SVSU's Reflections Magazine - Fall 2012

THE MAGAZINE OF SVSU

REFLECTIONS The Story of Wickes Hall, our “Old Main” pg. 22

FALL 2012

THE VALUE PROPOSITION OF A COLLEGE EDUCATION

“We create a comprehensive learning experience in and out of the classroom and an environment that gives a wide range of opportunities to a vast array of students. ” – D. Brian Law

Many Americans are asking, “What is the value today of a college education?” We know that the cost of a college education has been increasing, while public funding has declined.

Many who have graduated in the last four years have had difficulty landing jobs in their field of study and commensurate with their skills and training. As a result, it is common for newlyminted graduates to start their careers deep in debt.

As a general concern across the country, and for the entire student population, “Just what is the value of a college education?” Value is an individual proposition. It can be measured by the intellectual exposure that enriches lives and makes better citizens as well as the economic payback we derive from our careers and professional pursuits.

It is a product of individual choice, performance and opportunity. The value of a college education will be influenced by such variables as the field of study, the individual’s academic performance, extracurricular experiences and the choice of school.

Students who choose Saginaw Valley State University have a strong “leg up” on the value proposition of a college education. It is my belief that SVSU delivers more education for the dollar than any other undergraduate institution in the state. At SVSU, a student can get a unique “private college experience” for the cost of a public university – and we consistently have the lowest tuition of any public university in Michigan.

Because I have had the privilege of serving on the SVSU Board of Fellows, the Board of Control and the SVSU Foundation, I know this institution very well. The university works very hard – and succeeds – at keeping tuition low as the result of smart management and tight controls.

The campus is modern, efficient and flexible; the administration has been careful not to overbuild and there are no long-term unfunded liabilities.

Nonetheless, SVSU has spared no expense in assembling and cultivating first-class faculty and support staff and in creating a culture in which faculty and staff can flourish. This is a teaching institution. At SVSU, professors (not assistants) teach in the classroom. We create a comprehensive learning experience in and out of the classroom and an environment that gives a wide range of opportunities to a vast array of students. The university is scaled for intimacy. Class sizes are small, and students interact personally with professors, administrators and other students.

Our student body is diverse, and SVSU increasingly attracts top students from the region, the country and the world.

Indeed, the value of a college education is not a given. It is a choice! It is still up to the student to pick an appropriate field of study, to work hard and to seek opportunities. Fortunately, each year we give about 10,000 students the opportunity to make a great choice!

SENIOR CONSULTANT Andy Bethune, B.B.A., ’87 EDITOR Jan Poppe, M.A., ’01 MANAGING EDITOR Tim Inman, B.A., ’89, M.Ed., ’96 WRITERS Angela Bauer, B.A., ’10 J.J. Boehm, M.A., ’06 Ann Branch Alan Dore, B.A., ’10 Tim Inman Kristen Wenzel, B.A., ’93 Jan Poppe Carlos Ramet GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Jill Allardyce, M.A., ’06 Katelyn Heins, student PHOTOGRAPHERS Adam Baudoux, B.A., ’08 Tim Inman VIDEOGRAPHER Dan Goodell CONTRIBUTORS Jason Swackhamer, B.A., ’97, M.A., ’04 EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATION CONSULTANT Paul Chaffee EDITORIAL BOARD Jill Allardyce J.J. Boehm Ann Branch Tim Inman Jan Poppe Carlos Ramet Kevin Schultz, B.A., ’92 Kristen Wenzel REFLECTIONS2013 Magazine is published twice a year. Comments, suggestions and inquiries contact: Alumni Relations at Saginaw Valley State University • 7400 Bay Road University Center, MI 48710 Phone: (989) 964-4196 CONTACT THE UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS admissions@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4200 ALUMNI RELATIONS alumni@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4196 SVSU FOUNDATION foundation@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4052 CAREER PLANNING & PLACEMENT careers@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4954 CENTER FOR BUSINESS & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT lhaas@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-7015 CONFERENCE & EVENTS CENTER (Box Office) BoxOffice@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4261 DIVERSITY PROGRAMS: mtthorns@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4068 GRADUATE PROGRAMS: gradadm@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-6096

D. Brian Law, Chairman & C.E.O. Magline, Inc. Brian Law and SVSU: • Board of Control • Foundation Board • Co-Chair of the 50th anniversary campaign

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REFLECTIONS2013

MARSHALL M. FREDERICKS SCULPTURE MUSEUM mfsm@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-7125

OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE jap@svsu.edu; P: (989) 964-4310

REFLECTIONS

REFLECTING ON OUR PAST AS WE APPROACH OUR 50TH ANNIVERSARY

CONTENTS 22 ON THE COVER: WICKES HALL – SVSU’S “OLD MAIN”

SVSU’s first significant architectural undertaking resulted in what is today called Wickes Hall.

It’s the closest a university on the cusp of its 50th birthday can come to an “Old Main,” the most venerable and venerated building on much older campuses.

31 PROFILES

Our human interest stories in this issue provide insight into the people who are in various ways connected to this special place.

52 ARCHITECTURE AS ART

A photo exposé that visually represents the SVSU campus as a timeless work of art.

64

SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENT SUCCESS

66

RED PRIDE

Five students pursue their passions, including a chemistry major who is preparing for doctoral studies; a confident vocalist who attributes much of her success to the people and opportunities at SVSU; and a trio of engineering students who created a “vermicompost dryer” for the SVSU greenhouse.

Read about your fellow alumni milestones.

svsu.edu/50 : Throughout 2013, special events, performances, programs and presentations will be part of SVSU’s 50th anniversary celebration.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

In the spring issue of Reflections2013, the name in the photo caption of new cardinal Avery Marie Markey was incorrect.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Your fellow SVSU alumni are very interested in reading about the milestones in your life. Send your updates, photos and ideas to: Kevin Schultz, director of alumni relations, Saginaw Valley State University, 7400 Bay Road, University Center MI 48710; FAX (989) 964-7038; or e-mail alumni@svsu.edu.

Like us on Facebook – facebook.com/svsualum REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 3

NEWSBRIEFS SVSU RECEIVES MAJOR GIFT OF ALUMINUM FROM GM A gift from GM of 1,000 pounds of aluminum was delivered to SVSU on September 11. According to Bob Tuttle, SVSU associate professor of mechanical engineering, the gift “will help our students learn about the metal-casting process and develop skills they need for the workforce.”

“GM Saginaw continually looks at creating and maintaining community relationships,” said Stephen Jenkins, plant manager at Saginaw Metal Castings.

“We are very pleased to continue our relationship with SVSU and donate these materials for the students utilize while continuing their education.”

FROM LEFT: BOB WHEELER, GM COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER; DENNIS RITA, GM AREA MANAGER, BOB TUTTLE, SVSU ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; MARK BAUER, GM MATERIALS TECHNICAL SPECIALIST

PLANS UNDERWAY FOR THE HIGHER LEARNING COMMISSION ACCREDITATION Sixty-five professional staff, faculty and administrators have been working since the summer of 2011 to review accreditation criteria and gather the evidence that will form the self-study narrative document that precedes a visit from The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) in March 2014.

The University’s last comprehensive site visit was in 2004.

HLC, a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, is the regional accrediting agency for SVSU. Accreditation is a voluntary, nongovernmental, peer-review process that includes an external review of a school’s ability to provide programs that meet specific criteria.

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Higher Learning Commission

SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Accredited status provides public certification of acceptable institutional quality, ensures the transferability of academic credits earned at an accredited institution and permits accredited schools to award federally-backed financial aid.

SVSU was first awarded accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in 1970; masters level programs were first accredited in 1974.

SVSU PROFESSOR EARNS HIGHLY SOUGHT HUMANITIES FELLOWSHIP Eric Gardner has earned his share of awards and research grants, but recently, the professor of English claimed a highlycompetitive fellowship from one of the most prestigious grantors in the United States.

For the 2012–13 academic year, Gardner received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, which includes a $50,400 award. Gardner plans to write the first comprehensive book on the Christian Recorder, a periodical of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, documenting its rise during the Civil War era and its importance as an outlet for black voices in that period.

NEH fellowships support higher education teachers and independent scholars pursuing advanced research. The program typically receives more than a thousand applications a year, but this

year only 80 fellowships were awarded nationwide. Gardner is one of only three Michigan professors to receive a fellowship.

A resident of Midland, Gardner teaches and studies American literature, with an emphasis on 19th century AfricanAmerican literature and culture. He is the author of the book “Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature,” a 2010 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and the winner of the 2010 EBSCOhost/Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize. Editor of three additional books, Gardner has recent essays in American Literary History and Early African American Print Culture in Theory and Practice.

Gardner joined the SVSU faculty in 1996.

He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ERIC GARDNER

OUTSTANDING COLLEGE CHEMISTRY TEACHER AWARD GOES TO SVSU’S K ARPOVICH The Midland Section of the American Chemistry Society selected David Karpovich, 1992, B.S., as the region’s Outstanding College Chemistry Teacher Award recipient for 2012. The award is presented annually to an individual in Bay, Gratiot, Isabella, Midland or Saginaw counties who makes a substantial contribution to science learning through his or her own voluntary efforts.

“Dr. Karpovich is an exemplary instructor,” said Deborah Huntley, dean of SVSU’s College of Science, Engineering & Technology. “He is down-to-earth, yet professional, and very clear in the expectations he holds for his students. He holds a strong conviction that research is a key component of a strong undergraduate education, which is why he incorporates

hands-on experience. Plus, he brings just enough humor to the classroom to sustain student attention, but without sacrificing the message or the importance of the topic.”

Karpovich joined the SVSU faculty in 1998 and accepted an appointment as the H.H. Dow Endowed Chair in Chemistry in 2010. He teaches courses in general, analytical and environmental chemistry; he also leads a tutoring program where SVSU students volunteer in local high schools.

A resident of Gagetown, Karpovich completed a Ph.D. at Michigan State University and a bachelor’s degree at SVSU. He received the award at the annual American Chemical Society recognition banquet Thursday, May 3.

DAVID KARPOVICH

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 5

NEWSBRIEFS

SVSU SIGNS MENTORSHIP AGREEMENT WITH PENTECOST UNIVERSITY COLLEGE IN GHANA

DONALD BACHAND, ERIC GILBERTSON, PETER OHENE-KYEI AND K.B. OMANE-ANTWI

SVSU has agreed to mentor an African university’s development of key academic programs in the sciences, engineering and mathematics. SVSU President Eric Gilbertson and Pentecost University College Rector Peter Ohene-Kyei formally authorized an “institutional mentorship relationship” agreement at the Aug. 20 signing ceremony. Also participating were Donald Bachand, SVSU provost (far left) and K.B. Omane-Antwi, Pentecost vice rector (far right).

Under the agreement, faculty in SVSU’s College of Science, Engineering & Technology will mentor Pentecost faculty in engineering, health and computing.

Pentecost is seeking accreditation of several academic programs, beginning with applied mathematics and computer systems. The relationship also calls for student exchanges between SVSU and Pentecost and for exploring faculty exchanges and joint research projects in disciplines such as biology, chemistry,

computer science, electrical and computer engineering, mathematics, mechanical engineering and physics.

The two schools previously signed an agreement for general academic cooperation and exchange in October 2011. Pentecost University College is a rapidly growing institution in the West African nation of Ghana. It opened with 171 students in 2005 and has more than 3,800 students today.

SVSU APPOINTS ALUMNUS AS NEW I.T. DIRECTOR This summer, the university hired James M. Maher II as executive director of information technology.

Previously, Maher worked as an information technology manager at Covenant HealthCare since 1997. He began his new role at SVSU in mid-August, when he took on an important role for improving information technology services to students, faculty and staff.

Maher completed a bachelor’s degree at SVSU in 1982 and is the current president of the SVSU Alumni Association; he also holds an M.B.A. from Central Michigan University.

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SVSU STUDENTS AND FACULTY HELP LOCAL MIDDLE-SCHOOLERS LEARN MATH

JOSEPH OFORI-DANKWA AT RUBEN DANIELS MIDDLE SCHOOL IN SAGINAW

This summer, SVSU and Saginaw Public Schools teamed up to respond to a perennial problem: students’ low math scores.

Based on a model that Wayne State University has used in Detroit schools, SVSU’s six-week pilot program balanced classroom sessions with one-on-one learning. Personal tutoring came from local high school and college students with proven skill in mathematics.

Meanwhile, classroom sessions were led by faculty and staff from SVSU’s education and math departments, as well as Deborah Huntley, dean of the College of Science, Engineering & Technology.

The program began with a need. For several years, Ruben Daniels students

have not achieved state standards for adequate yearly progress in math, so Saginaw Public Schools approached SVSU for help.

“What amazed me was how quickly we were able to get it started,” said Joseph Ofori-Dankwa, Wickes Endowed Chair in International Business at SVSU. “From initial idea to implementation, we put it all together within two and a half months.”

Student mentors came primarily from Saginaw high schools and SVSU. “We wanted to create a community that is very science-oriented,” said OforiDankwa. “We wanted kids to have a fascination with math and enjoy it.”

SVSU HOSTS RUR AL HEALTH CONFERENCE, INTRODUCES NEW DOCTOR OF NURSING PR ACTICE The College of Health & Human Services hosted the Rural Health Conference Monday, June 18, in SVSU’s Regional Education Center. Attended by more than 100 people, the event offered insights on rural health care and an overview of SVSU’s new Doctor of Nursing Practice degree.

The conference featured Julee Waldrop, clinical associate professor in the College of Nursing at the University

of Central Florida, who discussed the importance of the Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree. The D.N.P. degree was approved by SVSU’s Board of Control in December in response to changing professional requirements. Beginning in 2015, nurse practitioners will be required to obtain a practice doctorate to become licensed.

JULEE WALDROP

BAY CITY STATE RECREATIONAL AREA BEACH CLEANUP

ADAM ROSS, DAVE CLARK AND DEVIN PASHAK

Adam Ross of Hemlock, Dave Clark of Pinconning and Devin Pashak of Pinconning, all 2012, B.S.M.E., teamed with Duperon Corporation to design and build a machine that removes “muck” from the beach at the Bay City Recreation area. The team hopes that this type of technology will one day restore the beach to a tourist attraction and a place for family fun.

The beach, once an area that tourists and locals visited, now receives

fewer visitors because of foul odors and the feel of muck underfoot. The mechanical engineering students chose the “muckraker” as their senior project because, according to Clark, “it was the most challenging [project], it had the biggest impact on the environment and it would benefit Bay City. We’re all from around the Bay City area, so we wanted to help out however we could.”

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 7

NEWSBRIEFS

STUDENTS SELECTED FOR DISTINGUISHED INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP PROGRAM Twelve students will learn what it takes to become exceptional leaders, after being selected for one of SVSU’s most prestigious undergraduate programs.

Roberts Fellows are supported through a two-semester program of both academic course work and extracurricular activities designed to further develop their potential

as future political, economic and civic leaders. To provide the Fellows with an international perspective, the program culminates in a three-week trip across China, Taiwan and Japan.

To qualify, students must have completed between 48 and 100 credit hours with a minimum grade point average of 3.40 and pass a rigorous selection process.

Students are chosen based upon their academic accomplishment, a record of university and community service and other evidence of leadership potential.

THE 2012-13 CLASS OF ROBERTS FELLOWS ARE: (from left to right, front row) Jesse Place, a science secondary education major from Boyne City, Marlin Jenkins, a creative writing major from Woodhaven, Veronica Kirk, a political science major from Merrill, Jordan Killop, a biology major from Armada, Rebecca Lamey, a criminal justice and sociology double major from Ithaca, Danielle Burelle, a social studies elementary education major from Sterling Heights, (from left to right, second row) Douglas Eck, an exercise science major from Ada, Kristen Tomczyk, an athletic training major from Lapeer, Rehana Khan-Brown, a history major from Bay City, Emily Sullivan, a political science and criminal justice double major from Cass City, Andrew Northrop, a social work major from St. Clair, and Justin Brouckaert, a creative writing and English literature major from Harbor Springs. (from left to right, back row: SVSU faculty) Jules Gehrke, assistant professor of history, Monika Dix, assistant professor of modern foreign language, Andrew Swihart, professor of psychology, Drew Hinderer, Finkbeiner Endowed Chair in Ethics, and Carol Zimmermann, interim assistant dean, College of Arts & Behavioral Sciences.

Established in 1999, the program is named in honor of Donna Roberts of Midland, who demonstrated an outstanding commitment to SVSU through her personal generosity and prior service on the Board of Control and the Board of Fellows.

A respected attorney, business leader and philanthropist, Roberts retired from The Dow Chemical Company, where she was secretary and assistant general counsel. She is an honorary director of the SVSU Foundation Board. (A profile of Donna Roberts appears on Page 32.)

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SVSU’S 2012 FALL FOCUS SERIES CENTERS ON WORLD’S DIFFICULT DECISIONS On Oct. 25, 2012, in the ninth annual James E. O’Neill Jr. Memorial Lecture, writer Robert Edsel will tell the story of the Monuments Men – a group of art lovers who chased down great works stolen by the Nazis during World War II and saved them from ultimate destruction.

Edsel’s presentation is part of the 2012 Fall Focus series at SVSU. This year’s

series – titled “Roles and Responsibilities: Ethical Responses to Revolutionary Change” – examines the sometimes blurred moral lines impacting society’s most vital decisions, in fields from global affairs and genetic engineering to economic revitalization.

During the series, renowned thinkers examine how to wisely respond to difficult issues in times of great uncertainty. Eight

speakers – leaders, experts and authors – frame complex issues with unique perspectives and explore world problems through a lens of ethics and consequence.

Presentations include talks from Dow Visiting Scholars and Artists, the Edwards Lecture, the O’Neill Memorial Lecture and the 10th annual Hoffman-Willertz Lecture. Below are descriptions of those still to come.

UPCOMING LECTURES

Monday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m.

Kwame Anthony Appiah — “The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen” Rhea Miller Recital Hall

Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m.

Carma Hinton — “History in Images: The Making of ‘Gate of Heavenly Peace’” Rhea Miller Recital Hall

What does it take to transform moral understanding into moral behavior?

That’s the question being posed by one of America’s leading intellectuals, Princeton University professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. In his talk, Appiah explores the mysteries of moral revolution and the power of two forces: honor and shame.

As president of the PEN American Center, the internationally acclaimed literary and human rights association, Appiah was awarded a National Humanities Medal by the White House in 2012. Having earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Cambridge, England, he has been called one of Foreign Policy’s top 100 global thinkers and taught at Harvard and Yale, among other universities.

Award-winning director Carma Hinton will recount one of her most challenging projects: a film about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. With clips and outtakes from the finished product, Hinton will discuss the difficulties of choosing which material to keep and which to discard, along with the ethics and craft of nonfiction film.

Born in Beijing, Hinton completed a Ph.D. in art history at Harvard University and has directed 15 documentary films.

Her work has been shown at festivals and on television programs worldwide, winning two Peabody Awards, the American Historical Association’s O’Connor Film Award, and both the International Critics Prize and the Best Social and Political Documentary award at the Banff Television Festival.

Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m.

Jules Gehrke — “The Dilemmas of a New Era: Collectivism and Individualism in the Victorian City” Founders Hall To conclude the series, SVSU associate professor of history Jules Gehrke will give the 10th annual Hoffman-Willertz Lecture.

Gehrke will explore one moment at the turn of the 20th century in Britain and will examine its lessons for the political and economic situation faced by the United States today.

Gehrke, who joined SVSU in 2007, specializes in late 19th and early 20th century British reformist political movements. A resident of Midland, he teaches classes in both world and modern European history while also serving as the special assistant to the provost for programs of distinction.

The Hoffman-Wilertz Memorial Lecture is named for the late Bill Hoffman and John Willertz, founding members of the history department at SVSU, and who together accounted for more than 60 years of dedicated service.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 9

NEWSBRIEFS

REMODELED CENTER IN WICKES HALL CONSOLIDATES FINANCIAL SERVICES With recent remodeling, SVSU has made students’ financial transactions easier and more efficient.

On Wickes Hall’s first floor, SVSU unveiled a $1.2 million Campus Financial Services Center, which opened for business Aug. 3. The project revamped the registrar’s office and consolidated

CAMPUS FINANCIAL SERVICES CENTER

CARDINAL GYM

10 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

the cashier’s office, helping to eliminate much of the waiting students previously experienced.

“It was designed to create ‘one-stop shopping’ for our students and all members of the university community,” said James Muladore, SVSU executive vice president for administration & business affairs.

Toward the southeast part of campus, the west entrance to Cardinal Gymnasium was also updated to include a new driveway for athletic team buses. In addition, a crew re-landscaped the area and created new seating near the entrance to the facility, which was constructed 40 years ago.

THIRD ANNUAL HALL OF FAME CLASS ANNOUNCED The SVSU athletic department announced the third class of the Cardinal Athletic Hall of Fame: Dave Bertie, Kathy Kinasz, Jason Valenzuela and Steve Zott.

The 2012 class was formally inducted into the Hall of Fame at a dinner ceremony Sept. 14, and was honored the following night at halftime of the Cardinal football game against the University of Findlay.

Kathy Kinasz holds 12 different Cardinal softball pitching records from her 1989–92 career. These include career pitching records for appearances (135), starts (119), victories (88), innings pitched (793.2) and complete games (88). Kinasz is also at the top of many single season records, including appearances (55), starts (53), victories (42), innings pitched (347.2), complete games (41) and earned run average (0.73). She was selected as a First Team NCAA All-American in 1992 after leading the nation in strikeouts (265) and victories (42). After 20 seasons, she still ranks in the top-10 in several single season marks: games (55), innings pitched (347.7), games started (53) and victories (42).

Steve Zott, a Saginaw Valley State quarterback, led the team to its first playoff appearance as a senior in 1979. Playing from 1976–79, he is fourth on the team’s career lists for pass attempts (669), completions (336), yards (4,459), touchdowns (35) and total offense (4,716).

As a senior, he earned NAIA All-American Honorable Mention, as well as the team MVP award in both 1978 and 1979. He was also selected First Team All-GLIAC in 1979 and was a two-time recipient of the Golden Helmet Award, given to the football player with the highest grade point average. Zott is fourth alltime at SVSU in pass attempts (669), completions (336), yards (4,459), touchdowns (35) and total offense (4,716).

Dave Bertie served as the SVSU head athletic trainer from 1980–96, designing the current Saginaw Valley athletic training room as well as policies and procedures still in place today.

He has been a certified athletic trainer for more than 20 years and established the athletic training education internship program at SVSU. During his time at SVSU, Bertie was responsible for the development and safety of all 12 sports teams, and developed beneficial relationships with many of the area’s physicians. Bertie is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Teacher Education at SVSU and has taught physical education in the Bay City School District since 1996.

Jason Valenzuela was a baseball All-American in 2000, after recording a .448 batting average and 86 hits, both Saginaw Valley school records. Valenzuela is also the Cardinal career leader in batting average (.410), while ranking sixth in stolen bases (50). In his two seasons at SVSU, Jason led the Cardinals to back-to-back GLIAC Championships, including a school-record 40 wins in 2000 and a regional championship game appearance. In 2001, the SVSU baseball squad compiled a 35–10 record, including a 22–5 GLIAC record and another regional championship game appearance.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 11

NEWSBRIEFS

SVSU PITCHER DR AFTED BY THE CINCINNATI REDS

MIKE SAUNDERS

On June 6, Mike Saunders — a baseball pitcher for SVSU — was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the 2012 Major League Baseball’s First-Year Player Draft.

“I was so excited and didn’t know what to say,” said the native of Mt. Morris, Mich.

“I just stood there speechless as I hugged my family and girlfriend.”

In his time at SVSU, Saunders set a school baseball record for lowest earned run average in a single season, with a 1.23 ERA in 73.1 innings of work. He went 7–2 in 10 starts with eight complete games, as opponents hit just .188 against him.

Saunder’s ERA was the lowest in the conference and second in all of Division II. He also tallied 72 strikeouts this season, the third best total in the conference.

In his career, Saunders was also selected to the 2012 GLIAC Baseball AllConference First Team, as well as to the GLIAC Baseball All-Tournament Team, after he threw a five hit complete game, allowing just one unearned run while striking out seven batters to eliminate Ashland University.

“I have worked so hard for this day,” Saunders said, “and [I] cannot wait to show my talent and represent Saginaw Valley in the big leagues.”

For the second consecutive season, the SVSU football team played a nationally televised game on CBS College Sports. The Thursday, Oct. 11. game, which pitted the Cardinals against Wayne State University, showcased the GLIAC’s two NCAA-playoff teams from the 2011 season.

12 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT SELECTS NEW COACHES, TR AINER The Athletics Department saw several changes this year, including the hiring of a new head softball coach, a head basketball coach, and the promotion of a staff member to head athletic trainer.

RANDY BARUTH

TODD BUCKINGHAM

JEREMY GLASER

Heading basketball this year is Randy Baruth, a South Dakota native who spent last season at the University of Utah as the director of player development.

Throughout his 10 seasons in college basketball, Baruth has been a part of successful programs at numerous collegiate levels. Before his stint at Utah under head coach and former NBA player Larry Krystkowiak, he was the director of basketball operations at Colorado State University under then-head coach Tim Miles. Baruth is very familiar with NCAA Division II basketball, having spent seven years as an assistant at Northern State University and North Dakota State University. While at Northern State University, he was the top assistant to then-head coach Don Meyer, who is ranked second in all-time victories in men’s college basketball history with 923 career wins.

A native of Alpena, S.D., Baruth was a 1996 South Dakota Mr. Basketball finalist.

Leading women’s softball this year is Todd Buckingham, an Indiana native who spent the past six seasons coaching at Indiana University Southeast. He amassed a 186–111 record while leading the school to six straight Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles and three NAIA postseason appearances, including an Elite 8 game in 2012. He was named KIAC Coach of the Year twice and NAIA Regional Coach of the Year in 2008. During his 11 seasons in collegiate softball, Buckingham compiled a 263–252 overall record in his stops at IU Southeast and Bluefield State College in West Virginia.

A native of Corydon, Ind., Buckingham completed a bachelor’s degree in biology education at Olivet Nazarene University in 1998. Prior to entering college coaching, he taught science at South Central Junior/Senior High School in Elizabeth, Ind., for one year and then taught science and math at St. Joseph School in Corydon, Ind., from 1999 to 2001.

Leading the Cardinal athletic training staff is Jeremy Glaser, who was promoted to head athletic trainer in May 2012.

Glaser came to SVSU in 2010 from Eastern New Mexico University, where he spent two seasons. Prior to ENMU, he was a graduate assistant athletic trainer at South Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D., from 2005–2007. Glaser is a member of the National Athletic Training Association and has been board-certified since 2005.

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1980s

SVSU/WORLD HISTORY THE THIRD OF FIVE WORLD AND SVSU COMPARATIVE TIMELINES LEADING UP TO THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY

1982

SVSC’s men’s track & field team captures a GLIAC and an NAIA national championship.

July 27, AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is identified.

1980

Head football coach and athletic director Muddy Waters resigns from SVSC to coach at Michigan State University.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated on November 13.

Michael Jackson releases Thriller on November 30.

1983

Saginaw Valley State College celebrates its 20th anniversary.

The first international students enroll during the spring semester, marking the beginning of a commitment to increase the school’s global enrollment.

SVSC receives funding for the Instructional Building Facility No. 2 project, which includes three facilities: Maurice E. Brown Hall, the Science Building and the Melvin J. Zahnow Library.

The nation elects Ronald Reagan its president.

On May 18, Mt. St. Helens, a volcano in Washington, erupts resulting in one of the most disastrous geological events in American history.

The final episode of M*A*S*H airs on February 28.

On June 18, the Challenger space shuttle launches into space with Sally K. Ride, the first American woman to travel in Space.

1981

The Council of State College Presidents votes in favor of establishing SVSC’s engineering program.

Solidarity, an independent labor union, forms and eventually becomes the catalyst for the Soviet Union’s demise.

1984

SVSC hires assistant professor Ghulam H. Raz as the first faculty member for its engineering program.

Lady Diana Spencer (Princess Diana) and Prince Charles wed on July 29.

Eugene Hamilton is promoted to dean of continuing education and international programs.

August 12, the IBM computer is released.

The Detroit Tigers defeat the San Diego Padres to win the World Series on October 14.

14 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

1987

The Michigan Legislature approves renaming Saginaw Valley State College as Saginaw Valley State University.

1985

The Council of Academic Vice Presidents of State Universities of Michigan approves the master of arts in criminal justice and political science program.

In the early morning hours on April 24, fire destroys Wickes Annex, causing $380,000 in damage.

Mikhail Gorbachev is elected president, the last leader of the Soviet Union.

On September 1, the Titanic is discovered.

An 8.1 magnitude Earthquake rattles Mexico City on September 19.

The Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Gallery officially opens June 13.

1986

SVSC breaks ground on the Arbury Fine Arts Center, which will include the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum.

On October 19, the Stock Market crashes; it is the largest single-day point drop since 1914.

The world’s population reaches 5 billion.

The Earl L. Warrick Excellence in Research Award, an annual award given to a deserving faculty member, is announced.

On January 28, 73 seconds into its flight, Space Shuttle Challenger explodes.

On April 26, The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant malfunctions, resulting in the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

1989

Jack Ryder resigns as president of SVSU, ending a 15-year career. In November, Eric Gilbertson becomes SVSU’s third president.

The softball team wins an NAIA national championship.

1988

The Arbury Fine Arts Center is dedicated.

Well-known English professor Raymond Tyner passes away; SVSU eventually creates the Tyner Writing Awards in his honor.

With the aid of West Germans, East German citizens climb over the Berlin Wall as it begins to fall, symbolizing the ending of the Cold War. Nintendo introduces the first portable gaming system, the Game Boy, in Japan.

The Soviet Union begins to withdraw from Afghanistan.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 15

svsu S

PREPARING PROFESSIONALS TO MEET MICHIGAN’S NEEDS:

NURSING ACCOUNTING EDUCATION

Getting a job. That’s the ultimate wish for SVSU students – and for most parents – upon completing college. Nine of the top 12 occupations on the “Michigan’s Hot 50” list for projected job openings through 2018 require a college degree. Three of the top five – those with more than 1,000 projected job openings each year – are in fields where SVSU has well-established programs and strong reputations: nursing, accounting and education.

16 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Meeting the needs of employers in Michigan and the Great Lakes Bay Region has been central to SVSU’s mission from the beginning. University leaders are in regular dialog with the heads of hospitals, accounting firms, school districts and many other organizations to shape curriculum, forge partnerships and respond to changes within professions.

These regional leaders agree that SVSU is well-positioned and well-prepared to deliver highly qualified graduates, and recent alumni in those fields attest that their SVSU education prepared them well to succeed in their chosen careers.

NURSES NEEDED Nothing compares to nursing when it comes to job opportunities in Michigan. Students starting at SVSU this fall have been hearing about a coming national nursing shortage for most of their lives (at least if they were paying attention to the news), but job openings in the field show no signs of slowing down by the time they will graduate.

Michigan is expected to offer more than 3,000 open positions for registered nurses annually through 2018; in Bay, Midland and Saginaw counties alone, 825 job openings are forecast by 2014. Both of these projections far outpace job-growth projections for any other profession.

In the Great Lakes Bay Region, health care is a major industry. Its four major hospitals – Covenant HealthCare, McLaren-Bay Region, MidMichigan Medical Center and St.

Mary’s of Michigan – employ more than 11,000 people combined. Those institutions, and the Aleda Lutz VA Medical Center, form a health care hub that serves a massive section of the state, drawing patients from across the Thumb and north to the Mackinac Bridge.

Ellen Talbott, 1999, M.S.N, vice president of patient care services at McLaren-Bay Region (formerly known as Bay Regional Medical Center), said the poor economy has caused some nurses to postpone retirement, but their careers will come to a close eventually.

“With a large number of [nurses] in their 50s and 60s, we are fully expecting to face that issue,” she said.

While delivering quality patient care is always important, Talbott says she is looking for more than that simple ability when making hiring decisions.

“I’m looking for somebody who shows evidence of a willingness to learn,” she said. “There’s a lot to learn in this field, so I want somebody who has that enthusiasm.

I also look for evidence of good critical thinking skills; a strong communicator, somebody I believe is compassionate and someone who is focused on service excellence.

And ... we’re looking to find potential future nurse leaders.”

Talbott credits SVSU for producing graduates that meet those criteria and for sharing knowledge of industry trends.

“They are good partners with us and are aware of what’s happening innovatively in the country,” she said, but she reserves her greatest praise for SVSU’s ability to break down barriers and bring hospitals together for the region’s common good.

“All the hospitals connect together through Saginaw Valley,” she said. “Hospitals are competitive

places, and you don’t necessarily make a lot of connections. So these are nice opportunities to come together as a region and talk about what nursing should look like as a region.”

Those discussions played a role in SVSU’s decision to offer a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree for nurse practitioners, who play an increasing role in providing primary care.

Beginning in 2015, a D.N.P. will be the necessary credential, replacing a master’s degree. In another example of an emerging program designed to benefit students and employers, SVSU is also working with McLarenBay Region to direct nursing students to a residency before they graduate.

“A nurse residency is our program to bring people into the hospital,” Talbott explained. “They would start the summer before they are hired here and get to have some special experiences and learn some concepts related to hospital nursing.”

Hospitals aren’t the only option for nurses, of course. They have opportunities in home health care and other settings, as well, and all of those employers want to attract the top candidates. For McLarenBay Region and the region’s other leading health care providers, the collaboration with SVSU’s nursing program produces better results for all parties.

“I think we’re bringing to Saginaw Valley real world hospital-based nursing from a practical standpoint,” Talbott said, “and [SVSU] is bringing to us very distinct information and helping us to drive forward.”

That means better outcomes for patients and a healthy job market for SVSU graduates.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 17

ACCOUNTING: “BUSINESS IS PICKING UP”

NURSING

Some students are passionate about a particular field the moment they enter college. Others weigh their options. Count Justin Grifka, 2008, B.S.N., among the latter.

“I was actually going to be a history teacher,” the Bad Axe native recalled, “but the job market wasn’t there and I enjoy the sciences, so I pursued nursing.”

Good decision. Grifka already has been promoted to an intensive care unit coordinator at McLarenBay Region.

“It’s been a good experience,” he said. “Every day there’s a new challenge or something different to do.

I still get to do the handson portion with patients, just not full time; I also do management and work with finances and education, to create methods that educate staff to

better care for patients so that patient outcomes are improved.”

Like many students, Grifka recalls complaining about all the “extra” classes he was required to take outside his major. After a few years in the workforce, he sees their value and compliments SVSU for its academic rigor.

“They make you take a broad range of general education classes. When you’re taking them, you’re thinking, ‘Why am I taking a history class if I want to be a nursing major?’ But it actually makes you a wellrounded individual.”

Grifka has ambitious professional plans to become a nurse practitioner and is already back at SVSU working toward a master’s degree.

18 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

S

John Kunitzer, 1973, B.B.A., has encouraging words for those studying accounting.

“It’s a profession that I think if you do well in school and you’ve got a good personality, you should be able to find a job relatively easily.”

That claim comes from a credible source and someone who will be making hiring decisions. Kunitzer has seen several economic cycles during his 15 years as CEO of Yeo & Yeo, a Saginaw-based accounting and business consulting firm. Beyond accounting, he is convinced that the business environment in Michigan – and the Great Lakes Bay Region – is improving.

