Spiders amassed an impressive collection of championship trophies and medals this academic year. Opposite: women’s basketball players with their Atlantic 10 regular season and conference tournament championship trophies. Above: football players with the Colonial Athletic Association trophy and the Capital Cup (for beating William & Mary). Below: the A-10 women’s indoor track gold medal-winning 4×800-meter relay team. Right: Melissa Nwakalor, who set a new swimming and diving program record as she won A-10 gold in the women’s 50 free. Photography by Jamie Betts
THESE ARE, TOO
Above left and right: The A-10 gold medalwinning women’s track 4×400-meter relay indoor and outdoor squads, respectively (three runners ran on both).
Right: women’s lacrosse teammates, back-toback A-10 tournament champions. Opposite page, left column, from top: Individual A-10 gold medalists Madison Trippett (5000-meter outdoor track), Kyra Keurentjes (1000-meter indoor track), Molly Wise (outdoor long jump), and Elizabeth Stockman (1,500-meter outdoor track, breaking school and conference records). Opposite, right: Men’s basketball players with the program’s first-ever A-10 regular season trophy.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Close listening
Do museums have perpetual right to the items in their collections?
This question is being asked with increasing frequency as people around the world ask for the repatriation of cultural artifacts taken away, sometimes centuries ago. Today, many of the recipients of these requests are museums and similar institutions, often in Europe and North America. During the spring semester, I watched as a UR class debated one of the most publicized repatriation cases: Greece’s request for the return of the Elgin Marbles. These ancient statues and friezes are currently on display in the British Museum. They were removed from the Parthenon in Athens in the early 1800s in legally unclear — and some argue illegitimate — circumstances. The Greek government has demanded them back for decades.
I went to the debate not only because I am curious about the topic, but even more so because of interest in how students in 2024 would productively engage with competing interests, values,
and frames of reference. In a cultural moment that affirms certainty, how would they navigate complexity?
During a post-debate Q&A, about a third of the students acknowledged that they argued positions with which they did not agree. (Professor Elizabeth Baughan had assigned them to sides of the debate randomly.) One said that the hardest thing about it was that she kept hearing her own counterarguments in her head. Another said that she got more sympathetic to the opposing position and better understood its good faith. She even concluded that a particular argument she would have made had she been on her preferred side was, in fact, a bad argument.
It was clear that arguing for a position they didn’t hold forced them to listen in new ways. They had to hear the merits of the case they didn’t want to make. They had to alert themselves to the shortcomings of the case they did want to make.
We talk a lot at this university about speaking across difference. It’s the focus of the current Sharp Viewpoint Speaker Series, which concludes Oct. 24 with Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law. Listening across difference is just as key. The skills the students were developing in their Elgin Marbles debate — attentive listening, empathetic thinking, granting an assumption of good faith — will carry them forward during uncomfortable, difficult conversations. These skills can be harder but even more important to call upon when an issue is more personal than this class assignment.
At the end, the audience raised hands and voted by a slight majority that the Elgin Marbles should be returned. Professor Baughan raised her hand for both sides. She apparently wasn’t ready to stop seeing the complexities — a good example for all of us.
on the cover: “Ten Views of Famous Floral Places in Edo: Wisteria at Kameido.” Print by Kitagawa Utamaro. See Page 24.
Students spread some Gotty love by chalking the entrance to the Gottwald Center for the Sciences this spring. Read one example of why starting on Page 30.
18 Brain waves
Open water swimmers face immense physical challenges — but the mental challenges are laced with lessons we can all learn from.
24 Pictures of the floating world
Students spent spring break examining art in NYC. Their assignment: Pick one work for UR to acquire.
30 The making of a scientist
A toxicology course is giving students another chance to take a class from a professor they say is key to their persistence and success in STEM.
38 ‘So, I’ve got an idea ...’
A pilot program is encouraging creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial thinking across the university.
6 INBOX Letters from you Forum President Hallock loves sports.
8 NEWS
Spiders in London, Taylor Swift in the academy, and more Paths
Kavya Borra, ’24, is much more than a singing sensation.
Voices
Steve Bisese, retirement-bound, takes Spiders’ questions.
Moments We eavesdrop as Joe Boehman does his podcast.
16 SPORTS
Football has a new conference home.
Moments
Take a look inside one of the nation’s most academically accomplished swim/ dive teams.
42 ALUMNI Spider lives
Portrait
Cheyenne Varner, ’13, is making childbirth education more inclusive.
48 NOTES
Your latest news
Back Then You won’t believe the size of — or story behind — this banana split.
Postscript
How it started and how it’s going for two Spider entrepreneurs
Photograph by Matthew Dewald
YOUR MAGAZINE, YOUR VOICE
Let us know what you think about what you read in this issue. Email your thoughts to magazine @richmond.edu or send us a letter (our postal address is on Page 5).
Please include your class year, city, state, and name you were known by as a student, if applicable. All letters to the editor may be edited for clarity or brevity and should not exceed 200 words. We also welcome your story tips at magazine @richmond.edu.
101 THINGS WE LOVE
I just wanted to express my appreciation for the Spring UR Magazine. It was fun to read the continuing of traditions and the new things and ways of being and developing community. Living halfway across the country, it always brings a smile to get the publication. And my smile was especially large for this edition.
—Betty Pugh Mills, W’86 and H’00 Leander, Texas
In the Spring 2024 issue, there’s a gorgeous sunset photo of Westhampton Lake and gazebo on Pages 34–35. I, like many others, got engaged in that gazebo (not to a Spider, but we’ll forgive that). The wintertime and dusk setting of the photo closely match the setting of that particularly memorable moment. It was completely dark out by the time our proposal happened, but I was running late, so that’s my fault, not my fiancé’s. In my defense, I had no idea that a proposal was in store!
—Alex Taylor Wiles, ’12 and GB’20 Midlothian, Virginia
STAY IN TOUCH AND SHARE YOUR PRIDE
Social media, hashtags, and sites:
• @urichmond
• #spiderpride
• #spiderspotting
• magazine. richmond.edu
• urnow.richmond. edu
The front cover of the Spring 2024 UR Magazine sparked the following memory. I worked on The Collegian for four years. I was managing editor my junior year and editor-in-chief my senior year. My first three years, four or five editors and writers would go downtown one day each week to the old Keel-Williams Linotype print shop in the area which is now Shockoe Slip to lay out galley proofs and write headlines. Three gentlemen that worked there set hot type for last-minute articles and used wood blocks to set the headlines. They reminded me of Ben Franklin and Gutenberg.
The summer before my senior year, I was unexpectedly contacted by Carter Printing, a modern offset print shop in the West End, who wanted to know if we would consider converting to offset printing. Having worked in a print shop in high school and summers
in college that did both letterpress and offset printing, I knew the benefits and flexibility of switching to offset. I recommended the switch to the UR administration. My senior year was the first year that The Collegian was printed by offset.
But I sure did hate leaving that classic print shop and those gentlemen behind.
—Joseph R. “Jay” Lassiter Jr., R’74 Frisco, North Carolina
Your editor’s note invitation prompted me to offer a “fresh take” that is more of a personal reflection of two recent experiences that make me so proud to be a Spider.
First, [university president] Dr. Hallock visited my Goochland Rotary Club, making a wonderful presentation to a full house. In his talk, he mentioned the good work of [university chaplain] Dr. Craig Kocher, so we invited Dr. Kocher to make a presentation to the parish family at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. The “fresh take” is our leader’s availability to our community! We are so grateful for that.
It’s also fun to see Dr. Kocher broadcasting our women’s basketball games, with Dr. Hallock in the stands at every game.
Go Spiders!
—Wayne Dementi, B’66 Manakin Sabot, Virginia
The “101 Things” story provided me with a 102nd example and sparked a pleasant memory.
The photo of Pierpont, the dog who lived on campus for much of my time at UR, was taken by former Collegian chief photographer John Butterfield [R’75]. He lived down the hall from me on the fourth floor of Moore Hall during the 1973–74 school year.
There are only four rooms in that section of Moore, so we got to know each other pretty well. He was a tall, gregarious, energetic redhead from Massachusetts, a fellow Yankee in a time when we were few and far between at UR. He had a keen sense of humor and a great eye for photography.
Sadly, John passed away in 2018 several years after retiring from a long career in teaching and high school administration in Northern Virginia, and thus was unable to see his photo brought back to life more than 40 years later. Many thanks for keeping his memory alive.
—Brooks Hatch, R’76 Corvallis, Oregon
I’ve just read in the alumni magazine about The Very Busy Spider board book [No. 12, “Itsy, Bitsy Spiders” on the 101 Things list]. We may be two years late for our first son, Oliver, but one-week-old Simon would love the book. This issue really did elicit warmth and fond memories. Thank you!
—Paul Rubino ’13 Silver Spring, Maryland
‘OVERZEALOUS’? NO, DANGEROUS
Editor Matthew Dewald’s piece regarding the court storming after the win over Dayton at the Robins Center as an expression of love for the university is off base. Such “overzealous” actions are dangerous; witness Iowa’s Caitlin Clark knocked to the floor at Ohio State and Duke’s Kyle Filipowski’s leg injury at Wake Forest. The SEC fined LSU $100,000 for this activity this season, and a Duke official has recommended the ACC consider game forfeiture going forward for such behavior.
The university should consult with the A-10 conference on ways to prevent further occurrences of this nature, especially in the confines of a basketball court.
—Dexter Oliver, G’01 North Chesterfield, Virginia
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
Just received my copy of the latest University of Richmond Magazine. I was so excited, pleased, and proud to see the highlight of my son Tyler Hart in the Class Notes section [“Unforgettable Emcee,” Spring 2024]. A proud alum of UR who worked for me as a student equipment manager for football while an undergraduate, he bleeds Spider red and blue. Upon graduation and ultimately deciding on pursuit of the teaching profession, he wouldn’t attend anywhere else besides UR for a teaching certificate and ultimately a master’s degree. Thanks for this recognition/highlighting of an educator who states that if a child isn’t having fun in school, they will be greatly challenged in their learning.
Thanks so much, and continue spreading the good word of the University of Richmond!
—Ken Hart Richmond
[Editor’s note: Ken Hart worked in UR’s athletics division for 34 years.]
Value of sports
President Hallock reflects on the power of athletics to bring Spiders together.
Growing up in Massachusetts, we had a Wiffle ball field in our backyard, with dirt patches at the mound, plate, and bases and a great home run fence. I spent so many hours swinging a hollow bat and chasing balls that when I was starting out as a professor, I asked a colleague, “Can you imagine where I’d be if I’d spent all that time reading instead?”
He replied, “You’d be exactly where you are now, just not as good at Wiffle ball.”
But Wiffle ball was my gateway to baseball, basketball, and soccer, each of which I played in high school. It was a starting seed from which I’ve grown a profound appreciation for athletics and a conviction, as the president of a university with 17 Division I teams, that competitive sports bring tremendous value to our university and that Spider Athletics can help take UR to even greater heights.
Throughout my youth, competitive sports taught me the simple virtues of commitment, preparation, discipline, tenacity, and organization. Sports also introduced me to feeling pride and joy as part of a team. And how to win (and lose) with grace.
Spider Athletics takes this all a monumental step further. It provides opportunities for our entire university community to celebrate what it means to be a Spider. As just one example, when our men’s basketball team beat Dayton at home this season, breaking the nation’s longest winning streak, Spider Pride radiated from the court to the rafters. Everyone in the Robins Center — except for a few Dayton Flyers — was on the same team. I endeavor to foster more opportunities for our community to all get behind something together.
Richmond Athletics fosters bonds among generations of Spiders and inspires our broader region to visit and forge connections with UR. Thanks to home games, many come to campus. On the road, our students and coaches light up Richmond, Virginia, on maps nationwide.
Whenever I speak with our student-athletes, I tell them it takes a lot to be a student at the University of Richmond. This is an academically rigorous institution, and we encourage our students to pursue multiple passions and engage in learning beyond the classroom. Competing at the Division I level
is also consistently challenging. Yet, our student-athletes excel in their studies and on their teams. I deeply admire the virtues they demonstrate and am continually inspired by their leadership and support for one another. But they can’t do it alone. Coaches and athletic staff work with players in the preseason and every day in season. Academic staff, faculty, deans, and student development professionals provide close mentoring relationships and support. Colleagues across campus come together to maintain award-winning athletic facilities and create each game-day experience. All of this is possible thanks to generations of dedicated alumni and donors who cheer for our students and join in the life of the university. I often refer to the many advantages that offer the University of Richmond an edge over our peers. One advantage is Spider Athletics and our 17 Division I teams. But another is foundational to all the rest: our remarkable, tight-knit Spider community. Some things call for the strength of a Spider community, and Spider Athletics is one of those things. Thank you for being an important part of our web and for all that you do to strengthen it. Go Spiders!
The 1985 Massachusetts Division 3 baseball state champions lost three of their first four games. But guided by a great coach, they won 20 of their last 21 and the final 11 in a row. Hallock, the sophomore third baseman from that team, attributes several of his leadership values today to the values his teammates cultivated together.
“The trust we fostered in one another and the lessons we learned are fundamental to leading a flourishing, purposeful life,” he said.
Photograph by Jamie Betts
A WINDOW INTO CULTURE
Pop culture can illuminate aspects of every society. Political science professor Dan Chen spent the summer of 2023 studying stand-up comedy in China. The goal was a better understanding of the grassroots dynamics of authoritarian rule by looking at what comedians talk about in an atmosphere of government censorship.
Taylor-ed questions
Does Taylor Swift deserve to be a billionaire? Does anyone?
Wealth distribution is just one of many Taylor-adjacent issues that make her the latest in a long line of pop phenomena to become vehicles for discussion about broader social and cultural issues. Academics at Richmond and beyond are using her success to explore important questions in their fields.
Professor Jessica Flanigan in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies waded into ethical debates about extreme wealth this spring after the pop star landed a spot on the 2024 Forbes billionaires list. She participated in nationally broadcast debates and discussions and penned essays. Her answer to the billionaire question? Yes.
“A society that produces billionaires like Taylor Swift is good for everybody,” said Flanigan, a self-proclaimed Swiftie.
Joanna Love, a music professor, connects Swift to her research on pop music and politics, especially relating to a book she’s working on
about music and the Super Bowl.
The 2024 Super Bowl attracted new audiences to the game because of Swift’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce.
“There is no doubt that the league and its sponsors benefited from Swift’s attendance at this year’s Super Bowl, which garnered the largest telecast audience ever recorded,” Love said.
Janelle Peifer, a psychology professor, was quoted by media about celebrity obsession and parasocial relationships — one-sided connections or personal bonds with someone in the public eye. Peifer discussed this concept in a HuffPost piece focused on Taylor Swift fans’ deep investment in her romantic relationships.
“Social media, in particular, has increased the level of identification that people have with celebrities,” Peifer said. “People can open up their apps and see what Swift’s up to, so it can legitimately feel to some as if she’s a close friend. It can feel like we’re owed something [from her].”
WELL-BEING
Top honors
UR received national recognition for its health and well-being efforts and for creating a culture of wellness on campus.
The American College of Sports Medicine, through its Exercise Is Medicine community-impact initiative, named UR one of 145 gold-level campuses worldwide for championing health and well-being as an institutional priority.
Well-being is one of the university’s strategic priorities. The university’s health and well-being unit includes counseling and psychological services, the student health center, disability services, university recreation, and health promotion. These services are intentionally integrated to provide the best possible continuity of care, communication, and health outcomes for the campus community.
Read more about the university’s strategic priorities at strategicplan.richmond.edu.
ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Strong symposium
More than 300 students presented projects at two campuswide events hosted by the School of Arts & Sciences and the Jepson School of Leadership Studies this spring. The symposia, which happen each spring semester, showcase students from across campus as they gather to share their research, scholarship, and creative works with each other and the broader university community.
For example, Jepson senior Kaitlyn Garrett presented her research on 15th-century political propaganda during England’s War of the Roses. “We see many of these marketing strategies still in use today,” she said.
Taylor Swift is a current example of pop culture intersecting with broader issues.
Photograph by Jana Beamer, Creative
“I hope you’ve started your law school applications.”
LARA BALLOUT, ’24 , in a letter to her future self. Ballout read her letter at Proclamation, one of Westhampton College’s longest-running traditions. She begins law school at Richmond Law this fall.
Spider strength
Spider ambassadors, matching challenges, and friendly competition on donor leaderboards helped this year’s UR Here campaign add up to a resounding success.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Kim Lebar, director of annual giving. “We set high expectations for this year’s campaign, and the Spider community blew them away.”
The campaign, which ran April 3–4, raised more than $2.2 million, a record. More donors than ever before — 4,350 — supported the university with a gift, an increase of 33% over the previous year. Donors represented all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and 15 countries.
“This reaffirms my belief that our Spider community is tremendously
generous; its members care deeply about our current students and the university’s future, and they have a lot of Spider Pride,” Lebar said.
The gifts will go toward impact areas including academic excellence, access and affordability, athletics, and student experience and community. Donors could give to the 2024 UR Annual Fund (greatest needs) or to specific schools, teams, or other areas.
“Each year our community becomes more familiar with UR Here, and more people want to be part of something that brings us all together to support our students,” she said. “I also think people are responding to Richmond’s exciting momentum and trajectory.”
A SPIDER WIN Spider Athletics raised over $1 million during UR Here, the largest amount ever.
“The results from this year’s giving day are further evidence of the special bond between Richmond Athletics and our network of fans, friends, family, and alumni,” said John P. Hardt, vice president and director of athletics.
IN THE NEWS
When media cover news and events, they turn to Richmond for perspective and expertise. Here’s a sample of recent stories that put the university in the news:
JESSICA FLANIGAN, professor of leadership studies, explored philosophical thought in the lyrics of Taylor Swift. “Once her fans learn a bit more about philosophy — and philosophers learn a bit more about Swift’s work — both groups can appreciate her songwriting in new ways,” she wrote.
Law professor ANDY SPALDING answered questions about anti-corruption efforts as Paris hosts the 2024 Olympic Games. “Paris could mark the beginning of a new era of anti-corruption law enforcement and anti-corruption measures in the Games,” he said.
KELLY LAMBERT, professor of behavioral neuroscience, explained what her research shows about brain health and hand movement during activities like gardening and knitting. “Working with our hands may be prosperous for our brains,” she said.
Biology professor
JONATHAN RICHARDSON commented on new research analyzing rat bones discovered at archaeological sites that are helping uncover the history of the spread of rats. “It’s a really interesting combination of data,” he said. “It’s interesting biologically and also historically.”
“It will never get through Congress — not in my lifetime,” political science professor TRACY ROOF said in response to a Senate bill proposing a 32-hour work week. “Maybe it will happen in my children’s lifetimes.”
For the latest stories, go to news.richmond. edu/placements.
UR Here Giving Day in April raised $2.2 million, a record high that will support students in the coming year and beyond.
READ MORE — AND HEAR BORRA SING
Borra performed regularly on campus as a student. See videos of her singing on the magazine’s website at magazine.richmond. edu. The online version of this story also includes an expanded transcript of this conversation.
