Io Triumphe! Spring-Summer 2021

Io Triumphe!

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF ALBION COLLEGE

SPRING-SUMMER 2021

SHINING IN CHICAGO Albion stories of engagement and impact

Spring-Summer 2021 | 1 VOL. LXXXVI, NO. 1

Contents

SPRING-SUMMER 2021

Features SHINING IN CHICAGO

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BRITON BREAKTHROUGHS

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AN ‘AUDACIOUS’ IDEA

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WRESTLING RETURNS

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TEACHERS, ALWAYS

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Enrollment from the region has multiplied over the last seven years. And for more and more alumni, it’s their kind of town.

Taking house calls in Chicago; fighting Parkinson’s at NIH; studying stem cells in the UK: meet a trio of medical stars.

Launched by Albion student leaders in 1971, the P250 Scholarship has benefited generations of Britons.

After a four-decade hiatus, Briton men and women hit the mats this winter. Esports also joins the athletic lineup.

Read about retiring Albion professors—researchers, artists, innovators—whose impact will endure.

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Departments BRITON BITS 3 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS 39 ALBIONOTES 40 THE BACK PAGE 48

Cover illustration by Nick Hernandez

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Preceding page and inside front cover: An interior lobby rendering of the future Body and Soul Center, following a planned renovation and expansion of the former Washington Gardner School building at 401 E. Michigan Ave. Get a glimpse of this and more new projects and programs on page 6.

BRITON BITS

Creating With Courage When I learned I would become the 17th president of Albion College, I knew this would be a year unlike any other. But I could never have imagined the courage and vision our community would bring to each unique challenge and triumph.

That courage was present when we joined together in May to celebrate bold new investments in our people, our campus, and our community.

We shared our vision to tap into the potential of under-utilized spaces to create meaningful intersections of collaboration between the College and community, like the Body and Soul Center at Washington Gardner. We announced new initiatives, like the School for Public Purpose and Professional Advancement, which will build on Albion’s existing strengths in experiential learning to create pathways that empower students to learn through doing.

We dedicated the James L. Curtis Institute for Race and Belonging, where students will explore race in society, following in the footsteps of a trailblazing alumnus and community leader.

We also gathered on the Quad to celebrate two groups of bold changemakers—the Classes of 2021 and 2020. As a longstanding member of our community,

you know that Albion alumni don’t hesitate to forge new ground and tackle the biggest challenges facing us today: from institutional racism to resource inequality and climate change.

With our newest graduates leading the way, we have a bright future ahead of us—both for our college and the world.

In my first letter to the Albion community, I reflected on the qualities that first drew me to Albion: boldness, tenacity, and passion in the pursuit of public purpose. That sentiment couldn’t be more true today.

This was a historic year for Albion. As many colleges and universities planned for a virtual experience in the fall, Albion met the crisis head-on, as we have done so many times in the past.

Our faculty and staff worked tirelessly over the summer to develop a cutting-edge public health response rooted in education, environmental adaptation, and population health monitoring and risk reduction. As a result, we were able to offer a full year of safe, inperson living and learning.

Over the last few years, Albion has intentionally shifted to welcome a more diverse and inclusive student body. The percentage of students at Albion who identify as students of

President Johnson is meeting regularly this summer with Classidy Scales (left), ’24, and Ant Neal, ’23, as the College continues to explore ways to create a more equitable Albion for all. Scales is majoring in psychology and minoring in sexuality studies; Neal is majoring in political science and history. Both are from Chicago, Illinois. color has increased from 18% in 2013-14 to 41% in 2019-20. In fall 2020, Albion College enrolled its second largest class in 15 years, 48% of whom are students of color.

As our student population changes, we must, too. This year we launched the Blueprint for Belonging to transform our College at every level—from the Cabinet to our student organizations—and ensure Albion is a place where every student feels valued, safe, and welcome. And we took action to make these changes felt on campus right away. As students came together on the Quad to protest injustice this spring, Albion supported them. Our student organizers and our administration collaborated to identify areas of growth and work towards meaningful, sustained change. This summer, these students are working with me in formal positions to implement

new, transparent practices that will create a more equitable Albion for all. It will take each of us working together to boldly create the future we need.

This was a year that demanded courage, collaboration, and vision. But through it all, our community has supported one another. That’s what it means to be a Brit.

As we usher in this next phase of growth and transformation for Albion College, I hope you will join us. There is a role for everyone. Together, we are creating with courage to transform ourselves and the world.

Dr. Mathew B. Johnson President

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BRITON BITS

The degree candidates were seated based on their student residence as part of COVID-19 safety protocols.

The Processional for the Class of 2021 May 8 came under clear blue skies.

Jason Bigpond, ’22, gave the land acknowledgement, recognizing Albion College’s presence on the land of the Council of the Three Fires— the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi.

Let the celebration begin: savoring the special time during and just after the ceremony.

A newly minted 2021 Albion graduate strides into the future.

Bold Steps Forward

From left: Board of Trustees Chair Mike Harrington, ’85, and President Mathew Johnson with past Board Chair Don Sheets, ’82, and Angela Scott Sheets, ’82, the newest recipients of the Briton Medallion.

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May 7 and 8 truly was a celebration of Albion’s past, present, and future. Fine springtime weather greeted more than 350 members of the Class of 2021 who walked across the Kresge Gymnasium stage at Commencement. Two hours later they were followed by more than 50 alumni representing the Class of 2020, who a year earlier received their bachelor’s degrees virtually during the pandemic’s first weeks.

Prior to the two ceremonies capping an academic year like no other, the College welcomed trustees, alumni, and friends in several ribbon-cutting and announcement events that together show how Albion will be creating with courage—now and for years to come. Turn the page for another perspective of what’s ahead.

Following the Class of 2021 ceremony, Albion’s Class of 2020 celebrated its on-campus Commencement.

Jontaj Wallace, ’20, sounded the Senior Class Horn, with assistance from classmate Ikpemesi Ogundare, ’20.

May 7 also saw the ribbon cutting of the Serra Fitness Center (a major expansion of the Dow Recreation and Wellness Center), which opened last fall through a gift from Joe, ’82, and Julie Serra.

President Johnson cuts the ribbon May 7 to the Seely-Berkey House, a gathering place for faculty and staff at the site of the former Albion Heritage Bed and Breakfast on Michigan Avenue.

During the morning of May 8, the College announced the creation of the James Curtis Institute for Race and Belonging. At the event, Dr. Curtis, ’44, stood next to his newly unveiled portrait painted by Michael Dixon, professor and chair of the Art and Art History Department.

The long-awaited moment finally realized: Class of ’20 grads heard their names announced on the Quad and walked across the Kresge steps.

Dr. Shannon O’Neill (left), associate dean for student success, engaged in conversations with visitors during a May 7 open house for the newly designed Cutler Center for Student Success and Academic Achievement in Stockwell Library.

Retired Albion kindergarten teacher Peg Turner, ’69, spoke May 7 about the history of the former Washington Gardner school inside its auditorium.

The College, which owns the building, plans to transform and expand the space into the Body and Soul Center (right), serving all of Albion— community and college.

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Our Campus Community Evolves A liberal arts education is centuries old yet doesn’t stand still. From renamed departments and offices to reimagined spaces, repurposed places, and new construction and academic programs, Albion continues an era of innovative and exciting change to best meet the needs of students today and tomorrow. As such, in a few years these updates will be reflected on the campus map.

Here, a little preview—look for links to more information about several of these initiatives at albion.edu/iotriumphe, with much more to follow on the College’s website and social media channels in the coming weeks and months.

1. Downtown: In the Ludington Center, at 101 N. Superior St., the recently launched School for Public Purpose and Professional Advancement hosts the College’s institutes, including the brand-new James L. Curtis Institute for Race and Belonging. At 207 S. Superior, also a part of the School, is the new Albion College Community Collaborative, a full-scale, student-run consulting operation.

2. Washington Gardner: The College-owned, near-century-old community landmark, which has educated generations of Albion residents, will be both renovated and expanded as the Body and Soul Center, a new City and College centerpiece.

3. Wesley Hall: After a renovation, the lower-level cafeteria is now the Community Table of Albion, a hub for local organizations that conduct food distribution.

4. Former St. John’s Catholic Church: The building, long owned by the College, is slated to become Alumni Unity Hall, a shared space for fostering alumni and student connections.

5. Residential Village: The open space on Huron Street behind Kresge Gym is envisioned to be a residential village, the future home for Albion’s fraternities and other intentional housing communities. The current fraternity houses would join Mae Harrison Karro Student Village to create a full block of student housing for seniors and juniors.

6. Cutler Center: Anchoring a newly redesigned first floor of Stockwell Library, the Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler Center for Student Success and Academic Achievement is a one-stop shop for supporting students and removing barriers to academic success.

7. Science Complex: Albion has begun a partnership with Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, offering an eight-year program to high school grads interested in medicine; Albion also now offers a post-baccalaureate certificate in pre-medical studies; the Geological Sciences Department is now the Department of Earth and Environment; the Kinesiology Department moves into the Complex, from Herrick.

8. Bonta Welcome Center: Updates to the home of Admission also included moving the Student Financial Services team next door (from Ferguson) to create a more seamless visit and enrollment experience.

9. Vulgamore Hall: For religious studies and political science students, a 4+1 program with Western Michigan University leads to a master’s degree in five years.

10. Robinson Hall: The Economics and Management Department is rolling out a master’s degree program in accounting this fall.

11. Kellogg Center: The KC is now home to the Office of Community Living (formerly Residential Life in Ferguson) and the Office of Campus Life (combining Campus Programs and Organizations and Intercultural Affairs).

12. Serra Fitness Center: The $3.2 million expansion of the Dow Recreation and Wellness Center opened in fall 2020 and added 11,000 square feet of new exercise and gathering space for all students.

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BRITON BITS

‘In the Spirit of Belonging’ The travel of a centuries-old Mayan urn to Albion—and a surprising link between its birthplace and its temporary Michigan home— were revealed at Albion College on April 13. In an international event, the College affirmed the repatriation of the urn to the government of Mexico.

The urn, created by Lacandon Maya in the Chiapas region and which dates to 1525, came to Albion in 2003 as part of a collection of papers, photographs, and artifacts given to the College by Marvin Vann, ’40. Vann spent many years in Mexico on a personal mission to study communities of indigenous people in remote areas.

Arizona State University archaeologist Dr. Joel Palka has studied Albion’s Vann archives, and had seen the urn on display in StockwellMudd Libraries many times. At the repatriation ceremony in Goodrich Chapel, Palka shared his surprise when, on a more recent visit to the Museo de los Altos in Chiapas, he saw what he thought was Albion’s urn.

“I had been talking to [Albion professor of anthropology Dr.] Brad Chase about repatriating the urn and here it was!” he said. “At the time, I didn’t even know the twin existed.”

Palka has since studied both urns and notes that although each is nearly a meter tall, they are only a few millimeters apart, a remarkable show of technical skill. Tiny clay samples from each confirmed that the near-identical urns were indeed made at the same time from the same source material.

For Albion College President Mathew Johnson, repatriation is more than an official or political exercise. As a sociology professor at Siena College and West Virginia Wesleyan College, he made numerous trips to Chiapas, often with students, and in his ceremony remarks described it as “one of my favorite places on Earth.”

Taking responsibility for each other, through repatriation, “is part of the ‘purpose, belonging,

President Johnson (left) participated in the Deed of Transfer signing with Fernando González Saiffe, consul general, Consulate of Mexico in Detroit. and action’ we’ve been talking about at Albion over the past year,” Dr. Johnson explained. “I can think of no more fitting activity today of putting that purpose to action, to repair damage done by earlier generations. Today, that’s what we do, returning this beautiful urn … in the spirit of belonging to Chiapas.”

It was the second such event in three years for Albion. In August 2018 the College officially repatriated an artifact to the Zuni people of the American Southwest.

–Jake Weber

Taking Action on Climate The Mayan artifact had been in the College’s possession for nearly two decades.

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Last December, President Johnson and Albion College signed onto the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitment, a nationwide movement of higher education leaders who are devoting institutional resources toward large-scale initiatives. Through this commitment, Albion formally undertakes a goal of carbon neutrality.

“We will first evaluate our current emissions and climate policies, creating a Climate Action Plan,”

said Tanya Jagdish, ’22, co-chair of the College’s newly created Sustainability Council composed of students, faculty, and administrators. “Based on this report, we will set a timeline and get to work as quickly as possible.”

Read more about the Sustainability Council’s early work at albion.edu/iotriumphe.

Attracting Attention Two recent major grants are enabling Albion College to further enhance opportunities for students to engage with and serve the local community—and gain valuable skills and experience on their career and graduateschool paths.

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A $265,000 grant, to be awarded over two years from The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, is supporting the startup of the Albion College Community Collaborative. In the Collaborative, known as AC3, students will build and operate a full-scale consulting firm serving clients and partners from local, regional and national nonprofits to small businesses and government agencies.

A nearly $185,000 grant from the Michigan Community Service Commission AmeriCorps program is bolstering community partnership through additional support for Bonner Build Albion Fellows. Launched in 2014, the recently renamed Fellows program now welcomes the resources and support of the Princeton, N.J.-based Corella & Bertram F. Bonner Foundation.

Local students selected as Fellows are awarded tuition, housing, and meals while serving their community.

New Data Science Major Debuting this fall, the offering from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science includes a rigorous 13 units of coursework and will position graduates as sought-after candidates for jobs in a wide range of fields.

AC3’s home will be in the historic downtown Albion building at 207 S. Superior St., currently undergoing renovations.

“Active and engaged learning as a complement to classroom coursework has been shown to not only better prepare students for a job after graduation, it immensely enhances their educational experience while they are still students,” said Dr. Mathew Johnson, president of Albion College, one of U.S. News and World Report’s 50 most innovative national liberal arts schools. “Opportunities for students to directly connect with their community, through tangible projects that utilize their emerging skills and expertise, add a vital sense of purpose to learning.”

Find links to more information about each grant at albion.edu/iotriumphe.

“Consider the impact of data analysis on the COVID-19 pandemic, past and future elections, or any of a dozen other recent news stories—there has never been more data pervading aspects of daily life than there is now,” said Dr. Mark Bollman, professor and department chair. “Nor has there ever been such a great need for educated professionals who are adept at processing this avalanche of information and making the best decisions from data. Fortunately for Albion and its prospective students, these skills have long been valued in the Department, which has had particular strength in statistics and statistical reasoning for many years.”

The data science program has been designed to include degree pathways for all Albion students, including those who may not have discovered their interest in and aptitude for math or computer science in high school.

For more information, contact the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at 517-629-0361.

Check Out Albion’s New Website!

Visited albion.edu lately? The first phase of the reimagined site went live in March and features streamlined navigation; a dynamic and contemporary design optimized for mobile devices; and easy-todigest information to attract and serve prospective students. A Spanish translation for key sections of the site is scheduled to go live this summer.

“Now more than ever, Albion’s web presence has a huge impact on prospective students and our whole community,” said Susie Pentelow, executive director of communications and marketing.

“The College deserves a site that reflects its boldness and innovation, and we built in feedback from students, alumni, faculty, and staff from the beginning. We are proud to share this new, dynamic website with our entire Briton family.”

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BRITON BITS

Albion 24/7

1,944

virtual recruiting visits were hosted

by Albion staff during the just completed recruiting cycle.

18,068

Albion admission counselors are ready to hit the road this summer and fall in their favorite footwear—purple Nike sneakers, of course. Here, a look at some numbers from a unique year of student recruitment.

(And thank you, Enrollment Management team, for the nonstop effort!)

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Albion alums currently work in the Admission and Student Financial Services offices.

2,538

steps is what it will take to complete the campus walking tour, roughly a mile and a quarter.

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6,846

applications for Fall 2021 enrollment had landed in the Admission team’s queue as the magazine was about to go to press. That number represents a nearly 42% increase from the year before, which had been the highest of the last 10 years.

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The ranking

by College Consensus puts Albion firmly among the top 100 national liberal arts colleges for 2021. The website combines U.S. News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal and other leading publisher lists with the most popular student-review sites.

views of the “My Albion” recruiting video have been logged since its 2020 launch on YouTube.

1977

alumni Chuck and Nancy Frayer spoke during the ribbon-cutting of the expanded Bonta Welcome Center in May. The Frayers provided lead support for the project. The building honors the late Frank Bonta, ’49, Nancy’s father and Albion admission legend.

Two Minutes with . . .

ANTHONY J. KING

After eight years of teaching at Wayland Baptist University in Texas, Dr. King arrived at Albion last spring as director of athletic bands. Along with seeking to increase the presence and scope of the marching band, he will help develop the influence of the College’s diverse music programs.

Io Triumphe!: You’re a professor of percussion. Has that always interested you?

King: Percussion has always been a part of my life, even as a kid.

When I was asked in school what I wanted to do for a living, I said then I wanted to teach percussion in college. And I’ve been able to do that. Over the years, I’ve been a professional drummer in Texas playing in various jazz clubs in the Plainview/Lubbock area and with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

What are the possibilities you see at Albion?

There are a lot of opportunities. I think it starts with [1977 alumnus] Steve Sarns, whose incredibly generous gift last year established the Sarns Build the Band Fund*, which we think will dramatically transform the College’s marching band. It will provide new band uniforms and new instruments as well as new equipment for the color guard and drumline.

It will also upgrade our outdoor practice field and travel expenses for events as well as the hiring of

a color guard instructor, drumline instructor, and full-time marching band director and assistant. And if it all falls together, we hope to triple the size of the marching band in five years to make it an indispensable part of the Albion College experience.

What do you see as the biggest challenges that lie in the way?

Well, it’s important to get the message out to students in Michigan and beyond. One of the things I think is important is that people have to know who you are by what you’re doing, not by what you’re saying you’re going to do. It’s about who you are. It’s about being more mobile in the community and figuring out how to do that. It’s about knowing the high school music directors and visiting classrooms so that Albion becomes more than just another name of the area. They know it as the school. I want to translate that to new students interested in either continuing music or returning to it after playing in high school.

