Aquinas Magazine :: Spring 2012

1607 Robinson Rd. SE • Grand Rapids, MI 49506-1799

SPRING 2012

The magazine of aquinas college

Juan’s Message What a year it has been! And what a history we honored!

I’m so pleased to have been named the seventh president of Aquinas College at such a pivotal time in our history. We have had the incredible opportunity to celebrate 125 years of liberal arts education infused with our Catholic, Dominican values of prayer, study, service and community. Many of you have joined us on campus for one or more of the memorable events held this year. It has all been a wonderful reminder of where we’ve been – and an invigorating challenge to move forward with fresh energy.

As I look back more than 40 years to when I was a student here, it is amazing how far we’ve come with campus improvements, technological advancements, new degree programs and facility upgrades. Now we look to a future full of challenging questions: How will we continue to improve this beautiful campus? What new directions might we take? And what will the next generation be celebrating at AQ’s 150th anniversary?

In this commemorative issue of AQUINAS, students, faculty, staff and alumni offer their ideas for our school’s future. This special anniversary edition also reflects on the rich heritage of our founders, the Dominican Sisters. And it highlights the events of this remarkable year, the generous contributions of friends and alumni, the scholarship of dedicated faculty, and the wonderful work of students who carry on the Dominican tradition of faith, service and excellence.

It is clear we are headed into a time of growth. Aquinas College is on the move. We will think strategically to create a bold, disciplined plan that will guide the next 5, 10 and 25 years. I am committed to the mission and vision that our Dominican foremothers set in motion from the very beginning. Great days lie ahead for Aquinas College, and I invite you along for the journey!

You will have many opportunities in the coming year to engage with the college. I want to hear your hopes and dreams for Aquinas. Let us dream big, so we may rise to the next level of excellence.

What a year it has been, and what an exciting future lies before us! May we move confidently toward a new era for Aquinas, while celebrating all we have accomplished thus far.

Juan R. Olivarez, Ph.D. President

VOLUME 11 ISSUE 1 SPRING 2012

5 STU D ENT N E W S

C A M P US N E WS

ATH LE TI C S

A LUM N I N E W S

13 Chavez School Mentors

4 Dominican Sisters Heritage

37 Hockey and Bowling

29 Letter from Director

15 CLC Turns 15

11 Scott Turow

39 AQ All-Americans

32 Kelly Dittmar

Sustainable icons and info

CONTENTS Editor Charles Honey Creative Director Philip Mitri Contributing writers Brigid Avery ’01, staff Cecilia Cunningham, staff Kate Davis, staff Meg Derrer, staff Kate Dernocoeur ’06, freelancer Gary Eberle, faculty Ali Erhan, faculty Jannine Guyeskey ’08, staff Ellen Harburn ’00, staff Bridget Harrigan, staff Tom Mikowski ’89, staff Sheila Pantlind, staff

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24 FE ATU RES

5 12 24

A New Home for Brookby Homecoming 2011 125th Anniversary Celebration

Samantha Rinkus ’11, staff Doug Seites ’10, staff Sr. Alice Wittenbach ’59, staff John Wofford ’13, student Mike Wojciakowski ’99, staff Photography Brian Kelly, freelancer Andris Visockis, freelancer

CORRECTION A feature in the fall issue of AQUINAS contained incorrect information about trustee Dennis M. Echelbarger ’64. Echelbarger is founder and chairman of the board of Echelbarger, Himebaugh, Tamm & Co., P.C. (EHTC) in Grand Rapids. He is also past chairman of the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants (MACPA) and serves as its West Michigan liaison for government relations. Other information in the item was incorrect.

AQUINAS regrets the error.

Sister Rosemary O’Donnell, Sister Aquinas Weber and Sister Alice Wittenbach

Dominican Sisters Continue a Distinctive Heritage

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Long after the Dominican Sisters had stopped wearing their habits on campus, Sister Rosemary O’Donnell, O.P., taught her classes in religious garb for a day. One of her students remarked, “My grandmother would really like this,“ Sister O’Donnell recalled with a chuckle.

Indeed, for decades the Grand Rapids Dominicans’ distinctive white gowns and black veils served as graceful reminders of the sisters’ role in founding Aquinas College. But even absent those garments, they still imbue Aquinas with their academic gifts, religious values and caring presence.

After 125 years, Aquinas remains distinctly Dominican even as the teaching sisters have dwindled to a handful.

“There’s some kind of unspoken love affair that goes on between the sisters and the campus,” said Sister Alice Wittenbach, O.P., Ph.D. She has seen that love remain from the time she enrolled in 1955 to her current post as alumni reunion coordinator. Though much has changed, the Dominican charisms of prayer, study, service and community have not, she says: “That’s the enduring influence of the Dominican style.”

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By Charles Honey

Despite vast changes in technology, curriculum and a more diverse student body and faculty, some constants remain, agrees Sister O’Donnell, Aquinas’ longest-tenured faculty at 41 years.

“There’s still the small-college feeling,” said Sister O’Donnell, a professor of communication and humanities. “There’s still the Dominican presence. This whole 125 years is based on that.”

The Dominicans have faithfully guided the college since its founding in 1886 as a teachertraining school. Their commitment continued through its establishment in 1940 as the fouryear Aquinas College.

“In faculty debates, when things can get heated, the sisters were able to step up with an ethical voice of conscience.”

Sister Mary Aquinas Weber, O.P., came to symbolize the sisters’ dedication. In 1966 she was elected Dominican prioress and chairwoman of the Aquinas board, and has served as a voting or emeritus trustee ever since.

She was a key player in Aquinas’ transformation of the late 1960s and ‘70s, when ownership was turned over to a lay Board of Trustees, the college expanded community outreach and recruited nontraditional students. She headed the Eastown neighborhood revitalization project, directed the Emeritus College and later served as vice president of development and chancellor.

Sister Aquinas says today’s more religiously diverse faculty and students reflect the charism of community, adding, “That’s where the inclusivity comes from.” It’s a long way from the days when Dominican sisters and priests dominated the faculty, and student sisters rarely spoke to their lay classmates.

Many Aquinas alumni have “very deeply emotional” memories of the Dominicans, says Gary Eberle, longtime English faculty and author of “Aquinas College: The First 125 Years.” He says they have provided “a moral voice” over the years.

“In faculty debates, when things can get heated, the sisters were able to step up with an ethical voice of conscience,” Eberle said.

However, the number of teaching sisters has declined to just four full-time faculty, while a fifth teaches nursing here for University of Detroit Mercy. As the decline of Grand Rapids Dominican sisters continues, some wonder how that will affect the school’s Catholic identity.

“My concern is whether or not that Dominican heritage will continue indefinitely,” Sister O’Donnell said. “Who’s going to keep it up?”

For Sister Wittenbach, the answer lies not in the absence of sisters but the presence of their values: “It’s the charisms that are going to take the Dominican tradition into the next 25 years.”

Aquinas

A New Home for Brookby For nearly 85 years it was a palatial private residence with a historic connection to Aquinas.

Soon it will be the future home of the college president and a beautiful addition to campus.

Brookby, a Colonial Revival-style manor at the southeast corner of Plymouth Avenue and Robinson Road SE, was donated to Aquinas last fall along with 5.4 acres of its 8-acre estate

by Sam and Janene Cummings. The elegant property will serve as home for President Juan Olivarez and his wife, Mary, as well as a spacious venue for entertaining and fund-raising events. Employees and friends of Aquinas got a glimpse of its grandeur at a Christmas Ball in December, which raised money for an endowment to preserve all of the historic buildings on the Aquinas College campus.

A state and nationally registered historic building, Brookby was built in 1928 by John W. Blodgett, a lumber magnate and philanthropist. Blodgett’s sister, Susan Blodgett Lowe, and her husband Edward were the original owners of Holmdene Manor and the 67 acres that later became Aquinas’ administration building and campus.

The once-connected properties were reunited in Aquinas’ 125th year thanks to the generous gift of Sam and Janene Cummings, who made Brookby their home for 14 years.

“Brookby holds a special place in our community’s history, and represents a very special place in her connection to the history of Aquinas, so Janene and I felt it was only appropriate that we donate the estate to the college,” Sam Cummings said.

He and Janene also head a newly formed preservation committee to raise funds for ongoing maintenance and preservation of the Aquinas campus’ historic assets.

Ralph Hauenstein cuts a rug!

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“It’s very fitting that Sam and Janene continue the legacy of philanthropy that the Blodgett and Lowe families exemplified before them,” President Olivarez said. “Aquinas College is very grateful to have Sam and Janene Cummings as part of our family.”

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Commencement Speaker Leader in Sustainability

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Fred P. Keller, who provided the address to students at the May 5 commencement, is a leader in the sustainability movement. He is a fitting choice for a school offering the upper Midwest’s first Master of Sustainable Business degree. Mr. Keller, owner of Cascade Engineering, is nationally recognized for his firm’s commitment to environmental and social improvement.

In 1973, after working at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, he founded Cascade Engineering which provides plastics products for the automotive, industrial and solid waste industries. He grew Cascade Engineering from a six-employee plastics injection-molding shop to an employer of more than 1,200 workers at 10 facilities.

engineering from Cornell University and a master’s of business management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Mr. Keller supports many environmental and community programs and places great value on his employees and the impact they can have. He instituted a Cascade program called PHASES (Providing Health, Activities, Safety & Enrichment Services), which offers innovative employee benefits such as adoption assistance. He has been a leader in welfare-to-work programs and organized the Delta Strategy, a think tank that identifies critical community concerns and works towards solutions. He is also a pioneer in developing wind and other green energy technology.

Mr. Keller is married to noted mezzo-soprano Linn Maxwell Keller. They have three daughters.

The son of Fred Meyers Keller and Bernadine Johnson, Mr. Keller is an East Grand Rapids High School graduate who earned a bachelor’s of

THAT’S A FACT

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EN V I RO N M ENTA LLY CO O L Aquinas was recognized as one of the nation’s

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100 coolest colleges by the Sierra Club for its commitment to sustainability, recycling, energy conservation and

LEED-certified buildings.

Aquinas

2012 Honorary Degree Recipient

Special 125th Anniversary Honorary Degrees Sister Marjorie Vangsness, O.P., ‘38 Honorary Doctor of Divinity

R. Paul Nelson, M.A.

President Emeritus Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

Harry J. Knopke, Ph.D.

President Emeritus Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

C. Edward Balog, Ph.D.

President Emeritus Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

Marilyn J. Drake ‘75

Aquinas Trustee Emerita Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts

2012 College Hall of Fame Honorees For more information on the honorees, or to nominate someone for the Hall of Fame, go to aquinas.edu/heritage/halloffame.html

Jane Hibbard Idema†

Director Emeritus Encore and Emeritus College College

Lee Jacokes, Ph.D.

professor emeritus of psychology

Andrew Jefchak, Ph.D.

professor emeritus of English

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INSPIRED INSTALLATION

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It began as a 1921 photo of 53 Cavalry officers taken in Camp Grant, Ill., which Chris LaPorte ’96 found in an antiques store. Today those officers gaze stoically at visitors entering the Grace Hauenstein Library in a breathtaking 28-foot drawing LaPorte made from the photo. The winning entry of ArtPrize 2010 was installed Dec. 13 in the library lobby by

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LaPorte and staff members of the Grand Rapids Art Museum, where it had hung previously. LaPorte, AQ Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, rolled out and tacked down the seven panels of “Cavalry, American Officers, 1921,” with the help of four workers.

Aquinas

VETERANS EXHIBIT The Aquinas Continuing Education Program sponsored a World War I exhibit at the Donnelly Center to mark Veterans Day, Nov. 11. The exhibit featured memorabilia from Michigan’s contribution to the 32nd Infantry Division (often called the “Red Arrow”), and the Polar Bear Expedition that served in Russia. Below, Aquinas professor emeritus of history Rodger Remington (left) and Bernie DePrimo chat at the exhibit. A World War II exhibit is planned for next November.

Sister Aquinas receives papal honor Pope Benedict XVI conferred Pontifical Honors on several diocesan members of the clergy, religious and laity. Bishop Walter A. Hurley presented the honors during a special prayer service held Dec. 5 in the Cathedral of Saint Andrew.

Conferees included leaders and special friends of Aquinas College: Prelate of Honor to His Holiness - Rev. Monsignor William H. Duncan Former Chairperson of the Board of Trustees Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Cross Sister Mary Aquinas Weber, O.P. (left) Mrs. Mary Ann Keeler Mrs. Joan M. Secchia Mrs. Mary E. O’Connor College

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Contemporary “I always loved poetry and creative writing, and was jealous of friends who went to universities that had reading series available,” she remembered.

Nemec Foster approached Aquinas English professor Miriam Pedersen, who already was keeping a file of ideas from years of joining Nemec Foster and assistant professor of English Vicki McMillan at Hope College literary readings.

Seamus Heaney

A History

By Kate Dernocoeur ‘06

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What began with a poet’s funeral became an annual celebration of the literary life.

Readings by more than 60 writers have reached more than 12,000 Aquinas students, faculty and others since the Contemporary Writers Series began in 1997. Such notable writers as Seamus Heaney, Michael Ondaatje, Thomas Lynch and Peter Carey have come to campus to read their work and meet students.

“The Aquinas Contemporary Writers Series has immeasurably enriched the literary community in Grand Rapids,” said poet Jack Ridl, a Hope College professor who read for the series in 2011.

The Contemporary Writers Series was cofounded by Linda Nemec Foster ’72 — herself a notable poet and author of nine volumes of poetry — and her husband, Tony ‘73. The couple had just attended a memorial service for poet Larry Pike in Saginaw in 1995 when they hatched the idea on the drive home.

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“Our pilgrimage to Hope was an inspiration to us,” McMillan recalled. “We wanted something special for our students.”

Nemec Foster approached then Aquinas President Paul Nelson, who “was thrilled with the idea,” she said. A committee formed to choose and host writers.

“I wanted to (invite) superbly fine writers, to open the door to the Aquinas community and the western Michigan community to really great writing. ” – Linda Nemec Foster

“Often for students, meeting a writer leads to a connection to literature that lasts a lifetime,” said Ridl, the poet.

Working with authors or their agents to arrange visits has been a challenging but welcome job for Public Services Librarian Pam Luebke since she joined the committee in 2000. Nemec Foster gives Luebke the lion’s share of credit for the series’ excellent reputation among authors.

Making the reading series financially independent — and thus free and open to the public — has always been a goal for the Fosters.

In addition to significant personal support by them and others, an endowment campaign was boosted by a fundraiser featuring Turow.

“It’s my legacy. I feel so passionately about the program —it is such a wonderful thing to see,” Nemec Foster said. “Sometimes I look out at all the faces of people listening, and think how great it is to see the positive impact it’s having.”

Michael Ondaatje

The first CWS event, in the fall of 1997, featured poet Marilyn Nelson, a 1991 finalist for the National Book Award in poetry. (For a list of all the writers who have appeared, go to aquinas.edu/english.)

In addition to the readings, Aquinas students are invited to informal chats with the literary stars, such as their get-together with best-selling author Scott Turow during his March 14 visit to campus.

Aquinas

Writers Series Turow: Crime doesn’t pay

writing about it does

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By Charles Honey

Scott Turow wanted to be a writer long before he became a lawyer, but practicing law provided him with a wealth of best-selling material.

“Crime continues to fascinate me,” the renowned novelist told an Aquinas crowd March 14. “It is truly one of the great playing fields of the imagination.”

Turow’s rich imagination has produced nine best-selling crime novels, from his first, “Presumed Innocent,” to its 2011 followup, “Innocent.” Along the way, he has continued to practice law in his native Chicago and supported charitable causes such as literacy and legal rights.

“At the end of the day, you have to be doing this for yourself,” he added. “If you are going to stick with it, stick with it for yourself.”

Turow recounted his rise from struggling writer and law student to the president of the Authors Guild in a talk for the Contemporary Writers Series. The event at the Sturrus Sports & Fitness Center marked the series’ 15th year and raised almost $40,000 for its ongoing support.

Co-chaired by Hank and Liesel Meijer, the Turow talk and dinner attracted about 175 Aquinas friends and literary fans. President Olivarez credited Tony and Linda Nemec Foster, the series’ founders, for bringing “some of the best writers in the world” to Aquinas.

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“We could not have imagined the significant impact the program would have not only on the campus and the students, but on the greater West Michigan community,” Linda Nemec Foster said.

Turow vividly described his evolution from an aspiring author and tortured law student to a successful attorney and novelist who has sold more than 25 million books. He interspersed his recollections with readings from his works.

While at Harvard Law he published “One L,” an account of the pressurepacked trials of law school still popular with law students. He graduated to become an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago until 1986, an experience that taught him much about writing novels. The result was “Presumed Innocent,” a book which “changed my life,” he said.

In response to audience questions, Turow detailed his views on capital punishment. He served on an Illinois commission to study reform of the death penalty, which was subsequently abolished. He predicted all states will do so by mid-century, saying the penalty is unfairly and unevenly applied: “There is no moral proportion being produced by this system.”

Earlier in the day, Turow met with students, read from his short story “A Classic Case” and gave them advice on the literary life. He described writing as an art that requires practice, effort and increasing skill.

“If you write, you are a writer,” he said. “If you do not, then you aren’t.

“At the end of the day, you have to be doing this for yourself,” he added.

“If you are going to stick with it, stick with it for yourself.”

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HOMECOMING 2011

HISTORY HAPPENED HERE

Aquinas alums, students and staff converged on campus Sept. 20-25 to celebrate autumn’s annual rite as well as 125 years of school history.

With the joys of reunions, music and games, Homecoming 2011 featured new Aquinas President Juan Olivarez and his wife, Mary, attending their 1971 class reunion, which raised enough funds for five $1,500 reunion scholarships. The Black Alumni Society attracted more than 70 people

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to its second annual get-together. In a new twist, alums from the past 25 years gathered for a family-friendly cook-out with activities for their children. Adam Liberacki and Fiona Campbell were named homecoming king and queen. For more photos, go to aquinas.edu/homecoming/ photos.html. We’ll look for you at Homecoming and Reunion Weekend 2012 on Sept. 28-30!

Aquinas

AQ Students Befriend Hispanic Children

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By Charles Honey

Paige Shesterkin met Gerardo on her first day volunteering at Cesar E. Chavez Elementary School in Grand Rapids. Just arrived from Mexico with his family, the boy didn’t know the alphabet and couldn’t write his name – and he was in first grade.

“That really hit me as something that was very serious,” the Aquinas senior recalled of her experience last fall. So she seriously went to work with Gerardo, as part of a servicelearning mentoring project with 15 other Aquinas students who met with Chavez pupils once a week.

“He knows his letters now, he loves to write,” Shesterkin said.

“The change is incredible.”

She and other Aquinas students saw many changes among the Hispanic children they worked with. They were part of an upper-level Spanish course taught by Dr. Shelli Rottschafer, assistant professor of Spanish, studying the effects of immigration on Spanish-speaking children.

Shesterkin continued at Chavez this spring as part of an independent study.

The Aquinas mentors have greatly improved her students’ attitude and motivation, said Chavez Principal Aimee Garcia.

“They really love having the extra attention,” said Garcia, an Aquinas graduate.

It’s also a great help to Chavez teachers with large class sizes in a bilingual school of about 80 percent Hispanic students, Garcia said.

She teamed up on the project with Rottschafer, who aimed to see her class grow as Spanish-speakers and as students of Hispanic culture. Most had studied either in Spain or Costa Rica.

Paige Shesterkin called it “the most rewarding class I’ve ever taken,” and a perfect opportunity to apply her Spanish skills. She took part in a service-learning trip to the Dominican Republic in 2009 and is president of the student club Casa Hogar, which supports an orphanage in Peru.

“It just gave me such a broad perspective of the way things are, seeing kids that young who are struggling with learning and have problems at home,” she said.

Students of the Month

November – Senior Kathryn Reach, 21, is a community leadership and sociology major. She has volunteered in the Appalachia Service Project and worked with Home Repair Services. “The emphasis on service is what drew me to this school,” she says.

October – Sophomore Erin Murphy, 19, has provided outstanding leadership as a student assistant in the Residence Life Office. A business major, she was drawn to Aquinas’ small class sizes and friendly students. “It always felt like home,” she says.

September – Senior Monica Rischiotto, 21, is an English and community leadership major. She is a member of the 125th Anniversary Executive Team, Student Senate and women’s soccer team. She loves Aquinas’ “role models who are helping me to find my passion.”

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AQ LIGHT Making a Difference and Getting Noticed

By Doug Seites ‘10 Ben DeGarmo remembers a chance meeting with a prospective student who was on a campus tour. DeGarmo ’13, a theology major, asked the student how she ended up finding Aquinas. The student replied she had been to Aquinas as an eighth-grader for a retreat put on by AQ LIGHT, and had fallen in love with the campus and what the student body was all about.

This past fall, the Catholic Campus Ministry Association (CCMA) recognized Aquinas Campus Ministry with a national award given to the AQ LIGHT program. It was chosen as the 2011 Exemplary Programs Award winner in the “Developing Leaders for the Future” category.

“Throughout all the years that I have been organizing and advising AQ LIGHT, one strong point that stands out is that these young men and women learn incredible leadership skills,” remarked Campus Ministry Director Mary Clark-Kaiser.

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Yet it’s not just the attendees who benefit. The group’s members get as much out of the retreats as the students they lead.

“Every retreat is an individual retreat for each member,” said DeGarmo, the group’s president.

AQ LIGHT, and the programs it offers, provide a chance for Aquinas students to learn and develop leadership skills in a faith-based setting.

Retreats are planned and run by the student members, who learn firsthand the skills needed to be effective community leaders.

AQ LIGHT, which stands for Living in God’s Hands Together, plans confirmation or faith-sharing retreats for middle school to high school aged

THAT’S A FACT

students in Catholic parishes in the Diocese of Grand Rapids and statewide.

The ministry has led daylong retreats for about 20 schools since 1993.

“I’ve learned a lot about responsibility,” said biology and psychology major Krista McCormick ‘12. “People rely on us. It’s something that I can translate to the rest of my life.”

SERV I N G W ELL

Kathy S. Kremer, Ph.D., AQ chair of sociology, was awarded a Faculty/Staff Community

Service-Learning

Award by the Michigan Campus Compact, which supports student civic engagement.

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} Aquinas

C LC

TURNS FIFTEEN

By Samantha Rinkus ‘11

Carolyn Tuski ‘14, works with a CLC student.

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National Conductive Education Day, Feb. 23, was a particularly special day for the Grand Rapids and Aquinas communities. Since a 1997 collaboration between Aquinas College and the Peto Institute in Budapest, Hungary established the Conductive Learning Center (CLC) in Grand Rapids, the city has become a center for Conductive Education in North America.

Now, 15 years later, the CLC is regarded as a leader in this specialized program. Aquinas’ POHI (Physically and Otherwise Health Impaired) teaching program remains the only program in North America implementing the Conductive Education methodology.

The CLC serves families both locally and internationally, while also serving as the lab school for Aquinas POHI education students. They spend at least 10 hours per week observing and assisting in classrooms to gain invaluable experience for their POHI major and teaching degree.

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“The Aquinas students in the lab school bring a new vitality to the center,” said Terry Stelter, CLC executive director. “Minds that ask questions, encourage the staff to reflect on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of what they do every day and the importance of it.”

Developed in 1945 by Dr. Andres Peto in Hungary, Conductive Education was introduced to Grand Rapids by Chuck and Sue Saur, who wished to help local children with motor disabilities achieve greater independence.

The CLC, at 2428 Burton St. SE, serves young people from birth to early adulthood who have cerebral palsy, spina bifida and traumatic brain injury.

Stelter said the Aquinas students help teach children “to see themselves as active and self-reliant participants in the world.”

It’s valuable experience for the Aquinas students, too.

“We learn by doing,” said sophomore Carolyn Tuski. “I have learned so much from the students alone, it’s incredible.”

Added sophomore Victoria Jones, “I absolutely love my time at the CLC. The children are so precious and working there is very rewarding.”

The CLC experience and POHI degree open up opportunities for Aquinas graduates. POHI certification is in high demand, allowing many students to find jobs before graduation. Some return to work as conductor-teachers at the CLC. “[The CLC] is, in a way, the thing that links the subject of Conductive Education all together for me,” said sophomore Alana Curtin. “It is helping me establish myself as a teacher to find out what kind of teacher I am and want to be.”

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TOUCHING LIVES INTERNATIONALLY WITH SPORTS

By John Wofford ‘13

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The charism of service has long been a value of Aquinas College. While it manifests in many local projects, some members of the Aquinas community have gone international, taking our values into the far reaches of the globe.

In East Africa, assistant women’s lacrosse coach Katy Mohr is doing just that.

Mohr works with Fields of Growth International, a Notre Dame, Ind.-based charitable organization that gives the people of Uganda an opportunity to learn lacrosse as part of a leadership and social-development program. Last summer, helped by donations from Aquinas, Mohr engaged the women of this region with athletics by helping to establish the women’s lacrosse program through Makerere University Business School.

“By targeting the women at the university, they’re going to be the movers and shakers within the communities,” Mohr said. “They’ve already made it to the university, and that says a lot. We can use all the lessons they can learn from sports, with team building and leadership and working together. They really just come together as one.”

By the five-week program’s end, participation had grown from nine women to 50. This culminated in the first women’s lacrosse championship in Africa, Mohr said. Since that event, she has become the organization’s director of communications, overseeing summer volunteer opportunities, equipment drives, coordinating the sponsorship of children and more.

Fields of Growth International also sponsors a village school near Masaka, Uganda – the Hopeful School – where Mohr spent time getting to know students and assisting when a need arose. She is now helping to establish a sponsorship program for the school.

Mohr has also worked on a Fields of Growth project in Costa Rica, and is eager to make an impact on as many people as possible. She is making plans for return trips this summer, and continues her service through everything from e-mails to fundraisers.

“We are very encouraged by how quickly it has exploded, and knowing that it will just get that much bigger as we continue to expand to other countries in the next few years as well.”

Generating enthusiasm for a new sport was no problem, added Mohr, who has coached at Aquinas for three years.

“They were so excited,” Mohr said. “They just kept coming to each practice.

A lot of it had to do with, they each got their own stick. People don’t get many things given to them. To have ownership of their own stick meant they could actually take responsibility for something, and they were actually playing as part of the team.”

