Io Triumphe! THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF ALBION COLLEGE
FURSCA: THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
VOL. LXXXIV, NO. 1
SPRING-SUMMER 2019
Contents
SPRING-SUMMER 2019
Features THE FURSCA JOURNEY Faculty examine the first 20 years, as well as what lies ahead, for the Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity. Plus: Alumni and student profiles
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PLAYMAKERS AND LEADERS Albion alumnae, at the highest levels in sports, are advancing the ball in human resources, operations, and finance.
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STUDENT DEVELOPMENT TODAY As Albion welcomes its new dean of students, a 2019 conversation about campus life outside of class.
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THE BRAINS BEHIND ΦBK 30 Why the elite honor society (and oldest Phi Beta Kappa chapter among Michigan private colleges) matters for all Albion matriculants.
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Departments BRITON BITS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS
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ALBIONOTES 39 THE BACK PAGE
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Cover illustration and page 14 illustration, above: Erica Eash
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Planning for Chance It seems that I often get better advice during casual conversations than from formal planning meetings. Several decades ago, I was chatting over coffee with Lee Shulman, who was then president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He mentioned that as a student he lived in an apartment above the family business and walked to classes every day. I asked him, given what he eventually learned about the importance of a residential education, if he wished he had lived on campus as a student. His response to that offhand question, designed to keep the conversation flowing, has had a profound impact on how I think about colleges like Albion. “The residential experience has more to do with where faculty spend their time than where students live.” In the intervening years, I have come to believe that this simple observation by Dr. Shulman defines the competitive advantage of colleges like ours. When we tell prospective students that the No. 1 reason for selecting Albion is that we have better faculty, what we really mean is that they will have regular access to our faculty. When students hear that claim for the first time, they think about office hours and the opportunity to get help preparing for exams. That is, of course, both true and important. But the special conversations, the ones that can be life-defining, are more often casual and unplanned. More specifically, those special conversations appear to be unplanned. In reality, they spring from planning that goes back to our founding. I love the term “serendipitous learning.” Indeed, our best teaching and learning comes from chance encounters.
Chance encounters are such an important aspect of our educational philosophy that we spend an incredible amount of time planning for chance. Random interactions are successful at Albion College because we choreograph serendipity. FURSCA has been changing students’ lives for decades (page 14). It works well because it is so thoroughly organized. It also works well because it provides opportunities for those chance encounters that make us special. Working together day after day, for long stretches, provides a very different learning environment than the traditional classroom. Equally special are those immersionlearning, travel courses. Whether it is a geology field trip, a First-Year Seminar trek to Hawaii, or a Holocaust Studies experience in Poland, one can count on many “unexpected” learning opportunities. Yes, the destination for these trips and the topic for study are important. Even more important, in my opinion, is the learning that naturally occurs when students and faculty sit adjacent to each other on a plane, train, or bus. Perhaps you remember a meaningful, afterdinner conversation with an Albion professor that still seems to have been by pure luck. In many ways it was. But in many ways the entire event was orchestrated to maximize the chances for that life-changing conversation.
There are lots of ways to evaluate colleges. Everyone has a list of their top 100. For me, the best measure of the quality of an institution is the extent to which faculty and students are engaged in unstructured conversations that enrich and transcend scheduled courses. The fact that our engagement score (as measured by the National Survey of Student Engagement) is significantly higher than the average for peer institutions is evidence of a bright future for Albion College.
Mauri Ditzler President
Poster presentations at the Elkin R. Isaac Student Research Symposium are a unique forum for impactful student-professor interaction outside the classroom.
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Fantastic Fit A transformative gift from Joe, ’82, and Julie Serra will improve the student fitness experience at Albion, expanding the Dow Center and exploring the future of Kresge Gymnasium. Two longtime supporters of Albion College are driving a new fundraising initiative to make a pair of dreams a reality on campus. For Joe Serra, ’82, Albion was a “magical” place where he learned and developed the skills that would make him a successful Michigan businessman, as well as the friendships that would last a lifetime. Now he sees a moment to provide a little magic of his own for Albion, and in the process fulfill his—and the College’s—desire to expand student health and fitness opportunities. A $5 million gift from Joe and his wife, Julie—announced March 14 in front of a large lunchtime campus audience in Upper Baldwin—will create a new fitness and activity space for all students. It will also renovate and possibly help build a new competitive site for athletic teams currently competing at Kresge Gymnasium. The current target for fitnessspace groundbreaking is fall 2019. “We’ve been really fortunate and blessed beyond our dreams,” said
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Serra about the gift, describing this commitment as “passionate for both of us, because it affects all the students. And I’m hoping it will help draw future students to consider and be a part of Albion.” The gift will focus on a major expansion of Albion College’s facilities at the Dow Recreation and Wellness Center in order to attract students to a state-of-theart complex, an idea Serra has had for years. The gift will add 10,000 square feet in all and feature a vast new fitness area with a full range of exercise equipment, an additional multipurpose exercise room, new locker rooms (including a gender-neutral locker room), and more. Julie Serra, a Michigan State University graduate who visited Albion often while she and Joe were dating, believes every student on campus has something with which they can connect. She described the future fitness facility as “a place for all students. They can say, ‘There is another part of this college that’s welcoming to me.’” According to Athletic Director Matt Arend, the gift has identified a long-standing need.
“This gift from Joe and Julie Serra will positively impact all students on campus,” he said. “The expansion of the Dow will allow us to provide opportunities to meet the fitness and wellness needs of all students and faculty, and it also paves the way toward a Kresge expansion and renovation for our men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball teams that shows our commitment to being competitive in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association. State-of-theart campus wellness and athletic facilities have proven to be key components in the recruitment and admission process for both students and student-athletes.” To those ends, Serra hopes this gift will inspire more alumni to make their own gifts in support of the dual goals behind this endeavor. “We benefited from Albion; let others benefit,” he said. “And let’s make sure we keep Albion as strong as it was when we were there. A re-engagement, a reconnection is what I’m hoping we get out of this. It’s the right time.” Joe Serra is president of Serra Automotive, which began with a single automobile dealership in
Counterclockwise from top: An initial concept rendering of the expanded fitness facility. From left: former Albion men’s basketball head coach Mike Turner, ’69, Director of Student Success Initiatives Milton Barnes, ’79, Julie Serra, and Joe Serra, ’82. The foursome met in Kresge Gym on a snowy Saturday morning in January before a Britons game for a video shoot to help promote the Serras’ gift. Watch the video and hear more from the Serras, Barnes, and Turner at albion.edu/serra. Upper Baldwin was packed during the noon hour March 14 for the all-campus announcement event.
Grand Blanc in 1973 under Joe’s father, Albert. Today it ranks as one of the top 10 privately held retail automotive groups in the country and has 42 dealerships in seven states. Serra attended Albion, in part, to play basketball for head coach Mike Turner, and was co-captain of the 1981 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship team. He played three seasons for the Britons and earned his degree in economics and management. A former member of the Board of Trustees, Serra received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013.
Albion College President Mauri Ditzler believes the gift will benefit all students.
and promote and make Albion look better to those students is going to be a win for everyone.”
“We need to make certain that we think of not only the mind, but we think of the body, we think of the spirit,” he said, “because students live all aspects of their lives on our campus … by building a community, by eating together, by practicing together, by running together, by lifting together. And so much of that can occur in an exercise facility.”
Joe and Julie Serra have given a leadership gift to launch a fundraising initiative to make two dreams a reality at Albion College. The first is a newly expanded fitness and student activity facility at the site of the current Dow Recreation and Wellness Center. The second is a new or renovated competition facility for the teams that currently call Kresge Gymnasium home.
“Albion is wonderful, it’s a magical place—once you’re here,” Serra said. “But you’ve got to get here. So anything we can do to help attract
The College is continuing to raise funds in support of both projects. To learn more, call 517/629-0446 or email advancement@albion.edu.
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Albion 24/7 Coffee Cup from the Original Eat Shop, ca.
1969
Talk about an everyday slice of life! He “borrowed” it for 50 years, and now Russ Rottiers, ’69, hopes it can permanently join the rescued booth on display in the Kellogg Center from the old Eat Shop (which formerly occupied the space of the current ceramics building). Rottiers brought the cup with him to campus in May for his Milestone Reunion.
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majors will be offered to Albion students this fall, including the return of Computer Science (a minor since 2010) and the additions of Integrated Marketing Communications and Marketing Management. 6 | Albion College Io Triumphe!
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400
S. Superior St. is the location for Foundry Bakehouse and Deli, an already popular addition to the downtown Albion scene following its April opening. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Arrive early—those muffins go quick!
students presented music recitals during the spring semester, including Ikpemesi Ogundare, ’20, a vocalist pursuing opera who was accepted into the prestigious summer program at AIMS-Graz, the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. Read more at albion.edu/iotriumphe.
HEARD ON CAMPUS “You can’t bring the dead back to life, but you are bringing the dead back to history.” —Jocelyn McWhirter, Stanley S. Kresge Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, shortly before the College’s 10th biennial Holocaust Studies Service-Learning Project trip to Poland. Read about the group’s experience at campus. albion.edu/poland19
FAMILY TIES
A Bigger Bonta The newest Build Albion Fellows: (bottom row, from left) Eryn Lewis, Madisyn O’Dell, Sondra Sewell; (middle row, from left) Cassidy Porter, Jayonna Yahsha, Victory Stovall; (top row, from left) Terek Straham, Ian Lee, Larenz Hill. (Not pictured: Kei’Asianique Hill). The Build Albion Fellows Program, now in its fifth year, is developing something of a legacy. The Class of 2023 features 10 incoming first-year students, five of whom have older brothers or sisters who are also participants. “I didn’t expect that when we first began the program, but I’m very pleased,” says Keena Williams, ’09, associate dean and president’s special advisor for global diversity. “What’s most amazing is we have strong families who are committed to the program and the community. They want to see their children succeed and they want to see the community succeed.” Kei’Asianique Hill, Larenz Hill, Cassidy Porter, Victory Stovall, and Terek Straham are the new Fellows following in a sibling’s footsteps. They are joined by Ian Lee, Eryn Lewis, Madisyn O’Dell, Sondra Sewell, and Jayonna Yahsha. “I’m really excited about this group,” Williams says. “There are some amazing students.” Build Albion Fellows continues to be a signature College program, in which admitted students residing in the former local school district and demonstrating high financial need can receive four-year tuition, housing, and meals in return for community engagement and service projects while enrolled at Albion. The 2019-20 cohort consists of 38 students (seven in the Class of 2020; eight in the Class of 2021; 13 in the Class of 2022). The program graduated its first class of four Fellows in May. To learn more, visit albion.edu/fellows. – Chuck Carlson
The first on-campus experience for many prospective students, the newly renamed Bonta Welcome Center will provide the Admission Office more space and flexibility after this spring’s building addition and reconfiguration. Though a larger, newly renovated admission building opens this summer, one thing hasn’t changed. “The bay window stays,” says Director of Admission Mandy Dubiel. The familiar feature that looks out onto Hannah Street has been lauded by students for years as a gathering spot, a calming influence, and a point of reflection during stressful times. And while the new facility adds 800 square feet—including a new common space, three remade interview rooms, and a new conference room— sometimes what’s old is new again. So the bay window wasn’t touched. But along with the building’s size, another thing that has changed is its name. The Bonta Admission Center is now officially known as the Bonta Welcome Center.