What kind of recruiting effort will it take to realize that vision?

I was at Wayland Baptist for eight years and that area had the largest concentration of small high schools in the state. There was not a music director within about 200 miles who didn’t know who I was. It is a bit different here, and step one is getting to know the high school music directors.

One of the misnomers is that you have to be a music major to play music in college. I’ve never known a band director who wants a band of majors. Sometimes your non-majors have skills that are even more helpful. What is important is that the environment is welcoming to students who have some history of involvement in a music program. Recruiting and retention can’t work if there isn't a relationship—and I plan to build those relationships.

A native of Pensacola, Florida, Anthony J. King is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, where he majored in music education with an emphasis in percussion. He gained his master’s in percussion performance at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and his doctorate in percussion performance at Texas Tech University.

Interview by Chuck Carlson *Learn more about the Sarns Build the Band Fund—find a link to the story at albion.edu/iotriumphe.

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CHICAGO EXPRESS Through dedicated recruitment efforts, notable alumni achievements, and more, Albion is establishing a more direct westbound connection to America’s third largest metro.

By John Perney When you think about Albion College’s recent success story in Chicago—and it is a bona fide success—it’s hard not to think about the little train station in downtown Albion.

Hop on the Wolverine from what Amtrak calls “the charming Italianate depot” that has served the community for more than 125 years, and you’ll reach Union Station in three and a half hours (Amtrak says 3:15 but let’s get real).

Indeed, for decades, one could say an opportunity for the College has been right at its doorstep. But Albion, with its more natural and traditional and still vibrant Detroit link, maintained a distinct Michigan identity: from the 2003-04 academic year through 2014-15, the percentage of Albion students from the Great Lakes State consistently ranged from 88% to 90%.

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But it doesn’t take a social scientist to understand that Michigan’s population trends (the state will lose another seat in Congress following last year’s census) demanded new strategies for recruitment.

Getting to Work As the Wolverine approaches the platform at Union Station (or any big-city terminal), it gets a bit dark: perhaps a mix of the unknown, anticipation, and excitement for the buzz that awaits above and outside.

Quickly walking through the station searching for the right exit means navigating around commuters and other travelers. Suddenly, the grandeur of The Great Hall forces a pause: it looks better than ever!

Step outside, and you’re looking for your Uber, hailing a cab, or maybe hoofing it across the

Chicago River to your Loop destination— navigating more people and, probably, construction. But the energy!

Metaphorical attempts aside, Albion’s efforts at building a student-recruitment hub in Chicago may have seemed daunting seven years ago.

But the possibilities have always been there.

And the results have been undeniable.

The number of Chicagoland students from Cook and surrounding counties enrolling at Albion College has increased more than eightfold, from 21 in the fall semester of 2014 to 172 in fall 2020. Fueling that surge has been the strong relationship established between Albion and the Noble Network of Charter Schools, a nonprofit organization that runs 17 charter public high schools and one middle school in Chicago. Relatedly, the percentage of students from Michigan has decreased across the same span, from 89.6% to 70.9%.

Making It Happen That percentage drop also reflects enhanced recruitment in other states, Texas and California in particular. But the Chicago success also stands out for the role alumni have gotten to play.

Britons like Austin Baidas, ’92, who for several years has hosted a rooftop barbecue in Wrigleyville featuring a mix of admitted and newly enrolled students, current students, alumni, faculty and staff, and friends of the College (the next one is July 15). Nearly a decade ago, Baidas connected with trustee Larry Schook, ’72, at alumni chapter events on how Albion could become more involved in their city—not simply to recruit students to campus, but to help them land internships and first jobs, and have Albion grads return home to Chicago to begin making their own impact.

“We’ve really had the opportunity here at Albion to set an example for the whole country and all of higher ed as to how to help first-generation students have success in their education,” said Baidas, a finance and operations consultant who serves as treasurer on the board of Howard Brown Health. He also recently joined Albion’s Board of Trustees.

Regarding his and other events in Chicago, he adds, “We realize that some students don’t necessarily have the network through their families that other students have. We have been very intentional to have our events when school is not in session.”

Now based in Chicago, Scooter Ryan is beginning his fourth recruiting season for the Albion admission team. The economics and management graduate was a four-year men’s basketball letter winner.

The schedule includes the annual March spring-break trip that the College’s Career and Internship Center organizes, bringing students to Chicago to meet with a variety of employers, many of whom are Albion alums like Jennifer Hegener, ’92.

“I work in the talent acquisition space so it’s a natural fit to help current students,” says Hegener, who co-chairs the Chicago Alumni Chapter with Will Loux, ’10. Her son, Colin, begins his first year at Albion this fall. “One thing that has always resonated with me about Albion College is the passion of the alumni and their willingness to help a fellow Brit.”

Count among them Robert Ryan, ’18. Known to many as Scooter, the Chicago native began work as an Albion admission counselor shortly after graduation. Since last October, the

economics and management grad has been based in his hometown, where in addition to expanding Albion’s reach within Chicago Public Schools, he serves as a direct Albion presence for the Noble Network. That includes riding along on Noble bus trips for group campus visits, which resumed this spring following the pandemic. He’s there to answer questions, or perhaps ease nerves, or just to help pass the time.

“A couple of students wore Air Jordans,” Ryan recalls from his last trip, “so we had a conversation about Air Jordans for an hour.

One student was so excited about the art history classes and the art in Bobbitt [Visual Arts Center], she challenged me to a draw-off on the way back.”

For the record, Scooter’s Spongebob Squarepants lost. (“She drew a bird that looked like an actual bird.”) But he knows a winning strategy when he sees one. “The Noble students hear about Albion through their high school counselors, but being in front of them really resonates,” he says.

And when he’s back in Albion, Ryan treasures those moments when he can say hello to students he helped bring to his alma mater. “I kind of feel like a bigger brother to them in a way,” he says. “Even if I’m just walking around campus, I want to make sure I maintain that connection.”

Turn the page and read about more Albion alums who are making a difference in Chicago.

Albion enrollment from the Chicagoland region over the last 11 years.

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HEALING THROUGH HELPING OTHERS An alumna applies the discoveries she made about herself in Albion and Chicago to create a more mindful journey for current and future student-athletes.

By Jake Weber Few Albion College students consider the possibility of someday being featured in the alumni magazine—and if any ever did, Shea Gardner, ’12, definitely wasn’t one of them.

An almost-dropout who took a decade to finish her degree, Gardner’s story involves trauma and triumph. It’s also the surprising fulfillment of a future she first glimpsed at Albion.

Gardner and her husband (retired NFL player Rich Gardner) are the founders, executive team, and chief employees of Maroon Village, a nonprofit organization devoted to supporting young athletes on and off the field. Along with providing supplemental training and practice for a variety of sports, Maroon Village works to enhance self-esteem and resilience.

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Maroon Village operates on Chicago’s South Side and in nearby Gary, Indiana, communities where many young student-athletes see an athletic scholarship as their only chance for a college education. Shea is proud to note that many Maroon Village alumni have successfully taken that path.

An Abrupt Turn A 2003 transfer student after one semester at Hillsdale College, Gardner (a Jackson, Michigan, native) played three years of soccer at Albion and worked several summers as a counselor with the College’s NCAA-funded National Youth Sports Program (NYSP). It all looked good on the outside, but on the inside, she was falling apart.

Through most of her teens, Gardner didn’t tell her family about years of sexual abuse she

Shea Gardner in October 2020 at Indiana Dunes National Park (above), with Lake Michigan in the background; a graduation moment on the Quad with husband Rich Gardner (below).

suffered as a child. In college, Gardner tried to balance classes and team practice while working with the psychological, legal, and family trauma that was piling up.

Risky behaviors and too much alcohol followed. “I found out in March that I wouldn’t be able to graduate in May, because of a class I had failed,” Gardner recalls grimly. “I had to walk away. I went home because I couldn’t take it anymore.”

An Opportunity She didn’t leave Albion with a degree, but she did leave with a job, thanks to Dr. Len Berkey, the late sociology professor who helped Gardner apply to City Year in Chicago. Working for City Year and then other community agencies showed Gardner that she was on the right track, especially after meeting Rich during this time. A few years later, thanks to

him, Shea spent the 2012 spring semester commuting between Chicago and Albion, where she was once again a full-time student.

“I made the Dean’s List for the first and last time,” she says.

The couple married, had their first child, worked hard, and saw Maroon Village taking shape.

Things were going well. Then

Connections and Rewards Even while secretly struggling on campus, Gardner asserts that Albion provided her with the life journey she has followed. Her experience with NYSP sparked the determination to work with youth and sports. And her advising meetings with Berkey continue to carry an impact today: “He helped me think critically about the work I wanted to do in the world and how I could go about getting it done,” she says. “Albion is absolutely why I’m here.”

Gardner works with student-athletes at Maroon Village, a Chicago nonprofit that provides additional training and practice opportunities while teaching ways to enhance self-esteem and resilience.

Shea gave birth to their second child and “felt the bottom drop out” with the onset of postpartum depression (PPD).

they didn’t see yoga as an activity that included them. It didn’t take too long, though, for her to start hearing positive feedback.

“I didn’t know anything about yoga in 2016,” Gardner admits.

An athlete all her life, she had dismissed the idea of yoga as exercise, and thought of it mainly as a hobby for middle-aged women in expensive gear. At the urging of friends, Gardner tried a 15-minute video on YouTube and “I knew right then I had to do it every day,” she says. “It wasn’t like running or lifting weights or soccer practice. I did the posture practice every day, even on days when I literally had only one free minute.”

“I’m not really able to articulate what they ‘get’ about the yoga, but they get it,” Gardner says of the breathing, mindfulness, and posture exercise that’s standard for all Maroon Village participants.

“There’s so much that happens in the process of becoming aware of self, but these processes help you to understand that you matter, that you can and do contribute, that you can be a leader and a student.”

As she continued to learn more about yoga, Gardner wondered: is there something here for Maroon Village? At first, Gardner admits, many of their athletes were reluctant to find out; like her,

Something Unexpected As yoga relieved her PPD, Gardner discovered that yoga simultaneously opened up and helped heal her sexual-abuse trauma. Because she had found

yoga through online social networks, she began to share her healing experiences back to those same networks. Suddenly, Gardner was engaged with a whole new community of people.

“It’s not a large group by any means,” she says of the people who follow her blog about her healing journey. Nonetheless, that blog has led to invitations for Gardner to hold workshops on trauma healing and yoga, and she is creating a variety of self-help materials for trauma survivors.

Gardner describes her work as “trauma sensitive” yet notes that this term doesn’t truly apply to yoga itself. “At its heart yoga isn’t trauma-sensitive; it is traumainformed,” she says. “You just have to make sure you are learning from somebody who knows yoga and the thousands of years of philosophy that come with it.”

And now, for Gardner and Maroon Village, the future is particularly promising. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Maroon Village was able to host two Albion interns during the summer of 2020, and Gardner looks forward to more.

“The interns helped with the website and marketing, things we couldn’t do without them,” she says. “They researched data and participated in a grant-writing workshop. They were studentathletes and also worked out with us and the kids. It was great.”

Maroon Village is also poised for an expansion of its model. Gardner reports that they’re in talks with an Indiana college where Maroon Village would work with all sports teams in addition to helping the school develop curriculum related to trauma sensitivity.

“My lofty goal is to not only have Maroon Village work with athletic departments in K-12 schools and colleges, I would love to also have a platform to really talk about what it is that we are sharing,” Gardner says. “Again, it’s kind of indescribable, but people are ‘getting it’ when a college president and the athletic director come to see what we are doing. I’m excited to see where we go.”

Spring-Summer 2021 | 15

conversation with Frank Frick, professor of religious studies.

“Because our job isn’t seen as directly tied to test scores, we aren’t sufficiently funded and most students in Chicago go K to 12 without having met a librarian,” says Nora Wiltse, whose parents are also Albion alums: Susan and Thomas Wiltse, ’68 ’69.

“Our students all deserve to have a school librarian.”

“I was talking with him in one of my classes, and he asked, ‘What’s your major?’ And I said I didn’t have one yet. And he said, ‘Who’s your advisor?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Come to my office and we’ll figure it out.’”

BORROWING THE ADVOCACY HANDBOOK “I curate a collection not to sit on the shelves, but to be used and shared by my students.”

For nearly 18 years, Nora Wiltse, ’99, has served elementary students and, by extension, her community as a Chicago Public Schools librarian. And for half of that time, when it comes to not sitting idly by, she has taken that sentiment to heart, growing into a leadership role with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) in fighting drastic library funding cutbacks implemented by the mayorally controlled district.

“I think, like in many new experiences in my life, curiosity is to blame for starting my advocacy work in CPS,” says Wiltse, who originally became a union delegate in 2011 because she was seeking more detailed information about the planned cuts. Before she

16 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

knew it, “Suddenly I was in charge of a strike line of 80 people with multiple daily actions.”

Those 2012 efforts by Wiltse and her colleagues helped preserve some library services that had been targeted for elimination.

“We felt like we were a power for positive change,” she recalls. Nine years later, after being part of the bargaining team for the 2019 CPS/CTU contract, she adds, “I’m so lucky to have had wonderful advocacy mentors, and now I see my own role shifting more toward training the next group of advocates.”

In February, Wiltse was honored as a Catalyst for Change by the American Library Association.

The national award, presented every two years, in some ways can be seen as not only recognition for her years of action (and results), but as an acknowledgement of the spark that created the possibilities.

“Albion was a great place for me to develop leadership skills, simply because of the many opportunities I had from day one,” says Wiltse, who grew up in Elk Rapids and upon her campus arrival dived into everything from Student Senate and the tennis team to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, The Pleiad, campus jobs, and more. “Albion gave me a million chances to try and fail and learn and grow.”

That extended to her academic path as well. For a time, Wiltse says, she sought to take a course in every department. Finally, after a gap-year program, she recalls a memorable junior-year

With Frick “trying to piece together my classes into a major to graduate in four years,” as Wiltse puts it, she would go on to receive her degree in religious studies, complete with a study-abroad semester in Israel and Palestine.

“Dr. Frick has had a lasting impact on me and I think of him often.

I wanted to know a little about everything, so it’s no surprise when I later decided to go to graduate school for librarianship.

The liberal arts and librarianship are two sides of the same coin.”

During particularly difficult days, Wiltse the undergrad would find herself in Stockwell Library’s sixth-floor stacks and its children’s book collection, where she “would choose a few favorites and sit on the floor and read.” An early sign of a professional passion, perhaps.

And also a purpose.

“People sometimes think that a school library is outdated. That’s just not true,” she says. “The library is full of new tech and resources and physical books, and it’s something every student deserves to have.

“The advocacy we are doing in Chicago is an equity issue,” Wiltse continues. “And the divide between high-need and privileged neighborhoods is getting greater.

I will keep fighting for more librarians.”

–John Perney

Even beyond the Noble link, what fuels this level of engagement with your alma mater?

Education is an important component of changing these socioeconomic dynamics in our communities around the country.

Any institution that is doing more than its fair share to educate urban communities and African American students is obviously doing some important work. I have great interest in making the world a better place, and to the extent that Albion is making a serious effort at diversifying its student body, and helping to educate students from urban communities, that’s exciting and important.

CATCHING UP WITH MARTY NESBITT, '85 The board chair of The Barack Obama Foundation and co-founder/co-CEO of private equity firm The Vistria Group takes stock of Albion’s recent efforts in Chicago.

Io Triumphe!: Where have you found the most rewards in being actively connected with Albion in recent years?

Nesbitt: I’ve been primarily connected around two things.

One, my former roommate Mike Harrington (’85) has been leading the Board of Trustees, and so I’ve been engaged in having a dialogue with him about the areas of focus for the Board. My former basketball coach, Mike Turner (’69), has remained highly engaged

at Albion since his retirement and he keeps me informed.

Secondly, I know the College has made a concerted effort to have a more diverse student body. I know a number of diverse students, probably more than historically, have come from Chicago to go to Albion. I’m a sponsor of the Noble Network of Charter Schools, and I know Albion has taken a number of students out of the Noble Network.

In terms of enrollment and alumni engagement, the College has made notable strides in Chicago over the last five to 10 years. How much further can Albion go, in your view? What does that next level look like? Or, what challenges or roadblocks lie ahead?

I think the sky’s the limit. Of course, Chicago is a big city, with a lot of businesses, a thriving economy. There are lots of potential Albion students in Chicago and lots of opportunities in the city for Albion grads. I think what Albion has to do is to continue to produce good outcomes over a sustained period of time. The rest will take care of itself. The school’s relationship with Chicago will continue to grow.

Our new president, Dr. Mathew Johnson, emphasizes the importance of purpose, belonging, and action as it pertains to liberal arts education today. What do those three things mean to you when you think about Albion?

We all, as participants in this capitalistic democracy, have an obligation to be productively engaged, right? We have an obligation to improve our communities, to make the places we live better over time. A liberal arts education equips you to do that; it helps you understand how the world works in a pretty intimate way.

In that process of being educated, I think people find purpose, and they are put on a path to become difference makers when they graduate. We all have that obligation: to move the needle, to make the world a little bit better of a place than it was when we entered it.

Groundbreaking for the Obama Presidential Library in Jackson Park is scheduled for this fall.

With all the effort that has led to this moment, and the work that lies ahead from the start of construction to its opening, it would seem there is a bit of a window for some reflection.

Do you allow yourself that moment? If so, what have you found?

What I have found has been obvious to me from the start, as we come out of a year of turmoil in 2020, and the effects of the broadening wealth gap and healthcare disparity are on full display. The reflection is that the Obama Presidential Center is as important as ever, if not more important. The objective is to train and inspire leaders for the next generation, to engage in the community in a way that helps us do what we do better—be better neighbors, better citizens, and make this a more perfect world. The reflection is that the Foundation’s mission is important work and we got to keep slugging it out until we get it done.