“What we’ve noticed in the last 18-24 months now is that business is picking up again; private industry is expanding their hiring because they have needs there,” he said.

That bodes well for business in general, because accounting positions are often among the last to be added.

“Sometimes accountants are called the necessary evil in the workplace because we’re administration, we’re overhead,” Kunitzer explained, “but somebody’s got to do all the

JOHN KUNITZER, (YEO & YEO), DON MCANELLY (REHMANN), BILL MULDERS (ANDREW HOOPER PAVLIK)

work and the analysis to determine whether we’re making profits and analyzing what directions companies should be going in. I think as business expands, you’ll see that the need for accountants is going to continue to expand in both private and public industry.”

That means the projection of nearly 1,300 annual openings statewide may be conservative, because competition on the hiring front is intensifying, and not just among accounting firms.

As he spoke in late June, Kunitzer had recently lost employees to The Dow Chemical Company and Nexteer Automotive. “We’re losing people to them that we normally didn’t lose.”

Kunitzer also had six openings for experienced accountants, all of which points to a growing demand.

Kunitzer remains in periodic

S

ACCOUNTING

Estee Bowman, 2006, B.P.A, appreciates completing her education and building a good career close to home. The Bay City native started working for the accounting firm Andrews Hooper Pavlik right after graduation; today she’s a manager in her hometown.

“One of the nice things about our firm in particular,” she said, “is that a lot of accounting firms put you into either an audit or tax path right from the beginning, and in our firm you get a choice; you get experience in both, so it’s a really wellrounded experience.”

For students considering accounting as a career, Bowman encourages them to seek internships and attend career fairs. She also stresses that knowing how to balance the books is

contact with SVSU accounting professors Larry Kickham and Mark McCartney to exchange information, and there is a standing offer for Yeo & Yeo staff to speak to classes.

With more than 175 employees in seven locations statewide, Yeo & Yeo recruits across Michigan, and Kunitzer says SVSU accounting students and graduates compare well.

“We hire a number of them,” he said. “We think that they are qualified, that it’s a good program. They come in prepared. One of the things we like about SVSU is that a lot of the people are local, and we like to hire local people from the standpoint that they have more of a tendency to stay here.”

Contrary to the popular stereotype of working in a dimly lit room under a desk lamp, Kunitzer says modern accountants must possess the ability

to perform more than the technical demands of the job.

“We look at the personalities of people,” he said. “We’ve got to be out there in public, and we’ve got to be able to work and relate with people on a personal basis. So, you look for personality characteristics that include getting along with people, conversing well, communicating well, and having a positive attitude.”

For Kunitzer, it’s easy to have a positive outlook on the profession.

“It is a very challenging and rewarding profession,” he said. “It’s a changing world out there, and if you like challenges, it’s simply just a good field to get into.”

In accounting, the numbers add up to promising prospects for regional employers and SVSU.

important, but much more is needed.

“It’s not all about the number crunching,” she said. “A lot of what we do is actually [writing] reports.

Writing is a big part of it, so don’t discount that, to think that ‘Oh, I’m just going to be a numbers person.’ There’s a lot of writing, speaking, presentations to committees, those types of things.”

As a student, Bowman enjoyed the diverse composition of her classmates.

“I think that there’s such a well-rounded student body at Saginaw Valley; kids that stay on campus, people that commute, people of all different ages, people right out of high school, people that are coming back. I think that helps you in your career path.”

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 19

EDUCATION ON THE REBOUND It has been a tumultuous few years for public education in Michigan.

Funding cuts, tenure changes and attitudes about public school teachers have dominated the headlines. So it may come as a surprise to many that elementary school teachers – other than in special education – are No. 5 on the list of Michigan jobs in high demand through 2018. More than 1,200 statewide openings are forecast for each year.

Those who believe that educators are overpaid, underworked and unwilling to embrace change are likely to be shocked by what Adele Martin, 1993, B.A., principal of List Elementary School in Frankenmuth, has to say.

“I would say that lawmakers have it right,” she said. “We absolutely, positively need the very best and brightest in our classrooms and in front of students.”

That doesn’t mean Martin agrees with the naysayers.

“I don’t think that there’s any other profession where people care more or put in the time and energy. These people don’t shut their brains down.

At Friday on the last day of school at 3:05, they’re already planning the next lesson that night. It’s not a job; it’s something that they live.”

Teaching is sometimes described as more of a calling than a vocation.

SVSU requires its education students to perform hundreds of hours of observation and field work in schools

20 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

prior to student teaching, and Martin believes that is an essential element of teacher preparation.

“There are people who should be teachers and people who should maybe choose a different career because they’re just not classroom material, and I think that Saginaw Valley does a really nice job of finding people who belong in a classroom with kids.”

For those who are convinced that the classroom is their calling, Martin advises gaining proficiency in a skill increasingly valued in business: teamwork.

“We think of teaching as an isolated profession,” she said, “where you just go into your classroom, but that is not the case.

What we’ve learned is that the best teachers are the ones who get out of their classroom and do a lot of collaboration.”

Martin returned to List Elementary this fall with international experiences to share, having traveled to China and Taiwan after completing SVSU’s Gerstacker Fellowship, a concentrated leadership development program for K-12 educators endowed by a gift from the Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation in Midland. But she doesn’t have to search far to find examples of magical moments of learning.

“When you get a teacher who belongs in the classroom, it’s amazing,” Martin said. “I have a whole school full of them, and a lot of them are from SVSU.”

PREPARED PROFESSIONALS While the recent graduates profiled say job prospects were on their mind, as a rule college students usually don’t spend much time poring over employment statistics and job forecasts. Their goals are more immediate: filling a course schedule and meeting graduation requirements, finding fulfillment in extracurricular pursuits and working a job to make ends meet and gain work experience.

They rightly expect their university to keep a finger on the pulse of a rapidly changing professional landscape.

In the “hot jobs” of today in nursing, accounting and teaching, and in other disciplines that may become highdemand fields — SVSU remains true to its teaching mission to provide its students proper preparation. Students’ side of the bargain, beyond their studies, is to pursue internships and relevant work experience while still in college.

It is a formula that has worked well. As SVSU prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2013, its place in the Great Lakes Bay Region is well established and its influence extends well beyond campus.

Every day, alumni are providing health care to families throughout the region; auditing the books of businesses, school boards and other organizations; and teaching the next generation of college students and future employees.

TOP 10 FROM THE TOP 50 LIST

REPRESENTATIVES

3. TRUCK DRIVERS,

HEAVY AND TRACTOR-TRAILER

4. ACCOUNTANTS AND AUDITORS 5. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS,

EXCEPT SPECIAL EDUCATION

6. LICENSED PRACTICAL AND

LICENSED VOCATIONAL NURSES

7. INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS 8. COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYSTS 9. HUMAN RESOURCES, TRAINING,

AND LABOR RELATIONS SPECIALISTS

10. NETWORK SYSTEMS AND DATA

COMMUNICATIONS ANALYSTS

Source: Michigan Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives

EDUCATION

1. REGISTERED NURSES 2. CUSTOMER SERVICE

Megan Stimson, 2010, B.A., knew she wanted to be a teacher, but she didn’t know if she’d get the chance.

“I wanted to give up and go into something different just because I thought ‘I’m never going to find a job,’ she said.

But giving up didn’t come easily to the young woman from Brown City, and Stimson had watched her two older sisters graduate from SVSU, so she continued to pursue her dream. She also took advantage of special opportunities. Through America Learns, a federal workstudy program directed toward community service for education students, she spent one year in Bay City Public Schools and then five years in Saginaw Public Schools at Arthur Eddy Academy.

“Having that exposure in the educational system so early in my career made a big difference. I actually had five job offers when I graduated from college.”

Stimson completed the Tri-City trifecta and took a job with Midland Public Schools. She has taught at Jefferson Middle School for two years.

Stimson was willing to move out of state, but she’s happy about remaining near family and planning a future in the Great Lakes Bay Region.

“This is where I have lived for the past six years, and I want to continue my life here in this area.” And in her chosen career.

“I’m glad I stuck with it because there is nothing more rewarding than teaching; making a difference in someone’s life each and every day is the biggest reward there can be.”

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 21

At SVSU, the first significant architectural undertaking resulted in Wickes Hall. It’s the closest a university on the cusp of its 50th birthday can come to an “Old Main,” the most venerable and venerated building on much older campuses. But Wickes Hall has a story to tell – one that’s at the core of higher education in the Saginaw Valley.

In 1963, SVSU’s founders typed up our articles of incorporation, words that said a school existed, even if there were no buildings on the present site. Instead, the first classes took place in September 1964 in the basement of Delta College. The charter establishing a baccalaureatedegree granting institution, an institution that eventually would move just down the road, was personally secured by the generosity of 10 incorporators – individuals with names that ring familiar to anyone who visits the university today: names like Doan, Brown, Groening, Zahnow, and Wickes.

And there is another name familiar to many, Michigan’s architect-laureate, Alden B. Dow, whose blueprints are at the inception of our “Old Main.”

By the dawn of 1969, the letters “S.V.C.” (for Saginaw Valley College) stood for little more than a water tower and a pair of single-floor buildings named by contractors for the years they were built (’66 and ’68). Although classes began on today’s campus in winter ’67, it wasn’t until 1969, as

22 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Ombudsman Dick Thompson tells it, that “we really began” with the opening of Wickes Hall.

In reality, Wickes Hall’s final design came about in an unusual way: through the work of three separate architectural firms. “That kind of collaboration is virtually unheard of,” says Steve Hocquard, assistant vice president of facilities planning & construction. But so it went: one firm from each part of what one document called the “the Golden Triangle” — Saginaw, Bay City and Midland — pooled resources to create a house for their joint-efforts university.

On campus, the building’s opening in September ’69 changed everything. Suddenly, SVC was, well, a school. At 107,000 square feet and a price of $4 million, “Instructional Facility No. 1” emerged as a four-story cube sheathed in glass, with offices, classrooms, labs, a bookstore and a library.

But what’s most interesting about the building was its role. Before Wickes Hall, the campus held its classes in its ’66 and ’68 buildings. When Wickes opened, academic activity made a cross-campus leapfrog. The new building reshuffled the way the whole college worked. It became the academic everything.

What we may not realize, though, is that the design of Wickes Hall did more than give us a place to learn. It gave

Who was Harvey Randall Wickes?

The building takes its name from Harvey Randall Wickes (1889–1974), grandson of Henry D. Wickes, co-founder of the Wickes Corporation.

Born in Saginaw, Wickes married Ruth Brady in 1915 before serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. As president of his family’s company, he established the Harvey Randall Wickes Foundation, dedicating its resources to scientific, educational and charitable projects, which in time would include scholarships, library books and the development of SVSU’s campus. In honor of his work, Wickes’s name adorns the campus’s Old Main and its football stadium.

The Harvey Randall Wickes Foundation has generously supported SVSU with several gifts to fund: • The original land purchase • Football Stadium • Library • Regional Education Center • Harvey Randall Wickes Endowed Chair in International Business • Harvey Randall Wickes Endowed Chair in Nursing • James V. Finkbeiner Chair in Ethics • Ruth and Ted Braun Fellowship • Annual Wickes Scholarship

us the framework for who we would become. In the 21st century, despite enrollments upwards of 10,500 and with myriad interconnected buildings crisscrossing the grounds, class sizes are still small and instruction remains personal.

The mission to teach is a constant and the holistic approach to education – a belief that it takes a village – is who we remain.

Not long after the opening of Old Main, that word “village” fit the school quite comfortably, especially during the physical move from the south campus to the central core. To transport books from the ’66 building to the space allocated as a library in Wickes Hall, employees and volunteers used a human chain: one person handed one book at a time to the next person in a communal effort to carry thousands of volumes from one end of the campus to the other.

Leading Wickes’s village were its “citizens,” including professors who — according to Jim Dwyer, 1976, B.A.; 1985, M.A.T., and today vice president for enrollment management — “imbued the place with their aura”: Raymond Tyner, the award-winning writer whose Socratic method was well-honed; Les Whittaker, a legend who taught a love for language for more than 40 years; Bill Hoffman, who lectured on history like a thunderstorm but always

opened by lighting a cigarette and drawling, “Now, where did I leave off?”

“Back then, we were all so stretched,” says Basil Clark, who has taught English at SVSU since 1975. He remembers reading up on medieval literature at night to lecture on it the next day. “I took the course along with the students,” he says, laughing. At that point, this juggling was common. But if Clark had a question about, say, Elizabethan England, the offices of almost any colleague, no matter the department, were close within Wickes Hall. It was education by team effort.

And as Dwyer puts it, Old Main reflected that small-town feeling — everyone knew everyone. Students hung out on the third floor concourse, not far from the president’s or faculty offices. Interaction among all was inevitable, Dwyer says. “You couldn’t help but look at each other.”

Sure, it cost a whopping 25 cents every time you parked in the gated lot, but on the bright side, between French and chemistry, you could walk outside and hunt pheasants. Back then, the staff climbed up to the fourth floor of Wickes Hall to throw Christmas parties in the boiler room.

And it all ties into who we are.

A school’s identity, that sense of who we are, is what business journals call its organizational culture — the

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 23

stories we tell, the beliefs we hold and the assumptions that undergird them: the very fabric of any group.

In our early years, professors taught in classes with blackboards and ashtrays and jointly worked to get a college off the ground. They were here because they cared. They laughed and taught in a cornfield – and created rites and rituals that formed a team and a trajectory. They formed an experiment in education, with a lot of human bonding.

Today, that legacy continues.

For years, Wickes Hall had been the nucleus of the university. But, as a cell would, the initial unit replicated, splitting off into five colleges, four of which now have buildings of their own.

In the early ’80s, as new buildings on campus underwent construction and Wickes’ life outgrew its carapace, developers brought in nine trailers. They connected the units, Lego-like, and used this “Wickes Annex” to house several departments. And as a whole, the arrangement worked well enough — until the night of April 24, 1985.

That’s a night Dick Thompson will never forget. “I remember standing next to President [Jack M.] Ryder, looking down at devastation.” Around two in the morning, staff gathered on Wickes Hall’s second floor, looking below through cracked glass. Beneath them, a fire devoured the annex. “Trailers, all going up, one after another,” Thompson

24 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

recalled. “And we couldn’t do anything.”

So much was destroyed: student records, financial statements, decades of photographs and memorabilia, $380,000 in property – both public and personal. In the span of a few hours, the college lost its admissions space, its information services, even its president’s office. “I didn’t know how we were going to recover,” Thompson said.

But his president had a plan. “Go home,” Ryder told his staff. “Get some sleep. Let’s meet tomorrow in the dorms.

Bring a pen and paper. We’ll figure this out.”

“And somehow,” Thompson says today, “we did.” Within two years of the fire, what had already been renamed SVSC (for Saginaw Valley State College) would become a state university with a new name, SVSU, and would open the Arbury Fine Arts Center, Brown Hall, the Science Building and Melvin J. Zahnow Library.

Other academic buildings came later: the Performing Arts Center, Groening Commons and Curtiss Hall, all in 1996; the Regional Education Center in 2003; expansion projects to the library, Pioneer Hall and the Arbury Fine Arts Center; and the Health & Human Services Building a mere two years ago.

But still at the heart of the expanded campus sits Old Main.

Wickes Hall first came together for the very reason we have higher education: to welcome a class of open minds and

be a transformational place. There, one could take a brain, three pounds of biological circuitry, and attempt to unlock its greatest potential.

You have to wonder if people knew “back then” that this red-bricked, pseudo-modern building would always be more than a site for learning. Talk to anyone who worked or studied here in the early days, and they will say that the sense of community and camaraderie that permeated Wickes Hall was always the soul of the campus.

Today, Wickes Hall doesn’t house the entire school, or even most of its classrooms. Like the ’66 and ’68 buildings before it, the “all we had” was reassigned administrative duties. It’s still the campus’s Old Main, but it’s no longer its academic everything.

Dwyer laughs at his memories of that time. “Today, you look back and say, ‘How did you ever function?’ But back then, Wickes was what we had. It was ours.”

Containment, it seems, was the right recipe for an institution of higher education: Throw a few hundred people and most of their daily doings into a single building, and inside that shell, they will forge a community. As humans, we’re hardwired in ways that suggest that when we live in a village – in close quarters – we collaborate more, innovate more, and we foster more feelings of kinship.

Today, there is a guest narrative you hear over and over: Visitors to the campus remark on how friendly it feels. Students again and again attest to how the institution somehow feels like both a big school and a small one, as though the best of both apply to one place.

And Wickes, Old Main, will always change to fit student needs. Its latest facelift, revealed just this August, transformed the first floor into a $1.2 million Campus Financial Services Center. “It’s designed to cut down on the time people spend waiting,” says Hocquard, one of the designers.

But for the university, the building has been a fundamental gift, integral to SVSU’s DNA. Despite all its changes, Wickes Hall stands as a testament to the founders’ efforts, as proof of their hope. Somehow, they looked at an empty lot and had the nerve to invest in an aspiration, certain that one day, in that very cornfield, great things would take place and lives would be changed.

And through years of expansion, it seems we remained the same kind of group – a group dedicated to relationships, to students, to community. Somehow, through it all, we stayed a village.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 25

Exer-Science

26 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

O

ne day, Paris Lucas would become an SVSU student majoring in exercise science, with ambitions of attending graduate school. He would be part of a relatively new department of kinesiology engaged in cutting-edge research that was gaining national attention. But at age 14, an odd thing happened to him when a car crash paralyzed his mother from the neck down. Seeing his mom lose control of her body, he decided to take control of his own: with the help of his best friend and a few exercise DVDs, he lost 90 pounds.

But the really unexpected change for Lucas came that fall, when school started. According to him, physical activity became a new way to handle stress.

And grades that hovered around C+ gave way to GPAs of 3.9.

