Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies Continuum Magazine - 2008

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CONTINUUM SPRING 2008

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF CONTINUING STUDIES WIEBOLDT HALL, SIXTH FLOOR 339 EAST CHICAGO AVENUE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60611-3008

PHONE 312-503-6950 FAX 312-503-4942 www.scs.northwestern.edu scs@northwestern.edu

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CONTINUUM

From the dean

SPRING 2008

Dear SCS Friends,

The celebration of our 75th anniversary adds luster to an exciting time at the School of Continuing Studies. In my six years as dean, we have worked to make SCS a model of continuing and professional education. Judging by a wide range

contents SCS at 75 2 After boom times and busts, SCS today is the very model of a 21st-century school

of measures — awards for programming, the support of partners within the University and in the private sector, and, most important, the response of our students — it’s clear we are making that goal a reality.

The quality of our academic programs, in keeping with Northwestern’s

2

Continuum is published by Northwestern for its students, alumni, faculty, staff,

programs, in keeping with

departments

as the needs of our students and society evolve.

Northwestern’s high standards,

Faculty profile: Jonathan Schachter 20 SCS news 21 Awards for creative programming; medical informatics faculty take the stage at international events; battling teen violence in the Bahamas and the teen driving crisis at home

Designer: Heather Cosgrove Writer: Leanne Star Photos: Steve Anzaldi, Andrew Campbell, Rich Foreman, Peter Kiar, Kevin Weinstein © 2008 Northwestern University.

All rights reserved.

continue to expand our roster of creative programs for adult learners

Alumni profile: Rod Sierra 18

Margaret McCarthy

12

SCS people 22 News from alumni, students, and faculty

offerings in areas such as forensics, futures and options

SCS is also extending the way we deliver our academic programs.

Distance learning, online degree programs, and virtual learning communities are increasingly important aspects of the educational experience — perhaps more so for adult learners than any other

“The quality of our academic

has never been better and has never extended into so many different fields: from our

group. SCS is leading the way in adapting these new methods to the

pioneering program in medical

high-quality programming expected of Northwestern and SCS. As a

informatics to offerings in

result we will be able to serve a much larger and more diverse group

areas such as forensics, futures

of students.

and options trading, sports

In all of these efforts SCS is redefining what adult education

administration, and much more.”

can and should be. We know that education for adults has never been more important, and by offering access to one of the nation’s

Produced by University Relations.

To be continued 24 Master of procrastination — and perseverance

by Sean Hargadon (MALS)

4-08/22M/TF-HC/11065

Views expressed in Continuum do not

premier institutions of higher learning, we occupy a special place in the universe of adult education. That’s something that has been true since the school was founded in 1933, and I am proud to be a part of that legacy.

necessarily reflect the opinions of the

Thank you for your generous support and commitment to SCS on our 75th anniversary.

editors or the University.

We are grateful that you are part of our celebration.

17

SCS

different fields: from our pioneering program in medical informatics to

trading, sports administration, and much more. Further, we will

8

Editors: Brad Farrar, Tom Fredrickson,

high standards, has never been better and has never extended into so many

Scribble, scribble 12 As creative writing programs expand at SCS, there's something for everyone

Student profile: Carl Winchester 17

University School of Continuing Studies and friends.

Business class travel 8 Corporate education at SCS spans the globe

Sincerely,

Thomas F. Gibbons, Dean April 2008

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSIT Y SCHOOL OF CONTINUING STUDIES Spring 2008 Continuum 1

SCS

After an uncertain beginning, boom times, and busts, the School of Continuing Studies arrives at its 75th anniversary as the very model of a 21st-century school.

AT SEVENTY-FIVE

I

n 1933 the structure of adult education at Northwestern was as fixed as the bricks of newly built Wieboldt Hall. Seventy-five years and a few name changes later, the School of Continuing Studies is much harder to describe: Is it a place where you can take courses for the pure joy of learning? A place where you can gain new knowledge or skills in an emerging field? A place where you can earn a degree or certificate to advance your career?

In fact, it is all of those things — and it’s a picture of continuing education at Northwestern that would have been inconceivable in the early 20th century. To be sure, for some at the University, the potential was always there. Northwestern began offering evening classes in 1905, but these programs often met with resistance from regular faculty in Evanston. It wasn’t until the 1920s and the arrival courses offered of Walter Dill Scott as president that in 2007–08 adult education really got a foothold at Northwestern — largely because Scott made it his mission.

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A golden opportunity

Assessing the University’s scattered efforts, Scott noted that the demand for adult education was growing. He understood that long-term success in this area required not only dollars and cents but also bricks and mortar.

He also knew a golden opportunity when he saw it.

In 1925 Chicago department store magnate William Wieboldt decided to make a gift of $1 million to the University of Chicago. His son Raymond, a contractor

2 Continuum Spring 2008

who had done business with Northwestern, alerted Scott to the impending gift to a competitor: “You must prepare a prospectus for a project that will appeal to Father.” Scott laid out plans for an eight-story center for adult education on the Chicago campus, the father was persuaded, the gift was split between the two schools, and Wieboldt Hall opened in 1928. (For more on Walter Dill Scott, see John Balz’s article “Great Scott” in the spring 2005 issue of Continuum.)

Scott then set to work to expand the offerings for adult students in Chicago, adding a selection of credit courses for “those who learn by night.” About 300 students enrolled in 1928, and the number grew each year — even through the depths of the Depression. In 1933, recognizing that adult education had found a home at Northwestern, Northwestern’s Board of Trustees gathered all of the University’s part-time programs in arts, sciences, music, speech, and education to create a new school: University College.

University College was an immediate success.

Students generally had one of three goals: completing a bachelor’s degree; completing a master’s degree (usually in education); or taking courses purely for pleasure.

The school attracted 1,200 students in 1933–34 and more than 3,200 in 1937–38, and it remained strong even through the turmoil of World War II. Boom and bust

The end of the war brought a flood of new students to University College: Fall 1945 enrollment surpassed the previous year’s by 500, and in 1947 University College reached a new peak of 6,900 students — a third of them veterans studying on the GI Bill. This was the

beginning of University College’s first boom years.

According to administrators, Northwestern’s was the third-largest adult education program in the country (after NYU’s and UCLA’s), and half the evening students in Chicago were coming to Northwestern.

These students tended to focus on immediate goals.

In 1948 Northwestern’s president noted that most University College students were “interested in fitting themselves to earn a better living.” While the school offered degrees, few students earned them. Despite the thousands of students who took classes, only 1,100 bachelor’s degrees were awarded by University College between 1937 and 1962. Eventually the GI bubble burst, and enrollment dropped to 3,330 in 1953.

When times were lean, tension seemed to grow between the Chicago and Evanston campuses. When University College pushed for autonomy, deans of the schools in Evanston pushed back, arguing that since they were responsible for supplying both faculty and curriculum for University College, evening courses should be under their control. Space was perennially in short supply, and even in the boom years, money was tight.

By 1954 these problems could no longer be ignored, and the University’s Board of Trustees ordered the first of several reorganizations, creating the Northwestern University Evening Division. Combining University College with Chicago-based evening programs in commerce, journalism, and hospital administration, the enrollment figures looked good at first glance, but interest in the old University College programs dwindled. In 1957 the University began to offer evening courses on the Evanston campus, but

due to rising tuition, inflation, stricter admission standards, and increased competition from Chicagoarea schools, enrollment continued to slide through the 1960s and 1970s. By 1973 there were only 3,600 evening students on both campuses.

A year later another administrative makeover resulted in the Division of Continuing Education.

But that change failed to turn the program around, and soon the University commissioned a study of continuing education from Donald Collins, then vice dean at NYU. “It was clear that the market was there, faculty members and that it could be done — but that they weren’t doing it,” recalled Collins.

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Old name, fresh approach

Collins himself had the opportunity to right the ship a few years later when he became associate provost at Northwestern. In 1983 in yet another restructuring, University College was reborn, and Collins was named dean. He and his team soon revamped and broadened the curriculum, offering nearly 40 different undergraduate majors and a range of certificate programs in subjects such as computer science, writing, accounting, and publishing. The master of arts in English program, which had gained little traction since it was founded in 1977, was revived, and a master’s program in liberal studies — an early example of an interdisciplinary humanities program at the University —

Spring 2008 Continuum 3

was added in 1985. Collins also oversaw the 1987 founding of the Institute for Learning in Retirement (the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute since 2005), which became a model for similar programs around the country.

