Chapman Magazine Winter 2015

Executive Editor: Sheryl Bourgeois, Ph.D. Executive Vice President for University Advancement

Managing Editor: Mary A. Platt, APR Director of Communications platt@chapman.edu

Editor: Dennis Arp arp@chapman.edu

Staff Writer: Dawn Bonker bonker@chapman.edu

Art Direction: Noelle Marketing Group

Editorial Office: One University Drive Orange, CA 92866-9911 Main: (714) 997-6607 Delivery issues/change of address: (714) 744-2135 Chapman Magazine (USPS #007643) is published quarterly by Chapman University. Š 2015 Chapman University. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

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IN THIS ISSUE UP FRONT

DEPARTMENTS

2

President’s Message

12 Chatter

3

First Person: Phonathon Provides Moments of Growth If Not a New Calling

13 Seen & Heard

CHAPMAN NOW

34 In Memoriam: Marion Knott, Phyllis Escalette 36 Sports: The Chapman Football Team Enjoys a Run to History

6

A Quantum Physics Effect Flies in the Face of a Time-Honored Mathematical Principle

FEATURES

7

Chapman Economists Foresee Expansion Thanks to Consumer Spending

18 Deep in the Heart: Chapman University Singers Share Their Talents in Texas

8

Student Entrepreneurs Provide a Grand Solution for Seniors

20 Adding Clarity to the Spectrum: Easing the Burden of Families Facing Autism

9

There’s More Than Fun in the Sun at the Solar Decathlon

28 Understanding Cancer: Chancellor Struppa’s Class Explores the Complexities

10 Professor Micol Hebron’s “Gallery Tally” Details Gender Inequity

30 A Cut Above: With The Barber, Chapman Filmed Entertainment Breaks New Ground 32 Green-Eyed Insights: Historical Characters Help Illuminate Jealousy Research

ALUMNI NEWS 37 As a CNN Producer, Marjoe Aguiling ’01 Meets an Industry’s Many Demands 38 Class Notes 39 Chapman Stories: Ginger Silverman ’77, Todd Koren ’00, Camille Collard ’10, Dr. Ryan Van Ramshorst ’06, Kat McIver ’07 44

6,000 Miles of Memories: Roommates Reunite Three Decades Later

ON THE COVER: Mary by the Sea by Lee Blair is one of the major California representational works coming to Chapman thanks to a generous gift from Mark and Janet Hilbert. The painting was not only created by a top artist but also depicts one. Blair met Mary Robinson in the early 1930s while they both attended the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles. In this oil-on-canvas painting, he depicts Mary picnicking on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. They married after graduation, and both went on to have significant careers in Hollywood’s animation studios as well as in fine art. Mary Blair became known as one of Walt Disney’s favorite artists and in 1964 designed the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland.

Across these two pages is another work in the Hilbert Collection — San Dimas Train Station, a 1933 watercolor

by Millard Sheets. To read more about the collection and its impact on Chapman, turn to page 24.

CHAPMAN

p r e s i d e n t ’s m e s s a g e

The Precious Gift of Rediscovery A special kind of memory was brought back to light by a young man who recently approached me on campus and said, “I want to shake your hand and say thank you for changing my life.”

Hmmm. You’d think I would remember a person whose life I’d changed. But even after staring intently into his eyes, I drew a blank. He kindly rescued me by saying that he was Faheem Tukhi ’06, the brother of Mir ’99, a Chapman graduate who was killed in a plane crash.

A torrent of memories flooded my mind: losing Mir, a gifted graduate from our Dodge College of Film and Media Arts; meeting his stunned family; witnessing our community’s outpouring of grief; coming together to share our memories and celebrate his life during a moving memorial service on campus.

“Remember,” Faheem continued, “you approached me after the service and told me I should become a Chapman student to carry on my brother’s legacy. And then Chapman gave me a scholarship to make that happen.”

Yes, yes, yes! The memory struck me like a piercing light. As it turned out, Faheem’s experience at Chapman extended beyond receiving his undergraduate degree to becoming a student in our Fowler School of Law.

Board of Trustees OFFICERS David A. Janes, Sr. Chair Wylie A. Aitken Vice Chair David E.I. Pyott Vice Chair Scott Chapman Secretary Zelma M. Allred Assistant Secretary TRUSTEES Donna Ford Attallah ’61 Raj S. Bhathal James P. Burra Michael J. Carver Phillip H. Case Akin Ceylan ’90 Irving M. Chase Hazem H. Chehabi Stephen J. Cloobeck Jerome W. Cwiertnia Zeinab H. Dabbah (J.D. ’12) Kristina Dodge James Emmi Dale E. Fowler ’58 Barry Goldfarb Stan Harrelson Roger C. Hobbs William K. Hood

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Mark Chapin Johnson ’05 Jennifer L. Keller Parker S. Kennedy Joe E. Kiani Joann Leatherby Charles D. Martin James V. Mazzo Joel P. Moskowitz Sebastian Paul Musco Frank O’Bryan Harry S. Rinker James B. Roszak The Honorable Loretta Sanchez ’82 Mohindar S. Sandhu James Ronald Sechrist Ronald M. Simon Ronald E. Soderling Emily Crean Vogler Karen R. Wilkinson ’69 David W. Wilson EMERITUS CHAIRS The Honorable George L. Argyros ’59 Doy B. Henley Donald E. Sodaro EMERITUS TRUSTEES Richard Bertea Lynn Hirsch Booth Arlene R. Craig

Later that day, I received an email from Faheem that included the news that he and his wife were closing on the purchase of their first home, in Orange.

“On the day we are handed the keys, the very first thing we will do is fly a Chapman University flag, which will be a permanent fixture on the exterior of our home,” he said.

I consider rediscovering Faheem and Mir Tukhi one of 2014’s most precious gifts to me. Most of the miracles that occur at Chapman never see the light of day. Yet, we can all be assured that because of the support of so many caring and compassionate individuals, our Faheem Tukhi ‘06 with University is having an impact far greater his brother, Mir ‘99, who died in a plane crash. than any of us can ever imagine possible.

J. Ben Crowell Leslie N. Duryea Robert A. Elliott David C. Henley Jack B. Lindquist Randall R. McCardle ’58 (M.A.’66) Cecilia Presley Barry Rodgers Richard R. Schmid R. David Threshie EX OFFICIO TRUSTEES Donna S. Bianchi James E. Blalock (J.D. ’09) Reverend Don Dewey James L. Doti Kelsey C. Flewellen ’05 Judith A. Garfi-Partridge Reverend LaTaunya Bynum ’76 Reverend Dayna Kinkade Penni McRoberts ’71 Reverend Felix Villanueva Reverend Denny Williams

Board of Governors OFFICERS Judith A. Garfi-Partridge Chair Melinda M. Masson Executive Vice Chair

Regards,

Jim Doti

Thomas E. Malloy Vice Chair Douglas E. Willits ’72 Secretary

Jean H. Macino Richard D. Marconi Melinda M. Masson Jerrel T. Richards

GOVERNORS George Adams, Jr. Marilyn Alexander Lisa Argyros ’07 Margaret Baldwin Deborah Bridges Barbara Brogliatti Eva Chen Paul A. Cook Kathleen M. Gardarian W. Gregory Geiger Steve Greinke Galen Grillo (EMBA ’13) Lula F. Halfacre Rebecca A. Hall ’96 Stan Harrelson Sinan Kanatsiz ’97 (M.A. ’00) Elim Kay ’09 Scott A. Kisting John L. Kokulis Dennis Kuhl Michael Penn (J.D. ’04) Betty Mower Potalivo James F. Wilson

EX OFFICIO GOVERNORS Sheryl A. Bourgeois James L. Doti

EMERITUS GOVERNORS Marta S. Bhathal Kathleen A. Bronstein Gary E. Liebl

President’s Cabinet Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos George L. Argyros, Jr. ’89, (J.D. ’01) Julianne Argyros Joyce Brandman Heidi Cortese Sherman Lawrence K. Dodge Onnolee B. Elliott (M.A. ’64) Paul Folino Douglas K. Freeman Marie Gray Frank P. Greinke Gavin S. Herbert Shelley Hoss Steeve Kay General William Lyon The Honorable Milan Panic Lord Swarj Paul James H. Randall The Honorable Ed Royce Susan Samueli Ralph Stern David Stone Alan L. True

CHAPMAN

THE CALL OF FAMILY CONNECTION

I

first person

By Sohini Mukherjee '16

T’S MORE THAN TWO HOURS INTO MY PHONATHON SHIFT, AND IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I REACHED A REAL LIVE HUMAN BEING. I HEAR A WOMAN’S VOICE AND START TO SPEAK, ONLY TO REALIZE IT’S ANOTHER AUTOMATED MESSAGE. I PUSH THE BUTTON ON MY COMPUTER AND WAIT FOR THE NEXT CALL … AND THE NEXT … AND THE NEXT.

The disappointment builds until … “Hello?” The voice is shaky, but it’s real, and I perk up. This is the best part of my evening calling Chapman University alumni and parents.

Over the next 15 minutes, I discover that my partner in conversation attended Chapman in the ’60s and enjoyed wonderful experiences. But as a woman of Japanese descent, she also describes the discrimination she faced during much of her life, including her time in a wartime internment camp. As we talk more, I share information about myself and life at Chapman these days, but mostly I listen and take notes. The call ends with warm goodbyes and a $20 donation to the Chapman Fund. It could be $20,000 and I wouldn’t feel any better about the experience and her act of generosity.

Over the two years I’ve worked on Phonathon, I’ve learned a number of lessons — in patience, perseverance and, on occasion, diplomacy. I treasure the instances in which the PHONATHON REMINDS pleasantries melt away and the connections deepen. I’ve talked with mothers who worry about ME THAT MY TIME AT their child’s mental health, fathers who wonder if they can pay the next tuition bill, alumni CHAPMAN PROVIDES who are battling cancer and others who are excited about an upcoming wedding or the birth first child.

MORE THAN AN of their Different factors inspire these conversations, though I suspect EDUCATION. IT MAKES that an interested and sympathetic listener is always welcome.

ME PART OF A FAMILY What fascinates me the most is how similar people are. Yes, the IN WHICH JOY AND details of our lives differ, but on the most fundamental level FEAR, HEARTBREAK the emotions and experiences are remarkably comparable.

AND EXCITEMENT GO Phonathon reminds me that my time at Chapman provides HAND IN HAND. more than an education. It makes me part of a family in which joy and fear, heartbreak and excitement go hand in hand.

Of course, being a part of this community doesn’t protect me from setbacks. For every donation I receive, I wade through about 50 rejections. When the no’s start to pile up, I turn to my neighboring student callers for support. Some of these colleagues have become my best friends. Working together in such close quarters, we’ve gotten to know each other on a personal level. Let’s just say that the gossip and good times flow in the Phonathon room.

Lots of good has come from my time making these calls. As a student who benefits from the generosity of donors, I’m proud to help make the Chapman Fund a fountainhead of campus life and learning.

The money we raise pays for scholarships, faculty excellence and student enrichment at Chapman. Then there are Phonathon’s other benefits — the friendships, sense of resilience and deep well of empathy.

I’m keeping those for myself.

Mukherjee is a junior Honors student double-majoring in English and psychology who interned at Chapman Magazine during the fall semester.

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❯❯❯

now

Wall Talk

❯❯ In

Excerpts from conversation on the Global Citizens Wall in the Student Union:

What is your reaction to the grand jury’s decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.?

•

The abuse of power fueled by racism is an atrocity all too well known in this country. We as its citizens must hold our institutions accountable for the loss of black lives. We have a voice, and it will be heard.

•

The decision was made based on facts and not opinions. This is a highly charged debate, but all Americans should take time to see the motivations of those pushing this astray, namely the media in order to get a reaction … which they have. … Can debate be had? Of course. But stop shaming those who may disagree with the grand jury’s decision. That’s their right as Americans. And stop the reckless looting and rioting.

I don’t exactly know which side to trust in this issue. I’d like to believe that we can count on the authorities, but the cynic in me believes that certain officers have abused their power and gotten away with it long enough. Faith and reason need to be restored between those in power and the general public.

NEW CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY

•

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the Next Chapman Magazine

•

The Wimberleys, right, have much that unites them, including that they are all Chapman University students. But the connections they share are never more resonant than when they’re performing as the Wimberley Bluegrass Band.

We profile the singing and strumming siblings.

•

Old perceptions about dyslexia are being turned on their head by a new understanding of its pathways to creativity. We explore the research and meet the innovators preparing for a Chapman dyslexia summit.

❯❯ Chapman

Magazine Online

Don’t forget to check out Chapman Magazine online, with Web-only stories, links to video, slide shows and more. Find it all at chapman.edu/magazine.

Look for these icons indicating additional features available online: – video

– slide show

WEB

– Web-exclusive content

We want to hear from you!

We welcome comments on Chapman Magazine or any aspect of the University experience. Send submissions to magazine@chapman.edu.

GOVERNORS

TRUSTEES

Akin Ceylan ’90

Stan Harrelson

Barbara Brogliatti

Paul Cook

As COO of home entertainment for Lionsgate, Ceylan sets the strategic direction for content operations, providing industry leadership in service and efficient performance. Previously, he was senior vice president for domestic operations at MGM Studios. His daughter, Paige ’17, attends Chapman.

A member of the Chapman Board of Governors since 2012, Harrelson is partner and past CEO of AMS, LLC, which he built from modest beginnings into an international organization with operations in 44 states. Harrelson also is vice chair for the USO and a board member of Habitat for Humanity.

A public relations and cause marketing strategist, Brogliatti is one of the foremost experts on entertainment publicity and corporate and crisis communications. She retired from Warner Bros. as executive vice president to focus largely on philanthropy and teaching.

As general manager of the Irvine Ranch Water District, Cook helps lead innovative water-supply projects. He also serves on the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences Advisory Council. Cook’s wife, Laura, is the daughter of Don and Marty Schmid, among the benefactors of Schmid College of Science and Technology.

CHAPMAN MAGAZINE

❯❯❯

Comments (Posted to stories at chapman.edu/magazine) “In the Spirit of DaVinci” – Fall 2014 feature on Professor Lia Halloran’s class melding art and science

“10 Things You May Not Know About the Fish Interfaith Center” – Fall 2014 The Fish was built while our daughter, Claire, was attending Chapman, and we were there for the grand opening.