A GOLDEN VOICE
Kavya Borra, ’24, started classes at Richmond just as her singing career took off on social media (@kavyaborra on TikTok). She kept singing through college. Here’s your chance to say you knew her when
Jersey, she’ll say, “Come, let’s sing a song.” She’ll record it and send it to her friends in India. They always love it when we sing duets. She definitely is a big part of the reason I sing.
MY MUSICAL TURN
MY FIRST BREAK
I grew up singing Indian classical music. It’s very pretty, devotional music. When I was 11, I was selected for a South Indian show called Padutha Theeyaga It was definitely a shock because I didn’t really know the level of my talent. After that, I started singing professionally at weddings and events. Because I was getting opportunities and winning competitions, I was like, “OK, I think I have something.”
MY INSPIRATION
My grandma is where I got my singing talent from. She used to teach me Bollywood-style songs when I was young. I was always singing around the house with her. Every time I go home to New
MY ACADEMICS
I’m a business major with a concentration in marketing, and I have a music minor. I felt that marketing would be the best for somebody like me who’s essentially marketing myself as a brand. Having the marketing fundamentals makes me understand the back end of the industry more.
I started singing Western styles when I did musicals in high school. I’d never done theater before. I was like, “Wait, this is a lot of fun.” After that, I started taking private vocal lessons for Western music, singing a lot of opera and other classical stuff. I started posting pop and R&B covers to my Instagram, which had maybe a few hundred followers at the time.
MY COLLEGE CHOICE
I distinctly remember that this was my favorite campus I had ever seen. It was sunny, just like today, and I had a great experience visiting.
I also applied to music schools. Ultimately, my decision was based on financial aid and getting a well-rounded education.
I see my music career as separate from college, and I like it that way. I can be fully present on campus and fully dedicated and try new things. It is cool that every now and then somebody will come up to me in the dining hall and be like, “Hey, are you that girl from TikTok?”
MY STUDY ABROAD
I went to Australia in my junior year and took business classes and one music class. By the end of my time there, I was performing at open mics and meeting a lot of musicians. I was getting to know the community. It was so far from home, but that is the power of having a platform and outreach across the world.
MY SONGWRITING
I get ideas [for songs] as I’m walking to class. I write them down in my notes, and then later in the day, I’ll sit with my guitar and try and write something.
MY SECOND LOVE
I’m captain of the women’s Ultimate Frisbee team, the Richmond Red Hots. We just qualified for nationals for the second time in our program’s history, and I’m really proud to have had a part in leading my team to that accomplishment.
The people are the biggest draw. The community is so vast and so kind. It’s where I get my whole social life.
MY NEXT STEP
I plan on diving into my music career. In summer 2023, I recorded some of my originals with some really great producers, and I’ve been sitting on them all year. My plan is to release those songs after graduation and continue making music.
Songwriting for me is really new. I really dove into it in my time abroad in Australia because I had so much free time and was on my own. I went to the nearest guitar store and bought the cheapest one they had and started teaching myself how to play.
by
Photograph
Gordon Schmidt
JOURNALISM
TEACHING
SPCS EXCELLENCE Travis Dodds, GC’14 and GC’17, received the Milken Educator Award this spring. Often called the “Oscars of teaching,” it is awarded to 75 teachers in the U.S. annually. Dodds is a graduate of the teacher licensure program and the master’s in curriculum and instruction program through the School of Professional and Continuing Studies.
The London beat
Sometimes, the journalists are the story. That is the case for 10 students studying journalism at home and abroad in a Sophomore Scholars in Residence course with professor Tom Mullen, director of public affairs journalism.
SSIR courses are structured to include travel, which is how these students found themselves working alongside hyperlocal journalists in the United Kingdom.
The class spent a week in London, where they collaborated on a radio broadcast with students at the University of Northampton. Charlie Strong, an editor with the South London Press, sent them out for independent reporting assignments.
“It was an opportunity to show that the basic principles of journalism apply at every level,” Mullen said. “You need to have curiosity. You
need to ask questions. And most importantly, you need to listen to the answers and write something compelling. The best journalists can make a sewer line easement sound interesting.”
One student, Kelsey McCabe, ’26, expanded on her experience by returning to London this summer as an intern for South London Press with support from a grant from the Richmond Guarantee.
“My first experience in journalism was with The Collegian,” said McCabe, a journalism and global studies major. “But I really wanted to get experience in broader community-based journalism outside of UR. Stories about road repairs in Henrico County don’t feel as glamorous as The Washington Post or The New York Times, but that’s the information that people need every day.”
ACCOLADES
Each year, Spiders compete for leading national and international awards. These are a few of the most recent ones they have earned.
Goldwater Scholars
Three University of Richmond students — Sophie Goldberg, ’25, Jamie Kaplan, ’26, and Holly Wemple, ’25 — received Goldwater scholarships, one of the most sought-after and prestigious undergraduate awards in science and math. The awards support students as they pursue faculty-mentored research.
NSF Graduate Fellow
Sophomores next year will experience a wide range of SSIR offerings through eight courses currently scheduled. They include courses focused on how Germany commemorates the Holocaust, why life expectancy varies significantly from community to community, and what it is really like to live in Brazil’s “city of the future,” Brasilia.
Evelyn Ramirez, ’24, received a competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. The award provides three years of financial support for outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated high potential. Ramirez will begin the doctoral program in organic chemistry at Emory University this fall.
Language scholar
Claire Morris, ’27, received a Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. State Department to study Indonesian. This summer, she is living with a host family and studying at a university in the city of Malang in East Java.
UR’s first Humboldt
Robert Bentley, ’24, received a Humboldt German Chancellor Fellowship to research the history of youth cultures in Berlin. He is the first UR student to receive the fellowship, awarded to five scholars in the U.S. and 25 scholars internationally in 2024. Bentley will live in Berlin and continue research he began at UR focused on punk and skinhead culture in the 1980s and ’90s and resistance to extremism.
SSIRs
Sophomore students studied journalism with reporters in London.
AN ONGOING GIFT
Spiders have set up a scholarship fund in Bisese’s name to honor his dedication to this dynamic campus community and continue his tradition of serving students.
Marcus Weinstein, R’49, has pledged up to $350,000 in 2:1 matching funds, tripling the impact of any gift. For more information or to make a gift, go to give.richmond.edu/ steve-bisesescholarship.
THANKS, STEVE
Steve Bisese, vice president for student development, is retiring after nearly 40 years at Richmond. His bailiwick was basically every part of the student experience that happened outside the classroom — residence life, living-learning programs, well-being and student health, recreational sports, and much more. To mark the occasion, we solicited questions from alumni who have known him over the years.
You’ve lived through the evolution of the college system from just Richmond College and Westhampton College to the current School of Arts & Sciences structure. Can you compare and contrast the benefits and consequential changes on the students?
Rich Johnson, B’73
The biggest difference is that move established a dean and a school that was responsible for the academic end of it [i.e., A&S]. The [legacy] colleges continue the commitment to personal attention for student concerns and student government. There have been many, many changes. When I was an undergraduate [at William & Mary], folks in student affairs were concerned about conduct, vandalism, and substance abuse. Some of those things stay the same, but what it is now is that students come here with a lot of pressure on themselves. What we deal with today is more of the mental health and perfectionism — issues of, you know, “Am I getting an internship?” or “Am I going to major in what my parents want me to major in?” You didn’t hear about that as much back in the days when I got here.
If you had one piece of advice to give parents and students as they enter the student body, what would that advice be?
Steve Kneeley, R’85
Take your time to get adjusted. You don’t have to do everything at once. But once you are adjusted, open your eyes to all UR has to offer. It is absolutely amazing — study abroad, research opportunities, personally knowing your faculty members, civic engagement. Our student organizations are so well-resourced, and they’re so meaningful. The learning communities we have either complement your academic goals or allow you to explore things outside your academ-
ics. The programs are of such quality, and they’re free. They’re just part of being here. It’s amazing.
What do you see as the biggest issues the university is facing over the next 10 years? Penny Hu, ’23
I think it’s going to be all of our work to make this place even more affordable. I think Kevin [Hallock, UR’s president] is doing a wonderful job of focusing on the middle class. I look at Richmond, and I want anybody that that has earned their way to have the opportunity to be successful here. How great it is that we meet 100% of need, and I know we’ll work hard to sustain that.
I think the other is to continue to address the acute mental health issues that students face. It’s a constant worry, and we’re doing all that we can to be responsive to the very serious anxiety and so forth that students come in with.
You’re regarded by many as the Ted Lasso of UR. You bring those around you up, you make us aspire to become better versions of ourselves, and you believe we can do it. The world would be a better place if we were all a bit more like you. Do you have any advice for us on how to better approach life and our relationships with others? Buddy Cassidy, ’11
I went into student affairs [because] I had a hard time in college myself. I remember my RA taking the time [with me]. Because of this RA, I became an RA and a head resident. An RA might have 30 people on their hall, but that person took the time to get to know me and my personal struggles.
I did not do well on standardized tests. I never had. I always felt like my SAT score was so much lower than my classmates’. I went to school thinking, “I’m going to have a hard time here. I’m not going to make it like the rest.” This RA took the time to see why I felt so nervous about academics. That’s what’s key about schools like Richmond and how I’ve tried to act in my career: to get to know people personally and to make a difference by helping them make more responsible choices and guiding them through experiences that are great for them outside the classroom. People probably see the time I take to get to know folks. That’s the joy of the job. No matter how complex we get with programs and new
initiatives that are all wonderful, we never forget that the personal touch is as important as anything. Let’s never lose that.
You first started working for the University of Richmond in 1985. What are the biggest changes that you’ve seen in UR’s student culture since then? Chelsey Davidson, ’17 There are so many more opportunities now than there were in 1985. In 1985, so much of the social life centered on Greek life. We still have a vibrant Greek life today for those who choose to have Greek life, but we have diversified so much as a student body. We’ve had a responsibility to have programs and support systems that match the change in the demographics of the student body. That’s the biggest change. The spirit and
Photograph by Jamie Betts
the pride in the University of Richmond and the care we take with students, all of that is the same. But we’ve evolved through the years as the student body has changed.
You’ve had quite a few accomplishments. What do you hope will be the Bisese legacy here at Richmond? Ken Anderson, ’17 and L’20
I hope it’s that we took well-being head-on and are known for being an institution that has worked hard to define well-being. More than anything I had ever worked on, I wanted the health center and counseling center to be under one roof. They were on separate sides of the campus.
[Having] a well-being building, to me, was an answer to all prayers. The whole first
floor is a symbol of our devotion to holistic well-being: everything from nutrition to relaxation to exercise classes to yoga and mindfulness. It’s all there, as well as a topnotch health center and counseling center with a counselor-to-student ratio that other schools would love to have.
What are your plans for retirement?
Sam Brumberg, ’03
It has been 40 years of [effectively] being on call for all of the emergencies and crises that we have. And, you know, I’m ready to relax and not have that burden on me.
I look forward to spending time with my children, who are doing wonderful things. My wife and I will do a little more travel. When I get around to it, I’ll probably work
with other schools to see how I can advise them in student affairs.
What do you hope that leadership — the board, the president, other VPs — keeps in mind in the next few years as they make decisions? Diana Reighart, ’16
What is special about Richmond is the collaborative spirit. We all came together for well-being; we came together for belonging — that we never forget that we’re all together as a team, and it will always be a universitywide effort. That, to me, is the foundation of the incredible results we’ve had.
SPEAKERS
Every semester, guests speakers bring fresh perspectives to campus — and often leave students inspired by the people they meet. Here’s are just a few of the visitors during the spring semester.
Issa Rae
Rae, an actor, writer, and director, drew a capacity crowd to a conversation in Camp Concert Hall hosted by local CBS news anchor GeNienne Samuels, ’97. Before the public session, Rae met with a small group of students from UR and neighboring Virginia Union and Virginia State universities.
Rae, creator and star of HBO’s Insecure, shared a message of self-acceptance. “There’s no one else that can tell stories the way that you do or that has something to offer the way that you do.”
Atifete Jahjaga
Jahjaga, the first female president of Kosovo, discussed how women can work together to achieve success and seize new opportunities, even in her country’s difficult post-conflict environment.
“I never go by the flow,” she said. “I always try to challenge the flow, not for the purpose of damaging, but always for the purpose of extracting the best outcome.”
Rainn Wilson
The chaplaincy hosted a conversation in Cannon Memorial Chapel with Wilson, who is best known for playing Dwight Schrute on The Office, as part of its Sylvester Spirituality Series. Wilson is co-founder of Soul Pancake, an organization created to encourage open-hearted dialogue about what it means to be human.
The trailer and other information about the film is available online at thediamondcouple. com.
QUOTATION
“Some are almost in tears.”
KIRAN SAINI, ’24 , talking about patients at the free dental clinic where she volunteered. This fall, she will begin pursuing a master’s degree in public health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she plans to focus on oral health policy.
Aging and renewal
The trailer for a new project by film professor Sonja Bertucci opens with a stunning question asked in voiceover: “Did I ever think I’d be 100?” The speaker, centenarian Betty Markoff, continues, “I don’t believe it now. I don’t think anyone thinks of being 100. And the two of us?”
Markoff is referring to herself and her husband, Morrie. Their 79-year union gives the film its title: The Diamond Couple. Bertucci filmed as they embraced their stage of life with remarkable resilience and vitality. The resulting documentary has been called “a meditation on the power of memory [that] offers a vision of aging and love that emphasizes not loss, but the capacity to renew an attachment to life with each instant that passes.”
The film premiered at the Arizona International Film Festival in April,
where it received the Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking. Morrie’s preservation of their memories together after Betty’s death in 2019 at age 103 are at the heart of the film. In her director’s statement, Bertucci calls the eventual loss of life partners “an almost unbearable thought, and at the same time, a cosmological certainty.” Her films, she continues, “often confront this inevitable disappearance but without a sense of overwhelming melancholy.”
In place of melancholy, she offers this film as “a gesture of hope that we can regain or restore our connection to the past” and “diversify ... the way in which we relate to that which is gone.”
Morrie and Betty were born in 1914 and 1916, respectively. In 2024, Morrie became the oldest living man in the United States.
A still from The Diamond Couple, directed by UR film professor Sonja Bertucci
Photographs: top left by Jamie Betts; top by Karsten Thormaehlen, opposite page by Gordon Schmidt
When plan A doesn’t work
We eavesdrop as Joe Boehman, dean of Richmond College, records an episode of Deanology, his podcast. It helps students navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with the college experience — and life beyond.
On a Tuesday afternoon right after spring break, Joe Boehman, dean of Richmond College, set up his microphone to record another episode of his podcast, Deanology: Good Stuff from a College Dean. This episode was about what happens when plan A doesn’t work. His advice: Don’t be afraid of plan B, C, or X. It’s fitting advice from someone who calls himself “a man without a plan.”
Before Deanology, Boehman’s plan A was How to College, which he envisioned as a semester-long course aimed at new students. He taught a short-term version of it for pre-orientation from 2016 to 2021. But he found the roles of dean and professor to be incompatible for him.
“If you want to do something right, you’ve got to put your full energy into it,” Boehman said. “I could not envision a world where I’m getting ready to teach a class, a student
comes in in crisis, and I have to say, ‘Can you come back tomorrow?’”
He shelved the idea for a couple of years until his daughter, a current UR student, suggested creating a podcast. Boehman had already been recording brief videos on the Richmond College Instagram called “Good Morning, Spiders.” A podcast, though a medium unfamiliar to him, was an opportunity to revisit his idea.
He was, in other words, moving to plan B. This adaptability has been a strength throughout his career. It’s prepared him to support several generations of students and given him the flexibility to overcome challenges like the shift to remote learning during the pandemic. In over 30 years of meeting with students, he never relies on a single framework to resolve each student’s issue. Instead, he figures out a
solution using one of the most important life lessons he’s learned: “Listen more than you talk. If you just be chill, the answer will present itself.”
After all, that lesson brought him to UR, which wasn’t his plan either. On his first day as Richmond College dean, his wife told him that she had always seen him as the dean of a small college. Her remark evoked a memory from graduate school when he discussed his career plans in class and saw the same potential in himself.
Now, sitting in his office and recording his podcast, Boehman is right where he’s meant to be. As he ended the episode, his parting words echoed his own journey to UR: “Keep yourself open to the possibility that what’s going to come next for you might be exactly what you’re looking for.”
It took a little listening to others — and his inner voice — for him to find his way. Each time he sets up his microphone, he hopes he can be that person for someone else.
GET AN EARFUL FROM THE DEAN
Deanology is available on major podcasting services. Episodes are short, generally around 10 minutes. Episodes released during the spring semester include “Lessons From My Dad,” “How Do You Value a Value?” and the one referred to in this article, “What Happens When Plan A Doesn’t Work.”
STRONG RESUMÉ
Richmond Football has won 13 conference championships, made 13 NCAA playoffs, and won the 2008 Football Championship Subdivision national championship, the university’s first NCAA national title.
“Excited to keep it going.”
Outfielder PHIL BERNSTEIN speaking just before Spider baseball’s final regular season series. The team made it to the Atlantic 10 championship game.
Patriot League-bound
Spider football will move to a new conference in 2025, the university announced in May. Its new home will be the Patriot League, whose football members include Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Georgetown, Holy Cross, Lafayette, and Lehigh.
“The institutions of the Patriot League are outstanding, both athletically and academically, and we are excited to join them for the 2025 football season,” said Kevin F. Hallock, UR’s president. The university “is firmly committed to not only meeting, but advancing the competitive goals of our student-athletes, and the upward trajectory of the Patriot League provides a great environment for the future success of Spider football.”
Richmond’s decision resulted from a comprehensive university review of the football team’s conference affiliation initiated after the 2023 season. The conference move impacts only the football program; conference affiliations for all other Spider sports are not affected. The Spiders are the first school to enter or exit the Patriot League football conference since 2004.
“I’m excited for what joining the Patriot League means for the future of our program,” said Russ Huesman, head football coach. “This is a big change for Spider football, but our goals will stay the same: Win conference championships, advance in the FCS Playoffs, and compete for national championships.”
Two-peat
Women’s lacrosse was the repeat Atlantic 10 champion, winning the title back-toback for the first time since the 2018 and 2019 seasons. It was the team’s seventh A-10 championship overall. The conference championship secured a bid to the NCAA tournament, where the Spiders fell in the first round to No. 8 Penn. Grace Muldoon, the A-10 Midfielder of the Year, earned USA Lacrosse All-American honors.
“I’m extremely proud of this team and what we were able to do and accomplish this year,” said Anne Harrington, head coach. “There were a lot of doubts with this group with how much we lost from last year, but everyone who mattered most — which is the people in that locker room — believed in what we could do.”
Strong season
Men’s lacrosse reached as high as No. 13 in national polls but saw its 2024 season end in the Atlantic 10 conference final. The team finished the season 10-6. All of its losses came against ranked teams, including four in the top 10.
Dalton Young and Lance Madonna repeated as A-10 Offensive Player of the Year and A-10 Midfielder of the Year, respectively. Both also received USA Lacrosse All-American honors.
