North Texan - UNT Magazine - Summer 2020

A U N I V E R S I T Y of N O R T H T E X A S P U B L I C A T I O N

Vol. 70, No. 2 Summer 2020

Thriving Through Adversity AMIDST CHAOS A N D U N C E R TA I N T Y OF COVID-19, UNT COMMUNITY RESPONDS BY CARING FOR OTHERS P

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“THE QUIET SENSE OF SOMETHING LOST.” Alfred Tennyson’s words rang eerily true as the hush of absence fell heavy on campus this spring. But the university’s dedication to providing a world-class education — even from afar — remained. The Mean Green community continued to forge connections, whether via online instruction or virtual events. And now the campus is once again abuzz, as faculty and staff work to safely welcome Eagles back to the nest.

— Photography by Ahna Hubnik

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contents F E A T U R E S

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Thriving Through Adversity Some have ventured out into a world overwhelmed by uncertainty, others have extended a helping hand virtually. Whatever the means, the Mean Green community has found ways to aid those most affected

by COVID-19 and its insidious side effects — unemployment, hunger, isolation, loneliness.

From doctors and nurses to teachers and entrepreneurs, the UNT family is using its unshakable tenacity and caring hearts to make the world better, together.

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Keeping the Faith As a preteen, Given Kachepa (’09) found himself adrift in Texas as a survivor of labor trafficking. But fate in the form of a fellow UNT alum stepped in — and ultimately helped shape the course of his life.

D E P A R T M E N T S ON THE COVER The life-sized bronze statue of J.K.G. “Doc” Silvey in front of UNT’s Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building is a sign of the times with its Mean Green face mask.

Photo by Michael Clements

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B R I L L I A N T LY G R E E N F R O M O U R P R E S I D E N T P. 4

UNT Emerges from Global Health Crisis Stronger and More United

U P F I R S T P . 9

Programs Ranked Among Nation’s Top 10 / Star Student / Expert Take

D I A LO G U E P. 5

I N N OVAT I O N P. 1 6

Letter from the Editors / Personal Touch / Reaching Goals / Saturday Memories

A Better Way to Diagnose Cancer / CAREER Awardees / Spotlight

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O N L I N E ENTERPRISING EAGLES

40 Pushing Against the Odds Eight years ago, UNT faculty and students teamed up to form PUSH, an organization devoted to supporting one of the university’s most vulnerable populations: foster care alumni.

44 The Past as a Present As they researched St. John’s, a local disappeared freedmen’s community, a team of UNT history students uncovered more than they ever dreamed — including a historic school in need of preservation.

Our alumni are nothing if not resilient, and many are currently fighting to keep their businesses open as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. Check out a list of alumniowned businesses — from restaurants to retail to bike shops and more — that are operating in these trying times.

STAYING STEADFAST

Jared Harrison (’11) has faced plenty of obstacles in his life — and not just the type he found on the football field, back when he played for the Mean Green. He’s helping others stay strong too as co-owner of Steadfast Fitness and Performance.

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK ...

Landon Kirksey went from UNT to Second City, where he cultivated his comedic chops. Now he has a podcast that is furthering the conversation about improv.

northtexan.unt.edu/online

EAGLES’ NEST M U S E P. 2 0

Wrap Star / Books / Instant Art / Breaking Barriers / Life on Film M E A N G R E E N P. 2 4

Unfinished Business / New Coaches / Service Award / Celebrating Successes

C O N N E C T I N G W I T H F R I E N D S P. 4 8

Blessings Abound From Fraternity / Cage-Free Advocate / Legacy Family G I V I N G I M PAC T P. 5 4

UNT Cares Keeps Students on Track / OLLI at UNT Podcast

R E T R O S P E C T I V E P. 5 6

100 Years Ago, Spanish Influenza Took Hold F R I E N D S W E ’ L L M I S S P. 5 7

Obituaries P E R S P E C T I V E P. 6 0

Spring Graduate Overcomes a Lifetime of Adversity to Earn College Degree

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FROM OUR PRESIDENT UNIVERSITY BRAND STRATEGY AND COMMUNICATIONS LEADERSHIP VICE PRESIDENT JIM BERSCHEIDT

MOVING FORWARD

UNT Emerges from Global Health Crisis Stronger and More United As the university responds to recent challenges due to COVID-19 — adapting to virtual services, remote and online classes, and shelter in place — it fills me with tremendous pride to say that we have become an even stronger, more connected community through this shared adversity.

Our faculty and staff adapted quickly and skillfully to a mostly virtual campus serving our nearly 40,000 students — and their unique needs. For those students who had no other home, we sheltered them. Some staff in residence halls, dining services, facilities and UNT Police continued to take care of campus. Others worked around the clock to tackle accessibility concerns and answer numerous questions. Many of you generously donated to our UNT Cares campaign, and we received federal assistance to help our students struggling with financial insecurity keep their educations on track.

Additionally, many of our alumni stepped up within their communities, and our dedicated UNT researchers pivoted to find solutions for the pandemic, as you will read about on page 30.

Even though May commencement ceremonies had to be placed on hold, I am so proud of our 4,800 recent graduates. Earning a UNT degree is a badge of honor, especially as they crossed the finish line during such difficult times, showing exceptional dedication along the way. You can see my virtual message to graduates at president.unt.edu and learn more about some of our Great Grads on page 26.

We have changed during these unprecedented few months, but we never stopped supporting, learning and teaching. As we ease into this new reality — beginning our phased return to campus for limited in-person teaching for Summer II and resuming campus learning and residential life this fall — the safety of our students, faculty, staff and visitors remains our top priority. In true UNT spirit, we are carefully embarking on our next steps with guidance from federal, state and local health authorities and with the people next to us, recognizing that every individual has unique challenges.

I hope we look back at this time and see not just the challenges, but also the care and commitment we afforded each other — especially the support we provided our students so that they could achieve their dreams. Trust that we will keep moving forward with determination, creativity and caring.

UNT proud,

Neal Smatresk President president@unt.edu @UNTPrez

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ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT KELLEY REESE (’95) MAGAZINE STAFF EXECUTIVE EDITOR JULIE ELLIOTT PAYNE (’97) MANAGING EDITOR RANDENA HULSTRAND (’88, ’07 M.J.)

EDITORS ERIN CRISTALES (’11 M.S.) JESSICA DELEÓN JILL KING (’93 M.S., ’00 M.A.) ART DIRECTOR ANGILEE WILKERSON DESIGN EDITOR NOLA KEMP (’92) PHOTO EDITOR GARY PAYNE (’99) PROJECT MANAGEMENT SPRING ATWATER ERICA BLOUNT JAN CLOUNTZ

DESIGNERS CLIFFTON CASTER HOLLY NELSON CIERA SCHIBI PHOTOGRAPHERS MICHAEL CLEMENTS RANJANI GROTH (’16) AHNA HUBNIK (’03) WRITERS AMY BRUNDEEN AMANDA FULLER LEIGH ANNE GULLETT TRISTA MOXLEY KRIS MULLER HEATHER NOEL JIM ROGERS MEREDITH MORIAK WRIGHT (M.S. ’19)

SOCIAL MEDIA EUNICE ARCHILA (’16) MELISA BROWN (’93) MEGAN LAWTON ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS JACOB KING ERIC VANDERGRIFF STUDENT CONTRIBUTORS BRITTNEY DEAR ALEXIS FLORES SEAN RIEDEL (’19) SARAH STEVENS

ADVERTISING JACK FRASER (’11) MARYBETH MENZ (’08, ’12 M.A.)

North Texan

The North Texan (ISSN 0468-6659) is published four times a year (in March, June, September and December) by the University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311070, Denton, Texas 76203-5017, for distribution to alumni and friends of the university. Periodicals postage paid at Denton, Texas, and at additional mailing offices. The diverse views on matters of public interest presented in the North Texan do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the university. Publications staff can be reached at northtexan@unt.edu or 940-565-2108.

Postmaster: Please send requests for changes of address, accompanied if possible by old address labels, to the University of North Texas, University Brand Strategy and Communications, 1155 Union Circle #311070, Denton, Texas 76203-5017.

The UNT System and the University of North Texas are the owners of all of their trademarks, service marks, trade names, slogans, graphic images and photography and they may not be used without permission.

The University of North Texas (UNT) prohibits discrimination and harassment because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal or state law in its application and admission processes; educational programs and activities; employment policies, procedures, and processes; and university facilities. The university takes active measures to prevent such conduct and investigates and takes remedial action when appropriate. Direct questions or concerns to the equal opportunity office, 940-565-2759, or the dean of students, 940-565-2648. TTY access is available at 940-369-8652.

Created by the Division of University Brand Strategy and Communications ©2020 UNT URCM 6/20 (20-366)

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DIALOGUE

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS When we first started compiling the summer issue of the North Texan, we were well into the planning stages for a different cover story topic and were working from our offices on campus. But, like most of you, our plans changed. We had to adapt. As the coronavirus spread, we began working from home to practice social distancing measures.

As we learned how our alumni were helping in their own communities — from saving patients’ lives as doctors to adjusting their business models to making PPE — we were inspired by their empathy and can-do attitudes, along with that of our own campus community, to get through these challenging times. They became the new focus of this issue. Learning about these champions has inspired us and given us hope that we’re all stronger together — and that we will get through this.

We chose to feature the iconic statue of J.K.G. “Doc” Silvey at the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building, which is often sweater bombed, on the cover. The esteemed 1930s biology professor and pioneering water quality researcher — donning a UNTbranded face mask — represents our history as an innovative and persevering group of people who care about the world around them, a fitting reminder of who we are.

While we weren’t able to capture some of our spring event photography for this issue, such as commencement and the Grad Block Party highlights, we did some thinking outside of the box. For many stories, we’ve asked for submitted photos, and in a few cases,

Curious about how our campus has weathered other health crises in the past, we dug deep into the archives.

In our Retrospective department on pg. 56, you’ll see a glimpse of how the university reacted to the 1918 flu pandemic. It’s our hope that 100 years from now, our readers will remember how the UNT community valiantly coped with COVID-19 using the same type of resilience, humor and care. We hope you enjoy this issue.

The North Texan staff PERSONAL TOUCH I received my copy of the spring issue of the North Texan. I will read it after the 3-day quarantine period on my mail. I do still like touching the actual magazine.

Anthony Spencer (’03 M.J.) Austin

our photographers ventured out for well-planned social distanced photo shoots — where they were sprayed down with Lysol.

Our writers conducted interviews through Zoom and via cell phone. And our entire staff experienced many of the same trials and tribulations that other employees have endured working from home — meeting deadlines while homeschooling children, putting up with technology that not always behaves, and having pets invite themselves into meetings without contributing anything (other than cuteness).

Above: From top, North Texan designer Cliff Caster at home creating a layout with his four little ones looking on, and editor Erin Cristales (’11 M.S.) wordsmithing story copy among her fur babies.

REACHING #GOALS So proud of my baby girl, soccer player Dominique James (’19), who was featured in the spring North Texan! UNT was the perfect fit for her. I’ll miss her on the field, but I look forward to seeing what the next group of players bring to the program.

Desiree James Fort Worth

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DIALOGUE

TELL US ABOUT SATURDAY MEMORIES I was a Depression baby, but I was never depressed! Sure, we didn’t have much money, but in Denton during the Depression, there was the greatest entertainment of all — the Saturday Night Stage Show, created and produced by ’Fessor Floyd Graham at North Texas State Teachers College. Professor Graham taught music at the college, and he also directed a popular music band, Aces of Collegeland, which was featured every Saturday night in the Main Auditorium.

The stage show continued on for decades. I arrived at North Texas State College in the fall of 1949, majoring in speech and theatre. I was preparing myself for a career on Broadway or in the movies. But, my heart was yearning to be on the Saturday Night Stage Show. I had a great singing act. At least I thought so. And so did ’Fessor Graham. He put me on. What a thrill!

One Saturday night backstage, I met the drummer in the band, Jack Rumbley (’51, ’52 M.M.Ed.). Jack loved and appreciated ’Fessor. After the Saturday show, the band would rush off to play a party somewhere on campus. ’Fessor helped Jack haul his drums to the job. Very few students had cars in those days. ’Fessor took the time and effort to help his favorite drummer.

Jack and I married in Denton in the Little Chapel in the Woods, and guess who was seated in the front row of the church? Our beloved ’Fessor Graham!

How have you been staying productive during the COVID-19 pandemic? We’d like to know what new hobbies and interests you’ve acquired or your efforts of service to others in coping and adjusting during these past months.

Email, write or tweet us @northtexan: How are you staying productive?

Some of our former students shared on Facebook where their first class on campus was.

Candice Bayron Wooten Hall. I had a lot of classes there.

My great-grandfather attended classes in the Normal Building! He graduated in 1896.

Genélle Tobey Curry Hall! It was the Nature of Communication Disorders course. Shortly before I graduated last year, I visited it and was overwhelmed with an influx of memories.

Janice Kay Odom One of my first semester classes (PE) was rollerskating on the Slab behind the UB. So embarrassing. @meredithlmao I love UNT because i’ll just be chilling and then a dude will sit down and just absolutely shred some jazz on the union piano. @LeighAn53254238 Throwback Thursday! Days in the dorm! #GMG #DentonTx

Rose-Mary Rumbley (’52, ’53 M.Ed., ’71 Ph.D.) Dallas

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UNT Division of University Brand Strategy and Communications 1155 Union Circle #311070 Denton, Texas 76203-5017

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1. @srirachacorgi You can’t spell Quarantine without UNT! We can’t wait to get back to campus once this is all over!

it gets tough, but giving up isn’t an option! Also, get involved!! My husband and I met and were very (and still are) involved with our university.

2. @rachael_lindholm My school district is having “Virtual Signing Day” and they challenged staff to post their university and some advice. My advice is to keep in mind your end goal throughout college, because

P.S. Really missing sports and can’t wait for football season!! #gomeangreen!! @unt #lhhsfutureready #decisionday2020 3. @ bamitsgram Surprise for UNT grad from his Mom.

4. danregaladophotography It’s a spoopy season here @unt. #thunderstorm #UNT #storms #lightning #downpour #spoopy #canon80d #canonphotography #shotoncanon 5. @tabanckiewicz It’s UNT pride!!! Highschool senior grad. #UNT #universityofnorthtexas #college #university #meangreen #scrappy #northtexas #texas

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THIS WAY FORWARD SET A CAREER CHANGE IN MOTION. EXPAND YOUR OPPORTUNITIES. FOLLOW YOUR PASSION. UNT OFFERS 88 MASTER’S AND 36 DOCTORAL DEGREE PROGRAMS THAT ARE DESIGNED WITH CONVENIENT SCHEDULING AND LOCATIONS TO TAKE YOUR FUTURE FURTHER.

DENTON | FRISCO | ONLINE unt.edu/graddegrees

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UNT’s dedication to encouraging and supporting diversity and equality has led to its designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), allowing the university to receive additional federal funds to support and expand programs for Hispanic students — and making it one of a small number of Tier One research universities that also is an HSI.

BRILLIANTLY GREEN

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UP FIRST

academics

UNT PROGRAMS RANKED AMONG NATION’S TOP 10 In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been more importance than ever placed on the health and public service fields — and two of UNT’s College of Health and Public Service programs rank among the nation’s top 10 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2021 Best Graduate Schools rankings.

UNT’s Master of Public Administration program had two specialties recognized by U.S. News & World Report, coming in at No. 4 in homeland security and emergency management — one rank higher than last year — and No. 7 in local government management. The specialty in public finance and budgeting came in at No. 26, also higher than last year.

UNT’s College of Health and Public Service offers nine master’slevel programs, including behavior

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analysis, emergency management and disaster science, public administration and speech-language pathology, in addition to online certification programs in areas such as behavior analysis and aging.

Other national rankings for UNT this year include No. 42 for the College of Visual Arts and Design’s fine arts program and No. 68 for the College of Engineering’s materials science and engineering program.

UNT offers 10 engineering master’s programs, including artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering, cybersecurity, computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, engineering management, engineering technology, materials science and engineering, and mechanical and energy engineering.

