II combat pilot and successful businessman, always encouraged me to “shoot for the moon.” From him I gained my interest in business. My mother, a talented painter, taught me to always be true to myself. From her I received my love of art and all things beautiful.

From both of them I gained a confidence that has stood with me throughout my life. Breaking barriers has been a major part of my life experience. In the late 1970s in New Orleans, I was among the very first women in a management position in the river transportation business. By the early 1980s, I was a senior vice president of an oil company, trading fuel oil and running its barge line from our Houston office. Later in the ’80s and ’90s, I was vice president of a major brokerage firm. In all of these positions, I faced bias and obstruction based on my gender. However, I was also fortunate to have people who championed me in my business career. Because of my experiences, it has always been important to me to encourage young women to “shoot for the moon”–because there are plenty of barriers still to be broken.

No matter how different their backgrounds might be, and no matter where they go or what they do in their lives, our alumnae will take with them a great heritage from Monmouth College–one that each and every one of them will carry proudly.

Lobie Stone First Lady

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Students and faculty from the Monmouth College Global Food Security Triad visit an Iowa soybean farm during the Borlaug Dialogue last fall.

BREAKING NEWS

Photo: Joseph L. Murphy, Iowa Soybean Association

NEW SCHOLARSHIP SUPPORTS

FOOD SECURITY INITIATIVE

Last fall, those faculty members led 11 students during the program’s first official activity, a field trip to the Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, considered the premier conference in the world on global agriculture.

Monmouth College has announced the establishment of the Deborah and Mark Kopinski Scholarship in Global Food Security. The Kopinski Scholarship will be awarded to three upperclass students working in Monmouth College’s Global Food Security Triad, reducing or replacing the loan portion of their financial aid packages. The scholarship will also provide funds to support enrichment activities connected with their work in the Global Food Security Triad.

In 2014, Monmouth College established Global Food Security as its first Triad. The Triad brings together three academic disciplines–in this case, anthropology, biology, and economics–to focus on an issue of social importance.

The Kopinski Scholarship is endowed by a gift of $500,000 from Mark and Deborah Kopinski of New York City. Mark is a 1979 graduate of Monmouth and currently serves as vice chair of the College’s board of trustees. He and his wife, Deborah, have had extensive careers in international business and education.

“Debbie and I are proud to support the creation of this scholarship fund,” said Kopinski. “When we say ‘global,’ we also understand that food security is an issue for our local neighbors, not just something that happens ‘somewhere else.’ The Triads represent the innovative, engaged and forward-looking nature of a Monmouth College education. No college can stand still, and Debbie and I are happy to be able to play a part in helping Monmouth lead.”

The Global Food Security initiative ranges across the College’s programs, but at its core is led by three dynamic young faculty members–Megan Hinrichsen in anthropology, Ramses Armendariz in economics and Eric Engstrom in biology.

“The students realized it was a ‘big picture’ view of the issue,” said Engstrom. “Some of them came from farm backgrounds, some are looking to get into that type of work and some were interested in gender equity.

The latter group of students was interested in the fact that 70 percent of the people who farm in Africa are women. The women there are in need of a voice to be able to get the things they need.”

The Monmouth group made connections with faculty from other institutions, including the director of Ghana’s agriculture institute.

Monmouth already has a Ghana connection, drawing several students from the African nation, so the professors want to talk with Dean David Timmerman to see what more can be done in that area.

Another connection was more of a reconnection, as the group met with Danielle Nierenberg ’95, founder and president of Foodtank, who was a panelist at the conference.

“We took a field trip to an Iowa soybean farm,” said Hinrichsen. “The people from Africa saw what we do here in the Midwest as a major new paradigm for farming. It was interesting to consider that from the eyes of someone from Nigeria or Ghana, where the type of farming we take for granted is not the norm.”

The initiative received a welcome boost recently when an academic minor in food security was established.

“There really is nothing like this,” said Hinrichsen. “There are graduate programs that deal with this, and there are colleges that have farms, but as far as a small college focusing on food security, it is more or less unique to have this type of program with such an interdisciplinary focus.”

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BREAKING NEWS

NEW TRIAD PROGRAM TO STUDY GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUES President Clarence R. Wyatt recently announced the development of a second Triad of interdisciplinary studies focusing on Global Public Health (GPH).

Two years ago, Monmouth College established Global Food Security as its first Triad, bringing together three academic disciplines to focus on an issue of social importance and provide more depth and breadth to its study.

The GPH Triad, which was selected from seven faculty proposals, will focus on improving the physical and mental health of people around the world by researching disease and treatments, promoting healthy lifestyles and studying the prevention of illness and injury. The three disciplines linked to the new Triad are psychology, kinesiology and modern languages, literatures and cultures (MLLC). It was one of seven internal proposals submitted by faculty and vetted through a variety of criteria.

“As Monmouth looks to ‘Think Anew, Act Anew,’ we continue to rethink education as it exists today,” said Wyatt. “The Triad concept

brings together even more clearly and seamlessly the concepts of multidisciplinary, engaged and experiential teaching and learning, focused on an issue of true societal importance – demonstrating the power of the liberating arts to effect positive change in the world. The Triad enhances the intellectual and personal development of our students by providing them with an even more intensive and empowering experience.”

“We are very excited to have been chosen and feel an undergraduate program in Global Public Health at Monmouth College will be attractive to current and prospective students,” said psychology professor Joan Wertz, an author of the GPH proposal. “This program will provide opportunities for experimental learning and for study abroad, as well as help to prepare our students for a variety of careers related to health.”

The Global Food Security Triad aims to prepare students to change the world by studying issues pertaining to nutritional equity and providing attainable and sustainable solutions for feeding a population of more than 9.5 billion.

BONIFER TO HEAD MONMOUTH’S COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING Monmouth College has named Duane Bonifer to a new post of executive director of communications and marketing.

“Duane emerged as the top candidate from a strong and extensive field. We are thrilled to have a person of his demonstrated commitment and skill join the Monmouth College family,” said President Clarence R. Wyatt. “Monmouth has a tremendous story to tell of the power of the liberating arts, and Duane will bring energy and vision to that opportunity. In addition to his leadership of our communications and marketing efforts, Duane’s intellect and character will make him a valuable member of Monmouth’s senior administrative team.”

Bonifer, who has more than two decades of higher education communications experience, said he looks forward to telling the Monmouth College story. “Monmouth is an outstanding college with a dynamic community of scholars and talented staff who mentor a gifted student body so that they are prepared to thrive in a new world,” he said.

“President Wyatt’s leadership and vision are truly impressive, and I look forward to joining one of Illinois’ premier liberal arts colleges.”

Bonifer has been director of public relations at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Ky., since 1995, where he has had responsibility for the college’s external communications and marketing. He also served as Lindsey Wilson’s liaison to the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities.

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Bonifer earlier worked in Lindsey Wilson’s communications office and at the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind., where he served on the copy desk and wrote a weekly column.

A 1991 graduate of the University of Kentucky, Bonifer holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism with a double major in political science, and he has a master of arts in communication from Bellarmine University. He also completed post-baccalaureate work in higher education and communication.

Since 2007, Bonifer has served as Third District Commissioner of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, which enforces Kentucky’s civil rights laws; he has been the commission’s vice chair since 2012.

Bonifer is president of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications Alumni Board, and he is chairman of the Kentucky Kernel Press Inc., the non-profit entity that manages the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s award-winning, independent daily student newspaper.

CAMPUS NEWS

NEW SCHOLARSHIP IN THE VISUAL ARTS

HONORS MONMOUTH COLLEGE’S FIRST LADY President Clarence R. Wyatt has established a scholarship in honor of his wife, First Lady Lobie Stone, in recognition of her love of all things beautiful and her advocacy for the arts throughout her life, including at Monmouth College.

The Lobie Stone Visual Arts Scholarship will be awarded annually in the amount of $5,000 to a rising senior student at Monmouth College who has demonstrated excellence in and significant contribution to the visual arts at the College.

The scholarship recipient shall be determined by the visual arts faculty based on: ssessment of a portfolio of work presented E A for the Scholarship;

ignificant participation in the visual arts E S program and in the advancement of the visual arts on campus; and otential for continued study and a career in E P the visual arts.

“All of us in the Art Department are really excited about this scholarship,” said professor of art Stacy Lotz. “What a great thing for us to be able to recognize the commitment, hard work and leadership of an outstanding student who is not only dedicated to his or her own practice as an artist, but also to the promotion of the arts on campus.”

The first scholarship will be awarded in the spring of 2016 for the 2016-17 academic year.

Eleven Monmouth students, from freshmen to seniors and representing majors from computer science to business, competed in the initial rounds, which were judged by attorneys Kate Cross ’08 of Roscoe, Ill., Daniel Cotter ’88 of Chicago, and Brad Nahrstadt ’89 and his wife, Debra Nahstadt, of Buffalo Grove, Ill. For the first time in the competition’s history, cash prizes were awarded to finalists, thanks to gifts provided by Cotter and the Nahrstadts. Mackenzi Lafferty, a sophomore international business major, was awarded the prize of Top Advocate.

MOOT COURT HONES ANALYTICAL AND PERSUASIVE SKILLS

Monmouth College students considering careers in law recently had the opportunity to test their courtroom mettle in simulated proceedings, mentored and judged by legal professionals.

Held during fall semester, the annual moot court competition featured a preliminary round and a finals round. Students competed for cash prizes, arguing an actual court case–in this instance Gandil v. United States of America, in which a defendant sentenced for posting threatening messages on Facebook appealed his conviction, based on First Amendment and related rights.

In the week leading to the opening rounds, a tutoring session for the students was presented by assistant professor of political science Nathan Kalmoe and dean of faculty David Timmerman, who helped establish the competition in 2011.

“Moot court is something that we do well at Monmouth,” said Timmerman. “We take something that students normally don’t get until they are second-year law students and put it in their undergraduate experience. I’ve always described it as liberal arts on steroids, because they have to be able to read critically, think critically and speak clearly and effectively.”

In the finals round, the Hon. Robert D. McLaren ’66, of the Illinois Appellate Court 2nd District presided as chief judge. McLaren noted that while he had previously participated in 15 to 20 moot court competitions, this was the first one at the undergraduate level.

INNOVATIVE PROGRAM HELPS STUDENTS TRAVEL ABROAD

Monmouth College is doing its part to promote international education and study abroad, including a new initiative that provides a U.S. passport at no charge to entering students.

Introduced by President Clarence R. Wyatt during his inauguration remarks, the Monmouth College Passport Program “opens the world to our students” by providing the paperwork and application fee for each eligible Monmouth student to receive a U.S. passport. Students with a passport have access to 172 other countries for travel, study and internship opportunities.

In addition, the College has welcomed more than 55 degree-seeking international students since the fall of 2013 in a renewed commitment to international student outreach and global visibility as an outstanding college and an excellent choice for thoughtful undergraduate students from around the world.

The number of Monmouth students participating in the International Student Exchange Program and the program with Akita University in Japan has increased in the past two years, as well.

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CAMPUS NEWS “The off-campus experience has the potential to increase awareness of multiple perspectives, necessitate independent problem solving, increase self-awareness and foster civic engagement,” said faculty member Kristin Larson, who recently served as Monmouth’s off-campus study coordinator. “The benefits are two-fold. These skills lie at the heart of a liberal arts education and contribute to better learning and higher graduation rates. Further, these skills are the kind of transferable abilities that set our students apart when employers are making hiring decisions.”

students, and it gives our students more experience that they’ll be able to use in their academic and professional careers.”

General areas that will benefit from the new instrument include testing water quality in general chemistry lab sessions and enhancing the educational experience for biochemistry students.

“Educating students about ion concentrations in the local water supply will expand the application of the general chemistry course material, as well as provide hard data to the general community,” said Sturgeon, who said the “research-grade” instrument is not commonly found in municipalities the size of Monmouth. “With hard data in hand, we envision a public presentation addressing water quality issues.”

Applying for PittCon grants is a process started at Monmouth by the late chemistry professor Richard “Doc” Kieft during his 31 years on the faculty.

‘PROUD FIGHTING SCOTS’ RADIO IS ON THE AIR

To celebrate its new FM radio station, WPFS 105.9, Monmouth College hosted an on-air launch party in October in the newly-remodeled studio on the third floor of Wallace Hall. The event coincided with national College Radio Day.

“This is the first full-blown transmitting station in the College’s history,” said communication studies instructor Chris Goble, who serves as the station’s adviser.

He said the 100-watt transmitter, which is generally used by non-profits, churches and colleges, is designed to reach 5-6 miles from campus.

Goble said the station’s new call letters stand for “Proud Fighting Scots,” which is based on the original 1961 name, WFS. The station changed its name to WMCR in 1970, and officially began broadcasting as WPFS in June. Goble would’ve opted to keep WMCR, but now that the station has been upgraded, there is already an officially-licensed WMCR in New York.

PITTCON GRANT ENHANCES CHEMISTRY RESEARCH

Monmouth College has received $10,000 from the Pittsburgh Conference (PittCon) Memorial National College Grants Program to purchase ion chromatography equipment.

“This is another piece of equipment that will add to our students’ hands-on experience,” said associate professor of chemistry Brad Sturgeon. “Teaching students through research is something we stress very heavily at Monmouth. It helps our faculty engage more with our

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PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN INSPIRES POLLING INITIATIVES

Two polls by Monmouth College made waves nationally leading up to the Iowa presidential caucuses in February.

The College’s exclusive series of polls of Millennials–one of which primarily sought to gauge that demographic’s approval of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump–was featured on the MSNBC news program Morning Joe. Distinguished visiting professor of communication studies Joe Angotti, former executive vice president for NBC News, said he created the poll to take the pulse of the often-overlooked demographic.

“Young adults have been particularly difficult to survey in recent years because of their heavy reliance on cell phones with unlisted numbers,” he said. “We commissioned Triton Research from Bend, Ore., to conduct this poll online using methodology developed by them.”

Political science lecturer Robin Johnson, who also hosts Talking Politics on KBUR-AM in Burlington, Iowa, helped coordinate the College’s other main poll, along with KBUR and his department colleague, assistant professor Nathan Kalmoe. The Monmouth-KBUR poll surveyed likely Iowa caucus-goers three times prior to the caucuses.

Within hours of its release in January, several national news sources were referring to the final poll, including CBS News, the Huffington Post and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Morning Joe.

NEWSMAKERS

ROLLIE

WRIGHT

ROLLIE, WRIGHT RECEIVE SCHOLARSHIP AWARD Assistant professors Emily Rollie (theatre) and David Wright (English) have been named the first recipients of Monmouth College’s Gundersen Junior Faculty Scholarship Award.

Named in honor of Joan Rezner Gundersen ’68, the award was funded last year by visiting distinguished professor Lewis Gould, a nationally known historian and author. Its purpose–to honor and recognize scholarship and research by Monmouth College tenure-track faculty early in their careers–grew out of Gould’s conviction that young Monmouth professors needed to be recognized, and that such an award would encourage them to pursue excellence.

“It’s important to recognize and encourage junior faculty because they are the future of the College,” said Gould, who is also the Eugene C. Barker Centennial Professor Emeritus in American History at the University of Texas. “Encouraging them to stay and to produce benefits everyone.”

Rollie had an article published this fall in Theatre Annual, the oldest theatre periodical continuously published in the U.S., and wrote a book chapter last year. An invited lecture at SUNY-Plattsburgh’s Center for the Study of Canada was one of nearly a dozen conference presentations she’s made since arriving at Monmouth in 2013, the same year she received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. Rollie completed her undergraduate work at St. Olaf College and earned a master’s degree from Central Washington University.

Wright recently authored a full-length collection of poems titled The Small Books of Bach, which has received very positive reviews. Thirty of his poems have been published individually in journals and anthologies, as have two critical/pedagogical short essays. Wright has presented at four professional conferences and led workshops and poetry readings in a dozen different settings, ranging from college campuses to a variety of community venues. A graduate of Millikin University, Wright has graduate degrees from Loyola University-Chicago, Ashland University and Truman State University.

The Gundersen Award will be presented every other year to a Monmouth faculty member with fewer than three years of service who has engaged in exemplary scholarship, research or creative work. The $1,500 stipend may be used as the recipient sees fit.

GODSIL RECOGNIZED FOR MUSICAL COMPOSITION Music instructor Daniel Godsil was a semi-finalist for The American Prize, a national music competition for composers, pianists, vocalists, chamber music ensembles, instrumental soloists and actors.

A series of non-profit national competitions in the performing arts, The American Prize provides cash awards, professional adjudication and regional, national and international recognition for the best recorded performances by ensembles and individuals each year in the U.S. at the professional, college/university, church, community and secondary school levels.

Godsil competed in the student division of the chamber music competition with his composition, Praxinoscope, which was written for saxophone quartet. “A praxinoscope is an early animation device that used candles and mirrors to project a series of spinning still-frame images,” said Godsil. That “spinning” element came to mind when choosing his title, as the eight-minute piece begins with 90 seconds of “short, unrelated snippets of music,” then becomes a “virtual spinning out” of those snippets throughout the rest of the piece.

Godsil also competed for The American Prize a year ago with his piano trio Zed One Three, which was named a finalist and was an official selection for the 2014 San Francisco Festival of Contemporary Music.

Godsil, who teaches composition and piano at Monmouth and is the accompanist for the Monmouth Chorale, joined the faculty in 2010. On the day before The American Prize semi-finalists were announced, Godsil completed his master’s degree in music composition at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

GODSIL

WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON IS FIRST RECIPIENT OF PRIZE Joshua Washington ’16, a biochemistry major, is the first recipient of the Brad Wefenstette Prize for Social Justice, created by Kelli Wefenstette ’07 to honor her late brother.

An advocate for social change, Brad died in 2011, just as he was preparing to enter college to study criminal justice.

“We believe strongly in the transformative experience of higher education and enthusiastically supported Brad’s college plans,” said Wefenstette, who lives in Chicago and is married to Jimmy Thomas ’05. “To honor Brad’s endeavors for personal betterment, we seek to help others facing similar barriers pursue opportunities for education.”

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NEWSMAKERS

Washington has already put the scholarship to good use, enrolling in a summer class to augment his Monmouth education. He plans to attend graduate school next fall to pursue a career as a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant.