NCAA contenders
Spider track and field athletes Alicia Dawson, Elizabeth Stockman, and Madison Trippett earned spots in the NCAA East Regional Championship in May. Dawson competed in the long jump and the triple jump. Stockman and Trippett competed in the 1,500-meter. Stockman also competed in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Spider football will compete in a new conference in the 2025 season.
Photography: top left, Amanda Coll; others courtesy Richmond Athletics
Top scholars, too
Take a look inside one of the nation’s most academically accomplished swimming and diving teams.
On a day near the end of the spring semester, the giant whiteboard in the office of swimming and diving head coach Matt Barany listed the names of the athletes currently on his roster. Barany pointed at it to orient a visitor for a conversation about the team’s academic successes.
“These are the seniors,” he said, pointing at seven names at the top of the column. “She graduated in three years, came back and did a fourth year [of competition], and got her master’s in the business school.”
He pointed to the next player.
“She’s going into the FBI.” And the next.
“She will go to med school.”
And so on through all seven seniors, who include graduates headed into marketing, more med school, the Peace Corps, and other promising futures. He capped it with one last point: “In the fall, this group had a 3.85 [GPA].”
Then he pointed at the seven first-year swimmers and divers at the bottom of the column. “In the fall, the freshmen had a
3.87. It’s interesting because the seniors had proven themselves in the classroom, and then the freshmen come in and do just as well. It’s like a nerd competition.”
Academic excellence is evident up and down the full roster — the team had a 3.79 GPA collectively that semester, something that satisfies Barany as much as anything that happens in the pool. These recent numbers have taken the Spiders to new heights nationally. For three semesters running, the team’s GPA has ranked second among all Division I women’s swimming and diving teams in the country.
Barany and his teams have earned dual expectations for academic and athletic success. Since he became head coach in 2005, the team has won 12 Atlantic 10 championships, and he has been named A-10 Coach of the Year nine times. During this run of success in the pool, 11 of his athletes have earned Scholar All-American Team honors. One of them was Mali Kobelja, ’14 and GC’18, who was the first Spider — and the first swimmer in A-10 history — to
be named Atlantic 10 Scholar of the Year.
“This isn’t by accident,” he said. A shift in the program going on for nearly a decade is now bearing fruit.
In 2016, Barany introduced wearable technology to the team. After four semesters of gathering data, “we started to see some patterns, and we started to see some areas where we had levers we could work with,” he said.
Key ones had to do with sleep patterns. The team changed practice and travel schedules and avoided traveling at night — adjustments aimed at getting higher quality sleep, increasing sleep quantity, and staying asleep all night. “It was more than just ‘Hey, get more sleep.’”
The approach yielded results and affected recruiting as Barany and his staff sought out athletes who found this strategy appealing. Ten semesters later, sleep duration is up 85 minutes, and team GPA is up 0.6 — figures that span multiple cohorts of athletes.
“Our strategy and our application of the strategy worked,” he said. “Recruits are coming here because they realize they can come have Division I athletics and an elite academic experience.”
TRANSFERABLE SKILLS
Skills that make someone good at an individual sport like swimming transfer to the classroom, Barany said. “When you get in the water, you’re tested by the clock and nothing else. If you want to improve, you have to be motivated to make it happen. Academics is like that, too.”
Mindset and self-talk are big pieces of it.
“They’re underwater a lot, and when you’re underwater, you only get to listen to yourself. ... When they’re swimming, they essentially study. They review notes while they’re swimming.”
By
Matthew
Dewald
WAVES
BY MARÍA BADILLO
Open water swimmers face immense physical challenges — but the mental strength required is laced with lessons we can all learn from.
THERE’S A CALMING REPETITION that comes from swimming laps in the measured lanes of a pool. A certain number of strokes, then the approach of the wall, the twist and push to propel yourself into yet another lap to begin a new set of strokes. Lap, push, repeat. Lap, push, repeat — a sort of lullaby to the practiced swimmer.
Now imagine those same strokes — but without the pool. No lanes, no black lines of paint keeping you moving in the right direction. Imagine yourself surrounded instead by a lake or even an ocean. The currents might help you along, or they might work you to the bone. The water could be freezing cold. Boat traffic will offer additional obstacles, stroke after stroke after stroke taking you not to a wall to push into a new lap, but further out into the open water. For hours. Or even days.
If you’re wondering who on earth would want to battle such a scenario, meet four Spiders who live for the sport of endurance swimming:
MEREDITH GILSON, ’93
• Former member of the women’s swim team
• Swam across Lake Geneva (Switzerland) in 2 hours and 28 minutes
MARK MCCULLOUGH, ’21
• Former member of the men’s water polo team
• Swam across Lake Geneva with Gilson, also in 2 hours and 28 minutes
MOLLY SANBORN, ’16
• Swam the English Channel in 14 hours and 24 minutes
COURTNEY PAULK, L’00
• Longest recorded swim: 33 hours and 13 minutes
• First person in history to complete the Double Triple Crown of endurance swimming — two-way crossings of the English Channel and the Catalina Channel and a double circumnavigation around Manhattan Island
• Honor Swimmer in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame
A 30-hour open water swim takes more than a little preparation. There are countless hours of practice swims, most likely in a lap pool. But while pool water can be kept at a fairly comfortable temperature, the swimmer isn’t permitted by the rules of this sport to compensate for the open water’s chill with a wetsuit. There’s a support boat present to keep the swimmer nourished and safe throughout, but the swimmer isn’t permitted to touch said boat or its crew. And then there’s the effort and expense of scheduling and transporting all those people, followed by hoping the weather and boat traffic will behave on the day.
Going from the idea of, “I’d like to swim the English Channel,” to actually accomplishing it is a monumental task. Courtney Paulk, ’00, president of Hirschler, a Richmond-based law firm, has advice inspired by her legal career.
“I like that cliché quote: Whether you tell yourself you can or tell yourself you can’t, you’re probably right.”
RACHEL TURK, CAPS Psychologist
If she’s writing a big brief for her law firm, she thinks, “Can I just write one sentence as opposed to four? It’s amazing how you can accomplish things when you break them down into their smallest possible denominator.” Paulk, Hirschler’s first female president, tackles each task by looking at it on a micro level. Each manageable mini-task will eventually build up into a completed brief.
“And that’s what I do on my swims,” Paulk says. “Can I take just 10 more strokes? And when I’ve done that, can I take 10 more strokes?”
The trick is finding what “micro” means to you. Molly Sanborn, ’16, aims to get to the next feed, which is endurance swimming lingo for the short pause taken to consume enough liquid-form calories to maintain one’s strength. “I kind of hate that we call it [a feed],” Sanborn says. “It makes me sound like a baby. Or a barn animal.” Nevertheless, it got Sanborn across the English Channel, one feed after another.
For Paulk, though, swimming from feed to feed is too long.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
The land in the background
“Most people take nutrition every 30 minutes. But 10 more strokes [feels more doable]. And you learn a lot about yourself in those 10 strokes. You see if you can push yourself just a little bit further.” Before you know it, you’re looking back on something that felt daunting but is now a part of history.
Endurance swimming is a lesson in how to handle the overwhelming. It’s about taking on the tough moments with a mindset that offsets the enormity of a task — and not just in the water. This is a story about how to manage what feels unmanageable no matter the context.
Let’s talk numbers. When Sanborn was first getting into open water swimming, the athletes she met kept telling her the sport is 80% mental and 20% physical. Sanborn wasn’t convinced. “I was like, ‘There’s no way that’s true, right?’ because swimming the English Channel takes at least 12 hours. Clearly that’s a lot of work for your body. Your muscles feel like they’re dead by the end of it, and you’ll say, ‘I can’t physically do this anymore.’”
But after Sanborn reached France on the other side of the channel, she had to admit her fellow endurance swimmers were right. “It is more mentally challenging than it is physically challenging. And I truly don’t know that I would have had the mental fortitude to finish the channel had I not had so much experience with depression.”
During Sanborn’s college years, she learned to rely on CAPS — UR’s Counseling and Psychological Services — to
Right: Molly Sanborn, ’16, swims across the English Channel. Previous spread: Courtney Paulk, L’00, also swimming across the English Channel.
is the British shore.
Photograph courtesy of Molly Sanborn
manage her diagnosis of major depressive disorder. “CAPS was pivotal in teaching me how to have healthy coping mechanisms for mental health struggles. In fact, [swimming has] paralleled my journey with mental illness quite well.” For Sanborn, the skills she learned for addressing her depression also played into her ability to strengthen her mindset while swimming.
CAPS psychologist Rachel Turk, who works with UR’s student-athlete population, calls an athlete’s strengthened mindset “mental toughness.” Turk asks students to consider not only how many hours they train their bodies each week, but how much time they spend training their brains.
“Yes, it’s your physical fitness and your physical skill,” Turk says, “but if your brain is not telling you the right things, you’re less likely to complete something successfully. I like that cliché quote: Whether you tell yourself you can or tell yourself you can’t, you’re probably right.” Turk’s job is to get students to a place where they’re both physically and mentally tough.
“Most people fail in the English Channel because their brain gives out,” Paulk says. “They either think they’re too cold, or they think about the enormity of what they’re doing and decide they can’t do it.” Notice the distinction between reality and perception here: The temperature of the water is an indisputable fact, as is the technical length of the swim. But whether it’s too cold or long for the swimmer depends on how they perceive those facts, and that can determine whether they finish the swim.
After years of mental training, Paulk recognizes those internal dark places more quickly. “Then I can use the tools I’ve gathered over the years to say, ‘OK, what am I going to do to get myself through this?’”
One of the biggest hurdles is addressing self-talk. Self-talk is what you say to yourself on a regular basis. If it centers on unhelpful styles of thinking — “I can’t do this,” or, “I’m not strong enough” — it can limit us to unnecessarily rigid patterns. Mental training can change that.
MENTAL TRAINING STRATEGIES
STRATEGY NO. 1: CHECK THE FACTS OF THE SITUATION
A productive type of thought isn’t necessarily a positive or happy one; it just has to be fact-based. Consider a headache. The more you focus on the headache, the worse you will feel. Has the headache actually worsened? Maybe. But the mindset that spotlights the headache is a far cry from the mindset that seeks a distraction. “This is because our brain actually has the ability to influence our pain receptors and how we’re feeling things,” Turk says.
With a sport like endurance swimming, it’s easy to get caught up in how much your body hurts. Focusing on that pain will make the swim more difficult. “Train yourself to control your thoughts,” Turk says. “You can’t control that first thought, but you can control what happens next and how you respond.”
For example, during the first six hours of Sanborn’s English Channel swim, she desperately wanted to quit. “I was thinking that this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. I honestly believed I wouldn’t finish.” But after each feed, she decided to try for another feed. “Just make it to the next one, and you can quit after that,” she told herself over and over, all the way to the French coastline.
STRATEGY NO. 2: USE GROUNDING TO STOP RACING THOUGHTS
“We have 60 to 80,000 thoughts in a day,” Turk says. “You are not going to be paying attention to every one of those thoughts, but there are times where you’re going to try to pay attention to them [when it’s not beneficial], so we help you learn that you can take control even when you feel like you can’t.”
One method Turk uses is a five senses grounding: Notice five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can smell, two things you can feel, and one thing you can taste. (Note: It doesn’t have to be in this order, but you might be hard-pressed to name five things you can taste in any given moment.)
Alternatively, you can focus your attention on something specific — like Paulk counting those 10 strokes — to keep your mind trained on that instead of the seemingly endless stream of thoughts. “When you’re doing the same thing over and over again, it’s almost meditative,” says Sanborn. “Thoughts are still coming in, but you’re not dwelling on them as much. I’ll think, ‘Why did Taylor Swift write that lyric?’ and then let it slip away. My thoughts aren’t necessarily quiet, but my soul feels quiet.”
STRATEGY NO. 3: MAKE USE OF BREATH WORK AND RELAXATION
By learning to breathe the right way, you then also control your heart rate. “A controlled heart rate controls the release of both neurotransmitters and your stress hormone, cortisol,” Turk says.
“Neurotransmitters and cortisol impact many physical symptoms of performance anxiety, including nausea,
shakiness, and sweaty palms. You can naturally trigger your parasympathetic nervous system — which cues your ability to rest and relax — just by breathing a specific way.”
No, you don’t have to fold yourself up in lotus position for a lengthy meditation session. Just becoming conscious of your breathing in this very moment can make a difference. For example, as I, your humble narrator, slow the pace of my own breath, I notice that my shoulders and jaw both unclench, and my back straightens from hunching over my laptop. My thoughts even slow down enough for me to notice that I haven’t had any water in the past hour. My mind is clearer to my body’s needs, just from those 10 seconds of awareness.
“You can do anything for 10 seconds,” Sanborn says, recalling a scene from one of her favorite television shows, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. “When those 10 seconds are done, you just start the next 10 seconds, and that’s exactly what I did for the last two hours of the [English Channel] swim.”
STRATEGY NO. 4: VISUALIZATION
From an athlete’s perspective, you might assume this means visualizing the game-winning goal (or touchdown or run, etc.), but Turk says this sets you up for a higher level of pressure that isn’t always helpful. Instead, visualization can be used to keep an athlete in a calm and structured mental place.
“I teach a very specific visualization,” Turk says. “You use each one of your five senses to build up a picture like you’re actually in the situation and then watch yourself complete whatever skill successfully. What does your body need to do? What are your thoughts in that
moment? Should we shift those thoughts?” Doing this when you’re not physically in the midst of an activity better prepares you for the times when you are. Those highstakes moments become less of an anomaly, making them familiar and therefore less intimidating.
Think of it like a dress rehearsal. Paulk — a theater major in her college days — learned to make the most of her time on stage through a vigilant rehearsal routine: “Leave it all at the door. You can’t [get into character] if you’re distracted by boyfriend problems. You have to leave everything else at the door. And that’s what I do with my swimming. When I dive in, I leave everything else behind.”
STRATEGY NO. 5: INCORPORATE SELF-CARE INTO YOUR EVERYDAY SCHEDULE
While social media may sometimes suggest that this looks like candlelit bubble baths while sipping champagne, self-care in fact has more to do with stress management. Routinely taking a moment from your day to recalibrate — perhaps by trying out one of the keys above — can regulate your parasympathetic nervous system. “It looks different for everybody what that is,” Turk says, “but consistently do something to decrease your stress level every day instead of letting it build to a point that it’s unmanageable, [which then leads to] feeling like we have to use extreme measures to decrease our stress.”
Paulk says she goes to the pool for her sanity. “I’ll say to my colleagues, ‘I need to go to the pool now. It will be better for all of us if I go do that,’ and they’re like, ‘OK, cool.’ I’m a busy lawyer and president of a law firm, and swimming brings me peace.” By prioritizing time in the pool, Paulk manages her stress levels before ever reaching a potential state of crisis.
STRATEGY NO. 6: ADAPT THE ABOVE TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS
As you can imagine, endurance swimmers in their ninth (or 19th) hour of a swim might not be able to use a method like five senses grounding if the things around them are what’s inducing panic. “If it’s completely dark or you can’t hear anything, our instinct is to freak out,” Turk says. “You also have to train yourself to manage that constant shift of what senses you can access.”
That adaptability is critical, particularly in open water swimming where the variables are often beyond one’s control. For Paulk, that unpredictability taught her to find comfort and confidence even when she has no idea what’s about to happen. “I’ll have done all the training and prep work — everything I can do to get ready for that moment —
Above, Meredith Gilson, ’93, and Mark McCullough, ’21, swim with a group across Lake Geneva.
Photograph courtesy of Mark McCullough
but I can’t control the weather. I can’t control boat traffic. I got yanked out of the Baltic Sea once by the German Marine Police because they didn’t want me there. And there was nothing I could do about it. So I went and had breakfast instead.”
STRATEGY NO. 7: TAKE REST DAYS
Just like we get physically tired training our bodies, we also mentally tire. Turk encourages mental rest periods. “If someone is trying to change certain thought patterns, it can be a very frustrating and exhausting process,” she says. “Make sure you’re not constantly forcing yourself to change that pattern to the point where it’s impacting you negatively.”
“If you’ve been sitting on a goal, remember that a goal without a plan is just a wish.”
COURTNEY PAULK, L’00
For the swimmers Turk works with, those thoughts often sound like, “Don’t fall behind,” and, “Don’t mess up your stroke.” And once that swimmer recognizes their thought pattern, they might get mad when they catch themselves at it. “The answer to that is self-compassion,” Turk says. You change the narrative to something like, “Hey, it’s great that I noticed myself doing this because it gives me the opportunity to change it.”
However, Turk warns, “I make sure to tell them they don’t need to do that every minute of every practice — because that’s exhausting. Pick certain times to focus on it. Building these mental skills needs to be implemented in a very intentional way to avoid burnout or more mental exhaustion.”
CULTIVATE A GROWTH MINDSET
Of course, these strategies work only if you believe you can change. Mark McCullough, ’21, started as a sprinter. Playing water polo for Richmond demanded nimbleness and quick reaction times — but not endurance. “I never really enjoyed endurance swimming as much, but my mom brought up [the idea of swimming Lake Geneva] and said if I wanted to join, I just really had to get in shape for it.”
Which he did in a scant six months.
“Mark had the most impressive turnaround, for sure,” Meredith Gilson, ’93, says. “Our group ranged from 25 to 66 years old. But even though Mark was 25 and fit from racing back and forth playing water polo, asking him to swim a mile or two [was a different story]. But he trained and kept pace with the group, no problem.”
Gilson swam many laps during her time on Richmond’s women’s swim team. It wasn’t until she moved to Massachusetts that she shifted to open water swimming, relearning the art of swimming beyond the confines of set lanes. “I was very intimidated by it. There were creepy, living things in the water with me. I struggled initially, but then I got hooked. I love the adventure of it.” Gilson met new friends also taking on the challenge of the open ocean, including Moira McCullough, Mark’s mom.
These mindsets centered on the ability to improve helped Gilson and McCullough transition from swimming in a pool to navigating much larger bodies of water. “This is called self-regulation,” says Crystal Hoyt, a professor of leadership studies and psychology at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. “Growth mindsets help us achieve and engage with more beneficial goals. It helps us set learning goals, not performance goals.” It’s the difference between “I’m going to prove I can do this specific thing” and “I can develop that ability and do it better.”
The opposite of a growth mindset is fixed mindset, which suggests you’re either successful or unsuccessful. You admit defeat, thinking, “I’m not cut out to do that length of a swim. That’s why I failed.” Contrastingly, someone with a growth mindset can say, “OK, I failed at finishing the English Channel. Let me change my strategy. Let me wear a different suit or try it at a different time of year.”
Hoyt says people with a growth mindset are confident that they will succeed. “There’s always this element of, ‘Not yet,’” Hoyt says — but it’s not always about working harder. “It’s about working with the right strategies and learning from things that didn’t go the right way. [These endurance swimmers] are figuring out how to do it rather than figuring out if they can do it.”
In an episode of the podcast If She Can Do It, So Can You, Paulk encouraged people to realize just that: You can do this, too.