UNT offers more than 80 online program options including bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and undergraduate and graduate certificates. That includes two new fully online certificates in data analytics the university began offering this summer. The 15hour data analytics undergraduate and graduate certificate programs can be completed in as little as seven months.

New In-demand Degrees Added UNT is helping to ease industry needs with new degrees in cybersecurity and engineering management this fall, as well as geographic information systems + computer science in Fall 2021.

B.S. and M.S. in cybersecurity Both programs, housed in the College of Engineering, will emphasize skills such as critical thinking, creativity and problem solving in an active learning environment.

M.S. in engineering management Students will acquire the knowledge and skills needed to advance their career and become pioneering leaders in the engineering field.

B.S. in geographic information systems + computer science The new program, in UNT’s Department of Geography and the Environment, will teach students how to apply geographical perspectives to complex data-related geospatial processes, understand computing principles, program using various languages including C++ and Python, and use complex databases effectively.

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UNT HAS BEEN LISTED AS A MEMBER OF THE EXCELLENCE IN COMMUNITY COLLEGE TRANSFER HONOR ROLL BY PHI THETA KAPPA FOR FIVE YEARS IN A ROW.

Faculty Awards

Political Science Professor Honored Valerie Martinez-Ebers (’80, ’83 M.P.A.), University Distinguished Research Professor of political science and director of the Latina/o and Mexican American Studies Program, was named the 2020 recipient of the Betty Moulds Lifetime Service Award by the Western Political Science Association.

The award is given to an individual who has a long history of service and extraordinary contribution to the organization.

Martinez-Ebers, who began teaching at UNT in 2008, was honored for her inclusive leadership style. The group recognized her mentoring of newcomers to the organiza-

tion, particularly women and people of color. Martinez-Eber’s research focuses include race and ethnicity in American politics, especially Latino politics, and public policy surrounding education and immigration.

Student Competition

Hard Work Pays Off Jackie Battles (’20), a financial planning major, was recently awarded second place in the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants’ National Financial Plan Competition out of 98 other teams and individuals from 15 universities across the United States. The competition is for undergraduate students in a financial services curriculum and requires them to

create a reality-based financial plan using data from a fictional family. This is the second consecutive year a UNT student has placed in the competition, with Rebecca Boyle (’19) taking first place last year. Dave Ragan (’03), adjunct professor in UNT’s G. Brint Ryan College of Business, served as faculty advisor to Battles and Boyle.

Dining

Delicious Rewards Mean Greens Café won the Gold Award for Best Vegan Recipe in the National Association of College & University Food Services’ 2020 Nutrition Awards Contest.

Mean Greens, a popular 100% plant-based dining hall that offers everything from pizza to paninis to fresh desserts, won for its Tomato Mushroom Curry recipe.

Alum Wins Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Kalani Gordon (’12), a graduate of UNT’s Mayborn School of Journalism, in May was named a Pulitzer Prize winner for local reporting as part of a team from the Baltimore Sun that revealed corruption by former mayor Catherine Pugh. The team discovered Pugh had no-bid contracts with the University of Maryland’s medical system to boost profits for her self-published children’s book, and their reporting resulted in the mayor’s resignation and a February sentencing of three years in federal prison.

Gordon serves as director of audience and analytics for the Sun, and previously worked as digital assistant managing editor at The Evening Sun of Hanover, Pennsylvania, and as a breaking news intern for The Dallas Morning News. In 2016, she was a Pulitzer finalist as part of the Sun’s breaking news team for their coverage of riots following the death of Freddie Gray, who died while being transported in a police van.

Additionally, Annette Nevins (’14 M.J.), an adjunct professor in the Mayborn School of Journalism, was named a Pulitzer finalist in May for her work as part of a Washington Post team reporting on a series of back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio.

“I am grateful for the great sensitivity and perspective shown by the team of reporters and editors I worked with for this project, which I often share with my students as a teaching tool in the classroom,” Nevins says.

Gordon and Nevins are part of a group of 15 living UNT alumni who have been recognized as Pulitzer winners or finalists.

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Star Student

BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW

Learn more about UNT’s NT40 program. studentaffairs.unt.edu/nt40

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As a first-generation American, Daniel Ojo noted the racial injustices — some veiled, others overt — he and his Nigerian-born parents frequently encountered. He also noted it did little good to protest. The first time he recalls feeling that way was in preschool when his classmates told him he couldn’t join them in the toy kitchen because “blacks aren’t allowed.”

He told his teacher. “Stop tattling,” she chastised.

“Often, my experiences would be invalidated — any time someone said something offensive, the response was always, ‘Oh, I’m sure they didn’t mean it that way,’” says Ojo, a junior political science major who was named this year’s Outstanding Diversity Advocate by UNT’s Student Government Association. “But there’s a long history of people who have had experiences similar to mine. And I thought, ‘I guess I’ll do something about it.’”

As a sophomore, Ojo — also a member of NT40, a resident advisor at Maple Hall, and an organizer with the “Your Workers My Family” campaign that advocates for equal pay and protection for essential workers during the pandemic — says he “dipped his toe” into student leadership by joining the University Program Council.

Shortly after, he was appointed by SGA as a senator, representing the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

Ojo also accepted a role as director of

internal affairs for the Black Student Union, where he worked to develop and implement programs and community outreach initiatives, as well as create and disseminate resources to boost academic retention among historically marginalized populations.

As an SGA senator, his first action was proposing and passing legislation to ensure discounted gynecological services at the Student Health and Wellness Center.

“I wanted to be the kind of substantive representation that students needed,” says Ojo, who also spearheaded an inclusive dining campaign to introduce halal and kosher meal options in the dining halls. “My goal is to make sure the opinions and needs of the people in my campus community are heard.”

In early June, Ojo — who ulti­mately hopes to earn a master’s in public administration — began the Junior Summer Institute’s Public Policy and International Affairs program, a rigorous academic graduate-level preparation program for juniors committed to public service careers.

“My focus is to effect change around the things I’m passionate about,” says Ojo, who plans to spend senior year helping to encourage young campus leaders. “If you find the confidence within yourself, and then find a community that supports you, you’ll find that what you say matters.”

— Erin Cristales

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MAYBORN SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

Students Rack Up Wins

A student advertising team from UNT’s Mayborn School of Journalism earned top honors from the National Student Show and Conference, winning “Best in Category” for a 30-second television commercial for Lawry’s Garlic Pepper seasoning. The Mayborn School also was named “Best School” in the competition.

Student teams in Principal Lecturer Bill Ford’s Advertising Design course spent a whole semester developing full collaterals for a range of consumer products.

The winning team, led by senior Julion Polk, leveraged the popular saying “Slap Your Buds” to produce a humorous and effective concept.

In the competition, a total of 129 submissions were accepted from more than 1,200 entries.

Broadcast and reporting students

View the students’ winning advertising spot. northtexan.unt.edu/student-wins

from the Mayborn School also were recently recognized as Mark of Excellence Regional award winners by the Society of Professional Journalists. First place winners will compete at the national level among other regional Mark of Excellence winners from the 12 SPJ regions.

Mayborn students were honored for TV Breaking News Reporting, Broadcast Feature Videography, Online/Digital Feature Videography, Non-fiction Magazine Article and Breaking News Reporting.

In addition, it was announced in May that Mayborn student Carter Mize won third place in Hearst’s Breaking News Writing competition.

Reaccreditation

Once again, the UNT Police Department has earned accreditation by the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA). Fewer than 2% of university/college law enforcement and public safety agencies nationwide have achieved accreditation through IACLEA. It is the department’s fifth consecutive award since earning its initial accreditation in 2007.

A voluntary, international program, IACLEA accreditation recognizes an agency’s commitment to the highest professional standards for campus law enforcement and protective services. Candidate agencies undergo a review across 195 standards in areas ranging from policy and procedure to organizational management to support services and operations tailored to a campus environment.

Virtual Incubator UNT and GSVlabs, a Silicon Valleybased global innovation services company, launched a technology platform to provide real-world support for UNT students, staff, faculty and aspiring North Texas entrepreneurs. The platform, UNT Passport, offers access to a global entrepreneurship community, venture capital firms and mentorship from DFW-based business owners, UNT alumni and international experts to further boost the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the North Texas region.

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Expert Take

Lessons Learned The past few months have been challenging for everyone, and certain industries in particular are feeling the strain. Whether it’s overflowing hospitals, under-booked airplanes or overloaded internet, there have been lessons learned in nearly every conceivable aspect of modern life.

Of course, that’s particularly significant for universities that are preparing the next generation of changemakers. Here, professors from some of the fields most affected by COVID-19 discuss some key takeaways for their areas moving forward, and how those lessons could potentially affect future curriculum.

PAM HARRELL

Professor and co-director of Teach North Texas in UNT’s Department of Teacher Education and Administration

“Instructors may want to begin designing a curriculum that is more functional and relevant to learner needs in an online environment.

Beginning with the learning outcomes, the lessons, assignments, materials, resources and assessments should reflect good design principles that support and engage learners.”

GARY WEBB

Professor and chair of UNT’s Department of Emergency Management and Disaster Science

“In addition to being critical thinkers and complex problem solvers, the next generation of disaster professionals will need to be socially aware, recognizing that broad societal trends, including rapid urbanization and globalization, have dramatically increased the risks we face and created an environment in which those risks can quickly spread and multiply.”

LINDA MIHALICK

Senior lecturer, Digital Retailing and Consumer Experience and senior director of UNT’s Global Digital Retailing Research Center

Read more from our experts about what the future may hold for various industries. northtexan.unt.edu/lessons-learned

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“Digital retailing, the supporting online technologies and consumer experiences are seeing great impacts.

Approximately 60% of all physical stores closed, and online became the lifeline to acquiring the products needed to continue living in home quarantine. Curriculum and student learning will be adapted to address these real-time implications.”

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#UNTcares Our Mean Green Family is made to stand up and help in times like these.

Be part of the UNT community’s response to COVID-19.

Your generosity will help our students persevere as they face unexpected problems related to the global crisis, including challenges with health, living and educational expenses. By giving, you will help us empower and inspire our students to pursue their educational dreams.

Give now at one.unt.edu/untcares.

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INNOVATION

Above: Tae-Youl Choi (right) discusses his biosensor project with Ph.D. student Rohini Atluri (left) and undergraduate student Andrew Jarrett (center).

Read more about Choi’s groundbreaking work. northtexan.unt.edu/diagnose-cancer

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A Better Way to Diagnose Cancer UNT professor’s sensor technology promises a quicker, more reliable approach

Doctors soon will have a new way to determine if a cell is cancerous by measuring its thermal properties, thanks to UNT College of Engineering professor Tae-Youl Choi. Choi has developed a micropipette sensor technology that will allow for a quicker, more reliable diagnosis of cancerous or precancerous cells. Doctors also should be able to determine the boundary between cancerous and healthy tissue in real time during surgery. “Instead of taking the temperature of the patient, I am sort of taking the temperature of their cells,” says Choi, who was recently awarded $360,000 through a National Science Foundation grant to continue his research into the thermal conductivity and diffusivity of human cells as biomarkers in early-stage ovarian cancer detection.

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“The Resilient Air Space Operations and Services platform will allow low-flying traffic, both manned and unmanned, to receive data from multiple sources, sense their surroundings and automatically share information about airspace hazards with one another.”

— Kamesh Namuduri The electrical engineering professor in UNT’s College of Engineering is leading a team of academic and industry experts working with NASA on its Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign. The goal of the campaign is to test the capabilities and readiness of vehicles and systems that could revolutionize mobility in and around densely populated metropolitan areas.

CAREER AWARDEES

As part of the grant, the researchers also will develop educational programs for UNT students.

Three UNT researchers in linguistics, physics and mathematics were awarded more than $1.5 million total in grant money through the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program.

Their wins, coupled with electrical engineering assistant professor Ifana Mahbub’s CAREER award earlier this year, marks a record for UNT. Alexis Palmer, a computational linguist in the Department of Linguistics, received $550,000 for her work in the development of natural language processing tools for lowresourced or endangered languages.

Oliviero Andreussi, a computational scientist in the Department of Physics, received $600,000 to develop and apply new tools that help characterize chemical processes at solid-liquid interfaces. Nam Trang, an assistant professor with the Department of Mathematics, will use his $400,000 grant to conduct research in theoretical mathematics that can potentially lead to a better understanding of the foundation of mathematics as it relates to science.

METHANOL RESEARCH Finding a method for large scale, inexpensive transformation of methane into methanol is like turning lead into gold, says Thomas Cundari, Regents Professor of chemistry.

Transforming methane into methanol is easy, he says — you simply burn one carbon-hydrogen bond. But unless the burn can be stopped at just the right time, the methanol will burn into one molecule after another until only carbon dioxide and water remain.

“Methane is made up of one carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms,” he says. “All we need to do to get methanol is to insert one oxygen atom between one of the hydrogen atoms and the carbon atom.”

To ensure the oxygen atom falls into place, Cundari plans to use a catalyst and a nucleophile as a co-catalyst to stop the process from progressing past methanol into other molecules.

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INNOVATION

spotlight

Restoring Native Species

AS THEY WORK ON ONE OF THEIR LARGER PROJECTS — an 800-acre expanse of land where they’re busy creating kestrel boxes and insect homes — Molly Burke (’19), Taylor Phillips (’19) and Jesse Stanford (’19) often listen to the property owner reminisce about the native species he remembers glimpsing as a kid growing up in Texas. Many years ago, he told them, he saw so many Monarch butterflies, they practically blotted out the sun.

“Meanwhile, we haven’t seen a single Monarch butterfly this spring,” Stanford says.

That’s because drought, pesticides and loss of habitat have led to an enormous decline

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in insect populations over the past few decades, with the Monarch population in particular dropping by an estimated 90%. It’s startling statistics like those that motivated Burke, Phillips and Stanford — all UNT ecology graduates — to open Denton-based Wildscapers Restoration Company in January, which focuses on restoring the habitats of flora and fauna native to Texas.

“There’s really nobody else in the area that’s doing what we’re doing,” Burke says. “We’re attempting to create spaces that will help preserve the Texas landscape in preparation of future climate change. Trying to shelter as much of the environ-

ment as we can right now is really important.”

The trio first gained hands-on experience in conservation as students at UNT, where they all helped shape the Pollinative Prairie, a native north central Texas tallgrass prairie reconstruction project located on four acres of the east field at UNT’s Discovery Park campus. They spent trial-and-error-filled months killing off invasive Bermuda grass before stamping seeds into the soil — ultimately transforming the area into a vibrant prairie with native flowers, grasses and pollinating insects.

“That fieldwork expertise gave us the opportunity to hone different skillsets,” Burke says.

Now, as part of Wildscapers, they’ve worked on several landscapes locally, from small-scale garden design to large-scale restoration projects. And they’re committed to helping everyone reach one very important goal.

“We have to work together to change how we’re living and treating the environment,” Stanford says, “to keep the Earth sustainable for all species.”

— Erin Cristales

‘Bee Campus’ Once Again Efforts to engage the campus in enhancing pollinator habitat and promoting conservation education have earned UNT a renewal of its Bee Campus USA certification for 2020 following a rigorous review process. UNT initially earned this status in 2016 when it became the first Bee Campus USA affiliate in Texas.

Bee Campus USA brings campus communities together to sustain pollinators by creating and enhancing habitat, reducing pesticide use and spreading awareness.

Contributions Honored Kent Chapman, Regents Professor of biology and director of UNT’s BioDiscovery Institute, has been named the 2020 laureate of the International Symposium on Plant Lipids’ Terry Galliard Medal.

The award — named in honor of Galliard, the organizer of the first ISPL in Norwich in 1974 — is given to a scientist who contributes significantly to the field of plant lipid research. Additionally, Jantana Keereetaweep (’15 Ph.D.) was named the laureate of ISPL’s Paul K. Stumpf award, presented to a promising early-career plant lipid researcher.

As part of their awards, Chapman and Keereetaweep have been invited to present a web-based lecture July 7.

north TEXAN | northtexan.unt.edu | Summer 2020

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UNT’S UNDERGRADUATE COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PROGRAM IS RANKED 16TH IN THE NATION FOR ENROLLING AND GRADUATING WOMEN BY THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

Goldwater Scholars

New Frontier for Spaceships

Kevin Yao and Christopher Zhou, students from UNT’s Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, have been named 2020 Goldwater Scholars.