Interview by John Perney

Spring-Summer 2021 | 17

IN HER ENVIRONMENT: WHERE ART AND SCIENCE MEET As a rising junior in 2006, Catherine Game, ’08, spent the summer with a bunch of kids in the Whitehouse Nature Center. It looked like a nature program (and yes, it was) but the real purpose for Game was to do research on environmental education. An art and biology double major, Game was convinced that art projects could be used to teach scientific concepts to children—and in many cases, were superior tools for getting that knowledge to stick.

It was an interesting academic question, a cool FURSCA project—and surprisingly enough, a precursor to Game’s current position as executive director of Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods. Located on a 565-acre

A snapshot from a photography program Catherine Game leads for veterans as executive director of Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods, located 19 miles northwest of Chicago. During her time at Albion, Game, who grew up in Iron Mountain, Michigan, was named a Morris K. Udall Scholar in recognition of her leadership, public service, and commitment to environmental issues.

Illinois State Nature Preserve north of Chicago, Brushwood hosts more than 200 concerts, exhibitions, workshops, and other arts-based activities each year, drawing more than 10,000 visitors in the process.

In some ways, it’s not that different from what Game did at Albion all those years ago. In other ways, Game and Brushwood are really reimagining what a nature center can, should, and must be in the 21st century.

“There are so many studies that show how natural settings help with anxiety, asthma, all kinds of health issues,” Game says. It’s not just about a nice, good-for-thesoul walk in the woods, either;

Game notes one of Brushwood Center’s research partners at Northwestern University who is studying how blood glucose levels are better regulated in people who spend time outdoors.

Earlier this year, Game was one of three presenters at a nationwide conference on innovative mental health programs for military veterans. Working with a Chicagoarea VA hospital, Game oversees “At Ease,” a photography, art, and music program that has drawn an enthusiastic response from PTSD and brain-injury survivors.

She adds, “I’ve been named a Kinship Conservation Fellow this year—this is an organization that looks at market solutions for conservation. They’re funding a project that I’m exploring to incentivize collaboration between the healthcare sector and naturebased organizations. The goal is to improve health equity, decrease hospitalization costs, and increase investment in green spaces through value-based care. There is so much potential.”

New ideas are the easy part.

For Game, the challenge for Brushwood comes with the “dead wood” of history and ideas that have gone unquestioned for too long.

“This dominant narrative of white heroes—from John Muir to Teddy Roosevelt—they’re not the real story of environmental history,” Game asserts. “There has been a lot of bias in the environmental field, but here at Brushwood, we’re working to change that.”

First and foremost, they’re not “just” counting program participants: Game says Brushwood is responsible for

18 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

making sure these visitors reflect the diversity of Chicagoland communities. “There are many systemic issues that prevent people from engaging,” she explains. pointing out that while many people understand accessibility issues related to mobility, many more don’t see that English-only materials or uniformed park rangers can intimidate, confuse, or discourage visitors.

And “when you think of how people access nature,” Game says, “it very quickly becomes a conversation about access to land, power, and privilege.

You can’t talk about healing the environment and nature without having conversations about these deeper issues from our history and our present.”

In opening this access, Game has helped Brushwood work with a local immigrant advocacy group to offer programs for parents and children traumatized by separation. She’s worked with indigenous groups and artists to celebrate Brushwood’s preEuropean history. She’s involved with political action against industrial pollution in nearby communities, and continuing her own journey of growth through Brushwood’s antiracism book club.

“We’re not about planting two million trees; our programs are about building trust with community members, supporting their goals, and embracing the arts as a cultural bridge,” Game says. “We’re contributing to the strengths and assets that already exist in communities in the Chicago region.”

–Jake Weber

MICHAEL KARDAS PHOTO

“There has been a lot of bias in the environmental field, but … we’re working to change that.”

Rudy Aronoff, who majored in art history and minored in sociology, also connected with the Windy City while at Albion through the subject of his Honors thesis: the Chicago sculptor and printmaker H.C. Westermann.

HIS APPRAISAL: A CITY SECOND TO NONE “Chicago has one of the most vibrant art scenes in the world.”

When one thinks of A-list auctions of fine and decorative arts, the names Sotheby’s and Christie’s tend to come to mind, the centuries-old houses operating primarily out of London and New York.

“Chicago has always been on the map,” counters Rudy Aronoff, ’10, assistant managing director of the Chicago office of Heritage Auctions, the largest U.S.-based auction house and the world’s third biggest (behind those other two). “Expo Chicago is a very large modern and contemporary art fair that kicks off the fall season every year. And let’s not forget we have one of the most important museums—The Art Institute of Chicago—in the country. And, of course, there’s the architecture.”

Aronoff’s days do include museum visits, but more often he’s dealing with dust and spider webs in the homes of people he only recently met.

“A lot of people think auctions are glamorous, but it’s actually not,” he says. “It’s a filthy job, because you’re crawling in people’s attics, you’re crawling in people’s basements. People think something is worth something because they’ve been told that their entire life, but they’re often wildly misinformed. And the thing they think is a tchotchke is a libation cup that’s worth $200,000. It’s a never-ending treasure hunt for me.”

Heritage’s specialty is in collectibles—including coins, jewelry and watches, books and manuscripts, vintage comics and trading cards, and other memorabilia—which suits Aronoff’s own collecting passion that has roots in an everyday dinnerware set by mid-century designer Russel Wright. The dishes had been regularly used by his great-grandparents.

“One of my aunts got them, and I was like, ‘What are those? Those

are cool,’” he recalls. “That’s pretty much how it started. My parents would say it snowballed from there. I became very good at scouring used bookstores.”

By the time the Metro Detroit native was exploring colleges, “I liked that I was going to commingle art and art history,” Aronoff recalls about Albion, adding that at the public institution he considered, “the studio art and art history departments could not have been less connected.”

Aronoff was in for a big (and, as it turned out, life-changing) surprise from the day he arrived on campus as a first-year student in 2006. A steam pipe had burst that summer in the depths of Bobbitt Visual Arts Center, and the moisture buildup had put the College’s collections—its prized prints in particular—in potential peril.

“Albion has a really fabulous print collection that dates back to the old masters through to the present,” Aronoff says. As part of the damage-assessment and valuation process in the College’s insurance-claim filing, Art and

Art History faculty Bille Wickre and Anne McCauley brought in Chicago-based specialist Roberta Kramer. It wasn’t long before Aronoff was assisting the group, gaining invaluable experience. He has stayed connected with Kramer ever since, working for her soon after graduation and moving with her to Heritage in 2016 when the house opened its Chicago office.

Aronoff also remains connected with the professors who not only introduced him to the ins and outs of etchings, aquatints, linocuts and woodcuts (including in his favorite class, The History of Prints, co-taught by McCauley and Wickre), but who enabled him “to have hands-on experience with the real thing.”

“Anne and Bille are dear friends professionally and personally,” Aronoff says. “Everyone at Albion was really supportive of what I wanted to do. You literally selfdirect, and I like that. I did what I wanted to do and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Albion was the absolute right decision.”

–John Perney

Spring-Summer 2021 | 19

BRITON BREAKTHROUGHS FROM THE HOSPITAL FRONT LINES TO THE AIRWAVES, AND TO THE FOREFRONT OF MEDICAL RESEARCH AT THE EARLY AND LATE STAGES OF LIFE, MEET AN ALBION ALUMNI TRIO AT THE TOP OF THEIR FIELD.

Battling COVID-19, and Taking House Calls For Dr. Mia Taormina, ’00, infectious disease expert and burgeoning Chicago radio star, the last year has been nothing she ever expected yet everything for which she prepared.

“In one period, I worked 77 straight days,” she says. “But the thought was, with my colleagues and me, ‘We’ve got to do this, so let’s do it.’ I haven’t had a day off in a year but that was the way it was going to be. This is what I trained

20 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

for. Something has happened and I was ready.”

Yes, something had happened.

And Taormina, who majored in biology and English at Albion and always knew medicine was

going to be in her future, was on the front lines almost from the beginning.

It was the coronavirus, a virulent and previously unseen version of an ancient virus, that first made an appearance in the world in late 2019, found its way to the United States early in 2020, and has wreaked havoc for more than a year.

As part of DuPage Medical Group (DMG), the largest independent, multispecialty physician group in Illinois with more than 750

physicians in over 100 suburban Chicago locations, Taormina diagnosed her first case of the illness in early March and knew instinctively that the respiratory disease, which would be known to all as COVID-19, would get worse— much worse—before it got better.

“There was definitely a sense that we were in crisis mode,” she says. “It was quite unbelievable.

There were so many cases at one point that we looked like a field hospital.”

Health Care Hero with DMG’s COVID-19 response physician leaders by Crain’s Chicago Business; a 2021 Top Doctor by Chicago magazine; a 2020 Top Doctor in Infectious Disease by Chicago; a 2020 Notable Health Care Hero by Crain’s; a 2017 Top Doctor by Castle Connolly, and DuPage Medical Group’s Physician of the Year in 2020.

“That’s a big source of pride but, really, that could have gone to a dozen of us,” she says. ‘Everyone has worked so hard during this time. There were no reservations, no hesitation.”

Physician Mia Taormina has served patients through DuPage Medical Group since 2012.

ANSWERING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS It was in early March, on what Taormina called a “random Friday” at DMG that she was asked by a hospital spokesman if, in her position as chair of the infectious diseases department, she could go on WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR station, and talk about the virus.

“There were some nerves because I had never done anything like that before,” she says.

But with her informal style and ability to relate complex information in understandable terms, it struck a chord with a nervous, anxious public that called in with questions. In fact, she was asked back the next week because there had been so many listener calls, they could not all be answered, and she remained on the line afterward to continue answering them.

She came back the next Friday.

And the Friday after that, and the Friday after that.

“The station asked if they could have me every week until June,” Taormina says, and that has stretched to the point where she is on every Friday during the 11

a.m. hour, with plans to keep her on to answer questions in a postpandemic world.

“It’s a great part of my week,” she adds. “I really enjoy it.”

The topic, of course, remains the virus, which has killed more than 575,000 Americans and continues to hang over everything despite several vaccines that have helped slow its spread.

Indeed, Taormina has heard a change in the tone of the phone calls in recent months as a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel began to grow brighter.

“In the beginning, you sense the fear in their voices,” she says.

“People were doing a lot of things that were fear-based: wiping down mail, cleaning grocery bags, things like that. We’ve had to pivot so many times through this as science has shown a different way. And now I hear a lot more optimism. They ask what’s safe and what’s not. Can I go on vacation? What about spring break? Callers have been excited about vaccines and what it means to them now.”

Taormina’s enthusiasm and devotion to her work has led her to being named a 2021 Notable

A ‘PERFECT FIT’ Taormina developed that attitude at Albion, a college she admits she knew nothing about as a high school senior from Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

She did know she wanted to make medicine her life and she knew that Michigan State University and the University of Michigan might be a little overwhelming for her.

So, she recounts how she went to a college fair where the smaller colleges were listed alphabetically at tables in a gym.

“I started with the A’s and went to Adrian, then Albion, then Alma,” she recalls with a laugh. “I never made it past the first row.”

She said Albion caught her attention immediately and, after attending an admissions fair later at Michigan, she asked her dad how much farther it was to drive to Albion to see what it had to offer.

So they drove the additional 40 minutes.

“It changed my life and I never looked back,” Taormina says. “It was an absolutely perfect fit for me. It allowed me to have a voice and I never got lost in the crowd.”

She participated in Greek life, played clarinet in the British Eighth marching band, and not only explored her passion for medicine but wrote stories and poetry as an English major.

“That’s what a liberal education allowed me to do,” she says. “I was able to explore all kinds of things.”

Dr. Dale Kennedy, who in May received emerita status upon her retirement as professor of biology (see page 36), remembers Taormina as a sophomore in her vertebrate biology field class.

“She was interested in everything about biology and I knew a career in medicine was something she was serious about,” Kennedy says.

“It was clear then she was not going to be denied. She knew what she wanted.”

Taormina went on to graduate from Michigan State’s College of Osteopathic Medicine and, after five years of residency at Beaumont Hospital in Farmington Hills, she joined DMG in 2012 and has been serving Chicago patients (and listeners) ever since.

She admits this has been a year like no other. She has witnessed scenes of heartbreak, courage, tragedy, and triumph in the most stark terms. But Taormina believes she is a better doctor for having seen, experienced, and dealt with it all.

“So many people have gone above and beyond,” she says. “We look back on this year….”

She pauses.

“Oh my goodness, what we’ve all been through.”

—Chuck Carlson

Spring-Summer 2021 | 21

Forging New Pathways in the Parkinson’s Fight Dr. Richard Youle, ’74, has spent his entire adult life asking, “How?” A senior investigator for the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for the past four decades, Youle has always asked questions that often did not have the easiest answers.

The Midland, Michigan, native gained much of his inquisitive nature from Albion College and, specifically, from longtime biology professor Ewell “Doc” Stowell.

22 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Last September, asking those questions and finding some important answers led to Youle being named one of four recipients of the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his decade-long work studying Parkinson’s disease.

The Breakthrough Prize Foundation—the creators of which include Google co-founder

Sergey Brin, 23andMe co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg—has awarded the prize since 2012 in recognition of vital recent achievements in fundamental physics, life sciences, and mathematics.

“It was a complete surprise,” Youle says. “I knew I had been nominated but I’ve been nominated for a lot of things. I never would have dreamt I would have won.”

Youle was acknowledged “for

elucidating a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against Parkinson’s disease,” according to the Foundation press release.

He received a $3 million award for recognition and, eventually, will receive the award itself.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has made that problematic. The ceremony was originally set for last November but was postponed to March and then postponed again to November 6, 2021 (which will also honor the 2022 award

In addition to the Breakthrough Prize, Richard Youle (left) has received more accolades over the last year. He was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and at Homecoming this fall he will be presented with a Distinguished Alumni Award (see page 39).

recipients). The star-studded event will be held at Hangar One, the iconic Silicon Valley landmark in Mountain View, Calif., in front of what is expected to be a guest list of luminaries, scientists, and pathfinders.

“The point of it is that scientists do so much for society,” Youle says.

“These are tech people and it’s to help promote math and science.

This is really quite surprising.”

And, he admits, he’s a little overwhelmed by the prospect of the event.

“It’s an Oscar-type ceremony with the red carpet and they have movie stars hand out the awards,” he says. “Morgan Freeman hosted the event one year and Pierce Bronson another year.”

After a pause, he adds, “I don’t know who’s going to give me my award.”

A POWERFUL DISCOVERY At NIH since 1978, Youle’s love of medical research has taken him into studying the immunology of bone marrow transplantation, therapies for brain tumors, and programmed cell death. That led him to his groundbreaking work on Parkinson’s, a brain disease that afflicts some 500,000 Americans a year.

Youle and his research team began exploring Parkinson’s in 2007 and, in time, they discovered a quality control pathway for the

brain cell “power plants” known as mitochondria. They learned that Parkinson’s could develop if that pathway was missing.

“We saw that it’s the loss of that pathway that’s bad,” Youle says.

“And if we can boost it, that may be good. There could be clinical trials.”

He acknowledges that while there is still no cure for Parkinson’s, new treatments can halt the progress of the degenerative disease.

“If we could treat it early we could stop it worsening,” he says.

“Those motor symptoms we can ameliorate now with drugs, and if we can stop the neuron death in its tracks it wouldn’t progress. It’s like early-stage Alzheimer’s; if you could stop it right there, you can continue to have a quality of life.”

With all of the research advances in neurological diseases, Youle says there is still much to do.

“We know what goes wrong in these patients,” he explains.

“Part of the brain dies. Over the last 10 to 15 years there’s been a revolution in genetics and they’ve discovered genes that are passed down and lead to Parkinson’s.

“Now we know there are five to 10 genes, and this gives us a handle on what causes the disease,” Youle continues. “And when you know that, it gives you an insight. We hadn’t known what causes it. We didn’t know why one person gets it and another doesn’t, but now we have more insight. We’ve found out what some of these genes do, and it tells us what may be going wrong.”

but Youle still treasures his undergraduate years.

“At Albion I wanted to become a biology professor, and I spent a lot of time outdoors with Doc Stowell,” says Youle, recalling his mentor who passed away in 2009.

“He’d take us on field trips and I was interested in ecology. I wanted to be like he was: be a professor; be outdoors; interact with students.

Then the research bug bit me and I never went outdoors for research again.”

That love of research took root and blossomed through graduate studies at the University of South Carolina—“I had heard early success in science is addictive and I wanted to hit that bar over and over,” he says—and post-doctorate work in medicine at NIH stretched out into a highly impactful career.

A career he credits Albion for helping him navigate.

“I really had a great experience at Albion,” says Youle, who counts as fellow Britons his sons Thomas, ’07, and John, ’10, as well as his brother Jeff, ’81, a current College trustee. “I was pleasantly surprised as I moved east what a strong liberal arts foundation Albion gave me. I felt I could compete with anybody. Albion has served our family well.”

Similarly, Youle’s research has served and benefited science and humankind. It has been fulfilling and vital. But for someone who is always asking “how?” there is always a new question to ask.

A CAREER BECKONS

“It’s the law of diminishing returns,” he says. “My work in Parkinson’s has reached a turning point. I like those big discoveries and we’re now heading in new directions.

It has been a long journey from studying botany at Albion to the neuroscience labs at NIH,

“There are links to inflammation and Parkinson’s, and we’re now appreciating there’s an innate

immune system in flies and earthworms that recognize bacteria, and that’s a pathway that might be linked to Parkinson’s, too,” Youle explains. “The mitochondria work was outside the box when we started this research. But now that box is built, so we’re heading outside of the box again. I probably learned that at Albion.”

But through it all, Youle’s eyes have never left the real prize for which he is being honored: finding ways for people afflicted with diseases like Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s to live better lives.

“Because that last series of discoveries was so productive and exhilarating, there’s a temptation to burrow in and fine-tune the details,” he says. “Or, you can be more adventurous.”

Over the last whirlwind of a year, that sense of adventure for Youle has extended outside the lab. He admits the Breakthrough Prize and the visibility that comes with it still haven’t sunk in completely.

