Io Triumphe! Spring-Summer 2016

Io Triumphe!

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF ALBION COLLEGE

PATHWAYS OF POTENTIAL The Albion River Trail extension and the power of partnership

INSIDE 18 Phyllis Harrison-Ross, ’56: Her Impactful, Inspiring Career 22 Music Makers, Both Behind the Scenes and On Stage 26 Three Families, Eight Generations, One Albion Legacy

VOL. LXXXI, NO. 1

SPRING-SUMMER 2016

D. TRUMPIE PHOTO

Contents

SPRING-SUMMER 2016

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Features POSSIBILITIES BY THE MILE The Albion River Trail expansion will link to major hiking/cycling routes and offer potential for deeper connections.

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A LIFETIME OF IMPROVING LIVES 18 Esteemed New York psychiatrist Phyllis Harrison-Ross, ’56, reflects on her remarkable— and continuing—career.

BEHIND THE MUSIC 22 The Gilmore’s Dan Gustin, ’63, has got a gig in Kalamazoo quite unlike any other in the biz.

Plus: Catching up with Less Is More.

OF LEGACY, LAND, AND LOVE Now in its eighth generation, the Bibbins-Dean-Lange extended family weaves throughout the history of a place called Albion.

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Departments BRITON BITS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS

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ALBIONOTES 37 THE BACK PAGE

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26 ON THE COVER: Alena Farooq, ’18 (left), and Danielle Nelson, ’17, stand along the Albion River Trail in Rieger Park. The students have been instrumental as the City of Albion and the College move forward on future recreational initiatives.

Cover photo: Freeland Photography

BRITON BITS

B. REED PHOTO

Mapping Our Path The end of an inspiring academic year came at a time of exciting new beginnings for Albion College.

By now, many of you may know about the capital projects that have taken shape conceptually over the last couple of years.

Now, earth is being moved to make way for the Davis Athletic Complex that will greatly enhance our soccer, lacrosse, baseball, and softball programs.

A new, much larger indoor riding arena is being constructed at the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center that will attract regional horse shows and thousands of visitors to the City of Albion. And Munger Place is receiving a thorough update of its inner workings as it gets ready to host our new living-and-learning community where teams of students will discuss and engage in project ideas around common themes that will enhance their learning in the classroom.

That’s just on campus. Downtown, a pair of undertakings initiated by fellow Brit Sam Shaheen, ’88, will be important steps in our City’s revitalization and our College’s evolution that follow the successful (and beautiful) Bohm Theatre renovation. The Ludington Center—honoring Jack, ’51, and Dorothy, ’51, and their children Thomas, ’76, Laura, ’78, and Annie, ’82—at 101 N. Superior St. will more fully immerse Albion College within the Albion community; two blocks south, a Courtyard Marriott hotel will be able to accommodate all those equestrian

participants, College visitors, and others who may be swinging through town. Some of them will be hikers and cyclists spending the night after arriving here via an expanded Albion recreational trail that connects with regional and national networks (page 10).

Additionally, a recent major gift by Michael, ’85, and Judy, ’86, Harrington will pave the way for more faculty and staff to live in our town and near our campus. This will further enable those serendipitous and memorable moments of “accidental learning” that is a hallmark of the best small residential colleges. Albion has been part of that group through the decades (affirmed yet again by the alumni stories you’ll read in this issue) and we will build upon that distinction in the years ahead, on four pillars the College has established as the foundation of its new strategic plan, developed over the last year from conversations on campus, in our City, and with our alumni around the world. The plan is receiving its finishing touches, but I can share now that Albion College will: • Focus on the intentional integration of knowledge; • Build an open, diverse, and inclusive College community; • Forge sustainable local partnerships and global collaborations; and • Exercise effective stewardship of all resources.

More than 200 people gathered in downtown Albion on the morning of May 12 for the groundbreaking of the new Courtyard Marriott hotel. Construction is scheduled to begin in August with a projected opening in Fall 2017. Participating in the shovel ceremony were, from left to right, Peggy Sindt, ’73, president and CEO of Albion Economic Development Corp.; Albion City Manager Sheryl Mitchell; Albion Mayor Joseph Domingo; President Mauri Ditzler; Robert Mahaney, ’80, president of Veridea Group, which will operate the hotel; Emily Petz of Michigan Economic Development Corp.; and project developer Sam Shaheen, ’88.

As we welcome the Class of 2020 this fall, Albion is poised and well positioned to be an exemplary private, residential undergraduate liberal arts college that provides an innovative and demonstrative education for each and every student. If pride in our accomplishments and sense of place over 181 years has been a compass for us, these four pillars will serve as our GPS toward future achievements. I hope you will join us on the journey!

Mauri Ditzler President

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BRITON BITS

Toast of the Crowd So Quinn created Read Between the Wines, a card game that includes phrases and terms that, Quinn says, is best played with at least four people and four different types of wine per round.

Players sample the wine and write down answers to the theme card they drew that explains what the wine tastes like. For example, “If this wine had a job, what would it do?”

Audra Quinn, ’03 The first game was called Read Between the Wines.

The new game is called Brew Ha Ha! And the third game, currently in the midst of some serious research and development, is called Whiskey Business.

Sense a theme?

Audra Quinn, ’03, laughs. She knows how it looks.

But the Royal Oak, Michigan, native who started a company in her spare time, called Uncorked! Games, isn’t as interested in alcohol and the

consumption thereof as she is camaraderie and fun.

An English and communication studies major with a journalism minor at Albion who now writes full-time for a mutual fund company in Los Angeles, Quinn dreamed up Uncorked!

Games after visiting a Traverse City winery.

“There’s so much comedy in the lofty way people talk about wine,” Quinn says. “There is a level of snootiness about wine.

You can say anything about wine and you’re not going to be wrong.”

The game was introduced in 2014 and, through the website Kickstarter, she raised $28,000 to market it. Quinn’s efforts led to Read Between the Wines’ inclusion in 2015 holiday shopping guides on Forbes.com and The Huffington Post.

She is using a similar crowdfunding template with Brew Ha Ha!, a game focusing on craft beer.

“You can make it happen with the power of the crowd,” Quinn says, adding about her latest creation, “It’s fun for people who don’t know that much about beer. It’s a minimum of four beers to sample and no more than six because we want people to drive home safely.”

— Chuck Carlson

CORRECTION On page 32 of the Fall-Winter 2015-16 edition, a photo caption incorrectly identified two people. The daughters pictured in the 1989 Ferguson Dance Studio dedication ceremony are, from left to right, Ellen Keleman, ’80, Laura Ferguson, and Joanne Gerrish, ’89. We sincerely regret the error.

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A CHANGE IN COURSE

Dana Lee, ’02 (left), at the 40th annual Atlanta Film Festival in April.

For Dana Lee, it really was a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

“I needed to do some new things,” says Lee, ’02, who in 2013 learned from some friends where she was living in Atlanta that they were making a film about the origins of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

“They said, ‘We really want to get this off the ground and we need a writer,’” explains Lee, who has a master’s in education from Harvard. “I’d never done this and I’d never been a professional writer. I told them I didn’t know if I’d be any good. But it was one of those times in my life when you raise your hand and say, ‘I’ll try to help.’”

Nearly three years later, the results are there for all to see.

The Founders, a documentary about the 13 women who formed the LPGA in 1950, is making the rounds of the film festival circuit.

It was the Audience Award Feature winner at the recent Atlanta Film Festival, where it received its world premiere, and it was also shown at the Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas, hosted by actress Geena Davis.

Lee, who wrote a compelling blog post about notoriously hard-to-reach Founder Louise Suggs on the film’s website, says plans are in the works to screen the picture this fall at Albion’s Bohm Theatre. It would be a homecoming for the Wixom, Michigan, native, who graduated with degrees in English and French from Albion. Watch the trailer at www.thefoundersfilm.com.

Micro Probe, Macro Program

Albion’s Bridge to Canada Dennis Moore, ’70, knows what many Americans think of Canadians—or at least think they know.

Ola Olapade became a member of the Albion College faculty in 2006.

It was a year that provided new Albion students with an opportunity to get dirty—literally. And it’ll happen all over again come August.

In a First-Year Seminar last fall, biology professor and department chair Ken Saville and associate biology professor Ola Olapade offered 32 students a chance to find and analyze bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria.

Their study of phages, which are found in moist soil nearly everywhere in the country, is being funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland. Overall, the program known as SEA-PHAGES, shorthand for Science Education Alliance–Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science, includes more than 80 universities and colleges in the U.S., including Albion.

Saville, Olapade, and technician Kurt Hellman traveled to Maryland last summer for a week of training in the class and research that they would present to a group of unsuspecting freshmen.

“Some of the students had [Advanced Placement] biology in high school, so they knew a little about what was happening,” Olapade says. “But some had no idea. I think most of the students enjoyed it.”

Students went around campus—from places as wide-ranging as the Whitehouse Nature Center to Wesley Hall—several times during the semester to gather soil samples to analyze for phages.

Saville taught one class of 16 students in the morning and Olapade had another group of 16 in the afternoon. Last spring, Saville taught a class about the results of what the fall-semester classes had uncovered. This fall, with Saville on sabbatical, Olapade will teach the class again as part of Albion’s First-Year Experience.

Olapade says the class was offered the first time to answer the questions science is supposed to answer.

“It’s to answer the ‘Why?’ question,” he says. “It’s to answer the ‘How?’ question. We see this as a continuing program. It’s a selling point.”

He understands Canadians in ways many Americans do not, but the Detroit native who lives in Dearborn learned early on how every situation is rarely as it seems. And he credits Albion College, where he majored in speech and English, for helping him realize that.

Dennis Moore, ’70 (left), with Canadian Consul General Douglas George (center) and Patrick McLean, director of the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Leadership in Public Policy and Service. On April 6, George delivered an address titled “Canada and the United States: Allies, Partners, and Friends” in the Kellogg Center’s Gerstacker Commons.

Unfailingly nice. Agonizingly polite.

Thoroughly fair, even when they have absolutely no reason to be.

Moore, who has worked as the public affairs officer with the Consulate General of Canada in Detroit since 1995, says those characterizations of Canadians aren’t wrong.

But, as with nearly everything else, there is much more to it.

“Canadians tend to be nice people,” he says. “They don’t get upset. It’s part of the British tradition. But what often surprises Americans is that not only are they polite, but they are very resolute, very determined in their relationship with us to be fair, that decisions are suitable for both America and Canada. Canadians are resolute in seeking outcomes that are good for their citizens.”

Moore has seen all of this firsthand in his position helping the Canadian Consul General work with the United States on trade, cultural issues, border security, and other concerns.

“Albion prepared me to be flexible enough to adapt to situations,” he says. “That’s the key to a liberal arts education. When things change, as they must, you’re prepared for them.”

Indeed, the well-traveled Moore was prepared—to gather Army intelligence in Vietnam; earn a master’s in theater from the University of Michigan; work in a theater in England; traverse Italy and Greece; spend time as a radio reporter in the Upper Peninsula; and even try higher education fundraising before joining Canada’s diplomatic service.

“I did stuff I never, ever knew I was going to do,” says Moore, adding that he was also ordained online as a minister and has married three couples, including his daughter.

His experiences also allowed him to help bring a little bit of Canada to Albion in April, when he coordinated with Ford Institute Director Patrick McLean and others on events highlighting the unique U.S.-Canada relationship. They included a talk and presentation by explorers and filmmakers Gary and Joanie McGuffin, longtime friends of Richard Wells, ’67, and a formal address by Canadian Consul General Douglas George.

The hope is to make such visits an annual event. “Albion is an influential part of the state and getting to know [Michigan] is important for Canada,” Moore says.