“I’m not just a 54-year-old woman who got up and decided one day that I was going to conquer these crazy long swims,” she says. “If you’ve been sitting on a goal, remember that a goal without a plan is just a wish — so take that first step to make a plan to accomplish that goal.”
This story first published online in mid-May. Watch for new stories regularly on the magazine’s newly designed website: magazine. richmond.edu
Pictures of the floating world
BY MARÍA BADILLO
NINE UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND students examined dozens of artworks at 15 galleries and museums across New York City during spring break. These students put their interest in art careers to the test: Their mission was to select one new piece for the university to acquire for the Harnett Museum of Art. With the help of Richmond alumni working in the city’s art scene, the students considered artwork dating back to the 1800s from seven different countries. They ultimately zeroed in on the 19th-century Japanese woodblock print pictured right.
“The university’s art collection is the legacy of every UR student,” Issa Lampe, executive director of University Museums, said, “so it’s only natural and fitting that it would also reflect student tastes. We [didn’t] have any Japanese prints of the 19th century, so it’s a great addition.”
“ This piece will make an excellent addition to the Harnett collection.”
—FELICIA CHEN, ’24
The piece, titled “Ten Views of Famous
Places in
is by Kitagawa
Utamaro is a major figure from the Edo period in Japan (1615–1868) who worked in a genre of art called ukiyo-e, which translates to “pictures of the floating world.” His print — which will arrive on campus later this year — captivated the nine students on this artistic endeavor.
Floral
Edo: Wisteria at Kameido,”
Utamaro.
“ WHEN WE FIRST SAW [THE UTAMARO] PRINT, IT COMPLETELY BLEW US ALL AWAY.
It was extremely well preserved, so the colors were especially vivid. I wanted to choose something beautiful and simple that anyone could appreciate. … This trip completely changed my career aspirations. I have always wanted to go into business, but this trip has inspired me to look into more art-related careers.”
—SHOBHINI
KUMAR, ’27, opposite page in white T-shirt
Photographs courtesy of Issa Lampe/University Museums
“Some students were interested in adding art from a particular culture that was not currently represented in the collection. Some of the students were interested in a certain aesthetic vibrancy. They wanted an artwork that they found personally compelling.”
—ISSA LAMPE, executive director of University Museums
“SEEING HOW RICHMOND ALUMNI HAVE BEEN ABLE TO
THRIVE and make their mark was inspiring. It was a powerful reminder of the incredible opportunities that our university can provide and how we can take advantage of them to forge our own paths. The breadth of experiences we had, from prestigious museums to intimate galleries, gave me a much richer understanding and appreciation for the art world.”
—ANASTASIA CARRICO, ’26, laying down on left and looking up
“ WHILE THE STUDENTS WERE ON THEIR TRIP, THEY VISITED ME AT SEAN KELLY GALLERY. I HOPE THAT THIS TRIP EMPOWERED THEM TO BE FUTURE ART COLLECTORS AND ENGAGE WITH THE VISUAL ARTS … BEYOND THEIR UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION.”
’20,
• Lauren Marinaro, ’04
• Bradley Wright Ferrarini, ’06
• Carmen Hermo, ’07
• Morgan Mitchell, ’20
ALUMNI VISITED ON THE TRIP
—MORGAN MITCHELL,
below nearest artwork
SCIENTIST THE MAKING OF A
An upper-level toxicology course is giving some students another chance to take a class from biology professor Shannon Jones. It’s a full-circle moment reconnecting them with the professor they say is key to their persistence and success in the challenging world of STEM education.
BY MATTHEW DEWALD | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMIE BETTS
On the morning of her 21st birthday, junior Emma Kane celebrated her big milestone with a smaller one: doing a group presentation in BIO 310. The course focused on toxicology, or how substances such as lead or diesel exhaust or pesticides can harm the human body. For their talk, her group focused on the physiological effects on the lungs of inhaling smoke from burning animal dung.
“It was the ideal way to spend the morning,” she said. “I mean, I love school. The fact that it was toxicology class probably made it even better.”
The group discussed the science, such as what happens to small airway epithelial cells when exposed to dung smoke. They also discussed the broader socioeconomic implications. Biomass fuels are used for home heating and cooking by more than 3 billion people. Indoor air pollution leads to more than 4 million deaths each year, its victims disproportionately female, young, and low-income residents of developing nations. The harm is biological, but the drivers of it are economic and social.
Kane wants to start every day of her future career in some version of conversations like this one — immersed in science as a way of understanding and solving problems. She is a biochemistry and French major and a first-generation college student. Back home in Connecticut, her mother, who emigrated from Ecuador at age 16, is a real estate agent. Her father works in insurance. She doesn’t have uncles, aunts, or cousins who are doctors. With her pursuit of a career in the sciences, Kane is breaking new ground in her family. Her goal is medical school, and she is well on track to get there.
One big reason for Kane’s progress is the professor evaluating her group presentation. Kane wouldn’t be in this class were it not for the care of Shannon Jones, director of biological instruction. It’s true in a short-term sense: Jones gave Kane an override to enroll in the course after all of its 16 slots had filled. It’s also true in a long-term sense: Jones directs programs at Richmond specifically designed to help students like Kane persist in the sciences.
“She does this juggling act,” Kane says of her professor. “Half of it is that she’s this exquisite professor. Everyone loves her and wants to take her classes because she’s such a good teacher. But the other half of her is that she’s just kind, caring, always available, a good resource. I go to her for a lot of big decisions because I really trust her.”
STEM FIELDS — science, technology, engineering, and math — are tough environments for every student. A decade ago, fewer than 40% of students nationwide entering college intending to major in a STEM field graduated with a STEM degree, according to a 2012 report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The contributing factors were myriad: uninspiring introductory courses that drove away high-performing students. Lack of
support for low-performing students displaying high interest and aptitude for STEM careers.
The challenges were particularly acute for students who are members of groups underrepresented in STEM fields, including first-generation students, students of color, and other students with marginalized identities in the sciences. According to the report, they “cited an unwelcoming atmosphere from faculty in STEM fields as a reason for their departure.” Such students looked around their classes and, seeing few students or professors like themselves, too often got the message or concluded on their own that they wouldn’t cut it or didn’t belong.
A decade ago, the university’s experience mirrored those national trends, according to a 2023 study published by more than two dozen current and former UR faculty and students. From 2010 to 2013, anywhere from 20% to 33% of students in first-year science and math courses were from what the report calls “minoritized backgrounds,” numbers that matched overall university demographics. By graduation, those numbers fell to between 4% and 9% for students graduating with a STEM degree. Most of the students who fell away still graduated from UR but in non-STEM fields.
In 2012, the university launched an ambitious program designed to address factors holding first-year students back in the sciences. The new program — called SMART, or Science, Math, and Research Training — emphasizes real-life relevance and early research opportunities. The goal is “to remove the barriers that impede persistence, retention, and success of underrepresented students in STEM disciplines,” according to the 2023 study.
Over two semesters, SMART students attend highly integrated and coordinated classes and labs daily. Instead of a chemistry class here and a biology class there, for example, they learn both in one integrated class co-taught by a biology professor and a chemistry professor. This class and, say, calculus or computer science are
“
I have this lived experience, so I feel this connectedness not just to students of color but also limited-income students. My goal is to make them feel like whatever room they step into, they belong.”
coordinated via a broad theme, such as antibiotic resistance or infectious disease. The idea is that by integrating the coursework and connecting it to real issues, students better understand scientific processes, interdisciplinary connections, and how scientific inquiry can be used to make the world a better place.
Two other factors are critical. First, students get into labs right away, a chance to immediately see themselves developing capabilities and skills as researchers. Second, through daily classes and other SMART programming, they build a close-knit sense of community that carries through beyond their first year together.
For some of these students, the research skill-building and sense of community start even earlier through another program Jones directs. It’s called URISE, which stands for University of Richmond Integrated Science Experience. Through it, students come to campus for nearly three weeks during the summer before their first year. They get a mix of science lessons, research experiences, and social outings like river rafting to ease their adjustment to college generally and the sciences in particular.
Data in the 2023 study help tell the story of the program’s success. At the time of its publication, 131 of the 238 students who had gone through SMART had graduated. The others, like Kane, were still in progress. Of those who graduated, 82% graduated with STEM majors, and 87% gained some
kind of academic credential in STEM through an adjacent field, such as majoring or minoring in health care studies. The overall percentage of UR students graduating in STEM fields rose from 12% of the undergraduate class to almost 17%. First-generation and underrepresented students made up more than half of graduating seniors in STEM in 2022.
IF PROFESSOR SHANNON JONES HAD ENROLLED AT Richmond during the last 10 years, she would have been an ideal candidate for the URISE and SMART programs that she now directs. She grew up in Roper, North Carolina, a predominantly Black town of just a few hundred people in the northeastern corner of the state. Even in this little town, she lived “on the edge of the edge,” she said, down a cul de sac alongside much of her extended family. She grew up surrounded by love and support, with a hard-working mother, a grandmother next door, supportive teachers, and a steady passel of cousins and neighbors riding bikes and jumping ditches until the summer sun went down. It was an upbringing rich in everything except money.
She was also surrounded by educated women and hard-working men. Her mom and most of her mom’s sisters went to college at a local, historically Black college and then came back home. Her uncles went from high school into the
work force. For most of them, that meant the local paper mill, one of the few well-paying jobs available in the region.
The paper mill shaped local life profoundly, not only because of its steady paychecks but also because of a persistent stench from it that permeated the town. “It was just an awful smell,” Jones said. “You grow up thinking that’s just what air smells like.”
-Emma Kane, ’24 “
She does this juggling act. ... Half of it is that she’s this exquisite professor. Everyone loves her and wants to take her classes because she’s such a good teacher. But the other half of her is that she’s just kind, caring, always available, a good resource. I go to her for a lot of big decisions because I really trust her.”
As a child, she often wondered why a lot of her family members had chronic health issues. “One defining moment was when my mom’s sister, whom she was very close to, got sick for almost two years before doctors figured out what was wrong, and she was diagnosed with lupus,” Jones said. “I’d never witnessed someone that sick before. It was scary. At the time, I didn’t know what that was, like how your immune system can attack your body.”
She read what she could, this real-life problem fueling an interest in biology and its connection to environmental factors and broader social issues. By the time she went off to college at Winston-Salem State University, a historically Black institution, or HBCU, she was determined to become a doctor specializing in rheumatology so she could treat patients like her aunt. Her plans changed when a mentor suggested she consider a career in research.
“It really opened my eyes to other opportunities,” she said. “Just because you like science doesn’t mean you have to be a medical doctor. There are other things you could do.” She gravitated to a focus on toxicology.
By the time she turned 20, she was seeing her familiar community in new ways as she made connections between things she never connected before. The fetid air from the mill. The untreated well water that turned clothes brown and smelled like rotten eggs. Her family’s persistent health issues. She also perceived broader patterns, like how poor and marginalized communities bore these environmentally driven health burdens disproportionately.
Graduate school brought her another kind of education. Her journey from her small nurturing community in Roper and her close-knit HBCU campus brought her to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her first experience with a large, predominately white institution.
“When I got to grad school, it’s a completely different ballgame,” he said. “I just remember the feeling of being othered, and I don’t want my students [at Richmond] to feel that way. I have this lived experience, so I feel this connectedness not just to students of color, but also limited-income students. My goal is to make them feel like whatever room they step into, they belong.”
She persisted, becoming the first person in her family to earn a doctoral degree. After that, she did a three-year fellowship supported by the National Institutes of Health, taught at a couple of HBCUs, and in 2015 landed at Richmond to direct the SMART and URISE programs. The programs’ structures in many ways replicate what was good about Jones’ educational path while addressing what could have been better.
In her time at Richmond, Jones has been able to branch out beyond her core duties of running SMART and URISE.
The spring semester toxicology course, BIO 310, is an example. It is an upper-level course that enrolls mostly seniors. When registration for it opened, its 16 available spots filled quickly. But by the first day of the course, enrollment was at 27. Former SMART and URISE students had gotten word that Jones was teaching an upper-level course, and many didn’t want to miss the chance to take her one more time. They made request after request for enrollment overrides, and again and again, she said yes. It was a full-circle moment for them and for her.
SITTING WITH KANE in that upper-level toxicology class on her birthday were a number of other former SMART and URISE students. There was junior Auden Wilson, a lifelong ballet dancer now planning on medical school. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the child of artists. “They mostly do filmmaking, almost always documentary,” he said. “My mom can’t even look at blood. My dad is fine with it, but he didn’t go to college.” Wilson also responds to campus emergencies as a member of UREMS, the student-run emergency medical services squad.
With him on the UREMS squad, in the toxicology course, and in SMART two years ago was fellow junior Bezawit Mulatu, a student from Ethiopia who attended an international high school in Johannesburg, South Africa. She double-majors in biology and business administration. Her future plans include a dual MD/JD program because of the connections she sees between health care and international human rights, particularly in areas affected by war. “If I were to work for the UN,” she said, “I can just go anywhere there’s a crisis happening and be there as a citizen, be there as a doctor, but also be someone who knows what’s going on and can see it through the lens of the law.” During the spring, she was named a 2024–25 Newman Civic Fellow, a reflection of her commitment to public service.
she would even enjoy working as a doctor. But the thing she worried about most was disappointing other people. Everyone important to her knew she was going to medical school, she said. “That’s what I had talked about for a good portion of my life.”
At the time she began asking herself these questions, she was also developing a close relationship with Jones. It began in the summer of 2020, when Hall participated in URISE during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public venues were generally shut. Vaccines were not yet available. URISE students could not come to campus for community-building or skill development.
Instead, Jones did her best to bring the URISE experience to Hall and the rest of the cohort. One day, they did a virtual escape room. A staff member went into a real one and, via Zoom, showed Hall and the other students around the room, having them guide an escape plan. Another day, Hall opened a package from Richmond. Jones had sent
each student a piece of lab equipment called a pipette so they could complete a lesson together over Zoom.
There was also a senior, Kharma Hall from Atlanta. She grew up interested in the sciences but didn’t have any family or mentors in her extended network with careers in the sciences. Like Jones in her younger years, Hall constructed a vision of her future self in which she was inevitably a doctor. Growing up, she told family and friends and everyone around her that she was headed to medical school after college.
One of SMART’s goals is to widen students’ sense of career paths in the sciences. In Hall’s case, she began to see a wider array of options than she ever knew existed. This realization introduced questions for her. Was the medical school path really what she wanted? She worried, in particular, about work-life balance and about whether
“Once we got to campus, I remember meeting her and the rest of my class for the first time. That was not only one of my first science classes, but also one of the only classes with that many people of color,” said Hall, who is Black. “That was one thing I was worried about coming to UR, not fitting in or finding my community on campus, but literally all of my best friends on campus are from SMART or URISE.”
She would lean on this community as she contemplated her future.
THE TERM “IMPOSTER SYNDROME” often hovers around the edges of conversations with SMART and URISE students. The questions come the moment they hit campus. Do I really belong here? How do I compare with the students I see around me? These questions can injure like toxicants by prompting the mind to respond with self-doubt.
“When you come into UR, where everyone is a really high-achieving student, you can get hit really hard in a challenging class and, without support, feel like you don’t belong,” said chemistry professor Michael Norris, who co-teaches a SMART course with Jones.
Kane, the student who celebrated her 21st birthday in class, felt that pressure. “When I came to Richmond, I was so nervous,” she said. “I’d never heard much about research. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to do science.”
With that initial push from Jones and SMART, she has since spent three summers doing lab research, once at Richmond under biology professor Laura Runyen-Janecky and twice at Yale University.
Even when students have confidence in their abilities, they might not understand the pathways that will get them to their goals. Higher ed professionals sometimes refer to this as the “hidden curriculum,” the knowledge and skills necessary for navigating higher education. Kane said that when she arrived on campus, she didn’t know what office hours were. Auden, the son of artists, entered Richmond without any knowledge about the steps for pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a surgeon.
“When I came, I was like, ‘What are you supposed to do as an undergraduate to get into medical school?’” he said. He knew he was supposed to “do research” but had no idea what that meant in practical terms. “I thought it
was going to be this whole process. I thought maybe you have to join freshman labs and then eventually move up into a higher-intensity lab. I don’t know. I was thinking it was this whole complicated process.”
He learned in URISE that it could be as simple as emailing a professor to ask, “Hey, can I work in your lab?” He sent a message to chemistry professor Julie Pollock after she spoke to his URISE class, and he’s been working in her lab ever since.
“There are so many things you have to be aware of as a pre-med student that weren’t talked about by anybody in my family or my high school,” he said. “I don’t even know if anybody from my high school was going to study medicine.”
The question can nag: Why does everyone seem to know how things work except me? With it comes a self-defeating corollary: Maybe I don’t belong here. One of the chief benefits of SMART and URISE is that they help students work through these issues. At the same time, they promote a sense of community. These bonds can carry students through long after the first year as they progress together through the upper levels of the curriculum.
That retention piece is critical, says Colleen Carpenter-Swanson, a departmental colleague of Jones. Together, they sit on the Science Belonging Committee, a faculty-student effort to promote a culture of belonging throughout the Gottwald Center for the Sciences.
“I feel like there have been really improved recruitment efforts, but I’ve seen a lot of shortcomings in retention,” she said, speaking of higher education generally. “I think this is where URISE and SMART are so intentional. How do we create that sense of belonging? It does an amazing job, and the students have each other. They want to be in the program, so how do we keep them connected?”
Jones, she said, establishes a foundation for that to happen all four years. “The students that I’ve gotten in my research who went through URISE and SMART all say the same thing: ‘It felt like family when we were there.’ And that’s the atmosphere I want in my classroom. For students who historically might not feel that support, it’s especially important for them.”
Left, a board on the wall of Jones’ office filled with notes from former students. Middle, a leopard gecko named Feisty that she cares for in her office — and students enjoy holding. She inherited it from a former colleague.
Right, Jones, third from left, with URISE students and biology professor Priscilla Erickson, left, on an excursion to the Charlottesville, Virginia, area in summer 2022.
THIS FEELING OF SUPPORT CAN BE CRITICAL for students making big decisions about their futures. With the help of Jones, Hall came to terms with her doubts about whether medical school was right for her and got the courage to make what she called “a big switch.” It happened mostly over a series of meals. After Hall’s first year, she and Jones began having weekly lunches together in Jones’ office. They did it every Thursday for the next three years until Hall graduated — professor and student, mentor and protégé, making sense of Hall’s options and the wider world together.
“Sometimes we talk about class; sometimes we talk about other things,” Hall said. “She encouraged me to not only think about what other people want, but what’s best for me. She basically helped me put aside the fear that I will be disappointing other people. She’s been a great support system and has really been there for me in all of my times of need, whether it’s been school-related or not. I’m just very grateful to have met her.”
As her senior year closed out, Hall was working in a clinical research lab and applying for anesthesia tech and medical assistant positions — “pretty much anything that will give me clinical experience,” she said. She no longer sees a career as a doctor in her future, but she will stick with medicine. During the summer, she will take the GRE and apply to master’s programs in anesthesiology, a field that fascinates her and a professional path that she believes offers the balance she seeks.