It has meant a lot to us from day one, and this article serves to remind us of its magic. – BILL RICHARDSON

I love this article. It’s great to see that Chapman doesn't sequester its students in their little majors but allows learning and exploration across disciplines (just like most of the good careers in the “real world”). Good job, Chapman. – ECLIPSIAN Yes, yes, yes! We need to remind our students that subject areas were never meant to be separated from one another. They became divided for humans to understand our world in smaller pieces.

Very cool article. Thank you. – SONJA

“What Scares You, America?” – Fall 2014 feature about the first Chapman Survey on American Fears I guess I’m a prepper, but my greatest fear is that some executive will cancel my favorite TV show without resolving last season’s cliffhangers. I think “prepper” is used too frequently as a term of derision, and without understanding of the societal spectrum the community inhabits. – PREPPERFARM

“The Shifting Nature of Home” – Summer 2014 essay by Pico Iyer Wow! What a beautiful essay! The “questions that humans have never had to address so insistently before” found a worthy response more than 2,000 years ago in Ancient Greece: “I am not an Athenian, or a Greek, but a citizen of the world” – Socrates – MICHAEL BATTISTONE

“You’re Not From Around Here, Are You?” – Summer 2014 essay by Ash Stockemer ’14 What a fabulous writer! I am a California native, so I guess I don’t have any idea what it’s like to try to fit in ... you just do. You can’t consider the culture, attitude and landscape as “California” as a whole. Each county, city and town is completely different – that’s what makes California so special. Just be yourself, and you will fall into place ... being a Californian. – RITA

Greg Geiger

Steven Greinke

Galen Grillo (EMBA ’13)

Michael Penn (J.D. ’04)

A principal and founding member of Westport Capital Partners, Geiger is the portfolio manager of the firm’s private equity funds.

Westport manages more than $1.4 billion, representing institutions such as university endowments.

Geiger’s daughter, Val ’15, is a volleyball standout at Chapman.

Helping to lead a family-owned business founded by his grandfather, Greinke is COO of Southern Counties Oil Co., one of the nation’s largest petroleum distributors. He also serves on the board of the Fuel Relief Fund, which provides free fuel after major disasters.

An Argyros Society member at Chapman, Grillo is vice president, planning and enterprise integration, for the Automobile Club of Southern California. He helped develop the Huell Howser permanent exhibit ”That’s Amazing!” in Leatherby Libraries.

A trial attorney at the prominent firm Aitken Aitken & Cohn, Penn is president of the Celtic Bar Association of Orange County. His wife, Ashleigh, is also an attorney at the firm and the daughter Wylie Aitken, vice chair on the Chapman Board of Trustees.

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A quantum physics effect flies in the face of a time-honored mathematical principle.

By Mary Platt

I

PIGEONHOLE

SCHMIGEONHOLE

t’s simple math: If you put three pigeons into two pigeonholes, at least one pigeonhole will have two (or more) pigeons in it. Ten pigeons in nine pigeonholes — same thing. The so-called “pigeonhole principle” has been a basic tenet of mathematics since at least 1834, when German mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, in his work in number theory, developed it as the very underpinning of what it means to count (he called it the “drawer principle,” or Schubfachprinzip). Basically, it underlies almost all of conventional mathematics.

And it’s pretty easy to understand, right? Well, here’s where the wacky world of quantum physics has its say — and, as usual in Quantum Bizarro World, much of what we take to be basic and “real” is wrong. Wolf Prize- and National Medal of Science-winning physicist Yakir Aharonov, Ph.D., and his colleagues in Chapman University’s Institute for Quantum Studies took on the time-honored principle in a recent paper and flushed those musty pigeons right out of their pigeonholes.

Or rather, into each other’s pigeonholes. Or … not.

The laws governing the quantum world suggest that things can be in many different places at the same time.

So a single particle can be in both boxes at the same time — but only when you’re not “looking.” Once you look, and observe the particle, it will be forced to be in either one box or the other.

“But if your only tool is a hammer, then you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail,” says Jeff Tollaksen, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Quantum Studies, who’s been pursuing the study with Aharonov.

“The problem was that the ‘hammer-type’ measurements usually are not the most useful in figuring out how the quantum world links the future with the present in subtle and significant ways.”

Aharonov and his team have worked for two decades on new types of gentle “weak measurements,” which can see these linkages — “akin to tapping something softly with your finger rather than smashing it with that hammer, which forces each pigeon to be in a single box,” Tollaksen says.

And this allows you to put as many particles — or pigeons — in those two boxes as you want. Even an infinite number — yet no two pigeons will ever be in the same box together.

“It’s as if the particles know, and avoid each other,” says Tollaksen.

Has your head exploded yet? Let’s call this — as the physicists do — the Quantum Pigeonhole Effect.

All this weirdness has revolutionary implications for our understanding of the most exotic aspect of nature: non-locality — the theory that particles separated by huge distances, even at opposite ends of the universe, are connected and can affect each other’s behavior.

“Non-locality is regarded as the most profound discovery of science,” says Tollaksen.

“This is a surprising breakthrough,” says physicist and Institute member Paul Davies, Ph.D., of the Quantum Pigeonhole Effect. “It’s remarkable that it’s still possible to discover something fundamentally new about quantum mechanics, which has been around for nearly 100 years. Here we see a richer, more complex set of long-range correlations that nobody knew existed before.”

“The new results seem fascinating,” said Institute member Leonard Susskind, Ph.D., (the “father of string theory” and principle protagonist of Stephen Hawking). “I would guess that this new effect is a serious step in understanding quantum correlations.”

What impact does all of this have on the real world? Previous work in cosmic entanglement has given rise to the fields of quantum computing and quantum cryptography. In essence, this new principle of cosmic connectedness says that linked particles exist everywhere, which could have “unique technological utility,” Tollaksen said.

The research goes on — and it’s fairly certain that more challenges to the reality we thought we knew will be discovered by members of the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman. Those put-upon pigeons await the outcome.

An expanded version of this story is at chapman.edu/magazine.

WEB

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Photo by John Saade

Pockets of Optimism Consumers have more to spend, bolstering the economic outlook for 2015.

T

exports. But the growth in Canada and Mexico — the Mexican his year, Americans will be packing a bit more spending economy alone is expected to grow 3.5 percent — will likely power — the chief factor driving a fairly optimistic forecast painted by Chapman University economists. offer some cushion against those losses.

Even though the length of the recovery has been long, it still In addition, California employers are expected to add has legs,” said Chapman President Jim 364,000 jobs to the economy, a 2.4 percent Doti, Ph.D., during the University’s 37th gain, said Esmael Adibi, Ph.D., director of FROM THE FORECAST Annual Economic Forecast, presented the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Dec. 3 at the Segerstrom Center for the Research. The report sees solid growth in • Unlike 2013, when the economy had Arts in Costa Mesa. “We’re not bumping the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors to withstand a decline in federal spending, Chapman economists up against a wall.” as well. project that federal government Some of the best news out of the A genuine concern, though, is that purchases will increase for the first forecast was that the nation’s gross domestic California’ s wages are growing slowly, a time since most of the Recovery product is expected to hit an average annual problem that could drag down the state’s Act’s spending wound down. growth rate of 3 percent in 2015, the best efforts to trim debt and boost pension funds • Moderate price pressure will keep performance since the recession. Feeding and other retirement and healthcare needs, the Federal Reserve Board mostly that uptick are stable housing prices, the Adibi said. on the sidelines in 2015. As a result, it’s extremely unlikely that the Fed stock market’s strength and falling gas prices.

“Yes, the economy is improving, but will act aggressively in pushing up “Right now consumers are in a very this is the time to address some of the interest rates. It is likely, however, advantageous position,” Doti said. more long-term challenges,” Adibi said. that it will allow demand pressure While housing values are expected to The annual forecast is based on the to exert some upward force on both long- and short-term rates. grow by just 4 percent, Doti counted that Chapman Econometric Model, inaugurated as a plus in the long run because rapid in 1978 as a faculty-student research • While job growth will induce higher levels of household formation, relatively run-ups in home values can lead to a project. Since that time, the Anderson low housing affordability will dampen bubble. “The fact that housing is moving Center has delivered some of the nation’s home-buying activity. along positively but not at a rapid rate is most accurate economic reports. From really a positive,” he said.

2004 to 2013, Chapman forecasts were The economists acknowledged that the possibilities of economic more accurate than those of all 30 Blue Chip agencies that slowdown in China and recession in Europe are a concern for U.S. issued such reports.

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STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS

Devise a Grand Solution

M

argaret Silbar has a new grandma brag book, and so much more.

Silbar, 81, totes a thin computer tablet loaded with a custom software system created by a team of Chapman University students from the School of Computational Sciences. And she couldn’t be happier with the device. Using a computer stylus, she quickly flips through several family photos and glows with pride as loved ones’ faces fill the screen.

“This is my grandson-in-law who runs the restaurant,” she says. “He is just so good at what he does … Oh, there’s a Charlie photo. Charlie is Danny’s dog.”

She chuckles. “And there’s Charlie with a basketball!”

Silbar isn’t the only one smiling.

The founders and development team for grandPad are delighted that their innovative product is a hit. Convinced that their own grandparents were missing out on the fun of social media, they figured others might be, too. So they devised a product built with a few essential features that appeal to seniors, without the boggling surplus of applications, functions and programs pre-loaded on most tablets.

They winnowed the functions down to phone, video phone, photos, email and voice mail, weather and a select collection of games and music. Streamlined graphics feature large-print instructions and colorful touch-screen buttons. At home, the tablet rests in a cradle that also recharges the device without forcing unsteady hands to plug in a tiny cord.

Isaac Lien ’17, co-founder of grandPad along with his father, Scott Lien, a former executive with Intuit, says the concept was sparked when he realized how much

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CHAPMAN MAGAZINE

Margaret Silbar gets a tour of grandPad’s Launch Labs birthplace thanks to her grandson, Ryan Burns ’14, left, along with other student team members Isaac Lien ’17 and David Tyler ’14.

his own grandfresh eyes and fresh perspectives have mothers in Iowa been invaluable.” hungered for Among the lessons: Seniors prize their family news and privacy, which influenced grandPad’s the latest photos of safe design, says David Tyler ’14, a key the grandchildren but programmer of the device. were uncomfortable with “There’s no way to get viruses. There Skype, Facebook and even email. are no pop-up windows saying ‘Install this.’

“I wanted to be able to send them photos, They cannot get infected,” Tyler says. emails, and do video calls, but there was no The grandPad team launched a soft easy way for us to do these things,” he says. opening last summer, making the tablets “That’s why we set out to create grandPad.” available online with an all-inclusive The team of Chapman students, with subscription fee. They are also exploring skills in communications, web development the possibility of brick-and-mortar store and video production as sales, using pilot sites well as computer science, in the Midwest.

GrandPad team refined the software and For Silbar and other marketing plan leading up grandPad aficionados, the members developed to grandPad’s release. They tablet already has opened a product built with a worked out of Launch Labs, few essential features a new way of connecting an incubator program within with family. When her that appeal to seniors, Chapman’s Leatherby Center grandson Ryan Burns ’14, without the boggling for Entrepreneurship, using a computer science research that included surplus of applications, graduate also involved interviews with more than with grandPad’s and programs pre100 seniors and numerous development, first loaded on most tablets. brought the product to user tests.

“I’ve been to at least 10 show her, Silbar says different senior living communities, many of she was hooked. them multiple times to do demonstrations “I love pictures of my family,” she says. and get user feedback,” Lien says. “Their “I can do this myself. It’s incredible.”

When it comes to a solar-powered future, where better to build leadership than in the heart of Southern California?

“A

bundant sunshine and an entrepreneurial culture make Orange County well-suited to become the sustainability capital of the world,” says Fred Smoller, Ph.D., associate professor of political science at Chapman University.

Now Chapman students are contributing their energy and expertise toward realizing that vision. They’re teaming up with colleagues at UC Irvine, Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College on a project to build a solar-powered house as an entry in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon 2015.

President Jim Doti called the collaboration an exceptional opportunity to help address climate change.

“This truly is an historic moment,” Doti said at the partnership’s launch event in October. “Climate change is real.

It’s a challenge facing our generation and future generations, and when we can bring a collaborative team like this together, great things can happen. And it could be the model for how we tackle other problems that face our community, our nation and our planet.”

The Team Orange County house — called Casa Del Sol — will join other entries from around the world at the Great Park in Irvine, where the Solar Decathlon will be held in October 2015. The biennial decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build and operate a solar-powered house that “best blends affordability, consumer appeal and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency,” according to the Department of Energy website.

The houses are intended to be replicable models. They are displayed together as a kind of energy village so that during the judging they can be toured by the public.

Solar Decathlon

SUSTAINABILITY HITS HOME AT

President Jim Doti, center, poses with other members of the Chapman Solar Decathlon contingent, including Emeritus Trustee David Henley, Associate Professor Geraldine McNenny, Associate Professor David Shafie and Schmid College Dean Andrew Lyon.

Prior to settling in Irvine, the Solar Decathlon made its home on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and Smoller played a key role in bringing it to Orange County.

He helped convince Great Park officials that the wide-open areas of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Base would be an ideal setting for the competition.

Team Orange County includes students representing a diversity of disciplines, from engineering to communications.

“We’re all benefiting from this collaboration,” says Lotus Thai ’17, a double major in business and environmental science and policy who, along with her Chapman teammates, is helping to market the project.

“We’re not engineers,” adds Clayton Heard ’16, “but we can talk about the project and convey just how appealing it is, because we do understand the importance of sustainable practices. This is where environmental science meets econ and business. We can serve the role of liaison from the engineers to the general public.”

Team members from across the Orange County campuses worked throughout last summer on preliminary plans for the house, drawing inspiration from the state flower, the California poppy. Like the poppy, the house’s solar features open to absorb daytime energy, and close at night to maintain a comfortable living environment.

Mario Maldonado ’16 says that the spirit of the competition is reflected in a tagline developed by the team to use in marketing materials. He foresees the project “inspiring the next generation of innovators.”

“People sometimes think that they can’t make a difference,” he says. “But this has a chance to inspire a sustainable outlook, and if that snowballs, more kids might feel like they can have an impact.”

And wouldn’t that be something to build on?