An involved student on campus, Washington serves as head resident of Cleland Hall, is vice president of UMOJA (an organization that promotes African American culture) and plays intramural basketball.

“My time at Monmouth has helped me achieve some of my goals for social change,” he said. “Being a resident assistant for two years and then a head resident has enabled me to work with younger students and help them turn into men. The UMOJA organization strives to break down stereotypes and judge individuals instead of an entire group. Instead of prejudices, there is unity.”

Individuals interested in donating to the Brad Wefenstette Prize for Social Justice can do so online at www.crowdrise.com/bradwefenstette.

BECKER

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DECKER NAMED LINCOLN LAUREATE Drake Decker ’16 was one of an elite group of Illinois college students who was inducted in November as a Student Lincoln Laureate by the Lincoln Academy of Illinois at the Old State Capitol in Springfield.

Each year, one outstanding senior who exhibits overall excellence in curricular and cocurricular programs is named a Student Laureate by each of the four-year, degree-granting institutions of higher learning in Illinois. Laureates are selected by the chief executive officers of their respective institutions, who also serve as Academic Trustees of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois.

A business and economics double major, Decker has made an impact since his very first days on campus, when he received one of Monmouth’s top merit scholarships in recognition of his intellectual and leadership achievements and potential. He conducted research on the predicted movements of volatile stocks through Monmouth’s SOFIA (Summer Opportunity for Intellectual Activity) program. As a sophomore member of the varsity golf team, Decker was awarded the prestigious NCAA Elite 89 award, given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA at each of the NCAA’s 89 recognized championships.

In addition to being an exemplary student, Decker has excelled in cocurricular activities and has served in many positions on campus, including holding executive officer roles in the Business and Economics Club and Alpha Lambda Delta honor society. He has served as publicity editor for the Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research and also as an academic coach. He was medalist at the 2015 Midwest Conference Golf Championships and has made the league’s all-conference and academic all-conference teams.

Decker serves as the vice president for marketing for Fighting Chance Solutions, a start-up company in Muscatine, Iowa. The company’s product helps protect students and teachers in an active shooter or violent intruder scenario by securing the door closer arm found on most classroom doors. Following graduation, Decker plans to pursue a career in business, with elements of marketing, branding and graphic design.

BELSCHNER

DE FARIAS

FACULTY MEMBERS ACTIVE IN OFF-CAMPUS STUDY Associate professor of history Amy de Farias had a leadership role in an Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) study abroad program last fall, and two of her faculty colleagues have been appointed to future ACM posts.

English professor Marlo Belschner will serve as the faculty coordinator for the ACM program in Pune, India, this fall, while assistant professor of theatre Emily Rollie was selected as the visiting faculty director with the ACM London program for the spring of 2018. Rollie’s proposed course, “Performing London: Voices of the City,” will bring together students who come to London with varied backgrounds and experiences in theatre and serve to immerse them in that world.

The program which de Farias directed, “Jordan: Middle East & Arabic Language Studies,” is designed to provide students with the distinctive opportunity to study the complex issues which dominate the region, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, contemporary Islamic thought, ethnic and minority relations and Jordan’s experience during the Arab Spring.

“Jordan has a special appeal to me, because I’ve been teaching about food and globalization for seven years, and I just recently designed a World History of Food course,” de Farias said prior to her time abroad. She tweaked the course to focus on Islamic culture and Middle Eastern culture and “how that influences the food, identity and religion in the Middle East and in Jordan, specifically.”

In addition to her course on food, de Farias taught about research methods and guided students on their independent projects.

NEWSMAKERS

MARTIN

FLTA PROGRAM BRINGS CROSS-CULTURAL EXPERIENCE Through the Fulbright Program, María Victoria Martin of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is spending the 2015-16 academic year at Monmouth College.

Martin’s Fulbright award enables her to “spend a year with us at Monmouth, contributing to her host department, interacting with colleagues and students, and exploring the structure and content of undergraduate education at a selective, residential liberal arts college in the U.S,” said associate dean Bren Tooley, who was encouraged to apply on behalf of Monmouth to the foreign language teaching assistant (FLTA) program by State Department colleagues at the annual EducationUSA Forum in Washington, D.C. Martin is living on campus this academic year and taking several courses each semester, focusing on American history, politics and literature.

The FLTA award is highly competitive, as Fulbright FLTAs apply to the program through the Fulbright Commission/Foundation or U.S. Embassy in their home countries. The Institute of International Education (IIE) arranges academic placement for Fulbright FLTA nominees and supervises participants during their stay in the United States.

“Colleges and universities in the United States apply to serve as hosts for the FLTAs,” explained Tooley. “Selection as a host institution is also very competitive, and Monmouth College is fortunate to be a host for an FLTA this year.”

CHAPLAIN PUBLISHED IN CHRISTIAN CENTURY The Rev. Dr. Teri McDowell Ott, Monmouth College’s chaplain, has authored an essay for The Christian Century magazine titled “The Realm of the Nones.”

Her third feature article for the magazine focuses on “nones,” who are defined by the Pew Research Center as those who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”

OTT

In its latest findings about America’s religious landscape, the Pew Center determined that the percentage who are religiously unaffiliated has jumped from 16 percent in 2007 to almost 23 percent in 2014.

An ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister for nearly 20 years, Ott was the pastor of Cameron Presbyterian Church in Cameron, N.C., prior to coming to Monmouth in 2011.

“I have grown to cherish interactions with students, and especially with those who claim no religious affiliation.” she writes in the article. “Something about my conversations with the nones feels more honest, more real. … I am stripped of all my religious fallback positions. If I want to relate to the nones, the real Teri has to show up.”

Concluded Ott, “I yearn for my two worlds to come together– for the church I love and the nones I serve to know the salvation each has to offer the other.”

DRAXLER VISITS NORWAY UNDER FULBRIGHT PROJECT Faculty member Bridget Draxler saw a little bit of everything on her recent two-week trip to Norway—reindeer games, the Northern Lights and, perhaps most important, students in a University of Tromsø class that are part of a course exchange with her Monmouth students.

Draxler experienced it all as part of her stint as a Fulbright Specialist, a prestigious academic program she first applied for in 2013.

DRAXLER

The program awards grants to U.S. faculty and professionals approved to join the Specialist Roster in select disciplines to engage in short-term collaborative projects at eligible institutions in more than 140 countries worldwide. Shorter grant lengths give specialists greater flexibility to pursue projects that work best with their current academic or professional commitments.

Draxler’s connection with Tromsø dates back to her days as an undergraduate student at St. Olaf College. The school has a connection with the Norwegian university, and that proved helpful in partnering with a member of Tromsø’s faculty.

Draxler’s introductory-level communication studies students have been working with their peers at Tromsø, blogging and chatting online. In addition to meeting the students in the course exchange, Draxler was tasked with presenting a series of workshops for writing center tutors and giving lectures on public digital humanities.

“This exchange was a really great opportunity to share the work I do as CAC (Communication Across the Curriculum) coordinator—particularly in terms of public scholarship and digital writing—with a new community,” said Draxler. “It also gave me new ideas and partnerships that have already improved the way I teach COMM 101 and mentor our Writing Center tutors. Maybe most importantly, it gave me a good dose of the liberal arts: a boost of curiosity, interdisciplinary collaboration and lifelong learning.”

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

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MONMOUTH WOMEN

CARRY ON A PROUD TRADITION OF DEFYING CONVENTION AND FOLLOWING AN INDEPENDENT SPIRIT Monmouth College’s enduring legacy of empowering women began with its founding in 1853. Defying the conventions of the day, when only five state universities admitted women, one of Monmouth’s first catalogs proclaimed that “Ladies are admitted, to both courses…on the same footing with gentlemen.”

Shortly after the College’s founding, historical circumstances would dictate female students assuming an especially independent and assertive role, when virtually the entire male student body left to serve in the Civil War. The women’s confidence was apparent when returning veterans announced plans to form fraternities. Almost immediately, a dozen women responded by founding their own secret society, which would later be known as Pi Beta Phi, and three years later another group of women founded Kappa Kappa Gamma. Today, those pioneering chapters, which laid the groundwork for the modern sorority movement, are known nationally as “The Monmouth Duo.” A strong independent spirit has characterized not only Monmouth’s female students, but also its female faculty, which has a long and distinguished career of shaping young minds. One woman who symbolized this dedication to teaching was Alice Winbigler, who graduated from Monmouth in 1877 and joined the faculty two years later. Over a 50-year career, she would teach mathematics, astronomy, Latin, history, English and rhetoric; and was honored by the College with two honorary degrees, an endowed chair and the naming of a dormitory.

During World War II, Monmouth women again demonstrated their mettle. When the College arranged to become a Naval preflight school, speech professor Jean Liedman studied navigation so she could teach the subject to young cadets. Spanish professor Dorothy Donald took a leave of absence to perform war work. New gradu-

ates enlisted in the WAVES, the WAACS and the Red Cross. Mary Fernald ’42 went to work as a lab technician in the Kankakee Ordnance plant, and suffered the loss of both hands in an explosion.

In recent decades, Monmouth alumnae have played an active role in shaping the women’s movement. Historian Joan Rezner Gundersen ’68 was a pioneer in developing the field of women’s studies. Professor Ann Garry ’65 was an early entrant into the teaching of feminist philosophy. The late Patricia Hofstetter ’48, a veteran California municipal court judge, was hailed as being a “pioneer for women on the bench.”

While many of today’s Monmouth graduates pursuing careers in STEM fields are women, it was relatively recently that industry began embracing women as scientists and engineers. But that did not deter alumnae such as H. Betty Oberstar ’43, a prominent chemist for the cosmetic industry, or this year’s Hall of Achievement inductee, Karen Bush Watts ’65, a microbiologist who helped develop some of today’s most successful antibiotics.

Today, with women comprising more than 50 percent of the student body, Monmouth continues to expand opportunities for women in all areas of the College. Ten women help guide the College as current trustees and approximately 50 women serve on the faculty, 11 as department chairs. Since the advent of Title IX in the 1970s, Monmouth has taken a lead role in developing varsity athletics for women. With the recent addition of water polo and lacrosse, women athletes now have the opportunity to compete in 12 varsity sports.

In celebrating the grit, determination and spirit of Monmouth College women of the past, present and future, we profile in this issue a handful of alumnae, students, faculty and staff who are serving as inspirational models of women breaking barriers.

B R E A K I N G 10

B A R R I E R S STORIES BY BARRY McNAMARA photographs by kent kriegshauser illustration by michelle diederich ’15

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

PAMELA MALONE MEANES ’90 NATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT DISCOVERED HER CONFIDENCE AT MONMOUTH How did Pamela Malone Meanes go from being an insecure inner-city freshman at Monmouth College to president of the National Bar Association? She credits the “freedom” she experienced at Monmouth, and a very helpful boost from her adviser.

Today, Meanes is a partner at Thompson Coburn LLP, the largest law firm in St. Louis. But on a recent visit to her alma mater, she shared her journey, which started in East St. Louis, Ill. As a new college student, she found herself in a similar position to some of her legal clients–unsure of what would happen to her and in need of an ally. She found one in her faculty adviser, English professor Jeremy McNamara.

“I was at the top of my class in East St. Louis, but being a premier student there is sub-par at Monmouth,” she said.

“I needed that time and attention. I remember meeting Dr. McNamara. He said, ‘I looked at your test scores. Are you sure you want to major in English?’ But then I’ll always remember what he said next. ‘If you go there, I’m there with you.’”

Before long, Meanes was not only taking the most challenging courses in the major, but excelling in them. She recalls that the College’s emphasis to its students during her era was on “freedom and responsibility,” and she has carried it with her throughout her two decades in law.

“I’ve really appreciated that balance,” she said. “I was against the grain my entire time at Monmouth, but people here gave me the freedom to be me. My professors supported me. I learned that what I’m advocating for needs to be balanced with reason. I can challenge, but not offend. I can motivate, but not demonize. I enjoy bringing people to the table for conversations, and the lessons I learned at Monmouth helped me to do that.”

Meanes was on campus last fall to speak to Monmouth students about opportunities in law and to discuss constitutional law, civil rights and civil liberties with political science students. Part of the discussion focused on recent events in Ferguson, Mo., not far from St. Louis, and an issue very much on her radar, as police brutality was one of her four platforms at the National Bar Association convention.

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Meanes’ entrance into the legal profession was not her original plan, or even Plan B. She majored in English and minored in education at Monmouth, hoping to become a high school teacher, then pursued a master’s degree in African American studies at Clark Atlanta University, with the goal of becoming a college professor. She was aided in her graduate school application by Andrea Scott, Monmouth’s then-director of intercultural life who, along with her husband, faculty member Ed Scott, were two others “who changed my life forever.”

Meanes’ plans for a career in education changed on April 29, 1992, the day of the Rodney King verdict.

“I was ending my time at Clark Atlanta, where I was the graduate president. Following the verdict, a group of Atlanta colleges planned a peaceful protest march. There was rioting and arrests, and I got very involved in the negotiations so that students wouldn’t have police records.

That’s what made me decide to go to law school.”

Asked what she looks forward to each day as she prepares for work, she replied, “Representing my clients and doing an excellent job at it. I like to advocate and protect needs and get justice. I enjoy advocating for them, and doing it in a very ethical and legal way. That’s the best part of my day.”

Most of Meanes’ work is in the area of real estate and construction litigation.

“Dan Cotter [1988 Monmouth graduate and attorney] calls going to law school the ‘liberal arts master’s degree’ for the way it stresses critical thinking and advocacy,” said Meanes, who was the first African American in her firm’s history to be elevated from associate to partner.

“Statutes and the Constitution are really just pieces of paper. It’s the justifiable application of those laws that really matter. At the end of the day, the person who defends those principles and makes them happen is a lawyer. I enjoy a quotation by Charles Hamilton Houston: ‘A lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society.’”

She concluded, “The opportunities I had at Monmouth as a young woman from East St. Louis were so valuable to me. But what I remember most is my first meeting with Dr. McNamara. He and some of the other faculty made me believe in myself.”

WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

PHOTO: DAVID GILBERT

FORENSIC SCIENTIST

JENNIFER HASS JOHNSON ’08

If CBS decides to expand its “CSI” franchise to the Lone Star State, Jennifer Hass Johnson would be worth shadowing for CSI: Houston. Her daily work as a forensic scientist with the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory includes receiving evidence, analyzing evidence while maintaining its integrity, and providing court testimony.

“Being in forensics, some of my biggest highlights so far are the large or difficult cases that I have analyzed,” said Johnson, who has been with the crime lab for three years. “Also, I was chosen for a project to determine the best methodology and instrumentation for dealing with some of the new drugs that are emerging.”

Johnson majored in chemistry at Monmouth before receiving her master’s degree in analytical chemistry with a minor in biological chemistry from Indiana University.

I WAS AGAINST THE GRAIN MY ENTIRE TIME AT MONMOUTH, BUT PEOPLE HERE GAVE ME THE FREEDOM TO BE ME.

“Monmouth College is where my passion for science began, and it helped me to develop where my research interests for graduate school would be,” said Johnson. “The hands-on experience and interaction with the professors is what makes Monmouth so special.”

“Right away, I was impressed with her enthusiasm for science,” said associate professor of chemistry Audra Sostarecz. “Very few people come to an 8 a.m. lab with a smile on their face. Jen was also very determined.

She told me right away that she was interested in forensic science and that she wanted to do an internship in forensics. That is exactly what she did. She applied for and received an internship at the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigators. She has some of the most important characteristics needed for student success: enthusiasm, determination and a love of learning.”

Johnson has firsthand knowledge of the contrast between Monmouth and a large university, a difference she called “incredible.”

“The atmosphere and passion of the professors at Monmouth is beyond amazing, and the support that they gave me while applying to graduate schools and beyond was remarkable. I cannot thank them all enough for helping me to get where I am today.”

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

PUBLISHED AUTHOR

MARIAN HJELMGREN ’16

Senior English major Marian Hjelmgren already has a full list of impressive college activities–from Fighting Scots Marching Band drum major to publicity chair for the Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research–to put on her résumé.

But the Honors Program participant might want to lead with “published author,” a distinction she earned while collaborating on a project with former English faculty member Ashley Carlson. Their essay, “The Genius in the Attic,” was published in Genius on Television: Essays on Small Screen Depictions of Big Minds.

Carlson, who served as an editor for the publication, had approached Hjelmgren for help and ended up enlisting her as a co-writer for the essay, which speaks about the way female technologists come across on television crime shows such as NCIS and Criminal Minds. “Having that kind of personal relationship with your professors opens up a lot of opportunities for students, so take advantage of it,” advised Hjelmgren, who is minoring in classics.

Hjelmgren, who entered the Honors Program her freshman year, said, “I enjoyed every part of it.” Of the spirited discussions during her Honors courses, she added, “It makes you a lot more understanding. You can have intellectual debates and still come out of class as friends.” “Every class you take at Monmouth, Honors or not, is meant to help you as a student and person,” said Hjelmgren, who has also served as a writing tutor, a copy editor, president of Winds Ensemble and vice president of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honors society.

After graduating from Monmouth in May, Hjelmgren has two career goals–to pursue a master’s degree in library studies and become an editor for novels or academic essays.

PUBLIC DEFENDER

KATHRYN FITZSIMMONS CROSS ’08

Kate Cross is used to being at the head of the class, being invited to participate in Monmouth’s Honors Program as a freshman and graduating summa cum laude as a senior. She kept up such honors while completing her J.D. at the University of Iowa, graduating with distinction.

So it’s not surprising that Cross is comfortable in preparing criminal defense strategies, then executing them in front of a jury. “There is something incredibly rewarding about putting in so much time, thought and planning toward a trial and then having all of that effort pay off with a not guilty verdict,” said Cross, the assistant public defender of Boone County, Illinois.

Cross traces part of her interest in courtroom discourse to an ethics course she took with Professor Anne Mamary. “I remember having heated but respectful debates during class,” she said. “That class sticks in my mind because I was amazed by the latitude we had. I was really excited to openly talk about ideas and opinions related to incredibly interesting topics.”