“Albion is a great place to do that.”

—Chuck Carlson

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BRITON BITS

Albion 24/7

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AmeriCorps VISTA members are arriving in Albion this summer and will work with the City and College over the next three years to boost economic development, education, and health initiatives. “It is another step in a positive direction of College and community partnership,” says Andrew French, the College’s director of community action and special assistant to the president.

$335,000

The Big Read returns!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is the book of choice for this October as Albion receives National Endowment for the Arts funding for the second straight year.

Visit www.albionbigread.org for all the info.

from the New York-based Teagle Foundation is enabling Albion and five other Midwest liberal arts colleges to team-teach courses that combine the best approaches in the classroom as well as online. Marcy Sacks (History) and Heather Betz (Kinesiology) are among the first professors to collaborate in the multicampus course offerings made possible by the grant.

career goals by Cameron Braun, ’16 (left), is tops for Briton men’s lacrosse, which completed back-to-back MIAA regular-season and tournament championships this spring.

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degrees and mostly sunny skies greeted graduates and their guests at Commencement on May 7.

Noted surgeon and medical researcher Dr. Robert Bartlett, ’60, gave the address to the Class of 2016, who were led in the Processional by flag bearer Sarah McDaniel, ’16 (right).

20,000

149

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square feet in the form of a fully renovated 101 N. Superior St. will give the College a distinct presence in the heart of downtown before the end of the year. Dedicated space will be given to College entities that directly work with the Albion community, including the Build Albion Fellows program, which welcomed its second incoming class in April.

If you had no commitments the next day and were entirely free to plan your own day, what time would you get up?

Beyer: 7:45-9:45 a.m. “Ideally, I would wake up and make breakfast, go work out, and spend the rest of my day lounging or finishing up work.”

You have to do two hours of physically hard work. If you were entirely free to plan your day, when would you do the work?

Beyer: 8-10 a.m. “I would much rather get it out of the way early.”

You have a two-hour test today, which you know will be mentally exhausting. If you were entirely free to choose, when would you take it?

Beyer: 3-5 p.m. “That way I can go home and relax after and not worry about having wasted my day.”

If you were entirely free to plan your evening and had no commitments the next day, when would you go to bed?

Beyer: 1:45-3 a.m. “My mind is always working.”

MORNING COFFEE OR MIDNIGHT OIL? At Albion, early birds and night owls take flight.

College students like Kristen Beyer, ’17, learn who they want to become, but they also learn what avian creature they are now.

The day-night dynamic is a research focus for psychology professor Mareike Wieth, who continues to receive global media attention for her 2011 study that found night

owls may actually be more creative while the sun is up (and after dark for early birds).

From a short quiz, Beyer discovered she was a bit of a winged hybrid. A few of her answers are above. Which are you? Take the quiz and find out (and learn more about Wieth’s work) at www.albion.edu/iotriumphe.

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BRITON BITS

Redefining Win, Place, and Show

By Randi Heathman, ’03 Kjirsten Sneed Lee, ’11, didn’t simply introduce herself to then-Held Equestrian Center Director George Halkett in 2007. She leaped onto the running board of his truck as he drove through the parking lot at the United States Pony Club Championships in Kentucky.

It tells a lot about the way she lives her life.

Boldly. Unafraid of risk. Determined to make things happen.

It also explains how a girl from Washburn, Wisconsin, who dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, took a few French courses during her first year at Albion and dove headlong into a French major with the goal of attending law school. And how this spring, even as she maintains a full-time career as an equine attorney in Minneapolis, she recently joined the thousands of horse trainers who are preparing former racehorses for second careers as part of the Retired Racehorse Project (RRP).

It isn’t a typical path for a practicing lawyer, nor is it the usual route chosen by a lot of riders. But for Lee, it’s the right one because it’s unconventional.

It’s also a logical road for the girl who was so horsecrazy as a second-grader that her enthusiasm led to her first riding lessons, and to her mother cofounding a pony club in their area. The club and her experiences with Eli, her first horse and—as fate would have it—a retired racer, cemented her affection for the Thoroughbred.

“In all the horses I’ve ridden, I always come back to the Thoroughbreds because of the level of partnership that comes from a relationship with them,” Lee says.

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It was another retired racehorse, Gobain, adopted in 2014 from CANTER Michigan (a nonprofit agency dedicated to matching retired racehorses with new owners and careers), who provided stress relief during her time at the Michigan State University College of Law. Then the publicity achieved by Icabad Crane, thirdplace finisher in the 2008 Preakness Stakes and winner of the 2014 RRP competition for “Most Wanted Thoroughbred” under equestrian Olympian Phillip Dutton, inspired her to take her passion for the breed to the next level.

“It struck me as brilliant, the way that this organization was able to promote [off-the-track Thoroughbreds] as sport and recreational riding horses and educate people at the same time,” Lee says. “I was pretty much hooked. I have wanted to be a part of it in the years since, but haven’t had the opportunity until now.”

Enter Flat Out Nice (better known as Roz), a six-year-old mare who raced as recently as February and whom Lee acquired in March.

She plans to compete with Roz at RRP’s annual Thoroughbred Makeover competition in Kentucky this October in the disciplines of dressage and eventing.

Says Lee of her choice: “When I spoke to the seller, she told me how quiet and sensible Roz was, and how sweet and personable. So [my trainer and I] did something we’d said we wouldn’t: we scheduled a pre-purchase and bought a horse off a video and our faith in her good attitude. It was a bit of a gamble, but so far it’s paying off.”

Still, taking a horse trained its entire life to run as fast as it can and teaching it to perform the more controlled movements of dressage, as well as demonstrate the balance and control required to jump fences, isn’t an easy task.

“These first few months between now and the Makeover are all about building her confidence and developing a relationship where she feels secure and that she can trust her rider,” Lee

A. OTTERSON PHOTO

AN EQUESTRIAN ALUMNA FINDS FAST REWARDS WITH THE RETIRED RACEHORSE PROJECT.

Kjirsten Sneed Lee, ’11, with Roz, who raced under the name Flat Out Nice.

says. “Long term, we will see what she is best suited for and make every effort to help her go in that direction.”

Lee credits Albion and the liberal arts for giving her the perspective she now applies to both the practice of law and the training of horses.

“I knew I would be able to do these things because my education showed me that I wasn’t boxed into a specific path,” she says. “Helping [Roz] navigate a new career is as rewarding for me as helping a client navigate the intricacies of a boarding contract.”

Follow Lee and Roz’s journey on the Facebook page “Flat Out Nice – 2016 RRP Thoroughbred Makeover Contestant.”

Also on Facebook, follow the construction this summer of the new indoor arena at the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center. Visit the page “Albion College Equestrian.”

Two Minutes with . . .

GEOFF COCKS

Over spring break, the European history professor reflected on 41 years of teaching, pick-up basketball, and Stanley Kubrick (of course).

Io Triumphe!: Let’s look ahead before looking back. You’re starting your retirement chapter in California, but technically you’ll be on sabbatical this fall.

What’s next?

Cocks: I have a project, a coauthored book on the image of the Nazi in American movies. I’ve already written a couple of chapters.

I’ve also been asked to write a couple of chapters for a German book on the history of German psychosomatic medicine, which returns me to my dissertation, the history of psychotherapy in Nazi Germany. And this summer, I’ve been asked to be on a panel on Kubrick at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco as part of a Kubrick exhibit on tour.

The New York Times in 1985 said Psychotherapy in the Third Reich was “a valuable study in an area previously neglected.”

Just how did you arrive at your dissertation topic?

I was introduced to psychoanalysis at Occidental College by an historian who said, “If we’re going to understand history, we have to understand people’s unconscious, their emotions, what drives them, their own family history, conflicts,” and so forth.

The key was that the [Nazi German] psychotherapists had the advantage of a relative of [Hermann] Göring. I remember the time and the place when I discovered this: I was eating my lunch in the sixth sub-basement of the neuropsychiatric library at the UCLA School of Medicine, when I noticed a short run of journals from 1928 to 1939, the Central Journal for Psychotherapy in German. I opened one, and on the frontispiece was a picture of a Professor Matthias Heinrich Göring. And I thought, “There’s the story.”

I couldn’t help but notice a liberal arts college played a role.

Liberal arts colleges are increasingly important. They’re a counterweight to all of the less savory aspects of our society and our culture. History, particularly, has become an increasingly rich discipline. It’s always been interdisciplinary, because history is about everything—it’s what I call applied humanity. But the field is growing in its complexity and sophistication. The problem is that the social sciences and humanities are being increasingly slighted because of schools’ focus on career preparation, in the STEM fields and so forth. And so we become auxiliary in many ways. It’s ironic

and frustrating, because the field of history has never been richer.

You helped start the College’s Holocaust Studies ServiceLearning Project in Poland in the late ’90s.

[Religious Studies’] Frank Frick and I got that going. It’s probably the single most [pause] I guess it’s the single most important thing I’ve done here, to be a part of that.

Other things are important, too, but that one thing has really made a difference for students, faculty, and staff. Because of the gravity of it.

Geoff Cocks has authored and edited 10 books on Nazi Germany, but perhaps nothing has affected him quite like the fall of the Berlin Wall. “It was an amazing transformational event,” says Cocks, who burned a stash of suddenly irrelevant notes on the future of East and West Germany in front of his class on that November 1989 day.

You leave an athletic Albion legacy as well.

Noon basketball has been going since at least 1964. I’ve played since 1975—with Dennis Gaswick (Chemistry), Phil Hostetler (Psychology), Charles Held (History/Library), Jeff Carrier (Biology), Gene Cline (Philosophy), and many more. Like Albion community soccer, it’s always involved people from the town. It’s sort of this spontaneous merging of communities. Many people from the community I never would have met had I not played.

And then there’s Kubrick.

You’ve done classes, a

documentary (2013’s Room 237), now a panel. Can you share an insight here?

More people are beginning to appreciate that, whether you like him or not, he was a tremendous artist of film and had a lot to say.

I have a student right now who is self-taught in Kubrick, and he decided he would do a Kubrick marathon over spring break and come and talk about it. His timing is bad because, of course, I’m leaving. And that probably means the end of “Kubrick Studies” here.

Interview by John Perney.

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S E I T I L I B I S POS E L I M E H T Y B RN

BY J O H N PE

EY

The expansion of the Albion River Trail brings links to three major recreational trail systems—and the potential to connect with so much more. In fact, it already has.

“We got the right people together and within two weeks we were meeting. … All the stars just kind of aligned.”

Danielle Nelson, ’17, was working for Albion City Manager Sheryl Mitchell in the Spring 2015 semester as a Class of 1960 Albion Community Intern.

The public policy and economics and management double major, French minor, and member of the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Leadership in Public Policy and Service was asked by Mitchell to explore the town’s outdoor amenities and suggest ideas for making Albion more bike-friendly.

“From there I was doing research online and found some grant opportunities,” Nelson says. The West Bloomfield, Michigan, native also found that time was of the essence. “We put together the grant application quickly. It was due in 30 days.”

What Nelson summarizes rather simply was more like a confluence of circumstances that, by the end of 2015, became an official recommendation by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund to commit $294,000 toward a one-mile expansion of the Albion River Trail. That formal recommendation became official state grant funds in April following the appropriation process in Lansing.

The current 1.6-mile Albion River Trail (ART), a paved path for nonmotorized use, runs through town along the south bank of the Kalamazoo River—from Victory Park north through Rieger Park, into downtown,

west along Cass Street passing City Hall, and then turning north and west again toward McClure Park and Harris Field. Hikers and cyclists then have the option to use nearby B Drive or Michigan Avenue to head west toward Marshall on the continuation of three major trail systems: Michigan’s Iron Belle Trail (formerly known as the Governor’s Showcase Trail), which runs from Belle Isle in Detroit to Ironwood in the westernmost Upper Peninsula; Michigan’s Great Lake-toLake Trail, a biking route ranging from Port Huron to South Haven; and finally, the North Country National Scenic Trail, a massive 4,600-mile collection of paths and roads spanning seven states from upstate New York to central North Dakota.

In the city manager’s office, Nelson forged a key connection between the nonprofit Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance and state Representative John Bizon, a member of the Michigan House’s Appropriations Committee who as it turns out, according to Nelson, wanted to see entities in his Calhoun County district apply for more state naturalresource grants. Her efforts helped lay the groundwork for what will be ART’s one-mile extension at its south end. From Victory Park, a new multiuse, nonmotorized paved trail will be laid on open land owned by Albion College, passing Bellemont Manor, the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center, and Riverside Cemetery before connecting with the larger trails at 28 Mile and Condit roads.

Construction will begin in earnest in late summer and is scheduled to be completed before the end of 2016. With solid ART connections on both ends to three distinct networks, Albion is primed to become a bona fide regional trail hub.

And for Nelson, the out-of-classroom learning experience has been precisely what she signed up for when she chose Albion: a hands-on education where dirt gets under the fingernails.

“I had to make the degree mean something to me, and this is the way to do it,” she says.

Last fall, Nelson dove further into policy matters by joining the board of the Calhoun County Trailway Alliance (CCTA), a natural extension to be sure. “There are so many cities on the Kalamazoo that don’t showcase the riverfront. We really have some beautiful spaces around here.”

Mike VanHouten has known that for some time. The co-director of Albion College’s libraries is on the same board and helped found the organization in 2006. “Any time we can get a little more trail on the ground, that’s just one step closer to completing our overall project,” VanHouten says of CCTA’s push for a dedicated nonmotorized trail through the county. “We’re pretty excited about [the River Trail extension]. A trail is an attractive thing that just adds to the community, whether or not it’s something big, whether it’s foremost in your mind or not.”

For some, it’s not top of mind but a way of life.

“What I’m doing now is not exactly lucrative, but I couldn’t not be doing it, because this is my passion.”

For Kirk Johnson, ’92, the memories always seem to start outside. “My parents had me on crosscountry skis not long after I could walk,” says the executive director of Friends of Allegheny Wilderness (www.pawild.org) in northwestern Pennsylvania, a nonprofit group he founded in 2001 to seek greater

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protection under the federal Wilderness Act of 1964 within Allegheny National Forest— including for tracts encompassing the North Country Scenic Trail.

Johnson is also an active 16-year member of the North Country Trail Association, a Michiganbased entity that works with the National Park Service as stewards of the multistate trail. The seed that would become his life’s work took root at Albion through his two years maintaining trails and interacting with the public at Whitehouse Nature Center, as well as in such classes as Tim Lincoln’s Oceanography, Jack Padgett’s Ethics, and Wes Dick’s American Dreams & Realities.

Regarding the Albion project, he is glad to hear of a plan for a future spur that will lead to the nature center, which, of course, has five miles of hiking trails all its own and spans more than 140 acres. “I walked all the trails in one afternoon,” Johnson says of a December 2014 visit back to campus. “They were all as I remembered them, though the organic [student] farm wasn’t there when I was there.

And the trees are bigger.”

Even bigger, he says, is the detail-laden brush that must be cleared when it comes to any trail project. Recreational trails may be drawn up and planned out, but they come in one piece at a time, over many years of sweat equity, lobbying, and fundraising. Until then, portions of a major trail spanning hundreds of miles or more often have to rely on existing roads for motorized vehicles.

“A lot of these issues—environmental issues, trail issues, preservation issues—are enormously complicated,” Johnson says.

“They’re rarely black-and-white. You have to work with a wide, wide variety of stakeholders on almost all of these issues.”

Which makes him all the more impressed by the Albion project. “I think it could be really valuable,” he says. “Hopefully you’ll get a lot of long-distance hikers through Albion who never thought to drop off of I-94 and visit Albion before this.”

Trail users who connect with 28 Mile and Condit and continue south for 7.5 miles will reach Homer, hometown of Brian Fisk, ’83, who recently retired as the planning director for the City of Irvine, California.

He stayed on the West Coast after receiving his master’s in urban planning from UCLA and became adept in navigating through the complexities of open-space projects.

He begins to rattle off the boxes to be checked.

“The number of different agencies, counties, and institutions; parts of it are railways that are being maintained by the Department of Transportation; private lands that are being acquired; volunteers and other jurisdictions to maintain it… But that’s the whole benefit of doing a project like this, because you engage with a number of different communities.

“It’s a special place to me,” Fisk adds, referring to Albion. “I’m happy to see the growth and see the connection between the College and the City government.”

Continue to explore, and more of those connections emerge.

Trail users who connect with 28 Mile and Condit and continue south for 7.5 miles will reach Homer.

12 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

“I think that’s a really important piece of civic engagement, the city going to the people, and not just the people going to the city.”

Alena Farooq, ’18, embodied that notion last summer. On behalf of Albion’s Parks and Recreation Department, she interviewed 100 residents about what they wanted and needed from their 17 parks, among them the Albion River Trail. One of the people she contacted: Danielle Nelson.

“I went to Danielle to ask her questions.

What she was doing kind of affected what I was doing,” says Farooq, a business and organizations major and management minor, and who, like Nelson, is also in the Ford Institute and from West Bloomfield. “Her plan being a part of the rec plan made it eligible to gain more funding.”

Farooq’s findings formed the basis of a research project funded by Ford’s Robert M. Teeter, ’61, Research Fellowship Endowment and coordinated by the College’s Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (FURSCA). In December, they were incorporated into the City’s 2016-2020 parks and recreation master plan that was recently approved by the state.

Overall, the experience led her to an unexpected place.

“I realize so many of my opinions and ideas have changed since FURSCA,” Farooq says. “I realized it’s not just about the students, but it’s about the community, and students and the community working together.”

She is in Albion this summer, too, interning at the Albion Food Hub, which opened at the start of the year at 112 E. Erie St. and rents out commercial kitchen space to local farmers and

other budding food entrepreneurs. Similarly, she sees the Albion River Trail’s economic potential. One idea of hers is to “implement a biking tour of Albion into the First-Year Experience.”

“I’d like to take them down more than just Superior Street,” Farooq says. “I’d want them to see some parks, get them to meet business owners. That would be a great way to introduce new students to the community and to show support for the town.”

Peggy Sindt, ’73, and Robert Mahaney, ’80, have made careers out of seeing economic potential, and taking action.

“There are so many projects going on right now,” says Sindt, who will retire at the end of September as president and CEO of the Albion Economic Development Corp. Perhaps a bit ironically, her move comes amid a spike in major projects in town, the trail being only one of them. Hundreds attended the May 12 groundbreaking for the downtown Courtyard Marriott hotel on Superior Street, across from the fully restored Bohm Theatre; two blocks north, 101 N. Superior St. is undergoing a complete renovation and by the end of the year the Ludington Center will serve as home to a number of College programs that interface with the community. On the southern edge of town, the Held Equestrian Center is in the midst of an expansion that will include a much larger indoor riding arena and which already is attracting interest for large, regional horse shows that would bring thousands of people to Albion.

The trail project, by comparison, may seem small, but Sindt knows it isn’t.

“I think it ties in nicely with the equestrian center expansion, and the people that will bring into the community, too,” she says.

“Recreation is actually a good thing to be known for, and I see lots of things coming together. It is quality of life, but it can be bigger than that. It can recruit people to a community. Or it can be a symbol about what a community values.”

Mahaney can confirm this firsthand. Twenty years ago the president of Veridea Group, a commercial real estate development firm in Marquette, was a founding member of the Noquemanon Trail Network (NTN), which has grown into one of the U.P.’s leading fourseason trail destinations attracting upward of 8,000 participants in cross-country skiing and mountain biking events annually, not to mention tens of thousands of day users. It also has developed a strong relationship with Northern Michigan University.

“NTN is a classic example of be careful what you complain about,” Mahaney says with a laugh. “Up here in Marquette, cross-country skiing is a big activity, and a number of us avid skiiers became frustrated with the declining quality of our trails, even though we had some of the best raw material in the world for cross-country skiing. We saw the potential … it was an economic development opportunity for the community.”

Mahaney, who grew up in Grayling and says Albion “opened doors for me,” is re-engaging with his alma mater and the surrounding community in a big way. His firm will operate the Courtyard Marriott hotel once it opens in late 2017. In town for the groundbreaking event, he described a parallel of possibility when it comes to Albion’s trail.

“NTN has become sort of a surprise for the community, and the community has really taken over ownership,” he says. “It’s a great source of pride. It’s helped significantly in the branding of Marquette. Economically it’s had a big impact on tourism, and more important, it’s helped our employers with their recruiting efforts.

“It changes perceptions, and I think you can do the same thing in Albion,” Mahaney continues.

“The number-one amenity people look for today outside the home is access to hiking, biking, and walking trails. I feel very optimistic about Albion’s future when you envision what the College and community will look like after the completion of all of these projects.”

Pryce Hadley, ’12, has become quite familiar with tourism of late. He works in Aspen, Colorado, after all. But interestingly, the lead ranger for Pitkin County Open Space and Trails says that, because of nearby White River National Forest, “Summer is bigger than winter now in Aspen.”

A regular user of the Albion River Trail as a student and a lead player in the creation of the College’s student farm, Hadley received a prestigious Udall Scholarship in 2011 for his commitment to environmental issues. Today, trails are his job, yet they’re not just a jobsite.

They represent something deeper, fostered in part, he says, by his experience in Albion, Michigan.

“I definitely gained a much greater appreciation for the land around Albion,” says Hadley, who was a member of the College’s Center for Sustainability and the Environment.

“I think it’s really important to get out there and get integrated with the community you’re living in and studying in. It brings a greater sense of place. Seeing the industrial relics, there’s history there that goes back to the Prohibition era. There’s so much there that is easily overlooked.”

One thing about an expanded ART that he says is impossible to miss: the river. “The water connection—being able to canoe on the Kalamazoo River, there’s definitely some potential there.”

Turns out a current student may be on to that.

Aaron Smit, ’18, has launched Albion Outfitters at the College’s Beese-Havens Boathouse as a summer FURSCA project. Stay tuned.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 13

“People with Parkinson’s write to me, telling me all the time, ‘We’re going straight to the bike shop.’ Someone has read my book or heard me speak, and they say it’s changed their life.”

Nan Wells Little, ’67, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2008. “I thought it was the end of my world,” she says.

Eight years later, the retired University of Washington anthropologist is gearing up for her sixth RAGBRAI, otherwise known as [The Des Moines] Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, in late July. In that span she has also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, trekked to Nepal’s Annapurna Base Camp, and hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru.

What happened along the way?

“I 2009 I learned of Cleveland Clinic research into forced-pace cycling as a way to combat the effects of Parkinson’s,” says Little, describing a stationary tandem bike activity in which a partner dictates the pace. “Their research showed that patients who cycled at 80 to 90 RPMs for an hour, three times a week, mitigated their symptoms by an average of 35 percent.”

What was then a promising study has evolved into a growing body of evidence about the benefits of the exercise—and a newfound passion for Little, author of the self-published If I Can Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, Why Can’t I Brush My Teeth? Courage, Tenacity & Love Meet Parkinson’s Disease (2015).

“I ride solo on my road bike almost every day—on trails, on the road, or on a trainer in inclement weather,” she says. “In my presentations I encourage people to challenge

14 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

themselves, even if just a little bit. I’m 70 years old now, with white hair and Parkinson’s. My world didn’t end in 2008; it changed. Each day is filled with opportunities, and life is certainly more interesting because I generally choose to say yes to those opportunities.”

Another Brit who recently climbed Kilimanjaro also felt the pull of the trail closer to home.

In May 2015, Matthew Gallick, ’13, hiked across Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula on the Shore-to-Shore Trail, chronicling the 20-day excursion on his photorich blog, “Oscoda to Empire: 220+ Miles on Foot from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan.” In his closing post, at www.michiganshoretoshore. blogspot.com, the music graduate student at Central Michigan University shared the journey’s last moments: “When we reached the final street, a deer stood in a park we went by. We passed it, coming within just sixty feet. It just stared at us as we went by.

“The vast Lake Michigan flooded the backdrop with a beautiful sky blue. We had arrived. I dropped my pack and felt the impact of it hitting the Earth through my boots. I hastily removed my shirt, boots, and socks, and I dove in.

“The water was freezing but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Our journey of over 220 miles was over. That’s over half a million steps.

We had hiked from shore to shore.”

Tired yet? How about a million steps? Or imagine two million? It certainly puts daily Fitbit goals in perspective.

Brooke Taylor, ’62, doesn’t have to imagine it. She walked 500 miles in 2012. And 750 more last year. All of them in Spain and France on parts of a “trail” that is one of the world’s most renowned: the Christian pilgrimage

routes known collectively as the Camino de Santiago, which takes travelers to the shrine of the apostle St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest Spanish city of Galicia.

“The Camino isn’t arriving in Santiago,” Taylor makes clear. “That’s the goal of everybody but that’s not what it is about. It is about walking.

And being one with the walking, and being one with the people you meet and the things you see.

“It’s magical,” she continues. “I always go by myself. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never done it. You get up in the morning and there’s nothing else to do but walk. You have your backpack, you have your lunch that you buy in town in the morning, and then you just walk until you get to the next place to stop. It’s a wonderful time.”

On most nights, Taylor stays in a hostel (“A lot of snoring; you take earplugs, and everyone gets along”). On most days, through sore feet, she is moved by the power of her surroundings.

“I like to listen to the birds, or the planes above, or the sounds of leaves crunching under my feet, or the wind blowing through the grain as you walk through. It’s just such a contemplative time.”

Taylor’s 500-mile walk took 43 days, and she needed nearly eight weeks to complete her 750-mile odyssey. Back home in the Bay Area, though, the retired singer is keenly aware of something.

“The thing is, you’re never done,” she says.

“Once you’ve walked a Camino, you’re always on a Camino. It becomes a way of life for many people. It becomes a way of looking at things, and reacting to things. It’s a way of trusting.

There’s a wonderful saying: ‘The Camino will provide,’ and it’s just kind of mind-boggling.

The Camino does provide.”

“It regionalizes Albion,” says the College’s Gregg Strand about the River Trail extension. “It’s a link to the region that maybe we didn’t fully recognize before.”

“It was eye-opening, because we had the map up on the wall and you saw that there was the potential for all of these to connect.”

Sheryl Mitchell came to Albion as city manager nearly two years ago. And fairly quickly, not unlike the trail-hub scenario that presented itself (which, she believes, “is going to be the catalyst for changing the culture for Albion and how we envision ourselves”), she also found a college seeking to reimagine its relationship with its host community.

Mitchell has a key partner in Gregg Strand, the College’s director of corporate and foundation relations. The two have become a dynamic grant-writing duo of sorts: their success with the trail project was followed by another positive result—a grant that will fund the assignment of 11 AmeriCorps VISTA members to Albion over the next three years.

While the grant applications, according to Mitchell, “can be a small Yellow Pages book, just the volume of information that is

Spring-Summer 2016 | 15

required,” the outcomes, over time, will fill a much bigger volume. “Especially with the AmeriCorps VISTA leaders to help us increase our capacity—we have the dreams, desires, and ambitions, but we need the capacity to build those things forward.”

INTERVIEWING THE INTERVIEWER

Albion College students are a part of that capacity as well, and their part is growing.

“Not everyone values the role a young person can play, or that they can do some very mature work,” says Mitchell, formerly the West Bloomfield Parks and Recreation commissioner.

Referencing her former intern, she adds, “It’s been amazing to watch Danielle blossom as a leader since then. It’s good to see what Albion College can produce.”

There’s that town again. West Bloomfield. In a story about trails, no less.

“I met Sheryl Mitchell eight years ago,” says Alena Farooq. “They put together a youth council, and we got together and planned events for the community.”

And Nelson’s nugget of coincidence? Mitchell stopped by for a bite in Keego Harbor, just north of West Bloomfield, where Nelson was working around the holidays. “She actually came to the coffee shop over winter break before I started interning for her. And I told my boss, ‘I think I’m working for her this upcoming semester.’

“I did not know either [Alena or Sheryl] before coming to Albion. It’s so interesting how paths intersect.”

“Any time you’re talking trails—recreational trails, hiking trails, biking trails, equine trails—you’re talking about opportunity,” says Kirk Heinze, ’70, the longtime host of “Greening of the Great Lakes,” which airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on Detroit’s WJR 760 and other radio stations around the state.

In particular, the chairperson and director emeritus, agriculture and natural resources communication, at Michigan State University is intrigued by what’s going on with the current trail initiative around his alma mater.

“The fact that this trail is essentially a hub of three major trails that are already developed makes it particularly exciting,” Heinze says, “because in the short term that means a lot more people are going to be coming through and near Albion.”

16 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

He’s also drawn to the origins of the Albion River Trail extension project: “It’s amazing how many of these sustainability projects around the state, particularly on campuses, come from student impetus.

It’s, frankly, incredible.”

On the radio, Heinze usually asks the questions, but Io Triumphe! turned the tables recently in a conversation about what being a regional trail hub could mean for the City of Albion, and Albion College, in the years to come.

Visit www.albion.edu/iotriumphe for a link to the full audio clip.

EHRLIF / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Letting It In The outdoors, when given the opportunity, does what only the outdoors can

By Jan Corey Arnett, ’75 There are two places at which I do nearly all my writing. One overlooks a garden, fields, hardwoods, and wetland. With the windows open, I am treated to the springtime melodies of frogs, summer squawk of sandhill cranes, and frequent chortling of turkeys.

The other setting is more than 300 miles north, beyond the Mackinac Bridge, and overlooks green cedars, white birches, and rippling waters. On clear nights, there is no light pollution to mar a spirit-filling, star-saturated sky while the haunting call of loons reaches deep into my very soul.

As I work in either location, when I need to stretch my legs as well as my mind, I venture along wooded trails or sandy two-tracks, studying nature and the abundance of inspiration it has to offer.

Both settings stir the muse within me. It is no exaggeration to say that I could not survive without them, or certainly not nearly as well.

Having grown up on a dairy farm in rural Upper Michigan, the land and animals were a part of my daily life. Countless hours were enjoyed riding my horse along wooded trails or country roads, with my dog trotting along beside.

As a student at Albion College in the early 1970s, I often sought places on and near campus that allowed me to feel the most in my comfort zone, even riding my bike to Riverside

Cemetery, at the back of which at one time was a pasture where cattle grazed. A farm dog sometimes trotted over to me and there, with one hand buried in its fur as it stretched out beside me, and the other holding a book, I studied in total contentment.

the trail will pass the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center and even border Riverside Cemetery brings a special wistful delight. What a glorious opportunity for students like me, already connected to nature and its power to inspire learning, to maintain that link.

Enrolled in a holistic health program through Western Michigan University many years later, I was surprised as some classmates had to be taught how to open themselves to, and be fully present with, the healing power of the natural world. I assumed that this was something everyone knew but which, I quickly discovered, I had taken entirely for granted.

But, even more importantly, what a gift for students who come to Albion College having never, or rarely, experienced nature in an intimate enough way to connect with it and be a part of it. What a resource for real-world teaching and for learning as well, that all roads do not need to be paved, fast-paced, and impersonal to contribute to human productivity.

As part of the program, summer classes convened beside Lake Michigan in the Leelanau Peninsula. There, we were sometimes assigned to be in solitude along trails bordering the exquisitely clear water of the Crystal River, breathing easily while listening, sensing, studying, and delicately allowing nature to do its transformative work.

I have never forgotten those experiences nor some of the revealing observations classmates made after such forays.

Some roads need not be roads at all and handson learning can be beautifully done on foot.

When the announcement was made that the City of Albion and Albion College had worked together to secure the grant that would expand the Albion River Trail, I recalled my Albion College and Leelanau Peninsula experiences with a smile and a firm, “Yes!” To know that

Jan Corey Arnett is a freelance writer whose work includes a regular column in the Battle Creek Enquirer.

With a particular interest in the history of barns and their preservation, she is the author of American Barns (Shire Library USA, 2013) and a recurring “Mystery Barn” feature in Michigan Farmer magazine. Currently, Arnett is working on a book that began as a collection of animal stories, titled The Puppy from Heaven and Other Truths, which has since evolved into a memoir.

Visit her website, www.jancoreyarnett.com.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 17

A LIFETIME OF IMPROVING LIVES

Sixty years after graduating from Albion College, Dr. Phyllis Harrison-Ross took advantage of the opportunity to look back, yet she can’t help but focus on the present and what continues to be her life’s mission. “I feel like I have all of this experience, background, and education and I should work with the most difficult kinds of populations. … The reality is that I will be 80. But I will be around.”

M. DIVITO PHOTO

By Kathryn Walsh, ’88

TRAILBLAZING NEW YORK PSYCHIATRIST PHYLLIS HARRISON-ROSS, ’56, REFLECTS ON HER TIME AT ALBION AND HER REMARKABLE—AND CONTINUING—CAREER. To say Dr. Phyllis Harrison-Ross was born knowing her path would be an exaggeration. The Detroit native, who turns 80 this year, actually didn’t know she wanted to be a doctor until she was four years old. What she didn’t know then was that getting her medical degree would be just the start of a long career of helping people in need.

With 50 years of work in behavioral medicine; child, adult, and forensic psychiatry; and community mental health administration, HarrisonRoss is considered one of New York’s most recognized psychiatrists. She is commissioner of the New York State Commission of Correction and chair of its Medical Review Board; has helped survivors of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti; and has an office with no wall space for any more awards. Indeed, a closer look at the plaques, articles, and photos on these walls reveals that the 1956 Albion College graduate has dedicated her life to serving diverse, hard-to-reach, and underserved populations.

Sitting in her office in her Manhattan apartment, Harrison-Ross is relaxed yet dignified. She is quick-witted and has a deep, throaty laugh. But most notable is her humility. When asked if she ever imagined when she was at Albion that she would one day be working for and with New York governors and United States presidents, she chuckles, shakes her head, and says, “No! I didn’t plan it. I didn’t even know to plan something like that.

When I was at Albion, I was planning to go to medical school and practice in Detroit.

That was the big city to me. I had no idea I would end up here.”

“Here” is a doorman building on the Upper West Side, where she works via videoconferencing with her Medical Review Board staff in Albany and Harlem. “Here” is also what she has done with her life, which, in addition to the professional accomplishments already mentioned, includes author, professor,

and radio talk-show host. Not to mention her roles as a wife (to the late Edgar Lee Ross) and a godmother to relatives’ and friends’ children.

Those who knew Harrison-Ross as a child surely must have known she was special. Academics came naturally for the daughter of Detroiters Harold Jerome Harrison, a teacher and later the deputy superintendent of Detroit Public Schools, and Edna Smith Harrison, a social worker and professor at Wayne State University.

So naturally, in fact, she was “double promoted” in school, starting high school at Cass Tech at age 12 and graduating three years later.

THE ALBION YEARS Although she was only 15 when she began her freshman year at Albion College in 1951, life was not overwhelming. “I was fairly sophisticated,” she explains. “That was not an issue for me. And the studies weren’t that difficult for me; I was already fairly advanced.” The College assisted in her transition by placing her in Dean Hall. “My parents thought it was a good idea for me to stay in that dorm and the school did, too. At that time they were just getting started with black students and they thought it would be a little more supportive of me.”

As far as experiencing any racial prejudice, Harrison-Ross says she was told “not to go to any of the sorority parties because they would never accept me. Did that hurt me?

Sure. But it wasn’t unexpected; I was old enough at that time to know that kind of thing existed.” But overall she says she did not feel excluded “because I got along; I got along with the girls very well.” Dating, however, was another story, “because there was nobody to date,” she laughs. “So you can imagine that just made my experience very different from the other girls.”

One person who made a huge difference for the young co-ed was Professor A. Merton Chickering, chair of the Biology

Department. “He was so nice,” HarrisonRoss says with a smile. “He didn’t fawn over me or anything, but he was just supportive and friendly and nice. He and his wife sort of adopted me, in a way. I’ll always remember them for that.” And just when it looks like Harrison-Ross might be getting misty-eyed, she adds matterof-factly, “But he also had a very strong reputation for getting his students into medical school. And so did Albion, by the way, which is the reason why we chose it.”

After graduating, Harrison-Ross earned her medical degree at Wayne State University, and then in 1959 headed to New York for her internship, pediatrics residency, adult psychiatric residency, and fellowship in child psychiatry. One component of her training involved working at the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Clinic at what was then called the Rose F. Kennedy Center for Research in Mental Retardation and Human Development, part of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. She returned to the school in 1966, after her fellowship, and took a job as psychiatric director of the nursery school.

It was there that Harrison-Ross started her life’s mission of serving diverse, hard-toreach, and underserved populations.

“We were trying to figure out what to do with these children that we were seeing,” Harrison-Ross says. “These were people who were physically handicapped, mentally retarded, and were emotionally disturbed. At that time there weren’t classes in public schools for children with all of those handicaps. So we decided to develop this school where they could go.”

When she is told that her Wikipedia page has a “Legacy” entry, which says, “She was the first in her field to start programs for children with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses,” she is not only tickled that she is on Wikipedia, but shocked that she has a Legacy section.

“Thanks for telling me. I’ll bring that up and wave it at my cousins,” she laughs.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 19

EARLY LESSONS IN CONNECTIONS AND POLITICS Her work at the nursery school became known to then Governor Nelson Rockefeller—through family friend Dr. Kenneth Clark, an expert witness in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case—and in 1968, he appointed her to a statewide commission to study the quality, cost, and financing of primary and secondary education, especially programs for children with special needs. “Part of my primary interest on that commission was getting the public school system to fund programs and set up programs for these children. That’s what our commission recommended. It was great to see how it was done and that it could be done. And it got done.”

The doctor’s next “day job,” as director and chief of psychiatry at the Metropolitan Hospital Community Mental Health Center in Manhattan, was what she refers to as “highly political, a hot-potato kind of experience.” And it would last 26 years, from 1973 to 1999. “They couldn’t decide who they wanted to run the program,” she remembers. “It was a fight going on between the medical school, the health and hospital corporation, the mayor, the feds, and the community.

I ended up being the consensus candidate that nobody liked but nobody hated either.

“It was a great time,” she adds. “I had such an opportunity to do so many things.” At Metropolitan, which served approximately 1 million people, Harrison-Ross led a staff of more than 600.

Programs under her jurisdiction included Drug, Alcoholism and AIDS Treatment; Psychiatric Community Support Services; Education and Consultation Services for Police, Court and Prison

20 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

personnel; and multiculturally focused Medical Education, Training and Research.

WEARING MULTIPLE HATS Harrison-Ross’s position at Metropolitan Hospital wasn’t the only job she had during this time period.

In addition to running a private psychiatric practice, she was also continuing her work in public service.

Shortly after Governor Rockefeller appointed her to the education commission, she was appointed by President Richard Nixon to his National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse Prevention, where she helped set national policy. In 1976, the governor came calling again and she was appointed to serve as a forensic psychiatrist on the Medical Review Board of the New York State Commission of Corrections.

(That same year she received Albion’s Distinguished Alumni Award.) She was reappointed by subsequent governors until 2009, when she began her first fiveyear term in her current position as commissioner, New York State Commission of Correction and chairperson of the Medical Review Board.

“When I first started,” she recalls, “I was reviewing deaths that occurred in the prisons, jails, and lockups. Determining what the cause was, whether or not there were recommendations we would make to improve healthcare services in those lockups. That’s the purpose of the commission.” Today, the Medical Review Board is also responsible for following through on complaints and grievances relating to healthcare in the prison system; monitoring and studying the demographics of AIDS and mental illnesses in the New York prisons; and advocating for and developing new programs and minimum health standards in the system.

What Harrison-Ross brings to this position, says Dr. Robert S. Kurtz, a member of the Medical Review Board as well as a friend and former colleague at Metropolitan, “is her high intelligence and her diligence. For a physician, she brings a deep and broad acquaintance with the political community in New York. She has taken a deep interest in the problems of the community and how people survive life despite behavioral illnesses of the type that she’s treated.”

RUNNING TOWARD DISASTERS AND CRISES Even in her “free” time, Harrison-Ross continues her mission to serve. After 9/11, looking to join “a community of people,” she walked over to the nearby offices of the New York Society for Ethical Culture (NYSEC) and became involved with its Social Service Board (SSB), which is dedicated to helping the most vulnerable members of the community through social service projects.

At the same time, in her private practice, she started seeing faith-based leaders who were exhausted from dealing with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. “They were doing healing as much as I and my colleagues in the mental health professions,” Harrison-Ross says.

She met Reverend Dr. Willard Ashley, project director for Care for the Caregivers, an initiative to train clergy to deal with disasters and crises. As usual, she was eager to assist. “My mentor was in the process of retiring,” recalls Rev. Ashley. “She introduced me to Dr. Harrison-Ross and basically said, ‘My mentee needs somebody to mentor him and help him in this project. Would you mind taking that on?’ And she graciously said yes.”

“SOME PEOPLE, THEY ACCOMPLISH HALF OF WHAT SHE DID AND YOU’D KNOW ABOUT IT. THEY’D WEAR IT ON THEIR SLEEVES. BUT THAT’S NOT WHO SHE IS. AND IT’S NOT BECAUSE SHE’S A PSYCHIATRIST AND SHE’S PSYCHING YOU OUT. THAT’S HER PERSONALITY.” — REV. DR. WILLARD ASHLEY Her help was sought again after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when Dr. Annelle Primm, then the director of minority and national affairs for the American Psychiatric Association, reached out to her for assistance in putting together a group, which became the All Healers Mental Health Alliance, to respond to the mental health needs of those affected by the disaster.

“I knew of Dr. Ross’ advocacy, activism, and effectiveness as a physician, advocate, and leader in New York City,” says Primm, whose father had worked with Harrison-Ross. “She immediately said, ‘Oh, yes, we must do something.’ We brought together a number of other health and mental health professionals and faith leaders who were from different organizations. Phyllis was the best connected among us. She could change the world just from sending out messages to her network, which included very influential and thoughtful people, people with a tremendous commitment to social justice.”

One of those people was Senator Hillary Clinton.

Harrison-Ross remembers: “I talked with her and said I really would like to work with some of the people who were working [in New Orleans], so we could get to the minorities. Because the minorities were, as usual, underserved. She made calls and got people to meet with me, which ultimately resulted in our organization getting on its feet.”

The All Healers Mental Health Alliance, now a program under the NYSEC’s Social Service Board, has phone conferences every two weeks and has continued to aid victims of every kind of disaster— from hurricanes to earthquakes to the BP oil spill.

In 2004, Harrison-Ross’s work was recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, which presented her with its Solomon Carter Fuller Award for African-American Pioneers. And in 2007, the All Healers Mental Health Alliance received an award for Public Health Leadership from the American Public Health Association for its work bringing hope and healing to disaster survivors. “She spearheaded all of this and she just hasn’t stopped,” says Primm. “She is an unrelenting voice and force.”

THE NEXT CHAPTER AND SOME ADVICE When asked what’s left on her to-do list, Harrison-Ross mentions there is more to do at the Commission of Correction, as well as NYSEC’s Social Service Board. She’s even found a way to combine the two with the SSB’s Supportive Televisiting Services, where children are able to visit with their incarcerated parents via videoconferencing. This takes place at NYSEC with clinicians present for support services.

“When I’m doing my daily stuff, my day job [on the Commission], I see all of these wonderful opportunities to do good,” she says.

At the time of this interview Harrison-Ross was looking forward to NYSEC’s Dr. Phyllis HarrisonRoss Public Service Award celebration, benefiting the Supportive Televisiting Services and other Social Service Board programs. The award is given to outstanding public servants who exemplify the ideals of ethics, honesty, and trust. “It’s a public service award, for public servants, who actually got something done,” Harrison-Ross says.

While it seems as if there is no stopping her, Harrison-Ross does say she will slow down and retire one day. But first she must prepare the next generation to continue her mission and legacy.

“I work with young psychiatrists (at the Black Psychiatrists of Greater New York and Associates, an organization that she founded in 2000) and I’m hopefully going to get them to step up and take over these things, all of the different programs. As soon as they are able to do that, then I can gradually relax. The reality is that I will be 80. But I will be around. I will mentor.”

As far as her advice to current Albion students, Harrison-Ross says, “See what’s necessary. What I do is see where I’m needed and then I get involved.

And then worry about how to fund it, or how to get paid, or how to survive when I’m doing that. I never have been unhappy about what I do. I never feel bored. And I’ve been able to make it into a career and get paid for it.”

Kathryn Walsh, a freelance writer from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, is executive editor of Hudson Valley magazine.

Photos left and center: Policymakers and elected officials, including former Vice President Walter Mondale (far left) and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, have relied on Harrison-Ross’s groundbreaking work with specialneeds populations through the decades.

Photo right: Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder stands with the namesake of the Dr. Phyllis Harrison-Ross Public Service Award, presented by the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Holder and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York were honored in May.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 21

Saginaw native Dan Gustin saw his music industry career take off in Massachusetts, but his return to Michigan 16 years ago regularly takes him to concert halls around the globe, often in secret.

PHOTOS BY CHRIS MCGUIRE

BEHIND THE MUSIC

As director of the world-renowned Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Dan Gustin, ’63, is well aware he’s got a gig in Kalamazoo quite unlike any other in the business.

By Chuck Carlson Dan Gustin has always heard the music.

After all, it’s been everywhere in his life. From his days playing piano and trombone as a kid to his time singing in the Albion College Glee Club, to the time he realized that, perhaps, he loved the music a little more than it loved him.

“I knew in those days I was not going to be a performer,” he recalled recently. “I lacked something.”

He pauses and laughs.

“Talent,” he said.

But the music always stayed with Dan Gustin, all forms of music from classical to jazz to modern, and he decided if he could not perform the music he loved, he would find some other way to have it be a part of his life.

That’s been five decades now and Gustin, ’63, who majored in English and philosophy and whose world was opened to him from the liberal arts education he received at Albion, has reveled in it.

He’s been the director of the prestigious Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, since 2000. In that time, he has expanded an already well-known celebration into an international event that not only focuses on musical performances but also commissions keyboard works and helps introduce and encourage new stars in the music field.

The Festival, which runs every other spring for three weeks at various venues throughout Southwest Michigan, was doubled in length under Gustin’s watch and has become an event audiences of all types look to with anticipation.