Cue one of the most intriguing questions in exercise science today: What exactly is the link between miles on a treadmill and the letters that wind up on report cards?

That question arose from a study conducted by students in SVSU’s kinesiology department that received attention from National Public Radio, CNN and the New York Times a few years later. This was within two years of the formation of SVSU’s kinesiology department, which had evolved out of an existing physical and health education program. This contemporary study is representative of the type conducted by this young department, designed to advance the field’s research, help the community and prepare students for graduate studies.

In this case, though, the most interesting connection – the one between sweat and success – popped up almost by accident.

Paris Lucas

Anna Gardner (née Piazza), 2009, B.S., used a broad sampling of students to answer a different question: What kinds of barriers kept students from working out?

Her method was simple. She gave a short presentation in classes and directed students to an online survey where they entered answers to questions about themselves and what prevented them from exercise.

The next year, Jenny Flynn, 2010, B.S., looked at the data Gardner collected and approached it from a different perspective. She wanted to know: Who is more active? Older students or younger? Males or females? Students with higher or lower GPAs? Flynn’s analysis uncovered the apparent correlation between exercise and GPAs. Forget stereotypes of puny nerds whose heftiest weights were leather-bound books. The people who reported more vigorous exercise tended to earn better grades.

In fact, according to Josh Ode, assistant dean of the College of Health & Human Services, respondents who reported regular vigorous activity had GPAs approximately 0.5 in grade point higher than classmates who weren’t physically active. On a scale of 4.0, that’s the difference between an A- and a B. This isn’t causality, Ode insists.

Although other research has supported a strong bond between physical activity and academic performance in elementary and middle school settings, the line is grayer at universities: too many other variables. “Bottom line: there is no proof that working out is guaranteed to improve your GPA,” Ode says.

“What our students found was an association. That’s where more research needs to happen.”

Flynn’s honors thesis – “Determinants of physical activity in college age students” – won SVSU’s best thesis award. The American REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 27

College of Sports Medicine wrote a press release on the study’s findings, which led to coverage in the mass media.

Flynn, now a doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee, says, “The [study’s] real implications were for campus recreation – ultimately, improving the overall experience of a student.”

Yet as far as the kinesiology department is concerned, its work isn’t just for the campus – it’s for the whole community.

One project, led by Todd Buckingham, 2011, B.S., helped the Saginaw Spirit hockey team pinpoint smarter training goals. By undergoing the students’ tests, the athletes could gauge how to spend their time prepping for the next game. One test, for instance, reveals how well blood carries oxygen, so one would know whether to do more aerobic or anaerobic training – to build endurance or focus on sprinting.

An upcoming student-led project will focus on regional health, says Ode, who is pursuing a grant to support this research. The project will expand research on what local people think are the biggest problems facing their health. “You can’t help change people’s behavior until you know their perceptions,” he says. “So we want to find out, ‘Do the perceptions of the community match up to what are measured to be the real problems?’”

The answer will help students Douglas Eck, Mitch Babcock and Heather Breasbois as they organize a student group focused on health issues in the region. “We’d like to get a better handle on what’s going on in the Great Lakes Bay Region,” Ode says. “And that would help more with our programs – our intervention development.”

Then again, students themselves benefit from their work – they’re more prepared for the next step in academics.

Eck, who also helped with the Saginaw Spirit project, says collaborating with 28 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Jenny Flynn

people outside the school helped him with applications for graduate school.

“You can do lab practice, sure, but there’s always an ‘unreal’ feeling to it,” he says. “As soon as you bring someone in from the outside who doesn’t know anything about this work, you have to answer questions right there, in terms they understand.”

Grad school is still a few years away for Paris Lucas, who is now one of nearly 300 students in SVSU’s exercise science program. Along with other programs in the College of Health & Human Services, it is housed in a new $28 million building with state-of-theart labs and equipment essential to training the next generation of health care professionals. More than 2,000 SVSU students have declared majors in the College of Health & Human Services.

At one time, Lucas wanted to study computers, but his life-changing family tragedy inspired him to change his focus. Now, he wants to tell his story to others, since really, it was only by chance that he tried to take control for himself.

“If it wasn’t for my mom’s accident, I might not have ever decided to change,” he says.

Today, six years later, Lucas’s mom is on her feet again, having pushed herself to be ready to walk for her son’s high school graduation day. Doctors hope that within the year she’ll be ready to leave her cane behind.

Yet for Lucas, the path has been an inner one, with fulfilling work ahead.

“It’s not about losing weight,” Lucas says. “It’s about gaining the confidence to become who you want to be.”

Childhood Health Problem: In 2007, only 21 percent of American children participated in daily physical education classes, despite research that shows increased physical activity improves concentration, cognitive processes and on-task behavior.

SVSU Response: During the 2007–08 school year, Elayna Dush, 2009, B.A., and Becca (Rudey) Schlaff, 2008, B.S., led exercise sessions for students at Francis Reh Academy, a charter school in Saginaw, and taught the value of physical activity and good nutrition.

Supported by a grant of $9,975 from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Student Research & Creativity Institute, the pair also collected data later published in an abstract for Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Dush and Schlaff observed physical improvements in the students they saw every month, and their research may be one small piece of evidence to convince Americans that students need to shape up.

Firefighter Health Problem: The No. 1 cause of on-duty death among firefighters isn’t fire. It’s cardiovascular disease, which proves to be a significant risk factor when off duty, too.

SVSU Response: In 2010, Jade Fulton, 2011, B.S., and Jill Peterson, 2011, B.S., began a health monitoring and fitness program for three volunteer township fire departments: Saginaw, Thomas and Kochville. They did so with a $3,500 grant from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Student Research & Creativity Institute.

“Shockingly, three of every four firefighters were classified as obese,” the student and faculty researchers wrote in their abstract for Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. “As a result, increased health standards should be imposed to help prevent cardiovascular events in volunteer firefighters.”

“We wanted to increase the physical awareness and fitness of the firefighters,” Peterson told The Saginaw News. “Doing that will make our community safer.”

Elayna Dush

Jade Fulton and Jill Peterson

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 29

Todd Buckingham

Where Students Are Now Todd Buckingham, from Big Rapids, Mich.

2011, B.S., exercise science A master’s degree student in exercise physiology at Central Michigan University. His area of research is pediatric physical activity.

Samantha Danbert, from Ellsworth, Mich.

2011, B.S., exercise science Will complete her Ph.D. in kinesiology at Michigan State University in 2016. Her area of research is the influence of physical activity on social and emotional well-being and academic success.

Sam Danbert

Elayna Dush

Elayna Dush, from Sanford, Mich.

2009, B.S., exercise science, B.A., psychology Currently enrolled in a post-baccalaureate premedical program at the University of Louisville and will start medical school in August 2013.

Jennifer Flynn, from Harrisville, Mich.

2009, B.S., exercise science Recently completed her master’s degree in exercise science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She will complete her Ph.D. in kinesiology there in May 2014 and plans to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship. Her area of research is the assessment of physical activity and fitness in children.

Jennifer Flynn

Jade Fulton, from Byron, Mich.

2011, B.S., athletic training Will complete her doctorate in physical therapy at the University of Michigan-Flint in 2015.

Jade Fulton

Anna Gardner (née Piazza), from Vassar, Mich.

2008, B.S., exercise science Completed her master’s degree in exercise physiology at Purdue University in 2010. She will finish her Ph.D. in health education and behavior at the University of Florida in May 2014. Her area of research is the relationship between alcohol consumption and physical activity participation.

Renee MacMillan (née Privette), from Port Huron, Mich.

2010, B.S., exercise science Completed her master’s degree in exercise physiology at Wake Forest University.

Renee MacMillian

Rebecca Schlaff

30 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Rebecca Schlaff (née Rudey), from Wixom, Mich.

2008, B.S., exercise science, B.A., psychology Completed her Ph.D. in kinesiology and epidemiology at Michigan State in August 2012.

Her area of research is the impact of exercise on pregnancy. She has been hired as an assistant professor in SVSU’s kinesiology department and is teaching her first semester this fall.

Training Tips

with Josh Ode

In its commitment to campus health, SVSU has several fitness initiatives for the Cardinal community, including “Healthy U” for faculty and staff and “Fit Into College” for students. In that spirit, here are a few quick tips from Josh Ode, assistant dean of the College of Health & Human Services, for getting the most from your workouts, your work and your life.

1 2

Don’t remain seated.

Even if you run marathons outside the office, research shows that those long hours at a desk poring over Excel spreadsheets eat away at your life expectancy. So, get up. Take a walk, even for just a few minutes every hour – it will improve your ability to focus. Chained to your desk? Try jumping jacks, push-ups or sit-ups – anything that moves your muscles and bumps up your heart rate.

Don’t try fixing it by yourself.

“Think of your body as a car,” Ode says. If you knew something was wrong with your car and your attempts to repair it yourself weren’t working, you’d ask somebody else to take a look. Buddy up in your efforts, or talk to an expert.

3 4

Focus on the little things.

There’s the cliché advice – say yes to the stairs, no to the strudel – but use those ideas to really consider your goals and how the tiniest steps can help accomplish them. Start with small daily objectives (a quick walk or short workout), and let your regimen grow naturally.

Don’t say you’re too tired.

Chances are, if you exercise, you’ll actually be more alert and more productive. “I find that the times I’m most physically active are the times I do my best at work,” Ode says. In the end, exercise is the best plan for simultaneously improving your career, your friendships, your love life, your health and your future. So do the exercise you enjoy.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 31

SVSU PROFILE

Donna Roberts GUEST AUTHOR Drew Hinderer joined SVSU in 1980 and served as a professor of philosophy until 2010 when he became the James V. Finkbeiner Endowed Chair of Ethics.

Hinderer served as chair of the Roberts Fellow program from 1999 through 2011 and graciously agreed to write this profile of Donna Roberts.

The year was 2009 and the 10th class of Roberts Fellows (the RF10s) were on their way to our Christmas party when they stopped by Donna Roberts’ house to present her a wreath they had made.

Delighted by the surprise, Donna welcomed them into her home and provided refreshments as the RFs serenaded Donna and her husband Don with Christmas carols.

The highlight of the evening came when Donna, wondering out loud where to hang the wreath, put it around her neck and wore it as a necklace as she led the singing.

This is the Donna Roberts that the Fellows and I came to know: generous, unpretentious and passionate about “her” Roberts Fellows. We first met because she wanted to help us raise the sights of talented SVSU students beyond that first job: to aspire to leadership in their various fields. The result is the Roberts Fellows Program, in its 13th year.

The trajectory of Donna’s own life and career modeled exactly what she hoped 32 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

to do for the Fellows. Born in Detroit, one of eight surviving children, Donna had no tradition of higher education in her family.

Because they were poor, each of Donna’s siblings left school as soon as they could find a job. Not Donna. She worked her way through secretarial school, helped her support her family and joined a law firm upon graduation, paying back her secretarial school tuition out of her earnings.

Donna was valuable to the firm, and soon she was doing all the work of a law clerk: researching cases, filing pleadings and eventually drafting legal documents for the attorneys. She decided to apply for law school. She was admitted to the University of Detroit where she continued working during the day and studying law at night.

She worked with the county Friend of the

Court office, married and had two boys.

When the family moved to Midland, she began a 25-year career at The Dow Chemical Company in the secretarial pool. As Donna was assigned more responsibility, her talent and determination enabled her to rise through the organization, ultimately assuming the post of secretary and assistant general counsel.

As long as she was able to do so, Donna maintained a close, personal relationship with each class of Roberts Fellows. She attended our events, hosted parties, delighted in the successes of her Fellows, and supported and inspired us in more difficult times. Roberts Fellow Deborah Kraklow speaks for all Roberts Fellows: “Donna Roberts has given all of us so much – opportunity, inspiration, support, encouragement and a model for what it means to trust ourselves enough to make real contributions to our world.”

As the program’s chair for its first 12 years, I can attest to its value and its impact on our students. Roberts Fellows are increasingly assuming the sorts of leadership positions we had hoped to help prepare them for during their years at SVSU. Roberts Fellows are practicing medicine, nursing and law. They work in businesses domestic and international.

They become CPAs. They are assuming leadership responsibilities in their school districts. They are working at prestigious public service agencies and NGOs.

They are active in politics and public policy. They are doing vital research and teaching in universities, often having graduated from the highest-ranking programs in their fields. They are writing for media, and working in government service and the military. They are bonding across the classes and the years. This is part of Donna Roberts’ legacy: lives so much richer and confident for her friendship and passion.

But Donna wanted even more; she wanted students to see a bigger world beyond this campus or even this country.

The culminating travel experience to Asia is a particularly meaningful part of the RF learning experience. Almost to a student, I have heard over the years RF “graduates” commenting about how differently they see the world, how changed they are for the travel experience. There is not enough space in this brief profile to share the hundreds of stories of our travels, but I can assure readers that not only has Donna Roberts made her lasting mark on this campus but to a great extent, has left it on the world.

In addition to her endowment gift, Roberts served on the SVSU Board of Control from 1992-1998, was chair of the Board of Fellows (1991-1992) and received the Distinguished Service Medallion in 1998. She now resides in Florida.

COLIN OHL: 2012 ROBERTS FELLOW — THE MOST RECENTLY CONCLUDED CLASS

Traveling to Taiwan, China and Japan isn’t on a to-do list for most undergraduates but is a reality offered to students selected as Roberts Fellows. Professional accounting major and projected 2013 graduate Colin Ohl had the opportunity when his application was chosen, making him a member of the 2011-12 class that traveled to Asia in May 2012.

A non-traditional student with high academic achievement and campus involvement, including his work in the SVSU Foundation Office, membership in the professional fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, and involvement in the Great Lakes Bay Region Youth Leadership Institute, Ohl thinks that one of the greatest lessons of the year-long Fellows program was learning how to analyze a problem or decision thoughtfully and be able to see the value in understanding various people’s approaches.

Heartened by the time the group spent at the Peace Memorial Park and Atomic Bomb Dome

in Hiroshima, Japan, and humbled by the juxtaposition of modern and ancient, Ohl is grateful for the experience, offered at no cost to Fellows. “I think I’ll always remember the trip abroad, but mostly I’ll remember the journey we made as a class,” Ohl said.

“We built our understanding of cultures, but also of one another. As a nontraditional student, I was concerned about relating to my colleagues, but we continued to find commonalities – regardless of nationality, circumstance or age. It’s a big world, but a very small place once we realize that even though we have different cultures or life experiences, we’re really not that different from one another.”

PAM SZABO: 1999 ROBERTS FELLOW — THE FIRST CLASS

It was 12 years ago, but SVSU alumna Pam (Logghe) Szabo still remembers her Roberts Fellowship experi-

ence like it was yesterday.

An elementary education major who graduated in 2000, Szabo was panicked when she received a “See Me” on a paper she’d written for her Methods of Teaching Social Studies course. Instead of bad news, the professor mentioned the Roberts Fellowship Program and encouraged her to apply.

Although Szabo had some international travel experience, she admits, “I was extremely shy. At first the meetings with

area leaders and President Gilbertson were intimidating, but slowly I became more and more comfortable with people of importance and authority. This program gave me the much-needed confidence in myself to be a leader in my profession.”

A 7th and 8th grade English teacher completing her 11th teaching year in 2011-12, Szabo is the formative assessment coach, the English department chair, and has mentored three new teachers in the Howell School District.

Whether it’s the “Meet Mrs. Szabo” bulletin board she creates each fall, the curriculum she chooses like Red Scarf Girl (a memoir about a girl during the Chinese Cultural Revolution), or just in conversation with her classes, every year Szabo is reminded of her time as a Roberts Fellow. Occurring at “the perfect time” of her life, Szabo is grateful for the way the Fellowship now encourages her to stand up and lead instead of sit back and wait for others to do so.

Certain that her life

would have taken a different path without the experience offered to her through the Roberts Fellowship Program, Szabo’s gratitude to Donna Roberts is persistent: “Thank you for having the belief that students will achieve great success. Thank you for pushing me and challenging me. Students are our future leaders, and this program builds confidence and skills in order to be great leaders.”

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 33

SVSU PROFILE

No Guts, No Glory

Patrick McInnis How does a guy with a B.A. in criminal justice become CEO of Fathead, the biggest name in officially licensed life-size wall graphics, cutouts and more?

It certainly wasn’t a direct route for SVSU alumnus Patrick McInnis, 1988, B.A., who studied criminal justice with the intention of becoming a lawyer. But he says, “That wasn’t my aspiration. It was my mother’s.

“I wanted to create my own success, and I didn’t want to bide my time. I wanted to move up quickly.”

There’s no question McInnis has been successful. And he has moved up quickly.

Though the path to success hasn’t always been smooth, his determination has seen him through.

By many measures, McInnis was a poster child of the All-American kid. At Flint Powers High School, he had been a success in football, basketball and baseball. He went on to play running back at Eastern Michigan University, with hopes of playing in the NFL. Then McInnis hit a bump in the road. A disagreement with his football coach prompted McInnis to do something he’d never done. He quit.

“I didn’t feel I was being judged on my performance,” Patrick said, “so I decided to walk away from the situation rather than stepping up to it.”

That decision would change the course of his life.

From Gridiron to Honor Roll

With football no longer his primary focus, McInnis had some time to 34 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

think about what he wanted to do. He returned to Flint, knowing he wanted to concentrate on his studies. He decided to enroll at SVSU, commuting from his home in Flint.

“Football had taken a lot of my time and focus,” McInnis said, “so my grades weren’t what they could have been. When I came to SVSU I had to make up some

classes, but I really wanted to concentrate on my studies. I wanted to graduate with honors.”

He did, earning a 3.75. It wasn’t easy.

When McInnis started at SVSU in fall 1987, he “was really struggling with confidence.” McInnis credits one of his criminal justice professors, Don Bachand, now provost and vice president for

“At SVSU, I found all the profs were compassionate and helpful. They genuinely cared about your future.”

academic affairs, with helping him regain his confidence.

“Don told me I’d done really well on a paper,” McInnis said. “I’d been going through a tough time in my life, so that was a pivotal moment for me.

“Don was what I needed. He was a great influencer and became a mentor and a friend.”

Bachand wasn’t the only instructor who made an impression.

“At SVSU, I found all the profs were compassionate and helpful,” McInnis said.

“They genuinely cared about your future; that’s a common denominator.”

wasn’t sure about his future. The idea of law school didn’t appeal to him. Neither did being stuck in middle management.

He wanted to put his energies into a career that would allow him more control and greater rewards for hard work and persistence.

As luck would have it, McInnis’ sisterin-law cut the hair of a guy named Dan Gilbert, who had started an independent mortgage company. Gilbert and McInnis met and Dan offered Patrick a job at Rock Financial, which would become Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online retail mortgage lender. McInnis started as a loan officer and his hard work paid off. In 2002, he was named president of Quicken Loans, a position he held until 2009. Early that year, he was named CEO of Fathead, one of the large family of companies owned by Dan Gilbert. McInnis has led the company to better financial performance and profitability.

Life lessons he learned at SVSU have helped him achieve his success.

“At SVSU, I learned I have strength in creating relationships,” McInnis said. “I remember how Don Bachand influenced me; he taught me how words and actions can powerfully affect somebody.

“As I got older,” he added, “I learned you can’t change the past; you can only learn from it. So I approach every situation as an opportunity to learn and improve.”

Creating His Future

After graduating in 1988, McInnis REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 35

SVSU PROFILE

Sam Marble This article appeared in Saginaw Valley Vintage, October 13, 2003; it is reprinted with permission from the author, Justin Engel. At the time, Justin was a student at SVSU who persuaded President Eric Gilbertson to support a 40th anniversary publication, Saginaw Valley Vintage, and worked with Professor of History Robert Braddock as the advisor. Justin, 2005, B.A. (English Literature, history), is a reporter for The Saginaw News and The Bay City Times.

36 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

It’s been a long time since Saginaw Valley felt the hands of Samuel Davey Marble. But once upon a time, this was his school, his vision, his castle. Recruited from Wilmington, Ohio, he became a pioneer of higher education in the area and a visionary: he helped bring Delta College to life in 1961 as its first president and, in 1964, he became SVSU’s first president.

English professor and member of the

university’s first faculty, the late Leslie Whittaker, compared Marble’s swift ascension in the Tri-City area’s higher education movement to that of King Arthur’s rise in Camelot.

“He did give a lot of people the impression that he could do anything,” Whittaker said. “He got Delta going, then he did the same to SVSU. He had gone through all these [challenges] and been successful.”

Marble passed away in 1990. Shortly before his death, the former first president made a stop at his old school, visiting among others, the current president, Eric Gilbertson.

In a letter penned after Marble’s passing, Gilbertson wrote of the impression the deceased founder made on him that day.

“He was by all testimony something of a dreamer, something of an idealist, something of an inventor, even a radical,” Gilberton’s letter read. “Like most people who create things or change things, he did not always win unanimous approval. But no one can say that his passing this way did not matter. It mattered a great deal.”

Among them was his heroic last minute entrance with the final $4 million from public fundraising needed to secure state support.

“He was the right person at the right time for the school,” said James Gaertner, former president of what was then called the Student Government. Gaertner added that he got along so well with Marble during his time at the college that he

would travel to Port Huron just to visit the first president after his departure from the school.

After helping to bring about Delta College in 1961, Marble became its first president with the assumption that the two-year school would eventually mature into a four-year school. As the institution got off the ground, though, that expectation was taken off the table.

Yet Marble was unfazed in his quest to lead a baccalaureate college, and four months after its charter was purchased, he was hired in as Saginaw Valley’s first president on March 23, 1964.

“He was a great founder,” said David Weaver, professor of political science, who added that he had a tremendous amount of respect for his former boss.

“But he was a better beginner than he was a finisher.” Others spoke of his down-to-earth demeanor combined with idealism.

“He had the personality that made you feel special,” Whittaker said. “He wasn’t a phoney. When he was his real self, he was genuine and humanist and somewhat modest.”

After the college became supported by the state in 1966, Marble began to focus on the development of the college’s future. In doing this, he brought in a team of experts who would talk to both teachers and students in an attempt to determine a steady direction for the institution.

Marble’s religion may have also played a large role in his vision of the college.

“Sam was a Quaker,” recalled Don Carlyon, who served under and later replaced Marble as president of Delta College. “I think that very much influenced the way he did things.”

This may have contributed to the concept of what was perhaps Marble’s most controversial vision, community government.

“Marble claimed that students brought the idea of community government to him,” Whittaker said.

“But I think, in his own mind, he had this worked through that, as a Quaker,

you couldn’t fail to work through something if you came with good intentions.”

Good intentions and trust was meant to serve as the foundation of community government. Yet it may have been the very force that led to its collapse barely a year after its implementation in 1970. Community government gave equal power in the institution’s decision-making to faculty, staff and students, but the president still had power of veto while the Board of Control made final decisions.

“The community government idea, from a faculty standpoint, was poor,” said William Elliott, retired professor of law and finance.

The bricks that Marble had laid began to fall with the founding of the faculty union in 1972. Its implementation led to the abolishment of Marble’s community government and triggered what Whittaker described as the beginning step toward his eventual exodus from SVC. “[When the union was voted in], he didn’t blink at all. He said, ‘OK, if that’s what you want,” Whittaker added. “[But] he was also like Don Quixote. He was someone who had ideals but who would mistake the windmill for the giant.”

During this period, Marble took a sabbatical to climb to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro, [in Tanzania]. Whittaker said that Marble’s trip to Kilimanjaro may have altered his outlook on things so much that he may have been able to return to the evolving college with a new direction in leadership.

“He could have weathered [the changes] when he came back,” Whittaker added.

Shortly after his return, on Jan. 15, 1974 – one day short of the anniversary of community government’s fall – Marble resigned.

“It was like, he saw the promised land, he saw the future, but in some way or another, he couldn’t get there himself,” Whittaker said.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 37

SVSU PROFILE

Michelle Rzepka

Making it Happen With the closing ceremony of this year’s Summer Olympic Games only a couple of months behind us, it’s no wonder that (former) Instructor of Kinesiology Michelle (Mickie) Rzepka is remembering her own Olympic journey a mere two years ago in Vancouver, Canada.

Although Rzepka had always dreamed of being an Olympic athlete, she never imagined it would be as the brakeman for a two-person bobsleigh team. Always athletic and competitive, Mickie found her niche in track and field in high school as a pole vaulter. In college, she was named an All-American athlete and was a Big Ten indoor and outdoor pole vaulting champion her senior year. Following graduation with her B.S. in kinesiology and having one year of eligibility left to compete at the collegiate level, Rzepka attended McNeese State University in Lake Charles, La. and earned her master’s degree in exercise physiology; she also served as a graduate assistant coach for track and field. Just a few months later, Rzepka received a phone call that left her stunned. One of her former coaches had recommended her to another coach as an excellent candidate for bobsledding. “Pole 38 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

vaulting and bobsledding require the same three principles: speed, power and strength,” Rzepka explains, though she’d never really considered the sport as part of her athletic wheelhouse. Even with no bobsleigh experience, Rzepka saw the opportunity as a challenge and became a member of the World Cup team in 2007, her rookie year.

Making the World Cup team while she was still in shape from her track and field training, Rzepka was on tour right away, competing at different tracks nationally and internationally, earning seven of eight Top 10 finishes from 2007-09. A member of sled USA-1 with driver Shauna Rohbock, Rzepka finished 6th in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. “As a brakeman, you’re the wheels of the sled, generating the power and speed. You run, pushing the sled for 4-8 seconds, then hop in and go. After that you work with the driver to navigate the turns of the track … then pull the brakes, as fast and powerfully as possible,” Rzepka explains.

Retiring from the sport in 2011 to teach, Rzepka joined the kinesiology department at SVSU and has been excited to share with her students advice and

lessons from her own experiences in the classroom and as an athlete. With a predominantly male enrollment in her strength and conditioning design course, Rzepka admits that, “When the semester starts and I meet the students, there’s always a little bit of skepticism from some, but once they learn about my experiences as a competitive athlete, they’re quick to embrace the course.”

Just as she was challenged athletically to consider “out of the box” thinking, Mickie likes to do the same with her students academically. For starters, Rzepka asks students to design a workout for bobsledding. Since they are more accustomed to traditional sports like football, basketball and baseball, it’s immediately a change in the way they look at things. “I love having the ability to impact the way my students think, to challenge them and change their perspective. I have the opportunity to push them from the outside, as a new voice encouraging them to achieve.”

Rzepka’s family was a huge influence in her own career, always pushing her to do what made her happy. “Having them, but especially Dad, support me and push

me to do more was wonderful. When I told them I was going to try out for bobsleigh, they were really excited.”

Life, like athletics, is wrought with disappointments, setbacks and change.

Rzepka lost her father earlier this year, and yet she stays positive. “I’m thrilled that I got to share my Olympic journey with him, but he was just as excited to see me begin my career as a teacher. I try to remind my students to make the most of every opportunity. You’ll never know what life has in store for you. Sharing with them that I was an Olympian reminds them that anything is certainly possible, and that even the most far-fetched dreams can become attainable,” Rzepka comments.

“You just have to make it happen.”

Mickie now looks forward to the next new role life has in store for her where

she can “make it happen” – clinical coordinator for exercise science. Though she will still teach a couple of classes in the kinesiology department, Mickie is tackling a brand new position in the college. “There are so many ultimate career avenues for students in exercise science. My new role is to share those possibilities with students, develop new partnerships in the region and work with our students to connect them with a meaningful internship.”

Rzepka is both exhilarated and nervous about the new role. “Being a new position, it’s really what I make it and how I connect with students and community partners.”

Given her fearlessness and drive, it’s a safe bet that this Olympian will put even more victories in the “win” column.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 39

SVSU PROFILE

Building Connections Between Cultures Passionate about sharing with his students an understanding and appreciation for Asian cultures, assistant professor of history Byungil Ahn is excited about each new semester. Inspired by his father, an elementary school teacher on Gemoon Island and Pyung Island (small remote islands off the coast of South Korea), Professor Ahn followed in his family’s footsteps – becoming the fifth teacher in a family of seven.

Born in South Korea, Ahn attended Sogang University, better known as Korean Loyola University, earning his bachelor’s degree in history.

After moving to the United States in 2002, he attended UCLA to obtain his master’s degree in Oriental history and Ph.D. in Chinese history. Moving to Michigan with his wife in 2008, Ahn joined the SVSU faculty.

Professor Ahn knows the importance of the lower division lecturestyle classes that dominate his semester course loads. His goal is to create within his students a foundation for success in higher division classes. Encouraging a hands-on approach to learning, Ahn requires his students to engage in a group activity and a research paper. He feels that feedback is important and that no two classes are exactly alike. “With each class I have a different goal; I challenge my students without trying to overwhelm them, knowing that they often don’t know a lot about Asian history or society.”

As with many of his colleagues, lifelong learning is as much of a passion for Professor Ahn as teaching. Captivated by Asian history early in his career, Ahn has continued his research, and is now studying the way law and government are shaping traditional marriage practices in 20th century China. Deeply influenced by his doctoral research in the history of

medicine and childbirth in China and his experiences in rural China, he has introduced the area and its traditions to his SVSU students. In spring 2012, Ahn conducted his first faculty-led study abroad trip to the region. Having traveled to China a number of times throughout his academic and professional career, Ahn was able to offer his students an experience combining traditional and modern, rural and metropolitan, as well as offering them a chance to revel in some of the country’s “must see” destinations.

Along with faculty member David Nichols, assistant professor of philosophy, (pictured far right) Ahn challenged eight students from his History of Modern China course to reach beyond “comfortable,” opening their eyes to the day-today realities and concerns of the average Chinese citizen. In order to “discover the life of ordinary Chinese people,” the group visited a rural village that included a school, clinic, temple, residences, along with a Chinese university, a Chinese Walmart and hospital. The group even joined an English class while abroad. “We took the electric train but also the rural bus so that our students had a ‘real’ experience. I want them to think of Asians not as foreign but as neighbors. We must build connections between cultures.”

With the aide of three translators, students also interviewed local Chinese people – including rural villagers and college students – and wrote research papers based on their findings.

Building connections and bridging gaps to understand unfamiliar cultures, Ahn is proud to bring alive Asian cultures for his students and introduce them to aspects of the culture that often go unseen. He plans to continue doing what he can to help SVSU students learn in University Center classrooms as well as across the globe in China.

40 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Byungil Ahn William Bellor, SVSU history major, (pictured top row, far left), was part of Dr. Ahn’s faculty-led trip to China. About the experience:

“All students would benefit by studying abroad as it provided a perspective that can’t be learned from lecture and books. You come to realize how little difference there is between different groups of people even across the globe.”

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 41

SVSU PROFILE

LaDonna Young RECONNECTING WITH THE UNIVERSITY AND WITH EACH OTHER After nearly 50 years since SVSU’s founding, African American alumni now have an alumni chapter that they can call their own.

“It is actually surprising that we had never started an alumni chapter before,” said the chapter’s co-chair LaDonna

42 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Young, 2012, M.A.; 2009, B.A. It likely still would not exist if Billy Dexter, 1984, B.A., had declined an invitation from SVSU to make a presentation to students. “That’s what jump-started the plan to initiate the AAAC,” Young said, who served as host for Dexter’s visit in 2010.

Along with Dexter, a partner at the Chicago office of Heidrick & Struggles (a leadership consulting and executive search firm), and fellow co-chair Samuel Tilmon, 2012, M.B.A.; 2010, B.B.A., Young is familiar with many African American alumni who have moved on to successful careers following graduation. “There are many African American alumni who are doing well in their careers, and we don’t even know each other,” she said. “It was beyond time to get a program like this started and now it fills a void.”

A native of Detroit, Young noted that the chapter enables alumni to reconnect with the university and with each other.

“We realize that there’s been a disconnect between the university and African American alumni; they weren’t coming back to the campus and sometimes were getting lost in the shuffle. It’s actually very interesting as we meet other alumni to talk with them and figure out what it is they do and how they’ve been successful.”

A committee consisting of Dexter, the chapter’s chairman, and other founding members has met with the Alumni Association several times since the chapter’s initiation in 2011 to map out an agenda in the coming years. “We’ve already held a reception to reach out to alumni living in the metro Detroit and surrounding areas so that they can better understand what we are trying to do as a chapter and get the support of our fellow alumni,” Young said.

“It’s been a work in progress, most definitely,” Young continued. “In addition to the ‘Life After SVSU’ dinner and panel discussion that annually takes place on campus in February, we plan to be visible at every homecoming.”

Alumni also can participate in a mentoring program that assists current students in a variety of ways. “We plan to host ‘mixers’ in the Student Life Center where students can stop by to informally meet alumni and participate in open discussions on anything from the experiences they’re having here at SVSU to how to take advantage of resources on campus that will help them be successful.

We’d like students to realize that sometimes it’s good to know people who they can go to directly to ask questions and receive advice that they can factor in to their experiences at the university.”

Following her graduation from SVSU, Young applied in 2010 for a human resources specialist position at the university – “I was hired on my birthday!” she said.

Alumni interested in the AAAC can learn more through the group’s Facebook page at “SVSU African American Alumni Chapter,” call the SVSU Alumni Relations office at (989) 964-4196, or email alumni@svsu.edu.

Claudia Arellano determined cardinal Claudia Arellano, 2009, M.S.H.L., 2006, B.A., is a particularly proud Cardinal because much of her journey to attaining a degree is a result of more than just “hitting the books.” Her hard work, ability to balance a lot of responsibility, and desire to overcome language obstacles all speak to the woman she is … determined.

Born and raised in Mexico City, and an only child, Claudia was raised by her mother and maternal grandparents who placed an emphasis on the importance of a good education. She attended parochial school and graduated high school from Colegio Miraflores. Armed with the support of her family and with a strong desire to learn the English language, and through a connection of one of the nuns at her high school, she came to Saginaw to study English and attend college.

In Saginaw, Claudia married and started her family. Soon a busy mom of three, Claudia continued to work on ways to better learn the language. One of the best methods she found was volunteering in her children’s kindergarten classroom, noting, “I have to say that I learned a lot attending kindergarten with my three kids.”

Claudia delayed continuing her education until her oldest children started school. Though she originally chose SVSU because of its close proximity and the flexible schedule offered to nontraditional students, she came to love the institution because of the personal attention she received. Ten years of hard work defines Claudia’s determination to receive her bachelor’s degree, and throughout that decade, she credits many who were always there for her. She fondly remembers Emilio Castañeda and Ricardo Pastor of the Spanish department and David Barker of the French department for always taking the time to help her when she had questions. She also acknowledges the people of the English department and Writing Lab for their patience in helping her improve her writing skills. She says, “I would not be where I am today without all who helped me improve my papers while enrolled as a student at SVSU.” Claudia’s original intention was to become a Spanish teacher, as it seemed logical to find a career that paired her

native language with her second language.

Though she graduated in 2006 with a B.A. in Spanish, after she had taken courses in less familiar programs and colleges, she saw a different career in her future. Not planning on another decade of study, Claudia was determined not only to earn her master’s degree, but to do so in a much shorter period of time. She received her master of science, health leadership, in 2009.

Just as she had mentors in her undergraduate experience, Claudia also recalls the same thoughtful help in graduate school. Claudia recalls taking a class from then executive-inresidence Terry Moore: “He went above and beyond to teach us about leadership, discipline, commitment, and how to be a better individual in our community.

His leadership, advice, guidance, recommendations, knowledge, PowerPoints, stories, handouts and apples (from his orchard) changed every student in the

class. To this day, we talk about what a great teacher he was and how we miss his class.”

Claudia calls it “a privilege” to work now with Terry Moore at the Great Lakes Bay Regional Alliance. She is the director of regional ambassadors and also serves as executive assistant to Terry, the president and CEO. She feels her SVSU experience has prepared her well for her responsibilities at the GLB Regional Alliance, adding, “I gained a much broader view of the region being at SVSU. It is the hub of our Great Lakes Bay Region!”

Claudia Arellano is a proud Cardinal, and more determined than ever to make an impact in the place she now calls home.

How quickly time flies. The Arellano kindergarten kids are now in college – at SVSU. Alexandra and Andrea are biology majors, while brother Michael is majoring in business.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 43

SVSU PROFILE

Enayat Mahajerin

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“Engineering has the solutions for all of tomorrow’s problems.”

A 28-year veteran of the mechanical engineering program at SVSU, Enayat Mahajerin can look back with pride and satisfaction at the growth of the university and his effectiveness as a classroom teacher and researcher.

“There were only two [academic] buildings when I got here in 1984 – old Wickes and old Pioneer,” Enayat observed. “I feel that I’ve grown up with the [mechanical engineering] program and that I’m part of this landmark.”

He has certainly been recognized for his contributions to the university, to his students, and to the field of mechanical engineering, having received some of SVSU’s top honors: the Franc A. Landee Teaching Excellence Award, the Earl Warrick Award for Excellence in Research and the Braun Fellowship to further his scholarly pursuits.

In addition, Enayat was recently chosen to be an American Society of Mechanical Engineering Fellow, a distinction accorded to only the top 3 percent of the more than 100,000 mechanical engineering faculty nationwide.

A native of Iran who had earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of Science & Technology in Tehran, Enayat might have gone anywhere, but he chose to come to Michigan and later to SVSU. “I just felt comfortable in the United States – I thought I knew a lot about America from action movies and road movies,” he smiled, and cited “Bullitt,” with Steve McQueen, as well as iconic locations such as Manhattan and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Arriving in Michigan on a scholarship in 1975, he entered a graduate program at Michigan State University and also studied English formally and American culture informally through extensive travel to El Paso, Texas, and to the Northeast, among other destinations. “I wanted to learn what is America, what is the real history,” he said. Having completed both a master’s degree and doctoral degree at MSU, and having taught at a large school, he then joined SVSU, commenting that the environment was very appealing and that he

appreciated the small class sizes. “This is where I could have an influence,” he said, “by being friendly to individuals through personal communication.”

His international perspective has also been an advantage. Enayat can share with newly-arrived international students in mechanical engineering some of the cultural adjustments they will have to go through. He talks to all his students about the adjustment they must make in college by managing their time, studying effectively and preparing for exams.

Reflecting on a recent reunion with 1986 graduates, he said with pride, “These are the guys who took my classes. They still remember me, mostly because of classroom activities.”

As SVSU approaches its 50th anniversary, Enayat also looks to the future and shares his philosophy of teaching: “You have to teach for tomorrow. You can’t teach the same thing. You have to update your knowledge and keep pace with changes” – noting that research complements teaching and allows him to stay current with contemporary problem-solving techniques.

A presence on campus, Enayat says that his experience at SVSU has been “tremendously satisfying – I miss it when I’m not teaching,” he admits. “Working with students and preparing for each semester have become very enjoyable activities.”

His wife Tahera is an educator at a local middle school and earned both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree at SVSU. Their three sons took advantage of advanced placement opportunities at SVSU and are today successful professionals.

Affable and accomplished, Enayat is also a man of wit and wisdom who would like to see more young people, especially women, study mechanical engineering.

“Engineering is important,” he says, “because it has the solutions for all of tomorrow’s problems. Whether aging infrastructure, energy, NASA research – nothing can be accomplished without breakthroughs in math and science.”

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SVSU PROFILE

Darryn Crocker Successful alumna giving back to the larger world.

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Darryn Crocker in Austrailia, China, Greece and India.

Halfway around the world, Darryn Crocker, 2008, B.S.N., is making a difference in the lives of Swazi children.

With an enthusiasm for travel, the Traverse City native is finishing her third year abroad in Swaziland, Africa (near the northeast corner of South Africa), where she’s been working as a member of the United States Peace Corps.

As an actively engaged and involved student, Crocker used her SVSU training and experiences to achieve her current focus: teaching health and life-skills to youth affected with the HIV virus.

“Even the [college] experiences that you would consider completely unrelated and not useful to work in Africa, such as theater or organizing a nursing event, have been truly valuable,” Crocker said.

“I’m the volunteer I am today because of the culmination of academic life and extracurricular lessons I was exposed to at SVSU.” The motivated nursing student was active in a number of programs on campus including performances in the theater department to being a member of a highly selective scholars program, the Roberts Fellowship, Catholics on Campus and study abroad. After a single SVSUhosted Peace Corps presentation and recruitment session Crocker was hooked.

“I had always felt a calling to travel and use my medical knowledge and skills to help others,” she said.

Excited about the opportunity to move abroad and immerse herself in a different culture, Crocker received her Peace Corps assignment just after her December graduation and started her new journey in June 2009. After pre-service training alongside 30 other health education volunteers, Crocker was placed with a host family in Ekuphumleni, a community in the southeastern corner of the country where she was expected to integrate into the community (using the newlylearned Swazi language) and compile a report about the needs and assets of the area. Adjusting to life in the flat lowveld

with desert-like environment, scarce water supply and modest block buildings, Crocker relates, “I always imagined Tim Burton (the quirky, whimsical film director, writer and producer) getting inspiration from the area I lived – every bush having 3-to-6-inch thorns, massive aloe plants with equally massive insects and snakes, and the ever-unique euphorbia tree (a “tree” with a trunk comparable to a maple that then shoots into a cactus-like top and produces a sap that causes blindness).”

Embracing the challenge of adapting to the unfamiliar, Crocker – also known by her host family as “Zodwa” – dove into her first two years on-site working on projects that included teaching a variety of health and lifeskill topics to primary school children at a newly-developed health club, local support groups, cow herders at male health events, and the general community at umphakatsi meetings (traditional community gatherings).

Her involvement didn’t end there; she also worked to start school libraries in the community and throughout the country, painted educational images on preschool buildings, worked on a national bus health message campaign and assisted with teaching first-aid skills to educators.

Most personally affected by her work as an activity leader at two Baylor College of Medicine international clinic summer camps, Crocker fell in love with the HIV-positive children seeking treatment and services.

Completing her Peace Corps service in 2011, Crocker elected to stay in Africa for an “extension” year to lead and coordinate the adolescent support activities at the main Baylor Clinic in Swaziland’s capital city of Mbabane. “The adolescent patients stole my heart,” Crocker said. “Each was a survivor for living past the age of 2; [they] had to deal with a difficult disease that had probably killed one or both of their parents, and yet each was still a youth with love, hope

and the energy to just play. It truly inspired me,” Crocker admits.

In a country slightly smaller than New Jersey, more than half of Swaziland’s population is affected by the HIV/AIDS virus, making the educational campaigns and youth initiatives Crocker is involved in that much more important.

With a negative stigma surrounding HIV in the region, Crocker says that one of the most rewarding aspects of her experience is “seeing youth who were withdrawn and had low self-esteem come alive and gain a confidence and worth unknown to them before. You would think it’s a completely different child.”

Grateful for the training and guidance she received while at SVSU, supplemented by her Peace Corps preparations, Crocker says, “So many aspects of my nursing studies have made a big impact on how well I can help this country. The lessons and skills I have learned have been invaluable.”

Relying on her positive and supportive relationships she had with SVSU faculty members in the nursing and theater departments, in the Roberts Fellowship program and even with the president of the university, Crocker understands first-hand the value of taking time to show people – all sorts of people – that they matter.

“I work in a country where my age, gender, non-existent salary and skin color have often negatively affected how I am treated by my ‘superiors.’” But Crocker knows better than to let such labels define her, just as she knows to champion the beauty and uniqueness of Swaziland’s HIV-positive children.

Crocker finished her extended year in Swaziland this September. Before making the long journey home, she is traveling for three months with a few colleagues through Southeast Asia, returning home to Michigan for the holidays. Her next adventure? She looks forward to attending graduate school to pursue a medical degree.

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SVSU PROFILE

Bryan Crainer Cardinal on a Mission There’s no question that Bryan Crainer, 2006, B.A.; 2011, M.Ed., made the most of his opportunities to get involved in campus life when he was an SVSU undergrad. In fact, before he actually started classes in summer 2001 Crainer received a scholarship to join Res. COM – Residential Cardinals on a Mission.

“Basically we were R.A. assistants who helped with residential programming,” Crainer said. “It was a unique experience – we got to move in early and work at check-in.” Worry-free fun turned to serious leadership two weeks later when Crainer assisted in planning a candle-light vigil for the victims of 9/11. “I went through all the first-year suites to round-up people to participate,” he said.

“Right from the start, I had to develop a whole different mindset.

Even though I was very involved in high school, it had only 82 students and I knew everybody, compared to more than 500 of my fellow First Year Suite residents, and I didn’t know any of them. I was suddenly the small fish in a big pond, and it was a real culture shock for me.”

Crainer made the most of his SVSU experience by seeking out activities and organizations that would give him opportunities for leadership and engagement. As SVSU’s associate director of retention for first year programs, Crainer encourages students to do the same. He defines student success as making connections and taking advantage of opportunities. “That’s what really adds value to your SVSU degree – it’s all the things you can get inside and outside the classroom. I don’t think you are truly ‘successful’ if all that SVSU was for you was going to class, doing what was asked of you and leaving with a diploma. I really emphasize both academic and social engagement as part of the equation for success.”

Crainer recruits and supervises peer advisors, approximately a dozen students who advise first-year students on exactly that – how to make connections and take advantage of resources.

Social media plays a significant role in reaching students who need quick information on campus resources and who want to feel that sense of connection from the get-go. Crainer oversees the “SVSU I’M BOSS” group on Facebook, which has thousands of posts from students who are looking for information, for friends, for assurances and for advice.

Keeping with his philosophy that engagement and connections are critical to student success, Crainer also serves as advisor to Forever Red, designed to create networking opportunities among SVSU students and alumni, promote personal and professional development and assist in philanthropic efforts.

“I would love to see our students take advantage of job shadowing with our alumni or invite alumni to campus to participate in roundtable discussions with students who are going into their fields,” Crainer adds. “It could be just those things that keep students connected to SVSU.”

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’80S DEC ADE

O T O H P L A HISTORIC

T S E T CON

As part of SVSU’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2013, a historical photo contest will be included in several upcoming editions of Reflections2013 magazine. If you can correctly provide the answer to the trivia question that accompanies each photo, a complimentary copy of “Saginaw Valley State University – A Seasonal Portrait” will be sent to you (a drawing will determine the winner if multiple correct answers are received).

Submit your contest entry via e-mail to

alumni@svsu.edu

by Dec. 3, 2012

This 1974 mural on the north side of Cardinal Gym was hidden by the Ryder Center expansion in 1989. For a chance at winning a complimentary copy of the souvenir picture book, “Saginaw Valley State University: A Seasonal Portrait,” name the artist and title of the mural.

<<

RESULTS FROM SPRING 2012 ISSUE

WINNER: EDWARD P. MCMANMON, 1972, B.S.

Edward P. McManmon, 1972, B.S., was among several alumni that correctly guessed the location on campus that is named for beloved 1970s-era Professor of Biology William Owsley: “Owsley Grove.” For submitting the correct answer, Edward receives a copy of “Saginaw Valley State University: A Seasonal Portrait,” which also is on sale in the SVSU bookstore. For information on how to purchase a copy of this hard-bound book of striking images of the SVSU campus, go to svsu.bncollege.com.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 49

In their own words: Joseph Harrison

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Joseph Harrison, 1996, B.S.E.E., enjoys a successful career as the strategic supply manager for engineering and construction services at Dow Corning Corporation in Midland, a position he’s held for five of the 16 years he’s been with Dow Corning.

Getting to this point in his career wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.

After graduating third in his class at Fife Lake (Mich.), High School, Joe declined an offer to attend college on a scholarship. Instead, he figured he’d do what everyone else in his family had done: he got a job. It wasn’t long before he realized that what he really needed was an education.

First, Joe joined the military and served for six years in the U.S. Navy, working on nuclear-powered submarines. While his experience and training helped him advance professionally, it wasn’t enough. Joe knew he needed a college degree. He told Reflections2013 about his path to and through SVSU.

Tell us about your college selection.

What lasting lessons did you learn at SVSU?

What stands out about your time at SVSU?

Do you feel SVSU prepared you well?

Initially, I considered several colleges.

I looked for a convenient location that was ABET accredited. (ABET is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that accredits college and university programs in the disciplines of applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology.) And I wanted a nontraditional, off-hours university so I could complete the requirements after work hours because when I started college at SVSU I had a full-time job and a large family.

I particularly enjoy learning new information. I had extensive training as an electrician in the Navy. I had good practical knowledge. SVSU taught me the theoretical knowledge. I knew what happens in electrical systems; SVSU taught me why it happens.

I also enjoyed the common goal that all the engineering students had and how we worked together and helped each other. We worked together on teams, in study groups, and on projects to learn the engineering profession.

Much of the work was challenging.

It felt excellent to succeed over and over, class by class, person by person, until ultimately we all graduated with engineering degrees.

SVSU’s smaller class sizes were very enjoyable. We had full access to the professors, so our questions were never unanswered. We also could explore deeper into their experiences and knowledge. This offered us more than just what we could gain from the curriculum.

Were there instructors or others who offered special mentoring?

Mohamed El-Kasabi, Altaf Rahman, Jonathan Leonard and Ghulam Raz, all faculty in the engineering department, were particularly helpful and mentored me.

Dedication and effort toward an ultimate goal usually yields positive results. Through much effort and focus on obtaining a bachelor of science electrical engineering (B.S.E.E.) degree, I graduated from SVSU in May 1996. I was hired by a multinational corporation in a professional career at a 25 percent increase in salary, with possibilities for many other professional assignments.

Through additional hard work and dedication to my corporation, I have advanced my career significantly since earning my B.S.E.E. from SVSU.

Absolutely. The personal attention and high-caliber instruction I received at SVSU prepared me very well. I’ve led and managed people who went to larger universities, and my education is definitely on par with theirs.

Anything you would have done differently?

Looking back, I now know that not attending a university right out of high school was a mistake. The knowledge gained from and the professional recognition of having my engineering degree has removed limitations on professional opportunities. With my education, my career opportunities were so much more than before the engineering degree.

When I finished high school, I just wanted to be done with school. There wasn’t anyone encouraging me to attend college. In fact, I was the first in my family to attend college.

If I’d completed college earlier in my life, I would have enjoyed membership in school organizations and clubs. And I could have taken earlier advantage of the almost endless opportunities in career choices/paths I have enjoyed since graduating from SVSU.

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“Architecture is inhabited sculpture,” so said the “patriarch of modern sculpture,” 20th century Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi, who helps us make the case today that the SVSU campus is visually a timeless work of art. On these four pages, the photographs are presented in black-and-white to emphasize the distinctive lines, textures and scale of our facilities – offering an aesthetic depiction of spaces that function not only as centers for learning, meeting and gathering, but also as expressive pieces of architecture that speak for themselves. Enjoy.

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REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 53

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REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 55

Focus on

faculty Let’s start with the Distinguished Professor of the Year award you received this past spring.

What were some of the changes to the Honors Program that you think benefit students?

I’m not usually at a loss for words, but I was speechless. I am most proud of the fact that this award recognizes well-roundedness and the ability to make contributions in a variety of areas. My passion for scholarship is important and SVSU supports this, but SVSU also supports faculty development in teaching and offers opportunities for important service to the university. I am very grateful to work at an institution that has allowed me to try new things and to seek out different ways to help students.

Honors courses are now spread out over a couple of years, and there are specially designed honors seminars. I was committed to offering Honors students a distinctive curriculum where courses are more interdisciplinary and innovative. We also moved the thesis to senior year, so the work will be more robust and distinctive.

I was also determined to create a viable honors student culture that would be visible to the wider SVSU community. Fortunately, the honors students shared this goal and had tremendous energy in forging an identity on campus.

Tell us about your experience as the chair of the Honors Program.

Why did you move on from the Honors Program?

When I was asked if I would consider chairing the program, I really didn’t know a lot about it. I had a student who had won a “Best Thesis” award but that was about the extent of my involvement. I said “yes” but recognized that I would have a steep learning curve.

I liked the idea of working with the most talented and motivated students and I was given the leeway to shape the program in new ways.

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In the second year I chaired the program, I won the Braun Fellowship. With my teaching, I knew I could do two big things well but worried about not being able to do three well [i.e., teach, Braun, Honors], so I reluctantly stepped down from the Honors Program.

You’ve been at SVSU 15 years now. When you started you were a junior faculty member, working with senior history faculty members like Mary Hedberg, Tom Renna, Bob Braddock and Eric Petersen. What has that experience been like and what do you view as your role in the department?

I am proud to be a part of what I believe is one of the university’s strongest academic departments. When I was hired in 1997, Mary [Hedberg] was the only other junior faculty member. She mentored me and helped me tremendously. The other thing that helped make me feel a part of the departmental community was becoming chair of the department [in 2002]. That was a great way to get to know my colleagues better and to understand how the larger SVSU community worked.

Regarding my role, I think that I’m the bridge between the faculty who were schooled in the 1960s, when the training was more about political/diplomatic/ military history, and those of us trained in the ’80s, where the shift was to social history and the role of race, gender and class. I think I have a foot in both camps. For example, when I teach the Civil War, I help students to understand the political and military dimensions of the period, but I also teach about the impact the war had on culture and society.