Cross handles criminal and juvenile cases for clients who cannot afford their own attorneys. Her workload includes criminal misdemeanors, DUI charges, traffic charges and juvenile delinquency cases. She investigates cases and possible defenses, meets with clients in her office to discuss their cases and advise them of their legal choices and consequences, and appears in court with them. “Monmouth gave me a voice and a confidence that I had never experienced,” said Cross. “When I doubted myself, someone was always there telling me that I could accomplish it. I sought out the web of support at Monmouth, and in return I felt safe, accepted and valued. My voice has carried me through law school and on to a career where I speak for those in the legal system who have no voice.”

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

BREAKING THROUGH THE

CAREER MAZE WITH INTERNSHIPS

Katy Rees ’16 and Katy Tolsky ’17 are used to pushing themselves in the classroom and in athletics, regularly earning Dean’s List honors and serving as vital members of the Fighting Scots’ soccer and tennis teams, respectively.

But just because the calendar turned to summer, the duo from suburban Chicago did not ease up. Rees, a public relations major from Bolingbrook, Ill., and Tolsky, a business major from Frankfort, Ill., worked for ENFOS, Inc., and Legacy.com, respectively.

Terrance Gabel, associate professor of political economy and commerce, called the internships “without question, two of the most meaningful and relevant I’ve seen in my 15 years of experience with internships around the country. These experiences, coupled with their diverse liberal arts background, will provide them both with experience and knowledge that will not only differentiate them from other applicants for their first job upon graduation but also help pave the way for their careers and lives well into the future.”

SUMMER INTERNS REES (LEFT) AND TOLSKY

The students were assisted in their experiences by Monmouth alumni, as Rees worked with Roger Well ’86, the company’s chief operating officer and founding executive team member, while Tolsky was mentored by Megan McGuinness Haddad ’07.

Tolsky served as a marketing intern at Legacy.com, a top site in online obituaries and memorials, headquartered in Evanston, Ill. Under Haddad’s instruction, she was exposed to the world of B2B digital and content marketing. Legacy.com partners with more than 1,500 newspapers to deliver memorials and obituaries to readers, and is one of the top 50 most-visited websites in the United States. Legacy’s recent announcement of its 100 millionth guestbook entry is testament to the site’s popularity among visitors.

Tolsky conducted market research to build a pricing elasticity study, used Google Analytics to pull more than 100 custom reports and build presentations, researched and wrote blog posts, and used software including WordPress, MailChimp, Survey Monkey and Wufoo to create webpages, surveys and emails. She was even given the opportunity to travel to New York to promote Legacy at Global Family Reunion, a large genealogy event. “I’m sure that all of the skills I gained this summer will put a competitive edge on my résumé, and make me stand out among other applicants,” said Tolsky.

Rees was introduced to the world of environmental software after landing a marketing internship with ENFOS, Inc. in Naperville, Ill. She was also exposed to the ins and outs of field sales, inside sales, inbound marketing and social media. Founded in 2000, ENFOS has developed a cloud program designed to assist companies in organizing their environmental cleanup matters. Its customers include some of the world’s largest companies, including British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and TOTAL, France’s largest oil company.

Rees was not previously familiar with environmental liabilities nor high-tech software programming, but she took on the task and credits “countless hours of research” throughout the summer for the success she achieved.

Rees’s responsibilities included research of prospective clients, blog and news release writing, webinar planning, and even some more creative projects like formatting marketing materials and video advertisement, which ties into her art minor. “The array of projects assigned to me during my time at ENFOS kept me very busy,” said Rees. “I know all the hard work will pay off, though, and that the experience I gained and the skills I learned will give me a very competitive résumé for my job search.”

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SPRING 2016

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST

KATE RUNGE ’11

The Mississippi River goes by the nickname the “The Big Muddy,” but its color isn’t the only thing dirty about it. Since the organization Living Lands and Waters began its Great Mississippi River Cleanup in 2010, more than 8,000 volunteers, some of them Monmouth students, have removed 500,000 pounds of debris from the river–that’s 250 tons of garbage–from car tires and refrigerators to plastic wrappers and pop cans.

Keeping that information up to date is just one of the many duties handled by Kate Runge, the organization’s director of marketing and events coordinator. Runge’s job of promoting her company got much easier at the end of 2013 when her boss, Living Lands and Waters founder Chad Pegracke, was named CNN’s Hero of the Year.

Ironically, Pegracke had been a guest speaker at one of the convocations during Runge’s freshman year at Monmouth. “After hearing Chad’s story and the beginnings of LL&W, it took me about a half-second to jump on applying when I saw the job offer online,” said Runge.

A non-profit river cleanup organization based in East Moline, Ill,. Living Lands and Waters has worked on 23 rivers in 20 states and, with the help of more than 70,000 volunteers, has removed more than 7.5 million pounds of trash from U.S. waterways. Although LL&W has a home base, Runge spends almost half the year on the four barges that serve “as our floating headquarters.”

River cleanups are only the tip of the iceberg for LL&W’s programs, as the organization provides educational workshops and has distributed nearly 750,000 free trees through its MillionTrees Project, among other initiatives. A public relations major at Monmouth, Runge promotes it all, writing press releases, managing social media outlets, maintaining a website and producing design work. “Being able to dedicate my life to something with a purpose bigger than me is very meaningful,” she said. “Everything we do is an effort to help make the Earth a better place. I’m doing something I love. What more could I ask for?”

COMEDY WRITER

JESS BYBEE ’14

As an eighth-grader, Jess Bybee watched a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the television sitcom Will and Grace. Seeing a table of writers pitching ideas and working collaboratively to make comedy resonated with her, and she’s had her sights on a career in comedy writing ever since.

She certainly started her post-Monmouth College career at the right place, as The Second City Training Center in Chicago has helped launch the comedic careers of some of the top names in the industry, including Joan Rivers, Bill Murray, John Candy, Tina Fey and Steve Carell. “The history and legacy of Second City is undeniable,” said Bybee. “I felt if I was going to learn comedy writing from someone, I should learn from the very best.”

After completing the intensive 48-week session at Second City, Bybee’s goal of writing for a network comedy series is still very much in range.

Bybee admitted feeling a little intimidated initially by the weight of attending Second City, but she soon learned she belonged. “With my English degree from Monmouth, I found that in terms of writing, I was able to hang pretty well with the big dogs from colleges likes Harvard and Columbia,” she said. “The collaborative community of Monmouth’s English department, and the College as a whole, is something I really thrived in, and Second City has that collaborative aspect, too.”

When asked what she would tell a student who was considering Monmouth, Bybee replied, “I’d tell them that Monmouth is the kind of college that really builds its students up. It has a very personal way of educating students. For me, that’s where the confidence came in, and that’s the confidence I needed to try something as ambitious as Second City.”

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

HELPING STUDENTS CONSIDER MORAL CHOICES

BRIANNE DONALDSON Two decades ago, Monmouth student Danielle Nierenberg ’95 penned a regular environmental column in the local Monmouth newspaper, sometimes dealing with the very delicate subject of meat industry ethics in a pork-producing town. Nierenberg continued to follow her passion on the subject and today is founder and president of Foodtank, which spotlights environmentally, socially and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity and poverty and creating networks of people, organizations and content to push for food system change.

Nierenberg’s mantle has been picked up locally by visiting assistant professor Brianne Donaldson, who joined Monmouth’s faculty in 2014. Through innovative teaching, she is helping students come to terms with philosophical and moral choices, such as slaughtering animals.

Each year, Monmouth’s first year-students read a common text as part of “Introduction to Liberal Arts” (ILA), which is the first in a series of four courses in the College’s Integrated Studies curriculum. This year’s text, Ian Leslie’s Curious, was intended to get students thinking about what they didn’t know, and what they were curious to learn more about.

Donaldson devised projects through which her ILA students could exercise their curiosity, including exploring the history of the College or town, or subjects such as minority students on campus or the history of the Burmese immigrants in town. “The idea was to move beyond books and have them meet real people,” she said. “Move beyond the dorm and the classroom and share with each other. There’s a slaughterhouse in town. I wanted to bring that reality to life, and not just have it blow by them.”

Once the common reading is completed, ILA classes take off in different directions. Donaldson’s students next read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, which inspired lively classroom discussions about the meat industry, factory farms and animal rights and, ultimately, led to a library exhibit. Titled “Eating Plants: Vegetarian Stories from the Heartland,” the exhibit featured personal accounts by members of the College and local communities.

Students didn’t just learn about vegetarian lifestyles, explained Donaldson. They also became immersed in the local community, from interviewing a local auto mechanic about his vegetarian lifestyle, to working with a local bakery, La flor de trigo, to provide treats for the exhibit’s opening reception. “It’s a great conversation, and it helped them put skills into practice–not just liberal arts skills, but skills like what to wear to an interview and how to get over their inhibitions about talking to others,” said Donaldson.

At the installation of the exhibit shortly before finals, Donaldson reflected on the semester’s experiences. “In this class, we saw that caring for something can make us curious about it, but being curious can also lead us to care about things we did not previously,” said Donaldson, whose most recent book, Creaturely Cosmologies: Why Metaphysics Matters for Animal and Planetary Liberation, was published last year. “Permission to care about the life of animals, the environment and our local and global neighbors in industrial agriculture has been a subtle, but significant, aspect of this project.”

In her two years at Monmouth, Donaldson has been busy exploring the College’s corner of the world. She’s liked what she’s seen, and she encourages her students to explore, too. “When I moved here from California, I wanted to learn my habitat,” said Donaldson, who has since discovered 15 places to hike and now knows the best places in the region to get good Indian food, among other examples. “Culturally, this area is so unexpectedly rich. Some students never connect with anything in their town.”

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SPRING 2016

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

CLASSICAL SCHOLAR

EMMA VANDERPOOL ’17

Emma Vanderpool considers herself lucky. Born in China and far too young to have a say in her life, the Monmouth College junior was given up for adoption. She credits “a moment of chance, of fate,” for being “adopted into the family that I was,” the home of Dale and Diane Vanderpool of Frankfort, Ill. From that point on, however, Vanderpool’s many successes have not been lucky at all. Rather, they come from an inner drive to “hold myself to an extremely high standard–to not just do good work, but to do my best work.”

The quality of her work was reinforced at last year’s Honors Convocation, when Vanderpool was called to the stage repeatedly to claim awards, including the Sam Thompson Prize for an essay in the humanities.

Here’s what else happened that day: the Latin and history major received the Dorothy Donald Scholarship, the Mitchell Scholarship for Study Abroad, the Monmouth College Latin Scholarship, the American Philological Association Award, the CAMWS Translation Contest Prize, National Latin Exam honors, the Classics Department Prize, the Mary Bartling Crow History Prize, the Virginia K. Hellenga Prize for excellence in Latin and the Harold Ralston Classics Essay Award. She was also inducted into Eta Sigma Phi, the national honorary society for classical studies, and Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. “I’ve had strong mentors behind me,” she explained, crediting Monmouth College classics department members Tom Sienkewicz and Kris Lorenzo, as well as her high school Latin teacher, Matthew Katsenes ’04.

“I learned about Monmouth from Mr. K.,” she said. “My sophomore year, I told him I wanted to be a high school Latin teacher, and he told me the best place to come was Monmouth College. I realized I was very passionate about the subject, and seeing a teacher like Mr. K., who was so dedicated to his students, was very impactful for me. Since that time, my desire to teach Latin has only been strengthened by the tutelage of Dr. Sienkewicz.”

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“Emma is a remarkably intelligent young woman,” said Sienkewicz.

“She is one of the few students I’ve known who writes academic papers for the sheer pleasure of the process, and what she writes is amazingly good, witnessed by the fact that several of her papers have been accepted in a blind process to be read at national conferences.”

Vanderpool acknowledges that classics is an underpromoted field, and she’s heard her share of comments along the lines of “Why do you want to study a dead language?” But in addition to Latin teachers telling her she was making the right move, she also had the support of her parents, who told her “You can do this.”

“There has been a little bit of a stigma involved, but my parents are very supportive of my choice. I’ve used all the support and also applied my sense of drive to it.”

Vanderpool was a standout student at Monmouth even before her matriculation, tackling an interdisciplinary SOFIA project involving classics and statistics in August of 2013. She calls the resulting paper, “Towards a New Lexicon of Fear,” one of the highlights of her studies at Monmouth. She read the paper, which won that year’s Thompson and Ralston awards (she had a strong showing at her freshman year Honors Convocation, too), at the Society for Classical Studies national conference in New Orleans, and it was accepted into Monmouth’s prestigious Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research. “It’s really a manifestation of the liberal arts at Monmouth,” she said of the paper, which was a statistical and grammatical analysis of the Latin word pertimescere, which means “to greatly fear.” It was based on work she did with faculty members Logan Mayfield and Nick Dobson in their SOFIA project, “Cryptology and Linguistics.”

“Her enthusiasm for Latin is incredible and she promises to be an outstanding Latin teacher someday,” said Sienkewicz. “She also has incredible energy which has led her to organize, almost single-handedly, the national convention of Eta Sigma Phi,” which Monmouth hosted in April.

Vanderpool has not slowed down one bit. In addition to the conference, her latest interests include digital humanities, an Honors Program capstone project on Roman historian Eutropius (which will reunite her with Mr. Katsenes), and simply reading great literature, such as the works of Virgil and Cicero. “I enjoy the way that classical literature is a way to see into the past and see a reflection of the present as well,” she said.

Looking into her own past, Vanderpool says, “Growing up, (being Chinese and being adopted) was not a terrible stigma, but you are set apart. I was pretty much in a white, suburban school district.

You have to overcome those differences, not just ethnic and cultural, but also more personal ones.”

She said it’s “very satisfying and very humbling to be able to seek higher education at a school like Monmouth, and to develop and thrive in such a great environment.”

WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

MEDICAL STUDENT

STEPHANIE LANKFORD ’15 Prior to graduating from Monmouth last May, Stephanie Lankford was accepted into graduate studies in the field of oncology medicine as a Still Scholars Recipient at A. T. Still University Medical School in Kirksville, Mo. She said the subject first drew her interest during a shadowing program in her hometown of Effingham, Ill. “I have always had an interest in the human body,” said Lankford, who was Monmouth’s 2015 Lincoln Student Laureate. “The strength yet delicacy of the entire system amazes me.”

An inaugural Midwest Scholar Award recipient when she matriculated at Monmouth, Lankford capped her first year by being named Freshman Chemistry Student of the Year. She built on that outstanding foundation, accruing extensive research experience through her work in Monmouth’s labs and through off-campus experiences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Eppley Cancer Institute and the University of Illinois.

“Oncology seems like the perfect specialty for me because there are always new causes of and treatments for cancer emerging, the education is continuous, and the opportunity to change a life for the better will never cease,” said Lankford, who double majored in chemistry and biochemistry.

In addition to being an exemplary student, Lankford excelled in cocurricular activities and served in many leadership positions on campus. That includes being a resident assistant and head resident, which she said was an eye-opening experience. “The residents we had in Liedman Hall my sophomore year were incredibly diverse,” said Lankford, who was also a member of Alpha Xi Delta, the American Chemical Society and Rotoract while at Monmouth. “I come from a town where diversity is slim, so I feel that the conversations we had in Liedman that year were monumental in increasing my awareness of diversity and the importance it has in all levels of society.”

She concluded, “Monmouth College has undoubtedly changed my life for the better. My science classes were truly interesting. I also found enjoyment in Honors classes, Introduction to Liberal Arts and other discussion-based classes. My personal and professional life has been exponentially advanced well beyond where I feel they would have been had I attended a different college.”

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SPRING 2016

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

DIRECTOR OF FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

SARAH YOUNG

It might have seemed unusual to some when a woman was named director of facilities management at Monmouth College, but for Sarah Young, breaking through stereotypes has become the norm.

“When I began working with the Local 25 Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, I was one of just seven women out of nearly 1,500 union members,” she said, recalling her days working with Johnson Controls in Moline, Ill. “People have definitely had a different reaction to a woman coming in to troubleshoot a problem.

Sometimes that reaction has been pretty blatant.”

However, those reactions were put in the past when Young joined Monmouth’s physical plant staff in 2014.

“It’s not been an issue here at all,” said Young, who was promoted to her new duties last summer following a national search.

“With regard to my current position, it’s more of an honor to be a leader, not a challenge of overcoming a stereotype. It’s an honor and a privilege to take the reins.”

“All the candidates we brought to campus demonstrated skills and abilities that are appropriate for the position,” said President Clarence R. Wyatt. “However, when all of the results were considered, Sarah’s background, skill set, interpersonal skills and ‘can do’ attitude gave her the edge. Under Sarah’s leadership, we will create an even stronger living and learning environment for our students.”

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“One thing we’ve done, with the development staff’s help, is raise our employee contributions,” Young said. “That’s one way to get the staff more intertwined with the College. Eventually, I hope to put out a regular newsletter. My favorite part of the job is the relationship I have with our staff, and I want everybody else to know what a great group of people they are.” She has also instituted an employee-of-the-month program in facilities to shine a light on outsanding service to the College.

Formerly a custodian at the Rock Island Arsenal, Young was hired

by Johnson Controls in 2007. She took trades courses for two years to strengthen her résumé, and was eventually assigned to be a maintenance mechanic for Johnson at the Arsenal, doing such tasks as “building automation, programming and troubleshooting.”

“For sure,” she replied, when asked whether her gender gave her a sense of needing to go above and beyond when tackling a project. “Physically, challenges do come up because of not being as strong as a man, so I’ve also relied on developing some ingenuity when it’s required.”

Young has been busy on several fronts during her first year in charge, helping the College secure big savings by making “leaps and bounds” changes to energy efficiency in the Center for Science and Business. Similarly, a new control system has been installed in Bowers Hall to better run its HVAC system.

Overseeing a department of approximately 40 full-time staff, Young provides professional direction to such projects as facilities planning; management of architectural, engineering and construction services; facilities maintenance and repair; renovation, utilities generation and distribution; custodial, landscape and other maintenance services; and environmental sustainability initiatives.

But just like a coach who needs to know more than X’s and O’s to have a strong team, Young has also been working on “changing the brand” of the physical plant staff.

“Maybe somewhere else, you’d see those blatant reactions to a woman on the job,” said Young, “but the people at Monmouth really make a difference. They’re very understanding.”

WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

CAMPUS LEADER

NERIANGELA VELEZ ’17 Talk to any first-generation college student long enough, and you are likely to hear a story of doubts and challenges, mixed with supportive teachers and family, building up to the eventual triumph of finally reaching the hallowed halls of the student’s college of choice.