This year’s event, from April 26 to May 14, ran the gamut from jazz trios to Renaissance music to performances by an opera star and even one by the iconic Tony Bennett.

“Every pianist knows about The Gilmore,” Gustin said.

They also know about the Gilmore Artist Award, the honor bestowed every four years to an international pianist which is determined by an anonymous panel of Gustin and five judges who travel worldwide to listen to nominees. The winner receives a $300,000 award that can be used to help expand and enhance his or her career and musicianship.

Created in 1989, the Artist Award has now become one of the most generous and sought-after prizes in music.

And for Gustin, who is 74 but plans to stay through one more Artist Award process (set for 2018), it has been a wondrous experience.

“I’ve loved it all,” he said.

Music in His Soul Growing up in Saginaw, Dan Gustin was going to be a doctor.

At least that’s what his dad wanted him to be.

Then he wasn’t.

“I started out thinking about medicine and then thought about journalism,” said Gustin, who wrote for The Pleiad while attending Albion. “It seemed half the students who came to Albion were either pre-law or pre-med. I changed course a few times.”

That’s when he settled on pursuits of philosophy and English, and where Albion opened his eyes to the wonders that existed in the world.

“At Albion I was able to challenge all the assumptions I’d been fed,” he said.

He remembers listening, spellbound, to a variety of speakers on campus from many disciplines, including poet Carl Sandburg, who spoke at Goodrich Chapel and who stayed in Gustin’s dorm overnight.

“Several of us knocked on his door and we talked to him for an hour or so,” he recalled. “He spoke about Abraham Lincoln and he read some of his poems.”

To this day, Gustin remembers a handful of Albion professors who changed his life, like Ewell Stowell (Biology); Julian Rammelkamp (History); Anthony Taffs (Music); John Hart (English); Arthur Munk (Philosophy); and Vernon Bobbitt (Art and Art History).

“Critical thinking is what they all had in common,” he said. “They opened new vistas for me.”

And he remembers the music.

He sang in the school’s glee club under the direction of David

Strickler and he remembers performances on campus of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and of the Detroit Symphony performing in the old Washington Gardner School.

“That was a big deal for me,” he said.

After graduating from Albion, he went to Boston University on a graduate teaching fellowship in philosophy. It was in that multicultural cauldron that Gustin’s love of music was taken to a new level.

“There was so much music in Boston,” said Gustin, who heard a variety of musical artists from jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and trumpet legend Miles Davis to the classical works of Beethoven, Mozart, and Berlioz by many great performers of the day. “I took it all in.”

Finding a New Direction For Gustin, that musical lure was simply too much to ignore.

So, as a part-time gig from his duties as a teacher and grad student, he got a job as an usher at Boston’s Symphony Hall, the home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and the Boston Pops, where he again soaked in all types of performances.

From there, he got a summer job as a guide at Tanglewood, the BSO’s summer festival and music academy in western Massachusetts. Enthralled by that, he eventually took a full-time job in the orchestra’s administration.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 23

recipient attracts wide-ranging arts-and-culture media coverage.

“It’s not a competition,” Gustin said. “There are over 500 competitions for pianists around the world. And the best of them are indeed important for making careers. They have a place because young artists need to compete.”

Gustin with Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin, who performed in The Gilmore’s 2015 Rising Stars Series.

“I just worked my way up,” said Gustin, who left grad school and began in an entry-level job at the BSO. He eventually became assistant managing director and manager of Tanglewood itself.

“I loved it all,” he said. “But my first love has always been developing young musical talent, and I knew I didn’t want only to manage an orchestra.”

After 30 years in Boston, he was ready for a change. And when the opportunity opened in Kalamazoo, he jumped at it.

“Compared to the battleship of Boston, this was a PT boat and that’s what I was looking for,” he said. “When I turn the wheel, the boat actually turns. There were many possibilities for growth here and we’ve grown it.”

A Global Gilmore Sixteen years later, Gustin has doubled the size of the Gilmore Festival as well as developed new programs in music education and the commissioning of new music.

But perhaps it’s the Gilmore Artist Award that draws the bulk of the attention. Every four years, the announcement of the newest

24 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

But the Gilmore Award is purposely different, developed as a way not only to find and highlight great artists but to evaluate their performances without the pressures of a competition.

Pianists are nominated confidentially by teachers and colleagues in the music world, and from there Gustin and his crew go to work.

He appoints a committee of five judges, all volunteers and from varying music backgrounds (a different committee is selected for each four-year cycle), with the charge of traveling the world and listening to the pianists under scrutiny. A secure website has been developed for the judges and Gustin to converse and evaluate and send music samples to each other.

But most important, they go to locales where nominees are performing, and those performers do not know they are being observed.

“That’s the difference from a competition,” said Gustin, whose group will consider more than 100 pianists from around the world in a process that can take as long as three years. “There are no losers in this because no one ever knew they were being considered.”

Eventually, the nominees are pared down to a small group of finalists and, again anonymously, Gustin and the judges travel to hear many of their performances in already scheduled events.

And Gustin is there to keep the process on course.

“It flows freely, but as the ‘shepherd’ I keep them moving and winnow down the candidates,” he said. “The judges have to really throw themselves into it. It’s an expensive process and it’s quite demanding in terms of time. But I think they enjoy doing it.”

A winner is selected and Gustin gets the job of telling the usually astonished musician. He remembers vividly telling the 2006 Artist, Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter, that she was the choice.

“We were sitting at a table in Georgia,” he said. “We had never met before, though of course I had secretly been at many of her concerts. She thought I was there to talk about her career options and that’s when I told her she’d won. She burst into tears and gave me this big Latin American hug.”

Fostering Careers and Culture The prize of $300,000, Gustin said, isn’t simply a check presented to the winner. Instead, $50,000 is presented at the time of the Award, and the remainder is used to develop the performer’s career and musicianship—whether it’s buying the piano of his or her dreams, hiring a promoter, developing a website, or other ways to advance in the field. The use of the Award monies must be approved by The Gilmore.

Needless to say, it costs a lot to present one of the most significant awards in the music world today.

Were it not for support from the Kalamazoo-based Irving S. Gilmore Foundation as well as other business and individual sponsors around the region, neither the Award nor the Festival would be possible.

“The Gilmore Foundation continues to support this because it’s such a great thing for the community, and the Festival is a great way of showcasing the

Award winners,” Gustin said.

“And people love and support it. In this community, there is a remarkable history and spirit of philanthropy.”

Indeed, the Festival has become a big part of Kalamazoo’s cultural scene, and Richard Hughey, executive vice president and CEO of the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, which also sponsors a number of other worthy causes and events in the area, believes Gustin is a major reason for that.

“The Festival has really benefited from Dan’s experience, especially his experience at Tanglewood,” said Hughey, who himself plays drums in a local band. “He had a lot of connections in the music world when he came here and that was very helpful.”

He also points to Gustin’s ability to expand the influence of the Festival.

“In recent years, it’s been the widening of the genres represented that has helped keep the Festival fresh and attract new audiences,” he said. “Jazz has been a feature for years, but he’s brought in performers like John Legend, Ben Folds, and Pink Martini.

“Dan has also identified up-andcoming artists that the general public may not be aware of,” Hughey added, “and it’s to the point now where audiences figure whoever comes to The Gilmore will be high quality.”

Through all the travel and turns of the wheel, Gustin has also been able to look on with pride at what the Festival, which got its start in 1991, has become.

“Pretty much everyone in the music world knows who we are,” he said with a smile. “I think we’re established.”

And the music? For Dan Gustin, it never went away.

V. VAGUE PHOTOS

Learning the Craft

Jane Finkel, ’14

Brian Spencer, ’13

From writing songs to managing initial success, Less Is More for two recent alums.

By Nicole Kurlich, ’17 How does someone become a rising star in the music world? A concoction of passion, pluck, and hard work should do the trick—at least according to the two Albion alumni behind the Kalamazoo-based band Less Is More.

The folk-turned-genre-bending group began in 2013 as the duo of Jane Finkel, ’14, and Brian Spencer, ’13. Themes of home, youth, nature, and tenderness wind through the landscapes of their songs.

The cozily dressed duo seem to embody the same spirit as they discuss their songwriting process in a golden-dim corner of Marshall’s Dark Horse Brewery. Finkel describes it as a rambling exploration of an idea, a moment, an experience, a character—anything. She points out two old men drinking together across the room as an example of an image that could spark a song.

“That would actually make a pretty good song,” Spencer muses.

Less Is More began generating buzz after releasing a song last year with Nashville duo The Queen and King that became a hit on the online streaming service Spotify.

The “Cool Kids/Riptide” mashup (originally

by Echosmith and Vance Joy, respectively) recently surpassed 30 million listens.

It’s only gone up since then for Finkel and Spencer, who met after joining Euphonics, Albion’s a capella group. She was a first-

year student from woodsy Mackinac Island, where she had cultivated an interest in the arts; he was a sophomore from East Lansing who was on the football team and, save for a semester of high school choir, had never sung or played an instrument.

A friendship bloomed into a relationship, Spencer crammed dozens of songs to memory while learning guitar, and the two decided to follow their growing passion for music together. They started by playing for beer and pizza at Cascarelli’s on Monday Senior Bar nights.

Less Is More morphed out of that effort, with arrangements that included ukulele, guitar, harmonica, and piano. “I don’t know how we as ’90s kids went totally ’70s hippie with the folk opera band,” Spencer says.

In 2014 they recorded and released a selfproduced album, Amid the Flowers, and hit the road right after Finkel’s graduation, playing shows in 18 states over three and a half months and volunteering along the way. Also along the way: the Nashville mashup-turned-Spotify-hit.

And success hasn’t been the only thing to grow since returning to Michigan. A drummer and bassist have been added, Finkel has traded in her ukulele for a synthesizer, and Spencer has taken up electric guitar. Still, for all the expansion, Finkel and Spencer continue to embrace the minimalistic idea that “less is more.”

When asked for her most meaningful song, Finkel replies with “Song for You,”

one of her first love songs and which she wrote for Spencer, who seconds the choice.

“I like that one, too,” he says, “especially when the crowd sings it back, cause Jane wrote it for me and the crowd’s singing it to me…” He closes his eyes and raises his hands in an exultant gesture.

“Oh, my God,” Finkel laughs with teasing exasperation.

Spencer also offers a song: “Maybe We’ll Die.” It expresses how, no matter what happens, the two feel happy following their dreams. To that end, they credit Albion for fostering their creative drive and work ethic.

Finkel, who majored in music with minors in art and French, says English professor Nels Christensen taught her that “everyone deserves the chance to be given a voice.”

Spencer, who completed a communication studies and management track, developed his lyricism and songwriting skills in Helena Mesa’s creative writing class.

“I realize now, talking to other people from other schools, it’s not always like how it is at Albion. They really care,” Finkel says of the professors.

Less Is More is putting a similar amount of care into writing fresh music and pairing it with a business plan and a busy schedule.

“We have a really high level of blind hope,” Finkel says, “matched with really hard work.”

Nicole Kurlich is an English (Creative Writing) major from Concord, Ohio.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 25

OF LEGACY, LAND, AND LOVE

BY CHUCK CARLSON

Now in its eighth generation, the Bibbins-Dean-Lange extended family weaves throughout the story of Albion, Michigan, and Albion College.

∑

It began when James and Lovisa Bibbins packed up everything they owned, including their infant son John Milton, and headed west from their home in western New York.

the Methodist college came together in Albion and would eventually take the name of the town in which it resided.

“This is really the beginning of the story,” says Rick Lange, ’70.