But he does know this: the $3 million is going to good use.

“Some of the money will go to my research because there is a gap in funding at NIH,” Youle says. “I want to continue to support other areas, such as glaucoma research.

But we’ve been so thrifty our whole lives, I don’t think much will change.”

After a moment, he laughs. “But I’m not going to change the oil in my car myself anymore.”

—Chuck Carlson

Spring-Summer 2021 | 23

Peering Into the Great Divide At Cambridge in England, biophysicist Dr. Kevin Chalut, ’99, is exploring stem cells_specifcially, how they create new cells_and expanding our understanding about life’s building blocks.

Sometimes the biggest questions, and decisions, come down to one of two choices. Yes or no? Heads or tails? Stay or fold? Aisle or window? Kirk or Picard?

Kevin Chalut has spent much of the past decade on just such a “choice of two” question,

24 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

in the process becoming an internationally recognized cell biologist—not bad for a guy who doesn’t actually have a degree in biology. A Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society, Chalut (who does have a Ph.D. in physics) runs a research lab exploring the mechanical processes involved in one of life’s

literally fundamental choices: stem, or something else?

First, a biology refresher: All animals, including humans, exist because stem cells exist. These unique building blocks, formed in the earliest stages of development, transform into the countless types of cells that eventually become bones, blood, brains, and every other part of an organism.

Bodies are created when one stem cell transforms into a liver cell and starts building a liver, another stem cell becomes a bone cell and starts building a skeleton, and so on. But—and this is the two-choice question Chalut is investigating—some of those stem cells don’t choose to become

other types of cells. They remain stem cells and continue making more stem cells. Those new stem cells, in turn, either become some other type of cell or remain stem cells. In the end, without any obvious instructions or command center, these stem cells produce complex organisms, most with the appropriate number of muscles, nerves, organs, and other components necessary for life.

“Throughout this very simple choice is incredible complexity,” Chalut says. “The question is: if there’s a decision to be made, how do the stem cells make those crucial decisions?”

Kevin Chalut (left) took part in a 2020 video shoot after being named an Albion College Distinguished Alumni Award recipient.

‘ON FIRE WITH CURIOSITY’ In nominating Chalut for a 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award, the late physics professor Dr. Dave Seely noted that Chalut’s appointment at Cambridge University was an unusual honor for an American, especially one with a small-college background.

Seely didn’t mention his own role in preparing an initially unremarkable student to become a world-class scientist, but Chalut clearly remembers their first meeting.

Chalut was a sophomore in 1996, “adrift with a lot of uncertainty, insecurity, and quite a bit of boredom, and certainly no driving force or focus,” he says, when he signed up for Seely’s Introductory Physics class, just to fulfill a science requirement.

Before the first class was over, “I was on fire with curiosity,” Chalut recalls. At the end of that year, Seely invited Chalut to join his summer research project at the University of Toledo. With the knowledge gained from two 100-level physics courses, Chalut headed for Ohio.

It wasn’t a tremendous success. “I didn’t know much about physics; I’m pretty sure I just got in the way,” Chalut recalls with a laugh.

“But to see the people working and setting up an experiment to answer their question, that was enlightening. This was how science is actually done. It’s a lot

of spending time, trying to make things work.”

Chalut moved to Cambridge in 2011, initially to apply to stem cells his Duke University doctoral work with lasers and cancer cells.

While many researchers were (and still are) looking at biochemical signals as a likely trigger for stem cells to transform into other cells, Chalut wanted to use his physics background to study the mechanics of that transformation.

As one might imagine, studying the physics involved in “cell fate decision” (the scientific term for stem cells either transforming or not transforming) still involves a lot of biology. They’re both natural sciences, but Chalut notes that the approach for each is very different.

“Physics has done almost too good of a job at defining laws and using them to explain the natural world.

With biology, you basically have the theory of evolution and that’s it,” he says. “That’s what makes biology exciting, but also explains why there aren’t many biological principles that can apply to physics. We don’t know a lot of the pathways of biology; there’s a lot that’s not understood.”

Luckily, Chalut was at one of the world’s premier academic institutions—and he had learned something about learning at Albion. “At first, I didn’t have any idea what the biologists were

talking about. But I kept at it, asking questions and trying to learn what I didn’t understand,” he says. It felt a little like Albion, studying “literature, psychology, religious studies … once you start making connections between disparate areas, it becomes easier.”

POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS Today, as a senior research fellow with Cambridge’s Cavendish Stem Cell Institute and a lecturer at Cambridge, Chalut oversees a multidisciplinary team that uses physics, engineering, and cell biology to study the mechanical changes that occur in stem cells just before and just after the moment of transformation.

His team has been especially successful with analyzing these “microenvironments” with liver cells.

Meanwhile, Chalut’s work on identifying the mechanics associated with the “stiffening” of certain brain cells was published in Nature and is in the top one percent of the journal’s reprinted articles. He has received more than £5 million ($7 million) in grant funding and he and his team have formed two companies focused on culturing and the 3D-printing of cells for potential applied uses.

“StemBond and StemBond Therapeutics will open up academic and industrial collaborations across the world,” Chalut explains. “StemBond exemplifies that whilst my lab is primarily interested in probing fate decisions, we are also developing many tools that will advance regenerative medicine.”

Brexit aside, Chalut loves his adopted country and the work that should hold his attention for decades to come. Ironically enough, for a man studying the “decision-making” process of cells, he appreciates the benefit of—sometimes—leaving things up to fate.

“I never really had a whole lot of success thinking about what I wanted to do and moving in that direction. I spent a lot of time not knowing,” he says. “Don’t spend time worrying about what you’re good at or what you can’t do; just do what you can do and the rest will become clear.”

He smiles. “That advice has worked well for me.”

–Jake Weber

“What in the environment helps a stem cell make the decision?

Doing things like studying liver stem cells, trying to control the microenvironment, and seeing how that influences the decision... this could help regenerate livers or even make new ones, if we can understand this dynamic process.”

Spring-Summer 2021 | 25

AN ‘AUDACIOUS’ IDEA TURNS 50 The P250 scholarship, launched by Albion student leaders in 1971, has benefited generations of Britons. The backstory might just be as big as the scholarship itself.

By Erin Peterson Zahra Ahmed, ’22, had wanted to be a student leader at Albion College almost from the moment she first stepped on campus. She pursued her goals by getting involved in Student Senate, among many activities. She took courses to help her become a better leader. By her junior year, she had been elected Student Senate president.

Still, no courses could have fully prepared her to lead her fellow students through a worlddisrupting pandemic. She projected confidence and optimism as students returned to campus in the fall, but she also wondered if she was really up to the leadership challenge.

One thing that made a difference was the P250 scholarship she had received in spring 2020.

The competitive scholarship, worth a quarter of Albion’s tuition, recognizes a handful of students for their leadership qualities, contributions, and service during their time at Albion.

26 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

The value of the scholarship was significant.

Ahmed was thrilled that she could spend more hours on meaningful volunteer work. And for the math/physics major, it was a psychological boost, too. “There definitely have been times that I felt kind of down about stuff,” she says. “But realizing that there were people investing in me, who really believe in my potential, helped me keep my head up and dream about what more I could do for the Albion community and how I could give back in the future.”

The P250 scholarship—short for President Bernard T. Lomas Endowed Scholarship Project 250—is designed to “encourage students to contribute significant improvements to the campus and the Albion community in and out of the classroom,” says Pam Schuler, assistant director for leadership and community service.

It has supported hundreds of students over the course of five decades. And it got its start 50 years ago from a group of ambitious, forward-thinking

students whose dreams were just as big as those of the students who receive it today.

Clockwise from preceding page: Zahra Ahmed, ’22; Lyn Ward Healy, ’72; the P250 launch was featured in the Detroit Free Press.

Idealistic Thinking in an Age of Disruption If there’s anyone who understands the challenges of student leadership during difficult times, it might be Lyn Ward Healy, ’72, one of the students who was instrumental in creating and fundraising for the P250 Scholarship in the 1970s.

Healy arrived at Albion in a time of extreme national and campus turmoil. She was on campus as a prospective student the weekend that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated.

Students protested the Vietnam War. Closer to home, Albion students were fighting campus rules, including women’s curfews.

Amid the tumult, President Louis Norris retired.

Healy, who was vice chair of Student Senate at that point, was taking it all in. After she and Student Senate Chair Rick Simonson, ’72, got back from a conference in Chicago for student leaders, she proposed a bold idea. “I said, ‘We’re going to have a new president, and we should honor him with a scholarship,’” she recalls.

Their fundraising aim was a cool $250,000, more than $1.6 million in today’s dollars. And Project 250, eventually shortened to P250, was born.

The pair teamed up with Bill Healy, ’72, Jan Chamberlain, ’73, and John Gaskell, ’71, to get the ball rolling. With the blessing of the incoming president, Bernard Lomas, ’46, they were off.

The team mapped out an ambitious slate of $100

fundraising dinners (“Beefsteaks for Bernie”) in cities including Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland.

They created alumni raffles. And they reached out to Board of Trustees members and supporters including Stanley Kresge (Class of 1922) and Dow Chemical Chair Carl Gerstacker, who were happy to become some of the project’s earliest supporters. They recruited many fellow students to support their efforts.

While Healy acknowledges that they may have been a bit naive when they proposed the lofty goal, there was something uniquely inspiring about the aim. “Bill always said it was audacious,” she says. “And we had a plan.”

Even more than that, she says, she and others got to rub shoulders with extraordinarily successful people who were happy to mentor the group of young and hard-driving students. “These

were business leaders to the nth degree—the Jeff Bezoses of their time—and upper level administrators for Albion,” Healy says. “They gave us so much support.”

In the end, the group didn’t just meet their $250,000 goal, they exceeded it: once they crossed the threshold, the initiative received another $25,000 matching gift from what is now the DeWitt Wallace Foundation. The astonishing success ended up getting national attention: a June 19, 1972 article in Time magazine noted that the group “received contributions from 48 states and five countries, including $5 in Vietnamese currency, two Bibles, and an Egyptian figurine.”

The scholarship itself immediately received plenty of student interest. The $1,250 initial payout represented more than 30 percent of Albion’s annual tuition. Today, the scholarship covers a quarter of a year’s tuition.

‘It Validated the Work and Service I Had Put In’ Michael Haines, ’85, hadn’t thought much about college when he arrived on Albion’s campus the summer before his senior year of high school for a football camp. But he was immediately captivated. “The campus was like something out of a movie,” he recalls. “It was gorgeous.”

Still, he acknowledges that he was anxious, even after he was admitted. As a first-generation

Spring-Summer 2021 | 27

college student, he wasn’t sure how to navigate all of the challenges of higher ed. He worried that he might flunk out.

But he found plenty of mentors to help him along the way. He had a job in the Office of Student Life and wrote for the Pleiad. Later, he became president of his fraternity and editor of the newspaper.

He was thrilled to receive the P250. He had taken out significant loans to attend Albion, and it was a huge boost to get the financial support. It also felt like a vote of confidence. “It validated the work and the service that I had put in, and it boosted my self-esteem to know that the people who had mentored me had made a solid investment in me,” he says.

The scholarship helped give him the confidence to pursue big things after graduation. After a year working as a newsletter editor in Washington, D.C., he decided to apply to Columbia University’s School of Journalism, often considered the nation’s finest J-school.

He was accepted. “The advice I got from my professors was, ‘You received a solid education.

Apply to the best,’” he recalls. Today, he is a unit commissioner at Scouts BSA (formerly Boy Scouts of America). As he looks at the important inflection points in his own life, he believes

"It's something that shows how much Albion values student leadership." his experience at Albion was among the most positive of his life.

Today, he continues to have a connection with Albion: he is in his third year of service to the Alumni Association Board of Directors and is the parent of a recent alum as well as a current student. He says that the P250 is a way to give student leaders the encouragement and the financial support they need to thrive at Albion and beyond it. “Anything we can do to defray the expenses for student leaders will validate their efforts,” he says. “This is a long-term investment in the community that builds and advances Albion’s reputation,” he says.

A Catalyst for Brave Pursuits Maggie Fowler, ’19, checked all the leadership boxes as a student: she was involved in the Student Volunteer Bureau, the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, and the business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi. She played violin in the Albion College Symphony Orchestra.

Still, to complete her double major in accounting and French, she knew she’d need to spend her last semester of college off campus. “Taking that step to move across the ocean was both exciting and scary,” she says.

She happened to be thinking about these big changes as she was writing an essay for the P250, in which she had to document, in a concrete way, her growth during her time at Albion. “I realized when I came to Albion that I had been super shy. I didn’t raise my hand in class or speak up in meetings,” she says. “But over the course of my time there, it brought out the leader in me. Writing that essay made me realize what a difference that education had made in me, and what a different person I had become.”

Fowler got the scholarship. She studied abroad.

And the scholarship both made it financially possible and served as an affirmation that she was ready to take on bigger things.

Today, she is a PCS assurance associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the “Big Four” accounting firms nationwide.

The P250 scholarship continues to pay dividends for students and alumni, a half-century after its remarkable start.

For Lyn Ward Healy, the fundraising process proved as valuable as the scholarship itself. A few years ago, for example, when her church launched a million-dollar fundraising drive, she drew on the confidence and insight she had gained from her P250 experience to support those efforts.

Standing from left: Jan Chamberlain, ’73, Bill Healy, ’72, Lyn Ward, ’72, and Rick Simonson, ’72, with President Bernard Lomas in 1971 during the time the student leaders fundraised for the newly created P250 Scholarship, which has benefited hundreds of Albion College students over a 50-year period.

28 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

And Zahra Ahmed says she’s proud to be at a school that doesn’t just value the learning that students do in the classroom, but recognizes all the growth and impact they make outside of it. “These scholarships support students who contribute to the community more broadly, and it’s something that shows how much Albion values student leadership and development in the overall campus culture,” she says.

Remembering a President, and His Presidency Former Albion College President Bernard T. Lomas, ’46, passed away December 24, 2020 in Grand Rapids at the age of 96. Lomas was the College’s 12th president, serving from 1970 to 1983.

A native of Mackinaw City, Mich., Lomas spent many years in ministry, giving his last decade of service at the Epworth Euclid United Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Despite the distance and demands of that profession, Lomas was also devoted to his alma mater. At the time of his appointment to the Albion presidency, he was a member of the College’s Board of Trustees and had previously held a leadership position in the Alumni Association.

Upon his retirement, Lomas also became the College’s first chancellor, continuing his service to Albion well into the 1980s.

Curricular and Campus Expansion Unwavering in his commitment to the liberal arts tradition, Lomas also embraced educational and experiential opportunities that took students beyond the classroom. The Honors Program and Professional Management Program (now the Carl A. Gerstacker Institute for Business and Management) were established during his tenure, along with the originally named Gerald R. Ford Institute for Public Service, believed at the time to be the first such program in the country for undergraduate students.

Lomas also saw the first student participation in international internship programs, the establishment of practicums in psychology and healthcare, and academic concentrations in

computer science, human services and mass communication.

The College completed a $15 million capital campaign during his tenure, resulting in the addition of Mudd Learning Center, Olin Hall, Herrick Theatre, Dean Aquatic Center, and Sprankle-Sprandel Stadium to the campus. The Whitehouse Nature Center was also created while Lomas was in the president’s office.

And he would continue to peer into possibilities for Albion years after his retirement.

“Dr. Lomas never stopped beating the drum for Albion College,” says Jim Whitehouse, ’69, recalling a visit to the Lomases at their North Carolina home in 1995. “I told them I was an astronomy enthusiast and Dr. Lomas immediately took me next door to meet the neighbors, Bill and Lois Stellman, who had a beautiful 14-inch telescope mounted in an observatory above their garage. Five minutes after we arrived, that telescope and its expensive mounting apparatus became the property of Albion College! A year later, the Stellmans supported the building of an enclosure to house the instrument on the roof of Palenske Hall, where it has been in continuous use since.”

A Focus on Engagement and Growth Lomas excelled in fiscal leadership, taking just two years to bring the College to a budget surplus that lasted for the remainder of his presidency. He further oversaw enrollment growth to an average student population near 1,800 in the 1970s.

President Lomas and Barbara Lomas on the steps of the President’s Home at 501 E. Michigan Ave., November 1979.

Lomas’ civic engagement included serving on the Albion Improvement Committee, the American Cancer Society of Calhoun County, and the board of directors for AlbionJackson City Bank and Trust.

During his presidential tenure, he further was a consultant to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and held leadership roles with the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Michigan, the Great Lakes Colleges Association, the Michigan Colleges Foundation and the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Presidents’ Committee.

“Bernard and I both spoke at [longtime Director of Admissions] Frank Bonta’s funeral in 2017. He spoke without notes and it was on target and as good as I’ve ever heard him,” recalls retired men’s basketball coach Mike Turner, ’69, who led the Britons to the NCAA Division III Final Four in 1978 during Lomas’ tenure. “Usually when you talk to Bernard, it’s an hour. But he stuck to his four minutes. He was sharp to the end.”

Lomas’ wife of 72 years, Barbara, passed away December 27, 2019.

They are survived by their son Paul Lomas and Gayle Smith Lomas ’74, three grandchildren including Torrey Lomas, ’09, three greatgrandchildren, and extended family member Suzanne Scrutton, ’86, and Jennifer Scrutton Culbertson, ’88.

Bernard and Barbara's son David Lomas, ’73, passed away in 2004.

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A BLAST FROM THE PAST AND THE BLASTER BUTTON It's been more than 40 years since Albion stepped into the wrestling circle. The Britons return in 2021-22, with men's and women's teams.

Also joining the athletics lineup: esports, as competitive video gaming continues its surge in popularity.

By Marissa Smego Something old, something new.

Dating back thousands of years, wrestling is one of the world’s oldest sports. Conversely, esports is one of the newest and fastest growing offerings in college athletics.

One of the other fastest growing college sports? Women’s wrestling, which along with esports will soon feature NCAA-sanctioned events.