What makes Neriangela “Neddy” Velez’s story a little different from the rest is that she’s not only made the grade at Monmouth College, she’s thrived. All of her successes have allowed the junior to dream even bigger for her future than she once thought possible.

Her story begins with a move to the Chicago suburb of Berwyn from the city’s often notorious south side, where “drive-bys are a normal occurrence,” said Velez, who perhaps quite fortunately has blocked most of the memories from those early years from her mind. She said her fifth-grade teacher at Prairie Oak Elementary School, Mrs. Abrantes, “changed my outlook,” encouraging her students to practice integrity and “to be proud of who you are and what you do,” even having them fill out cards regularly to record their proud moments.

More positive role models followed for Velez, who was raised by her single mother. They included a junior high volleyball coach and a high school basketball coach, who helped Velez when it came time to choose a college.

“I’m proud of my background, and all that I’ve accomplished and the struggles I’ve had to overcome,” she said. “There’s a stigma with being a woman, and being a minority, with having a single parent and being a first-generation college student–not really knowing what college is all about … I’ll admit, that first year was a little rough. I’d never received a C before. But I’m proud of where my GPA is now. I’m proud of the work ethic that’s helped me get there, and I’m proud to be a student at Monmouth, where the professors really go the extra mile for their students.”

Velez is not only shining in the classroom. She’s also developed an impressive résumé of cocurricular experiences, including

serving as head resident in Liedman Hall. She’s a Scot Ambassador, has held various positions with the Writing Center (including its student administrator), has served on the phone team and been a teaching assistant in the business department, all while playing two years of varsity basketball and holding down an off-campus job at Petey’s Pub & Grill. The business administration/wellness administration double major has been accepted into two honor societies –Blue Key and the Kinesiology Honor Society. She is also academic chair for Alpha Xi Delta women’s fraternity.

Though proud of the Liedman Hall team she’s assembled, Velez is even prouder to be a founder of Women of Change, a group on campus that strives to show “an awareness and understanding of issues that affect all people, not only women.”

Velez and her group have developed a relationship with the students at Monmouth’s Central Intermediate School (grades 4-6), regularly engaging them through games and activities on five key concepts– diversity, empowerment, equity, self-love and self-identity.

The group is making enough progress–including plans to take the program to Monmouth-Roseville High School soon and other areas schools in the near future–that Velez now believes she could be successful with a not-for-profit business following graduation that she’d call People of Change. That’s something she could begin right after her graduation in 2017, or the Spanish minor could decide to go abroad and teach English for a year.

Another option, and one that was certainly not on her radar while she lived on Chicago’s south side, is to go to law school.

Among the champions of that route are President Clarence R. Wyatt and vice president for student affairs Jacquelyn Condon.

“From the first time I met Neddy, she has impressed me with her maturity, sense of responsibility for herself and other, and for her courage.” said Wyatt. “Neddy embodies the best values of the Monmouth College experience–she lives the idea of the liberating arts in everything that she does.”

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

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WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS

ANABEL MENIFEE

DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC SUPPORT PROGRAMS

KAM WILLIAMS

HELPING FIRST-GENERATION STUDENTS TO REALIZE THEIR FULL POTENTIAL In their roles as associate director of admissions and director of academic support programs, respectively, Anabel Menifee and Kam Williams work with a number of students. But the two new staff members, who both started working at Monmouth earlier this year, have a special place in their hearts for first-generation college students.

After all, a generation ago, they were in that category themselves.

“Working with first-generation students just reignites my passion for admissions,” said Menifee, who was born in Mexico but received most of her education in the U.S., including high school in Rockford, Ill. “Our conversations can be very meaningful for them.”

“As a high school student, my passion became to shine a light on education, especially as a student who came from an immigrant family.

I wanted to address those issues, address how we are providing support for those students. I was the one saying ‘Let’s sit down and have a conversation about this.’ Being part of that wasn’t something as mainstream as it is now.”

Williams can also relate on a very personal level to the students with whom she works. She remembers needing special accommodations because of a hearing issue, and she had other struggles, including ADHD and being a first-generation college student.

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college, I’d been on probation three times. Seeing my father’s tears, and seeing my mother hang her head, I realized it was up to me. That was my trigger. I began to use the resources that were available to me, and after that, it was all A’s and B’s.”

While Williams’ story instills confidence in underperforming Monmouth students, Menifee is inspired by hearing from students about what the college experience will mean to them. She’s done admissions work for 10 years, and said she feels a great responsibility for the influence and support that counselors can represent.

“We’re the gatekeepers to higher education,” she said. “We open the door and allow the students to take their path. We can really impact their lives. It’s fascinating how some students are willing to share their stories with admission counselors when they’ve never shared them with outsiders before. They’re like, ‘Here I am. I want to start fresh. I want to start new. Will you take me?’ I think that’s just beautiful. We have the resources that students need for those new beginnings–academically, psychologically, socially.”

She managed well academically as a high school student in Davenport, Iowa, but those struggles helped contribute to a poor performance her first two years at St. Ambrose University. She had reached a tipping point, and she remembers the moment well.

Williams is the keeper of some much-needed resources for students who need a nudge in the right direction. She works hard to help retain such students, continuing existing programs and planning new initiatives such as Accu-Placer, an assessment tool that will help identify incoming students, to see what courses they need to augment their reading, writing and math skills. Her Poetry in Motion series allows the students she sees to showcase poetry, singing and spoken word skills.

“This is a story I share with my students,” said Williams, who now has 15 years of experience in higher education. “We were in a meeting at St. Ambrose at the end of my sophomore year, and they told my parents, ‘She’s going to be dismissed.’ I had gotten excellent grades in high schools, and I’d been awarded a scholarship, but at that point in

“I think Monmouth is a great value, and that value has been hidden under the rug,” said Menifee. “I want to lift it up and shine it to the world. We are a progressive institution, and we embrace change. I want to be boisterous about that and tell our story loudly across the nation.”

Honoring the devotion of former presidents Jackson B. McMichael and his son, Thomas H. McMichael, who together served the College 42 years, the McMichael Heritage Circle recognizes alumni, faculty, staff, parents and friends who have: 1) made a documented planned gift ($10,000 minimum) by establishing a charitable remainder trust, gift annuity or a bequest in a will, living trust, retirement fund or life insurance policy; 2) made a major gift to the College’s endowment ($50,000 minimum) for a faculty chair/professorship, student scholarship or other purpose; 3) made a major gift in support of a campus facility or other capital project ($50,000 minimum); 4) made lifetime gifts of $1 million or more by cash and/or planned gifts, and/or

NEW HERITAGE CIRCLE EXPANDS RECOGNITION OF DEDICATED DONORS Originally established in 1988 to celebrate members of our most distinguished group of donors as well as faculty and staff who have served Monmouth College for 25 or more years, The McMichael Heritage Society has recently evolved and expanded to become The McMichael Heritage Circle.

5) completed 25 or more years of service to the College as a member of the faculty or staff.

Whether you provide for the College by making a major gift to the endowment or a capital project, or include the College in your estate plans by means of a bequest, charitable trust or other life income gift, you are ensuring the excellence of this great institution for generations to come.

By joining those who have taken this step, you can take satisfaction from knowing that you are part of an important legacy.

Inspired by President Wyatt’s inauguration message to “Think Anew, Act Anew,” we took a fresh look at criteria for membership in this special group.

In so doing, we determined that three additional categories of recognition should be added to the Circle—for major gifts to endowment, for major gifts to capital projects, and for significant giving over the course of a lifetime.

As we transition to this new format, it is possible that some donors will be missed. If you do not see your name in the list that follows but believe you qualify for membership in the McMichael Heritage Circle, please call or email us to confirm your membership. We would like to thank you for your generosity, make sure the purpose of your gift is understood by the College, and include you as a member of the McMichael Heritage Circle.

As a result, we are proud to introduce The McMichael Heritage Circle. The Circle more clearly illustrates how donors can contribute to the College in a number of ways, and better recognizes our college stewards for their leadership gifts and/or service to the College. Additionally, all members of the original McMichael Heritage Society will continue to be recognized in this Circle.

Stephen M. Bloomer ’83 Vice President for Development and College Relations sbloomer@monmouthcollege.edu | 888.827.8268

LIFETIME GIVING All qualified donors, living and deceased, will always be listed in all McMichael Heritage Circle Lifetime Giving listings. Deceased members of the other segments of the McMichael Heritage Circle will only be listed in the Circle in the year in which they are deceased.

DONORS WITH LIFETIME GIVING OF $1 MILLION OR MORE FROM CASH AND/OR PLANNED GIFTS

Individuals Robert J. ’62 and Elizabeth Ardell Lawrence and Nancy Glennie ’53 Beck David A. Bowers ’60 † Helen Brown ’23 Peter H. and Gail Bunce David J. ’72 and Elizabeth Byrnes † Keith B. Capron Stanley E. ’63 and Karen Barrett ’65 Chism John L. and Ann Mack ’63 Collier † Arthur and † Dorothy Peterson ’40 Dahl Anaclare Frost Evans ’63 † Virginia Brazelton Flynn ’29 William J. ’65 and Beverly Goldsborough Kevin M. Goodwin ’80 † Ronald E. and† Ruth Lewis ’23 Harr Walter S. Huff Jr. ’56 Barbara Watt Johnson ’52 † Richard L. “Doc” Kieft

Harold W. III and Ann Knapheide Mark S. ’79 and Deborah Kopinski † Dennis J. ’61 and Kathy Schuld Lachel † Petrene Lauritsen ’48 † William M. ’42 and †B. Arlene Snow ’42 LeSuer † Karol Kluss Manley ’49 Gerald A. Marxman ’55 Michael J. ’71 and Kathryn McGrath † George B. and †M. Eleanor Grigsby McNeely ’36 † Lee L. and † Mary H. Morgan H. Safford and Betty Peacock Richard S. and Roxie Pepper † Harold A. ’49 and Marian Poling Roger W. Rasmusen ’56 † George E. Jr. ’47 and †Maxine Murdy ’47 Trotter William L. ’68 and †Judith Williams ’69 Trubeck † Donovan D. ’52 and Elizabeth Davis ’49 Vance Frederick W. Wackerle ’61 Helen McNeel Wiener ’38

Organizations and Estates

Anonymous Associated Colleges of Illinois Caterpillar, Inc. Edward Arthur Mellinger Educational Foundation, Inc. Illinois Board of Higher Education Illinois State Grant Illinois State Scholarship Commission Knapheide Truck Equipment Murdy Foundation, Inc. New Horizons Foundation, Inc. Pattee Foundation Pepper Family Foundation Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust Walter S. Huff Jr. Foundation † Indicates deceased Membership lists continue on following pagesE

McMICHAEL HERITAGE CIRCLE

PLANNED GIFTS AND BEQUESTS Anonymous

David W. ’67 and Priscilla Trubeck ’70 Adolphson Gena Corbin Alcorn ’88 Richard Ameen ’55 Robert J. ’62 and Elizabeth Ardell David R. Bates ’63 William E. ’51 and Janet Zolan ’53 Bermann Reid K. Beveridge ’64 Richard L. ’61 and Mary Hunter ’63 Bivens Wanda Carlisle Black ’52 Carol West Boehme ’72 Mary Mitchell Bolton ’46 Gladys Bos Robert F. ’59 and Judith Bowen David A. Bowers ’60 Margaret Bozarth ’61 Kristyne Gilbert Bradford ’90 Heinz J. ’71 and Ellen Arkis ’71 Brisske Una Hulsebus Brown ’51 Peter H. and Gail Bunce David J. ’72 and Elizabeth Byrnes Marion Huey Cairns ’50 Douglas R. Carlson ’66 Barbara Berge Caufield ’58 Stanley E. ’63 and Karen Barrett ’65 Chism Nancy Cleland James R. Cole ’88 Tiffany Mekshes Cole ’89 Jean Coleman John L. and Ann Mack ’63 Collier E. Davis ’65 and Nancy Yates ’66 Coots Charles Jr. ’57 and Bonnita McAllister ’58 Courtney James L. and Janet DeYoung Burneta Burns Donges ’49 N. Daniel Engstrom ’51 Anaclare Frost Evans ’63 Edward P. Farwell ’64 Mary Huntoon Fleming DeBow and Catherine Freed Barbara Whiteman Garland ’49

Merle B. and Claire McWilliams ’50 Growden Robert P. and Joan Rezner ’68 Gundersen George F. Hartung ’51 Tina Hartwig ’68 Nicole Olin Hroziencik ’11 Willis M. ’62 and Marilyn Kessinger ’64 Hubbard Linnea Hammarsten Ingold ’68 † Harold A. ’44 and Madeline Jacobs Barbara Watt Johnson ’52 Edwin L. Johnson Mary Smith Johnson ’30 Marilyn Johnston ’48 F. Addison Jones Timothy G. ’80 and Susan Keefauver Wayne H. Keller ’52 J. Stephen Kennedy ’50 Darleen Scherer Knowles ’68 Leon A. Kraut ’67 and Laura Welti June Brown Kromberg ’48 Kathy Schuld Lachel Jean Noton Landers ’55 Vincent D. Mahoney Leland R. Marshall ’51 Ralph O. Marshall ’48 Phyllis Clindinin Martin ’53 Gerald A. Marxman ’55 Thomas F. ’61 and Patricia Matthews A. Douglas McKenzie W. Robert Meloy ’51 Robert H. Meneilly ’45 Mary Frances Lister Miller ’47 F. Grant ’74 and Emily Johnson ’76 Minor Carol Bryden Moore ’60 Lois Gradous Myers ’51 James W. ’60 and Beverly Nelson ’61 Nelson John S. Niblock ’58 Betty Weiss Oberstar ’43 Bruce C. ’68 and Rebecca Reedy ’69 Ogilvie Mary Patterson H. Safford and Betty Peacock

Jack W. ’53 and Betty Peterson Richard N. Pierce Dennis M. Plummer ’73 H. Leonard III ’67 and Mary Biciste ’67 Porter E. Kemp ’43 and Frances Elliott ’44 Prugh Roger W. Rasmusen ’56 Charles L. Rassieur ’60 Juanita Winbigler Reinhard ’42 Richard R. Reinhold ’50 R. Walker Robb ’51 Ruth Forsythe Robinson ’50 Richard A. ’55 and Anne McLoskey ’54 Romine Jean Ross ’58 Elsie Cory Sadler ’49 Bonnie Bondurant Shaddock ’54 † Earle W. Sherman Dee Ann Smith Shuff ’63 David L. Spears ’62 Marie Sproston Karen Deen Squire ’62 John M. Stack ’65 Forrest J. Strickler ’44 Terry N. and Carol Thorstenson William L. Trubeck ’68 Jane Turrel ’68 D. Jean Two ’55 Elizabeth Davis Vance ’49 Frederick W. Wackerle ’61 William J. and Sandra Wallace Charles Thomas Weeks ’62 Larry L. Werts ’54 Carol Kemmerer Wetzel ’60 Donald G. ’49 and Joann Weakly ’50 Whiteman Helen McNeel Wiener ’38 Payson S. Wild Jr. ’67 Gary D. ’59 and Jeanne Willhardt J. Mark Wilson ’78 Stewart D. and Carolyn White ’59 Work

ENDOWED GIFTS DONORS OF $50,000+ IN SUPPORT OF THE COLLEGE’S ENDOWMENT FOR A FACULTY CHAIR, PROFESSORSHIP, STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP OR OTHER PURPOSE

Individuals Anonymous Steven Anacker Robert J. ’62 and Elizabeth Ardell William T. Jr. ’58 and Sandy Coursey ’82 Axline David A. Bowers ’60 Margaret Bozarth ’61 William Cullen Bryant IV Thomas J. Cerkez III ’68 and Mary Eyre-Cerkez Donald W. ’61 and Barbara Woll ’61 Chamberlin Edward DeLong Mr. and Mrs. John D. Diffenbaugh Curtis M. and Susie Swanson ’71 FitzGerald Marie Foster Virginia Hookham Frattinger ’65 William J. ’65 and Beverly Goldsborough Kevin M. Goodwin ’80 Eleanor Crow Gustafson ’63 Tina Hartwig ’68 William Heuerman and Sue Huseman James C. Hornaday ’61 † Indicates deceased

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William T. ’62 and Ines Irelan † Harold A. ’44 and Madeline Jacobs James C. and Dorothy Barrett ’57 Jacobsen Jane Jakoubek Jean Jensen Charles M. Josephson ’52 Margaret Jacoby Josephson ’53 Irwin E. Kirk ’53 Harold W. III and Ann Knapheide Mark S. ’79 and Deborah Kopinski Anne Kniss Lamprecht ’49 J. Allen ’55 and Annie McGehee Michael J. ’71 and Kathryn McGrath Cherry Lauder McIlvain ’47 Jerry K. ’67 and Susan Mitchell H. Safford and Betty Peacock Hugh M. ’63 and Norma Phelps Marian Poling Douglas B. ’79 and Tamyra Dixon ’81 Rankin Jeffrey D. and Therese Worden ’00 Rankin Ralph L. ’60 and Judith Irelan ’60 Riggs Marlyn Whitsitt Rinehart ’57

Jolene Schwind Mary Schwind Jacqueline McGinnes Shoemaker ’49 Michael D. Silver and Suzanne Woll Randal M. and Lynda Smith William W. and Eleanor Slunaker Smith David P. and Marianne Spalding Doris Speer Joseph O. ’75 and Leslie Svoboda Derek and Sara Thomas Frederick W. Wackerle ’61 Robert L. Walker ’51 George L. and Cynthia ’67 Waltershausen Phyllis Holmquist Wheeler ’49 Donald G. ’49 and Joann Weakly ’50 Whiteman Ralph E. ’52 and Martha Whiteman Richard W. ’64 and Harriet Southerlan ’65 Whiteman P. Andrew and Roxana Wieland R. Richard II ’68 and Ann Newton ’68 Wieland Catherine Axline Williams ’50 Ruth Wright

McMICHAEL HERITAGE CIRCLE

ENDOWED GIFTS continued Organizations and Estates Anonymous Alice Grooms Estate Anchor Lumber Do-it Center Anne G. Luce Estate ARJCO Foundation Ltd. Arminta C. Sheats Estate Arthur W. Brown Estate Bernice L. Fox Estate Charles Frederic Strong Estate Curt and Susie FitzGerald Foundation Donn and Beverlee J. Johnson Estate Edward Arthur Mellinger Educational Foundation, Inc. Elva B. Lucas Estate Eva Hanna Cleland Estate Frederick & Ann Niblock Estate Gayle Woods Estate

