University of Georgia Magazine Winter 2017

winter 2017

renaissance town In 2014, fire destroyed part of downtown Clarkesville.

UGA helped residents rebuild it.

With a new year comes many more opportunities for the University of Georgia to further its commitment to world-class education for all. UGA is committed to opening more doors for hardworking students, inspiring the next generation of leaders, and improving communities both near and far.

During this season of giving, make a difference with your tax-deductible gift to UGA. Support the Georgia Fund and provide deserving students with much-needed scholarship support.

give.uga.edu/gm

SHOW YOUR PRIDE

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The UGA Alumni Association and Bank of America have teamed up to bring banking products to BulldogÂŽ fans everywhere.

Learn more at alumni.uga.edu/boa

CONTENTS

The Exploratory Center helps students map out their futures. p. 20

the magazine of the university of georgia winter 2017

INSIDE 5

The President’s Pen

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UGA to Z

President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 discusses the impact of new UGA facilities.

News, accomplishments, and accolades from the UGA community.

From the ashes: How did a fire and a partnership with UGA help a Georgia community rejuvenate its downtown? p. 28 the northeast georgian, 2014

34

Bulldog Bulletin

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On the Bulldog Beat

News and events from the UGA Alumni Association.

Need a hug? Go see Ms. Sandra.

38

Class Notes Welcome back a Gym Dogs legend and meet the UGA alumna behind some of moviegoers’ favorite animated films.

56

Faculty Focus Get to know Steven Stice,

FEATURE

ON THE COVER

18 Major Discovery

A new advising center guides students toward their academic destinations.

20 A Tradition is Born

One of our Founding Fathers wrote the charter to establish UGA as the birthplace of higher education in America.

24 New Materials,

Photo by Peter Frey

New Perspectives

Researchers in the New Materials Institute use green engineering principles to help find plastic alternatives.

Georgia Research Alliance scholar and D.W. Brooks Distinguished Professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

28 Renaissance Town

In 2014, fire destroyed a large section of downtown Clarkesville.

UGA helped residents rebuild it.

Visitors strolling through Clarkesville's charming square would never know that three years ago, a fire left a significant portion of it in ruins.

The town's renaissance is a remarkable story of community strength and creative redevelopment.

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Sun Spotting for one dramatically lit afternoon, sanford stadium was transformed into the largest classroom in UGA history. The first total solar eclipse to cross the contiguous United States in nearly a century was cause for celebration around the country, and UGA joined in the fun. More than 20,000 sun worshippers packed Sanford Stadium on August 21 to experience the once-in-a-lifetime event. Athens was a few miles outside the path of totality—although the Classic City’s 99.1 percent was still impressive—so while the sun didn’t completely disappear, the sliver of light that remained was mesmerizing.

The Eclipse Blackout, as the program was termed, featured eclipse-themed music, trivia, and presentations by UGA faculty and administrators.

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andrew davis tucker

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winter 2017

VOLUME 97

ISSUE NO. 1

georgia magazine

Editor · Eric Rangus MA ’94 Associate Editor · Aaron Hale MA ’16 Art Director · Jackie Baxter Roberts Advertising Director · Pamela Leed Office Manager · Fran Burke UGA Photographers · Peter Frey BFA ’94, Rick O’Quinn ABJ ’87, Andrew Davis Tucker, Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ ’10, Chad Osburn Contributors · Kellyn Amodeo ABJ ’09, Leigh Beeson MA ’17 Editorial Interns · Katherine Costikyan, Rachel Floyd, Mara Weissinger

marketing & communications Vice President · Karri Hobson-Pape Executive Director · Janis Gleason Brand Strategy Director · Michele Horn

administration President · Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 Senior VP for Academic Affairs & Provost · Pamela Whitten VP for Finance & Administration · Ryan Nesbit MBA ’91 VP for Development & Alumni Relations · Kelly Kerner VP for Instruction · Rahul Shrivastav VP for Research · David C. Lee Interim VP for Public Service & Outreach · Laura Meadows EdD ’13 VP for Student Affairs · Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87 VP for Government Relations · J. Griffin Doyle AB ’76, JD ’79 VP for Information Technology · Timothy M. Chester

Change your mailing address by contacting e: records@uga.edu or ph: 888-268-5442 Find Georgia Magazine online at ugamagazine.uga.edu Submit Class Notes or story ideas to gmeditor@uga.edu

advertise in Georgia Magazine by contacting Pamela Leed at e: pjleed@uga.edu or ph: 706-542-8124 fine print

Georgia Magazine (issn 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA. postmaster | Send address changes to: University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602

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andrew davis tucker

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In compliance with federal law, including the provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or military service in its administrations of educational policies, programs or activities; its admissions policies; scholarhsip and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. In addition , the University does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation consistent with the University non-discrimination policy. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the director of the Equal Opportunity Office 119 Homes-Hunter Academic Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706-542-7912 (V/TDD).

Fax 706-542-2822.

THE PRESIDENT’S PEN

Building for the Future

Facilities projects elevate teaching, research, and service in the 21st century

The birthplace of public higher education in America is on the rise as we pursue teaching, research, and service at the highest levels. Over the past year, the University of Georgia has advanced a number of facilities projects to amplify these efforts.

At the heart of our beautiful campus, we dedicated Phase II and broke ground on Phase III of the Terry College’s Business Learning Community. Designed to prepare the next generation of business leaders, Phase II features Amos Hall, Benson Hall, and Moore-Rooker Hall—state-ofthe-art buildings honoring generous donors. When finished, the three-phased project will have been funded by a 50-50 match of state and private dollars—a testament to the deep support for our institution and its outstanding Terry College of Business.

“ Working together— through strong partnerships with our home state and our generous alumni and friends—the University of Georgia is expanding the boundaries of what is possible.”

The university led three major renovation projects this year to promote student learning and success. Historic Baldwin Hall was remodeled and expanded to increase instructional space for departments of the School of Public and International Affairs and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Clark Howell Hall was modernized to strengthen services provided by the Career Center, Disability Resources Center, and University Testing Services. Russell Hall—a first-year residence hall—is undergoing significant changes and will reopen next fall.

UGA also augmented our world-class athletics facilities, opening the Indoor Athletic Facility and beginning a renovation of the West End of Sanford Stadium. These exciting projects—funded by private support—are testaments to the loyalty, passion, and excitement for Georgia athletics.

The new home of the Center for Molecular Medicine opened this fall, allowing the center’s critical human health research to grow and address diseases such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. New turfgrass research and education facilities were dedicated this fall in Griffin, Tifton, and Athens, providing modern spaces for faculty research to support the state’s vital turfgrass industry.

The State Botanical Garden of Georgia has launched a project that will provide an innovative space for children to learn and play, the Alice H. Richards Children’s Garden. The project includes a canopy walk, creature habitats, and edible landscapes, among other interactive features.

Without a doubt, these projects are helping UGA faculty, staff, and students to improve the world around us. Working together—through strong partnerships with our home state and our generous alumni and friends—the University of Georgia is expanding the boundaries of what is possible.

Jere W. Morehead President geo rgia maga z ine | win ter 2 017

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CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2018 BULLDOG 100 BUSINESSES

Celebrate this year’s fastest growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni!

JANUARY 27, 2018 ATLANTA HYATT REGENCY KEYNOTE BY AMY SMILOVIC ABJ ’89 CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER // TIBI, LLC

alumni.uga.edu/b100/gm

Brought to you by:

UGA Z to

News, accomplishments, and accolades from the UGA community

GLORY, GLORY

A Tradition Turns 30 Before each home game, silence grips the otherwise noisy Sanford Stadium.

A trumpeter steps forward in the southwest corner of the stands to play a solemn 14-note solo of UGA’s fight song, Glory to Georgia, before others in the Redcoat Marching Band join in for the dramatic finish.

Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation, as it’s become known, is one of the most memorable traditions of home football games in Athens. This season, the arrangement turned 30.

Redcoat alumnus Jeff Simmons BMus ’88 wrote the arrangement in 1987 by incorporating the source material to Glory to Georgia (the most well-known version being Battle Hymn of the Republic). The arrangement was first introduced to fans during the band’s pregame warmup in the Tate Student Center parking lot (a predecessor to today’s Dawg Walk, according to Redcoat alumnus Marion English, BMus ’88, MMEd ’98). In 2000, the tradition moved inside the stadium, where the band plays the song live accompanied by video highlights—past and present—narrated by the late football announcer Larry Munson.

dorothy kozlowski

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UGA to Z

andrew davis tucker

Above, President Jere Morehead, Governor Nathan Deal, First Lady Sandra Deal, and a variety of special guests break ground on the third phase of the Business Learning Community. The third phase will be 72,100 square feet and will include the last two buildings of this six-building community set to be completed in 2019. The lower level floor plan of Phase III is below.

MOVING ON UP

Rising in the Ranks Continuing its upward trajectory, UGA has once again risen in several national rankings.

UGA jumped two spots to its highest position ever at No. 16 on the 2018 top public universities list by U.S. News and World Report, released in September. This marks the second consecutive year the university has advanced in the rankings; in 2016, the university was ranked No. 21.

Rankings are based on multiple factors, such as incoming class statistics, class sizes, alumni giving rates, and peer institution rankings. UGA is one of only two Southeastern Conference schools to make the list of top 20 public universities.

This is just one of many impressive national rankings for the university. Forbes recently ranked UGA No. 17 on its 2017 list of top colleges that dominate both academically and athletically. The New York Times ranked UGA No. 10 among public universities doing the most for low-income students in its 2017 College Access Index.

UGA research has also seen national attention, as the university is a top five U.S. institution in launching new products in to the marketplace for the third consecutive year.

More than 600 products based on university research are now in the marketplace.

no.16

no.17

no.10

top public universities

public universities that dominate academically & athletically

public universities doing the most for low income students

u.s. institution in launching new products into the marketplace

forbes 2017

new york times 2017

third consecutive year

u. s . news & world report 2018

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UGA continues to climb the ranks across multiple measures of success.

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top

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THERE'S MORE

Terry College Breaks Ground on Phase III The Terry College of Business is one step closer to the completion of its new home, the Business Learning Community.

In September, Terry dedicated the three buildings that make up the complex’s second phase, Amos, Benson, and Moore-Rooker halls, which were completed in the summer. “The thousands of students who are educated here will become the business leaders of tomorrow, ensuring prosperous days ahead for all Georgians,� said Gov. Nathan Deal.

Following the dedication, Terry guests, including Gov. Deal, Georgia First Lady Sandra Deal, and University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley, ceremonially broke ground on the third and final phase of the complex.

Phase III of the Business Learning Community will include two buildings housing classroom space, faculty and staff offices, an undergraduate commons, and conference rooms. The new buildings are scheduled to open in 2019.

The newly dedicated Phase II spans approximately 140,000 square feet and boasts two large auditoriums, classrooms, a capital markets lab, a music business lab, and other amenities. Phase I, which opened in 2015, includes a business innovation lab, classrooms, and a graduate commons.

UGA to Z TECH-SAVVY

OVER PRESCRIBED

Revamping Revisions

Too Much of a Good Thing

Revising Google documents has become a lot easier, thanks to a tool created by a UGA doctoral candidate.

Kalianne Neumann, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in the College of Education’s learning, design, and technology program, was inspired to change the way revisions are made on the popular word processing software after noticing that her middle school students were getting too caught up in small details when editing papers online.

To address this, she created Revision Assistant, a Google add-on that incorporates proofreading marks and spaces for comments to note more complex issues within text.

“I’m looking to see if the students internalize the common errors they make so they can focus on making revisions instead of fixing errors,” Neumann says.

The service now has more than 30,000 users, and a second version of the software that incorporates feedback from students and teachers, Revision Assistant, too, is available for download from Google.

Sinus infections are one of the most common reasons patients walk out of the doctor's office with an antibiotic prescription in hand. The problem is that bacteria causes only about one-third of sinus infections.

Too frequently, antibiotics are prescribed for illnesses they can’t treat, which can cause bacteria to evolve and become resistant to the medication.

To curb unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions, UGA’s Mark Ebell, a physician and professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health, developed a clinical decision rule for diagnosing sinus infections. Ebell presents a series of simple clinical rules that account for patient symptoms combined with simple lab tests to accurately detect acute bacterial sinus infections.

Having symptoms such as previous upper respiratory or sinus infections, discolored mucus, pain under the eyes, or a toothache can signal a need for additional tests to determine the risk of bacterial infection and need for antibiotics.

andrew davis tucker

Master of public health student Chelsea Lewis discusses an assignment with epidemiology professor Mark Ebell.

STORM TROOPERS

QUALITY MENTOR

Athens Opens Its Doors

Teaching Excellence

September’s Hurricane Irma left an expanse of destruction in its wake and forced many families in the South to evacuate their homes. Looking to help these families find a place to go, UGA students at Grady Newsource created the Hurricane Irma Switchboard, an online platform that paired evacuees with residents willing to share their homes in Athens and surrounding areas.

During the days leading up to the storm, volunteers used social media and the student-run Newsource website to create and staff the switchboard to help evacuees find shelter. When the university closed for two days in response to the storm, volunteers worked from home.

Students found places for all evacuees who completed the form, ultimately offering shelter to 15 people, one cat, one dog, and a rabbit. andrew davis tucker

Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology Christopher Whalen earned the Beckman Award for inspiring students to make their mark in society.

Christopher Whalen, the Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, has been honored with the Elizabeth Herlock Beckman Award, given to faculty members who inspire former students to make their mark in society through organizations that substantially benefit their communities.

Whalen, who is also director of UGA's Global Health Institute, is the third UGA professor in as many years to receive the Beckman, which is given to eight professors nationwide. As a physician-epidemiologist, he is one of the leading international researchers studying HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis transmission in Africa. Whalen has trained more than 75 students who have returned to Uganda and made immediate impacts on its health care system.

"It's an honor to receive this award and be supported by the College of Public Health and the university," said Whalen, "but especially to be supported by my former students and now colleagues."

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UGA to Z BIG BUCKS FOOD SUPPLY

UGA Partnering in $20M Research Center

Sizable Tomatoes Ever wonder how your beefsteak tomato got so beefy? UGA geneticists have pinpointed the gene variants that regulate the tomato’s size.

“The knowledge of the gene will now open up avenues of research into how fruit size can be increased further without negatively impacting other important qualities, such as disease resistance and flavor,” says UGA professor Esther van der Knaap, who has studied the genetic shifts between ancestral tomato varieties and modern tomatoes.

When humans first began cultivating the wild tomato in the Andean mountain regions of Ecuador and Northern Peru, they continually selected plants that produced larger fruits.

Now, thousands of years later, tomatoes on the market can weigh hundreds of times more than the fruits of their ancestors.

While UGA’s research offers a better understanding of what genes control a tomato’s fruit size, don’t expect any watermelon-sized tomatoes on your grocery store shelves just yet. There is still more to uncover about effectively growing even larger tomatoes, like what genes to target to make plants strong enough to support heftier fruit.

andrew davis tucker

Read more about Steven Stice, director of the Regenerative Bioscience Center, on page 56.

Led by Steven Stice, director of the University of Georgia’s Regenerative Bioscience Center (RBC), UGA researchers are working to advance cell therapies for the treatment of chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. The RBC’s involvement in the Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) is part of a large-scale collaborative effort to make therapies more affordable and accessible.

Based at the Georgia Institute of Technology, CMaT was awarded $20 million in funding from the National Science Foundation and aims to bring together partners from academia and industry. UGA is one of three partners, along with the University of Wisconsin and the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus.

“We have a richer set of engineering resources to draw on than ever before, due in large part to the incredible talent UGA has been able to attract from across the country and around the world,” Stice says.

INCLUSIVE CAMPUS

Diversity Award Win If you want to know how tomatoes have transformed since their first cultivation, ask UGA professor Esther van der Knapp.

andrew davis tucker

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For the fourth consecutive year, UGA has earned the INSIGHT Into Diversity Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award. The HEED Award is the only national recognition honoring colleges and universities that exhibit outstanding efforts and success in the area of diversity and inclusion.

The award recognizes UGA’s effort to introduce prospective students to the university, helping to bolster recruitment of a diverse student body. The university has seen an increase in overall admissions for minority students as well as a dramatic increase in minority undergraduate enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields and an increase in enrollment of underrepresented minorities in doctoral programs.

“The University of Georgia is proud of its many programs and initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion,” says Michelle Garfield Cook, associate provost for institutional diversity. “We have been successful because every sector of the institution is committed to providing access and promoting the success of our students, faculty, and staff.”

UGA to Z DOUBLE PL AY

Become a Master Faster Alumni with more than one UGA degree have long called themselves “Double Dawgs.” The university has now caught up with the terminology and, as far as current students are concerned, improved on it quite a bit. In August, UGA launched the linked-degree Double Dawgs program, which provides more than 100 opportunities for ambitious students to earn both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in five years or less. Those opportunities make Double Dawgs one of the largest accelerated master’s programs in the nation.

Each of the 113 Double Dawgs programs has a dedicated advisor who can explain the pathway admission requirements and process to students and guide them through their undergraduate coursework. Through the program, students accelerate their progress toward a master’s degree by taking rigorous graduate-level coursework during their final year of their undergraduate studies. By cutting what are normally two-year master’s programs in half, Double Dawgs can potentially save thousands of dollars “The demand for graduate education is expected to grow in the coming years in response to the needs of the labor market,” says Pamela Whitten, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an 18 percent growth in careers requiring a master’s degree compared to 12 percent for those requiring a bachelor’s degree alone. “The University of Georgia is taking a leadership role in expanding access to graduate education.”

peter frey

The launch of UGA's Double Dawgs program, which offers more than 100 opportunites to earn two degrees in five years, is cause for celebration.

SAFEGUARD AND SUSTAIN

New Captain Aboard A familiar face has taken the helm at UGA’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, located southeast of Savannah.

Clark Alexander, who joined the institute in 1991, was been named director of the multidisciplinary institution that serves as a training ground for future scientists and a home base for research that addresses economic and environmental matters affecting Georgia and beyond.

Alexander’s research explores the ways physical processes, like erosion and sedimentation, impact coastal and marine environments.

Skidaway Institute was founded in 1968. Its faculty serve as mentors and advisers for undergraduate and graduate students from UGA and all over the world.

andrew davis tucker

Clark Alexander is the new director of UGA's Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.

HIGHER STANDARDS

Bringing New Talent to Campus UGA is in the midst of its seventh presidential hiring initiative in five years.

The initiative, called “Investing in the Student Experience,” aims to recruit faculty and staff in academic disciplines that are experiencing drastic growth in student demand.

“At the heart of the University of Georgia is an unrelenting commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. It is our first priority,” says President Jere W. Morehead JD '80. “This exciting new initiative represents the latest in a series of strategic investments to elevate—even higher— the academic experience of our students.”

A total of 25 people will be hired: 10 tenure-track professors, 10 lecturers, and five academic advisors. More students are pursuing degrees in areas such as computer science, engineering, statistics, biochemistry/molecular biology, and international affairs/political science. The new instructors and advisors will support students in these high-demand areas and others.

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UGA to Z HELPING VETS

NEW VISION

Serving Those Who Served The School of Law is honoring the memory of Lt. Cmdr. James E. Butler Sr., a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy, by establishing the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, funded by a lead gift from Butler’s son, renowned Columbus trial attorney James E. "Jim" Butler Jr. ABJ ’72, JD ’77.

The clinic will provide veterans in Georgia with legal assistance regardless of their ability to pay, with particular regard to denied or deferred claims before the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The School of Law has also allocated funds for two annual scholarships at $5,000 each to be matched with funds from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Law students will staff the unit and work directly with veterans and their dependents to ensure access to benefits and service. In addition to offering law students the opportunity to work directly with clients under the supervision of a faculty member, the clinic can assist lawyers who take veterans benefits cases pro bono.

For Your Eyes Only

James E. Butler Jr. has been a longtime friend and supporter of the School of Law.

THIS IS TODAY

Internship Excitement ian mcfarlane

UGA junior Brittany Paris didn't quite join the cast of the Today show this summer, but her internship was memorable nontheless.

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Eyes may be the window to the soul. Now they’re also the keys to the dining hall.

Beginning in the fall, UGA implemented new iris camera technology for entry into Dining Services facilities and the Ramsey Student Center, replacing the biometric hand scanners previously used in those facilities.

The new system identifies users by their eyes and provides faster, more accurate access to facilities. The camera analyzes random patterns in the iris, which are compared to a digitally photographed iris pattern captured at the user’s time of enrollment.

The system can authenticate an identity from 10-14 inches away in under two seconds and is not inhibited by the use of contacts, eyeglasses, or goggles. The touch-free system also lowers the risk of spreading germs.

In March, when Brittany Paris found out she earned a summer internship, she was in a car headed south on spring break. It was a big deal, so Paris excitedly called her family to tell them about it. No one answered. No biggie, they’d soon see what she had going on.

For a junior journalism major eager to get into broadcast television, what could be better than an internship with the Today show? Paris beat out hundreds of other applicants from universities across the country for one of the Today show’s 10 summer internships through NBC Universal’s Campus 2 Career Internship Program.

The day-to-day included a lot of the requisite logistics, scheduling, and guest relations (with luminaries ranging from Tom Brokaw to Elmo). Paris also had opportunities to shadow talent on remote shoots. One particularly memorable morning, Paris saw how Today show style editor Bobbie Thomas deftly encouraged shy passers-by to try out new beauty products. The confidence Paris saw Thomas display stuck with her.

“I learned a lot about people,” she says.

“Everyone has a story and they want to tell it.

Before the internship, I was sometimes a little nervous about starting conversations, but now I’m not. I can talk to anyone.”

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c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n

REMOVING BARRIERS AND OPENING DOORS FOR STUDENTS

dreams, Students have

scholarships help them come true.

A

UGA education is a door to a world of possibilities. By opening that door, scholarships can dramatically change the trajectory of a student’s life and that of their family.

And when that student graduates as a prepared and innovative problem-solver, it creates a ripple effect for generations to come.

In a survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, 69 percent of students in the Class of 2016 nationwide agreed that their economic situation affected their college choice. Scholarships help deserving students attend UGA, regardless of their ability to pay the full cost of attendance, and they attract the best and brightest students, who will become the future workforce of our state and nation.

UGA is committed to doing even more to support students facing financial barriers pursue their education. Join us as we open more doors and turn more dreams to reality.

WHEN THE WORLD CALLS, BULLDOGS ANSWER.

i: removing barriers and opening doors for students

COURTNI REESE NEED-BASED SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT | GEE AND SUSANNA KANE SCHOLARSHIP

“I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to come here because UGA has changed the direction of my future. It wouldn't be possible without help from generous donors in the UGA family. It feels good to know that someone believes in me and to reap the benefits after working really hard in high school.”

—courtni reese early childhood education

edwin hammond abj '03

Reese is from a long line of teachers in Bowdon, Georgia, including her grandparents, mother, and aunt. She is currently student-teaching first-graders in Athens, and most enjoys working with students who "need a guiding light." After graduation, Reese plans to pursue a graduate degree in counseling and knows her scholarship will help her afford that additional education. give.uga.edu/courtni/gm

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c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n

JOHNNY SANDERS JR. AND RUBYE COLEMAN-SANDERS DR. JOHNNY SANDERS JR. AND DR. RUBYE COLEMAN-SANDERS TEACHER EDUCATION SCHOLARSHIP FUND

“We hope our gift will help students aspire to the levels that we aspired to. And, hopefully, they will make a valuable contribution to society as a whole. So it works both ways—for society and the University of Georgia.”

— johnny sanders jr. MEd '75, EdS '76, PhD '78 and rubye coleman-sanders EdD '77

andrew davis tucker

The Sanderses spent a combined 66 years teaching in high school and college classrooms. Johnny is a professor emeritus from Winthrop University and was the school's first African-American man to become a tenured full professor. Rubye retired from Lander University, where she was the first African-American woman to become a tenured full professor. A planned gift from the Sanderses will assist underrepresented students at UGA who wish to teach in communities that typically struggle to retain quality teachers. give.uga.edu/sanders/gm

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i: removing barriers and opening doors for students

donor support helps make dreams come true.

GEORGIA COMMITMENT SCHOLARSHIPS Through the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program, the UGA Foundation will match any gift in the amount of $50,000, $75,000, or $100,000 to establish an endowed undergraduate need-based scholarship.

Since the program was announced in January, more than 160 scholarships have been established by generous donors like Garry and Sandra Bridgeman (see page 50 for their story). This program has the potential to create as many as 400 to 600 new, need-based scholarships at UGA—a giant step toward eliminating the financial obstacles facing many students. give.uga.edu/gcgm

FAMILY FOUNDATIONS FUND SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS

This fall, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and the Cousins Foundation Inc. committed to supporting need-based scholarships for UGA students.

The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation contributed $1 million to the UGA College of Pharmacy to support pharmacy students facing financial hardships and an additional $500,000 to establish five need-based scholarships benefiting UGA students from Atlanta’s historic Westside neighborhoods. Blank is the cofounder of The Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retailer, and his portfolio of businesses includes the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, PGA TOUR Superstore, and MercedesBenz Stadium. give.uga.edu/blankGM

The Cousins Scholars Programs will provide financial support for 24 service-minded students with demonstrated need. The $5 million gift was made by the family foundation of Tom Cousins BBA ’52, founder and chairman of Cousins Properties, Inc., a real estate investment trust, and a former chairman of the UGA Foundation. give.uga.edu/cousinsGM

Both gifts are being matched by an additional $500,000, the maximum allowed by the program, from the UGA Foundation through the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program.

COMMIT TO ®

GIVE.UGA.EDU/REMOVING-BARRIERS

The Campaign for the University of Georgia

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Discovery major

A new advising center guides students toward their academic destinations

by leigh beeson ma ’17

D

evin gladney is exploring her options. Should she major in interior design? Or psychology? She’s not quite ready to commit to either.

At first glance, the two options appear completely unrelated. Gladney, though, thinks they go hand in hand.

“In order to be a successful interior designer, you have to be able to communicate effectively and understand people’s wants and needs,” she says. “And psychology is all about understanding people.”

Gladney started her second year at UGA in August, so she still has time to make up her mind.

Plus, Gladney and students like her now have a resource specifically designed to make sure their time exploring majors doesn’t result in lost

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credits and delayed graduation dates: UGA’s Exploratory Center.

The Exploratory Center opened in August 2016, and advisors held more than 10,000 meetings with students in the 2016-2017 academic year. Gladney was one of those students, and she continues to rely on the center to help determine which major is the perfect fit for her.

The center’s 16 advisors specialize in helping students find the right major. Four of the advisors are specifically dedicated to guiding undecided students while the others counsel students who are hoping to apply to the Terry College of Business or the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Students wishing to attend either college typically apply prior to the start of their third year at UGA.

The goal is to make selecting a major less daunting, no small task when choosing from more than 130 majors and 90 minors, not to mention the dozens of certificates that can be tacked onto their degrees. Students are encouraged to take classes in areas they think they might want to pursue, and advisors ensure those introductory courses count for core requirements in addition to potential major requirements. That way, students stay on track to graduate on time even if those classes show them their interests lie elsewhere.

“As an advisor, I saw so many students who thought they knew what they were getting into with their majors but really had no idea,” says Judy Iakovou, director of academic advising. “They would come to me in the middle of the first semester and say, ‘I don’t think I’m in the right major. I don’t know what to do.’ It seemed fairly clear that we needed an intervention with those students.”

The earlier advisors can help students home in on a major, the more opportunities they have to gain valuable experiential learning opportunities, like internships and hands-on research, that add to their resumes and contribute to personal growth.

By helping students decide on the major that's right for them early in their college

career, advisors in the Exploratory Center help prevent lost credit hours and, by extension, lower the cost of a college education for students and their families.

“The Exploratory Center is just one of the pieces that fits into the larger picture of what UGA is doing to help our students succeed,” says Rahul Shrivastav, vice president for instruction. “Our recent investments in personalized advising services, smaller class sizes, and unrivaled hands-on learning opportunities are fostering unprecedented levels of student success.”

As a result, UGA’s retention and graduation rates were among the highest in the nation in 2016, with more than 95 percent of first-year students returning for their sophomore years and 85 percent of students graduating within six years.

“What we’re trying to do is let students know that there are so many options, so many choices on this campus, that it makes sense to explore in the beginning,” says Litashia Carter, lead advisor for undecided students. “It is difficult for an 18-year-old student to be talking to somebody who’s saying, ‘I’m pre-med,’ and for that student to respond, ‘I don’t know what I want to do.’”

But many of those students who come to college with a major in mind don’t graduate with degrees in the fields they originally

chose. Nationally, about 80 percent of all college undergraduates switch majors at least once, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. At UGA, around seven out of every 10 students change their majors, with a third of those students switching degree tracks more than once.

The Exploratory Center’s specially trained advisors are able to maximize students’ credits, showing them how to strategically select classes that can count as core courses or electives in multiple degree programs. And they help students understand the multiple paths into their desired fields.

“You’re not signing your life away when you choose a major,” Iakovou says. “You’re making a decision about a discipline that interests you that could lead to many, many, many jobs. It’s comforting, I think, for students to hear that message.”

Gladney is just one of the students who’s benefitted from hearing that message. She says the Exploratory Center is one of her favorite resources at the university.

“They are genuinely there to help you and make you as happy as you can be with your major and your classes,” she says. “It means the world to me.”

OVPI.UGA.EDU/ADVISING/EXPLORATORY-CENTER

Litashia Carter (left), lead advisor for undecided students, and Devin Gladney take a stroll on campus during their advising session.

“What we’re trying to do is let students know that there are so many options, so many choices on this campus, that it makes sense to explore in the beginning.”

—Litashia Carter,

Exploratory Center advisor

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a

tradition is born

One of the nation’s Founding Fathers wrote the charter to establish the University of Georgia as the birthplace of public higher education in America by aaron hale ma ’16

I

t started with a commitment: to inspire the next generation through public higher education. And it sparked a movement that continues to shape our nation.

Abraham Baldwin was only 30 years old when he crafted one of the most groundbreaking documents in our nation's early history. In 1785, Baldwin, a licensed lawyer as well as a preacher, wrote the charter that established the University of Georgia as the birthplace of public higher education in America.

He would go on to play a crucial role at the Constitutional Convention and in drafting the Bill of Rights.

The establishment of the University of Georgia launched a great tradition of worldclass public higher education in the United States, creating tens of millions of informed citizens, new scientists, and innovative entrepreneurs in every generation. Today, public colleges and universities across the country educate about 15 million students each year.

Research at these institutions has produced discoveries that have improved lives and fueled America’s economic growth.

And it all started here.

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creating a framework

B

aldwin, the son of a Connecticut blacksmith, believed public higher education was an essential component to a thriving democracy. When crafting the charter, he knew a state university would need a broad intellectual capacity that could support agriculture and

The University of Georgia's founding charter made a commitment to education for future generations Baldwin wrote:

commerce while developing administrative and management skills.

Before the University of Georgia, the nation's few existing colleges were private, with strong religious affiliations. Baldwin himself was steeped in theology from Yale and had served as a chaplain in the

Continental Army. However, this preacher embedded in the charter religious freedom for students.

In short, Baldwin gave the people of Georgia the framework for a successful college that could support the expanding needs of a growing state.

"Our present happiness joined to pleasing prospects should conspire to make us feel ourselves under the strongest obligation to form the youth, the rising hope of our Land."

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becoming a founding father

B

aldwin’s contributions didn’t end with writing the charter. Two years later, he played an instrumental role in another milestone for our emergent nation.

He arrived as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in June 1787. Less than a month later, the convention was bitterly divided over how to structure the federal government’s legislative branch.

Larger states wanted to base representation on population, which would give them more clout. Smaller states favored equal representation for each state. The

dispute dragged on for weeks; delegates feared the convention would collapse without a finished document. In the words of one Pennsylvania delegate, “The fate of America was suspended by a hair.”

The crucial vote occurred on July 2.

Baldwin, who initially sided with the larger states, changed his vote to force a tie.

“The tie vote … gained time for tempers to cool and compromises to be made,” wrote the late UGA political science professor Albert B. Saye.

Baldwin then served on the special convention committee that crafted the Great Compromise, which led to the current

The adoption of the University of Georgia’s charter in 1785 was followed

by North Carolina, which approved a university charter in 1789. The University of North Carolina opened its doors for students in 1795; UGA in 1801. So, both states can claim “firsts.” The University of Georgia is the nation's birthplace of public higher education; the University of North Carolina is the nation’s first public college to admit students.

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configuration of the U.S. Congress with equal representation in the Senate, and apportionment based on population in the House of Representatives. Baldwin went on to help draft the Bill of Rights.

He served without pay as UGA's president during the institution's formative years and died in 1807 while a U.S. senator from Georgia.

More than 200 years later, Baldwin’s legacy as a pioneer of higher education lives on at the University of Georgia.

What began as a commitment to inspire the next generation grows stronger today.

Baldwin left a signature on this annotated draft of the U.S. Constitution.

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New Materials, New Perspectives Researchers in the New Materials Institute use green engineering principles in their work with industry partners to create new products to reduce ocean pollution by leigh beeson ma ’17

N

ext time you visit the beach, take a look around.

Chances are you’ll see a water bottle stuck in the sand. A handful of cigarette butts scattered through the dunes. Maybe a paper cup bobbing in the surf.

Eventually, all this trash may break down into smaller pieces, but it never quite goes away. That’s because one thing all these products have in common is some type of plastic, and plastic doesn’t decompose, making it one of the top environmental pollutants concerning scientists around the world.

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One such scientist is UGA’s Jenna Jambeck. The associate professor of engineering thinks companies that create new products without considering their environmental ramifications are being shortsighted. Once those products are opened, the plastic, nonrecyclable packaging wrapped around them just gets tossed in the trash. Best-case scenario, it winds up in a landfill, where it will sit indefinitely without biodegrading. In other situations, it ends up floating in the sea or sinking to the ocean floor.

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terry allen

terry allen

terry allen

Clockwise from left: Distinguished Research Professor Branson Ritchie (left) and assistant research scientist Evan White apply a newly developed coating to protect wood without leaching toxins into the environment. Drops of liquid are shown on an environmentally friendly, stain-resistant coating for textile garments. Associate professor of chemistry Jason Locklin sets up a bioplastic sample for mechanical analysis.

Perpetual

pollution

Jason Locklin, an associate professor in UGA’s chemistry department, had a related question: Why aren’t we considering what happens to products once they’ve outlived their purpose? Inspired by Jambeck’s 2015 paper in Science, which found that 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans every year, Locklin realized it was time to stop just wringing our hands about the plastic problem. It was time to act.

Locklin and Jambeck, along with Branson Ritchie, a Distinguished Research Professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, are leading the charge to bring plastic alternatives that are economically viable and environmentally friendly to the market.

Locklin serves as the director of the New Materials Institute (NMI), which is now entering its second year of operation and consists of three interconnected centers: Circular Materials Management; Polymers, Fibers, and Coatings; and Technology, Development, and Implementation. Jambeck

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heads Circular Materials Management while Ritchie directs Technology, Development, and Implementation.

“We want to be a resource for industry,” says Locklin, who also leads the institute’s Center for Polymers, Fibers, and Coating.

“We want to be a resource for people who have new technologies. We want to be a resource for people who are passionate about eliminating persistent materials in the environment.”

The center’s overarching mission is to create new materials and technologies that are commercially successful and sustainably made. The ultimate goal is to build a “circular economy,” Jambeck says. The current model for our economy is linear, Jambeck adds, meaning that new products are made, used, and then disposed of when they’ve served their purpose. In a circular economy, waste products are repurposed into other materials to make new items.

“There is no waste in nature,” she says.

“Every output becomes an input for another process. That’s the most efficient way to run things, and environmentally it’s the best way to run things.”

This approach has economic benefits, as it reduces virgin material costs for companies and jump-starts new businesses and job growth by assigning value to waste and the gathering of trash. More than that, though, it rewards innovative thinking. And that’s where the University of Georgia steps in, coming up with new ways to think about products and how to best address the environmental issues facing our world.

“We have a responsibility to do something about this persistent plastic pollution issue,” Locklin says. “It’s our duty to inform the public and to allow the public to make the materials choice based on all of the evidence.”

And the evidence is increasingly showing that the plastic problem is much bigger than most people thought.

Solving the plastic problem To date, much of the research focusing on ocean plastics has taken a clean-up approach, with the goal of getting as much of the plastic that’s already in waterways out as soon as possible. And while ridding the ocean of plastics is a laudable goal, the NMI is more focused on stopping pollution at the source. When speaking to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in May 2016, Jambeck likened the situation to a parent walking in to find an overflowing bathtub.

“What do you do first?” Jambeck asked.

“More than likely you would not start mopping and cleaning up the floor—you would turn off the faucet to stop the flow and then address the clean-up.”

One of the principles of green engineering is to consider end of life as a design criteria when developing new products.

This means accounting for what happens to products when people get rid of them, whether that means making them recyclable or biodegradable so they aren’t cluttering up landfills or using them as source material for new products. This philosophy is at the core of the New Materials Institute’s mission.

“It’s a really simple principle, but if we are guided by it, we would never have made some of these products that we have,” Jambeck says.

Associate professor of engineering Jenna Jambeck leads the New Materials Institute's Center for Circular Materials Management, focusing on reducing the use of plastic.

cassie wright

terry allen

Jenna Jambeck (right) and former graduate assistant Miriam Perryman characterize marine debris collected from the Georgia coast by material type, size, shape, and mass.

“Our goal is to develop technologies from the ground up that are actually going to be applicable."