Give us an idea of your Braun Fellowship research.

Paul Teed

My research deals with what I call the â&#x20AC;&#x153;livedâ&#x20AC;? experience of the American Civil War. While there are plenty of books on the generals and national political leaders, I am interested in how ordinary people coped with the vast changes the war brought to their lives. Currently, I am writing about a Connecticut couple [Joseph and Harriet Hawley]. Joseph was a lawyer and newspaper editor and an early volunteer for the Union Army. He was deeply antislavery and used his newspaper and his political connections to move the goals of the war toward emancipation and the enlistment of African American soldiers. Harriet Hawley helps us understand the role that many northern women played in the Civil War. Despite the opposition of her family, she refused to remain on the home front and instead joined her husband in the South.

Committed as her husband was to the Union cause, she served the troops as a nurse and taught literacy skills to freed people in the South.

Paul Teed, professor of history, is the first SVSU faculty member to be honored as a Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year, presented by the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan. Professor Teed joined the SVSU faculty in 1997. The author of two books as well as many articles, reviews and reference essays, he served as the chair of the SVSU Honors Program from 2009-2012, received the Braun

Fellowship in 2010, the Landee Award for Teaching Excellence in 2000, the SVSU Faculty Association Faculty Recognition Award for Scholarship in 2003 and was a co-recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct an institute at SVSU for K-12 teachers on re-examining the Civil War. Teed was also the chair of the history department from 2002-04.

Our concluding conversation with Paul Teed was about the role technology plays in higher education and most particularly in its effectiveness in shaping how students learn about history. His observations about technology and teaching can be seen in a short video. Go to svsu.edu/reflections/fall2012 or make use of this QR Code for your smart phone.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 57

Service is a Way of Life As an Air Force officer and former Peace Corps volunteer, Major Gerald Smith Jr., 1995, B.B.A.; 2000, M.B.A., understands the importance of civic engagement and appreciates the occasionally unexpected personal rewards that come with community service. In fact, he met his wife, Olena, while serving in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, her native country.

Gerald first joined the Peace Corps after graduating from SVSU. Following his Peace Corps service, he and his wife returned to SVSU, where he earned his M.B.A. and Olena took classes. In 2001 – one week before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — Gerald enlisted in the U.S. Air Force.

Both Gerald and Olena believe strongly in community service and family values.

To encourage and support others who share their commitment, the couple created the Gerald I. and Olena Smith Community Service Endowed Scholarship at SVSU. “Olena and I are both very fond of SVSU; we had many fun newlywed moments there,” Gerald said. “I recently had some serious thought about what is the most important time in our life for personal development; I concluded that, for me, it was [while at] the university.

It was the many relationships (my seven SVSU roommates in the dorms, SVSU administrators and the professors) who truly developed and matured me as a person. I wanted to give back to the university that gave us so much.”

The scholarship was established with a $10,000 founding gift. In 2011, the inaugural award of $500 was made to William P. Smith (no relation), an Army veteran who is pursuing his Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice.

“It was very touching when we received a personal thank you letter from

58 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

the first recipient of our endowment,” Gerald said. “We developed the criteria for the endowment based on the Peace Corps and military culture, which is truly about volunteering, giving and sacrificing.”

Community service – such as the Peace Corps, military, or a substantial commitment to a local community – is the primary eligibility criterion of the scholarship. In addition, a full-time student must have a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, pursue an academic degree with the intent of continuing community service, be a Michigan resident and demonstrate financial need.

“SVSU is a very nurturing, caring community, which is another reason why I wanted to give back to the university,” said Gerald. “I told my wife a few years ago that we could have waited until perhaps we were elderly or more financially secure to create the endowment, but I thought it was more important to do our best to make an impact now.

“As we age, we certainly begin to prioritize more, and for me, God, family and country says it all,” he added.

“This [endowment] was our way of saying ‘thank you, SVSU; we are very appreciative for what you have given us.’”

Will Smith says of receiving the scholarship, “It’s helped me be able to focus on my grades and school work. Without help from people like the Smiths, a lot of students like me wouldn’t be here.”

Currently completing a cooperative learning experience (co-op) as a loss prevention officer at Dow Corning, Smith’s career goal is to become a Michigan State Police trooper. He is an Army veteran and vice president of the Cardinal Military Association.

Maj. Gerald I. Smith and his wife, Olena, with their son, Zahar, and twin daughters, Natalia and Katia.

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Grant from Arnold & Gertrude Boutell Memorial Fund Supports New Greenhouse Nestled against the south side of SVSU’s Science West building, a small greenhouse goes unnoticed by many who visit campus. Yet some important work goes on inside that greenhouse and in its sister facility a short distance from the main campus.

Together, SVSU’s greenhouses serve as an educational facility for a surprising array of disciplines, expanding beyond botany and plant science to include biology, chemistry, engineering, health sciences, education and social sciences. With a grant from the Arnold & Gertrude Boutell Memorial Fund, SVSU intends to create an even richer opportunity for students and the community.

Fertile Ground

Agriculture is big business in Michigan. In 2010, the top 20 commodities – including milk, corn, soybeans, dry beans, cherries and more – raked in $6.49 billion according to the National Agriculture Statistics Service. The Great Lakes Bay Region is fertile ground for agribusiness. In 2008, the region’s agriculture market value of production approached $270 million.

The new 120-by-16-foot greenhouse will nearly quadruple the space available for agriscience research and education. It will house three distinct areas dedicated to research space, the Green Cardinal Initiative, as well as botany and plant science. Flexible work spaces and features such as rolling tables will promote space optimization and efficiency.

The greenhouse will support new agricultural science programs SVSU will offer. According to Deborah Huntley, dean of the College of Science, Engineering & Technology, these new offerings will fill a need in the region for students who plan to augment one of SVSU’s traditional majors with coursework in agricultural studies.

60 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Sustainable Growth

SVSU’s greenhouse project will renovate and expand the existing campus-based greenhouse, replacing the inadequate and aging structure with an up-to-date facility that will serve as a model of and a research site for sustainability practices, particularly related to alternative energies and food production.

The new facility will serve as a resource for multidisciplinary projects, provide more opportunities for faculty-directed undergraduate research and provide a site for collaborations with Michigan’s extensive alternative energy, agricultural and greenhouse industries.

Thanks to the generosity of the Arnold & Gertrude Boutell Memorial Fund, SVSU is planting the seeds for success that will benefit students and the region.

Cool

wear their Red Pride

Forever Red connects students and alumni, supports freshmen and sophomores with the Cardinal Forever scholarships, and helps build strong SVSU traditions with programs like the Jostenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s official ring program and Cardinal sunglasses, which generate royalties that support the SVSU Alumni Endowed Scholarship fund.

GREAT HOLIDAY GIFTS!

For ring information, go to svsu.edu/alumni. To purchase sunglasses ($10 for one or $15 for two, plus shipping), contact Bryan Crainer, Forever Red advisor, at becraine@svsu.edu or (989) 964-4091.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 61

SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Alumni Celebration on May 11.

The SVSU Alumni Association recognized seven alumni and one future alumnus Friday, May 11, at the annual Alumni Celebration.

The honored alumni were featured in Reflections2013 (spring 2012, pages 54-55); to view video of the celebration, go to svsu.edu/reflections/fall2012 or make use of this QR Code for your smart phone.

Alumni golf outing on Aug. 6.

Alumni outing at the Loons Dow Diamond Stadium on July 11.

Dave Abbs, chairm an of the Board of Control; Scott Carmona, Bo ard of Control; Eric Gilbertson, SVSU president.

62 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Loons.” h “Alumni Night with the The July outing was the fift Hats off g. nin ilies enjoyed the eve About 100 alumni and fam 99, B.A.) (19 y rke .) and Shawnette Ma to Rollin Carter (2005, B.A e! gam and them to the tailgate who brought guests with inaw Spirit Alumni Night with the Sag Mark your calendars for on the and ail tch for details by em on Saturday, Jan. 12. Wa te.

Alumni Association websi

2 5th After celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary on campus in July, Cardinals Don Thalmann, 1988, B.B.A.; 1992, M.B.A., and Jina (nĂŠe Rumminger) Thalmann, 1989, B.S.W., spoke to us about their time at SVSU and why theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve stayed loyal Cardinals. See their video: svsu.edu/reflections/fall2012 or make use of this QR Code for your smart phone.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 63

SPOTLIGHT

ON STUDENT SUCCESS IMAGINING A BRIGHT FUTURE Hannah Mize is a chemistry major and math minor who will graduate in May 2013. With an eye already on her Ph.D., and ultimately a plan to work in a government-based research setting, it’s easy to think Hannah’s a bit over-confident when she mentions that getting into a top-flight grad school should be very do-able. Hannah’s confidence is grounded in her undergraduate preparation, along with her co-op position at Dow Corning, the conference and poster presentations she has given, and the work she is doing alongside H.H. Dow Endowed Chair David Karpovich as a student research assistant.

She believes that in the end all this will help set her apart from others. She also draws confidence from the advice she’s received from faculty “as to where they think I will find the best fit – just because they know me so well.”

The Caro native is a President and University Foundation scholarship recipient. Graduating virtually debtfree is another advantage she mentions when she talks about her undergraduate experience. “Can you imagine?” she

asks, adding that she and other chemistry students presented research at a national conference (the 2012 American Chemical Society Chemistry for Life 243rd National Meeting and Exposition). She offers yet another “can you imagine?” when she shares that her name will be included in Karpovich’s soon-to-be published research article on turning crude glycerin, a by product with limited application, into an alternative fuel. “I’m doing many of the experiments,” Mize said. “Dr. Karpovich even lets us decide what experiments to conduct. When I get to grad school, I’ll be ready to do my own research. And I’m part of the writing process, too. Learning how to write about chemistry, present about chemistry and conduct research is a great experience.”

Asked to sum up her SVSU experience, Hannah smiles. “My education…I’m proof that you don’t have to go to a Big Ten research school to be successful. I’m going to have the future I want, and it all started right here.”

HANNAH MIZE & DAVID KARPOVICH

ENGINEERING PROJECT REDUCES COMPOST DRYING TIME Three recently-graduated mechanical engineering students completed a successful project that received support from the Herbert H. & Grace A. Dow Student Research & Creativity Institute. Todd Andrezejewski (Bay City), Dustin Finn (Akron, Mich.), and Joshua Hand (Midland) created a vermicompost dryer for the SVSU greenhouse. All three students graduated in August 2012, B.S.M.E. (Bachelor of Science Mechanical Engineering).

Edward Meisel, lecturer of chemistry and greenhouse manager, requested a solution to his need to reduce compost drying time so that compost could more quickly be readied

64 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

for packaging. The students – under the guidance of Tom Mahan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering – began the project in the winter 2012 semester and completed it prior to their August 2012 graduation. All three students agree that the project gave them great experience.

According to Finn, it even helped him land an engineering position post-graduation. “I had multiple job offers just based on this project,” he added. According to Andrezejewski, “The calculating, designing, writing, fabricating – the process of starting the project and bringing it to a conclusion – was the real value.” Echoed Hand, “This was a completely

independent project we had to own, from start to finish.”

According to Meisel, the project to reduce drying time has met his expectations. A bonus outcome is that the compactness of the dryer has eliminated the need for about half the physical space in the greenhouse.

This is because since the former drying system required that the soil by spread to dry naturally.

Andrezejewski has accepted an engineering position with Means Industries, while Finn will work for Merrill Technologies Group and Hand for Nexteer Automotive.

SINGING HER WAY TO SUCCESS There’s no doubt that Rachelle Austin has talent. A first place finish at the November 2011 National Association of Teachers of Singing competition (advanced men and women division) proves that. She was also accepted into a month-long opera program at Canta in Italy during summer 2012 and was one of only four soloists invited to perform an aria at the program’s conclusion. Yet Rachelle would be the first to say that talent alone doesn’t ensure success. She attributes much of her success to the people and opportunities at SVSU. “What SVSU has given me is the confidence and the opportunities to now truly believe that if you want something enough, you can do anything,” says the music major and theater minor. “I know that I want to perform operas and travel the world.

I’m not sure yet where I’ll perform, but I am confident that I will do it.”

The Richmond, Mich., native and recipient of the Rhea Miller Scholarship in Music, the Distinctive

Program in Music Scholarship and the Barbara Mitchell Voice Scholarship, says that all the things she thought she would never do in life have already happened. “I never thought I’d be a performer, stand out in a program, go to Italy to sing, win a competition – but I have. And I didn’t have to go to a selective ‘music school’ to have this experience.”

Rachelle will graduate in May 2013. This fall, she begins the rigorous process of a graduate school hunt to pursue her master’s degree in vocal performance.

To view Rachelle’s winning NATS performance, watch her video at svsu.edu/reflections/fall2012

L to R: Advisor Tom Mahan, greenhouse manager Edward Meisel, students Todd Andrezejewski and Dustin Finn

The Herbert H. & Grace A. Dow Student Research & Creativity Institute offers students up to $10,000 to support and promote work in the arts, humanities, sciences, professional disciplines and community service. Since 2005-06, more than 70 projects have been funded.

To view a video with SRCI students go to: svsu.edu/reflections/fall2012 or make use of this QR Code for your smart phone.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 65

GUIDE TO DEGREES Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.) Bachelor of Professional Accountancy (B.P.A.) Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (B.S.E.E.) Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (B.S.M.E.) Bachelor of Science in Nursing (B.S.N.) Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.W.)

Doctor of Nursing Practice (D.N.P.) Education Specialist (Ed.S.) Master of Arts (M.A.) Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) Master of Education (M.Ed.) Master of Science (M.S.) Master of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.) Master of Science in Occupational Therapy (M.S.O.T.)

Cardinal Alumni: As you know, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of our alma mater, whether SVC, SVSC or SVSU. We are encouraging alumni to share a favorite memory of their college/university experience. It can be serious or amusing, about a person, a place or an event. It can be written as a one-sentence “I remember …” statement or a lengthier reflection.

Include your name, year of graduation, degree and a phone number (for contact purposes only).

Sending captioned photos is another way you can share your memories. We’ll share as many as we can in the spring and fall 2013 issues of this magazine. Send your “Cardinal memory” to alumni@svsu.edu.

In May 2012, we received a letter from Homer Wickman, 1969, B.A., commenting on the profile of Crystal Lange in the spring issue of Reflections2013. While Mr. Wickman enjoyed the profile, he questioned the accuracy of referring to Crystal’s husband Elmer as “Ike.” After we responded to Mr. Wickman with verification of our sources, he wrote us again. His second letter is reprinted here:

Cordially,

FURTHER MY EDUCATION UNTIL I WAS WORKING AS A CHEMIST

DEAR JAN, PLEASE FORGIVE THE CAPS, BUT I AM LEGALLY BLIND AND HAVE TROUBLE READING THE “FINE PRINT.”

I JUST CELEBRATED MY 92ND BIRTHDAY AND YES, I WAS

49 YEARS OLD WHEN I GRADUATED FROM SVSU. I FEEL VERY CLOSE TO SVSU AND ENJOY REFLECTIONS VERY MUCH. I MARRIED EDNA WYNEKEN AND WE HAD SEVEN CHILDREN SO I WAS NOT ABLE TO ASSISTANT AT DOW CORNING’S ANALYTICAL LAB.

THE FIRST SVC CLASSES WERE HELD IN THE BASEMENT OF

DELTA COLLEGE AND MY FIRST ADVISOR WAS DR. SAM MARBLE, THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. I GRADUATED WITH A B.A. IN James M. Maher, 1982, B.S. President, Board of Directors SVSU Alumni Association

PSYCHOLOGY IN 1969. SHORTLY AFTER I GRADUATED, I STARTED TEACHING GUITAR AT DELTA COLLEGE (I WAS THERE FOR 15 YEARS).

AFTER TWO YEARS, I WENT BACK TO SVSU AND STUDIED MUSIC UNDER DR. CHARLIE BROWN, DR. ERIC NISULA AND TOM ROOT.

Email your alumni news to: alumni@svsu.edu;

I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE

EXCELLENT EDUCATION I RECEIVED THAT ENABLED ME TO GO ON AND TEACH MUSIC

Mail to SVSU, Alumni Relations, 7400 Bay Road, University Center, MI 48710;

FOR 30+ YEARS, BOTH IN MICHIGAN AND

Submit Online at: svsu.edu/alumni

CORDIALLY,

66 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

FLORIDA.

HOMER WICKMAN

HOMER WICKMAN

1970S Rick Kent, 1974, B.A., coaches the boys’ golf team at Grand Blanc High School.

1980S Diane Brown, 1988, B.S., was featured in the Midland Daily News as a successful SVSU alumna, Midland.

Billy Dexter, 1984, B.A., was ranked number 23 of the top 100 Executives in America of 2012 in the Top 100 issue of Uptown Professional magazine.

Daniel Gokey, 1984, B.S., will revisit the U.S.S. Edson, which he served on from 1972 to 1975, now that its new home is in Bay City.

Rebecca Harris, 1989, B.A., helped GM market Chevrolet through an innovative campaign at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

Kim Harrison, 1989, B.S., published another book, “A Perfect Blood” as part of her best selling series, “Hollows,” Ann Arbor.

Don Haskins, 1984, B.A., was promoted to superintendent of Atlanta Community Schools, Mich.

Larry Hrinik, 1981, B.A., was hired as the chief of police for the township of Saline, Mich.

Captain Michael Langworthy, M.D., 1984, B.A., was named the distinguished visiting scholar at the Walter Reed/Bethesda

National Medical Center and is currently stationed in Afghanistan as the senior military trauma surgeon for NATO forces.

Terry Lerash, 1981, B.S.N., was hired as the director of the office of innovation at Covenant Health Care, Saginaw.

Jon McQuinn, 1985, B.A., is a sports writer for The Township View, a local newspaper in Saginaw.