Gladys M. Morrow Estate Glen L. Pickens Estate Harr Decedents Trust Hearst Foundations Helen Dunbar Estate Helen R. Hicks Trust Estate Henry & Frances Jahn Trust J & L Freedom Foundation J & V Flynn Foundation James H. Ruble Family Trust Jane A. Graham Estate John E. Broming Estate Judson W. Jones Estate Kellwood Foundation Lee L. Morgan Trust Estate Len G. Everett Estate Linda R. Buch Estate Lysle H. Morrow Estate Margaret Miles Estate Marion D. Boyer Estate

Murdy Foundation, Inc. N. Barr Miller Estate National Cabinet Lock Nelson T. Potter Estate Oral C. Kost Estate Pattee Foundation Richard L. “Doc” Kieft Estate Ruth Finch Estate San Diego Foundation Sarah A. Ryder Estate Sindlinger Foundation Virgil Boucher Estate Virginia B. Flynn Estate W. Jerome Hatch Living Trust Wallace B. Cleland Estate Waste Management, Inc. William M. LeSuer Estate Willis R. Boss Trust

CAPITAL GIFTS DONORS OF $50,000+ IN SUPPORT OF A BUILDING, FACILITY OR OTHER CAPITAL PROJECT

Individuals

Donna Mrkvicka Ardell ’63 Robert J. ’62 and Elizabeth Ardell Lawrence and Nancy Glennie ’53 Beck David A. Bowers ’60 Peter H. and Gail Bunce David J. ’72 and Elizabeth Byrnes Stanley E. ’63 and Karen Barrett ’65 Chism John L. and Ann Mack ’63 Collier Mary Niblock Crawford ’61 Robert A. Dahl and Kasim Baihaki Donald E. Fike Virginia Hookham Frattinger ’65 William J. ’65 and Beverly Goldsborough Augustin S. III ’68 and Rebecca Hart Walter S. Huff Jr. ’56 James A. ’64 and Jane Niblock ’64 Hutchinson James C. and Dorothy Barrett ’57 Jacobsen Mahendran K. Jawaharlal ’86 Barbara Watt Johnson ’52 F. Addison Jones Louise DuBois Kasch ’48 Harold W. III and Ann Knapheide Mark S. ’79 and Deborah Kopinski Anne Kniss Lamprecht ’49 Alan V. ’55 and Sally Smith ’56 Larson J. Alex ’81 and Liz McGehee

Terry Medhurst Gary W. and Tess Melvin Daniel F. ’75 and Sheri Palmer H. Safford and Betty Peacock J. Stanley ’76 and Christine Pepper Richard S. and Roxie Pepper Hugh M. ’63 and Norma Phelps Marian Poling Roger W. Rasmusen ’56 John M. and Elizabeth Schultz Bonnie Bondurant Shaddock ’54 Mark E. Taylor ’78 William L. Trubeck ’68 Robert D. Jr. ’65 and Judith Hodges ’65 Tucker Frederick W. Wackerle ’61 Viktoria Knapheide Wood Richard E. ’66 and Lee Yahnke

Organizations and Estates

Anonymous Arthur and Dorothy Dahl Trust Bruning Foundation Bunce Charitable Lead Unitrust Caterpillar, Inc. CompX International, Inc. David A. Bowers Revocable Trust David Byrnes Revocable Living Trust

DJB Properties LLC Edward Arthur Mellinger Educational Foundation, Inc. Ford Motor Company Fund Franklin H. and Ruth L. Wells Foundation Frederick H. Stanton Estate Gary W. Melvin Revocable Trust Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation Jacobsen Family Foundation John McCune Charitable Trust Knapheide Manufacturing Company Knapheide Truck Equipment Kresge Foundation Midwest Bank Murdy Foundation, Inc. New Horizons Foundation, Inc. Pattee Foundation Pepper Family Foundation R.J./D.L. Ardell Charitable Lead Trust Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust Sindlinger Foundation Terry E. J. Medhurst Trust Tri-City Electric Company Virginia B. Flynn Estate Walter S. Huff Jr. Foundation William M. Slayton Estate

EMPLOYEE SERVICE EMPLOYEES WITH 25 YEARS OR MORE OF SERVICE

Rajkumar Ambrose George F. Arnold James E. Betts Mary Hanford Bianchi Harlow B. Blum Steven L. Buban William Burkitt ’63 Daryl B. Carr ’88 James L. DeYoung Roy Dober Peter A. Gebauer Donald L. Gladfelter ’77

Terry L. Glasgow Richard L. Griffiths Eleanor Crow Gustafson ’63 Kathy Haas Farhat Haq William M. Hastings Roger D. Haynes ’82 Jacquelyn Condon Susan Holm Louenna Jensen J. Prescott Johnson Wanda Johnson

Carolyn Kirk J. Rodney Lemon ’63 Thomas E. Lydic Beth McCoy Lee McGaan ’69 William M. McNall ’81 R. Jeremy McNamara Jill Munson Karen Ogorzalek Mark S. Ogorzalek Sheri White Owen ’96 Vernon Peter Pitts

Douglas B. Rankin ’79 Roger P. Sander ’78 Joseph C. Schreck Patricia Ohler Shallenberger Thomas J. Sienkewicz † Charles E. “Bud” Skov Ira Smolensky Michael E. Sproston ’64 Dean St. Ledger Nancy Burke St. Ledger ’69 Carolyn Suda David Suda

Judy Sullivan Marta Tucker Jacquelynn Urban William Urban William J. Wallace George L. Waltershausen Craig Watson Lyle L. Welch Carol Whiteside Gary D. Willhardt ’59

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

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MONMOUTHIANA

WOMAN FROM DENMARK TO ALASKA, LENA MORROW LEWIS BLAZED TRAILS FOR THE SOCIALIST CAUSE

BY JEFF RANKIN

Born in 1868 in the hamlet of Gerlaw, just north of Monmouth, Martha Lena Morrow’s prospects to become a nationally prominent political figure seemed slim. The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, it was not surprising when, in 1888, she enrolled in Monmouth College, where her course of study might be expected to prepare her for a career such as teaching in a local school. She had, after all, taught Sunday school from an early age. But Lena had her sights set far beyond an ordinary life in western Illinois, as her Monmouth classmates quickly discovered.

While still a student, Lena became a devotee of Frances Willard, founder of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.), who spawned not only a national anti-liquor movement but also a grand political movement aimed at addressing major social issues of the day, from women’s suffrage to unionization of labor. The keystone of Willard’s success was organization and recruiting an army of women “young and old, who can speak, write, conduct meetings, organize, help keep accounts.”

Before her extraordinary career was over, she would become a candidate for U.S. Senate, start four newspapers, work as a union organizer in Alaska, manage a presidential campaign and help found the Social Democrat Party.

Those characteristics perfectly described the young Lena Morrow, who within months of graduating from Monmouth became superintendent of the sixth district of the Illinois W.C.T.U., a post from which she would become a leading advocate for women’s suffrage. Attending the national W.C.T.U. convention in Denver that year, she described to the Monmouth College newspaper her pride in the convention’s platform embracing voting rights for women, as well as her pride that many other Monmouth alumnae were in attendance.

A prolific writer (she was editor of the Monmouth College yearbook and president of A.B.L. Literary Society), Lena was an outspoken campus leader with a remarkable gift for oration. As a freshman, she took first place in the A.B.L. debate, convincingly arguing on the negative that “Mormonism Threatens Greater Danger in our Country than Catholicism.”

Lena left the W.C.T.U. in 1898 to devote her full attention to women’s suffrage, serving as secretary of the Illinois Equal Suffrage League. She began a barnstorming campaign in Chicago, securing endorsements for suffrage from 22 trade unions. She then worked her way west, assisting state referendum campaigns from South Dakota to Oregon.

Raised by a mother who was active in the local Woman’s Missionary Association, Lena was instilled with an ethic for Protestant social service and at her graduation from Monmouth would be called by the student newspaper “best suited for the pulpit.” However, it would be the politics of social activism rather than religion that would ignite her imagination and set her career path.

It wasn’t long before Lena decided that while temperance and women’s rights were important issues, she would devote her career to a broader form of activism, which manifested itself in the work and philosophy of the Socialist Party, which she joined in 1902. Now based in California, she made a name for herself as a popular speaker at women’s clubs, in meeting halls and even in lumber camps.

LEFT: A confident young Lena Morrow poses for her graduation photo in 1892.

(Monmouth College Archives) RIGHT: A 1911 publication of the National Socialist Lyceum Bureau, touting Lewis as “one of the foremost platform orators of America.” (University of Iowa Digital Library) FAR RIGHT: Lewis dons a parka during her sojourn in the Alaska frontier. (University of Alaska-Fairbanks)

The following year, Lena began limiting her speaking to the San Francisco area, when she married renowned socialist lecturer Arthur Lewis. A few weeks after her marriage, she was arrested for the first time during a crackdown on street-corner oratory.

Soon, both Lena and Arthur Morrow Lewis (who adopted her last name) became a traveling team, effectively carrying the socialist message north into British Columbia. Eventually, Arthur tired of the lecture circuit and settled in Chicago, while Lena energetically forged an independent path as a popular lecturer and writer.

In 1909, Lena became the first woman to be elected to the Socialist Party’s National Executive Committee and served as its delegate to the International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1910.

In a 1912 essay published in the socialist magazine The Masses, Lena drew inspiration from her Monmouth College liberal arts experience in advocating education of the working class as the primary force for effective social change.

“Only as the workers have knowledge and intelligence can they solve the problem of their own political and industrial freedom,” she wrote. “The capitalist masters have educated the workers to their advantage today, but for their undoing tomorrow.”

Later that year, Lena became associated with scandal when the national secretary of the party was linked to an illicit affair and Lena was unjustly accused of being involved with the secretary. Elected again to the National Executive Committee, she declined and instead took refuge in the rugged frontier of Alaska, where she saw an opportunity to organize miners and railroad workers against what she viewed as potential

capitalist exploitation. Her years in Alaska were perhaps the high point of Lena’s career and the time in which she was most happy. In a chapter for the 1981 book Flawed Liberation: Socialism and Feminism, historian Mari Jo Buhle notes that Lewis’s descriptions of herself “riding the service locomotive to lumber camps, dog-sledding in subzero weather—images she liked to paint vividly for her admirers—show how she relished this role.”

Returning to the mainland in 1917 as an activist and editor in Seattle, she discovered a country that had abandoned the idealistic socialist women’s movement of her youth. A split in the party in 1919 and the defection of some radical members to American Communism sent her south to California, one of the last remaining bastions of the pure brand of socialism preached early in the century by perennial presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs.

Although imprisoned on sedition charges from his opposition to the United States entering World War I, Debs again ran for president in 1920, and Lena served as his campaign manager in the Northwest. In 1928, she ran for U.S. Senator from California while also serving as managing editor of Oakland Labor World. After the publication folded during the Depression, she worked for the party in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho.

By the time she was in her sixties, Lena had become nearly penniless and moved to New York City, where there was still a socialist community to provide support. In 1936, she left the Socialist Party to help found the Social Democratic Federation Party. In her final years, she worked in the library of the New York City’s Rand School of Social Science, organizing the papers of the movement to which she had so importantly contributed. She died in 1950 at the age of 81.

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HOMECOMING 2015

‘SCOTS SPIRIT’ HIGHLIGHTS HOMECOMING FESTIVITIES A new member of the Monmouth College family was welcomed during Homecoming Weekend in October.

Scots Spirit, a 6-foot-tall bronze statue of a Scottish bagpiper, was unveiled during a ceremony on Boucher Plaza before the Fighting Scots kicked off their important Homecoming victory over Illinois College.

With assistance from a lead gift from Augustin “Gus” Hart ’68 and Rebecca Hart of Oquawka, Ill., the Class of 2015 raised funds to commission the statue, which was created by Utah artist Matt Glenn. The sculptor, who was in attendance at the ceremony, has been creating bronze monuments for communities all over the country for more than 15 years.

“The bronze statue represents the ambitions of Monmouth College students and the hopes for them from the alumni who have gone before them,” said Jennifer Erickson Sanberg ’10, the College’s assistant director of annual giving. “The Monmouth tartan and sporran call attention to this being a Monmouth Scot.”

Upon first impression, the statue is of a student bagpiper–a symbol of Monmouth traditions. On closer examination, Sanberg explained, the student is much more. He is depicted casually, although still in traditional, gentlemanly attire. With rolled-up sleeves and no formal coat or hat, a message of modernity, accessibility and applicability to all students–and across time–is reinforced.

His distant gaze and stance upon a stack of books signifies contemplation of how he will complete his years at Monmouth before venturing forth into the world. The books on the statue represent a broad swath of learning, and are therefore a brief yet incomplete reflection of the full breadth of the liberal arts.

“Monmouth students, aspiring for both success in life and careers similar to the many alumni who have come before them, may find good fortune by touching the right boot of the statue,” added Sanberg with a smile.

Kelly Swann, secretary for the Class of 2016, presides at the unveiling of their senior gift, a bronze statue titled Scots Spirit, prior to the Homecoming football game.

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HOMECOMING 2015

Clockwise from top left: The Fighting Scots Marching Band steps high during the parade; President Wyatt visits with President Emeritus Bruce Haywood; Twirler Andrea Gasow ’16 entertains the crowd; Brad Nahrstadt ’89, Gail Simpson Owen ’74 and Joan Chatfield Ealy ’86 light candles at the Order of Omega Hall of Fame; First Lady Lobie Stone leads a cheer at the Spirit Shout.

Tony Barnum ’43, a legendary barnstorming aviator who piloted for three U.S. presidents, celebrated his 95th birthday by traveling to Homecoming from his home in Cleveland, Ohio. During the weekend, he served as honorary parade marshal, gave a pre-game pep talk to the football team, enjoyed a birthday cake in the president’s box, and was serenaded with a rendition of Happy Birthday by the pipe band.

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HOMECOMING 2015

HOMECOMING AWARD WINNERS During Homecoming Weekend, Monmouth College presented its Alumni Impact Awards—inducting two alumni into the prestigious Hall of Achievement, recognizing three distinguished alumni, honoring a faculty member and presenting the Family of the Year. It also hosted the first Fraternity and Sorority Alumni Hall of Fame induction ceremony, at which three alumni were accepted into the Order of Omega.

Maj. Gen. John Huston ’48, Hall of Achievement A World War II veteran who flew 30 combat missions in B-17 bombers, Huston served on the faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy from 1956 to 1976, the last five years as chairman of the history department. He served as the chief of the Office of Air Force History from 1976 to 1981, and remained a historian at the United States Naval Academy until 1994.

Karen Bush Watts (center) is presented with the Hall of Achievement Award

by President Wyatt and Alumni Board president Mary Alexander Corrigan ’82.

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Karen Bush Watts ’65, Hall of Achievement During her career in the pharmaceutical industry with three major companies, Watts was a member of teams that developed several successful antibiotics.

During her research career, she contributed to the development of eight investigational drugs that entered human clinical trials.

Daniel Cotter ’88, Distinguished Alumnus The immediate past president of the Chicago Bar Association, Cotter is a partner at Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd LLP. His 500 hours per year of community service has helped raise more than $300,000 for the Lawyers Lend-A-Hand To Youth organization, and he serves on the Monmouth College Board of Trustees.

Carl Larson ’02, Distinguished Young Alumnus After earning his J.D. degree in 2004, Larson became an assistant state’s attorney and was appointed to lead collaborative cases with the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney General, contributing to multiple appellate court opinions, successfully negotiating cases, and prosecuting challenging jury trials.

Deeks Carroll ’62, Distinguished Service A tireless class secretary, organizer and motivator for fellow alumni, and a vocal advocate for Monmouth College, Carroll credits professors Harlow Blum and Martha Hamilton for nurturing his interest in art, which led to his own long career as an art teacher.

He visits campus several times a year to meet with scholarship candidates and recipients.

Kenneth Cramer, Hatch Award for Distinguished Teaching In addition to chairing the biology department from 1995-2005, Cramer has served on Faculty Senate and the Personnel Committee, as coordinator of the Integrated Studies Program and as associate dean for academic integrity. An expert on the brown

recluse spider and the author of many scholarly articles, his primary focus has been on undergraduate teaching. He has led student scientific expeditions to such locales as the Grand Canyon, Panama and the exotic ecosystems of the Galapagos Islands and Hawaii.

The Rankin Family, Family of the Year The Rankin family has had an ongoing, active association with the College ever since its patriarch, Glen Rankin ’43, enrolled as a student. A Hall of Fame athlete, Glen served as president of the student body during his senior year. In 1957, he began a 29-year career with his alma mater. He and his wife’s twin sons, Doug Rankin ’79 and Jeff Rankin, continue the Monmouth tradition. Doug is a veteran professor and director of theatre, and his wife, Tamy Dixon Rankin, is a member of the Class of 1981. Jeff has served on the college communications staff since 1992 and his wife, Terri Rankin ’00, is director of alumni and development records. Their daughter, Amanda Cox, is a 2002 Monmouth graduate. Together, Glen, Doug, Jeff and Terri have worked for Monmouth College a total of 106 years.

Evelyn Peters Kyle ’32, Order of Omega Kyle was elected the first president of philanthropy for Pi Beta Phi’s Grand Council in 1964, and in 1969 was elected to serve as grand vice president alumnae. To recognize the importance of her contributions, each year an alumna is awarded the Evelyn Peters Kyle Angel Award for Club Service at the local, regional and national levels. When she died in 2009, the bulk of her estate was gifted to the foundation, which created, in her honor, the Evelyn Peters Kyle Society to recognize special donors to the foundation.

She was named Pi Beta Phi’s only poet laureate, and many of her poems have become a part of Pi Phi traditions.

Gail Simpson Owen ’74, Order of Omega Monmouth College trustee Gail Owen has served Kappa Kappa Gamma in numerous key positions, beginning in her undergraduate years. An active volunteer for more than four decades, her profession as a regional superintendent of schools for Tazewell County, Ill., made her a natural choice to serve on the Kappa Kappa Gamma National Fraternity Council as director of programs and education.