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GALLERY

TALLY

If the posters to the right make you do a double-take, you’re not alone. Professor Micol Hebron’s “Gallery Tally” project is getting up in faces and turning heads all across the country, using art to underscore how few women get their work shown in gallery exhibitions.

The data-visualization posters, many by Chapman students and alumni, have been mounted in Los Angeles as well as in Columbus, Ohio, and Caguas, Puerto Rico.

A major show is planned at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, opening in May. Looks like Hebron is on to something.

Lady Gender Justice (above), created by artist Micol Hebron (pictured), photographer Safi Alia Shabaik and designer Bill Smith to run on the cover of Artillery Magazine, January/February 2014.

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Overall percentage of women artists in exhibitions at galleries surveyed

Percentage of women artists in U.S. college and university MFA programs

65

Micol Hebron thought she was procrastinating, dawdling around and avoiding her office work as she paged through back issues of Art Forum magazine.

On a whim, the artist and associate professor in the Department of Art at Chapman University counted how many of the pricey full-page ads placed by prominent galleries promoted male artists vs. female artists. Next she pored over gallery exhibition rosters, comparing the ratio of male to female artists. The counts were remarkably similar — women artists were represented in only about 20 to 30 percent of both the ads and the rosters.

Suddenly a new project was born. Hebron presented her data in the form of posters, and soon she invited other artists to join her — including Chapman students and alumni. They tallied the rosters of the top 100 galleries in Los Angeles and revealed their data in diverse, colorful, pointed posters. Now the project has become “(en)Gendered (in)Equity: The Gallery Tally Poster Project,” a huge open-source

1,566

5,000 Exhibiting artists represented in the tally

Participants in the “Gallery Tally” project

Posters created

400

Professor Micol Hebron, left, is joined at the Irvine Fine Arts Center exhibit of “Gallery Tally” posters by contributing Chapman students, from left, Xiankai Sol Ye ’15, Nimah Gobir ’15, Emily Bukowski ’16, Casey Wyman ’15 and Madeline Lucas ’15.

collaborative exhibition with more than 400 works – all poking a finger in the sexist eye of the art gallery community.

The project started in fall 2013 and has been gaining attention worldwide ever since, sparking similar projects from Sydney to London. More than 35 articles have been written on the project in the art media and beyond. All of this has been a heady experience for student and alumni contributors. Nimah Gobir ’15 counts it as one of the high points of her Chapman experience.

“It’s really great to be part of a

movement,” Gobir says. “It has been amazing seeing how everyone interprets the statistics they are given.

This project really gives me hope that art can be used as a means to tackle current issues.”

“Gallery Tally’s” own artist numbers are almost exactly inverse to the gallery statistics, with about 70 percent of contributing artists being female. Hebron also notes that women make up 65 percent of the enrollment in Master of Fine Arts programs.

Why are women so underrepresented in gallery exhibits?

“It’s really a complicated issue, rooted heavily in discussions of capitalism and patriarchy and the way that capitalism caters to patriarchal biases,” Hebron says. “There are numerous women administrators at museums and galleries who support an all-male roster. So there are women complicit in this disparity, which is even more frightening. If you look at representation of racial minority, it’s even worse. I think that’s one of the reasons that people haven’t talked overtly about it in the art world, because it’s a pretty ugly reality.”

Gallery response to the project has

A link to the project’s open-source Tumblr page is at chapman.edu/magazine.

WEB

been varied. Some gallerists get defensive, arguing that women artists don’t market themselves as well as men.

Hebron’s answer is that women don’t have as many opportunities because galleries still control most of the primary means of marketing as the main agents of studio visits with collectors and museum buyers.

Other gallerists are apologetic.

“They say, ‘I know, I know! We need to get better,’” Hebron says.

Whatever the reasons, the costs of artistic inequity are universal, Hebron notes.

“We all lose out when we’re not exposed to the full range of voices,” she says.

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Two members of the Chapman Family previously profiled in Chapman Magazine were in the news recently:

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Pass the Canneberge, Students at the Chinese table loved the Jell-O. The Eggs Benedict were a hit with those speaking American Sign Language. And the folks bravely studying Latin were digging into — we kid you not — Caesar salads.

Welcome to Language Tables, a program that brings Chapman faculty and students together to break bread and polish their skills in world languages. “Food is culture, culture is language. What better way to brush up your conversation skills than to do it over a meal with a professor?” says John Boitano, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Chapman. The twice-a-month program in the Randall Dining Commons has been a hit since it launched last spring. It’s a taste of the language immersion that students experience in a foreign setting. And there’s nothing like informal conversations to introduce new vocabulary words. Like canneberge, the French word for cranberry, which Boitano’s students asked about just before Thanksgiving. “It’s not widely known in France,” he said with a laugh.

Filmmaker Justin Simien ’05, whose first feature, Dear White People, was released to critical acclaim last year, earned two Independent Spirit Award nominations — for best first feature and best first screenplay. Only one other filmmaker was nominated in both categories — Anja Marquardt for She’s Lost Control. The awards were handed out in Santa Monica and televised by IFC on Feb. 21 — the day before the Oscars.

•

Junior political science major Connor Traut ’16 was sworn in Dec. 9 as a newly elected member of the Board of Trustees for the Centralia Elementary School District in Orange County. Helping parents have a stronger voice in district policies and finding new ways to keep at-risk youngsters stay on track were two issues on which Traut ran. Previously, at age 18, he was elected to the Civic Council in Ladera Ranch, Calif.

TRIP The senior year of Camille Hyde ’15 just got more interesting. As the environmental science and policy major prepares to finish final classes, she’s also battling to keep an intergalactic bounty hunter named Sledge from destroying the planet. Such is the life of a Power Ranger as Nickelodeon launches the 22nd season of the children’s show.

Hyde is part of the new cast of teen superheroes in Power Rangers Dino Charge. The native of Washington, D.C., is the first AfricanAmerican to play Pink Ranger, a role for which more than 2,000 women of all races auditioned. Perhaps her greatest Ranger challenge will be completing this semester, much of which she will miss to shoot in New Zealand. But thanks to summer school and some online courses, she will walk with her graduating class in May. The production team promises to get her home on time. “They know how much I love Chapman,” she says.

“Let’s hope a monster doesn’t keep me from getting to where I need to be.” Sledge, consider yourself warned.

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CHAPMAN MAGAZINE

On the morning of this year’s Rose Parade, pretty much everyone involved was talking about one thing: the frigid weather. But by the end of the 5.5-mile route, all Harjus Sethi (MFA ’15) remembered was the warmth. “I started out thinking this is going to be awkward,” says Sethi, selected to ride on the parade’s first-ever Sikh American float. “It was a feeling of ‘I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and yet we’re waving at each other.’ But then I saw the reactions and I let the emotions sink in. As we’re celebrating the new year, we’re also celebrating our commonalities. As opposed to strangers, we’re seeing each other as friends.” That’s the spirit behind the float, which depicted Sikh American values, history and contributors, including Sethi, identified as a rising star of film directing. The Dodge College student also showed his Chapman spirit, wearing a turban tie-dyed in cardinal and gray. Along the way, he realized that every greeting he was hearing began with “happy.”

“Through that lens, the parade became a once-in-alifetime experience,” he says.

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“Society would have us believe that life and dreams belong to the young. On the contrary, I say that you need to be mature to enjoy life to the fullest, and that every age has something new to offer. To me, 50 is a new beginning, and I’m enjoying my life completely.”

Giselle Blondet, actress, TV host and author of Tengo 50 …

Y Que? (I’m 50 … So What?), during a talk at Libreria Martinez de Chapman University.

“I’m all for high-quality preschool education; who wouldn’t be? But we can’t just invest in preschool, then cross our fingers and hope for the best. Because it’s an investment, not an inoculation. We need to invest in other periods of development too, and especially in adolescence because it’s a time when we can really affect the brain for the better.”

Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D., author of Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence, speaking to Crean College students and faculty.

“It’s that softness, that humanness – you want to bring people into you.

It’s like when you’re reading a book and there’s a passage that tells a secret that you thought only you knew. That’s what we do.”

Annette Bening, award-winning actress, conducting a master class for theatre and screen-acting students.

“I was the first to wind up going into a locker room with a female camera person, and if you don’t think that didn’t stir things up. ... I said, ‘Look, she has a right to be here as much I do. Without her camera, it’s just not going to happen. We won’t do it.’ And I told them that if we had to leave, no more interviews. Period. So we agreed to go outside in the hallway and they brought the athletes to us.”

Ed Arnold, Los Angeles broadcaster, speaking about his six-decade career to a winter Interterm sports journalism class.

WINTER 2015

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CHAPMAN

Opening Eyes,

now

CHAPMAN’S NEW SENIOR COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE BRINGS A UNIQUE CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE.

Chinary Ung, DMA, hopes to assist Chapman students “to see in a global way,” he says. “I want to show them options and ultimately help them find their own voices — help them add to the cultural mix.”

Right: Professor Ung plays the roneat-ek, a Cambodian xylophone.

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CHAPMAN MAGAZINE

Lifting Voices

C

hinary Ung doesn’t want to be the one and only ever again. So as the groundbreaking composer begins his new appointment in the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music at Chapman University, he’s determined to help develop a rich, diverse and growing musical community — at Chapman and beyond.

Ung was the lone voice in what he calls the first generation of Cambodian composers. In his new role as the Hall-Musco Conservatory’s senior composer in residence, Ung hopes to open the eyes of students “to see in a global way,” he says. “I want to show them options and ultimately help them find their own voices — help them add to the cultural mix.”

He wants the next generation of Cambodian composers to be at least 10 to 20 strong.

“I love to help guide young composers, and I’m looking forward to collaborating with the faculty and students at Chapman,” says Ung, DMA, whose daughter Sonika earned a degree in psychology from the University in 2011.

The first steps on that collaborative journey have already been taken. In the early 1990s, Ung mentored Sean Heim, now director of music theory/ composition at the College of Performing Arts and the Hall-Musco Conservatory.

“We have remained close friends, colleagues and collaborators over the years,” says Heim, Ph.D. “We know each other’s minds on many issues. Chinary’s approach and aesthetic fit well with the rest of us in the composition area, making him a great choice for this appointment.”

Ung’s unique musical voice has developed over five decades of study and composition. He was born in Cambodia in 1942 but has lived in the United States since 1964, when he arrived in New York City — speaking virtually no English — to study clarinet

at the Manhattan School of Music. He went on to earn his DMA from Columbia University and is now a Distinguished Professor at UC San Diego.

Heim calls his mentor “one of today’s most important living composers.” Ung’s compositions are testament to an ear that is remarkably open, and an imagination that draws together the seemingly disparate sounds and attitudes of contemporary concert music and Southeast Asian traditions.

Over the years, Ung’s work has earned him many prestigious honors, including the Grawemeyer Award, considered by many the Nobel Prize of music composition. Last year, the Asian Cultural Council presented him with the John D. Rockefeller Award. His work has been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program, Mutable Music and many other foundations.

At Chapman, Ung will present lectures, participate in concerts and advise the music composition department, serving as a liaison between students and faculty and internationally recognized composers and ensembles.

Whether he gets into the classroom at Chapman “is to be discussed,” Ung says, “but for sure one-on-one (teaching) would be ideal.

That puts both students and myself in a position to achieve.”

In describing his teaching style, he doesn’t limit himself to musical terms.

“Perhaps we start with a sketch by a given student which to me represents, you might say, a broken mirror,” Ung says. “Both (student and teacher) have to collaborate to put the mirror back intact.”

He finds joy in assisting and encouraging young composers.

“My role is to help them lift their musical voices in a compositional world, to reach out in the broadest strokes in a cultural scene outside what they know already,” he says. “That is where the energy comes from. That is at the heart of the exchange between young apprentices and instructors.”

MARYBELLE AND SEBASTIAN P.

MUSCO CENTER FOR THE ARTS

OPENING SPRING 2016 The Musco Center for the Arts, opening in Spring 2016, will be a stunning performance venue in Orange County. Designed by renowned architects Pfeiffer Partners, with acoustics tuned by Nagata Acoustics, the Center will welcome world-class performers in music, theatre and dance, and will bring extraordinary learning and performing opportunities to Chapman University students with those same passions.

There’s never been a better time to focus on Chapman.

Orange, California

President Jim Do

ti and Julianne Ar

ON THE WINGS OF MYSTERY AND WONDERMENT, AMERICAN CELEBRATION FINDS NEW WAYS TO CHARM.

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gyros

“Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face.”

No one arrived expecting to hear a recitation of Shakespeare by one of America’s most acclaimed actresses, but then American Celebration audiences have come to anticipate beguiling surprises from Chapman University’s premier stage event.

And by all measures, the 33rd annual revue and gala dinner was a towering success — in Shakespearean terms, sailing upon the bosom of the air, like the sweetest music to attending ears.

Remarkable philanthropists were honored, more than 130 students performed a spectacular show and a record $2.26 million was raised for student scholarships.

About 850 people attended the Nov. 1 show and gala, chaired by Barbara and Mark Chapin Johnson ’05. As is tradition, attendees enjoyed a spectacular Broadway-style musical revue performed in Chapman Auditorium by students from the College of Performing Arts. Woven throughout the program were students’ heartfelt thanks, conveyed both in video montages and by several of the evening’s performers.

“I can truly speak for a lot of us performers up here, without your generous support and your donations we would not be standing here on this stage. So thank you very much,” said cast member Jordan Goodsell ’15, who has performed in American Celebration since his freshman year.

For their profound generosity to the University and the greater Orange County community, Bette and Wylie Aitken were named Citizens of the Year. The Aitkens’ commitment to Chapman is multi-layered, from support of the Family Violence Clinic at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law to the forthcoming Musco Center for the Arts, where the front plaza will be named for them. But in accepting the

award, Wylie Aitken turned the limelight toward the many supporters who make American Celebration such a success.

“It’s really about these incredible, wonderful students and the incredible performance we’ve already seen here tonight. Your generosity, which makes a difference in these children’s lives, is what this evening is all about,” he said.

Inspiration was also brought to the stage by film and stage star and Oscar nominee Annette Bening, who was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award.

Days after teaching a master class in acting at Chapman, Bening borrowed from American Celebration’s theme of “Masquerade, Mystery, Wonderment,” telling the audience that she has reached a point in her career where she is trying to bring a sense of the beginner’s wonder to her work.