ONE REASON THAT JONES’ STUDENTS TRUST HER AND her advice is that they recognize her deep empathy for them. She has usually experienced some version of what they’re experiencing.
“They have many of the same feelings I’ve felt,” Jones said. “Early on, when I meet them in URISE, they’re like, ‘What am I getting myself into?’ I will tell them, ‘I know exactly what you feel like.’ I can see myself in them, for sure.”
But she also hopes it works the other way. She wants them to see themselves in her. That’s why she is very open
with them about her background. She tells them about growing up in a small town in North Carolina and seeing her family members get sick, about how she felt in grad school, and about how her career path has wound this way and that.
One of the words she uses to describe herself professionally is storyteller. It’s apparent in her toxicology class. Tuesdays are hard science days with slides of lung tissues or nerve endings and always an array of chemical symbols. Thursdays are for stories. She might give students a case study about a migrant farmworker arriving at an emergency room. They might read news reports about a neighborhood with unusually high rates of cancer. The point is to help the students learn to use science to problem-solve. It connects the scientific details to real life, a pedagogical approach that research shows promotes student engagement and self-efficacy.
The most moving story she tells is the one she embodies. It comes out as she skillfully leads class every session, warmly banters with students before and after class, and quietly chats with them in her office. I am making my path in the sciences and addressing issues I care about, her example says, and you can do this, too.
A wall in her office speaks to her success. Just above her desk is a giant board covered with personal photos and messages. Many of them are notes from former students. They might have gone off to graduate school or medical school. They might be completing a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship, working in industry, or doing a post-baccalaureate fellowship with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The notes all express some version of thank you. They’re right in front of her every morning when she walks into her office in the Gottwald Center, puts down her things, and starts her laptop. They’re there when she has lunch with a student and when she closes her office door at the end of the day.
They’re her daily motivation for building the life she envisions for herself and for helping her students build lives in the sciences that they envision for themselves, no matter their background.
BY SOPHIA DEMERATH, ’26 ILLUSTRATION BY ZO Ë VAN DIJK
SO, I’VE GOT AN IDEA ...
A PILOT PROGRAM IS PROMPTING STUDENTS TO DEVELOP SOLUTIONS FOR CHALLENGES IN UNCONVENTIONAL WAYS. IT’S PART OF AN EFFORT TO ENCOURAGE CREATIVITY, INNOVATION, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACROSS THE UNIVERSITY.
Aperson might need to ask for directions to reach the fourth floor of Boatwright Library, but when they get there, the elevator doors will open to reveal a cozy space with assorted tables and couches, Post-it notes scattered across the walls, and midafternoon sunlight filtering in through dormer windows.
During the spring semester, this secluded classroom hosted the entrepreneurial endeavors of students in a course called Design Thinking, one module of the threepart Richmond Innovation Fellows program. Here, students develop the tools to address business challenges in unconventional ways, “de-risk” their ideas, and produce compelling solutions that change the status quo.
RIF, currently in its pilot year, is being developed by UR’s Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship initiative, which was created in 2021. (See sidebar.) “[RIF] is for students seeking to flex their creative muscles and test innovative ideas in supportive, realworld settings,” said Somiah Lattimore, CIE’s founding director. This spring, I sat in on a couple of class periods.
most important information. For now, Hammond has them applying this framework to a specific question: How do we minimize discomfort for freshmen transitioning from high school to college?
The class begins working on assumption testing, or testing ideas’ desirability, feasibility, and viability. Each group eventually stands to share its proposal, along with the assumptions the group members anticipate. “We want to install a hot tub in the Weinstein Center,” one group says, “but this would assume that it is sanitized regularly and that students want to be that close together.”
As a few chuckles sound from around the room, Hammond reminds the class that these assumptions are meant to be tested, and until then, they shouldn’t be shut down. Later, Hammond describes the insights behind assumption testing. “One of the fundamental tenets of design thinking is that it is human-centered,” he says. “What is this person’s life like? Let’s identify their needs, preferences, and the context of their everyday lives.”
After the Innovation Fellows learn creative problem-solving methods in this course, they will have the opportunity to apply the lessons abroad. The second module of the program takes place at the European Innovation Academy in Porto, Portugal. In a three-week session, fellows collaborate with students from around the globe to develop a product and pitch it to a panel of investors.
“ ”
One of the fundamental tenets of design thinking is that it is humancentered.
“Have you guys ever heard of the protégé effect?” Geof Hammond, the professor, asks the class while they take their seats on the first day I visit. “It means learning by teaching. Well, you all will be teaching the class next Tuesday.” As students blindly picked cards with the topics they would present, Hammond grounded the class in the design thinking process.
This approach to creating a product starts with opportunity framing: identifying a practical problem, followed by observation and immersion through ethnographic research, and ending with sense-making — distilling the
Ayush Garg, ’26, attended EIA in the summer of 2023. The experience affirmed his passion for entrepreneurship. “With around 500 college kids from all over the world, the place was springing with ideas,” he said.
He developed an event safety app as part of a team with four other students. “We came up with the simple idea of a help button,” he said. “It would send your location to the security of the venue, and you could find your friends on it.”
Garg, a computer science major, worked on the tech side, even assuming a co-CEO role. Each team is paired with a professional mentor who is there to provide guidance, not solutions.
“We all got very close quickly,” Garg said. “Going from a small idea to building an entire company around it involves many obstacles and hurdles. They show you the initial four steps you need to take in a journey of a thousand steps.”
When students weren’t working on their product, they explored the city of Porto, going to beaches and meeting other emerging entrepreneurs. Among the students
involved in 101 startups that developed from 503 concepts, Dani Valderrama-Avila, ’24, received the Nixon Peabody Patent Innovation Award, and Garg earned a top-10 finalist spot and an Alchemist Accelerator invitation.
Garg took lessons from EIA when he started work on his current project — an AI tool called AnswerThis. Unlike other similar software, AnswerThis’s response to a question includes the references it uses in its reply, an innovation in using AI for academic research.
“More people should be excited about startups,” Garg said. “They are how the world’s problems are being solved. EIA and the Design Thinking course provide you the tools to do it.”
In the second Design Thinking class session I visit, each student comes to the front of the room to present the topic they randomly selected the week before. The topics are all different methods of prototyping.
Valderrama-Avila presents on using Legos to make prototypes, sharing the story of a think tank that created the early stages of an insulin pump using the colorful plastic bricks. She explains that using things that might be lying around quickly turns ideas into tangible, partially developed products.
Then, Garg presents mock advertisements. He demonstrates how to build a spoof ad before even developing a product. Doing so can help validate product desirability, test customer reactions, and even generate a list of potential customers, he tells the class.
Later, he describes how he used this technique in his own project. “When I was building AnswerThis, I used a mock advertisement with a free demo for people who signed up,” he says. “When 200 people joined the waitlist, it gave me the confidence of knowing, ‘OK, this is something people want.’”
Garg knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur from a young age. The Richmond Innovation Fellows program is for students like him and students who have yet to engage in the design process, regardless of whether they pursue majors in the business school or elsewhere on campus. This class and all of the CIE’s programs are open to students from all five schools at the university.
“If we give these students the same tools that designers use,” Hammond says, “and have them start to apply those tools to real-world problems, then they will be better equipped to address them, wherever they go.”
Sophia Demerath, ’26, a rising junior from Minnesota, is a student writer in University Communications. She majors in PPEL — politics, philosophy, economics, and law — and will study abroad in Switzerland during the fall 2024 semester.
ABOUT THE CIE INITIATIVE
The Design Thinking course is one component of a suite of options being developed through the Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship initiative, which launched in 2021 with the support of a gift from the Jason & Jaime Brown Family Foundation and the RB Charitable Foundation.
“The words creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship operate separately and together,” said Joan Saab, executive vice president and provost. “The CIE combines the expertise of faculty and staff from all five schools on our campus and allows a wide range of students to complement their courses of study with these important skill sets and concepts.”
All CIE programming, including the Design Thinking course, is open to all students regardless of major. Its programming is academic and co-curricular, including classes and career exploration.
Its programs include:
• Summer Incubator, which helps about a dozen students explore their business concepts within a collaborative coworking space in the Richmond region. Students receive mentorship from UR staff and local business owners.
• Bench Top Innovations, in which students conceive, create, and take a food product to market in less than a year with the mentorship of Richmond faculty and staff. (See Page 72 for an example.)
• Student coaching in advance of pitch competitions and investor conferences.
The university also offers an entrepreneurship minor designed for nonbusiness school students. The minor equips students with business knowledge and training for success in startup and small-business environments.
WHAT IS SPIDER DASH?
The Spider Dash is a 5K race around our beautiful campus — past Westhampton Lake and down the Eco Corridor — reflecting our focus on well-being and Spider community.
This was the first year the race was open to alumni. Might we see you next year?
Dashing Spiders
In February, the sun shone down on alumni as they took their first shot at a Spider Dash 5K medal. The race around campus was in its second year — and the first open to alumni. Fifty-nine of them seized the chance to speed — and stroll — past the university’s collegiate gothic architecture. Some traveled from as far as Chicago and upstate New York.
One graduate who made the most out of a trip to Richmond was Chuck Lycett, R’91, of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. He had a milestone to celebrate that weekend, so he and his girlfriend made a plan.
“I saw [Spider Dash] mentioned in an alumni email, [and it was on] the day before my 55th birthday,” Lycett said. He reached out to two Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers — Sean Healy, R’92, and Clayton Dean, R’94 — who were game to join.
“The weather was perfect,” Lycett said. “Throughout the walk, we reminisced about our experiences around campus and tried to paint a picture of what Richmond life was like in the early ’90s for my girlfriend.”
The Jepson School of Leadership Studies building had just opened, for
GATHERING
Basketball victory
Spider alumni from Virginia and Wisconsin gathered to celebrate the men’s basketball victory over VCU in March.
From left: Susan Purcer Aprahamian, ’93, Matt Aprahamian, ’92, Jen Cataldo, Pat Cataldo, ’92, Kathy Dabich Engman, ’92, Travis Brown, ’92, Beau Engman, ’92, and Sunni Brown, GC’18.
example, as had the Wilton Center beside the chapel. And according to the 1991 yearbook, an outfit incorporating buck shoes and tie-dye was a winning combination at the time.
“[We] discussed all of the changes around campus,” Lycett said. “For example, we were not allowed to go down the Eco [Corridor] in the early ’90s, so it was interesting to see the new education exhibits.” The race route also previewed ongoing changes, including the renovation of Boatwright Memorial Library.
After crossing the finish line, the birthday celebration continued when the group went to watch back-to-back Spider victories at the men’s lacrosse and men’s basketball games. No one could have scripted it any better.
“It was a full day of fun, friendship, and a great way to welcome in 55,” Lycett said.
By next year’s Spider Dash, the library will be nearing completion, giving racers the chance to see the latest developments on Princeton Review's most beautiful campus. You might also take a leaf from Lycett’s book and snag game-day tickets for your post-race cool-down.
A pentaspider family
The Maners recently became a family of five Spider graduates after Dean Maner’s commencement in May.
Members of the Maner family have hosted Philadelphia Welcome to the Web events, served on the President’s Parent Leadership Council, been admissions ambassadors, and served on reunion committees, and they were highly active on campus during their student years.
From left: Dean, ’24, Hilary Day, W’89, Ally, ’21, Skip, R’89, and Perry, ’23.
Reunion committees
Reunion committees are already thinking about Reunion Weekend plans for 2025. Serving on your committee is a great way to help plan the weekend festivities and reconnect with your classmates. Sign up at uronline.net/reunion-committee or email reunion@richmond.edu.
P.S. Save the date for next year’s Reunion Weekend: May 30–June 1, 2025.
Chuck Lycett, R’91 (right), and friends at Spider Dash
FUN IN THE SUN Getting together with your Spider friends this summer? We’d love to see it!
Send a photo of your Spider squad to @urichmondalumni on Instagram or email alumnievents@richmond.edu, and everyone in your group will receive Spider summer swag.
Remember to include the names of all the Spiders, their class years, and where you’re hanging out!
I … do?
Everyone has heard the legend of the gazebo on Westhampton Lake: Whoever you kiss there will be the person you marry. Connecting the Richmond and Westhampton sides, the gazebo offers that picturesque location for a Hollywood-style romantic rendezvous.
But this past spring, romance was a little trickier. Early in the semester, the bridge leading to the gazebo was blocked off so it could be repaired after damage from a winter freeze. It was closed for most of the semester. One has to wonder: Were future romances not beginning?
Also, was somewhere else temporarily replacing the gazebo? D-hall? A great spot for gossip, but maybe not for a date. Tyler Haynes Commons?
It bridges the two sides of campus the same way the gazebo does, but a kiss in front of the SpiderShop doesn’t feel quite as magical. It seems likely romance was on hold until the bridge reopened in May.
But still, there’s reason for hope. Take it from Scott Hurd, B’89, and Diane Kraynak, W’89. It took some missed connections as students, a few serendipitous encounters years after graduation, and a little mistranslation to find each other — and they didn’t kiss in the gazebo until their 25th reunion.
Hurd tells the story in the essay “Love, eventually,” which you can find on the magazine’s website at magazine.richmond.edu.
—Amy Ogle, ’26
BOOKS
What Spiders read
Editor’s Note: Last issue, we asked which book from college stuck with you and why.
Jennifer Foster had several:
Throughout my lifetime I’ve referenced several of the required books from my first year, including the works of Nietzsche and Confucius, the Bible’s Book of Genesis, the Talmud, Buddhist and Taoist teachings.
As a naive young white girl from the suburbs and granddaughter of a preacher, my mind was awakened to old and new ideas about the ways of the world and thoughts of man. My faith was tested, and I began to see connections and inequalities among people. I will forever be grateful to UR for expanding my horizons and inspiring me to search outside myself.
— Jennifer Foster, ’97
MORE STORIES ONLINE
Read “Love, eventually” and other stories we couldn’t fit in this issue on our newly redesigned website: magazine.richmond. edu.
LIMITS OF CONSTRAINT
JAMES STAAB, L’88
An examination of originalism and its pitfalls in practice. Staab argues that originalism falls short of its promise of an objective decision free of personal philosophy and discretion, using three case studies of prominent Supreme Court originalists.
THE BEDFORDSHIRE
PATRICK R. FIELD, R’86
In this fantasy novel, a young man with supernatural abilities is fated to ascend to unimaginable power — if he can find a body buried in secret unconsecrated ground without losing his chance with a new love interest.
WARLOCK
Sunrise at the gazebo
By
‘This
is what we need’
Childbirth education materials should be more inclusive, says one Spider. She created the representation she wished to see, and now her art is everywhere.
WORLDWIDE IMPACT
The Educated Birth’s materials have become internationally known — with customers in Canada, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and most recently South Korea — among other countries.
Learn more at theeducatedbirth.com.
It all kicked off during a blizzard. The city of Richmond slowed. Cheyenne Varner, ’13, and many others stayed home, their workplaces closed until the snow could be cleared. Varner settled in, turned on Netflix, and stumbled across a documentary called The Business of Being Born.
“It talked about maternal health and the maternal mortality crisis,” Varner says. The documentary led Varner down a research rabbit hole. “I soon found out how, as the U.S. developed as a nation, we had poor outcomes for women and birthing folks. Black women had poorer outcomes and complications that were three to four times higher than their white counterparts. That struck a chord for me.”
tional materials that showed Black women in any meaningful way. So I started making my own.” Varner put her graphic design skills to work and developed a range of birthing literature she could share with her clients. “I wanted them to see themselves represented. I wanted them to feel confident and [informed].”
It worked. Varner posted a sample in a Facebook group for doulas of color. “The comments exploded,” she says. “People from all over the country were saying, ‘This is what we need. I want to use this.’ And that’s how it started.”
Varner’s creations. Since 2016, she has developed hundreds of graphics that depict people of many races, sexual orientations, body shapes, hairstyles, and abilities.
“[The Educated Birth] became a learning process for me, especially in the gender inclusivity area,” Varner says. “Our early materials did not employ gender-inclusive language. And folks reached out and communicated the significance of that.” Childbirth is an experience shared by people of multiple genders, such as trans men and nonbinary individuals, making gender-inclusive language another avenue for Varner to help her clients see themselves in her education materials. “Representation isn’t just nice,” Varner says. “It’s a necessary part of a safe and equitable health system.”
The blizzard brought this focus to Varner’s design talents, but she’d had an eye for artistic activism as early as college.
Within a month of watching The Business of Being Born, Varner completed a doula training program.
At once, Varner noticed a lack of conversation around race. “There were no educa-
The Educated Birth is Varner’s response to the historic lack of diversity in childbirth education literature. It produces inclusive teaching tools for parents and industry professionals. These include info sheets, illustrations, and planners, as well as a biannual publication, Everyday Birth Magazine. The illustration above is one of
“I created my degree at UR,” Varner says. “It was called educational activism in the arts. And that’s exactly what I do. Everyone stands to benefit from a care system that is more in tune with approaching people as they are. [Our content] is exhibiting [an inclusive] mindset and approach to how we engage with people in their reproductive health journey.”
Illustration by Cheyenne Varner
BOOKS
“It’s [not] about me; it’s about surrounding myself with smart people and winning with them.”
HEIDI PETZ, ’97 , president and CEO of the Sherwin-Williams Co. in her commencement address to graduating undergraduates.
Never tell me the odds
On a cold November morning in New York City, two Spiders walked through the light snowfall to New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It was still dark at 4 a.m., but the surgery would take six or seven hours. In 2012, after 20 years of battling
an autoimmune liver disease, Matt Felix, R’85, (right) could hardly believe he would finally undergo a much-needed liver transplant — or that his former roommate beside him would be the donor.
Patrick Kacani, B’85, heard that Felix was sick through an email chain. “[It] was the length of Route 95,” Felix joked, but finding a donor match involves arduous medical testing and intimidating questionnaires that eliminated more than a few loved ones. Yet Kacani knew he would be on the operating table.
“I’ve talked to countless living donors who’ve had the same feeling: this clarity that I knew it was going to be me.”
There was only a 10% chance Kacani, as a nonrelative, would be a match. But the odds didn’t bother Kacani. “I’m Irish,” he quipped. “Think about what the Irish do to their livers. It’s just genetic. It’s going to be bigger, stronger, and faster as generations grow, right?” Kacani’s liver beat the odds. And now, when the two men compete at the Transplant Games of America together, Kacani (left) makes sure his old roommate knows that his liver got Felix across the finish line. Spider banter at its finest.
ARE YOU AN ORGAN DONOR?
Being an organ donor doesn’t have to be a major commitment like Kacani’s.
“You can check the box on your driver’s license,” Felix says. “You’re saying that once you leave this earth, if there’s an opportunity, put your organs to good use.”
BLACK GIRL AUTOPOETICS
ASHLEIGH GREENE WADE, C’10
An analysis of how today’s digital culture creates a “double bind” for Black girls: hypervisibility puts them at risk for cyberbullying, yet their digital inventiveness often goes uncredited, rendering them invisible.