Dorene Newman, 1983, B.A., was hired as the vice president of business services at Wildfire Credit Union in Midland.

Joe Noha, 1988, B.A., was promoted to head football coach of the Menominee Maroons, Mich.

Paul Paeglis, 1987, B.B.A., was hired as the executive director of the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority in Columbus, Ohio.

Cindy (Bell) Seeburger, 1984, B.B.A., completed a second master’s degree in counseling from Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Mich.

Diane Thompson, 1987, B.B.A., a senior manager of Andrews Hooper Pavlik, received the professional designation of certified employee benefit specialist.

Dennis Witherspoon, 1982, B.B.A., was hired as an associate professor of finance at Northwood University, Midland.

Captain Michael J. Langworthy, M.D., 1984, B.A., has been stationed in Kunduce, Afghanistan, as the senior military trauma surgeon for NATO forces.

In 2011, Langworthy was named the distinguished visiting scholar at the Walter Reed/ Bethesda National Medical Center for his work on wounded warriors returning from Operation Enduring Freedom. He is assigned to the Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force. His duties are to take care of American and NATO casualties, Afghanistan nationals and conduct specialized research for the joint special operations command.

These duties likely will last until the end of 2012.

Langworthy has 26 years of Naval service. He holds clinical surgical appointments at the Walter Reed/Bethesda National Medical Center and also serves as the director of advanced trauma life support at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego.

Langworthy, who has published numerous articles and lectured nationally and internationally on the subject of terrorism and blast injuries, is returning to Michigan at the end of 2012 to become the chairman of surgery at the Bronson Battle Creek Health Systems in Battle Creek, Mich.

Langworthy has been married to Alissar Langworthy for the past 27 years. He has two daughters, Nadia and Alissar, and his father and mother, William and Maria, are residents of Grant Center, Mich.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 67

Gwen McMillon, 1995, M.Ed., along with two other colleagues at Oakland University, wrote a book analyzing literacy among African American students, Rochester, Mich.

Tracey Moeggenberg, 1991, M.A.T., received the Gerstacker Proficiency Award for being an exemplary teacher at Plymouth Elementary in Midland.

OUR “FEARSOME FOURSOME FRIENDS FOR LIFE,” PROFILED IN THE FALL 2011 REFLECTIONS2013, MET UP FOR THEIR ANNUAL GOLF OUTING IN JULY 2012. LEFT TO RIGHT: DOUG KOSINSKI (1972, B.A., POLITICAL SCIENCE), GARY MALLON (1973, B.A., HISTORY), JIM THOMPSON AND DENNIS FOLEY (1973, B.A., POLITICAL SCIENCE).

1990S Tammy Bernier, 1993, B.B.A., earned a Women of Achievement Award in Business from the YWCA Great Lakes Bay Region.

Tammy Brinkman, 1995, B.B.A., was hired as the new CEO/ executive director of the Dow Bay Area Family Y in Bay City.

Eric Buschlen, 1994, B.A., received the Lorrie Ryan Memorial Excellence in Teaching Award from CMU. Ashley Ciolek, 1996, B.B.A., earned the certification of risk management specialist from the National Regulatory Services Center for Compliance Professionals, Saginaw.

Rod Creech, 1992, B.B.A., was recognized by the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame for his accomplishments as a high school basketball coach.

Steve DeLong, 1991, B.S., was hired by the Saginaw County Community Mental Health Authority as chief information officer, Saginaw.

Mary Faley, 1997, M.A.T., was hired as the assistant superintendent of Lake Shore Public Schools in St. Claire Shores, Mich.

J.W. Gibbs, 1995, M.B.A., was hired at Arvest Bank as a regional investment officer, Springfield, Mo. David Haag, 1991, M.B.A., was hired as a senior investment executive at Independent Bank, Midland.

David Karpovich, 1992, B.S., received the Outstanding College Chemistry Teacher Award from the Midland Section of the American Chemistry Society.

Brian Lewis, 1998, B.S., was hired by Banner-Day as a project engineer, Saginaw.

68 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

Ann Taylor, 1997, B.A., was appointed director of special education for Edgefield County School District, Edgefield, South Carolina.

Chris Watz, 1993, B.S., was hired as a full-time assistant coach for the men’s basketball team at Olivet College in Olivet, Mich.

Kristen Wenzel, 1993, B.A., is serving a second term as chair of the Chamber Ambassadors on the Saginaw County Chamber of Commerce, Saginaw.

Amy Bushey, 2000, M.Ed., received the Gerstacker Proficiency Award for being an exemplary teacher at H.H. Dow High School, Midland.

Corey Calkins, 2004, B.S., received the Distinguished Service Cross for valor at the John F. Kennedy Auditorium, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Brian Campbell, 2005, T.C., was promoted to principal of All Saints Central High School, Bay City.

Genelle Campeau, 2004, B.A., received the Teacher of the Year award for her work as an English teacher at Heritage High School, Saginaw.

Jennifer Carroll, 2005, M.A., was hired as the foundation development officer at St. Mary’s of Michigan, Saginaw.

Amy Christianson, 2009, B.A., helped organize a high school band concert of 240 instruments involving schools in Homer, Alaska.

Mary Zeitler, 1998, M.A.T., received the Gerstacker Proficiency Award for being an REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 67 exemplary teacher at Jefferson Heather Claxton, 2005, B.S., Middle School in Midland. earned a Ph.D. in biological chemistry and a certificate in science & technology in public policy from the University of S Michigan.

Tyler Bates, 2009, B.A., was hired as the submissions editor Bryan DuRussel, 2008, B.P.A., for the editorial board of the passed the Certified Public Natural Resources Journal, Accountant exam and works at a student publication of the Weinlander Fitzhugh, Bay City.

University of New Mexico School of Law, Albuquerque, NM. Marcus Ewing, 2005, B.B.A., was inducted to the Greater Otsego Clifford Block, 2003, M.A., has County Sports Hall of Fame in been named police chief of the Gaylord, Mich.

Midland Police Department.

2000

Kali Cochran, 2011, B.A., was elected to co-chair of the Neighborhood Revitalization Project for the board of the Midland County Habitat for Humanity.

Kyona Cook, 2011, B.A., held a free workshop at the Flint Public Library to teach young girls how to write a vision board and help them stay focused on their goals.

Cristi Crofton, 2010, B.S., was hired by Impact Analytical as an analytical technologist in Midland.

JESSE VOLLMAR, 2011, B.S., AND BRAD KOCH, 2011, B.S., WERE FEATURED IN AN AUGUST 4 NEW YORK TIMES FEATURE WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT THEIR START-UP COMPANY, FARMLOGS, OFFICIALLY OPENED TO CUSTOMERS IN JUNE 2012. FARMLOGS IS ONE OF A FEW NEW COMPANIES TARGETING FARMERS AND THEIR SPECIAL NEEDS. THEIR EASY-TO-USE SOFTWARE OFFERS A CLOUD-BASED SOFTWARE SERVICE TO FARMERS.

Kim Knoerr, 2008, B.S. was hired as financial services officer at GreenStone Farm Credit Services of Bay City.

Matt LaFleur, 2003, B.A., was hired as the quarterback coach for the Washington Redskins in the NFL. Christine Macey, 2007, B.A., was appointed to one of 11 positions as a U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. Jared Morningstar, 2005, B.A., won the Touchstone Award from the Michigan Council of Teachers of English for outstanding creative writing teacher, Saginaw.

Bill O’Neill, 2004, B.B.A., competed in the Professional Bowling Association’s East Region Bowlers Supply/Storm Products Cheetah Open at Colony Park North, New York.

Adam Roach, 2008, B.S., was named Athlete of the Week for the first week of May 2012 by The Times Herald (Port Huron)

after winning first place in the Big Sur International Marathon in Carmel, Calif.

Eric Romzek, 2006, B.S., was hired at First State Bank as a banking officer and systems administrator of the information technology department in Middlebury, Mich.

Matthew Ruth, 2009, B.A.S., was hired by the Huron Intermediate School District to teach architecture, engineering, and design, Huron, Mich.

Angela Sherman, 2005, B.S., was recognized by Worldwide Who’s Who for her work in product development at Dow Corning Corporation, Midland.

Douglas Trombley, 2005, M.Ed., was hired as the superintendent of Saginaw Township Community Schools, Saginaw.

Jenifer Turner Sisco, 2000, M.Ed., was named the Saginaw Valley League Teacher of the Year at Midland High School.

Lane Walker, 2003, B.A., published his book for young readers, “The Legend of The Ghost Buck.”

Tammie Weidner, 2006, B.P.A., of Weinlander Fitzhugh, received her Quickbooks Pro Advisor Certification, Bay City.

Rose Willis, 2003, B.B.A., was a moderator for the “Corporate Practice of Medicine” webinar hosted by the American Health Lawyers Association in Detroit.

Tricia Raquepaw, 2010, M.B.A., was promoted to vice president, director of marketing at the Independent Bank of Bay City.

Andrew Beaver, 2011, B.P.A., re-signed with the Saginaw Sting arena football team of the CIFL. Chandler Benjamin, 2011, B.S., received a fellowship from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Anne Hasenberg, 2010, B.A., obtained an insurance agent license and co-manages her office in Cadillac, Mich.

Lisa Oehring, 2011, M.A.T., was hired to teach kindergarten at Lincoln Elementary School in Petoskey, Mich.

Lula Woodward, 2005, Ed.S., was named Woman of the Year by Women of Colors Inc., Saginaw.

2010S

Amanda Grekowicz, 2010, B.A., is working at the Our Lady of Lake Huron Catholic School as both a 4th grade teacher and coach of the high school varsity softball team in Harbor Beach, Mich.

Danielle Rohac, 2012, B.A., was hired as a marketing and public relations assistant at Tri-Star Bank, Saginaw.

Theodore Scheid, 2010, M.A., received the Spirit of Rotary Award, Midland.

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 69

WEDDINGS Wayne Richard Hofmann, 2005, B.A., is engaged to marry Cadia Marie Humpula of St. Charles, Mich.

OBITUARIES Shaila Kirkpatrick, 2002, B.S.W. – December 26, 2011 Richard Burrill, 1976, B.S. – December 30, 2011

Annette Pretzer, 2008, B.S., married Jason Vogel, 2009, B.S., in July 2012.

Valerie Phillips, 1991, B.S.N. – January 5, 2012 Yolanda Douglas, 1998, B.S.W. – January 9, 2012

Stacey Lynn Ratynski, 2011, B.S., married Kyle Thomas Cochran on August 17, 2012.

Nicole Salerno is engaged to marry Joseph Fetterhoff

Nicole Salerno, 2011, B.S., is engaged to marry Joseph Fetterhoff, 2011, B.S., on December 22, 2012.

Jessica Tuckey, 2009, B.A., married Dustin Mallory, 2009, B.A., on August 4, 2012.

Linda Zientek, 1972, B.A. – January 13, 2012 James Ramseyer, 1970, B.S. – January 21, 2012 Dana Hinkins, 1993, M.B.A. – January 28, 2012 Hubert Talaga, 1972, B.A. – January 30, 2012 Joy Baker, 1984, M.A.T. – February 13, 2012 Corey Malloch, 2005, M. Ed.; 2007, Ed.S. – March 12, 2012

Jennifer Deitsch, 2009, B.A, married Jordan Schaefer on July 14, 2012.

Emma Jackson, 1978, M.A.T. – March 13, 2012

Matthew Ferguson, 2005, B.A., is engaged to marry Amber Hobson of Peck, Mich.

Ashley Eakin, 1971, B.A. – March 26, 2012

Frederick Shaffer, 1978, B.B.A. – March 20, 2012

J. Thomas Blackney, 1976, B.B.A. – April 7, 2012 Jamie Morris, 2010, B.A., married Jason Vassel, 2012, B.S.N., on August 11, 2012.

Michael Edwards, 1997, B.A. – April 8, 2012 Marilu Neering, 1976, M.A.T. – April 23, 2012

Ashley Jurges, 2008, B.A., is engaged to marry Douglas Lacy on November 17, 2012.

Gerrie Hall, 1980, M.A.T. – May 2, 2012 Mary Jane Jurgens, 1981, B.A.; 1987, M.A.T. – May 7, 2012

Mia Grace Moreno

Jordanne Fallon, 2010, B.A., married Ryan Van Wert of Auburn on August 4, 2012.

Rama Bruce, 1989, B.B.A. – May 13, 2012 Gerald Coffey, 1971, B.A. – May 16, 2012

NEW CARDINALS

Eric Dobrzynski, 2008, B.B.A., married Shaelyn Schneider, 2008, B.S., on October 6, 2012.

Kelly Crainer, 2009, B.A., and her husband, Bryan Crainer, 2006, B.A., announced the birth of their son, Brady Michael Crainer, born on February 28, 2012.

Justin Hanje, 2012, B.B.A., is engaged to marry Alyssa Kalso of Croswell, Mich.

Jill Moreno, 2001, B.A., and her husband, Matt Moreno, 2005, B.B.A., announced the birth of their daughter, Mia Grace, born April 28, 2012.

Henry Coste, 1991, B.B.A. – May 26, 2012 Juana Burden, 1978, B.A. – May 29, 2012

Amanda Mast, 2009, B.B.A., married Joseph Irwin of Swartz Creek, Mich., on October 13, 2012.

Matthew Ruth, 2009, B.A.S., is engaged to marry Jamie Champagne on October 27, 2012.

Jean Shemanski, 1988, B.B.A. – June 16, 2012 Carol Francke, 1976, B.B.A.; 1982, M.B.A. – June 23, 2012 Craig Bublitz, 1977, B.A. – June 29, 2012 Elnor Waugh, 1983, B.A. – July 6, 2012 Carol Duby, 1984, B.S. – July 26, 2012 Kathleen Schrott, 1980, B.A. – August 2, 2012 Shirley Jones, 1987, B.A. – August 3, 2012

70 SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY

The Payoff of My College Education Saginaw Valley State University has been and continues to be such a significant part of my life. The most important pivotal moments in my life happened at SVSU, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

SVSU allowed me to grow tremendously academically, socially, professionally, mentally, personally – and has made it possible for me to now grow financially.

When I first stepped on the campus in fall 2008, I was a transfer student from Albany State University, where I played football.

When I came to SVSU, I had to put down the football pads and pick up the calculator to focus on my studies, because I knew that my career wasn’t on the football field. Little did I know that it would open a door full of opportunities I never could have imagined.

Even though college today is a huge investment, it is an investment well worth the cost because of the dividends it will pay in the future. I feel that I have already received some dividends, plus more. A college education has a priceless value. It is comprised of lessons and experience learned in and outside of the classroom.

SVSU truly is the school of opportunities at a great value. I loved the fact that, in every class I had, my professor knew my name and was very helpful to me if I needed any help or had any concerns. The small class

atmosphere provided the opportunity to really get to know my professors. One of those class opportunities led me to build a relationship with Dr. Mark McCartney, who became my favorite accounting professor and who was very instrumental in helping me prepare for my career as an accountant. I was part of Dr. McCartney’s small group tutoring session, where he assists his students with studying for the CPA exam. His success rate for students who go on to pass the exam is very high.

Building relationships with faculty and staff is crucial for personal growth while in college. I was able to build other relationships within the College of Business & Management that paid off in multiple scholarships and internships. Mark Potts, assistant dean of the college, invested a lot of time and effort into my college career and made sure that I took advantage of every opportunity presented to me. My last internship led to a full-time offer from Plante Moran, a public accounting and business advisory firm, where I started on their assurance team this August.

Learning through involvement outside the classroom is just as important as learning inside the classroom. I always stress to underclassmen the importance of getting involved: involvement is the key to endless opportunities and has a snowball

effect. When you become involved in one organization, you have a desire to want to do more and more. The snowball continues to roll and grow bigger until you finish your college career as a well-rounded individual full of experiences (and some growing pains).

In the end, it is well worth it, for now I am ready and prepared for the road that lies ahead. As the saying goes, it isn’t always about the destination, but instead, the journey to the destination. That is where your character is built and where your experiences lie. I am grateful that my experiences lie within University Center, on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University.

Vance Fulton graduated in May 2012 with a Bachelor of Professional Accountancy.

At SVSU, he was a member of the Roberts Fellows, inducted into the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and served on the College of Business Student Advisory Council. He was also a resident assistant, orientation leader, member of Alpha Phi Alpha and Delta Sigma Pi, chancellor of Mu Pi chapter, president of National Pan-Hellenic Council and 2011 homecoming king.

In a late August e-mail, Vance wrote “I recently took and passed three sections of the CPA exam on my first try. I am studying for the fourth and hopefully final exam.”

REFLECTIONS2013 MAGAZINE 71

7400 Bay Road â&#x20AC;˘ University Center, MI 48710

Health Professional Alumni Endowed Scholarship

M

eet Nicole Smith and Robin Shisler. Nicole is a predental senior majoring in biology and Robin is a senior nursing student. Both have a huge educational advantage, because SVSU alumni have their backs.

Seven caring Cardinals joined together to create the SVSU Health Professional Alumni Endowed Scholarship. By combining their gifts, these leaders in our regional health care community were able to establish an endowment to encourage and support future health care leaders, like Robin and Nicole.

Through affinity groups like this one, SVSU graduates can strengthen the impact of their individual gifts and make a lasting difference for SVSU students and the community.

For information on establishing a scholarship, contact the SVSU Foundation at (989) 946-4052 or foundation@svsu.edu.

Backed by Red Pride SVSU HEALTH PROFESSIONAL ALUMNI ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDING DONORS:

Bradi L. Boyce, 1994, D.D.S. Brent M. Boyce, 1994, M.D. Raymond J. Dean, 1994, M.D. Alice M. Gerard, 1985, B.S.N. Terrance E. Lerash, 1981, B.S.N. Terry J. Lutz, 1985, B.B.A. Janet C. Sternberg, 1981, B.S.N.