“This award will inspire me to do that,” Bening said. “We all have to work at maintaining our sense of wonder and our sense of curiosity about the world.”

Bening closed her remarks with “a little bit of Shakespeare,” reciting a portion of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

After such a performance, followed by an elegant dinner and dancing, never has parting been more like sweet sorrow.

Annette Bening

Bette and Wylie Aitken

Daniel Emmett ’15 and Kylena Parks ’15

WINTER 2015

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Deep in the Story by Mark Woodland, photos by Nancy Brink

Conductor Stephen Coker leads the Chapman Singers in performances at Northway Christian Church in Dallas, above, and University Christian Church in Fort Worth, top.

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For the second year in a row, the Chapman University Singers tour Texas during winter Interterm, sharing their extraordinary talents and stoking the fires of new friendships. Like a timeless hymn, the memories linger.

THE LONE STAR TOUR 2015 ★ San Antonio: Jan. 10 ★ San Antonio and Austin: J

STACCATO Choir tours are really moments of intense exposure sandwiched between hours of rehearsals and road time. Luggage is loaded and unloaded. Music is shuffled and changed. Rooms are assigned and filled. Meals are ordered and eaten. But there is always one constant: the count-off.

Kyla McCarrel ’15 is the choir president, and it’s her voice that becomes the most familiar, telling us what will happen and when, where to meet and what to wear.

Every time we board the bus, she grabs the mic and begins. “OK,” she says, waiting for the chatter to still, “let’s count off.”

Voices bounce, from soprano to baritone, alto to bass, back to front, murmur to bombast.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” Sometimes the numbers tumble after each other as quickly as wind-driven leaves. Other times the count pauses and a number is repeated again and again, bounding like a verbal drum beat, until the next person in line chimes in with “Oh! Twenty-one! Sorry!” Sometimes the numbers are sung with operatic drama.

One number often comes with a Russian accent. Kyla waits patiently through the cavalcade until it reaches the finale: “Thirty.

Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three.”

“We’re all here,” she tells the bus driver, and we’re off to the next destination.

FORTISSIMO In every city, at every performance, audiences gather to be entertained. Their responses are consistently enthusiastic and appreciative, with warm applause usually following each number. But there are variations on that theme.

A song with the energy and dynamics of I Can Tell the World, for example, allows the Singers to generate a volume that imbues a performance hall as wind fills a sail. When the piece reaches its climax and the music cascades from the rafters, the audience is ecstatic. There are gasps and ahhs. Sometimes a shout of acclamation. Faces seem infused with joy, drawing energy from the music, and the applause is thunderous and prolonged, begging for more.

A different reaction follows Shall We Gather at the River, a familiar hymn given new beauty in this arrangement by choir director Stephen Coker, D.M. The verses are carried by male and female soloists, supported by the full choir on the choruses, but the performance is made memorable by the addition of American Sign Language. Ultimately, it is the words not sung, the sound not made, the sudden and utter silence the choir creates as they sign the final chorus that freezes the audience in place. And when the Singers then repeat the chorus in full voice, creating music in perfect harmony and perfect pitch, tears flow freely from many of the listeners. Then this happens: The choir finishes singing, and there is a long fermata of silence, as if the audience is holding its breath, aching for the moment of perfection to continue unbroken. Does one applaud a prayer? But eventually someone claps and it’s as if a dam has broken. The applause becomes a torrent, a cacophony of approbation and respect.

ADAGIO There are also moments when the energy slows and the volume spins slowly down to whispers and murmurs. There is a space between rehearsals and concerts when the choir members drift away to find quiet nooks, or simply claim a pew or stretch out in the aisle. Some are instantly asleep; others scan through posts on ever-present phones or review music porfolios one more time, their lips moving soundlessly, heads barely nodding, hands or feet softly tapping an unheard rhythm. It is a rare chance for rest, a gathering of strength before the performance.

SCHERZO I blame Daniel Emmett ’15. “Let’s go to Dick’s Eats,” he announces, and like sheep we follow him through the streets

of San Antonio to the anointed restaurant.

I know it isn’t a Zagat’s five-star pick when I see other patrons wearing hastily constructed butcher-paper dunce hats, scrawled by the wait staff with bawdy jibes at the wearer. Other clues are quick to surface: Water comes in a brimming metal mixing bowl and a handful of plastic cups dumped on the table. Menus are tossed down with an order to “pass ‘em along.” A handful of crayons appear with instructions to label our place mats for ordering purposes. Dunce hats arrive about the same time as our food, and laughter erupts as friends read what the wearer cannot see.

BRILLANTE By the third night, I just watch the audience members. Old and young, alone or in groups, they filter in before each concert and take their seats. They are supportive but uncertain.

For most, it’s their first exposure to Chapman.

An hour later, they are loath to leave.

I stand at the edge and eavesdrop as audience members greet the Singers. “I couldn’t stop smiling,” one boy says. “I got a smile on my face and just couldn’t stop.”

Other young people, especially at the high schools, swarm the Singers and ask for information or beg for a selfie. Adults at the concerts speak in superlatives: Beautiful.

Magnificent. Stunning. Amazing. Wonderful.

Outstanding. Inspiring.

But here is the thing I notice: The Singers change people. There is a joy at the end of concerts that wasn’t there at the beginning.

There is a contagious energy and a glowing satisfaction and a nagging hunger to experience other equally beautiful things. That’s a good start toward changing the world.

Jan. 11 ★ Austin: Jan. 12, 13 ★ Dallas: Jan. 14, 15, 17, 18 ★ Fort Worth: Jan. 16

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Clarity Stories by Dawn Bonker Photos by Nathan Worden ’13 (MBA ’15)

Mark Krassner joins his mom, Liza, in the kitchen, where the two enjoy cooking together, but they also face the many challenges related to Mark’s autism.

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CHAPMAN MAGAZINE

Families with autistic children face a multitude of challenges.

Chapman educators are helping to ease their burden.

Liza Krassner turns to her computer and clicks open a large file called an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. It’s a plan written by staff members at the school attended by her autistic teen-age son, Mark, spelling out the programs and services he should receive in the coming year. Krassner scrolls and scrolls and scrolls.

“See what I mean?” she says.

Krassner is a university administrator, holds an advanced degree, launched a film company to produce short documentaries and volunteers on behalf of autism causes. But nothing prepared her for the daunting process of plowing through a 32-page document outlining the plan to educate her son.

“There’s a lot of language there that’s very confusing to parents. And not just confusing, it’s extremely overwhelming,” she says.

Fortunately for Krassner, educators in Chapman University’s College of Educational Studies are working to make things easier for parents and their autistic children. As partners in Orange County’s new Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Chapman educators are designing programs to make materials more understandable and education plans more effective. Krassner is just one of many parents who’ve already benefited from the innovative programs.

“It’s been very helpful to me,” Krassner says, nodding toward an IEP on her computer screen.

“They teach you how to read these things.”

Help is what the Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders is all about.

The center is a partnership between Chapman, UC Irvine, Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), the Thompson Foundation for Autism, and the Children & Families Commission of Orange County.

The aim is to make the center the nation’s premier facility addressing all the needs of children and young people up to age 22 who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

Chapman will lead the center in the development of programs that educate and connect families and schools.

Autism “isn’t one thing, it’s many things,” says Don Cardinal, Ph.D., dean of the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University. “That’s why they call it autism spectrum disorder. People with autism can be very, very different.”

Most often, though, autism encompasses a range of issues with communication, social skills and behavior. Scientists have not determined a single cause and suspect there may be several factors, including genetic predisposition and complications during pregnancy.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 1 in 68 U.S. children are on the autism spectrum, representing a tenfold increase over the past 40 years. The CDC says it is unclear how much of the increase is due to a broader definition of the disorder and better efforts at diagnosis.

Autism can sometimes be detected at 18 months or younger. By age 2, a diagnosis by an experienced professional can be considered very reliable, according to the CDC.

Learn more at www.autismspeaks.org.

Continue on next page

From left, Professor Amy-Jane Griffiths, Ph.D., with her autism intervention team of Chapman graduate students: Kelsey Compton ‘14, Amanda Schlitt ‘15, Hayley Taitz ‘15 and Jared Izumi ‘15.

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The need is huge, says Don Cardinal, Ph.D., dean of the College of Educational Studies (CES). The relationship between parents and the school is vital, but it can also be an emotionally charged arena if the two have different expectations or goals for the student. Too often, Cardinal says, dialogue breaks down and leads to frustration, and even costly litigation. In response, some groups have emerged to represent student rights, while others focus on defending schools. Chapman’s programs offer a unifying approach.

“The idea is to work with districts and families and not have either one own you,” Cardinal says. “Our version is trying to get these groups to work together.”

Two countywide surveys conducted by Professor John Brady, Ph.D., College of Educational Studies, underscored that need and a particular interest in family services. Guided by Brady’s findings, CES faculty, graduate students and interns created two unique programs to cut through the confusion. The Chapman Ability Project (CAP) offers programs for teachers and other school professionals, while Families and Schools Together (FAST) supports families struggling with their children’s special needs at home and school.

True to its acronym, FAST has quickly made a difference for families. Those legally required and hefty IEPs are a source of much angst and have been a focal point, says Amy Griffiths, Ph.D., assistant clinical professor at Chapman and director of FAST. “It’s very complicated. There are lots of laws. … For families to figure that out on their own is really tough,” Griffiths says.

Krassner felt there were gaps in Mark’s education, but she was uncertain where to start. She turned to Griffiths’ team, which helped her dissect and refine Mark’s IEP. As one example, instead of a general aim to “understand money,” a better goal was to have him learn to count change.

Behavior issues had also arisen with the onset of Mark’s adolescence, so FAST counselors suggested the addition of a behavior plan to teach appropriate social skills and language. In addition, they recommended the Krassners use insurance benefits to provide Mark with a behavior-intervention therapist for additional work at home.

As Mark prepares dinner one recent evening with his therapist’s guidance, the day-to-day challenges his family must manage are clear. Mark struggles to choose between pork or beef, slams the oven door, retreats to his art table when he tires of browning meat and throws a cooking utensil to the floor.

Watching from the family room, Krassner quietly points at the kitchen activity as the therapist guides Mark toward more appropriate behaviors.

“The manifestation of everything that goes on that (IEP) is this,” she says.

Berlina and Pascual Felipe of Santa Ana, Calif., are still learning what it means to raise an autistic child. Their son Jesus Alejandro — who asks everyone to call him Alex — is a busy 4-year-old fascinated by cars and the Ninja Turtles. Early on he was identified with special education needs, but was just diagnosed with autism in September.

Doctors referred the family to CAP. The Felipes jumped right into parent education classes like “Special Education Basics,” as well as an introductory course on IEPs. The course was empowering, Berlina Felipe says.

“When I got his IEP I said, ‘OK, Which goals did he meet, and what goals are we going to set for this year?’” she says.

It’s a far cry from her first IEP experience.

“It made me feel dumb. I looked at it and I thought, ‘Oh my God, what is this?’ I just felt really bad that I couldn’t understand it,” she says.

She signed it without question — and without a school administrator at the meeting. After the CAP course, she learned that she should write a letter detailing her expectations for Alex’s school progress and request that an administrator attend the IEP meeting where it would be discussed as learning goals were set.

As promised, Chapman’s programs also serve educators, who increasingly face challenges of their own as they strive to meet the needs of children with autism. Teachers and their support staffs are hungry for such expertise, says Jeanne Anne Carriere, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of CAP. The courses have been offered on campus, as well as in the community.

“We’re trying to fill a gap that schools cannot possibly fill because they have so many other responsibilities,” Carriere says.

Indeed, the classes have been ideal for the Orange County Department of Education, 22

to the

Apps Rescue

Mark Krassner learns to focus on step-by-step instructions and develops life skills through cooking, an activity guided by his behavior-intervention therapist. At lower left, Krassner takes a break at the kitchen table, where he enjoys drawing.

says Christina Romanosky, program administrator for the department’s special education services.

“This year I had them do two sessions. The first was on building positive relations with parents. That was really great,” Romanosky says. “It’s nice to be able to have experts come in. We are always looking to keep our staff up to date on what is most current, what are best practices.”

Those kind of happy partnerships are just a glimmer of what Cardinal envisions for Chapman’s contributions to the field of autism and the work of the center.

“We’re trying to get these groups to work together for the students’ best outcome,” he says. “That’s why we like the autism center. There’s so much potential there.”

For families like the Krassners and Felipes, it’s life-changing.

“For me, the most important thing is to learn,” says Felipe. “I have to learn how to help him become a better person in the future. I never expected to get so much help.”

One app captures the highs, lows and everything in between in an autistic child’s day. Another helps autistic teens dress a little more cool. And a third guides parents through the special-education process.

All these new computer applications are created by Chapman University students.

Hailing from the disciplines of computer science, digital arts and education, the students have rolled up their digital sleeves and harnessed technology to help children with autism and their caregivers manage day-to-day tasks.

“This is a prime example of interdisciplinary research,” says Erik Linstead, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Schmid College of Science and Technology.

Chief among them is Autism Management Platform (AMP), in development thanks to Linstead and his Ph.D. students. AMP functions like a news feed that allows everyone involved in a child’s care to post information and reports to a user-friendly database.

The data paint a picture of a child’s progress and challenges that all team members might not otherwise see because they only observe the child in a particular setting. It even includes features like temper-tantrum timers and medication trackers, as well as the option of recording short videos.

Ultimately, Linstead says, he envisions using the collected data to identify longitudinal trends that could shed light on patterns — from weather to major transitions — that influence the behavior of autistic children.

A high school special education teacher who has field-tested the app during development is eager to see it formally launched. Student information now is jotted down in a spiral notebook that moves about the school among teachers and aides.

“When you have a notebook, you’re just relying on someone writing all this stuff. It’s not in a data format,” says Jans Baltgalvis, who teaches special education at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, Calif.

With AMP’s drop-down menus, the data fed into it are also more structured and less prone to being vague or skewed by the user, Baltgalvis says.

“I’m really excited about it,” he adds. “This is such a real-world application.”

Another head-turning autism app is Smart Dresser, a clothing organizing system helping teenage girls pull together outfits that align with social norms. The app uses an algorithm that monitors weather as well as what outfits have been worn a lot recently. Smart Dresser was created by a team of computer science and digital arts students and won the Surprise Award at last year’s Autism App Jam at UC Irvine.