SILENCED BY THE PROMISE: A VETT BRAYBORN MURDER MYSTERY SANDRA TANNER, C’99
The sixth installment of a murder mystery series where private detective Vett Brayborn investigates the suspicious death of a wealthy matriarch whose only potential killers seem to be her four wholesome nieces and nephews.
THE IMPOSTER LAURA JENSEN BOWER, ’01
This picture book follows Olive and her favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Snuggles, who suddenly vanishes. When he reappears, he’s too clean to be the real Mr. Snuggles. Olive must decide what to do about the imposter.
THE $100 MILLION EXIT: YOUR ROADMAP TO THE ULTIMATE PAYDAY
JONATHAN BRABRAND, ’97
A look at the success stories and failures of major companies, tales that provide actionable advice an owner can use to increase the value of their company and prepare for the day they sell it.
Scenes from
2025 REUNION CLASSES, MARK YOUR CALENDARS: MAY 30–JUNE 1, 2025 .
We welcome your news. Send information to your class secretary or directly to the magazine at classnotes @richmond.edu. Or you may mail it to the magazine at Fountain Hall • 118 UR Drive • University of Richmond, VA 23173. Please include your class year and the name you were known by as a student, if different than today. For your children, please include birth dates rather than ages. Photographs of alumni are welcome and encouraged. Please note that the magazine does not publish news of engagements or pregnancies. Information may take up to two issues to publish. Class notes do not appear on the magazine’s website.
The magazine uses undergraduate degree designations for graduates through 1992, and law, graduate, and honorary degree designations for all years.
B Robins School of Business
C School of Professional and Continuing Studies
G Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
GB Richard S. Reynolds Graduate School of Business
GC Graduate School of Professional and Continuing Studies
H Honorary Degree
L School of Law
R Richmond College
W Westhampton College
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’59Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea com-
modo consequat.
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feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’60Class notes are available only in the print edition. To submit your news and photos, contact your class secretary or email us at classnotes@richmond.edu.
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’61Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
For information about photos, see:
1. Margaret Brittle Brown, W’65
2. Barbara Gardner Cook, W’65
3. Ron Malstrom, R’72
4. Spring Crafts Kirby, ’73
5. Hugh Reid, R’80
6. Susan Clarke Nagy, W’81
7. Nancy Semonian Day, W’87
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’62Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincid-
“Bob and I have a fantastic social life — we meet the nicest people in visits to doctors’ offices.”
—Daphne Shepard Mason, W’61
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diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit
in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod
tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
’65Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip
TY BRASWELL, R’76
Creative courage
Ty Braswell, R’76, looks for one key element whether he is consulting in brand storytelling, engineering, or comedy — creative courage.
“I like working with people who have the courage to push the envelope,” he says. “I love looking at what’s possible.”
After working as a vice president at both Virgin Records and Sony Corp. of America, Braswell set out on his own. He established Creative Digital Strategies, a consulting resource to help brands, startups, and tech companies with business development expertise, digital audience engagement, and brand storytelling strategies. The communication graduate can’t help but smile when describing the “small” company he created in 2007.
“It’s me,” Braswell says, “and my key freelance colleagues that I bring in based on their proficiencies that match up for the specific assignments.”
That small company has collaborated on some big projects — Braswell was instrumental in launching NHL Mobile and the digital comedy startup JASH. Regardless of the industry, Braswell looks at three elements in any company he works with — creative, digital, and strategy.
“I have a basic functional expertise with each of them, but I don’t know how to code. When I’m around creative people, it’s actually quite humbling,” Braswell says. “My strength is being able to talk to people and get them to trust each other and utilize each other’s sense of humor.”
The creative digital strategist thrives on the synergy between the three distinct entities. “Those three types of teams need to work together, and that’s where the fun is,” Braswell says. “Everyone leaves their ego at the door and is a little more open-minded. I love the energy of seeing them work together — seeing people have a joyous vibe working on a project. When you’re building stuff, it diminishes the internal politics, and that’s the best part.”
—Debbie Juniewicz
STEPHANIE ALLEN FOSTER, ’02
Protecting protectors
When natural disasters strike, first responders are under immense pressure to strategize in volatile environments. But they’re not alone — emerging technologies are helping those responders act more efficiently. Stephanie Allen Foster, ’02, is one of the people behind PROTECT, a map-based system that tracks the development of disasters in real-time.
Foster leads Generation NYX with co-founder Joaquin Avellan. With PROTECT — short for Platform for Response Operations and Emergency Coordination in Real-Time — first responders can look at a map on their phones to gather information, such as water levels during a flood, or to share photos during a search and rescue.
“Providing the ability for all responding agencies to view the same operational picture at the same time reduces risk and enhances response efficiency,” Foster said.
The system is a version of the Next-Generation Incident Command System (NICS), which Foster and Avellan worked on for a decade at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Foster wanted to maintain two principles of NICS in creating PROTECT: accessibility and adaptability. PROTECT requires little training, and clients can tailor the system to their needs.
“You want to make sure the system is adaptable so you’re not building 10 different systems for 10 different clients,” she said. “[PROTECT] has the ability to operate and integrate with different use cases.”
Despite her years working on emergency response technology, Foster didn’t initially plan on NICS becoming her career when she joined the project. However, the more she worked on it, the more she loved the intersection of programming and people. She’s not only helping users — she’s helping first responders save lives.
“[PROTECT is] a matter of empowering people who are doing the most valiant work,” she said. “There’s a humanity to it that I find intriguing, fulfilling, and impactful.”
—Amy Ogle, ’26
ex ea commodo consequat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nos-
trud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue
Photograph by Northwest Quarterly magazine
duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel
illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’70Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie con-
“I don’t think my life after UR could have been any better! … In retrospect, I don’t believe I could have accomplished what I did without my four years at UR.”
— Bill Carpenter, R’65
sequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl
ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
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’72Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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“We have decided that our 75–80 years will be travel time. ... We have visited about 50 countries, and seven more are booked in 2024 and 2025. Life is an adventure.”
— Warren Edwards, R’69
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magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Bananas for Spider spirit
The phrase “creative thinking” took on new meaning when Spiders in the 1970s attempted to build the world’s largest banana split — and later the world’s largest submarine sandwich — inside the Robins Center.
After the Robins Center was built in 1972, one question was how it could be used for student life besides basketball games. In March 1974, the University Student Union had an answer: Host the construction of the world’s largest indoor banana split.
Ty Braswell, R’76 (see profile, Page 51) led the charge. “There was a priority to see how to engage the student population not just during the week but also on the weekend,” he said. “The administration wanted students to think outside the box.”
The 600-foot banana split was just one of the ways students thought outside the box. It was the penultimate event for three days of social activities ranging from an
all-night dance party to a mudslide, which USU organized with Braswell serving as chair of events. The first-ever event of its kind, they called it Dutch Chaos Weekend for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Richard Mateer, dean of students and eventually of Richmond College, led the administrative side of it. Using donated ingredients, including 800 pounds of bananas from Chiquita, the banana split was constructed in 21 minutes and consumed by the community in about 17 minutes. It didn’t break the Guinness world record, but it didn’t break students’ spirits either. The next year, Braswell planned the construction of the world’s largest subma-
rine sandwich for 1975’s repeat weekend.
The 796-foot sandwich tested the limits of students’ ingenuity. For the bread, they borrowed an oven that could bake 40-foot loaves from a local bakery and transported those loaves via tractor-trailer trucks. To connect the loaves, they cut off the ends of each one, added more dough, and baked the segments using an infrared oven designed by the chemistry department.
Despite their efforts, the sandwich was unfortunately also not Guinness-worthy. Still, these events showed how the university empowered students to have “creative courage,” as Braswell described it.
“[The weekends showed] the sheer delight of people trying stuff, and if it didn’t work, not giving up,” he said. “We didn’t fail. We learned, and the university was 200% behind us.”
INVENTOR OF DUTCH CHAOS WEEKEND?
Braswell attributes the birth of Dutch Chaos Weekend to Richard Mateer, dean of students and later dean of Richmond College 1976–2002.
In the fall of 1997, Mateer spoke in residence halls about the lore and legends of campus, including both world record attempts.
By
Illustration by Jamie Douglas
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“In nearly every career opportunity, I used skills the UR faculty instilled in me. I only wish I could have told the faculty what a difference they’d made. I may not have been their star student, but they sure made the stars align for me.”
— Linda Simmons, W’71
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illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
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’79
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’80Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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’86
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TOM GARRETT, L’03
Vocal advocate
Tom Garrett, L’03, finished law school with an enduring takeaway: the cruciality of the First Amendment right to free speech.
“I’ve always had this — I don’t want to call it a contrarian streak; that’s probably too strong a word, though my friends might call it that — but this innate belief that everyone, regardless of their opinion or perspective, should have the ability to voice that opinion without fear of reprisal,” Garrett said. “People can, of course, disagree vigorously. But the idea that people should have to remain silent because their opinion is not accepted by the group has always been an issue for me.”
While Garrett remains a licensed attorney in good standing, his free speech advocacy evolved into a career in communications — most recently, and fittingly, as the chief communications officer at the Institute for Free Speech.
“The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan nonprofit that engages in the litigation and protection of political speech rights,” Garrett said. “My job includes media relations, fostering publicity around our cases, and content creation” — responsibilities that target not only Garrett’s strengths, but also his connection to free speech advocacy.
“I think we’ve lost sight of [the fact that] it’s OK to disagree with someone who is a fellow classmate, fellow lawyer, fellow American, whatever,” Garrett says. “And part of what we’re doing is working to reinvigorate that idea.”
Garrett underwent a reinvigoration of his own in his transition to the communications field: “I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many things have just popped back into my head [from law school]. I think that is a testament to the education I got from the University of Richmond and its First Amendment free speech [pedagogy].”
—María Badillo
MICHELLE SWARTZ CASTIGLIONE, ’06
Audacious responsibility
Election integrity, geopolitical crises, child safety, fraud — the issues can be daunting, but the position is gratifying for Michelle Swartz Castiglione, ’06, Google’s risk intelligence lead.
“I lead an organization of risk intelligence analysts, and our mission is to anticipate and address threats to user trust and safety on all of Google’s platforms, like Search, Maps, Play, and Gmail,” she says. “Every day I learn something new. And it’s a particularly exciting time as Google works to build the most advanced and safe artificial intelligence tools at the forefront of global innovation.”
Castiglione started at Google during the pandemic after a 15-year career in government as a senior expert for the U.S. intelligence community, serving three White House administrations. She was recognized by the Jepson School of Leadership Studies in 2016 for her work profiling Middle Eastern leaders that shaped the foreign policy decisions of several presidents, White House officials, and members of the National Security Council.
“My time in government taught me how to work across complex organizations and bureaucratic boundaries to achieve big goals,” she says. “I loved the teamwork that came with managing geopolitical crises and advising presidents and their cabinets about difficult policy decisions.”
Castiglione’s work has grown in scale to create outcomes to benefit Google’s 7 billion users worldwide. “The audacity of that responsibility motivates me every day,” she says.
Castiglione and her family recently moved back to her hometown of Annapolis, Maryland. There, she enjoys playing sports with her family, something that harkens back to her time at Richmond.
“It’s hard to believe that I attended UR almost 20 years ago,” she says. “I remember playing field hockey on Crenshaw field like it was yesterday.”
—Debbie Juniewicz
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’90
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’93
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl
ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
“Freshman year is especially vivid — first time away from home ... Raincoats over pajamas were much in evidence.”
—Becky Stout, W’74
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te
feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’94Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat
volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’97Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto
AUSTIN GUND ’15
Life’s team player
During a quiet moment after the Buffalo Bills’ 2024 playoff run, Austin Gund, ’15, received a call from a former football player at Belhaven University whom he had coached. They chatted about the player’s recent graduation, his dreams of playing in the NFL, and, most importantly, life in general. This call caused Gund to reflect on the people who guided him to this point and how he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Following Gund’s time as a player at UR, his transition to coach was seamless. The key difference was shifting from tunnel vision to a big-picture mindset so he could see how each player can contribute to a win. But leading from the sideline wasn’t as different from being team captain as you might think.
“You have to make the right decisions, and you’re not going to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination,” Gund said. “But you do have to get comfortable [with] people looking at you and trying to do the right thing.”
His leadership skills took him to the Buffalo Bills — where he is the assistant offensive line coach. He makes weekly game plans and builds playbooks during the offseason. His philosophy always comes down to knowing his players and positioning them to excel.
At the end of the day, he cherishes his coaches, past teammates, former players, and the team he’s part of now. Bonds like the one with the former Belhaven player have carried Gund through his career. When the Bills beat the Miami Dolphins at the end of the regular season, Gund remembers the celebration most fondly.
“There’s nothing like the feeling of winning and knowing that it took all of us,” he said. “The joy that exists in that locker room and seeing the looks on the guys’ faces, it’s priceless.”
—Amy
Ogle, ’26
odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat
“[In Australia,] we watched the nightly penguin parade and could totally relate to the penguins, who had eaten so much they could barely walk and constantly fell on their bellies!”
—Donna Higginbotham Rosser, W’74
volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta
nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’99Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipisc-
ing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’01Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit
in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’02Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet dom-
JOHN REMMES, ’15
Dream work
Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation are renowned for bringing to life such fantastic film dream worlds as Toy Story and Shrek. They rely on the artistic and technical talents of people like computer engineer John Remmes, ’15, to build the tools that bring those iconic stories to the screen. Remmes’ interest in animation was sparked in high school when he watched the 2007 documentary The Pixar Story. “Everyone in the film was so passionate about what they did,” he says. “I thought, ‘I want to work in a place like that.’ When I rewatched the film in college, I realized, ‘I want to work there.’” Richmond’s Integrated Quantitative Sciences class taught him an interdisciplinary approach to computer science that he applied in his subsequent work at NASA Langley Research Center and Mitre Corp. There, he created virtual reality simulations and mastered the C++ coding language used by animation studios. On the side, he created his own virtual reality arcade game called Legend of the Shieldbearers
When DreamWorks recruited him in 2022, he’d “been waiting a decade for that call,” Remmes says. He developed new features, fixed bugs, and optimized the code of the proprietary software used by the studio’s animation and rigging team.
In June 2023, Remmes celebrated his 30th birthday by attending the premiere of his first animated film, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. “It was incredible to see my name in the credits,” he says. Remmes now works in the Tools Characters department at Pixar’s headquarters. “I have a feeling of awe and appreciation every time I go into work at Pixar’s offices and get to talk with the artists and animators who’ve worked on these amazing films,” Remmes says. “I get more starstruck seeing them than if a celebrity walked by me.”
—Kristin Baird Rattini
RONG BAO, ’21
Pins on a map
World maps have long caught the eye of those bitten by the travel bug. Pins mark the places they’ve been or want to visit. One such explorer, Rong Bao, ’21, took her fascination a step further: She steered her career toward how all those pins impact one another.
Bao’s work sits at the intersection of global trade and sustainability. The goal is to determine how to make global trade more sustainable.
“International trade accounts for about 20 to 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions,” Bao says. “[My team] looks at how to restructure and reform the World Trade Organization’s global trade system [to address] sustainability and climate change.”
Bao coordinates the Remaking Trade for a Sustainable Future project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. Her efforts convene thought leaders through global workshops, collaborations with partner organizations, and white papers detailing best practices and policy suggestions.
For some, professional interests end when they clock out for the day. Not for Bao, who co-founded 2030 Climate+ in her free time. “We are a youth-led sustainability organization in China. We launched one of the first podcast series in China focused on climate education and green industries,” a podcast later recognized by the Yale Center for Business and the Environment for its innovation.
Bao also considers how one’s worldview impacts the ecosystem. “I was lucky enough to have grown up in an environment largely undisturbed by [noticeable] climate change or extreme weather,” Bao says, noting that this privilege can prevent people from recognizing the urgency of global warming. “Climate change is cross-culture, cross-boundary, cross-nation. It’s an international problem.”
To counteract that geographical privilege, Bao encourages people to become “aware of the bigger picture … by getting out of your current environment. Realizing what you take for granted is the first step.”
—María Badillo
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dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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’05Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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For information about photos, see:
8. Andrew Szefi, ’94
9. Mary Adams Wilcox ’05
10. Lauren Merkel, ’08
11. Zack Lake, ’12
12. Stacy Hawkins Adams, C’13
13. Scott Siegner, L’15
14. Carolina Rosas, ’19
modo consequat.
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illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’11Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’12Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
’13Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna
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Everyone reads class notes, but only you can write them. Send your update — whether life-changing or just friendly chitchat — today using this QR code.
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“[One day] I’d like … to become the director of my very own high school choir.”
—Kobie Turner, ’22
consequat.
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consequat.
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SAM MICKEY, ’22
Breaking the box
“What does it mean to act like a man? What does it mean to act like a lady?” Sam Mickey, ’22, asks middle school students these questions in an exercise called “Breaking the Box” at the YWCA Richmond. Rigid views on gender roles are one of the risk factors in domestic and sexual violence, which Mickey’s work aims to address.
Their career goals solidified during their years at UR. One of Mickey’s favorite classes was a Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies seminar taught by Nathan Snaza called Care, Touch, and Collectives. “I came to understand that the root causes of sexual violence are systems of oppression,” they said. Mickey joined the on-campus student organization Spiders Against Sexual Assault and Violence and later led the team as president. “I felt drawn to creating a culture where sexual violence is unacceptable,” Mickey says. “Working at CARE — the Center for Awareness, Response, and Education — with Kaylin Tingle also allowed me to implement prevention programming aimed at making campus healthier and safer for all Spiders.”
Mickey now teaches emerging leaders how to become advocates. Mickey brings their students before the Virginia General Assembly to discuss policy as well as help them curate social media accounts and host podcasts. “I would love to deepen the work I am able to do,” Mickey says. “Building a sense of empowerment is key to showing them they can step into these spaces and feel comfortable navigating these conversations.”
YWCA Richmond hosts volunteering opportunities for those looking to get involved. “I see violence prevention as something everyone can be doing,” Mickey says. “[We can all] make spaces safer for survivors. Modeling these behaviors is something that will absolutely change our culture. [Consider] the second part of the prompt [above] … What would it mean to break out of this box? Who would you be?”
—Sophia Demeranth, ’26
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’20Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ulla-
mcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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’21
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consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
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’22Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie con-
We remember Spiders’ lives. The notes that appear here are drawn from the university’s most recently available records updates at the time of compilation, which is generally about two months before each issue prints. To report a graduate’s passing, email classnotes@richmond.edu.
’40s
Doris Moore Shea, W’48, of Newport News, Virginia, Jan. 15, 2024. She worked as a teacher and school administrator. She held leadership roles in community and professional organizations including the Hampton Public Health Advisory Board, Family Services and Travelers Aid, Virginia Education Association, and Hampton Roads Retired Teachers Association. She was viewed by many as the best listener, mentor, and confidant.