The project, which was nearing completion as the magazine went to press, was made possible by a lead gift from Chuck and Julie Frayer, both from the class of 1977. Julie is the daughter of the late Frank Bonta, ’49, the longtime admission director for whom the building is named. Of the three front offices that have been turned into interview rooms, one will be used by Britons coaches for conversations with prospective student-athletes. Additionally, the restrooms have been renovated and a new entrance in the front of the building will lead to a parking lot that better meets accessibility needs. “The new space will allow us to do more small-group presentations in Bonta,” Dubiel says. “We’re super excited about this.” –Chuck Carlson
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Commencement 2019
“Go out and solve.” Those words were part of the charge from psychology professor Drew Christopher (top left, proceeding clockwise) to more than 330 graduating seniors May 4 at Commencement. “Many of you have more questions than answers as you leave here today,” he said from the front steps outside Kresge Gymnasium during a beautiful spring day in Albion. “That’s fantastic. You have questions, but you also know how to find answers. You know how to answer questions that other people don’t even know how to ask.”
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Craig Rundle, ’74, who recently retired after 22 seasons as Albion’s head football coach, addressed the gathering as well—both on May 4 and in Goodrich Chapel the day before, for eight seniors on the Albion lacrosse teams whose league tournament matchups created a scheduling conflict. “Make an intentional choice today that you are going to ‘pay it forward’ and be a ‘life enhancer’ for the people in your future,” he said, in true coach fashion. Earlier, the Class of 2019 heard from Barbara Weiskittel, ’83, who travels the world in her leadership role for pharmaceutical
firm Merck but hasn’t forgotten her Albion roots. “Before you came to Albion, your home was your friends, your family, your neighborhood,” she noted. “Albion became your home of exploration, of learning, of new friendships, and seeing things you never knew before. Remember Albion. Treasure it. Come back and visit it. And, importantly, be a part of it.” Senior speaker Sarah Finn, ’19, pointed out a distinctive trait among her classmates. “We don’t just say, ‘Yes.’ We say, ‘Yes, and...’ she explained. “We say, ‘Yes, I am in Greek life…and lacrosse,
and Ford, and jazz band, and Brit Knits.’ We say, ‘Yes, I work two jobs…and I conducted and presented research for Elkin Isaac.’ We say, ‘Yes, I disagree with parts of campus life…and I’m going to do something about it.’ “We may be leaving our clubs, our organizations, our institutes, and our leadership positions,” Finn concluded, “but whether we’re starting grad school, or a new job, or still have absolutely no clue, we will always be Albion students: the type of people who say, ‘Yes, I graduated from Albion College... and’—I’ll let you fill in the rest.”
Men’s basketball went 19-9 and punched its ticket to the NCAA Division III Tournament by winning its first MIAA tourney title since 1998, topping Trine on its home floor.
Women’s lacrosse finished 14-5 and edged Hope at the Davis Athletic Complex to capture the MIAA tournament championship, earning a trip to the NCAAs.
Men’s swimming and diving won its second MIAA title in three years. Jake Burris, ’19, gained All-America status in both diving events; the men’s 200 medley relay and women’s 200 freestyle relay received All-America honorable mentions.
HAUL OF FAME Through the winter and spring, it was a sports season to remember for our Britons. Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association team championships. All-American performances. Seventeen individual league event titles and appearances at nationals on the track and in the pool. And
Cassie Vince, ’19, ran to All-America status in the 5,000 meters en route to being named Great Lakes Region Indoor Track Athlete of the Year.
even a last-second, half-court, postseason game-winning shot that made ESPN SportsCenter’s daily Top 10 (find a link to video at albion.edu/iotriumphe). Now, with another year’s competition in the books, Albion needs to find some more space in the trophy case.
Equestrian’s western riders won the regional title, led by reserve champion finishes in advanced horsemanship by Makenna Ware, ’21, and in novice horsemanship by Elliot Brinker, ’19.
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Healthy Outlook The opening of a new urgent-care-level clinic between campus and downtown carries added meaning for Oaklawn employees who also happen to be Albion alumni. By John Sherwood, ’72 For many reasons, a bond between Albion and Marshall—two small towns a dozen miles apart—has grown stronger in recent years, Richard Lindsey, ’91, believes. The 2016 annexation of Albion Public Schools to Marshall Public Schools is certainly a key factor. Another is the recently launched partnership between Marshallbased Oaklawn and Albion College, which led to the February 2019 opening of a primary- and expresscare clinic in Albion that is helping to expand and improve access to medical services for both Albion students and local residents. The new facility is called Oaklawn Express Care and occupies the entire bottom floor of Munger Place, located on Monroe Street at Michigan Avenue, between the heart of campus and the heart of downtown. Additional services
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include longer hours as well as Saturday hours, an X-ray room, laboratory facilities for allergy shots and immunizations, and an on-call physician at all times. “This is a big event for all of us because so many of us at Oaklawn have histories where both towns played a part,” said Lindsey, Oaklawn’s executive director of legal and community affairs, during the facility’s opening. “It brings us all together.”
Serving Their Communities Lindsey notes that several Oaklawn physicians are Albion graduates—including Catherine Burtrum, ’05, William Comai, ’83, Jackalyn Govier, ’98, and Teleah Phillips, ’04. In January, Phillips, an osteopathic physician, served as keynote speaker for the College’s annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
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of Dialogue and Service at Washington Gardner School, one block from Munger Place. “Over the course of my time in Albion, my love for the campus has evolved into a deep love for what is now my home and community,” Phillips said. “I have been blessed to find communion with faculty and staff whom I now consider friends, and with neighbors and parishioners who now have become family. I have been blessed to commune with co-workers and patients who give my calling to the ministry of medicine meaning.”
For her part, Burtrum said she chose to come to Albion after feeling like “a number in a class” at the University of Michigan. “It was the best choice I could have made,” Burtrum said. “The professors were all amazing. I could actually contact my professors when I needed help. My professors actually knew my name! I know without a doubt if I hadn’t transferred to Albion, I never would’ve made it into medical school and wouldn’t be a surgeon today.”
Connections Can Run Deep Lindsey considers himself a product of both Marshall and Albion. He even owes his existence to an incident in Albion.
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Many Oaklawn nurses, aides, therapists, physician assistants, and managers count themselves among those with ties to Albion College. They include Jessica DeWaters, ’13, who manages Ella’s Café on Oaklawn’s main campus and gained experience when she ran a bakery on the Albion campus.
Internal & Family Medicine, part of the Oaklawn Medical Group.
“I took the EMT class at Albion’s ambulance service during my freshman year and volunteered at the service while I was a student,” said Lisa Wooden, ’85, now a physician assistant at Marshall
“She was my link to an internship on the psychiatric unit at Oaklawn,” Martinez said, “and 20 years later I am still at Oaklawn. Albion was an amazing experience and led me to an amazing job that I love.”
Shirley Martinez, ’96, a master’slevel psychologist with Oaklawn Psychiatric/Psychological Services, said one of her favorite professors, Barbara Keyes, today is her colleague at Oaklawn’s Bear Creek campus near Marshall.
Lindsey’s maternal grandmother was Winifred Ellery, an Albion College student in the late 1930s. She had a part-time job as a tickettaker at the Bohm Theatre in downtown Albion. One day a young man, Arman Hartung, stopped in from the family farm and struck up a conversation with Winifred. The two were married in 1940. Winie Hartung would go on to work many years for Vernon Bobbitt in the College’s Visual Arts Department. Winie and Arman had a daughter, Helen, who married Richard C. Lindsey Sr., and the Lindseys raised their son in nearby Marengo. In the 1980s, the family farm was developed into a grain elevator by Arman Hartung Jr., also an Albion graduate, and is now the home of the town’s ethanol plant. The younger Lindsey, who earned his degree at Albion before going into legal practice and serving several years as Calhoun County’s legal counsel, believes the kind of mutual support similarly shown by so many Albion-Marshall connections can serve as a model. “It is a challenge for small towns like Albion and Marshall and colleges like Albion to figure out how people can be encouraged to stay in the community,” he said. “Our schools and many different individuals in both communities have done a great deal to shape opportunities for people, to create more diverse opportunities.”
1–The entrance to Oaklawn Express Care – Albion is located at 302 N. Monroe St. and replaces the Student Health Services office formerly on Cass Street. “Although this new clinic will be a change for our students initially, I believe they will find the new services and extended hours a welcome addition to their experience here at Albion College,” said Cheryl Krause, who is now the College’s health-services liaison to Oaklawn and is based on campus. 2–Oaklawn development staff and Albion alums, from left: Amy Reimann, ’00 (whose husband is David Reimann, professor of mathematics and computer science), Sara Jeffery, ’14, Richard Lindsey, ’91, and John Sherwood, ’72. 3–Ellie and Bob DeVries of Battle Creek, parents of Florida-based hospitality executive Bob DeVries, ’84, gave several Asian artworks from their collection to help decorate the new Oaklawn space. The Oaklawn logo metalwork in the clinic’s entrance hallway was created by Albion-based Caster Concepts, whose president is Bill Dobbins, ’74. 4–Dr. Teleah Phillips, ’04, stands next to a donated artwork from the DeVries family.
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‘My Friend, the Visionary’ English professor Judy Lockyer retires after 34 years at Albion College. Collar and Crupi did. Judy Lockyer, with a fresh Ph.D. from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, began teaching English at Albion in 1985. On December 8, 2018, faculty past and present, staff, friends, and former students honored Lockyer, who had just announced her retirement, which began at fall semester’s end.
A Funny Bone, Fueled by Diet Cola Judy Lockyer paused for a photo while packing up her Vulgamore Hall office in April. Along with her doctorate from Michigan, she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Kentucky. Lockyer was named Albion New Teacher of the Year in 1987 and Teacher of the Year in 2002. An expert on William Faulkner who also was a leader in formally establishing women’s and gender studies at Albion, Lockyer received professor emerita status at Commencement on May 4.
By Beau Brockett, ’19 In 1984, English professor Mary Collar and then-English professor Charles Crupi had narrowed down their 150 applicants for an Albion English Department position to 20 at a Modern Language Association conference. According to Collar, Crupi said, “I think we will have gone through this awful hiring process only to end up picking the candidate from down I-94.”
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At the reception, English professor emerita Sally Jordan recalled an instance where Lockyer’s infamous sense of humor shone. During Jordan’s first English Department party, some attendees were gossiping about an acquaintance being spotted at a grocery with a cart full of PopTarts. “Judy took a swig of her Diet Coke, leaned back in her chair, and drawled out the one question that really mattered: ‘What flavor?’” said Jordan. Others spoke of Lockyer’s humor, too. Collar emphasized Lockyer’s proud preference for diet cola. English professor Ian MacInnes spoke of a wild car ride with Lockyer at the wheel. Jordan, MacInnes, and the College’s Institutional Advancement staff collected 29 notes written to Lockyer by her former students. Many spoke of her wit in the classroom.
“She is one of the reasons for the English Department’s signature attitude of brusque jocularity,” said MacInnes. “You might think that a sense of humor is a luxury in a college professor, but I have to tell you that if you teach young people to write, it’s a necessity.”
Speaking Out Yet, Lockyer could put humor aside to stand for justice. She spoke out against board committees and College administration for being unfair to faculty and for taking the College in the wrong direction. She strove for gender, ethnic, and racial awareness, and equality on campus, too. Lockyer was instrumental in creating both the Anna Howard Shaw Women’s Center and Albion’s first sexual harassment policy. She advised feminist groups like POWER and served on numerous committees and subcommittees. In the 1990s, Lockyer proposed to Albion’s Educational Policy Committee that the College’s required curriculum cover gender and ethnicity topics. What emerged was Albion’s gender and ethnicity course categories, a core principle of Albion’s liberal arts graduation requirements.