But before that, they will join the return of men’s wrestling as a trio of new teams in the Albion varsity athletics lineup for 202122. Coaches have been hired and rosters are currently being formed.

Albion this winter will revive the men’s wrestling program that was disbanded in the 1970s. Adam Wilson will lead both the men’s and women’s programs after being hired last November. A three-time all-region performer at Olivet College a decade ago, Wilson

had served as the Comets’ head assistant coach the last four years.

The addition of the teams not only will bring more prospective students to Albion’s campus, but also create distinct experiences and opportunities for those who choose to hit the mats for the Britons in Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association and NCAA Division III competition. Nearly 400 schools across the NCAA and NAIA currently offer intercollegiate men’s wrestling.

Adam Wilson

30 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Two-Sport Brits?

Al Kastl, ’71, credits a majority of his post-graduation success to the Albion wrestling team. He went on to become a high school teacher and a successful wrestling coach at the high school and USA Wrestling levels.

“I think adding these two teams is going to bring some tough and gritty kids to campus,” Kastl says.

“There is so much to be learned on the mats, and with Adam [Wilson] leading the team, these kids are in for a great experience.”

Wrestling’s return to Albion could lead to more dual-sport studentathletes on campus. Kastl himself also played on the football team, a common two-sport pairing on the men’s side after track and field/ cross country. The crossover of teams can boost the camaraderie on campus in general, as studentathletes can attend events of other sports to support their teammates.

Home competitions are slated to be held in Kresge Gymnasium.

“You’re going to get a lot of excitement on campus with wrestling back,” says Kastl. “And it will be a good way to introduce others who may not have been exposed to the sport.”

Meanwhile, the growth of women’s wrestling has expanded well into Michigan, with more and more high schools picking up the sport.

And while “the state of Michigan is a few years away from formally sponsoring women’s wrestling in high school,” Kastl says, “I think that’ll be a great way to get some more local kids to campus.”

Currently, 78 colleges nationwide offer women’s wrestling. Despite a majority of those being at the NAIA level, it is gaining momentum in the NCAA. Albion is the 22nd Division III institution to add women’s wrestling to its varsity roster.

One for the Books

More Than a High Score One of the newest programs to hit college athletics, 175 schools currently participate in esports as a National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) sanctioned offering. Esports is an organized multiplayer video game competition, where scores are assessed through individuals as well as teams.

Esports scoring is similar to that of swimming. Players will compete individually or as a group, mirroring a relay squad, and those scores will be attributed to the final team score. The final team tally determines the winner, as multiple games are part of esports competitions.

Last November, Albion tabbed Karlo Delos Angeles as director of its esports program. Delos Angeles will be responsible for not only recruiting prospective students, but identifying those already on campus who have an interest in esports.

“I am proud and humbled to represent Albion College as the inaugural director of esports,” says Delos Angeles. “I am excited to create and coach this program from the ground up.”

The addition of esports at Albion opens a door to a whole new set of recruits and can allow for substantial learning opportunities.

Several recent studies indicate there is a direct overlap between esports student-athletes and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Albion offers a range of majors and minors that directly correlate with esports, including computer science, mathematics, physics and the dual-degree engineering program.

Karlo Delos Angeles

Albion’s newest teams give it a competitive advantage within the MIAA. The Britons join Adrian College and Trine University as the conference’s only schools that sponsor all three. Only two others, Olivet and Alma College, offer men’s wrestling, and only Alma also offers an esports squad.

Both Wilson and Delos Angeles have been recruiting since they joined Albion in November. The College’s current plan is to offer full seasons of varsity competition for all three sports during the 202122 academic year.

It was a year like no other for Briton athletics, or intercollegiate athletics for that matter. Fall sports were impacted the most, moving their seasons to spring—making for quite a busy time (104 home events in 104 days) around the Dow Rec Center, the Serra Fitness Center, and the athletic fields and courts. Britons took more than 9,200 COVID-19 tests and followed pandemic safety protocols en route to championship moments and personal milestones, including: •

MIAA championships in football and men’s lacrosse;

•

Men’s track and field: AllAmerica recognition for Kejuan Frazier, ’21 (three-event MIAA champion thrower); triple jumper Marcus Freeman, ’21, MIAA champion in two events;

•

Men’s lacrosse: Joey Tatar, ‘22, and Jace Conley, ‘22, honorable mention All-Americans;

•

Women’s track and field: Sprinter Avery Campbell, ’24, MIAA champion in three events;

•

Swimming and diving: Sam Swingewood, ’22, and Sage Gettings, ’23 (women), Jake Huttenlocher, ’21 (men), each an MIAA champ in two events;

•

Men’s basketball: Caden Ebeling, ’21, an all-Region and Academic all-District selection after surpassing 1,000 career points;

•

Coaches Jake DeCola (men’s lacrosse) and Kristin Slamer-de St. Aubin, ’07 (volleyball), each notching their 100th career win;

•

Briton student-athletes posting a 3.323 spring-semester GPA.

And Kastl can’t wait.

“Wrestling alumni wish to extend a massive thank you to President Mathew Johnson, Athletic Director Matt Arend, and other college officials who were part of the process to reinstate men’s wrestling and add women’s wrestling to the sports schedule,” he says. “Words cannot express our excitement as the Briton grapplers hit the mats.”

Marissa Smego is Albion College’s sports information director.

Visit gobrits.com for the latest on Albion College athletics!

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Teachers, Always For centuries, a liberal arts education has instilled a passion for lifelong learning. A similar notion applies for the scholars who make it happen. Read about Albion professors— researchers, artists, innovators—whose impact on recent generations of students will endure for years to come.

This past academic year was transformational in so many ways. We met a new president along with many new staff and faculty members. We succeeded in teaching and learning together during the pandemic.

We introduced new degrees and certificates and new ways to support student success.

Now, the retirement of so many long-serving professors and librarians together marks perhaps the biggest transformation of all.

Through this year of change, I’ve been profoundly grateful for the leadership of the people honored here. I’m also grateful for the lives of two faculty members who passed away while still in service to the College: Mary Collar (see page 46) and Dave Seely.

These faculty members and librarians have transformed the lives of thousands of students and served Albion College well for decades (and collectively, for centuries!). We will miss their wisdom, mentorship, wit, and friendship. As we reflect on their achievements, we also anticipate carrying forward their work. A new cohort of faculty members will bring with them cutting-

edge scholarship, innovative approaches to the classroom and to experiential learning, and exciting new ideas about academic programs. Let’s learn from these retiring colleagues as we create with courage for the future!

–Dr. Ron Mourad, provost and vice president for academic affairs

Sam McIlhagga Professor of Music

“Educators have been studying how the best teachers use the acting technique of ‘improv,’ but I’m interested in how jazz improv relates to education. The best ensembles work when there’s communication between everyone, and I think the most effective teachers have this same sort of communication in their classes.”

Director of bands since 2003, Dr. McIlhagga has led the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Albion Jazz Collective, and the British Eighth Marching Band. He developed and taught Rock and Roll in Society and Music as a Creative Process, two new courses open to students from all majors.

McIlhagga’s interest in pushing musicians and audiences alike to think of music in new ways

32 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

has included programming contemporary wind band literature, encouraging audience members to live-tweet during concerts, embarking on studentled “sonic walks”, and even incorporating live Star Wars stormtroopers into a performance.

Why? We need to “question all our assumptions about what it means to ‘go to a concert,’” says McIlhagga, explaining the value of

“bringing the music to the people and not the people to the music. ...

If the most important thing is that people hear this wonderful music, then we need to do a better job of getting it to them and them to it.”

former students every year at music conferences,” he says. “I’m much more interested in knowing they have success in their lives. It’s not about me; it’s about seeing my students flourish.”

And as for “things that bring me joy and make me proud,” McIlhagga points to his close association with students preparing to become band teachers. “I love connecting with

McIlhagga has received Albion College New Teacher and Teacher of the Year Awards, in addition to a mentoring award from Kappa Kappa Psi.

Jim Ball

Professor of Music “Music Appreciation might be the most important course in our department. These students are going to buy instruments and lessons for the kids, tickets to concerts. They support the work our music majors are preparing to do.”

As the College’s orchestra director, Dr. Ball conducted more than 80 concerts during his 22-year tenure.

During that time, he picked up a second gig as jazz ensemble director, leading it in more than 90 performances, regularly packing Cascarelli’s restaurant with college and community fans. Passionate about providing professional opportunities for his students, Ball included them in weekly combo appearances in Albion and

seasonal performances with the Tecumseh Pops Orchestra, which he also directed.

Ball also noted that his Albion time allowed for his own learning and growth. He took up the string bass at the request of a former faculty colleague. While developing his first-year seminar Music and American Culture, Ball became an expert on the history of 19th- and 20th-century blackface

minstrels and the impact that form of entertainment had on Americans' attitudes about race as the 20th century progressed. It has been a subject he has regularly shared with his students, in other professors' courses, and for civic and educational groups.

“This is something people just don't know about. It’s part of our history,” Ball says. “We want to do all we can to make sure our music

majors are prepared for their work as educators and performers.”

More broadly, he adds, “We also reach a lot of other students, through performance opportunities and things like the first-year seminar. I’ve enjoyed being part of their college education.”

Barbara Keyes

Professor of Psychological Science “When teaching Lifespan Development, I highlight the opportunities and challenges associated with major life transitions.

Now it’s my turn to practice what I preach and embrace this new phase of life: retirement.”

“For me, Erikson’s notion of generativity is what teaching is all about, making a difference in students’ lives and contributing to future generations,” explains Dr. Keyes, reflecting on 46 years at Albion. “When discussing generativity, I joke with my students that when I write a letter for someone applying to medical school who becomes a doctor who saves a life, I played some very small part in that doctor getting the training needed to save a life.”

Keyes’ “very small part” has impacted students and colleagues in numerous ways. In 1975 she began developing the psychology practicum, something few undergraduate schools offered at the time. She has overseen hundreds of field placements—in clinical, educational, criminal justice, and business settings— meeting the needs of psychology, human services, neuroscience, and healthcare students.

Keyes helped develop the neuroscience concentration as well as the Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity.

For many years, she directed the human services concentration and the Institute for Healthcare Professions (now the Lisa and James Wilson Institute for Medicine). Keyes also played an active role in the original “Female Fridays,” an informal gathering of faculty women, and served on Albion’s first Women’s Studies Committee.

A recipient of College teaching and mentoring awards, Keyes is currently mentoring Shanti Madhavan Brown, ’15, one of her former practicum students, who succeeds Keyes in the Department of Psychological Science.

“A wise person once told me, ‘You’ll know it’s time to retire when you no longer enjoy what you’re doing,’” Keyes concludes, “The good news is I still enjoy teaching, but that makes retirement bittersweet for me.”

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Jeff Wilson

Professor of Psychological Science “You can't just call up Worms-R-Us to order supplies. I had to develop and build running wheels and other means of monitoring the worms’ behavior, but this work resulted in three publications and 18 presentations.”

Dr. Wilson’s interest in national professional organizations began long before he joined Albion’s Psychological Science Department in 1999. Not only did Wilson attend the founding meeting of Faculty for Undergraduate Research, he coined the group’s name, which went from controversial to beloved, and designed the group’s logo.

He has held a leadership role with the Pavlovian Society for 19 years, helping reenergize that organization into a vital network for learning theorists.

This national focus has had clear benefits for his students; Wilson has taken some 200 Albion students to national conferences, where many forged relationships with future graduate advisers. He worked with nearly 40 student researchers during that same period, and many of them co-presented their research on earthworm learning at those conferences. At least 17 of his Albion students have earned doctorates, with one winning a national dissertation award.

In the classroom, Wilson says, “I think my essential role was in modeling the desire to continue learning and increasing one's understanding of the world,” adding that he also really enjoyed working with students who were there only to fulfill an academic requirement.

research also served this model, by showing students the effort that goes into generating the knowledge that is conveyed in the classroom, and the joy and occasional frustration that comes from the endeavor.”

“I always pushed myself to include new concepts, even when I was only coming to understand them myself,” he explains. “My occasional inclusion of my own

Lynne Chytilo

Professor of Art and Art History “In the studio students tell me things they’re unlikely to tell other people. To be a successful artist, you have to dig inside yourself to find content for your work. It’s a difficult process and sometimes the students need to talk it through.”

Over the past 37 years, Chytilo built a strong ceramics program in part by building a strong campus-wide interest in ceramics. She founded the biannual student pottery sale, which each year draws hundreds of campus and community members to purchase student-made pottery and sculpture.

In all, Chytilo calculates she taught more than 1,000 students to throw on a potter’s wheel. She twice brought the statewide Michigan

34 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Mud conference to campus and has seen a number of former students develop professional careers as artists. Chytilo, whose career as an artist spans 53 years, says “ceramics is in my DNA.” She also co-developed and cotaught the innovative Pottery and Politics course, which combined studio art with political science scholarship. Her collaboration with former political science professor Dr. Dyron Dabney led

to many invitations to share their work at national conferences and in professional journals. “Ceramic traditions are a part of many world cultures,” Chytilo says, noting that her Ceramics and the Industrial Revolution course similarly combined art with scholarship.

“There’s a lot of interest now in studying history and sociology through material culture, and I enjoyed figuring out how to do that.”

She has also co-taught Art and the Environment with Dr. Doug White and Pottery and Politics with Dr. Midori Yoshii, professor of international studies. Outside the studio, Chytilo served for many years as chair of the College’s Institutional Review Board and as a faculty marshal.

Deborah Kanter Professor of History

“I always aim to encourage students to evolve into better versions of themselves: stronger communicators, more connected thinkers, and with greater knowledge and empathy for people in cultural groups that differ from their own.”

Over the past 29 years, Dr. Kanter has embraced, studied, supported, and even helped instigate some of Albion’s increasing academic and social diversification. Hired as the College’s first specialist in Latin American history, Kanter has developed courses and scholarship that reflect the complex issues of migration, immigration, international relations, MexicanAmerican identity, and more. Her recent book, Chicago Católico,

traces the evolution of a Latinx immigrant community in what historically has been a GermanAmerican Chicago neighborhood.

have faced additional challenges ranging from coming from other states, to being a first-generation student, to being undocumented.

“I never dreamed I would be teaching large numbers of students whose family stories paralleled my own work,” Kanter reflects.

This personal and academic intersection led to Kanter becoming an unofficial mentor to Latinx students, many of whom

Of course, Kanter has been no less committed to her non-Hispanic students who continue to fill most of her classes. “Albion graduates, they’re going to become leaders and teachers, people who impact the community and our country,” she says. “If they can’t talk and

listen in a knowledgeable way about America, they’re not really educated.”

Kanter has received a President’s Advisory Council on Intercultural Affairs Mentoring Award and the Putnam Faculty Mentoring Award.

She previously held the Julian S. Rammelkamp Professorship in History and most recently was the John S. Ludington Trustees' Professor in the Social Sciences.

Andrew Grossman

Professor of Political Science “I’m not a fan of jargon-filled academic writing. For me when I publish, I try to ‘keep it short, and get to the point.’ For those who know me, they know I am not that way in the classroom, but it’s important to be direct if you’re going to make a real contribution.”

In his early 30s, Dr. Grossman walked away from corporate America to finish his education— and, as they say, the rest is history.

Grossman spent 25 years at Albion researching and teaching American political development, international political economy, and international security.

Serving on the Social Science Research Council after 9/11, Grossman participated in

interviews with representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood in Great Britain. The SSRC project produced an analysis of civil liberty in times of crisis. Along with publishing some two dozen journal articles, his book, and book chapters for anthologies, Grossman also served as managing editor of the journal Politics, Society, and Culture and was on the editorial board of the journal Polity.

“For me, to be a really good teacher, I had to publish every year,” says Grossman, who holds three Albion teaching awards. “You go through that peer review and get a lot of good feedback. That feedback impacted what I taught the next year.”

His personal history (held back in seventh grade) gave Grossman an ironic strength as a teacher. “I was a very late bloomer. I know some of

my students are late bloomers, too, and it affects the way I teach,” he says. “I know I have students who don’t want to be there. I can work with that.”

Indeed, Grossman’s retirement plans include teaching two classes this coming fall. “I love being in the classroom,” he says. “I’m not ready to give it up completely.”

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Dale Kennedy Professor of Biology

“I have received notes from several former research students saying that I inspired them as a woman in science. I am proud of serving as a role model.”

Dr. Kennedy was a junior faculty member when she participated in a discussion about resource needs in the natural science departments.

Much of the talk focused on new equipment, “but I pushed for student research funding,” Kennedy says. “Having research experiences for students in class, or for more than a few students in the department, wasn’t a big part of what we did. I think it’s different now.”

As a professor, administrator, and yes, researcher, Kennedy’s belief in research experience has had a tremendous impact on individual students and the College as a whole. With her husband, Dr. Doug White, Kennedy has overseen a 26-year study on house wrens in Whitehouse Nature Center, work that has included nearly 50 of their 100 student researchers and led to her being named a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society.

Additionally, Kennedy helped develop the Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity, and has directed both FURSCA’s summer program and the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program. Beyond her passion for research, Kennedy is clear in her conviction that working with students isn’t just academic. For 24 years she ran the game clock for Briton women’s basketball, in part to show her

support for the student-athletes who were in her classes.

“I was in touch with my undergraduate adviser until he died and I wanted that same sort of connection with my students,” Kennedy says. “I watched their games and went to their performances. That’s part of the package.

Doug White

Director, Center for Sustainability and the Environment “[Professor of Art History] Bille Wickre and I taught Art and the Environment together, and the students thought we argued so much in class that we must be one of the married couples on campus. I’m not sure when the students figured it out.”

As a visiting professor, Dr. White spent 52 consecutive semesters in the classroom, teaching for the Biology Department and First-Year Experience and Honors programs.

White developed the popular course The Natural History of Love, and when co-teaching he worked with colleagues in Art and Art History, Biology, English, and Geological Sciences.

36 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

As co-director and director of the Center for Sustainability and the Environment, White led annual field trips across the country.