Along the way, not yet anywhere near to where they were going but too far along to turn back, the young trio encountered a woman and her family heading back east. For them the thrill of the west was not worth the trouble and they were going back home while they still could.

And what a story it is. It incorporates three families—the Bibbinses, the Deans, and the Langes—who between them have more than 175 years invested in building a town, a college, a community, and a legacy through good times and bad.

As the woman looked at the Bibbins family and their wagon headed for their new adventure, she could only say, “It’s so sad. Such a beautiful child and you’re bringing him out here to die.”

It began with James and Lovisa and their little boy, who ignored the warnings of traveling toward an unknown horizon, and the story continues today.

James, Lovisa, and John Milton did not hesitate and they did not look back.

They kept looking west, continuing a journey they knew they had to make.

Eventually they arrived at the plot of land James had purchased on a previous trip to Hanover, southeast of a new community known as Albion.

Since those early days, more than 50 family members with the last name of Dean, Lange, or Bibbins have attended Albion College, and their stories make up the fabric of a family, of a local history, and of a state. They have been soldiers and builders, teachers and businessmen, and community leaders. And their fingerprints can be found everywhere.

There, they built a log cabin by a lake and they moved into their new home on Christmas Day 1837.

They called the body of water Bibbins Lake, and it’s still called that to this day.

“It’s a history of Michigan,” says Lange, who went on to a career in the banking industry and was interim director of the Carl A. Gerstacker Institute for Business and Management in 2009-10.

That same year, plans were being made for a small Methodist college to be built in nearby Spring Arbor. Those plans would end up delayed, and when land was donated and plans re-established,

He and his wife, Barbara (Sehnert) Lange, ’70, retired from teaching home economics at Bloomfield Hills High School, moved back to Albion in 2011 after purchasing in 2002 and

28 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

renovating in the ensuing years a home overflowing with history. It’s just a halfmile from their beloved campus and features a wonderful view of the south porch of Bellemont Manor, named for Rick’s great-grandmother and an iconic symbol of Albion’s past.

The couple have devoted themselves to cataloging the family history that has played such a role in the College’s annals.

This is, among other things, a history lesson, but it’s a lot more than that.

It’s a story about tradition and dedication, how a school has shaped a family, and how that family, in turn, has shaped a school.

And it’s a story that, so far, spans six generations of Albion College students with the possibility of a seventh.

“But there’s no pressure,” Barbara says with a laugh, referring to their grandkids.

One Page Leads to Another Rick and Barbara Lange met at Albion College as freshmen in the spring of 1967 at a fraternity/sorority picnic in Victory Park—he for Delta Sigma Phi, she for Delta Gamma. Interestingly enough, he grew up in Lansing, not Albion; and she was from Lima, Ohio.

“That’s the first time I laid eyes on her,” Rick recollects about that day in the park.

“She was tall. She was a good match.”

Barbara smiles.

“It’s a farmhouse in a little town,” says Rick Lange, ’70, about the former longtime home of his great-aunt Helen Ewbank, daughter of storied Albion couple George and Belle Dean, and each among the 50-plus members of the extended family to have attended Albion College. Since 2011, Rick and his wife, Barbara (Sehnert) Lange, ’70, have lived at 810 Haven Road, which has sweeping views of the Deans’ mansion that was donated to the College in 1962 and renamed Bellemont Manor, as well as of the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center.

FREELAND PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO

Pages 26 and 27: The original homestead of James and Lovisa Bibbins in nearby Hanover, Michigan.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 29

“I don’t remember any of that,” she says simply.

They began dating in their sophomore year and both graduated two years later, Rick with a degree in economics and business administration, and Barbara with a home economics and education degree. They married in 1971.

But, as Rick likes to tell the story, none of that would have happened and the tale of three intertwined families might well have ended had Japan not bombed Pearl Harbor nearly 75 years ago.

“That’s another story,” Lange says with a smile.

This one takes place in December 1941, when Ethel Belle Dean, known to everyone as “E.B.,” was in the midst of her freshman year at Duke University when the United States’ naval base in Hawaii was attacked, ushering America into World War II. The war effort brought gas rationing, which made it impractical to travel back and forth from Michigan to North Carolina. E.B. decided to transfer to Albion and follow three preceding generations of students.

Upon her return she met Philip, a friend of her younger sister Dagmar, and they connected immediately. In 1947 they married, and soon came a son, Eric, known to all as Rick.

“So if the Japanese hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbor, there would be no fifth generation,” he says with a laugh.

He knows a good story when he hears it.

A Legacy of Graduates

Emma’s parents, who were devout Methodists, were also among the original donors for the establishment of the new college which, in an unusual statement of the time, admitted women from the beginning.

Emma and Walter were married April 11, 1871 in Hanover, and though records are sketchy, it’s believed both graduated from Albion that same year. And, if they didn’t graduate, they certainly attended.

But they weren’t even the first family members to attend the school.

That honor belonged to Newton Bibbins, Emma’s older brother, who went to what was then known as the Wesleyan Seminary (it was renamed Albion College in 1861) for two years.

Newton left school in 1861 to join the Union Army, serving in the First Regiment of the Michigan Infantry, a unit that would see action in some of the Civil War’s bloodiest engagements, including Bull Run and Antietam.

Yet it wasn’t warfare that turned Newton into one of the war’s hundreds of thousands of victims. It was chronic dysentery, which eventually killed him on January 13, 1865 while he was home in Michigan on medical furlough.

Seven years later, in 1872, Emma gave birth to a son, George, starting the family’s next generation of Albion students. George Dean graduated in 1896, the same year he married Belle Clark, who had moved to Hanover from her native Vermont in 1887 at age 13 and who began attending Albion in 1892.

By the time Rick graduated, it had become something of a family ritual to earn a degree from Albion College.

George became one of Albion’s most distinguished businessmen, a co-owner of the Blue Front Hardware Store. Then, in 1901, he organized investors and rescued the Union Steel Products Co. from closure.

It began when James and Lovisa’s daughter, Emma, attended the new college just northwest of Hanover. There she met her future husband, Walter Dean, whose family came to Michigan from England.

In the years that followed, George and Belle would be something very much like Albion’s power couple, eventually building a 30-room mansion on Haven Hill just south of Albion

30 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

College as an ancestral home for their family roots in the community.

George died in 1932, but by then the next generation, in the person of George and Belle’s kids—Walter Clark (he preferred to be called by his middle name), Ethel, Helen, Ruth, Frank, and George Jr. (all Albion grads)—had established themselves.

Clark, who wed 1923 grad Mate Wonsey, took over as chairman of the board of Union Steel Products. He also served on the Albion City Council and was mayor from 1945-46. Right around this time, daughter E.B. married Philip.

Meanwhile, Frank Dean was well known for his building designs, which features structures all over town and the College, including City Hall downtown and Whitehouse Hall, Baldwin Hall, and Seaton Hall on campus as well as the home Rick and Barbara would eventually move into.

In late 1962, the Dean family home, carved out of more than 300 acres of farmland south of campus, was donated to the College. Shortly afterward, it was renamed Bellemont Manor, in honor of Belle Dean.

For years, the College used Bellemont Manor as a continuing education and conference center; it was run by Britons football coaching legend Morley Fraser.

And that’s when some of Rick’s earliest memories start, because, for him, Bellemont Manor was a second home.

“I came to live there for a month with Grandma,” he reminisces about Belle. “I have so many memories that run together. It was a great time.”

The history of the three families, and how it is so intricately connected with the history of Albion College, had long interested both Rick and Barbara. So when they retired—Rick in 2008 and Barbara in 2011—they were looking to downsize from their home in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham.

“But if you’d asked us 20 to 30 years ago where we’d retire, it wouldn’t be Albion,” Barbara says.

“College towns are good places to retire,” Rick explains.

Uncovering the History During a visit to Albion in 2002, they came to the home at 810 Haven Road that was sitting empty after the passing of Rick’s great-aunt Helen Ewbank.

Barbara was doing research on the family when she learned the house was for sale at an attractive price. Along with the history of the home, the house had a perfect view of Bellemont Manor from the porch. Plus, with what would soon become the Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center essentially in their backyard, they knew they were on to something.

The house needed work, but the opportunity, they decided, was too good to pass up.

“It’s a farmhouse in a little town,” says Rick, for whom the memories remain plentiful. “When I was a student, I’d walk to Victory Park and I’d frequently visit with Helen. She had a keen sense of humor and a plate of fresh-baked cookies on the table. I never thought we’d eventually live in her house.”

Since moving back to Albion, Rick and Barbara have been, in a sense, campus ambassadors, hosting College events as well as individual visitors as wide-ranging as a violinist from San Diego to guests from France, Cameroon, Egypt, and Costa Rica.

Barbara Lange (above) pores through family history materials in the College Archives of Stockwell Library, a regular Tuesday activity. At right, portraits of James and Lovisa Bibbins.

Over the years Barbara has worked with family members, including Rick’s cousin Joanna, to compile and untangle the intertwined and often complicated history of the three families.

She has even written 75 pages of a manuscript that she hopes to eventually turn into a book, and developed a detailed PowerPoint presentation on the history of Bellemont Manor that she shows to local groups.

“She just loves to be involved,” Rick said. “This research gives her something that is personally satisfying. When she got acquainted with the huge family, it awakened something in her.”

But along with renovating the home, the couple has plunged into the genealogy of the Bibbinses, Deans, and Langes—at last count, more than 50 of them attended Albion College.

And while the story does encompass three families, Rick and Barbara believe it’s the Dean family, whose name still reverberates around the region, that takes the lead.

There are no fewer than 28 boxes of family history in the College Archives, and Barbara and Rick dive into the details every Tuesday morning. And, usually, every week turns up something they didn’t know before.

“The Deans exemplify the themes of family, community, church, and college,” Rick says.

“Those traditional values are what the Deans stood for. And that’s what we’re trying to continue. We want to keep the history alive.”

Of course, the best part about history is that it never ends. Rick and Barbara’s daughter, Betsy, ’99, represents student generation No. 6 (though their son, Robert, broke the mold, earning his engineering degree from the University of Michigan).

And waiting in the wings are Rick and Barbara’s grandchildren—James, 6, and Charles, 5. They have yet to make their college preference known but, when the time comes, they will know the history and the legacy of a trio of families who helped build a community and a college.

And they will know the stories. Because, after all, there is always another story to tell.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 31

LASTING LINEAGE The milestones are many. Here, a timeline of just a few notable moments surrounding the Bibbins-Dean-Lange legacy in Albion.

∑

1800 19 1887

1848

1871

Emma Amelia Bibbins born on Hanover homestead.

Walter J.G. Dean and Emma Bibbins married in Hanover.

Fall of 1837 James and Lovisa (Storm) Bibbins arrive at new land in Hanover, Michigan.

Belle Clark, age 13, arrives in Hanover for education opportunity.

1906

1921

George begins leadership of Union Steel.

W. Clark graduates from Albion College.

1932

George passes away.

1865

1872

1892

1920

1928

1935

Emma Bibbins attends Albion College. Walter J.G. Dean arrives in Albion and attends Albion College.

George Emory Dean born in Hanover.

Belle and George attend Albion College.

First land purchased for Haven Hills Dairy Farm.

George and Belle move to Haven Hills’ “Big House.”

Their residence on Erie Street becomes Dean Hall.

Last of big barns built for Haven Hills Farm.

Walter J.G. Dean from 1872

32 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Belle Dean

George Dean

Mate Dean

2000 900 Mate and Clark Dean

1938

1946

Helen E. and Paul C. Ewbank move into 810 Haven Road.

Belle Dean

Clark Dean

Clark Dean

1948

Ethel Belle Dean graduates from Albion College.

Eric Dean Lange born.