Inspiring Others Lockyer’s fights for justice also came at a personal, more sympathetic level. MacInnes noted
that Lockyer has been a kindred mentor for young women over her three decades of teaching. She helped guide MacInnes, too. “As a young male faculty member, there were a lot of things I needed to hear,” he said. “There are so many times when Judy has helped me see past my own privilege and my own ignorance, letting me know when and how to stand up and defend colleagues.” President Mauri Ditzler said he often asks alumni who their favorite faculty were at Albion. From the classes of 1985 through 2018, he said Lockyer’s name continually pops up. Collar, who helped implement gender-inclusivity policies and curricula with Lockyer, dubbed her friend “the visionary.” Together, the two were infamous among faculty for their rabblerousing and humor. “Judy, thank you so much for being my ally in the hot times in this old town,” said Collar. “I don’t know how to be at Albion without you.” Lockyer concluded the reception, appreciative of the personal connections she made as well. “I have loved every minute of being here, teaching here, and being friends with so many of you,” she said. “I cherish your friendship.” This article is adapted from a piece published by The Pleiad on December 8, 2018. Beau Brockett, who served as editor-in-chief of The Pleiad in 2018-19, is a reporter for Leader Publications of Niles, Michigan.
Two Minutes with . . . CHRIS BERRY
The College’s director for risk prevention and intervention has duties that involve all aspects of student life. You majored in organizational leadership and ceramics at Indiana Wesleyan. How did you get from there to here? Berry: I got the true liberal arts experience with my majors at Indiana Wesleyan. When I graduated I knew I wanted to work with college students, but I didn’t know exactly how. After a couple of years working in residence life, I went to Ball State [University] for graduate school for student affairs administration and higher education. My assistantship there was in student conduct and Title IX, and those are both things I really enjoy doing and are major parts of my current job. What are some of your other responsibilities? Student development is all about helping students succeed. We meet with students who need access to resources, or just need help troubleshooting a problem. They have issues with a friend or classmate, or they’re struggling in a class, and we work through how to deal with it. We also work with students in crisis. Whether it’s mental health and getting them tied to appropriate resources, or there’s a death in the family
and helping them to get packed up and get home so they can be with loved ones, we help students figure out how to deal with those things that happen in life. Often our office is the starting point for a student and we get them to the right person. Talk about the Green Dot Bystander Intervention program. Green Dot is about permanently reducing power-based personal violence, things like dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault. Through education and training, we give students tools to respond to these issues. The program is all about teaching folks to recognize or identify highrisk behavior or the potential for someone to be harmed, and then give them the skills to respond. And it’s about creating this culture where we’re saying, “We don’t tolerate interpersonal violence on campus, and everyone on campus can do something about it.”
and we will have ongoing training open to anyone who is interested. We launched in February and that was kind of the official announcement to the campus— that this is our prevention strategy, this is something that’s important to us, and this is how you can get involved. Students have been asking for more in the way of prevention and education, specifically wanting concrete things they can do to impact their community, and I think this fits the bill perfectly. Is it difficult to leave the job at the office sometimes? It is, but that’s kind of the life of people who work in student affairs. College students don’t live their lives from 8 to 5, so our work often happens outside those hours, too. Emotionally, you have to figure out what you take home and what you can’t take home, but working in student affairs is kind of a lifestyle, and one that I really enjoy.
Chris Berry has been interested in student affairs since his own undergraduate days. His primary responsibilities at Albion include leadership of the College’s Green Dot Bystander Intervention Program as well as its relationship violence and sexual assault hearing process. Berry came to Albion as a residence hall director and for the last three years has been part of the Division of Student Affairs, which as of July 1 is now known as the Division of Student Development—see page 26 for more on the change.
How has it been going so far? Interview by Chuck Carlson. It’s going well. We started by training student leaders and advocates on campus. In the fall we will train all of our new students and student-athletes,
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E. EASH ILLUSTRATION 14 | Albion College Io Triumphe!
The Journey Continues At the undergraduate level, when student and professor embark beyond the classroom on research, scholarship, and creative activity, the impact can be nothing short of profound—for the professor as well as the student. The creation of FURSCA 20 years ago formalized what was already a distinct part of Albion’s DNA. Here, several of the program’s most committed faculty offer, appropriately enough, an assessment.
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By Chuck Carlson It started out small, maybe four students sitting in the living room of Professor Dennis Gaswick’s home discussing research projects in inorganic chemistry. His wife, Carolyn, would provide some refreshments and then the group would present their research ideas that could include a variety of sciences from chemistry to biology. It was Socratic and interesting and challenging, and it spoke to exactly what liberal arts education was supposed to embody—an exchange of ideas and research, and, just maybe, learning something you didn’t know before. Carolyn Gaswick still has a reminder of those days when the student/professor dynamic came together in a very profound way. Indeed, she pulls out a calendar from 1990 and flips to May 22 where the entry says simply: “Summer research students in for dinner.” Was that the start of what one day would be known as the Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity? Probably not. “It probably went back even further than that,” says Dennis Gaswick, who retired some 15 years ago and still lives in Albion. But back in that primordial ooze of the ’90s, the project that would be known to all as FURSCA began to grow and build and, like so many cells, divided and grew and expanded into a living organism.
Over the past 20 years, through this summer, 1,447 students have been involved in FURSCA across its four components — Student Research Partners (SRP), summer research, semester research, conference travel. “I’ve been involved in FURSCA for 11 years and I keep coming back for more,” says associate professor of chemistry Vanessa McCaffrey, who is now on her third stint as FURSCA director (she also coordinated from 2009-12 and 201516). “To see students go from technicians to scientists and ask questions, it’s amazing. FURSCA is the essence of liberal arts. It’s a philosophy major doing a chemistry project and it’s a chemistry professor working on an English project with a student. It’s seeing them grow and watching them come up with a FURSCA project. It’s a chance to work with a student one-on-one and show them the joy of discovery.” And across those two decades, students have presented their theories, their ideas, their experiments, their presentations of all things that were possible. “It was one of the things that attracted me to Albion,” says Holger Elischberger, associate professor and co-chair of psychological science. Elischberger has been at Albion for 13 years and has mentored many students in their projects. “I thought it was a really great program in terms of financially supporting students in research. A lot of other people talked a good game, but Albion put its money where its mouth was.”
The Roots Run Deep
The result has been a nationally recognized program that other colleges have copied, changed, and molded into what suits them best.
Officially FURSCA is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019, but its origins date back much further. It has touched thousands of students and dozens of faculty members. It has launched many careers and, yes, ended others before they even started. It has changed and enriched lives and while its purpose has stayed much the same over the years, FURSCA is all about what’s new and different and, sometimes, completely unexpected.
For Albion, FURSCA has evolved into four components, led by the most popular and the one that receives the most funding for students—the summer grant program. These grants offer between 30 and 50 students the opportunity to remain on campus for 10 weeks over the summer to work with faculty members on projects that were approved by a committee earlier in the academic year. Students stay on campus for free and are provided a $3,800
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stipend and up to $500 to support work on their project. Faculty mentors receive up to $3,000. “Part of it is the student writing a proposal, writing a budget,” says Elischberger, who this May took four students to the Association of Psychological Science convention in Washington, D.C., with support from FURSCA. “It’s the things students need to learn how to do. It’s an aspect of professional development. It also gets them ready for graduate school.” When their projects are completed, many summer students present their results during the College’s annual Elkin R. Isaac Student Research Symposium in April. The other FURSCA components are Student Research Partners, generally first-year students recruited by faculty to work on projects; conference grants, which provide funding for students to present their findings at regional and national conferences; and semester grants, which offer support to students working on a research or scholarly project over the course of a semester. Not all submitted proposals are approved by the committee and, indeed, it was a rejected proposal by one her chemistry students in 2008 that initially got McCaffrey interested in finding out how FURSCA works. A year later, she was director of the program for the first time. Professor of biology Dale Kennedy, who served as FURSCA summer program director from 2000-04 and the overall director from 2001-02, was involved in FURSCA’s creation and has enjoyed watching its continuing evolution. “The best part is having a student get involved with a project for 10 weeks,” she says. “They can really focus on it and they also learn that things don’t always go the way they think it’s going to go.”
Kennedy, currently the director of the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program, adds that students working on projects sometimes also receive an education they may not have expected. “Students think they want to do research and they find out they don’t,” she explains. “Others find out they love it. And it’s an opportunity for them to try different things and getting to know faculty members really well.” Subjects can, and do, run the gamut across academic disciplines. The 2019 Isaac Symposium in April, for example, featured more than 100 Albion students sharing their research, with presentation titles ranging from “An Analysis of Refugee Integration in a Michigan City” and “Design and Synthesis of a Photoisomerizable Second-Generation Kinase Inhibitor” to “Exploring Identity and Belonging Through Painting,” “Therapy Dogs in Classrooms,” “Let Us Yeet: The Diversified Joy of a Millennial Farmer,” and much more. “For me, it’s just fun to see what other students are doing,” Kennedy says.
Starting From Nowhere FURSCA, as with the projects that have been spawned from it, was not created in a vacuum. There were, of course, the early meetings between Dennis Gaswick and his students. “I’d been involved in student research forever,” Gaswick says of those early days. “I thought they should be able to talk to each other about what they were doing. They had to present their proposals during the summer and every Thursday we’d have a FURSCA talk where different groups would present their findings.” Albion’s president at the time, Peter Mitchell, ’67, also wanted to see a concept like this come together and flourish. And when a handful of
professors, mostly in the sciences, embraced the idea of student-driven, research-based scholarship, the program took shape. And there was Jennifer Cook, the driving force behind getting FURSCA into the campus mainstream. “I don’t think it would have gotten off the ground without her,” McCaffrey says. Cook came to Albion in 1999 with her husband, psychology professor Jeff Wilson, and was hired by Mitchell as FURSCA coordinator. In that role, she expanded the scope and identity of FURSCA (which was originally known as FUR or Foundation for Undergraduate Research) and spread the word to other liberal arts departments. Soon, “Scholarship and Creative Activity” was added to the acronym, opening it up to other disciplines. “It was cool and unusual; Albion was one of the first schools to go beyond science,” Kennedy says. Cook served as director through the fall of 2004. In those days FURSCA enjoyed a growing reputation, especially on the national scene where she would travel and explain FURSCA to other colleges.
director. Cook passed away in 2018 and, in her honor, family members, including Wilson, are planning a six-figure gift to help fund student travel for FURSCA. “She loved FURSCA,” Wilson says. “It needs to have support.”