Bradley Nahrstadt ’89, Order of Omega Monmouth College trustee Bradley Nahrstadt serves as district governor and as a member of the board of governors for Sigma Phi Epsilon. A generous benefactor, he endowed the Bradley C. Nahrstadt Leadership Fund and is a contributor to the University of Chicago Balanced Man Scholarship. A partner in the Chicago law firm of Lipes, Lyons, Murphy, Nahrstadt & Pontikis, Ltd., Nahrstadt was recognized as a Sigma Phi Epsilon Distinguished Alumnus in 2012 for his service and commitment to the mission of “Building Balanced Men.”

HOMECOMING 2015

PHOTOS: GEORGE HARTMANN

Reunion Classes

CLASS OF 1985

Left Column (Bottom to top): Patricia Halama Medina, Margaret Kerr Myers, William Myers, Mike McKellar and Timothy Kindred.

Middle Column: Kelly Ford. Right Column: Amy Wright Vollmar, Crystal Krug Sargent, Thomas Sargent, Michael Bashem, Malia Strong Chavez and Daniel Kudlicki.

CLASS OF 1995

Left Column (Bottom to top): Amy Bradshaw, Tiffany Ramsey Chabowski, Melissa Oleson Morrison and Katie Hunter Smith.

Middle Column: Jennifer Thompson, Marnie Steach Dugan, Brian Chabowski and Vicki McKee. Right Column: Jennifer Miller Jakobs, Richard Zell, Glenn Treganza, Deb Jackowniak Scarlett, Michael Cortina and Sean Maher.

CLASS OF 2000

Wendy Erlandson Anderson represented her class.

CLASS OF 1975

Left Column (Bottom to top): Eric Anderson, Judy Hogfeldt, Scott Hamilton, Joe Svoboda, Roger Slabuch, Kerry Willis and Louis Pavone. Middle Column: Charles McKenna, Jane Fort Edwards, Alice Dunlap-Kraft, Jerri Picha, Kathy Lueder Waecker, Judy Bersted Andrews, Julie Van Cleve Paulson and John Unterfrantz.

Right Column: Stephen Pospischil, Margaret Fottler Johnson, Bill Pyatt, Kathy Alexander, Dan Sfamurri, Jon Dahl, Pete Paulson and Bruce Schwenneker.

CLASS OF 1990

Left Column (Bottom to top): Danette Forbes, Theresa Downs Roscetti, Theresa Howard, Chuck Farr, Robin Ottenad Galloway and Annie Ardell. Middle Column: Lori O’Brien Oetting, Christy Ogilvie McCreary, Cheryl Conaway-Nelson and Sarah Skov Hennemann. Right Column: Kurt Fowler, Nobuyuki Ota, Bruce Beuttel, Karen Sheets, Kelly Patch Jenkins, April Ault Young and Bryan Young.

DCLASS OF 1980

CLASS OF 2010

Left Column (Bottom to top): Vicki Birk Horneck, Andy Baumann, Linda Siebrandt, Yvonne Mensing Hurckes, Mary O’Neill Schroeter and Cindy Bohler Adams. Middle Column: Sandra Tirpitz Haman, Patricia Young Hasenstein and Sally Meaker Guth.

Right Column: Joel Brotherton, Wesley Cummins, Tim Keefauver, Cherry Galusha Simmons, Paul Palmer and Steve Murmann.

Left Column (Bottom to top): Brittany Cecil, Misty Czapla, Morgan Koss, Amanda Miklavcic, Lindsey Lipp, Laura Greenwood and Ted Tomlin. Middle Column: Jenny Erickson Sanberg, Mitchell Pakosz, Amber Liniger Pakosz, John Kaiser and Sarah Wenzel Riley. Right Column: Matt O’Rourke, Jon Matthews, Harrison Heilman, Stephanie Arrowsmith, Makenzie Balagna, Kelly Winter and Mike Diamond.

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SPORTS

COACH CHAD BRAUN FIRES UP HIS TROOPS PRIOR TO THE GAME AGAINST GRINNELL, WHICH THE SCOTS WON 52-0.

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BRAUN TAKES

SCOT GRIDDERS TO LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME IN FIRST YEAR AS HEAD COACH

BY BARRY MCNAMARA In the third year of the Midwest Conference’s return to divisional play, two old rivals from the first era of that format met in the championship game. Monmouth and St. Norbert battled for the league title three straight years from 1987 to 1989, and they were paired again last fall in De Pere, Wis., with an NCAA playoff berth on the line.

The Fighting Scots outgained the Green Knights in the first half, but despite moving the ball well, they didn’t cash in their opportunities and trailed 3-0 at halftime. An 88-yard pass play set up what would prove to be the host’s only touchdown of the day, and it proved to be enough in a 16-7 St. Norbert win.

That ended Chad Braun’s first season at the helm of the Scots with an 8-2 record, which included a perfect 5-0 mark in the South Division. Monmouth won three straight divisional “showdowns,” starting with a 35-7 Homecoming victory over highly-touted Illinois College.

The Scots then topped two other contenders, Lake Forest and Cornell, by an average of 36.5 points. After a convincing 52-0 win over Grinnell, the Scots beat Knox 49-7 for their 17th straight Bronze Turkey triumph.

“I had a bit of a learning curve,” admitted Braun, who was named the South Division Coach of the Year. “When you take a job like this, it’s natural to have doubts, ‘Can I do this?’ I’ve got great assistants, great leadership from our seniors and great support from President Wyatt and Coach (Roger) Haynes, the faculty and staff, but most importantly from my family. I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by all those great people. They’ve made the job extremely enjoyable.”

Fourteen Scots were named first team All-MWC South, including seven defenders: linemen Ben Ketchum, Tyler Parksey and Thomas Lesniewski, linebackers Matt Barnes and A.J. Mesik and defensive backs Alex Sheppard and Micam Smith. A pair of linemen–Matt Geitner and Derrick Romano–were selected to the offensive unit along with kicker Danny Muzzalupo, quarterback Tanner Matlick, wide receiver Adam Parr, tight end Brodie Welker and running back DeAndre Wright.

Seniors from the All-MWC group included Geitner, Ketchum, Mesik, Muzzalupo, Sheppard and Welker.

In his rookie season, Lesniewksi posted 14.5 tackles for loss and 11 sacks to lead the team, while Ketchum was second with 9.5 tackles for loss and seven sacks. Barnes recorded a team-high 98 tackles. The junior added 9.5 tackles for loss, while Parksey, his classmate, had 7.5 TFL. Mesik (48 tackles), Sheppard (36) and Smith (52), a sophomore, helped the Scots’ defense yield just 12.3 points per game.

Muzzalupo was perfect on PATs and hit a 50-yard field goal, one yard short of the school record. Matlick was a double threat his junior season, passing for more than 2,000 yards and 17 touchdowns while rushing for 467 yards and six TDs. His classmate Parr scored on six of his 18 receptions and averaged more than 24 yards per catch, while Welker helped the offensive line block for a plethora of backs that scored 27 touchdowns. One of those backs was Wright, who burst onto the scene with a team-high seven touchdowns and 653 rushing yards. The freshman averaged more than seven yards per carry on 90 attempts.

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SPORTS

SPORTS IN REVIEW

ABOVE: RUNNING BACK DEANDRE WRIGHT BREAKS FREE FOR ONE OF TWO TOUCHDOWNS AGAINST GRINNELL. THE FRESHMAN WOULD FINISH THE SEASON WITH SEVEN TDS AND 653 YARDS RUSHING. BELOW: SENIOR KORRI CRAWFORD’S STRONG SEASON HELPED LEAD THE WOMEN’S GOLF TEAM TO A SHOT AT THE 2015 MIDWEST CONFERENCE TITLE.

WOMEN’S GOLF: The Fighting Scots once again entered the Midwest Conference Championships with a solid chance of earning the program’s second league title, but they ran into the Sinha sisters from Grinnell, who placed 22 strokes ahead of the rest of the field to help the Pioneers win comfortably.

The Scots earned a third-place MWC finish during a fall campaign that was highlighted by a new Gibson Woods course record of 80 by Taylor Rogers ’19, who was not even part of the starting varsity lineup that day. That team depth helped Monmouth score well throughout the season, as the Scots broke 370 in all but three of their rounds, including scores of 352 at Gibson Woods and at Millikin, where Korri Crawford, the team’s lone senior, carded an 81.

RYAN

Earning All-MWC honors was Kate Ryan ’19, who fired rounds of 93-88-95 at the league meet.

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY: First-year coach Jon Welty ’12 guided the Scots to a fourth-place finish at the MWC meet–a four-place improvement from a year ago–and saw two of his runners earn all-conference honors.

Caitlyn Allen ’19 led the way at the meet, placing ninth on the 6K course in 23:26, with Alex Dupont ’16 just four seconds behind in 10th place.

The women then placed 16th at the talent-laded Midwest Regional, as Dupont, Thea Bloom ’16 and Allen all placed in the top 100 in a field of 272 runners.

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WELTY

SPORTS

WOMEN’S SOCCER: In coach Barry McNamara’s 13th and final season in charge of the Scots, a three-game winning streak in the final week led to a fifth-place finish in the league.

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY: Although no Scots earned all-conference honors at the MWC meet, the five scoring runners posted a pack time of 50 seconds to lift Monmouth to an eighth-place finish.

Monmouth, which finished 5-5 in MWC play, entered their final match still mathematically alive for a playoff berth, and the Scots did their part, defeating Lawrence 1-0 in double-overtime. However, Knox also posted a win to edge Monmouth by two points in the standings, despite the Scots’ 2-1 victory over the Prairie Fire a week earlier.

Coach Jon Welty figures to be able to build on the team’s success, as four of the five scorers were freshmen, and the other was a sophomore.

Andrea Correa ’17 netted the game-winning goal in both of those victories, while Lauren Towler ’16 earned her third all-conference honor.

Taking over coaching duties from McNamara is Nick Rizzo, who comes to Monmouth from Saint Mary’s University in Minnesota. Rizzo also played and coached at Loras College.

WOMEN’S TENNIS: Coach Brian Jordan’s squad continued its upward trend, posting a 4–6 record against MWC teams and placing seventh in the conference. The Scots, who had no seniors on the roster, defeated Knox, Beloit, Illinois College and Ripon and came up just one match short against Lawrence in a 5–4 decision.

Callie Cook ’18 keyed those four conference victories, going a combined 8-0 in her singles and doubles matches, where she teamed with classmate Morgan Holle. Katy Tolsky ’17 was just behind, posting three singles wins and three more in doubles, teamed with Annaliese McDermott ’18.

For the season, Cook led the way with a 10-4 record in singles. Cook and Holle, who won the MWC consolation crown, were the top doubles team, going 9-5.

MEN’S SOCCER: The Scots settled into their share of defensive battles during their 5-12-1 season, with all but three of their matches being decided by two goals or less. Four of the Scots’ losses were by a single goal.

In MWC play, the highlight was a 2-1 victory over a Knox team that reached the conference playoffs. Agustin Miranda ’19 and Luke Vandenberg ’18 provided goals for the Scots, who also posted league wins over Cornell and Ripon to place eighth.

During a season that saw several Scots battle injury issues, midfielder Daniel Guzman ’16 started every game and earned his second all-conference honor.

VOLLEYBALL: The Scots matched their opponents nearly kill-for-kill on the season but came up short in a few other statistical categories in a season that saw them finish 1018 overall and tied for eighth in the MWC at 3-7.

Top among their hitters was Quincy Merritt ’16, who threw down 267 kills. Nicole Musselman ’16 was second on the team with 144. Johnna Schultz ’16 delivered 755 assists and led the team with 39 ace serves. Among that senior trio, Merritt was recognized on the all-conference team.

COOK

WINNINGEST COACH Women’s soccer coach Barry McNamara is honored before the kickoff of his final home game, a 2-0 shutout of Illinois College.

The winningest coach in Fighting Scots soccer history, he announced in November that he was hanging up his clipboard after 13 seasons and more than 100 wins.

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SPORTS

A 120-foot-long mural, featuring action photos of current and recent Fighting Scots athletes from all of the College’s varsity sports, was installed last fall in the lower concourse of Huff Athletic Center. A project of the Fighting Scots Society, the mural also incorporates inspirational keywords, such as “enthusiasm,” “leadership” and “character.”

FOUR GREATS INDUCTED Two All-American awards and 10 conference titles characterized the newest class of M Club Hall of Fame members, inducted during Homecoming.

From left: Ryan Johnson ’02 (baseball), John Herman ’89 (basketball and baseball), Eric Holmes ’01 (track and field) and Molly McNamara ’03 (golf).

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BOOKS

FAITHFULLY URBAN: PIOUS MUSLIMS IN A GERMAN CITY

SMALL WARS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON NATION STATES

By Petra Kuppinger, Professor of Anthropology

By William Urban, Emeritus Professor of History

Berghahn Books, Hard Cover, 285 pages, $120

Frontline Books, Hard Cover, 288 pages, 20£ Available from www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

A high school reunion of sorts 10 years ago led anthropology professor Petra Kuppinger into a new area of research and, ultimately, to the publication of her first book. While discussing with old friends from her German high school the presence and roles of Muslims in Stuttgart, Kuppinger realized that some members of the urban community resented their presence, while others acknowledged they had become an integral part of life there. The controversial topic dovetailed nicely with her desire to “redesign her research” that she’d been conducting in Egypt and spend more time with her parents in Germany.

The anthropologist has done just that, conducting research for 21/2 years in Stuttgart–“Germany’s most diverse city,” she says–as well as maintaining an apartment there, where she spends her summers.

“They’ve been very regular people, included in the neighborhood and civic activities,” said Kuppinger of the Muslims in Stuttgart. “There’s a mosque there that is treated the same as churches when it comes to community involvement.”

Did Kuppinger successfully make her case that Muslims are integrating normally into Stuttgart’s culture? The book’s reviewers believe so.

“Through remarkably careful and rich ethnography, the author shows how Muslims are part and parcel of urban life in Stuttgart and how they transform the city and how they are transformed by the urban life there,” wrote one.

After 1500, European warfare was repeatedly revolutionized by new weapons, new methods for supplying armies in the field, improved fortifications and new tactics for taking fortifications. This allowed empires to grow. For example, the Ottomans expanded into the Middle East and Africa, encountering the growing empires of Spain and Portugal.

Britain dominated India, then was drawn toward Central Asia to counter Russia and China in “the Great Game.”

Less spectacular were the efforts of the centers of world civilization to organize the periphery along modern, bureaucratic lines, but these were perhaps more important.

“The dynamics of resistance to this expansion were remarkably similar to what we see today in ISIS, Afghan and Pakistani Talibans, and various jihadist groups that are more tribal than Islamist,” said Urban, who served as the Lee L. Morgan Professor of History and International Studies during a 49-year Monmouth career that has taken him from Germany to Italy, to Yugoslavia and Estonia, and to the Czech Republic. “The driving force behind these organizations may be tribal resentment of the modern world undermining long-established traditions and beliefs. Religion–or their interpretation of Islam–is merely a glue that holds the rebels together.”

Such resistance, Urban argues in Small Wars, continues to be met by world powers who misunderstand the motives of the people that take up arms against them.

CHURCHILL AND ROOSEVELT: THE BIG SLEEPOVER AT THE WHITE HOUSE (Christmas 1941 to Early New Year 1942)

By James Mikel Wilson ’66 Gatekeeper Press, Soft Cover, 190 pages, $10.49 (Amazon) The Big Sleepover is about the three weeks that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt spent at the White House from Christmas 1941 to early New Year 1942, creating a bond of friendship and plotting grand strategy to defeat their common enemies.

Although primarily a work of non-fiction, the book takes the liberty of imagining what these two giants on the world stage said to one another–especially in the late evening hours. To make it more accessible to non-historians, the author created the story as a series of monologues, in which each character makes independent observations about the current situation. Although readers know the outcome of World War II, the characters in the book interact in the present tense and, therefore, do not.

Among the issues addressed by the book are what Roosevelt initially thought of Churchill, and why Roosevelt did not want Churchill to come to Washington so soon after Pearl Harbor, but then changed his mind. Roosevelt and Churchill’s views of Hitler and Stalin are also discussed, as well as how First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt felt about Churchill’s stay in the White House.

“I really like the idea of focusing on those three weeks at the White House and on the relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill as a lens for the greater history lesson,” wrote four-time Emmy Award-winning journalist Monte Francis. “It reminds me a bit of what the movie Lincoln did by focusing on Congress’ vote to end slavery.”

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CLASS NOTES 1956

 60th

REUNION

JUNE 2-5, 2016

1957 DeWayne Sanburg of Gilson, Ill., and his wife, Myrna, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Jan. 15, 2016.

1961

 55th

REUNION

JUNE 2-5, 2016

1965 Donald Paulson of Ouray, Colo., has published a book titled Mines, Miners and Much More, which covers the history of late 19th-century and early 20th-century mining in the San Juan Triangle area of southwestern Colorado. Paulson is curator of the Ouray County Museum.

1966

 50th

REUNION

SHAUMAN ’67

JUNE 2–5, 2016

Tom Desollar of Tucson, Ariz., is the owner of Arizona First Properties.

1967 Lawrence Bowden of Lynchburg, Va., retired as a professor of religion and culture at Randolph-Macon Women’s College in 2008 and has devoted his time to pursuing his interest in art, which began with a course at Monmouth taught by Martha Hamilton. He has opened a studio in Lynchburg called ART daisetsu.

Rick Kaskel of Mamaroneck, N.Y., is a professor and vice chair of pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y. Wendell Shauman of Kirkwood, Ill., received the 2015 Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB) Eagle Award for Excellence. A full-time farmer, Shauman has served as District 8’s director on the IFB board, and he has served on a number of other boards and committees, including the U.S. Grains Council.

1971

 45th

REUNION

JUNE 2–5, 2016

Kunal Kapoor ’97 has been named president of Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research. Kapoor, who previously served as head of global products and client solutions, will oversee the firm’s sales, marketing and product development globally. His objective will be to further Morningstar’s mission of serving investors around the world by creating user-centric products built on the company’s innovative, investor-focused research.