David S. Clay, R’49, of Salisbury, North Carolina, Dec. 26, 2023. He worked in the insurance industry and served with many civic organizations. He was Salisbury’s Young Man of the Year in 1954 and 1958 and helped organize the Rowan County Agricultural and Industrial Fair. He was fair manager for a decade and president of the North Carolina Association of Agricultural Fairs. He served on
the Salisbury City Council for four years, serving as mayor pro tem. He also served in many capacities at the First Baptist Church of Salisbury and the North Carolina Baptist Children’s Homes.
Virginia Grabeel Cole, W’49, of Blackstone, Virginia, Dec. 26, 2023. She played basketball and field hockey at Westhampton, taught school in Nottoway and Lunenburg counties, and was an owner of the construction and rental business Gordon Cole, Builder. She was a devoted member of Crenshaw United Methodist Church.
Caroline Lynn Davis, W’49, of Roanoke, Virginia, June 18, 2023. She was a longtime high school teacher and member of Trinity United Methodist Church in Danville, Virginia.
Jean Harper Sellers Hamlett, W’49, of Henrico, Virginia, Jan. 15, 2023. She was an active member of Bon Air Presbyterian Church, the Commonwealth Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, Tuckahoe Woman’s Club, and the Richmond Home for Ladies. She loved to do handwork, including smocking and sewing clothes for her family.
David W. “Wally” Johnson, R’49, of Richmond, Virginia, Jan. 13, 2024. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and then began a career as
a chemist and laboratory supervisor for the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Division of Chemistry and Laboratory Services. He served as Atlantic Region chairman of the American Society for Testing and Materials, secretary of the UR Spider Club, and president of the Old Dominion Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. He had a deep passion for locomotives and photographed well-known steam engines, becoming a certified expert and building a collection of photos and memorabilia.
’50s
Charles B. Beck, R’50, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Feb. 26, 2024. He was professor and chair of the botany department at the University of Michigan, where his teaching and research interests were plant anatomy and paleobotany. The Botanical Society of America gave him its merit award for outstanding contributions to the botanical sciences. He also was a gardener, photographer, and classical music enthusiast.
Marvin J. Posner, B’50, of Williamsburg, Virginia, Feb. 23, 2024. He is remembered for his sense of humor and his enthusiasm for sports, especially golf.
Edward H. “Rip” Radcliffe, R’50, of Richmond, Virginia, March 2, 2024. After serving in the U.S. Army, he earned a dental degree and was active in the Richmond Dental Society, the Virginia Dental Society, and the American Dental Association, serving in leadership roles in each organization. He also was a clinical instructor and professor at the Medical College of Virginia School of Dentistry for more than 25 years.
Myron M. Yagel, R’50 and G’55, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, Dec. 4, 2023. He was a school principal for many years, dedicated to the education of special needs children. Following service in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander, he served in the Navy Reserves. After receiving a doctoral degree in special education, he taught for 20 years at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He and wife Bobbie co-authored 15 Minutes to Build a Better Marriage
James A. “Jim” Payne, R’51, of Richmond, Virginia, March 8, 2024. He served in Korea with the 1st Marine Division, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He was a pastor at Presbyterian churches in Annandale and Charlottesville, Virginia, then executive director for the Synod of Virginia. He formulated a vision for an interfaith presence in Virginia’s governance, which led to the establishment of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy with Payne as its founding director. In 2003, he received the Virginia First Freedom Award. He lived his life committed to the welfare of others.
Frances Allen Schools, W’51, of Richmond, Virginia, March 2, 2024. She retired from Reynolds Metals and was a director of information for various state agencies including the governor’s cabinet office. She was a reporter for The Richmond News Leader for more than a decade, writing columns on boating and club news and editing the “Young Virginians” section. She taught school before entering public relations, working for the Tobacco Festival and Monsanto and owning her own consulting firm. She was host of The Fran Schools Show on local television.
John A. “Pat” Graybeal, R’52 and L’58, of Seattle, Washington, March 16, 2024. He served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam and Korea and retired as a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve after 21 years. He practiced law in Christiansburg, Virginia, until 1964, when he became a commonwealth’s attorney for Montgomery County, Virginia. He served as a judge for the 27th Judicial District, Juvenile and Domestic Relations, then as a chief judge and visiting judge until his retirement. He participated in many professional organizations and was president of the Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys. He also was active in civic organizations and was past president of the Christiansburg-Blacksburg Rotary Club.
Meredith A. House, L’52, of Richmond, Virginia, Feb. 8, 2024. While in the U.S. Army, he served with the occupying forces in Japan. He practiced law for 50 years and was president of the Richmond Bar Association from 1994 to 1995. In 2001, he received the organization’s professionalism award and the Virginia State Bar’s Local Bar Leader of the Year award. He delivered for Meals on Wheels and was a passionate tennis player.
James Padow, B’53, of Richmond, Virginia, March 28, 2024. He was Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Society at UR and passed the CPA exam right out of college. He offered his time and expertise as a CPA to various charities in the Richmond area.
Edgar L. “Ed” Turlington Jr., R’54 and L’59, of Richmond, Virginia, March 4, 2024. He never strayed far from his childhood Mulberry Street home except to serve in the U.S. Army Reserve. After practicing law for 21 years, he became a judge of the Richmond General District Court, Civil Division, where he served for 18 years. After retiring in 1998, he was a substitute judge. Known as “Judge T” or “Judge,” he was a lifelong member of First Baptist Church and enjoyed the Richmond Spiders, old cars, growing tomatoes, and serving those less fortunate.
Charles E. “Charley” Webber, R’54, of Henrico, Virginia, March 26, 2022. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps for eight years, he worked for Bristol Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company. In his retirement, he held a “fun” job with the State Fair of Virginia.
James H. Blankenship Sr., R’55, of North Dinwiddie, Virginia, March 3, 2024. He was an instructor in radio communications and Morse code for the Army during the Korean War. He became a favorite social studies teacher and girls’ basketball, softball, and tennis coach, finishing a 21-year career in administration as principal of Dinwiddie Elementary School. He became a minister at Ettrick United Methodist Church and retired at age 70, but after enjoying traveling and family, he went back to preaching and retired again at age 90.
Andrew J. “Bud” Daffron III, B’55, of Henrico, Virginia, Dec. 21, 2023. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve, attaining the rank of first lieutenant. He managed purchasing departments for Equitable Life Insurance, Life Insurance Co. of Virginia, Reynolds Metals, and Wheat First Securities, where he also served as assistant vice president. He was an active member of St. Benedict Catholic Church and was president for two terms of the Genealogical Research Institute of Virginia.
Robert B. “Bob” Heeke, R’55, of Hot Springs, Florida, Dec. 13, 2023. After receiving a degree in journalism from UR, he spent several years with the National Guard and on active duty with the U.S. Army. He later moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was a sports writer for the News
and Courier newspaper. He and wife Joyce lived in South Carolina, Virginia, New York, and Florida. He retired from Occidental Chemical in 1993. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus and was involved with a crisis pregnancy center. He earned a Florida Master Gardener title and taught students about hydroponic gardening.
Jody Weaver Wampler Yuhase, W’55, of Ashland, Virginia, Feb. 16, 2024. She was a talented musician and composer, publishing an original work, Arlene. Like her well-known father, Eddie Weaver, she was an accomplished pianist and organist who could play anything that had a string or key. She loved accompanying jazz bands and glee clubs and playing the “Mighty Wurlitzer” organ at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond.
Mary Lee Kingrey Divers Hunt, W’56, of Roanoke, Virginia, Jan. 16, 2024. She taught in the Roanoke city and county public schools and was an elementary school administrator for 22 years. She also taught courses at Hollins College and Radford College. In 1995, the Roanoke Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa named her Educator of the Year. After retirement, she was active in the Christian Women’s Club, on the board of the Roanoke Symphony, and in Bible studies in her home.
Vincent J. Meads Jr., B’56, of Southern Pines, North Carolina, March 20, 2024. He served in the military during the Korean War, earning a Bronze Star for bravery. He and wife Peggy raised three children while living in Colombia, Brazil, and England. He held high-level positions with General Electric and Eaton Corp. He was president of the board of the American School in Rio de Janeiro and was active in international charities.
Robert M. “Bob” Witt, R’56, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 22, 2023. A lifelong athlete, he joined the U.S. Air Force and played on championship Air Force basketball teams in France, Spain, Germany, England, Norway, South Africa, and the United States. He was an air traffic controller during the Berlin airlift. He worked in risk management with Richfood and was president of Market Insurance Agency and Market Insurance Co., based in Bermuda. He enjoyed volunteering with Little League, various civic associations, and churches.
Roger F. Dickinson Sr., B’58, of Charlotte, North Carolina, Feb. 20, 2024. He was a top salesman with Concrete Structures and Riverside Brick. A true adventurer, he found opportunities to make each day count. He took friends or family on trips throughout the United States and to visit host families in Morocco, Russia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Hungary, Scotland, and others.
Mariett Ayers Eggleston, W’58, of Midlothian, Virginia, Jan. 25, 2024. She led Monacan High School’s math department from the 1980s until her retirement in 2002. She was a docent at the Virginia Governor’s Mansion, played in the St. Luke
bell choir, delivered Meals on Wheels, and chaired the Richmond Tri-Club women’s club.
Edward L. Felton Jr., R’58, of Scottsdale, Arizona, Dec. 16, 2023. He earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University and taught at the graduate business schools at Harvard, University of Virginia, Wake Forest University (where he was dean), Samford University, and the College of William & Mary. He received many teaching awards, authored or coauthored 12 books, and wrote more than 300 articles and management case studies. He led teams that established international business schools in the Philippines, Iran, Central America, Pakistan, and the Dominican Republic. He also did private consulting for many types of industries, institutions, and organizations such as the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.
Gary W. Grove, B’58, of Midlothian, Virginia, Oct. 31, 2023. He was vice president of benefits at Marriott Corp. and was known for his dedication and hard work. He loved reading different versions of the Bible and listening to favorite pastors on television.
John S. “Jack” Harvie III, R’58, of Henrico, Virginia, March 17, 2024. He worked for the Department of Defense for more than 30 years and was a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. For eight years, he served on the Chesterfield County, Virginia, school board.
Edwina Knipling Lake, W’58, of Leesburg, Virginia, Jan. 10, 2024. After teaching and traveling where her engineer husband’s career took them, she and her family settled in Alexandria, Virginia. There, she worked as a writer, researcher, and editor on federal projects related to teacher staff development, ethnic heritage, and competency-based vocational education. She was an advocate for mental health issues and in 1998 received the J.C. Penney Golden Rule Award for Community Service. As secretary and business manager for her family’s real estate partnership, she typed and edited more than 30 scientific papers on insect control.
James A. DeVoe, R’59, of Henrico, Virginia, Feb. 5, 2024. He loved sports, especially golf. He had a strong faith and dedicated time to All Saints Episcopal Church, leading the youth group and serving as a vestryman and Sunday school teacher.
Henry E. “Ed” Robertson Jr., B’59, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, Dec. 14, 2023. He served in the National Guard for eight years and was employed by many companies as an accountant. His best career memories came from working for the Richmond Metropolitan Authority and Virginia Mutual Insurance.
Lionel “Lonnie” Shorr, R’59, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jan. 4, 2024. Born in North Carolina and raised in Baltimore, he was captain of the UR tennis team. He found his calling as a stand-up
comedian, delighting audiences from small venues to Las Vegas showrooms to the New Orleans Superdome. He appeared on national television more than 300 times, including on The Tonight Show, Showtime, and more than 100 times on The Merv Griffin Show. Griffin said Lonnie never let down an audience, calling him, “the best.”
’60s
H. Scott Kirby, R’60, of Altoona, Wisconsin, Jan. 22, 2024. Ordained a priest in 1963, he served various Episcopal churches as canon, priest, dean, rector, and resident director. He also served as chaplain of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Police Department and Civil Air Patrol, a development consultant of St. Francis Academy, chair of longrange planning for the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire, and a member or dean of many other committees and boards. Among his many awards was the Distinguished Alumni Award from the General Theological Seminary in New York City.
George C. Longest, R’60 and G’61, of Richmond, Virginia, March 11, 2024. He taught English at Virginia Commonwealth University for 40 years, during which he published books and wrote and edited many articles and anthologies. He received his greatest fulfillment, however, from classroom teaching. He could quote from almost any work in the English language, played piano beautifully, and knew and appreciated classical music and jazz.
Archibald “Archie” McRainey, B’60, of Scottsdale, Arizona, Dec. 7, 2023. He served four years in the U.S. Navy. After graduation from UR, he began a career in finance in Richmond, working for various federal agencies until his retirement.
William L. Brame, B’61, of Burlington, North Carolina, Dec. 12, 2023. He was part of the U.S. Army’s occupying forces in Japan in 1946. He retired from General Electric as a supervisor of production control. At GE, he was involved with the Apollo moon landings and the Skylab space station. He was a Mason for 50 years and loved camping, water skiing, hunting, fishing, and boating.
Joseph S. Brown III, R’61, of Wake, Virginia, March 1, 2024. After working for several insurance companies, he founded his own agency, InSouth, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He began a “servant garden” in his yard to donate produce to those unable to purchase fresh vegetables. After he expanded the concept to his church, the gardens produced several thousand pounds of produce each growing season for donation.
Judith “Judy” VanderBoegh Carroll, W’61, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, Dec. 28, 2023. She was a microbiologist for the Commonwealth of Virginia, earning national honors for her expertise in microbiology/bacteriology, quality assurance, safety, and public health. Her efforts were instru-
mental in establishing testing capabilities for the detection of biological threat agents and the use of molecular genetic testing to better understand the spread of disease.
Janet Harwood Collins, W’61, of Murfreesboro, North Carolina, Jan. 14, 2024. She was a professor and coach for Chowan University. She was at various times responsible for women’s basketball, softball, volleyball, and intramurals. After 1978, she focused mainly on volleyball, recording many winning seasons and coaching three All-Americans and two Academic All-Americans. The Chowan Sports Hall of Fame inducted her in 1991, and in 1994, she received the Governor’s Award of Excellence for Coaching and Administration.
David T. De Jan, R’61, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 18, 2023. He was an educator in the Richmond Public Schools and a member of First Baptist Church. He served in the Army Reserves, was heavily involved with Boy Scouts of America, and was past master of Northside Masonic Lodge 292.
Theodore C. Koeppe Jr., R’61, of Mechanicsville, Virginia, Dec. 12, 2023. He had a passion for music since childhood and was one of two elementary school students invited to perform in the Virginia All-State String Orchestra. He worked 35 years with Safeway Stores, retiring in 1993. His passion for music extended to country and bluegrass, and he possessed a beautiful singing voice.
Carl F. Langley Jr., R’61, of Lexington, Kentucky, April 10, 2023. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and was director of case goods at Hill-Rom. He also was an industrial engineer and an avid golfer, and he loved writing poetry.
Richard S. Rose, R’61, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 13, 2023. He became a retail entrepreneur, starting as a furniture salesman and eventually opening a chain of 20 home furnishings, electronics, and appliance stores in central and southwest Virginia and North Carolina. The stores led him to start other businesses, and he became a partner/ franchisee of wheel and tire stores.
James R. Arnold Sr., B’62, of East Petersburg, Pennsylvania, Dec. 20, 2023. He served in the U.S. Navy and the Navy Reserve. He was a construction accountant for Alcoa, a budget and cost manager for Cole Steel, a plant manager and vice president for Spiegel/Bogene Cos., an executive vice president for Suburban Publishers, and vice president and secretary/treasurer (CFO) for Turkey Hill Dairy.
William G. Boice, L’63, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 5, 2023. He practiced law in a variety of public and private settings and was a partner in the firm Tidey & Boice. He later served as a Henrico County juvenile and domestic relations judge for 25 years. He helped create the Henrico court-appointed special advocates program. He was an active member of Trinity United Methodist Church and served as chair of the board of trustees.
Mary Anne Lewis Currey, W’63, of Williamsburg, Virginia, Dec. 4, 2023. She worked many years and retired from the Virginia Employment Commission as a counselor.
Mary Jane Gregg Shand, W’63, of Columbia, South Carolina, Jan. 22, 2024. She retired from A.G. Edwards as a registered sales assistant. She was a member of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Rome, Georgia, for 30 years and of Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, where she served on the Altar Guild. She volunteered for many years at Providence Hospital.
Harvey L. “Bubba” Crone, attd. ’64, of Mechanicsville, Virginia, Feb. 17, 2024. He coached basketball at Benedictine and Hermitage high schools and was principal of Hermitage Technical Center from 1984 to 2000. The Virginia Career Education Foundation inducted him into the Virginia Career and Technical Education Hall of Fame in 2015. He later served on the board of Soar365 and was an emeritus member of the Henrico County Career and Technical Education Business Council. He transformed his passion for music into a successful avocation as a DJ for 30 years.
Rita Davis Moseley, W’65, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 2, 2023. She taught Latin and English at John Marshall High School in Richmond for 30 years. She was a member of Clover Hill Baptist Church, where she served in the Golden Age Ministry, preparing food for luncheons, and as secretary of her Sunday school class.
Jane Lasley Quinn, W’65, of Culpeper, Virginia, Dec. 6, 2023. She taught social studies and worked as a librarian at New Community School in Richmond, and after moving to Culpeper, she worked in an elementary school and a bookstore. She was a member of Culpeper United Methodist Church and her local chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution.
Barry T. Roberts, R’65, of Clarksville, Virginia, July 28, 2023. He worked for Burlington Industries for 37 years and was a part-time real estate agent after retirement. He participated in many Clarksville community activities and was a founding member of the Clarksville Community Players, serving as president for several years. He actively participated in the renovation of Clarksville High School, which is now the Clarksville Fine Arts Center.
Robert W. Allen Jr., R’66, of Daleville, Virginia, Feb. 5, 2024. He served in the U.S. Army and settled in Botetourt County, Virginia, in 1980 to practice neonatology, retiring in 2009. Known as “Dr. Bob” to many, he taught Sunday school, ministered on mission trips, prayed with prison inmates, read to kindergartners, and served as an advocate for children.
Eleutherios T. Houvouras, GB’66, of Morristown, New Jersey, Jan. 19, 2024. The son of
Greek immigrants whose schooling ended after the fourth grade, he attended six universities and earned four higher degrees. He was a chemical engineer for Rohm and Haas, DuPont, and Allied Chemicals fabrics division, where he spun the first ball of Lycra. He served in the U.S. Army and was an avid reader and a lifelong member of the Order of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA). His love of learning led him to create scholarships for students and fellowships for professors at several universities.
Donald E. Koonce, B’66, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 28, 2023. A U.S. Army veteran, he worked four decades as a trust officer at First & Merchants Bank of Richmond, which eventually became Bank of America. A member of Reveille United Methodist Church, he is remembered for his devotion to his family.
Jerry M. Walters, R’66, of North Prince George, Virginia, Feb. 19, 2024. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S Army Reserves. He was an adolescent program director at Poplar Springs Hospital and director of social work services and dialysis social work for Petersburg General Hospital and Southside Regional Hospital. He owned Child and Family Counseling.