FURSCA in the Future Support for FURSCA has been a challenging proposition in recent years. The summer program remains robust, even though its numbers tend to fluctuate and it doesn’t quite match the popularity it once garnered a decade or so ago. Yet presenters for the Isaac Symposium this spring numbered 118, the highest number in at least the last five years. Moving forward, the goal for FURSCA organizers is to raise the financial incentive for students to remain on campus in the summer to conduct their research. “There are students who simply can’t afford to stay on campus,”
“We were on the ground floor of student research,” Wilson says. “Jenny handled the daily clerical and administrative detail. She had been trained as a researcher, so she understood the problems students had in research. And she was promoting it to students and to faculty because you can’t get students here in the summer without faculty buy-in.” Cook left her role in 2004 and, over the years, a series of faculty from various disciplines have held the role of
FURSCA participation has been 66 percent female, 34 percent male. Spring-Summer 2019 | 17
Professor of English Ian MacInnes, who has been FURSCA director twice himself (2012-15 and 2016-18), has mentored several students over the years and recalled taking a student to London for research one summer. His FURSCA stipend was $500. “Our goals include broadening participation and making sure we stay competitive,” MacInnes says. “We never have trouble telling students it’s a great idea. We always get a positive response. But it’s pretty clear what we need to do.” Funding is made available by the administration each year; additionally, 17 endowed scholarships have been established over the years that support all aspects of FURSCA. This summer, nearly $230,000 is being distributed for student research. Still, with rising costs in everything from supplies and travel to food and more, everyone involved agrees that the concern for appropriate funding is a question that still hasn’t been fully answered. “Our goals include broadening participation and making sure we stay competitive,” MacInnes says. McCaffrey, who remains one of the program’s staunchest and most passionate advocates, hopes for that as well. Because, for her, FURSCA has opened her eyes to new directions. Just like it has for Albion students—past, present, and future. “I knew very little about the liberal arts when I applied for my [faculty] position here, but FURSCA has taught me so much about them,” she says. “What’s delighted me is learning about scholarship in the different areas and what other people do, especially when students present their projects during the course of the summer. I have learned so much about what my colleagues are doing and what excites them and their students.” Twenty years into its student-faculty research expedition, FURSCA’s mission of discovery and scholarship continues. Those who have gone on the trek know that it’s an experience that never grows old and a road that’s never too long.
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he FURSCA JOURNE
McCaffrey explains, noting that they often could earn more through an off-campus summer job. “Every student could potentially benefit from a summer FURSCA project, but we just don’t have the budget and we don’t have the manpower.”
Emily Allison, ’18 Howell, Michigan
Member services and development assistant, Historical Society of Michigan (HSM) FURSCA project: Brothels and Prostitution in Early Modern London: Researching, Mapping, and Coding for the Map of Early Modern London The jump from English to history wasn’t quite as choppy as one would expect, because my FURSCA project centered on the Map of Early Modern London (MoEML), a digital humanities project that aggregates research on the city’s geography during Shakespeare’s time. I spent the summer going through hundreds of documents and produced MoEML entries on the Elephant and the Cardinal’s Hat, two brothels that show up over and over in both historical and literary writings. The HSM doesn’t have collections or a museum; it’s really about history education. I administer the Centennial Farm and Milestone Award programs and Upper Peninsula History and State History awards. I look at deeds, wills, titles, affidavits, death and marriage certificates, founding charters, and when these documents are missing I look for other sources—something I got good at while working on the MoEML. I enjoy this methodical approach to research and writing. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the literary analysis work that was such a large part of my English major, but it’s cool to test my strengths as a searcher, writer, and thinker and try formats other than long, sprawling essays.
Adam Ronk, ’13
Joshua James, ’01 Ferndale, Michigan
Lindsay Sander Oberleitner, ’04
Galveston, Texas
Doctoral candidate/graduate assistant, University of Texas Medical Branch/Galveston National Laboratory
Music teacher, Pontiac High School; artistic director, Theatre Bizarre Orchestra; freelance composer/arranger/engraver
Assistant professor of psychology, Western Connecticut State University; adjunct research faculty, Yale University School of Medicine
FURSCA project: A Drosophila Model for Characterization of Mumps Virus/Host Interactions
FURSCA project: Fundamentals of Music Composition
FURSCA project: Clinical Outcome Research: Seven-Year Follow-Up on Partial Hospitalization Treatment Center
For the past four years, I’ve been studying the ecology of the Ebola virus. Ebola kills primates and, to the best of our knowledge, it’s spread by fruit bats, which are not affected by the virus. There is an effective vaccine but access is a problem—you need refrigeration, you need to get it to remote areas, there are social and political roadblocks. If we understand better how primates and bats intersect with Ebola and each other, we might be able to prevent outbreaks from happening in the first place. It’s been my goal to study Ebola since Albion, but undergraduates aren’t allowed to work with it—too dangerous. With FURSCA, I used mumps virus and looked at how a specific virus protein interacted with a fruit fly immune system. From a certain perspective, that’s what I’m doing now. FURSCA gave me the opportunity to learn a lot of techniques, including molecular cloning, which I use every day. Large schools attract multiple grants and these create minor projects for undergraduates. FURSCA provides funding that might not otherwise be available at a smaller school. Having the funding to do real research and publish was important to me.
As one of the inaugural FURSCA summer scholars, I learned very specific aspects of the craft that deal with notation, engraving, and copy work. I didn’t know this was something that people “do,” but I have been doing this for years for all kinds of music and musicians. I also write and arrange music for commercial projects and bands. I write a lot of horn or string parts and collaborate on various projects. Before doing FURSCA, I didn’t realize how my interests could be turned into a living; how to write music professionally, that I was going to do so much each day and have a goal. FURSCA legitimized the desire to do what I was good at. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that every composer and writer dreams of opportunities like FURSCA provides. Having a week or a month where you can focus and experiment and get it all done — I had no idea how lucky I was when I had that experience. I tell people about FURSCA and they can’t believe it. It was ahead of its time.
Woodbridge, Connecticut
My FURSCA project examined long-term effects of hospitalization, and it was up to me to convince patients that this research would be meaningful to someone in some way. A lot of people hung up on me and it was hard to get up the nerve to call them back. But it was also exciting to see that, over time, I got better at explaining why this research mattered. This also gave me the perspective that data isn’t just data, which is how it feels when you’re an undergraduate practicing on undergraduates. My FURSCA work was about real people and their time and their sensitive information. It was also the first time I really got to see people who were dealing with major struggles. I work now with people with mental illness and substance abuse problems, and with prison populations, but before FURSCA, I didn’t really know anyone whose life was very different from mine. I also got to see how research can benefit both the people you are evaluating and impact the field as a whole, and I have continued to conduct this type of applied community-based research.
889 students have conducted summer research; 364 were SRPs (many have done both). Spring-Summer 2019 | 19
Batoul Ballout, ’19
Troy Trombley, ’19
Major: Art Minor: Art history
Majors: Religious studies, philosophy
Dearborn, Michigan
Manistee, Michigan
FURSCA project: Identity and Belonging
FURSCA project: Messianic Exegesis in the Letter to the Hebrews
My family and I emigrated from Lebanon and my parents always said, “Do what you love, because we couldn’t.” I do self-portraiture, but I also feel like my work represents women like me who aren’t seen. Since FURSCA, I’ve participated in a couple of shows and I’ve sold some paintings. People say, “You’re just going to be a starving artist,” but FURSCA and the Art and Art History Department have shown me I can find grants and residencies like FURSCA, and I can make art work somehow.
I want to join the ministry, and at Albion I found that I really like religious studies. New Testament interpretation is one of the most important things a pastor does. Understanding the Bible helps us understand world history, because Christianity is a world religion. How today’s two billion Christians look at the Bible affects how they live. I think my FURSCA project is really applicable, even though it may not seem like part of everyday life at first.
Maryam Syed, ’19
Rachel Stander, ’21
Major: Anthropology
Major: Biology Minor: Psychology
Troy, Michigan
FURSCA project: Investigating and Analyzing World Bank Policy in Zambia In Zambia, going topless is no big deal, but showing your legs is promiscuous even when you are bathing, which is done outdoors. Before this FURSCA experience I thought culture shock was something like intolerance, but now I realize that’s not how it looks at all, that even if you study anthropology and were raised in two cultures, you can feel it. This was good to know when I spent a year at the London School of Economics.
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Grosse Pointe, Michigan
FURSCA project: Sodium Chloride’s Pollution and Deicer Alternatives’ Effects on Aquatic Life in Freshwater Environments I’ve done four semesters as a FURSCA Student Research Partner and this summer I’m branching off with my own project. My goal is to teach high school biology, not to go into a research lab, but I love how research is about having an idea and being able to further understand it. Teachers encourage students to have their own thoughts and inquiries, and that’s something I want to do for my students in the future.
10% OF FURSCA PARTICIPANTS HAVE HAD DUAL MAjORS.
FACULTY
(current and past) who have mentored the most summer students: Andrew French (Chemistry) Drew Christopher (Psychological Science) Bill Bartels (Geological Sciences) Cliff Harris (Chemistry) Wes Dick (History) Dean McCurdy (Biology) Chris Rohlman (Chemistry) Dale Kennedy (Biology) Jeff Wilson (Psychological Science) Doug White (Biology)
34 30 29 29 26 26 26 25 24 21
Fueling FURSCA
Current endowed scholarships that support the Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity at Albion College: Kenneth Ballou, ’47 Research Endowment for Biology Bethune Fellows Student Research Endowment Julia Robinson Burd, ’31 Memorial Fellowship Russell Bradshaw, ’30 Endowed Research Fund Harriet E. Elgin, ’36 Endowed Fellowship Hyde Fellows in Student/Faculty Research Orpha Leiter Irwin Fellowship Jane Seymour Kilian, ’39 Endowed Fellowship Bruce A., ’53 and Peggy Kresge, ’53 Endowed Science Fellows Jean Bengel Laughlin, ’50 and Sheldon Laughlin Endowment for Student Research Vernon and Gladys B. Lawson Endowed Research Fellowship Richard L. and Barbara J. Meyer Student Research Endowment Robson Family Fellows Endowment Lawrence B., ’72 and Frances Schook Research Fund in FURSCA Robert M. Teeter Research Fellowship Endowment Richard K. Vitek, ’56 FURSCA Endowment Anna and Carl Weiskittel Endowed Chemistry Fellowship
“I love how research is about having an idea and being able to further understand it.” – Rachel Stander, ’21
The Right Formula The deep friendships students develop with faculty— often manifested through mentored research collaborations—has long been an Albion hallmark, well before the creation of FURSCA. “Professors, students just all bonded together very well,” Richard Vitek, ’56, said in 2016. “They did a lot of things together, and there is a tremendous camaraderie that sticks.” As part of their 60th class reunion, Vitek and his wife, Marilyn, ’56, made several gifts to the College, including $50,000 to establish the Richard K. Vitek, ’56 FURSCA Endowment, which has an award preference for student projects in environmental chemistry. After his graduation from Albion, Vitek would go on to become a highly successful chemical researcher and entrepreneur. He passed away May 21 (see page 43 for more information).
59% present at the Elkin R. Isaac Student Research Symposium.
PROJECTS by academic division:
Natural Sciences – 42% Social Sciences – 35% Humanities – 13% Fine Arts – 10%
“FURSCA legitimized the desire to do what I was good at.” –Joshua James, ’01
“Because of the educational training I received at Albion, I was well prepared to go on to graduate school, and from there develop an excellent career,” he said.
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Playmakers and Leaders There’s no I in TEAM, but there is an A: Albion alumnae, at the highest levels in sports, are advancing the ball in human resources, operations, and finance. By Chuck Carlson There is the game behind the game, the one fans don’t see and often never even think about. NFL teams don’t just appear out of thin air and NCAA basketball games don’t go off without a hitch just because everyone wants it. There is preparation and planning, and placing the right people in the right places doing the right things. Lara Juras, ’91, Dana Rieger, ’94, and Allison Maki, ’97, understand this better than most because they are in those positions to make sure everything runs the way sports teams need them to run. Juras has spent more than 20 years in professional sports, first in human relations with the Detroit Tigers and then for 13 years with the Atlanta Braves in Major League Baseball. Last fall she accepted a new and redefined position of vice president of people and culture for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League.