A native of India, Kapoor majored in economics and environmental policy at Monmouth College and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Morningstar is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, offering an

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PAULSON ’65

LAWSON ’88

1975 Margaret Fottler Johnson of Woburn, Mass., is a senior administrator and production coordinator at Innovations in Optics, Inc. Roger Slaboch of Sacramento, Calif., is director of credit at American Building Supply. He was recently recognized as Credit Executive of the Year.

1976

 40th

REUNION

SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016

extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers and retirement plan providers.

Kapoor has held a number of leadership roles since joining Morningstar in 1997, including director of mutual fund analysis, director of business strategy for international operations, president and chief investment officer of Morningstar Investment Services, and head of Morningstar.com and the firm’s data business. During that time, Morningstar has grown from 300 employees and $40 million in revenue to 3,760 employees and $760 million in revenue, while extending its operations into 27 countries.

“I attended the University of Chicago’s school of business, which is known for having a world-class faculty, and I believe that Monmouth’s faculty compares favorably any day,” Kapoor said. “My close student-mentor relationships with a number of Monmouth professors have persisted. I still call them to bounce ideas off of them, and there have been many fantastic opportunities to engage with them over the years.”

CLASS NOTES

Josh Oakley ’98, Monmouth College’s thirdleading goal scorer of all time, returned to his alma mater last fall to face his former team as head men’s soccer coach of the Alma (Mich.)

College Fighting Scots, a post he has held for the past five years.

HASTINGS ’96

FRY ’03

1981  35th REUNION SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016 1986  30th REUNION SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016 1988

marketing campaign categories. At the National Newspaper Association’s annual dinner in October, Hillary was honored in the community service category and the best obituary category, while Jay was honored for best advertising idea and best special section.

Chris Lawson of Chatham, Ill., the assistant chief of staff for logistics at the U.S. Army Central, Third Army, was promoted to brigadier general during a September ceremony at the Pentagon. His responsibilities include synchronizing, planning and executing theater logistics operations for Title 10 and Army Forces sustainment of joint/coalition groups throughout the U.S. central command area of operations.

Stefanie Riemer Mills of Sugar Grove, Ill., is director of financial planning and analysis at Millward Brown.

1989 Ross Richardson has returned to the Monmouth area, taking a position as a teacher and track coach at Abingdon-Avon High School.

1991  25th REUNION SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016 1996  20th REUNION SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016 Cliff Hastings of Champaign, Ill., coached Parkland College to the Division II NJCAA national volleyball championship. The Cobras finished the season a perfect 57-0 and were dominant at the end, winning the quarterfinal, semifinal and final in straight sets. It was the third consecutive season that Parkland played for the national title.

1997 Toni Frederick Olejnik of Cedar Lake, Ind., is technology and process development manager at Eckart America.

2000 Jay ’99 and Hillary Lee Dickerson, co-publishers of The Galena Gazette, were honored in 2015 by the Illinois Press Association. Hillary received a trophy for the best weekly newspaper in the state for news content, while Jay earned an award for the best newspaper in the state for advertising.

Hillary also earned several first-place awards in the investigative reporting, school board coverage, coverage of taxation and headline writing categories, while Jay earned awards in the photography, illustration, advertising design and

2001  15th REUNION SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016 2002 C.J. Hollingsworth has been named the boys basketball coach at Westminster (Calif.) High School.

2003 Melinda Fry of Monmouth was designated one of the top 25 Women in Leadership of Central Illinois because of the way she consistently involves her students in philanthropic efforts. Fry teaches 7th-grade language arts and reading in the United School District and is active with the Rainbow Riders therapeutic horseback riding organization.

Tiffany Diehl Springer was named principal at Silas Willard Elementary School in Galesburg, Ill.

2004 Jason Paulsgrove of Galesburg, Ill., was named president of the Uniform Retailers Association and was named Small Business Advocate of the Year by the Entrepreneurial Support Network of West Central Illinois.

2005 Crystal Lang Click of Crystal Lake, Ill., is a staff representative for Baxter Healthcare.

2006

 10th

REUNION

SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016

Kaitlin Horst Seaman of Peoria, Ill., is e-learning coordinator at Midstate College.

2007 Chris Gosda of Decatur, Ill., is a systems analyst for Archer Daniels Midland.

Berenice Martinez is a community outreach liaison for Latino affairs with the Office of the Illinois Attorney General in Chicago.

2008 Joanna Martorelli of Boston, Mass., is a trauma specialist for the New England Center for Homeless Veterans. She is studying to complete her advanced professional certificate in trauma studies at Lesley University.

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CLASS NOTES

Dave Bratten ’96 (right) and Mitch Tanney ’06 earned Super Bowl rings with the Denver Broncos’ victory over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50.

Bratten began his career with the Broncos in 1997 as a media relations intern before earning a full-time position for the 1999– 2000 season. He now serves the team as the college scouting coordinator.

JONES ’12

WEDEKIND ’14

Tanney joined his fellow Fighting Scot in the Mile-High City last March as the team’s director of football analytics.

2008

(continued)

Emmanuel Minter has opened Fit 1st, a shoe store in Minneapolis, Minn., where meeting customers’ unique needs and relating their individual biomechanics is the primary focus.

Western Illinois University. She previously served as assistant director of compliance at Georgia Southern University and Ball State University.

Lanae Hoffman Maloney of Kinderhook, Ill., is a legal secretary for a law firm in Quincy, Ill.

Melissa Breier Nero of Hometown, Ill., is intake coordinator at Insight Behavioral Health Center.

2013

2011

Jake Willis of Peoria, Ill., is a pretrial officer at Peoria County Adult Probation.

 5th

REUNION

SEPT. 30-0CT. 2, 2016

Whitney Bergen of Galva, Ill., is a licensed nursing home administrator for Petersen HealthCare. She also coaches basketball and softball for Galva High School.

Alyson Schroeter Boonstra of East Moline, Ill., is a quality chemist for 3M. Payton and Kayla Blackburn Judy live in West Lafayette, Ind. Payton is an operations supervisor for Monsanto and Kayla is a registered nurse at IU Health Arnett.

2012 Shara Welter Jackson of Woodstock, Ill., is a contracts representative for Canon Solutions America, Inc., in Schaumburg, Ill. Haley Jones has been named to head the compliance department at

Shelby Courtois of Holland, Mich., is an accountant for Dennen Steel.

2014 Melinda Craddock of Braidwood, Ill., is a sales representative for Sprint.

Patrick Dabbs of Yorkville, Ill., is an underwriting associate at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions.

Brik Wedekind has added the title of sophomore boys basketball coach to his duties at Princeton (Ill.) High School, where he also is on the football and baseball coaching staffs.

2015 Emily Holt has moved to Colorado Springs, Colo., where she is the Colorado field director for Turning Point USA.

SPEND A WEEK AT MONMOUTH COLLEGE!

12th Annual

MONMOUTH COLLEGE ALL-SPORTS CAMP JULY 24-29, 2016 • • •

For Children Grades 3 - 9 Choose from Broad Variety of Sports Focused Instruction in 3 Sports

monmouthallsportscamp.com Low Camper-toCounselor Ratio

40

Air-Conditioned Residence Halls

Outstanding Athletic Facilities

Awards for Christian Values & Sportsmanship

Dedicated Staff and Coaches

Printable copies available online or may be obtained by calling 309-457-2345 or emailing sportscamp@monmouthcollege.edu

IN THE SCOTLIGHT

CLASS NOTES

WILLIAM WINSLADE ’63 LEADING EXPERT ON BRAIN TRAUMA SAYS DANGERS OF CONTACT SPORTS CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED

By BARRY MCNAMARA William Winslade was ahead of his time in 1998, when his groundbreaking book, Confronting Traumatic Brain Injury: Devastation, Hope and Healing, was published by Yale University Press.

Today, the issues raised by Winslade nearly two decades ago are getting front-page treatment, and not just the front page of the sports section. During a recent visit to Monmouth through the Alumni Distinguished Visitor program, he shared some of his thoughts on traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Speaking to a psychology class, Winslade cited stories of several athletes–particularly football players and boxers–who saw their lives tragically altered and, in some cases, ended, by TBI. “We’re in a new era of traumatic brain injury,” he told the class. “It’s no longer a silent epidemic.”

Going back more than a century, the issue of athletic injuries wasn’t completely silent, he admitted, telling the class about President Theodore Roosevelt’s threat to institute a federal law banning football after 16 players died in 1902. About a quarter-century later, a doctor “autopsied 300 people, and 28 were boxers,” reported Winslade. “The brains of the boxers looked really weird. There were protein build-ups that looked like tangled spaghetti … Back then, the phrases used to describe boxers were ‘punch drunk’ and ‘slug nutty.’”

Winslade, who holds doctoral degrees in philosophy, psychoanalysis and law, then made a very simple point: “Boxing is the deliberate delivery of traumatic brain injury. The knockout is the goal.”

His impression of football is not much more optimistic, as he said helmets are great for “protecting the face, but not the brain.”

“Players might not get a concussion, but they will get repeated blows to the head. That destroys large sections of the cerebral cortex. That’s the part of the brain you need to pass your exams,” he told the students.

WE’RE IN A NEW ERA OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY. IT’S NO LONGER A SILENT EPIDEMIC. Winslade speaks recently to a psychology class at Monmouth College.

A former trustee of the college and a recipient of an honorary doctorate, Winslade, who holds a named professorship at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, as well as academic appointments at the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin, was inducted into Monmouth’s Hall of Achievement in 1997.

Winslade said that shortly after his book was released, the National Football League was challenged to make changes to its policies related to concussions.

“They said that concussions were just ‘mild.’ They get better. Concussions are just a bruise on your brain, and bruises heal.”

He asked the class, “Is that true? Was their committee really on the right track?”

In a recent op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle, Winslade and his co-author attempted to answer the question of what to do with the flood of new TBI information: “What level of risk is tolerable?” they asked. “Parents must answer this question for any minor child who plays football. Adults who play football must answer this question for themselves. But we must realize that the risks of concussions and the magnitude of the harms they cause may be significantly larger than we previously believed.

Further, we must move past the idea that helmet technology or concussion-management protocols can cure all of the problems. The only thing we can say with certainty is that there will be no easy solutions.”

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

41

WEDDINGS

1982

Lynne Brown and Steve Yuchs

August 30, 2014

2005 Megan Pyle and Johnathan Ransbottom

May 24, 2015

2006 Heather Schove and Curtis Jones 2007 Misty Fry and Chris Gosda

May 3, 2014 September 12, 2015

Drew Robinson and Nathan Sensing

May 9, 2015

2010 Amber Liniger and Mitchell Pakosz

KAYLA BLACKBURN ’11 AND PAYTON JUDY ’11

August 8, 2015

Laura Thiesfeld and Charles Fitzpatrick ’11

July 13, 2015

Sara Wenzel and Andrew Riley

June 5, 2015

2011

Kayla Blackburn and Payton Judy

Kaycee DeRoo and Jeremy Piepenbrink

Angie Morris and Luke Thorn

November 29, 2014 June 5, 2015 October 24, 2015

SARA WENZEL ’10 AND ANDREW RILEY

The wedding party of AMBER LINIGER ’10 and Mitchell Pakosz

KAYCEE DeROO ’11 AND JEREMY PIEPENBRINK ’11

WE WELCOME NEWS AND PHOTOS related to your career, awards, reunions or travel with your Monmouth College friends, and any other information of interest to your classmates or alumni. We also welcome announcements and photos of alumni weddings and births, as well as alumni obituaries.

Digital photos should have a minimum resolution of 300 pixels per inch.

Please include a photo caption with full names that clearly match faces, class years, date and location. Submit your news online at monmouthcollege.edu/alumni/updates, by email to alumni@ monmouthcollege.edu, or by mail to Monmouth College Magazine, Attn: Alumni Programs, 700 East Broadway, Monmouth IL 61462-1998.

We reserve the right to reject images for any reason, especially those with low resolution and those that require purchase from a photo gallery website. Submissions will be published at the discretion of the editors on a space-available basis.

42

BIRTHS ANNA JO MORROW

MARA MODERSON

LIAM BERNARD MATA

1995

Jennifer and Jason Shrake a son, Asher Michael

May 8, 2015

2006

Kelly Ann Skilondz Coulman and Andrew a daughter, Broooklyn Ann

2000

Megan Oslak Ehn and Eric a son, Samuel Archer

May 11, 2014

Kathleen Koelbl Kennedy and Patrick ’04 a son, Keegan Thomas

Ann Maksymowicz Kerr and James a daughter, Vivian Marie

August 26, 2015

December 26, 2015

Kimberley Hurley Regan and Jonathan a son, Conlin Liam

2001

Keli Oakley Skripsky and Matt a son, Ace Joshua

August 27, 2014

October 16, 2015

2007

Laura Orwig Ehle and Brian ’08 a son, Adam Carl

2002

Nancy and Brett Gerue a son, Logan Thomas

October 20, 2015

Amanda Havens Pilger and Joe ’08 a son, Hudson James

Laura Jo and Justin Morrow a daughter, Anna Jo

2008

Samantha Dwyer Baldyga and Robert a son, Zachary Michael

Carolyn Mongelluzzo Slavenas and Marcus a daughter, Illithyia Mary Rose September 18, 2014

Lauren Lafond Moderson and Ryan a daughter, Mara

Sarah Glascock Trager and Donald a daughter, Claire Nicole

2009

Amanda Luedtke Gaulin and Christopher a daughter, Olivia Grace November 12, 2015

2003

Brenna Oeth Hirsch and Craig a daughter, Rylee Lu

October 26, 2015

Emily Boleyn Kuczera and Nicolas a son, Holden Walter

Devon Townsend Spencer and Joshua ’04 a son, Graham Patrick

June 5, 2015

Kim Muys Lief and Chuck ’08 a son, Charles David

2004

Lisa Park Boersma and Tim a daughter, Abigail Jordan

January 23, 2015

Margaret Scudella Ramirez and RJ a daughter, Ella Jaye

Jennifer Sayles Crisostomo and Donn a son, Elijah James

October 29, 2015

2010

Rachel Strzelecki Mata and Nathan a son, Liam Bernard

Meagan Tobias Evans and Ryan a daughter, Reese Guinevere

October 6, 2015

2011

Cassie Hart Clayton and Rodney a daughter, Delcie Ann

2005

Tracey Gondek Bebout and Ben a daughter, Evelyn Rose

September 8, 2015

Lindsey Smith Rowland and Chad a son, Levi Aaron

Tami and T.J. Gordon twin sons, Carter and Ethan

May 10, 2015

Becky and Andrew Watson a son, Finlay Paul

2013

Brooke Anderson Anselmi and Andrew a daughter, Brinley Ann

November 28, 2015

Kimberly Kleczewski and Phil Norbeck a daughter, Riley Olivia

November 13, 2015

2014

Leslie Legg and Jeff Cole a son, Grayson Michael

May 10, 2015

October 5, 2014

LEFT: GRAHAM PATRICK SPENCER BELOW: FINLAY PAUL WATSON

March 21, 2015

June 28, 2015 February 6, 2015 February 20, 2015 March 14, 2015

March 3, 2015 July 6, 2015 August 21, 2015 September 30, 2013 December 11, 2015 May 4, 2015 November 5, 2014

September 24, 2015

HUDSON JAMES PILGER

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

43

IN THE SCOTLIGHT

REX JACKSON ’11 and BLAKE LYON ’11 The liberal arts helped make them a potent flavor combination Class of 2011 chemistry majors Rex Jackson and Blake Lyon have found interesting careers at Bell Flavors and Fragrances, Inc., a century-old company in Northbrook, Ill., that “creates and delivers flavors, fragrances, botanical extracts and specialty ingredients that captivate the world’s taste buds and stimulate the senses.”

Jackson, who also majored in biochemistry, is a junior flavorist at Bell. He works with customers to develop and engineer flavors that suit their needs.

“There are other times when I’m able to create flavors of my choice that would fit a product,” he said. “This would be like developing a peach flavor for licorice, a raspberry flavor for chocolate, or even a cinnamon flavor for a drink. I also travel to stay educated in my field, and on occasions present what our company is capable of providing.”

Two years after joining the company, Jackson helped his Monmouth classmate, Lyon, obtain his job at Bell, where he serves as beverage applications technologist.

“My responsibilities are to take on projects and use our flavors to create beverages for the market,” said Lyon. “These may include original products or matching products already on the market.

Sometimes I have to compound flavors or even alter them to create new flavors for the projects I am working on. On occasion, I travel to oversee productions for the beverages I helped create.”

Reflecting on his young career, Lyon noted, “Your first big success is always exciting–seeing it on the shelf and knowing you helped or created that product. As I have settled in with the company, I have been working more closely with some of our top customers, which I am proud of because it shows my growth and skill at my job.”

“A proud moment for me has been creating my own line of flavors,” said Jackson. “The line consisted of seven different craft beer flavors, which include a stout and an IPA, and they are available as both liquid and dry flavor. They were so well received that they have been featured in the company’s marketing newsletter, there is a Bell marketing postcard that is dedicated to the line, and they are in constant demand by our customers. It gives you a great sense of accomplishment to know that people are enjoying a flavor that you worked so hard to develop.”

Jackson and Lyon were involved students during their time on campus. Both were members of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, with

44

Jackson, left, and Lyon at the Bell Flavors and Fragrances headquarters.

Jackson serving as the philanthropy chair and a member of the Interfraternity Council. Lyon was involved with the Fighting Scots Marching Band, The Scotsmen and the American Chemical Society.

“My liberal arts education made it easy for me to work with people from a variety of different backgrounds and helped me move up in my career,” said Jackson. “The dedication of Monmouth’s science professors to delivering a valuable education and paying attention to their students is what helped me achieve the career I have today.”

“The chemistry professors definitely helped mold me into the person I am today,” agreed Lyon, who said he not only works with a variety of different people, but also with different cultures. “I don’t just do projects for companies inside the U.S., but some companies around the world, which is neat because I get to study and play around with different tastes and different cultures, all from my lab in Illinois.”

—BARRY McNAMARA/KAITLYN RULE ’19

CLASS NOTES

IN MEMORIAM 1936

1945

Virginia Goodwin Hansis, 100, of Eau Claire, Wis., died Aug. 16, 2015.

She graduated with a degree in sociology and was a member of Alpha Xi Delta. She then attended Case Western Reserve University, earning a master’s degree in social administration.