1931: Class of 1896 Holds 35th Reunion at Haven Hills

1999

1963

1977

Haven Hills house, donated to Albion College, is renamed Bellemont Manor.

Dean Aquatic Center dedicated in honor of W. Clark Dean.

Elizabeth Lange, oldest child of Rick and Barbara, graduates from Albion College.

2011

Rick and Barbara return to family roots in Albion.

1939

1947

1962

1970

1998

2004

Haven Hills’ 175 head of Guernsey cattle is peak production to community.

Ethel Belle and Philip Lange married at the Big House.

Belle passes away.

Rick Lange and Barbara Sehnert graduate from Albion College.

Haven Hills Farm sold to Albion College.

Albion College opens Nancy G. Held Equestrian Center on Haven Hills land.

George Dean

Ethel and Philip Lange

1947 Family Reunion at Haven Hills

Spring-Summer 2016 | 33

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS

Duly Recognized Albion College’s 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients affirmed during an Upper Baldwin dinner and ceremony April 22 that it was a lot more than just their studies at Albion that guided them toward success in their fields.

Citing the College’s “culture of being able to help,” David Wood, ’79, president and chief medical officer for metro Detroit’s Beaumont Health System, put it simply: “If it was not for Albion, I would not be a doctor.”

“I fell in love with the campus, the closeknit community, the relationships with mentors,” said Brook McClintic Griese, ’97, executive director of Judi’s House/JAG Institute for Grieving Children and Families in Denver. “I learned so much while I was here that I channel into everything that I do.”

And for noted Chicago sculptor Terrence Karpowicz, ’70, it is influences within Albion’s athletics realm that continue to resonate with him today. “Frank Joranko and Elkin Isaac shaped my character and gave me confidence to go out into the world and establish myself as a visual artist,” he said. “I humbly accept this award

and will cherish this moment for the rest of my life.”

Preceding the dinner, the College’s 2016 Young Alumni Award recipients— Smithsonian natural history museum collection specialist Amanda Millhouse, ’07; high school science teacher Doug Richmond, ’06; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention country officer Alyssa Wong, ’09—were recognized for exceptional achievements in their first 10 years following graduation.

For more on this year’s alumni award recipients, visit www.albion.edu/alumni.

Clockwise from top left: Brook McClintic Griese offers remarks from the podium; Terrence Karpowicz with Britons legend Frank Joranko, ’52; David Wood receives his award from President Mauri Ditzler; Alyssa Wong (left), Doug Richmond, and Amanda Millhouse during the Young Alumni Awards panel.

34 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

A 100-Year Story, with More to Be Written Sisterhood across generations was celebrated April 17 in the Science Complex as members of Alpha Xi Delta Phi Chapter gathered for a centennial luncheon. Pictured below: Allison James Green, ’59 (center), with Mary Frances Steele, ’78 (right), and Steele’s daughter Chelsea Steele Decker, an AXiD member and doctoral student at Michigan State University; and students and Alpha Xi Delta members from Albion’s Class of 2018.

GATHER ROUND! A networking panel discussion (top left) preceded a Chicago reception March 10 at the office of a tech start-up incubator inside the landmark Merchandise Mart.

Panelists, from left, included Melissa Church, ’02, trustee Jeff Weedman, ’75, and trustee Larry Schook, ’72; Andy Smerczak-Zorza, ’02, served as emcee.

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Albion pennants and flags were seen at several other regional events this past winter and spring.

1. Indianapolis, IN Jan. 21 at Georgia Reese’s Southern Table & Bar

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2. The Villages, FL Jan. 23 at Cody’s at Lake Sumter 3. La Jolla, CA Jan. 27 at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery 4. Columbus, OH Feb. 29 at The Athletic Club of Columbus 5. Philadelphia, PA March 9 at Field House

Upcoming Events Back to Class July 11-12 Harbor Springs and Petoskey, MI Join Albion College alumni, faculty, staff, parents, and friends for a Northern Michigan experience.

Albion College Night at Fenway July 25 Boston, MA Baseball: Detroit Tigers at Boston Red Sox.

More information can be found at www.albion.edu/alumni/events. For reservations and questions, please call 517/629-0448 or email collegeevents@albion.edu.

New Glarus Brewery Tour August 6 New Glarus, WI With optional dinner and overnight accommodations.

Family Day September 17 A full day of activities on campus and at downtown Albion’s Festival of the Forks. Visit www.albion. edu/family-day.

Homecoming October 14-15 See page 36 for details.

Spring-Summer 2016 | 35

HOMECOMING

OCTOBER 14-15, 2016 HIGHLIGHTS • Athletic Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony

HOMECOMING IS A FANTASTIC TIME TO RECONNECT WITH CLASSMATES, SHARE OLD MEMORIES (AND MAKE NEW ONES), AND CHEER ON THE BRITS. A DETAILED SCHEDULE OF EVENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON, AND WE CAN’T WAIT TO WELCOME YOU BACK TO CAMPUS. JOIN US!

Individual Inductees Stacy Chapman Rich, ’03—Golf Keith Debbaudt, ’01—Football Larry Downs, ’66—Basketball Eric Johnson, ’96—Baseball Craig Miller, ’77—Football Denise Routhier, ’99—Track and Field Hayden Smith, ’70—Track and Field Jeri Stiles, ’67—Track and Field Michael Thomas, ’06—Basketball Kurt Wiese, ’78—Football Team Inductees Baseball 1995-96 Cross Country 1964-66 • Presidential College Update • Women’s Soccer vs. Hope • Football vs. Olivet • Men’s Soccer vs. Adrian • Art and Art History Department Exhibit • Music Department Homecoming Concert • Academic Department Tailgates/Receptions

REUNIONS Join your classmates in a reunion celebration after the football game on Saturday. Look for more information from your classmate chairs or the College this summer.

Visit www.albion.edu/homecoming for more information on the weekend’s events.

36 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

THE BACK PAGE

Ninety Years Ago, a Whole New Ballgame For one season, a longtime Major Leaguer’s stardust is shared by a college and a community.

By James K. Flack, ’59 In 1926, the Albion College baseball team was coached by James T. McGuire, a longtime resident and a celebrity. He had recently concluded 41 years as a Major League player, manager, coach, and scout. Between 1884 and 1913 he caught for 11 different teams, mainly Washington and Detroit, the Tigers assigning him to scouting duties through the 1925 season.

Since early in his career he was called “Deacon Jim,” a nickname of respect for the sportsmanlike way he approached the game. Toward the end, he was esteemed for mentoring younger players.

Certainly his hometown was proud of him.

“Albion has loomed large on the map of Michigan ever since McGuire went there to live,” proclaimed The Recorder in 1927. This estimation was based, in part, on his work with the College team the year before.

The start of the 1926 season will seem familiar to many former and even present Briton ballplayers. Coach McGuire’s preseason workouts in Kresge Gym, for 10 returning letter winners and several promising freshmen, dragged on longer than planned due to wet grounds at Alumni Field. With only limited outdoor practices, Albion lost its first game at Michigan State, 7-2.

But a couple of weeks later, the club was looking better: a road win over Central Michigan boosted the record to .500, with more than half the schedule to go. For most of May, “the McGuiremen,” as The Pleiad dubbed them (The Recorder liked “the fighting McGuires”), were on fire, winning five out of six against

48 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Then came a one-run loss to Alma at home, followed by a season-ending defeat at the hands of Western Michigan.

Yet Deacon Jim had coached Albion to a successful year. The 8-6 overall win-loss record bettered the 5-10 mark of 1925, and the 7-3 MIAA performance (good for second place behind Eastern Michigan) markedly improved on the previous season’s fourth-place finish.

And it is important to note that five of his players, headed by catcher and team captain Lyle Eastman, were from Albion—presumably products of Washington Gardner High School.

Researching the history of that 1926 team required dependence on both City and College resources made accessible by incredibly cooperative staff members from the Albion District Library’s Local History Room as well as the Archives and Special Collections team at Stockwell-Mudd Library. Thus, it illustrates the benefits of drawing on campus and community for a purpose to which each can mutually contribute.

Regarding Deacon Jim—who came back to Albion after baseball season every winter and eventually retired to the Duck Lake farm that he and his wife, May, owned, and whose grave is in Riverside Cemetery—coaching the College team gave Albion an association with big-league baseball’s past. Beyond that, Coach McGuire can be viewed as a reminder of possibilities for future connections between the College and its City.

Jim Flack was drawn to this subject after many years of teaching U.S. history and coaching

The 1926 baseball Britons, pictured in the 1927 Albionian. Coach Deacon Jim McGuire (also pictured at top) is in the front row, fourth from left.

baseball, twin passions that combined to bring about a fulfilling career as well as leisurely retirement pursuits. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and now living in Washington, D.C., he has been a member of the Society of American Baseball Research for more than 30 years.

With a particular interest in the history of intercollegiate baseball, he likes to imagine that his Albion professors and coaches—especially Julian Rammelkamp and Morley Fraser—would approve of his current pastime.

In 2016-17, it’s a whole new game again as baseball’s Frank Joranko Field and other athletic facilities are fully revamped into the Davis Athletic Complex. Follow developments at gobrits.com.

Io Triumphe!

EDITOR John Perney CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jan Corey Arnett, ’75, Chuck Carlson, James K. Flack, ’59, Randi Heathman, ’03, Nicole Kurlich, ’17, Kathryn Walsh, ’88 CLASS NOTES WRITERS Jake Weber, Luann Shepherd, Matthew Kleinow DESIGNER Katherine Mueting Hibbs MARKETING/COMMUNICATIONS John Thompson, Chuck Carlson, Amanda Layne, ’14, Eric Westmoreland Io Triumphe! is published twice annually by the Office of Marketing and Communications. It is distributed free to alumni and friends of the College.

Letters to the editor may be sent to: Office of Marketing and Communications Albion College 611 E. Porter Street Albion, MI 49224 communications@albion.edu www.albion.edu ABOUT OUR NAME The unusual name for this publication comes from a yell written by members of the Class of 1900. The beginning words of the yell, “Io Triumphe!,” were probably borrowed from the poems of the Roman writer, Horace.

In 1936, the alumni of Albion College voted to name their magazine after the yell which by then had become a College tradition.

For years, Albion’s incoming students have learned these lines by heart: Io Triumphe! Io Triumphe!

Haben swaben rebecca le animor Whoop te whoop te sheller de-vere De-boom de ral de-i de-pa— Hooneka henaka whack a whack A-hob dob balde bora bolde bara Con slomade hob dob rah!

Al-bi-on Rah! FIND MORE ONLINE: www.albion.edu

Connect with students, faculty, staff, and alumni through Albion College’s social media channels.

Plan the Gift of a Lifetime You can make a difference in the lives of many future Britons by planning a gift today. Our development staff makes giving from your estate a simple process and will ensure your gift provides you with immediate benefits.

To make your impact, contact our Development Office today.

517/629-0446 | advancement@albion.edu albion.planmygift.org

Office of Marketing and Communications 611 East Porter Street Albion, MI 49224

Our Words Matter This spring, Albion’s StudentAthlete Advisory Committee used its collective voice to share a powerful message, yet relied on individuals to tell it. “A lot of this stemmed from their own experiences,” said women’s soccer defender Lauren Bensley, ’16, who along with women’s basketball forward Emily DeWaters, ’16, led SAAC’s social media campaign that reached at least 35,000 people on Facebook, generating more than 550 Likes. In all, over 75 student-athletes are featured across 50-plus messages, and SAAC plans to continue the effort this fall by engaging with other campus organizations.

Visit www.facebook.com/ OurWordsMatterAlbion and search #wordsmatterAlbion on Twitter.