—Branson Ritchie, lead, Center for Technology, Development, and Implementation

Tackling a seemingly insurmountable challenge NMI teams are working with industry partners to improve the efficiency and applications of biobased, degradable plastic alternatives and to prove their safety in land and aquatic environments. The institute was also recently awarded the first phase of a grant from the National Science Foundation that will enable the NMI to join the Center for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (CB2). Based at Iowa State University, CB2 currently works to develop biobased products from agricultural resources. The collaboration with NMI will allow the expansion into the area of sustainable packaging and help connect the NMI to industry partners like Ford, 3M, ADM, Hyundai, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as other university-based research institutes and colleges.

“When you’re talking about developing technologies in an academic setting and actually wanting to translate them to make an impact, you need to work with companies,” Locklin says. “In the NMI, our primary focus to date has been developing unique industry partnerships.”

And joining CB2 is just the start for the institute.

“The ultimate question we hope to answer is how do we make healthier, better lives through the application of modern chemistry, engineering, and medicine?” Ritchie says. “Our goal is to develop technologies from the ground up that are actually going to be applicable. And that’s what we’re able to do very effectively at the university with our in-state team members, our outof-state team members, and our global supporters.”

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renaissance town

In 2014, fire destroyed a large section of downtown Clarkesville. UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government helped rebuild it.

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by eric rangus ma ’94

I

n small towns, news travels fast.

The calls started going out from Clarkesville Fire Chief Jerry Palmer at 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 5, 2014.

“Downtown’s on fire!”

Town leaders began showing up a few minutes later to find the east side of Clarkesville’s historic town square engulfed in flames. Firefighters battled the blaze all night. Mayor Terry Greene BS ’84 stayed with them. City Councilwoman Barrie Aycock, who had been elected just months earlier, quickly realized there was little she could do and went home, where she prayed the fire would be contained.

Mary Beth Horton ABJ ’00, director of Clarkesville Main Street, the town’s downtown development association, showed up in her pajamas. She was still wearing them when day broke. City Manager Barbara Kesler arrived just as the sun was rising on Thursday.

“The smell was horrid,” Kesler recalls. “Just awful.”

The devastation was profound. The fire began in a restaurant just off the strip and quickly jumped to neighboring structures. Four buildings, some more than 100 years old, were destroyed. The damage would have been worse if not for the heroic efforts of Habersham County firefighters as well as a firewall that protected the buildings on the north side of the strip. Seven businesses, including three restaurants, gone. A gaping wound gouged into the middle of a charming, thriving north Georgia town.

Officially, the cause of the fire remains undetermined. That was never the case for the 1,800 residents of Clarkesville. They’re quite determined.

“It didn’t all burn to the ground,” says Aycock, who was elected mayor after Greene’s death in December 2015. “We knew we couldn’t rebuild it all at once, but the fire was perhaps, in some ways, a blessing in disguise.”

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peter frey

'A BREATH OF FRESH AIR' In 2011, UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, the Georgia Municipal Association, and the Georgia Cities Foundation formed the Georgia Downtown Renaissance Partnership. Its mission is to help Georgia cities of all sizes and in all regions of the state focus on the importance of downtown development.

Downtown development is crucial anywhere but in the hundreds of small-tomedium-size towns that dot the state, it’s particularly vital. Aesthetically, downtowns are the brand of a community. They also are economic engines for the state.

They fuel public pride and employ dozens, if not hundreds or thousands. The Institute of Government is an ideal partner.

For 90 years, it has supported Georgia government. As a UGA public service and

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More than 800 people responded to calls for input to the Clarkesville Strategic Plan. Turning those ideas into projects was the responsibility of Clarkesville Main Street's Mary Beth Horton, City Manager Barbara Kesler, and Mayor Barrie Aycock (left to right), along with UGA's Danny Bivins.

outreach unit, the institute’s portfolio ranges from state-mandated training for government officials to local and regional economic development, strategic planning, and much more.

In 2013, the Georgia Downtown Renaissance Partnership created Renaissance Strategic Visioning & Planning (RSVP) program to assist cities in creating a vision and work program for their downtown areas. Since then the RSVP program has assisted with downtown revitalization projects in 40 Georgia communities.

Post-fire Clarkesville was an ideal client.

The day after the fire, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs set up an office in Clarkesville ready to help.

Clarkesville leaders, through the RSVP

program, soon reached out to UGA and the Institute of Government. That brought Danny Bivins AB ’96, MHP ’02 to town.

Bivins, a senior public service associate, has worked for the University of Georgia since 2002 and is considered a master of downtown development and design. Clarkesville is one of more than half a dozen Georgia towns he’s partnered with through RSVP. When he got to Clarkesville, which is about an hour north of Athens, he didn’t waste any time.

“I remember when Danny came to the first town hall meeting,” Aycock says. “He was a breath of fresh air. It’s amazing having someone from outside telling you how great your town is, especially after what the fire did to it.”

'EVERYONE WANTED TO BE INVOLVED' Over a two-month period, Bivins led 14 focus groups. One was made up of local real estate agents, another of church leaders. One was a group of high school students, and so forth. Surveys were placed in local newspapers and on websites. Every time customers went to the bank downtown or the flower shop, store owners and staff would ask them to fill out a survey.

“The community knows the issues and the challenges,” Bivins says. “They also know the solutions. You just have to ask them. One thing we do really well is listen.

Other consultants might come in with great ideas and great package, but when they leave, nothing happens. That’s because the plan wasn’t the community’s ideas.”

“Danny’s energy was contagious,” Horton says. “When he would lead those meetings, he would capture things and encourage people to share ideas in ways I couldn’t do myself. He came from outside with some out-of-the-box thinking and people loved it. Had it not been for Danny, we wouldn’t have had all this feedback.”

In February 2015, Bivins presented the institute’s 87-page Clarkesville Strategic Plan to a standing room-only crowd. He

The Clarkesville Strategic Plan is a creative collection of ideas for developing the town. Many intriguing proposals looked beyond the burnt square. One was a re-envisioning of the area around the town's gazebo (below).

and his team, using input and recommendations from more than 800 Clarkesville respondents, produced in five months what would normally take a year to complete.

The strategic plan offered a variety of options not only for rebuilding the square but also encompassing the whole of downtown Clarkesville. The plan is equal parts practical and ambitious.

It featured artistic renderings of the new downtown strip (some including buildings as high as three stories with apartments at the top), ideas for infill construction, and even a 20-year plan for a new courthouse square. All of the art was put together by students and fellows in the UGA College of Environmental Design, under the direction of Kaitlin Messich MHP ’10, MFA ’13, creative design specialist, and Clark Stancil BLA ’15, landscape and urban designer, both at the Institute of Government.

The plan was met with near universal approval. Of course, like any multilayered project, not every idea on paper sees the light of brick and mortar. It was up to Horton to figure out how to make the good stuff happen.

“I took all these short-term projects and

turned them into my work plan items for the year,” Horton said. “The board and I recruited many new volunteers from the community. Everyone wanted to be involved.”

For more than a year, it seemed like every week Horton crossed a project off her list. Obsolete two-hour parking signs were removed and parking spaces restriped. A downtown beautification program included more attractive streetscaping, murals on previously blank building walls (see page 28) and art displayed in what had been empty windows. A viewing platform was built overlooking the nearby Soque River, which flows just 100 yards from the square.

A public rest-room in Pitts Park was cleaned up and repainted.

The linchpin to the work, of course, was the square. After trying to work with owners of the damaged properties to no avail, the city of Clarkesville simply bought the whole area. That gave town leaders creative control over what was built. With Bivins coming to town at regular intervals to consult and offer further ideas for moving forward, ground finally broke on the square on April 6, 2016.

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“I love the plaza. It’s much more than any of us ever thought it would be. It’s become a central point in town. People can meet and greet and talk and walk. It’s amazing.”

—barbara kesler, clarkesville city manager

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BASIC TRAINING

'WE NEVER WENT AWAY' step in a process that is in a constant state of progress. The streetscape keeps improving. Recommended plans for downtown lodging and a community event space continue to move forward. The square now hosts a weekly farmers market, the previously underused Habersham Community Theatre has a full marquee, and art and music events are commonplace.

Bivins doesn’t spend much time in Clarkesville now, but the institute’s strategic plan is always within arm’s reach.

“Clarkesville can be a blueprint for our work. I think it’s great we’ve had so much success,” he says. “Plans don’t have to sit on shelves. You can implement them and get the community involved as well.”

“After the fire, it was apparent to all of us that we were at a crossroads,” Kesler says. “If we wanted downtown Clarkesville to thrive, we knew that someone would have to step forward.

We’re back, but, you know, we never went away. And we never will.”

Join the Carl Vinson Institute in solving some of the state’s great challenges at give.uga.edu/Vinson.

Interested in downtown development assistance?

Contact Danny Bivins at (706) 583-0856 or by email at dbivins@uga.edu.

A

p

One year to the day of the groundbreaking, Aycock, Kesler, and Horton helped cut a green ribbon officially dedicating the renewed East Clarkesville Square. Including building purchases, the entire project cost $3 million, and 40 percent of that figure was raised from grants. At its center is a plaza named for the late Mayor Greene. The lamp-lined space doesn’t appear in any of the Institute of Government’s renderings; it’s a product of the Clarkesville team’s creativity and ingenuity. The remaining walls wouldn’t accommodate an additional building, so Clarkesville improvised and opened the whole thing up. It was an inspired choice, rooted in the confidence sown by the institute’s philosophy: The community has the solutions.

“I love the plaza,” Kesler says. “It’s much more than any of us ever thought it would be. It’s become a central point in town. People can meet and greet and talk and walk. It’s amazing.”

The ribbon cutting was merely one

s a UGA public service and outreach unit, the scope of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government is rather broad. “Anywhere you go in the state of Georgia, chances are you can find a mark of the Vinson Institute on either a project that took place in a certain community or through the people who govern it,” says Interim Director Stacy Jones BSFCS '93. “We have the opportunity to fulfill UGA’s public service mission by sharing the expertise of our people and the work they do here every day. We love doing that.”

Strategic planning like the Clarkesville project is a relatively new area for the Institute of et Government. During er f re y its 90 years of exisUnion County Commissioner, tence, the institute’s bread and butter has Lamar Paris. been fiscal and policy analysis for governmental decision makers and the training of local and state government officials and civil servants.

To conduct the state-mandated training for newly elected municipal officials and county commissioners, the Institute of Government partners with the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG), and their strong relationship with the local government has few parallels in the U.S. Newly elected county commissioners are required by law to attend 15 hours of training led by Institute of Government faculty. After that, participants have the option of continuing their leadership development, and they have a smorgasbord of 75 lifelong learning classes from which to choose. Subjects include economic development, finance, county operations, leadership, public health and safety, and much more. Commissioners earn certification (as well as a $1,200 raise) after they complete 66 hours of course work. They don’t have to quit after those 66 hours, either. They can take as many classes as they like, and many do.

“I took every course I could—every certification you could get,” says Union County Commissioner Lamar Paris BBA ’72. “This isn’t an easy job. If you are really involved in it and love your community and really want to help it, you can’t learn too much.”

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THE NATION

news and events

from the uga alumni association

2018 Bulldog 100

Digital Dawgs

alumni.uga.edu/b100/gm.

alumni.uga.edu/digitaldawgs/gm.

On Jan. 27, the UGA Alumni Association will host the eighth annual Bulldog 100 Celebration to recognize the 100 fastest growing businesses owned or operated

by UGA alumni. Learn more about last year’s No. 1 business, Chicken Salad Chick, on page 44. Then register to attend the celebration to see when the UGA Alumni Association reveals who will be No. 1 in 2018! The list of businesses is available online at

The UGA Alumni Association is inviting alumni to join its social media ambassador program, Digital Dawgs. Members earn points by sharing university updates with their social networks and are eligible to win prizes based on those points.

Past prizes have included football tickets, UGA Bookstore gift cards, and products from alumni-owned businesses. Joining is easy, and you can participate from anywhere in the world. Sign up today at

Women of UGA Mentorship Mondays

Women of UGA will host six bimonthly events in 2018 that will focus on how mentoring contributes to women’s success in the workplace. The series will feature successful alumnae sharing their insights, advice, and tips on how to find a mentor and how to best mentor others. Women represent the largest segment of the alumni population, and Women of UGA is committed to helping them maintain lifelong connections to UGA by offering personal and professional development. More at

alumni.uga.edu/womenofuga/gm.