Goldwater awards are considered to be among the country’s most prestigious scholarships awarded to students planning careers in mathematics, science and engineering.

Yao has a patent pending for his independent research on machine learning for cancer-prediction applications. He conducted research in the laboratory of Jose Perez, a professor in the Department of Physics, investigating the fundamental properties of novel two-dimensional materials for applications in next-generation electronics and technology.

Zhou was part of a competitive coding team that won first place in the advanced division at Lockheed Martin’s CodeQuest competition.

He conducted research in the lab of Thomas Cundari, Regents Professor in the Department of Chemistry, where he used computational chemistry and artificial intelligence algorithms to help design novel transition metal catalysts, building blocks for the future of alternative energy sources.

UNT leads Texas universities in the number of Goldwater Scholars in math, science and engineering, with a total of 66 scholars named since 1996.

Alyssa Sarvadi (’20) and her mentor Huseyin Bostanci, an associate professor in the College of Engineering, believe they have found a better way to revitalize the air aboard spaceships.

And NASA agrees.

The two received a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities grant that will provide up to $160,000 over two years for their research into the design and development of a “microgravity vortex phase separator for liquid amine CO2 removal system.” Sarvadi — who will begin graduate studies at UNT in the fall and will work at NASA during the next two summers as part of the grant — and Bostanci propose to design and build a system using a microgravity vortex phase separator that could potentially offer a reliable, high-throughput flow and energy-efficient CO2 removal technology for future crewed space exploration missions.

By the Numbers

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Three professors in UNT’s College of Engineering were recently named fellows in some of the globe’s most prestigious science and engineering societies.

Thomas Scharf, a professor in UNT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was elected fellow of ASM International for significant contributions in materials tribology and surface engineering, pioneering work on solid lubricant materials and mechanisms, and distinguished service to the materials science community.

Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering professor Sheldon Shi was named fellow by the International Society of Wood Science and Technology, an organization of wood scientists, engineers and other professionals concerned with raw materials used in the production of biofuels.

And Jincheng Du (pictured), a professor in UNT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Ceramic Society.

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MUSE

Above: Alumna Laura Schlegel (’07) is pictured with her daughter Annika taping a segment for her video series on the Ellentube app.

Wrap Star Alumna’s creative skills catch the eye of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Read about how Schlegel’s contest entry — a rap song featuring a gorilla — helped her win the title and her own series. Also read her tips on how to craft with kids during a quarantine or anytime. northtexan.unt.edu/wrap-star

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Laura Schlegel’s (’07) “marketing mind” is always on. And it helped the Nashville-based stay-at-home mother and avid crafter win the attention last year of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

She received the title of “Ellen’s Most Gifted Wrapper,” $20,000 and her own series, “Pretty Crafty,” on the Ellentube app. The series is a culmination of Schlegel’s skills that she honed at UNT, as a steadfast, hard-working student-athlete on the Mean Green swim team majoring in marketing.

“I am hoping I can catapult this opportunity to do some dream things and that it opens some doors for me,” she says. “I am excited to see what the future has to hold.”

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BG • MUSE

IT JUST GIVES ME TIME TO BE GREATER TO REALLY FLESH OUT THIS WORK.” — Artist Deborah Roberts (’85) in a New York Times profile about how she is working during the pandemic.

Her fans include Beyoncé and Barack Obama.

Books

Replanted Joshua Hook, associate professor of counseling psychology and a licensed clinical psychologist, co-wrote Replanted: Faith-Based Support for Adoptive and Foster Families for families who are adopting or fostering children, and the communities supporting them.

Hook and his wife and co-author, Jenn Ranter Hook, who has counseled kids in foster care, are both active in the nonprofit organization Replanted Ministry, which shares the same mission. Their advice ranges from getting a support system to obtaining training about trauma and attachment.

“The book talks about both the joys and challenges of adoption and foster care,” Hook says. “The key point is that you can’t do it alone — you need help and support along the way.”

Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army Kate Imy The assistant professor of history examines the deep racial and religious divisions of India’s military before its independence from Britain.

Taken by the Devil: The Censorship of Frank Wedekind and Alban Berg’s Lulu Margaret Notley The professor of music history explores the role censorship played in determining the shape and tone of Berg’s opera, beginning with the suppression of Wedekind’s original play in 1894.

Instant Art The most viewed artist on GIPHY. Megan Lockhart Motown’s (’10) Valentine’s Day message to her husband went viral — for all the right reasons. In 2017, she created a GIF of two doughnuts with the message “I love you so much you donut even know.”

The GIF drew 100 million views on the Tinder dating app — leading her to work for GIPHY, a website for quick, animated visuals. Motown’s creations have become so popular that she was named GIPHY’s Top Viewed Artist of 2019. A freelance artist in L.A., she says she likes making GIFs for its instant gratification: “I can have an idea, make a GIF, and the next day people can use it to express themselves.”

Motown has been creating art since age 5, when she drew a chalk mural in her backyard. At UNT, she majored in communication design, then switched to printmaking when enthralled by Adam Palmer’s screenprinting class.

In collaboration with GIPHY, she produces “packs,” a collection of 15 GIFs related to a holiday or theme or made for such brands as StitchFix and HP. But most of her creations are personal — intended to enhance communication.

“Most of the GIFs I make to use myself,” she says. “I use them in my own communication when a text message feels sterile.”

The Politics of Vietnamese Craft: American Diplomacy and Domestication Jennifer Way The College of Visual Arts and Design professor shows how, in the Cold War, the State Department sent designers to South Vietnam to develop native craft, encouraging Americans to buy it.

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MUSE TWO COLLEGE OF MUSIC ALUMS APPEARED ON THE COVER OF MAGAZINES THIS SPRING. MICHAEL LEAGUE OF SNARKY PUPPY WAS FEATURED IN JAZZED MAGAZINE, WHILE NORAH JONES GRACED DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE.

Breaking Barriers Life on Film

Wearable Art

Artist creates visionary costumes.

Sandra Leonard’s (’88) sculptures are alive. The Chicago-area artist makes costumes, or “wearable sculptures,” in unconventional shapes that are shown in theatrical productions, galleries, wearable art runway shows and even the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium, where children can don her animal costumes. She also worked with the Art Institute of Chicago to create Bauhaus-inspired interactive costumes.

Leonard has liked experimenting since she was at UNT, where she worked in ceramics, architecture and photography. In the sculpture department, she practiced welding, woodworking and bronze casting — and met her husband, John Colson (’86), also an artist. Her sculptures require both sewing and construction techniques. She’ll manipulate fabric with embroidery, cross stitch or paint. Then she’ll add in metal and plastic boning for structure to create skirts.

Making a costume can take one to two months to finish and requires repetitive work for often unseen details.

“The joy of this process is having the costume finally finished and seeing it on a performer,” Leonard says, “having my vision come to life.”

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Usman Peguero’s (’15 M.M.) violin has become his passport to the world.

Peguero took up the instrument in his native Dominican Republic as a child. He joined his country’s National Youth Orchestra, which enabled him to travel around the world and make friends. He then left his country to attend Florida International University and perform in the Youth Orchestra of the Americas and graduated from their Global Leaders Program.

Now Peguero, who earned his master’s in violin performance at UNT, is a member of the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast in Northern Ireland and the Chineke! Orchestra, which is Europe’s first black and minority orchestra.

“We are bringing to the concert halls some much-needed fresh air in the classical music scene, breaking long-established socioeconomic and cultural barriers,” he says. “When performing with ensembles which promote diversity, their audiences also resemble this. I am pleased to see that the concert experience becomes much richer and vibrant.”

In just one minute, German Torres’ (’15) film Vida depicts bits of everyday life that have resonated with many during the pandemic.

The media arts graduate has developed a strong reputation for his music videos and commercials in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He began using a video camera in his early teens, then came to UNT. “My family went from a small ranch in Mexico where they got water out of a well to assimilating into a predominantly African American neighborhood in Fort Worth, and now I was given the privilege to step foot on a university campus full of different perspectives, upbringings and potential to grow as a person,” he says. “Jarring and exciting at the same time, my time at UNT gave me the skills to navigate a large diverse network of people called ‘modern society’ and thus made me a stronger filmmaker in the end.”

| northtexan.unt.edu | Summer 2020

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BG • MUSE

Making Magic

Alumna uses the lighting skills she learned in theatre at the happiest place on Earth.

Alyssa Valencia (’13) helps light up Walt Disney World. As a show lighting designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, the theatre graduate helps create the lighting designs for new projects — from lampposts to accent lights in an attraction.

She uses the same principles she learned in her Lighting and Sound I class at UNT — which also taught her that it is OK to ask for help.

“You are never a fool if you raise your hand or ask a question during a meeting and, luckily, Walt Disney Imagineering has the same theory,” she says. “We push ourselves and our designs and technology to the max every day, so it makes sense that we are always learning.”

One perk of the job: She gets to walk around the Orlando amusement park when only a handful of people are around.

“It is one of the best feelings in the world,” she says, “when my team and I have been working toward a goal for many years and at night, a few days or hours before opening, we get to add the final magical glints that make Disney different from everyone else.”

Forward Thinking

How to Support the Arts from Afar?

“If you purchased tickets, including season tickets, to a theatre that is now closed, please consider donating your purchase. As theatre professionals, we are doing our best to release scenes, photos and interviews to keep our theatres relevant during this time. So please keep watching, sharing and supporting our progress.”— Nathan Autrey (’07), artistic director for the Breckenridge Backstage Theatre in Breckenridge, Colorado, who has more than 10 years of experience as an actor, director and teacher “Located in San Francisco, the Museum of Craft and Design was one of the first museums required to shelter in place. We quickly pivoted to offer free online experiences through MCD@Home. We appreciate our members, donors and online shoppers who continue to support us during this time and are inspired daily by the creativity of those we serve.”— Tracy Bays-Boothe (’97, ’02 M.A.), associate director of the Museum of Craft and Design and former executive director of the Greater Denton Arts Council, adjunct professor at UNT and staffer at the Crow Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art “People can support the arts in other ways by following and supporting local artists’ and art organizations’ social media, by purchasing locally created music and art directly from the artists or through local distributors, by supporting and listening to local radio (KUZU 92.9 FM — Denton’s local radio station) and local podcasts, and by participating (passively or actively) in livestream events — showing virtual audience participation.”— Rachel Weaver (’12, ’14 M.A.), director of SCRAP Denton, a creative reuse center, and member of the Denton arts group Spiderweb Salon

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MEAN GREEN

Unfinished Business

Above: Freshman Mean Green softball player Toni Gonzalez helped the team win against Butler Community College 18-4, in UNT’s Lovelace Stadium this fall.

Mean Green men’s basketball, softball experienced awe-inspiring runs until COVID-19 cut them short.

Learn more about the teams’ seasons. meangreensports.com

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The Mean Green men’s basketball team was ready. It had just clinched its first regular season title in 31 years after beating Western Kentucky in overtime March 1. The team was headed into the C-USA Basketball Tournament with unprecedented energy and confidence.

Until it wasn’t.

The outbreak of COVID-19 brought the season to a halt with all athletic events for the foreseeable future canceled.

“I think unfinished business is a proper way to describe this season,” says Hank Dickenson, executive senior associate athletic director.

And men’s basketball wasn’t the only team on a hot streak. Mean Green softball on March 8 claimed its first Conference USA series of the season with a decisive 11-3 win over the University of Texas at San Antonio. The team had already accumulated a history-making win over the University of Oklahoma on the road in February and was a preseason favorite to win the Conference USA championship. The premature ending of the season also closed out the careers of eight seniors on the team, including Katie Clark, one of the most decorated players in program history.

“It was disappointing to not get to finish out our season,” says head coach Rodney DeLong, “as we were about to accomplish even more.”

| northtexan.unt.edu | Summer 2020

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BG • MEAN GREEN

New Coaches Added to Football Staff Head football coach Seth Littrell announced that Steven Haunga has been named North Texas’ offensive quality control coach and Mackenzie Morris has been named the Mean Green’s new recruiting operations coordinator. Haunga most recently spent time as an offensive graduate assistant at Auburn, while Morris was the on-campus recruiting assistant at Arkansas for the past two seasons.

Prior to his season at Auburn, Haunga worked with current Mean Green co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Mike Bloesch at Tulsa for three seasons. Morris was responsible for planning and executing official visits during the 2018 and 2019 seasons for the Razorbacks.

Player Wins Service Award Madison Townley, a redshirt junior on the Mean Green women’s basketball team, was selected as a 2020 C-USA Winter Spirit of Service Award Honoree.

The award honors 14 studentathletes with significant community service endeavors, good academic standing and participation in their sport. Academically, the Duncanville native has earned C-USA Honor Roll distinction for five consecutive semesters.

By the Numbers

3.46 That was the combined grade point average for Mean Green student-athletes for the 2020 spring semester – the best combined GPA for a single semester on record. Their combined GPA for fall and spring was 3.21, also marking the most successful academic year on record.

NFL Free Agent Deals 2020 MEAN GREEN FOOTBALL SCHEDULE SEPT. 5 vs. HOUSTON BAPTIST SEPT. 12 at TEXAS A&M SEPT. 19 vs. SMU SEPT. 26 at HOUSTON OCT. 3 vs. SOUTHERN MISS OCT. 10 vs. CHARLOTTE OCT. 17 at MIDDLE TENNESSEE OCT. 31 at UTEP NOV. 7 vs. LOUISIANA TECH NOV. 14 at UAB NOV. 21 vs. RICE NOV. 28 at UTSA As of June 5

Get tickets: meangreensports.com

Edge rusher LaDarius Hamilton and offensive lineman Elex Woodworth signed free agent deals with NFL teams in April. Hamilton signed moments after the conclusion of the draft with the Dallas Cowboys, joining another former North Texas player on the roster, fullback Jamize Olawale. Woodworth signed with the Houston Texans shortly after Hamilton’s deal with Dallas. Hamilton finished his North Texas career tied for sixth in career sacks (17) and sixth all-time in program history for tackles for loss (28.5). Woodworth made 45 career starts in 48 appearances throughout his career in Denton.

Celebrating Successes With National Student-Athlete Day on April 6, the Mean Green celebrated some of its teams’ biggest victories over the past year. They included the men’s basketball and women’s soccer programs winning Conference USA championships; the Mean Green softball team beating two top-10 nationally ranked opponents; 24 North Texas student-athletes earning all-conference honors; women’s soccer reaching the NCAA Tournament; 16 studentathletes earning player of the week honors; and Florian Lussy reaching the NCAA Cross Country Championships.

The Mean Green also celebrated its student-athletes’ commitment to academics and community service.

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GREAT GRADS A Lifelong Dream, Fulfilled

For 16 years, Jennifer Washam placed her teaching aspirations on hold.

Now, she’s earned her bachelor’s in interdisciplinary studies.

In spring 2004, Jennifer Washam was a community college student when she received a phone call that changed her life.

Her boyfriend, U.S. Army Sgt. Joe Washam, had been badly burned in an explosion while on duty in Iraq. She finished her finals, but then put her education on hold while he recovered.

“Caring for him was my priority,” Jennifer says.

But this spring, she graduated with a degree in interdisciplinary studies.

During those 16 years, she married Joe, who earned his bachelor’s degree in applied arts and sciences, and she gave birth to their son, Kingsley. Five years ago, she decided it was time to return to school and finish her degree.

She excelled — graduating summa cum laude, getting inducted as a member of Kappa Delta Pi, an honor society for educators, and receiving the Outstanding Student in ESL Award from the College of Education in 2019.

She also won a scholarship from Hope For The Warriors, a nonprofit organization that provides support to military families.

And now she has accepted a position at a local elementary school where she will teach this fall. She has wanted to be a teacher since the first grade.