She recalled one woman playing in high heels. “We (said), ‘You can take off your high heels and play barefoot,’ and she said, ‘Oh no, Coach, I can move in these.’ Sure enough, she took off down the field and was sprinting in high heels, playing lacrosse.”

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Aquinas

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John F. Kennedy made his way back into the news this year. For someone with a keen interest in JFK such as Dr. Jason Duncan, Aquinas College history department chairman, these stories offer new opportunities for study and reflection on America’s 35th president.

Duncan is hoping to add to the record himself with an upcoming biography, “John F. Kennedy: The Burdens of Cold War Liberalism,” due out in 2013.

Professor Gives Insight Into the Life of JFK

By Doug Seites ‘10

“I’d like to put him in the context of American history,” said Duncan, who worked as a legislative assistant in Congress before coming to Aquinas in 2002.

On Nov. 22, the 48th anniversary of JFK’s assassination in 1963, Duncan spoke on JFK’s life at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. The event was hosted by the Grand Valley State University Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies.

Jackie’s portrayal of her husband is a positive one, Duncan said, but shows him as a very private, serious, and complex individual. To Duncan, one of the most striking aspects was her assertion JFK didn’t hold grudges. “Preparing for this talk,” said Duncan, “really helped me to see him as a person.”

More explosive was the recent memoir by Mimi Alford claiming she had an affair with Kennedy as a 19-year-old intern. Even for a scholar such as Duncan, this new information muddles the picture of JFK: “He was very complex to begin with, and this only makes him more so.”

Duncan’s talk was based on interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy by historian Arthur Schlesinger soon after JFK’s death, and released last year by daughter Caroline Kennedy. Duncan sees historical significance in the timing, given the deaths in recent years of Schlesinger and Ted Kennedy and the 50th anniversary of JFK’s election.

For Duncan, the revelation does not diminish Kennedy’s accomplishments. But he said it does damage his reputation to a degree, adding, “He was a great politician for sure, but like anyone he had his weaknesses. It hurts him and his reputation historically.”

The alleged affair, like Jackie’s interviews, broadens the view of Kennedy’s life, he said.

“It’s one part of a bigger life, and must be considered. To dwell on this would be a mistake, but we also can’t leave an incomplete record.”

Coach Writes Book on Parenting, Sports, Life By John Wofford ‘13 Competition isn’t everything. Aquinas College

“Spending a year living in Helen DeVos Children’s

tennis coach Jerry Hendrick hopes to illustrate that

Hospital and meeting other families whose kids

point with his latest endeavor.

also had played sports – you gain, through those

Drawn from years of coaching and being a parent,

kinds of traumatic experiences, a much clearer

Hendrick’s book “I Love You… (But You Should Have Won!)” is billed as a guide for parents with children who participate in athletics. And a

perspective of why we’re doing what we’re doing, what role sports should play in the life of a kid, how a parent should show their love and support

reminder of what an impact supportive parents

to their kid.”

can have on a child faced with the pressures of

Though he still values healthy competition, his

competition.

outlook has caused him to coach differently than

“I’ve got three areas of life that I’ve been involved

he might have early in his career.

in for 20 years: coaching, teaching and parenting,”

“There have been tons of really valuable lessons I

Hendrick said. “All of that came together and led

have learned,” he said.

to my thought of putting together a workbook to

“I Love You...” is available at Schuler Books & Music

help other parents whose kids play sports.”

and Family Christian Stores.

His book is informed by his competitive nature, lessons from coaching and his daughter’s bout with cancer in 2006.

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Faculty Publications

Heather Kesselring-Quakenbush, Ph.D., Sport Management Program Director Lecture: Hitting the Dirt in a Skirt: The History of Women’s Athletic Attire, Central Michigan University, Marge Bulger Sport History Lecture Series, February 2012

Gary Eberle, professor of English Book: Aquinas College: The First 125 Years, Walsworth Publishing, 2011 Andrew Jefchak, professor emeritus of English Book: Out of Stieglitz Park, Chapbook Press/Schuler Books, 2011 John Pinheiro, associate professor of history Books: James K. Polk as War President, in A Companion to the Antebellum Presidents, 1837-1861, Joel Silbey, ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 Review: Individual and Community—and God, review of The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion, and Culture, c. 2009,

by Francis Cardinal George in University Bookman, July 2011 Lectures: George Washington’s Leadership Style, Grand Forum, Grand Valley State University, February 2011 Three invited lectures on the American Founding at Acton University, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, Grand Rapids, June 2011 Who is James K. Polk?, Grand Forum, Grand Valley State University, February 2012 James Rasmussen, Ph.D., assistant professor of geography Essay: Oxbow Lakes as Indicators of River Channel Change: Leaf River, Mississippi, Journal of Physical Geography, Vol. 32, No. 6 Katharina Häusler-Gross, Ph.D., associate professor of German, chair of Department of Modern Languages Papers: Between the Poles: Constructing Identity in the Age of Globalization, German Studies Association Conference, Louisville, KY, September 2011 Integrating Technology into the Foreign Language Curriculum: Concepts, Challenges and Conclusions (with Prof. Susan Hojnacki), Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Milwaukee, WI, March 2012 Workshop: Leben und Lieben im Sozialismus! Teaching East German Culture Through DEFA-Films, Michigan World Language Conference in Lansing, MI, October 2011

THAT’S A FACT

{

Barbara Witham McCargar, associate professor of music, department chair Recordings: Featured on the CD POSTCAGE from OgreOgress, performing on Marc Chan’s I Sail’d Out to Sea with Aquinas alumna Gwendolyn Faasen, spring 2011.

Chants from the Abbey, the Music of Hildegard of Bingen, as a member of Linn Maxwell Keller and the Hildegard Singers, spring 2010.

Performances: Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship Annual Meeting, concert of music by Hildegard of Bingen featuring Linn Maxwell and the Hildegard Singers, Calvin College, February 2012 Music at Mid-day concert series at First (Park) Congregational Church, Chants of Saint Ursula and Companions composed by Hildegard of Bingen, January 2012 Hildegard and the Arts Conference, Freefall Theatre.

St. Petersburg, Fla., June 2011 Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil, Ph.D., assistant professor of English Book: From Migrant Labor to High Society: Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby in Virtual Worlds (with Meghan Dykema), in Teaching Literature in Virtual Worlds: Immersive Learning in English Studies, ed. Allen Webb, Routledge, 2011

M ATH D EPA RTM ENT W I N S AWA RD

}

Aquinas calculus students won a national art contest for designing a pair of images that create a

3D effect. The creation of

Dr. Michael McDaniel, student Joe Carlton and McDaniel’s class was published in the January issue of the

Journal.

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Robert Marko, Ph.D., professor of theology, department chair Paper: НЕ УБИЙ! (Do not kill!) at the Metropolitate of L’vivConference Center in Bruihovychi, Ukraine, July 2011 Essay: The Value and Dignity of Human Life as the Foundation of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church in the September 2011 issue of Місіонар (Mission)

Pi Mu Epsilon

Aquinas

Israel Trip Highlights Interfaith Dialogue

OLLI

By John Wofford ‘13

On an interfaith tour of Israel last October, nearly two dozen pilgrims explored one of history’s holiest sites as seen through the lens of the Christian and Jewish faiths.

The trip, led by Rabbi Albert Lewis and the Rev. Steve Cron, was co-sponsored by Aquinas College and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). Rabbi Lewis is former director of the Aquinas Emeritus College (now OLLI), a teaching adjunct and rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanuel. Father Cron is a longtime priest in the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids.

“Part of the goal was to enable participants to see the shared heritage which we have in common,” reflected Lewis, who led a diverse mix of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant participants. “All of us came away with a greater appreciation of the complexity of the politics” of the Middle East, he added.

Among the highlights: Mass at the Church of the Visitation in Jerusalem; a visit to Bethlehem, where Jesus is said to have been born; and time at the Kotel—also known as the Western Wall— where many come to pray daily. Participants also were given the opportunity to engage in an authentic Kabbalat Shabbat service, which welcomes in the Jewish day of rest.

For one couple, the fondest memories of the trip were visits to the Sea of Galilee as well as the Old City of Jerusalem. Kary Scheiern and William Martin, two OLLI gold members, recalled a sacred moment in Jerusalem.

“The custom is to walk into the city, so the bus stopped and we walked to Mt. Scopus, where we could overlook the rest of Jerusalem,” Kary Scheiern said. “The sun was setting and the view was glorious.”

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Over kosher crackers and wine, the group listened reverently as Rabbi Lewis said the shehecheyanu, a Jewish blessing celebrating special occasions.

“As our guide mentioned one day, ‘The Bible was always so beautiful in black and white, but now it is in color.’ Now, I see the Bible in color and have an even deeper faith and understanding.”

Rabbi Lewis brought home an Israeli artist’s lithograph of the six days of creation and the Sabbath, which now hangs in President Juan R. Olivarez’s office. Plans are under way for a fall 2013 trip to Poland and Israel based on the success of this one, Rabbi Lewis said.

“People came to learn, and it was wonderful,” Rabbi added.

OLLI Spring Courses: a sampler The Presidential Lecture Series – Gleaves Whitney Health Care Evolution in West Michigan: It is Not About the Hospitals Anymore – Dr. John MacKeigan The Battle for God – Rev. Maurice Fetty What’s it Like Being a Criminal Defense Attorney – Larry C. Willey Mao and the Cultural Revolution – Dr. Glenda Liu Quarnstrom Plein Air: Introduction to Outdoor Oil Painting – Mary Reusch Hemingway’s Michigan – Kathleen Longcore A Candid Look at Local & National Elections 2012 – Bob Eleveld and Matthew E. McLogan A Walk through Grand Rapids: Antique Postcard Images of the Furniture City 1890-1940 – Tom Dilley Golf Courses of Michigan – Greg Johnson OLLI membership options include course discounts, free classes, discounted prices on local performing arts/events, social events and invitations to Aquinas College functions. Because the academic year is partially completed, Bronze and Silver Memberships are now prorated to half-off.

The cost of a membership is as little as $12.50.

Check us out at aquinas.edu/olli or call 616-632-2430.

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OLLI

Blekes Named Recipients of the Norbert J. Hruby Emeritus Award The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) Board at Aquinas College has selected Bert and Jan Bleke to receive the prestigious Aquinas Norbert J. Hruby Emeritus Award. The couple received the award May 10 at the annual Emeritus Dinner.

Bert and Jan are lifelong educational leaders who have significantly improved the lives of children in West Michigan. They are also community leaders who work to promote educational opportunities and welfare for all people.

Bert has been leading educational change, innovation and improvement in West Michigan for more than 35 years. He served East Grand Rapids High School as an assistant principal in the early 1970s, then joined Forest Hills Public Schools as a principal and assistant superintendent for instruction. Later he became superintendent of Lowell Public Schools and Grand Rapids Public Schools.

Bert served as board president of Blandford Nature Center, and along with Peter Wege, is credited with keeping the center open and vital. He served as interim president of United Way and serves on the Board of Trustees of Grand Rapids Community College. In 2007 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Education from Aquinas.

Jan, an award-winning teacher and committed volunteer, has given her time and talent for years to help children and community organizations. She taught English at Caro and Northview high schools, and served as a counselor in Kentwood, Kenowa Hills and Forest Hills Northern schools. She has volunteered at the YWCA, Blodgett Hospital, United Way and City High School.

Bert and Jan have two daughters and one grandchild.

20th Annual Spectrum Scholarship Competition The Admissions office’s 20th annual Spectrum Scholarship Competition on Feb. 18 was the largest attendance for any admissions event in the history of the college. Nearly 600 people – student participants and guests – came to the Sturrus Sports & Fitness Center for the invitation-only event.

272

310

125

$500 $28,714

In celebration of the college’s 125th anniversary, students competed for renewable scholarships ranging from to (full tuition and room). The competition consisted of three components: a decision-making exercise, assessment testing and written essay, each lasting one hour.

The participants are among the best and brightest applicants to Aquinas. This year’s attendees had an average grade-point average of and an average ACT composite of .

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The group’s extracurricular activities reflect the well-rounded students that choose Aquinas. A majority participate in athletics members of the National Honor Society

(151).

3.82

(170) and are

Their service work includes Students Against Destructive Decisions, Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Habitat for Humanity.

Over the competition’s 20 years, on average

20

54 percent of attendees end up enrolling at Aquinas.

Aquinas

Aquinas Celebrates Community with . . . One Enchanted Evening.

A

By Gary Eberle

As the final major celebration of Aquinas’ 125th anniversary, the college honored the charism of community with a gala event called “One Enchanted Evening,” a benefit dinner and classical music concert that was held April 24.

This historic event showcased a very special evening of elegance – the name by which it has been known in the past. Highlights included: • A strolling dinner in the newly renovated Holmdene mansion and Carriage House. Both historic buildings were built in 1908 and have been significantly restored to serve as showcases for college guests.

• Antique-looking trolley cars conveying diners from building to building, where they enjoyed elegant fare to the accompaniment of live music performed by Aquinas music students.

• A concert at the Performing Arts Center featuring Aquinas alumni Sara Jakubiak ‘02, her accompanist Dr. Andrew Fleser ’01, and their former teacher Barbara Witham McCargar, chair of the music department Sara Jakubiak’s career has taken her around the world performing with various opera companies as far away as Seoul, South Korea. In March she had a starring role in the New York City Opera’s production of Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte.” It was her second lead role with the NYCO, the first having been in fall 2010 in the premiere New York performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place.”

In fall 2011 she flew to Poland to record Montemezzi’s “L’amore dei tre re” with the Warsaw Beethoven Festival. In coming months she will perform with the Boston Lyric Opera and the Chicago Lyric Opera.

“I am very excited to be coming back to Aquinas where it all began,” Jakubiak said.

“I have so many wonderful memories of performing with Andy (Fleser) in student concerts and of the tremendous foundation for my career that was given me by my mentor Barbara McCargar and all the wonderful music faculty at Aquinas.”

Jakubiak earned master of fine arts degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Yale University. Her accompanist, Andrew Fleser, is a full-time instructor of music theory at McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minn. He earned his Ph.D. in musical accompaniment from the University of Michigan. He has performed widely in the United States and Europe and was recently heard on Interlochen Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio and “A Prairie Home Companion.”

“One Enchanted Evening” was a wonderful opportunity for these two mature and still-rising artists to stage a nostalgic reunion with professor McCargar at the Performing Arts Center, which had not yet opened when they were undergraduates.

This gala provided a festive and colorful close to the yearlong celebration of the college’s 125th anniversary festivities. Master of the Revels Gary Eberle calls on the college community to continue to remember its rich past and build its future.

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Acts of Aquinas Kindness Grand Rapids: 13 Aquinas students and student affairs staff went to Habitat for Humanity and painted

Detroit: Through the efforts of an Ann

as part of a “Day on the Job” with

Arbor area Bible study group, a large

student affairs professionals. While

group of faithful stewards gathered on All

we were there we met an Aquinas

Saints’ Day to make over 450 sandwiches in

student and a parent of an

just over an hour and sort various religious

Aquinas volleyball player who

articles, warm clothing items and needed

were two of the three Habitat

supplies for the St. Aloysius Homeless

workers that were present. –

Food and Clothing Program. All the items

Brian Matzke ‘97, Dean of

were delivered to St. Al’s and they were

Student Services

very grateful! – Mary Lynn ‘88 Nicaragua: (service trip) We Mexico: I am currently a missionary for the Community of Saint John in Saltillo. We help run a chapel, kitchen, medical consultation service, mentor and tutor scholarship students, teach English, play with kids and act as a house of peace.

I decided to come to Mexico after graduating from Aquinas with a degree in sustainable

installed arsenic abatement filters in a mountain community where the average life span is 44, due to the presence of substantial levels of arsenic in the region’s drinking water.

– Harry Knopke Ph.D., president emeritus of Aquinas College

business. (I loved) the look of joy on the face of a little girl to whom I gave her first Bible. – Joe ‘11

Oakland: I volunteer at the soup kitchen on Sundays at St. Vincent de Paul. Last Sunday, I met some wonderful new people who came to the center–all homeless.

One young woman had a diseased leg; her face was beautiful, and she walked with a cane. She had other health conditions as well, and yet she was so grateful for the attention I paid her. – Eileen ‘69

Acting on Aquinas in Sri Lanka By Charles Honey In Sri Lanka, Marisa Fernando grew up amid civil war and hardship. At Aquinas, she was inspired to do something about it.

The 1994 graduate works to improve living conditions, empower young people and reduce conflict in her native South Asian country. She posted a message about her humanitarian work with “125,000 Acts of Aquinas,” a global project in which Aquinas alums and friends were invited to perform acts of service in honor of the 125th anniversary.

It was during her four years at Aquinas, where she was active in campus ministry and the CAVA student volunteer group, that Fernando found 22

her passion for social justice.

She had never heard of Michigan nor seen snow when she came here on a generous scholarship. But her sociology and environmental studies major, service-learning in Oaxaca and neighborhood activism excited her interest in community service.

“The years at AQ and in Michigan exposed me to alternative thinking, and to people who dared to dream, to seek and to challenge the systems,” Fernando said via e-mail. “This influenced me greatly to look at the possibilities of a different world and to work towards it.”

Aquinas

Since its launch on All Saints’ Day, Nov. 1, the 125,000 Acts of Aquinas campaign has generated works of kindness by students, alumni, faculty and friends around the world. From feeding the homeless in Detroit and clothing veterans in Grand Rapids, to aiding tsunami victims in Japan and a lost Russian woman in St. Peter’s Square, nearly 10,000 participants demonstrated the Dominican charism of service to honor Aquinas’ 125th anniversary. Here are just a few of their stories.

Japan: Through SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) I was able to travel to Japan and help with the tsunami relief effort. My experience has made me stronger in my faith and more confident in my ability to help others.

Remember to love your fellow man as you would love yourself, and that includes those who live on the other side of the world. – Moldova: My friends and I had the opportunity

Brianna ‘13, Aquinas student

to share our art and music at an adult reintegration center in Chisinau. The center is a home for orphans who have passed the age where they can be a part of an institution. The focus is to help these individuals reintegrate into society through life skill development and social support. We sang songs for them, and they shared poems and songs with us. It was a beautiful exchange! – Katie ‘06

Fernando has worked hard in Sri Lanka, helping the charitable organization Foundation of Goodness support rural residents and working to build peaceful democracy through the Search for Common Ground.

She also helps administer an Aquinas development fund set up after the 2004 tsunami.

Supported by Campus Ministry fundraisers, the fund has provided vocational training for young girls, built a rain-water harvesting tank and provided powdered milk for elders who fled the war.

Her work springs from a deep faith, Fernando says: “It was at Aquinas that I began to realize what it really meant to walk with Christ.”

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Marisa Fernando (second from right), a 1994 Aquinas grad, works with a group called Search for Common Ground to help young people in Sri Lanka address community problems in a nonviolent way.

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Devout prayer, deep study, devoted service, delightful community: All were part of the 125th anniversary year of Aquinas College. Its Dominican Catholic tradition was celebrated with a blessing of the campus, a summit on service, a special series of lectures and an elegant evening of food and music. It was a year of honoring the past, joyfully living out the present and eagerly moving toward the future.

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Aquinas

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Speaker Series

Weigel: Catholic Colleges All About Truth

F

By Charles Honey

For George Weigel, Catholic colleges and universities are set apart from their secular counterparts by something very basic: “a commitment to the very idea of truth.”

“Catholic institutions of higher learning are in the truth business,” said Weigel, a leading Catholic intellectual who spoke at Aquinas on April 11. “Unless they understand that and live it in their curriculum, hiring practices, and mode of life, they’re not being the Catholic institutions of higher learning they should be.”

Weigel, author or editor of more than 20 books including a twovolume biography of Pope John Paul II, was the final speaker in Aquinas’ 125th anniversary lecture series focused on the charism of study. The oft-quoted theologian and NBC News commentator spoke on “John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and the Future of Catholic Higher Education.”

John Paul’s 1990 decree defined Catholic schools’ mission, identity and relationship to the church.

Weigel told a Wege Ballroom crowd of more than 350 that college boards should regard Ex Corde Ecclesiae “not as a burdensome document but as a vision statement.” That vision connects the pursuit

26

of truth through learning with the truth of God, and supports a larger church mission for human dignity and against relativism, Weigel said.

“The difference Aquinas College and other Catholic institutions of higher learning can and must make in these times is to affirm the human capacity to know the truth of things,” Weigel said.

Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

Prior to his talk, Weigel said Catholic colleges must help rescue Western civilization from “its entrapment in the sandbox of post-modernism” and not lose their faith focus.

“Some ‘Catholic’ schools clearly aren’t, and are not going to be in the foreseeable future,” he cautioned.

Aquinas

Prof Lauds Catholic Intellectual Tradition

By John Wofford ‘13

As it moves firmly into this decade, Aquinas College seeks to explore the intersection between its identity as a Catholic institution in the Dominican tradition and a liberal arts school. No single approach to balancing these elements is correct, and many voices weigh in.

Among them, English professor Gary Eberle recently shared his insight into Catholic spirituality and what it offers the intellect.

In his March 13 presentation, “Faith and Reason: My 60 years in and around the Catholic intellectual tradition,” Eberle offered suggestions for the future of Catholic discourse in the collegiate setting.

“One of the valuable lessons the Catholic intellectual tradition can teach us is that all our logical systems do — and inevitably will

— fall short,” said Eberle, author of several books on spirituality and a recent history of Aquinas.

“Science and reason live in the always ‘not yet.’ That is, science says, ‘We may not understand this or that now, but someday we will, once we have collated all the data.’ One of the roles of faith is to say, ‘No, you never will, but you should not stop trying therefore.’

“Those who decide to live by faith and reason, however, choose a more difficult way – a way that is more complex and contradictory, but one which is, I believe, also the way to a fuller life.”

Eberle’s talk at the Wege Student Center was part of Aquinas’ 125th Anniversary lecture series. His talk and others can be viewed at youtube.com/user/AquinasCollegeGR.

Dominican Theologian Shares Thoughts On Study, Equality

By John Wofford ‘13

A defining characteristic of an Aquinas education is our distinctively Dominican commitment to the charism of study. On March 19, an Aquinas alumna and New Testament scholar lifted up the value of study not only for the college but for the world at large.

Sister Barbara Reid, O.P., Ph.D., a leading theologian and contributor to the field of feminist studies, presented “Facing the Future: the Dominican Intellectual Tradition” to an eager audience in the Wege Ballroom. Sister Barbara explored the history of the Dominican order and its evolving approach to study as a means of connecting to the divine.

Within that framework, Sister Barbara posited suggestions for the future of Dominican influence on both the church and the wider world.

“The point of study is for the sake of sharing the fruits with others, most particularly in preaching, in all the forms that takes,” said Sister Barbara, vice president and academic dean at Catholic Theological Union and a columnist for America magazine.

“It is important to note that when Dominicans share the fruits of our contemplation, or our study, it is not handing on to others a finished product. Rather, it is sharing with others how to enter into a way of life: a life of study and contemplation.”

She also emphasized the importance of gender equality in the undertaking of study. Sister Barbara pointed out many Dominican sisters and laywomen hold doctorates in theology and other disciplines.

“These women have been in the forefront of developing new approaches to the study of Scriptures and tradition, enabling us to retrieve women’s experience and history, so as to reinterpret our sacred texts and tradition in ways that could reshape the church into a community of equal disciples.”

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The Aquinas community is completing a year of celebration of its proud history and growth as a Catholic college in the Dominican tradition.

So, what next?

We thought this was a fitting time to ask that question of AQ students, faculty, staff and alumni. Because as much as we celebrate what Aquinas has been and is, this is also an occasion to think about what it will become.

And so we asked: “Given the heritage and strengths Aquinas has established in 125 years as a Catholic college, what new directions would you like to see the college take to best serve its future graduates and the society they will enter?”

We hope their responses will get you thinking as well.

STAFF Brian Matzke ’97, dean of Student Services

STUDENTS

“I would love to see us be even more of a Ian MacNeil, sophomore, resident assistant

leader in protecting our environment

“More diversity in what we get as far as presenters. I

through sustainability. We can be generating

think they did a really good job with that this year with

leaders in business and technology in a green way while protecting our natural resources.”

the Role of Prayer series. I really appreciated that.”

Sharon E. Smith ‘80, M.S.W, Director, Career and Counseling Services “I want to see us being relevant

Kaela Bouwkamp, sophomore,

in the next 100 years, because I think the

executive committee of Student Senate

value system the (Dominican) Sisters have

“I know (with) so many students’ scholarships you have to do service. But I would love to see it required (for

given us will be relevant 100 years from now.

It’s important that the alumni are the sisters’ legacy.”

everyone).”

ALUMNI Bridget Clark Whitney ’03, executive director, Kids’ Food Basket

FACULTY

“We have always been known for being champions

Matthew Tueth, Ph.D.,

of service. I’d like to see us take that one step

chair of Sustainable Business Department

further. Let’s be the school that encourages

“Community has always been a part of our heritage.

more social innovation (and) is a champion

What we have begun doing and what we need to continue to do is expand the concept of community to

of social entrepreneurship.”

Patrick Miles Jr. ’88,

include the natural world.”

member of Aquinas Board of Trustees Miriam Pederson, M.F.A, professor of English

“I think Aquinas could really make a mark

“I think the college needs to carry on the spirit the

in graduate-school preparation. Given our size,

Dominican sisters first brought to the institution to make it unique and flourishing despite the fact that presently their numbers have diminished on our campus.”

I think we will be perfectly suited to prepare people for going on to graduate study... which in the future is going to be very critical.”

Andy Holtgreive ’94, president of Alumni Association

“There’s almost a sacred quality to the Aquinas community.

I would like to try to find a way to continue that connection beyond the years you are a student.

I would like to see how Aquinas can make change in the world.”

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Aquinas

A letter from the alumni director It has been a busy year on our campus and in my own house as well! As AQ celebrated our 125th anniversary, my husband and I welcomed No. 2 into our family – Leo Marston was born Nov. 14. Being a working mom of two boys under 2 years has been a true test of patience and grit! It is easy to lose track of those special, sometimes fleeting moments, when God is right there! Sometimes it takes a “God moment” to slow us down and make time for each other. I wanted to share one of those God moments with you.

The other day, I received a touching email from a 2004 alumna who, when she went to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina, lost many of her personal belongings.