A BULLDOG BARK TO ...

wingate downs abj '79

Congratulations to the 40 Under 40 Class of 2017! Honorees were recognized during the annual awards luncheon on Sept. 14 in Atlanta. Ernie Johnson ABJ ’78, co-host of TNT’s Inside the NBA and lead announcer for Major League Baseball on TBS, delivered the keynote address. Meet the full class at alumni.uga.edu/40u40/gm.

tk photography 2017

Rick BBA ’71 and Jane Ramsey attended a reception hosted by the university in Chicago on Sept. 7 for local alumni and friends, including those who traveled to the Midwest for the UGA vs. Notre Dame football game two nights later.

contact us: Have you moved? Changed your name? Keep your record up to date at alumni.uga.edu/myinfo.

For more information: (800) 606-8786 | alumni.uga.edu

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DON’T MISS OUT SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16

UGA Black Alumni Holiday Party

Get to know fellow graduates and support the UGA Black Alumni Scholarship Fund during a holiday gathering from 8 p.m. to midnight at Level V in Atlanta.

More at alumni.uga.edu/blackalumni/gm.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Stay connected with the UGA Alumni Association on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Alumni in Washington, D.C., “finished the drill” at SWEAT DC in August. The workout session was coordinated by the DC Dawgs Alumni Chapter.

JANUARY 22-26

2018 Founders Week

January 27 marks 233 years since the UGA Charter was signed, establishing UGA as the birthplace of public higher education in America.

Celebrate by participating in a variety of campus activities, including the annual Founders Day Lecture, featuring Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor Marshall Shepherd, on Jan. 22. More at alumni.uga.edu/calendar/gm.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24

2018 State of the University Address

President Jere W. Morehead will provide updates from campus about the future of the university and the progress of the Commit to Georgia Campaign. The public is invited to attend in the UGA Chapel or stream his remarks online.

More at calendar.uga.edu.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27

2018 Bulldog 100 Celebration

The UGA Alumni Association will recognize the fastest growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni during this annual event in Atlanta.

More at alumni.uga.edu/b100/gm.

MONDAY, JANUARY 29

40 Under 40 and Bulldog 100 Nominations Open

@DCDawgs Community Servings is a nonprofit that provides home-delivered meals to Massachusetts residents living with critical illnesses. In August, the Boston Alumni Chapter volunteered with the organization to show the local community that Bulldogs care.

@m_weekman Executive Director of the UGA Alumni Association Meredith Gurley Johnson BSFCS ’00, MED ’16 (third from left) took a photo with alumni who were in South Bend, Indiana, in September to witness UGA’s 20-19 victory over Notre Dame.

®

Nominate outstanding young alumni for 40 Under 40 and Bulldog-owned or -operated businesses for Bulldog 100. More at alumni.uga.edu/40u40/gm and alumni.uga.edu/b100/gm.

THURSDAY, MARCH 22 TEDxUGA

Hear from some of UGA’s leading thinkers and doers as they share their passions, stories, and “ideas worth spreading.” More at tedxuga.com.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20

Frances Beusse BS ’06 The Charlotte Alumni Chapter spent a little quality time browsing the exhibits at the Mint Museum in June.

81st Annual Alumni Awards Luncheon Each year, the UGA Alumni Association celebrates the achievements of distinguished alumni, faculty, and friends of UGA. More at alumni.uga.edu/alumniawards/gm.

For more events, visit alumni.uga.edu/calendar/gm.

@ugaalumniclt

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ON THE BULLDOG BEAT

y e a r s of

hugs 28

from

Sandra Patterson

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ollege is a tough transition for some students. They’re on their own for the first time in a new town on a new campus with new people. And it’s up to them to manage their schedules and studies. They look for people who will listen to them, push them, and encourage them. But sometimes what they really need is someone to give them a loving hug.

Sandra Patterson is just the person to provide it.

Patterson, known by students, alumni, and staff as Ms. Sandra, is a cashier at Snelling Dining Commons and has been with the University of Georgia for 28 years. To the UGA community, Patterson’s job entails much more than counting change and swiping cards.

She is a therapist, a cheerleader, a friendly face, and a stand-in mom. Her true love is loving people.

photos by peter frey

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“I think taking care of people is my calling,” she says.

Patterson’s mother passed away when she was 3 years old, and she and her nine sisters were raised by her father and grandmother.

“My grandma was very loving, but that’s different than having a mom,” she says. “A part of me missed that motherly love, so I have it in me to give out love.”

And she gives it freely. Patterson has become a campus celebrity because of her gracious hugs and infectious personality. She makes it her mission to bring comfort and support to the UGA community.

“The first thing I think about when someone mentions Ms. Sandra are her hugs. She literally hugs every student who comes to Snelling,” says Jim Lichtenwalter, a graduate student studying journalism. “I’ve walked into Snelling having a terrible day and just being greeted by Ms. Sandra turned my day around.”

It’s more than just hugs for Patterson and for the students. She tells the story of one particular student she worried would not graduate. “I didn’t think he was going to make it.” She pushed him to focus but never knew if she was getting through to him.

“When he got ready to graduate, he came back and thanked me,” she remembers. “He said he wouldn’t have made it without my support. I’m so glad to know I made an impact on his life.”

Over nearly three decades, Patterson has watched thousands of UGA students finish college, something she wasn’t able to do herself. “I didn’t get to go to college because there were too many of us. My dad couldn’t afford it,” she says. “Seeing these kids get to further their education and go somewhere I couldn’t go is a joy to me. It’s like I’m in college myself. I would be here forever if I could.”

—kellyn amodeo, ABJ '09

class notes

Compiled by Katherine Costikyan, Rachel Floyd, and Mara Weissinger.

1950-1954 Walter Strange BSPH ’50 retired at 94 years old after working in the pharmaceutical business for 67 years.

1960-1964 Arnold Young BBA ’63, LLB ’65 of HunterMaclean in Savannah was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

Lee Ellis AB ’65 earned the Certified Speaking Professional Designation at Influence 2017, National Security Agency’s annual convention. Ellis, a retired Air Force colonel, is an author, leadership consultant, and expert presenter in the areas of leadership, team building, and human performance.

Roland McElroy AB ’65, MA ’69 wrote The Best President the Nation Never Had: A Memoir of Working with Sam Nunn.

The memoir chronicles McElroy’s time with Nunn, once a little known Houston County state representative who became a highly influential U.S. Senator.

John Tatum AB ’65, LLB ’68 of HunterMaclean in Savannah was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

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1965-1969 David Sipple AB ’66, MPA ’69 of HunterMaclean in Savannah was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

Jackie Saylor AB ’68 was elected the vice chair/chairelect of the Atlanta Bar Association’s Estate Planning & Probate section.

Carroll Padgett Jr. AB ’69 was selected as chief associate probate judge of Horry County, South Carolina.

1970-1974 Marion Weathers BFA ’70, in collaboration with Leigh Ballance, released The Secret of Gum Swamp, the first in a series of three children’s books about making friends with numbers.

Patsy Bennett BSEd ’71, MEd ’74 retired after 30 years of work as a speech and language pathologist.

Thomas W. Mahler Jr. BBA ’72, MBA ’73 was named chair of the board of directors for Centerstone Military Services, a leader in behavioral health care. He has served as a board member since 2003.

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HIGH UP

Alumni Commit to Higher Education Two University of Georgia alumni are making their marks in the world of higher education, securing esteemed positions at two different universities.

Fredrick Harris AB ’85, a professor of political science, was appointed dean of social science at Columbia University in New York, where he has been a professor since 2007. Harris, who received Columbia's Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award in 2012, is also the director of the university’s Center on African American Politics and Society (CAAPS).

“The social sciences are needed more than ever to understand the social, political, economic, cultural, and historical forces that shape our times,” Harris says.

Jim Eck PhD ’97 has joined the administration at Brenau University in Gainesville, assuming the role of provost and vice president of academic affairs. As provost, Eck will be responsible for expanding the school’s programs and working to maintain the university’s rankings.

Prior to his position at Brenau, Eck served as provost at Louisburg College in North Carolina.

“Brenau is a pretty complex institution,” Eck told the Gainesville Times shortly after starting his position at Brenau.

“I think therein lies the challenge and therein lies the opportunity for us to work together and chart the strongest academic mission that we can.”

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Balancing Act

T

Frederick Harris (top) and Jim Eck are examples of UGA alumni who are helping lead universities around the state and country.

he gym dogs are hungry. they have something to prove. Expectations are high. With the Gym Dogs, they’re always high.

Coach Courtney Kupets Carter BSFCS ’10 MS ’13 knows this. “People are going to be watching you,” she tells her team. “They’re waiting to see every move you make. Go show them what you’re made of.”

Kupets Carter directs that challenge at her athletes. But she very easily could be talking about herself.

On May 9, Kupets Carter was named the new head coach of the Georgia’s women’s gymnastics team. Kupets Carter has coached individual gymnasts and at the club level for more than a decade, but UGA is her first collegiate coaching position. It’s an inspired hire.

Kupets Carter is the greatest collegiate gymnast in history, and no one else is really close. In her UGA career, she won 13 NCAA championships, including three all-arounds and at least one title in every individual event—the only competitor to accomplish that feat. That number could have been even higher had she not missed her junior season with a torn Achilles.

Kupets Carter, a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame, was already a superstar before donning the red and black. A national team fixture in the early 2000s, she won three national and two world titles, plus an

CLASS NOTES

Courtney Kupets Carter BSFCS ’10, MS ’13

cassie wright

Olympic silver medal in the team competition at the 2004 Athens Games and an individual bronze in the uneven bars.

The Gym Dogs won the NCAA team title each of Kupets Carter’s four years. With a total of 10 national championship banners hanging in Stegeman Coliseum, the Gym Dogs are the sport’s most successful program and the university’s most honored team. The last of those championships, though, came in 2009—Kupets Carter’s senior season.

If the Gym Dogs are to return to their glory days, it will be Kupets Carter who’ll lead them there. But she’s not alone. She leads an entirely new staff that also includes volunteer coach Suzanne Yoculan Leebern, Kupets Carter’s former UGA coach and the architect of those 10 national championship teams.

She also has a fresh, positive perspective.

“You have to take a step back when you’re done competing,” she says. “I learned so much doing gymnastics, and it made me grow as a person. You start at 3 years old. It is your entire life, and college is the pinnacle of that. I ask the athletes, ‘This is the last four years of your career. What are you going to do with them?’ I want those last years to be something special.”

The Gym Dogs’ 2018 season begins in Tuscaloosa, Friday, January 12, with a dual meet against archrival Alabama.

written by eric rangus MA '94

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Gold Rush

John McMullan BBA ’58, MBA ’60

andrew davis tucker

A

s a boy, john mcmullan collected coins. He bought them at the bank, took them home, and sorted them by denomination, date, and mint. Those pennies, nickels, and dimes wouldn’t buy much these days, but they instilled in McMullan a joy of coin collecting that he’s now sharing with all who visit the Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Earlier this year, McMullan BBA ’58, MBA ’60 donated to UGA a full set of 62 gold coins, all minted in Dahlonega, between 1838 and 1861. The Thomas Leverette McMullan Reed Creek Collection is a highlight of the Hargrett Library’s exhibition, Gold-Digging in Georgia: America’s First Gold Rush, which runs through Dec. 5.

McMullan spent nearly 15 years putting together the collection, and as soon as he finished, he knew what he wanted to do with it.

McMullan and his family’s love for UGA has taken many forms. They have endowed scholarships in athletics and supported academic programs ranging from the Terry College of Business to the English department. The coin collection is merely the most tangible gift.

“I love the University of Georgia,” says McMullan, a native of Athens who has lived in written by eric rangus MA '94

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andrew davis tucker

Atlanta for many years. “I personally believe that the solution to most of the problems we have in society is education.”

McMullan hoped he could help shine a welcome light on the Georgia Gold Rush, an important but relatively unknown period in our state’s history. It all started with a $5 gold coin McMullan inherited from his father, Thomas, a 1922 UGA alumnus in whose honor he named the collection.

McMullan started collecting the other 61 over time. He bought some from ads in coin magazines; others were obtained through auction. McMullan hopes that by putting them on display, he might encourage others to take up collecting.

“Most of the time, collectors start out a child just like I did,” he says. “Maybe they inherit a jar full of coins from their grandfather, then they take it to the bank and find out they’re sitting on a gold mine.”

1975-1979 Kathy Keller BSEd ’76 and her husband, Greg, are co-owners of the Frame & Photo Works|Photography by Greg in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Tom Odom BSEd ’77, MEd ’85, EdS ’90 was named president of the Georgia School Boards Association.

Chuck Williams BSA ’77 was appointed director of the Georgia Forestry Commission.

Kevin Williams AB ’78 of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial in Atlanta was included in The Best Lawyers in Amercia for 2018.

Michele Kievman Talka AB ’79 was named vice president and chief human resources officer of Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston, Maine.

Imogene Roncadori BSEd ’79, MEd ’87, EdS ’90 retired from Jackson County School System after teaching for 37 years.