Rieger has worked behind the scenes for years in the top tier of women’s college basketball, first at the perennial powerhouse University of Connecticut, then at the University of Cincinnati, and just last year she accepted a position as director of basketball operations for the University of Mississippi women’s basketball program.
the professional sports area that make sure women are recognized and potential leaders are seen as up-and-comers. I would agree that the landscape is changing, but I don’t think it’s changing fast enough.”
Maki has spent the past 15 years in the Detroit Lions organization, first as director of finance, then as vice president of finance, and now as senior vice president of administration and chief financial officer.
“I’ve been very fortunate because I work for an organization that has [team owner] Margaret Ford, and she’s a strong example of female leadership,” Maki says. “Sports has definitely come a long way with women in executive positions, and I think it’s always great to have as many different perspectives as possible.”
All three look back at their years at Albion as helping them find their direction and interest, and—if they all weren’t exactly sports fanatics at Albion—they have made the most of their opportunities while making names for themselves in a maledominated industry. “I’ve been fortunate to work for some organizations that have been a little more assertive and aggressive in diversity and inclusion,” Juras says. “But I don’t think it’s any different than corporate America. What I appreciate is that there are champions and leaders in
Maki, now one of the top executives for the Lions, has seen it, too.
And Rieger, who has the strongest sports background of the three, wouldn’t want to do anything else. “I’m fortunate because I’m in the profession I want to be in,” she says. “It’s fun to be around college athletics.”
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ALBION ENCOURAGED A PROFESSIONAL CURIOSITY’ Marshall native Lara Juras never played sports in high school or college. “In high school I was in the band, student council; I was a cheerleader,” she recalls. She had been to the Albion campus several times in high school for leadership forums and always knew she’d probably enroll at the College. But sports weren’t a focus at Albion either; she concentrated instead on her economics and communications majors and a likely career in accounting. “Sports was not a part of my life,” she says. Until, of course, it was. Out of college she worked at Coopers & Lybrand in Detroit with fellow Albion grad Steve Quinn, ’89. When Quinn went to work for the Detroit Tigers, he contacted Juras to see if she would be interested in becoming the team’s first-ever human resources director. “That was my first foray into sports,” Juras explains. That “first foray” into the field continues today. After six years with the Tigers, Juras moved in 2006 to the Atlanta Braves, where she held positions of director of human resources, vice president of human resources, and, finally, senior vice president.
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Lara Juras, ’91, made the move last year to a new region and a new game; after nearly 20 years in Major League Baseball, including 13 with the Atlanta Braves, she relocated to the Twin Cities to lead human resources for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League.
Juras says she wasn’t looking for a new job when the Minnesota Vikings came calling in the fall of 2018. Yet she decided to make the move to the Twin Cities. “It seemed appealing because it was at the core of human resources,” she says of the new opportunity. “You can go to some organizations and make an impact and help influence the health and culture of an organization. That was a big draw for me. I like the challenge. My love is human resources and I’m blessed that I can be with a professional sports team.” She is now part of a Vikings organization that has seen massive innovations in recent years, including the opening a new stadium in 2016 and a new 200-acre, high-tech, mixeduse development that includes the Vikings’ training and administration offices in Eagan, just south of Minneapolis. Her job is to meld a large group into one cohesive unit—a formula she learned while a student at Albion. “I’d like to replicate the safe learning environment I had at Albion,” she says. “And by safe I don’t mean a safety issue. I always felt comfortable with the variety of things on campus, but it also encouraged a professional curiosity. I liked the commonsense approach at Albion. It wasn’t a huge campus and I liked that. And there was a well-rounded development of all areas. My subject matter is human capital and that’s always going to be my number-one focus, all the time.”
SOME OF MY BEST YEARS WERE IN COLLEGE’ On the day before her 21st birthday, Dana Rieger’s best friend—her mom, Sandy—died of cancer. Dana Rieger had already transferred from Concordia College in Ann Arbor to Albion to be close to her mom and dad, who had a home on nearby Duck Lake. But with the passing of her mom, Dana was lost. “I didn’t want to stay in school,” she says. “When your mom is your best friend and you all of a sudden don’t have her, you just want to crawl into a hole. But I had great professors and great friends in the area, and I know I wouldn’t be here without that great support.” Already a softball, basketball, and volleyball student-athlete in high school who continued to play at Concordia, Rieger dove back into athletics at Albion and embarked, tentatively, on what would be her future career. “The first thing I did was go to the athletic department and see if they needed student workers,” she remembers. “I did whatever needed to be done. I’d cover the phones at lunch hour, I’d sweep floors.” And she learned a valuable lesson that she never forgot.
“You think one way about athletics when you play,” Rieger says. “But you never think about who turns the lights on. You never think about budgets. You don’t know who does the laundry. There’s marketing and facility operations and making sure you’ve arranged for a bus.” Intrigued and knowing her playing career was over due to a shoulder injury, she graduated from Albion with a degree in athletic administration and in 1995 gained her master’s in athletic administration and facility management from Western Michigan University. Ever since, she has known exactly who thinks about budgets and arranges for transportation and who turns on the lights. Because, sometimes, it’s her. “I still even fill the soda machines every once in a while,” she says with a laugh. Rieger went on to work in athletic fundraising, sales, and event planning at the University of Connecticut before becoming director of operations for the University of Cincinnati women’s basketball program.
Dana Rieger, ’94, handles the Xs and Os off the court that make things run smoothly for the University of Mississippi women’s basketball program, a member of NCAA Division I’s Southeastern Conference.
But when the Bearcats head coach was dismissed after the 2017-18 season, Rieger was looking for a new job as well. That’s when the opportunity in Oxford, at Mississippi, opened. “My job is everything but coaching,” Rieger says. “I need to get the team from Point A to Point B and back. You definitely have to be detail-oriented and organized. There are a lot of moving parts.” Asked if she is interested in coaching, she laughs. “I know where my expertise is and it’s not on the court,” she says. “I’m better suited to planes, trains, and automobiles. I’m happy being behind the scenes.” Rieger looks back on her years at Albion with fondness and, perhaps, a bit of regret. “I should have taken more advantage of all the offerings on campus,” she says. “I tell athletes now to get involved on campus. Take advantage of everything a college campus has to offer. There are a lot of great folks in Albion, and Oxford reminds me a bit of Albion. They’re tight-knit and they support their college.”
Allison Maki, ’97, inside the Detroit Lions’ Allen Park facility, which she oversees as part of her role as senior vice president and chief financial officer. She is currently one of eight female CFOs in the NFL.
YOU FEEL MORE WELLROUNDED COMING OUT OF ALBION’ Allison Maki never figured she’d go to a small college like Albion. “I went to Northville High School and I think my high school was bigger than the entire enrollment at Albion,” she says. “But I came to campus and it felt right from the start. The campus was beautiful and I liked how people you’d pass by would always say, ‘Hi.’ I liked the class sizes and I just had a gut feeling this would be right for me.” That feeling proved to be spoton. Maki would go on to flourish at Albion, earning her degree in economics and management. “I thought I might be an engineer because I liked math,” she recalls. Longtime economics professor Scott Cracraft saw her ability in math, too, and suggested she pursue it. After becoming a licensed certified public accountant, she struck off for a career with Ernst & Young in Detroit. In 1999, she was assigned to work on the Detroit Lions account.
“At the time, they were still in the Silverdome and their decision to build a stadium downtown was ongoing,” Maki says. “The sports work was becoming more and more complex and the Lions’ chief financial officer at the time (Tom Lesnau) said, ‘It sounds like you’re looking to do something more complex.’” So in 2004 Maki joined the Lions organization as director of finance. By 2015 she was the team’s chief financial officer and vice president of administration and, if there’s an aspect of the franchise’s financial situation she isn’t a part of, she hasn’t found it yet. “I would say my primary role is to manage money,” she says. “Cash is king. Cash matters. You have to have it available to go out and get that free agent. You have to have it to manage the practice facility. And for capital.” She is also part of a collaborative team process with the Lions in which there is only one objective: winning.
“That’s the ultimate goal,” Maki affirms. “And you want to make decisions along the way that support that. At the end of the day we’re measured by wins and losses and not necessarily by the net income of profitability measurements.” And she believes Albion helped her prepare for the varied roles she finds herself involved in on a dayto-day basis. “I think that’s the liberal arts education,” says Maki, who in April received the College’s Distinguished Alumni Award and this summer joins the Board of Trustees. “I mean, I took a class in dinosaurs. I took bowling as a senior. I had religion and philosophy classes. You’ve got to have a foundation for business and tax law, but I think it was the liberal arts experience that I was exposed to that allowed me to understand that. You feel more well-rounded coming out of Albion.”
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The Art and Science of Student Development As Albion welcomes its new dean of students, a 2019 conversation about campus life outside the classroom. Leroy Wright is the newest member of President Mauri Ditzler’s leadership team, joining the College on July 1 as vice president of student development and dean of students. Indeed, the former Student Affairs division is now officially Student Development. Big news? Not really, says Ditzler. The name change “has been a topic of ongoing conversation for years. What we do is develop students,” he asserts. “We do that in academics, in student life, all
across the board. It’s what the staff in student life think about every day when they come to work. It’s why they took this job.” Yes, says Wright, that sentiment is among the reasons why he chose to come to Albion. But in three years as assistant vice chancellor of student affairs at Appalachian State University, Wright was recognized with two leadership awards and had even served as interim chancellor of the division. He wasn’t looking for a new position, he says.
By Jake Weber
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But he was attracted to the possibility of moving closer to his Detroit-area parents. There was also a curiosity about the smallcollege environment, after having served public institutions for more than two decades. “President Ditzler’s mindset is to get to the heart of the work of a residential liberal arts college,” says Wright. “At Appalachian State and other places I’ve been, a lot of our programs included residential learning and liberal arts aspects. At Albion, those are the core.” Still, Wright knows—and Albion alumni at schools across the country know—that “student development” isn’t just what happens when students live where they study. While these administrators are well aware that their predecessors in another era did much more
Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. Despite the fact that her students have all gained admission to a highly selective institution, Olson spends a great deal of time working through increasing levels of student anxiety. “It can be tough for bright and capable students to learn from failure,” she says. “It’s important to talk about mental health resources from the beginning and not wait for someone to get into a bad place. We should start off by talking about what those resources are and how to see it happening among peers.” Online learning and the residential experience: The rise of online course and degree offerings also poses a unique challenge
Vice President Wright says the time is right for Albion to “infuse diversity and inclusive excellence in all aspects of who we are.” than enforce curfews and dress codes, the range and depth of the responsibilities—and challenges—in their field continue to evolve in a technology-driven world, manifesting in a number of ways. Mental health: With studies pointing to rising rates of depression and anxiety among teens, mental health is a top concern among student development professionals. “The recent scandal with parents paying to get their kids into college contributes to the perception that college is a high-pressure, high-stakes environment,” says Susan Johnston Olson, ’94, assistant dean for student affairs at
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to the traditional residential-learning model. Drew Dunham, Albion’s associate dean of academic affairs and registrar, mentions that the College’s online summer course lineup has grown in each of its five years, even in a competitive market. He also noted that other institutions have had issues with students who live on campus but take only online courses. “That’s a bad situation for the institution and for students, most of whom can’t handle that level of freedom,” Dunham says, adding, “Albion’s not going to become an online college. We’re not doing online instruction during the academic year. Most of our students
don’t take any online courses, but that doesn’t mean we can just sit back and ignore how it impacts what we do.” Bobbie Cole, ’07, assistant vice president of student life and director of residence life and housing at William Peace University, agrees. “We’re competing with the emergence of very successful online programs, and articulating the value of the on-campus experience is significant, especially when you have a high population of students with financial need,” she says. William Peace is a small liberal arts college in Raleigh, North Carolina. “We’re working hard to brand ourselves and we want our students and prospective families to understand the value of the experience and the value of their education,” Cole says. “They have to see a return on this investment.” Diversity and inclusion: A diverse student body is a point of pride for Albion, and over the past five years the number of underrepresented students has increased significantly, from 11.9% of the total student population in 2014-15 to 30.5% in 2018-19. Compared with its peer institutions, Albion is somewhat ahead of the curve in cultivating a student body that “looks more like America,” as Ditzler often says. As a result, Wright and his team will need to collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to create resources and strategies for working with an increasingly diverse student population. “How does a school like Albion think about serving all students?” Olson asks. “It’s easy to forget that all students bring different assets and skills, it’s not just that some need services. What is everybody doing to contribute to what might be a culture change?” “African American males such as myself and other marginalized communities don’t have a
lot of statistics that work in our favor,” Wright says. “I chose what would work best against those statistics,” he adds, referring to his choices of undergraduate course work, student employment, and 14 years as an administrator at Ferris State University, which included a decade as dean of student life. Cole recalls part of her out-of-classroom experience at Albion. “My connection to resources and support on campus allowed me to navigate those challenging moments when being a part of a marginalized group on campus was difficult,” she says. Cole was involved in the Black Student Alliance and Alpha Kappa Alpha, in addition to working for the Office of Intercultural Affairs. Today, she says, this work of connecting is more on the institution. “We must put into place opportunities for first-generation students and students of color to succeed, while ensuring our majority students are able to understand and support a shift in cultural climate and have the opportunity to serve as allies,” she explains. “I chose this work in higher education because I knew that I could use my voice and my own experience to ensure that I built those communities as an administrator.” According to Wright, at this moment for Albion, the time is right to “infuse diversity and inclusive excellence in all aspects of who we are. Don’t we want to provide a safe, supportive environment that values the identities, beliefs, and abilities of all people?” he asks. “This will involve creating a forum for critical thinking, which includes opportunities for dialogue, engagement, and action that helps us to build toward an even more inclusive Albion. We want to embrace our inclusiveness as a normative practice.”
Assessment: Wright, who earned his master’s degree from Northern Arizona University, is well steeped in the theory and practice of management and leadership. A curious teen who bounced from science fair to art camp, Wright looked at both pre-pharmacy and prelaw before taking his mother’s advice that he had “a talent for people.” So, as one might expect, Wright plans to start his Albion career by “listening”—to students, community members, colleagues, and, especially, his staff. But he is clear when he says that leadership is not just about listening, especially when it comes to student development. “Assessment is key,” he says. “We will be intentional about what we do and clear about how we contribute to learning. Student development is not just where students have fun and play; we’re where they grow and understand their purposes in life.” To this end, Wright sees retention—at a fiveyear average of 80%—as a division-wide focus. “Retention is about belonging—students ‘belong’ in their residence halls and in their academic departments, and these both matter,” he says. “I’m interested in the sense of belonging at Albion, that we’re making
Leroy Wright
these experiences with students and with other departments. “It’s not about ‘Student Development’ or ‘Academic Affairs,’ Wright continues. “We’re working with all divisions. I want alumni to look back and say, ‘Albion was the best place for me, because it was the place where I could grow and learn and build a résumé for success.” Tradition and transformation: While it can be said that change is inevitable with the arrival of any new leader, Wright intends to start his new job with some looking back. “We also want to build a culture of spirit and tradition,” he says. “We want the spirit of supporting athletics and student organizations and all the other things students are doing. Student Development can lead, but this comes from the classroom and community as well. “I always tell students, ‘Between the day you walk in and the day you graduate, there should have been a lot of transformational things that occurred,’” Wright concludes. “I tell them, ‘You’ve been engaged, led organizations, gone abroad, participated in research. All of those experiences have prepared you to go out and change the human condition.’ I think this is what Albion wants to do, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Susan Olson, ’94
Bobbie Cole, ’07
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T he B rains B ehind
P h i B e ta K a p p a
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The elite honor society offers membership to a handful of Albion students each year, but its reach and importance extend to the entire college—and beyond. By Erin Peterson Even among the many talented and driven students at Albion, Mackie Black, ’19, stands out. During her final semester this past spring, when the English and anthropology double major wasn’t in the classroom, you may have found her building relationships as the alumni chair for her sorority, Alpha Xi Delta, organizing Anthropology Day for the academic fraternity Lambda Alpha, or gathering people for a book club she started for the English honor fraternity Sigma Tau Delta. On Thursdays, the Dean’s List regular was often in the Kellogg Center, knitting baby hats as part of the Brit Knits club. Still, for someone so accomplished, Black admits she got no small thrill last fall when an email landed in her inbox letting her know that she’d met all of the requirements to become a member of the prestigious honor society Phi Beta Kappa. “I wasn’t sure of all of the qualifications, so getting the email was really awesome,” she recalls. “Professors reached out to congratulate me, and people who have seen my résumé have really noticed [the honor].”
In April, a few weeks before graduating summa cum laude, Black joined a small group of other Albion students who accepted membership into Phi Beta Kappa at an induction ceremony led by President Mauri Ditzler (himself a member who graduated from Indiana’s Wabash College). The occasion could well be the first and only Phi Beta Kappa event the students attend. But Ditzler wants them to know that Phi Beta Kappa represents a lifetime responsibility as much as it does an honor: “It’s a way of saying to individuals, ‘You are remarkable. We expect great things from you.’” Even beyond the honor for a handful of academically exceptional students, Phi Beta Kappa represents ideals that the entire Albion College community can seek to embody.
What Is Phi Beta Kappa, Anyway? If you’re not a member of Phi Beta Kappa, you may only have a vague sense of the organization. Perhaps you know of it as a way to recognize a tiny handful of a school’s best and brightest (it is), or that membership includes a golden key and a secret handshake
(it does), and that it’s a society that’s been around a really long time (it has). It’s also much more than that. The honor society got its start with five students at the College of William & Mary, just months after America’s founding in 1776. The society was designed to be driven by learning, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of expression. Today, Phi Beta Kappa chapters can be found at 290 colleges across the country, and the 20,000 or so students who are inducted each year—typically, though not always, seniors— must meet strict requirements. Among them, students must be considered among the top 10 percent of a school’s graduates, have a minimum GPA of 3.8, and have a broad liberal arts education. That robust mix of coursework across disciplines is an essential component to Phi Beta Kappa’s formula. It is exactly this type of expansive, far-reaching education and curiosity about the world, according to the organization, that helps people come up with creative, unconventional solutions to challenging problems.
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Ann McCulloch, ’93 (left), a Phi Beta Kappa member who works for the national organization in Washington, D.C., notes that these students become part of an alumni group that is 500,000 strong. Many of them attain significant achievements in their lifetimes, in part as a result of the qualities recognized by Phi Beta Kappa. “These are individuals who think critically, who look at problems from many different angles, and who are able to become leaders of their communities,” she says. A look at a shortlist of Phi Beta Kappa members past and present bolsters that case—17 presidents, 38 Supreme Court Justices and even business titan Jeff Bezos all hold the signature key from the organization. At Albion, Phi Beta Kappa graduates include an astronaut (Josh Cassada, ’95) the former CEO of Newsweek (Rick Smith, ’68), and an array of doctors, lawyers, and business and nonprofit leaders. But more than anything else, the inductees represent a group of highachieving students who are deeply committed to learning and believe in the value of knowledge. There may be no better example than Lori Duff, ’09. Duff, who has been assistant to the provost since 1985, started taking classes at Albion as a part-time student in her 40s. Semester after semester, she racked up high grades in a diverse array of classes. “Once I got acclimated to being in a classroom again and not feeling out of place, I never shut up,” she jokes. “I was always talking, always contributing—in a good way.” In 2009—after 11 years of study and at the age of 55—she learned that
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she would be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. “I was flabbergasted,” she says. “I never gave [Phi Beta Kappa] a thought; I just really enjoyed the work and the classes.” Why Phi Beta Kappa Matters for Albion If Phi Beta Kappa serves as a singular honor for high-achieving students, becoming a Phi Beta Kappa institution offers colleges their own meaningful metric of success. In 1940, Albion became just the second school in the state of Michigan with a chapter, and it currently stands as one of the 10 percent of higher-education institutions in the country to have a chapter. Just as Phi Beta Kappa students are among the elite at a given school, Phi Beta Kappa institutions are among the elite in the country. This is a distinction that can make all Albion students and alumni proud. “Not all diplomas are created equal,” says Ditzler. “Every Phi Beta Kappa institution goes through an incredibly rigorous examination to say that it’s exceptional—whether or not the student graduates in the top 10 percent of the class.” In addition, Albion’s Beta of Michigan chapter regularly hosts visiting Phi Beta Kappa scholars who spend a few days on campus to give public talks related to their areas of expertise. This spring, Yale University law professor Harold Koh spoke about international law and the Trump administration. Over the years, visiting scholars have included physicists, paleontologists, historians, and even a volcanologist. At a national level, the Phi Beta Kappa organization is a fierce political advocate for values that align closely with those of Albion’s. That includes an emphasis on critical thinking and a
Josh McGarry, ’19
Nancy Overholt, ’74
Major: Music performance (piano) Minors: Chemistry and exercise science
Majors: French and history
McGarry maximized almost every moment at Albion. In addition to his major and two minors, he was a member of the Lisa and James Wilson Institute for Medicine with a pre-med concentration. He captained the men’s tennis team, sang in the concert choir, performed as a piano soloist with the College orchestra, and was a member of the Student Volunteer Bureau and Mortar Board. He believes his diverse interests— essential to Phi Beta Kappa admission—were possible only at a place like Albion. “I don’t think I would have been able to simultaneously study science and the performing arts—and be a student-athlete—if I had gone to a larger school,” he says. “I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without the type of direction, focus, and confidence that I have had at Albion.” The ΦBK connection: “So far, the most meaningful part of Phi Beta Kappa has been the amazing resources and alumni network.”
For the past 17 years, Overholt has worked for the Institute of International Education. Today, she is the director of the Institute’s Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship program, which brings professionals from developing countries to the U.S. to pursue graduate-level study and leadership development. The ΦBK connection: “Knowing how to balance a range of topics is critical to my work. Within 60 seconds, I might be talking to someone from Tanzania and someone else from Burma—conversations that can range, culturally, from one extreme to another. [Part of my job] is about understanding boundaries, and part of it is understanding when boundaries can actually be bridges.”
Lexine Hansen, ’97
Eric Bacon, ’79
Maggie Fowler, ’19
Major: International studies
Majors: Mathematics and economics
After a stint in the Peace Corps and then graduate school, Hansen eventually landed at USAID, where she worked as a senior policy advisor. Her work was closely linked with the Tropical Forest Alliance, a partnership of governments, the private sector, and nonprofits to preserve and restore rainforests. Today, she works as a senior associate for Washingtonbased Environmental Incentives, a consulting firm that supports USAID’s biodiversity programming.