With his wife, Biology’s Dr. Dale Kennedy, White has spent the past 26 summers conducting research in Whitehouse Nature Center. He also coordinated the multidisciplinary, multiyear Rice Creek project, a College and community joint effort and one of the largest research projects ever undertaken at Albion.

Working with students and colleagues from across campus has been a profound benefit of the job, White says. “When you’re at a big university, all your friends and colleagues are in your department, and sometimes it feels like nothing else exists.”

Another big plus has been living just outside the Nature Center, where he and Kennedy have spent countless hours and taught hundreds of students to

do research, identify birds, and just enjoy the outdoors. “We walk out the door every day to do our research. We can walk to campus through the Nature Center,” White explains. ”We don’t have to own two cars. It’s the kind of experience we couldn’t have believed in graduate school.”

Cheryl Blackwell, Claudia Diaz, & Mike Van Houten Librarians

“The students love it when you sit there for 20 minutes and BS with them. Sometimes when they’re in the library, they need that.” –Cheryl Blackwell

They’ve shared the same essential job title and workplace for decades, but the contributions made by the Stockwell-Mudd trio have extended through and beyond the stacks.

The “newbie” of the trio, with a mere 34 years at Albion, reference librarian Blackwell has taught nearly 15 first-year seminars and served as organizer of the monthly Odd Topics Society Luncheon for campus and community members.

Across her 37 years, Diaz’s leadership has ranged from acquisitions to technical services and library co-director; she oversaw the massive shift from paper-based to electronic information and resources, and played key roles in the space design for Cutler Commons and the main level of Mudd.

During his 41 years as reference librarian and co-library director with Diaz, Van Houten has been a faculty marshal, faculty

representative in athletics, and for the last 28 years coordinator of the Elkin R. Isaac Student Research Symposium.

“One of the best aspects of being co-directors was how we could bounce ideas off each other and come to agreements about how to handle things,” said Diaz (pictured with Van Houten) of the position she and Van Houten have shared since 2010.

Adds Van Houten: “It’s kind of astounding how many of us in the library have worked together for decades. It helps when you’ve got people who are like-minded in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish. Something like that is pretty rare.”

When it comes to retirement, Blackwell concludes, “we tend to look at the beginning and the end of the journey. There was so much good in the middle, too.”

Beth & Tim Lincoln

Professors of Geological Science “Sharing a position allowed us that extra half time to take on more campus-wide work, and that was fascinating.”

Drs. Tim and Beth Lincoln may have shared one faculty position, but they certainly had the influence of two active leaders. With their 40 years on Albion’s campus, they also spent 28 summers “turning geology students into geologists” at Albion’s national field camp, a total time commitment equal to three additional calendar years. They participated together in some 20 geology field trips, and Tim co-led 17 Center for Sustainability and the Environment field trips as well.

During her out-of-classroom time, Beth led the development of the environmental category and the environmental science and studies concentrations. She also directed the Basic Ideas program, served five years as associate provost, two years as associate dean of athletics, and one year as interim provost.

For his part, Tim spent 18 years as CSE director and helped the department acquire equipment that eventually led to the addition of the geographic information systems major.

Both Lincolns received teaching awards from the College and, Tim notes, appreciated the ability to develop courses reflecting their interests. “In a small department, you can do a lot before you bump into what someone else is doing,” he says. “When I wanted to do more with low-temperature geochemistry or hydrology or sustainability, I developed those courses. The ability to teach a wide array of different things, and grow by doing it, was great.”

“I was happy to have the opportunity to share with students how fascinating and important geology is,” Beth says. “I have always felt that geology is an ideal science for liberal arts students and enjoyed helping them see how relevant it is to them.”

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Greg Saltzman

Professor of Economics and Management “I have my Ph.D. in economics, but economics has never been the only thing that I do.”

To look at Dr. Saltzman’s proudest achievements over 35 years of teaching at Albion College, it might be a challenge to figure out what department he’s in. He developed the popular Negotiation and Dispute Resolution course for Honors; wrote a research article that has been cited multiple times in contributions to the American Political Science Review; led the

development of Albion’s marketing management major; and has seen two of his thesis advisees become professors of public health, neurology, and pediatrics. Not to mention Saltzman also wrote Albion’s first family leave policy.

From his Honors seminar to his Introduction to Microeconomics course, Saltzman is also known

for lively classroom exercises that help students test concepts and their own skills as sellers, buyers, peacemakers, and agitators.

“Teaching allows me to be a little theatrical, and I’ve enjoyed that,” says Saltzman, who has also taught in China and South Korea through Fulbright teaching fellowships.

Saltzman has twice held the E. Maynard Aris Professorship in Economics and was awarded Albion’s Phi Beta Kappa Scholar of the Year award. He is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research has drawn from economics, labor and employment law, political science, psychology, sociology, psychiatry, and neurology.

Dan Skean

Professor of Biology “In my course evaluations I get a lot of complaints like, ‘Too much information about plants in this class.’ I took that as a good criticism—and perhaps also accurate.”

Over the past 33 years, Dr. Skean has introduced students to the rigors and rewards of field work, with trips ranging from the campus quadrangle and Kentucky to Cuba, Jamaica, Belize, and Hispaniola.

He’s a specialist in Caribbean botany, so plants were the focus, but Skean notes that the learning went beyond biology. Along with kinkajous, river crocodiles, and a

boa constrictor that tried to drop into their boat, the students saw “plants and economic situations in places that are geographically close but otherwise very different,” Skean explains. “Getting to do this work where you expose students to other ecosystems and other cultures is something I’ve enjoyed.”

Skean, who has identified and

named several species within the Melastome family, has advised on the choice and placement of new trees on campus. The longtime “voice of the British Eighth” also has served many years as a faculty marshal. Skean recieved New Teacher of the Year and Teacher of the Year awards, and held the A. Merton Chickering Professorship in Biology.

“My overall goal has been to make students consider the environment and to value not only human life, but other life,” says Skean. “The students are the ones who will save intact natural habitats. There’s no altruism in it. Ultimately it’s a practical choice, and plants are the basis of an ecosystem. If you don’t have them, you don’t have anything.”

Wesley Arden Dick Professor of History

“My teaching baptism was the tumultuous 1960s, a decade that demanded that one examine his or her conscience.

Conscience remained at the center of my Albion teaching career. My goal was that my students face the dark side of our history, but not become bogged down in despair. Rather, inspired by those who challenged injustice and evil in the past, my students would be empowered by history to confront contemporary problems.”

Since joining the Albion faculty in 1968, Dr. Dick has taught generations of students to examine, understand, and care about the environment, social justice, and the wonder of being in a place like Albion. A contemporary American historian, Dick brought to campus national leaders, World War II veterans, and community

38 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

members, providing unique opportunities for growth and inspiration. His own research into the civil rights movement led to a friendship with Julian Bond, which later led to Bond visiting Albion in 2014. Dick was invited to speak at a symposium in Bond’s honor following his death in 2015.

Dick created many courses during his 53-year tenure, including the First-Year Seminar “A Sense of Place: Albion and the American Dream,” co-taught with his wife, historian Leslie Dick. He participated in Albion’s first Earth Day celebration in 1970, and joined many Center for Sustainability and the Environment field trips.

A member of the NAACP Albion Branch for decades, Dick received a branch leadership award in 2013, while his 2021 Students’ Choice Award capped his many College teaching and mentoring honors.

Wes and Leslie also each hold an honorary doctorate from Albion, a recognition never before bestowed on a current faculty member.

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS

Doubly Distinguished A Homecoming weekend back on campus October 22-23 has a grand finale in store, as Albion College recognizes Briton achievements twofold through the presentation of the 2020 and 2021 Alumni Awards on Saturday evening, October 23. Learn more about the honorees at albion.edu/alumni-awards.

2021 Distinguished Alumni Award

The Alumni Association Board of Directors selected eight new members to three-year terms at its April meeting. The entire board roster can be found at albion.edu/alumni/board.

Matt Heinz, ’99 (Tucson, AZ)

Kent Bettel, ’69 (Columbus, OH) Posthumous award

Offering Their Voice

Caryn Ryan, ’79 (Pasadena, CA)

Richard Youle, ’74 (Bethesda, MD)

2021 Young Alumni Award

Shea Krajewski Gardner, ’12 (Chicago, IL)

Morgan Armstrong, ’21 (Albion, MI)

B. Ethan Coston, ’08 (Richmond, VA)

Latrell Crenshaw, ’21 (La Mesa, CA)

Cynthia Falardeau, ’87 (Vero Beach, FL)

Jennifer Hegener, ’92 (Chicago, IL)

Sarah Hogberg Forster, ’88 (Holland, MI)

Joel McDade, ’08 (Worcester, MA)

Dennis Moore, ’70 (Dearborn, MI)

Rhiki Swinton, ’16 (Battle Creek, MI)

2021 James L. Curtis Alumni Leadership Award The award recipient will be announced later this summer.

2020 Distinguished Alumni Award

Deanna Behring, ’85 (State College, PA)

Kevin Chalut, ’99 (Cambridge, England, UK)

Bonciel Griffin-Burress, ’97 (Chicago, IL)

Craig Kirby, ’85 (Washington, DC)

2020 Young Alumni Award

Christopher N. Blaker, ’14 (Quantico, VA)

Soe Yu Nwe, ’13 (Seattle, WA)

2020 James L. Curtis Alumni Leadership Award

Darrell Williams, ’77 (Detroit, MI)

The Albion College Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony is scheduled for Friday evening, October 22. Honorees will be announced later this summer; visit gobrits.com for all the details!

With pandemic gathering restrictions easeing, new alumni events are in the works! As plans become firm, information will be posted at albion.edu/alumni/events.

Spring-Summer 2021 | 39

ALBIONOTES

Class News 1942 Peggy Close Oakes, ’42, celebrated her 100th birthday on Sept. 17, 2020. She lives in Lutz, FL.

1943

the work of Srinivasa Ramanujan, Berndt received the Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition in 1996, awarded by the American Mathematical Society; earlier this year the website Academic Influence included Berndt in its list of Top Influential Mathematicians Today.

Dean Smith, ’43, published a collection of letters exchanged by his grandfather, Carmi Reddick Smith, Class of 1886, and his family and friends in rural Girard, MI. The correspondence provides a fascinating glimpse into life on campus in the mid-1880s. Copies of the book are available directly from Dean, at deans3@comcast.net.

1971

1949

Margie Berns, ’72, retired in 2020 after 34 years of service as a professor and program director in the Department of English at Purdue University.

Joy Oddy Scofield, ’49, and the late Bill Scofield, ’49, along with their son Rick Scofield, ’74, were honored by the city of Howell, which renamed a city park in honor of the family’s 70-year commitment to civic leadership and community service. Bill and Joy were married for 67 years before his death in 2018. Both Rick and Joy continue to live in Howell, where Rick serves as president of the Howell Area Chamber of Commerce.

1952 Richard Burns, ’52, continues to ride his bike in his hilly, Cleveland, TN, neighborhood, which includes a halfmile stretch that climbs 200 feet.

1961 Bruce Berndt, ’61, continues to hold the Michio Suzuki Distinguished Research Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Illinois. He is one of the world’s greatest analytic number theorists, continuing to edit the Ramanujan Journal. For his research explaining

40 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

George Heartwell, ’71, former three-term mayor of Grand Rapids, was appointed

by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to a sevenyear term as a member of Ferris State University’s board of trustees.

1972

1974 Rick Scofield, ’74, and his parents Joy Oddy Scofield, ’49, and the late Bill Scofield, ’49, were honored by the city of Howell, which renamed a city park in honor of the family’s 70year commitment to civic leadership and community service. Bill and Joy were married for 67 years before his death in 2018. Both Rich and Joy continue to live in Howell, where Rick serves as president of the Howell Area Chamber of Commerce.

Richard Youle, ’74, received the $3 million 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences from the Breakthrough Foundation, co-founded by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. A scientist with the National Institutes of Health, Youle elucidated a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against Parkinson’s Disease.

BRAVO TO BRITONS Missie Lewis Nordrum, ’72, is co-founder of DB Delivery Solutions, which was honored with a 2021 SmartZone Best Small Business award, presented by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. She and her partner invented the “Receptor,” a lockbox that prevents package theft while enabling contact-free deliveries. Installable into any home or garage, the Receptor is locked after delivery, and can then be opened from inside the home. An educator and school administrator for 30 years in Rochester, Missie’s other retirement job is office manager for an acupuncture clinic.

Larry Scott, ’76, is a 2021 inductee to the Michigan Lawyers Weekly Hall of Fame, an award reserved for those who have given 30 years of professional and civic leadership. A member of the O’Reilly Rancilio law firm’s board of directors, Larry has spent 42 years representing individuals, business owners, and banking institutions to resolve disputes involving shareholder agreements, contracts, mortgage fraud, intellectual property, and employment. His pro bono work includes many years with Michigan Special Olympics, and Larry is a founding member of the organization’s Water Warriors fundraising event, a five-day, 450-mile ride along Lake Huron. He is also a member of the Detroit Zoo board and the Henry Ford Macomb Hospital Ambassador Club.

1978 Steve Bender, Tom Grathwohl, Tim Newsted and Anne Rigby Haley, all members of the Class of 1978, graduated from elementary and high school together in Niles and continue to remain friends. Steve was recently named Indiana High School Tennis Coach of the Year; his 11 seasons with South Bend Saint Joseph yielded a record of 208-26.

Michael Williams, ’78, current member of Albion College’s Board of Trustees, was appointed to another four-year term on the Michigan Health Endowment Fund board, where he represents the interests of minors. Mike also continues to serve as president and CEO of Orchards Children’s Services, Michigan’s largest adoption/foster care agency.

He lives in Westland.

1980

1990

1994

1997

Lynda Laing, ’80, is finishing her term as president-elect of the Rhode Island Bar Association and will become head of that organization in July 2021. She has held numerous leadership positions within the organization. A partner with Strauss, Factor, Laing & Lyons, Lynda’s practice focuses on creditors’ rights law. Lynda and her husband, Thomas, have two daughters.

Doug Copley, ’90, is chief information security officer for Dickinson County Health System in Iron Mountain. He is the founder of Data Protection Systems, helping health care organizations with cybersecurity.

Leslee Fritz, ’94, becomes pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Lansing, beginning in July. Leslee spent the last four years as pastor of Albion First United Methodist Church.

Brandy Harris, ’97, is now assistant dean of technology at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, AZ, where she has been working for six years in curriculum design and development.

1983 Lynda Barrow, ’83, is the author of Religion and Politics on the World Stage: an IR Approach, released in February by Lynne Rienner publishers. She is a professor of political science at Coe College.

1986

Terence Thomas, ’90, has joined the board of trustees of The Helm at the John A. and Marlene L. Boll Life Center in Grosse Pointe. The Helm provides resources and services for area senior citizens. Terence is cofounder of Thomas Group Consulting, Inc., a community engagement, receivership-services and businessservices company in Detroit.

1992

Jeffrey Ott, ’86, was recognized by MiBiz as Dealmaker of the Year in the adviser category for his role in four financial service transactions, one of which earned the publication’s Deal of the Year award in the finance/banking category. Ott is a partner with Warner Norcross + Judd LLP.

Scott Cargill, ’92, was chosen by the Wyoming Automobile Dealers Association as a finalist for the National Automobile Dealers Association Dealer of the Year Award.

The 40 finalists are chosen from among 16,000 association members nationwide. Scott is the executive manager of White’s Frontier Motors In Gillette, WY.

1987

1993

Jeffery Hurtik, ’87, was named executive vice president/chief information officer for the Bank of Southern California, a commercial bank located in San Diego.

Mike Juchno, ’93, a consulting partner with Ernst & Young’s digital, data and analytics practice, has helped more than 20 Albion students start careers with EY and is a current member of the Gerstacker Institute Advisory Committee. Mike also serves on the boards of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion and the Arabic Community Center for Economic and Social Services. Mike and his wife, Stephanie, and their four children live in South Lyon.

1988 Anne-Marie Anderson, ’88, was selected for a Lifetime Achievement Award by Premier Lawyers of America in 2020. Along with her legal work, she continues to participate in televised panels as a U.S. Supreme Court analyst.

1996 Wesley Browne, ’96, saw publication of his debut novel in 2020 by West Virginia University Press. Hillbilly Hustle is about a pizza shop owner who gets entangled with a local drug supplier. It garnered positive acclaim from reviewers including Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Review; more information is available at wesleybrown.com. Wesley practices law and owns restaurants in Central Kentucky.

2002 Leah Kohler Spring, ’02, completed fellowship training in Mohs micrographic surgery and cosmetic dermatologic surgery at SkinCare Physicians in Chestnut Hill, MA, in summer 2020. A commander in the U.S. Navy, Leah is also the head of procedural dermatology at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia.

BRAVO TO BRITONS Pete Schmidt, former head football coach, became the first Briton inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, in 2020. In his 14 seasons at Albion (1983-96), Pete led the Britons to nine Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association championships and the 1994 NCAA Division III national championship. He posted a 104–27–4 record with the Britons before his three seasons as offensive coordinator at Indiana University. Schmidt died in 2000, and in 2001 the MIAA presented its first Pete Schmidt Memorial ScholarAthlete Award. The MIAA football coaches continue to present this award annually. Pete was the father of Amy Schmidt Stille, ’97, Peter Schmidt, ’98, and Sarah Schmidt Fuller, ’99.

CLASS NOTES DEADLINE The deadline for class notes appearing in this issue of Io Triumphe! was March 31, 2021. Notes will be accepted through November 1, 2021 for the next issue.

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ALBIONOTES

BRAVO TO BRITONS Sally Trombly Wenczel, ’02, was recognized this spring by the State of Michigan and the Township of West Bloomfield for her public service. One of seven elected West Bloomfield Parks and Recreation commissioners, Wenczel received the township's 2021 Environmental Stewardship Award during the 49th Greater West Bloomfield Michigan Week celebration; with the award came a formal Special Tribute from the statehouse. The Albion English major is also the author and illustrator of the recently published children’s book Let’s Build a Rain Garden!, which she has donated to watershed councils in Michigan and to members of her community. The book is also available on amazon.com.

2004

2007

Todd Falker, ’04, is the product line manager for Puma. He is currently focusing on a line of running footwear for women.

Tracy Dryer, ’07, received a $1,500 grant and was featured in the May 2021 issue of Jackson Magazine as a Top Teacher of 2021. Tracy teaches psychology and English at Northwest High School.

2005 Carrie Howland, ’05, is a literary agent representing an array of adult literary fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. She founded Howland Literary in 2018 after 13 years as an agent in New York City. A former poetry editor of the Albion College Review, she has also published her own work in numerous literary journals and magazines.

Carrie lives in Marshall.

Janan Saba, ’05, recently became chair of the Michigan State Advocacy Committee for the American Heart Association. She has volunteered with the group since 2009.

2006 Jordan Troisi, ’06, just finished his first year as senior associate director for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Colby College in Maine.

42 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Ayesha Ghazi Edwin, ’07, was appointed

by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as chair of the Michigan Asian Pacific Affairs Commission. Ayesha is a lecturer for the University of Michigan School of Social Work and a fund development consultant for Detroit Disability Power. She is also the founder and principal consultant for AGE Strategies and the executive director of American Citizens for Justice at the Asian American Center for Justice.

2008

2015 Shanti Madhavan Brown, ’15, recently completed her first year as a member of the faculty in Albion College’s Department of Psychological Sciences.

Weddings Brian Sayers, ’05, to Leigh Ann LaFave on Aug. 1, 2020 in Chelsea. The couple lives in Albion and works at the College.

Leigh Ann is the head softball coach and Brian is a groundskeeper for the athletic facilities.

Elisa Black, ’07, to Joe Macejak on Oct. 17, 2020 in Shelbyville. Alumni in attendance included William Black, ’82; Grant Brownlow, ’19; Kaitlin Crapo, ’19; Elle Jansen, ’19; Mackie Black, ’19; Ethan Sutton, ’17; Kara Bowers, ’15; Jack Brownlow, ’17; John, ’86, and Deana Black Brownlow, ’85; Elaine Elson Mills, ’81; Sally Merryman Bean, ’81; Jill Hershey Hoppie, ’83; Lauren Michels Fortinberry, ’07; Ellen Beatty, ’07; Ashley Malmquist Mazur, ’07; Jill Snethkamp Maks, ’06; and Megan O’Sullivan, ’04.

Ryan Arey, ’11, to Eric Byington on Oct. 17, 2020 in Bay Harbor. Alumni in attendance included David, ’70, and Terry Nuckols Stellingworth, ’81. Ryan is the daughter of the late Charles Arey, ’72. Ryan earned her M.S.Ed. from the

University of Pennsylvania and is currently director of recruitment and enrollment at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

The couple lives in Bethesda, MD. Jay Winkler, ’13, to Raysha Stacey, ’14, on May 30, 2020 in Ann Arbor.

Alumni in virtual attendance included Kyle Bryce, ’13; Samantha Schneider Christenson, ’14; Ashley Hull, ’12; Matt, ’14, and Sophie Khan LeFevre, ’14; Alex Seasock, ’13; Lauren Ridenour, ’14; Larry VanOverbeke, ’14; and Brian Weiss, ’13. The couple lives in Ann Arbor and are both employed by the University of Michigan.

Jackie Cubalo, ’16, to Ben Powell, ’17, on July 18, 2020. Mallory DeWaters, ’17, was a member of the wedding party and alumni present included Shanti Madhavan-Brown, ’15, and Ryan Soekarmoen, ’17. The couple lives in New York while Ben completes his master's degree at Binghamton University.

Joel, ’08, and Erin Brodhagen Fitzgerald, ’08, return to Albion in July, as Joel becomes the pastor of Albion First United Methodist Church and Erin becomes pastor of Marshall United Methodist Church. They will live in Albion with their two sons.

Baby Britons

2011

Elizabeth Young on Jan. 29, 2020 to Kathleen Sims-Young, ’07, and Thomas.

Ryan Bourjaily, ’11, was named a Rising Star by Plunkett Cooney, one of Michigan’s oldest law firms.

Ailey Mae Hart on Dec. 2, 2020 to Dan, ’09, and Autumn Charnley Hart, ’09.

Ailey joins big sister Elodie.

Zoe Margaret Hearld, on June 15, 2020 to Maggie Honeyman, ’11, and Zeth Hearld, ’11.

Obituaries Jean Johnston Bolinger, ’40, on Jan. 17, 2021 in Marshall. Her devotion to civic life included serving as local and district president of the American Legion Ladies’ Auxiliary, local and district president of United Methodist Women, and state president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

She is survived by a daughter and three grandchildren.

Morden Schuur, ’42, on May 4, 2020.

Morden became a Captain in the U.S. Army Military Police while in Myitkyina, Burma. He later practiced law in Kalamazoo for more than 50 years. He is survived by three children and five grandchildren.

John Ward, ’42, on Nov. 11, 2020. John served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, then was a commercial pilot in South America before a long career as vice president of Michigan National Bank of Detroit. In retirement in Oregon, John volunteered with his county’s children’s services, at a camp for children with cancer, teaching preschoolers to read, and delivering meals to disabled persons. He is survived by two daughters.

Margaret Harper Collins, ’45, on July 30, 2020 in Holland. Margaret was a member of Alpha Xi Delta and Sigma Alpha Iota

music fraternity, and was selected for the Mortar Board. After earning a master’s degree, she taught mathematics and social studies. Once retired, she served as president of the local AAUW and volunteered with Alzheimer’s and hospice offices. She is survived by three children, four grandchildren, and six greatgrandchildren.

Dorothy Shideman Stevens, ’45, on Aug. 20, 2020 in Lake Barrington Woods, IL. Also a graduate of Albion High School, Dee spent her early post-college years as editor of the Chicago Tribune’s employee magazine. She later worked for the Northwestern University Alumni Association and at Burberry’s on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. She was active with the Northwestern Settlement and the Glenview Public Library Association.

Dee is survived by two sons and three grandsons.

Charles Gross, ’50, on Nov. 27, 2020.

After serving in the U.S. Navy, Chuck established a CPA firm in Adrian. His civic service included the Adrian School Board, boards of a local hospital and bank, and founding the Stubnitz Foundation, which supports organizations in Lenawee County. He and his college sweetheart Betty McLaren Gross, ’49, were married for more than 70 years. Along with Betty,

Chris Christ, ’51 Chris Christ, ’51, on Nov. 16, 2020, in Battle Creek. A member of Vandervoort, Christ & Fisher, Chris practiced law and devoted himself to local and regional service, including on Albion College’s Board of Trustees for 15 years and the boards of the Battle Creek Health Systems, the Battle Creek Community Foundation, and the Binda Foundation.

As chair of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Chris met many world leaders through the foundation’s international work. He continued to hold the title of honorary trustee of Albion College and also received an honorary doctorate and Meritorious Service Award from his alma mater. Chris is survived by his children John, ’79, Kristin, ’81, and Scott, ’98; three grandchildren including J. Matthew Christ, ’09; three great-grandchildren, his brother Peter, ’55 and sister-in-law Carolyn Carr Christ, ’57.

Chuck is survived by three children, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

William Jeffrey, ’50, on April 19, 2020.

William practiced medicine in his early career but retired from Met Life as vice president and medical director of its Southeastern U.S. division. He was a team physician for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball and part owner of St. Petersburg’s minor league team.

William enjoyed auto racing and was the associate director of the Sebring race. He is survived by his wife, Karmel, two sons, and two grandchildren.

Edwin Kehe, ’50, on Sept. 23, 2020. A member of Delta Sigma Phi and Kappa Mu Epsilon honorary math society, Ed earned nine varsity letters in football, track, and tennis. As a high school track and cross country coach in White Plains, NY, Ed coached an incredible 60 championship teams that included 16 individual state champions, two National Federation records and 11 state indoor and outdoor records. The national publication Track & Field News hailed his 1966 team as one of the greatest scholastic teams of all time, and he was named by the Gannett newspapers as Coach of the Year. He is survived by his wife, Dolores, three children, six grandchildren, and four greatgrandchildren.

Thomas Mainwaring, ’50, on Dec. 18, 2020 in Saratoga Springs, NY. Tom was one of Albion’s Sigma Nu brothers. He served in the Korean War before joining Peat, Marwick, Mitchell.

Tom spent more than 32 years as a trucking executive, eventually retiring as president and CEO of Ryder Trucks. He is survived by his wife, Amy, five children, 12 grandchildren, and five greatgrandchildren.

Fred Kistler, ’53, on Nov. 3, 2020. A Korean War veteran, Fred had a 33-year career with Meijer that took him from controller to treasurer. He was part of the group of supermarket executives that helped develop the Universal Product Code (UPC). He is survived by his wife, Fran; three children including David, ’87, and his wife Martha Flint Kistler, ’88; and eight grandchildren.

Noel Yaney, ’53, on Jan. 31, 2021 in East Berlin, CT. Noel trained as a pilot and served in the Bureau of Ordnance until honorably discharged. While working for Cook Laboratories, he sold NASA the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory; he later worked on the IBM 360 project. He patented a new infrared museum audio system, and in 1989 co-founded Vista Group International with his wife, Martha.

He is survived by Martha, two daughters, and four grandchildren.

Betty Renfrew Campbell, ’54, on Sept.

6, 2020 in Venice, FL. Community and civic minded, she served on local boards and was an enthusiastic supporter of area arts and other nonprofit organizations.

She was also a member of Bitter Ends, a women’s sailing squadron. She is survived

by Edmund, ’54, her husband of 66 years, and two children including Heather Campbell McCullough, ’79.

Donna Stutesman DeVinney, ’54, on Sept. 5, 2020, in Chelsea. Committed to service and leadership, she was president of her local League of Women Voters and was on the ordination board of The Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church. She and her Albion sweetheart, Robert DeVinney, ’53, were married for 47 years. Donna is survived by five children and six grandchildren, including Nicholas DeVinney, ’12.

Burton Lamkin, ’54, on Sept. 24, 2020.

While working three jobs, Burt played Albion football and was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon. Eventually becoming a missionary, science teacher and principal in Ann Arbor, he established programs for special-needs students and implemented a nature center. With 7,000 hours of flight time, Burt rewarded students with airplane rides and airlifted Christmas gifts to children. He is survived by his wife of more than six decades, Sally Lynas Lamkin, ’54, three children including Ann Lamkin-Ferranti, ’79, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Linda Bacon Eller, ’55, on Dec. 19, 2020 in Colorado Springs, CO. Linda was ordained in 1977 during a “second wave” of female ministers to the United Methodist Church and served the Northern Illinois Conference for 19 years.

During her final years at an assisted-living

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ALBIONOTES

center in Colorado Springs, she continued her ministry by assisting the facility chaplain with a Bible study class. She is survived by her husband Bruce, three children, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Paul Scheibner, ’57, on Dec. 10, 2020 in the home he built at Higgins Lake.

During the Korean War, Paul did mission work that led to a career in ministry. His many projects included founding a camp for children with cystic fibrosis, fighting for universal lakeshore access, and aiding the disadvantaged. He is survived by his wife, Elaine, two children including Karen Scheibner Trubitt, ’87, and three grandchildren.

Sarah Swan Bradford, ’59, on Dec. 30, 2020 in Fort Myers, FL. A highlight of Sarah’s life in community involvement came in 1969 when she and her husband moved their four young children to Hong Kong. There, Sarah founded the Hong Kong International School Volunteer Program that worked with both visiting families and the expatriate community.

On a later assignment she founded a college/career planning center at the local high school. She is survived by Rob, her husband of 62 years, three children, six grandchildren, two great-granddaughters, and brother Stephen Swan, ’61.

Alfred Cohoe, ’59, on Jan. 3, 2021. A proud Goodrich Club alumnus, Al went on to a 54-year tenure with Ohio Northern University's psychology department, in addition to serving as an expert witness on 300-plus court cases and hosting weekly broadcasts on psychology. Al made numerous appearances with the Lima Symphony Orchestra as guest conductor, and made 42 trips to Europe aboard the RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth. He is survived by two siblings.

Robert Kinde, ’59, on April 12, 2020 in Neenah, WI. Professionally, Bob specialized in neuroradiology and angiography. He served on the institutional review board for ThedaCare and as president of the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of Appleton’s One Nighters Theater reading group for 40 years. He is survived by his wife, Sue, two children, four grandchildren, and his sister Kathryn Kinde McCreary, ’65.

Patricia (Miller) Stade, ’59, on Dec. 15, 2020. A first-generation college graduate, Pat worked as a community organizer in Chicago before spending nine years in

44 | Albion College Io Triumphe!

Africa, where her second son was born.

Pat later served as director of the Portage County (WI) Commission on Aging. She is survived by Ramon, her husband of 56 years, two sons, and two granddaughters.

Anne Nicklin Swan, ’59, on Dec. 30, 2020 in Fort Myers, FL. A longtime resident of Midland, Anne received awards from both Northwood University and the Town and Campus organization for her leadership of philanthropic projects. Along with leading the PTA, Anne served her children’s schools as both volunteer nurse and librarian. She was also an active volunteer with the MidMichigan Medical Center. Anne was preceded in death by Pete, ’55, her husband of 63 years, and died on the same day as her Albion College roommate and sister-in-law Sarah Swan Bradford, ’59, who lived at the same retirement community. Anne is survived by two children and three granddaughters as well as her brother-in-law Stephen Swan, ’61.

Janet Schellig Condon, ’60, on Dec. 5, 2020. An active member of art, religious, and education organizations, Jan also was a past member of Albion’s Alumni Board. She was an artist with a love for all things old as well as genealogy and family tombstones. She is survived by her husband, Bob, two children including Janet Condon Whiting, ’95, and two grandchildren.

Richard Hintz, ’60, on July 3, 2020 in Fort Worth, TX. After a long career in accounting, Richard retired as vice president of taxes for Triangle Industries in New York City and in recent years had his own CPA practice. Richard is survived by Judy Davis Hintz, ’62, and two daughters.

Michael Stone, ’61, on Oct. 25, 2019.

Mike was co-captain of the Briton football team and in 1990 was inducted into the Albion Athletic Hall of Fame. He served in the Air Force, worked in the petroleum services industry, and later was president of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers for seven years, where he was influential in the team’s free-agent signing of pitcher Nolan Ryan. Mike is survived by his wife, Ellen, brother Larry Stone, ’59, and two daughters.

Gail Sedrick Reed, ’63, on March 23, 2021 in Albion. Her eclectic life included teaching middle-school English, social studies, German, and theater in Michigan; English as a second language at Miami-Dade Community College,

and Air Traffic Control aviation English to professionals from Eastern Europe and South America at Miami's Pan Am International Flight Academy. She also worked as a production potter for Florida floral designers and served a number of years as president of the Ceramic League of Miami. Retiring to Albion, Gail’s community involvement included leadership and service to Friends of the Bohm Theatre, the Albion Sister City Committee, ELT, Albion Area Lifelong Learners, the Albion College Piano Festival and AAUW. She is survived by her husband and Albion sweetheart, Rob Reed, ’60, and two children.

Alan Robertson, ’63, on Dec. 13, 2020 in Perrysburg, OH. While at Albion, “Big Al” devoted himself to Alpha Tau Omega.

He is survived by his wife, Midge Taup Robertson, ’63, four children, and six grandchildren.

James Royle, ’63, on April 24, 2021.

A member of Tau Kappa Epsilon, choir, and Carol Singers, Jim became a psychologist, working with children and young adults with developmental disabilities. After a career in clinical practice, administration and teaching, he spent 15 years at Saginaw Valley State University leading special education teacher preparation. Jim and his Albion sweetheart, Tamara Transue Royle, ’63, are the only co-recipients of the Albion College Distinguished Alumni Award.

Jim is survived by Tammy; their children Timothy, ’89, Michael, ’92, and Megan Royle Carrella, ’95; six grandchildren; brother Robert, ’59, and sister-in-law Andrea Transue Haidle, ’68.

Patricia Riopelle Carmody, ’64, on Oct. 17, 2020 in Traverse City. At Albion, Pat was president of Delta Zeta and on the Homecoming court. As a social worker, she focused her career on abused women and children. She is survived by Peter, ’64, her husband of 56 years, four children, and nine grandchildren.

Frank Tegge, ’64, on Dec. 24, 2020.

After serving in the Vietnam War, Frank began a career in finance, eventually retiring from Wells Fargo. He was a prominent member of the Rotary Club of Lansing and the Commanders Club of Michigan. He is survived by his wife, Avril, son Kurt, ’97, two stepchildren, and four grandchildren.

Nancy Maharg Van Hook, ’65, on Sept.

12, 2020 in Bettendorf, IA. Nancy had an early career teaching elementary

school in California and Ohio. Iowa later became her home but she and her family also lived in Germany, Mexico, and Canada. With her family, Nancy participated in The Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Race Across Iowa (RAGBRAI); she also was an active Alpha Chi Omega alumna. She is survived by her husband, Craig, two sons, and two granddaughters.

William Rivers, ’66, on Feb. 14, 2021 in Bluffton, SC. Bill spent 35 years as a negotiator with the Segal Company, a North American human resources and benefits provision firm. In retirement, he served on the board of the International Senior Amateur Golf Society. He is survived by his wife and college sweetheart of more than 54 years, Janet Cesario Rivers, ’66, and two daughters.

Terry Shade, ’66, on July 15, 2020. Terry became a naval aviator and lieutenant during the Vietnam War, followed by a career flying Arctic oil exploration teams and eventually becoming a commercial airline pilot. His work allowed him to explore cities and wild areas in dozens of countries, even to experience kayaking with manatees. He is survived by a son.

James Brown, ’73, on March 21, 2021.

A member of Sigma Nu, Jay played Briton basketball and went on to graduate from Wayne State University School of Medicine. He practiced obstetrics and gynecology in the Canton area. James is survived by his son, William, and former spouse Harriet Hunt, ’78.