Then there’s FAST, which helps parents consolidate a mountain of paperwork, from progress reports to the learning plans created for all special education students.

The app was created by Jared Izumi, a Chapman graduate student working with Families and Schools Together (FAST) at the Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Izumi drew inspiration — and the similar name — from the program because he saw that all of the 1,000 families served by the center would not have the opportunity for one-on-one assistance. The FAST team helps families understand special-education jargon and documents.

Clearly Izumi is on to something. FAST won the User’s Choice Award at the App Jam.

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By Mary Platt

With the new Hilbert Museum of California Art, Chapman provides a window to a genre as vivid and evocative as its regional influences.

Surf’s Up on a Golden Day by Rex Brandt.

Painted around 1968, at the height of the coolsurfer craze in California, this is a more abstract work than earlier California Scene paintings, but it still fits well within the style. Reflecting Brandt’s abiding love for the Mediterranean climate and sunlight of Southern California, the work uses repeating triangles and an interplay of “beachy” colors (blues, corals and tans). The artist also incorporated salt crystals into the painting, added while the pigments were still wet.

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President Jim Doti, center, praises the “personal vision” of Janet and Mark Hilbert during a recent celebration and mini-exhibition of paintings in the Hilbert Collection. Below is San Dimas Train Station, a 1933 watercolor that highlights the quality of the collection.

In the gathering darkness of an early evening, two men wait for a train at a small rural station.

The human figures, heads bowed, each isolated under a lamp, seem to be wrapped in their own thoughts as they wait to be taken somewhere, anywhere … elsewhere. It’s a timeless scene, except for the telephone poles that stretch diagonally into the background, and the car that sits just out of the center light’s reach. Those elements, and the lonely mood evoked by the artist, set the image firmly in the era of America’s Great Depression.

his melancholy, thought-provoking moment in time was captured in watercolor in 1933 by California artist Millard Sheets, one of the leading lights of what came to be called California Scene painting — which was part of the American Regionalist art movement. The evocative image is every inch as powerful as a slightly later Regionalist art icon, Edward Hopper’s 1942 Night Hawks — but much less well known. That will all change soon, if Newport Coast art collectors Mark and Janet Hilbert and Chapman University have anything to say about it.

In November, Chapman announced that it had received a major gift of California art, valued at more than $7 million, from the Hilberts, in addition to $3 million from the couple toward establishing a museum on campus in which to permanently display the collection to the public. The gift was celebrated with a miniexhibition of a dozen of the paintings — including the aforementioned San Dimas Train Station by Sheets — followed by a dinner party in the 96-year-old former Villa Park Orchards Packing House in Orange. Chapman owns the historic property, which will become the site of the museum.

“This will be the first museum anywhere that is totally dedicated to the display of California Scene and California representational art,” said Mark Hilbert. “The intent will be to cast a spotlight on this style of painting and these amazing artists, and to make this art known around the world. California has its own style, its own light, its own distinct landscape. California Scene paintings are distinguished from the earlier style of California Impressionism because these works show people and the works of humans: towns, cities, harbors, houses, ranches, cars, trains — people going about their everyday lives. These paintings show the changes taking place across our state as it grew, starting around 1920 — changes that are still happening and reflected in today’s representational art.”

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Lad From the Fleet by Fletcher Martin.

Serving in the U.S. Navy in the 1920s, Martin became one of his squadron’s champion boxers.

By 1938, when he created this painting, he was a critically acclaimed artist. This work shows a young sailor participating in one of the Navy’s popular public boxing matches.

San Pedro Street by William Jekel. This 1949 watercolor was created while Jekel worked at MGM Studios in the scenic art department. The painting, of a street in Los Angeles, features a splash of almost theatrical lighting.

portion of the Hilbert collection of more than 900 paintings — mostly works in watercolor and oil created from the 1930s to the 1970s by luminaries of the California Scene movement such as Sheets, Emil Kosa Jr., Phil Dike, Milford Zornes and Rex Brandt — will be displayed at first in a temporary museum Chapman will create in a renovated University-owned building on Cypress Street in Orange.

Later, a larger segment of the collection, plus rotating exhibitions, will be displayed in the permanent Hilbert Museum of California Art, planned to be constructed inside the former citrus packing house on the corner of Cypress Street and Palm Avenue in Orange. The building is scheduled to open as a multi-use facility, including the museum, dining spaces and academic areas. The Hilberts’ $3 million monetary donation will be used toward the establishment of the museum, to support the collection and to enhance its educational mission.

“This is an incredibly important gift to Chapman University, and we are honored that the world-class Hilbert Collection of California Art has been placed into our care to share with our students, the Chapman community and the public,” said Chapman President Jim Doti. “The art, the lives of the artists, their place in California art and American art history, and the personal vision of the amazing couple who collected the works have much to teach all of us.”

“We’re delighted that Chapman University will be the new home of these works we have devoted ourselves to collecting, and that they will be shared with the students, faculty, visiting researchers and the wider public,” said Mark Hilbert. “We feel that the University’s mission and Chapman’s unique location in historic Old Towne Orange — already a magnet for those interested in the rich California history of the area — make it the perfect location for a museum showcasing these works, inspiring people with their beauty and encouraging intellectual inquiry.”

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Below: Bucolic by Fletcher Martin. This 1938 work by Martin shows a couple enjoying a picnic in a rural setting, but there is an air of subtle mystery about it. The bold, weighty volume of the figures shows the influence of famed Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siquieros.

SETTING THE SCENE

Above: Plaza de Los Angeles on Sunday by Phil Dike. On a sunny day, people from all walks of life relax on the green and on surrounding benches in this 1942 oil painting. This parklike plaza is the site of the oldest settled area of the city, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles, near Olvera Street and across from Union Station.

Bottom previous page: San Francisco by Emil Kosa Jr. A Southern California artist, Kosa was fascinated by San Francisco. This 1942 view, done in dark colors that may reflect the emotions of the artist as World War II raged on, was painted on location.

Below: Near Modesto by Emil Kosa Jr. This 1940 oil painting depicts a house owned by relatives of Kosa’s wife, Mary. The work beautifully captures the sunlight and scudding clouds of a Modesto afternoon, with laundry flapping on the line and a pair of figures heading for the house.

California Scene painters were highly creative and imaginative in their individual approaches but always produced works based on subject matter that is easy to recognize. Their inspiration ranges from city to country scenes, from the coastline to figurative and still-life subjects.

From 1930 to 1970, these artists were key contributors to what became known as the California Style of watercolor painting.

The innovative works they produced received national and international acclaim, as did the animated cartoon films that many of the artists worked on at Walt Disney and other studios. The fine-art watercolors and animation production art will be featured in special exhibits at the Hilbert Museum of California Art. When the artists focused on scenes of everyday life in California, and the art reveals signs of humanity by including people or manmade objects — such as cars, buildings, freeways, piers or factories — the works are often referred to as California Scene paintings. Many of the works in the Hilbert Collection fall into this category, making them the center of attention for the permanent museum collection exhibit. Mark Hilbert says the museum will focus on California Scene works but will also display California representational art of all eras, including contemporary works from recent years.

“It’s the power of imagery,” Hilbert says.

“The way we’re wired as human beings is that we will remember an image long after we forget a lot of written information, and we often connect that image with a time and place. Take the Mona Lisa — there’s hardly anyone in the world who doesn’t know that Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece is in the Louvre in France. Or that the Sistine Chapel is in Rome. They’re part of the culture and the history there, just as this museum of California art belongs in Orange County, at Chapman University, in a historic building right in the heart of Old Towne. It’s where history, culture and imagery coincide, and it makes perfect sense to have it here.”

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UNDERSTANDING

CANCER As they explore the disease’s complexities, Chancellor Struppa and his students glimpse its terrifying magnificence.

Story by Daniele Struppa Photos by Dennis Arp

“Studying cancer is the interdisciplinary topic par excellence,” Chancellor Daniele Struppa says. Below, Chancellor Struppa shares a light moment with biology major Timothy Lee ’15 during the class titled The Quest for Immortality.

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W

hen I was young, university courses had austere names, designed to convey their content — Introduction to 19thCentury Literature, European Medieval History and so on.

But now, if you read any university catalog, you discover a variety of cute titles, which are more in the business of advertising than of explaining and clarifying.

In the case of the Honors seminar course I taught during the fall, an honest title would have been Introduction to Cancer. Instead, I have fallen in line with modern fashion, and I gave it a title that is more suggestive than descriptive: The Quest for Immortality.

As I explained to my 20 very smart students during the first introductory class, the purpose of this seminar is to help them understand what it is that we still need to understand about cancer.

The history of our lives — and deaths — with cancer is an old one, going back to before the beginnings of mankind. We know that even dinosaurs had cancer — we’ve found it in their bones. And just as we would like to live forever, so would cancerous cells. One of our most magnificent, and yet terrifying, discoveries is that the reason for cancer’s success lies in its ability to use, with great dexterity, the same tools that nature has used to give us the wonderful gift that is life.

When we think of how cancer develops, we realize that it does not come from the “outside” but rather grows from very normal and healthy cells. And its growth adapts (with great sophistication) the magnificent instruments of evolution. This is why the so-called “war on cancer” has not been as successful as we had originally and naively hoped. There is no “war” to be waged, “only” the mystery of life to be understood because cancer is an unavoidable byproduct of life.

‘Different Thinking’

The reason for cancer’s success lies in its ability to use, with great dexterity, the same tools that nature has used to give us the wonderful gift that is life.

Nobel Prize in 1933 for the formulation of the equation that carries his name, which describes the evolution in time of the quantum state of a physical system (in this sense, it is the quantum version of Newton’s second law).

In the late years of his life, he became interested in how physics could be used to explain living organisms, and his work has been cited as inspirational both by James Watson and Francis Crick, who themselves went on to receive the Nobel Prize in 1962 for understanding the double helix structure of DNA and its role in the transmission of genetic information.

So, just as Schrödinger had discussed in the larger framework of life, it turns out that to understand what causes cancer, we need to deeply understand how the cell works. We need to understand how those magnificent factories absorb and process energy, how they replicate and what is the

7 ić ’1 uk

L mechanism that ensures that they will n eventually die. The processes within a cell led us, as part of our class, to go back and try to understand some of the fundamental properties of matter.

In other words, though the disease is macroscopic, its origins are molecular.

Studying cancer is the interdisciplinary topic par excellence. Not only does one need to ask the right biological questions, but one needs to understand the physics and chemistry that underlie the description of those questions, and the mathematics that can help formulate the appropriate answers.

I regret not learning about cancer when I was younger, as I wish I could have Le o

T

hat’s especially so when we look at the lives of complex organisms.

My students and I began by looking at some of the early theories of cancer — some of which maintained respectability until the 16th century — and we advanced to where they realize that to understand such a disease, a theory of the universe is needed. Cancer’s complexity cannot be addressed unless we understand how the world works.

In working with my students and these ideas, I went back to the classic What is Life?

by Erwin Schrödinger. Written in 1942, this text is the work of one of the greatest scientists ever. Schrödinger received the

devoted the brightest and strongest of my intellectual years to its understanding. The state of research about this scourge is now as exciting as it ever has been.

Just like a visitor to a chateau (remember Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad?), we move from room to room, from chamber to chamber — and every time new doors open, new vistas become available. The mystery of cancer slowly yields to the eyes of the scientists — and while many of us will still succumb to this disease, we know that every day we are getting closer to its elusive core and its real understanding.

Daniele Struppa, Ph.D., is an award-winning mathematician and chancellor of Chapman University.

A version of this story originally appeared in The Orange County Register.

By Dennis Arp Chancellor Daniele Struppa’s Honors seminar course The Quest for Immortality attracted students with a multitude of interests and a wide range of majors, from kinesiology to film, business to biology.

Film production student Leon Lukić ’17 took the course in part because he still deals with the childhood memories of when his 5-year-old cousin died of cancer. “That shook me to my core,” Lukić says. “It’s something I’ve never been able to delve deeply into. I saw this as a great opportunity to get a better understanding of cancer.”

His explorations were varied, culminating in a final paper on how the lesbian-gaybisexual-transgender community is disproportionately affected by cancer.

A connection between high-risk behavior (apparently associated with the social stigma that still exists) and the disease emerged, pointing toward the social change needed to reduce the impact on the LGBT community.

More broadly, the course helped put cancer into historical perspective, Lukić says, while showing him the benefits of collaboration.

A class exercise was particularly enlightening. The students worked together to solve a biological mystery involving RNA molecules. To help them investigate and illustrate, they used pieces of string, scissors, tape and other household items.

“There were some very clever ideas, but ultimately a theatre major solved the problem,” Lukić says. “It shows that different disciplines and different thinking are needed to solve this disease. Rather than starting from scratch, it’s better to build on shared knowledge.”

Lukić adds that the course’s explorations help him feel more at peace with his cousin’s death.

“There’s no way that I could experience this and have it be just another class,” he says.

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Story by Dennis Arp, photos by Gregory Smith

ACUTABOVE With The Barber set to hit theatres this spring, Chapman Filmed Entertainment ventures into trailblazing territory. roducer Travis Knox ’93 could have used a dozen different metaphors to describe the challenges facing young filmmakers as they strive to advance in a hypercompetitive industry. He chose a ladder. A very tall, very steep ladder.

“We want to help Chapman alumni climb a few rungs,” Knox said.

No wonder Knox is so excited about the upcoming theatrical release of The Barber, the first project green-lighted by Chapman Filmed Entertainment. The feature’s credits are dominated by graduates of Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, including producer Knox, director Basel Owies ’10, cinematographer Allen Liu ’10, production designer Brendan O’Connor ’12 and editor Nader Owies ’12.

“Three years ago, (Dodge College Dean) Bob Bassett had the idea for a fully functioning independent film production company run through the college, and it started with two goals: to further the brand of the school, and to accelerate the careers of our graduates,” said Knox, vice president of production and development for the venture. “Other schools have tried variations, but nothing quite like this.”

The Barber is a character-driven thriller starring Scott Glenn (Silence of the Lambs, The Right Stuff) that exemplifies the kind of micro-budget features Chapman Filmed Entertainment eventually plans to release three to four times a year. Arc Entertainment recently acquired the U.S. distribution rights to The Barber, which is scheduled for a late-March opening in selected theatres. The deal includes a mid-six-figure budget to market the film.