After graduating from Albion, Bacon earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University. (He credits his Phi Beta Kappa designation as one of the credentials that likely helped him earn admission.) He has spent 23 of the past 29 years at the private equity firm Linsalata Capital Partners, where he is currently co-president and senior managing director. While there, he has helped invest in, grow, and sell a range of different apparel, medical, and industrial companies.
Majors: French and accounting Minor: Business and organizations
The ΦBK connection: “A multidisciplinary approach is critical in the field of development. You have to have an understanding of most social sciences. You have to understand how the political realm interacts with the economic realm and how policies that are made at the national level impact the choices that people make in their dayto-day lives. More than that, what you need is the ability to see how all of those pieces interact. You have to be able to apply all these different types of knowledge, interpret them, and translate them.”
The ΦBK connection: Phi Beta Kappa, like Albion, recognizes that there is great value in classes outside a student’s major. “At some schools if you take a couple of physics classes but don’t major in physics, those classes don’t ‘count,’” he says. “That’s unfortunate. The thing I like about a liberal arts education, which is valued in Phi Beta Kappa, is that everything counts.”
Fowler was involved in nearly a dozen different organizations during her time at Albion, from the Accounting Society to the international music fraternity Delta Sigma Pi. But her heart will always be with the Student Volunteer Bureau; she served as its president in 2018-19. “Through my time at Albion I have come to appreciate the difference a simple act of service can make in the life of just one person or within a small community of people,” she says. The ΦBK connection: With the network that Phi Beta Kappa opens to Fowler, she seeks to expand her influence through service even further. “I hope to grow future impacts and change the world. Bold? Yes. Too bold? Certainly not.”
belief in the essential role of the arts and sciences to a well-rounded education. Through its National Arts and Sciences initiative, Phi Beta Kappa advocates for policies that strengthen arts and sciences education that colleges like Albion offer. When Honor and Meaning Combine Mackie Black is thinking about her recent graduation, but her focus is on her future, with dreams of designing or curating museum exhibits—a field that has plenty of competition. She has a head start on it this summer, as a presenter at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, while she prepares for the GRE. And in the months and years ahead, she suspects that her Phi Beta Kappa membership will give graduate schools and employers one more reason to give her application and résumé a second look. “I never wanted to do just one thing,” she says. “Coming here to Albion—being able to dip my toe in many different areas—has been a really cool opportunity.” Erin Peterson is a freelance writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In 1940, the newly chartered Beta of Michigan chapter of Phi Beta Kappa collected the signatures of its first members in this rather unassuming lined-paper notebook. Nearly eight decades later, new Albion inductees continue to record their names on a fresh page for their class. The book still has more than 50 blank pages available.
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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS
Two Days in April, One Magical Feeling On a Friday night and Saturday afternoon, back-to-back events in Baldwin Hall put recognition, pride, and impact on center stage.
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Celebrating Achievement Six members of the Albion family were honored for their career and life success on April 12. (1) University of Virginia professor Timothy Bender, ’75; (2) Detroit Lions CFO Allison Maki, ’97; and (3) Emory University professor emeritus Keith Wilkinson, ’72, were each presented with the Distinguished Alumni Award. (4) Receiving the Young Alumni Award were, from left, Google account representative Dannie Lynn Fountain, ’14; Oakland University professor Kwame Sakyi, ’09; and Michigan Attorney General victim advocate Rebekah Snyder, ’14. Read more about the 2019 Alumni Award honorees at albion.edu/dya. And while there, consider nominating a Briton for next year’s awards!
Philanthrophy Rocks On April 13, students gathered outside Baldwin Hall for a group photo in appreciation of their endowed scholarship donors, then thanked them personally inside during the College’s annual Celebration of Philanthropy Luncheon. Part of their gratitude came in the form of garden rocks they painted with thoughts and messages about how their scholarships—and their donors’ generosity—made them feel. What does it take to help Albion College change the world? One donor. One gift. And one powerful purpose at the heart of it all. albion.edu/giving
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Channeling Our Spirit Allen Park, MI
Chicago
Boise: President Ditzler with College of Idaho Co-President Jim Everett, ’74.
Boston
Louisville, KY
Bloomfield Hills, MI
Autumn on the Island CONNECT ONLINE WITH CURRENT ALBION STUDENTS! Share your experience and expertise on The Briton Network, where students can message alumni and request contact to learn more about their life after Albion College— careers, graduate school, the job market, and more. Setup is easy and takes just a few minutes! Go to albion.edu/ briton-network to get started.
The College’s premier off-campus event, Grand Getaway, brings Britons together for a memorable time on Mackinac Island! We invite you to join us September 27-29 for a very special weekend and celebration that will shine a light squarely on Albion College’s bright future. For details and to register, visit albion.edu/grandgetaway.
From Boston to Boise and beyond—including Germany, Panama, and South Korea—Brits came together in places near and far and small and large March 21 for the second annual Albion Everywhere event. “Everywhere” even included the broadcast airwaves: Brian Wu, ’14 (top left), checked in from Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park during a nationally televised bowling match.
We’re already gearing up for next year’s Albion Everywhere, when we’ll celebrate the College’s 185th birthday on March 19, 2020. Circle and save the date—more info to come this fall!
More Albion events coming up: July 9 – Petoskey, MI Crooked Tree Arts Center Mid-Summer Mix and Mingle with guests from Albion’s Sister Cities of Noisy-le-Roi and Bailly, France.
July 12 – Petoskey, MI The Perry Hotel Current Albion students give presentations about their research projects. Interact with students, faculty, staff, and fellow Britons afterward.
August 9 – Albion, MI Briton Classic / Duck Lake Country Club Tee up for the College’s annual golf outing and help Britons move forward academically, athletically, and socially.
September 14 – Detroit, MI Albion College Day at Comerica Park Detroit Tigers vs. Baltimore Orioles, 6:10 p.m. Catch the Tigers vs. Orioles game and get an Albion College-branded Tigers hat.
Visit albion.edu/alumni/events and click on Regional Events for more information!
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One Weekend. One Albion.
This Homecoming and Family Day will be an all-inclusive, all-engaging weekend to reconnect our whole Albion College community! We hope you and your classmates will plan to join us on campus for this momentous celebration! At this year’s Homecoming we will have the first all-class reunion: an Alumni Lounge on the Quad, Saturday, October 5, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It will offer food, drinks, and music. Here are just a few events to look forward to across the two days:
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Friday, October 4 2 - 4 p.m. BRITx Talks Ludington Center, 101 N. Superior St. Hear inspirational stories from Albion College alumni in a TEDxstyle event. Students, alumni, faculty, and staff are welcome. Join for a networking reception following the talks to meet and ask questions of the speakers. 5:30 p.m. Athletic Hall of Fame Dinner Upper Baldwin Hall Albion College will induct individuals and teams into its Athletic Hall of Fame for their distinguished achievement in, or service to, Briton athletics. Reception at 5:30 p.m. Dinner and Ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Advanced registration required.
8 p.m. Albion College Theatre Performance Herrick Black Box Theatre (in the Dow Center complex) Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage 8 p.m. Craig Karges Kellogg Center, Gerstacker Commons (2nd floor) Experience the Extraordinary with mentalist and illusionist Craig Karges. Tables float, minds are read, metal bends, and your imagination will be challenged because you won’t believe your eyes! As seen on The Tonight Show, CNN, Fox News Channel, CNBC, and E!
Saturday, October 5 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Library and College Archives Display Kellogg Center Do you have questions about the history of Albion College? Stop at the Library’s Homecoming display and meet College library staff. On display will be numerous Albion yearbooks, a variety of artifacts, and photos from the College Archives collection. 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. Homecoming Quad Party Quadrangle Activities for all ages! A convergence of Homecoming and Family Day. Visit with current students, alumni, parents, families, faculty, and staff. Come to play games; enjoy refreshments and music.
October 4-5, 2019
Alumni Lounge
(All Class-Year Reunion): 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. If you haven’t made it home to Albion for a reunion, don’t wait another five years. Gather your classmates from ANY year and join in the fun! All class years are invited. Find classmates in designated meet-up spots for the different decades, reminisce about your time on campus, and enjoy music from the various decades. A cash bar will be located in the vicinity. This space will feature comfortable, charming seating areas conducive to hanging out for the day. The afternoon (4-7 p.m.) will feature surprise performances showcasing Albion College points of pride. (This will be a large, covered, and comfortable space, rain or shine.)
10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Liberal Arts Experience Class Kellogg Center, Gerstacker Commons (2nd floor) Get a hands-on liberal arts class experience from our talented professors. These classes will follow one another, with each lasting about 25 minutes. 1 p.m. Football: Albion vs. Alma Sprankle-Sprandel Stadium Go Brits! 3:30 p.m. Black Alumni Chapter Gathering Kellogg Center, Gerstacker Commons (2nd floor) Remarks at 4:15 p.m.
5 p.m. Women’s Soccer: Albion vs. Trine Davis Athletic Complex Go Brits! 6 p.m. Alumni Dinner Upper Baldwin Hall This buffet dinner will offer all alumni a place to have dinner after a long day on campus. We will group tables by class year so those who are looking for a reunion feeling can come here to meet up. Advanced registration required. 7:30 p.m. Music Department Homecoming College Concert Goodrich Chapel
8 p.m. Albion College Theatre Performance Herrick Black Box Theatre (in the Dow Center complex) Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN! Visit www.albion.edu/ homecoming for more information and the full schedule. We can’t wait to welcome you back home!
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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION NEWS
MOMENTS AND MEMORIES The College’s Milestone Reunions May 16-18 saw members of the Classes of 1959, 1964, 1969, and 1974 come together on campus and in town to reconnect, reminisce, and recall their individual and collective Albion journeys.
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1—The Class of 1969 ventured to Schuler’s in Marshall for their 50th reunion dinner (and across the street for the group photo). Bottom row, on sidewalk, left to right: Nancy Herrick, Dennis Herrick, Sara Tiderington Phillips, Mary Huemiller Bragg, Jeff Schreur, Kathryn Vance, Douglas Vance, Christine Irvin Ranhosky, Barbara Thornton, Patricia Foley Bensing, Leslie Young Whittum, Jane Mackie Syme, Doris Hausser, Cheryl Clinkman Copeland, Linda Washkewicz, Mariel Weaver Joy, Gregory Cook, David Armstrong, Jill LePla Neuville, Michael Turner, Tina Lane, John Lane, John Burton, Johanna Lutz Miller, James Rogers, Kingsley Cotton, Paul Hazen, Thomas Perry, Jeffrey Butts, James Whitehouse, Gayle Sutton Weakland, Cecelia Williams-Roberson. Top row and on steps, left to right: Mary Bell Black, Mike Lester, Charleen Putnam Lester, Peg Mitchell Turner, Russell Rottiers, Ralph Liang, Bruce Black, Wynn Miller, John Quinlan, Diane Pinney, Patricia Kusse Perry, Charles Day, Donna Benz Goodley, Richard Stefani, Wendy Watson Fershee, William Borgstadt, Barbara Wilson Herman, Bob Brower, Katherine Moore Brower, Tom Tarvis, Teresa Tarvis, Kenneth VanderHoff, Thomas Poirier. 2—The Class of 1964 gathered at the President’s Home for a 55th reunion dinner. Front row, left to right: Robin Diller MacMorran, Donna Gabehart Burk, Janet Matilo Goudie, Marilyn Cramer Beattie, Phyllis Mayers Thornburg, Joan Albrecht; second row, left to right: Nancy Miller Kufchock, Joan DeShon Reichenbach*, Shirley Bloomquist, Lois Skagerberg Heller; third row, left to right: Robert Hetler, Frederick Maibauer, Rosemary Zander, Carolyn Aishton Ouderkirk, Barbara Newcomb Behrmann; back row, left to right: George Croll, Denton Kime, John Lepard, Dennis Bloomquist, Carol Allman Lee. *Joan Reichenbach chronicled her reunion experience—read it at albion.edu/iotriumphe. 3—Bob Hetler, ’64, received a Distinguished Alumni Award during the May 16 opening reception for all reunion classes in Upper Baldwin. 4—Geological science major Aliera Konnett, ’20, shared her vertebrate paleontology research during student FURSCA presentations for the reunion classes at the Ludington Center.