Christopher Kleinsmith, ’76, on Dec. 10, 2020. Chris practiced osteopathy and aerospace, occupational, and family medicine. Chris served in the Air Force for 27 years, acting as Senator John Glenn’s flight surgeon for his space shuttle mission in 1998. Upon retirement, Chris served as the civilian chief of occupational medicine at Hill Air Force Base. He is survived by his partner, Mary, and four children.

David Abbott, ’77, on April 20, 2020.

David was drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps and attended Officer Candidate School while at Albion. He was a tricaptain of the MIAA championship football team and the lacrosse team, later inducted into the Albion College Athletic Hall of Fame. After 22 years of military service, David retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is survived by his wife, Sally, three children and brother William Abbott, ’73.

William Davison, ’78, on Aug. 12, 2020.

A print artist, Bill sustained a rigorous exhibition schedule for 55 years, recently completing a series of artworks titled Diamonds and Rust. Bill’s work has been exhibited internationally and resides in 50-plus public and private collections.

He also established the University of Vermont's printmaking program and was named a UV professor emeritus of art.

He is survived by his wife, Kathleen, two children, and four grandchildren.

William Hutchings, ’82, on Oct. 29, 2020. A member of Delta Sigma Phi, Bill placed 27th overall as a sophomore in the NCAA Division III diving competition.

Bill spent more than 25 years as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service in Michigan and Florida. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Jenkins Hutchings, ’82, two children, and a grandson.

John Ahee, ’86, on Nov. 5, 2020. John started working for the family business, Ahee Jewelers of Grosse Pointe Woods, at the age of 8, eventually becoming coowner and vice president. He is survived

by Connie Zacks Ahee, ’85, and two children.

Goudy Zacks, ’88, on Dec. 16, 2020.

Working in finance for companies that took her to California, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates, Goudy spent her later career in her hometown of Traverse City, where she also perfected her rhubarb pie and volunteered with her church’s hospice care group. She is survived by sister Connie Zacks Ahee, ’85, and parents Ken and Mary Zacks.

Faculty and Friends Mary Collar, professor of English, on Feb. 3, 2021, during her intended final semester of teaching. A literary theorist who taught contemporary literature and poetry, Collar was regarded as an exceptionally rigorous instructor who was equally interested in the institution’s academic excellence. Collar was a key player in establishing the academic category requirements for ethnic and gender studies courses. With colleague Judy Lockyer, Collar received funding to work for two years with other institutions, including Harvard University, which wanted to pattern their own curriculum reforms after Albion’s model. Collar

Edmund Jenkins, ’57 Edmund Jenkins, ’57, on Dec. 2, 2020.

Through years of involvement with the Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB), Ed made important contributions to the practice of accounting. Before his five-year tenure as head of the FASB, Ed served as a charter member of its Emerging Issues Task Force and, later, as a member of its Advisory Council. He also chaired the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Special Committee on Financial Reporting, commonly referred to as the “Jenkins Committee.” His 38-year tenure with Arthur Andersen culminated with his work as managing partner of the firm’s professional standards and accounting/audit practices worldwide.

Following his 12 years of service on Albion College’s Board of Trustees, he continued to be recognized as an honorary trustee. In retirement, Ed served on the board of the University of Arizona Medical Center and helped Tucson Interfaith Community Services gain top marks for accounting and operations. He is a member of the International Accounting Hall of Fame and holds honorary doctorates from DePaul University, Lycoming College, and Albion College; he also received a Meritorious Service Award from Albion. Ed is survived by Kay, his wife of 63 years; four children including Nancy Jenkins Hutchings, ’82, and Thomas, ’85; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

developed early courses for women’s studies and the First-Year Experience; led the Educational Policy Committee; and reviewed hundreds of FURSCA proposals, often assisting students with proposal revisions. Her diverse interests included knitting (often during meetings) and volunteering as an EMT with the Albion Ambulance Service. She is survived by a brother. Donations in Collar’s memory may be made to the Mary Collar Explicator Prize Fund.

Susan Conner, retired provost and vice president for academic affairs, on November 28, 2020 in Jackson. During her six-year tenure at Albion (2008-14), Conner’s graceful and effective leadership yielded many positive achievements.

A French historian by training, Conner oversaw the development of academic ties between Albion College and the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentinen-Yvelines. She oversaw an expansion of the Career and Internship Center’s mission, and redesigned the College 2010 accreditation as an all-campus effort. Until 2020, Conner was active with Albion’s Sister City Committee; she also was involved with Lions Club, AAUW, the Albion College Piano Festival, and the Albion Academy of Lifelong Learning. In retirement, she taught several courses in the History Department. She is survived by her husband, Ron. Jim Cook, ’54, professor emeritus of English, on April 2, 2021. A scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature, Cook translated hundreds of works, many for the first time into English, with a particular focus on Italian writers.

One such translation was performed by invitation by Albion College students at the 1998 International Society for the Study of Medieval Drama, in Denmark.

He twice directed the GLCA’s Newberry Library Semester, and created and directed the Albion College Semester in Venice. On campus, Cook founded the College’s first Developing Skills Center and a student publication that became The Albion Review. An Army counterintelligence agent before joining academia, Cook and Albion colleagues founded Validated Instruction Associates, which held training and evaluation contracts with many federal agencies. Cook held the Langbo Trustees’ Professorship and was the 12th recipient of Albion’s Meritorious Service Award. He and Barbara Collier Cook were married for more than 60 years. They are survived by three children including Kathleen Cook Dauphinais, ’84, and six grandchildren.

Barbara Collier Cook, on June 27, 2020.

She and English professor emeritus James Cook, ’54, met in seventh grade and were married for more than 60 years.

In the 1950s, Barbara taught school on a U.S. Army base in Italy while Jim was stationed there. She taught at Albion’s Harrington Elementary and for the gifted and talented program at Washington Gardner Junior High School, receiving special commendation from the Michigan Future Problem Solving Executive Board as a GATE education pioneer. Barbara later spent a decade working in Albion College’s Office of Career Services with Director Kitty Padgett. Barbara was a lifelong member of the United Methodist Church and was an active participant in Albion’s AAUW, ELT Club, Community Theatre, and Girl Scouts.

She and Jim also played in the College’s Symphony Orchestra. At the time of her passing, Barbara was survived by Jim, three children including Kathleen Cook Dauphinais, ’84, and six grandchildren.

Jane Hileman Goodrich on Oct. 28, 2020. Jane was a member of the College’s Institutional Advancement division for 30 years, working primarily with records management. She is survived by her husband of 50 years, Kenneth, two daughters, and three grandchildren.

Matthew Hansen, on Sept. 11, 2020 in Haslett. Matt had been the Music Department’s event manager since 2016 while also playing French horn professionally in orchestras across the state. He is survived by his wife, three children, and his parents.

Robert Okerman, on Sept. 2, 2020.

Before retiring to North Carolina in 2017, Bob spent 20 years at Albion, supervising the residence hall maintenance crews. He is survived by two sisters.

Melissa Mercer-Tachick, on Jan. 15, 2021. Melissa spent seven years as a member of Albion’s education faculty before starting MUSE Educational Consulting, a data analysis and program evaluation firm. She is survived by her husband, John, and two children.

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‘A Strong, Lively Woman’ student. I loved talking to her about books but we also had many good personal talks. I love her and I will always miss her.

–Dr. Judy Lockyer, professor emerita of English

Mary Collar in 1977.

Dr. Mary Collar, professor of English, passed away February 3 during what was to be her final semester before retirement. Read about her passion for teaching and her demand for nothing but her students’ best, both on page 45 and here, where alums and colleagues begin to size up her 44 years of impact at Albion.

I took Dr. Collar’s Contemporary Literature course decades ago, and even last year I was still scouring the Albion website for her syllabus to see what I should be reading.

–Hollie Pellosmaa, ’06 Dr. Collar was brilliant and, it seemed to me when I took her classes, a force of nature. I gained so much from her and was happy to correspond with her a bit after graduation, too. Her wit and energy were matched only by the ferocity of her grading! I am blessed to have known her.

–Jonathan Tostige, ’13

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I’ve had many teachers who were “hard graders,” but Mary Collar was a whole different level. She was tough, but more importantly, she showed me what I was doing wrong and coached me how to do it right. She was so proud to show me her AARP card. Rest easy, Dr. Collar.

–Bill Sweeney, ’98 We laughed a lot, and when Charles Crupi and Mary offered me the job, I knew it would be wonderful. She was my friend even when she yelled; for example, when she tried to teach me to knit. I was a miserable

I didn’t go to Albion College, so I never had Mary as a teacher.

She was just my friend! We had a group that would meet at Cascarelli’s on Friday nights for dinner and Mary would join us.

Jeff [Carrier, professor emeritus of biology] and I would have Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day parties and Mary was always there, with two big trays of chocolate-covered strawberries that she made herself because she knew I loved them. She also spent many Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with us.

Mary was very special to me; I will miss my dear friend.

–Carol Carrier I was lucky to have her as my advisor. She challenged me academically and personally, including pushing me to take her Literary Criticism class second semester of my freshman year!

Her red ink pushed me to be a sharper writer and thinker.

She was whip smart and had a great cackling laugh. I think of interactions I had with her to this day. Thank you, Dr. Collar, for your quality teaching and your example as a strong, lively woman in this world.

–Marcy Pearsall Lindberg, ’91

I, too, was pushed and challenged

by Dr. Collar’s course, and was rewarded with knowledge of amazing authors (whom I am now introducing my husband to) and a deeper rigor in reading and analysis. A finely honed mind, she will be missed.

–Carol Gaffke Raisky, ’95 It was great that we shared the professor who would never accept less than your best. I remember getting one assignment back and it had an entire page with no corrections from Dr. Collar.

I ran around the dorm waving that over my head. It was a great achievement.

–Emma Stapley, ’16 (Emma, along with her parents Mitchell, ’81, and Belinda Byrd Stapley, ’83, recently established the Mary Collar Explicator Prize, which recognizes an outstanding piece of written literary analysis produced in a literature course during an Albion College student’s junior year.)

Many professors teach you information. That was never her primary objective. She challenged you to think. To really think. It was tough and often uncomfortable, but if you left her class feeling exhausted, then she knew she was getting through.

–Michael Kobylarz, ’96

‘He Gave Me a Lifelong Confidence’ vertú engendred is the flour”— lines that I have loved reciting aloud to my own students. May his memory live on in generations of students, and in the hearts of all who loved him.

–Lisa MacDowell, ’87 Another one of the greats of the Albion English Department! Dr. Cook will be fondly remembered.

–Jim Anderson, ’83 What a great teacher and human being! I thoroughly enjoyed his classes and maintain an appreciation for literature to this day as a result of what he called, “Uncle Jimmy’s Story Hour.”

–Todd Krost, ’00 Jim Cook in 1973.

Dr. James Cook, professor emeritus of English, who once described his 38year tenure at Albion College as his dream job of reading, writing, and talking about books, died April 2 (see page 45). Here, some of his students share memories of an esteemed scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature, not to mention a dedicated College orchestra violist.

Dr. Cook had, and continues to have, an impact upon me like few educators. He affected my major, my career, and my thinking. I have missed him since graduating years ago and will miss him ever so much more now.

–Brent Green, ’87 I will never forget his classes and how he came in speaking Old English the very first day. I was absolutely enthralled from the beginning. He was tough, fair, and just brilliant. It was a true honor to be taught by him.

–Jennifer Jodway St. Martin, ’00

He was a favorite. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales forever ingrained in my mind...not to mention the taste of mead.

–Sue Nevill Leahy, ’75 I’m truly saddened about the passing of this inspiring teacher and truly good person, and I can't help noting that he passed just as April began. So many English majors likely think of Dr. Cook in this season, along with these invigorating lines: “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote / And bathed every veyne in swich licóur / Of which

Dr. Cook gave me my first ever C on a paper in honors English in 1997, but under his careful teaching I never got another one.

I will remember him fondly.

–Laurel Weinman Whalen, ’01 While I was an English major, my memories of Dr. Cook are almost all from orchestra rehearsals and concerts. It made such an impression on me that our professors would play with us.

–Lesley Davis Addison, ’92 Dr. Cook taught one of the many wonderful Great Issues seminars.

His love of language and high standards were an inspiration. He was an amazing part of the Albion liberal arts education.

–Irina Calin-Jageman, ’96

Jim Cook picked me up when I was at my lowest point in life and put me back together again. He gave me a lifelong confidence that I could—and should—work for the betterment of others, and on a fairly large scale. I owe so much of what I have accomplished in this life to Jim Cook, who launched my career and set me in orbit. My heart is filled with gratitude. I only hope I have done him proud.

–Kirsten Hinsdale, ’69 Dr. Cook was the reason I switched my major to English. I was floundering in biology and he snagged me one day walking out of class: “Why aren’t you an English major? You love it.”

And he was most correct. Over my four years at Albion, 1,000 miles from home, Dr. Cook became a surrogate father. He helped me navigate a very dicey situation, offered academic advice, encouraged me to attend the Newberry Library semester in Chicago, and continued to be a part of my life. I can still see his face in orchestra, completely engrossed in the music. His facial expressions were always on point with the theme. To his family, thank you for sharing him with all of us.

–Jane Williams Chauvin, ’98

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THE BACK PAGE

Original Framework A Chicago-area alumnus uncovers and dusts off a timeless treasure.

By John Perney The business may have closed last year, and the property sold in April, but in a way David Ratajczak, ’70, still heads to work every day.

“About half of the shop is in my dining room,” Ratajczak says about the wares he brought home after The Master Touch Picture Framing shut its doors for the final time in Northbrook, Ill., following 40 years of craftsmanship for Chicagoland clients. “It was very difficult. It also brought out all of the mistakes I had made that had seemed to accumulate, or went out of memory, and I saw things I could’ve done better. It’s kind of a funny emotion, a funny feeling, how I look at the whole thing.”

Those feelings these days tend to put Ratajczak in a familiar frame of mind, given that he majored in philosophy at Albion. “When I had part-time help, I would say spending time with me is the equivalent of a good year in college,” he says, “because they got the benefits of my philosophizing.” Years before, Dr. Arthur Munk, the longtime Albion philosophy professor, had made a particular impression: “I remember having classes with him, just he and I, in the Observatory. And he would stand at the lectern and lecture to me as if it was a roomful of people.”

Ratajczak had serious thoughts about becoming a philosophy professor himself; then the draft and life altered the timing and, ultimately, the course. He gravitated toward the established family retail paint store in Northbrook and soon found himself drawn to its small but growing (thanks to him) framing department. By 1981, with the family’s blessing, Ratajczak had his own shop and base of clients.

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“I was so busy for all those years,” Ratajczak looks back now, five years after a stroke led to thoughts of winding down the business, “just trying to keep up with work in such a small shop, that I didn’t have time to really get a great connection with the community probably in the way I should have. I’m not the greatest person in the world to be a joiner. It took me 40 years to go to an alumni event for Albion.”

But inspiration can come in the most interesting—and artful—ways. An occasional client, Joel Dryer, walked into The Master Touch one day in 2015 with a bunch of prints.

“We got to chatting,” Ratajczak says, soon learning that Dryer bought entire collections, kept what he liked, and gifted the rest, including to Harvard and Northwestern universities. “A lightbulb went on in my head, knowing that Albion had a very good print collection. … The next thing I knew, I was giving [Albion Chief Philanthropy Officer] Tami Rummel a tour of the shop.”

Since 2016, Dryer—with no prior tie to Albion— has formally donated nearly 500 items to the College’s Art and Art History Department, including large collections by early 20thcentury printmaker Lettorio Calapai and Michigan-born, Chicago-influenced painter Lawton Silas Parker.

“When I learned that Albion might use the prints for both teaching and exhibition, I was interested,” Dryer says. “My mother was a college art professor who taught printmaking,

Lawton Silas Parker’s Seated Woman (above) and Lettorio Calapai’s Tapestry (below) are among the hundreds of works recently given to Albion by Joel Dryer, and facilitated by David Ratajczak (left).

among other studio subjects, and the thought that these donated works might enter into classroom discussions and for examples was appealing.”

Meanwhile, Ratajczak—father of Liz Ratajczak Stowick, ’03, accounting manager of the nearby Glencoe Park District—has begun to realize that the connection to his community and alma mater existed from the start.

“There is always a certain amount of unseen influence,” he says, “kind of like a teacher, who will have influences on people they won’t see for years and years, but they are influential. I guess we have always tried to do that—to do things that are long-lasting that have great effects on people.”

Io Triumphe!

EDITOR John Perney CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chuck Carlson, Erin Peterson, Jake Weber CLASS NOTES WRITERS Bailey Burbank, ’22, Jake Weber MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Susannah Pentelow, Eric Westmoreland, Erik Lyman, Hannah Mattson DESIGNER Nick Hernandez BrickStreet Marketing, Albion, MI 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 St. 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! ALBION COLLEGE’S MISSION Albion College is an undergraduate, liberal arts institution committed to academic excellence. We are learning-centered and recognize that valuable learning takes place in and outside the classroom, on and off campus. We prepare students to translate critical thought into action.

Albion prepares students to be courageous critical thinkers, who take purposeful action to tackle the unprecedented challenges we face.

Your support allows us to invest in our people, our infrastructure, and our community to make Albion the shining light for the future of liberal arts education.

We just wrapped up, together, an academic year like no other. As we head toward the Fall 2021 semester, please consider making a gift to the Albion College Fund or Briton Scholarship Fund. We are creating with courage to transform ourselves and the world. Over the last 12 months, we have promoted innovation with new programs, partnerships, and capital improvements.

There is an active role for everyone. Please join us and make your meaningful gift today!

Together, we will boldly create the future.

Lux fiat!

FIND MORE ONLINE: www.albion.edu

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

Dr. Ron Mourad Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs P.S. Make your gift online at albion.edu/courage.

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

CIRCLE THE DATES Visit albion.edu/homecoming for full details and registration information.

We can’t wait to welcome you home!

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