The Hollywood Reporter said in praising The Barber, “If this notable feature is any indication of what to expect from the new initiative, Chapman may have hit on a winning formula.”

Glenn agrees.

“This has been maybe the most fun I’ve had on a movie in 15 years, maybe 20,” said the veteran of more than three dozen films, including recent successes such as The Bourne

P

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Legacy. “The kids who have been doing this — and at my age, I can call you a kid — I love that.

I love being around the energy of people who really want to make a good film and are not afraid to push the boundaries.”

Another star of the film, Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day), also enjoyed the experience.

“I think what Chapman is doing is brilliant,” he said.

Even before Chapman Filmed Entertainment’s first feature hits theatres, the investment in Dodge alumni is paying off, Knox said. The school’s brand has appreciated, as evidenced by a number of measures, including The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the best U.S. film schools.

In two years, Dodge has jumped from No. 23 to No. 7, and Chapman’s homegrown production company is one of the reasons cited.

How about the goal of aiding the careers of graduates?

“Our director is talking with several managers

“I love being around the energy of people who really want to make a good film and are not afraid to push the boundaries,” says Scott Glenn, star of The Barber, with director Basel Owies ’10. The film also features Chris Coy and Max Arciniega, top inset photo, and unites stunt legend Buddy Joe Hooker, left, with producer Travis Knox ’93, bottom photo.

and agencies about representation, and our cinematographer has been put up for an award,” Knox said of The Barber.

“Plus, our production designer has designed two more features.”

The company’s first film provided professional lessons for everyone involved, said Knox, whose producing credits include The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

It also strengthened connections to the Chapman Family in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

For instance, legendary stunt man and stunt coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker and his wife, Gayle, agreed to serve as stunt coordinators on The Barber. The couple’s twin sons, Houston and Kanan, started their own stunt careers at age 6 on the film Spy Kids and are now Dodge College students.

“It shows how people have come together to share their passions and help us succeed,” Knox said.

Knox and others at Chapman Filmed Entertainment are now considering what comes next. They’ve optioned three scripts — a supernatural horror film, a dark comedy and a romantic comedy — any one of which could move into production this spring, depending on variables such as the outcome of rewrites and the availability of targeted talent.

“All of the projects we consider must have commercial appeal; we’re not looking to do experimental or arthouse projects,” Knox said. “We want to prepare our students and alumni to succeed in the marketplace, and since all our films are fully funded by outside investors, we want to give them a return on their dollar.”

Before signing on with Chapman Filmed Entertainment, Knox was an independent producer, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to working for someone else.

“But this was such an ambitious idea.

Seeing what Bob and everyone else at Dodge had done to create this great school, I had confidence this was something I should explore,” Knox said.

“It felt right because everyone was doing it for all the right reasons.”

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Chapman professors’ jealousy research gets real, with help from some historical and pop-culture characters.

By Dawn Bonker

n a February morning in 1859, New York Congressman Daniel Edgar Sickles marches up to his wife’s lover, pulls out his pistol and fatally shoots the mischief-maker. Sickles goes free, the first person to successfully use a plea of temporary insanity.

In a Valentine’s Day episode of the Emmy-winning sitcom Modern Family, Claire is delighted when Phil drags her out of a party where another man has charmed her with goofball jokes — Phil’s forte. The scene closes with cuddles and hugs.

Could the same human emotion possibly be behind those wildly different scenarios? Yup, our old green-eyed friend, jealousy, is the devil behind such troubles. Like hot sauce, jealousy comes in degrees, from the gentle stuff that just perks things up a bit to the killer dose that launches tears. It can be Cupid’s friend or a source of tragedy.

All of this is why two Chapman University researchers are studying jealousy at length, eager to put a scientific eye on an emotion that is fodder for poets, artists and novelists. Real-life jealousy can be devastating, so understanding how it works is vital, say Jennifer L. Bevan, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, and David Frederick, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences.

Bevan is the author of the award-winning book The Communication of Jealousy and studies jealousy on social media as well. Frederick just published a study revealing the key factors that fire up jealousy, and he discovered they aren’t the same for men and women.

It’s serious research, with implications for therapists who counsel couples and families. But we also see it leap from the textbook page when we ask Bevan and Frederick to apply their insights to pop culture and some famously jealous folks, both real and imagined.

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So said Congressman Sickles just before he pulled the trigger. It’s an extreme, but very male, response, says Frederick.

“People often think of emotions as irrational.

But emotions are powerful motivations that evolved over millions of years,” Frederick says. “The threat of losing his partner evoked jealousy in Sickles, which drove him to confront the potential threat to his relationship. Cultural context is also important to consider to understand emotions. Sickles not only faced the threat to his relationship, but he risked being viewed as weak and someone who could be disrespected by others if he didn’t act. The harm to his social reputation if he didn’t act may have further fueled his anger.”

The tempestuous relationship of Hollywood glam couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton captivated the tabloids for more than 10 years. In a 1974 love letter recently auctioned, Taylor, the legendary leading lady, attempts to express her jealousy to her philandering husband and frequent leading man, Burton.

“My darling (my still) My husband. I wish I could tell you of my love for you, of my fear, my delight, my pure animal pleasure of you — (with you) — my jealousy, my pride, my anger at you, at times. Most of all my love for you, and whatever love you can dole out to me — I wish I could write about it but I can’t. I can only ‘boil and bubble’ inside and hope you understand how I really feel. Anyway I lust thee, Your (still) Wife. P.S. O’Love, let us never take each other for granted again!

P.P.S. How about that — 10 years!!”

Alas, Taylor didn’t quite hit the mark, Bevan says.

“Elizabeth is being very indirect here, so it's very possible that Richard does not even know she is jealous! If she really wants to get her point across, she would be clear with him about the fact that she is jealous. But jealousy is a complicated experience, and Elizabeth does a wonderful job of illustrating that – she is jealous about him, angry with him, in love with him, and attracted to him, all at once. These are all things that a jealous person can feel.”

Toy Story’s Buzz and Woody are like jealous siblings vying for Andy’s affection. Woody sets out to embarrass Buzz, mocks his name (“Buzz Light-Beer”), his aerial ability and so on. It feels like a toxic relationship, but Bevan assures us it’s not. “A lot of platonic relationships can involve jealousy, even though we tend to focus on jealousy in romantic partnerships,” Bevan says. “This is akin to sibling rivalry, in which two children are competing for parental affection and attention, which are seen by the children as finite. A lot of younger children act out their rivalry by teasing and being aggressive, similar to how Woody acts. I bet that a lot of younger children watching this movie recognized these behaviors in their own sibling relationships.

The fact that it ends with them being so close is a great message for children — and people of all ages!

Jealousy is often a vital plot device in situation comedies and helps lead to happy endings. Bevan’s research finds that a pang of mild romantic jealousy, or the platonic variety of Toy Story fame, can lead to happy endings in real life, too. But it’s all in how it’s communicated.

“If communicated in a constructive way — open and honest, explaining and sharing jealous feelings without being accusatory and angry — a small amount of jealousy is not a bad thing,” Bevan says. “Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, has a quote about jealousy that I love, and that I subscribe to: ‘A little bit of jealousy in a healthy relationship is fine. It’s going to wake you up. When you’re reminded that your mate is attractive and that you’re lucky, it can stimulate you to be nicer and friendlier.’”

Jennifer Bevan

David Frederick

The impact of jealousy motivates Professor Jennifer Bevan, who notes that the emotion has been linked to lower relationship satisfaction and commitment, and is a major cause of conflict and relationship break-ups. In the extreme, jealousy is a significant predictor of intimate partner violence, psychological abuse and stalking, adds Bevan, Ph.D., director of the Master’s Program in Health and Strategic Communication at Chapman.

Professor David Frederick, Ph.D., wants to shed light on human behavior.

Most recently he published a major study revealing the key factors that fire up jealousy. He discovered that heterosexual men are much more likely to be vexed by sexual infidelity, while their female counterparts are more resentful of emotional infidelity.

Chalk it up to evolutionary biology, says Frederick, whose study was published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Males want to guarantee that the kids eating up their hard-earned bread and butter are in fact their offspring. Females tend to perceive emotional infidelity as a greater threat than sexual cheating because of the risk they’ll be left alone with all those hungry kids.

Frederick did not find similar results among male and female bisexuals and homosexuals.

His is the first large-scale examination of such gender and sexual orientation and was based on a poll of nearly 64,000 Americans collected through an online survey.

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CHAPMAN

i n m e m or i a m

MARION KNOTT “Over the eight years since we opened Marion Knott Studios,

By Jim Doti

Great communities are made by great people.

I have routinely had lunch with Marion

So too, great universities are made by people whose

to tell her the good things that have

remarkable vision makes dreams come true. Orange

happened at our film school. She only and always wanted to hear about ‘the kids,’ asking ‘Are they getting jobs, Bob?’ I was

County and Chapman University lost one of those people in November, with the passing of Marion Knott.

happy to be able to tell her that they were.

I can’t imagine that there won’t be one more phone call and one more lunch.

How very lucky we are to have had the opportunity to associate ourselves with a woman with Marion’s values and sensibility.”

BOB BASSETT, DEAN, DODGE COLLEGE OF FILM AND MEDIA ARTS

34 Marion Knott Studios

M

arion was a remarkable lady whose spirit, tenacity and courage moved mountains. She cared deeply about young people and believed in the power and importance of education as a means to building a better world.

Marion’s parents, Walter and Cordelia Knott, were among Orange County’s pioneers. As children, Marion and her brother and sisters sold the berries their parents grew at a roadside stand. Later, they served meals to diners, who waited in line for hours to enjoy their mother’s fried chicken. These were the beginnings of Knott’s Berry Farm. Today, the incredible generosity of the Knott family is recognized by prominent namings at healthcare and educational institutions. Most notable at Chapman are our Marion Knott Studios as well as Toni Oliphant Hall, which honors Marion’s sister.

But namings were never what Marion was about. She gave because that was the example her parents set for their children, even when they had very little to give. She was grateful for the opportunities in her life, and her overriding goal was to provide opportunities for as many people as possible.

Marion served Chapman with loving care and compassion. Her generosity in nurturing a small film department into one that now commands global stature is the stuff of legend. She established, for example, the first filmmaker-in-residence program with a $1 million endowment. When cost overruns pushed the construction expense for our new studios to the point where we could no longer afford the equipment needed to outfit it, Marion came to the rescue by giving us $3 million, allowing us to move ahead.

Less widely known is that, as a member of our Board of Trustees since 1982, Marion gave quietly and without fanfare, making a very real and significant difference in our academic programs and in the lives of countless Chapman students.

Marion’s wise counsel and common sense meant more to me than I can adequately express. I was truly fortunate to have had her friendship and support. But far more important is that the students of our University — past, present and future — are fortunate to have Marion Knott as their friend and angel. Marion’s greatest concern was always for our students. I will never forget how often she would ask students about their studies and projects as well as their career plans.

A number of years ago, Marion sent me one of her father’s “business cards,” which he had signed on the back. It is one of my prized possessions. Imprinted on the front of the card is the following quotation: “Whatever we vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass.”

In the accompanying letter, Marion explained that her father kept one of these cards on his desk, constantly in his view. She wrote, “He told me over and over that the reason most people were not successful was because they didn’t know what they wanted; they had no burning desire for anything.”

Marion learned her father’s lessons well. She had a vision for what Chapman could become if we all had a burning desire to make it a reality. She lit that desire in our hearts and minds.

What a great and enduring legacy she leaves us.

Jim Doti, Ph.D., is president of Chapman University.

PHYLLIS ESCALETTE

A

passionate art collector who together with her husband helped establish Chapman University’s permanent art collection, Phyllis Escalette passed away Dec. 30.

Escalette and her husband, the late Trustee Ross Escalette, made many gifts to Chapman, including in 2010, when the couple founded the Phyllis and Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at the University.

Their dedicated stewardship was foundational to Chapman’s growing and distinguished collection of contemporary art by many of today’s most acclaimed painters, sculptors, printmakers and photographers.

The Escalettes were just as dedicated to the success of their family business. In 1986, they joined with their three children in launching Brasstech /Newport Brass, a plumbing products manufacturer based in Orange County. By the time they sold it in 2001, the company had grown into a highly successful business with more than 500 employees.

Throughout their lives together, the Escalettes shared a deep appreciation for art. In a 2010 Chapman Magazine interview, Phyllis Escalette playfully described the couple’s approach to collecting. “We don’t buy the things we argue about,” she said with a smile.

In their introduction to The Chapman University Collections, a book published during the Chapman’s 150th anniversary year, Ross shared his and Phyllis’s reasons for their generous gift to the University: “We like to give to organizations where we can see the funds being put to immediate and visible use. Chapman University and the Art Collection fill that requirement in every way.”

After her husband passed away in 2013, Escalette and her daughter, Suzanne, continued to play an active role in the collection.

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Photo by Joe Bergman ©

CHAPMAN

s p ort s

PANTHERS CELEBRATE HISTORIC

SEASON

By Doug Aiken ’99 (M.A. ’09)

Chapman head coach Bob Owens guided the Panthers to their first conference title and NCAA playoff berth in school history.

Ernie Chapman is smiling down on his Cardinal and Gray. A dream 20 years in the making — since Chapman University brought football back to campus in 1994 after a 62-year hiatus — became reality this season Senior Michael Lahey led the Chapman offense and ranked among the nation’s best passers.

Photo by Larry Newman ©

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he historic season ended on a November Saturday in Oregon as the Panthers fell to Linfield College, 55–24, in the first round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. But the season was a spectacular success that saw the Panthers climb into the national top 20, earn their first conference championship and appear in the postseason for the first time in school history.

The team was not an overnight sensation.

The 2014 season was the product of years of preparation and building by head coach Bob Owens, the architect of the football program. Following ups and downs over his first seven years at the helm, Chapman’s coming-out party was when the Panthers tied a school record by winning eight games during their 2013 campaign. However, the not-yet-ready-for-prime-time team fell just shy of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) crown.

With expectations at an all-time high going into this year, Chapman proved it was ready for the big stage by hosting perennial national power Linfield to begin the season. Behind an enthusiastic home crowd, the Panthers led at halftime before finally losing, 21–14.

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as the Panthers reached the grand stage of the Division III football world.

Chapman went on to win its next eight games, including all seven of its SCIAC contests. One of the many highlights was a 58–0 Homecoming victory over Pomona-Pitzer in front of a record crowd of 5,620 at Ernie Chapman Stadium.

Four weeks later, with the SCIAC title on the line, Chapman went on the road to Redlands and used a second-half rally to unseat the reigning conference champs, 31–27, and capture its first conference crown in school history.

That set up a rematch with Linfield in the first round of the NCAA playoffs, this time on the road, where the Panthers had won nine straight games dating to the start of the 2013 season. Chapman began the season unranked but had climbed to No. 17 in the D3football.com national poll.

Once again, though, Linfield prevailed, eliminating the Panthers from the postseason.

There were several outstanding individual performances by Chapman players this season.

Junior running back Jeremiah McKibbins returned from a knee injury that caused him to miss the entire 2013 season to rush for more than 900 yards and a SCIAC-leading 16 touchdowns. He became just the second rusher in school history to eclipse the 2,000yard plateau in his career and broke the Chapman record for career rushing touchdowns (27).

Meanwhile, senior quarterback Michael Lahey, the reigning SCIAC Offensive Athlete of the Year, was once again one of the most

efficient passers in Division III, with 17 touchdowns and only four interceptions, ranking in the top 10 in the country in completion percentage. He also became the third Chapman quarterback to throw for more than 4,000 yards in his career.

The Panthers will begin the 2015 season back in McMinnville, Ore., to again face Linfield.

And so will begin Chapman’s SCIAC title defense amid hopes of returning to the NCAA playoffs.

Junior Jeremiah McKibbins eclipsed 2,000 career rushing yards and set a school record with his 27th touchdown.

alumni

news

As a producer for Christiane Amanpour, Marjoe Aguiling ’01 prepares to meet the demands of a lightningfast information age.

A

With the News

ll of his training and experience rode shotgun with Marjoe Aguiling ’01 as he sped through the streets of Caracas to the presidential palace. After days of diplomatic wrangling, he finally had the green light for an exclusive interview with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and now nothing was going to stop him.

“You can’t go back home without the interview,” Aguiling says.

“You stay until you get it.”

Such is the life of a field producer on the team of Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN. “Christiane is the most recognized and respected journalist across the globe,” Aguiling says. “She expects the best, which is great. Every day requires peak performance. You have to be nimble, and you can’t blink when something goes wrong. You just figure out a solution.”

At the palace in Caracas, Aguiling not only had to rustle up engineers and a local translator, he had to troubleshoot production snafus, which on this day meant all but rappelling from the roof to ensure a successful taping.

Once the interview was in the can, he rushed to meet a local producer, who pulled a tarp off his backyard satellite dish so the interview could be beamed to the main CNN server in New York.

There, hours of footage were edited to fit a few minutes of air time, and Aguiling was back on a plane, preparing for his next assignment.

If it all sounds terribly exciting, not to mention demanding and exhausting, well, that’s just the nature of the beast, he allows.

“It’s like shooting at a charging lion — no margin for error,” Aguiling says.

These days, he is helping to prepare others to face such barbed challenges. He’s six months into a new role as director of content production for CNN in New York.

By Dennis Arp

“I’ve been given an opportunity to be a leader now,” Aguiling says. “My job requires that I have a great understanding of what’s under the hood.”

His transition to management only strengthens the connection to his undergrad experiences at Chapman University, even as he pursues an MBA in media management at Fordham University.

At Chapman, he studied with people like Harry Cheney, a professor at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and an award-winning Hollywood editor.

“I still think about his tips when I work today,” Aguiling says.

After Chapman, Aguiling’s first professional experience came in advertising, which taught him “the art of the tease” and how to tell a story in 30 seconds. He then transitioned to a role as associate producer for MDTV, a medical news show that gave him a lot of room to grow. That led to a producing job on a documentary project for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers celebrating the year in flight.

The film was widely hailed and earned Aguiling an Emmy at age 30.

“It was a huge editing and production job, and I felt like a mad scientist in the middle of it,” Aguiling says.

Then came the giant leap to CNN, where he has worked on a variety of shows, including Parker Spitzer, for which he landed a producer role, and Erin Burnett OutFront, which he helped launch. Along the way, he amassed the expertise to “create a CNN show from scratch,” and he has loved every minute of the experience, he says.

“I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve been part of something important.”

To this day, he’s still learning, and his importance to the network is still growing. That makes his work all the more satisfying, he says.

“It continues to be a real treat for me to be part of such a great team,” Aguiling says.

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C L A S S

N O T E S

Email your news and photos to alumni@chapman.edu or mail to: Alumni Engagement, One University Drive, Orange, Calif. 92866. Any pictures received by mail will be scanned and returned. Class notes are subject to editing due to space. To post class notes and photos online, visit alumni.chapman.edu.

1970s Michael Carlson, B.A. sociology ’71, retired after serving 42 years as a Disciples of Christ minister.

1 Susan Spurgeon, M.A. special education ’79, retired from Saddleback Valley Unified School District after 40 years of teaching at the elementary level.

1980s 2 Carolyn Bahr, B.A. communications ’89, is the music editor on ABC’s The Middle. She recently finished her first novel, Walking Through Fire, which was released in November.

Sandy McDaniel-Laughlin, B.M vocal performance ’84, and her husband, Gregg, opened All-Inclusive Senior Advisors. The business provides seniors and their families with valuable resources as they transition into a new phase of life.

John M. Silberstein, B.S./B.A. business economics ’88, was appointed Pi Kappa Alpha’s international legal counsel.

1990s 3 Thomas Bailey, M.S. human resource management systems ’93, was recently appointed vice dean for the sciences programs at the University of Maryland University College.

Prior to his appointment he was chair of the psychology program.

Lorraine T. Breen, M.S. human resource management ’94, retired from the U.S. Army Medical Specialist Corps at the rank of colonel, the highest rank that can be attained as a dietician.

Prior to her retirement, she served as the chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs at the Pentagon. Lorraine served in the Army and Army Reserves for more than 28 years.

Ken Bunt, B.A. liberal studies ’92, is president of Disney Music Group, where he oversees all of The Walt Disney Company’s recorded music and music publishing operations, including Hollywood Records, Walt Disney Records and Disney Music Publishing. Last year he was named No. 89 on Billboard’s Power 100 list, which names the most influential people in the music industry. He also received the 2014 T.J. Martell Foundation Humanitarian Award. The foundation funds innovative medical research focused on finding cures for leukemia, cancer and AIDS.

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Akin C. Ceylan, B.S./B.A. management ’90, is a new member of the Chapman University Board of Trustees and was the keynote speaker at Chapman Student Research Day in December.

4 Hamilton Erridge, B.A. communications ’92, is the founder of New Lifestyle Diet and has lost 100 pounds since his days as a Chapman student. His book, So Damn Hungry, was released in December.

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5 Greg Franklin, M.A. education administration ’91, (at right in photo) was named 2014 Orange County and California Superintendent of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators. He is the superintendent of the Tustin Unified School District.

Kjersti Glesne, B.M. vocal performance ’98 (M.A. education ’04), is an adjunct faculty member at Biola University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education while continuing as a full-time elementary music specialist and choir director.

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2000s Hillary Branman, B.A. French and BFA creative writing ’06, launched a travel and lifestyle website, UncontainedLife.com.

The site aims to help people improve the world through socially responsible travel.

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6 Nicole Hernandez, B.A. English ’98, and Jason Hernandez, B.A. social science ’98, welcomed their third daughter, Victoria Louise Hernandez, on July 30. The family lives in Germantown, Tenn.

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Adam Myman, B.A. film and television ’95, published his first novel, The Magical Adventures of Brian Leonard, under the pen name Mr. M. He is also a fourth-grade teacher and recently presented at the Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers (ECET2) conference as a teacher leader on character education.

7 Daniel Vandenbark, B.A. communications ’99, married Ronald Woodward on Nov. 11, 2011, in Costa Rica. They welcomed their son, Torbett, on Dec. 12, 2012. Daniel also recently celebrated 15 years in business creating custom interiors, landscapes and corporate branding.

Mike Cersosimo, BFA film production ’07, was honored by the nonprofit civic engagement organization Venice Arts at its 21st Anniversary Gala. Cersosimo was recognized for his outstanding work over the past five years as an artist mentor and volunteer aiding low-income youth.

Tiffany A. Christian, MFA creative writing ’05, is a Ph.D. candidate in American studies at Washington State University.

8 Cori Coffin, BFA television and broadcast journalism ’09, is an anchor and reporter for KVUETV in Austin, Texas. In her new role, she will anchor mornings Monday through Friday and will also report breaking and trending news throughout the day.

Sarah Curry, M.A. teaching ’05, created an ongoing fine art exhibit called Portrait Biographies. The exhibit opened in November 2014 at Cottonwood Center for the Arts in Colorado Springs, Colo.

9 Michael Fisk, B.M. music

education ’06, is in his eighth year as a band director at Tustin High School. Lindsay (Johnson) Fisk, B.M. music education ’06, works

Ginger Silverman ’77

A Golden Touch

By Lysa Christopher

G

inger Silverman ’77 has a richly detailed resume that reads a bit like a novella, touching a range of industries and roles, from e-commerce to in-store merchandising, public relations to management training.

The building blocks of her success first took shape in college. Leadership skills that crossed disciplines as well as an attention to detail helped earn the English major the Cheverton Award, capping her undergraduate career at Chapman University.

More recently, Silverman was appointed president of Golden Communications Inc. in Newport Beach. A self-proclaimed “culture catalyst,” she leads the Golden Comm team developing digital marketing strategies for a host of clients.

She also has long enjoyed sharing her knowledge as an instructor, previously in Chapman’s English and communications departments and now in her seventh year at Brandman University.

“In teaching, I can see a direct impact as a return on investment,” Silverman says.

At the same time, she’s working with Dean Patrick Fuery of Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences to develop a new minor for Chapman called creative industries.

“It’s a hybrid, much like my career,” Silverman says. “Anyone who is going into marketing, advertising, public relations or promotions needs to have a cross-exposure to many different disciplines.”

Continued on next page ❯❯❯

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as a legal secretary at Weiland Golden LLP in Costa Mesa, Calif., and as band director for Eader, Hawes and Moffett elementary schools in Huntington Beach, Calif. They welcomed their second child, Kyle John Fisk, on June 3.

The Absolute Exhibits team includes, from left, Christina Corbin ’13, Todd Koren ’00 and Duy Nguyen ’14.

Family Ties

W

hen Todd Koren ’00 calls Absolute Exhibits a family business, it’s clear that he includes Chapman University in his description.

Koren founded the corporation with his parents after he graduated from the Argyros School of Business and Economics in 2000.

Absolute Exhibits designs and fabricates custom exhibit environments for a range of clients, and since its launch it has grown from 10 employees to more than 80.

“After my own success in building a million-dollar corporation, I realized that other Chapman graduates would be similarly prepared to take on the real world and prosper,” Koren says. “I not only wanted to create a strong company structure, but also a work family. What better way to do this than by hiring my fellow Chapman alumni?”

He adds that by “keeping it in the family,” the company fosters employee loyalty.

“Chapman has been a great help in finding many of our employees who not only came to us with a great depth of knowledge but are also well versed in many fields,” Koren says.

The team includes Duy Nguyen ’14, who works in IT and marketing; Nicholas Teramura ’12, who leads the project management team; and Christina Corbin ’13, who is assistant marketing director.

“The knowledge and expertise of these Chapman alumni have allowed our company to grow exponentially,” Koren says. “We feel that we have the edge we need in this competitive marketplace.”

Scott Melvin ’01, B.M. music education and performance; Francisco Calvo, B.M. music education and performance ’02; Keith Hancock, B.M. music education and performance ’02 (M.A. education ’04); and Brian Dehn, B.M. performance, reunited at the 10th annual Friends Festival, a choral exhibition and workshop. All four are choral directors in Orange County.

Paul Hughes, MFA creative writing ’01 (M.A. English ’04), is a reporter with the Orange County Business Journal.

10 Tiffany (Smith) Limer, B.A. theatre performance ’09, married Luigi Limer on Sept. 6 in Houston. Tiffany is the chief operating officer of Alexandra Knight Inc., an exotic handbag line, and Luigi works in the petrochemical industry for Integra. The couple reside in Houston and spends time each summer in Sicily, where Luigi’s family lives.

column in the Santa Ana Register. A selection of his poems will be part of a forthcoming anthology published by Kórima Press.

12 David Malki, MFA film production ’02, produced an improv-based card game, Machine of Death, based on a series of bestselling books he co-edited.

Mark Miller, BFA film production ’06, produced the new director’s cut of the 1990 Clive Barker film Nightbreed.

It was released on Blu-Ray in October.

Margaret Moodian, BFA graphic design ’03, was appointed to the Blind Children’s Learning Center Board of Directors. Margaret is also a court-appointed special advocate for foster youth (CASA), a board member of Tias Arms (a nonprofit that assists African children affected

by AIDS) and a member of the Chapman University Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Maci Peterson, B.A. public relations and advertising ’09, launched On Second Thought, a first-of-its-kind messaging application that lets users take back text messages before they’re delivered. The app concept won first place in a pitch competition at the South

by Southwest interactive conference last year and was a featured startup at the Web Summit. On Second Thought is available for Android phones and will be released for iOS in 2015.

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11 David Lopez, B.A. screenwriting ’07, wrote The 41, a feature-length historical drama set in 1901 Mexico City. The screenplay was an official selection of the 2014 Oaxaca FilmFest in the International Screenwriting category. David is also the writer of Life in the Golden City, a bi-weekly

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Lugene Rosen, B.A. English ’97 (M.A. English ’00 and MFA creative writing ’00), had a chapter published in the book Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul: On the Highway to Hell and Back. The chapter title is “Who’s Your Daddy?

Father Trumps Fate in Supernatural.”

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13 Melissa (Webster) Rotunno, BFA theatre and dance ’01, married Ken Rotunno on Aug. 2. Many Chapman alumni were in the bridal party, including Erin O’Sullivan, Class of ’03; Adrienne Kimble Ainbinder, B.A. theatre and dance ’01; Bodie Quirk, B.A. communications and Spanish ’00; Heidi (Martin) Quirk, B.A. organizational leadership ’01; and Robin (Jordan) Gallagher, B.A. psychology ’03. The couple reside in Calabasas, Calif., where Melissa is an education specialist for the deaf and hard of hearing, and Ken is an aerospace engineer.