She was inquiring about a folder she remembered containing her diploma. I told her that we don’t provide the folders anymore – a few years ago we moved to a ceremonial tube – but, luckily, I had just a couple of the folders on my shelf and would definitely send her one. I went to the shelf, opened the leather folder and gasped audibly. There, inside, was the letter from the Alumni Association from 2004! Immediately, I felt a connection with this woman and promptly wrote back to tell her of this serendipitous moment. Later that day, we talked at length on the phone.

In this age of instant communication and social networking, it sometimes seems that personal connections are getting shuffled to the side. Instead of reaching out individually to our friends, we can broadcast a message to hundreds of friends at once.

And while I believe social networking is a wonderful tool, I also want to commit to more personal communication from the Alumni Office. I’d like us to return to handwritten notes or, at the very least, individual e-mails.

I’d like it when a pile of congratulatory cards is on your mantel one of them is from your Alma Mater – so that you know you really do matter to us!

Sure, there still will be mass emails and mailings.

Hopefully, we can create more God moments in the years to come, by slowing down and taking time for each other!

Have a blessed and happy 2012, Brigid Avery ‘01

College

Leo Marston Chesla, Class of 2033

Regional Alumni Breakfasts & Lunches Friday, May 18

Great Lakes Bay Region: Old City Hall in Bay City, 12 p.m. (hosted by Dave Dittenber)

Friday, June 1

Lakeshore: Spring Lake Country Club, 8 a.m. (hosted by General John Nowak)

Friday, June 8

Traverse City: The Cottage Cafe, 8 a.m.

Friday, June 15

Detroit: Detroit Golf Club, 11:30 a.m. (hosted by Michael P. Smith)

Friday, June 29

Lansing: Lansing Lexington Hotel, 8 a.m.

Other Events Monday, May 21

Peter M. Wege Pro Am, Blythefield Country Club

Sunday, Sept. 23

Detroit, Comerica Park: Alumni Family Day with the Detroit Tigers, 12 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 25

Master of Management networking event

Thursday, Sept. 27

Hall of Fame Gala

Friday, Sept. 28

AQ + ArtPrize, presented by the Alumni Association

Sept. 28-30

AQ Homecoming & Reunion Weekend

If you’d like to attend any of these meals or events, please RSVP Brigid Avery at (616)-632-2494 or brigid.avery@aquinas.edu

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Reunion report

R

By Sister Alice Wittenbach, O.P., Ph.D., ‘59 Reunion celebrations in 2011 took on a life and style of their own.

Perhaps it was due to the enthusiasm and excitement generated by the pending celebrations of our 125th year. Perhaps it was just the time to do something different.

In any event, as can be seen from the number of photos of this year’s reunions, there were just four, quite a change from the 10 we had anticipated. However, we had observed that most busy alums from the 25th year on down do not have time for additional committee work to plan specific reunions.

So we decided to have one event last fall to which all alums from 25/20/15/10 and 5 were invited – a midday picnic for entire families. This allowed children to take part in activities developed by student clubs, and alums to reconnect with old friends and share the ways in which, for them, Aquinas has made all the difference in the world.

We have decided to pursue this idea again next fall. So, all alums in the 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 classes are invited to a picnic in the Regina Bowl on Sept. 29.

50th reunion: Front row (left to right): Joe Westdorp, Kathy Driza Westdorp, Sr. Joan Thomas, Judy Funk Jankowiak, Lois Lehman Jandernoa, Gloria Manikowski Wickering, Mary Louise Smith, Sr. Alice Wittenbach. Back row: Wanda Scott Kohanek, Margaret Shoup Smedley, Shirley deLongpre Boyd, Ned Smith, Paul Rinkevich, Mary Joe Leonard Haskins , Merlin Fritzen, Carol Duba Holm, Fr., Mike Kelley , Fr. Bill Gyure

35th reunion Front row (left to right): Tom Zwier, Patti Zwier, Dave Carr, Monica Snyder Tomaszewski, May Beth O’Neill Weber, Michael Weber. Back row: Mark Meyer, Joyce Doll-Carr, Sheila Torangeau Morgan, Manon Tolmer, Chikodi Onuoha, Tobias Onuaha.

Not pictured, Jim and Cheryl Blanchard.

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Aquinas

For “2s and 7s” classes beginning with 1962 and 1967 through 2007, here are other dates to note: Sept. 27, Hall of Fame dinner; Sept. 28, individual class get-togethers; and Sept. 30, Golden Saints brunch for graduates from at least 50 years ago.

I also invite you to be an active participant in the committee structure that will be established to make calls, or send emails to those with whom you hope to celebrate.

I will continue to develop, with your assistance, reunion committees for the 2012 Reunion classes. I will be in touch with you. Please send your self-nomination for your class reunion committee to: witteali@aquinas.edu or 616-632-2453. I hope to see you here for these celebrations.

45th reunion: Front row (left to right): Chris Nawrocki Downer, Mary Jane Gazella, Anne Locke Wall, Eleanor Schick Silva, Bernadette Mlynarchek Maitner, Patricia Omilian Nolan. Middle row: Margaret Lucas Mote, Patricia Steve McCabe, Gerry Maurer Orszula, Marianne Zarimba Koukios, Judy Fudold Doyle, Tony Nolan. Back row: John Otterbacher, Joe Burns, Dan Gryzen, Bill Zoller, Pat Kowaleski.

40th reunion: Front row (left to right): Maureen Corby Downer, Murielle Mercier Dreyer, Gail Wingard, Jennifer Wood Shangraw, Katie Van Tiem Lechy, Robert Lechy, Gregory Gosky, Patrick Hennessey, Mary Ann Gabel Filush, Cynthia Sordyl Clingman, Carol Jourden Shepard, Dolores Peplinski Danforth. Second row: Paulette Granke Manning, Edward Manning ‘69, Margie Hydo Glowski, Juan Olivarez, Ronald Green, Joseph Murray, John Lange, James Filush, Thomas Burkey, Joan Blake Plonka, Aloise O’Connor Lewakowski, Michael Lewakowski. Third row: James Glowski ‘69, Joey Hilton Miller ‘72, Colleen O’Brien Stribley, Ann McCauley Hughes, Frank Hughes, Carl Shangraw, Julie Burns Devereaux, Sarah Gallagher Kelsch, Joan Savage Flesch, Gloria Sullivan Hillary, Mae Morris, Carol Wolsfeld Ferrigan. Back row: Alfinio Olivarez ‘70, David Rodriguez, Mary Tychyj Olivarez ‘72, Edward Bailey, Laurence Burke, Robert Wolford, Mike Devereaux, Don Muscat, Mary Scheer Lange, Christy Lancaster Dykgraaf, Paul Leonard, James Brunson, Kenneth Flesch.

THAT’S A FACT College

{

WO M EN AT WO RK Aquinas was one of three Grand Rapids organizations honored with the

2012 Huntington Pillar Award

by the Women’s Resource Center, for their dedication to

}

empowering women in the workplace.

31

K

Kelly Dittmar was an exceptional student while at Aquinas and since graduating in 2006, she’s proven herself to be “the real deal.”

After continuing her work on gender dynamics in politics, while earning her Ph.D. in political science from Rutgers in October, Dittmar became the first Aquinas or Rutgers student to receive a Congressional Fellowship. The fellowship has Dittmar working in Washington, D.C., under Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, on legislation dealing with women, children, and families.

She was one of only seven recipients of the fellowship awarded by the American Political Science Association.

“It is a great honor and allows me to be a part of ‘practical politics’ after spending five years in the academic realm of political science,” Dittmar said.

Rep. DeLauro, she added, “is a true champion for women. I have been able to watch the congresswoman in action, talk with her about policies and politics, and learn immensely from her and my colleagues.”

Kelly Dittmar returns as Resourceful Women’s keynote speaker

By Samantha Rinkus ‘11

Dittmar returned to Aquinas as keynote speaker at the March 30-31 Resourceful Women’s Conference, giving a talk titled “From the Sidelines to the Senate: Women in American Politics.” She was chosen both because of her work in politics as well as her postgraduate success, in hopes she could “cut through the ideological noise and provide some clarity for us about the state of American politics,” said assistant history professor Dr. Bethany Kilcrease.

Dittmar graduated from Aquinas with majors in political science, Spanish and sociology. She also participated in Model UN, the POLIS studies club, Insignis, spent a semester in Costa Rica, and earned the Outstanding Aquinas Woman Award, Outstanding Senior Award and Bukowski Award for the Outstanding Graduate.

But it was Dittmar’s passion and commitment, not only to Aquinas and her own education but to the betterment of others, which really set her apart, teachers said.

“She was absolutely in the top three students that I’ve had in my years of teaching,” said Dr. Roger Durham, political science chairman. “She’s the real deal.”

So are the faculty who educated her and invited her back to speak, Dittmar said.

“I am so grateful that the organizers felt I was worthy of giving the keynote,” Dittmar said. “It’s just another example of how much faith Aquinas faculty members have in their students, and of the close relationships that alumni keep with the Aquinas family.”

Bonnie Wesorick 2012 Outstanding Alumna

By Doug Seites ‘10

Bonnie Wesorick ‘77 will be awarded the Alumni Association’s 2012 Outstanding Alumna Award at the Hall of Fame Gala on Sept. 27.

Wesorick was selected for her achievements in three categories: excellence in academic and professional pursuits; contributions to community and humanity; and service to Aquinas. Her life’s work has made an impact on countless people around the globe.

Wesorick is the founder and chairwoman emeritus of the Clinical Practice Model (CPM)

Resource Center, a health-care solutions firm, and the founder of the CPM International Consortium.

Her innovative work has revolutionized medical practice and automation and brought health-care providers together from across the continent. Currently, 300 healthcare sites from 26 states utilize her tools.

Wesorick is also an internationally known author and has been a keynote speaker at conferences around the world.

She and her husband, David, have three sons.

T.J.Hamilton/Mlive

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Aquinas

Aquinas Fund Update

By Kate Davis and Bridget Harrigan

Meijer family quiet contributors to Aquinas

By Charles Honey

When Fred Meijer passed away Nov. 25, Aquinas

The college also has benefited significantly from

College lost a generous benefactor and Sister Mary

the support of son Mark, a 1980 Aquinas grad. He

Aquinas Weber lost a friend.

has been a major factor in the success of the alumni

The chancellor emerita recalled meeting Meijer

breakfast series, providing matching funds to expand

while strolling through Frederick Meijer Gardens and

the annual events around the state and country.

Sculpture Park. Seeing her name tag, he said, “Oh,

Mark Meijer also has been “a critical part of our

you’re a nun.” “No, I’m a sister,” she corrected the

Aquinas Fund effort,” McAleenan said. He serves on

Meijer superstore magnate.

the Science Initiative Committee, which raises funds

“Ever after that I was his favorite ‘nun,’ “ Sister Aquinas

for equipment and research, and on the Sturrus

said with a smile.

Sports & Fitness Center Committee.

Their relationship nicely symbolized the ties between

His experience as an Aquinas undergrad, when he

the Meijer family and Aquinas. Through the Meijer Foundation and family members, the Meijers have quietly, but significantly, supported Aquinas ventures

fit his studies in between working as an ambulance driver and medic, motivated Mark to support it later in his career. His positive experience here, in turn,

for more than a decade.

influenced his father’s generosity toward Aquinas.

Aquinas recognized Fred and Lena Meijer for their

“What really cemented (my) going to Aquinas was

contributions to Grand Rapids cultural arts with an honorary degree in 2005.

“Fred cared about higher education,” said Greg McAleenan, vice president of advancement. “Aquinas was fortunate to benefit from that interest.”

Aquinas has benefited from Meijer support of the Aquinas Fund, the Conductive Education Program, the Performing Arts Center, the Meijer House and the Sturrus Sports & Fitness Center scoreboard. Lena endowed an art professorship, and son and Meijer CEO Hank has heavily supported the Contemporary Writers Series.

their flexibility and respect for those folks that were working full-time,” said Meijer, who majored in business administration. “That customer service and lack of pretense is what has endeared Aquinas to me.”

It also endeared his father, who wasn’t able to go to college because he was helping his father run their first grocery store. Fred Meijer “had a great deal of respect for the educational process and ensuring people had an opportunity for access to education,” Mark said, “but in a way that respected their ability to work and support themselves and their family in the

We think we can speak for everyone who has been involved with Aquinas College’s 125th anniversary year when we say it truly has been an incredible experience. As co-directors of the Aquinas Fund, we have had the opportunity to meet and celebrate with some of our esteemed donors through events highlighting the four Dominican charisms: prayer, study, service and community. These in addition to our routine events, mailings, e-mails, and phone calls have made for a busy year, to say the least.

However, it is all worth it! Due to the generosity of our donors – alumni, parents, friends, employees, even current students – Aquinas continues to provide scholarships for qualifying students. Many of the brightest, most worthy students would not be here without financial aid. Not to mention the Wege Foundation’s generous offer to help increase alumni participation by for every new gift donating or for any gift made for the first time in at least five years. With all of this being said, we are approximately halfway to our goal of

$250

$1.3 million.

Again, we cannot say thank you enough to those who have participated. Let’s aim to commemorate the rest of the 125th anniversary in the spirit of being Saints!

process.”

We urge you to get involved! Come to an event, check us out on Facebook or Twitter, read our blog, or donate at aquinas.edu/giving today!