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ALBIONOTES
‘A Kind, Caring, Loving Friend’ He called me “the New Phil” because he also taught health psychology in the department before I arrived. Phil was much more than a mentor to me—he was a kind, caring, loving friend. He was so easygoing, but so full of knowledge, good advice, and adventure stories. We liked to laugh about grading craziness and teaching research design and analysis. He was a solid figure in Albion and someone I really admire and love.” —Tammy Jechura, professor of psychological science Great professor, had a true passion for his job. Great interaction with his students. —Rick Otis, ’77
John Philip Hostetler, professor of psychology, emeritus, passed away December 15, 2018 (see page 45 for highlights of his 35-year career on the Albion College faculty). Here, members of the Albion family share their thoughts about a teacher and colleague who impacted the lives of so many. When I enrolled in psych classes in the ’70s, we knew him as Phyllis because of that mop of curly hair, a moniker that he accepted with that big smile and winsome nature. He was a great prof. The psychology team at Albion made every class fascinating. How I would love to be transported back in time to enjoy those classes again. —Jan Corey Arnett, ’75
He was my advisor and favorite psych professor. That picture is exactly how I remember him back in the late ’70s. —Yvette Passios Schmidt, ’80 Such a wonderful professor. He had a huge impact on my education at Albion and my training at Albion Area Ambulance Service. —Jill Douglas Olshefke, ’92
During my freshman year at Albion in 1976, Dr. Hostetler called me one evening because he heard I played “a mean game of” table tennis. For all four years at Albion, I would often go to the Ambulance Service and play table tennis with him while he was on duty. A remarkable person and excellent professor, he was a great example of the many ways faculty make an impact on students at Albion. —Matt Lasorsa, ’80 One of my favorite Albion professors. —Michael Mutchler, ’86
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We would chuckle—and it still mystifies me—over students who mixed the two of us up. I remember one time Phil had an 8 a.m. class and I had a 9 a.m. in the same classroom. And, frequently, his students going out and my students coming in would talk and sometimes they would greet me, “Hello, Dr. Hostetler,” even though they’d just seen him. I sure miss the guy. —David Hogberg, professor of psychology, emeritus He was an amazing person. —Heidi Stevens, ’94 A great teacher and great human. —Jenny Barthel Combs, ’00
‘He Put Me on a Positive Path’ My professor at Albion College and my high school teacher at Ferndale High School. A very kind man. —Diane Luedtke, ’76 A great human being! I remember when Albion first hired Coach and I couldn’t believe they did that. He came from Ferndale High School, our hated rivals (Birmingham Seaholm). I am blessed to have played for Morley Fraser and coach with Coach Joranko. He was the best. I feel bad for the students who didn’t have the opportunity to interact with him. RIP Coach! —Art Kale, ’71
Professor emeritus of physical education Frank Joranko, ’52, one of the iconic figures in Albion College athletics as a student-athlete, coach, and administrator, passed away March 8, 2019 (see page 45). Former players, students, and colleagues offered their recollections—both online and during a June 1 remembrance service in Goodrich Chapel— of a man who touched many lives in the communities in which he lived. He was a compassionate man who believed in the goodness of people. When Frank took over as athletic director, he was teaching, coaching, counseling students, and directing the intramural program, and he did all of those jobs very well. All of those jobs are now split up. Frank’s most significant legacy is how he, along with Char Duff, championed the addition of women’s sports. He supported Title IX and its impact on our campus. That impacted thousands—even today—who don’t even realize it. —Dave Egnatuk, ’71
Coach Joranko was honest and caring. It was evident the first time you met Frank that he was someone you could trust. As a player, you knew that Frank Joranko had your welfare and development as a player and person as his top priority. Coach Joranko was a coach, mentor, and friend to me. Throughout my career he was someone I could count on for advice and support. He was respected by everyone in the coaching community. —Craig Rundle, ’74
Coach Joranko literally changed my life. He put me on a positive path in my athletic career. Morley and Frank were the two men outside my father who impacted my life the most. Frank had great impact during his career at FHS and particularly for so many in the black community in Ferndale, with the NAACP in Albion, and in retirement in Lansing. —Dave Neilson, ’66
Frank was my 10th-grade English teacher. … I followed his career at Albion, where my daughter (Abby Rennels, ’90) was a music major. Frank was an excellent teacher who inspired his students to go beyond the textbooks and helped us learn to appreciate poetry and the beauty of our language. —John Rennels You were an awesome teacher and I appreciated all I learned from you. —Sandie Hernbroth, ’79 In an era of rampant cheating and toxic masculinity in athletics, Frank Joranko was an island of integrity and decency in a sea of trouble and hubris. —David Young, former editor, Albion Evening Recorder Honest, truthful, matter-of-fact, generous, and just a good dude! He will be missed by many. —Steve Loving, ’86
The experience of playing NCAA Division III sports for Frank Joranko was special because it was the right way to play. It was a life-changing experience. —Stephen Greenhalgh, ’74
Spring-Summer 2019 | 47
THE BACK PAGE
Honoring Anna
One hundred years ago, just weeks before the death of a suffrage leader and onetime Albion student, the Constitution’s 19th Amendment started on its ratification road. By Trisha Franzen We should all be thinking about Anna Howard Shaw this summer. Why? Because June 4 marked the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment—the women’s suffrage amendment—by the U.S. Senate. Because it was quickly ratified by three states, including Michigan, on June 10, 1919. And because Shaw passed away less than a month later, on July 2. We need to be thinking about Shaw in 2019 because we need to know and claim our history, and because no other Michigan woman gave more to the struggle for women’s voting rights than the Reverend Dr. Anna Howard Shaw.
48 | Albion College Io Triumphe!
Her suffrage colleague and putative rival, Carrie Chapman Catt, credited her “as the greatest orator among women…who made more converts to the suffrage cause than any other one person.” This longest-serving president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and protégé of Susan B. Anthony was nurtured by Michigan, its public schools, the progressive arm of its Methodist Church, and the supportive community of Albion College. One of my favorite quotes about Anna Howard Shaw comes from Aileen Kraditor, who wrote in 1965 that Shaw was “one of the most remarkable in a group of remarkable suffrage leaders.” She was unlike most of her suffrage colleagues. Without economic or heterosexual privilege, she was
self-supporting her whole life, entering two male-dominated professions—ministry and medicine—before embarking on her long career as an activist and public lecturer. She worked to broaden the suffrage movement to include more working women, more college students and men, and brought progressive women such as Jane Addams into suffrage leadership while marginalizing the Southern leaders who opposed extending the vote to Black women. During her NAWSA presidency, the leading Black activist and intellectual W.E.B. Dubois keynoted the 1912 convention in Philadelphia. Fearlessly, Shaw publicly challenged American imperialism and gender norms and created a nontraditional family with her partner, Lucy E. Anthony, Susan B. Anthony’s niece. She was irreverent and funny. Her leadership was bold, complicated, and often messy. Shaw wasn’t perfect, but she tried to fight for justice for all. I often teach my Albion courses in a classroom located on the southwest corner of the second floor of Robinson Hall. Early each semester I note to my students that Anna Howard Shaw had lived in this exact space while she was a student at Albion College in the 1870s. This comment generally brings confused stares. Even these Albion students don’t know who Anna Howard Shaw was or why they should care. I am no longer surprised. Rarely do our students know much about women’s history at all. Few, even among scholars, have credited Shaw for her contributions to our history.
I don’t hesitate to honor Anna Howard Shaw’s life. Researching her life not only allowed me to delve into the life of a woman who was in many ways far ahead of her times, but also one who had to face the political realities of her era. And there are so many more people who fought for our rights who deserve to be honored. And to honor them we need to do a few things. Educate yourself on our histories. To not know our histories, to not know past struggles for justice, the work of activists, their triumphs and failures, strengths and shortcomings, robs all of us of the lessons necessary for continuing the work of our pioneering leaders. If we look around our country today, we can’t help but see the many challenges to women’s rights and the rights of gender and sexual minorities, as well as glaring disparities in health, education, and justice. And vote. Be an informed voter. If you think voting is hard, demand that it be made easier and fairer. Be involved in your community, small or large, online or next door. Talk to each other honestly and respectfully. Do something to make a difference. Trisha Franzen is professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and the author of Anna Howard Shaw: The Work of Woman Suffrage (University of Illinois Press, 2014).
Io Triumphe! EDITOR John Perney DESIGNER Katherine Mueting Hibbs CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chuck Carlson, Bobby Lee, Erin Peterson, Jake Weber CLASS NOTES WRITERS Kim Fisher, Jake Weber, Erin Dunlop, ’19 MARKETING/COMMUNICATIONS EriK Lyman, Anne Noble, Eric Westmoreland Io Triumphe! is published twice annually by the Office of Marketing and Communications. It is distributed free to alumni and friends of the College. Letters to the editor may be sent to: Office of Marketing and Communications Albion College 611 E. Porter Street Albion, MI 49224 communications@albion.edu www.albion.edu ABOUT OUR NAME The unusual name for this publication comes from a yell written by members of the Class of 1900. The beginning words of the yell, “Io Triumphe!,” were probably borrowed from the poems of the Roman writer Horace. In 1936, the alumni of Albion College voted to name their magazine after the yell, which by then had become a College tradition. For years, Albion’s incoming students have learned these lines by heart: Io Triumphe! Io Triumphe! Haben swaben rebecca le animor Whoop te whoop te sheller de-vere De-boom de ral de-i de-pa— Hooneka henaka whack a whack A-hob dob balde bora bolde bara Con slomade hob dob rah! Al-bi-on Rah! 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. FIND MORE ONLINE: www.albion.edu
Connect with students, faculty, staff, and alumni through Albion College’s social media channels.
Transfer your donor-advised fund or personal foundation to the new Albion College Donor-Advised Fund Program – you may see your dollars do a lot more! Albion College now offers a donor-advised fund (DAF), providing opportunities to support the College, and other charitable organizations, with a single contribution. The cost is below what many investment organizations offer, and the impact is life-changing! Consider opening a new account, or transferring your existing DAF or foundation account, to create your own individual or family Albion College Donor-Advised Fund. Our DAF offers very competitive rates and flexibility; it’s a benefit to both you and Albion College. For more information, please contact Wendy Miller Bueche at 517/629-1835 or email DonorAdvisedFund@albion.edu.
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One Weekend. One Albion. Join us for two special fall days, October 4-5, as Britons come together in celebration of Albion College. Registration is open now. See pages 36-37 for all the details!