College of Charleston Magazine Summer 2016

C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n magaz in e

Art and Science

Lulie Martin Wallace ’09 paints the perfect picture of where a liberal arts education can take you.

Behind the Mask

As Ebony Hilton ‘04 knows, encouragement and compassion are often the best medicine.

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Summer 2016 Volume XX, Issue 3 Editor

Mark Berry Art Director

Alfred Hall Managing Editor

Amanda Kerr Associate Editors

Alicia Lutz ’98 Ron Menchaca ’98 Jason Ryan Photography

Mike Ledford Leslie McKellar Contributors

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ATTN: College of Charleston Magazine College of Charleston Division of Marketing and Communications Charleston, SC 29424-0001 College of Charleston Magazine is published three times a year by the Division of Marketing and Communications. With each printing, approximately 64,000 copies are mailed to keep alumni, families of currently enrolled students, legislators and friends informed about and connected to the College. Diverse views appear in these pages and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the official policies of the College.

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18 WORLD CLASS

PHOTO-ESSAY BY MIKE LEDFORD

DEPARTMENTS

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AROUND THE CISTERN 2

HER BULLY PULPIT

MAKING THE GRADE 12

In this photo-essay, we highlight some of the international student-athletes from our various varsity sports programs, representing talent from four continents.

BY ALICIA LUTZ ’98

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When Emily Torchiana first came to the College, she didn’t tell anybody about what she’d been through – the cyberbullying, the suicide attempts, the hospitalization. It was too personal. Now a mental health advocate speaking at national events and local schools, she’s telling her story to thousands of people at a time – and saving lives while she’s at it.

SECOND WIND

BY RON MENCHACA ’98

LIFE ACADEMIC 6

TEAMWORK 16 POINT OF VIEW 18 PHILANTHROPY 62 CLASS NOTES 66 MY SPACE 80

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It’s easy to label Alicia Rhett, who starred as India Wilkes in the 1939 classic Gone with the Wind, as a local actress who made good. However, the College’s recent acquisition of her personal papers tells a more complex story of a woman who walked away from a film career to instead become an accomplished portrait artist, but who could never fully distance herself from the iconic film, nor the adoring fans who sought her attention.

SWEET DREAMS

BY JASON RYAN

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As a child, alumna Ebony Hilton ’04 was called “Dr. Hilton” by her mother, inspiring her to reach for the stars. After triple majoring at the College and acing medical school, the now real-life Dr. Hilton offers that same support to the next generation of girls.

on the cover: Ebony Hilton ’04 photo by Brennan Wesley

AROUND the CISTERN Course of Nature THE CLASS IS QUIET, FOCUSED. IT’S THE final exam, and all heads are down, concentrating – all eyes on the task at hand. Still, Melissa Hughes isn’t surprised when one student gets up to point out the pileated woodpecker in the window behind her.

“It’s been like this all semester,” says the biology professor, who taught her ornithology course, including three hours of lecture and three hours of lab every week, entirely at Dixie Plantation for the first time this semester. “We’ve watched the seasons change out here: the first arrival of the migrants, the growing diversity in the chorus of songs in the morning. It has been a completely different experience for the students, being here all the time as opposed to coming here for field trips.”

Thanks to the two new field research stations at Dixie Plantation, faculty and students can now take full advantage of the College of Charleston’s 930-acre property, located 17 miles south of campus on the Stono River. Made possible by a $1 million matching grant from the Spaulding-Paolozzi Foundation, the field research stations provide unprecedented access to the property, which was left to the College by the late ornithologist and bird painter John Henry Dick for teaching environmental appreciation, conservation and preservation.

And that is exactly what Hughes’ ornithology class is doing.

“An awareness of the environment around us pervades every aspect of the course,” says Hughes, noting how immediate access to the subject changes the learning process – for her students and herself alike. “A student or I will notice a bird while I’m lecturing, and we can check it out – or if it’s something particularly interesting, we can drop whatever we’re doing to track it down. We started a bird census, establishing and walking transects

| 2 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

through different habitats, but next semester, I think we’ll start with that at the very beginning of the course. Since this was the first semester I’ve taught out here, it was a bit of a learning experience for me in terms of what we could and couldn’t do, or how best to run the whole show.”

There’s definitely a lot to be learned at Dixie – both inside the field research stations and out. The stations themselves are a lesson in environmental preservation

and architectural design. Built according to the regulations of the International Living Building Challenge Recognition Program, the stations have net-zero energy consumption and extremely low potable water use. That enviable environmental footprint is thanks to features like the solar chimney and windows turned to the prevailing breeze for cooling, barn doors serving as retractable hurricane shutters for resilience, rainwater catchment for

AROUND the CISTERN

nonpotable fresh water, the geothermal HVAC for minimal environmental impact and integrated solar photovoltaic array for offsetting energy demands. In addition, the Dominion Foundation awarded $25,000 to the College to purchase water-quality monitoring equipment for combined field and lab training.

“We are deeply appreciative of this generous grant from the Dominion Foundation,” says Dean of the School of Sciences and Mathematics Mike Auerbach.

“The equipment made possible through the corporate endowment will enable us to provide students of all ages with a richer understanding of Lowcountry ecosystems and how they impact us all.”

The field research stations don’t just serve as laboratories for biology, geology, ecology, environmental studies and archaeology research, however: They serve as entryways to the diverse flora and

fauna found in Dixie’s marshlands, tidal flats, grassland savannas, wetlands and hardwood and longleaf pine forests.

“The two stations sit in such different habitats,” says Hughes, who next semester will start alternating between the two stations so students can get to know both habitats equally. “I’m full of plans – really can’t wait to teach out here again!”

“It is important to note that the field stations are available to any faculty or class that wishes to take advantage of Dixie’s natural treasures and stunning vistas,” adds Auerbach. “Archaeologists, artists, educators: Virtually everyone can benefit from Dixie’s beauty and uniqueness.”

Hughes’ students certainly did: They “developed a sense of place, a feeling for the habitat, that’s just impossible if you’re just dropping in a few times over the semester,” she says. “That feeling for the

habitat is a critical part of natural history education – it helps you recognize when things change, when things are different or out of place.

“So, you see more, you notice more.

And I see a different side of my students,” continues Hughes, adding: “The students who develop the best ‘field eyes,’ who become the first to spot the new bird flitting through the trees, may or may not be the students who excel on exams.”

Besides, there’s so much more than final exams out there. Hughes knows this. She knows that there’s more to observe, more to learn, right outside the classroom walls.

And, yes, she completely understands how distracting that can be.

After all – it doesn’t matter how quiet, how focused, the class is – it’s nearly impossible to concentrate on a final exam when a pileated woodpecker is right outside the window.

SUMMER 2016 | 3 |

MAKING the AROUND the GRADE CISTERN

CROSSING THE CISTERN Commencement is always a beautiful weekend at the College: the flowers in full bloom, the graduating seniors in their traditional white attire and, most important, the pride and hope in all those smiles. Simply breathtaking.

This year was no exception.

Degrees granted: 1,669

| Photos by Leslie McKellar, Mike Ledford and Kip Bulwinkle ’04 |

Honors College graduates: 146 Top five degrees awarded: business administration (277), biology (196), psychology (160), communication (150) and political science (105) Bishop Robert Smith Award recipient: Patricia Cooney (biology) Commencement speakers (who also received honorary degrees): Secretary Deborah Lee James (U.S. Air Force), Judge Michael Luttig (executive vice president and general counsel, The Boeing Co.) and Michael Couick (president and CEO, Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina) Honorary degree recipients: Judge Richard Fields and S.C. Senator Hugh Leatherman Master’s degrees and graduate certificates awarded: 102

LIFE ACADEMIC

| Photo by Kip Bulwinkle �04 |

Making History

IN TODAY’S WORKFORCE, IT IS EXPECTED that a person will change careers five to seven times in a lifetime. Now, contrast that with landing a job that you like early in your career and having the conviction to stay for 50 years.

It seems almost unimaginable in today’s fickle world of work, but that’s exactly what happened with history professor Malcolm Clark. In 1966, Clark was working on his doctorate | 6 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

at Georgetown University when his professor, Richard Walsh, suggested he look at the College of Charleston. Walsh, himself a graduate of the College’s Class of 1949, told Clark he thought he would like the school’s atmosphere.

As it happened, there were two vacancies in the history department, and so Clark sent over his dossier. After landing an interview with then-President Walter Raleigh Coppedge, Clark, ever the history buff, went home to the public library in Washington, D.C., to read up on his prospective institution’s history.

The College and the city held a lot of interest for Clark, who didn’t hesitate to accept Coppedge’s offer to work there.

“I remember thinking, after being appointed as assistant professor in the history department, that if I like it here, I would put down roots and stay here for the rest of my career. And I did,” he says with a laugh.

When Clark arrived, Charleston was a different place than the bustling city we know today. East Bay and King streets were empty, businesses had moved to the suburbs and the town, he says, could almost be described as “provincial.”

The College was also different. It was a private institution when Clark arrived, and enrolled only 373 students. And though the College accepts more students today, Clark admires that the classes still maintain a sense of intimacy.

As much as things have changed, however, the past is always relevant – something he stresses in all his classes.

“Students need to have some familiarity with the past, because so much that is occurring today – and the response that is being made to it – seems to be done without the knowledge a historian has,” says Clark. “A knowledge of the past seems to clarify

possible routes that will be taken in a contemporary situation.”

Clark points to the Cuban Missile Crisis and how the military policies and tactics of the past determined the actions President John F. Kennedy took in 1962.

“At the beginning of the crisis, the demand was to get the Soviet missiles out of Cuba, and those who thought this was a priority were ready to demand military action – force was the first thing put forward. But President Kennedy and four or five members of his executive committee were contemplating what the possible consequences would be for each one of these steps. The other alternative, of course, was diplomacy. They merged both of these possibilities and applied the appropriate pressure to the Soviet Union, but not so much that they would resort to a nuclear response. The blockade was the device adopted to prevent more missiles from coming in and possibly allowing the Soviets to turn and remove what had already been put in,” Clark explains.

“Kennedy was a student of history, and that was a very important factor in the approach that he made.”

Although his love of history is evident (note the history lesson he snuck in), Clark’s passion for seeing students succeed has been his biggest motivator over the last five decades.

“I rejoice that I have had some excellent students, and that they have gone on to very successful careers and good lives as good citizens,” says Clark. “I count that as a blessing. That’s the great reward that comes to teachers – the fruit is in what happens to the students.”

And, even if Clark’s students go on to change careers seven times, he knows they’ll always carry with them an appreciation for the past. He’s been making sure of that for 50 years.

| Photo by Kip Bulwinkle �04 |

LIFE ACADEMIC

Rising Above AS A YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE growing up and attending public schools in Sumter, S.C., Kendall Deas saw firsthand how opportunities for advancement could be limited by race and socioeconomic status.

While Deas’ parents encouraged him to pursue a career in academia, a place where they believed he could best address some of the inequities he saw in his own community, Deas was also drawn to the performing arts. And deciding which way to go became even more difficult for Deas after the U.S. Presidential Scholar in Arts Program recognized him for vocal performance and professional dance.

Ultimately, he says, his parents prevailed: “I turned down music scholarships for vocal performance because I decided that I would have a stronger impact and make a greater difference going into academia.”

After hanging up his dance shoes, Deas went on to earn several academic degrees from institutions such as Georgetown University, Dartmouth College and Washington University in St. Louis. He came to the College of Charleston in 2013 as an adjunct professor in the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance. He also serves as a faculty

advising fellow in the Honors College and as a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President.

But he hasn’t completely given up his pursuit of the arts, and performing as a vocal soloist with three different choirs is what brings balance to his life.

“My penchant for the performing arts kept me focused and disciplined as I reached academic and professional goals,” says the former Fulbright scholar who earned a doctorate in educational administration and policy from the University of Georgia.

An expert in education policy research, Deas is focused on addressing disparities that exist in schools, especially Title I schools that have high percentages of children from low-income families. Many of these children share the same tenacity and drive that helped Deas to succeed, but they often lack the support network that Deas believes was essential for him to reach his full potential.

Lately, that potential seems to have no limit: Deas was recently named a 2016–17 New Leadership Academy Fellow by the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and its National Center for Institutional Diversity.

The fellowship program helps prepare senior-level faculty and administrators

to eventually assume top leadership positions in higher education.

On the heels of the fellowship announcement, he received more good news. At the annual ExCEL Awards ceremony honoring members of the campus community for promoting diversity and excellence, Deas was named Outstanding Faculty of the Year for both the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance and Honors College.

To Deas, such accolades are indications that he chose the right career path. The way he sees it, the higher he climbs the academic ladder (he has his sights set on becoming a university president) the more opportunities he’ll have to impact education policy in the U.S., particularly in his home state of South Carolina.

As a role model for young people at the College as well as in local community organizations and schools, Deas is already seeing his positive influence – particularly in the reactions of young men when they learn he is a college professor.

“I tell them that I am a product of South Carolina public schools and that ‘you can do this, too,’” he says.

And that’s true whether they aspire to perform on a stage or become leaders in higher education.

SUMMER 2016 | 7 |

| Photo by Kate Thornton ’00 |

The Lost Boys

IN A WORLD THAT’S INCREASINGLY, AND perhaps now eternally, interconnected, professors Rich Bodek (left) and Joe Kelly (right) have convinced their students to spend a semester focusing on what it means to be isolated and alone.

For the third time, the history and English professors have combined their talents to teach an interdisciplinary course on the subject of marronage – when individuals or small groups of people are separated from civilization and society, whether by choice or not.

Historically speaking, maroons are runaway slaves. But the term is often applied more broadly to all types of castaways. In Bodek and Kelly’s class there is an examination of marooned sailors (Robinson Crusoe and The Island of Dr. Moreau), marooned children (Lord of the Flies) and marooned survivors of a nuclear holocaust (Lilith’s Brood) and zombie plague (The Walking Dead), as well as an exploration of the art of escaped black slaves. Despite the assorted plots and people presented in these works, Bodek and Kelly ask students to analyze what’s consistent between all the books and graphic novels, | 8 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

such as themes concerning the fragility of civilization and humanity. Furthermore, works concerning marronage inevitably dwell on the relationship between man and nature and what constitutes the self.

“When you’re stripped down and laid bare, staring at the jungle on one side, the ocean on the other, you come face to face with the issue of what it means to be human,” says Kelly.

The removal of the familiar can indeed have a profound impact, agrees his teaching colleague.

“How can you not rethink who you are and who you want to be,” says Bodek. “I don’t think there’s any way to avoid it.”

When you talk with Bodek and Kelly, you discover there’s much nuance concerning marooned people. Should a shipwreck survivor be considered a maroon just as an escaped slave, since the former’s removal from society was accidental and the latter’s escape deliberate? Are immigrants maroons, since they are transplanted from one culture to another and left to confront a new society and possibly reinvent themselves? How about two College professors left alone with two dozen

undergrads twice a week, forced to attempt to bridge the generational chasm between them? Are they hopelessly marooned?

Bodek and Kelly acknowledge there’s room for debate. Indeed, such debate was held at the College in February when anthropologists Richard and Sally Price visited the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program for a conference entitled: “Marronage and Maroonage in Culture, History, and Society.”

No matter how loose or narrow one’s definition of marronage might be, stories of abandonment, isolation and survival make for good discussion. For rising junior Sophie Naughton, stories of marronage are very relevant to today’s world, no matter how drastically methods of travel and communication have changed over the past couple centuries.

“One of the things we’ve been exploring in this class is the expansion of the marronage tale beyond the boundaries of just being shipwrecked,” says Naughton. “So far we’ve talked about people like Robinson Crusoe, marooned on an island, but also people marooned on foreign planets and even in another time. We may not be shipwrecked very often anymore, but we keep finding new boundaries to explore anyway.”

Despite the wide net cast by Bodek and Kelly in the realm of marronage, there’s one seemingly obvious piece of maroon-themed work that they promise won’t reappear on a syllabus for the class: Gilligan’s Island. Bodek and Kelly once assigned a couple of episodes from the ’60s television show, but found the content “too lightweight and superficial,” says Bodek.

“It was a disaster,” Bodek says of the skipper, Gilligan, professor and the other castaways. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Not that Bodek and Kelly reflexively react to television this way. Last semester, as part of a final exam, the professors had students analyze four episodes of Lost – another television show featuring strangers stranded on an island, struggling to survive.

As Kelly says of marronage: “This trope is everywhere in American culture.”

LIFE ACADEMIC

SPELLBOUND Everybody knows the College is a magical place – but, for the students taking a Harry Potter course, it’s even easier to get wrapped up in the fantasy of it all.

“I start the semester just like they do at Hogwarts – by letting the Sorting Hat assign each student to one of the four houses,” says English professor Trish Ward ’78, who started teaching J.K. Rowling’s popular series in 2009.

“Unfortunately, though, my sorting hat doesn’t read minds or talk.”

But ENGL 190 isn’t all treacle tarts and quidditch. Somewhere between the 4,000 pages of reading, five papers, house project, quizzes, tests and final exam – the magic can wear off.

“I think the creative project at the end of the semester helps restore that initial enthusiasm,” says Ward, pointing out models of Harry’s pet owl and the Mirror of Erised on her office shelves.

“They come up with some great stuff: fan fiction, recipes. One student even made a YouTube video applying makeup for the characters. They really get imaginative with it.”

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | 9 |

INSIDE THE ACADEMIC MIND: TODD LEVASSEUR ’97 Since 2010, religious studies professor Todd LeVasseur ’97 has been helping students better understand their place within nature. We caught up with him to discuss his passion for music, skateboarding (and surfing) and sustainability literacy.

FOR 2015–16, YOU WERE THE DIRECTOR OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES PROGRAM. WHY ARE STUDENTS DRAWN TO THE PROGRAM? Indeed, it’s 20 years old and as of right now, we have more than 150 amazing and committed minors. I can’t speak for all of them, but if I could distill out a few reasons, one would be passion (many of our students have a strong passion for the planet’s health, matched by their passion for justice in society), and the minor lets them marry those interconnected concerns. Many also want to get a job that will change society and the planet for the better, and this minor gives them the skills to do so and be competitive for graduate opportunities and/or jobs that require thinking in new, holistic ways.

WHO ARE YOUR ECO-HEROES? Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society — they’re putting their lives on the line to save cetaceans. Julia “Butterfly” Hill lived in an old-growth redwood tree for two years without literally touching the ground – she not only saved the tree from being logged, she also raised awareness about logging of the last remaining old-growth redwoods. Jane Goodall is the embodiment of compassion for all species and she has so much dignity. Bill McKibben, who started 350.org with some of his undergraduate students. Clayton Thomas-Muller and all the indigenous activists involved with Idle No More up in Canada who are fighting continued colonization, empowering women and transgendered indigenous youth, and mobilizing against the extraction of tar sands oil. Vandana Shiva, for her work with women farmers the world over. Wes Jackson, for his work at the Land Institute. And Wendell Berry, for giving a poetic and moral voice to modern-day ecological agrarian concerns. Then, of course, I have to pay respect to our elders: Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson.

WHAT BOOK WOULD YOU RECOMMEND ALL STUDENTS READ TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO NATURE? You know it’s illegal to ask an academic to suggest just one book, right? Given that, I’d suggest rather than read a book that they instead turn off their phones and spend three hours being silent out in nature somewhere, observant of the sacred community of life within which they reside and of which they are an integral part.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVORITE CLASS TO TEACH? I’ll give a rote but authentically true answer: any class that has students willing to learn, who are engaged and passionate and who consistently challenge me to be a better teacher for them — that is my favorite class to teach. If these criteria are met, the subject matter is secondary. If they get my sarcasm and laugh at my corny jokes, then it’s even better. | 10 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

LIFE ACADEMIC

YOU CAN OFTEN BE SEEN SKATEBOARDING AROUND CAMPUS. WHY IS THIS YOUR CHOSEN MODE OF TRANSPORTATION? Well, I personally don’t think riding bikes is a safe option currently in Charleston until we have comprehensive bike lanes. So, skateboarding allows me to get from my car to my office in a fairly safe and quick amount of time, and back to my car so I can get my daughter from school.

I only have one skateboard, which I took over from my wife (Jeanette Marie Halberda ‘01) – it’s a Gravity brand longboard shape that she had as an undergrad here.

WHEN YOU KICK BACK TO RELAX, WHAT MUSIC IS PLAYING? This depends on my mood. Archive.org has a live music archive which contains a Grateful Dead section where you can access all the various recordings of shows by each day they were performed, so I spend a lot of time on that site. I’ve been listening to Xavier Rudd and the United Nation’s album Nanna nonstop since it came out last year.

And I’m a huge fan of one-drop roots reggae that mixes horns, percussion and socially conscious lyrics, so Bob Marley and the Wailers, Burning Spear, Groundation, John Brown’s Body, Alpha Blondy and the Solar System, Michael Franti and Spearhead. To top it off would be some Neil Young, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. But the best music to me is hearing my children laugh and my wife singing to them, or waves breaking at Folly — if I can hear them from my house, I know it’s big enough to surf.

YOU’RE THE QUALITY ENHANCEMENT PLAN DIRECTOR FOR SUSTAINABILITY LITERACY. WHY’S THAT PARTICULARLY RELEVANT TO THE CofC EXPERIENCE NOW? Of the many reasons, here are a few: the job market is demanding students have sustainability literacy, and we need to prepare our students for these emerging future career opportunities.

Sustainability literacy is inherently interdisciplinary, and this presents a chance for us to foster dialogue, research and teaching across multiple schools on campus, which will benefit student learning and research opportunities. It allows us to “walk our talk,” since sustainability is embedded in our strategic plan.

And, lastly, most scientific metrics suggest a much warmer planet that is undergoing major ecosystem shifts, with many of these shifts being inimical for many lifeforms as currently evolved (including ours), and we need to marshal our many resources on campus and in Charleston to help society deal with this tough future that is coming our way.

The College can be a leader in helping generate solutions to these “wicked problems,” as they’re called in the literature.

I’m excited to see where we’re going to go as a campus in the coming years as we learn about sustainability literacy together – exciting new opportunities are going to emerge and our students are going to be given the skills they need for their future. Sustainability literacy is central to that mission.

FINAL THOUGHTS? How lucky are we to be alive on this beautiful planet at this critical moment in time, with all its magical lifeforms as we all spin through the infinity of space together. To me, the grandeur and fragility of this demands of each of us loving service to all lifeforms. This motivates, inspires and humbles me every day.

FACULTY FACT

IDS

• Six professors were | Kelly Shaver | honored with faculty awards of distinction – Distinguished Research Award: Kelly Shaver (management and marketing); Distinguished Service Award: Bernard Powers (history); Distinguished Advising Award: Susan Balinsky (health and human performance); Distinguished Adjunct Teaching Award: Lauren Humphreys (geology and environmental geosciences); Distinguished Teaching Award: Merissa Ferrara (communication); and the William V. Moore Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award: Joe Kelly (English).

• Several longtime faculty retired this spring. The College is greatly indebted to these amazing teacherscholars (with a combined 125 years of service to the institution): Ned Hettinger, philosophy (1986); Steven Rosenberg, music (1986); Michael Skinner, teacher education (1986); and Carol Toris, psychology (1981).

• Dave Owens (marine biology) received a Fulbright grant to study and teach vertebrate zoology at Mawlamyine University in Burma. His project explored Burma’s marine tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals).

• Nominated by the College’s Delta Gamma sorority chapter, Anne Gutshall (teacher education) received the national Delta Gamma Foundation’s Outstanding Faculty Award, which recognizes teaching excellence and student impact, inside and outside the classroom.

• Cellist Natalia Khoma (music) and pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky (music) were made honorary professors of the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (perhaps better known as the Kiev Conservatory).

• Senior Fellow Terry Peterson (School of Education, Health, and Human Performance) was named a “Champion of Children” at this year’s Beyond School Hours: National Education Conference in Dallas, Texas.

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 11 |

MAKING the GRADE

Quantum Leap HE CALMLY TOES THE FREE THROW line, lets out a slow breath and in one smooth, artful motion releases the ball – underhanded. As the son of an NBA Hall of Famer, it’s easy to think that the most impressive things on Canyon Barry’s résumé are his lineage and prowess on the basketball court, but you’d be wrong.

Barry ’16 ought to be on a book tour touting a dynamic story of achievement that extends far beyond the world of sports. The narrative of his four years at the College reads like idealized fiction– | 12 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

a perfect 4.0 GPA, star athlete on the College’s marquee sports team and full engagement in a variety of volunteer pursuits. He’s a two-time Academic All American and one of only two NCAA Division I athletes in the U.S. who shoot free throws underhanded. Did we mention that he also plays the guitar? It’s not every day that a university graduates such a student. In fact, it’s not even every decade.

A native of Colorado Springs, Colo., Barry is the son of Rick Barry, one of the top 50 basketball players of all time, and Lynn

Norenberg Barry, who earned a place in the College of William & Mary’s Athletic Hall of Fame for basketball and track. But the 22-year-old is exceptional in his own right. And when you flesh out the chapters of his story, that’s when Barry’s career at the College really starts to impress.

First, consider the responsibilities shouldered by a student-athlete. Long hours on the basketball court don’t leave a lot of time for studying. But Barry has stayed as committed to his academics as he has to his sport.

MAKING the GRADE

number of years, so I’m just trying to maximize that and enjoy the process.”

If he does end up on a professional team’s roster, Barry is well aware that not every aspect of that will be within his control. “At the College,” he says, “I played

player that year than I was the previous one. Hopefully, I’ll continue that trend wherever I end up. I’ll keep trying to be the best player I can be every day that I step on the court.”

And if Barry ever does go on a book

| Photo by Kate Thornton �00 |

“One of the hardest things,” he explains, “is trying to maintain balance between being a student and being an athlete.

During the season, there are a lot of long nights where you’ve just played a game and you’re exhausted and it’s 10 p.m. Still, you’ve got to go back and study for a test or finish homework or write a paper. You quickly learn time management because you have to be able to be productive when you can. So instead of watching TV or listening to music on a 10-minute break, you finish a couple of physics problems or start writing that paper.”

For four years, he maintained a perfect 4.0 – majoring in physics, no less, with a minor in math. His senior research project, which involved working with graphene (a nanomaterial), drives home the point.

“We used atomic-force microscopy and nano-indentation to characterize the material’s properties, such as stiffness,” he explains. “We started by using DVD burner reduction to convert graphene oxide to graphene, which is pretty hands-on work in the lab.”

What the future holds for his graduate school studies is still unfolding. Barry isn’t sure if he’ll continue his work in physics or if he’ll pursue his growing interests in nuclear or mechanical engineering.

“I’m grateful to the physics department,” he says. “The people there have helped me lay the foundation for a successful career doing something that I love, and I know I’m ready to excel at the grad school level.”

But his post-undergraduate plans don’t just include earning a master’s degree.

Barry also wants to take his basketball skills to the next level – preferably joining a team that has the potential to make the NCAA tournament.

“I’ve got one more year of eligibility to play college ball,” he says, “so I hope to find a grad school that’s a good fit for me both athletically and academically. But I’m not trying to go somewhere and play 10 minutes a game and be the ninth man off the bench. I want to be an impact player, and ideally have the opportunity to get good exposure that will potentially help with my professional aspirations after grad school.”

That’s right. Barry intends to play pro ball: “Hopefully, I’ll find a role in the NBA or in Europe or elsewhere overseas.

You can only play basketball for a finite

for four different basketball coaches and the main takeaway for me is that you can only control what you put in. You can control your attitude and you can control your effort, but you have no control over who becomes head coach and what choices that person makes. You just have to go in the gym every day and work to become the best player you can be. The rest will take care of itself.”

When you examine the trajectory of Barry’s Cougars playing career, it’s clear this outlook has merit. Throughout each of his four years, Barry became an increasingly effective scorer, averaging 19.7 points per game in his final season.

And that’s a trend he hopes to continue.

“I think it’s dangerous anytime you become satisfied in a sport,” he says.

“As an athlete, there are always things that you can improve upon. I think I’m definitely on the right path and that’s been my goal every year – to be a better

“One of the hardest things is trying to maintain balance between being a student and being an athlete. ... You quickly learn time management because you have to be able to be productive when you can.”

– Canyon Barry ’16 tour, that last line would seem just about perfect on the book jacket.

Editor’s Note: After a recruiting process that captured national headlines, Barry selected the University of Florida.

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 13 |

| Photo by Kip Bulwinkle �04 |

Right at Home “HOMELESSNESS IS A COMPLEX AND thorny problem.” Those were the initial words of an editorial published in Charleston’s Post and Courier this spring.

The editors might have added that, for Charleston, homelessness is also somewhat perplexing: How is it that a city so seemingly wealthy, whose citizens are obsessed with their residences, cannot find solutions for accommodating its neediest residents? That’s exactly what political science and philosophy double | 14 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

major Kirk McSwain ’16 was investigating in his bachelor’s essay.

McSwain came upon this topic through firsthand experience as an intern at Charleston’s main homeless shelter – One80 Place. One incident in particular galvanized his interest in exploring solutions to homelessness.

“A guy came in one afternoon when I was working in the front office,” McSwain remembers. “He said it was his first day being homeless and he asked, ‘Do I get a

bed?’ We were full, as the center often is, and I couldn’t do anything for him. There’s almost always a waiting list. So he asked if there was anywhere else he could go for the night, and I had to say ‘no.’ You could see the shift on his face. His shoulders slumped, and he just walked out.”

McSwain says his objective with this research project was to find out what populations aren’t taken care of by our current system: “You see people out on the street at night and it’s apparent that their needs aren’t being met. And that situation seems so incongruous with the rest of Charleston. So, I wanted to examine and summarize the current policies that are being followed by organizations engaged in homelessness here, and then offer some specific solutions by way of alternative best practices.”

According to McSwain, most municipalities have an emergency shelter that offers nightly programs: “That’s really what I think our city needs in addition to One80 Place. That facility has a lot of great social programs – for example, access to an in-house lawyer and case managers that help individuals work through issues like finding employment," he says. “But the downside is that there’s a waiting list and the facility doesn’t accept homeless people who are alcoholics or drug users.”

McSwain favors an approach that’s known as Housing First. Among other priorities, it emphasizes getting homeless individuals and families into housing as quickly as possible. “Another component of that system,” he explains, “is permanent supportive housing, particularly for the chronically homeless (those people who have been homeless for four years or more). It may seem expensive to house and support these individuals, but studies have proven that it’s more economical than having to police them and cover their health care costs when they’re on the street.”

After graduating this spring, McSwain plans to work in this field with a nonprofit organization. Later, he hopes to pursue either a law degree or an M.P.A.: “Ultimately, I want to go into the world of policymaking and continue addressing the problem of homelessness. I’m a very results-driven person, and I think our society can find better ways to resolve homelessness and do that economically at the same time.”

MAKING the GRADE

TEENAGE WASTELAND Ferris Bueller took the day off. The Breakfast Club enjoyed detention. The Heathers lost their cool. The Outsiders broke the rules.

The teens of the 1980s films did what they wanted. They didn’t conform or follow. They embraced who they were and ran with it. They were all on their own.

And Elaina Cole was determined to give them the credit they deserve.

“I wanted to legitimize the 1980s teen film as a genre,” says the sophomore William Aiken Fellow, who – as a computer science major, double minoring in math and film studies – was hardly discouraged by the dearth of academic publications she discovered about the subject: It wasn’t the first time she’d forged her own way. “That just made me more determined.”

Cole ran with it, and – when she presented her resulting paper at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Undergraduate Conference last April – credit was finally given where credit was due: Cole had done it all on her own.

TEAMWORK Full-Court Press

EVERY BASKETBALL PLAYER IS LOOKING for a big break. When Evan Bailey got his, though, it was a little disappointing. A compound fracture in his femur wasn’t exactly the break the seventh grader had been hoping for.

It did, however, lead to a breakthrough: It was during his rehabilitation that he realized what he wanted to do with his life. Shrugging off his childhood dream of being a zookeeper, Bailey decided he wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon.

“My surgeon walked me through every step of the process and really helped my comeback,” recalls Bailey, who recovered from his injury and returned to the basketball court better than ever. “Since

then, I wanted to be like him. I want to help kids the same way he helped me.”

Fast forward to the end of his senior year at Jackson High School in Canton, Ohio, and Bailey had set a handful of school records, including the all-time career leader in three-pointers made (166) and three-pointers made in a single game (8). He also had a 4.6 GPA and offers to attend Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Miami of Ohio, Kent State and Toledo. After much thought, however, he chose the Honors College at the College of Charleston.

Now a rising junior majoring in chemistry, Bailey has made a name for himself as a Cougar student-athlete.

He is one of the College’s Presidential

Scholars and Academic Merit Scholars.

And, after receiving a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant earlier this year, he was chosen to conduct research with chemistry professor Brooke Van Horn. In between his research in organic chemistry and classes this summer, Bailey is also volunteering in a medical shadowing program at a local hospital.

And that’s not all: Bailey continues to excel on the basketball court, as well.

This past season alone, he registered eight double-figure scoring games and was the Cougars’ fourth-leading scorer, averaging 6.4 points per game. He was also one of five players to play all 31 games during the 2015–16 season. In March, he was named to the 2016 College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-District Men’s Basketball Team, which recognizes the nation’s top student-athletes.

Bailey admits it’s not easy to play sports and maintain a high grade point average.

He says you have to find a balance between scholastics and athletics to make sure you get your needed study time.

“You have to schedule your time correctly because there is not a lot of downtime,” he says. “Whenever you have time, you learn not to let it slip away.”

And even though he is only two years into his collegiate career, Bailey’s not letting any time slip away: He’s already looking ahead, researching medical schools in South Carolina and Massachusetts, and hopes to start narrowing down his search soon.

And so, even when he does have a little break, don’t expect any lollygagging from Bailey. He knows from experience that, if you play things right, the best break can lead to a breakthrough.

men’s tennis team won its first CA A championship. + Victoria Bauer ’16 (equestrian) the SPORTSTICKER | The was the Reserve National Champion in individual open flat and the Cacchione Cup Reserve

National Champion. + The men’s golf team won its third CAA championship, and Mark McEntire was named CAA Coach of the Year. + An All-CAA first team golfer, William Rainey advanced to nationals as an individual (the first time in school history). | 16 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

TEAMWORK

Setting the Bar High

SHE HAS HIGH HOPES. HOW HIGH? OVER 6.03 feet high.

That’s how high Julisa Tindall jumped while participating in the high jump portion of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Track and Field Championships in March. The 1.84-meter jump is the indoor College of Charleston record for the high jump.

She also set the outdoor school record in the high jump at 1.83 meters. That record was set during the Colonial Athletic Association championships in spring 2015.

This year, Tindall made it two CAA championships in a row when she made a season-best 1.76-meter jump to take the conference title again.

But, as she will tell you, those new records wouldn’t have been set if it weren’t for Tindall’s sister.

Tindall never tried the high jump until she decided to go out for the track team while in the 10th grade at Northwestern

High School in Rock Hill, S.C. Her coach convinced her to try the high jump, after reminding Tindall that her older sister was a successful high jumper on the team several years earlier.

“That really motivated me to try it,” she says. “It was a different feel and kind of weird, but it soon felt natural and I was able to catch on quickly.”

Her impact on her high school team was felt immediately. The higher she jumped, the more the school records started to fall.

For the next three years, she was the state champion in the high jump. She was named to the Charlotte Observer’s girls track all-state team for three years, and the Rock Hill Herald dubbed her Athlete of the Year during her senior year.

As a member of the Cougars, she hasn’t just set school records. She’s also qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary (placing 18th in the high jump) and the USA Track and Field Senior Outdoor Championships

(placing 13th nationally).

Despite her success on clearing the bar, her biggest hurdle may be trying to explain her sport to other people: “Most people think that it’s the pole vault, so I compare it to pole vault. I tell them that it’s just like pole vault without the pole. It’s just me jumping over the bar.”

In case you’re wondering, no, she has never tried to pole vault and has no desire to try. However, Tindall does have some personal goals for the next few years.

“I want to continue to get better,” she says. “I broke school records last season.

My goal now is to jump higher and break those records again.”

After graduating from the College, Tindall, a psychology major, hopes to attend graduate school and eventually go into social work.

People who know her are not surprised.

They realize that she is known for reaching lofty heights.

+ Laura Fuenfstueck (women’s golf) is the third player in school history to play in the NCA A regionals. + Bre Bolden (women’s basketball) earned her second CAA Defensive Player of the Year award. + Jarrell Brantley (men’s basketball) was CAA Rookie of the Year. + Carlee Cassidy (track and field) ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA east regionals. + Claire Newman ’16 (women’s soccer) received the J. Stewart Walker Cup, which is the highest award given by the athletics department.

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POINT of VIEW [ student ] Moving Mountains It’s easy to assume poverty is just an economic issue, and that fixing it is as simple as getting a job.

The solution to financial instability, however, is far more complex and often fraught with obstacles along an uphill climb.

BY ALY SKIKO

| Illustration by Andrew Thompson |

FOR SOME, MOUNTAINS ARE A THING TO BE CLIMBED, SOMETHING to be overcome, conquered. For others, mountains are obstacles, something standing in the way. The exciting and scenic challenge or the impossibly distant barrier: It just depends where you’re coming from.

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And, as I found out during a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains last fall, everything is different when you’re at the bottom.

It was alternative fall break, and I was co-leading a group of CofC students to Asheville, N.C., to learn about homelessness and food insecurity in America. While several students had some experience with these issues back in Charleston, many hadn’t seen the kind of homelessness and food insecurity that we were driving into. The next five days would be dedicated to learning about these issues, getting to know the local community that is affected by them and helping organizations that address them.

I had worked with homelessness and poverty organizations in the past, and my co-leader had a lot of experience with the Lowcountry Food Bank, so, together, we were able to give the rest of the group some background information about the issues at hand. We learned about the different types of homelessness,

POINT OF VIEW

The mountains were absolutely breathtaking, and the views were incredible. The hike really made me think about my privilege in being able to experience these things – to escape, to just take off and climb a mountain. Especially when, down there at the bottom,

the locals who are experiencing homelessness and food insecurity may never get the chance to enjoy the beauty of these mountains, even while living in their shadow.

the challenges in overcoming poverty and reasons that some 16 percent of the population in most Southern states experiences food insecurity (i.e., they aren’t able to get healthy food options for themselves and/or their families).

If there was a lot to learn about the issues, there was even more to learn about the local area and all the factors at play within the local community. So, when we got to town, we explored downtown Asheville and then escaped to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a little day hike.

As we drove up the mountain, the crisp air and the rhododendrons seemed to welcome us. The mountains were absolutely breathtaking, and the views were incredible. The hike really made me think about my privilege in being able to experience these things – to escape, to just take off and climb a mountain. Especially when, down there at the bottom, the locals who are experiencing homelessness and food insecurity may never get the chance to enjoy the beauty of these mountains, even while living in their shadow. Thinking about that really made me want to make a difference in the community.

That started with getting back on their level.

In order to better relate to the population we were working with back in Asheville, we adhered to the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) budget for North Carolina. Most of the meals we ate consisted of rice, pasta and sandwiches (so, a lot of carbs).

Every morning, we got up and prepared our breakfast before heading out for a day of service – and, every afternoon, we all felt a little more tired than usual because of the lack of protein. It definitely made me think about the difficulties of getting enough healthy food to raise a family on this budget. It was a real obstacle.

Fortunately, there are organizations out there trying to fight food insecurity. One of them is the MANNA FoodBank, the largest food bank in Western North Carolina, where we loaded up 1,000 bags with easy-to-prepare food for the food-insecure children in the organization’s weekend snack program. Because the public schools only give these students free lunches during the week – nothing on the weekends – MANNA steps in to provide them with enough food to last all weekend.

We also worked with the Asheville Buncombe Christian Community Ministry’s (ABCCM’s) Steadfast House, a place where

women and children who are experiencing homelessness can go for a little stability and the tools they need to get back on their feet. At that living facility, we spent a day painting the kitchen and cleaning up the yard. We spent another day organizing the shed and cleaning the outsides of the windows for the ABCCM’s Veterans Restoration Quarters, which gives veterans the care and education they need to transition into civilian life.

While the purpose of the alternative break experience is to learn about issues facing the community and to perform acts of direct service, it also involves learning about the culture of the community we are serving. And we learned a lot from the poverty scholars at the Asheville Poverty Initiative, which educates people about the realities of homelessness. These poverty scholars, who had all experienced homelessness themselves, gave us a tour of Asheville through the eyes of the impoverished.

The tour revealed blockades everywhere you looked – even in the shelters. The truth about the shelters, we learned, is that they may be good at keeping people sheltered, but they are also good at keeping people from climbing out of homelessness.

For example, some shelters lock up at 5 p.m. and won’t let anyone in after that time. So, if you’re able to get a job, chances are you won’t have a place to sleep. That really made me think about how easy it is to get stuck in the cycle of poverty.

Most shelters also create obstacles for families: A mother, father and child are rarely allowed at the same shelter, which forces them to split up – often without the ability to communicate with one another. Even though the ABCCM is trying to get past that by creating a transition village, a place where families of all kinds can stay, it’s an uphill battle. And, in the meantime, shelters continue to tear families apart.

What I got out of the alternative fall break in Asheville was perspective. That day on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I realized that the views from up there were making really big issues seem small – that I had to get down there on the ground if I wanted to make a real impact on homelessness and food insecurity.

And, when I did, moving mountains started to seem a whole lot easier.

– Aly Skiko is a junior majoring in biology.

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POINT of VIEW [ faculty ] Changing Humanity In today’s tech-driven world, the humanities may seem like the marginalized cousin to the increasingly popular STEM subjects. But Classics professor James Newhard believes that without an understanding of the human element, advances offered through science, technology, engineering and math won’t get very far.

BY JAMES NEWHARD VERY OFTEN, THE STEM FIELDS – SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, engineering and mathematics – are contrasted with the humanistic disciplines. As a professor of Classics, I see this so many times, in political discourse, financial support, budgetary appropriations, general public discourse and the questions asked by my students and by parents of students.

Those of us in the humanities have heard the jokes, the questions, the well-meaning, but horribly shallow comments meant in some way to comfort our pursuit of an esoteric subject: Oh! Classics. Yeah, that’s important so doctors know where their words come from. Oh! Classics! Yeah … humanities are important so our scientists and other smart people learn how to read and write well. Please. Yes, we have an implicit understanding of what plantar fasciitis means. Yeah, humanistic pursuits develop skills in rhetorical loquacity. A truer last line to these jokes is really this: “Why should we care?”

Let me state what’s obvious to many of us in academia, but seemingly appears to be less obvious to others. Humanists ask the questions. Really stupid, hard questions for which there are seldom straight answers. The problems of this world – war, famine, pestilence, environmental degradation, religious fanaticism – these are not STEM problems. We, the humans, cause them.

And we, the humans, are going to have to solve them. Our STEM colleagues are hard at work in tracing the effects of global warming, disease and many other ills, but a solution for fossil fuels dependence goes no more than 25 feet from the lab if it cannot be implemented within a socioeconomic – a human – construct.

And that solution best not be implemented without consideration of unintended consequences. History is replete with instances where the cure turned out to be worse than the cause.

We’ve been at this debate for a while, far preceding the development of the well-marketed acronym STEM. I tire of both the trumpeting of STEM as the savior of humanity, and the plea of the humanities for its right to exist. Arguments that lead us toward an emphasis of one over the other – if drawn to a | 20 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

ridiculous conclusion – result in either a Borg-like society where we are but cogs in a machine or a society that can think for hours about the nature of Truth, but has no concept of germ theory. A well-adjusted person – and society – require both. Fortunately, there’s a term for this: the liberal arts.

If we look at the artes liberales, we see seven subjects traditionally represented: the trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. Too often in the history of Western civilization, we have structurally divided the liberal arts. We speak nostalgically of the days when a liberal arts education was the education and, with a couple of years of Greek, Latin and other subjects, the young Thomas Jefferson was sent off to apprentice in the law and later do other stuff, too.

Over time, there was a sense that “practical knowledge” was important and that maybe we should be developing those skills as well. That, maybe, we should be less concerned with people’s knowledge of Plato, and more focused upon their capacity to do math. What we needed, after all, were engineers, accountants and other such skilled professions to build the new nation.

The 1862 Morrill Act called for land-grant colleges in order to support “liberal and practical education,” leading to schools of agriculture, engineering and business. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the science revolution of the mid20th century, and the technological revolution of the late 20th century only served to reinforce the importance and value – even salvational qualities – of STEM. And yet, Einstein pondered greatly the condition of mankind.

The images of Earth taken during the space race moved us greatly as a species. The Apollo mission – one of the greatest STEM accomplishments of the 20th century – registered a profound sense of humanity. Comments from returning astronauts were not filled with notions of “Woo hoo! We just ‘mathed’ the dickens out of that thing!” No, the reflections that came back were “Dang – we need to get along. We need to think about how we’re damaging the world and stop that stuff.”

The current digital revolution, while showing tremendous dependence upon STEM, nonetheless finds much of its innovation from the humanities. The success of Apple is not based upon its computing power as much as it is upon the way in which the tools are developed with a sense of artistry and simplicity and marketed as objects that signify a way of life as much as a way to run spreadsheets.

Looking forward, I seek a destruction of the false dichotomy between STEM and the humanities; and society, science and the academy largely bear me out, I feel. To quote the late David Kearns of Xerox: “The only education that prepares us for change

| Illustration by Tim Banks |

POINT OF VIEW

is a liberal education. In periods of change, narrow specialization condemns us to inflexibility – precisely what we do not need.

We need the flexible intellectual tools to be problem solvers, to be able to continue learning over time.”

Politicians, academic administrators and others overencouraging STEM to the detriment of the humanities are in many ways fighting the last battle. Increasingly, the call from business and industry is not for people who can code, but people who know how and why to code. The world economy, interconnected and in constant flux, demands a mindset of continuous learning and reinvention. People no longer have the luxury of relying upon a single skill set for their entire livelihood. Navigating the 21st-century world requires an interconnectedness and willingness to engage with a variety of people and perspectives.

A successful person in this world will be able to see not only the next move, but the next five moves in the chess game and position themselves accordingly.

Classics and other humanistic disciplines are primed to capitalize upon this recognized need, provided we see ourselves not as the curators of Western education and guardians of the “Great Tradition,” but rather as guides into the ways of multi-

talent and multidisciplinary approaches that are increasingly the modus operandi of our various fields.

In fact, the roots of classical scholarship, stemming from the German concept of Altertumswissenschaft, emphasized a unified approach blending several disciplines – what we view today as philology, history and archaeology. If we think fully upon this, we realize our Germanic fathers were looking for anything that could aid in understanding the Classical world. In 1825, who would have viewed chemistry as relevant? Geology? Statistics? Multispectral imagery? GIS? Some of these didn’t even exist, or were in their infancy themselves.

As our own society seeks out courses of study that are relevant – that train students in inter- and multidisciplinary approaches of thinking; that engage the mind and cultivate strengths in logic, science and communication; that develop future leaders of our world to face the challenges and implement solutions – the liberal arts is well-situated to be a place that exemplifies the needs of our increasingly interdisciplinary and interconnected world.

– James Newhard is an associate professor of Classics and the director of the College’s archaeology program.

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POINT of VIEW [ alumni ] Curtain Call The story of Porgy and Bess is as tragic as it is powerful. And for this alumna, the lessons from a summer spent on the set of the opera went far beyond the struggles of the titular characters.

The crescendo of those soulful ballads opened the door to her own metaphorical journey.

BY DEBOR AH LIPMAN COCHELIN ’74

| Illustration by Gracie Cole-Rouse |

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE YEAR 1970 IN MY LIFE WAS TWOFOLD. I was a graduating senior in high school, and Charleston was celebrating its 300th birthday. One of the many tricentennial celebration projects and festivities in which I partook was painting downtown fire hydrants to resemble colonial soldiers.

However, the most thrilling was volunteering as the only assistant property mistress to preside over at least 1,000 props in the production of Porgy and Bess at the Gaillard Auditorium.

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My actual and metaphorical boundaries as a 17-year-old rising freshman at the College of Charleston were just as limited as Porgy’s when he vows to find Bess “up Nort’ – pas de Custom House.” The social, political and cultural ramifications of this local production were lost on me completely. Working on Porgy and Bess was just a larger-than-life adventure, an enlargement of the technical craft I had learned at the Dock Street Theatre under the tutelage of Norman Weber. It was the chance to be swept up and spread my wings further into the theater by the passionate and soulful music of a great love story sung and acted by my community.

By 1970, Porgy and Bess had already become a period piece at just 35 years old, and the opera had arrived home a little tired, tattered and badly in need of a rest. The uniqueness of this production, however, was that it was the only amateur production of Porgy and Bess the Gershwin family had ever permitted in the United States with authentic, native Charleston performers, excluding the actors in the principal roles.

POINT OF VIEW

Ella Gerber was a world-class director who had held the rights to direct Porgy and Bess for many years from the Gershwin family. I will never forget her wild, black curls shorn closely to her head, framing her pale skin. She mostly wore ballet slipper-style flats, peasant blouses and full cotton skirts that flounced while directing in the hot, fetid air of the College’s old gym, known today on campus as the Silcox Gym. Her husband, Sam, reminded me of a Jewish Colonel Sanders, always seeming to be dressed in white. He was always at her beck and call, and seemed to know exactly what to do. Twelve-hour rehearsal days stretched all of

My actual and metaphorical boundaries as a 17-year-old rising freshman at the College of Charleston were just as limited as Porgy’s when he vows to find Bess “up Nort’ –

pas de Custom House.”

us, and patience ran thin. The rehearsal venue was thankfully a familiar locale to me because of the many joyful summers I spent there during full-day sports camps offered by the College.

In June 1970, the curtain finally rose on the residents of the crowded Catfish Row tenement, and the overture began.

The whirring trills and rapid scales of the trombones, violins, xylophone, oboe, piccolo, cello and flute crescendoed like a swarm of bees stinging the senses as a prelude to the enduring aria “Summertime.”

I did not appreciate the implications of the first integrated audience attending the Gaillard Auditorium, not only because of my naiveté, but because I was so caught up in doing what I was supposed to be doing amid the intoxicating backdrop of the story’s narrative and music. As the scenes changed swiftly, there was a lot of hushed tittering going on backstage by the neophyte thespians. And their stifled merriment was infectious.

While waiting for entrances, we all danced quietly in the wings, mimicking the words to the songs. When the curtain finally went down, the audience rose to its feet, and the sustained applause continued for at least six curtain calls. As soon as the headiness of opening night was over, the production settled into a comfortable, but not necessarily less exuberant, rhythm through closing night. Many moments in the opera entertained me, while I was oblivious to others. However, they slowly came by their repetition and exposure to represent ideas and circumstances that to this day haunt, enlighten and even trouble me.

A dinner to celebrate the end of the production’s run took place at the Francis Marion Hotel, where we embraced, sang and danced. As typical with most theatrical productions, we had become one great family. A commemorative print of the setting of Porgy and Bess designed by theatre professor Emmett Robinson ’35 for this Charleston Symphony production (and later reproduced in 1985 for the golden anniversary of the symphony and Porgy and Bess) was presented to each person in the cast, crew and symphony. Today, this print hangs in my office and serves as a daily reminder that captures a moment in time of my maturation and that of Porgy and Bess, as well as the societal changes and upheaval along the way.

Forty-six years later, the same music and drama that shaped my existence on those hot, sultry summer days of rehearsals and performances resonate even more deeply. They’re synonymous with my having “come of age” as well as the boundaries and dreams which have extended far past “de Custom House.” No matter when or where I am when I hear it, from the first musical note of the overture, I’m always transported home to Charleston, and that priceless experience of working on the set.

As for Porgy, he’s indeed not down on his luck anymore – Porgy and Bess has taken to heart that final stirring hymn: “I’m on my way to a Heav’nly Lan’” – “and oh, yes, ‘Oh Lawd,’ it’s a long, long, way.” Porgy and Bess has been a long, long way since it came home to “recharge” in 1970. And at this year’s Spoleto Festival USA performance in May and June, it had at long, long last reached the “Heav’nly Lan” again.

– An attorney and active arts enthusiast, Deborah Lipman Cochelin ’74 has supported her Seattle community through leadership, advocacy and arts management, with an emphasis on ballet and modern dance.

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The summer Olympic spirit is upon us – a four-year reminder that people from across the globe speak a common language of competition. It’s in that light that we wanted to highlight some of the College’s own international talent – men and women who have come to Charleston to share their athletic and academic talents with the Cougars.

These student-athletes’ paths to the College are as different as their cultures. Through scouting websites, Skype interviews, YouTube highlight reels and international tournaments, CofC coaches saw their potential, recruited them from time zones around the world and brought them here to compete in maroon and white.

In crossing borders and oceans, these Cougars are critical imports to the College, bringing with them a unique passion that inspires their teammates and sharing new perspectives that add to the College’s culture of diversity and international outlook.

No matter the motherland, native tongue or the accent in which we speak, we can all sing in one voice and embrace the charge in our College’s alma mater to “strive to conquer and prevail.”

VICI DRECHSLER Women’s Golf Munich, Germany Finance

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KORNELIA KOSTKA ’16 Track and Field Kielce, Poland Accounting and Finance

RODRIGO ENCINAS Men‘s Tennis Santiago, Chile Biology

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MARA ARGYRIOU

Women‘s Tennis Limassol, Cyprus Exercise Science

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ADAN NOEL

Men‘s Soccer La Brea, Trinidad International Business

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MADDIE HILLS

Volleyball and Beach Volleyball Toronto, Canada Exercise Science

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GERALD WILLIAMS

Sailing Sai Kung, Hong Kong, China International Business

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‹ HER ›

‹ PULPIT › Emily Torchiana had been hijacked.

The cyberbullies had taken everything she was, everything she had, and dropped her off in a dark, lonely place. But in that place she found a powerful voice – and she’s using it to stand up to cyberbullies everywhere and to show people like herself that they are not alone.

Words: ALICia LUTZ '98 / images: DIANA DEAVER

T

HE BOY IN THE CORNER IS PUNCHING THE WALL. THE GIRL IN THE HALL IS

SCREAMING OBSCENITIES. THE BODY WITH THE SCARS IS RUNNING OUT OF FLESH. AND THE HATE BEHIND THE CROSSED ARMS IS GROWING HOMICIDAL. NOBODY WANTS TO BE HERE.

It’s not exactly a dream destination, a place you strive to get to. But you don’t stumble upon places like this, either. There’s something that steers you here along the way.

And so, looking around at the other patients, at herself, Emily Torchiana can’t help but wonder: How did I get here?

She admitted: She didn’t feel safe. Traffic and trees smeared outside her mother’s 4Runner window as they barreled down the I-76 emergency lane, hazard lights confirming the crisis.

She knew: She was no longer in control. Medical scrubs and doctor’s jackets swarmed around her, pulling her away from her mother, sucking her into a tiny room, sticking her with needles and capturing her vitals. They identified her by code (she didn’t recognize it, but she could tell it wasn’t good).

She worried: She had nothing left. They stripped her of everything she knew – from her shoelaces and her bracelets to her clothes and her cell phone – in exchange for a thin cotton hospital gown that didn’t tie in the back.

Because she couldn’t be trusted with the strings. She couldn’t be trusted with her life. She couldn’t be left alone – not even to use the bathroom.

“Go right ahead,” the nurse said, nodding at the exposed toilet in the middle of the room. “We’ll be right here watching.”

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mily Torchiana had always loved an audience. She’d always been comfortable in front of a crowd – always assumed the people out there were as excited about her performance as she was.

“It never once occurred to Emily that she wasn’t at performance level for something,” laughs Emily’s father, Greg Torchiana, recalling Emily’s (“at least weekly”) performances. “Whatever she was into, there was always a show, and we were the built-in audience – and the stagehand or whatever else she needed.”

The Torchiana family is nothing if not supportive, though.

They’d follow one another from basketball game to volleyball match and then back home to play backyard baseball, discuss the day around the dinner table and help each other with school projects.

Emily’s shows were another opportunity for family bonding.

“Sitting through all the different shows and either laughing hysterically at the stuff she was doing or just trying not to laugh because she didn’t want us to – those are great memories,” says Greg, smiling. “She was the one of our kids who wanted to do everything and thought she could. Whatever it was, she poured herself into it.”

The four Torchiana children were spread out in age, with Emily third in the lineup. She was more like her brothers than her older | 36 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

sister – she’d take Pokémon and sports over Barbie dolls and makeup any day. She had conviction like her mom, determination like her father and confidence like no other.

“Out of the four kids, Emily was the one who never recognized there were boundaries to what anyone could do or become – she never saw any limit to what she could do. She never saw any limit to what anyone could do,” says Greg. “She thought everyone was as enthusiastic as she was – and as loving as she was. She really had the mindset of: ‘They’re going to treat me the way I treat them – why wouldn’t they?’”

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hey were saying she was a whore. That she didn’t have any friends. They told her to kill herself – that she should take her own life.

Emily sat in the Torchianas’ dark basement, completely alone but for this growing force that the family’s Windows desktop computer had become. She’d folded herself up in front of the screen’s glow and watched herself slowly be redefined.

Everything had changed since she started high school. It was hard enough for the self-proclaimed tomboy to leave all her friends and start at this all-girls school. But home felt lonely, too: Her older brother and sister were away at college, she had stopped hanging out with her younger brother and she was sharing her feelings with her mom less and less.

The enthusiastic, sensitive, athletic, determined, trusting, confident and Golden Rule–abiding girl had withered. Facing the computer monitor’s light, the old Emily barely cast a shadow.

“Facebook and this video chatting thing called OoVoo were new then, and it was really big, so that’s what we’d do – just talk to the webcam and then post the videos to each other’s Facebook walls,” recalls Emily. “It’s so weird, looking back, but at the time it was normal.”

Normal to post a video on a friend’s wall teasing that her school would beat his at the basketball game that night. Normal.

Harmless. But, Emily understates: “It became bigger than that.”

That video led to another: a repost of the original with commentary deriding Emily, mocking what was nothing but a simple exchange between friends. It didn’t make sense, but neither did what followed: a fake Facebook profile meant not just to slander Emily’s character and torment her thoughts, but to dismantle her very identity.

“I was super confused,” she says: What is this? Who are these people? Why are all the posts about me, all the pictures about me, all the videos about me?

Whoever was behind it knew exactly what to say, playing into the teenager’s growing self-consciousness about her looks and body (“Do you ever brush your teeth?” “You’re so fat!”). And they attacked her values, too.

“They knew I was saving sex for marriage, but they continued saying that I was a whore and in everyone’s pants,” says Emily.

“They were ripping apart something that has always been a big moral for me, and people were starting to believe what they were saying.”

As the Facebook profile grew, old friends from middle school turned their backs on her (“I can’t believe you became such a slut,” they texted). There were 10–20 posts a day and more than 1,000 followers by the time Emily was blocked from the page. But not

having access to the page only made it worse. For three years, she was bombarded by even more hateful, more libelous Facebook messages, voicemails and texts – sometimes as many as 20 a day. Not to mention the constant (perhaps obsessive) tug at her curiosity: What are they saying about me now?

The digital torment had permeated real life. She couldn’t escape.

The not knowing, the distrust, consumed her. Every day Emily sat among her classmates wondering which one had sent the last vicious message – which ones wanted her to die. Never mind who started the onslaught at this point: Who’s contributing to it?

Continuing it? Aware of it? Silent about it?

No one asked her if she was OK, how she was doing, or if she needed a friend. And, by the time she discovered who was originally responsible (four or so of her “best friends”), it was too late – she was already gone, isolated.

Emily had shut everyone out – shut herself off. And she was shutting down.

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mily’s not herself lately. She’s a teenage girl – a dramatic teenage girl. She’s always been so sensitive. Emily’s going through a phase. She doesn’t like her new school. She misses her old friends. Her best friend is dying of cancer.

Julia had a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit. One week Emily was confiding in her, the next she was visiting her in the hospital. (“Her symptoms went from zero to 100 in a day’s time,” Emily says.)

Still, Emily visited her friend every weekend. Every weekend, she wished it were her lying there instead of Julia. She’s fighting for her life, and I’m plotting to end mine.

“Emily was so sweet – she was her same self in that room every weekend, but then she would walk out in the hallway afterward, and it was like, oh my God, it just tore her heart out every single weekend,” says Greg. In retrospect: “It had all collided: My gosh, I have this friend that’s fighting for her life, and then there’s all these people that wish I wasn’t even here. We didn’t even know that side.”

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All they knew was that Emily was moody, a little withdrawn.

When she wasn’t upstairs in her room or downstairs in the basement, her eyes were on her phone and her headphones were on her ears. Nobody knew what was on her mind.

“We knew she wasn’t happy, but we attributed it to a thousand different things,” says Greg. “I think you rationalize things as parents because it makes more sense to you to put it into a category versus making it something unique.”

As Emily’s older brother Greg Torchiana Jr. puts it, “We had no background to base it on. We didn’t have the vocabulary for this.”

But there is a word for what Emily was experiencing: cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying: That’s how Emily Torchiana got to the point of wanting to die, of wanting to take her own life – of attempting suicide three times.

Cyberbullying: That’s how she got to the bathroom floor, passed out in her own vomit – bottles of painkillers emptied out around her.

Cyberbullying: That’s what led her to psychiatric hospitalization, to questioning her sanity, to wondering who she was.

And how do we get out of this place?

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mily Torchiana couldn’t believe she’d gotten that far – that she’d almost caused the same pain that was weighing down the crowd before her. She was stunned by the emotional surge – so much so that she only knew she’d finished speaking because of the applause.

She choked a little on the lump growing in her throat as she took in all the faces – the mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, the co-workers, cousins, grandparents, the people who’d lost someone they loved to suicide. And, as a microphone was passed from one to the next, she heard 350 names of 350 people who had killed themselves.

“I am so happy no one had to say your name today,” a woman whispered in Emily’s ear, her embrace revealing the sob heaving in her chest.

Emily froze at the thought of her family holding one another as some suicide survivors spoke about the path depression took them down, how they got out alive. She could see her family’s hands tremble as they took the microphone and hear the catch in the voices of her mother, her father, her sister, her older brother, her little brother, her friends as they each said it: Emily Torchiana.

That woman’s whisper made an impression. It turned the mirror outward for a change, pivoting her perspective.

Her talk at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: Out of the Darkness Walk in Charleston’s Hampton Park last fall was the first she’d given to people who’d lost someone to suicide.

It was an audience the junior psychology major hadn’t anticipated facing. But there she was – just four years after almost being lost to suicide herself.

“I didn’t get the depth of leaving people behind until that moment – I don’t think I’d realized in any real, rational way how heartbreaking it would be for all my friends and family,” Emily says. “I am so glad my family never had to read the letters I wrote them.”

She’d come a long way since she sat down to write the personalized suicide letters for each member of her family – to

tell her little brother how much she regretted shutting him out: “I pushed myself away from the one I was closest with, and I know you’re going to grow up to be amazing and I wish I could have seen it.”

To apologize to her sister: “I’m sorry I haven’t checked in with you at college, but I am so proud to be your little sister.”

And to her older brother: “I do look up to you, and I’m really sorry that I couldn’t stay as strong as you.”

To her parents, she apologized for being “a burden” to what was otherwise the perfect family: “Don’t put any blame on yourself.

There was nothing that you could have done.”

Ah, but there was. And, sweet Emily, they did.

“When Emily couldn’t fake it anymore, and it just all fell apart, we’re like, ‘You know what, something is happening with you,’” recalls Emily’s father. “And that’s when her mom and I got the family together and said, ‘OK, so, obviously this isn’t just Emily being sensitive. There’s something really seriously wrong here.’

And subsequent to that, it got so much easier, because we could start to lay out a way to move forward.”

The plan moving forward started with the inpatient psychiatric unit at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Philadelphia and moved to the intensive outpatient program at American Day Treatment Center – where for nine hours every day for four weeks, Emily joined nine other girls in group therapy, writing therapy, art therapy and so on.

“I remember thinking I was in a movie because there were girls saying they’d tried to kill other people,” Emily says. “I remember just being like, I know I need the help, but I also feel like I’m crazy in this room. I should be at the beach with friends ... but I don’t have friends. My mind was in both places: You need the help, but also: I feel like this is making me crazy.”

At that point she’d been diagnosed with depression and social anxiety and, unofficially, an addiction to social media – the treatment for which (refraining from cell phone and computer use) proved difficult.

“I was just like someone with alcohol or drugs – you feel like you need it, you get a high from it and then you feel so bad after,” says Emily, who would sneak off in the middle of the night looking for a computer. “I was very much addicted to it. I could not be without my phone. I needed to see what everyone was doing all the time.”

Despite the social media withdrawals during her treatment, Emily loved her time at American Day: “In the mental hospital, those were the best weeks of my life!”

“She loved it so much – she talks about it all the time,” says Noa Levin, who knew she and Emily would be best friends the moment they met outside the elevator at Liberty Street Residence Hall their first week at the College. “I was like, Oh my gosh, she’s so funny. I had this instant ‘I want to be your friend’ feeling. She just seemed very easygoing, funny and almost carefree.”

Emily had come to the College of Charleston straight out of outpatient psychiatric treatment. And people were seeing her as carefree?

“The College of Charleston was a fresh start for me,” shrugs Emily, who immediately joined 20 clubs, served as a freshman senator for the Student Government Association and rushed the sorority Alpha Delta Pi. “I had put on a mask to cover everything up.”

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And who can blame her? Who doesn’t want a second chance to fit in? She got along with everyone and found a special bond with her first-year roommate, Kelly Fields. They were “diehard fans” of 18+ nights at Boone’s on King Street. They ate a lot of pizza. They kept a messy (even “kind of gross”) room. They made silly videos of themselves (e.g., dancing to Justin Bieber songs) and posted them to Facebook.

The Facebook video that had started the torrent of unwelcome comments in high school never came up. Cyberbullying never came up. Neither did the path it had taken Emily down, the suicide attempts, the hospitalization. So, of course, she wouldn’t mention that she’d taken the issue to local schools.

“I kind of snuck around my freshman year,” says Emily, who started emailing schools in the Charleston area early in her first semester. “I really wanted to give middle schoolers some firsthand information about cyberbullying, because you always hear about it in schools, but no one ever really thinks it happens.”

And, so, when Charleston Day School invited her to come talk to their seventh and eighth graders, she jumped on it.

“Where are you going? Why do you look so nice?” Kelly wanted to know when Emily was leaving to give her first talk.

“I’m just going to church,” Emily told her.

“And then I was gone for a few hours while I spoke (very poorly) about cyberbullying,” Emily laughs about that first talk. “I talked a little bit about my story, but not that much, so it was just this random girl talking about cyberbullying facts.”

Regardless, she made an impression on her audience: They remembered her a month or so later when she walked by the school’s playground with Noa and Kelly. | 40 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

“They were all yelling, ‘Emily! Emily!’ and hugging her,” recalls Noa. “We had no idea how they knew her.”

And Emily wasn’t telling them – not until she stood up and told her story to the College community the following year.

She’d been selected as a presenter for the College’s “Journey of Understanding” series, which was announced via campuswide email: Emily Torchiana will be speaking about her experience with cyberbullying, depression, anxiety, PTSD as well as her “suicide attempts” and “time in a treatment facility.” Her secret was out.

“It was really shocking, because nobody knew any of this,” says Kelly.

And everyone, it seems, wanted to know more: The presentation room in the Robert Scott Small Building was packed – people lined the walls, even taking up posts in the outside lobby.

“There were so many tears,” says Noa. “Here’s this girl who seems so put together – she has so many things going for her – but she has this affecting her daily life: this story. People really reacted to that.”

“At first I definitely was scared to be known as the mental health girl on campus,” says Emily. “But now I’m realizing I’m OK if I’m seen as this girl that’s dealing with all this stuff, because I’m waking up every morning and getting out of bed, I’m walking to class confidently. So maybe I’m known as the girl that has mental illnesses, but I’m also the girl that is dealing with the mental illnesses positively.”

Emily’s speaking career took off after that first talk on campus – and continues to grow steadily.

“I think it is really therapeutic for me to share my story,” says Emily. “The stigma of mental illness keeps people quiet – and

that’s the worst thing for them. By telling my story, I’m giving people an opportunity to tell theirs. I’m showing them that they’re not alone.”

That’s the message she leaves with every audience she addresses: You’re not alone.

“Put your hand on your chest,” she says at the end of each talk.

“Do you feel that? That’s purpose. You’re here for a reason. You’re alive for a reason. You matter. Nothing in this world would be the same if you weren’t in it – all the people you’ve met would be affected. You’re never alone.”

Emily knows that dark place of isolation. And sometimes that kind of understanding sheds enough light to guide us out.

I

t was still dark out when she got to the Ravenel Bridge. She’d been walking for hours – zigzagging the peninsula on such an unpredictable route even her thoughts couldn’t possibly follow.

And even if they could, they’d be drowned out by the Sia lyrics blaring through her ear buds: I have lost myself again.

Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found.

She hadn’t planned to go to the bridge. But what better place to be alone, to even out her emotional spikes, to get some perspective?

If nothing else, the wind lashing at her – stinging tears out of her eyes, tangling knots through her hair, billowing her shirt, whipping her skirt around her legs – would temper her emotions a little.

Hold me, wrap me up, unfold me.

I am small and needy.

Warm me up.

Alone at the top, Emily folded herself up, hugging her shins tightly to brace against the cold. She kept her head down and sobbed into her knees.

When she looked up next, the sun had started to rise, warming the horizon up for the day and letting in just enough light for her to read the words carved into the railing in front of her: You would be missed.

She stared, shivered off a chill. Eyes still steady, she took out her ear buds (they were now blasting Eminem). The world was telling her something – and, for the first time ever, she was ready to hear it. It was time to turn around.

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he night before Emily was at the top of the bridge, she’d been at the very bottom. She had lost the Student Government Association presidency election, and the post-traumatic stress disorder she was diagnosed with last fall had knocked her down hard.

She’d plummeted right back into the torments of high school: No one likes you. You’re a failure. You are nothing. Everyone is against you. With every flashback, she was stuck in yet another of the very worst cyberbullying moments – all at once and one after another – and she could feel the agony, the stab of every word they’d made.

“It was hard to see,” says Noa, who had seen the effect PTSD has on Emily before – the first time being when the cyberbullies back home sent a Snapchat giving Emily the middle finger and started commenting on her college Facebook photos. “I was so thrown off because I saw how much it affected her and how it can trigger the PTSD like that. It’s very scary.”

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The PTSD explained Emily’s nightmares, intense flashbacks to high school and anxiety triggered by Facebook notifications and the likes. The diagnosis and exposure therapy she’s gotten have helped her handle the symptoms – whether brought on by the cyberbullies chiming in on her life or the people she counted on for support letting her down. She continues to improve.

“I can definitely see the difference of how Emily would have overcome losing the election freshman year compared to how she overcame it now. I don’t think she would have built herself back up as easily as she did,” says Noa, adding, “I was actually surprised how strongly she got past it.”

Of course, that horrible sense of failure and the resulting onslaught of traumatic images, thoughts and feelings had led Emily to the top of the bridge, where she opened her eyes to the message: “You would be missed.”

It was a turning point. She was ready to move on.

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he next weekend, Emily went to Atlanta and spoke at the Southeastern Panhellenic Conference: Leading with Purpose – the largest conference for collegiate women in the United States.

There, she told 1,300 people the truth: “My struggle isn’t over. I’m a work in progress.”

“I was honest, and it was by far the best speech I have given,” says Emily, who has since received more than 100 messages from people in that audience, saying it was the best talk they’d ever heard, that it made a difference in their lives. “It was really humbling and reassuring knowing that I was able to help those listening.”

That’s why Emily does this: to help people like the girl who messaged her after that speech and said she’d planned to commit suicide the day of the conference: “Honestly, you’re the reason I’m alive right now.” Or to help the people who read her blog: “I thought about killing myself and I read your blog and realized it can get better.” Or to answer when someone calls from the top of the Ravenel Bridge and isn’t sure they’ll make it back down alive: She saved that life, too.

“She actually has an impact on the world, and I think she’s understanding that more and more as she speaks,” says Noa. “She’s really grown into her own.”

“Just seeing her walk around campus – she seems so much prouder now,” agrees Laura Kuroki, who shared a few classes with Emily in high school, but had never heard the rumors or seen the Facebook profile – and the two didn’t become close until college.

“She’s walking her genuine walk now.”

“For the first time since before the bullying, I am really genuinely happy to be alive,” attests Emily. “I am happy with where I am in my life.”

Her family is, too: “Where she is in her progression and her success – how she’s turned this around: We’re really proud of that,” her father says. “Our biggest hope for her is that she doesn’t stop improving – that she’s never looking back, she’s only looking forward.”

And she has a lot to look forward to. As her friend Laura says, “Emily dreams big – really, really big.”

After she graduates next year, she wants to take a few months for “me time” in Hawaii before she pursues her graduate degree in either forensic psychology or clinical psychology. She’s begun

writing a book and researching young adult publishing houses that can get her story out to a wider audience. And, of course, she will continue expanding her speaking career.

“I am able to talk about my mental issues in the present tense rather than say I am over them now, and I think that shows growth,” she says, adding that she is happiest when she finds out one of her talks has impacted a life. “If I could continue that as a job, I don’t think anything else would make me happier.”

Those goals, of course, are all secondary to personal goals of self-improvement. She’s working on self-image, trust and keeping her emotions in check. She’s coming along: recording good moments in journals, reaching out to her support network and “positively changing my thoughts. ... For the first time I am putting myself and my health first.”

“I can tell that she’s learning to not be emotionally reactive to triggers. I can tell she’s got the mental fortitude to reflect on these things, and that makes me proud of her,” says her brother Greg. “If sharing her story helps her talk about it when something else happens in life, it’s all right with me. There’s always going to

"I THINK THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

HOLDING ONTO YOUR PAST AND LEARNING

FROM IT. I DON'T DWELL ON BEING BULLIED OR FEEL SORRY FOR MYSELF - I'VE USED IT TO

BE A BETTER PERSON. EVEN THOUGH I STILL GO THROUGH ROUGH TIMES, WHAT DOESN'T KILL

YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER, AND I AM A MUCH STRONGER PERSON."

- EMILY TORCHIANA be some stress in life, and if she can talk about it, then I feel like that’s good. If it helps her cope with a difficult situation, that is what matters.”

Besides, how Emily got here doesn’t matter anymore.

“I think there’s a difference between holding onto your past and learning from it. I don’t dwell on being bullied or feel sorry for myself – I’ve used it to be a better person,” she says. “Even though I still go through rough times, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I am a much stronger person.”

She has reclaimed her identity. She’s telling her own story now.

She’s using what almost killed her to save lives. The cyberbullies gave her a powerful voice, and she’s using it to move forward – to help herself and others get ahead of all the cyberbullies out there.

Emily is right where she wants to be.

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S ECOND WIND

BY RON MENCHACA ’98 PHOTOGRAPHY BY LESLIE McKELLAR

If you came across Alicia Rhett’s gravestone in the cemetery of Charleston’s iconic St. Philip’s Church and didn’t know anything about her, the inscription wouldn’t give you a clue that she had acted in one of the most famous movies of all time. Under Rhett’s name, her parents’ names and the dates she lived, it reads, simply, “Portraitist.”

| Model: theatre major Krista Grevas |

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Gone with the Wind premiered at the Gloria Theatre on King Street (now, the College’s Sottile Theatre) on Jan. 29, 1940. Alicia Rhett was on hand for the big night.

he story of Alicia Rhett’s rapid rise to fame – from her discovery as a young community theater actress in Charleston to being cast in one of the best-known movies of all time, Gone with the Wind – is itself worthy of a Hollywood script.

But just as quickly as she burst onto the national scene, sharing the screen with the likes of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, the closing credits rolled on Rhett’s acting career. As far as the rest of the world knew, Alicia Rhett was gone with the wind.

Truth is, Rhett had merely shifted her focus to other creative and altruistic interests by carving out a fulfilling and successful life as a sought-after portrait artist, radio personality and commercial illustrator.

Only now, following her death in 2014, can the complete story of Rhett’s remarkable life begin to be told. Stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, long hidden away in a downtown Charleston storage unit, were recently donated to the College’s Special Collections by Rhett’s estate. The voluminous archive of scrapbooks, correspondence, photos, journals, sketches and other keepsakes is a trove of 20th-century Charleston history. The collection offers a unique behind-the-scenes look into an iconic movie and a fascinating biographical record of a woman who guarded her privacy.

To those who only knew Rhett through her role as India Wilkes in the 1939 motion picture, her personal papers and effects could bring long overdue recognition to her extraordinary body of work, which includes hundreds of portraits proudly displayed in homes and institutions throughout the country, including many of Charleston’s grandest edifices – from the Battery to The Citadel.

Before her death on January 3, 2014 – just a month shy of her 99th birthday – Rhett had earned the distinction of being the oldest surviving cast member of one of the most celebrated films in cinematic history. And yet, the movie was for her little more than a footnote to a life dominated by other pursuits.

By the time she had reached her mid-20s, Rhett had closed the door on what could have been a lucrative career in show business.

Harlan Greene ’74, head of Special Collections and a native Charlestonian, knew Rhett.

Although he was an admirer of her portrait work, until he began exploring the materials from her estate, Greene says he had no idea how much she had accomplished after Gone with the Wind.

“It’s considered one of the best movies ever made, despite its racist overtones,” Greene says. “Some people would have peaked, and they would have traded off of that fame for the rest of their lives. She didn’t do that, and you have to admire her for that.”

CHARLESTON’S RHETTS Alicia Rhett was born on February 1, 1915, in Savannah, Ga., the only child of Charleston native and West Point graduate Edmund Moore Rhett and Isobel Murdoch Rhett. As a child, Rhett lived in Delaware, where her father, an engineer, worked for the DuPont Company.

Following her father’s death during an outbreak of influenza in 1918, Rhett and her mother moved back to Savannah and later to Charleston, where the Rhett family roots can be traced back to the founding of the South Carolina colony.

Her great-grandfather was the ardent secessionist and S.C. Senator Robert Barnwell Rhett, whose anti-Union rhetoric and pro-slavery beliefs earned him the title “Father of Secession.”

And her paternal grandfather was Alfred Moore Rhett, a colonel in the Confederate Army, the first Confederate commander at Fort Sumter and later the chief of the Charleston Police.

After arriving in Charleston in 1925, Rhett and her mother moved in with Rhett’s aunt, Alicia Middleton Rhett Mayberry, for whom the precocious young Alicia had been named. | 46 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

This plaster life mask of Alicia Rhett was made in 1936, the same year casting began for Gone with the Wind. The mask was carefully preserved by Rhett for nearly 80 years until her passing in 2014.

| Image courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin |

News accounts describe Rhett’s early years in Charleston as idyllic and formative. She kept active with horseback riding, golf and tennis. As fortune would have it, the city in the 1920s was experiencing a period of artistic awakening, later dubbed the Charleston Renaissance, which led to a collegial haven for painters, playwrights, architects and others. It was during this time that Rhett learned from some of the city’s more well-known women artists, including Marguerite Miller, Minnie Mikell and Alice Ravenel Huger Smith.

Rhett also caught the acting bug at an early age, performing in plays and dance recitals at Crafts Elementary School on Legare Street and later at Memminger High School on St. Philip Street. By the mid-1930s, she had joined the Footlight Players, a community theater group founded in Charleston in 1931.

For two summers in the early 1930s, Rhett attended the Mohawk Drama Festival in Schenectady, N.Y., where she was fascinated to encounter one of her fellow actors backstage, drawing sketches of other actors in their costumes. She would begin doing similar offstage sketches after resuming her work with the Footlight Players.

Rhett thrived in the Footlight Players under the direction of College alumnus Emmett Robinson ’35, who was just one year older. They formed a close personal and professional relationship that resulted in a number of successful collaborations. One example was the reopening of the historic Dock Street Theatre.

Already well known in Charleston for her artistry in designing and painting theatrical scenery, Rhett was tapped to supervise the decoration of the Dock Street Theatre’s auditorium during its Depression-era restoration under a New Deal program known as the Federal Art Project.

The theater’s opening on November 26, 1937, was a grand, invitation-only affair. Charleston Mayor Burnet Rhett Maybank, who had helped secure the federal grant that funded the theater’s restoration, was on hand to greet the city’s elite. A 1919 graduate of the College, Maybank was one of Rhett’s cousins.

To celebrate the special occasion, Robinson staged an elaborate production of The Recruiting Officer, the same play that had been performed 200 years earlier for the opening of the original Dock Street Theatre. As he often did, Robinson cast Rhett in the play – this time in the leading role.

It’s been widely reported over the years that it was this play in which Rhett was first discovered by original Gone with the Wind director George Cukor. But that appears to just be a myth, as Rhett had already secured an undetermined role in the film by this point. Additionally, Cukor’s visit to Charleston took place several months before the play premiered, according to correspondence available in the Gone with the Wind collection at the University of Texas.

THE DISCOVERY News that Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Gone with the Wind would be made into a movie swept the nation in 1936 and generated enormous speculation and anticipation regarding the film’s casting. Everyone had their own ideas about which of the era’s best actors should play the coveted parts of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.

The scuttlebutt went into overdrive when producer David O. Selznick announced a Southern tour aimed at discovering unknown actors to play roles in the movie. Charleston, which is

said to have inspired Mitchell’s choice of a first name for Rhett Butler, would be one of the locations.

When Katherine “Kay” Brown, a talent scout and trusted agent for Selznick International Pictures, arrived at the Fort Sumter Hotel in Charleston to conduct tryouts for the film, she found an ambitious cadre of young actresses vying for parts and a community fascinated by the casting process. About 25 actors from Charleston auditioned, according to a December 1936 article in Charleston’s News and Courier, with Rhett and Robinson among them.

Correspondence from the Emmett Robinson Papers in Special Collections offers insight into the casting process: Not only did Robinson play host to the studio’s scouting party during their Charleston stop, but he also received written assurances from Brown that Rhett was a front-runner for a role in the film.

Even Selznick, who had grown frustrated with what he perceived to be a lack of talent identified on the Southern tour, believed Rhett had great potential. In a memo to Brown dated March 20, 1937, Selznick said of the Southern actresses that “none of them bowled me over … but of them Alecia [sic] Rhett seemed to have the most charm and pictorial possibilities.”

Following a 10-day trip to New York in May 1937 for another round of auditions, Rhett told a reporter for the News and Courier that she had signed a contract for “a” role in the film.

Ultimately, the Southern tour, which some at the time had dismissed as a publicity stunt by the movie studio to make the film seem more authentic, led to the signing of three women. Alicia Rhett would star as India Wilkes, sister of Ashley Wilkes, the man with whom the fiery Scarlett O’Hara is obsessed. The most soughtafter female leading role in motion picture history would be played by 25-year-old British actress Vivien Leigh.

As she prepared to make the trip to Hollywood, Rhett dashed off a note on February 9, 1939, to her dear friend Robinson: “Just a hurried line hoping you may be interested to hear that I am really leaving on the seventeenth via Atlanta and New Orleans for Los Angeles!!!!”

Filming lasted several months, and Rhett’s mother, ever protective of her only child, stayed with her daughter in California throughout shooting. Family and friends back home in Charleston were eager to hear updates of Rhett’s experiences in Hollywood.

“It was a revelation to her,” says Alice L. Patrick, a close friend of Rhett’s who helped conduct the professional appraisal of her estate in 2014. “She said she never realized that filmmaking was such a laborious task with shoot after shoot.”

And there were long periods of waiting between takes and breaks in shooting. In the down time, Rhett focused on keeping her drawing and painting skills sharp. She attended the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and busied herself between scenes by drawing sketches of her fellow cast members.

Like many archivists and historians, Greene had long heard rumors about these impromptu portrait sessions, but was not aware of anyone having ever actually seen them: “We had always heard that she had done sketches on the set. People had been after these papers for years.”

RETURNING HOME

Filming for Gone with the Wind wrapped in June 1939. One of the first major Hollywood movies to be entirely shot in Technicolor, the S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 49 |

film racked up a staggering production cost of $4.5 million.

The official premiere of the movie was held at the Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. Throngs of Charlestonians turned out for the local premiere on January 29, 1940, at the Gloria Theatre on King Street (now, the College’s Sottile Theatre). Rhett, by then a celebrity, was on hand for the big night.

The sweeping Civil War saga was an overnight success. All of the criticism and second-guessing over the book’s adaptation for the screen, the use of nonSouthern actors in the leading roles, and frequent feuds between the producers and directors melted away amid the film’s red-hot reception.

A reviewer for the News and Courier gave Rhett positive reviews for “a splendid bit of acting as India Wilkes.

She created the inhibited, neurotic role of Ashley’s sister with sure confidence and intelligent restraint.”

Eventually, the hoopla subsided, and Rhett had a decision to make. Flooded with other film offers, she could have ridden the wave of success generated by the movie. Instead, she opted to return to Charleston and venture away from acting.

Patrick believes at least part of Rhett’s decision was influenced by a strong sense of duty to her mother.

“She would have loved to have stayed in the acting world, as far as my interpretation of our conversations,” says Patrick. “She could have done anything on stage that she wanted to do and would have really been the Hepburn of her time. But she made it very clear she was coming home to stay with her mother.”

Whatever her motivations for remaining in Charleston, Rhett didn’t sit idle for long.

She started a career in radio with local station WTMA, where she directed and hosted several so-called women’s programs.

Her workdays filled with radio responsibilities, Rhett began devoting her weekends to drawing and painting portraits in her home studio at 9 Weims Court. She also volunteered her drawing talents to entertain and support troops during World War II. Through organizations such as the Junior League of Charleston and the USO, Rhett is said to have drawn and painted the portraits of more than 1,500 service members.

Following her stint with WTMA, Rhett went to work in the art department of Bradham Advertising Agency, creating brochures and artwork for commercial clients. Some of her designs from this period are among the boxes of materials from her estate.

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Rhett did not begin painting full time until 1967, the same year her mother died. By then, she was living at 59 Tradd Street, doing most of her artwork in an upstairs studio.

She received numerous public commissions to produce portraits. She painted or reproduced portraits of President Franklin Roosevelt, General William Moultrie and the Swamp Fox (Francis Marion) as well many other historical figures, dignitaries, politicians and military elite. The Citadel commissioned her to create a series of paintings featuring former presidents and scenes of cadets.

But it was her depictions of everyday Charlestonians, especially children, which placed her work in such high demand. She often had a waiting list. For many locals, having “a Rhett” hanging in their homes was a status symbol.

Patrick and her business partner, Elizabeth Garrett Ryan ’98, have conducted numerous estate appraisals together. But valuing Rhett’s estate was a special

| Photo by Mike Ledford |

PORTRAITIST (top) This photo of Alicia Rhett sketching co-star Ann Rutherford between takes on the set of Gone with the Wind seemed to confirm rumors that Rhett had produced numerous such drawings of her fellow actors during filming. These sketches, including the sketch of Rutherford (bottom), were discovered among the items Rhett’s estate donated to the College’s Special Collections.

Alicia Rhett’s finely detailed and lifelike paint and pastel portraits hang proudly in homes throughout Charleston and around the country. Pictured here is a portrait Rhett painted of Charlestonian Alice Thomas LeMacks in 1968. Some 46 years later, LeMacks’ daughter, Alice Patrick, who knew Rhett, helped appraise Rhett’s estate.

Adoring fans and autograph-seekers from around the world mailed stacks and stacks of letters to Alicia Rhett throughout her life in Charleston, but it appears she never responded to a single one. Though immensely proud of her role in Gone with the Wind, Rhett preferred to leave it in the past and focus on her art.

assignment, as both knew the artist during her life and counted themselves among the hundreds of Charlestonians for whom she had painted portraits.

An adjunct professor in the College’s historic preservation graduate program, Ryan got to use the lessons she learned studying anthropology and archaeology at the College to delve into the life of someone she knew.

“You really get to know someone when you go piece by piece through their letters, their scrapbooks, their furniture, their clothing,” she says.

Growing up in Charleston, Ryan knew Rhett had been an actress, but that wasn’t what she was known for: “People in Charleston didn’t really talk about her being in Gone with the Wind. She was the portrait painter.”

“DEAR MISS RHETT” Despite her well-earned reputation as an artist, Rhett could never completely escape her association with Gone with the Wind.

Patrick says Rhett didn’t understand why people made a fuss over something she had done so long ago.

Letters would arrive regularly from fans of the movie, the most devoted of which are known as “Windies.” They wrote requesting her autograph and often included publicity photos from the movie and self-addressed return envelopes.

“Dear Miss Rhett, My name is Doreen and I’m a very great fan of you for a long time …,” reads one such request from New Jersey.

Hundreds just like it, filling entire boxes, are among the papers donated to the College. Rhett appears to have opened most of the letters before scribbling “GWTW” on the envelopes and filing them away. There is no indication that she ever answered a single one.

“She thought that was nonsense,” recalls Patrick. “‘Why should I do that? I don’t know them.’ She would give the typical Charleston expression: ‘Who are they?’”

Some fans got creative in order to secure a piece of cinema history. In 1994, one enterprising autograph-seeker sent a letter to Rhett via certified mail. The confirmation receipt signed by Rhett recently sold on eBay for $650.

Ignoring letters was one thing, but avoiding adoring fans and tourists who boldly called on her at home was another. Intensely private, Rhett was said to have cringed when strangers knocked on her door. Worse were the horse-drawn carriage tours that rolled slowly past her home, their drivers announcing proudly that the home belonged to the “real Rhett” of the historic movie. Patrick says Rhett sometimes felt like she couldn’t leave her home.

Still, those who knew her and saw her regularly say Rhett was always gracious, kind, caring and good-humored.

She had treasured her experience with the movie but wanted it left in the past.

“I think that’s one reason that she never replied – because she didn’t want to be known for that,” says Greene. “That was five minutes of her life. I think she didn’t like being summed up.”

THE ESTATE While Rhett never married nor had children, her friends and admirers took great care to preserve her legacy. Patrick and Ryan spent months carefully and methodically sifting through some 150 boxes of Rhett’s belongings. Their role was to appraise the fair market value of everything she left behind, sell it all at auction

and an estate sale, and direct the proceeds to an art fund she had established at the Coastal Community Foundation.

Among the items sold were pieces of period furniture, some silver and miscellaneous bits of Gone with the Wind memorabilia, including two used tickets from the Atlanta premiere.

Throughout the painstaking process, Patrick had held out hope that they would find one item in particular. In 1968, Rhett had painted a portrait of Patrick’s mother. The painting now hangs prominently in her home on Beaufain Street. The portrait was based on a photograph, and Patrick hoped it might be stashed away in Rhett’s files.

When Ryan later located the photograph, Patrick says simply, “I was settled then.”

As they dug deeper, they realized it wasn’t at all surprising that Rhett had safeguarded the photo. They came across an indexed file box containing details on hundreds of Rhett’s portraits, including the names and ages of subjects and the dates they sat. Most surprising of all, Rhett had saved photographs of all her completed portraits.

“There are thousands of photographs of portraits of all these 20th-century Charlestonians,” says Ryan. “It’s this great visual history of everyone who grew up in that time. It’s almost a complete representation of the portraiture work that she did as an artist.”

For Greene, the opportunity to add Rhett’s papers to the College’s collection is an important step in providing a more complete picture of the contributions of Charleston women.

“We made a determined effort to start collecting women’s papers – such as those of Ashley Hall girls school, Emily Farrow and Gertrude Legendre,” Greene observes. “For years we had been thinking about Alicia Rhett, knowing that she was a significant woman who came from Charleston. We were interested in her long before she died.”

When Greene learned of Rhett’s passing, he reached out to the attorney handling the estate to make it known that the College would be very interested in acquiring Rhett’s papers for its Special Collections. Patrick and Ryan, who have worked with Greene on other collections, also put in a good word for the College.

Greene was overjoyed when he learned that the College would be entrusted with the collection. But he just had to know: had Rhett’s original sketches of cast members from the set of Gone with the Wind survived?

The answer came as he was sifting through the newly arrived materials. He discovered tucked away inside one of the boxes, safely preserved for the better part of 75 years, a piece of Hollywood lore that had only been rumored to exist. Those rare sketches, along with other unique and historic items from Rhett’s life, are now proudly housed at the College.

Now the real work begins, and the job of cataloging the entire collection will be enormous. Greene is hopeful that a campaign can be organized to solicit gifts for the years-long task ahead.

If there is a letter, interview or journal entry in which Rhett herself definitively explains why she turned away from acting and seemed to shun her connection to the movie, it hasn’t turned up yet. But given Rhett’s meticulous record-keeping, there’s a chance an answer is in one of those boxes.

“We don’t know what else is in there,” Greene says of the collection. “It’s a mystery.”

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SWEET DREAMS

As a little girl growing up in a single-parent household, Ebony Hilton ’04 thought that a career as a doctor seemed like a faraway dream. Now, as the first black female anesthesiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, the accomplished physician teaches other young girls to pursue their passions.

By JASON RYAN | Photography by BRENNAN WESLEY

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hey arrived bubbly and cheerful, each plopping down into chairs spread around a conference table. The girls sported funky shoes, pink and tie-dyed footwear that anyone outside of middle school would have trouble pulling off. They wore identical shirts, too, each of which read “GLOSS” across the chest, an acronym meaning Girls Loving OurSelves Successfully.

Predictably, the T-shirts were pink.

Joining these 10 seventh-graders at James Simons School on upper King Street were a handful of mentors, including Ebony Hilton ’04. The women and girls began to chat, laughing together and then oohing and aahing when one student shared the contents of her Me Bag, which included goodies and mementos such as a basketball jersey, honor roll awards, trophies and old family photos.

And that’s what the GLOSS program is all about – helping girls feel connected and confident amid the blur of adolescence. GLOSS aims to empower middle school girls as they grapple with the growing stresses of peer pressure, family life and academics.

Hilton remembers all too well what a strange time those years can be.

“I NEVER ONCE HAD A PLAN B. I ALWAYS KNEW IT WOULD WORK OUT ... AND THAT’S BECAUSE SOMEONE BELIEVED IN ME.” – EBONY HILTON ’04

ACTIONS MATTER — As the girls chatted away, their adult counterparts directed them to their first group activity. Mentor Florence Davis asked each girl to squeeze a glob of toothpaste on a plate before being told to place it back in the tube by using a toothpick. If the girls didn’t know it beforehand, they soon found out: it was a hopeless task. With this smart group, little explanation was needed for them to decode the larger lesson: be careful how you act, since some things are not easily undone.

Then came singing and spontaneous dancing, with much laughter when Principal (and mentor) Quenetta White needed help translating hip-hop lyrics. But then, as conversation continued, the mood shifted, with smiles soon giving way to tears. Leaving the fun and games behind, Hilton and the other mentors had asked the girls to share stories from their lives, to tell the group of any struggles they had experienced. One student broke down when talking about a sick family member, fearing he might die. As the girl sobbed, Hilton held her hand and soothed her.

“It’s natural to have emotions,” Hilton told the group. “It’s natural to feel weak.”

But the tears were just beginning. Other girls jumped in, one by one, each revealing well-concealed inner turmoil. Hilton stood up from her seat to give hugs as they shared story after story, each more gut-wrenching than the last. The girls told tales of health emergencies, severe family dysfunction and estrangement, relatives’ suicidal tendencies, gun violence and more.

“It’s just a lot of stuff right now,” understated one seventh-grader.

The stories continued. Tears kept falling. Tissue after tissue was grabbed. Many of the girls admitted that they kept their emotions bottled, not wanting to exacerbate the challenges they faced by weeping to family members. Hilton and the other mentors urged them to rethink this strategy.

“It’s not your responsibility to hold up the family,” Hilton told the young women. “It can make you physically sick to hold in all these emotions.”

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When the stories and tears ceased, it was time to go – school was over for the day. The girls and mentors traded phone numbers and vowed to start a GLOSS Facebook page. Before the room cleared, Hilton offered one last piece of advice: “You should never feel like no one has your back or no one hears your voice.”

If anyone knows the importance of those words, it’s Hilton.

Once upon a time, Dr. Ebony J. Hilton was one of those girls.

THE RUSH OF CARING — Unless you’re a marathon runner, you’ll have trouble keeping up with Ebony Hilton. The anesthesiologist essentially sprints through the corridors of the Medical University of South Carolina, dashing between assorted patients placed in her care. Hilton is a navy blue blur as she shuttles about in her hospital scrubs, running up and down stairs, bursting into surgical rooms and breezing into patient recovery areas. One gets the idea that if every nurse and doctor operated at Hilton’s speed, the hospital could probably shut down on weekends.

Yes, Hilton is fast, but she also benefits from knowing the layout of MUSC inside and out. Ever since 2004, when Hilton graduated magna cum laude from the College as a triple major who studied biochemistry, molecular biology and inorganic chemistry, the energetic, easygoing doctor has studied and worked at MUSC. She graduated from medical school in 2008, completed a four-year residency, and then finished a one-year critical care fellowship. In 2013 Hilton was hired as the first black female anesthesiologist at MUSC. Hilton says she chose to specialize in anesthesia because “you can be useful in every part of the hospital.”

One day in April, Hilton was being useful in at least two parts of the hospital: orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery. One of her first cases that day was an older man about to have his hip replaced. Hilton pulled back a curtain to find him on his side, being prepped by other doctors and nurses. A needle was being pushed into his lower back to anesthetize his right leg – a procedure that hardly looked comfortable for the patient. Letting her colleagues do their work, Hilton placed a comforting hand on the man’s bare foot. Then she was off, flying down hallways and stairwells, until she met her next patient, an older woman who had recently suffered a number of aneurysms.

Within an hour or so, this woman would undergo neurosurgery, with a surgeon placing two tiny, metal coils within the damaged vessels of her brain. Hilton quizzed the patient about her medical history, asking specifically about conditions – such as acid reflux – that might complicate anesthesia. Then Hilton patiently outlined what was about to happen during surgery, smiling politely when the patient interrupted to tell her how pretty she is.

Saying goodbye, Hilton scrambled back up a floor to an orthopedic surgical room, where she oversaw the hip replacement patient receive more anesthesia via his spine. Soon enough, it was back downstairs again, to administer anesthesia to the woman who was about to have her aneurysms treated, as she had just been wheeled into the operating room. The hustle and bustle is normal, with Hilton shifting between patients continually, and other doctors and nurses attending to patients in her absence.

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 59 |

As nurses and nurse anesthetists puttered about the woman with aneurysms, prepping her for surgery, Hilton directed the efforts while also chatting with the patient in an attempt to distract her.

Hilton asked about the woman’s husband, who was waiting nearby, and how the two fell in love. Responding through an oxygen mask, the woman shared details of their engagement in a resort town.

“Fireworks and everything – that is so sweet,” said Hilton. “He did a good job.”

“Where did you get married,” Hilton asked next as the patient drifted off to sleep.

Hilton continued with her work, explaining that she often asks about a patient’s significant other, “so when they go to sleep, they’re thinking about something happy.”

Despite the lighthearted chitchat, Hilton remained vigilant, looking for warning signs in her patient. As the aneurysm surgery began without complication, a message alerted Hilton that she was needed back in the orthopedic operating room immediately – the hip replacement patient’s heart rate had become erratic. And so Hilton rushed off to see him, running up a flight of stairs at breakneck speed and rounding corners quickly. Entering the operating room, she quickly helped restore a normal heartbeat by adjusting the medicines entering the patient’s body. | 6 0 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

Removing a surgical mask now stained with a dot of blood, Hilton set off again to tend to new patients and begin more surgeries. It was just 10:40 a.m. – four hours after Hilton started work – yet Hilton’s pedometer indicated she had taken 4,500 steps.

In other words, Hilton had somehow managed to walk and run more than two full miles within hospital corridors cluttered and crowded with people and bulky, wire-trailing medical equipment.

And the day was only half over.

DR. HILTON — As a child, Hilton preferred running outside, skipping through the creeks and woods of Spartanburg County in upstate South Carolina, more than 200 miles from Charleston.

Hilton and her two sisters lived with their mom within the city of Spartanburg, but on weekends and summers the Hiltons would leave town to visit extended family in the small rural community of Little Africa, approximately 30 miles outside the city limits.

Hilton speaks warmly of her upbringing and the strong bond she shares with her mother and sisters. But Hilton also admits her childhood in a single-parent home was not always easy. Her mother worked in a Michelin tire facility, operating a forklift, and money was tight. Her father served in the Army, and was often overseas. As Hilton grew older, she became sensitive to the fact that her family

all it takes is showing up and talking. Within many impoverished black communities, there are often few, if any, doctors to serve as role models. If a black child never lays eyes on a black doctor, Hilton says, there’s little chance he or she will aspire to study and practice medicine. By mentoring students in GLOSS, Hilton hopes to serve as an example to young black women and to communicate that almost anything is possible with enough hard work.

“You can’t look at your situation for what it is,” says Hilton, “but what you envision it can be.”

was not quite like the ones presented in Little House on the Prairie and The Cosby Show.

“If it looks different than what you see, then it’s wrong,” she says of this disparity. “You think something is missing.”

At age 8, Hilton had a pivotal moment in her life. Upon learning her mother had previously suffered the loss of a newborn boy just days after his birth, a young Hilton pledged to become a doctor. If she were a doctor, the 8-year-old reasoned, maybe she could save babies like her brother.

Hilton’s mother took her middle daughter at her word. From that day forward, Hilton’s mother began addressing her daughter as Dr. Hilton. It didn’t matter that it would be almost 20 years before the rest of the world recognized her that same way.

To some it may seem like a small gesture, but that title meant everything to an ambitious little girl. The words “Dr. Hilton” were not just a name, but also a prophecy, a promise of good things to come. Hilton would not fail her family.

“I never once had a Plan B. I always knew it would work out … and that’s because someone believed in me,” Hilton says of her mother.

Now Hilton feels compelled to help spread that faith, to inspire children and validate their dreams. To accomplish this, sometimes

LISTEN UP — Having a mentor like Hilton is extremely powerful, says Vivian Bea, a surgeon at MUSC who co-founded GLOSS with White, the James Simons School principal.

“She has the gift of relating to different backgrounds and still being Dr. Hilton,” says Bea, who recruited Hilton to the mentoring group. “She also knows how to listen.”

To listen is to care. Hilton feels very passionately about unlocking the imaginations of black youth, enabling their dreams.

Too often, she feels, black children and teens who need help are ignored or overlooked.

“This is what bothers me about society … how we write people off and leave them to fend for themselves … especially kids,” says Hilton. “No one’s listening. That frustrates me.”

Avery Buchholz, Hilton’s fiancé, says that his future wife stands apart from others because of her compassion and drive to educate the underserved. Yet when he first met Hilton, he says, he was initially struck by her beauty and smarts.

“Medical knowledge seems to come much easier for her than most people and that includes myself,” says Buchholz, a neurosurgery resident at MUSC. “She can rattle off acid base equations and physiologic mechanisms that I have long since forgotten.”

Over time, his appreciation of Hilton deepened considerably.

“Now that I know her better, I can say without a doubt she is the most caring person I know. She literally cares about everybody – sometimes to a fault. She develops bonds with patients and their families, who routinely send thank-you letters to our house showing appreciation for the compassion she showed,” he says.

Buchholz has also observed her sensitivity to injustice and passion for equality.

“Ebony feels that she has been blessed to achieve the things she has, and she wants to make sure others who are just as unfortunate as she was have an opportunity to achieve the same,” says Buchholz.

Though Hilton makes it seem effortless to excel in the field of medicine, the truth is she’s worked hard for her accomplishments.

It’s not easy to triple major and graduate at the top of your class.

It’s not easy to slog through medical school and then residency, to finally become a doctor and work punishing hours, staring illness and death in the face daily. Yet Hilton mentions none of it when talking about her personal journey. In her mind, only one thing is relevant to her becoming a doctor: the confidence expressed in her by her mother, father and sisters.

And so Hilton carries forward that example, standing before young girls and telling them that they, too, can become doctors, or anything else they want to be.

“They’re worth it,” Hilton says of her young audience. “It’s our duty to start investing in each other again.”

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PHILANTHROPY Down to a Science THE FIRST TIME SHE STEPPED FOOT IN A real laboratory, Ka’Dedra Andrea Creech didn’t know what to expect.

Sure, she’d watched plenty of Dexter’s Laboratory, but she knew the Cartoon Network’s interpretation of scientific experimentation couldn’t compare to the real thing.

“When I walked into the lab my freshman year at the College, I was just like, ‘So this is what it feels like!’” says the senior biology and Spanish double major who’s also minoring in chemistry. “I was just so excited.”

And if she hasn’t gotten a feel for a real, live laboratory yet, she certainly will this summer: Chosen to be part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s highly competitive Exceptional Research Opportunities Program, Creech is spending 12 weeks in a research lab at Yale University.

“I was matched with a professor there who studies type 2 diabetes, which is something I’ve always been passionate about because it’s prevalent in my family,” says Creech, whose greatgrandmother, grandfather, great-aunt and uncle have all suffered from the disease.

“I am excited to get into the lab and see what everybody’s working on. There will be all different levels of experience in there – from post doc to undergraduate and everything in between,” Creech says.

“I don’t want to get bogged down in my own research. I want to look around and see what they’re doing. That’s something I’ve never really been exposed to before.”

What she has been exposed to before, however, is research.

“I started researching my freshman year and I haven’t stopped since,” laughs Creech, who has been researching pediatric cardiology with faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina since 2014. “I just really love research. I don’t really know why. If I try to explain it, it won’t sound right. I guess I feel like I’m | 6 2 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

PHILANTHROPY

“Knowing Gary believes in me goes a long way. ...

Anytime I need Gary, he’s there. Even if it’s last minute, Gary always comes through. He’s not someone who just threw some money at me and walked away – he wants to be part of my success.” – Ka’Dedra Andrea Creech contributing to mankind’s database of knowledge,” she says.

Creech feels grateful to be making that contribution. Her time at the College hasn’t been easy: There were times she didn’t know where she’d get her next meal or how she’d afford to wash her clothes.

She even questioned whether she was going to be able to stay in school at all. But then she received the J. Gorman ’43 and Gladys Thomas Alumni Scholarship.

“That scholarship changed everything for me. I cannot even begin to tell you how much that scholarship has helped me. It let me focus on my studies and not be so hungry. It is everything,” says Creech, who applied for the scholarship during her sophomore year. “It was a really hard time in my college career. I still get emotional about it.”

Established by Gary W. Thomas ’83, an oncologist on Hilton Head Island, S.C., in memory of his parents, the scholarship is reserved for students who are planning a career in medicine – something that Creech has been determined to do for as long as she can remember.

“The one thing that impresses me most about Andrea is her total dedication to achieving her goal for a career in medicine,” says Thomas. “She will let nothing stand in her way.”

And there have been a few things in her way.

“It’s not been an easy road. I’ve had a lot of difficult things thrown at me,” admits Creech, who – on top of experiencing financial instability throughout college – had to have surgery last semester due to the degradation of one of the bones in her wrist. “But one thing about me, I never give up. I don’t know how I did it, but I’ve

| Alumni Scholars Reception (fall 2015): Gary Thomas ’83 and Ka’Dedra Andrea Creech | never given up. I don’t know how. I always pull through.”

The confidence that Thomas has in her has helped, for sure.

“Knowing Gary believes in me goes a long way. Every time we talk, he just uplifts me three notches. I really appreciate that – there’s not too many places you find that in life,” she says of her benefactor turned mentor. “Anytime I need Gary, he’s there.

Even if it’s last minute, Gary always comes through. He’s not someone who just threw some money at me and walked away – he wants to be part of my success.”

For his part, Thomas is pleased to play a part in Creech’s journey – and her opportunity to study at Yale just makes him even happier.

“I am so proud of her representation of herself, the College and the J. Gorman ’43

and Gladys Thomas Alumni Scholarship,” he says. “We could not have chosen a more deserving student.”

When Creech returns to Charleston this fall, she’ll continue pursuing her medical career dreams: volunteering for CofC EMS, resuming her MUSC lab research and applying to physician assistant schools.

“I know I want to be a PA, and I know I want to continue to do research even then, so everything I’ve done at the College of Charleston has prepared me for those things,” she says, noting how far she has come since she first arrived in that lab her freshman year. “I’ve definitely seen myself grow. I’m stronger than I ever thought I could be.”

And that kind of personal success is always a welcomed discovery – especially when you have no idea what to expect.

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 63 |

Road to Recovery

WITH THE DEMANDS OF COURSEWORK and the distractions of modern life, conquering college can take a village. And when you arrive on campus after having overcome drug or alcohol addiction, that collective effort may even determine whether or not you walk through Porters Lodge with a degree in hand.

The newfound freedom of college brings with it new notions to consider, new hats to try on and new social settings that are sometimes stocked with temptation. For those in recovery, this can present considerable challenges to remaining sober.

Then there are the rigors of collegelevel classes, which call for skills these students may not have mastered during the years they struggled with addiction.

Without a safety net to help reinforce scholarly habits, such as good study practices and time management, life on campus can feel like swimming upstream in unpredictable rapids.

Alicia Caudill, the College’s executive vice president of student affairs, and her team know the statistics when it comes to students dealing with substance abuse, and they want to make sure these students don’t face these hurdles | 6 4 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

alone. A study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse estimates that around 21 percent of college students nationwide meet the medical criteria for substance abuse or dependence. What’s more, the study reports 37 percent of them fear seeking help because of social stigma.

National trends show many campuses are enhancing their focus on student wellness through a service referred to as a collegiate recovery program. Caudill explains, “For students who have had the courage to enter treatment and the strength to continue on that journey, this program provides physical and psychological space for students to make deep connections with other students and professionals who understand their journey.”

The Division of Student Affairs is well underway in establishing the College’s first collegiate recovery program, which will help normalize sobriety and serve as a beacon for those still struggling. The program will offer social activities and academic assistance to buoy students up, while at the same time holding participants accountable for their role in navigating their recovery from

addiction. By supporting recovery through collaboration, guidance and expertise, the program will provide the crucial structure needed for these students to thrive.

To get the program off the ground, Caudill needed support, too. Such an endeavor requires a director with counseling accreditations – and that requires funding. Thankfully, she found a fast friend in Patty Scarafile ’66 (pictured here). