Ohio Today Summer 2015

ohiotoday for alumni and friends of ohio university

Summer 2015: OHIO women

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Features Campaign story Almost 90,000 Bobcat alumnae and other women have donated to The Ohio University Foundation since its creation in 1945. And of OHIO’s 130,000 alumnae, 42,000 have given cumulatively more than $174 million. The eight-year Promise Lives Campaign—which, upon conclusion in June, raised more than $500 million, surpassing the goal by some $50 million—owes a huge debt of gratitude to women donors. What motivates female Bobcats and friends to be so generous? One answer comes from writer Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, a landmark feminist work.

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Ohio Women OHIO women faculty, staff, students, and alumni make spectacular marks and lead impressive lives. They’re self-reliant as a matter of principle and collaborative as a matter of course. Female Bobcats break barriers and benefit society.

They think deeply about having it all—happy family and satisfying career—and often achieve the gamut. These women go about pursuits with a sense of fairness, a sense of determination, a sense of humor, and a sense of perspective. The green sisterhood loves OHIO, adventure, and challenge. They embody the best of humanity.

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Departments 1 President’s message From the editor

2 Letters to the editor 3 Your OHIO Alumni answer a fun question.

4 Across the College Green Recent and unfolding developments about OHIO people, entities, initiatives, pursuits, activities, events—and more!

36 Bobcat tracks Alumni history, perspective, photos, news, and announcements.

46 In Memoriam

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48 Last Word

Intergenerational Bobcat friends Dolores Hanna (left) and Lyndsay Markley pose for a photo in May at Hanna’s Chicago home.

Q&A with an OHIO faculty or staff member.

Photo by Brien Vincent

ON THE COVER: Illustration by Lara Harwood

PRESIDENT’s message

Bobcat matriarchs

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any teachers point to a defining moment that inspired their decision to go into education. I cannot, because even my earliest memories contain the face of the greatest teacher I ever had.

My mother, Mabel McDavis, was a lifelong educator who was as committed to instilling a love of learning in her sons as she was to motivating her students.

I became who I am because she was my first mentor. I feel fortunate Margaret Boyd that from the very start of my life, Photo courtesy of Mahn Center for I had a role model who reinforced Archives and Special Collections just how important women are to the pursuit of knowledge, to progress, to innovation, and to the education of future generations.

And I often reference another inspiration for generations of Bobcats. In 1868, a nervous freshman stepped onto Ohio University’s campus to begin the journey toward earning an education. This student had more than just first-year jitters. Margaret Boyd was about to become the first female student at OHIO and, though she did not know it then, our first female graduate.

In her diaries, now part of the Ohio University Library archives, Ms. Boyd often reflected on her loneliness, worried about keeping up with her studies, and compared herself unfavorably with the men in

her class. Toward the end of her final term, in 1873, she worried that she might not make it to graduation day.

However, in his commencement address a few weeks later, OHIO President William H. Scott heralded her as the “oldest of a great sisterhood of graduates.” And so she has become.

OHIO women grabbed the torch that Ms. Boyd passed to them and ran with it. By the time I arrived on campus as a student, nearly 100 years later, OHIO women no longer compared themselves with male students—except to question why women had to live by different campus rules than men did. And then women insisted the rules change.

Today’s OHIO faculty, staff, students, and alumni are still working to ensure that each subsequent generation of OHIO women will be judged on academic merit, contributions to society, and character, rather than by gender.

I hope you will be inspired by the stories in this issue of Ohio Today about the wonderful things that OHIO women are accomplishing. It is a great sisterhood and an essential part of our larger Bobcat family. Margaret Boyd has left a proud legacy.

And she most certainly would not be lonely now.

» Roderick J. McDavis

President www.ohio.edu/president/blog • @OHIOPrezOffice

From the editor Mrs., Ms., Miss—mmm The impetus for the theme “OHIO women” sprang from a beneficent request: Promote ohiowomen, an advocacy initiative recently arising from Ohio University’s Women in Philanthropy program. ohiowomen embraces female Bobcats from every corner: students, professors, and staff, alumnae, friends, and others. (See page 7 for ohiowomen’s kickoff event.)

The notion of ohiowomen led to the touchstone of OHIO women. That latter purview compelled a consideration of

women. And to dip into gender meant wading into society. The result: a look, directly and indirectly, at work, family, sisterhood, at feminism and sexism, at heroines and heroes, at benchmarks such as economics, government, education, science, business, law, psychology, sports, arts—and at much more.

How, then, to consider this “OHIO women” edition?

The activist in me likes this slogan from Bella Abzug during her successful campaign

for U.S. Congress (via New York City) in the 1970s: “This woman’s place is in the house— the House of Representatives.”

The idealist in me favors the final paragraph from My Lord, What a Morning, Marian Anderson’s 1956 autobiography, published shortly after her groundbreaking debut as the first African American soloist at the Metropolitan Opera House: “There are many persons ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right.

But they hesitate, waiting for the other (CONT.)

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LETTERS

fellow to make the first move—and he, in turn, waits for you. The minute a person whose word means a great deal dares to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow. Not everyone can be turned aside from meanness and hatred, but the great majority of Americans is heading in that direction. I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country.”

The pragmatist in me admires the approach of Grace Paley in a 1978 interview the writer gave in Columbia University’s literary magazine: “What I’m interested in doing in a story is bringing certain different languages, people, events together and then letting the reader make what he wants of it.”

Interestingly, those three important women, from diverse walks of life, appeared at this school. (See page 41 for others.)

OHIO women mean what to you?

» Peter Szatmary

Write to us. Ohio Today welcomes letters. We reserve the right to edit for grammar, space, clarity, and civility. Send letters by e-mail to ohiotoday@ohio. edu or by mail to 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701. We regret that we cannot publish all letters in print or online.

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Photo courtesy of The New York Times/Redux

(CONT. from page 1)

Hey, batter!

Arigatō, Bobcats!

Just a curiosity. I made the above right painting several years ago. When I saw the piece in the spring 2015 Ohio Today [a review of Kammie on First, a biography of baseball great Dorothy Kamenshek, written

by Michelle Houts and published by Ohio University Press for young readers], I checked my files. It is a different player, but the pose is very similar. In those days, everybody playing ball probably posed close to the same way for the photographer.

Thank you very much for your kindness in sending me the spring issue of Ohio Today.

I always read this magazine with great interest. I miss Ohio University and Athens so much and enjoy seeing the current atmosphere of the school and town reflected in the editions. I wish great prosperity to the university and to Ohio Today.

—Frank Cressotti, MFA ’69, Southampton, Mass.

—Sincerely, Katsundo Hitomi, 1991 Visiting Stocker Professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Russ College of Engineering and Technology, at OHIO. He lives in Kyoto, Japan.

your Ohio

memories and more

A girl thing Female Bobcats across several generations offered many different answers to the prompt: “When you think about OHIO women, who come to mind: professor, classmate, friend, spouse? Or what typifies female Bobcats?” For what it’s worth, only one male responded. Comments showed appreciation, solidarity, affection, humor, and perspective. Edited excerpts follow. —Editor Peter Szatmary

When I think of OHIO women, I think of those young women I met in 1982 who have grown to become the amazing women I still can’t wait to see in 2015. Through marriage, children, divorce, and death, we have been there for each other as Bobcats and sisters!

If we were typical, we wouldn’t be unique and we wouldn’t be true Bobcats!

—Carol Mallorey Downing, BSED ’71 This playful assemblage in Ryors Hall made the 1970 Athena yearbook.

Photo courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

young journalists in the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism. (Also see page 44.)

—Leigh Gannon, BSJ ’80

—Jill Sabatine, BA ’86 OHIO women are smart, strong, beautiful, and funny. They are those I met while rooming at Weld Hall and kicking the guys’ butts at Texas Holdem and hanging out playing beer pong on Palmer Street. Love those women I still keep in contact with thanks to Facebook (which we started using while still attending classes).

I only had two women faculty in four years and no women TAs. I’m sure that’s changed.

I’m still friends with one of the cheerleaders from ’61-’64. My women friends there were almost all sweet, good-natured, and helpful.

I should have married one of them.

—Vern Turner, BS ’65 Dance majors!

—Brittany Greene, BBA ’07

—Cita Strauss, BFA ’77, MA ’06

My independent housemates from my senior year. Years later we are all still independent, working, and headstrong.

OHIO women are smart, dynamic, innovative, kindhearted ceiling-breakers who positively influence me every single day.

—Ann Lizette Flynn, BSED ’77

—Megan E. Dzurec, BSH ’97

OHIO women are the amazing Ohio University Dance Team members I danced alongside for four years and all of the other strong, unique, female friends I had during my time in Athens. OHIO women aren’t afraid to let their freak flag fly!

—Hannah Tangi, BSC ’10 Tough, smart, and funny Dru Riley Evarts, who taught and mentored thousands of

There is no typical female Bobcat. They just want to have fun.

—Lois P. Flanagan, BS ’70 My teammates, friends, dorm mates, classmates all have that connection that happens when you spend time together in Athens before you leave to continue your life. A piece of your heart is left behind and you can’t wait to return to feel whole again!

Bobcat power! Sisterhood!

—Rose Galambos Bonaccorso, BSHE ’83 When I think of OHIO women I think of my classmates and friends. These are the women whom I became an adult with, who are freely and confidently themselves, and who helped me learn to embrace the adventure, challenge, and art in everyone and everything I came across.

—Jacque Mayer, BA ’12 My ADPi Sorority sisters! Fun, diverse, and beautiful inside and out! Also, my other favorite Greek sisters: Fuzzies, Pi Phis, and Chi Os! Once a Bobcat, always a Bobcat, even though I’m kind of a cougar now!

—Barbara Finnerty, BSC ’86

NEXT ISSUE’S QUESTION: The year 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the Athena Cinema. It opened on June 3, 1915, featuring the Mary Pickford silent film, “Cinderella.”

What memories do you have of the Court Street movie theater? Send letters to 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701; e-mails to ohiotoday@ohio.edu; or posts to the Ohio University Alumni Association’s Facebook page (by “liking” us on the site).

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In the news Engineering Electrical engineer Ingeborg Hochmair-Desoyer became the first woman to garner the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, awarded biennially by the National Academy of Engineering and Ohio University. Established in 1999, the commendation is the bioengineering profession’s highest honor. She and four other visionaries split $500,000 for developing cochlear implants that enable the deaf to hear. “Her citation reinforces a largely unknown fact: Women have been contributing significantly for decades to the development of groundbreaking technology,” said Dennis Irwin, dean of OHIO’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology. She cofounded MED-EL Medical Electronics, a global hearing implant manufacturer, with husband and co-recipient Erwin Hochmair.

WITS More than 260 middle school girls attended a daylong “Women in Technology and Science” expo at Ohio University Lancaster Campus in May. Topics ranged from physics to architecture, and medical assisting to law enforcement. Lancaster professors and employees plus professionals from area agencies and organizations led the presentations and workshops. “I hope that they took away from WITS that being a scientist requires not just intellect and desire, but also teamwork, perseverance, and a creative, pioneering spirit. I also hope that the girls felt inspired and empowered,” said event co-chair Jackie Tudor, an assistant professor in biology. The event dates to 1992.

The well-received and autobiographical-based Actress marked the return of Brandy Burre, BFA ’96, MFA ’99, to her vocation after raising two young children with her boyfriend. The New York Times called the 2014 independent movie “an all-access slice of life” focused on her “frustrations and ambitions and on the challenges facing not-quiteyoung women in her profession.” She and the director Robert Greene screened it in April at the Athena Cinema and held a Q&A. In Actress, Burre, whose big break was playing Theresa D’Agostino on HBO’s heralded “The Wire,“ wonders about her options in the industry. At the Q&A, Greene remarked that Actress relaunched her career. She added, “On my own terms.”

Read the Q&A and listen to a related WOUB interview with Burre, and read more news, at ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras. » Compiled by Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17, Cheri Russo, BSJ ’96, MS ’07, communications and marketing manager at Lancaster, and Kelee Garrison Riesbeck, BSJ ’91, assistant director, Advancement Communication & Marketing

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Photo by Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02

Performance

Still more

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atalie Kruse Daniels, assistant professor of environmental studies at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at OHIO, takes a sample from an experimental treatment system meant to improve efficiency of the doser at the Raccoon Creek watershed in Carbondale, Ohio, in late May. The doser, a silo, diffuses lime into the tributary to neutralize acid and metal pollutants from old coal mines. “With partners in Wales and New Zealand, I hope to help clean up the river while reducing the operating cost of doing so,” Kruse Daniels said. Senior University Photographer Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02, chose her for his photo column because Kruse Daniels, BSCE ’04, an Athens native, “made a conscious decision to come home after earning her doctorate from a prestigious school in England [Newcastle University]. Super smart, she is dedicated to her students and devoted to the region,” he said. Kruse Daniels is married to Nigel Daniels, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Specialty Medicine at the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at OHIO; they gave birth to their first child, a son, last December. —Editor Peter Szatmary

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Knowing something detailed, something perfectly true and substantial, about her the box, and to be good communicators.”

More answers at ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

Seated (left to right): Gearhart; Cathy Waller, BSHE ’79, MSHE ’91, chair, administrative senate, and director of the Child Development Center; and Benoit. Standing (left to right): Sherry Downs, BBA ’89, MBA ’09, bursar; Benton; Valerie Miller, director of student financial aid and scholarships; Jennifer Kirksey, BSJ ’98, chief of staff and special assistant to the president; Elizabeth Sayrs, vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of University College; Laura Myers, BSC ’89, MA ’04, chief of staff to the provost; Jenifer Cushman, dean of the Zanesville Campus; Deborah Shaffer, senior associate vice president for finance and administration; Jennifer Neubauer, assistant vice president of alumni relations and executive director of Ohio University Alumni Association (the first woman to serve in this capacity); and Colleen Bendl, chief human resources officer.

To complement this photo, more than 350 female staff and faculty participated in mass portraits at OHIO campuses and summarized why they like working for the University. See page 24.

—Editor Peter Szatmary

Photo by Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02

“History scarcely mentions her,” laments Virginia Woolf in her revolutionary A Room of One’s Own (also referenced on pages 14 and 42). If the trailblazing author felt compelled to bring attention to the neglect of Elizabethan women in annals, she’d surely smile at this Bobcat account. For women hold many senior leadership roles at OHIO. And some of them convened for a photo in June at the alumni magazine’s invitation.

Ohio Today also asked these officials three e-mail questions about their success: What is the key to leadership? When you come to work each day, what do you hope to achieve? Why are women good at management positions?

For Pam Benoit, provost and executive vice president, “persistence and patience” prove key to leadership. Deb Gearhart, vice provost for eLearning and strategic partnerships, hopes each day “to develop a caring, respectful, productive atmosphere to achieve the goals of the University.”

Debra Benton, BS ’91, MED ’93, University registrar, believes women are good at management positions “because of their ability to keep many balls in the air, to change gears quickly, to handle interruptions, to solve problems by looking at all possible solutions, which are sometimes outside of

Pilot Parental Leave Program update

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en Siegel, BSVC ’02, senior university photographer at OHIO, spent 12 weeks at home with his daughter Evelyn after her birth in February 2014, thanks to the school’s Pilot Parental Leave Program.

“It’s good to be able to provide constant care rather than just a few hours before and after work,” he said.

Launched in January 2013, the family-friendly opportunity provides up to 12 weeks off—six paid, six unpaid—for benefitseligible faculty, administrators, and non-bargaining unit classified staff to stay home with a newborn or a newly adopted child. Those with enough accrued personal time can apply it to the unpaid portion.

Previously, personnel had to use sick or vacation time for parental leave.

The pilot project was to be evaluated in December 2014 for impact on employee satisfaction, recruitment, and retention. Last October, the University extended the deadline through this December to gather more data.

“Employees have responded favorably to the program, as did the supervisors surveyed during the first 18 months,” said Greg Fialko, BBA ’91, director of benefits with University Human Resources. » Corinne Colbert, BSJ ’87, MA ’93, a veteran freelance journalist, contributes regularly to Ohio University publications, including Ohio Today.

I am strong ... I am invicible ... I am

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ore than 200 female Bobcats gathered in March at the historic Worthington Inn in Central Ohio to launch a new sisterhood. ohiowomen, an initiative grown out of the University’s Women in Philanthropy program, celebrates, informs, supports, and engages all OHIO women: students, alumnae, friends, faculty, and staff.

Attendees, spanning generations and backgrounds, did all that and more while sipping wine and nibbling hors d’oeuvres.

They networked and brainstormed, hobnobbed and queried—and laughed and laughed. Folks also offered words of encouragement and perspective. Here are some edited excerpts. » Jennifer Shutt Bowie, BSJ ’94, ’99, executive

director, Advancement Communication & Marketing

Recognizing and celebrating women and their accomplishments are really important. Especially now, as college women, because we want to make so many leaps in this world.

—Michelle Nelson, BBA ’16, and vice president of OHIO Women in Business

Photo courtesy of University Communications and Marketing

In my office there are a lot of women, but all of the leadership is male. I am looking to build a network of strong women so that I can learn and grow and reach out and help others.

—Kristin Hynes, BSC ’11, senior student services specialist at The Ohio State University

...

OHIO, to me, was a family-oriented university. When I got this invitation, I saw an opportunity to maintain that family and to meet more OHIO women. To continue that bond, that sisterhood, that network. We should be supporting each other. This is a way to do that.

—Traci “TJ” Johnson, AB ’87, managing partner at TBE Consulting

In our new OHIO Women in Business student organization, we’re focused on making connections. Our goals are to attract, develop, and launch women in their careers. I knew that there would be awesome women at this event.

—Rachel Niese, BBA ’16, and president of the College of Business’s OHIO Women in Business

I played the clarinet in the Marching 110 as a student. So, being an alumna holds a lot of weight for me. I know that every year I can return at Homecoming, that I can be a part of OHIO again. This is a great opportunity to have another group to come to and connect with, to go back to.

—Allison Travis, BSC ’11, service provider liaison at Central Ohio Workforce Investment Corporation

We’re carrying on a legacy that those women who have been inspiring and important in my life have passed on to me. This goes back to those first women, to Margaret Boyd (1873), and to those alumnae who have influenced me. This program enables me to carry their work to the next level.

—Patty Pae, BBA ’90, vice president of business development, employee vacation programs, at American Express Travel, and member of the ohiowomen advisory committee

I’m inspired by the intergenerational impact of ohiowomen. It’s myself. My daughter. My granddaughter.

It’s the impact we have made and are going to make.

—Sheila McHale, AB ’68, managing partner at SM Investment Properties, and member of the ohiowomen advisory committee

This was a cool opportunity to meet other alums in the area. Most of the Bobcats I know now I met in Athens.

—Karlie Hawkins, BSC ’10, senior analyst, mortgage banking statement administration, at JPMorgan Chase

First, my friend was coming, and she is an inspiration to me. Second, this is a chance to share, network, and meet new women—with whom I already share some commonality.

—Katie Eberst, BSEd ’80, owner of Image Design Studio commercial photography

For more quotes, go online to ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

To learn more about ohiowomen, go online to ohio.edu/advancement/wip/.

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Fighting online misogyny with a virtual hug

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threats of both rape and death. ichelle Ferrier wields love as a weapon in the war against Ferrier is no stranger to harassment. As the first black columnist at cyberbullying. the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal, she received hate mail targeting Her digital tool in development, TrollBusters, aims to her race. Ferrier grew fearful for her safety, donned wigs, and carried a protect the voices of women in the field of communication through firearm. She ultimately felt compelled to quit her job and change states. positivity. “Trolling,” an increasing problem in the technological Ferrier also subsequently bore online hostility about her gender. era, refers to negative online commentary meant to upset, anger, Years later as a university professor, Ferrier experienced intimidate, or otherwise provoke someone. terrible deja vu. A female student endured a hate crime “This isn’t the type of cyberbullying that says you “This isn’t the type on campus, and Ferrier decided to share her own ordeal. look fat in that dress. Violence is threatened,” said of cyberbullying that The next week, Ferrier’s students brought her notes of Ferrier, associate dean for innovation, research/ says you look fat in admiration and encouragement. creative activity, and graduate studies at Ohio “I could feel the warmth and the love,” she recalled, “and I University’s Scripps College of Communication. that dress. Violence knew the importance of being able to share that story.”

“We operate in an extreme part of the spectrum.” is threatened. ” The idea to fight hate with love nurtured Ferrier’s TrollBusters supports women emotionally at the point brainchild. The uplifting words TrollBusters sends to of attack. Proprietary software—developed by OHIO the persecuted? Not so different from the “love letters” Ferrier students who won last year’s Scripps Innovation Challenge, a contest received from her former students. At January’s Cracking the Code to devise creative solutions to real-world media and communication hackathon, hosted by the International Women’s Media Foundation problems—locates the trouble: troll nest “communities” or individuals and the Ford Foundation, Ferrier and a team of female media lashing out. An SOS team deploys real-time positive messages as a entrepreneurs birthed TrollBusters—and won top prize and $3,000 counter narrative to the inflammatory remarks. from Google.

“We are creating a system that says, ‘Hey, we’ve got your back.

Momentum builds: TrollBusters also was one of 20 projects to garner There are people here who love and support you,’” Ferrier said. $35,000 from the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund this spring.

Women in the media are frequent targets of trolling. Recently, the Gamergate controversy brought the extremes of trolling to the public eye. Women who wrote about sexism in the video game industry » Lindsey Burrows, BSJ ’09, is a freelance writer and longtime contributor to became victims of systematic online harassment, which escalated to Ohio Today and Ohio Today Online. She teaches English in Ayutthaya, Thailand.

Photo by Meghan Shamblen, BSVC ’15

Much more than par for the course

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OHIO women’s golf team alumna Renee Powell spoke at the Athens Campus in February about diversity and legacy. She is the second African American to play on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour, competing from 1967 to 1980. Powell was elected to the PGA in 1996 as its first woman of color and named its First Lady of Golf for 2003, partly for her outreach in America and abroad. She is head professional golfer at Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, Ohio.

Opened by her late father, William, in 1948, it’s the first and only U.S. course completely designed, built, owned, and operated by an African American. —Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17 Photo courtsey the Lancaster Gazette, photo by

Photo by Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02

Female editor for student newspaper

Feminism 2.0

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chool of Communications Studies students Jennifer Seifert (left) and Kaytlin Dawes bring girl power to the virtual world with their forthcoming app, Feminology.

It creates a safe cyber environment to discuss sensitive topics such as sexism, racism, and privilege. Part social space, part informative compendium, the app’s platform is similar to—but separate from—sites like Facebook and Wikipedia. Feminology works in tandem with women’s, gender, and sexuality studies classes at Ohio University.

“Students are immersed in technological environments and are accustomed to interacting in these spaces,” says Seifert, BSC ’11, CERT ’11. “Feminology allows instructors to transcend the classroom and engage students in ways difficult to accomplish by other means.”

Seifert, pursuing a doctorate, and Dawes, a senior, received $5,998 from the Ohio University Student Enhancement Award last year for Feminology. Twenty-four students across the disciplines earned up to $6,000 for original research, scholarship, and creative work; $115,945 was distributed.

Feminology launches later this summer.

For the third time in a decade, a woman helms The Post.

Emma Ockerman, a junior in the news and information sequence of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at OHIO, rises from local news editor to 2015-16 editor in chief of the independent, student-run newspaper.

“A more diverse staff will always be in the publication’s best interest when it comes to serving the readers,” Ockerman said.

“She has the journalistic DNA to succeed in this very demanding business,” praised Scripps Howard Visiting Professional Andy Alexander, BSJ ’72, also a former Cox newspaper veteran and Washington Post ombudsman. “She’s inquisitive, smart, and competitive.”

The previous woman to lead the five-day-a-week medium was Ashley Lutz in 2009-10. Mary Elizabeth Asher became the first female editor in 1941. The Post debuted in 1912 (as The Green and White).

“Whether a man or woman is running The Post, it’s always going to be a great publication,” Ockerman added. “I’m looking forward to an incredible year and can’t wait to see what our staff has in store.”

She is spending the summer interning at The Columbus Dispatch, covering the Ohio statehouse. —Lindsey Burrows, BSJ ’09

Perhaps the first female editor of The Post, Mary Elizabeth Asher (inset), and the incoming editor, Emma Ockerman, bear a resemblance? Photo by Meghan Shamblen, BSVC ’15

—Lindsey Burrows, BSJ ’09

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Drawing on drawl Editor’s note: Each edition of Ohio Today covers a recent Ohio University Press book.

Fifteen-year-old Dawn Jewell, heroine and narrator of Robert Gipe’s debut novel, Trampoline, likes to draw. She inks the bittersweet coming-of-age saga with about 200 black-and-white illustrations of her rites of passage, both disturbing and comical, in a Kentucky coal-mining town in the late 1990s. Drawl represents another art form for the smart and wry, awkward and troubled youth. “Momma’s cigarette hung on her lip like a two-byfour about to fall out the back of a moving pickup truck,” she observes. “‘You come here,’ Mamaw said, hard as a broomstick to the back of the legs.” Gipe, director of Appalachian studies at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical

You live in Harlan County, which resembles the book’s fictional Canard County. You’re an Appalachian scholar. You read Trampoline aloud to help ensure it sounds authentic.

Discuss voice, storytelling, the oral tradition.

We make plays here out of oral histories as part of our Higher Ground community art project. In the course of doing that, I get to hear hundreds of oral histories. Between that and having cut my professional teeth at Appalshop, a documentary arts center in Whitesburg, I am constantly around recordings of the voices of people in this part of Kentucky. I got interested in what people tell strangers, how they narrate their stories for people they don’t know. I got interested in both the intimacy and the distance inherent in interviews. And Dawn narrates knowing she is talking to both friends and strangers. And of course, in her mind, there’s not a lot of difference between the two.

the spring in Trampoline. Edited excerpts

Dawn experiences or witnesses many difficulties: substance abuse, physical altercations, dysfunctional families, death, truancy, jail.

follow. —Editor Peter Szatmary

My first audience is my students at the

College, answered e-mail questions about

community college. Quite a few of them deal with the challenges you list, and quite often those challenges come in clusters. …

Add that to one of my favorite pieces of advice about creating plot—“First put your character up a tree with no way of getting down. Then set the tree on fire.”—and that’s pretty much why things ended up like they do for Dawn.

Dawn, an aspiring artist, makes self-portraits.

Why?

I wanted the drawings to reinforce the idea that this might be an orally told story, so since it’s Dawn telling the story, I wanted the reader to see her telling it. I like direct address of the audience. We use it a lot in the Higher Ground plays. Drawings of Dawn are also inspired by Charles Schulz and Peanuts.

Charlie Brown, Linus, etc., spend a fair amount of time looking out at the reader. I read those books constantly as a kid.

More of this Q&A, excerpts from Trampoline, a video about Gipe, other author interviews, and related pieces are at ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

OHIO alumni books Ohio University alumni publish books across subjects and genres. Here are releases within the last year.

The Midnight Hour, a mystery novella, part of the Gil Malloy series (Simon & Schuster eBook), by Richard G. Belsky, BSJ ’67 • Doyli to the Rescue: Saving Baby Monkeys in the Amazon, photodocumentary for young readers, grades 4-6 (Crickhollow Books), by Cathleen Morgan Burnham, BSC ’88 • Lessons My Patients Taught Me: Memoirs of a Family Physician, observations and anecdotes (CreateSpace), by Michael E. Day, BS ’69 • Letters of Enlightenment, inspirational missives (WestBow Press), by Jeffrey Faulkner, BSC ’70 • Eyewitness to a Savior, short poetic prose (CrossBooks), by Nancy Gainor, BSHS ’78 • Never Forgotten: Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965-1967 and Returning after 35 Years, remembrance and reunion of Peace Corps service (LifeRich Publishing), by Paul E. Huntsberger, MA ’71 • The Boy Who Stopped Time, children’s book for ages 5-12 about grandfatherly love, death, and memories (Mirror Publishing), by Michael Massa, BSC ’82, illustrations by Pritali

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Joharapurkar • Generous Genes: Raising Caring Kids in a Digital Age, a guide for teaching compassion to children (Majestic Oak Press), by Susan Crites Price, BSJ ’72, MAIA ’73 • True Tails from the Dog Park, tips, rules, and stories for dog owners (Dog Ear Publishing), by Kari Sherman, BBA ’91, and Carey Laubenberg, illustrations by Julie Ann Stricklin • Delta Jewels: In Search of My Grandmother’s Wisdom, photos and interviews (Center Street), by Alysia Burton Steele, MA ’10 • Not Going Gently: A Psychologist Fights Back against Alzheimer’s for Her Mother … and Perhaps Herself, personal story and professional assessment (CreateSpace), by Constance Vincent, AB ’62 • Informed Fundraising, a guide for nonprofit organizations (BoardSource), by lead author Ron Wormser, BA ’65 —Compiled by Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17 If you’re a Bobcat author and want to be considered for a future OHIO alumni books list, send a press release about your recent or forthcoming work to Ohio Today, 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701 or via e-mail to ohiotoday@ohio.edu.

Hidden mothers

Photo courtesy of Laura Larson

» Andrea Gibson, BSJ ’94, director of OHIO’s Office of Research Communications, and Editor Peter Szatmary adapted this article from a longer version that she wrote for the autumn/winter 2014 edition of Perspectives, which she edits. To read that edition and the unabridged article, go online to ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

Photo courtesy of Lee Marks and John C. DePrez, Jr.

B

efore photography, only the wealthy possessed the means to commission painted portraits. The tintype process allowed photographers to print images inexpensively on small metal plates, making it affordable for other economic classes to preserve family memories. Thus the curious hidden mother photos from the late 19th century—women obscured by curtains, tablecloths, or furniture while holding infants still for the camera—explains Laura Larson, associate professor of photography at Ohio University.

The photos “were so poignant, really funny, and really disturbing,” continues Larson, who curated an exhibit of these little-studied representations and wrote an accompanying book. “The photographs connect See OHIO you to the subject matter, but they push back, too.” babies—future She encountered the oddities while waiting Bobcats!—on to adopt her daughter from an orphanage in page 43.

Ethiopia. Larson discusses the photos and her anticipation of motherhood in the manuscript, for which she seeks a publisher.

Larson started researching hidden mothers and met Indiana photography dealer Lee Marks, who has collected almost 600 examples in various formats over 20 years. She published a selection of her finds and displayed them at the Columbus Museum of Art. Because tintypes required long exposures, photographers and mothers had to stabilize the child while downplaying the parent: throwing fabric over mother’s head and then seating baby on the lap; positioning mother behind a pram. Sometimes photographers scratched off the emulsion of the metal plate where the mother’s face appears.

Larson acknowledges the temptation to read into the visualizations, but her research doesn’t suggest marginalization of mothers.

Marks commends Larson’s good eye for selecting an intriguing mix of images. And in blending the historical record with her personal motherhood story, “She’s doing something that others have not.”

Larson’s Hidden Mothers project, underwritten partly by a grant from the Ohio University Baker Fund, debuted at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Ore., last summer, traveled to the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State this spring, and heads to the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in the fall.

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across the

college green

Calendar of events for alumni and friends of ohio university | ohioalumni.org/calendar

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herever you live, Ohio University wants to keep in touch with you.

Alumni chapters exist around the globe to help you meet and reconnect with fellow Bobcats. Of course, you’ll occasionally want to find a reason to return to campus—summer is the perfect time to visit!

For a full schedule of chapter, society, and on-campus events, including reunions, visit ohioalumni.org/calendar.

Clarence Page named alumnus of the year

Claim your brick in the Homecoming wall Share your OHIO memories online now— and then see them become part of the yearly hoopla. In keeping with the Homecoming 2015 theme of “Same Bricks, Different Stories,” your digital submissions will morph into a literal wall for the Oct. 5-10 celebration. Post your recollections here: ohio.edu/ homecoming

Walk the residence halls Who says you can’t go home again? Back by popular demand, residence hall viewings during Homecoming 2015! Visit your old stomping grounds or tour the new quarters opening this fall. See page 47 for more Homecoming 2015 events.

Ebony Bobcat Network Weekend

Register for Homecoming: bit.ly/OHIOHC2015

Boogie, toast, reminisce—and further a good cause—at the Ebony Bobcat Network’s fifthannual reunion in Cleveland on Aug.14-15.

Activities include a breakfast meeting, happy hour, and Sip-n-Soul Dance. Proceeds benefit OHIO’s Urban Scholars Program. Register at ebnevents.org

kickoff continues Spend Sept. 17 with fellow feline fans at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, admiring a wide array of tabbies similar to mascot Rufus.

Network on Oct. 1 at “Career, Connect, and Collaborate,” a women’s café in Central Ohio led

by Bobcat and executive coach Beverly Jones.

Both outings help launch ohiowomen, a recent initiative to engage, inspire, and support OHIO women. Go to ohio.edu/advancement/wip

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On The Green Weekends Yes, we mean plural. As in rewind and fastforward. More than 650 alumni and friends returned to Athens this spring for On The Green Weekend 2015. Save the dates May 19-22, 2016, for next year’s party. In the meantime, visit zenfolio.com/ohioalumni for photos of the last blowout.

The awards for influential journalist and devoted Bobcat Clarence Page, BSJ ’69, HON ’93, span two Pulitzer Prizes, induction into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, and several OHIO distinctions— including the forthcoming 2015 Alumnus of the Year, the most prestigious citation bestowed on graduates.

“When we were both undergraduates, it was already clear that Clarence would go on to do big things,” said OHIO President Roderick J. McDavis, BSED ’70.

“His resulting career as an esteemed journalist and his steadfast support of our alma mater and students make him exceptionally deserving of this honor.”

A longtime bastion at the Chicago Tribune, Page earned his first Pulitzer in 1973, in public service, as part of a team investigating vote fraud. He won his second, in 1989, for commentary. Page is syndicated in newspapers nationwide.

He also received the First Amendment Award from the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication and lifetime achievement awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the Chicago Headline Club, and the National Association of Black Journalists. Page is a regular essayist for the PBS “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and has been a regular commentator on numerous other news programs.

At OHIO, he has been commencement speaker in 1993 and 2001. Page also was a trustee on The Ohio University Foundation Board and received the Ohio University Alumni Association Medal of Merit in 1990.

Page will be recognized with other conferees at the annual alumni awards gala held during Homecoming. Learn more at bit.ly/OUAAawards. » Hailee Tavoian, coordinator, Advancement Communication & Marketing

A hit on the field and in the classroom

T

Photo

by

Emily Harger, BSVC ’16

he Ohio University softball team cheered for sophomore infielder and sport management student Taylor Saxton before a game against Akron on May 2.

Although the OHIO club lost 3-2, the squad advanced a few days later to the Mid-American Conference tournament for the ninth consecutive time, following their 2014 championship, under seven-year head coach Jodi Hermanek.

And six players made the 2015 Softball Academic All-MAC Team for earning a cumulative 3.2 GPA while competing in at least 50 percent of the season’s contests: sophomore Madison Claytor, a catcher/infielder and pre-sports management major, and seniors Kaylin Clarke, pitcher/first base, sports management/business administration; Adrienne Gebele, outfielder, applied nutrition; Raven King, infielder, civil engineering/mathematics; Dakota Pyles, outfielder, integrated mathematics; and Timmie Rappe, outfielder, communication studies/journalism. —Caption by Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17

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Women help provide Bobcats a room of their own “And I know you’ll make sure that the ladies get their share.”

Philanthropist Beth K. Stocker, BS ’28, said this several years ago with a winning smile and a pat on the knee, recalled Dennis Irwin, dean of Ohio University’s Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ College of Engineering and Technology.

Guests see her likeness when entering the C. Paul and Beth K. Stocker Engineering and Technology Center.

The same year Stocker graduated college, author Virginia Woolf lectured at two women’s colleges in Cambridge, England.

These talks became A Room of One’s Own. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” Woolf observed, “and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.”

In 1928, who ensured that women had rooms of their own? In the 21st century, who ensures—in Stocker’s words, as she oversaw $31.9 million in gifts to the University—that the ladies get their share?

Making the gesture At OHIO, lots of women do. So many heed Stocker’s call and Woolf ’s insight that the University ranks high among peers as a recipient of women’s generosity.

More than 89,000 alumnae and women friends have given to The Ohio University Foundation since its founding in 1945. From another angle, 42,000 of OHIO’s 130,000plus alumnae have given cumulatively upwards of $174 million.

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Further, 19 women—alumnae and women friends—have made gifts of $1 million or more. Since 2000, they’ve given $49 million. Add couples and the amount climbs to $278 million. Among them are Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ, who gave $132 million. This places OHIO among the nation’s top 20 schools receiving gifts at this level from women and couples, according to “The Million Dollar List,” compiled by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

“People give what they can,” said Stocker in a 2002 interview with Ohio Today. “It’s not the size of the sum that’s truly important.

Any gift is very important.”

Understanding the impact Why do thousands of women open their hearts (and checkbooks) for OHIO? One answer comes from the syllabus of Margaret Boyd Scholars, a program inspiring undergraduate women to become leaders. Participants read Woolf in their first-year seminar.

Miriam Shadis, associate professor of history, assigns A Room of One’s Own because “I want them to appreciate Woolf and her importance in 20th-century and intellectual history,” she said. Woolf “poses questions like ‘Why do men drink wine and women drink water?’ I want them to think about structures that have been in place for 500 years and the massive investments that have been made in educating, primarily, men.”

Shadis continued: “Woolf was writing about women attending university when that was new. It’s not new anymore; but what remains of the consequences of women

drinking water instead of wine? Even though we’ve reached a place where it’s possible to attend college, and to succeed, men and women are not equally advantaged. There’s an imperative for women to give, because we don’t have that long history.”

After all, “Woolf points out that it’s easier to think when your belly’s full, when you’re content,” Shadis stated. “Those things are important to the life of the mind.”

Woolf wrote: “I refuse to allow you … to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

It isn’t difficult to imagine Beth Stocker, one of a few ladies studying biology at OHIO in 1928, refusing to be turned “off the grass” of the College Green.

Appreciating the benefactresses “Woolf writes that women need to control their own money,” Shadis offered. “That’s where women like Beth Stocker become interesting.”

Reflecting on the generosity of the Stockers and Russes (now deceased), Irwin concluded, “It’s hard not to have their dedication rub off on you. There’s a respect that’s due to them for their success and for their deciding to truly believe in the college by supporting it in incredible ways.”

The motive of Stocker—ladies getting their share—and of Woolf—women needing a room of their own—intertwine. Gifts—large or small—provide opportunities … for all students. —Jennifer Shutt Bowie, BSJ ’94, MSC ’99

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Illustration by Lara Harwood

Women Bobcats on work & beyond “Nothing will work unless you do.”

Some sources attribute that maxim to writer/activist/performer Maya Angelou (also mentioned on page 41) while others point to college basketball coach John Wooden.

Regardless, everyone works for so many reasons: job, family, happiness, service, opportunity, more.

A quartet of notable OHIO alumnae and a foursome of female OHIO professors answered e-mail questions about their positions, achievements, outlooks, and backgrounds. Edited excerpts follow. —Editor Peter Szatmary

Emilia Alonso-Marks Professor of Spanish, Department of Modern Languages, College of Arts and Sciences, and director of the Institute for the Empirical Study of Language (IESL) Laura A. Brege, BBA ’78, AB ’78 President and CEO, Nodality, Inc., a life science company whose proprietary Single Cell Network Profiling technology platform facilitates disease profiling, drug profiling, clinical development, and life-cycle management, especially in immunology and oncology. Chair of the Ohio University Foundation Board of Trustees.

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Sarah Davis Assistant professor, Environmental Studies Program, Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs Yvette McGee Brown, BSJ ’82 Partner at Jones Day law firm. Ohio University Foundation Board of Trustees member.

Eve Ng Assistant professor, jointly appointed in the School of Media Arts and Studies, Scripps College of Communication, and in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, College of Arts and Sciences

Ugonna Okpalaoka, BSJ ’12 Researcher/associate producer, the “Today” show, NBC News Martha Rial, BFA ’98 Independent photojournalist Jacqueline Wolf Professor of the history of medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine

American women in the workforce can have it all (career and family). True or false?

True! It is challenging, but it is possible. I was able to program my day so that I was home by 3 p.m., and after helping my kids with homework, feeding them, helping with their baths, their reading/story time, and putting them to bed, I could finish my working day.

It was a good example for my children to see their mom in action—at work and at home!

—Alonso-Marks

by

Lara Harwood

True, if you can learn to let go of the perfection syndrome. One of my partners said this: “Some days I am a great lawyer and an OK mom; other days I am a fantastic mom and a lawyer who didn’t commit malpractice.

And every now and then, I’m a good wife.”

Illustrations

—McGee Brown

True for some, false for most—still. And that will be the case until there is structural (social and institutional) support for having children and caring for them that doesn’t assume gestational parents should bear more family responsibilities. —Ng

I believe men and women continue to make choices as they build their lives, and the equation of career and family is absolutely open to both men and women. It doesn’t mean that all is balanced or equal but instead is part of the fabric of the life you build. —Brege

I believe women can have it all, but I also believe it can be challenging to have it all at the same time. It’s an unfortunate reality, and one I hope will eventually change, but that shouldn’t discourage anyone from trying anyway. With the right support in place, it’s doable, and we’ve seen so many great women prove it! Maybe the question isn’t anymore if a woman can have it all, but how, and what role each of us plays in making that possible. —Okpalaoka

In my field, it is very challenging to balance them. Motherhood and photojournalism both require compassion, perseverance, and endless amounts of time. I believe you can have both experiences, but you may enjoy them more if you do them at separate times.

The happiest women I know are at peace with choices. Instead of asking women if they can have it all, let’s ask women what they need to live happy and productive lives.

—Rial

It depends. Tenured academic women are especially privileged. We are extraordinarily busy, of course, given our research, teaching, and service obligations, but we also have flexible schedules and, at OHIO, a benefit almost nonexistent at other workplaces in the U.S.: paid maternity leave. Flexible scheduling and paid maternity leave make “having it all” possible. But most American women don’t have those benefits; they don’t even have paid sick leave. The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that doesn’t mandate paid maternity leave for working mothers of infants. Other countries recognize that women need and deserve that type of support, often for 12 months or more, and that when lengthy, paid maternity leave is provided, we all benefit from the result—healthier and happier mothers and babies and stronger families. Without paid maternity leave, “having it all” and doing “it” well is very difficult indeed. —Wolf

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Accomplishments Earning my Ph.D.; becoming a full professor; serving as an OHIO presidential teacher (201215); serving as director of IESL. —Alonso-Marks Building companies in two risky, high-growth industries in boom and bust times. —Brege More than 30 peer-reviewed publications, $600,000 in competitively awarded research funds, and 15 years teaching environmental sciences, high school through graduate level.

—Davis

First African American woman to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court. First African American woman elected to the Franklin County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court. Inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame. —McGee Brown

What most people don’t know about you

I like to dance but don’t have much rhythm. —McGee Brown

Next goal I work overnight to ensure all segments are ready for each morning’s show and work with anchors and correspondents to produce any breaking news stories that happen before air. So I consider every day at work to be an accomplishment because there’s a lot to do. If I make it through the day without losing my mind, I’m pretty happy! —Okpalaoka My photo essay, “Trek of Tears,” for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, documenting my sister’s work as a nurse caring for refugees in the Great Lakes region of Africa following the Rwandan genocide, won a Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography in 1998. —Rial

To do a good job as the 2015-16 presidentelect of the Athens Rotary Club. —Alonso-Marks Participating in the next technological wave in global education and access. —Brege Develop a model for assessing the sustainability of integrated bioenergy systems. And lose the rest of my pregnancy weight. —Davis Retirement with enough money to enjoy it.

— McGee Brown

Biking to and from OHIO through the entire winter. —Ng Finishing my third book, A Social History of Cesarean Section: Childbirth and Perception of Risk in the 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries, to be published by Johns Hopkins. —Wolf

I am a musician at heart! I love singing and playing the guitar. I sing mostly folk and/or religious songs, and I enjoy playing pop, folk, classical, and flamenco. —Alonso-Marks

My soul dances to a funky beat. —Davis I love to read mysteries and historical novels—and don’t want to know when the authors get the facts wrong. I just love the stories. —Brege I won my first and most likely last best actress award for playing Miranda in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest for a community theater production in Maine. —Ng I am shy. Really, I am! —Rial

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Message for peers To both women and men who are pursuing their passions in work and play while also raising kids, you are amazing! —Davis

Don’t bask too long in successes;

don’t dwell too long on rejections. —Ng

Role models St. Teresa of Avila. She teaches us to live life to the fullest and to love much: “May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.”

—Alonso-Marks

Margaret Cohn, head of the Honors Tutorial College, a great leader, mentor, and friend, also known as “Ma Cohn.” —Brege At OHIO, I had two. Sandra Haggerty, my advisor, from the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism, encouraged me to go to law school and changed the trajectory of my life. Carol Harter, vice provost and dean of students, fierce and unafraid, awed me by how she commanded a room and had a cadre of men who not only reported to her but also respected (and I suspect feared) her.

Another role model is my grandmother. She was born in the segregated South in 1906 and faced all measure of hardship, but still believed in the future for her children and grandchildren. A woman of uncompromising dignity. —McGee Brown My mom, Chinwe Okpalaoka, director of undergraduate recruitment and diversity services in the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State. She has a passion for learning and trying something new. That’s what motivated her to return to school and earn her Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy, to take up running and motivate her friends to join her in races, to publish a book, and now, to learn to play the piano. She shows my sisters, 22 and 12, my brother, 20, and me that it’s never too late to do anything we set our minds to.

She emboldens us to pursue our dreams by following her own. —Okpalaoka

pivotal experiences

Biggest challenge

I grew up in Sevilla, Spain. My father was a mathematician who insisted that my brother and I learn foreign languages. He sent us to a French elementary-middle school and “made” us take English in high school. Our family hosted several international students, and we spent summers in the U.K. I fell in love with American culture through the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen songs. That is how I became an English major in college! —Alonso-Marks

Finding a suitable partner who could share the core areas of my existence: Christ and service to others. —Alonso-Marks Picking when to say no to a new activity or challenge. —Brege Time. —Davis Saying no. I sometimes overcommit.

—McGee Brown

The decision with my husband, Bruce Brege, BBA ’78, to leave good early careers in Chicago. I convinced him to “have an adventure in California before settling down.”

Now we’ve become almost natives. —Brege Law school drills into students that lower courts are bound by precedent: what the Supreme Court says. As a young lawyer, I walked into a courtroom in a rural area confident I would win because the law was on my side. I was all of 25 and very sure of myself—until the judge called me up to the bench and told me that he didn’t care what the Supreme Court said because “in my courtroom, the law is what I say it is.” It’s important to treat people with humility and respect even if you’re right. —McGee Brown

The transition from school into the working world. But it’s just as rewarding as it is frustrating! —Okpalaoka The biggest challenge for me and millions of other women is conquering sexism in our careers. I am inspired by how women artists have found creative ways to educate others on why we need to eliminate the wage gap in our country. Nationally, women earn 77 cents to every dollar a man makes. In my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa., women make even less in comparison: 73 cents! —Rial

For additional responses, go online to ohio.edu/ ohiotoday/extras.

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Friendship sustained “The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.”

—Former Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when on the bench in 1990

Lyndsay Markley (left) and Dolores Hanna cherish their abiding bond. They sat together in May at Hanna’s home for this photo. Photo by Brien Vincent

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ate never entered youngster Lyndsay Markley’s mind when she met venerable Dolores Hanna in 2001. Markley, BA ’02, then a junior political science major at OHIO, was asked to pick up Hanna, AB ’49, a renowned trademark lawyer at the pinnacle of her profession, at the Columbus airport and deliver her to the Athens Campus to participate in Pre-Law Day. They talked easily the entire ride.

“It was one of those fortuitous things in life that you have no idea at the time is going to mean anything,” said Markley in a phone interview. It didn’t occur to her that Hanna might be a valuable contact.

“I just really liked Dolores,” said Markley, reared in Orrville, Ohio, headquarters of Smucker’s, the consumer food and beverage company.

The feeling was mutual. “I thought, ‘I’m making a new friend,’” said Hanna, who hails from Chicago and is retired. “We just talked about everything.”

They became instant friends, discovering a shared passion for travel and a similar taste in jewelry. Hanna suggested Markley check out her law school alma mater, Chicago-Kent College of Law, since she was interested in a legal career.

Their friendship blossomed when Markley stayed with Hanna while visiting Chicago-Kent and later when looking for a place to live. After obtaining her law degree from the school in 2005, Markley remained in the city to launch her practice, and, 14 years after they met, the two women still see each other regularly and talk at least weekly.

“She’s met my parents, my boyfriend, she was at my law school graduation,” said Markley. “She’s definitely one of my dearest friends.”

Making progress

H

anna had returned to OHIO that weekend in 2001 to speak on a panel of alumni lawyers. The irony, according to Markley, is that Hanna didn’t get the chance.

“All the men spoke over her the entire time,” Markley said with a laugh. “She’s an internationally renowned trademark attorney and just an amazing woman. And she didn’t get one word in edgewise.”

That experience echoed the early years of Hanna’s jurisprudence.

When she graduated from Chicago-Kent (part of the Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1952, few women pursued legal careers. Indeed, according to the American Bar Association, women constituted approximately 5 percent of students entering the first year of law school in 1951; in 2012, that figure totaled 52.2 percent, in the most recent figures available.

“When I started there were three of us, but the other two dropped out,” Hanna said. “Women weren’t choosing the legal profession because it was one where they weren’t welcomed. But that’s changed over the years.”

Fellow students showed her more encouragement than law professors, Hanna recalled. “I was usually the only woman in the class, and they were sort of protective of me, and sort of banded together to make sure I was treated well,” she remembered. “I found

that the professors had a greater difficulty accepting me because they weren’t accustomed to having women in the classes.”

The support from her peers, if not her superiors, extended to her career. Markley told the following story about Hanna when presenting her with the Ohio University Alumni Association’s Medal of Merit for outstanding professional accomplishments in 2013.

Markley is on the board of trustees of the Alumni Association.

“She (Hanna) was up for partnership at her law firm and she did not get it because she was female and she was at the point where they (the senior partners) thought she was going to start having kids,” Markley recollected. “So all the other associates who were offered partnerships, who were all male, refused to accept partnership until she was.” Hanna and her husband of 25 years, Herbert, a book editor now deceased, did not have children.

Hanna worked at the law firms Bell Boyd & Lloyd and Hill & Simpson and served as in-house counsel to Kraft Foods, where she developed an expertise in trademark law. Her accomplishments include being the first female president of the International Trademark Association as well as the president of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. Honors span the John Paul Stevens Award from the Chicago Bar Association and induction into the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame.

Taking stock

“

She did end up being a huge part of me getting involved with the Women’s Bar Foundation and the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois,” said Markley. “She’s just a legend in the legal community here. All things I had no idea when we initially formed our friendship.”

Today, women constitute 34 percent of lawyers, with 17 percent as equity partners in private law firms reaping a portion of the profits, according to 2014 American Bar Association figures. A glass ceiling still exists; many women lawyers face an economic disadvantage in the male-dominated profession.

“Dolores and I actually talk a lot about that,” said Markley, whose citations include multiple years on the “Top 40 Under 40” list from the National Trial Lawyers and as an Illinois “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers magazine. Markley, who did rise to partner in the firm she joined after law school, opened her own practice early in 2014 to control better the time put into her work and her earnings.

Markley focuses on personal injury and wrongful death cases. “I find them really exciting,” she said.

As for Hanna, she enjoys the view of the lake from her home in the John Hancock Tower, where she’s lived for more than 20 years.

There is no ceiling in sight.

» Martha Allan is a veteran journalist who has worked at newspapers in Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

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Holding up a mirror to human behavior

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ndependent photojournalist Lynn Johnson, MA ’04, elicits such trust from subjects that the depictions reveal intimacy, capture candor, and probe truth. She considers her endeavor a privilege and an onus.

“You can treat this profession like a routine, moving from assignment to assignment as a freelancer. Or you can be involved in the many layers of the process: researching the topic, engaging with people, seeing the project through.” Johnson chooses the latter, she said from her home phone in Pittsburgh, Pa. “It’s an aspect of respect.”

This blend of mindfulness, thoroughness, and duty has earned Johnson longstanding relationships with leading publications such as Sports Illustrated and LIFE magazine, a fellowship from National Geographic, plus numerous other awards. Her diverse portfolio over 35 years examines landmines, apostles, vanishing languages, baby brains, water warriors, at-risk youth, and much more.

Imagine her reaction, then, when an assignment didn’t run. She covered the trial of one of the three white men who killed James Byrd, a 49-year-old black man, on June 7, 1998, by chaining him to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him about three miles on a country road near Jasper, Texas. For one reason or another, the story got pulled. Johnson felt she let the subjects down because “the act of trust didn’t come full circle,” and to her, that’s a betrayal.

“I internalized this as I didn’t know enough to get the photos on the page,” she said, despite her sustained success prior. “I want to be a complete photographer. I’m a fully formed human being who works from the heart. I need full information to collaborate with writers, editors, designers, people I photograph. I needed to learn more.”

So Johnson, who earned an undergraduate degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1975, enrolled at OHIO as a Knight Fellow. Her master’s thesis examined hate crimes—including Byrd’s. She also repeatedly visited Roanoke, Va., after a homophobic man entered the Backstreet Café, a gay bar there, on Sept. 22, 2000, and opened fire, killing Danny Overstreet, 43, and severely injuring six others. The photo on this page responds to that atrocity, the photo on page 22 to Byrd’s slaying. Johnson provides commentary in the captions. For more photos, go online to ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

“We all have prejudice,” said Johnson—who in 2011 donated her oeuvre, nearly 2 million images, to Ohio University Libraries. It held an exhibit in her honor, “Pain, Death & Healing: Images from the Lynn Johnson Collection,” in 2012. “Unless we face it and deal with it and talk with people who are different, if we silo it, nothing will ever change.” —Editor Peter Szatmary

PAGE 22: “These two women are best friends who live in Jasper. They were determined not to let this crime come between them. They felt their friendship was a model and believed it important to be public about it. So they’re continuing their ritual of sharing morning coffee.”

THIS PAGE: “The boys are sweeties. They’re getting ready for high school prom. One had been kicked out of his house. They were embraced by these two gay women.”

Photos courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

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Bobcat herstory in the making!

M

ore than 300 female staff and faculty from the Athens Campus celebrated their gender and supported their school by posing for a group portrait on June 23 at the Class Gateway. That equates to almost 14 percent of the roughly 2,200 female employee pool. Regional campuses participated from their sites. Ohio Today gave the Bobcat sisterhood a free commemorative T-shirt to wear; it proclaimed, “I’m an ohiowoman,” and included a blank message bubble that could be filled in. The philanthropic and support initiative ohiowomen hosted the Athens Campus shoot and provided refreshments. To learn more about the event, watch a behind-the-scenes video, identify the women, and read their reactions, go to ohio.edu/ ohiotoday/extras. —Editor Peter Szatmary Photo by Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02

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Photo

by

Greg Ruffing

Recent Honors Tutorial College graduate Liz Doyle begins a fulltime position with Whirlpool in July after interning with the home appliance company in summer 2014.

Job one: Preparing the next generation of women in business

W

hat happens when you pair a whip-smart undergraduate business administration major with a former human resources administrator at Fortune 500 companies? At Ohio University, quite a bit.

Elizabeth Doyle, ’15, was a junior in the Honors Tutorial College when she sought personnel veteran Tammy Reynolds for her tutorial, a unique, one-on-one class. Instead of lectures, a student engages in spirited conversations and research projects with a professor, tailored to the objectives of the student, and not perforce mirroring OHIO course curriculum.

“I was interested in specializing in human resources, so I chose Tammy Reynolds because of her industry background in leading HR organizations,” said Doyle of her captain, an OHIO College of Business executive in residence whose corporate career began at Marathon Oil and concluded at Whirlpool home appliances. “We were talking about trends in HR, and one of the topics that kept

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coming up was diversity in the workforce. As Tammy talked about her experiences in business and I shared my experiences as one of only a few women in business classes, the idea developed to do something to support women pursuing a career in business.”

But do what? Like anyone in business with chops, Doyle and Reynolds began reviewing statistics. They found gaps and, therefore, opportunities.

Follow the numbers

“

OHIO’s College of Business is about 30 percent female, while the Athens Campus is just over 50 percent,” said Doyle, a Cincinnati native. That internal dearth revealed one problem. External comparisons indicated additional disparities. “For other business schools, the percentage of female students was greater,” she continued, “and every comparable school had a student organization supporting women in business.”

Photo by OHIO Women in Business

Photo by Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02

LEFT: Tammy Reynolds teaches organizational behavior and human resources as an executive in residence in the College of Business.

As they worked together, a need became apparent for an advocacy entity that recruited women, provided mentoring, offered role models, and created networks. Doyle, with guidance from Reynolds, founded OHIO Women in Business in fall 2013. Its mandate: attract, develop, and launch young women in the field.

“OHIO Women in Business is collaborative and inclusive,” said Doyle. “Women often opt out of opportunities at work and in the classroom. Women need to be coached to raise their hand in class, to voice their opinions, and know that what they have to say is valuable.”

Reynolds echoed this intent.

“As a woman in industry and a mother, I’ve had to work hard to find the balance,” she said. “I want young women to know that they have options. If they want to be a stay-at-home mom, do that and know that it’s a great choice. But if young women want to be CEO or CFO, they can do that, too. This organization is about educating them on their options.”

Set the path

O

HIO Women in Business counts more than 150 female students, plus a few male counterparts, since debuting less than two years ago. It brings recent graduates to the Athens Campus to share insights about vocations, hosts career fairs, presents personal branding workshops, and encourages community service (including mentoring a Girl Scout troop).

Current president Rachel Niese, a junior double major in management and strategic leadership and in international business,

RIGHT: OHIO Women in Business members celebrate their first anniversary at the November membership meeting.

attributes the growth to accessibility, demand, and enthusiasm.

“It’s rare to find an organization with such a clear mission and direct approach,” said Niese. “We try to give women and men of all majors and colleges the support and skills to succeed now, during internships, and after graduation.”

Chelsea Kessler, a freshman majoring in accounting, says she chose to join the group to cultivate professional tools.

“Being a member of OHIO Women in Business has shown me the different obstacles that women face in the workplace and how to overcome those obstacles,” said Kessler. “The greatest benefit is hearing real stories from successful women and listening to their advice.”

College of Business alumna Holly Seckinger, ’02, assistant vice president at a branch of Fifth Third Bank in Columbus, Ohio, applauds the endeavor and attends events that back it.

“Organizations like OHIO Women in Business are essential to continuing the legacy of smart, dynamic female Bobcats,” she said.

Doyle, who starts in Whirlpool Corporation’s human resources leadership development program later this month—with Reynolds helping to open that door—owes a great deal to her brainchild.

“I feel very fortunate to have mentors like Tammy who are pushing me and empowering me. I have been able to do that for other women—push them to opt in and take opportunities,” said Doyle. “That’s what OHIO Women in Business has done for me, and that’s where I see the future for women in business.”

» Jessica Gardner is director of communications for the College of Business.

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Businessclass

Bulls and bears dominate finance.

But Bobcats also prowl the monetary sector. Four College of Business alumnae who work in the high-stakes field agreed to share a bit about themselves and give OHIO Women in Business members some advice. Here are edited excerpts. —Jessica Gardner

Anna Stavreska, MBA ’03 Senior credit analyst, Caxton Associates, Charlotte, N.C. Specialization: Primarily credit investments including bonds, loans, and credit default swaps across multiple industries such as utilities, energy, industrials, and independent power producers.

Biggest challenge: Professionally, adjusting to a work environment primarily dominated by men.

Role model: My mother. She was the hardestworking and most dedicated person—in both her private and professional lives. The lessons I learned from her on character and integrity continue to shape my life daily.

When you were a girl, what did you want to be when you grew up? A banker on Wall Street.

Photo by Tom Hayes, BSVC ’06

Investment lesson learned: Don’t fight the Federal Reserve. And don’t be greedy, but do take profits.

12 8 ••

o oh h ii o o tt o od da ay yo on n ll ii n ne e. c co om m

Tips for OHIO Women in Business: Work hard; push limits.

Specialization: Contribute to our bank’s digital payment strategy as well as develop new digital payment products for our consumers.

Most proud of: Graduating from Ohio University and, currently, chairing the Ohio University Alumni Association Board of Directors and serving on the Ohio University Board of Trustees as the alumni representative.

Role model: My father. He always taught me there wasn’t anything that I couldn’t do or accomplish.

Question not asked that you want to answer: Favorite quote? “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”—Babe Ruth, baseball great Tips for OHIO Women in Business: You can do it all; don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. And grab every great opportunity that comes your way.

Photo courtesy of Taylor Matthews

Photo courtesy of Alyson Shupe

Photo courtesy of Julie Mann Keppner

Julie Mann Keppner, BBA ’02 Senior vice president and product manager for digital emerging payments and commerce, Bank of America, Charlotte, N.C.

Alyson Shupe, BA ’08, BBA ’08 Vice president, product strategy, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, New York City

Taylor Matthews, BBA ’15 Investment banking analyst, Goldman Sachs, New York City

Specialization: Research trends in mutual funds, analyze the competition, and develop strategic messaging for J.P. Morgan mutual funds.

Specialization: Structured finance.

Next goal: I’d like to travel solo to a foreign country or live abroad for a few years.

When you were a girl, what did you want to be when you grew up? I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up! My career path has been fortuitous circumstances and taking action on opportunities presented to me.

It’s important to have some sense—I knew I wanted to work in the financial industry since high school—but the path to the “right” career is often a winding road. Ultimately, it’s about showing up, living in the present, and knowing yourself—while being flexible and having the curiosity and confidence to try something you may not have expected. I’m still working on it.

Tips for OHIO Women in Business: Have informed opinions and promote yourself.

It may feel intimidating to contribute your ideas or seem unnatural to self-promote, but it demonstrates confidence and gets you noticed. You will likely encounter negative perceptions about confident, assertive women during your career, but don’t let them deter you—they only serve to undermine all of the hard work you’ve done to get where you are.

Pivotal experience: After one brief phone conversation with an Ohio University alum in which I expressed my interest in working on Wall Street, he immediately began reaching out to his colleagues to help me with the interview process. I am amazed by the power of the Bobcat network and hope one day to pay it forward.

Role model: Alyson Shupe! She is an amazing example of a successful woman in finance who is both professional and personable. I am inspired by her passion for OHIO and her interest in giving back to current students.

Investment lesson learned: Having just graduated, I am learning a lot of lessons very quickly—to save for rent, bills, etc.! It is a tough realization that there are more expenses in life than just nights out on Court Street!

Tips for OHIO Women in Business: Don’t be afraid to go after an internship or job that you are passionate about, even if it isn’t the easiest path. With the support and resources of faculty and alumni, it is possible!

f ae lrl 22001154 summ

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Paradoxes,

multitudes,

& breakthroughs

Jeanette Grasselli Brown stands tall as the sole woman at an international conference on infrared spectroscopy held at ColbySawyer College in the early 1970s. She published prolifically on the topic and assumed many leadership roles in the field.

Photo courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

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Maverick and adherent. Progressivist and traditionalist.

Renowned scientist and celebrated philanthropist Jeanette Grasselli Brown cheerily embodies the famous passage in Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” from the American poet’s masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Dichotomy

G

rasselli Brown, BS ’50, DS ’78, majored in a subject no other Ohio University woman in her day chose: chemistry. And she repeatedly broke ground in a male-dominated profession: petroleum.

Then-U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio praised the “profound accomplishments” of an “amazing woman,” according to the December 2006 Congressional Record.

At the same time, Grasselli Brown insists on being “feminine,” the Bobcat said in a phone interview. She thrills that her husband of 28 years, Glenn Brown, a fellow former oil executive she met on the job, brings her roses weekly. And Grasselli Brown enjoys what previous eras deemed “women’s work”: cooking, cleaning, and ironing for her man.

The Cleveland, Ohio, native spent 38 years at the Standard Oil Company (acquired by BP during her tenure), starting in 1950 as a junior associate in an infrared spectroscopy lab (measuring the properties of light) and retiring in 1988 as the director of corporate research. In that latter,

culminating role, she became the top female employee, overseeing an annual budget of $100 million and a staff of 250. Grasselli Brown also served on the corporate boards of some half-dozen billion-dollar companies, often as the first and sole female. And she was enshrined in the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame and elected president of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.

Yet this icon for women in the field— author of 80 scholarly articles; editor, co-editor, or writer of nine scientific books; co-holder of a patent on a method to extract an organic compound; recipient of 13 honorary doctorates, multiple awards from the American Chemical Society, and scores of other commendations; and advisor to instrumental entities ranging from the National Science Foundation to the U.S. Department of Energy to the National Institute of Standards and Technology—this shaper of a discipline, this antithesis to sexrole socialization for vocations, says she wasn’t especially ambitious. “Ambition, if defined as working harder than everyone

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else to get the job done, yes, I had it,” she reflected. “Ambition to set my sights on a job, that wasn’t me. I wanted to prove to myself even more than to everyone else that I would succeed. I didn’t have the goal to be the highest ranked woman at Standard Oil. But when it happened, I knew I deserved it.”

Impact

T

he era in which Grasselli Brown came of age informs some of these paradoxes, as most women faced blinkered prospects amid outright sexism or “benevolent” paternalism. She drew abstract inspiration from forerunners such as Marie Curie, but Grasselli Brown’s exemplars—at home, in high school, at OHIO, in industry—were men because she came across few, if any, women in the sciences up close. And Grasselli Brown was raised in Cleveland’s Buckeye neighborhood by poor but hardworking Hungarian immigrants: father Nicholas Gecsy, who toiled at a foundry, and mother Veronica, a homemaker who also shouldered outside jobs. Both making due with eighth-grade educations, they exhorted their precocious daughter—in elementary

school identified as gifted and placed out of third grade—and their equally brilliant son to earn college degrees. Grasselli Brown, however, never considered herself a trailblazer, “at least not until the feminist movement began,” she said.

Take her flair for fashion. “I like to use colors to declare that I like to be seen as a woman,” she elucidated. One of her favorite colors is red, “for the Hungarian spice, paprika.” This chicness sometimes sends mixed signals. For example, in 1993, Grasselli Brown became the first woman to join the board of USX Corp. (U.S. Steel/ Marathon Oil), and the initial meeting of these elite included a group photo.

“Organizers were very careful to tell me that this was a black-tie event. Well, I wore what I normally do on such occasions: a long white gown. It never occurred to me to dress otherwise,” she recalled. Turns out, Grasselli Brown sat between the CEO and astronaut Neil Armstrong, and she laughingly left her interviewer to interpret any symbolism.

Grasselli Brown giggled, too, when asked how her physical beauty affected her métier.

Did the 1945 John Adams High School

football queen (as a junior) gauge prettiness as an impediment, advantage, or nuisance?

“I never thought I was good-looking. I wore glasses. And my mother never focused on looks. She just wanted us to be neat and clean,” Grasselli Brown said. “Nevertheless, during my entire career, I have always been very happy to be a woman. I think when you’re happy in what you do, and I was, it probably contributes to your looks.”

Grasselli Brown continued: “I did have a boss once who said, ‘You get what you want because of your femininity.’ I tried to explain this to young women, especially during the early days of the feminist movement: Be careful of your looks. Wear [regulation] blue. I never did, though. I always wore what I looked good in. It gave me a sense of security and self-confidence.”

She averred: “I never wanted to be looked at like a man. But I didn’t want to be catered to as a woman, even though I did expect that men would open the door for me and help me sit at the table.”

Grasselli Brown didn’t alter her demeanor to fit any old-boy network in business.

Rather, “I learned to listen very carefully

Far left: Grasselli Brown shows off the first infrared spectrometer of Sohio Laboratory (later BP) in 1961, a few years after becoming a project leader in molecular spectroscopy at her company, the first step in a meteoric rise in management. Left: This visual interpretation of the Bobcat makes clear that Grasselli Brown finds time for science, domesticity, and leisure.

She dates this profile to approximately 1967.

Photos on pages 32-33 courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

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and watch very carefully how men operated.

And I’d emulate their conduct in my own way,” she said. “For instance, did I ever cry [at work]? Yes, I did. It never bothered me to cry. I didn’t do it a lot. And it isn’t something I would recommend. But I did cry once in a while.”

Perspective

S

he shed tears at other junctures as well.

Her brother, Robert, 18 months younger and an engineering major at OHIO, died at age 26 from Hodgkin’s disease while enrolled in the doctoral program in physics at the University of Chicago. This tragedy split up the grieving parents. Grasselli Brown’s first marriage to Standard Oil scientist Robert Grasselli ended in divorce after 28 years. The 2010 Deep Horizon marine oil spill, the largest in history, with untold environmental damage and 11 human casualties, devastated Grasselli Brown and her second husband, even though the disaster occurred after they had retired, because, she said, “human error caused it and we came from a company so focused on safety.” And Grasselli Brown was

unable to have children.

“That was always one of my great sadnesses,” she said. “I have very strong maternal instincts. So I take good care of my husband,” added Grasselli Brown, known for her upbeat, can-do attitude.

She also nurtured female employees.

When Grasselli Brown moved into management, “My very first actions were to assist women in my laboratory in the balance between occupation and parenting”: daycare, flextime, part-time positions, and career paths if they remained home until the offspring entered school.

Such accommodations, pervasive now, but uncommon then, encountered no resistance, Grasselli Brown said. “They were received very well. I just made the case. I pointed out the wonderful qualities of so-and-so, how she had worked on this project and it was very successful, and how if we wanted to retain her, we needed to give her the opportunity to go part time, or work a different schedule, or whatever.”

Grasselli Brown trusts that women can have it all—fulfilling career and contented family. Yet this champion of female

workers perceives the irony that she didn’t confront this enormous challenge herself.

“I addressed it in my talks about successful careers for women. I acknowledged from the get-go that women who have families and want to make a happy home and have a good career are going to have to make tough choices and set priorities.”

Indeed, Grasselli Brown—whose muchin-demand speaking engagements have ranged from elementary schools to learned organizations, as her 14 banker’s boxes of correspondence, research, lectures, awards, photos, memos, and publicity donated to the Ohio University Libraries attest—titled a 2000 address at a law firm, “Must Women Try Harder?” For Grasselli Brown, because women bear children, the answer is yes.

“Maybe a stronger yes when I entered the workforce. But it’s still yes now.”

In that speech, she offers three pieces of advice: “Work hard, help others, and find the right husband.” Grasselli Brown considers the last most important in her own life. “Without my current husband, I wouldn’t have done as much as I have. He is my biggest supporter.”

Above: A major supporter of the arts in Cleveland, Ohio, Grasselli Brown swing dances with Dennis Nahat, cofounder of the Cleveland Ballet, at a benefit for the troupe in the mid1970s. RIGHT: Grasselli Brown accepts the 1980 Williams-Wright Award from Bernie Bulkin, president of the Coblentz Society, a nonprofit that fosters understanding and application of vibrational spectroscopy. The annual honor recognizes an industrial spectroscopist for significant contributions to vibrational spectroscopy while working in industry.

She was the first woman to receive it.

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Goodwill he also advocated for (more) equitable pay for women at Standard Oil—another indicator of her propensity to merge ends of a spectrum: here, the visionary and the practical, the right thing to do and the pragmatic course to follow. This mindfulness extends to OHIO. In 1991, the benefactress—Jenny to her friends and, therefore, to just about everyone met— and Glenn Brown created the Frontiers in Science annual lecture series. She has endowed or funded numerous chairs and fellowships and supported many campus interests. Grasselli Brown chaired the OHIO Board of Trustees, served on the OHIO Foundation Board of Trustees, was a distinguished visiting professor in chemistry and director of research enhancement at OHIO, and headed the search committee that recommended hiring Robert Glidden as OHIO president in 1994. She also has given substantial money and significant time to Case Western Reserve University, from which the go-getter-cum-catalyst earned a master’s degree in organic chemistry in 1958. The wide-ranging humanitarian further underwrites Cleveland arts, culture, science, and education. And she chaired the Ohio Board of Regents and accepted a role on the science and technology advisory committee of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Grasselli Brown additionally financed a Manasseh Cutler Scholarship in her name (and sits on the board that oversees the prestigious OHIO program). She keeps track of the recipients of her largesse in the meritbased awards, which cover most expenses for undergraduate study at OHIO and summer experiences. Abigail Gilkey Blanks, BBA ’03, appreciates that Grasselli Brown took “an active role in the scholarship process from the very beginning” and still interacts with her periodically about work, family, and school, wrote the lawyer and married mother of four via e-mail. The two correspond several times a year and every now and again meet for coffee. “She is dedicated to everything she does and everything she supports, including her scholarship recipients.”

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Photo courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

S

A staff attorney in corporate legal affairs at University Hospitals of Cleveland, Gilkey Blanks terms Grasselli Brown a sounding board and role model. “Jenny is driven and intelligent and continues to push herself and others to be better. I often look at her accomplishments and set goals in line with what I admire about her.” To Gilkey Blanks, “Her strength and versatility provide motivation to accomplish more, no matter what obstacle.”

Mainspring

O

bstacles never bothered Grasselli Brown. In fact, she thrived on them.

“Number one, I had mentors right away.

First, I was strongly influenced by my father.

My mother was supportive. My father was encouraging,” she said. “My mother felt my field wasn’t conducive to raising a family. My dad said work hard and I could be whatever I wanted to be.” It made an impression on the lass that he read Popular Mechanics. Her high school chemistry teacher championed Grasselli Brown.

OHIO professors fostered the potential in a youth who picked a major that perforce

made her stand out and then made her a standout. And “the very minute” she started at Standard Oil, Grasselli Brown found a coach in her supervisor. From girlhood onward, “Everyone gave me opportunities, which is why I’ve always been so passionate about education. It’s the way toward accomplishment.”

Achievement drives Grasselli Brown— whether surpassing the requirements of a job, donning the mantle of women’s issues, donating to initiatives to advance society and bridge gaps, turning her house into something of a fine-art installation, or even pursuing hobbies such as swimming, windsurfing, or dancing, which she did with gusto for many decades. They must be done fully and superiorly—and with a firm smile.

No wonder, then, that she derives immense pleasure in abetting others, that outreach “pervaded my scientific career and my philanthropic efforts,” for here, too, opposites converge: individual gratification from selfless action. What’s more, Grasselli Brown, reared in an integrated, workingclass neighborhood, adopted immigrant gumption early on, “learning to accept

responsibility for your own actions and understanding that nothing comes to you from a silver platter.” In contrast, she readily admits to basking in recognition from her peers, in appointments to corporate boards when women simply weren’t permitted to wield such clout, in garnering honorary doctorates from both her schools (OHIO bestowing the first) and from as far away as University of Pécs in Hungary (delivering her remarks there in Hungarian), and in winning many citations for her brain and for her heart. Grasselli Brown believes that the strength of the U.S. springs from STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM also provides “a huge personal satisfaction,” she observes.

“It’s an immensely rewarding career. Just

think of being there when something new is being discovered, taking something to a new horizon.”

Uplift

A

grande dame wherever she decides to exert her vast influence, Grasselli Brown practices not tough love but determined love: a type of firm care and serious joy— paradoxes in their own right—which she got and gives with equal measure. “I loved my teachers. I loved my lab. I loved the guys I worked with,” she said. “We had fun. It was exciting. I was so much in love with the subject.” She falls in love with her causes, too. “It’s tremendously insightful to see the evolution of Cutler Scholars from high school through college. They come

out so secure, so ready,” she said. “We have wonderful conversations about the topic at hand and about life in general.”

After all, to love means, in part, to accept, if not embrace, contradictions.

And Grasselli Brown—who, as Kucinich extolled for governmental record, “has contributed immensely to the world”— knows this. “Maybe because I’ve had such a happy career, I take great pride in making a good home,” she declared.

“How wonderful that we have met a paradox,” once stated Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1922 for investigating the structure of atoms and the radiation emanating from them. “Now we have some hope of making progress.”

—Editor Peter Szatmary

Photo by Dustin Franz, BSVC ’10

PAge 34: Grasselli Brown and other scientists on the Board on Assessment of the-then National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce, visit a site in Boulder, Colo., in 1982.

THIS PAGE: She sits outside her home in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, on May 6. The house, which she calls contemporary chic, showcases fine art. And Grasselli Brown, also a devotee of fine fashion, wears a top inspired by the artist Piet Mondrian.

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Emily Harger, BSVC ’16 by

Photo Photo courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

Photo

by

Kayla Hoffmann, BSVC ’15

Photo

by

Emily Harger, BSVC ’16

Bobcat tracks for alumni and friends

Thrills & chills

Pizza? Pshaw!

Dichotomies wove through the fabric of 1990 OHIO. Sports teams soared and plummeted. Large crowds flocked to some concerts but skipped others.

Marquee entertainers appeared, as did troubled speakers. The whoop-de-do of Halloween scared up tens of thousands of partiers while the petition for cable accumulated thousands of signatures.

And for one alumna, the Burrito Buggy symbolized the warp and woof of such dualities. Read on.

Ashley Raabe (top left), BS ’15, prepares a chicken, rice, and black bean burrito at the Burrito Buggy in Athens, Ohio, on June 15. Bruce Smith (lower left), BBA ’74, places an order on July 20. The Chillicothe resident, a quality technician at Glatfelter specialty paper business, revisited the Athens Campus with his wife. The mobile food truck, a favorite of Bobcats and residents since opening in uptown in 1984, offers a variety of traditional, vegetarian, and gourmet burritos, plus tacos, nachos, and taco salads, made from fresh and locally grown organic ingredients. “A burrito craving being quenched,” reported the 1987 Athena yearbook about the popular eatery (lower right). In an April 2008 farewell in the University’s Outlook, Lynn Walsh, president of the senior class council, wrote, “After four Homecomings, three fest-filled spring quarters, hundreds of new friends, and more than 200 hours in class, I am finally approaching graduation”—and for the to-dos she recommended so that classmates depart the school with no regrets, “I pose these questions: Have you ever eaten at the Burrito Buggy? What about Miller’s Chicken? Ever climbed the wall at Ping?” Those three experiences formed part of her Bobcat bucket list, cuisine and otherwise. How about yours? —Editor Peter Szatmary

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The Burrito Buggy: Food for thought

I

stopped at the light at the bottom of the hill where Congress Street meets Union, impatient at the wheel of a panel van with loose steering and a stuttering V-8 engine. I felt the weight and push of the trailer in tow. Keeping the vehicle stationary required slamming the foot brake. When the light changed, I eased into gear, relying on a battered ball-socket hitch and two open S-hooks to hold the trailer to the van. I was a Burrito Buggy street vendor. And whenever I turned left onto Union Street, I imagined the trailer might go straight instead.

Food trucks convey hipster status today, but in the 1980s there was nothing cool about standing over a simmering ground beef facial or the odor permeating my clothes after cleaning the trailer drain. There was not much social advantage, either, to serving the after-bar crowd or to navigating an unwieldy trailer through cobbled streets in the small hours.

Most co-workers I remember were women. Unarmed, we cruised streets overrun with late-night partiers, often drunk, and conducted business from a flimsy metal cashbox. Friends today remark this: Weren’t we afraid of accident, robbery, assault?

Perhaps we were simply young in a safer era, but the truth as I experienced it then is the truth as I experience it now: It did not occur to us to be afraid. Something would happen and we would deal with it. Or nothing would happen. The vast majority of the time everything turned out fine. The few instances it didn’t, we coped.

Writer Annie Dillard reminds us, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I spent much of college working. I worried the measure of my life had already been established in day and night shifts. I assumed those marked for special achievement had already been identified. They studied abroad or won

internships. Me? I got by. I kept my head down. Worked on the buggy and at the Union Bar and Grill. Classes during the day.

Reading, studying, and writing papers late at night.

It took me a long time to realize that achievement is gained by showing up to do the work, by putting ourselves in front of the weight of potential failure, humiliation, and mistake. Though we feel those possibilities straining at our backs, we move forward.

Aristotle wrote, “We are what we continually do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” Though it surprises me to say, I see now that the Burrito Buggy played a role in my college education that helped me evolve. Today I am a professor and administrator. I also manage a farmstead and operate a pickup truck, tractor, and chainsaw, although I grew up suburban with none of these skills. I never thought those cumin-scented shifts prepared me for anything important, but I see now that what I continually did was risk. Put in the time, prepare, and trust that I would have what I needed to deal with whatever arose. This habit has served me well.

I believe in transformative education. I know that learning is a process that cannot transform us unless we allow it to push us forward into uncertainty, dismantling and rebuilding ourselves. I tell my students that their lives will be measured not by what they achieve, but by how they achieve, by showing up to do the work and taking risks.

I tell them to go outside, feel work in their bodies and weather in their skins, feel how small their own agendas are against the weight of all that pushes them, and trust that they can set a direction.

» Amy Sage Webb, BSJ ’90, teaches English and directs the creative writing program at Emporia State University. She received a 2013 Medal of Merit from the Ohio University Alumni Association.

Also in 1990 at OHIO ...

• Faye Wattleton (above), head of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, spoke at the Athens Campus.

• The women’s swim team went undefeated in the regular season, won their second straight MAC championship, and landed four AllAmericans.

• Despite a new coach, new system, new outlook, and new players, the football team languished with a 1-9-1 record, the same as the previous year.

• Approximately 35,000 revelers haunted Court Street for the annual Halloween bash.

• Top billing for Mom’s Weekend: two soldout performances by comedian Jay Leno at Memorial Auditorium.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch spoke about the civil rights movement to kick off Black History Month.

• Homeless activist Mitch Snyder appeared in the spring, only months before an apparent suicide by hanging.

• More than 75 OHIO students planted upwards of 118,000 trees in Athens County to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. • Pop/rock singer Richard Marx drew more than 5,000 fans in February. Only 500 faithful showed up for Southern/country rockers the Marshall Tucker Band at Springfest.

• The All Campus Radio Network collected 5,635 signatures from students wanting cable television and radio services installed in all residence hall rooms.

• The fee for seniors to apply for graduation at Chubb Hall: $16. “It’s not bad enough you have to pay to get in, but you have to pay to get out,” said senior Jennifer McMasters, BSJ ’90. Cost of cap, gown, and tassel: $13.

—Entries compiled by Editor Peter Szatmary from Athena yearbooks

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Connecting Bobcat friends and families

1. “It was great to get a Burrito Buggy supreme burrito in Columbus!” writes Scott Haag, BBA ’94, behind the World of Beer in Easton Town Center, during a food truck festival in June. “Also, the pub serves beers of Athens’ own Jackie O’s!” 2. William Munas, BSC ’76, a retired public speaking teacher at Wayne High School in Huber Heights, Ohio, spent two weeks in Italy in April. 3. John McDonnell, AB ’71 (left), and Mike Farren, BS ’71, MA ’72, decide when biking in February that this sign in Shark Valley, Everglades National Park, Miami, Fla., means a path reserved for OHIO faithful. The latter’s son, Matt Farren, BS ‘05, submitted the photo. 4. Bryan Cole, BSC ’82 (left), fit in a visit with Bob Armstrong, BSC ’82, during a business trip in Hawaii. They went to the OHIO-Nebraska men’s basketball game on Christmas; the contest, held at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, where Armstrong lives, was part of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic. “OHIO lost the game, but we had a great time rooting for the Bobcats,” Cole writes via e-mail. 5. The Alpha Omicron chapter of Delta Sigma Pi celebrated its 90th anniversary as a business fraternity at Ohio University

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in April. More than 80 alumni returned to Athens for a weekend reunion that included a happy hour, golf outing, Champagne brunch, and campus tours. 6. Sarah Primack Fuerbacher, BSHSL ’05, her husband, Charles Fuerbacher, BSSP ’05, and their children (left to right), Carson, 2, MiaRosa, 6, and Emma, 7, “cheered our Bobcats to a win” against Miami, 9-6, in baseball, on May 14 in Oxford, where the family lives. 7. Adam Jones, BSETM ’12, hiked the entirety of the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine in March 2014, he reports. “The hike took me 6½ months and 2185.3 miles,” Jones writes via e-mail, and “I repped the Bobcats the whole way. Always a Bobcat!”—Compiled by Editor Peter Szatmary

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Send your photos to ohiotoday@ohio.edu or Ohio Today, 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701.

Decades of Bobcat sisterhood

Photo courtesy of Judi Fenson

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fter graduating from Ohio University in 1963, members of the Chi Omega sorority pledge class of ’59 scattered to the four corners of the country to pursue careers and chase dreams. They stayed connected to one another through an annual newsletter that would arrive around Valentine’s Day and at occasional reunions on the Athens Campus and elsewhere.

For the past decade or so, they have gathered every few years for a long weekend in August at the Lazy DW Ranch near Cody, Wyo., at the invitation of fellow Chi O Donna Simpson Johnson, GEN ’63, and her husband Wally Johnson, AB ’61, who own it.

Between 12 and 15 of the 22 friends usually show up for the “girlfriends’ retreat.”

“When we get together, it’s not like it was 50 years ago; it’s just like yesterday,” said Ann Sweeney Kopelson, BSHE ’63, who taught high school home economics in Baltimore County, Md., where she met her husband and they raised their son and daughter.

Before the first Cody reunion, Donna Johnson worried about what they would find to talk about. She laughs about that now.

“I look at these women now, and if one of these gals lived in Cody, they’d be my best

Back row: Donna Johnson, Judie Day, Jo Ungerleider, Sally Litwak, Judi Fenson, Susie Gooch, Sue Pease, Jan Slater. Front row: Mary Field, Signe Sheldon, Patty Cordova, Ann Kopelson. They’re on a hike.

friend,” said Donna Johnson. “They’re such neat people.”

The neat people visit nearby Yellowstone National Park, talk, cook, talk, marvel at the Johnsons’ Scottish Highland cattle’s long horns and shaggy coats, and talk some more. Oh, and they sing, especially on Sunday evenings in the teepee Donna Johnson constructed, and in restaurants, belting out the OHIO fight song, “Stand up and Cheer!” or harmonizing sorority tunes,

when the group heads to tourist-friendly Cody, founded in the 1890s by Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

“These girls seem to burst into song at the drop of a hat,” said Donna Johnson.

On Sunday, they attend the historic “Poker” Church, whose beginnings were financed with winnings from card games. By evening, Wally Johnson, who makes himself scarce when the sisterhood descends on the ranch, returns to socialize and cook burgers or steak.

Judi Niehaus Fenson, AB ’63, a researcher in language development in San Diego, 2 prepares photos and video of the reunions on DVDs for everyone.

“I don’t know how exciting it is for some people but we really have a great time,” said Patty Huss Cordova, BSED ’63, who moved to Denver, Colo., after graduation and taught elementary school.

The women plan one last hurrah at the ranch in 2016, when most of them will be 75. —Martha Allan For a list of all the Bobcats involved in the Chi Omega sorority reunions mentioned in this article, go to ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

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Photo by Brian Kellogg, BSS ‘07 | briankellogg.com

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Bobcat tracks for alumni and friends

’41

Lt. Col. Richard Cole (Ret.), General ’41, received the Congressional Medal of Honor on behalf of fellow World War II Army Air Forces fliers known as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders. He was one of two surviving members to represent the renowned squad for the commemoration. Their troop of 80 airmen, under famed commander James Doolittle, conducted a surprise daylight attack over Tokyo, Japan, in April 1942, in the first assault on Japanese home islands by the U.S. Though causing little damage to the enemy, the sortie boosted American morale. Five-men crews in 16 medium-range B-25 bombers conducted the dangerous, top-secret mission by taking off from an aircraft carrier, the Hornet, hundreds of miles away. After the barrage, one bomber landed safely in the Soviet Union; 15 crashed in China. Most airmen survived; the Japanese captured eight and executed three. Cole, who lives in

McKinney, Texas, copiloted a plane and bailed out.

’47

Bill Benson, BSCO ’47, earned the “Masters LongDistance Running Age Group Athlete of the Year” citation for those age 95 and older from USA Track & Field.

He also received the Paul Spangler Award from the same national sanctioning body as the outstanding masters long-distance runner in the oldest age category. Benson was a middle-distance runner at OHIO; he has logged some 20,000 miles in hundreds of running events since resuming the sport at age 60 and set numerous records. Benson lives in Valley Stream, N.Y.

’58

John Alter, BFA ’58, was appointed to the 201416 Florida Forestry Association’s board of directors. The membership organization promotes responsible and sustainable use of Florida forests. A retired public relations

2015-16 Tours

Spain, Sept.7-16

Fellowship, fun, and adventure await you!

Opt in to the OHIO Travel Program e-mail list and stay up-to-date on new tour offerings, excursion tips, and traveling Bobcat tales.

Baltic Marvels: Oceania Cruise Aug. 19-27 Spain: Valencia and Barcelona Sept. 7-16 Village Life in Dordogne Sept. 17-25 American Queen: Country Music Oct. 24-Nov. 1 Pacific Dreams of the Tahitian Islands: Oceania Cruise Jan. 25-Feb. 4, 2016

ohioalumni.org/travel

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executive and a manager with Alter-Bevis Farms in Malone, he also was reappointed by Gov. Rick Scott to the governing board of the Northwest Florida Water Management District, one of five statewide to oversee water resources and flood protection.

’60

Chanin Wanadit, BSIT ’60, reconnected with his former OHIO roommate, Richard Roth, BSCO ’61, for the Christmas holiday in Bangkok, Thailand. They had lived together in Washington Hall for five semesters. Wanadit resides in Bangkok, and Roth in Wimauma, Fla.

’66

Tom Crouch, AB ’66, spoke at the Sullivan Museum and History Center at Norwich University.

His presentation, “Mr. Lincoln’s Air Force: Military Aeronautics in the Civil War,” examined President Abraham Lincoln’s fascination with technology during the conflict.

Crouch is the senior curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and author of a number of books on aviation.

Gary Nickerson, BS ’66, made the 2015 edition of Who’s Who in Black Cleveland. A retired schoolteacher and administrator, he consults for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and the American Institutes for Research, Nickerson wrote via e-mail.

’70

Randy Warman, BSC ’70, returned to Shawnee State University to work at its student success center after having retired as director of student activities and residence life in 2010. His initial tenure at the school spanned 37 years in various roles in student activities. Warman lives in Portsmouth, Ohio, and is an actor and director and the treasurer for his community theater.

’73

Robert Gossett, BBA ’73, retired as vice president of administration at Winnebago Industries, a Forest City, Iowabased manufacturer of recreation vehicles. He held the position since November 1998 and oversaw human resources, information technology, security, aviation, and office services. A resident of Albert Lea, Minn., he plans to travel with

his wife, Tolli, and spend more time with family and friends.

’74

David Simonetta, BSEd ’74, retired after 40 years of teaching. He spent the last 25 years as an elementary physical education instructor with the Cleveland (Ohio) Metropolitan School District.

’75

Thomas Costello, BGS ’75, received the Faculty Contribution Award from the Division of Student Affairs at OHIO for his work as a visiting lecturer in communication studies and as a faculty-in-residence (of Jefferson Hall).

Sandra Estanek, MA ’75, professor of graduate education and leadership and director of the student personnel administration program at Canisius College, a Jesuit school, received the Presidents’ Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

Steven Lesser, BSJ ’75, is finishing up his term as the 2014-15 chair of the American Bar Association’s forum on construction law. He heads the construction law and litigation group at the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., office of Becker & Poliakoff, a commercial law firm.

’76

Laura Pritchard, BFA ’76, displayed her batik paintings at “Waxing Poetic,” a fusion of art, poetry, and song sponsored by Lyric Fest in Philadelphia, Pa. Four poets created verse inspired by her work; then a composer set the poems to music; and a baritone and mezzo-soprano performed the results, accompanied by a pianist, along with some reciters, in this multimedia concert. She lives in Glenside, Pa. Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, PHD ’76, was confirmed as president-elect of the Royal Society, a self-governing, worldwide fellowship of leading scientists.

Based in London, England, it was founded in 1660. He is the deputy director of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Ramakrishnan, who earned a doctorate in physics from OHIO, received the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Thomas Steiz

and Ada Yonath for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome. Ramakrishnan was knighted in the U.K. in 2012. The Indian-born American citizen also received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, in 2010.

’79

Sharon Fountain, AB ’79, ranked as one of the “Best Lawyers in Dallas” for the fourth year in a row, according to D Magazine.

A partner in the Dallas office of Thompson and Knight, a full-service firm, she earned the award this year for taxation.

’85

Amy Van Zant Populorum, BSJ ’85, joined Decision Analyst, a global marketing research and analytical consulting company, as senior vice president of client services. She works in the Chicago office of the Arlington, Texas-based business.

’87

Tricia Nolfi, BSC ’87, MEd ’89, is now an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Education at Rider University.

Brian Unger, BSC ’87, hosts “Time Traveling with Brian Unger,” a new documentary series on the Travel Channel. The 30-minute show, which he calls “funformitive,” uses CGI graphics to revisit obscure episodes and landmark moments

in American history. Unger’s credits include hosting “How the States Got Their Shapes” on the History Channel and being a correspondent for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” on Comedy Central.

’88

Anna Harvey, ABPOL ’88, was appointed interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University.

Professor of Politics, she began her career at NYU in 1994 and has chaired her department and directed its undergraduate studies.

J. Scot Ransbottom, BSEE ’88, became chief of staff and deputy chief information officer of Virginia Tech’s information technology division. He had been deputy director of the school’s information technology security lab.

’89

Gail Taylor, BSJ ’89, was named publisher and editor in chief of Möbius, The Poetry Magazine. She teaches English at Pasadena City College and co-chairs the critical pedagogies group of the Cultural Studies Association.

’92

Craig C. Glorioso, AB ’92, was promoted to shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, an international multipractice law firm founded in Miami, Fla. He focuses on real estate, financing, and business transactions and works in the

Orange County, Calif., office.

’93

David Hoover, BSJ ’93, was named vice president of legislative affairs for the National Television Cooperative Association-The Rural Broadband Association. The Arlington, Va.-based organization represents almost 900 independent, community-based telecommunications companies in small towns and country outposts throughout the U.S. He previously directed government affairs for The Wireless Association-the Cellular Telephone Industries Association.

Thomas Manganello, BSJ ’93, began a new position with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its Office of Investor Education and Advocacy. He previously spent 10 years in its Division of Enforcement. Manganello lives with his wife, Kim, and two daughters in Fairfax, Va. Tracy Schario, MA ’93, was named chief external relations officer at the Optical Society, an international association for optics and photonics professionals that’s based in Washington, D.C. Prior jobs include directing advocacy communications for the clean energy portfolio at The Pew Charitable Trusts and spokesperson for George Washington University.

Maj. Doug A. Simpson, BSS ’93, retired from the U.S. Air Force after almost 22 years of service.

His tour of duty spanned five locations in the U.S. and overseas and six assignments as an air battle manager. Simpson and his wife, Michelle, reside in Moore, Okla.

’94

Luke Bradley, BS ’94, was promoted to associate professor at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

Anatomy and neurobiology is his primary department, molecular and cellular biochemistry his secondary.

Alexander Tung, MFA ’94, served as a commissioning editor on the award-winning German TV miniseries “The Pilgrim.” An adaptation of Iny Lorentz’s bestselling novel of the same name, the show follows a young girl in the 14th century on a pilgrimage from Southern Germany to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The presentation won a silver world medal in the miniseries category at the New York Festivals International Television and Film Awards.

Rajesh Venkat, MS ’94, was appointed vice president of strategic planning at Angie’s List, a consumerdriven subscription service, based in Indianapolis, Ind., that reviews local businesses for members.

He had been vice president of

Super sorority “Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, has a very fine campus,” wrote former American first lady Eleanor Roosevelt about her visit in 1954 to give a speech. “The trees were one of the things which impressed me.”

Here is a small sampling of the many other notable women to come to OHIO. Anthropology: Margaret Mead (1963) Arts and entertainment: Contralto Marian Anderson (1960), comedian Margaret Cho (above left) (2002), classical pianist Ruth Laredo (1980), architect/artist Maya Lin (2004), 10,000 Maniacs lead singer Natalie Merchant (1993), singer Dionne Warwick (1969) Civil rights: Angela Davis (2009), Yolanda King (first visit 1984) Environmental activism: Erin Brockovich (2007) Photos courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

Feminism: Jane Galvin-Lewis (1975), Gloria Steinem (first visit 1975)

Journalism: Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (1975), “dean” of White House correspondents Helen Thomas (2000), National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg (2005) LGBTQ: CeCe McDonald (2015) Military: Brig. Gen. Mildred C. Bailey (1973) Poetry: Rita Dove (2011), Nikki Giovanni (2006), Louise Gluck (1989), Sharon Olds (2004), Mary Oliver (1995) Politics: Bella Abzug (1973), Chelsea Clinton (2008), Hillary Rodham Clinton (first visit 1992), Bernadette Devlin (1975), Michelle Obama (2008) Writing: Maya Angelou (below left) (2000), Pearl S. Buck (1966), Cynthia Ozick (1993), Grace Paley (1994), Susan Sontag (1992), Naomi Wolf (1995) —Compiled by Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17, and Editor Peter Szatmary

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The 1976 OHIO yearbook borrowed Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own for the headline of an article about women’s issues. “The late novelist,” wrote Cyndi Woods, BSJ ’78, “recommended ‘a room of one’s own’ to women as a place where they can find themselves,” and the Women’s Center offers “social activities, clinics, and workshops that emphasize the need for awareness in the women’s equality struggle.” The story also summarized efforts by Athens Women Against Rape to raise awareness about sexual violence. “Although a woman needs ‘a room of one’s own’ to develop individuality,” the article continued, “she should not have to stay locked in it in fear of rape.”—Editor Peter Szatmary Photo by Carole Levinston, courtesy of Mahn Center for

Archives and Special Collections

mobile identity and intelligence at MicroStrategy, a provider of enterprise software platforms.

material and chemical technologies company, as technical manager of its Willow Island, W.Va., facility.

’96

’97

Brian Dickerson, MSA ’96, was named a 2015 Ohio Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers magazine in the field of white-collar criminal defense. He is a partner and the practice group manager of white-collar litigation and corporate compliance at Roetzel & Andress, a full-service firm, in Naples, Fla. Steven Knowlton, BSCHE ’96, joined Cytec Industries, a specialty

Dennis G. Lambert, AAS ’97, BTAS ’10, accepted a volunteer position with the Central and Southern Ohio ALS Association as media and publicity chair for its September walk to defeat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

He lives in Columbus.

Darrell Lausche, BSEd ’97, now chairs the civil rights committee for the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

He also serves as secretary of the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union.

Lausche teaches third grade at the Gearity Professional Development School in the Cleveland HeightsUniversity Heights City School District.

Sean McLaughlin, BSJ ’97, was promoted to senior writer/producer of branded entertainment at Discovery Communications in Silver Springs, Md. The company’s U.S. portfolio includes the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.

’99

Karen Gorretta, BMUS ’99, garnered Springfield (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra’s Music Educator of the Year Award. She is director of vocal music at Fairborn High School and Baker Middle School, both in Fairborn, Ohio.

’02

Anne Denton, BA ’02, MA ’04, director of sales and marketing at Red Cedar Coffee in Berea, Ohio, earned a fellowship to attend the Specialty Coffee Association of America Symposium in Seattle, Wash.

Ben Patterson, BSC ’02, won the audience award for documentary feature and the jury award for documentary feature for Sweet Micky for President at the 21st annual Slamdance Film Festival.

Director Patterson follows Pras Michel, formerly of the hip-hop group the Fugees, on a trip to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to mobilize the ultimately successful political campaign for musician and businessman Michel Martelly, the titular figure. Feature competitions in documentaries (and narratives) are restricted to first-time filmmakers with production budgets of less than $1 million. Patterson lives in New York City.

’03

Nathan Brinker, AA ’03, BSS ’04, became the financial administrator of the Compassionate Care Center for Surgical Excellence in Bridgeport, Ohio. His wife, Rachelle Vavrock Brinker, BSEd ’07, assumed a new position at Bridgeport Elementary School as a Title 1 tutor for the first grade.

Kara McDonald, BSJ ’03, took a job as associate director for advancement/friends of the libraries association at the University of Washington University Libraries.

She had been associate director of reunion giving at Swarthmore College.

’04

Jonathan P. Altman, BBA ’04, was elected a shareholder and a director of Sherrard, German and Kelly, a midsize firm in Pittsburgh, Pa.,

A CAMPAIGN FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE Invest in students. Invest in academics. Invest in OHIO Athletics.

The goal of the Campaign for Academic Excellence is to raise $6 million to construct a new athletic academic center in the north end zone of Peden Stadium. Fundraising began in September 2014. As of July 1, more than 300 donors have contributed upwards of $4.75 million. The campaign ends on Dec. 31.

For more information about the Perry and Sandy Sook Academic Center, or to donate, call 740.593.1176 or visit OhioBobcatClub.com/AcademicCenter.

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ohiotodayonline.com

Muppet to moppet I am green, and it’ll do fine.

It’s beautiful!

And I think it’s what I want to be.

—As sung by Kermit the Frog Maybe OHIO parents crooned “Bein’ Green,” the 1970 “Sesame Street” standard by Joe Raposo, to their new babies. Or to each other, since both mom and dad of all the bundles of joy are alumni. What we know for sure: a few details about the auspicious beginnings of the future Bobcats via answers to e-mail questions.

—Editor Peter Szatmary

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1. Quinn Andrew Kutcher Born: June 16, 2014; 7 pounds, 10 ounces; 20½ inches Photo: 22 pounds, 30 inches, at 10 months Parents: Erin McCloy Kutcher, BBA ’00, CERT ’00, director of marketing for SigmaTEK Systems, and Andy Kutcher, BBA ’02, senior manager at Accenture Siblings: First child Residence: Cincinnati, Ohio Parental resemblance: “Mommy’s eyes and hands. Daddy’s smile and ears.”

Emerging personality: “Happy and giggly.”

2. Juniper Grace McKenrick

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Parental resemblance: “Juniper looks very much like her dad, although her smile and her furrow are her mom’s. She’s vocal, strong-willed, and curious, like her mom. She’s observant and game, like her dad. She loves to read, like her mom, with an interest in books and turning pages starting at 4 months. She loves to be outside, like both her parents.”

3. Savannah Rose Troyer Born: Jan. 9; 7 pounds, 11 ounces; 22 inches Parents: Katie Cleland Troyer, BSHC ’08, MEd ’12, an associate director for undergraduate admissions at OHIO and manager of its Volunteer Alumni Admissions Network, and Boone Troyer, BSS ’08, MSRSS ’13, children’s program specialist for the City of Athens Siblings: “This is our first baby Bobcat!”

Residence: Athens Parental resemblance: “Savannah was born with

Born: Sept. 3, 2014; 7 pounds, 9 ounces; 21 inches Photo: 19½ pounds, 30 inches, at 7½ months Parents: Josephine Kosmalski McKenrick, BSJ ’02, director of communications at Mariemont City Schools, and Andrew McKenrick, BSC ’02, lead florist, Washington Park, Cincinnati, Ohio Siblings: “Juniper is our first and probably our only.”

Residence: Cincinnati

a full head of dark brown hair, just like mom and dad.”

Emerging personality: “Savannah is a very smiley baby! We played the Marching 110 for her when she was in her mom’s belly, so she already loves to dance to OHIO’s famous band!”

4. Audrey Graceann Thompson Born: March 6; 7 pounds, 11 ounces; 20 inches Parents: Beth Sertell, BSC ’99, CERT ’10, associate director and co-owner of Holistic Consultation and adjunct instructor in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at OHIO, and Stephan Thompson, BSC ’95, operations planner at The Ohio State University Siblings: Ella, 13 months when Audrey was born Residence: Westerville Parental resemblance: “Hair like her dad’s.”

Emerging personality: “Audrey is strong, happy, and curious.”

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offering a broad civil practice. He is a member of its corporate, real estate, and financial services group. Altman also was named a “Pennsylvania Rising Star” for the second year in a row by Super Lawyers magazine.

Markus E. Apelis, BSJ ’04, BA ’05, became a partner at the Cleveland, Ohio, office of Gallagher Sharp multispecialty law firm. He began in 2008 as an associate and focuses on general liability, transportation, and insurance coverage issues.

Erin Roush-Sabetta, BSH ’04, married Mike Sabetta on Sept. 5 in Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio. The wedding party included Kristen Barbieri Clausen, BSEd ’04, and Jeannie Barron Pennington, BSH ’07. The bride, outreach coordinator at the Transplant Institute of University Hospitals of Cleveland, also reports being named the first American Liver Foundation Heartland Division

Volunteer of the Year.

Robert J. Tucker, BBA ’04, was one of 21 attorneys elected partner at BakerHostetler, a national law firm with practices in litigation, business, employment, intellectual property, and tax. He focuses on class-action defense and commercial litigation out of the Columbus, Ohio, office.

’05

Matt Farren, BS ’05, conducts research on pancreatic cancer and melanoma at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer CenterArthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, after earning his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute/ University at Buffalo Graduate School last year.

Jessica Rangel, MA ’05, came in first place in the women’s division of the Athens (Ohio) Marathon. Her time of

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3 hours, 14 minutes, and 47 seconds ranked eighth among all 145 contestants. She lives in Aurora, Ill.

’06

Neelay K. Bhatt, MBA ’06, MSA ’06, assumed a seat on the board of directors of the Immigrant Welcome Center, which provides outreach and resources to nonnatives in Indianapolis, Ind. He is vice president of PROS Consulting, a strategic management and planning firm for government and not-forprofit agencies.

’07

Robert Kaminski, BA ’07, received the Dan MacLachlan Award for School Library Media Specialists from Kent State University’s School of Library and Information Science. He is a library media specialist at Fernway and Mercer Elementary Schools in the Shaker Heights (Ohio) City School District.

’08

Kevin Hunt, BSJ ’08, and Emily Swift Hunt, BSRS ’08, married on March 21. He teaches high school English, and she owns a photography business. They live in Columbus.

Justin Whelan, BSJ ’08, joined the Cleveland, Ohio, office of Buckley King, a commercial and business law firm, as an associate in the labor and employment practice. He specializes in commercial, discrimination, workers’ compensation, and employment matters.

’10

Alan Schaaf, BSCS ’10, founder and CEO of the image-hosting site imgur.com, made Forbes’s “30 under 30” in the consumer tech category.

The magazine’s fourth annual compendium celebrates 600 millennials in 20 fields that also include arts and style, marketing and advertising, science, finance, and sports. Schaaf developed Imgur as a junior at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology; his site attracts more than 150 million unique visitors and 5.5 billion page views each month. He resides in San Francisco, Calif.

Sign up at ohioalumni.org/bobcat-store-signup

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’14

Amanda Lanning, BSC ’14, BSAM ’14, was crowned Miss Ohio State through the Pure American Pageants system. Her platform is helping victims of abuse

Akron alumnae chapter turns 75 Whatever it takes.

That could be the motto for the Akron Association of Ohio University Women, which celebrated its diamond jubilee in the spring.

After all, members sold pecans and vanilla early on to help build a scholarship fund for high-achieving young women from Akron and bound for OHIO. Dru Riley Evarts, the first recipient of the aid—$90 in 1949— cherished the honor as much as the money. “Back then, $90 covered tuition for the year,” said Evarts, BSJ ’51, MS ’73, PHD ’77, professor emerita in the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism. “They also sent me Christmas and birthday gifts; they were always thinking of me. When someone invests in your future that way, it makes you want to work even harder.”

Through diligence and ingenuity, the scholarship grew to endowment status by the turn of the 21st century. As Barbara Gazella, AA ’60, a 55-year active member, put it, “Whatever we try, we seem to have fun doing it,” she said.

Renamed in 2003 after Lillie Greer, KP ’25, a founding member, the grant annually supports female Honors Tutorial College students—66 and counting.

“For 75 years these devoted women have encouraged friendships and facilitated opportunities for life-long learning in support of the Ohio University mission,” added Ann Shafer Cousins, BSED ’71, chapter president. “I am proud to be counted among them.”

—Hailee Tavoian

and trauma; she volunteers with Hope Outreach Ministries to combat human trafficking. Lanning, who works as an IT program coordinator for Nationwide insurance and resides in Nashport, competes next for the national title in the Christian-based contest, which includes several age categories for females and males.

—Compiled by Sara Jerde, BSJ ’15; Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17; and Editor Peter Szatmary.

ohiotoday

What’s new?

Mission Statement Ohio Today informs, celebrates, and engages alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends of Ohio University.

Editor Peter Szatmary Art director Sarah McDowell, BFA ’02 Contributors Martha Allan Martin Barker Design Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17 Jennifer Shutt Bowie, BSJ ’94, MS ’99 Lindsey Burrows, BSJ ’09 Corinne Colbert, BSJ ’87, MA ’93 Dustin Franz, BSVC ’10 Jessica Gardner Andrea Gibson, BSJ ’94 Emily Harger, BSVC ’16 Lara Harwood Tom Hayes, BSVC ’06 Kayla Hoffmann, BSVC ’15 Sara Jerde, BSJ ’15 Brian Kellogg, BSS ’07 Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections Roderick J. McDavis, BSED ’70 Kelee Garrison Riesbeck, BSJ ’91 Greg Ruffing Cheri Russo, BSJ ’96, MS ’07 Meghan Shamblen, BSVC ’15 Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02 Hailee Tavoian Brien Vincent Amy Sage Webb, BSJ ’90 Proofreader Emily Caldwell, BSJ ’88, MS ’99 Printer The Watkins Printing Co.

Ohio University President Roderick J. McDavis, BSED ’70 Chief Marketing Officer Renea Morris, MED ’12 Assistant Vice President for Alumni Relations, Executive Director of the Alumni Association Jennifer Neubauer Executive Director of Advancement Communication & Marketing Jennifer Shutt Bowie, BSJ ’94, MS ’99 Director, Creative Services, Advancement Communication & Marketing Kari Gunter-Seymour Peterson, BFA ’94 Interim Director, Online and Digital Communication, Advancement Communication & Marketing Sarah Filipiak, BSJ ’01

Ohio Today advisory board

Melissa Wervey Arnold, BSJ ’99 (alumni representative), chief executive officer, Ohio Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics Monica Chapman, BSJ ’02, assistant to the president for communications Cary Frith, BSJ ’92, MS ’98, associate dean, Honors Tutorial College Jessica Gardner, director of communications, College of Business Jenny Hall-Jones, AB ’95, MED ’97, PHD ’11, dean of students and interim vice president, Student Affairs Heather Lawrence-Benedict, associate professor of sports administration, College of Business Jennifer Neubauer, assistant vice president, Alumni Relations, and executive director, Ohio University, Alumni Association Cheri Russo, BSJ ’96, MS ’07, manager of communications and marketing, Ohio University Lancaster Campus

Share your news with fellow alumni by completing this form and mailing it to Ohio Today, 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701-2979; sending an e-mail to ohiotoday@ohio.­edu or a fax to 740.597.9070; or visiting ohtoday.us/class-note.

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Ohio University Alumni Association Board of Directors Julie Mann Keppner, BBA ’02, chair Ronald Teplitzky, AB ’84, vice chair Joseph Becherer, BFA ’87, MFA ’89 Robin Bowlus, BFA ’98 Craig Brown, BSC ’82 Cynthia Calhoun, BSEE ’88 Bryon Carley, BSC ’81 Casey Christopher, BS ’02 Brenda Dancil-Jones, AB ’70 Jim Daniel, BSED ’68, MED ’72 Steve Ellis, BS ’82 Alissa Galford, BSC ’05 Todd Grandominico, BBA ’00, CERT ’00 Mike Jackson, BSED ’68, HON ’12 Matthew Latham, AA ’06 Jeffrey Laturell, BSC ’80, MBA ’82 Timothy Law, DO ’94 Connie Lawson-Davis, BSED ’67 Robert “Rocky” Mansfield, BSCHE ’74 Lyndsay Markley, BA ’02 Carolyn “Bitsy” Merriman, BFA ’77 Julia Brophy Righter, BSC ’78 Kenneth Rusche, BSED ’73 Dustin Starkey, BS ’98 Larry Starr, BSED ’68, MED ’71 Stacia Taylor, BSC ’82 Kyle Triplett, BA ’12 Kendra Lutes, BS ’17, Student Alumni Board president

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Contact information Editorial offices are at 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701-2979.

Send questions, comments, ideas, and submissions (such as Bobcat tracks, future Bobcats, and alumni books) to that address, email to ohiotoday@ohio.edu or call Editor Peter Szatmary at 740.593.1891. Make address changes at ohio.edu/alumni or via Advancement Services, WUSOC 168, Athens, OH 45701-0869. Send in memoriam details to the latter. The OHIO switchboard is 740.593.1000.

Ohio Today is published three times a year. Ohio Today Online comes out twice a year at ohiotodayonline.com.

Both are produced by University Advancement, with funding from The Ohio University Foundation. Views expressed in them do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff or University policies.

Copyright 2015 by Ohio University.

Ohio University is an affirmative action institution.

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in memoriAm remembering fellow Bobcats

1930s

Christine M. (Mingus) Baldy, BSED ’35 Betty C. (Holdren) Betz, AB ’37 Franklin S. Dye, COED ’38, BSED ’66

1940s

John Duffy, Jr., BSAGR ’40 Theodore C. Alfred, Jr., ’42 Lou (Howard) Hardman, BSS ’42 Nancy (Caughey) Klopfer, MSHEC ’42 Barbara (Remsen) Tillman-Keene, BSED ’42 Dorothy M. (Freedman) Bronk, BS ’43 Ernest Mariani, BFA ’43 Jack E. Shessler, ’43 Barbara (Fisher) Ashton Waggoner, AB ’43 Frances M. (Shaw) McCoy, AB ’44 Helen J. (Dever) Phinney, AB ’44 Carl N. Shadix, BS ’44 Paul J. Essman, ’45 Betty K. (Hines) Rogers, BSED ’45 Wanda G. (Richardson) Talmage, ’45 Rebecca J. Cantrall, BSCOM ’46 Martha E. (Roedel) Hamm, BSHEC ’47 Ross E. Evans, AB ’48 Marilyn (Maxwell) Giebenrath, BSJ ’48 Eileen A. Pickenpaugh, BS ’48 Robert E. Ralls, BSED ’48 Richard G. Shrider, BSED ’48, MS ’49 Ann W. (Wilbur) Bowes, BSED ’49 Walter W. Burazer, BSCOM ’49 James J. Castiglia, AB ’49 Eugene E. Haney, BS ’49 Gwyneth M. (Gibson) Hoff, BSCOM ’49 Robert H. Lundberg, BSEE ’49 Edward Marlowe, AB ’49, MA ’49 James E. McEwen, BSCOM ’49 O. J. Miller, BSCOM ’49 Charles E. Sauers, BSCOM ’49

1950s

Edward M. Brehm, AB ’50 Rev. Charles H. Coit II, BSAE ’50 George F. Heise, AB ’50, BS ’50 Robert R. Hill, Jr., BSME ’50 Hubert A. Selz, BFA ’50 Richard Burger, BSCOM ’51 Darrel W. Danford, BSED ’51, MED ’58 Robert L. Davidson, BSCOM ’51 Don B. Gamertsfelder, BFA ’51 Ray E. Giannetta, AB ’51 William C. Goodell, BSED ’51, MS ’52 Dewey E. Todd, BSED ’51, MED ’67 Vernon C. Warner, BSME ’51 James J. Cusick, Jr., AB ’52 William T. Day, BSED ’52 George Keith Henry, ’52 Ivan Koleman, ’52 Martin W. Luoma, BSCOM ’52 Harriet Edith (Leasure) McGlinchey, BSED ’52

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Martha V. (Kramer) Rigel, BSS ’52 Ruthann Bush Root, BSED ’52 Edward G. Weber, BSED ’52 Norris T. Hartshorn, BSCOM ’53 Robert Rigel, BSME ’53 Walter L. Rosinski, BSJ ’53 Julianne Sherriff-Dana, BSJ ’53 Patricia R. (O’Brien) Turner, BSED ’53 James W. Cox, BSCOM ’54 Edwin C. Johnston, BSCOM ’54 Richard G. Leffler, BSCOM ’54 Lt. Col. L. J. Pochurek, BSCOM ’54 John L. Sullivan, MS ’54 Carl F. Clemens, BS ’55 Joseph M. Dawson, AA ’55, BSED ’57 Morris H. Newhouse, BS ’55 Ralph E. Readout, BSED ’55 Sandra J. (Spencer) Rosebro, AA ’55 Lawrence E. Tibbals, BFA ’55 John C. Davidson, BSCOM ’56 David E. Lewis, BSEE ’56 Richard E. Snide, BSED ’56 Dorothy J. (Haag) Danielson, BSED ’57 Joyce (Howard) Illes, BSHSS ’57 Richard E. Perkins, BSCE ’57 Ronald A. Willis, MFA ’57 James W. Elliott, BSAGR ’58 David A. Jeffries, BSCOM ’58 Walter Kindy, MED ’58 Marsha Lynn Peoples, BSED ’58 Donald A. Eder, BSCOM ’59 John A. Housley, BSCE ’59 Susan Anderson Kline, AB ’59 Martin Reichenthal, BSJ ’59 Ann M. (McPherson) Riddle, BSHEC ’59 Helen J. West, BSED ’59

1960s

Jerry B. Arnett, BS ’60, MS ’63 Robert D. Morrow, BSCOM ’60 Madalene R. Barnett, MA ’61, PHD ’64 John R. Cullen, BFA ’61 Arthur R. Evans, BSIT ’61 Juliet V. (Hayden) Gaume, BSHEC ’61 David J. Lamborn, BSCOM ’61 Henry A. Mayer, Jr., BSCOM ’61 John T. Mitchell, BS ’61 Brig. Gen. Philip A. Williams (Ret.), BFA ’61 James L. Creighton, BSED ’62, BSED ’62 Arch K. Taylor, AB ’62, MED ’69 John F. Considine, BSED ’63 Carol (Pinnick) Gatchel, BSED ’63 M. N. Kemp, BBA ’63 Sylvia L. Warren, BSED ’63, MED ’68 Eugene Frederick Dunham, Jr., BBA ’64 Charles E. Litz, BSED ’64 Leonard L. Sims, BSED ’64 James R. Chojnacki, BBA ’65 Thomas H. Harr, BA ’65 Janice K. (Augenstein) Hubler, BSED ’65 Charles M. Trone, MED ’65 Walter D. Wortman, BSED ’65 Earl W. Apgar, BSED ’66, MED ’67

Jeffrey C. Babbitt CPA, BBA ’66 Patricia L. (Beacon) Gdula, BS ’66 Carl J. Gedeon, BSCHE ’66 Phyllis (Smart) Hackett, BSED ’66, MED ’76 Judith R. (Roth) Seligman, BSED ’66 Marsha (Routzahn) Haas, AB ’67 Donald H. Kirkley, Jr., PHD ’67 David V. Kreng, BSEE ’67 Barry H. Leeds, PHD ’67 Robert H. Stillwell, BFA ’67 Martha J. Barrett, BSED ’68 Sandra (Lenzi) Brown, BSED ’68 Francine M. (Erzen) Byers, AB ’68, MA ’73 Dolores M. (Mion) Fiore, BFA ’68, MED ’74 Cheron J. (Messmer) Mayhall, MA ’68 David K. Benner, BS ’69, MS ’71 Maj. William J. Wetzel, AB ’69

1970s

Stephen E. Gierhart, BSJ ’70 J. N. Marzella, BSJ ’70, MED ’71 Frances Renz, BSJ ’70 Mark T. Flynn, BSJ ’71 Dave W. Povtak, BGS ’71 Nina (Shutoff ) Flack, BSHEC ’72 Philip J. Harwood, PHD ’72 William J. Hoverman, BGS ’72 William J. Jamison, AB ’72 Robert A. Myers, BSED ’72 James R. Wray, AB ’72 Margaret A. Channell, BSJ ’73, MA ’80 Rebecca J. (Deem) Dush, BSED ’73 John R. Eich, AB ’73 Charles B. Rogers, MBA ’73 Cheryl A. Stanley, MA ’73 Robert B. Barlow, BS ’74 Ruth H. (Thompson) Davis, BA ’74 Joni R. Freedman, BSC ’74 Paula K. (Krumlauf ) Freiberg, BSED ’74 Marilyn M. (Burns) Berger, MED ’75 Pauline M. Rodgers, BSED ’75 David J. Nicholson, BBA ’76 Vonne J. (Potts) Shepard, BSN ’77

1980s

Barbara F. (Todd) Kennard, MED ’80 Mark Alan Mentges, BSCHE ’80 Billie T. Robinson, BSED ’80 Mark A. Simowitz, BBA ’80 Terence Staggs, BBA ’80 Evelyn L. Butler, BS ’81, BSN ’81 Martin T. Cahill, AB ’81 John Arthur Jones, MS ’81 Jerome A. Russo, MFA ’81 Phyllis M. (Huffman) Wells, BGS ’81 Dennis W. Parrott, AA ’82 James D. Kimsey, BSJ ’83 Norma Jean (Skivers) Reaume, BBA ’84 Capt. Kenneth D. Carter (Ret.), BSEE ’85 Patricia J. Kuhaneck, BFA ’85 Gregory W. Carpenter, DO ’86

Linda K. (Ricica) Poock, BSRS ’86, MSPE ’87 Robert L. Tatum, BSC ’86 Lacey M. (Moore) Thompson, MA ’86, PHD ’04 Anne Miller Azbell, AAS ’87 Scott M. Ockington, BBA ’87 Merry L. Walters, AAB ’87, AA ’95 Richard H. Gassan, BS ’88, MA ’92 Margaret Ward Killough, MHSA ’88 Barbara V. (Volz) Smith, MA ’89

1990s

Jeffrey Arnold Dews, AB ’90 Peter Paul Merritt, BSH ’90, CERT ’90 Wayne Fitz, MBA ’93 Bill Howley, MBA ’93 Nathaniel Blair, BS ’95 Christine V. (Johnson) Tremlett, MA ’95 Scott Michael Wickiser, BBA ’95 Sharon K. (Cash) Strausbaugh, BSS ’96 Chris D. Downs, BSED ’98, MED ’03 Matthew B. Robinson, BSED ’99

2000s

Brett Douglas Helling, BSC ’01 Lisa Ann Rush, MA ’02 Laurie A. Floyd, AAB ’04 Shirley C. Nnatubeugo, AAS ’08 Jessica S. (Bolyard) Saunders, BSED ’08

2010s

Jessica Ann Carmosino, BA ’12, CERT ’12 Glen E. Gaither, BSS ’12, MPA ’14 Becky Schott, BSED ’13 Paul Richard Jacoway, PHD ’14

Faculty/Staff

Charles G. Bennett, Athens, Ohio, IT technology in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, March 4 Tom Brown, Chillicothe, Ohio, former faculty member at Ohio University Chillicothe Campus, Aug. 17 Shane Lee Gilkey, BBA ’88, MPA ’12, Albany, Ohio, assistant vice president for research, Feb. 27 H. Benne Kendall, Ft. Myers, Fla., professor emeritus of chemical engineering who taught from 1960 until 1993, April 18 Donald O. Roberts, MFA ’53, Athens, Ohio, professor emeritus of art who taught from 1953 until 1991, March 16 —Compiled by Jennifer Shutt Bowie, BSJ ’94, MS ’99, based on information received by the University’s office of advancement services prior to May 15

Join us for Homecoming Oct. 5-10 • • • • •

Pep rally with the Marching 110 Historical hayrides at The Ridges Uptown parade OHIO vs. Miami football And much more!

Register today at ohio.edu/homecoming

Last word

A real trooper

P

olicing pioneer Lisa Taylor, a lecturer in criminal justice and the law enforcement technology program coordinator at Ohio University Lancaster since fall 2013, refused to let her inability to stand, stand in the way of further accomplishments. Taylor, AIS ’96, was the first female lieutenant, staff lieutenant, captain, and major in the Ohio State Highway Patrol. But in 2007, her life crashed. A drug-impaired driver struck Taylor’s motorcycle, not merely ruining her yearly vacation trek but also shattering her left leg. Multiple compound fractures immobilized Taylor for about a year. She endured nine surgeries over four months to rebuild the limb and learned to walk again. The injury compelled her to retire from the force; Taylor remains active in the field as a partner at Stars Consulting, a risk-management firm that provides, among other services, traffic-crash reconstruction for accident victims. She answered questions via e-mail. Edited excerpts follow. » Cheri Russo,

BSJ ’96, MS ’07, communications and marketing manager at Lancaster

Why law enforcement?

Actually, by chance. I wanted to go to college for journalism but didn’t have the financial means. I didn’t grow up thinking I’d be a state trooper, but rather fell into the job when an off-duty trooper recruited me in 1983 when I was working at a home center in Middletown, Ohio, because the patrol had begun hiring females.

Anyone discourage you?

Many, many times. I’m so thankful that I didn’t believe them. It shouldn’t only take brawn to enforce the law. Women bring many positive attributes to the field. When I was first hired, there were only about 20 female officers statewide—now, there are about 150.

Why the consulting business?

Actually, I knew there was a need for this service before my crash. One of my former employees, who was already doing this type of work, asked me and another individual to go into business with him.

You self-published a book about your accident, Was It Irony … or Was It God?

The book started as court preparation.

Just before the trial, the man who hit me committed suicide. So I decided to take that documentation and write a faith-based reckoning. The process was very cathartic.

Photo by Martin Barker Design

Most proud of?

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ohiotodayonline.com

I was initially told that the doctors weren’t sure they could save my leg, and that even if they did, they weren’t sure I’d ever walk without assistance. Not only did they save my leg, but other than run, I can do pretty much anything I want. I hike, bike, and am very active. That, by far, has been my biggest achievement.

Favorite TV show?

“Forensic Files” because it’s related to my field.

Not only is it entertaining, it also provides examples of crime fighting for the classroom.­ Read more of the Q&A at ohio.edu/ohiotoday/extras.

Photo courtesy of University Communications and Marketing

T

his stained glass window represents history and adorns the corridor of Margaret M. Walter Hall. Others depict education, science, and art. A total of six stained glass windows line the 44,000-square-foot two-story building next to Ohio University’s Bicentennial Park. They were salvaged from Ewing Hall, finished in 1898, before its demolition in 1974.

Walter Hall houses four large classrooms, offices, a rotunda, and several conference rooms. The completion of Walter Hall in December 2003 (with the dedication on April 16, 2004) was made possible by a $5 million gift from Robert D. Walter, BSME ’67, HON ’97, and Margaret McGreevy Walter, BFA ’67. “The reason I decided to have the building named after my wife is because I wanted to honor her,” said the alumnus, a former chair of the Ohio University Board of Trustees and the founder and retired chair of Cardinal Health, at the facility’s opening.

“We have been married since 1967 and have raised three sons and she is the grandmother to our six grandchildren.” Through personal gifts and their family foundation, the Walters have committed more than $17 million to the University. The Walter International Education Center and the Walter Fieldhouse also bear their names. —Caption by Maygan Beeler, BSJ ’17

nonprofit org u. s . p o s tag e

p a i d co lu m b u s , o h i o p e r m i t n o. 4 4 1 6

Pleased to meet you …

OHIO undergraduates discuss the concert at ohio.edu/ ohiotoday/extras.

Photo screenshot courtesy of Youtube.com

O

HIO got some satisfaction. As in the Rolling Stones. In May, the Ohio University Singers performed backup on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” during the encore of the legendary rockers’ ZIP Code tour stop at Ohio (State) Stadium in Columbus. The crowd flicked lighters as the 30-member mixed chorale, directed by Assistant Professor of Music Dan Hall, helped render the 1969 hit. And last December, Andrea Baker, Lancaster Campus emeritus associate professor of sociology, published You Get What You Need: Stories of Fans of the Rolling Stones (Miniver Press). The book discusses diehards who socialize online about everything from set lists to seating charts. —Kelee Garrison Riesbeck, BSJ ’91

Coming next edition: The theme will be OHIO “milestones.”