Russell S. “Russ” Wood, GB’66, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, Feb. 1, 2024. He enjoyed a long career as an engineer at DuPont and Virginia Power, retiring from both companies. He was a proud Acca Shriner, a member of the Mini Patrol, and a driver of his mini “Corvette.”
Jane Neely “Jenny” Wright, W’66, Woolwich, Maine, Dec. 5, 2023. She taught physical education and earned a master’s in special education. She was known for teaching by example with patience, curiosity, persistence, and kind reinforcement. She spent 23 summers at Camp Wawenock in Raymond, Maine, which inspired her life and provided a profound sense of joy, meaning, and refuge.
Frank O. Brooks Jr., B’67, of King William, Virginia, Feb. 13, 2024. He managed Forest Resources Management Inc. and was a forest landowner, a member of the American Tree Farm System, and treasurer of the Virginia Forestry Association. He also served on the Virginia Board of Forestry and was a member of the Society of American Foresters and the Association of Consulting Foresters, among others. He was honored as “Forestry Consultant of the Year” and was a certified forester in Virginia and Maryland.
Margaret Cridlin Moore, W’67, of Ashland, Ohio, Feb. 12, 2024. She taught piano, directed church choirs, served as a church organist, performed as a vocal soloist and accompanist, and taught music in public schools.
James T. “Jim” Cheney Jr., R’68, of Mullica Hill, New Jersey, Nov. 18, 2023. He taught history at Penns Grove Middle School for 34 years. He also
served as track and cross-country coach and was a track official for many years. He was inducted into the South Jersey Coaching Hall of Fame.
Wilson “Lee” Faris Jr., R’68, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, March 27, 2024. He worked as a kitchen designer for Lowe’s, and from 1994 to 2019, he was known as “the voice of the Cougars” as he announced every home game of the Quince Orchard High School football team. When he retired, the city of Gaithersburg designated Jan. 5 as “Lee Faris Day.” He was an avid historian, especially of the Civil War and World War II, and enjoyed hiking, camping, college football, and science fiction movies.
Linda Graham Butler, W’69, of Williamsburg, Virginia, July 10, 2023. She worked in public and private schools as a math teacher, but her ultimate passion was her family. In retirement, she enjoyed participating in activities of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Woman’s Missionary Union, and Bible study at Walnut Hills Baptist Church.
Richard A. Gottlieb, R’69, of New York, New York, Oct. 26, 2023. He was founder and CEO of Global Toy Experts, publisher of Global Toy News, and co-host of The Playground Podcast.
Frances Shiflett Seaton, W’69, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, March 14, 2024. She taught English for more than 30 years in Chesterfield County schools, and many of her students remained in touch with her through letters, lunches, and social media. She loved tradition and family gatherings, and she hand-stitched blankets and pillows that became family heirlooms.
Delmus E. “Del” Williams, R’69, of Villa Rica, Georgia, Nov. 6, 2023. He served in the U.S. Army as an armored cavalry officer, including a tour in Vietnam. He was dedicated to his work as a university librarian and to his involvement in community organizations. He served as president of the Fairfield Kiwanis and was an elder at Carrollton Presbyterian Church, where he also sang in the choir. He loved travel and taught in Lithuania as a Fulbright Fellow.
’70s
David A. Brown, G’71, of Richmond, Virginia, Feb. 21, 2024. He was employed by the Glidden Co. in Baltimore and Mobil Chemical in Ashland, Virginia. He retired from Reynolds Metals Co. He was an elder at Bethany Christian Church and a member of the American Chemical Society and the Virginia Academy of Science. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists. He loved boating and fishing on the Chesapeake Bay.
Charles F. Lincoln, L’71, of Marion, Virginia, Feb. 24, 2024. A U.S. Army veteran, he served in Vietnam, earning three Purple Hearts. He began
his law practice in 1971 and became a judge in 1999 in Smyth County. He was a member of Royal Oak Presbyterian Church.
Robert W. Traylor Jr., R’71, of Richmond, Virginia, Dec. 26, 2023. His entire career was in telecommunications. He worked for C&P of Virginia, Bell Atlantic, MCI, and Zephion Networks, retiring as vice president. He was a fan of Florida State and UR sports.
Constance “Connie” Fliess Bennington, G’72, of Henrico, Virginia, Feb. 27, 2024. A devoted teacher, she impacted countless minds with patience and compassion. She enjoyed reading, traveling, attending theater, playing tennis, and attending sporting events.
James B. “Jim” Booker, C’73, of Powhatan, Virginia, Feb. 2, 2024. A U.S. Army veteran, he retired in 2001 after serving 37 years at Reynolds Metals Co./Alcoa as a senior computer systems analyst. He enjoyed singing and gardening.
Clinton B. “CB” Faison Jr., R’73 and L’77, of Spring Grove, Virginia, Jan. 8, 2024.
Bruce F. Hubbard, R’73, of Henrico, Virginia, Feb. 6, 2024.
Agnes R. Mobley-Wynne, W’73, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Jan. 3, 2024. She taught as a master lecturer in voice at Old Dominion University for 30 years. Her students won state and regional competitions and attended multiple prestigious programs, and many continue to perform across the country. She also was artistic director for Schola Cantorum of Virginia and director of the Eastern Shore Chapel and Coastal Virginia Unitarian Universalists church choirs, and she performed as a soloist and choral singer with groups such as the Cantata Chorus, Virginia Opera, Virginia Chorale, and Virginia Symphony Chorus.
Albert L. Atkins, R’74, of Cody, Wyoming, Feb. 15, 2024. He served in the Marine Reserves, the Virginia National Guard, and the U.S. Army. He was employed by the Richmond Health Department; IBM; Owens, Minor & Bodeker; Virginia Commonwealth University; Honeywell; and Greenville Technical College, where he served as instructor and head of computer processing.
Mark T. Davis, R’74 and L’77, of Lynchburg, Virginia, March 23, 2024. He agreed to work for his dad at the family store for five years and was still there 20 years later when they sold the business. He then set out on a second career in advertising at Dayrich Enterprises, where he worked until retiring in 2011. He left behind decades of journals with travel, restaurant, movie, book, and TV reviews. He loved travel and dining in the United States and abroad and offered his family tips for living life to the fullest.
Peter B. Smith, L’74, of Henrico, Virginia, March 15, 2024. He served his entire career with the State Corporation Commission of Virginia
until his retirement as senior counsel in 2008.
James E. “Jim” Triemplar, R’74 and G’85, of Henrico, Virginia, Jan. 3, 2024. He taught math and coached at Manchester and Dinwiddie high schools, leading to employment with Atlee High School in Mechanicsville, Virginia, where he coached cross country and track and field for 25 years. His teams won numerous regional titles, and in 2011 and 2015, he led the team to the Virginia High School League Group 5A state championship. He was beloved by his athletes and their parents because he could get the best out of the students and teach them life skills that would carry them beyond their school years.
Joan DaVanzo Dobson, W’75, of Harrison Township, Michigan, Feb. 25, 2024. She was co-founder and CEO of Dobson DaVanzo & Associates, a health care finance and public health consulting firm. After college, she became the sixth woman member of the New York Stock Exchange and was a pioneer for the inclusion of women in finance. She received a master’s degree in social work and had a successful clinical practice for 10 years. Later, she worked for the Rand Corp. and earned a doctorate in public health. She contributed to the establishment of intravenous immunoglobulin therapy at home for beneficiaries with primary immunodeficiency diseases. She was a member of the “Queens,” a group of UR alumnae who “have been through it all together” and were featured on a Jane Pauley segment on women with extended friendships.
Heloise “Ginger” Bertman Levitt, G’75, of Richmond, Virginia, Jan. 11, 2024. She had a deep love of art, all things French, classical music, and her family. She began her career as a French teacher, became a local reporter on the Virginia General Assembly and regional arts, and ended her career as an art gallery owner. She broadcast the “Virginia Arts Report” on public and commercial radio stations throughout Virginia, was an art critic for two radio stations, and produced the award-winning “Virginia Women” series in conjunction with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Virginia Public Radio and Virginia News Network. She wrote about art, antiques, and travel for several publications.
Michael D. “Mike” McOsker, R’75, of Virginia Beach Virginia, Nov. 26, 2024. He sold and leased commercial real estate in Hampton Roads, Virginia, from 1987 to 2021 and was a permanent substitute teacher at First Colonial High School. He had previously worked for The Virginian-Pilot and The Daily Press newspapers. He was active in the Virginia Beach Jaycees, the Cape Henry Rotary, Lynnhaven United Methodist Church, and the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.
Guy R. Cooter, GB’76, of Danville, Virginia, Dec. 28, 2023. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he retired from the U.S. Small Business Administration and
was a past commissioner of the Central Virginia Soccer League. The league inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2007. He had a love of puns and comics and shared his opinions with the world in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Danville Register & Bee under the sobriquet “The Sage of Wynn’s Falls.” That led to a brief foray as a published nature photographer.
Mary “Missy” Keller Hatt, G’77, of Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 25, 2023. She was a proud educator and retired from Highlands Middle School in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, after 43 years of teaching. She loved to cook and read, and her talent for sewing led her to operate the Flag Collection, where she created decorative flags.
Ann Lynette Moore, C’77, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, March 28, 2024. She worked in accounting and bookkeeping, winning many awards for her exemplary service.
David V. Snyder, R’77 and GB’88, of Richmond, Virginia, March 8, 2024. He retired from Honeywell after a 42-year career with the company. He was a devoted husband and father and enjoyed his friends, especially sailing with them. He was a lifelong Presbyterian, an advocate for the environment, and a supporter of the Richmond Folk Festival.
Bruce P. Ganey, L’78, of Mechanicsville, Virginia, Jan. 1, 2024. He practiced law in Hanover County, Virginia, up until his death. He was an avid runner and sports fan, and he enjoyed time with family. He was a devout Catholic and a member of Church of the Redeemer.
Elizabeth Spindler Scott, G’78 and G’85, of Richmond, Virginia, Feb. 2, 2024. She taught 28 years as an adjunct professor of English and humanities at UR’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies, where a faithful group of students, “Bettyites,” took every class she offered, regardless of the subject. Her classes included Medieval symbology, semiotics, English composition, and Jane Austen. She was a two-time recipient of the SPCS’s Distinguished Faculty Award. She traveled extensively in England, France, and Italy, where she co-led university trips and lectured during the tours.
’80s
William H. Bartlett, C’80, of Mechanicsville, Virginia, March 4, 2024. He worked 30 years for Reynolds Metals, mostly as a transportation manager. He was a member of the Richmond Transportation Club and later retired from Menlo Logistics. He loved to travel, and in retirement, he and his wife visited all 50 states and their capitals, as well as Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Germany, and many other countries.
Rachel “Beth” Bowman Anderson, W’81, of
Glen Allen, Virginia, March 7, 2024. She was a loving and selfless wife, mother, and friend. Her passion for volunteering kept her busy with vacation Bible school, Girl Scouts, high school marching band, and teaching Sunday school.
Vickie “Victoria” Stender Oakley, W’82, of Richmond, Virginia, Jan. 8, 2024. She taught Title I reading in the Richmond Public Schools and later moved into administration as assistant principal, principal, director of instruction, and assistant superintendent of instruction. She held leadership roles in the Virginia State Reading Association.
Henry N. “Harry” Ware Jr., L’83, of Dunnsville, Virginia, Jan. 2, 2024. He enjoyed a 40-year career in law, first at McGuireWoods, then at his own firm with partner Gary Cook. He joined Spotts Fain as one of the firm’s early partners, where he was a leader and trusted mentor for more than 20 years. He was on the board and a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation and was chair of the Virginia Bar Association’s civil litigation section and corporate counsel section. Virginia Lawyers Weekly inducted him into its Leaders of the Law in 2023.
Lawrence R. “Larry” Salzman, L’84, of Williamsburg, Virginia, March 16, 2024. He spent his career in the commercial real estate business, dedicating much of the past 25 years to the development of New Town in Williamsburg.
’90s
Elizabeth Nause Wagner, L’91, of White Stone, Virginia, Dec. 3, 2023. She began her career as an English professor at various Richmond colleges and high schools. As a lawyer, she worked on two U.S. Supreme Court cases: the landmark U.S. v. Virginia and U.S. v. Morrison. She was proud of her work in civil rights, gender antidiscrimination, and employment law. Later relocating to Virginia’s Northern Neck, she was active in her church, volunteering with the buildings and grounds crew.
Faith E. Kelleher, L’92, of Charlotte, North Carolina, Jan. 18, 2024. She worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and then, after law school, focused her practice on insurance defense and estate planning. She also served those unable to afford legal representation through courtappointed assignments.
Joseph A. Burnett, L’95, of Henrico, Virginia, Aug. 15, 2021.
’00s
Krystal L. Cunningham Anderson, ’05, of Leawood, Kansas, March 20, 2024. She was a software engineer at Oracle Health, making significant contributions to improving health care, including receiving a patent for developing software that assesses the risk of postpartum hemorrhage. She
was a UR and Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader and a yoga instructor. She also was passionate about philanthropy and worked with Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Kansas City and others.
Peter K. Opper, L’05, of Henrico, Virginia, Nov. 24, 2023. He earned four graduate degrees and taught history as a visiting professor at North Carolina Central University and the University of Kentucky, where he earned an award for excellence in teaching. He made a career change and became a clinical supervisor at Jewish Family Services in Richmond, later becoming executive director. After earning a law degree, he spent the latter years of his career as an attorney with the Virginia Department of Health Professions. He ran 45 full marathons, including the Boston Marathon twice.
Kevin J. Cronin, ’07, of Yonkers, New York, Dec. 11, 2023. His career was at the forefront of digital marketing in Manhattan, where he represented such clients as Exxon Mobil, the U.S. Postal Service, Hershey’s, and AT&T.
’20s
Christopher G. Elvin Jr., ’26, of Newark, New Jersey, March 21, 2024. He was a lifelong learner who attended an independent boarding school with the help of the Wright Foundation. There, he flourished and changed the trajectory of his life. He found new interests such as sports, photography, and the Mandarin language. At UR, he joined the Ultimate Frisbee team and the weightlifting club. He traveled to Taiwan for a Mandarin intensive. He planned to major in business administration with a minor in Chinese studies, and he served as president of the West Indian Lynk, which allowed him to bring his fellow Caribbean students together.
FACULTY, STAFF, AND FRIENDS
James N. “Jim” Atkins of North Chesterfield, Virginia, Jan. 10, 2024. He worked in university facilities from 1990 to 2016. During his years of employment, he held a variety of roles, including building maintenance technician, carpenter, and locksmith. He attended Virginia Military Institute and was an avid fan of college sports. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves for six years.
Iulia Scurtu Demian of Henrico, Virginia, Jan. 12, 2024. A native of Moldova, she lived in Romania and Germany before coming to the United States. She was a research chemist at A.H. Robins and then a production chemist at B.I. Chemicals. In retirement, she enjoyed taking courses and studying philosophy and art history at UR through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Robison B. “Rob” James of Henrico, Virginia, Feb. 8, 2024. He joined the UR faculty in 1962 and
taught courses in biblical scholarship, theology, and ethics until his retirement in 2000. A lifelong academic interest in the theology of Paul Tillich resulted in the publication of more than 50 articles and books, including Tillich and World Religions. He served as president of the North American Paul Tillich Society. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates for four terms and authored a pamphlet, “The Ethics of Politics,” and urged students to debate thorny questions such a how to engage in ethical compromise. His passion for music led him to join a Dixieland band of UR professors, the Doctors of Jazz, in which he played for 40 years.
Daniel P. Jordan of Charlottesville, Virginia, March 21, 2024. He taught history at the university early in his career. He also chaired the history department at Virginia Commonwealth University and served as president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello. Under his leadership, the foundation created an endowment of more than $200 million, built the Thomas Jefferson Library, purchased historic Montalto mountain, established the Thomas Jefferson Parkway and walking trail, and began countless educational programs.
Robert C. King Jr. of Glen Allen, Virginia, Feb. 24, 2024. He was dedicated to the Richmond community through volunteer work with Kiwanis, Tuckahoe Rescue Squad, Fork Union Military Academy, and Berea Baptist Church. He was a member of the Spider Club board of directors.
Elaine Mateyka of Henrico Virginia, Feb 12, 2024. She turned her love of reading into a profession as a librarian for Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Richmond, where she served from 1998 to 2005. She also was the first librarian at Old Salem Museums and Gardens in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Elaine Fairbairn Traynelis-Yurek of ManakinSabot, Virginia, Jan. 27, 2024. She joined the UR faculty in the department of education and taught from 1980 to 2000, rising to the rank of professor and chair. After retiring from UR, she taught at Widener University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Mary Baldwin College and advised multiple schools in the Richmond area until she fully retired in 2017. Her personal life centered on faith and family.
Nancy E. Vick of Richmond Virginia, Dec. 18, 2023. She loved working with children and pursued a career in education as a librarian and English teacher at the middle and high school levels. She joined the UR staff in 1989 as a library associate, working until her retirement in 2004.
By Matthew Dewald
GRACE MITTL, ’22, AND ELI BANK, ’22, put off more traditional career paths to chase a start-up dream. As students, they led the creation of Absurd Snacks (absurdsnacks.com) during the Bench Top Innovations course. (Read more about it in sidebar, Page 41.) Two years later, they’re building the business with savvy, hard work, and ongoing support from the university.
How it started (2021–22)
• … in Bench Top Innovations, a course in which students launch a start-up from concept to market.
• … in small groups developing concepts and recipes for snack products in eight test kitchen sessions.
• … with Mittl’s group winning the fall semester Great Bake-off with a concept for a trail mix free of common allergens.
• … with the class coming together spring semester as one product team and Mittl being named CEO and Bank COO. … with the launch of Absurd Snacks in spring 2022, fulfilling
How it’s going (2024)
• Absurd Snacks recently earned placement in Whole Foods throughout the mid-Atlantic region, jumping from 23 to 55 stores.
• They’re also in mid-Atlantic independent cafés and markets.
• They completed an agreement with a food service provider to supply snacks to corporate offices (hint, hint, alumni in the mid-Atlantic).
• Mittl and Bank are Start-up in Residence at the Robins School of Business. The role comes with opportunities to mentor current students, speak in classes, and contribute to building entrepreneurialism on campus. They also hire UR students as interns, judge pitch competitions, and more.
is doing a tremendous job
ofbuildingoutits entrepreneurship
t founded businesses. l d acrosscampus.We have a strong iversity
“My experience at University of Richmond shaped my life and career. We decided to include Richmond in our will to enable young adults to have access to a life-changing education while making a difference in the community.”
— Dr. John Bistline, R’77
DR. JOHN BISTLINE AND DR. KAY BISTLINE ARE CREATING THEIR LEGACY by providing for the next generation of Spiders. Their bequest to support students involved in civic engagement will have a lasting impact at Richmond and in our community.
There are many ways you can make a meaningful gift that don’t require you to part with your assets today. We’re here to help! Learn more about gift planning options by contacting Jessica Will, director of gift planning, at jessica.will@richmond.edu, 804-287-1864, or giving.richmond.edu/types-of-gifts/planned