“There’s nothing wrong with being selfish when it means you’re taking initiative to do something that matters to you,” she says. —Jessica DeLeón Read about more of our exceptional recent May graduates. northtexan.unt.edu/2020great-grads

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I THINK THE MOST REALISTIC HOPE I CAN HAVE FOR MYSELF IS TO LIVE MY LIFE IN A WAY THAT INSPIRES OTHERS TO DO GOOD THINGS.” — Allison Taylor, a spring biology graduate who hopes to help find a cure for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

A History of Resilience

Forging a New Path

A Heart for Helping

Brian Elliott, who earned his doctorate this spring, never allows his visual impairment to slow him down.

Jeremy Diamond initially thought biology was the major for him. But then he found metalsmithing.

Her desire to support children with hearing impairments fueled Maite Gomez’s passion for speech pathology.

Brian Elliott didn’t expect to finish his time at UNT defending his doctoral dissertation in a Zoom meeting, but “it ended up not being a big deal.”

It’s not surprising he took it in stride. After all, he earned three UNT degrees in history while living with Stargardt’s disease, a visual impairment he was diagnosed with as a teen.

Elliott, selected as a special projects research assistant for UNT’s Portal to Texas History, has published book reviews and has manuscripts under consideration by several journals. He was named the history department’s 2019 Outstanding Teaching Fellow and teaches history in the diploma program at Westlake Academy.

“The professors I’ve worked with taught me the value of bringing an infectious energy into every learning environment,” Elliott says, “and to always believe that every student in the room wants to be there just as much as you.”

Jeremy Diamond’s path, from a community college freshman majoring in biology to a UNT senior graduating with a B.F.A. in studio art and specializing in metalsmithing, followed a progression as natural as the art he creates.

An instructor suggested he find a field that he truly enjoyed. Diamond loved art, but wasn’t sure what specialty to pursue.

Would it be drawing and painting? Or something else? He’d always wanted to try ceramics, but that didn’t happen either. He was too late and all the ceramics classes he wanted were full. So he enrolled in a metalsmithing course instead.

“I never really thought of metalsmithing as a form of art,” says Diamond, who earned his B.F.A. this spring. “But, as soon as I tried it, it clicked. It was what I wanted to do.

In fact, it was the best thing I had ever done.”

When Maite Gomez was diagnosed with a neuro-muscular disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth at age 11, it led her to find her passion.

She attended Lions Camp as a kid, and noticed the children with hearing impairments had a hard time communicating with their fellow campers.

“I wanted to give a voice to those no one would listen to,” Gomez says.

As she grew older, she began researching schools and audiology programs across the state and found one that surpassed all her criteria — UNT. “All the professors in this field really care about their students and students’ success,” she says.

Gomez graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in audiology and speech-language pathology and she hopes to continue at UNT, eyeing a master’s degree in speech-language pathology and a doctorate in audiology before eventually working with children in a hospital setting.

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KEEPING THE FAITH

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Read a Q&A with Kachepa and Shepherd, and check out coverage of Kachepa’s story

by Texas Monthly, CNN, The Dallas Morning News and others. northtexan.unt.edu/ given-kachepa

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TRAFFICKED AS A CHILD, GIVEN KACHEPA (’09) FOUND HIMSELF THOUSANDS OF MILES FROM HOME WITH NOWHERE TO TURN. THEN, FATE STEPPED IN.

iven Kachepa (’09) and six other boys sat together in a circle inside First Baptist Church Colleyville. They awaited two possible outcomes. Either a good Samaritan would offer the teens temporary shelter or, absent of any other options, Immigration and Naturalization Service agents would be forced to place them in a holding cell.

Kachepa had grown accustomed to uncertainty. Two years before, at age 11, the Zambian native boarded an airplane bound for Texas. He’d been recruited by TTT: Partners in Education, a missionary group out of Whitesboro, to join its boys choir with the assurance he would receive money and an education. He made mental notes of the charmingly indulgent flight attendants and the diverse faces of the international passengers. Finally, he remembers thinking, I have a story to top any my brother could tell.

But once in Texas, Kachepa wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone from home. The promises proved bogus. When he or the other boys complained about their grueling work schedule — sometimes performing as many as four concerts per day — they were threatened with the withholding of food. Other times, they were warned they would be returned, alone and penniless, to Zambia.

Eventually, INS and the Labor Department caught wind of TTT’s human trafficking operation, and the seven boys were picked up and brought to the church. Kachepa prayed for something good to happen.

And then, Sandy Shepherd walked in. A longtime member of First Baptist Colleyville, she had hosted a couple of boys from the TTT choir a few years earlier.

Even then, she sensed something was off and reported her suspicions to the FBI. She knew the TTT ringleaders had told the boys she was “the devil.”

“Sandy Shepherd is an angel,” says Kachepa, a UNT biology graduate who now owns Inwood Dental Clinic in Dallas. “She took us in, made us feel at home, got us in contact with our families.”

Shepherd, who studied education at UNT in the late 1960s, found host families for the other six boys, but

TEXT BY ERIN CRISTALES PHOTOGRAPH BY AHNA HUBNIK Kachepa stayed with her. Her first step, aside from assuring him that everything would be OK, was to enroll him in eighth grade. During his first semester, they sometimes spent as many as six hours per day together on homework. But by spring, Kachepa insisted he catch up on his own. He scribbled three words on a whiteboard in his room: Focus. Determination. Perseverance.

The words guided him through high school, and then into college. He’d add phrases to the board, like “Do the hardest thing first.” He twice took the SATs to secure his admission to UNT. “Sometimes I’d be walking through campus, and I wouldn’t believe I was here,” Kachepa says. “I knew I had to work hard. This university believed in a kid who never would have had this opportunity in his own country.”

Simultaneously, Kachepa worked tirelessly to bring attention to human trafficking in the U.S. Often accompanied

by Shepherd, he’s discussed his past at dozens of schools, churches and humanitarian organizations over the years, even receiving a Prudential Spirit of Community Award for his efforts in 2005.

“A lot of people don’t understand modern-day slavery,” Kachepa says. “It could be happening in your own backyard, and you don’t even realize it.”

After Kachepa graduated from UNT, he was accepted to the Baylor School of Dentistry. In a photo from his dental school graduation, Shepherd and her husband, Deetz, stand on either side of him. They hold portraits of his biological parents, who died when he was a child. The image — now hanging in his clinic, where Shepherd supports him as office manager — is a commingling of his past and present, and a reminder of the infinite possibility the future holds.

“I came to the U.S. with no money, no luggage — nothing but hope,” says Kachepa, who is working to build a dental clinic in his hometown of Kalingalinga. “Because of the Shepherds, my life has come full circle. The only way you repay somebody like that is by doing the best you can in life — and the best you can to help others.”

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THRIVING T H RO UG H A DV ERSI TY

BY JESSICA DELEÓN

As the coronavirus took hold in mid-March, it seemed that everything stopped. The bustling campus became empty as 7,700 classes transitioned online. The traditional commencement ceremony was postponed.

Friends had to stay apart.

But the UNT community also came together. Using the lessons they learned as students, our alumni helped others in their communities through their careers in health care, emergency management and government.

They figured out creative solutions, from the teacher instructing his class remotely to the fashion designer who now makes personal protective equipment. A music graduate, quarantined in Spain, played his saxophone to entertain neighbors stuck in their apartments.

Our researchers began looking at ways to fight the virus. Faculty, staff and alumni donated to the UNT Cares fund to help students weather financial challenges, such as a job loss. And many in our community made face masks — a few even sporting UNT symbols.

The following stories go behind the masks to illustrate the dedication and care of the members of our Mean Green Family.

This fall, the campus is expected to reopen. Life will certainly be different, with people wearing face masks and maintaining social distance to remain safe. But there is no doubt our UNT community will be stronger and will thrive through the adversity.

“We know the country has rebounded from wars and disasters and the Great Depression, and we know life will get back to normal at some point,” says Michael Penaluna (’88), Denton’s emergency management coordinator. “Good things do come out of disasters. It makes people appreciate one another and life more.”

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TEACHING SUCCESS

MAKING LIFE MEANINGFUL

NAVIGATING FINANCIAL AID

The coronavirus drastically changed how Patrick Powers (’17), an eighthgrade English teacher at Bettye Meyers Middle School in Denton, teaches. Powers usually works with 250 students in the classroom and as a coach. Now he “sees” them through Zoom, videos and email.

“Making an impact — that’s what I missed the most when we first started online teaching,” he says. “But I realized I could still do so. It would just require creative methods.”

After one student said he wasn’t interested in an assignment, Powers learned he had to work with his father and babysit his siblings. And he thought, “If I were a student, what would I want to learn about?”

Powers asked students to create a presentation on the Flipgrid app about college and careers. The first uninterested student chose UNT and engineering/welding as a career — and the project was presented to Denton ISD’s superintendent at an executive cabinet meeting as an example of virtual teaching success.

As a UNT student, Powers started The Lost Generation, an organization in which college students visit elementary schools to encourage young scholars.

“It’s about letting the students know we’re still here for you,” he says.

When Solymar Rivera-Torres (’17 M.S.) arrives at Willow Bend Assisted Living and Memory Care Facility in Denton, she puts on her face mask and gloves, rings the doorbell and gets permission to enter and have her temperature taken. Rivera-Torres, a life enrichment assistant, knows the residents with Alzheimer’s or dementia are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

“The pandemic has brought new challenges by the day,” she says. “Still, I always keep in mind that challenges make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

She initiated a pen pal program so residents can write to each other while they social distance. And she set up “World of Hearts,” in which residents can write messages to display on the windows for family and friends.

Rivera-Torres has been surrounded by the elderly, living with one of her grandmothers growing up in Puerto Rico. She came to UNT for her master’s degree in health services administration and is now studying for her doctoral degree in health services research with a concentration in applied gerontology.

“This crisis has taught me how the power of a smile or a kind word, the smallest emotion, more often than not can have an effect on someone’s life,” she says.

Cathy Mueller’s (’19 M.J.) degree in digital communication analytics helps ease students’ worries. As the economy shut down and new regulations took effect, many students had questions about their federal loans. Mueller created a website — studentaidpandemic.org — and an 800 number that provided free information to students as part of her executive director role for Mapping Your Future, a nonprofit national organization that assists students in navigating financial aid.

A former newspaper reporter and higher education official, she began her current position in 1996 when she developed a website for student borrowers for the then-called Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. Other states joined in, merging into Mapping Your Future. Mueller oversees the data showing who is using the website, which was featured on CNN, Money magazine and NPR’s Marketplace.

“This has been a very emotional time for people,” says Mueller, who is married to James Mueller, associate dean of UNT’s Mayborn School of Journalism. “And they’re going through a lot. What we’re trying to do is help people. We’re not the medical people on the frontline, but we want people to know that we’re here.”

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CREATING MUSIC TO CONNECT Saxophonist Sami Perfecto (’12) found a unique stage during the world’s coronavirus pandemic. For 15 minutes each night, he performed on the balcony of his Barcelona apartment for his neighbors, who were under statemandated quarantine to help stop the spread of the deadly virus. But he gained a wider audience when his version of “Preciosa” went viral.

In some ways, Perfecto was prepared for the performance’s reception since he’s played in his church’s praise and worship team all his life and majored in music education at UNT. “Now more than ever, music is needed by communities in order to bond and connect — even if it’s from a balcony or window,” he says.

Perfecto has run the Julio D. Perfecto School of Music in Arlington for more than 10 years. Two years ago, to be closer to his girlfriend, he moved to Barcelona, where he performs regular gigs and helps organize jam sessions around the city’s bars for a project called The

Sofa Jam. He also teaches online music classes for his school and English lessons to Chinese students.

He began playing on his balcony when the quarantine — during which residents could only go out to get groceries or medicine, take out the trash, walk the dog or commute to essential jobs — started in early March. His sister, Rebeca Perfecto (’12), director of admissions for the UNT Health Science Center, suggested “Preciosa” by composer Rafael Hernández Marín as a tribute to their Puerto Rican heritage.

He received messages from Puerto Ricans saying they were praying for him and wishing him well. For his last performance in May, he played UNT’s alma mater. He’ll always appreciate the response that came from his neighbors.

“You could hear claps from all over, as if they were eager to hear more,” he says.

“Truly beautiful and rewarding to know that we were connecting, even if it was for 15 minutes once a day.”

Read UNTold Stories of Resilience about alumni and members of the UNT campus community who have risen to the challenges of COVID-19. unt.edu/resilience

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We’re just doing our jobs. We’ve been doing this every single day in our careers as ICU physicians.”

— Tisha Wang (’96 TAMS), chief of the UCLA Pulmonary/ Critical Care Division at the UCLA Health System

SAVING PATIENTS’ LIVES

Check out a video about alumni who got busy with their mask-making skills during the pandemic. northtexan.unt.edu/thriving-adversity

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When Tisha Wang (’96 TAMS), a pulmonologist and critical care physician, comes to work, a cheering brigade greets her and her colleagues.

The media has lauded health care professionals as heroes for their work on the coronavirus. Children send them letters. Companies have donated food and other items.

“We’re just doing our jobs,” says Wang, the clinical chief of the UCLA Pulmonary/Critical Care Division at the UCLA Health System. “We’ve been doing this every single day in our careers as ICU physicians.”

Her hospital began preparing for the virus in March, when news reports came out about Europe’s high infection rate. She and the staff worked around the clock to establish clinical guidelines, resource allocation and staffing.

Working in the intensive care unit, Wang has always taken care of very sick patients on ventilators. But now she’s not only wearing more PPE than usual to treat her patients with COVID-19,

but occasionally she is tasked with putting on the gear quickly to respond to emergencies — raising the overall stress level. When she treats COVID-19 patients, she doesn’t go home, but to the hospital campus’ hotel to avoid infecting her loved ones. She says this experience has its ebbs and flows — from the high of saving patients’ lives to the low of seeing news reports of protests and lack of social distancing.

“But we are trained to deal with unpredictability,” she says.

Wang, pictured above center, grew up in Gainesville and both of her siblings also attended UNT’s Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science.

Her sister Connie (’98 TAMS) is a pediatrician in Seattle, while Andrew Wang (’92 TAMS) works as a journalist in Los Angeles.

Wang is prepared to continue fighting COVID-19 for the long haul.

“We just have to acknowledge this is going to be a marathon,” she says. “And we have to adjust to it.”

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

INFORMATION TO TRUST

MOVING SUPPLY CHAIN

For Michael Penaluna (’88), the duties came quickly. As Denton’s emergency management coordinator, he activated the City Emergency Operations Center and helped implement the stay-athome order for the pandemic. His EOC staff arranged hotel space for the homeless when a local shelter had to close. He assisted with the response to an outbreak of the virus at the Denton State Supported Living Center and coordinated plans for COVID-19 testing at local nursing homes.

“This is what my colleagues and I have trained for,” he says.

As a junior transfer student, he majored in a new program — today’s emergency administration and planning program — and learned best practices through case studies, disaster research and methodology.

Now with Denton for 15 years, Penaluna is working on his master’s in emergency management and disaster science. He’s overseen tornado and hurricane recoveries, but the coronavirus is unique for its length and unknowns. Penaluna has established the Michael A. Penaluna Endowed Scholarship in Emergency Administration and Planning to provide financial assistance to those in need.

“We’re here to help people,” he says, “and improve lives during the worst time in their lives.”

Hannah Wise (’19 M.A.) can’t go farther than her mailbox. She lives in the epicenter of the pandemic — New York City — and has a suppressed immune system due to Crohn’s disease. But as social strategy editor for one of the nation’s most influential newspapers, The New York Times, Wise shares information across the publication’s social media platforms and gets readers’ feedback.

“Obviously, journalists are limited to where we can go,” she says. “So we’re really having to work hard to cultivate sources using other techniques.”

For one project, she pored over 700 submissions from readers about their lives before the pandemic. The paper also sought out stories from readers who were near nursing homes in Seattle, where the pandemic first broke out in the U.S., and photos from health care professionals wearing their protective gear.

A fitting topic, Wise wrote her master’s thesis on the relationship between journalists and communities as a Mayborn School of Journalism student.

“In times like this, journalism is more important than ever to explain what’s happening,” Wise says. “People are looking for information that they can trust.”

Lynn Gravley (’87) knows his work has always been vital. The pandemic made others realize its importance.

As founder and CEO of NT Logistics in Frisco, Gravley oversees transportation for manufacturers that specialize in food and consumer packaged goods such as Nestle Water and Rahr and Sons Brewing.

“Logistics and the supply chain has kind of been invisible. It’s like electricity. It just works and everybody takes it for granted,” says Gravley, whose company hosts the yearly UNT Capstone Competition with UNT’s G. Brint Ryan College of Business.

Gravley majored in biology — and drove a truck on weekends.

After graduating, he started his own trucking company that led to the establishment of NT Logistics. He’s able to use his scientific background, especially data analytics, to determine his clients’ needs — such as if a lower cost per pound can save them millions of dollars.

Because it’s an essential business, all of his 40 employees have come to the office — so the company catered lunch every day. And he’s helped his clients work through the challenging circumstances.

“COVID-19 is certainly a crisis,” he says. “But how can we help someone through it?”

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A CAMPUS STRONGER, MORE CONNECTED SUPPORTING STUDENTS COVID-19 managed to close down many of the physical spaces on campus — but even an unprecedented pandemic couldn’t dampen the UNT community’s determination to support its equally indomitable students.

With barely a week to prepare, professors scrambled to move their courses online and create engaging digital lessons, even finding ways to make art, music and science accessible from afar.

Meanwhile, campus entities like the Psychology Clinic and Counseling and Testing Services moved quickly to allow for remote outreach, including support groups.

“I am extremely grateful for the amazing team of dedicated individuals who made it possible to continue the clinic’s mission of

EDUCATION NEVER STOPS

Prepping class instruction while taking care of

a newborn. Teaching from the car. Presenting a musical over Zoom. When the pandemic forced classes to go online, UNT faculty and students persevered — and got creative. It’s no wonder the Dallas Business Journal ranked UNT in the highest tier of universities adapting to life and learning during COVID-19.

Ryan Boettger, assistant professor and assistant chair in UNT’s Department of Technical Communication, converted a technical writing course to an online format for 750 students and 20 adjuncts and teaching fellows — all while watching over his 9-weekold son, Liam.

“It’s difficult not to stay positive when I get to be assistant chair and dad, all from home,” he says.

Faculty and staff went above and beyond in other ways, says Ralf Schmidt, chair and professor in UNT’s Department of Mathematics.

excellence in training, research and service, even during the most challenging of circumstances,” says Randy Cox, director of UNT’s Psychology Clinic.

Students’ physical health also remained a priority, with the Pohl Rec Center offering online group fitness classes and outdoor virtual clinics via Zoom and YouTube.

“We’re about socializing, working out together and helping the UNT community stay healthy — and we want to continue to be a part of that journey,” says Laurie Klein, director of Recreational Sports.

Additionally, the university focused on providing resources for financial health, including expanding its emergency grantsin-aid program. The Murphy Center at

“We had a staff member delivering tablets and cameras to people’s homes, after regular work hours, so that they could teach,” he says. “We had an adjunct instructor drive to campus and teach in her car when her home internet was out. And in a stunning act of kindness, a graduate student donated a small number of N95 masks to the department, just in case someone had a need — and someone did.”

UNT internationl interdisciplinary studies junior Vanessa Bautista from Mexico, pictured above, has remained on campus and says she’s received tremendous care during this time.

“My professors have done an incredible effort to support me,” she says.

the G. Brint Ryan College of Business also made available external funding resources to students, faculty and alumni. And UNT brought the community together through virtual University Day and Earth Day events, and invited spring graduates to take and share photos using virtual campus backdrops in Zoom.

“I continue to be amazed every day by the support, resilience and ingenuity displayed by our students, staff, faculty and alumni when every hour seems to bring more change and more necessary adaptations,” says UNT President Neal Smatresk. “As difficult as it may feel, we are becoming a stronger, more connected community through this shared experience.”

Instead of canceling their production of the musical Once on This Island, theatre students put it online.

“I learned to be adaptable,” recent theatre graduate Mariah Fleming (’20) says. “You can be sad and you can mope for a little bit, but then you have to get up and deal with the changes that are happening.”

Check out the From the Nest video series highlighting how Vanessa Bautista and other students are thriving through COVID-19. northtexan.unt.edu/thriving-adversity

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HEALTH AND SAFETY FIRST

MEAN GREEN FAMILY

From essential cleaning services to a children’s book, the UNT community has made health and safety awareness a priority during the pandemic.

On campus, the custodial staffs from the Facilities and Housing departments got into action by using a hospitalgrade disinfectant and electrostatic and pump sprayers to clean frequently touched surfaces in classrooms and residence halls. The Student Health and Wellness Center not only continued seeing patients, but called students, staff and faculty who traveled or showed symptoms. They also implemented telemedicine procedures. Counseling and Testing Services provided virtual counseling sessions.

The Collegiate Recovery Program team hosted Zoom meetings for their peer-led group meetings. The Division of Enrollment hosted social activities on Zoom, including group workouts and a game night, as a way for colleagues to check on each other.

“Everyone is struggling in some way, whether it’s related to their job, health or school,” says Landon Ellison, the division’s director.

Those complex feelings inspired a bilingual picture book with activities for children, Behind My Mask, Detras de me cubrebocas, by Martha Samaniego Calderón, an art education graduate student, and Daniel Heiman, assistant professor of bilingual education.

“It helps readers know that their emotions are being acknowledged,” Samaniego Calderón says, “even if they are hidden behind a mask.”

Like many seniors, Nikki Yates (’20) missed taking part in May’s traditional UNT graduation ceremony due to the pandemic.

But the Mean Green Family, including Yates, a criminal justice graduate, pulled through to help those affected by the pandemic.

Yates was part of the Adopt a University of North Texas Senior group on Facebook, through which community members selected a graduating senior and sent them gifts and notes to honor their accomplishments. Yates, who wants to be a homicide detective, even found a mentor in Heidi Hess, a forensic investigator who “adopted” her.

“It has been really amazing to be adopted and to know that there’s a big community that wants to make us feel special,” Yates says.

The UNT community buoyed spirits in other ways.

Many individual colleges created videos to congratulate their students. Staffers, such as the Student Financial Services team pictured above, wore green on Fridays as part of Mean Green Pride Day during their Zoom meetings.

The community donated to the UNT Cares fund set up to help students who faced financial challenges.

And in June, supporters drove by in their cars across the university and honked as part of an appreciation parade to salute the custodians who come to campus to clean the 16 residence halls.

Pete Beaulieu, assistant director of housing services, cast a net for ideas to champion the often unsung heroes.

“I wanted to find a way to thank them to the best of my ability for enduring all the stress over the past months,” he says.

Learn about UNT’s health and safety awareness campaign: Stay smart.

Stay strong. Stay safe. healthalerts.unt.edu

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GIVING A HAND UP

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE Finley Moll’s (’85) fashion design business completely changed overnight.

Moll, pictured above center, was about to ship her spring collection when — on “the worst Friday the 13th we have ever had” — the city of Dallas announced a stay-at-home order, shutting down businesses and schools.

“It was just kind of like, ‘Whoa,’” she says. “And, at the same time, we were just hearing about how medical professionals desperately needed personal protective equipment.”

Moll and her employees got to work, creating more than 5,000 medicalgrade isolation gowns for health professionals.

Gone were the delicate bolts of fabric

for her shirts, replaced by huge 1,000yard bolts of fabric that required special needles and thread and had to be rerolled into smaller bolts.

“I feel like I’m in a startup again,” says Moll, who began her company, Finley Shirts, in 1995. “Sometimes it’s stressful, but the problem-solving aspect of it is exciting.”

Moll also used her designer fabrics to make masks, with 20% of proceeds from the webstore going to North Texas regional charities.

“It’s always rewarding to be able to rise to a challenge and do something you didn’t think you could do,” she says.

“What can we do with what we have and make this work?”

Read how Michael Ingle adapted the Clean Sleep machine, which he invented for sanitizing mattresses, to clean N95 face masks. northtexan.unt.edu/michael-ingle

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Melinda Rodgers (’00 M.P.A.) saw her workload quadruple. As executive director of Lifeline for Families in Grand Prairie, she was already booked with a caseload of about 20 families.

But the pandemic increased the urgency.

Lifeline works with the families of Grand Prairie ISD students who are homeless by finding them housing, jobs and other necessities. The goal at the end of the three-month program is that they will be able to sustain themselves.

“It’s not a handout, it’s a hand up,” she says. “We want every adult in the family to contribute.”

Rodgers began volunteering for the organization in 2004. She’s had a diverse career, working for city government and corporations, and teaching on the college level. In 2015, she accepted her current position and often deals with budgets and regulations. She conducts her work from home during the pandemic, communicating through Zoom and the phone, while a caseworker at the office slides paper documents through a quarter-inch gap at Lifeline’s entrance for clients without internet access.

“We are fulfilling a need that’s out there, a desperate need,” Rodgers says.

“I love what I do, and I’m very blessed I can do that.”

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COVID-19 RESEARCH EFFORTS Exemplifying the excellence of our Tier One research university, faculty and staff quickly pivoted to address issues related to the global health crisis.

• Education assistant professor Christopher Long is studying learning environments before and after the pandemic shutdown.

GUIDING A COMMUNITY

FINDING A CURE

As Plano’s city manager, Mark Israelson (’94, ’96 M.P.A.) sees many sides of this crisis — from the worried business owner who’s had to shut down a restaurant to the caretaker who’s concerned about the safety of a grandparent.

“This pandemic is beyond a challenge,” he says.

Israelson has worked for his hometown of Plano for more than two decades. After he graduated from UNT in 1994, he served as youth sports coordinator for the YMCA, which inspired him to pursue a career that would combine his business acumen and service to the community.

For the pandemic, he’s overseen a stay-at-home order and has had to deal with the budget for the city — where sales tax receipts have gone down due to business closures. Drawing from his public administration lessons, he says cities usually prepare for emergencies by putting their plans into action.

“The variables are different from anything we’ve seen from a natural disaster,” he says, adding that this situation also provides a lesson on what we might take for granted.

“A lot of those normal activities in life for de-stressing — going to a ballgame or movie — are missing elements,” he says. “I think we value those things differently now.”

Tammy Chan’s (’04) work can save people’s lives. As a clinical researcher overseeing drug trials for Covance, a drug development company in Dallas, her team is scrambling to find a cure for deadly diseases.

“COVID-19 has given a lot of perspective on the importance of the work we do, and how it impacts the world,” she says.

Chan studied biology at UNT and worked in professor of developmental physiology Warren Burggren’s lab.

She later earned her doctorate in developmental biology from the Baylor College of Medicine. She then worked as a field application scientist for Molecular Devices, a biotechnology company, where she trained researchers on how to use equipment for clinics across the country before landing at Covance in 2019.

“A lot of diseases don’t have a cure,” she says. “It’s such a responsibility to help those who are in those first trials.”

Chan has recruited UNT students to work at Covance through UNT’s Career Center. And she wants them to know the importance of science.

“The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of people having the curiosity, enthusiasm and persistence to pursue cures for people who don’t have them,” she says.

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• Engineers and artists in the College of Engineering and the College of Visual Arts and Design teamed up to use advanced 3D printing labs to produce face shields to protect faculty and students on campus.

• Future-thinking students in artificial intelligence classes participated in an international competition to create the most accurate model of the spread of COVID-19.

• A College of Engineering team collaborated to adapt a design and use 3D printing technology to manufacture splitters that will allow doctors to use a single ventilator to treat two patients.

• Linguistics professor Shobhana Chelliah and advertising assistant professor Sara Champlin are collaborating with researchers at Indiana University to research effective communication on COVID-19 with Burmese refugees in Indiana.

• Chemistry professor Andrés Cisneros is creating computer simulations to identify specific protein inhibitors that could slow or stop the COVID-19 virus either as a vaccine or a therapeutic treatment.

Read more about UNT COVID-19 research developments. research.unt.edu

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PUSHING AGAINST THE ODDS

By Erin Cristales

UNT faculty and students envisioned a brighter tomorrow for foster care alumni when they founded Persevere Until Success Happens in 2012.

Eight years later, the group has transformed dozens of lives.

Jackie Davis (’15) and Krystal Hamilton (’13) pose in front of a mural in Austin following a social work conference they attended while students at UNT. The two, along with Brenda Sweeten — a clinical associate professor in UNT’s Department of Social Work — founded PUSH in 2012 to help foster care alumni find success in college. “It’s important for people to see both sides of the story,” Davis says. “Not just the pain we’ve endured, but also the courage and resilience that allowed us to overcome it.”

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FOSTER CARE ALUMNI ARE AMONG OUR MOST VULNERABLE POPULATIONS ON CAMPUS — THE OUTCOMES FOR THEM CAN BE VERY SOBERING. Brenda Sweeten, clinical associate professor in UNT’s Department of Social Work

B

renda Sweeten had barely been at UNT two years when a graduate assistant in the Department of Social Work passed along an essay penned by a friend. The piece, titled “Why I Don’t Want to Be Adopted,” chronicled its author’s 11-year odyssey through the foster care system.

The details were heartrending.

Removed from his parents’ home as a toddler.

Separated from his six siblings. Six different foster homes before the age of 5. A failed adoption, marred by emotional and physical abuse. Fourteen more foster homes. Then, at 13, a successful adoption — one that required a gradual rebuilding of eroded trust.

Sweeten, a clinical associate professor of social work who had previously spent 12 years as a program director with CASA of Denton County, had a soft spot for youth in foster care and a steely determination to find the resources they needed. She knew she had to meet the essay’s writer — a UNT newcomer named Jackie Davis (’15). Around the same time, she had read another personal narrative — this one written by Krystal Hamilton (’13) as part of her application to the social work program — that told a similar story of a childhood spent in and out of foster care.

Sweeten invited Davis and Hamilton to her office. She knew it was risky, but she had a proposal. And if they were receptive, the payoff could be huge.

“I wasn’t sure what kind of feelings that meeting might elicit — if they would say, ‘This is my past, and you don’t have any business talking about it,’” Sweeten

says. “I said, ‘Look, I don’t want to freak you guys out, and you can definitely tell me no, but what would you think about starting a program at UNT that supports foster care alumni?’”

Their response? “Absolutely.”

And that’s how, eight years ago, UNT’s Persevere Until Success Happens (PUSH) program was born.

Now housed within UNT’s Division of Student Affairs, PUSH’s objectives include recruiting and graduating students who have experienced foster care or homelessness, and connecting them with campus and community resources. What started out with a handful of members has grown to 50, with a network of nearly 200 students and alumni.

PUSH members have told their stories at state and national conferences, such as ones sponsored by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS), and their candor has helped secure some desperately needed donations. Over the past few years, PUSH has received a $40,000 King Foundation Grant and an $85,000 Santander Foundation grant to support youth transitioning from foster care into higher education.

“Foster care alumni are among our most vulnerable populations on campus — the outcomes for them can be very sobering,” Sweeten says. “It’s important that they know we care about what happened to them and that what they want matters.”

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MAKING UNT A HOME Ever since she entered the foster care system at 16, Beige Cowell knew the statistics. Nearly 70% of kids in foster care say they want to go to college. Only 3% actually graduate.

That’s why, when PUSH extended its hand after she arrived at UNT this fall, she accepted. The group sent care packages to her dorm filled with toiletries and other household products — “things I wouldn’t have realized I needed if they hadn’t helped out,” she says. Tuition for foster care alumni is covered under TDFPS’ State College Tuition Waiver, but PUSH helped Cowell with textbook costs. Throughout the year, she attended pop-up meetings and potlucks where PUSH participants dine with members of UNT’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

“It’s always difficult to ask for things — being part of the system, you take what people give you, and you don’t really ask for more,” Cowell says. “UNT having an organization like this that has so much faculty and community involvement makes it to where there’s no negative stigma around foster care. I’m excited to walk around campus wearing my PUSH shirt.”

In her first year, Cowell has done exceptionally well — the music composition major is UNT’s first female marching baritone saxophone player and a member of the Composer’s Forum. She, along with a group of peers that includes another PUSH member, helped start a student organization called Music and Media, which connects musical composition with other artistic disciplines.

It was ensuring those kinds of success stories that prompted Davis’ and Hamilton’s yes to Sweeten’s idea back in 2012. Hamilton in particular understood the challenges foster care alums face when attending college. Fiercely independent, she’d always excelled academically and never doubted she was headed to a university. Still, there were roadblocks. She’d started out at Prairie View A&M, but after a mishap with her tuition waiver — and no organization like PUSH to turn to — she transferred to Tarrant County Community College before eventually enrolling at UNT. “Even as independent as I was, I encountered setbacks and the frustration of not having the adequate resources that would have made my transition to college a lot easier,”

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Beige Cowell just finished her first year at UNT and credits PUSH with supporting her journey.

says Hamilton, now a licensed Realtor who went on to earn four college degrees, including a B.S.W. from UNT. “I was able to push through the challenges, but I knew there were hundreds of kids who had experienced the same thing but didn’t have the same success story. I felt like it was important to provide the necessary support to adults transitioning out of the foster care system at UNT.” Hamilton, Davis and Sweeten called a meeting to introduce potential members and campus supporters to PUSH. They chose Hamilton as the group’s first president.

“Being able to go to college and meet other people who have gone through the same situation as you provides a sense of security and a level of normalcy,” Hamilton says.

“That support system means more than money, a car, clothes. It means everything.”

And she was determined to get the word out.

Fortunately, she had an exceedingly persuasive voice serving as vice president — Davis.

BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY One of the first people PUSH reached out to about joining was Xavier Hicks (’14). Back then, he says, he was “closed off” and worried membership might mean opening up about his past.

“I didn’t know anyone else who had gone through foster care or was adopted,” says Hicks, now a social worker with Fort Worth ISD. “So I was actually kind of ashamed of it.”

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Xavier Hicks (’14), an early PUSH member, says the group helped him open up about his past.

Then one day, Davis invited Hicks to a local McDonald’s.

They talked for hours, and once Davis told the story of his own turbulent upbringing — and the freedom that came from sharing it — Hicks was sold.

“Learning to talk about my experience has helped me work through a lot of the issues I have — things that I’m going to be dealing with for a very, very long time,” Hicks says. “But when people care about your perspective, you want to open up.”

Neither Sweeten nor Hamilton were surprised by Hicks’ change of heart. They’d seen how Davis could shift the tenor of a conversation, like when he moved a room full of 400 CPS workers to tears at a regional CPS Conservatorship Conference.

“I’ve always felt there’s not enough light shined on kids who come from where I come from,” says Davis, who now serves as a CASA supervisor and — unsurprisingly — a public speaker. “It’s important for people to see both sides of the story — not just the pain we’ve endured, but also the courage and resilience that allowed us to overcome it.”

That’s also the message he delivered when he was asked to be the commencement speaker at his own UNT graduation in 2015. We didn’t just come here to get a degree, he remembers telling the audience. We came here to make change. It doesn’t stop here. It’s just the beginning.

“Sometimes I get choked up about it, because as a child, I didn’t see myself being where I am now,” Davis says. “But I also give credit to the people who helped me get to where I am. They gave me the same things that I’ve always tried to give others. That same hope. That same love. That same push.”

With more than 180 foster care alums at UNT eligible for services, and more students dealing with homelessness, that type of support remains crucial. Sweeten would love to one day take steps toward forming more partnerships with other philanthropic organizations and establishing a designated PUSH coordinator on campus.

“I have a lot of hopes and dreams — I’ve always had a really big vision for how I want this program to look,” she says. “But one thing that helps is how our PUSH alumni reach out to ask if any of our students need anything. Those initial students always wanted to pay it forward — and they have.”

Learn how to support PUSH and its students, read a Q&A with Davis, Hamilton and Hicks, and watch a video of Davis discussing his childhood.

Read about Courtney Banatoski (’03, ’06 M.S.), who is putting a decade’s worth of hard-earned nonprofit management skills to use as president and CEO of Cumberland Presbyterian Children’s Home. northtexan.unt.edu/against-odds

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T H E PA S T AS A PRESENT

text by Erin Cristales

photography by Michael Clements

UNT history students, professors and alumni gift remembrance through research that shines a light on disappeared local communities.

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hen her name was called, Micah Crittenden (’18, ’20 M.A.) walked quickly to the podium and opened the three-ring binder she had meticulously prepared. It was the first time the UNT history graduate student had spoken in front of the Pilot Point City Council, and this was not, as she well knew, a low-stakes meeting.

For nearly five years, the council and the Harris family had been at an impasse over a dilapidated house at 522 E. Burks St. — purchased in the late 1940s by now-deceased patriarch Melvin Harris — that the city had ruled substandard in 2014. Pilot Point officials worried the vacant structure was not only an eyesore but a potential danger for neighborhood kids or vagrants. The Harris family needed more time, and more money, to complete the required repairs.

“If you’ll give me a moment,” Crittenden said, “I’d like to tell you the story I’ve uncovered.”

The tale begins, she told the council, after Emancipation, when a sharecropper named Louis Whitlow Sr. from Chambers County, Alabama, took 65 freed men, women and children and founded the community of Oakdale on the Cooke County-Denton County line. In 1905, the community built a one-room structure that housed a school.

“That structure,” she said, “is located at 522 E. Burks St.” That got the council’s attention, but after more than an hour of terse arguing between city officials and the Harris family, they were still on the fence. So they struck a deal: Find more evidence that the house is what you say it is, along with possible sources for funding, and we’ll leave the home standing.

And that’s how, in the two months and more than 200 hours of research that followed, Crittenden came to play a starring role in rescuing one of the last remaining relics of a disappeared community.

But the story really begins with two UNT professors who trusted their students enough to collect, explore and connect with local history.

No stone unturned On the first day of their spring 2018 class, Andrew Torget and Todd Moye jumped right into the heart of their public history research seminar, sharing the genesis of what would become a quest to uncover the story of St. John’s, a disappeared freedmen’s community located outside of Pilot Point.

“Not only do we not know what the end result will look like,” Moye told the students. “But we don’t know if it’s even possible to come up with one.”

In the 1920s, St. John’s residents left for better economic prospects and, as would eventually become apparent, to flee racial violence. And the history of the community and its people had been allowed to fade into obscurity. Moye and Torget split the class into teams and tasked them with researching the history of the community’s social, religious, geographic and economic connections.

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From left: UNT history professors Andrew Torget and Todd Moye spearheaded the research seminar that led to revelations about the St. John’s community.

Crittenden was assigned to the “People of St. John’s” team, a group that included undergrads Emily Bowles (’18) and Jessica Floyd (’18) and grad student Hannah Stewart (’17, ’19 M.A.). The team reached out to the Denton County Office of History and Culture, who led them to John White. He visited the class to recount his memories of his grandmother, who moved from Camp Hill, Alabama, to St. John’s in 1883 when she was 5 years old.

“I don’t want the history of St. John’s to end with me,” White says.

The team’s task in uncovering the community’s history sometimes required getting down and dirty — they often found themselves on their hands and knees, flipping over headstones hidden under overgrown foliage in St. John’s Cemetery. The group contributed 49 individual biographies to an online database, which now contains more than 650 artifacts related to St. John’s.

White visited the class again on the final day of the semester, reappearing alongside Peggy Riddle, director of the Denton County Office of History and Culture, and Willie Hudspeth (’90, ’93 M.Ed.), president of the Denton County NAACP and a longtime civil rights advocate who was one of the first to help with the cemetery’s preservation.

“What the students came up with lets us understand who the people of St. John’s were,” Hudspeth says, “and helps us move forward.”

Above: Willie Hudspeth (’90, ’93 M.Ed.), president of the Denton County NAACP and a longtime local civil rights advocate who was one of the first to press for the preservation of St. John’s Cemetery, is pictured in front of the Denton County Courthouse. Hudspeth visited Moye and Torget’s class on the final day of the semester to see what their students uncovered about the St. John’s community.

The quest continues As the spring semester drew to a close, Crittenden, Bowles, Floyd and Stewart weren’t ready to call it quits, especially as they still weren’t certain why the community so quickly disbanded in the early 20th century.

The team spent the summer and fall scrutinizing local news reports from the early 1900s, many of which made mention of vanished African American residents and Ku Klux Klan activity. Stewart created a spreadsheet that contained every mention of the KKK in local newspapers and records from 1917 to 1928. Crittenden compiled one that detailed reports of every African American arrested locally from 1909 to 1925. The data was conclusive: Klan activity surged around the same time crimes allegedly committed by black residents occurred.

It seemed like the sun had been allowed to set on Denton County’s unseemly past. But then media outlets began to pick up the story of the students and their research. The four student researchers presented their findings of what life was

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like for the residents of St. John’s to the Denton County Commissioners Court, who drew upon their account when applying for a funding application for an Untold Story marker from the Texas Historical Commission.

Still, the students and Hudspeth say there’s plenty of road left to travel.

“This is a history people don’t want to be reminded of,” Hudspeth says. “Let’s bring up this history and examine it, so we can teach our children and everyone else to never let this happen again.”

By spring 2019, most of the group moved on. Crittenden, though, decided to make disappearances the subject of her master’s thesis. As she investigated an incident from 1921, in which two African American men vanished from the Pilot Point jail, she stumbled over modern-day stories of a house on Burks Street that the city council was considering condemning. The surnames of those speaking to save the home — Harris, Holloway — seemed oddly familiar. And then it hit her: The names were connected to St. John’s.

She reached out to the Harris family who told her the home had once been a school known as the Lincoln Academy in the freedmen’s community of Oakdale. As a commu-

From left: Emily Bowles (’18), Jessica Floyd (’18), Hannah Stewart (’17, ’19 M.A.) and Micah Crittenden (’18, ’20 M.A.) at St. John’s Cemetery. The team wrote biographies of the residents buried there, including those whose graves are pictured above right.

nity, Oakdale was long gone — but the Harris family had placed their hopes in her research expertise, and Crittenden was determined to not let them down.

A race to preserve history The council’s concession to leave the home standing, at least for a while longer, didn’t read as a slam dunk. But for the Harris family, who just a few weeks before were almost certain the Burks Street house would face demolition, Crittenden had helped secure a much-needed victory.

“It feels like everything in our community is being dissolved,” Melvin’s granddaughter Cecelia Harris told Crittenden as the meeting concluded.

“Before, we didn’t have anybody to take on this issue with us. Now, with us joining together, maybe it will all work out.”

Before Cecelia departed city hall, Crittenden handed her the binder filled with Melvin’s history. “I want you to have this,” she said. As Cecelia softly wept, the two embraced.

“I’ll see you soon,” Crittenden promised.

“Soon” was the operative word. The council had given Crittenden only 60 days to find definitive proof that the house was in fact the Oakdale school. Still, she managed to piece together a portrait of the academy and its attendees. With school and census records, she created social maps to show how communities like Oakdale, St. John’s and others were linked. She found land records proving that when Oakdale consolidated with Pilot Point in the 1940s, the structure that housed the school was moved five miles south to its current location.

In June 2019, Crittenden again appeared in front of the council to detail all she had discovered. The Office of History and Culture pledged monetary support, offering to relocate the house to the Denton County Historical Park and pay for its upkeep if the family was unable to complete the required repairs.

More than 100 years after it first opened its doors to educate Oakdale’s African American community, Lincoln Academy had itself become a lesson in Denton County history.

It’s not a definitive history, Crittenden knows, but it’s a start. And when you sense that something isn’t right — that the past has been forgotten or marginalized — there’s no time like the present to do something about it.

“Whatever amount of privilege I’ve been handed, I’m going to use it to hold the door open,” says Crittenden, who will begin working on her Ph.D. at UNT this fall. “That’s the best way I can be a human. It’s the only way I know how.”

Read the full story of the team’s research, and check out the St. John’s historical database created by Moye and Torget’s class. northtexan.unt.edu/past-present Summer 2020 | northtexan.unt.edu | north TEXAN

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In a recent Twitter post that went viral, Sarah Shirley (’20) revealed she played Scrappy for the past 3½ years. The Denton native and recent rehabilitation studies graduate — who as a child was a member of the Junior Mean Green Club — has long cultivated her campus pride, frequenting games with her father Mike Shirley, who works in information technology at UNT. The Scrappy role brought her experience full circle. “The kids love it,” Shirley told the Denton Record-Chronicle. “Scrappy is a superhero.”

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CONNECTING WITH FRIENDS

CLASS NOTES keep up with the latest developments in the UNT family and tell your peers what you’ve been up to since leaving the nest. Send your news to the North Texan (see contact information on page 7 ).

1932 JEWELL HUTSON, Kerens, celebrated her 109th birthday on Jan. 26. She grew up in Kerens, then went on to attend North Texas, where she met her husband, Denton Hutson, who passed away in 1965. She taught for about 50 years, retiring in 1979, and was an active member of her church.

1972 AARON BONDS, Corpus

Christi, was inducted into the Coastal Bend Coaches Association Hall of Honor in January in recognition of his lifetime of service to students in South Texas. A former member of the Mean Green football team, his nickname on the defense was “Bad News.” He went on to teach and coach in Alice, where he had been the high school’s first African American running back.

He also coached and taught in Calallen and in Agua Dulce. He retired in 2012 but continues to help studentathletes prepare for college, including his grandson, who plays football at Hardin Simmons. He credits UNT with instilling the “Three Ps” in him — pride, perseverance and the pursuit of happiness (since he met his wife of 47 years, Rogenia, in Denton).

1979 DONNA MORGAN, Sadler, published a children’s book, The Furry Fortune, that is currently in the process of being adapted into a movie. Based on her own experiences

of adopting many rescue dogs, the story depicts one family’s adoption of a dog whose fur sheds money.

When the family starts spending the money, they realize their family and dog is more important. Donna, who is married to John Morgan (’96), also attended UNT in the mid-1990s.

1980 MICHAEL J. TRUNCALE

(M.B.A.), Beaumont, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as a U.S. District Judge in the Eastern District of Texas. He previously served as a regent of the Texas State University System and as a board member of the Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board. Michael is married to Denise Holland Truncale (’82 M.M.Ed.) and is the son of the late Ruth Henderson Truncale (’46, ’47 M.M.) and the late Joseph Truncale (’47).

1981 WARREN ‘GREGG’

STRAWN, Corvallis, Oregon, retired after serving 38 years as a minister with Circle Church of Christ in Corvallis. His first appointment as campus minister was followed by a long tenure as minister of the word.

In addition to local responsibilities, he lectured at various universities and for groups and churches across the western U.S. and Asia.

1982 MELANIE MARTIN (M.J.),

Frisco, is a freelance writer, editor and tutor who edited Streams of Tears:

ADVOCATING FOR CAGE-FREE Alexandria Beck (’14) received an email from Bill McNeace, the Dining Services director at the time, in January 2014 informing her that UNT would be transitioning to completely cage-free eggs. She’d spent much of her senior year campaigning for all five dining halls to go cage-free as part of an advocacy group she’d started called Mean Green for Animals (MGFA).

It was that first large-scale victory that fueled Beck’s desire to embark on a career in animal activism. Five years later, she’s the director of the Open Wing Alliance (OWA), a campaign to free egg-laying hens that is part of The Humane League.

“Our first step toward achieving the end of abuse of chickens worldwide is eliminating battery cages from our world,” Beck says. “We’re working toward achieving that vision, one corporate cage-free policy at a time.”

Read Beck’s full story. northtexan.unt.edu/cage-free

Summer 2020 | northtexan.unt.edu | north TEXAN

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Alumni profile

BLESSINGS ABOUND FROM fraternity

PAUL UNDERWOOD (’74) GREW UP THE youngest of 13 children in a bluecollar home in Hillsboro. When he was 3, his father passed away, and even working three jobs, his mother struggled to make ends meet for her three boys still living at home.

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His father had belonged to the Fraternity of Freemasons, and a few years after his passing, a few Masons from Hillsboro Lodge 196 visited Underwood’s mother offering to send him and his two older brothers to the Fort Worth-based Masonic Home and School of Texas. She agreed, and Underwood attended the school from the time he was 10 until he was 18.

It was a tough decision, but one that paid off. Though his mother had only a sixth-grade education, and his father never learned to read or write, Underwood internalized the many lessons of self-sufficiency the Masonic Home imparted, going on to become a college graduate.

“Going to that school truly did, emotionally, physically and financially, save my life,” says Underwood, who earned his accounting degree from North Texas’ College of Business in 1974. “It instilled in me that education is how you overcome poverty, and I knew I did not want to live the way I did before I went to that place.”

Even as a commuter student, Underwood relished campus life at UNT. Though he was an accounting major, he also loved music, and enrolled in some of the iconic ’Fessor Graham’s music appreciation classes. He spent time in the Union between classes, drinking coffee and enjoying the camaraderie of the other students coming and going.

“I just felt really honored to have the privilege of going to North Texas,” says Underwood, who went on to become a CPA and senior auditor for the Texas Comptroller’s office.

And he wanted to afford others the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

That’s why, at 21, Underwood joined the Masonic fraternity, becoming part of Mesquite Lodge No. 928. The Free-

masons belong to one of the world’s oldest and largest fraternal organizations and are committed to individual growth, as well as philanthropic causes such as supporting children’s health through groups like the Shrine Masons and Scottish Rite Masons, and scholarship programs.

“Even going to the Masonic school, I didn’t really know what a Mason was,” says Underwood, who played on the school’s “Mighty Mites” football team, immortalized in Jim Dent’s book Twelve Mighty Orphans that was recently adapted into a film starring Robert Duvall and Martin Sheen. “I was a silent beneficiary of this group that didn’t expect any recognition in return. As I got older, I realized any organization that would help children the way they helped me has to be a darn good organization.”

As he rose through the ranks in his professional career, he simultaneously became a leader in the Masons. He has served at various lodges in positions including president. As a graduate of the Masonic Home and School, which closed in 2005, he was involved in the Masonic Ex-Students Association, serving as president in 2008.

In 2017, Underwood was elected grand junior warden, which led to roles as grand senior warden and deputy grand master. This year, he was elected to serve as the fraternity’s 185th grand master, the highest rank in the organization. He’s the fourth Masonic Home and School alumnus to ever fill that role.

“What has driven me in this fraternity is to do what I could to give back to this wonderful organization a little of what it gave to me,” Underwood says.

“We collectively work to better ourselves and leave the world a bit better than we found it.”

— Erin Cristales

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EN • CONNECTING WITH FRIENDS

The Heartache of Divorce, written by her father, John D. Martin (’66 Ed.D.).

She co-wrote Whiskers, the Black and White Mouse — At the Zoo with her student, Jessica Jin, and edited a young adult Christian novel, A Friend I Didn’t Know, by Harel R. Lawrence.

She is writing two children’s books to be published in early 2021. At UNT, she was a member of the Baptist Student Ministries, NT Daily Headline Writing Lab and a graduate student assistant/teacher.

1984 A.C. ‘BUDDY’ HIMES,

Nacogdoches, has served as dean of the College of Fine Arts at Stephen F. Austin State University since 2007, and led the planning of a $50 million renovation and new construction of a building. Prior to becoming dean at SFA, he was director of the School of Music at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for 12 years.

1986 BRIAN BEARDEN,

Fulshear, and his marketing/website development company Upstream Marketing, were honored by the American Advertising Federation’s Houston chapter with two Gold ADDYs at the 58th annual American Advertising Awards. He worked with the marketing/sales efforts for Fortune 500 companies before launching Upstream. While at UNT, Brian was president of West Hall.

1991 GRANT PETERS (M.M.,

’98 D.M.A.), Springfield, Missouri, was elected president of the International Trumpet Guild, the premier professional organization of trumpeters. In 1996, he was appointed professor of music at Missouri State University, where he

teaches applied trumpet. He has recorded two solo CDs of new works for trumpet with piano, organ and wind ensemble, and he has performed around the world.

1998 LOUIS MARX, Garland,

received the 2019 United States Presidential Community Service Award for volunteering more than 200 hours in the community in 2018.

In 2017, he received the Community New Leadership Award from the Bnai Zion Foundation for volunteering at least 150 hours per year in the community for 15 consecutive years.

He also is the founder of the DFW Pinball League.

2002 SARAH MALONE, Tampa, Florida, led the 2018 reopening of Se7en Wetlands, a 1,640-acre property that serves as a space for hiking, environmental education and wildlife viewing. Sarah’s love of the outdoors began while growing up in North Texas exploring creeks on her family’s 50 acres. Her time at UNT focused on ecology and natural resource management.

2004 SHANNON PUGH

(M.Ed.), Glen Burnie, Maryland, was elected vice president for the National Council for the Social Studies and will assume the presidency in 2022. Shannon earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland and currently works as the manager of academics and assessments for Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Annapolis.

2006 DARRELL ALLEN COOK (M.S.), Venus, was promoted to assistant city administrator for

STAYING ON TRACK In early 2011, when Shahaf Bareni (’15, ’17 M.S.) heard back from UNT with an offer of a full-ride track scholarship, she secured a passport and visa, packed her bags and flew to DFW, all in the span of 48 hours.

Of course, Bareni — a former Mean Green high jump champion — has never let any obstacle stand in her way. And maybe that’s why, even in the midst of a pandemic that has temporarily placed her dream of qualifying for the Israeli Olympic high jump team on hold, she’s able to see a silver lining.

“What’s always pushed me forward is the belief that if you work hard — if you really want something — you can make it come true,” she says. “Can I win first place? Can I break this record? The challenge is what keeps me going.”

Read Bareni’s full story. northtexan.unt.edu/staying-track

Summer 2020 | northtexan.unt.edu | north TEXAN

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the city of Venus after serving as community development director since January 2019. He previously was a library supervisor at El Centro College in Dallas for more than six years, then served as library manager with the city of Richardson.

legacy family

Greener Beginnings LIKE MANY NATIVE DENTONITES, JANE NELSON (’75) chose to enroll in her hometown university. As an elementary education major, she knew she could expect a stellar learning experience from an institution founded as a teacher’s college. What she didn’t anticipate was that nearly 40 years after graduating and moving to the Houston area, much of her family would make the decision she once did — venturing to Denton to earn UNT degrees in fields ranging from business to music to higher education.

But UNT was already shaping up to be a family affair — Nelson’s brothers Pat (’70) and George Jenson (’73) both received business degrees just a few years before Jane graduated. It was on campus in 1971 that Jane met her future husband and fellow education major, Scott Nelson (’72), at a fraternity party. Scott held officer positions in Kappa Sigma and Jane was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha, which was famous for its sorority sister, the late Phyllis George (read more on pg. 57).

“We had a great time at North Texas,” Jane says. “We made so many memories and lots of good friends.”

After the couple married in 1973, they lived in San Saba, Denton and Kilgore, and welcomed the births of their daughters Amy (Nelson) Ferman (’12 M.Ed.) and Carrie (Nelson) Webb (’04). The family ultimately settled in the Houston suburb of Kingwood, and though she lived far from Denton, Carrie decided she wanted to attend UNT. “There’s such a sense of community here, in terms of the school and with Denton itself,” says Carrie, who met her future spouse and fellow

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CHASTINE FRANKLIN HOFMEISTER (’08 M.M.), McKinney, is an adjunct professor of clarinet at Collin College.

She also is second clarinetist with the Longview Symphony and the Monroe Symphony. When she was at UNT, she was a member of the Wind Symphony, Chamber Orchestra, Sigma Alpha Iota and Pi Kappa Lambda. business major Brant Webb (’05) in a UNT political science course.

Amy, though, had decided to attend Stephen F. Austin as an undergraduate, partly because it was closer to home. But in 2001, she was offered a job with UNT as a service representative in the Registrar’s Office, and now serves as associate director for employer development and outreach in the Career Center. In 2009, she enrolled in UNT’s College of Education to pursue a master’s in higher education.

“A lot of the students were fresh out of undergrad, so even though I was 30, I felt 50,” says Amy, whose spouse, Joshua Ferman (’08 M.M.), has a Master of Music in saxophone performance.

With nearly the entire immediate family now composed of Mean Green grads, the Nelsons and their offspring often reunite for on-campus activities. They’re all basketball and football fans, and Carrie and Jane — both Zetas — along with Scott and Brant (a former Delta Sigma Phi president), frequently run into old sorority and fraternity friends. And now that Amy and Joshua have a 4-year-old son, and Carrie and Brant have a 1 1/2-year-old daughter, the family’s Mean Green legacy could grow even larger.

“I guess,” laughs Carrie, “the grandchildren have no choice about where they’re going.”

— Erin Cristales

2010 CASEY CLAIBORNE,

Austin, and ARIELLE LAGUETTE (’11), Austin, “reunited” in April when Casey, an anchor and reporter for FOX 7 in Austin, interviewed Arielle, a musician and actress, about her work with the Fallout Theater, a comedy venue and conservatory that she co-founded and owns. Both of them anchored NTTV newscasts while at UNT. Casey worked in Tyler before working for FOX 7. He lives in Austin with his wife, Alice, and newborn son, Carson. Arielle works as sales manager at Favor Delivery.

2015

SIMONE MARTENS (’18 M.S.), The Colony, was featured in a video showcasing the Jewish Family Services of Greater Dallas at the Roseland Communities of Dallas, where she provides counseling services to its residents. Simone has worked as a bilingual clinician for the nonprofit organization since 2019.

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Mean Green Pride

1

3

4

1 WITH NEWS TEAMS REPORTING 3 SADIE, 11, AND MILES, 5, from home due to social distancing measures, WFAA reporter and anchor Cynthia Izaguirre’s (’97) UNT diploma got to be in the spotlight.

enjoyed visiting their mother Ellie Hogue Dodge’s (’98) old stomping grounds with their dog, a Weimaraner named Dirk.

2 MEAN GREEN FAN LORETTA

4 SCOTT BROWN (’10), HIS WIFE

THOMPSON plans to follow in her father Lanny Thompson’s (’09) footsteps when she enrolls at UNT in the fall of 2038. The Thompson family, which includes mom Angela, lives in Waxahachie.

2

5 THE BAEZ FAMILY SPORTS the

Mean Green spirit on their front porch in Denton. They are Trey (’08); Amanda, who attended from 2009 to 2011; and their son Jack, 3.

Hayley and daughter Rory Sage welcomed Marshall Scott last year. Scott works as a senior communications strategist for the Division of University Brand Strategy and Communications.

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GIVING IMPACT

UNT CARES FUND IS ASSISTING S T U D E N T S T O S TAY O N T R A C K Kaitlyn Martinez never imagined she would finish her junior year at UNT sharing a three-bedroom house with her mother, grandparents and two younger siblings. But after being exposed to COVID-19 in March, the family faced a strict two-week quarantine.

Then, like many, they worked to find a new normal.

Amidst the chaos of a crowded home, Martinez struggled to manage nerves about the future — especially when her job in a UNT computer lab transitioned to remote work with fewer hours.

“As a college student, I live paycheck to paycheck,” Martinez says. “My employers at UNT worked hard to offer some security, but I was scared.”

Martinez was not alone in that fear. As students were thrown into uncertain waters, the UNT community came together to help them persevere. Through gifts to the UNT Cares campaign — a university fundraising initiative created in response to the public health crisis — donors ensured more students had the resources they needed to offset unexpected financial strain.

“The collective impact of gifts to the UNT Cares fund has been amazing,” says David Wolf, vice president for University Advancement. “Because of the generosity of our Mean Green family, we’ve been able to award emergency scholarships to students in need from each of UNT’s 14 colleges and schools.”

Martinez heard about the emergency relief funding just in time.

“I was days away from having to find a job that would have taken up a lot of my hours during the day,” she says.

“I needed to work, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to focus on my studies.”

For Martinez, who is working on a double major in converged broadcast media and political science, receiving UNT Cares funds meant being able to pay tuition and bills while successfully completing her 18-credit-hour semester.

Determined, the Honors College student — who calls herself a hands-on learner — borrowed a laptop from UNT and adjusted to online courses. She spent the rest of the upended semester moving around her house to find quiet places for virtual classes and meetings while her mother — a teacher — and her siblings did the same.

There’s no roadmap for success during unprecedented times, but Martinez says the scholarship from the UNT

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Cares fund helped her stay on track. With her short-term needs taken care of, she was able to keep moving toward her long-term goal of becoming a newscast director or producer.

“I was really worried about what was going to happen, but this scholarship gave me the financial peace I needed to focus on my studies and help my family take care of each other during this emotional rollercoaster,” she says. “I’m so grateful.” — Amanda Yanowski Anyone, anywhere can transform lives at UNT. Visit one.unt.edu/untcares to learn how giving a little can make a big difference.

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EN • GIVING IMPACT

“It’s really amazing how people step up and will help their neighbors and their families. Quite honestly, UNT is a family.”

— David Wolf (’04 Ph.D.) UNT’s Vice President for University Advancement sharing about higher education philanthropy on an Alumni Spotlight episode of the OLLI at UNT Podcast.

OLLI at UNT Podcast: Alumni Spotlight Series

The UNT Alumni Association and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNT have teamed up to explore fascinating topics with noteworthy graduates. Tune in to Alumni Spotlight episodes of the OLLI at UNT Podcast hosted by Susan Supak to hear conversations with some of our most accomplished alumni and UNT faculty — they’ll tell their unique life stories and share lessons learned along the way.

To listen, visit olli.unt.edu/podcast or subscribe to the OLLI at UNT podcast on your smartphone or tablet.

Not familiar with OLLI at UNT? Head to olli.unt.edu to discover how UNT’s lifelong learning program can help you begin your next adventure today.

UNT Alumni Association As we face challenging times and live this socially distant life, the UNT Alumni Association is finding new ways to have fun and keep the UNT family connected.

During UNT Alumni Live! virtual events, we go behindthe-scenes and chat with UNT faculty and alumni experts to learn and laugh without leaving the house.

Attendees have toured a winery, explored the Texas Fashion Collection, cooked with UNT President Neal Smatresk, heard from celebrated artists, learned about craft brewing, listened to live music and more.

Curious about something you missed? Connect with the UNT Alumni Association on Facebook and YouTube to find recordings of past events.

Upcoming UNT Alumni Live! events include: • J uly 9: Anyah Martinez (’04 M.S.), founder of Explorium Denton Children’s Museum • J uly 23: Brent Reaves (’99), owner of Smokey John’s BBQ • August 13: Deborah Smith Pegues (’72), author Visit untalumni.com/alumnilive to view the full schedule and register for upcoming virtual events. And if you have ideas for the series or a guest you’d like to see featured, just send an email to claudia.taylor@unt.edu.

To join the UNT Alumni Association or learn more, visit untalumni.com, email alumni@unt.edu or call 940-565-2834.

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RETROSPECTIVE

100 years ago, Spanish influenza took hold

HISTORICAL SNIPPET

THE FLU From a November 1918 Campus Chat

When you’re feeling fine and happy And the whole world’s bright and snappy, And your feelings seem to “sorter” change, When you’re aching and a-paining, And you’re constantly complaining, You have something that to you is very strange.

In its 130-year history, UNT has overcome its fair share of challenges — which now includes two pandemics. Faculty, staff and students have united to face COVID-19, just as they did a century ago, when the Spanish Influenza began to ravage the U.S. and the rest of the world. Much of the history of the Spanish flu, which lasted from January 1918 to December 1920, can be traced through the university’s Campus Chat student newspaper. One of the earliest mentions is in an October 1918 edition of the paper, headlined “Conditions Much Improved,” which chronicled what turned out to be the start of the flu’s second wave: “There have been a number of the students and faculty ill,” the article states. By January 1919, it was clear the pandemic had left many activities in flux, including the Yucca annual, the completion of which would require “the cooperation of the entire student body.” There also were increased pleas to ensure that the Normal College Sanitarium Fund allowed every faculty and student to visit a physician so as not to become the “next victim of the dreaded flu.” That same month, the paper took a lighter approach by reprinting a poem that first appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer, which began: If you have a tummy-ache/It’s the Flu!/If you’re weary when you wake/It’s the Flu!/ Is your memory off the track?/Is your liver out of whack?/Are there pimples on your back?/ It’s the Flu! (See another flu-related poem printed in the Campus Chat at right). By February 1920, following months of notices regarding students and faculty who were “worried” with influenza, cases appeared to decline — only a few of the Sanitarium’s (pictured above) 20 beds were occupied.

When you’re aching, sure and painful, And the whole world’s dark and baneful, And you’re feeling cross and melancholy, too.

When both little girl and “wifie” Seem to cause a little “strifey,” Then you may be sure that you have got the “Flu.” When you feel you are not dying, And, with all your strength, you’re trying To recover, as most brave soldiers do, Then the Hun you’ve killed outright, Whom you’ve fought both day and night, Turns out to be none other than the “Flu.”

View historic issues of the Campus Chat and Yucca annuals in The Portal to Texas History. northtexan.unt.edu/spanish-influenza

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EN • FRIENDS WE’LL MISS

FRIENDS WE’LL MISS

unt alumni, faculty, staff and students are the university’s greatest legacy. When members of the Eagle family pass, they are remembered and their spirit lives on. Send information about deaths to the North Texan (see contact information on page 7).

1940s MARTHA LEN NELSON (’49, ’50 M.M.E.), Denton. A music education and piano performance major, she was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon music fraternity and donated often to the College of Music. She was a life member of the Alumni Association and a member of the President’s Council.

In 2009, she created the L.A. Nelson Jr. Scholarship, honoring her husband, former Denton Mayor L.A. Nelson. She and her husband also supported UNT Athletics and the UNT Dallas College of Law. In 1986, they received the UNT Ulys Knight Spirit Award.

1950s MARVIN POER (’52), Dallas. He served in the U.S. Army for four years in between his studies at North Texas. He started his property tax career at Mobil Oil. In 1964, he established Marvin F. Poer and Co., which became one of the largest independent property tax firms in the country. At 90 years old, Marvin still worked as chairman and CEO of his company. He was a member of the Chilton Society, Mean Green Club and the UNT Alumni Association.

PAUL R. HARRIS (’54, ’56 M.A.), Dallas. He had a long career in the arts, serving as a Dallas ISD teacher, as coordinator of educational services at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, as head of the art education de-

Plus nonprofit organization and as a social worker at Ochsner Medical Center. She was a member of the UNT Alumni Association.

1970s

partment at Southern Methodist University, as director of the Art Center in Waco and Craft Guild of Dallas, and as an independent curator. He supported UNT Libraries and the College of Visual Arts and Design. He was a member of the President’s Council and the 1890 Society, and he established the Paul Rogers Harris Exhibition Endowment Fund to support the UNT Art Galleries.

DOROTHY MARIE FORD (’58, ’60 M.S.), Pilot Point. She was a teacher at Chambersville School in Collin County for one year and a science teacher for Pilot Point High School for 29 years.

She retired in 1986. While at North Texas, she was a member of the W.N. Masters Chemical Society and the Literature Club.

1960s JOHN KRAMER (’62), Kingsbury. He played football at North Texas for three years on a scholarship. He was a member of the Geezles fraternity. He spent 32 years teaching and coaching in the San Antonio and Houston areas, retiring in 1999 from Converse Judson ISD in San Antonio.

DOROTHY BAGBY SEEMANN (’63), New Orleans. At North Texas, she served as an officer in Zeta Tan Alpha and the Student Senate. She was inducted into the Mortar Board Leadership/Honor Society. She graduated from Tulane School of Social Work and worked as a manager for the Basics

PHYLLIS GEORGE, Lexington, Kentucky. She became Miss America, a groundbreaking sportscaster, actress and First Lady of Kentucky. Phyllis was a student at North Texas from 1967 to 1970, where she was a Yucca beauty and active in Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and Angel Flight, the women’s auxiliary of Air Force ROTC. She was crowned Miss America in 1971. She then cohosted the TV show Candid Camera and became one of the first women in TV sportscasting when she co-hosted The NFL Today from 1975 to 1978 and from 1980 to 1984. She became First Lady of Kentucky when her then-husband John Y. Brown Jr. served as the state’s governor from 1979 to 1983.

She also anchored CBS Morning News in 1985 and appeared in the 2000 movie Meet the Parents. She had her own food line, Chicken By George, and a makeup and skincare brand. She was named a Distinguished UNT Alumna in 1977 and awarded an honorary Doctor of Media Arts in 1998. In 2014, she was

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FRIENDS WE’LL MISS honored as an Emerald Eagle “for a lifetime of contributions to the American landscape.” She was an honorary lifetime member of the UNT Alumni Association.

DUANE WALLACE HEATLEY (’72), Bells. He was a high school English teacher in Denison and Cleburne and taught at Grayson College for 39 years, retiring in 2011. He was known as a master storyteller who enjoyed history and genealogy. He is survived by his wife Joanne Heatley (’68).

1980s CLIFTON W. HAWK (’80), Denton.

He worked as the dentist for UNT Athletics for many years, in addition to running his own practice in Denton and donating his services to First Refuge Denton Dental Office. He also served on the President’s Council, contributed to UNT Athletics and had a planned gift to the Clifton W. Hawk Fund.

CLINTON ‘LARRY’ GANTT (’83), Allen. He was an avid Texas Rangers and Mean Green sports fan. He was a member of the UNT Alumni Association. He loved his family, music and his Irish heritage.

GLENN E. GOMEZ (’85), Rockport. An avid jazz enthusiast, he established the Glenn E. Gomez International Artists Endowment for Jazz Studies in 1994 that enabled jazz artists to visit campus and share their experiences. He was a member of the Kendall Society.

Additionally, Glenn served as chairman of Origin Interests Corp.

1990s

while attending UNT. As a student, he co-founded the fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta, now Lambda Theta Phi, for Latinos. Joe and his wife, Pauline (’05), also were members of the UNT Alumni Association and President’s Council, and they contributed to the Guerra Family Endowment in the College of Merchandising, Hospitality and Tourism, where he served on the Board of Governors. Because of his family’s UNT legacy spanning three generations, they were given the Generations of Excellence Award in 2014. His family includes sisters Kathy Guerra Purser (’81) and Linda Guerra Dyer (’90), aunt Esperanza Espinosa (’75) and niece Rachel (’09).

2010s ANEEL SRI DEVARAJU (’14), Lewisville. He earned a degree in electrical engineering technology and was working on his master’s at UNT. He worked as a change request management coordinator at Johnson and Johnson Vision Care Inc., as an assistant system engineer at Tata Consultancy Services’ Engineering and Industrial Services division, and as a vehicle integration engineer at Fiat-Chrysler LLC. MILLICENT MCGUIRE, McKinney.

She was a junior enrolled in geography in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

DARIUS TARVER, Garland. He was a senior majoring in criminal justice in the College of Health and Public Service. He was a member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement, and he enjoyed playing Ping-Pong and was known for his “off-key” singing.

JOE GUERRA (’96), Dallas. He coowned and was vice president of Rudy’s Tortillas and Food Products, his family’s business — which he ran

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University Community ALIS DICKINSON ADKINS (’73 Ph.D.), 83, of Denton, a faculty member in the College of Music from 1988 to 1999, died Dec. 6 in Denton. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in the arts from a Texas university. She taught music history and appreciation and often collaborated with her husband, the late Cecil Adkins, Professor Emeritus of music, on numerous publications. Their family often performed together as the Adkins String Ensemble and received the College of Music’s Honored Alumni Award in 2013. Before coming to North Texas in 1965, she earned her bachelor’s degree at Howard Payne College and her master’s in music history and organ at the University of Texas at Austin. Donations may be made to the Adkins-Dickinson String Scholarship.

Survivors include children Alexandra (’96), Anthony (’93, ’08 M.B.A., M.S.), Christopher (’80), Madeline (’98) and Clare Cason (’91).

GLADYS ‘GLAD’ HUDGINS CRAWFORD (’46, ’49 M.S.), 92, of Denton, who spent 57 years teaching biology at UNT, died Sept. 2. At UNT, she coordinated the medical technology and cytotechnology programs and directed Eisenhower Grants. She received the ’Fessor Graham Award, the highest honor given by the student body. She met her husband, the late William A. “Al” Crawford (’52), at North Texas. They were President’s Council members and life joint members of the UNT Alumni Association.

Donations may be made to the Gladys H. Crawford Biological Sciences Scholarship Endowment, which was established by her husband. Survivors include daughter Kala Marsh (’83, ’84 M.B.A.) and sons Kal (’88, ’94 M.B.A.) and Kurt (’88).

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EN • FRIENDS WE’LL MISS

JANET KOCH ELLIS (’74 M.A., ’81 Ph.D.), 89, of Denton, who was instrumental in developing the behavior analysis program at UNT and promoted the discipline around the world, died Oct. 28. She was a founding member and the second president of the Texas Association of Behavior Analysis. She and her husband, Edward Ellis, were lifetime members of the UNT Alumni Association and supported UNT Athletics and the College of Health and Public Service.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s from Southern Methodist University. Memorials may be made to the Ruth and Joe Koch Behavior Analysis Research Endowment at UNT. JAMES W. ‘BILL’ GIESE, 94, Professor Emeritus of accounting, died Sept.

5 in Denton. He taught at UNT from 1966 to 1985. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and his master’s and doctorate from the University of Illinois. He became a certified public accountant in Idaho in 1949 and in Texas in 1962. After retiring from UNT, he was a member of many Denton city, school and organization boards and committees and the DISD Giese Professional Support Services Building was named for him in 2018.

He also was a member of the UNT President’s Council. Donations may be made to the J.W. Giese Accounting Scholarship Fund.

MILDRED ‘MILLIE’ GILES (’70 M.F.A.), 69, of Denton, a former faculty member in the College of Visual Arts and Design, died Nov. 26.

She taught at UNT from 1987 until her retirement in 2013, and served as coordinator of the watercolor concentration. She established the Rob Erdle Watercolor Painting Scholarship, named after her late husband, art professor Robert Erdle. She served as a critic for the VAST Painters of Denton as well as a director of the Chautauqua Art Association Galleries

in New York. She was a co-owner of Watercolor World Wide Inc. She helped design Denton’s 9/11 Firefighters Memorial Bell Tower.

MALIYAKAL ‘JAY’ JAYAKUMAR, 62, of Denton, associate professor of information technology and decision sciences, died Sept. 11 in Kochi, India.

He began working at UNT in 1994. He earned his bachelor’s from the Indian Institute of Technology, his master’s from the University of California and his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University. At UNT, he taught business statistical analysis and management science courses, and he was a member of the Decision Sciences Institute and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. He is survived by his wife, Maya Jayakumar (’95, ’03 M.S.).

JAMES RIDER KRENDL, 78, of Houston, who was a long-time benefactor at UNT with his wife, Cathy Stricklin Krendl (’67), died Aug. 21. James studied political science at Harvard College, then went on to serve in the Korean and Vietnam wars, achieving the rank of captain and receiving the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam. Afterward, he attended Harvard Law School and began practicing business law. He founded the award-winning Denver-based law firm Krendl Sachnoff & Way. He and Cathy were members of the Chilton Society and UNT Alumni Association.

GERALD MORRIS, 67, of Lake Dallas, a retired landscape artist, died Nov. 8 in Denison. He worked at UNT from 1990 to 2014. He liked to fish, travel and spend time with friends, family and his dog.

MARTHA PAYNE, who was a nurse at the UNT Student Health and Wellness Center, died Nov. 22. She worked at Flow Hospital before arriving at UNT in 1989 and retired in 2001. Martha and her husband, Ray, loved traveling to national parks.

CLAY DOUGLAS RIVENBARK JR., 62, of Dallas, who taught applied design as an adjunct professor in the Mayborn School of Journalism, died Sept. 5. He had a 35-year career in graphic design that included working as an owner and creative director of M2 Design, teaching at the Rocky College of Art and Design in Denver and serving as School of Design coordinator for the Art Institute of Dallas.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology and his master’s from Texas A&M University.

He enjoyed chili cookoffs and traveling, and he married his high school sweetheart in the middle of his life.

JAMES ANDREW ‘JIM’ ROBERTS, 87, of Sanger, who taught physics at UNT for more than 50 years, died on Nov. 7. He taught into his 80s. He founded and served for more than 30 years as project director for UNT’s Collaborative Group for the Texas Regional Collaboratives for Excellence in Science Teaching. His research specialties included the interaction of microwaves with matter, molecular and atomic spectroscopy, plasma physics and astronomy. Prior to joining North Texas in 1967, he served in the Air Force for four years, then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Louisiana Tech University and a doctorate in engineering physics from the University of Oklahoma.

MEMORIALS Send memorials to honor UNT alumni and friends, made payable to the UNT Foundation, to University of North Texas, Division of Advancement, 1155 Union Circle #311250, Denton, Texas 76203-5017. Indicate on your check the fund or area you wish to support. Or make secure gifts online at one.unt.edu/giving. For more information, email giving@unt. edu or call 940-565-2900

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PERSPECTIVE

overcoming adversity

I was in Paris, Texas, when I learned of my

acceptance into UNT. My grandmother was having knee replacement surgery. I was tense the whole week, checking my email on my laptop every day.

I was in her hospital room when I got the news. After many years in community college, UNT had always been my dream school. I began to cry. And my mom began to cry, too.

This opportunity was a long time coming for me and my journey overcoming adversity.

As a survivor of human trafficking and spending time in the foster care system, I missed most of the foundations of education and social skills. The acute trauma, added with

the complexity of having dyslexia and dysgraphia, created a huge barrier to my education growing up. But I did not let my initial fear of “I am not smart enough for a university” keep me from pursuing my dreams.

During my freshman orientation tour, I remember parents were supposed to split up from the students, and I told my mom, who adopted me at age 29, “You’re not leaving me.” I thought I would never learn my way around campus.

So the week before classes started, we went to campus together to figure out the best routes between the buildings ahead of time so I wasn’t confused.

I took it slowly by taking two or three classes at a time because I was so terrified. I would get the syllabus and feel overwhelmed. For a test that took most people an hour to complete, it would take me three.

But in my first semester, I made a 4.0. I said to my mother, “I made a 4.0. Me?” And she said, “Yes, sweet girl, you made a 4.0!”

What I learned about succeeding as a student is that you have to make yourself known to professors and let them know your struggles. I had standing appointments every week with my professors. I took part in online tutoring. I would do that and then I would pay for additional tutoring.

I also received help from the Office of Disability Access; PUSH, a foster care alumni program; and TRIO, a federal program for low-income Americans. I was very transparent about what my needs were. I was an

older student, and I didn’t have time to waste.

My behavior analysis professors Dr. April Becker and Dr. Shahla Ala’i Rosales, knew my disabilities. But they also could see I was a bright student.

They let me explore the topics that were important to me. I loved every minute of being in their presence.

Besides making sure that I fully understood the academic concepts, they also made it a point to always say something positive and encouraging to me. They inspired me and made me feel like I could change the world.

Now that I’ve graduated, I plan to focus on GloryB, a nonprofit organization I founded to help those suffering from complex trauma ­— including survivors of human trafficking and ritual abuse — rebuild their lives.

What makes our organization unique is that we give the power back to the survivor to take the lead in determining what the rest of their life will look like. In the future, we also hope to have a home for stabilization and residential care.

Because I have walked through this pain and am able to relate in a deep and profound level, I wanted to be a part of encouraging human trafficking victims to have a voice for themselves.

I will tell my clients what I told myself: You will get your degree, and it doesn’t matter the length of time it takes to get it — what matters is that you keep going!

— Tiffani Price (’20) earned her bachelor’s degree in behavioral analysis from UNT’s College of Health and Public Service this spring

BECAUSE I HAVE WALKED THROUGH THIS PAIN AND AM ABLE TO RELATE IN A DEEP AND PROFOUND LEVEL, I WANTED TO BE A PART OF ENCOURAGING HUMAN TRAFFICKING VICTIMS TO HAVE A VOICE FOR THEMSELVES.” — Tiffani Price (’20)

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CATCH THE

EXCITEMENT Being Mean Green is about more than winning championships.

It’s a commitment to learning. It’s giving back to the community.

It’s pushing harder than you ever have, then reaching deeper and finding even more. It’s about family and fun. And it’s about entertaining our fans. We’re looking forward to the upcoming season when we’ll unite and excite our fans again.

Keep up with us at meangreensports.com and on

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Division of University Brand Strategy and Communications 1155 Union Circle #311070, Denton, Texas 76203-5017

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6/15/20 8:48 AM