Peter Stoddard BBA ’79 is a licensed broker in Georgia and Florida and is working at Keller Williams in Atlanta.

1980-1984 Cathy Cox ABJ ’80 was appointed dean of Mercer University’s School of Law in July.

Dave Dial AB ’80 of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial in Atlanta was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

Mack H. Guest III BSEd ’80 was elected chairman of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association.

Cheryl Hargrove ABJ ’80 is the author of Cultural Heritage Tourism: Five Steps for Success and Sustainability, which is part

CLASS NOTES FIRST AND FOREMOST

Research Abroad Ahmad Al-Omari PhD ’15 is paving his way in his home country as Jordan’s first bioinformatician to receive a Ph.D. in bioinformatics.

Al-Omari first came to UGA to join the graduate program in 2010, after being drawn to its high ranking among bioinformatics schools worldwide and its renown for being the first public university in the United States.

While pursuing his Ph.D., Al-Omari was a member of professor Jonathan Arnold’s research group in the department of genetics, where he worked on

systems biology and genetic networks.

Prior to his time at UGA, Al-Omari received a bachelor's in electrical and computer engineering from Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan. After receiving his doctorate, he returned to Irbid to work as an assistant professor and researcher in the university’s engineering department. His research interests include parallel computation, systems biology, machine learning and pattern recognition, and biological circuits and gene networks.

“I hope to make bioinformatics in Jordan well-known and beneficial, as bioinformatics in the United States is very important and helps to discover many intractable diseases and their cures,” Al-Omari says.

of the American Association for State and Local History book series.

Sid Mullis BSA ’80 retired from UGA Cooperative Extension.

Mullis is the author of Sid Sez...

Grow It in Augusta.

Tom Savini BBA ’80 was appointed chief financial officer of Revenue Analytics in Atlanta.

Brad Marsh AB ’81, JD ’84 was reappointed to the State Bar of Georgia Formal Advisory Opinion Board and the State

Bar Disciplinary BoardReview Panel. Marsh is a partner with Swift, Currie, McGhee & Heirs, LLP. Walter Cromer BSAE ’82, MS ’84 was promoted to vice president of enterprise IT at TeamHealth.

Frank Etheridge AB ’82 was named the first county administrator for Long County.

Glenn Pait Willis Jr. BBA ’82 was elected to serve a two-year term on the board of directors of the Georgia Bankers Associa-

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Just the Beginning

W special

hen erica parks deployed to Afghanistan in January 2003, she didn’t know that a public health problem would be what threatened her life.

Operation Enduring Freedom had begun.

Parks MPH ’11 was serving as a medical supply sergeant, supervising the storage and distribution of millions of dollars’ worth of medical supplies.

Called to active duty for eight months from the Army Reserve, Parks was in the first semester of nursing school at Mercer University.

She put her medical training to use in the base hospital, caring for burn patients. But it was Parks’

Erica Parks MPH ’11

experience as a patient herself that set her on the path to a career in public health.

Parks was on guard duty when she realized she needed to go to the latrine. But as she walked toward it, she began stumbling. The desert winds threw her around like a rag doll, and she couldn’t see straight.

Then she passed out.

“One of the Afghan civilians saved my life,” Parks says. “He scooped me up and literally carried me across the desert to an ambulance.”

That man, like Parks, had carbon monoxide poisoning from inhaling the fumes of cooking fires.

But he wasn’t worried about himself, despite being hospitalized with a potentially deadly condition.

“All he kept doing the whole time he was in the hospital was asking them about me, ‘How is the girl?’”

Parks recovered, ultimately earning a promotion and an Army Commendation Medal for her dedicated work at the Bagram military base. And the near-fatal experience gave her a new calling.

Afghan culture is “so different from ours, and they don’t have the things we have, which really helped me to understand public health so much more and environmental health issues,” she says.

After returning stateside, she earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Georgia and worked as a mental health counselor and then an infectious disease counselor.

Parks ultimately ended up as a health promotion officer and Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education Fellow at the U.S. Army Training Center and Fort Jackson in South Carolina. But she’s not stopping there.

“I do not like being tied to a desk,” Parks says.

“Eventually, I do see myself in an entrepreneurial role making the impact I know I want to make.”

written by leigh beeson MA '17

tion. Willis is president of the South Georgia Banking Company in Tifton.

Dennis Epps BSA ’83 was appointed chancellor of Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe.

Christopher Philips BSFR ’83, MFR ’85, JD ’88 of HunterMa-

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clean in Savannah was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

Bob Keyes AB ’84 won the Rabkin Prize for visual arts journalism from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation. Keyes covers art and culture for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

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1985-1989 Susan Cheeley AB ’85 is an agent for Virtual Properties Realty.

Chris Duncan BBA ’85, MBA ’86 is the chief operating officer and executive vice president of Decisely, an Insurtech firm in Atlanta.

Greg Hill BA ’85 is the owner of the Century 21 Wilson Minger Agency in Niceville, Florida.

Bruce E. LeRoy BSA ’85, DVM ’89 was promoted to senior principal pathologist at AbbVie. John F. Hall BBA ’86 was named chairman-elect on the board of directors of the Georgia Bankers Association. Hall is the president and CEO of American Pride Bank in Macon.

Condace Pressley ABJ ’86 was inducted into the 2016 class of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame for her career as a broadcaster.

Alex Jackson BS ’87 is the global vice-president of product supply at Janssen Pharmaceuticals in Raritan, New Jersey.

Les Simpson ABJ ’87 was elected president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

Jay Train AB ’87 of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial in Atlanta was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

David Finkelstein BBA ’88 of Northbrook, Illinois, is the president and owner of an Allstate Insurance agency in Oak Lawn.

Tracy Page ABJ ’88, owner of Katherine Page Portraits in Douglas, signed as a U.S. ambassador for Carl Zeiss AG. Page also won “Best Portrait” at the regional competition for the Southeastern Professional Photographers Association.

Kimberly Spiezio BBA ’88 is an exclusive buyer’s specialist for Joanne Curtin Team realty serving metro Atlanta.

Dixie Truelove BSA ’88 of Hall County received Leadership Georgia’s E. Dale Threadgill Community Service Award.

Betsy Fretwell AB ’89, MPA ’91

CLASS NOTES is the senior vice president of Switch CITIES, a division that focuses on infrastructure to improve cities. Fretwell was the city manager of Las Vegas, Nevada, for eight and a half years.

Michelle Hubacher ABJ ’89 was appointed partner at Walker Marketing, Inc., a communications firm in Concord, North Carolina.

Troy Lanier AB ’89, JD ’92 is the president of the Augusta Bar Association.

1990-1994 Monica Harris BSEd ’91 is one of five regional winners in Columbus for the Barnes & Noble “My Favorite Teacher” contest.

Kelly Smith BSPH ’92, PharmD ’93 is the presidentelect of the American Society of Healthcare-System Pharmacists.

Gerald Thomas BSEd ’92, MEd ’94 retired after being awarded professor emeritus status at Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Jane Carter BFA ’93 and Branch Carter BSA ’94 are the owners of Carter Koenig Photography in Grovetown.

Nathan Evans AB ’93, MBA ’11 was named president of the Austin, Texas, chapter of the University of Georgia Alumni Association.

Mark Newton BBA ’93 is the co-founder of TortIQ, a company designed to simplify the delivery of government benefits information to claimants in mass tort and class action lawsuits.

Kelley Buttrick ABJ ’94 won four Telly Awards for her KB4Jeep campaign, a video series that

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CLASS NOTES brings attention to local and national charities.

Shawne Holder BS ’94 is the principal of Lakeview Academy in Gainesville.

Randall Jarrard EdS ’94 is the director of special education for Mountain Education Charter High School in Cleveland.

C. Rhodes McLanahan BBA ’94 was elected to serve a two-year term on the board of directors for the Georgia Bankers Association. McLanahan is the president and CEO of First American Bank & Trust in Athens.

Steve Parham AB ’94, MA ’96 was appointed to the Planning

Commission for the city of Johns Creek.

1995-1999 Ginny Plunkett ABJ ’95 is the manager for proposal development for CoreCivic.

Paul Smith BSEd ’95, MEd ’99 is a teacher and football coach in Forsyth County.

Patrick Webb ABJ ’95 joined HunterMaclean law firm as a partner in the real estate practice group.

Carrie Campbell BMus ’96 is the music school director at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain

View, California, and performs as a freelance horn player in the Bay Area.

Lisa Davol BSEd ’96, MA ’01 is the parks and recreation director for Oconee County.

Jon Olmstead AB ’96 of Washington, D.C., was named executive managing director with Cushman & Wakefield Inc. Scott Witzigreuter BBA ’96, JD ’99 of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial in Atlanta was included in The Best Lawyers in America for 2018.

Michael Benner BBA ’97 is vice president at Risk Strategies Company in Lawrenceville.

Jeff Burney AB ’97 is vice president of branch strategies and operations for GEMC Federal Credit Union.

Darryl Griffing Jr. BBA ’97 is the executive and administrative officer for the 148th Brigade Support Battalion of the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in the Georgia Army National Guard. Griffing is also enrolled in the UGA Executive MBA program.

Michelle Koufman AB ’97 is a partner at Davis, Pickren, Seydel & Sneed in Atlanta, leading the firm’s trusts and estates practice group.

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

View from the Top

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hen scott deviney AB ’95 first entered the food and beverage business, he learned an important lesson from the many restaurant veterans he encountered. “It doesn’t matter what type of food we’re selling,” Deviney recalls being told by most everyone he met.

“We’re in the people business.”

For Deviney, who is CEO of the fast-casual restaurant chain Chicken Salad Chick, business (people, food, and otherwise) is going pretty well. Chicken Salad Chick tops the 2017 Bulldog 100, the UGA Alumni Association’s annual list of the 100 fastest growing companies owned or operated by UGA alumni. When he joined the company in 2015, Chicken Salad Chick had 32 stores.

The number is now 73 spread across nine Southern states.

To succeed, it’s important for a restaurant to carve itself a niche. Chicken Salad Chick has done just that with a quirky, easy-toembrace menu that features freshly made chicken salad dishes named after friends and family of co-founder Stacy Brown. (For example, Fruity Fran is a chicken salad that features a blend of apples, grapes, and pinewritten by eric rangus MA '94

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apple, while the Sassy Scotty chicken salad is a blend of ranch dressing, bacon, and cheddar cheese.)

Leadership matters, too, although the restaurant business was not Deviney’s first choice. After graduating from the Terry College of Business, Deviney moved to New York for a job in the banking industry.

When his bank started a food and beverage

Scott Deviney AB ’95 practice, Deviney jumped in and eventually purchased several restaurants in the Atlanta area. He befriended Brown and her husband, Kevin, and when they decided to sell the business, they chose him to run it.

Deviney is proud of Chicken Salad Chick’s success, but, rather than brag about it, he is more inclined to discuss the work that’s done behind the scenes. “We feel that we are a purpose-driven business,” says Deviney, who lives in Auburn, Alabama, where Chicken Salad Chick is headquartered. “All of us at Chicken Salad Chick, including our franchise owners, want to spread joy, enrich lives, and serve others. Everything we do is fulfilling that purpose.” One catalyst for serving others is the Chicken Salad Chick Foundation, which focuses on feeding the hungry and finding a cure for cancer—passions of the co-founders. (Kevin Brown died from the disease in 2015.)

“Kevin wanted to make a difference and impact others’ lives,” Deviney says. “We will continue to pursue that every day.”

To learn more about Deviney and Chicken Salad Chick, visit www.terry.uga.edu/deviney.

CLASS NOTES David Correa BBA ’98 was named to the board of directors for The Center for Working Families Inc. Lynn Boland AB ’99 was named director and chief curator of the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University.

Jenny Grimes BBA ’99 was elected Clerk of Superior Court of Candler County for the 2017-2021 term.

Townsell G. Marshall III BBA ’99 MACC ’00 was promoted to partner in the personal finance services practice at Bennett Thrasher.

Wes Rogers BBA ’99, MBA ’04 received the Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Award for his work as president and CEO of Landmark Properties in Athens.

2000-2004 Allison Brooks BSFCS ’00 was named a 40 under 40 recipient by the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce in Virginia.

Paige Cole AB ’00, MEd ’07, PhD ’14 was named a 2018 Georgia Teacher of the Year Award finalist.

Anne Myers AB ’03 and Cayce Myers MA ’06, LLM ’11, PhD ’14 of Roanoke, Virginia, welcomed daughter Cayce Anne on August 31, 2017.

Jason Reagan BSA ’00 is the district environmental health director for Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale counties. Reagan is also an executive pastor at Macedonia Baptist Church in Jackson.