Teren Shaffer, B.M. music education and performance ’09, won the 2014 American Prize in the band performance category. He is the director of Orange County School of the Arts’ Classical Instrumental Music Conservatory and music director and conductor of the school’s Frederick Fennell Wind Ensemble.

In addition, he serves as

general manager of the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra, the youth orchestrain-residence at Chapman, and is an adjunct faculty member in the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music.

Darryl Speech, MBA ’07, is the chief customer officer for Greystone & Co., a financial services and private investment group. He is leading the strategy for the company’s customer experience efforts.

Kevin Staniec, BFA film and television production ’01, co-founder of Black Hill Press, recently invited fellow Chapman alumni Ryan Gattis, BFA creative writing ’01, and Bryce Carlson, B.A. screenwriting ’07, to participate in a Keynote Conversation at the California Art Education Association Annual State Conference in November 2014. The theme for the conference was Art: Power to Innovate. The alumni focused their talk on the power of collaboration, sharing stories about recent projects.

Ian Wang, BFA film and television writing and directing ’05, directed his first commercially produced documentary, Championship Dreams. The film chronicles a rural Chinese girl who wants to escape her life of poverty through soccer. It aired on the Al Jazeera English network in October.

Camille Collard ’10

Virgin Territory

T

wice Camille Collard ’10 has been wrong about the popular CW sitcom Jane the Virgin. But that has turned out to be great news for her.

First, when her agent sent her a brief description of the plot, she thought it was beyond absurd. Then she imagined there was no way she would land the recurring role of Jane’s pal, Frankie.

“It called for a sassy best friend, boy crazy, any ethnicity. It was such a broad representation of requirements,” Collard says.

But she did get the role. And she now loves the show’s madcap premise: A virgin becomes pregnant via artificial insemination thanks to a distracted gynecologist.

“The show’s great,” she says. “The writers are so very clever.”

Critics agree. The Los Angeles Times called the series “one of the best things to come out of the fall season.” The New Yorker magazine described it as a “sweet surprise.”

To her role, Collard brings every moment of training honed in the Chapman University Department of Theatre. She adds that professors Tom Bradac and Tamiko Washington are mentors who “made a difference in my life and my understanding of the development of the craft and the tools that I needed.”

It adds up to a foundation that helped launch her career.

“I’m paying my bills by acting now,” Collard says, “which is all I ever really wanted to do.”

Continued on next page ❯❯❯

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2010s

Dr. Ryan Van Ramshorst ’06

Where Science Meets Service

D

r. Ryan Van Ramshorst ’06 says he was drawn to medicine because it’s “a near-perfect hybrid of science and service.” These days, his caring approach extends well beyond the exam room.

As a practicing pediatrician and University of Texas faculty member, Van Ramshorst tells students, “We need future physicians who will be advocates for their patients in the examination room, in the community and in the halls of state and federal legislatures.”

Van Ramshorst is as passionate about improving the health of patients in underserved communities as he is about teaching and advocacy. His practice is in a predominantly Spanish-speaking community on the south side of San Antonio.

His commitment to helping others began at Chapman University, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences and Spanish while minoring in chemistry. That commitment continues as he advocates for policies that benefit children through his membership in the Texas Pediatric Society.

In addition, he recently completed a position as chief of residents at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s Department of Pediatrics Residency Program.

“It was a great year in which I was able to work alongside some of the brightest young minds in the field of pediatrics,” he says.

Van Ramshorst advises students to seek out a mentor.

“Recognize that it’s a two-way relationship requiring time and commitment,” he says, adding that “some of my best mentors came from my years at Chapman.”

14 Laura (Atkinson) Dart, B.S. business management ’10, married Trevor Dart in July 2014 at the Fullerton Courthouse in Fullerton, Calif.

Megan Cummings, B.A. communication studies ’14, co-authored a research paper with Chapman faculty member Jennifer Bevan, Ph.D., that was recently named top paper in the Interpersonal Communication Interest Group of the Western States Communication Association. A conference to discuss the paper will be held in Spokane, Wash. in February.

Jarrell Hall, Class of ’11, is a producer for his production company, Executive Geek Productions, LLC. He recently started a new production company, Tech4Reel, with his Chapman sweetheart, Nekoda Mattox, B.A. sociology ’10.

Kyle Kim-E, B.A. strategic and corporate communications ’14, is launching KhamaiWare, a socially conscious business in Cambodia that will create jobs, educate villages about water issues and ultimately provide clean water.

Ali LaBelle, B.A. graphic design ’12, is the lead designer at Ban.do, a Los Angeles-based accessories label. Her designs are being used on iPhone cases, bags and more. Her work can be found nationally in Nordstrom, Anthropologie and Paper Source.

Kevin Lander, MFA film and television production ’11, and Justine Zahara, MFA film and television production ’12 (MBA ’14), got engaged in November.

Cara Lawler, B.A. music education and choral conducting ‘11, was voted Volunteer of the Year at International Volunteer HQ. She is the founder and president of SAWA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a sustainable and permanent home for the orphans of the El Shadai Grace Children’s Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Ezra Lunel, MFA film production ’13, started a film and video production company in downtown Santa Ana. The company produces, shoots and edits business and eventbased videos.

Anna Lisa (Biason) Lukes, MBA ’13, accepted a position as the regional director of the central coast office of GRID Alternatives, a national company that focuses on bringing solar energy to communities that would otherwise lack access.

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15 Stephen Nelson, BFA

television and broadcast journalism ’11, is working in New York City as a host for Bleacher Report, covering all sports and teams for the second-largest sports website in the country.

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16 Kat Parks, B.A. psychology ’10, is engaged to Ryan Iskenderian, a chiropractic applied kinesiologist. Kat, a certified yoga instructor, and Ryan plan to open Via Vita Wellness, a holistic center, in Sequim, Wash., in 2015.

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17 Mikandrew Perdaris, BFA screen acting ’11, has a co-starring role on DIG, a new action-thriller miniseries scheduled to air in March 2015 on USA Network.

Amanda Starrantino, BFA television and broadcast journalism ’13, joined KSBY News, the NBC affiliate in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, as a multimedia

PANTHERS ON THE PROWL

journalist. She will be covering local politics and sharing people’s personal stories.

Colin Sommer, B.A. public relations and advertising ’14, and Nicole Mynott, public relations and advertising ’14, will be working together at the Walt Disney Company in their new roles as strategists on the Disney.com team.

18 Justine Suzuki, B.A. public relations and advertising ’13, partnered with Lillian Wojcik, B.A. public relations and advertising ’13, to launch LYKA, an online creative collective that showcases emerging artists from various disciplines.

Akin Ceylan, B.S./B.A. management ’90, and Madison Gonzales, B.A. psychology ’13, enjoyed a dive off of Santa Catalina Island.

The two met and discovered their Chapman connection during a dive training class.

Kat McIver ‘07

The Perks of Pop-Up Success

By Lysa Christopher

K

at McIver ’07 believes in following her dreams. So when she and partner Angie Evans developed their “pop-up coffee shop” at farmers’ markets around Long Beach, Calif., the couple embraced the adventure.

Wide Eyes Open Palms, a name as intriguing as the locally sourced coffee and handmade pastries they serve, originally started as their “side project” to jobs in service and management industries. That changed when their venture gained widespread popularity.

McIver is the chef and Evans the barista.

Together they create a food-and-beverage alchemy featuring everything from Paleo chocolate-coconut cupcakes and organic hibiscus-lavender-agave tea to a host of specialty coffees.

“I make every single pastry from scratch and bake it before each market,” McIver said.

She credits much of her business acumen to her learning experience at Chapman University, where she earned a degree in political science.

Her advice to budding entrepreneurs: “Get as much experience as possible within your field in someone else’s business. And start saving.

One of my Chapman business counselors told me from the get-go that it’s important to have some skin in the game.”

McIver and Evans intend to use their success to fuel a brick-and-mortar shop in Long Beach.

“Follow your heart and don't be afraid of making a career out of your deepest passions,” McIver advised. “We did.”

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When college roommates Linda Haertling ’84 and Yukimi Nozawa Kayamori ’84 left Chapman University, they vowed to keep in touch. After Kayamori moved back to Japan and Haertling went home to Denver, the friends never imagined that they wouldn’t see each other again for three decades.

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s students of Chapman in the early ’80s — a time of big hair and shrinking electronics (remember the Sony Walkman?) — Haertling and Kayamori “had so much fun getting to know each other and spending time with each other’s friends,” Haertling recalled.

“Coming from Colorado, it was great fun being around the California scene. I choose Chapman because of the friendly vibe.”

After sporadic contact during their early post-grad years, the friends eventually stopped corresponding altogether. They were busy building lives and careers; Haertling is a speech/ language pathologist at an elementary school in Boulder, Colo., while Yukimi has her own English school in Fuji.

It wasn’t until Haertling’s boyfriend surprised her with a trip to Japan that a reunion seemed possible.

Haertling unearthed Kayamori’s Facebook page, and the roommates reconnected.

6,000 Miles of Memories

In early 2014, Haertling made the reunion happen, completing the journey with an hourlong train trek from Tokyo to Fuji. She was eager to see her friend again. “When we finally saw each other after so long, we were both overwhelmed,” Haertling said.

The women quickly kindled memories of Chapman and their time as residence hall roomies. “Although we have aged, it didn’t seem like 32 years at all,” Kayamori noted.

The reunion experience prompted a message to current Chapman students.

“Enjoy your school life,” Kayamori said, “not only to learn but also to make lifelong friends.”

“Although we have aged, it didn’t seem like 32 years at all,” Yukimi Kayamori ’84 says of her reunion with Linda Haertling ’84 three decades after they were roommates at Chapman.

By Lysa Christopher

FRIENDS WE WILL MISS Clarice Wilson Friedline, B.A. physical education ’52, passed away Oct. 5 at age 84. She spent the first half of her life as an educator. A member of Disciples of Christ Church, she followed her lifelong passion and was ordained at age 51. She trained to be a hospital chaplain and led seminars in grief recovery. Clarice is remembered as a loving mother and friend, artist, author and Disney aficionado. She is survived by her husband, Dick Friedline, six children and two step-children.

Michael John Killian, B.A. psychology ’65, passed away Jan. 14, 2013, at age 71 at his home in Carthage, N.C.

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Eugene F. Richey, B.A. sociology ’48, passed away in April at age 94. After earning his degree at Chapman, he attended Boston University School of Theology. Eugene spent much of his career working for Boston YMCA and for a short time was the assistant director of the International Institute of Boston. He was an member in his local Unitarian Church and the YMCA Service Club. Eugene is survived by his wife of 65 years, Christine Reuther Richey; his children, Susan, James, Peter and Mark; and five grandchildren.

Marjorie (Kinney) Sherrill, B.A. history ’70, passed away Oct. 2 at age 82 in Pacific Grove, Calif. She is survived by her husband, Wayne Sherrill; sister, Betty Hampton (Kinney); sons, Ken Knapp, Gary DeAmaral, Larry (Carl) DeAmaral; and her beloved grandchildren. The family requested that donations be made to the Chapman University Scholarship Fund in lieu of flowers.

Lorrilyn Fetherolf, B.A. broadcast journalism ’88, passed away March 3, 2014.

Lorrilyn enjoyed a successful career in television and remained connected to Chapman throughout her life, attending Wassail every year with her family.

Are you receiving

the monthly Chapman alumni e-newsletter?

Each issue is packed with alumni news, class notes,

opportunities to get involved on campus, career and networking advice and Chapman events across the country.

If not,

update your contact information at chapman.edu/alumni-update.

ALUMNI NEWS AND CAMPUS EVENTS We want to help you stay connected with Chapman University.

Whether you live close to campus or across the country, there are opportunities throughout the year to: • Connect with fellow alumni and the Chapman Family to build your professional network.

• Attend events such as Chappy Hour, Greek Skit Night, the Chapman Family Homecoming Celebration and reunions.

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But we can’t let you know about these valuable opportunities if we can’t reach you.

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STAY CONNECTED

SAVE THE DATES Founders Day, March 13-14, 2015

Greek Skit Night, April 10-11, 2015

Join us for this 32nd annual event, sponsored by the Office of Church Relations. The featured scholar is Richard H. Lowery, Ph.D., who will speak on human rights themes through the key stories in Genesis. The featured preacher is the Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock ’72. For more information, visit chapman.edu/founders-day.

Meet fellow Greek alumni for a mixer before cheering on your chapter. Skit Night never disappoints, thanks to all the incredible talent and creativity in Greek Life. Keep an eye out for more information, coming soon via email and the alumni e-newsletter.

To learn more, contact Jessica Schulte ’11, alumni engagement manager, at pricej@chapman.edu.

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Skit from 2014 Greek Skit Night

Photo by Mel Metcalfe Photo by Marissa Messina ‘17 Photo by Mel Metcalfe

Photo by Monica Petruzzelli '16

Top photo: Artist Jose Fuster greets Chapman students Mor Albalak '15, Monica Petruzzelli '16 and Emmy Gyori '15.

And nowhere are the hues more lively than at the Havana home of artist Jose Fuster. That news comes courtesy of Mor Albalak ’15, a Chapman University TV broadcast journalism and political science double major who just returned from a winter Interterm course in Cuba. For the class, led by Chapman documentary film professor Jeff Swimmer, Albalak explored the mixed-media worlds of three Cuban artists, including Fuster — an iconic figure in this island nation ready to welcome an influx of U.S. visitors. (In Chapman Magazine online and the spring print issue, look for a story reflecting on recent changes in U.S.-Cuba relations.) Albalak and her classmates were thrilled to tour Fuster’s studio and see the celebated mosaics that blanket his house and those of his neighbors. Albalak, a native of Israel, used her college Spanish to interview Fuster, and their conversation highlights the kindness and curiosity the students encountered throughout Cuba. “I clearly don’t know enough Spanish and he doesn’t know enough English for us to communicate easily, yet we reached this level of understanding,” Albalak says. “There was this eagerness to connect on both sides. The kindness really shined through.” WEB