College

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Families Give to New Scholarship Program Some are named for a devoted parent. Some are for a beloved teacher.

One is in memory of a dear son who passed away too soon.

“The strong response so far reflects the lasting relationships donors fostered at Aquinas,” she added.

All are Family Legacy Scholarships, given by Aquinas alumni, faculty and friends to honor this 125th anniversary year. This special program gives families the opportunity to establish endowed scholarships for $15,000 – half the normal $30,000 required to start a new scholarship – which can be paid over five years. Donors are invited to determine the requirements for recipients, and to name their gifts after individuals or organizations with special meaning for them.

“For many of the families, this is the largest gift they’ve ever considered pledging to the college, yet they are doing so with confidence and commitment,” Cunningham said. “Each of these scholarships will be making an impact in the lives of students for generations to come.”

Here are just a few of the donors’ stories, and a list of all Family Legacy Scholarships received at the time AQUINAS magazine went to press. For more information:

“This scholarship represents a new start level that families will be able to augment over the years and through their estate plans,” said Cecilia Cunningham, director of major gifts.

The James D. Kirkwood Family Scholarship Jack and Rita Kirkwood, who met at Aquinas, created this scholarship in memory of their son Jim. Jim was larger than life at 6’6” and played tennis at Aquinas and afterwards.

After graduating and initially pursuing a law degree, he joined the family business, Bulman Products, married his true love, Annie, and fathered a son, Alex. Success resulted from Jim’s hard work in business, yet it was his happy marriage and his deep love of Alex that fulfilled him. In the prime of life, he passed away unexpectedly while celebrating one of his beloved holidays with the people he loved most. They will always miss him. Yet it brings the family great joy to think that another deserving student will receive the James D. Kirkwood scholarship to honor his memory.

Additional Family Legacy Scholarships The John Bailey Family Scholarship

The Laporte Family Scholarship

The Loretta Daele Barnes Scholarship Fund

The O’Brien, Witham, McCargar Music Scholarship

The Michael and Sandra Bardwell Family Scholarship

The Olivarez Family Scholarship

The Carlson Family Scholarship

The Drake Quinn Family Scholarship

The Professor Gary M. Eberle Scholarship

The Sawinski Family Scholarship

The Echelbarger Family Scholarship

The Terhune-Sheridan Endowed Scholarship

The Dr. Ali and Mrs. Hulya Erhan Endowed Scholarship

The Sister Catherine Williams, O.P., Music Scholarship

The Gleason Family Scholarship

The Woodhouse Family Scholarship

The Hillary Family Scholarship The Al and Colette Kessel Family Scholarship for Entrepreneurial Leadership

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If you are interested in establishing a Family Legacy Scholarship, please contact Cecilia A. Cunningham, Aquinas director of major gifts, at 616-632-2816 or c.cunningham@aquinas.edu

Aquinas

The Asar Family Scholarship Vinit Asar has long been an ardent supporter of Aquinas College and remembers fondly the excellent education and strong bonds of friendship fostered there.

He is president and chief operating officer at Hanger Orthopedic Group in Austin, Texas. Prior to that Vinit spent 18 years at Johnson and Johnson in a broad continuum of responsibilities in the U.S. and in Europe. He has a B.S.B.A. from Aquinas and an M.B.A. from Lehigh University.

He is pleased to be able to establish this scholarship during the 125th anniversary to help the next generation of Aquinas students have access to his beloved alma mater. He recalled, “As a foreign student coming to the U.S. in 1986 as a freshman, the Aquinas experience was nothing short of excellent – in large part because of the people that make Aquinas College what it is!”

The Michael and Rachel Mraz Family Scholarship Rachel and Mike Mraz met at and graduated with honors from Cornell University. Both of them have embarked on successful business careers in West Michigan, and are committed deeply to the importance of quality higher education as the backbone for achievement, and decided to invest in education in West Michigan. Driven by values of integrity and high ethical standards, Rachel and Mike felt a kindred spirit with the mission of Aquinas College and have chosen to establish a scholarship at Aquinas. They are the youngest non-alumni, community couple to establish an endowment scholarship at the college.

Mike and Rachel are actively involved in many nonprofit organizations in West Michigan and beyond. When they are not engaged in business or community activities, they enjoy walking their Great Danes though the Aquinas campus or traveling to new parts of the world. The couple has been inspired by Aquinas’ programs for international outreach and connectivity to global issues.

THAT’S A FACT College

{

BU D D I N G SC H O L A R S

Sarah Allen, a sociology/psychology major, and junior Aimee Shemanski, political science/French, won 2011 Earhart Emerging Scholar Senior

awards from the Michigan Colleges Foundation.

}

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Corporate Partnership program

Associate Partners

T

The Corporate Partnership program is growing with great momentum not only in numbers but also in its impact. Aquinas is now a new partner of the Manufacturers Council, working with member firms to improve partnership opportunities and providing real-life applications to students and money saving applications to business. Aquinas continues to be a resource to our community.

Under Dr. Ali Erhan’s leadership, international business students researched and delivered the results of Kindel Furniture’s efforts in entering five foreign markets. Students worked with company representatives responding to their needs and aims, and marketed Kindel’s 100% domestic production in Grand Rapids. This resulted in the flexibility to modify any of their designs to international markets.

The Aquinas Center for Sustainability is a team member partnered with Blue Sphere Inc. in the Michigan Green Chemistry Clearinghouse project. The overall goal of the initiative, funded by a three-year grant from the state of Michigan, is to accelerate green chemistry awareness, innovation and investment in Michigan by creating and supporting an informed, connected community of green chemistry advocates. The clearinghouse aims to be a dynamic and interactive online source of information, resources, databases, learning opportunities and interactive tools for citizens, business and industry professionals, educators and others.

The Center for Sustainability, Cascade Engineering/Cascade Consulting Group and Florida-based NextLife are working with dmStrategists, a sustainablility software firm, to develop an innovative suite of resources for helping companies of all sizes move toward sustainability. The Web-based assessment tools, business applications, training and on-site support services are designed to help companies find ways to drive cost savings, performance gains, and market traction opportunities through the deployment of sustainable business practices. Aquinas and the Center for Sustainability contributes expertise and innovation in sustainable business education as an Alliance Partner.

President’s Circle

Executive Partners

Partners

Amway AT&T Bissell Inc. Central Interconnect D&D Printing Global Forex Trading GR Dominican Sisters Howard Miller Co. Huntington Bank Meijer Corporation Merrill Lynch NETech Corporation Pearson Foods Rockford Companies Steelcase Inc.

Chemical Bank Comerica Bank Dematic Corp.

Erhardt Construction Gill Industries Fifth Third Bank Lacks Enterprises Lake Mich Credit Union Magic Steel Corp.

Mercantile Bank Rehmann Robson Spartan Stores UBS Financial Services Van Dyken Mechanical Varnum Riddering Williams Group Wolverine World Wide

2/90 Sign Systems Inc. ADAC Automotive Angel Care Baker Spindler Holtz Berends Hendricks Stuit Bucher Hydraulics Cascade Engineering Centennial Securities Creative Dining Crowe Howath LLP D. Schuler’s Wine Feyen-Zylstra Electric GE Avionics Grand Rapids Plastics Kent Manufacturing Leon Plastics, Inc. Metro Health Hospital Mosaic Wealth Management N orthwestern Mutual Financial Network Louis Padnos

36

PNC Bank Pepsi Bottling Group Rehmann Robson Saint Mary’s Health Care Service Express Vi-Chem Corp.

Weather Shield Roofing Systems

Newest Corporate Partners A-1 Tent Rental Associated Insurance Design Auto-Owners Insurance Company Bucher Hydraulics Carter Products Crowne Plaza Hotel Northern Trust Bank Prudential Financial Swaney Sales UPS Witte Travel

A-1 Tent Rental Accident Fund ADAC Automotive Adamy + Company Alro Steel Angel Care AON Consulting Arrowaste Associated Insurance Auto Owners Insurance AXA Advisors Bartlett Tree Experts Beene Garter LLP Black Monument Bradford Company Caltech Industries Campbell Group Carter Products Control Solutions Cole’s Quality Foods Columbian Enterprise Crowne Plaza Hotel Crystal Flash Energy Datatel Minicomputer Co. Dickinson Wright D.J. Lawn Service D. Schuler’s Wine Dooge Veneers Inc. Eikenhout Inc. Flexco Founders Bank & Trust Forest Hills Foods Foremost Graphics Grandville Printing Hanover Insurance Henry Fox Sales Highland Chrysler Infotech Imaging Products Inc. Kay Pharmacy Kent Beverage Kone Inc. Lakeshore Energy Services Marsh/Mercer Martha’s Vineyard Micron Technology Northfield Lanes Prangley & Marks Pridgeon & Clay Priority Health Progressive AE Prudential Financial Restoration Tech River City Mech Rogers Printing S.A. Morman Inc. Shred Docs LLC Stokes & Stocking Superior Asphalt Swaney Sales Terryberry Company TH Plastics Wells Fargo Bank West Side Beer Williams Group Witte Travel Wolverine Coil Wolverine Printing Aquinas

and Hockey BBowling O Join the Lineup

By Doug Seites ‘10

A lot of hard work, time, and consideration go into the decision to add a new athletic program, let alone two in the same year. But Athletic Director Terry Bocian said the timing was right to add bowling and hockey to the Aquinas athletic palette.

“Anytime you look to add a prospective sport, you have to look at the potential student-athletes out there,” Bocian said. “The interest was there, as well as the opportunity for competition within our geographic area.”

The new programs for 2012-13 bring the number of Aquinas athletic teams to 24.

For the first time in school history, more than 400 student-athletes will be involved in intercollegiate athletics.

“I think we can surprise people.”

With the dramatic rise of bowling and the growth of youth hockey, adding these sports helps Aquinas reach prospective students who otherwise might not check out the school. Bocian said bowling is the fastest growing sport at the high school and small-college levels. The men’s and women’s bowling teams will hold tryouts for interested current students, and head coach Frank Rogers has begun recruiting student-athletes for the program which begins competition late next fall.

“Most of the athletes we have spoken with had never considered Aquinas until now,” Rogers said.

The bowling teams will compete for a Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference championship. Rogers says the teams will be looking to make a move right away with a group of competitive bowlers that are good students as well.

The hockey team’s journey to varsity status took a much different road. Aquinas historically has had club hockey teams that competed in area men’s leagues. Current team members’ efforts helped move along the process of becoming a varsity sport.

Coach Mark Van Vliet, with more than 35 years’ experience in area hockey, will head the new program. The team will compete nationally in the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s Division III. It was accepted as a member of the Michigan Collegiate Hockey Conference and will compete in the West Division. Coach Van Vliet considers the Saints’ new league to be one of the best in Division III.

{

“It will be tough at first, but the goal is to compete,” Van Vliet added. “I think we can surprise people.”

THAT’S A FACT College

STAY CO N N EC TED

digital native to keep up with Aquinas on Facebook. Just go to aquinas.edu, click on the blue F logo, then click like on the AQ Facebook

You don’t have to be a

page. Now you’re online with all things Aquinas!

}

37

Aquinas Earns 10th Straight Champions of Character Honors

Aquinas Athletes Run For Others

For the 10th consecutive year, the Aquinas College

By John Wofford ‘13

Photo by Dave Johnson

athletics program has been honored for the qualities it

Aquinas College is committed to its heritage and the Dominican charisms both inside and outside the classroom. As Nicholas Thelen, a senior and member of the college’s cross country program, will confirm.

embodies beyond wins and losses.

For the past four years, the team has participated in myTEAM TRIUMPH, which pairs people with disabilities with talented athletes in a competitive race-to-the-finish.

Character Institution. In order to receive the award,

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics recognized Aquinas as a Five Star Champions of Aquinas had to score above a 60 percent rating in character training, conduct in competition, academic

By taking on a racing partner, people who would otherwise be unable to race are given the opportunity to participate in an exciting athletic effort. Thelen sees this as one of many avenues to serving others that characterize Aquinas.

focus, character recognition and character promotion.

This high honor reflects Aquinas’ values as a Catholic college in the Dominican tradition, said Athletic Director

“I think overall the whole athletic program does a pretty good job of trying to reach out,” Thelen said.

Terry Bocian.

A special lingo has developed for these races. Captains are the participants with disabilities. Angels are the athletes who push their captains to victory. MyTEAM TRIUMPH organizes several types of races, from triathlons to marathons.

‘champions of character’ long before this program began

“I believe that Aquinas College emphasized the traits of through the national organization,” Bocian said. “This is a credit to the Dominican order of sisters and priests who emphasized its charisms when the school was founded

Thelen’s fall 2011 experience through the Aquinas cross country team was in the Metro Health Grand Rapids Marathon. He has participated in the program three of the past four years that Aquinas has been involved.

125 years ago.”

Veteran Aquinas coach Linda Nash agrees, expressing

“It’s mostly our way that we share our enjoyment of running,” Thelen said of the impact the program has on a potentially overlooked segment of the community.

pride in the student-athletes and coaches who have “strived to be the best they can be in all aspects of their lives.”

The night before the race is an opportunity for captains to meet or reunite with their angels. All arrive the next day at 5 a.m.

“Community service and outreach to others has long

“We divide up that morning into teams of three. Each team will run a seven-to-10 mile leg, hand off the cart to the next team – and that’s how we get through the whole marathon.”

Nash, women’s basketball coach for 16 years. “Student-

The 26.2-mile race takes teams about three hours to complete before Aquinas angels cross the finish line with their captains to receive a finisher’s medal.

“All of our (Aquinas) races are special, but (the captains) only get to do this once or twice a year,” Thelen said. “It’s really exciting for them, and that makes it really exciting for us.”

For more information about myTEAM TRIUMPH, visit myteamtriumph.com

AQ Athletics Hall of Fame

athletes at Aquinas College share a bond stemming from competition, but what is most impressive to me is the time and energy spent on making the world a better place. Our student-athlete advisory board is very involved in campus and worldwide initiatives.”

Programs the Saints are involved in include Grand Rapids Catholic Social Services, Grand Rapids Home for Veterans and the “Pink Zone” program benefiting breast cancer research.

1971 men’s cross country team under coach John Flaminio won Aquinas’ first NAIA state championship

Brandon Lowe ’99

basketball, second leading scorer in Aquinas history 38

been a commitment of the athletic department,” said

Christy ( Jaklinski) Paganelli† ’93 softball, Borowicz’s catcher, strong hitter and team leader

Jodi Borowicz ’93

softball, finished career holding virtually every AQ pitching record

Aquinas

Above and Beyond Fall 2011 N A I A A ll-A mericans

C

Chelsea Phillips became the eighth women’s volleyball player in Aquinas history to be named to the NAIA All-American team. The 6-foot middle blocker from Holland finished her illustrious career as Aquinas’ all-time kills leader. Phillips tallied 1,402 kills over her four years to eclipse the previous mark held by former teammate Mollie Lounds. In addition to being named All-American, Phillips was twice named to the All-WHAC first team. Chelsea led the Saints this past season to a 26-12 record as part of a 101-42 mark for her career, and captained the team the past two seasons. “Chelsea matured a lot as a volleyball player from her freshman year to her senior year. Her solid offensive play for four years, allowed her to record the most kills by an Aquinas player, putting her on top of the record board in that category. Already an all-conference player, Chelsea’s performance her senior year was also worthy of getting her honorable-mention All-American recognition, a well-earned honor after hard work and consistent play,” said coach Betsy Vander Meer.

Jamie Tomaszewski (near left) provided the offensive fireworks for coach Mark Fales’ women’s soccer crew in 2011 as the Saints claimed the WHAC regular season title and posted a 16-4 record. The senior from Fenton received NAIA All-American honors after her 16-goal, five-assist season for the Saints. Five of Jamie’s goals were game-winners and she was named the NAIA’s National Offensive Player of the Week (Sept.

19-25) for tallying seven goals in two matches. In addition, Tomaszewski was named Offensive Player of the Year in the WHAC. “Jamie’s motor redlines all of the time,” said coach Fales. “She wants to beat you and score every time she touches the ball.”

Devin Lea concluded his cross country career with an All-American effort at the 2011 NAIA National Championships in Fort Vancouver, Wash. Lea ran a personal best of 24:47 to claim 27th place at the meet. Devin’s performance propelled the Saints to an overall 12th place team finish. Lea was also honored as the WHAC Runner of the Year as he claimed the conference championship. “Devin is a

Kelsey Duley played an instrumental role in the Saints’ soccer success in 2011. The senior goalie from Cadillac anchored the Aquinas defense as she recorded nine shutouts. Duley was honored by the NAIA with All-American honors as she went 15-4 with a .94 goals against average. Kelsey’s poise in the net led the Saints on a 13-game winning streak and carried them to the WHAC regular season title.

Duley concluded her stellar career as the all-time Aquinas saves leader with 373. Fales said, “Kelsey is as solid as they come. Duley was a tremendous anchor and leader for this team. She will be missed.”

workhorse and he epitomizes everything it means to be a student-athlete here at Aquinas College,” said coach Mike Wojciakowski.

College

39

Fall Sports Wrap Women’s Cross Country The team claimed its third straight WHAC Championship this past fall. With their victory at the conference meet, the Saints received an automatic bid to the NAIA National Championships in Fort Vancouver, Wash. The Saints were led

by All-WHAC performers Catie Rietsema, Alina Dhaseleer and Carly Plank. Seniors Emily Sandula (left) and Megan Byrne were both awarded second-team honors for their performance at the WHAC Championships. The team finished in 22nd place at the national championships.

Men’s Cross Country The men’s squad “took back the WHAC” this past fall after a two-year absence from the top spot, earning their eighth conference title in the past 10 years. The Saints placed 12th at the NAIA National Championships, which were contested in Fort Vancouver, Wash. The Saints were led by All-American and WHAC Runner of the Year Devin Lea. Lea teamed up with Dustin Heiler (right), Nick Thelen and Mike Gravelyn on the All-WHAC first team, while Kolin Stickney and Jim Janisse were honored on the second team.

40

Aquinas

Women’s Soccer This team was the buzz around campus last fall as the Saints were crowned regular season WHAC champions. The Saints, guided by Coach Fales, posted a 16-4 regular season record and a perfect 6-0 in league play. Aquinas was defeated by Siena Heights in the WHAC Tournament Championship game.

Senior forward Jaime Tomaszewski and senior goalie Kelsey Duley were named NAIA All-Americans and WHAC offensive and defensive players of the year, respectively. Freshman Melissa Hogan earned All-WHAC 1st team honors, while Maggie Keiffer, Elizabeth Vaughn, Natalie Walter, Monica Rischiotto, and Matthea Brandenburg (below left) also received All-WHAC accolades.

Men’s Soccer The Saints posted a record of 15-4-2 and finished conference play in second place with a 3-1-2 record. Their season ended in a thrilling double-overtime loss at the hands of Madonna (1-0) in the WHAC Tournament Championship game. Coach Joe Veal’s crew was led by the All-WHAC 1st team efforts of Tyler Fischer, Michael Gagon and Jesse Guevara-Lehker (below right). Fischer led the offensive attack with 14 goals and six assists, while Guevara-Lehker anchored the defense with eight shutouts and a .80 goals against average. On Oct. 5, the Saints

Women’s Volleyball The Saints volleyball team continues to excel

defeated Marygrove to elevate coach Veal to the winningest coach in Aquinas College Men’s Soccer history. Veal concluded his seventh season at the helm with an Aquinas record of 96-38-7, and has amassed 199 total career college victories.

as they completed the season with a record of 26-12 and finished in fifth place in the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference. The Saints were led

by Chelsea Phillips, who was named to the 1st team All-WHAC squad and to the NAIA’s All-American Honorable Mention team. Career digs leader Sarah LeClair and WHAC Freshman of the Year Allison Griffiths both were recognized as Honorable Mention All-WHAC performers. Jessica Curtis (above) and Heather Engle joined Phillips and LeClair in concluding the most successful four year run in Aquinas history.

College

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McKinney Competes at USA Indoor Nationals Aquinas College’s Rumeal McKinney competed among the nation’s elite this winter in Albuquerque, N.M. at the USA Track & Field Indoor National Championships. The senior sprinter from Southfield competed in the 60-meter dash.

McKinney qualified for the championships by posting a time of 6.68 at the Grand Valley State Holiday Open in December. A fearless competitor who was the 2009 NAIA Indoor National Champion in the same event, McKinney entered the prestigious meet with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“I had one goal in mind heading to the championships and that was to perform at a high level and represent for my school and my family,” McKinney said. “I am thankful to coach (Dave) Wood for giving me this opportunity.”

McKinney ran in the first of three heats to determine which 16 athletes would advance to the semifinal round. His heat featured former world and Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin. Gatlin won in a blazing 6.51, with Rumeal finishing at 6.84.

Though he did not advance, McKinney gave everyone associated with the Aquinas Track & Field program a sense of pride and accomplishment.

2011 Fall Athletic Honors Women’s Volleyball

• All Conference 1st Team: Chelsea Phillips • All Conference Honorable Mention: Allison Griffiths, Sarah LeClair • Conference Freshman of the Year: Allison Griffiths • Academic All Conference: Jessica Bredeweg • Champion of Character: Heather Engle • All American Honorable Mention: Chelsea Phillips

Men’s Soccer

• All Conference 1st Team: Tyler Fischer, Michael Gagnon, Jesse Guevara-Lehker • All Conference 2nd Team: Kyle Haverkate, Heath Somers • All Conference Honorable Mention: Billy Cremeans, Sven Welz • Academic All Conference: Joey VanGessel, Logan Wagner • Champion of Character: Michael Gagnon

Women’s Soccer

• All Conference 1st Team: Kelsey Duley, Melissa Hogan, Jaime Tomaszewski • All Conference 2nd Team: Maggie Keiffer, Elizabeth Vaughn • All Conference Honorable Mention: Matthea Brandenburg, Monica Rischiotto, Natalie Walter • Academic All Conference: Kelsey Duley, Matthea Brandenburg, Monica Rischiotto, Natalie Walter • Conference Coach of the Year: Mark Fales • Champion of Character: Jackie Gipe • All American Honorable Mention: Jaime Tomaszewski, Kelsey Duley • Academic All American: Matthea Brandenburg, Kelsey Duley, Monica Rischiotto 42

Men’s Cross Country

• All Conference 1st Team: Devin Lea, Dustin Heiler, Nick Thelen, Mike Gravelyn • All Conference 2nd Team: Kolin Stickney, Jim Janisse • Academic All Conference: Nick Thelen, Devin Lea, Eddie Seymour, Andrew Libs, Kevin Marah, Dustin Heiler, Killian Smith • Champion of Character: Andrew Libs • Conference Coach of the Year: Mike Wojciakowski • All American: Devin Lea • Academic All American: Nick Thelen, Devin Lea, Eddie Seymour, Andrew Libs, Kevin Marah

Women’s Cross Country

• All Conference 1st Team: Catie Rietsema, Alina Dhaseleer, Carly Plank • All Conference 2nd Team: Emily Sandula, Megan Byrne • Academic All Conference: Emily Sandula, Alina Dhaseleer, Rachel Reyna, Carly Plank, Jackie Katt, Rachel Luehm, Megan Byrne • Champion of Character: Alina Dhaseleer • Conference Coach of the Year: Mike Wojciakowski • Academic All American: Emily Sandula, Alina Dhaseleer, Rachel Reyna, Carly Plank, Jackie Katt Aquinas

Class Notes

Photo by Rochelle Cheever

To Rome, in love

By Samantha Rinkus ’11

Nick Perez ’11 has a special reason to give Aquinas’ Italy program “a lot of props.” He used the opportunity to both propose to then-girlfriend Katie (Fannon) and get the inspiration for the wedding’s venue: the Cappella del Coro (Choir Chapel) in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica.

Using the connections he made while studying in Rome in fall 2010, Nick was able to navigate the difficult process of securing the chapel for the Oct. 25 ceremony. And despite the strict schedule and security procedures for their 48 guests, the day went perfectly.

“We look at the pictures now and can’t even fathom that it was real life,” said Katie ’07. “It was phenomenal. More than a dream.”

“It was an amazing experience,” Nick said. “When Katie walked into St. Peter’s everyone just kind of parted; she was definitely the center of attention. Walking around Rome, everyone was just yelling and cheering because we got married.”

THAT’S A FACT

College

{

SI M P LY GR A N D AQ Theatre took home four of a possible

}

six 2011 Grand

Awards for College Theatre, including Outstanding Production for These Shining Lives.

43

Class Notes

1950 1964 1971

Eugene Skazinski of Grand Rapids received a Bronze

Aquinas trustee Dennis M. Echelbarger has been

Kenneth Dutkiewicz is working throughout Asia in

Star Medal and Presidential Unit Citation for his

appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to serve on the

his role as Director of Global Learning for Steelcase,

World War II service. Skazinski taught at Grand Rapids

Commission on Community Action and Economic

Inc. He and his wife Patti Faust Dutkiewicz ‘71 have

Catholic Central High School for 25 years and served

Opportunity. The commission aims to reduce the

completed their first year in Hong Kong.

in Europe during the war.

causes and effects of poverty and help foster selfsufficiency for low-income Michigan residents.

1979 1956 1969

Sally (Anderson) Olszewski was recently named

Margaret Glinke recently had several paintings and

volunteer of the month by the Sparrow Women’s

prints displayed at Henry Ford Hospital in Macomb,

Brian Williams (below) received one of Canada’s

Board of Managers and Sparrow Volunteer Services

Mich. A self-taught artist with a degree in medical

highest civilian honors in being named to the Order

Department. Olszewski began volunteering in the

technology, her collection features scenery from

of Canada for his work as a sports broadcaster.

Lansing, Mich. hospital in 1998.

Michigan and Hawaii.

Considered the dean of Olympic sports broadcasting in Canada, he has covered 13 Olympic Games. In

1963

2006, he received an honorary doctorate from Aquinas when he delivered the commencement address.

1980

Stanley Sidor Ph.D. was appointed president

Norbert Bufka of Midland, Mich., recently published

of South Piedmont Community College in North

“From Bohemia to Good Harbor” telling the story

Carolina. He comes to SPCC from Daytona State

of his family and its historic farm in Leelanau County

College in Daytona Beach, Fla., where he served as

over three generations. Proceeds from book sales will

provost of the Advanced Technology Center Campus

benefit Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear.

and associate vice president for the College of Engineering Technology and Occupational Programs.

He and his wife Michele ‘80 reside in North Carolina.

44

Aquinas

Class Notes

1984 1997 2001 In February, the Catholic High School League

Marcie M. (Witkowski) Hillary (below) has been

Elizabeth Dudek Kennedy moved from Chicago

(Archdiocese of Detroit) saluted Paul Assenmacher

named executive director of Hospice of Michigan/

to Los Angeles (Studio City), where she continues to

as one of the top 85 male athletes in league history

West Michigan. Marcie previously served as VP

work for Loyola Press as a Field Representative/Sales

as the league celebrates its 85th anniversary.

of community relations for Hospice of Michigan,

Support. She is also involved with the Junior League

Assenmacher had a long major-league career as a

which oversees care for nearly 200 patients. As

of Los Angeles, working on the Communications

pitcher with the Atlanta Braves.

executive director, she will have increased flexibility

Committee and the quarterly newsletter Inspire.

and authority to engage with other regional leaders,

1988

donors, hospitals and other patient-care organizations.

Aquinas trustee Patrick A. Miles Jr. was named a 2011

2003

Michigan Super Lawyer in Business/Corporate Law

of Real Estate Development and Management of

Super Lawyers, a listing of outstanding lawyers from

Inner City Christian Foundation (ICCF) in Grand

more than 70 practice areas. He also was nominated

Rapids. Schmidt previously owned a construction and

in March by President Obama to serve as U.S. attorney

development consulting firm in Baltimore, Md.

for West Michigan. The nomination requires Senate

Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge is pleased to announce

Ryan Schmidt recently was named the new Director

confirmation.

that Michele M. Giordano has joined the firm’s Grand

1994 1998

Rapids office as an associate attorney. She will focus on representing clients in divorce, post-divorce, custody and adoption matters.

Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Marty Gerencer to the

Michigan Food Policy Council, a 25-member board

that recommends programs and policies to ensure

After joining Accident Fund Insurance Company

Michigan residents have access to a safe and healthy

of America only 18 months ago, Scott David was

food supply. Gerencer is principal owner at Morse

awarded the Accident Fund Leadership Award.

Marketing Connections, LLC, a North Muskegon-

The award is given to an employee who exhibits

based national food consulting agency focused on

exceptional leadership qualities. David resides in

the importance of agriculture and food systems to the

Traverse City with his wife, Dr. Roseanna (Stempky)

nation’s economy and health.

David ’98, and their children.

College

45

Class Notes

2005 2010 Margaret (Peggy) Bynoe graduated with her

Brad Bosserman recently joined NDN, a Washington,

master’s degree in December from Western Michigan

D.C. think tank, as a policy analyst. He will manage

University. She earned a Master’s in the Art of Teaching

a portfolio of foreign policy and global economic

with an Early Childhood Development endorsement.

issues. With a bachelor’s in economics and political

Andy Oetman accepted a position with the District

science from Aquinas, he is completing a master’s

of Columbia, Department of the Environment. He will be working on the RiverSmart homes program focused on environmental justice, community development, sustainable planning and design.

Geographic Information Systems Analyst for Leelanau County, Mich. He is a graduate of the Aquinas geography program.

Leah Rosenblum is working at the University of Michigan as the assistant director of university annual giving.

Corey Russell is the new sport turf manager for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a Class A-Advanced minor-league team affiliated with the Texas Rangers.

With a degree in Business Administration and Sport Management from Aquinas, he is in charge of everything from batting practice to game preparation.

46

’02 Sarah Carter Conklin and Matthew Conklin, a daughter, Caroline Aoife, on Aug. 10, 2011 ’03 Sarah (Smith) Pepper and Mike Pepper ‘03, a daughter, Anna Elizabeth Pepper (below), on Sept. 21, 2010

in government at Johns Hopkins University. He has contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book on U.S.Iranian strategic competition, and has briefed members of the House and Senate Budget Committees.

2007 2011 Andrew Giguere recently was hired as the

Newcomers

’05 Andrea (Hill) McGarry and Mark McGarry, a daughter, Lily Joy McGarry, on Sept. 9, 2011 ’03 Seth William and Amy Lynn (Westphal) Peters ’05, a son, Blaise William Peters (below) on Feb. 25, 2012; Blaise joins big sister Rita-Marie ’32

Paul Wizniuk is a Dominican volunteer and will serve for one year as assistant campus minister at Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center. He is one of the ministers to the students at the University of Utah, Westminster College and Salt Lake Community College. He has dedicated his life to serving others.

Marriages ’81 Tom (Boz) Kroha and Ann Kirkpatrick, Aug. 20, 2011 ’93 Lorne Neff and Cindy (Butler) Neff, Jan. 31, 2011 ’95 Carrie Dosenberry and Dave Driscoll ’94, Aug. 19, 2011 ’04 Vicki Creps and Damon Bouwkamp ’00, July 23, 2011 ’07 Katrina (Kelly) Michaelis and Eric Michaelis, Nov. 5, 2011

Aquinas

Class Notes

In Memoriam ‘35 Elizabeth K. Collison, March 10, 2012 ‘42 Charles H. Beckmann, father of Bernard A. Beckmann ‘86; grandfather of Scott B. Beckmann ‘98; father of Kathy B. Avey ‘75, Jan. 8, 2012 ‘43 Margaret Filion, Oct. 9, 2011 ’43 Mary A. Pierzchala, Sept. 5, 2011 ‘45 Sr. Jean Milhaupt, Nov. 2, 2011 ‘46 John D. Deeb, brother of Jacqueline A. Deeb ‘50; uncle of Michael J. Deeb ‘57, March 15, 2012 ‘48 Thomas R. Overkleeft, brother of John E. Overkleeft ‘38, Feb. 24, 2012 ‘48 Judith S. Palmer, Feb. 24, 2012 ‘49 Daniel E. Mead, husband of Joan Mead ‘49, Nov. 12, 2011 ‘50 Thomas L. Driscoll, grandfather of Lisa A. Driscoll ‘01, March 29, 2012 ‘50 Rita J. Goense, wife of John G. Goense ‘50; mother of John M. Goense ‘77, Sept. 27, 2011 ‘50 Mary Ann Brakora, spouse of Fred Brakora ‘50, Oct. 17, 2011 ‘50 Shirley A. Key, Jan. 21, 2012 ‘51 Rita C. Brown, spouse of William C. Brown ‘52, Oct. 14, 2011 ‘55 Mary F. Eddington, Aug. 29, 2011 ‘56 Sr. Paschal Barth, April 2, 2012 ‘56 Gerard L. Hansknecht, March 2, 2012 ‘56 Ruth V. Drummond, sister of Beatrice E. Vargas ‘54; sister of Irene A. Essenmacher ‘59; brother of Frank R. Vargas ‘55, Sept. 24, 2011 ‘57 Mary A. Morang, Feb. 3, 2012 ‘59 Sr. Roberta Hefferan, May 18, 2011 ‘60 M. Jeannine Kalisz, March 19, 2012 ‘60 Robert A. Brown, Jan. 10, 2012 ‘61 Nancy M. Fronczak, Feb. 27, 2012 ‘61 Herman J. Wittgens, Dec. 15, 2011 ‘62 Anne M. Fitzgerald, Jan. 22, 2012 ‘62 Sr. Jacqueline M. Hudson, Aug. 3, 2011 ‘62 Joy A. Baker, sister of Lloyd J. Brown ‘55, Feb. 13, 2012

College

‘62 Carroll C. MacInness, Dec. 2, 2011 ‘64 Charles F. Poposki, brother of Frederick S. Prescott ‘57, Oct. 4, 2011 ‘66 Marilyn L. Martin, Oct. 9, 2011 ‘69 Dennis W. Hillary, husband of Gloria M. Hillary ‘71, Dec. 12, 2011 ‘69 Donald R. Ek, Jan. 14, 2012 ‘70 James R. Perry, father of Shawn D. Perry ‘97, Nov. 20, 2011 ‘75 Ellen L. Lennon, wife of Michael J. Lennon ‘75, Nov. 9, 2011 ‘75 Thomas F. Nehring, Jan. 21, 2012 ‘77 Eleanor S. Abbott, Aug. 17, 2011 ‘78 Frances M. Voice, Dec. 7, 2011 ‘78 Edward F. Taylor-Cline, Sept. 4, 2011 ‘80 Dorothy J. Knapp, Sept. 19, 2011 ‘80 Jeannette C. Streeting, Jan. 9, 2012 ‘81 Thomas J. Morrison, Dec. 5, 2011 ‘81 Anthony “Butch” A. Steffes, husband of Connie S. Steffes ‘81; father of Libby Steffes ‘12, Nov. 12, 2011 ‘82 Gregg A. Heisler, Sept. 12, 2011 ‘83 Thomas L. Peterson, Oct. 24, 2011 ‘86 Newton L. Chamberlain, Jan. 31, 2012 ‘86 Donald C. Schanz, Aug. 17, 2011 ‘89 Thomas A. Miller, brother of Daniel J. Miller ‘81; brother of Mary G. Miller ‘92, Aug. 14, 2011 ‘90 Janice L. Piereson, Sept. 3, 2011 ‘91 Jeannette L. Waite, Aug. 5, 2011 ‘94 Suzanne L. VanWeelde, March 14, 2012 ‘07 Jeanine M. Serba, daughter of staff member Judith A. Serba; sister of Donald ‘02, Daniel ‘07, Brent ‘10, Cara and Aleksander (current students), Aug. 6, 2011 Correction Robert Georgi Sr., father of Jacque (Georgi ’75) Kolb, died March 4, 2011. Incorrect information was included in the Fall issue of AQUINAS.

Life of Service Patricia Johnson, a former Aquinas College trustee and longtime West Michigan community activist, died in January at age 74. The Muskegon native and former Aquinas student served as president of the Community Foundation of Muskegon County for 19 years.

Johnson also served on the boards of Mercy Hospital, Muskegon Economic Growth Alliance, Hackley Public Library, Muskegon Area Intermediate School District, Muskegon Family YMCA and was the first woman member of the Muskegon Rotary Club. Under her leadership, the Community Foundation grew from a $4 million endowment to $85 million, and supported the creation of the Grand Valley State University Lake Michigan Center on Muskegon Lake. Johnson was inducted into the GVSU Hall of Fame in 1998. She and her husband, Charles, have been lifelong members of the NAACP. She is survived by her husband and three children: Charles E. III, Julia and Peter.

47

He also distinguished himself in the credit-union movement, serving as president of the Credit Union National Association International in the 1960s. He served on President Johnson’s Consumer Advisory Council, and helped establish credit unions and cooperatives in Tanzania. He and Mildred died in 2007.

Marin family forges strong ties over time

G

By Charles Honey

Generations of Aquinas students knew Kenneth Marin as an expert economics professor. Mara Marin knew him as a wise grandfather.

“He would always explain the clouds to me when I was little,” recalled Mara, 19. “You could talk to him for hours.”

Today, Mara is an Aquinas freshman walking the same wooded paths her grandfather did 65 years ago. On her way to the library, she passes under a 125th anniversary banner showing him as an Aquinas undergrad sitting in class next to Mildred Jablonski, his future wife.

“There’s grandpa, there’s grandma sitting right next to each other,” she marveled with a laugh.

Her cousin and fellow student Charlie Merkel, 21, called it “a classic grandpa pose.”

He and Mara are among the many members of their extended family that have come to Aquinas since Kenneth and Mildred Marin graduated in 1947.

For these students and many others, this anniversary year has prompted an occasion to reflect on why they chose this little Catholic college.

“It’s a great education,” said Mara, whose brother Alexander graduated in December. “There’s just some pull, I guess.”

Aquinas pulled her all the way from St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, where she grew up with her parents, Aquinas grads Kevin ‘77 and Catherine Marin ‘76.

“Both sides of my parents’ families sent all their college-bound kids to Aquinas,” said Kevin Marin, one of Kenneth and Mildred’s six children and a former headmaster who teaches at St. Croix Country Day School.

Aquinas has been central to his family since he and his siblings played on campus. As a student, he loved its small classes, caring professors and “the almost intangible intellectual spark that illuminates every aspect of campus life.”

Former psychology professor George LaMountain called Aquinas “the Athens of the Midwest.” Said Marin, “I hope and believe it remains true today.”

His family’s strong ties reflect the kind of bond many families have felt for Aquinas and its high academic standards, strong Dominican values, personal attention and natural beauty.

The Marin tradition began with Kenneth and Mildred. After graduate work at the University of Michigan, Kenneth returned in 1953 to teach with distinction until 1986.

Their ties to Aquinas were passed on like a strong rope to their children, all of whom attended Aquinas. Four married fellow Saints and five became educators.

David Marin and Teri (Zielinski) Marin met as biology lab partners, graduated in 1974 and 1976, respectively, and later married.

David remembers growing up in a closeknit community, where the professors’ kids all knew each other, and going to the children’s library.

“Aquinas has been the nucelus that our family has orbited,” said David Marin, who has taught at Catholic schools. “Aquinas is steeped in academia, and at the same time it is cutting-edge modern all the time.”

His nephew, Charlie Merkel, likes Aquinas’ small class sizes and opportunities to get involved. So does Mara, who left a Caribbean paradise to come here.

“It’s its own paradise in its own little way,” she said with a smile.