Jason Reittenbach BSEd ’00 is the manager of national accounts for Comcast Corporation CHQ in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reittenbach

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Comeback Kid

Hammad Aslam BS ’08

B

efore getting out of bed, Hammad Aslam's routine starts with a smile.

“Some people will say ‘yeah, right,’ but I really do wake up with a smile,” says Aslam BS ’08. “It’s kind of annoying how happy I am every day when I wake up.”

Aslam’s sunny disposition in the morning, and really throughout the day, comes from a deep satisfaction with his job. Aslam is in the final year of a physician residency program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Spain Rehabilitation Center. He helps patients with traumatic injuries (of the spinal cord, in particular) as they strive to get back to normal—or at least adapt to a new normal.

“For me, I truly feel that this is my purpose,” he says. “Helping them with what they’re going through gives me a sense of purpose.”

His patients are going through one of the most difficult periods of their lives, but Aslam can be optimistic for them. He’s been there, and he knows that it can get better.

In May 2009, Aslam was riding with his

family on a rainy day near Augusta. He was a newly minted UGA grad with plans to go to medical school. And then the vehicle hydroplaned and crashed into a tree. The tree fell and crushed Aslam’s body.

He was in a coma for two weeks due to a severe traumatic brain injury. The crash left him with fractured ribs, punctured lungs, and a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the chest down.

But he still had a sharp mind, his hands,

and a dream.

“It seemed like I had lost almost everything, but one thing I had was that I still could be a doctor.”

Before the crash, Aslam wasn’t even aware of the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation. As he worked to regain as much mobility as possible and adapt to the new reality that he could not walk again, the doctors at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta inspired his rehabilitation and the medical field he would pursue.

After a year of recovery, Aslam was part of the inaugural class of the Augusta University/UGA Medical Partnership, a medical education program in Athens.

“Everything that’s happened to me has helped drive me into this field,” he says. “I get such satisfaction from seeing the effect I can have on patients as they recover and improve their quality of life. It’s an incredible feeling. It’s something that I wouldn’t trade anything for.”

written by aaron hale MA '16

is married to Kristen Reittenbach, and has two sons, Nicholas and Hudson.

Robert Ezekiel III BS ’01, MEd ’03 was named principal of Gaines Elementary School in Athens for the 2017-2018 school year.

Brad Merry BSA ’01 of Augusta is the owner of Merry Lumber Company LLC and Everstake LLC. Laura Green Rothermel BFA ’01

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is the director of the specialty studio at WB Interiors, an interior design firm in Alpharetta.

Janice Crews BMUS ’02, MM ’06 is the director of the Center of Excellence for Creative Arts at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Sam Mischner ABJ ’02 was promoted to chief sales officer and head of mortgage at LendingTree, an online

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loan marketplace.

Shenley Rountree ABJ ’02, MAT ’09 of Sugar Hill is the director of career, technical, and agricultural education for Barrow County Schools.

Andrea Barrett BBA ’03, MAT ’07 was named 2017 Teacher of the Year by the Georgia Marketing Education Association.

Hamilton Johnson BBA ’03 was installed as a director for

the Georgia Bankers Association, representing Leadership GBA. Johnson is the vice president and loan officer at Durden Banking Company in Swainsboro.

Emily Robinson AB ’03, MEd ’05 was selected as a TLab scholar by the English-Speaking Union of the United States and studied at Oxford University.

Stacey Suber-Drake BS ’03,

CLASS NOTES JD ’06 was named general counsel for the Georgia Department of Education.

Ryan Neville BBA ’04 joined Stevens & Lee as of counsel in the litigation department at the firm’s Charleston, South Carolina office.

Rhondolyn Jones Smith BS ’04 and her husband, James, welcomed their first child, James Isaiah, on July 24.

2005-2009 George Green BBA ’05 was promoted to member at Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial trial firm in Atlanta.

Anna Lee AB ’05 married Tucker Abbott in Charleston, South Carolina.

Stephanie Sweeney BS ’05

GREAT GRAPES

Growing in Her Field Wendy Brannen BBA ’94 isn’t afraid to tackle a new challenge. After more than 10 years in the produce industry, first at the Vidalia Onion Committee and then the U.S. Apple Association, Brannen is embracing her new role as the executive director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission in California. As the primary spokesperson for the its community, Brannen represents more than 750 winegrape growers and 85 wineries in the Lodi American Viticulture Area, south of Sacramento.

“Agriculture is agriculture, for the most part, whether it’s apples, or onions, or winegrapes,” Brannen says. She points out that weather situations, pest control, and finding skilled, reliable labor are concerns across the agriculture industry and that her prior experience has her well prepared for her new role.

At the Georgia-based Vidalia Onion Committee, Brannen orchestrated a partnership with DreamWorks Animation to build a campaign entitled “Ogres & Onions.” The campaign tied DreamWorks' Shrek character and his love of onions with the Vidalia onion, a move that grew national coverage and Vidalia onion consumption among kids exponentially.

It’s this fresh and creative take on her work that makes Brannen a great fit for her current role. “A primary draw of this opportunity is that I will continue to work for growers, which I love, but now I will employ the knowledge and experience I bring to the table from marketing other brands to help the Lodi winegrape growers and the related Lodi wineries,” she says. “I look forward to becoming both a part of the Winegrape Commission team and the Lodi community.”

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Film Buff Mai-Lise Nguyen, shown here in Basel, Switzerland, on the Rhine River, is using servant-leadership skills she learned at UGA in her global-facing job.

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hat does it take to produce Hollywood blockbusters like Toy Story and How to Train Your Dragon? For Bonnie Arnold ABJ ‘77, loving movies helps—a lot.

Bonnie Arnold ABJ ’77 As a producer and former president for DreamWorks Animation, Arnold has been responsible for the creative oversight of some of the most popular animated movies in history, including recent hits like Trolls and Boss Baby.

Over her distinguished career, Arnold’s producer credits include Disney’s Tarzan and DreamWorks’ Over the Hedge and How to Train Your Dragon 2, which won a Golden Globe for best animated feature and earned her an Oscar nomination.

Despite loving movies from a young age, Arnold did not always intend to pursue a career in film. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism, it was a graduate school internship for WGBH in Boston that unexpectedly thrust her into the industry. Working on a radio documentary for NPR, Arnold caught her first glimpse into the hidden world of production.

“For the first time, I was working with a producer, so I started to understand what that role is,” Arnold says. “It involves management and communication skills, plus a creative sensibility. It immediately became something I aspired to do.”

From there, she began searching for

production jobs closer to home in the burgeoning Atlanta film scene. Her first production job was as a unit publicist on a television movie for the PBS series, American Playhouse.

“From the day I arrived on the movie’s location, I knew that this was the career I wanted,” says Arnold.

Arnold’s career has since taken her to Los Angeles, where she has worked for some of the country’s most renowned production companies, including Columbia Pictures and Walt Disney Studios before landing at DreamWorks in 2002.

Throughout it all, Arnold attributes her lifelong love of movies as the catalyst for her passion toward her career.

Currently, Arnold is working as a producer on How to Train Your Dragon 3, the final film in the award-winning trilogy, and is developing a new project from the author of the How to Train Your Dragon series of books, titled The Wizards of Once.

“Being a producer is both rewarding and challenging; I get to work with so many talented artists every day,” says Arnold.

“I enjoy the process almost as much as I enjoy the final product.”

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works as a dentist in her own cosmetic and family dentistry practice, Savannah Dental.

Neil Woodall AB ’05 is a physician at Georgia Neurological Surgery and Comprehensive Spine in Athens, where he lives with his wife, Anneliese BSFCS ’07, and son, Arthur. Neil completed a fellowship at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, and co-authored Neurosurgery Board Review: Questions and Answers

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for Self-Assessment, 3rd Edition.

Bryan Brinson BBA ’06 was chosen by Michelob Ultra to run the 2017 TCS New York City marathon. Brinson will run in honor of his son, Harrison, who passed away earlier this year.

Jad Dial BBA ’06 was promoted to partner at Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial trial firm in Atlanta.

Rachel Williams BFA ’06 and her husband recently

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moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she is an architect at Baskervill.

Hank Clay AB ’07, BSW ’07, MPA ’09, MSW ’09 was named chief executive officer of Communities In Schools of Tennessee, the state office of the leading dropout-prevention program.

Kristen Heard ABJ ’07 participated in Miami University’s Earth Expeditions global field course in Borneo, where she studied primate denizens.

Heard is pursuing her master’s degree from Miami’s advanced inquiry program.

Bert Hummel IV AB ’07 was named secretary of the Young Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia.

Brian Berger AB ’08, MS ’10, PhD ’13 is manager of consumer insights and statistical analysis at Turner Sports. Berger teaches sport data analytics at Georgia State University.

Jill Brown AB ’08 is a registered

CLASS NOTES nurse and condition management coordinator for Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Kyle Carpenter BS ’08 is a general surgery resident at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Naomi Pate AB ’08 is in her sixth year of teaching English at Benjamin E. Mays High School.

Dale Brannon ABJ ’09 is parts advisor at Troncalli Subaru in Cumming.

Greg Caples MBA ’09 is the chief executive officer of Coliseum Northside Hospital in Macon.

Stanley Dieleman AB ’09 is a chemical engineer at PinnacleART in Houston, Texas.

James Deal Jr. BS ’11 is completing residency training in orthopaedic surgery at Tripler Army Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Justin Erwin BBA ’11 is a UGA ROTC alumnus who recently took command of Alpha Company, 205th Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Shafter, Hawaii.

Adam Jenks ABJ ’11 is pursuing an M.D. at the Medical College of Georgia, and is completing his clinical rotations in the

Savannah area.

R. Brian Wilson ABJ ’11 is the civic center coordinator in Commerce.

Danielle Sobol BS ’12 graduated from the Duke University School of Medicine and is now a resident in plastic surgery at the University of Washington.

Katie Cawthon BSW ’13 is the missions coordinator at Perry United Methodist Church.

Justin Ernest BBA ’13 is an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School.

Chelsea Metzger BS ’13 is attending the Mercer University School of Medicine.

2015-2017 Benjamin Daniel BSA ’15 is attending the Medical College of Georgia in Athens and conducted research with Vanderbilt University in pediatric trauma, blood product anaphylaxis, and scoliosis.

Nadia Gabriel BSA ’15 is a DDS candidate in the University of California,

2010-2014 Melinda Allbritton BSFCS ’10 is the owner of Mel’s Pork Pit, a barbecue restaurant in Milner.

Charles Barber ABJ ’10 works as a professional photographer and trapeze instructor in Santa Monica, California.

Brandon Giddens BSA ’10 works for Atlas Greenhouses in Alapaha.

Abigail Soren BSFCS ’10 is a senior financial planner at BT wealth management in Atlanta.

Miranda Tacoronti BSEd ’10, AB ’10 was selected as the Fort Worth Independent School District Teacher of the Year for the 2015-2016 school year in Fort Worth, Texas.

Adam Wynn BSEd ’10, AB’10 is a board operator and on-air fill-in at 960 The Ref, a sports radio talk show in Athens.

Katherine Beall AB ’11 is the senior contract analyst at Southern Company.

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CLASS NOTES

my georgia commitment removing financial barriers for students Garry W. Bridgeman and his wife, Sandra, help decrease students’ anxiety around paying for college.

S

upporting young people has always been important to Garry W. Bridgeman, a trustee for the University of Georgia Foundation.

Bridgeman and his wife, Sandra, want to ensure qualified young people in urban areas, such as Atlanta, have the opportunity to attend UGA regardless of their financial situations.

“We don’t have children of our own, and it’s always been a priority for us to help students in our community do well academically and then move into being a productive part of society,” Bridgeman says. “I know what it means to have that kind of support, and I’m so pleased to be in a position to help others by establishing a scholarship at UGA.” The Bridgemans are endowing a need-based scholarship through the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program, which is designed to grow the number of need-based scholarships awarded to UGA students. The Garry and Sandra Bridgeman Scholarship Fund will provide financial aid to students from urban centers in Georgia who qualify academically but would not otherwise be able to afford the full cost of attendance at UGA. “I hope these scholarship recipients will have the ability to focus more on academics and less on the anxiety of making ends meet,” Bridgeman says.

“As a UGA Foundation trustee, I have gained comfort in knowing how the university functions, and I have great faith my dollars will be used wisely and serve an extremely important

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peter frey

purpose.”

Since 2005, Bridgeman has served several terms as a UGA Foundation trustee, although he isn’t an alumnus or a parent. What bolsters his connection to the university is his passion for supporting educational endeavors and for helping provide better opportunities for young people.

“I’ve been impressed with how great of an academic center UGA is for students, as well as the warmth and community the university provides,” he says. “UGA really is a family. I’ve been proud to give to UGA with my

time and now with this gift I hope will help many students to come.”