By the early 1990s enrollment soared to between 7,000 and 9,000. Faculty morale improved as teaching excellence was emphasized, and students touted the accessibility of a Northwestern-quality education. By the mid-1990s, however, the Chicago continuing education market again grew more competitive, certificate and enrollment at Northwestern fell programs to about 4,000.

A 1998 self-study concluded that academic standards were high and undergraduate programs strong. It also revealed that University College’s audience was increasingly professional — management, banking, and health care were among the top professions noted — and that about half of these students took courses for personal enrichment. This seemed to suggest that University College was sitting on a field ripe for cultivation.

With Collins’s retirement in 1999, Richard Lorenzen became dean. With a mandate from

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Looking back “Running University College was an enormous pleasure,” says Donald Collins, dean from 1983 to 1999. “I was happy to go to work every day — and the longer the day, the better. The students are so interesting, the faculty is so interesting, the dynamics of the school are so interesting. It was a truly wonderful experience.”

the University to enlarge the College’s portfolio of educational offerings, Lorenzen spearheaded extensive market research. These efforts found an untapped audience of professionals, most with bachelor’s degrees and many having done graduate work, still hungry

4 Continuum Spring 2008

for education. The school began offering professional development programs to help students advance or change their careers. To reflect this broader agenda, the school’s name was changed to the School of Continuing Studies.

New opportunities

With the retirement of Lorenzen in 2002, Thomas F. Gibbons picked up the reins — and the pace — at SCS. As the founding director of DePaul University’s Office of Continuing and Professional Education, Gibbons had built that program into a significant force in the Chicago education market. Under Gibbons the academic core of degree programs at SCS has remained as strong and serious as ever — but there is something new as well.

“On the one hand I see a lot of continuity and expansion of earlier SCS efforts,” says Robert Gundlach, professor of linguistics, director of the Writing Program, and interim athletic director at Northwestern.

He has also taught in SCS master’s programs and worked on policy issues with SCS in his role on the graduate faculty advisory board. “On the other hand I see a really dramatic and wonderful new twist coming in the last three or four years. The leadership of SCS is thinking very hard about how students might be engaged by ever-more-sharply focused learning opportunities.”

Indeed, at SCS the cutting-edge techniques of niche marketing are being applied to the sometimes cautious field of education. For example, the audience of career-minded students that SCS hoped to reach through its six initial professional development programs in 2000 has exploded. In response the school has created a kaleidoscopic array of degrees, certificates, institutes, and courses that cater to seemingly every level and area of interest — from several days at a Summer Institute to several years in a master’s program, in fields ranging from arts appraisal to forensics, from sports administration to premedicine. Today there are more than 60 certificate programs; SCS introduces new open enrollment courses and Summer Institutes every year, and if recent history is any guide, more graduate programs will be on the books in coming years as well.

From that career-focused base it was a short leap to adapt existing courses, or create custom classes, for

Dean Thomas F. Gibbons in the newly renovated Wieboldt Hall.

corporate clients seeking to educate employees. These corporate clients have expanded SCS’s reach beyond Chicago — and even the United States — as business organizations increase international operations. (See “Business class travel” on page 8 for more on SCS’s growing international presence.)

Powerful partners

What’s the source of all of this curricular creativity?

Linda Salchenberger, associate dean for academics, explains that faculty and staff come up with a lot of the program ideas. That’s only natural, given that they are the people having the most contact with current SCS students. Increasingly, however, ideas for programs are coming from SCS’s academic partners within the University. Where once Northwestern’s lauded professional schools might have eyed an adult education program with suspicion, today they recognize the unique strengths SCS brings to the table.

A good example is the Master of Science in Medical Informatics Program, founded in 2006. “The Feinberg School of Medicine approached us about the MMI program,” explains Salchenberger. “They had the idea, and they knew that there were markets we could reach that they couldn’t. We have the ability to grant the degree, develop the curriculum with their faculty, admit and register students, and provide the customer service their students need and want.” The result is a pioneering program that has received an award for creative academic programming.

Also new this year is a graduate certificate in clinical research and regulatory administration, offered in partnership with the cutting-edge Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

In program development SCS leaves little to chance. “We always do a market test to see if the waters are deep enough,” says Salchenberger.

In addition to market research, the school gets direct feedback from SCS undergraduate students. “Students speak degree majors very quickly with their money and their feet,” says Qung W. Go, who has taught in the professional development program in information graduate systems project managedegree ment since retiring from programs Accenture in 2002. “If it’s not relevant, you’re not going to get the enrollment.”

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8

Spinning the web

In January 2007 the master of science in medical informatics became the first graduate degree to be offered online at Northwestern (the onsite version continues as well). It was a natural extension of a program designed for a tech-savvy audience and a way to allow students outside Chicago — or those in the city with demanding schedules — the opportunity to pursue an important program. About 140 students are enrolled in the online MMI and about 60 in the onsite program.

As Northwestern’s first online degree program, SCS’s MMI program has broken new ground for the University. In spring 2008 Northwestern University

Spring 2008 Continuum 5

Bricks and mortar, polished

57 professional development programs

received authorization from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools for SCS to offer master’s degrees online. SCS is the first school at Northwestern to receive such approval, which must be sought for any significant change in the University’s educational sites, including online degree delivery. This approval opens the door for SCS to develop and offer additional online master’s programs.

The reaction of the commission’s team after the November site visit gives an indication of how far ahead of the curve the school is in this area.

“They said, ‘This is outstanding. We think you should be presenting to other accreditation bodies on how to do this well,’” says Joel Shapiro, assistant dean of graduate programs at SCS. Online options are expanding in other programs as well. SCS has started offering individual online courses in the museum studies certificate program and will eventually offer the entire program over the web. Online instruction is combined with assignments related to field work in local museums. Here, as in several other SCS online/onsite hybrids, the split between Chicago-based students and those living elsewhere is about 50-50.

These web-based efforts are not limited to course delivery. In March the school launched a community web site for the medical informatics program intended to be a place where students can share research and best practices, learn about job opportunities, and discuss topics of current interest in health care. It also provides another avenue of

Coinciding with SCS’s 75th anniversary is the completion of a two-year renovation of Wieboldt Hall. With two student lounges, group study rooms, and 18 new classrooms — many featuring “smart” classroom technology and some with videoconferencing capabilities — the project brings the school’s facilities into sync with its cutting-edge programming and excellent faculty. The first-floor lobby features a reception area and new signage, making it a welcoming entry into SCS. In addition, the electrical and HVAC systems and the two main elevators have been upgraded.

interaction with faculty. Similar web sites for other programs are planned.

New styles of learning

Of course even the best-designed web-based communities and most rigorous distance learning experiences cannot replicate every aspect of a residential graduate program. That’s why SCS is implementing an on-campus component for online MMI students this spring. As part of the leadership course required of all master’s degree students at SCS, online MMI students

Full circle Spend a few minutes with Pam Harkins, and you’ll hear about her students: The one who was on the Harvard Law Review, the two Oxford graduates, lawyers, journalists, teachers, MBAs, physicians, and social workers. Certainly her teaching — which has netted her a number of awards, including a 2002 SCS Distinguished Teaching Award — forges a tight bond with students. But perhaps what really sets Harkins apart is the fact that she too was a “nontraditional” student.

6 Continuum Spring 2008

course.’ She said, ‘What do you want to teach?

Talk me through it.’” The result was Conjuring Spirits: African American Women’s Narratives, offered at University College in 1997–98, followed a year later by a course on Toni Morrison. When the offer to teach in Weinberg College arrived, she was able to point to her SCS experience.

Harkins first came to University College in the 1980s. “After sitting it out for quite a while, I discovered that I did very well.” She earned a bachelor’s degree in literature in 1988 and an MA in English in 1998 and did postgraduate work in performance studies at the University.

Today she continues to teach courses in both schools, and she continues to connect with students. “I am actively in touch with about 50 or 60 former and current students,” says Harkins.

“My role is to teach and mentor. If I see my students five years from now, what’s important to me is that they have really developed that love for African American literature and that they are engaged citizens.

And then she got her big break, courtesy of Louise Love, then vice dean of University College.

“When I finished my master’s degree, I called Louise and I said, ‘I think I’m ready to teach a

“SCS has certainly done well by me, and I hope I’m doing well by my students. It has been a very rich experience. And who’d have thought it?

I’ve been blessed.”

will spend three days at Northwestern, where they will meet each other and faculty and participate in educational and experiential programs at the Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The goal is to strike a proper balance between distance learning and face-to-face interaction. “Creating a learning community around the subject matter is important,” says Salchenberger. “After graduation our students will have met colleagues and like-minded professionals from across the country through the program.”

Some will argue that technology-driven learning will inevitably change the way all classes are taught. To that SCS administrators say: Yes — and it will be better.

Salchenberger says that SCS’s work with online learning has helped the school and its faculty stay in touch with the sort of learning and teaching styles students today want: “Much more interactive, much more engaging, much more applied, using problem-based learning, and focusing on learning outcomes.”

As students’ interests and needs change and the marketplace evolves, SCS is well prepared not just to keep pace but to blaze the trail.

“With the retirement of the baby boomers and the millennials taking on leadership roles, there are lots of opportunities to provide new kinds of education,” Salchenberger says. “Smart companies are going to think about how to make that transition and how to share the institutional knowledge residing with all of these people who are about to retire.” Whether through corporate education programs or some future version of its professional development certificate programs, SCS is on track to meet these needs.

These efforts have been noted — and supported — by those at the top of the University. “The changes that have occurred in the School of Continuing Studies have

been important both for the School and for the entire University,” says Northwestern President Henry S. Bienen. “By partnering with other schools within the University and developing innovative programs of its own, SCS has reaffirmed its importance to Northwestern and provided increased opportunities for nontraditional students to receive the benefit of a Northwestern education.”

As it celebrates its 75th anniversary, the School of Continuing Studies has discovered new programs that the key to success in continuing educaintroduced tion in the 21st century — as it is in busiin the last 12 ness, technology, medicine, and other fields months — is continual innovation.

Salchenberger says there’s really no alternative if you want to be a leader.

“Our mission is innovation and responsiveness to the marketplace. As you get closer and closer awards for creative to the edge of being a programming in the leader, you have fewer and last three years fewer schools to use as role models, and it becomes more challenging to come up with that next great program. You are forced to innovate.”

—Tom Fredrickson

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3

The research of John Balz in his article “Hours of Destiny: The Promise and Peril of Night School of Northwestern” is gratefully acknowledged.

Spring 2008 Continuum 7

Business class travel Corporate education at SCS spans the globe

J

oann Dobbie, director of corporate education at SCS, may as well keep her bags packed. No sooner did she return from Washington, D.C., in January than she took off again, this time for China. In half a year Dobbie logged more than 22,000 miles — nearly the circumference of the Earth — on behalf of what Linda Salchenberger, associate dean of academics, calls “SCS’s worldwide classroom.”

The global leadership training program that Dobbie oversees is one of several international corporate education initiatives at SCS. For some of these programs, travel runs the other way, with students arriving at O’Hare International Airport from around the world — like the delegation from the Korea Futures Association (KOFA) that came to Chicago last summer to study futures and options trading.

For those who cannot make the trip, SCS packs a virtual suitcase of online distance learning.

“SCS is developing a global focus in two ways — by offering programs that address global leadership challenges faced by U.S. businesses and by expanding our audience for selected programs through distance learning,” says Salchenberger. “It’s no accident that business is driving a lot of our international programming. There’s an international demand for corporate classes, and U.S. companies know that globalization takes a lot of work.”

Beating a path to Northwestern

For those who make the trip to Chicago, SCS is equipped to provide a variety of opportunities tailor-made to fit the needs of international business students, often building on existing programming. For example, SCS’s open-enrollment professional development program in futures and options trading attracted the attention of a representative of the KOFA, who discovered the program online from his base in Seoul. “They contacted us in late spring last year,” says

8 Continuum Spring 2008

Jack Clegg, assistant dean for external affairs at SCS, “and we had a program ready for them in September.”

The subject matter and location were a perfect match.

“Trading is an international activity,” says Clegg, “and Chicago is considered a center for futures and options.”

Classes were held on SCS’s Loop campus, an easy walk from field trips to the trading pits at the newly merged Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade (now called the CME Group) as well as to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. “They were very excited to visit the exchanges,” says Clegg, “especially the agricultural trading floor.”

The 12 Korean participants, each from a different company, attended four days of 9-to-5 classes based on three existing SCS courses: Technical Analysis for Futures Markets; Tactics for Traders: Managing Performance Pressure in the Markets; and Introduction to U.S. Financial Markets and Derivative Instruments. Teaching the last class was private trader Bill Campbell, who embraced cultural differences. “I get animated and gesture a lot when I teach,” says Campbell. “My Chicago students are used to it. At the end of the class for the KOFA, I received a rousing ovation. One participant said, ‘We’re not accustomed to people who have such a level of passion.’” After the visitors left Campbell received more e-mails from them than from any class he has taught.

Campbell’s gesturing might have aided nonverbal communication, too. Although the KOFA had not requested a translator, Campbell noticed that some students needed a little help. “I always tell students to interrupt me if I’m going too fast, but in some cultures interrupting someone is impolite,” says Campbell, who spoke without interruption until the first break, when he was swamped with questions.

His solution was to stop for breaks — de facto question sessions — every half hour.

Another difference was one of perspective. “The Korean group was interested in hard commodities like livestock and gold and more willing to look at the entire global market,” says Campbell. “Instead of checking to see how the U.S. dollar was doing, they’d look at the international or multicurrency adjusted price of soybeans. They were willing to dispense with stereotypes and discard biases. I had a ball

Spring 2008 Continuum 9

Kellogg professor Julie Hennessy leads a session in the ACE program.

teaching them and hope they come back.” Campbell’s wish has been granted; Clegg says a new, larger group from the KOFA will be coming to Chicago soon.

A soft landing

Just before the group from Korea arrived, SCS tailored a completely different sort of program for international business students: the American Culture and English for International Business Students (ACE) Program. In this case Northwestern’s renowned Kellogg School of Management asked SCS and the Department of Linguistics in the Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences to craft an intensive language and culture program for international students admitted to the school’s MBA program.

“Kellogg had sensed a need for a program like this for some time,” says Frances Langewisch, assistant dean for student affairs at Kellogg. “International students who had no problem talking about their work discovered that they didn’t know how to make small talk with recruiters or friends about American music, sports, and movies.” With the percentage of international students growing to nearly one-third of MBA candidates, Kellogg turned to SCS and asked the school to customize a program similar to courses

10 Continuum Spring 2008

that SCS delivers in its Legal English Summer Institute. “It was a great match of needs and skills,” says Langewisch.

Julia Moore, who holds posts at SCS, Weinberg College, and the Graduate School and specializes in language acquisition, says that in partnering with Kellogg on the ACE program, SCS acts as “an educational concierge.”

“SCS’s strength is to assess the needs of a particular population and work quickly to customtailor a program to meet those needs,” says Moore. “We have the administrative and instructional skills as well as experience with international students. That allows Kellogg to concentrate on being the number one business school in the country.”

Held last August for the first time, the program will expand from three to four weeks this summer and serve more students. Last summer 33 students from Chile, Brazil, Peru, Italy, Russia, Japan, Korea, and China signed up for the voluntary program, and this year about 45 students will work with instructors in three groups. “The goal is to help business students communicate more effectively in the demanding environment of the Kellogg MBA program,” says Moore. With the help of SCS language instructors, ACE students preview the case-study method and attend lectures by Kellogg professors. “They work in teams to become acculturated,” says Moore. “It gives them a soft landing.”

That soft landing helps cushion culture shock. “Working with international MBA students is challenging,” says Deborah Engle, an instructor in the ACE program last summer. “Many come to Northwestern from top-level careers.

They are very bright, and it can be hard to gauge what they know and don’t know.” Engle notes that international students are often surprised by things American students take for granted, like media criticism of the government.

“The program gives them a foretaste of the open and aggressive American classroom, where questions are asked and comment is not only welcome but expected,” says Engle. Then there are issues such as learning how to respond when American students pass on the sidewalk and ask “How are you doing?” “The Americans don’t expect anyone to actually stop and tell them how they are doing,” says Engle. “Initially, international students might think it’s impolite not to give a full response.”

Taking SCS on the road

SCS’s global leadership corporate training program takes participants around the world. Dobbie designed the curriculum with instructors Greg Morris and Debbie Weinstein Huml in response to a request from a Chicago-area global services company with outposts in Europe, Asia, and South America. “The company didn’t have the capability to administer the program they wanted, and they liked the idea of partnering with a university,” says Dobbie, who spent almost 20 years in corporate America before coming to SCS. The company asked for a program to develop the global leadership skills of its managers. The program SCS created brought 25 of the company’s executives to four locations for one-week stays to study four areas of leadership. In June the group convened in Evanston to examine strategic consensus. Employee engagement was the topic in Cambridge, England, in August. In October the group addressed customer service in Japan, and in January it traveled to Washington, D.C., to study horizontal management.

The company was so pleased with the program that before Dobbie could unpack her bags she began a new, expanded cycle of SCS’s rolling classroom.

This year’s program runs from February through November and involves twice the number of executives, meeting in two groups over two weeks in each of four different locations: Lijiang, China; Beaver Creek, Colorado; Orlando, Florida; and Japan.

“These are very interactive classes,” says Dobbie. Participants discuss case studies, do homework every night, and read books between sessions to prepare. “It’s been interesting to watch executives with very diverse backgrounds from all over the world come together as a team as they travel from one location to another. Before the program started they didn’t interact. Now they’re close friends,” says Dobbie. “Relationship building is an integral part of being an effective leader.”

Shapiro, assistant dean of graduate programs. “The feedback from students is excellent.” Shapiro notes that some public-policy and administration classes may soon go online, appealing to government managers worldwide. “It has the potential to do well in China, with its growing infrastructure and government administration.”

Of SCS’s business offerings, several futures and options trading courses are currently accessible online in a synchronous format: Instructors and students seated in a state-ofthe-art classroom in the Loop can communicate in real time via web conferencing with others anywhere in the world — assuming those others are awake in their time zones.

Instructors write on a virtual blackboard, and students ask questions through a moderator.

These sessions are recorded and archived, so that students who miss one can review it at their convenience, as

“SCS’s strength is to assess the needs of a particular population and to custom-tailor a program to meet those needs.”

—Julia Moore

Virtual travel

Neither instructors nor students need to board a plane to participate in online SCS classes, which makes the platform especially appealing to an international audience. “SCS is at the forefront of doing online programs well,” says Joel

well as use the system to contact instructors with followup questions. “These are very technical classes,” says Salchenberger, “and some nonnative English speakers may prefer to take more time to process the information.” Plans are under way to deliver these courses in an asynchronous format that will allow students even more flexibility.

Salchenberger, who teaches online courses in SCS’s medical informatics program, is sold on the benefits of the worldwide virtual classroom. “You’d be surprised at how involved you and your students can become,” says Salchenberger.

“Online students tend to be overachievers who spend more time on their studies. You can tell from the quality of their work, which is very refined and carefully researched.”

Online learning is ideal for taking corporate education around the world, says Salchenberger: “Distance learning has no boundaries. We can reach a whole world of students.”

—Leanne Star

Spring 2008 Continuum 11

Scribble, scribble As creative writing programs expand at SCS, there’s something for everyone

“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit in front of a typewriter and open up a vein.” Such was the famous advice of Red Smith, the Shakespeare of sportswriters.

Fortunately, there is a less violent way to become a compelling writer: enroll in a writing class at Northwestern.

Your timing could not be better. SCS has long been home to writing workshops, but in recent years opportunities for writers have expanded to include an undergraduate English major in writing, a master of arts in creative writing (MCW) program, and the Northwestern Summer Writers’ Conference. Joining these programs this fall will be a new master of fine arts (MFA) degree program in creative writing.

As these opportunities have grown, so have student success stories (see accompanying profiles of Richard Baer and Claire Zulkey). SCS graduates are publishing novels, poems, and nonfiction, finding work as writers, and teaching others to become better writers. Writing has come of age at SCS. In the beginning

Undergraduate writing workshops at SCS go back at least 25 years, says Peter Kaye, assistant dean of undergraduate and credit professional programs. Leading many of those classes has been Fred Shafer (see accompanying profile).

“Fred is an unsung hero of the program,” says Kaye. “He has quite a track record: A number of his students have published their work and been accepted into advanced programs.” One of Shafer’s former students is writer Lisa Stolley, who went on to earn a PhD in English and fiction writing and now teaches at SCS. “It is almost a misnomer to call these undergraduate classes,” Kaye says of Shafer’s classes on Advanced Reading and Writing Fiction. “Many of the students have completed college degrees and want to demonstrate their commitment to writing or segue into the master’s program.” But beginning writers need not be intimidated. “We can help them find a course that’s an appropriate starting point,” says Kaye.

At the undergraduate level SCS students will find plenty of choices, from à la carte classes to professional development programs with certificates in writing creative nonfiction, fiction, or poetry to the bachelor’s degree program with an English major in writing.

Taking writing to the next level

The establishment of the MCW program in 2003 heightened Northwestern’s growing reputation for writing, with the Center for the Writing Arts as its foundation. Highprofile writers like MacArthur “genius” grant winners Aleksandar Hemon and Stuart Dybek have joined an already impressive roster of nationally known writers who teach at Northwestern, including John Keene, Mary Kinzie, Brian 12 Continuum Spring 2008

Bouldrey, and MCW codirectors Reginald Gibbons and S. L. Wisenberg (see accompanying profiles of Gibbons and Wisenberg). “We look for excellent writers who are also excellent teachers,” says Gibbons.

A success from the start, the MCW program has received an enthusiastic response from Chicago-area writers who want to improve their writing, increase their chances of getting published, and earn a credential for professional advancement. The program is still young, but MCW students have begun to achieve all of these goals and more.

Matt Wood, who won the MCW’s Distinguished Thesis Award last year, turns out cultural reviews and essays on sports and other topics with catchy titles like “How the Father Fixed the Motherboard” and “First Base as a Last Resort,” which won him a coveted spot in an issue of Creative Nonfiction. “Being in the program gave me the encouragement to write,” says Wood. “Getting that constant feedback and instruction kept me going and made me realize I could do it.”

Kylie Gordon says writing workshops taught her to trust “unconscious, psychological streams of thought. Reg [Gibbons] speaks about this — about treating the mind as a long corridor with lots of doorways. Creating the poem requires traveling down this hallway, opening all the doors, recording what you see inside them.” The program has opened other doors for Gordon, who landed an editorial

“Being in the program gave me the encouragement to write. Getting that constant feedback and instruction kept me going....” internship at the Poetry Foundation’s online journal after seeing one of Wisenberg’s frequent job postings.

Several students and alumni are teaching as well as writing. Sonya Arko, a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship in poetry in 2007, is leading a poetry workshop at Harper College this spring. Heather Dewar, who has published fiction in ZinkZine and essays, reviews, and articles in Chicago-area magazines and newspapers, teaches writing at Columbia College and literature at the Newberry Library.

“My experience in the program was instrumental in getting both of these jobs,” says Dewar. “Sandi Wisenberg’s course on teaching writing gave me the tools to find work in the field.” Essayist Cory Fosco has taught creative nonfiction at Harper College and cites what he learned at the MCW: “The dedication that the instructors have in this program is remarkable. Each has helped me become a better writer, editor, and teacher.”

Spring 2008 Continuum 13

Year-round opportunities for writers

The next step up for writing at Northwestern came in July 2005 with the first summer conference for writers.

“The conference attracted attention from the start,” says Stephanie Teterycz, director of Summer Session and special programs, who administers the program. “There was nothing like it in Chicago.” It has since become an annual event, with writers enrolling from as far away as England. “Writers across the country look forward to it,” says Teterycz.

The conference takes place over an extended weekend and allows participants to choose from a variety of seminars and workshops designed to help writers at all levels improve their writing or generate new writing. In addition to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, topics include writing for children, screenwriting, and memoir, with master classes for advanced writers. Past conferences have featured everything from a keynote address by journalist Alex Kotlowitz to a seminar titled “Insta-React with Literary Magazine Editors” led by Other Voices editor Gina Frangello and novelist Cris Mazza.

This year’s conference will take place August 13–16 on the Evanston campus, with some two dozen offerings.

Workshops are capped at 16 students and fill early. For information go to www.scs.northwestern.edu/summernu.

One more piece

With all these writing programs in place, why add one more? Because, says Gibbons, the MFA, considered the terminal degree for writers, will give graduates the ultimate credential, enabling those who also go on to publish with distinction to teach in the upper levels of academia.

Furthermore, Northwestern’s MFA program will have distinct advantages over MFA programs at other schools.

“There are two kinds of MFA writing programs in the United States,” says Gibbons, “and ours will combine the best features of both.” Residential programs typically require two or three years of full-time study, an expensive proposition for students who must relocate and give up jobs. Low-residency programs allow students to keep their jobs and travel to a campus at regular intervals to meet with faculty and other students, but in between sessions that community of writers disappears.

“Northwestern’s MFA will be like a low-residency program in the city,” says Gibbons. “You’ll be able to keep your job and your life. But, as in a residential program, you’ll be part of a community of writers that’s always here, with yearround faculty, ongoing courses, and writing groups.”

Both the MFA and MCW programs confer master’s degrees and draw on the same faculty. But the MFA will require more course work — 18 courses versus 10 for the MCW — as well interdisciplinary project seminars and more training in teaching.

With all these options at Northwestern, writers have no excuse: sit down in front of a typewriter — or computer — and open up an application.

14 Continuum Spring 2008

Writing as discovery

The writing life

Finding time to write

Fred Shafer likens the process of writing a compelling story to reading one: At the beginning you don’t know exactly where it will take you. “In my classes we look at contemporary published stories and examine the process that led to them,” says Shafer, who began teaching at SCS in 1987. “An author starts a story knowing very little. It takes a series of decisions and choices to get to the later stages. You find the plot rather than plan it.”

Katherine Shonk, author of The Red Passport, studied with Shafer in the 1990s and says that his workshops were critical to her development as a writer. “Fred taught me the value of challenging my characters with obstacles that could threaten to break them,” says Shonk. “Doing so allows you to get deep into the characters — to find out what they’re made of. I came to see this discovery process as the most urgent reason to write, and also a compelling argument for revising over and over again, to not be satisfied until a story or chapter is as human and true as possible.”

Revision is key in Shafer’s classes, where students write and rewrite a single story over the course of the term. “They pursue the story in stages, perhaps beginning with fragments,” says Shafer. “Then we talk about where it may go next.” Some of that talk takes place in class, but Shafer also works individually with students, meeting with each of them for at least two 45-minute conferences during the term.

Shafer’s students value his attention and feedback and many re-enroll in his classes. Shonk says those students will be richly rewarded: “When people who want to write fiction approach me for advice, I tell them to sign up for one of Fred’s workshops at Northwestern.”

When I was in college a guy ... , a hippie wanna-be, asked me if it would be enough for me to live on a commune and write just for the people of the commune. And I thought, No, though it seemed egocentric and impure to say No. You move from that question to, Would it be enough if five people read you? Then four? Then two? Then no one? Even Emily Dickinson sent her poems out for other writers to read.

— S. L. Wisenberg, February 3, 2007, on http://cancerbitch .blogspot.com

Prolific doesn’t begin to describe the literary output of MCW codirector In cold Reginald Gibbons, the author of 30 spring air the books of poetry, fiction, translation, white wispand literary criticism — works that have visible garnered critical praise and prestigious breath of awards. Even more impressive is that a blackbird Gibbons has found time to write at all. In singing— addition to his work at SCS, Gibbons is a we don't know professor of English in Weinberg College to unas well as director of the Center for the wrap these blindWriting Arts (www.northwestern.edu folds we /writing-arts), an organization that keep thinking fosters writing throughout Northwestern. we are How does Gibbons find time to write? seeing through “It has to matter so much that you make time for it,” says Gibbons. “Carry —“In cold spring air” something with you and use whatever from Creatures of the time you have — in a waiting room, on Day the bus, at the airport. What matters is to get inside the piece, even to dream about it.” Gibbons cautions that what works for him might not work for others: “It’s different for everyone.”

Another tactic Gibbons employs is to work on several projects at once. In the past year he has carted around essays, a collection of poems, and a book of translations, with two books out this spring. The poems in Creatures of the Day (see one above) focus on encounters, from what passes between people on the street to the poet’s meditation on Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In Selected Poems of Sophocles Gibbons takes a fresh approach to a classical dramatist to show him as a poet. Gibbons rates his Greek as only fair. “The key to translation,” he says, “is not mastery of the source language but understanding what to do in the target language.” Odds are Gibbons has hit another bull’s-eye.

Writer and MCW codirector S. L. Wisenberg has a way of getting to the heart of things, sometimes with delicacy and sometimes with brute force but always with compelling honesty. She brings that same passion to her teaching, earning her the 2006–07 Distinguished Teaching Award for graduate faculty at SCS. Her writing honors include a Pushcart Prize, publication in top literary journals, prestigious fellowships, and an upcoming residency at the Ragdale Foundation’s artists’ colony.

Critics have praised Wisenberg’s collection of essays, Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, and Other Obsessions, as well as her short story collection, The Sweetheart Is In, about which author Rosellen Brown wrote: “Her stories seem to me to have the flat honest gaze of children, who see more than we want them to and do not hesitate to tell all about it.”

Wisenberg’s powerful writing has probably never served her better than in her present work in progress, a book based on the blog she began in January 2007 after being diagnosed with breast cancer. The book, tentatively titled Cancer Bitch, will be published by the University of Iowa Press next spring.

Why start a blog? “It’s been a great outlet, like any writing,” says Wisenberg. “It’s like having your own printing press.” As can be seen above, Wisenberg’s blog is as much about her life as a writer as it is about the treatments she undergoes. On March 3, 2007, she posted this: “I’m glad I don’t need my chest for my job. ... My job is my writing. Right now most of my writing is Cancer Bitch, but it’s the writing that’s important, more than the cancer.

The cancer is just the subject right now.”

Spring 2008 Continuum 15

Student Profile

For Carl Winchester, learning to listen has been the biggest lesson

How did computers become the focus of your career?

By accident. During my first semester in college I was misdiagnosed with leukemia and dropped out of school. It took several months for doctors to discover the mistake. By then I figured I might as well be productive, and computers were a natural fit. During summer breaks from high school [at De La Salle Institute in Chicago], I interned at Bell Labs.

Author, author

Write around the clock

A first-time author dreams of publication: a book auction, with bids starting at $100,000; thousands of copies sold; critics who describe the book as “riveting” and “a richly rewarding read”; an interview with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America; translation into Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese; a separate agent to handle film rights.

“It has been like a fairy tale,” admits Richard Baer, who completed the MCW program in 2006 and experienced all of the above after his nonfiction book, Switching Time, was published

by Crown, a division of Random House, in October 2007, when Baer was 55. Baer, a psychiatrist by training, says his publishing fairy tale required more than wishful thinking: “I followed every step methodically.” He cites his study with MCW faculty Brian Bouldrey and Susan Harris as being instrumental to his success and acknowledges them in his author’s note.

“I took the program to write the book,” says Baer, who was eager to tell the real-life story of the 18 years during which he successfully treated a patient with multiple personality disorder.

Before writing a word Baer obtained informed consent from his former patient, who shares in the book royalties. But Baer was dissatisfied with his initial attempt to write the book. Then a colleague at work — Baer left private practice to serve as medical director of a health care administration company — told him about the MCW program. Baer enrolled in 2003, taking one class a week and writing his book on weekends as homework.

Thesis adviser Bouldrey guided Baer’s revisions, and Harris’s classes on the publishing industry helped Baer shape his plan.

“I went to Borders, found the section where I wanted my book to appear, and spent six hours making a list of the agents mentioned in the acknowledgements of those books,” says Baer, who then researched the agents and their submission requirements.

If Switching Time becomes a film, who should portray the dedicated doctor? “Christian Bale,” says Baer, tongue partly in cheek. Dream on, doc — it hasn’t hurt so far.

If she could dispense with sleep, Claire Zulkey might devote 24 hours a day to writing — and she may indeed have forgone sleep to write some of her zanier entries at Zulkey.com. Zulkey’s blog receives more than 100,000 hits on some days, but it represents only one of several outlets for the busy writer, who turns 29 in April. “I like having all my options open,” says Zulkey.

Zulkey focused on nonfiction in the MCW program, which she completed in December 2007, but she is game for all genres.

Her young adult novel, An Off Year, will be published under Penguin’s Dutton imprint in 2009. Zulkey’s essays, profiles, and television critiques have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and ElleGirl as well as online for The Onion’s A.V. Club. All that writing takes place when she’s not jockeying words at her day job as assistant to the editor of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Before she began the MCW program Zulkey was skeptical.

“Writing can be a hard thing to teach,” says Zulkey, who focused on creative writing as an undergraduate at Georgetown University, “but I really improved at Northwestern.” Zulkey says that small class sizes helped her connect with faculty like S. L. Wisenberg, Sheila Donohue, and Miles Harvey, her thesis adviser. She also praises her classmates and says they keep an eye out for one another, sometimes passing on work assignments. “For me the program meant announcing to myself that I was taking writing seriously. You’re never too experienced to improve your writing.”

—Leanne Star

16 Continuum Spring 2008

You’ve been extremely successful in your professional life [Winchester supervises server operations at a major Chicago law firm with international offices] — and you’ve achieved all this without a college degree. What made you decide to go back to school?

I had been out of school for about 16 years when I made the decision. Without a degree I wouldn’t be able to evolve further in my career or change career paths. Also, I have a 15-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, and I want to set a good example for them.

Why did you choose the Leadership and Organization Behavior Degree Completion Program [LOB]?

Initially I wanted to major in economics, and I’ve kept that as my minor, but after I was admitted to Northwestern I crawled the SCS web site and saw that the LOB program was starting in fall 2006. The focus on leadership was important to me and lined up with my role as a team leader at work.

What have you learned about leadership in the LOB? The most important thing I’ve learned has been to listen.

Before I began the program, it was my way or the highway.

Now at work I realize that not everyone will understand the technical stuff as quickly as I do — and that in fact others may have a wealth of knowledge I don’t have. I’ve gone from leading three people at work to 13, and the LOB taught me to slot people where they have the most potential for growth.

Becoming a better listener has improved my personal life, too. I’m more approachable as a friend and as a father. My kids are more willing to invite me into their private world.

What LOB class has been your favorite?

I have many favorites. All the instructors are top notch, and they’ve pushed me to think of the next level. I really liked Strategic Planning and Management and Theories of Organizational Communication. I took those in the summer, and they were tightly integrated and very intensive — for a final project my team worked at my office until 2 a.m.

Redefining Organizations, taught by Aleen Bayard, was transformational. We focused on sustainability, and that led to changes in my personal life and my work life. It was gratifying to be able to make a difference.

Has it been hard to combine parenting, work, and school?

It definitely fills my days.

I put in about 10 hours at work every day — I’m on call 24/7 and work remotely with offices in Asia, Europe, and South America, which involves conference calls very early or late in the day. I spend a couple hours helping my kids with their homework or just hanging out with them.

My course work averages about two or three hours a day, but because some of it is online I can shift it around.

On weekends I work on my consulting business.

That doesn’t leave much time for a social life, does it?

My LOB classmates have become my friends. That doesn’t always happen in an undergraduate program, but the LOB is a cohort [the same group of students moves through classes together], so we’ve really had a chance to get to know one another, and we have a degree of comfort and candor that’s unique. We’re a diverse group, and that’s helped me recognize different learning styles and strengths. As the computer pro in the group, I put together a SharePoint site so that we could communicate about classes, readings, and projects — even the technophobes in the group love it.

Is there anything your classmates don’t know about you?

A couple of things — and they both have to do with computers. The first is that I have a tattoo of the Microsoft logo, the result of a dare when I was 25. Fortunately it looks more like a Celtic knot. The other is that computers are not my passion. I’m good with computers — I actually enjoy reading a computer manual cover to cover — but if I have a second career it won’t necessarily be about computers.

—Leanne Star

Spring 2008 Continuum 17

Alumni profile

Trail blazer For SCS alumnus Rod Sierra, life is an adventure Time for education

F

rom actor-singer to radio producer to broadcast journalist to press secretary to vice president of public affairs for a $10 billion energy company: “I never took the easy path,” Rodrigo Sierra says of his career choices. In fact, Sierra, 47, has rarely stayed on a path at all. He seems to prefer to off-road it, guided by his instincts and passions, and somehow he never takes a wrong turn.

Sierra’s trail blazing began early. He grew up near Los Angeles in La Puente, California, one of six children born to Puerto Rican parents who insisted their children speak only English at home — which may explain why when Sierra’s high school put on West Side Story, his Mexican American classmates played the Puerto Rican gang members, while Sierra won the lead as Tony, of the rival white gang. Sierra inherited his love of the stage from his father, who had performed as a percussionist and singer with Desi Arnaz’s band. But his parents were not pleased when Sierra turned down their bribe of a car for commuting to college and instead headed to New York City at age 17.

“I thought I’d stay in New York a couple years,” says Sierra, who ended up living there for 11 years. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for a year, followed by another year at the Herbert Berghoff Studio. Meanwhile he sold clothes at Macy’s and landed parts in musical reviews and the role of Oscar in an off-off-Broadway production of the Odd Couple.

Act II

Sierra’s professional life took its first big turn when a fellow actor told him about a temporary job at ABC News radio network in New York. “It was supposed to be for six months,” says Sierra, “but it turned into a career.” Sierra spent six years at ABC in production and management, leaving his performance skills unused. Then, while Sierra was attending a convention in Puerto Rico in April 1989, an explosion ripped through the gun turret of the USS Iowa in the Caribbean Sea, killing 47 sailors. With no reporters nearby, ABC called Sierra, who was the first on the scene,

18 Continuum Spring 2008

In 1992 Sierra enrolled in Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies. This, too, he did his way, creating his own major in Latin American studies.

“I was very pleased to be able to pick and choose the courses I wanted,” says Sierra, who took courses in Spanish, literature, music, and film. As much as Sierra had already learned in the school of life, going to Northwestern offered him something more. “It’s one thing to read on your own,” says Sierra. “It’s another to get a structured education, to benefit from the perspectives of your professors and classmates.”

A member of Alpha Sigma Lambda, the national honor society for nontraditional adult students, Sierra graduated from Northwestern in 1996. A few years later, he was asked to speak at SCS’s Commencement.

reporting the tragedy via pay phone over a long night of recovery efforts.

Sierra’s reporting caught the ear of the news director of WGN Radio in Chicago, who offered Sierra a job as an on-air reporter and editor — another change in career direction, one that would require Sierra to move to Chicago. By this time Sierra had a traveling partner: his wife, Elizabeth, whom he had met on a blind date. Sierra calls her “the driving influence of my life.”

In his eight years at WGN Radio, Sierra reported on breaking news and a wide variety of subjects. “I loved the fact that on any given day I didn’t know what I’d be covering. One day I’d be reporting on a fire; the next I’d be interviewing the governor or an entertainer.” Sierra also created and hosted a weekly public affairs program focused on Latino issues.

There was plenty of excitement at home, too, as the Sierra family expanded to include four sons: Diego, now 17; Paolo, 12; Tonio, 7; and Vasco, 3. “Each one has changed my life in a different way,” says Sierra. But as busy as Sierra was with work and family, his wife encouraged him to go back to school. “Education is important to her,” says Sierra, “and I wanted our kids to know it was important to me, too.”

deputy press secretary, a post Sierra filled for 2½ years before returning to Peoples Energy in 2002. “Daley is a dynamic leader who lives and breathes Chicago,” says Sierra. “It was an amazing experience, one that I couldn’t have had anywhere else.”

Still reinventing himself

Sierra says that working for someone as demanding as Mayor Daley helped him grow and prepared him for the promotion he received to vice president for public affairs of Integrys Energy Group, the holding company that succeeded Peoples Energy. Sierra is especially proud of the part his company has played in helping customers afford energy by working to eliminate the cycle of disconnection and reconnection and through conservation measures like weatherizing homes.

“It’s one thing to read on your own. It’s another to get a structured education, to benefit from the perspectives of your professors and classmates.”

“It was an honor and really exciting to look at the graduates and know how they felt,” says Sierra, who told the graduating class about being the first person in his family to earn a college degree.

By this time Sierra had embarked on yet another career path. After 15 years in media he transitioned to corporate communications, becoming manager of public relations for Peoples Energy in 1998. In many respects his new work was a natural outgrowth of his previous work, all of which involved communication. When a contractor ruptured a gas line on Chicago’s Near North Side, Sierra’s reporting skills kicked into high gear: “I was in my element, and I knew most of the reporters covering the story.”

In yet another seemingly effortless professional segue, someone in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office noted Sierra’s performance and offered him a job as

But simply because Sierra has risen to the top does not mean that he has finished reinventing himself. At Northwestern, he says, he “caught the education bug.”

So when his CEO suggested that he earn an MBA, Sierra knew immediately that he wanted to return to Northwestern. He entered the executive MBA program at the Kellogg School of Management, which he will complete in June.

“Most of my career hasn’t been planned,” says Sierra. “I’ve been very fortunate about the opportunities that came my way. Now I’m thinking about and planning my future, asking myself what I really want to do — and I’m not sure I’ve figured that out yet.”

—Leanne Star

Spring 2008 Continuum 19

Faculty profile

SCS news

Teaching about terrorism Jonathan Schachter stocks his arsenal with planning and common sense

E

ven the catalog listing looks forbidding: Terrorism and Public Policy. So before enrolling in Jonathan Schachter’s class on the subject, Mike Madden girded himself for dry, grim material. What he discovered instead was “inspired teaching.”

Chief information officer for the city of Evanston, Madden, who completed the Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) Program at SCS in 2007, says that Schachter’s “classes were often done ‘in the round’ without PowerPoints or guest speakers. Jonathan’s goal was to get students thinking — engaged and involved — right there on the spot. He drew us into challenging and often spirited discussions related to terrorism and its impact on public policy.”

Schachter, who also teaches on national security in the MPPA program, mixes classic texts like Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War with selections from the Geneva Conventions and articles from academic journals.

Topics for class discussion include the nature and scope of the terrorist threat, the goals and effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism policy, including the use of torture, and the roles and limitations of public safety technology.

“In public policy you need a good base in theory,” says Schachter, who earned a PhD in policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School, “but the emphasis is on practice.”

Schachter’s own practical experience is extensive.

He has consulted on public safety and security issues for federal, state, and local agencies as well as for nonprofit

20 Continuum Spring 2008

and private-sector organizations in the United States and overseas. From 2004 to 2005 he served as managing deputy director for emergency management for the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

Schachter is an outspoken critic on public safety matters. In sometimes sardonic opinion essays in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, Schachter calls public officials to task for short-sighted approaches to issues like crisis evacuation (“… there are two problems with … total evacuation: It is unnecessary and it cannot be done”), surveillance cameras (“Money might be better spent hiring additional police officers, a proven way to reduce crime”), and protecting rescue workers with emergency vehicle preemption technology (“Where’s the downside? It is hard to believe that cost is the limiting factor in a city that invests millions in questionably effective surveillance cameras and a kitschy neon light–laden 911 center”).

Schachter’s commonsense take on public safety sheds light on topics that are too often clouded by fear: “There’s something I call the ‘magic of terrorism’ that makes reason disappear. People treat it as a phenomenon to which normal logic doesn’t apply, but in fact it clearly does. I try to demystify terrorism by demonstrating its clear, identifiable links to political developments, its tactical evolution, and its appeal to some parties to conflict around the world.”

Although he says it is impossible to prevent all acts of terrorism, Schachter emphasizes that the likelihood that terrorism will succeed can be reduced.

Such a cool-headed approach to the subject can be empowering. “We need more emphasis on the collaborative nature of emergency preparedness, which starts with the public itself,” says Schachter. “Internationally, the places that have the most success combating terrorism and coping with other emergencies have the most engagement with the public. In the U.S. we need more public engagement, and the government must take the lead in educating the public realistically about the dangers that are and are not present.”

Schachter believes that everyone can and should prepare for emergencies, including terrorism, by taking a few simple steps, such as stocking a kit with supplies and developing a family communication plan (see www.redcross.org or www .ready.gov). “The other day I was doing research at Northwestern’s government documents library,” says Schachter, who also teaches a core MPPA class on applied research and writing, “and I came across old civil defense materials. Most of the recommendations for personal and family preparedness were exactly the same as they are today. It was the same stuff — it’s simply receiving new attention now.”

—Leanne Star

The Center for Public Safety reaches out to the Bahamas

When Rich Johnson and Cameron Fisher of the Center for Public Safety SCS programs earn plaudits

The School of Continuing Studies recently received an award from the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) that recognized the creative programming of SCS’s historic preservation professional development program, which addresses ideas and actions involved with agricultural and architectural historic preservation in the Chicago area and beyond.

Additionally, SCS received an award from the Association for Continuing Higher Education in recognition of the Green City Summer Institute (above), a partnership with Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Green City Summer Institute is an annual three-day program that explores the ways in which Chicago has become one of America’s greenest cities. Through lectures, group projects, and onsite visits, the institute introduces participants to a comprehensive set of issues that effect sustainable development in urban environments.

—Nicholas Lalla

spoke at the International Police Reserve Conference in the Bahamas last October, they returned to the Evanston campus with more than a thank you. The Royal Bahamian Police Reserves asked them to return — and with a larger objective: ending adolescent violence in the Bahamas. Johnson, executive director of CPS, and deputy director Fisher spoke on youth violence and community leadership at the conference.

CPS began working in December with the Royal Bahamian Police Reserves and government leaders to tackle teen violence, which is of escalating concern in the Bahamas.

Fisher says participants discussed U.S. and foreign approaches to youth violence in schools and public areas, debated strategies, and participated in team exercises. He says their cooperative approach makes this coalition notable. “We don’t tell them what to do,” Fisher says.

“They arrive at their solution. We just them give the tool kit to do so.”

While the program is still in its initial stages, it has gained much attention. The Royal Bahamian Police Reserves are planning to work with the CPS in 2009. Fisher is optimistic: “If it works — and we think it will — this can serve as a model for a lot of small countries ready to tackle big problems.”

—K. Aleisha Fetters

Taking on teen driving Faculty spread the word on medical informatics

In the last year faculty members from SCS’s Master of Science in Medical Informatics Program have participated in a number of lectures and courses at such institutions as the University of British Columbia and at conferences including the U.S. National Conference on Lean Healthcare and the Canadian Institute for Health Information National Conference on Electronic Health Records. The participation of SCS faculty at these events reflects the school’s leadership role in this growing and rapidly evolving field and helps establish Northwestern’s place in the international medical informatics community. These connections strengthen SCS’s medical informatics curriculum by bringing new ideas into the program, aid graduates as they network and seek jobs, and promote the program to a broader audience through an online version accessible to students around the world.

As Continuum went to press we learned that the Master of Science in Medical Informatics Program had received a program of excellence award from the University Continuing Education Association in the Distance Learning Community of Practice category.

—Nicholas Lalla

Every 30 seconds a teen dies in a car crash in the United States, according to Jason Stamps, director of new programs in the Center for Public Safety. In November CPS dedicated its annual conference to this subject — its first on teen driving. The conference — Strategies for Managing the Teen Driving Crisis: An Executive Leadership Conference — drew more than 200 law enforcement professionals from across the country to CPS’s Rosemont, Illinois, location. The center’s goal was to provide police chiefs and police departments with the resources needed to “prevent and respond to a teen fatality crash,” Stamps says.

The conference stressed the need for police to foster community-wide understanding, teaching both parents and teens about risky behaviors — dangers that are not limited to alcohol anymore and can even include reading and sending text messages while driving. Speakers included Sheriff Phil Povero of Ontario County, New York, and Deerfield police chief John Sliozis (who have both dealt with the aftermath of teen driving fatalities) as well as Illinois secretary of state Jesse White and Illinois state senator John Cullerton. CPS provided all attendees with an original guidebook with contributions from the Allstate Foundation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as well as various police stations and CPS employees.

—K. Aleisha Fetters Spring 2008 Continuum 21

SCS people

SCS People

Faculty and staff Elizabeth Crane, instructor in the Master of Arts in Creative Writing Program, had her third story collection, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, published

by Punk Planet Books.

Tim Gordon, associate dean of student services, received a Commission for Commuter Students and Adult Learners Award for 2008.

The Perfect Man, a novel by Master of Arts in Creative Writing instructor Naeem Murr, was published by Random House in 2007.

Larry Schneider received an SCS Distinguished Teaching Award for noncredit programs.

S. L. Wisenberg, codirector of the Master of Arts in Creative Writing Program, received an SCS Distinguished Teaching Award for graduate programs.

Where have you been?

What have you been doing?

The School of Continuing Studies would love to know about your recent accomplishments.

Send your news to School of Continuing Studies Northwestern University Wieboldt Hall, Sixth Floor 339 East Chicago Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60611-3008 or send an e-mail to continuum@ northwestern.edu

22 Continuum Spring 2007 2008

Alumni and students Harold V. Anagnos (76, MBA90) of Long Grove, Illinois, began his third career — as an adviser and investor with BXA Associates in Palatine, focusing on manufacturers and distributors of electronic components worldwide. He advises clients on implementation of marketing and branding strategies.

MCW poetry student Sonya Arko was one of 12 finalists for the national Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships, sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.

In 2006 Judy Asti (06) was a national winner in the AWP Intro Journals contest for her story “Perfect,” which was then published in Arizona State University’s Hayden’s Ferry Review.

Bernadette Birt (02) of Morton Grove, Illinois, was promoted to director of domestic executive MBA programs at the Kellogg School of Management in September 2006. She is responsible for day-to-day management and operations of the regional and North American executive MBA programs at the James L. Allen Center.

Antonio Castillo (90) of Lake Zurich, Illinois, a veteran Chicago actor, stars in Watch Over Me on Fox’s new MyNetworkTV, which premiered in December. He plays the role of Alfred Rivera.

Benjamin Dahlbeck (07) graduated magna cum laude in June with a BPhil in English in Writing and is now enrolled in the postgraduate creative writing program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Gail Daubert (91) of Washington, D.C., became a partner at the international law firm of Reed Smith in January 2007. She practices in the health care and government relations practice groups.

She provides legal, regulatory, and legislative counsel to professional associations and manufacturers of pharmaceutical drug products and medical devices. She has been published in health law publications.

MMI student Jennifer Diehl was admitted to the fall 2007 session of the National Library of Medicine fellowship program in biomedical informatics at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Lisa Garner Dimberg (81) of Evanston is on a temporary assignment in the actuarial valuation department for Protective Life in Elgin, Illinois. She is assisting in the transition of financial reporting functions to Protective Life’s new corporate offices in Birmingham, Alabama.

Connie Garner (89) is a full-time faculty member at Harrington College of Design in Chicago teaching literature, critical thinking, and English composition.

Glenn P. Gercken (94) is a records manager at Ungaretti & Harris LLP. Constance Grimmer (88) of St. Joseph, Michigan, retired from law and became executive director of the Humane Society of Southwestern Michigan in October 2006.

She has published poetry and is currently writing a mystery novel.

John G. Horn (00) of Williamsville, New York, a litigation associate at the Buffalo office of Harter Secrest & Emery, is chair of the Buffalo Philharmonic development committee.

Mary Jarzebowski, a former student-at-large at SCS, was accepted into Oxford Medical School.

Joseph Jaworek (02) of Boonton Township, New Jersey, earned a master’s degree in art therapy from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in September 2006. His research focused on geriatrics, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementia.

Jason Konop (07), a former student-at-large, completed medical school at St. Louis University, won a prestigious research fellowship at Washington University, and earned a surgical residency at the University of California at San Diego.

Robert Mau (92, G98) of Chicago was named senior consultant for strategic communications with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association in 2005.

Harris Meyer (82) of Hollywood, Florida, law editor for the Daily Business Review in Miami, won first place in the local political and government reporting category for small newspapers in the 2007 Sunshine State Awards, a Florida-wide contest sponsored by the South Florida Society for Professional Journalists. He won for his articles examining police misconduct toward political protesters in Miami.

His coverage ultimately led to a police apology. He won a first-place Sunshine State Award and a national health care reporting prize last year.

He and his wife, Deborah, live on the beach in Hollywood.

James R. McInerney (67) of Pearl River, Louisiana, retired as technical director of the automotive group at Valspar Corp. in Picayune, Mississippi. To his surprise, the lab was named in his honor.

Judy Neel Murphy (77) of Dowagiac, Michigan, a management consultant, was elected to the board of directors at Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital Foundation.

Djuro Petkovic (07) is attending the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago and is receiving a scholarship.

David J. Purtell (49) of Clearwater, Florida, received the Albert S. Osborn Award of Excellence from the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners in November 2006. A former Chicago police captain and director of the city’s crime laboratory, he retired from private practice in forensic document examination after a long and distinguished career in forensic sciences.

One of his most famous cases involved the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Helene Bak Slowik (73) of River Forest, Illinois, is senior solutions consulting manager with IBM’s human resources outsourcing practice after retiring early from Amoco. She enjoys attending Northwestern football and basketball games, traveling with the football team to away games and bowl games, and visiting her nephew’s family in France.

She also travels with her husband and son.

Valentin Sviatocha (07) is attending the New York University College of Dentistry. While at SCS he was vice president of the Northwestern University Pre-Health Professionals student group.

Fredric S. Tatel (DDS67, 89, G02) of Glenview, Illinois, has practiced pediatric dentistry in Northbrook for 38 years and is a lecturer at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He is now earning his fourth Northwestern degree, a master’s in literature. He has also earned 23 hours toward a master’s in musicology at the Music Conservatory at the Chicago College of the Performing Arts. He and his wife, Faye, recently celebrated 40 years of marriage.

Interlopers, a science fiction novel by Tom Thornton (80) was released by PublishAmerica in June 2007.

Erika Tovar (07) is attending law school at Loyola University Chicago.

Bifeng Zhang (07) is attending Albany Medical College in New York.

In memoriam Betty Schaffer Andrews (61), Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Arthur G. Beardsley (78), San Francisco Katherine Robinson Besser (67), Del Mar, California Otelia Simpson Champion (62, GSESP69), East Chicago, Indiana Benjamin R. Cocogliato (78), Wheaton, Illinois Chester H. Dee (52), Bolingbrook, Illinois John F. Fisher (70), Effingham, Illinois June Goodell Freeman (89, G00), Glencoe, Illinois Thomas P. Gallanis (66), Mount Prospect, Illinois Mabel M. Glisan (68), Blue Island, Illinois Russel W. Jenkins (69), Scottsdale, Arizona Ruth C. Johanssen (43), Williams Bay, Wisconsin Daniel J. Kubala (63), Chicago Robert W. Malmstrom (60), Tigard, Oregon

Claudia Kunin (WCAS82, MALS), 47, managing director of Northwestern’s Theatre and Interpretation Center, died in July in Evanston.

Kunin worked for the University for more than 20 years, producing more than 500 mainstage and studio shows. She also served as the managing director of Northwestern’s American Music Theatre Project.

Kunin participated in theater as a student and after graduation worked with many professional theater companies in Chicago. At Northwestern she was known as an outstanding supporter of students and as a coolheaded manager in the sometimes chaotic world of theater production.

Donald J. Martin (64), Hilton Head Island, South Carolina Erskine C. Moore (60), Chicago Edger E. Tobias (81), Wheaton, Illinois Craig N. Riffle (99), Irving, Texas Carolyn Kluck Tsai (51), Chandler, Arizona William D. Wallmo (58), Atlanta

Spring 2008 Continuum 23

To be continued…

SCS snapshot

Master of procrastination — and perseverance It’s a quiet snowy Saturday in winter.

There’s a warm blanket on the couch and college basketball on TV. But I have no time for such afternoon delights.

My sons, 2-year-old Sam and 3-month-old Max, are sleeping. That means 60 minutes of prime homework time on this afternoon. My School of Continuing Studies classes have taught me nothing if not focus.

I’m halfway through the third year of my liberal studies master’s program. Balancing work, my studies, and family time is a tough act for sure. With hundreds of pages of reading a week, papers, and other course work, it’s hard to find time to fit it all in.

Daily exercise is a thing of the past since I started the program. The dusty pile of National Geographic magazines on my nightstand inches taller each month.

I have several hundred e-mail messages in my inbox, and my “honey-do” list gets longer every quarter.

But life is not so bad. And I have learned more than a few things along the way. I’ve discovered once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator. I still find a strange thrill in all-nighters and the adrenaline rush that comes with cranking out a final paper with hours to spare. I am a journalist, after all.

24 Continuum Spring 2008

I’ve also learned that a master’s degree in liberal studies will not set me up for a big career move or a hefty pay hike. But it will pay dividends in other ways.

It’s helped me to think more critically about my role in society, especially in terms of the environmental issues that have become my focus.

I have also learned that no matter how heavy my load, others have bigger burdens. During one exhausting week last spring, my Religion, Bioethics, and Public Life class met in Evanston three times, meaning six hours in the car for my classmate Romi HerronCologna, who drove an hour each way from suburban Bloomingdale. That was the easy part of her journey.

She underwent major surgery last February and had to decide between her master’s degree and her full-time job at the Kellogg School of Management. She chose the degree despite the loss of her tuition discount.

When the class schedule changed dramatically to include Sunday night class sessions in the professor’s Evanston home, Romi relied on her sister to help care for her 9-year-old son, since her husband travels extensively for business.

“I remained determined,” Romi says. “I was barely able to drive in the early part of the quarter, so leaving the professor’s house at 11 at night was, well, scary. But since I often remind my son to finish what he starts, I must set an example.

“So onward I go, with just four classes remaining!”

That’s the best lesson I’ve learned yet.

—Sean Hargadon (MALS) Reprinted with permission from Northwestern magazine.