Betty Cassen Bloomer, 91, of Salinas, Calif., died Aug. 18, 2015. She studied English and married Wayne Bloomer ’42 after her freshman year.

The first 21 years of their 69-year marriage were spent living the Navy life, raising their children in Hawaii, Wisconsin and California. She retired as registrar of the Monterey County Elections Department in 1988.

1939 Dorothy Campbell Nelson, 100, of Peoria, Ill., died Jan. 5, 2016. A member of Alpha Xi Delta, she graduated with a degree in mathematics and taught in the nearby Yorkwood school district for 21 years. She was preceded in death by her husband of 55 years.

1941 Mary Campbell Ghormley, 95, of Lincoln, Neb., died July 23, 2015. An economics and business administration major, she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. After working briefly in Chicago, where she met her husband, she moved to Lincoln and was a homemaker. In 1987, she was elected to the Nebraska Quilters Hall of Fame. Survivors include her husband of 72 years, and a daughter, Margaret Ghormley McAllaster ’67. She was preceded in death by siblings Timothy Campbell ’39 and Margaret Campbell Caylor ’44.

Earle Sherman, 96, of Chula Vista, Calif., died Aug. 4, 2015. He majored in history, was a member of Theta Chi and served in World War II.

1942 Charles Treptow, 94, of Milledgeville, Ga., died Nov. 6, 2015. He graduated with a degree in history and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega.

Treptow served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, then worked for many years as plant manager of McGaw-American Hospital Supply in Milledgeville, retiring as vice president of the company.

1943 Roy Atherton, 93, of Walnut, Ill., died Oct. 18, 2015. He served in the Army Air Corps as a first lieutenant during World War II, and was navigator in a B-17, flying out of England. At Monmouth, he studied economics and business administration and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega and the football team. He owned and operated Atherton Grain Co. in Walnut. Survivors include his wife of 66 years.

Arthur Schwanke Jr., 93, of Huntley, Ill., died Aug. 1, 2015. He was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon and the tennis and swim teams and served in the Army during World War II.

1944 Patricia Atkin Bano, 93, who lived in Mexico, died July 14, 2015. She majored in history and was a member of Pi Beta Phi and the Dolphins.

1946 Shirley Ann Goodman Knowles, 91, of Macomb, Ill., died Nov. 21, 2015. A member of Pi Beta Phi, she completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois. She taught at several western Illinois schools, starting in Keithsburg and spending 26 years at VIT, retiring in 1991. Along the way, she earned another degree from Western Illinois University.

David Smith, 89, of Kansas City, Mo., died Oct. 6, 2015. His time at Monmouth was cut short by World War II, during which he piloted landing craft in the Pacific, often under enemy fire. After the war, he attended Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, earning a degree in civil engineering. He retired from a 30-year career with the Illinois Department of Transportation in 1985.

1947 Jeane Merab Ferguson Wyatt, 89, of Franklin, Tenn., died Aug. 27, 2015. She majored in history and was a member of Pi Beta Phi. She and her husband, the late Brad Wyatt ’50, were married nearly 60 years.

1949 Richard Garabrant, 88, of Bloomington, Ill., died Aug. 30, 2015. He served in the U.S. Navy Air Corps during World War II before graduating from Monmouth with a degree in history. He also graduated from the Evangelical Brethren Seminary and was a pastor for 28 years in Methodist churches in central Illinois.

Identical twins Elizabeth Spicer Hedrick of Boca Raton, Fla., and Sara Spicer Hedrick of Alhambra, Calif., died March 1, 2014, and May 31, 2015, respectively. An elementary school teacher for six years, Elizabeth spent the majority of her life as a homemaker. She and her husband, Gordon Hedrick, were married 57 years. Sara, who majored in general studies, was married to Gordon’s brother, Hubert.

Merlin Dean Kleinkopf, 89, of Henderson, Nev., died Aug. 1, 2015. He graduated with a degree in history and was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon and the track and football teams. Kleinkopf earned a mining engineering degree from the Rolla School of Mines and a Ph.D. in geology from Columbia University. During his 33-year tenure as a geophysicist and geologist, working mainly with the United States Geological Survey, he spent extensive time overseas in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Harold Jacobs, 94, of Fairfield, Calif., died Sept. 12, 2015. He graduated with a degree in physics and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. He was preceded in death by siblings Lola Jacobs Clarkson ’39 and Peter Jacobs ’41.

1950

Margaret Farnham Sears, 93, of Grinnell, Iowa, died Oct. 24, 2015. She and her late husband of 51 years farmed near Traer, Iowa, before moving to Grinnell, where she worked for GTE and was bookkeeper at Don Sears Implement.

Joan Reinecke Lauterbach, 85, of Valrico, Fla., died Feb. 1, 2015. She studied elementary education and was a substitute teacher and librarian, in addition to being a homemaker. She was preceded in death by her husband of 65 years, George Lauterbach ’49.

Janey Boles Forney, 88, of Kirkville, N.Y., died Dec. 26, 2015. She graduated with a degree in biology and taught junior high science in the Chittenango (N.Y.) School District for many years, retiring in 1984.

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

45

CLASS NOTES

1950

(continued) Jane Thompson Scott, 86, of Jacksonville, Fla., died Aug. 9, 2015. She studied history and was a member of the synchronized swim team.

with a degree in physics and was a member of Theta Chi and the wrestling and men’s synchronized swimming teams.

1952

Karen Meyer Phoenix, 77, of Youngstown, N.Y., died Sept. 28, 2015, within minutes of her husband, Richard. She studied English at Monmouth and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Samuel Cooley, 94, of Orlando, Fla., died April 8, 2015. He graduated with a degree in physics.

Jo Ann Latimer Ginoli, 85, of Peoria, Ill., died Nov. 14, 2015. She studied business administration and was a member of Pi Beta Phi. She worked for Caterpillar for many years.

1953 Fred Andrews, 83, of Warren, Ohio, died March 5, 2015. He graduated with a degree in business administration was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Octopus Club and the football team. He served in the Army during the Korean War. Andrews was employed by the Packard Electric Division of General Motors in sales and procurement for more than 32 years, retiring in 1986.

1954 The Rev. Scott King, 82, of Clovis, N.M., died Aug. 4, 2015. While at Monmouth, he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois, then received two additional degrees in Christian education from McCormick Seminary. He was a minister in six states, including the First Presbyterian Church in Clovis.

William Presley, 86, of Brawley, Calif., died Oct. 31, 2015. A biology major, he began his 31-year career in education in 1957 in Brawley, where he soon became an administrator. Survivors include his wife, Janet Jones Presley ’55.

1955

1961 Darrell Ford, 76, of Monmouth, died Sept. 9, 2015. He served as a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and worked 15 years at Outboard Marine Corporation in Galesburg.

Christine Work McBride, 75, of Edgewood, Wash., died Dec. 13, 2015.

She graduated with a degree in English and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Crimson Masque. Many of her Work family members attended Monmouth, including her sister, Lynne Work Reese ’66.

Also surviving is her husband, E.J. “Mickey” McBride ’59.

Ellen Ray, 75, of New York, N.Y., died June 11, 2015, of complications from cancer. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi and the synchronized swim team. A great-niece of author Willa Cather, Ray was a documentary filmmaker, publisher, journalist and activist. With Michael Ratner, she was co-author of Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. In the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, she and her husband lived part-time in New Orleans, where they volunteered and provided legal services and other support for people affected by the storm.

1962 Linda Thornburg Crawford, 74, of Las Vegas, Nev., died March 16, 2015.

She majored in English and was a member of Pi Beta Phi.

Joan Bayliss Benedetto of Jackson, Mich., died Aug. 27, 2015. She graduated with a degree in English and was a member of Alpha Xi Delta.

Benedetto served as the financial secretary of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Jackson for 44 years. She is survived by her husband of 56 years, Art Benedetto ’54.

Frank Herhold, 75, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., died Dec. 5, 2015. He graduated with a degree in economics. Herhold owned and operated Anchorage Yacht Basin Marina for eight years, then led the Marine Industries Association of South Florida–the area’s largest boating industry group–for 20 years. He was named Citizen of the Year by Fort Lauderdale in 2007.

1956

1963

Robert Russell, 81, of Fort Collins, Colo., died April 7, 2015. He served two years as a Navy Seabee and, upon completion of his service, was employed by Illinois Bell, retiring in 1989.

1957 Theodore Johnson, 80, of Cambridge, Ill., died Jan. 3, 2016. He attended Monmouth for one year and served his country in the Army. Johnson was a grain and livestock farmer. Survivors include his wife of 57 years.

William Flanagan, 74, of West Peoria, Ill., died Dec. 29, 2015. He majored in physical education and was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon and the football and track teams. A successful high school and college basketball coach, he was on the staff at Illinois State University when the Redbirds were ranked nationally in the late 1970s. “Flash” made a name for himself in central Illinois as founder and operator of Flash’s Hoops, helping young men achieve their dreams of playing basketball.

Charles Nichol, 85, of Columbus, Ohio, died Nov. 15, 2015. His time at Monmouth was interrupted by a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force.

After graduating, he earned a master’s degree from Northwestern University.

1966

1958

William Underwood, 71, of Cameron, Ill., died Oct. 30, 2015. He studied physical education before completing his education at Worsham College of Mortuary Science. He worked as a funeral director for 10 years, then returned to the family farm, where he worked the past 40 years.

He was owner of Maple City Realty in Monmouth and served as Warren County coroner for 23 years. Survivors include his wife of 50 years and a daughter, Deborah Underwood Melton ’89.

Janice Larson Hawley, 78, of Roanoke, Va., died June 23, 2015. She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Bill Hawley ’57, who says the couple met during Janice’s freshman year.

1959 George McFadden, 77, of Irvine, Calif., died June 24, 2015. He graduated

46

1960

Thomas Connelly of Los Altos, Calif., died Oct. 17, 2015. He graduated with a degree in biology and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega and the tennis team.

CLASS NOTES

1967 Fred Stanton, 71, of Monmouth, died Aug. 22, 2015. Born with a heart condition, he was not expected to live, but he received excellent care and not only survived, but thrived. After attending the University of Florida and Whittier College, he followed his father, F. Carter Stanton ’34, to Monmouth and had many other family ties to the College, including his brother, Chip Stanton ’71, who survives. After graduating from Monmouth with a degree in business administration, Stanton worked for the Employment Security Office for four years and Monmouth College for another four before going to work at the National Bank of Monmouth. He retired in 2006 as senior trust officer after 33 years at the bank.

1969 James Schoeff, 68, of Warsaw, Ind., died Sept. 15, 2015. He graduated with a degree in physical education and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega and the basketball team. After five years as a teacher in McHenry, Ill., he worked 33 years in the mortgage banking industry.

1971 Craig Farr, 66, of Barrington, Ill., died Dec. 24, 2015, after battling pancreatic cancer. He graduated with a degree in business administration and was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon and the golf team. Farr received his MBA from Western Illinois University in 1973. Commissioned as a second lieutenant through WIU’s ROTC, he attained the rank of captain as a quartermaster officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Farr spent 42 years selling machinery to the corrugated box industry.

Ron Winbigler, 67, of Monmouth, died Dec. 21, 2015. After attending Monmouth, he earned a degree from Carl Sandburg College in law enforcement. In his career, he was a Monmouth police officer, a car salesman and a truck driver, achieving a five million miles safe driving record.

1972 Ann Stephens Brittain, 65, of Middlebury, Conn., died Aug. 30, 2015.

She graduated with a degree in psychology and was a member of Pi

Beta Phi. She then earned a master’s degree in school psychology from Fairfield University and worked at Gainfield Elementary School for 37 years, serving as the psychologist on the special education team, before retiring in 2013. Survivors include her husband, David Brittain ’73, whom she met on the first day of her freshman year at Monmouth.

1973 Anne Evatt Driscoll of LaGrange Park, Ill., died Feb. 3, 2015. She graduated with a topical studies major and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma.

1974 Allen Shepherd, 63, of Washington, Ill., died Dec. 9, 2015. He majored in physical education and was an M Club Hall of Fame athlete, participating in football and baseball. Shepherd had a successful career at Caterpillar, retiring in 2009.

1978 Cynthia Lust, 58, of Champaign, Ill., died Oct. 14, 2014, of ALS. She majored in speech/communication/theatre and was a member of Pi Beta Phi and Crimson Masque. Lust was the director of operations at the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing in Champaign.

1987 Tammy Paris, 49, of Park Forest, Ill., died March 6, 2015. A psychology major, she is survived by a sister, Robin Paris Morgan ’84.

1988 Susan Scheuring-Christian, 48, of Castle Rock, Colo., died Sept. 9, 2015. She studied computer science and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and the cross country team.

1997 Randy Collender, 41, of Clinton, Iowa, died Aug. 21, 2015. A member of the wrestling and football teams, he worked as a building contractor with his father.

WORD HAS ALSO BEEN RECEIVED OF THE FOLLOWING DEATHS: 1945 Eleanor “Skipper” Clark Thompson, 90, of Charleston, S.C., died July 9, 2011.

1949 Lois McMicken Blonn, 86, of Homewood, Ill., died March 10, 2013.

1956 Eleanor Slusser, 76, of Peoria, Ill., died July 6, 2011.

1961 Gary Roberts, 70, of Macon, Ga., died Feb. 27, 2011.

1964 Barbara Burkett, 73, of Asheville, N.C., died Dec. 29, 2015.

1966 George Morton of Safety Harbor, Fla., died in May 2014.

1966 Michael Welton, 66, of Waterloo, Iowa, died Jan. 9, 2011.

1981 Mary Ann Hong Stefek, 56, of Lisle, Ill., died Sept. 8, 2015, of complications related to cancer. > Irma Allen, 95, of Jerseyville, Ill., a retired teacher who served as a Monmouth College admission counselor from 1977 to 1993, died May 20, 2015.

> Norm Ellenberger, 83, of Watersmeet, Mich., former head coach of the Fighting Scots football, basketball and baseball teams, died Nov. 15, 2015. After Monmouth, Ellenberger was the head basketball coach at the University of New Mexico, and he served as an assistant at Indiana University, the University of Texas-El Paso and with the Chicago Bulls.

MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2016

47

THE LAST WORD

IN PURSUIT OF A POST-FEMINIST SOCIETY

BY ANN GARRY ’65

We often think of the Sixties as the beginning of contemporary feminist movements, but the Sixties didn’t arrive evenly all over the U.S. In my years at Monmouth, 1961–1965, the Sixties simply did not arrive. The College exercised in loco parentis authority, applied unequally by gender. Only women were required to live in the dorms (with outrageously early curfews) and had to wear skirts to class, unless Dean Jean Liedman notified us at 7:30 in the morning that it was cold enough to wear long pants. Imagine.

Kappa and Pi Phi celebrated Monmouth traditions of empowered women, starting their own sororities, but “sisterhood” in 1961-1965 meant lasting friendships, not “sisterhood is powerful,” as we said a few years later.

The intellectual atmosphere for women was a different matter.

Women were mostly treated with respect—though the English department chair (married to a math instructor!) did say to me, “Women are to be flowers of the campus, not go graduate school.”

As a philosophy major, I tattled to [professor of philosophy] Sam Thompson. He groaned—as a good mentor to a woman should!

Sam encouraged me to go grad school and asked me not to “disappoint him as his other women students had” (he didn’t fully appreciate the ways social and institutional structures make it harder for “outsiders” to persevere in graduate and professional school).

I was very lucky not only to have Sam’s encouragement but also my family’s. Although my parents were mystified by my desire to become a philosopher, both they and my first husband, Bill Winslade ’63, who was already in grad school in philosophy, were completely supportive.

In spite of our intellectual respect on campus, no woman in our class applied to law school or medical school. Only a few of us started Ph.D. programs; others entered master’s or teaching credential programs, and still others started working. Most of us, including those pursuing further education, assumed that much of our energies would be taken with future families. Graduate and professional schools too often made the same assumptions and denied us fellowships—despite its being illegal to do so after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Fast forward five decades. Women and other marginalized groups have made much progress, even if it’s tempered with backlash and unevenly distributed across our society and globe. Many younger women take feminist values for granted—whether or not they use the term. It’s popular in some circles to see today as a “post-feminist” era. This, along with the idea that it’s a “post-ra-

48

THERE WOULD BE NO NEED TO HIGHLIGHT ‘WOMEN BREAKING BARRIERS’ IF NO BARRIERS CONTINUED TO EXIST.

cial” era, is either wishful thinking or simple denial.

In a post-feminist or post-racial era, our gender or race wouldn’t matter to any important responsibility or benefit of life (while we’re talking, neither would our level of poverty, religion or sexual orientation). Every person would have fundamental human respect as well as an ability to develop a life according to personal values and talents. There would be no need to highlight “women breaking barriers” if no barriers continued to exist.

I am weaving together gender, race and other factors because we all have multiple interacting characteristics. If we favor “women’s equality” or want to see women break boundaries, we must realize that women come in all ethnicities/races, social classes, religions and sexual orientations. We must also remember that not every man is equally powerful. We remember the women and men who pick the fruit and clean the offices of women executives–as well as the Muslim woman engineer and the homeless lesbian.

If we want progress to continue and to be applied more evenly across the board, we need to shift our thinking and “coping.” Let’s not have more generations trying to find (exhausting) individual ways “to have it all,” but to think in terms of changing our institutions. Take just one example—work. Americans work many more hours than in most other nations, have shorter vacations and fewer paid family leaves. Yet we are no more “productive.” We can change this without economic collapse. We can begin to expect that people “have a life” outside work to spend with their families or friends or by exercising alone.

Family leaves can be expanded to care for ill family members or children. We can encourage parental leave for both parents. One “Nordic model” does this by offering fathers parental leave that they lose unless they take it themselves. No surprise, fathers use it much more often than they did the previous “gender neutral” family leave.

If both parents spend time with babies, their shared investment in child-rearing increases. And at the same time, children don’t see gender-segregated household labor, further breaking down gendered expectations and freeing them later to make their own life choices. “Having it all”—or at least the parts of it we want—could become a less exhausting reality.

Although she received her Ph.D. in traditional philosophy in 1970, Ann Garry developed and taught feminist philosophy for more than 40 years in California, Canada, Hungary and Japan. In “retirement” she’s editing the Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, to be published next year.

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