Bridgeman is an executive director, financial advisor, and institutional consulting director for the Atlanta wealth management office for Graystone Consulting, a business of Morgan Stanley. He provides consulting services to philanthropic organizations, governments, corporations, and individuals. He also is a member of 100 Black Men of Atlanta Inc., The Atlanta Guardsmen, and Delta Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity.

Follow in Garry’s footsteps and establish a need-based scholarship through the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program. give.uga.edu/gcgm

San Francisco School of Dentistry’s class of 2020.

Jacob Glazer BBA ’15 is an account manager at Dow Jones’ Los Angeles office.

Tiera Greene AB ’15 received her MSEd in Higher Education - International Education Leadership from Old Dominion University and works as the program coordinator for education abroad at Boise State University in Idaho.

Sam Hempel BS ’15, AB ’16, MA ’16 is a PhD student at Cornell University.

Adam McDonald BBA ’15 is a pilot at Naval Aviation Schools Command.

Rachael Seiden BSEd ’15 is making Aliyah to become a citizen of Israel.

Donna Sikes EDS ’15 of Savannah is a media specialist at Hesse School K-8.

Joe Bernardi BBA ’16 is a data scientist for Booz, Allen & Hamilton in Washington, D.C. Erin Clark BS ’16 is a research laboratory technician at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Clark also married Mike Reynolds in November 2017.

Joseph Comer BS ’16 is an intern for MEDLIFE, a nonprofit based in Lima, Peru.

Jenni Grace BSW ’16 is an Americorps VISTA volunteer with the Dallas County Children’s Policy Council in Selma, Alabama.

Kyla Green ABJ ’16 is an advertising account coordinator for Amusement Park, an entertainment and advertising agency in Santa Ana, California.

Gabriela Irizarry BBA ’16,

MACC ’16 is working at PwC Atlanta in the Federal Tax Services practice.

Ananya Moorthy BS ’16 is a public health associate with the CDC in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Laura Pendleton AB ’16 works as a copywriter in Prague, Czech Republic.

Marie Robison BSEd ’16 is enrolled in physical therapy school at New York University.

Brittany Spaid BSES ’16 is

studying at Armstrong State University to obtain a doctorate of physical therapy.

John Valentine BBA ’16 works at Vert, a digital marketing agency in Atlanta.

Nathan Williams AB ’16 completed a master’s program in economic history at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He now attends the Georgetown University Law Center.

Alexis Barnes BSA ’17 is a

marketing representative at John Deere.

Nikki Bevilacqua BS ’17 is a DDS candidate at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry.

Ian Boatman BS ’17 is getting his master of science degree in geography at UGA. Rennie Curran BBA ’17 retired from his professional football career and is now working as a public speaker, author, and life coach.

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Comic Book Hero

J special

osh johns AB’11 has always found joy in comic books, from traditional superhero tales to classic newspaper comics and anything in between.

“I read everything I could get my hands on, flipping through the Sunday paper to get to the comics in the back,” he says. “My bookshelves were lined with Garfield, Peanuts, Mad Magazine, Calvin and Hobbes, and of course, Archie Comics digests.”

Johns’ passion for comics books grew out of his love of storytelling, and excitement in following the adventures of these larger-than-life characters. It continued into his teenage years and become much more than just reading the stories. “I would take a popular television show, video game, or movie and then adapt that into

Josh Johns AB ’11

my own little comic book,” he says. “I knew that I wanted to be part of that rich storytelling tradition.”

From English classes in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences to earning a coveted internship at Marvel Comics, Johns worked his way into the industry, and today gets to do the exact things he loved as a kid. He serves as director of digital media and development for Valiant Comics, a leading character-based entertainment company, and part of his job is helping adapt existing comics and characters for other mediums, similar to how he created comics from television, video games, or movies as a child.

“If you can take the thing that made you happy in school and build your professional career on it 20 years later, you're doing alright in my book,” he says.

Johns’ team is responsible for all digital components that support Valient’s monthly comic books, from social media campaigns to app and video game development to video series showcasing the comics. Most recently, he helped launch Valiant Digital, a department geared toward creating original programming that stars the current heroes and villains of Valiant Universe, a role that brings out that childhood storyteller in him.

Though the process was not easy and took a “ton of effort and a little luck,” Johns wakes up each day excited to go to work, just as excited as he was as a kid rummaging through comic book stores.

“I think spreading my own knowledge about these characters, their origins, their worlds, and their complex continuity has always been one of my greatest joys,” says Johns, who also is president of the New York City chapter of the UGA Alumni Association. “It has been an incredibly fulfilling experience and one that is still every bit as special to me today as it was when I was writing and drawing comics on construction paper in elementary school.”

written by kellyn amodeo ABJ '09

Walker Kane BBA ’17 is an associate at the Weitzman Group in Houston.

Cynthia Lou BBA ’17, MACC ’17 is working for KPMG in Atlanta.

Brendon Mack BSCE ’17 is an

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associate civil engineer at Michael Baker International.

Emily McClure ABJ ’17 is the advertising coordinator for Bastion Brands in Melbourne, Australia.

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Maggie Mcnerney ABJ ’17, AB ’17 is a fellow at MSLGROUP, an international public relations firm in Washington, D.C. Seth Paulk AB ’17 and Jessica Paulk BS ’16 married in June.

Seth also began law school at the University of South Carolina in the fall.

Orlando Pimentel ABJ ’17 is an intern in the creative department at Porter Novelli, a public relations firm in Washington, D.C. Julie Rich AB ’17 of Augusta is an executive assistant at MealViewer.

Weston Staples BBA ’17 is working for the Vanguard Group in Charlotte, North Carolina.

McClain Talley ABJ ’17 joined 5Market Realty as a Realtor and marketing manager.

Morgan Young BSA ’17 is a food product development technologist at Bakkavor USA.

gradnotes arts & sciences Emily Nunn M ’85 is the author of The Comfort Food Diaries, a memoir that follows her journey across the country to heal heartbreak with food.

Bill Fischer Jr. MA ’91 is the chief of visitor services and resource management at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Erin Richman MS ’97, PhD ’01 is associate vice president for student success at Florida State College in Jacksonville.

Meghan Moser MFA ’07 is the designer and creative director of Patternseed Design Studio.

Joseph Brent MM ’11, DMA ’14 is a performer at the Detroit Opera House.

Rachelle Arnold PhD ’14

CLASS NOTES and David Benson PhD ’15 were married in Athens on April 2, 2016. They now live in Milford, Ohio.

business Robert Howren MAcc ’86 was sworn in as international president of the Tax Executives Institute. Howren is head of tax for BlueLinx Corporation in Atlanta.

Jennings Pitts MAcc ’99 was promoted to partner in the corporate tax practice at Bennett Thrasher.

Mark Martin MBA ’07 and his wife, Tiffany, welcomed son Rhett in October of 2016.

Mark also graduated from Harvard University’s Doctor of Education Leadership program.

Tim Caver MBA ’11 was named vice president of sales & business development for Briggs Healthcare in Des Moines, Iowa.

Sonja Traxler-Nwabuoku MBA ’12 of Houston, Texas wrote Office Etiquette: The Unspoken Rules in the Workplace, a humorous guide to common workplace rules.

Ross Manfre MBA ’17 started working at AT&T as part of its leadership development program.

education Felice Kaufmann PhD ’79 received the first Presidential Scholars award during a ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Kaufmann currently serves as a research assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Langone

Medical Center. The honor was named the Dr. Felice Kaufmann Award.

Sean Espinosa MEd ’17 is a professional residence hall director at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.

engineering Qin Huang MS ’13 works for iChemical, a startup in Shanghai, China.

environment and design

forestry and natural resources

Jennifer Williams MHP ’13 works for the Oklahoma Historical Society as a tax program coordinator for the State Historic Preservation Office.

Shruti Agrawal MEPD ’15 is an urban designer at Lord Aeck Sargent in Atlanta.

Jessica Rodriguez MS ’06 is a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

journalism & mass communication Dane Claussen PhD ’99 was named editor of Newspaper Research Journal, a scholarly journal published by The Association for Education

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CLASS NOTES in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Cayce Myers MA ’06, LLM ’11, PhD ’14 and Anne Myers BA ’03 of Roanoke, Virginia welcomed daughter Cayce Anne on August 31, 2017.

Katherine Keib PhD ’17 is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetoric Studies at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Herd Immunity

Stephan Schaefbauer DVM ’06

law Edward Rappaport JD ’89 is a senior counsel at The Saylor Law Firm LLP in Atlanta.

Christopher P. Twyman JD ’99 of Cox Byington Twyman & Johnson LLP in Rome, was selected to serve on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Georgia. Twyman serves in the Rome Judicial Circuit, Post 1 seat.

Kate Smith JD ’12 is a partner with FisherBroyles. She is married to Edgar Smith JD ’06.

Catherine Mattingly JD ’11 was named to the board of directors for The Center for Working Families, Inc.

public & international affairs Paul Carlsen PhD ’12 was appointed president of Lakeshore Technical College in Wisconsin.

brian rynda

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s an assistant director in the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Stephan Schaefbauer DVM ’06 tracks and helps eliminate diseases in animals in the state of Minnesota. But there was a time when she wasn’t sure she’d finish her doctorate.

The summer after her first year in the College of Veterinary Medicine, her mom suffered an aneurysm. Suddenly, instead of looking at finishing veterinary training, Schaefbauer was thinking about leaving school to take care of her mom. She had been interning with the Georgia branch of APHIS-Veterinary Services at the time. Instead of terminating the internship early, GA APHIS-VS worked with the assistant director in Schaefbauer’s home state of South Carolina to ensure she could continue to work while caring for her mother.

The assistant director of SC APHIS-VS at the time remains one of Schaefbauer’s mentors.

That kind of dedication to both its employees and the publics it serves was typical of APHIS and struck a chord with Schaefbauer. She’s worked for APHIS in various capacities ever written by leigh beeson MA '17

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since, now serving as the head of Minnesota’s veterinary services division.

“Being a public servant feels more like a calling than a choice,” Schaefbauer says. “I was built to serve, and it’s something I take very seriously.”

The link between animal health and the public’s wellbeing is what originally drove Schaefbauer into regulatory medicine instead of private practice after getting her doctorate of veterinary medicine from UGA. “It’s more than just working with one animal for one person,” she says. “It’s the opportunity to have this broader touch and bigger impact.”

She credits much of her success to her time at UGA, saying the supportive administration and faculty were essential in making it possible for her to stay in school while her mom recovered and finish her degree.

“I have story after story of teachers who poured everything into each student so that we would make the next generation of leaders no matter where we went,” Schaefbauer says. “I just wouldn’t be who I am without the University of Georgia.”

CLASS NOTES

IT STARTS WITH IT STARTS WITH

IT STARTS WITH

COMMITMENT. DETERMINATION. GEORGIA.

It starts with commitment.

A commitment to making a difference.

Our students and faculty are making discoveries that lead to new products, stronger communities, and innovative technology. And we’re just getting started.

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Published quarterly and mailed to the household, your advertising message reaches your audience directly, giving you one of the strongest demographic buys in the region. For information on advertising in the award-winning Georgia Magazine, contact Pamela Leed at 706-542-8124 or pjleed@uga.edu.

send us your notes Help UGA and your classmates keep up with what’s happening in your life—both personally and professionally—by sending Class Notes items to one of the addresses listed below.

And please include your hometown to help us keep our alumni database up to date. If you send a photo, please make sure it is a resolution of 300 dpi.

Class Notes is the first section we work on, so keep these deadlines in mind: for the Spring (March) issue, submit by December 1; for Summer (June), submit by March 1; for Fall (September), submit by June 1; for Winter (December), submit by September 1.

Quickest way to send Class Notes Email: GMeditor@uga.edu Website: ugamagazine.uga.edu UGA Alumni Association Please submit online at alumni.uga.edu/classnotes Or send a letter to: Georgia Magazine 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602-1999

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FACULTY FOCUS

Steven Stice Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and D.W. Brooks Distinguished Professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

“I see ways in which people and projects can work together to make something better. I am not afraid to get out of my comfort zone and take a different approach.”

Ten years ago, UGA’s Regenerative Bioscience Center (RBC) was founded on the principle of collaboration to develop new treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other diseases. Stice, director of the RBC, and his colleagues have made remarkable progress. Of course, even the most successful collaborative research relies on the solitary commitment of individuals.

andrew davis tucker

Endowed chairs, positions that receive supplemental support generated from private donations, are essential to recruiting and retaining leading faculty who are committed to world-changing research and preparing the next generation of problem-solvers, pioneers, and leaders. Learn more about supporting UGA’s leading faculty at give.uga.edu.

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286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602

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Make your commitment, and make a difference today.

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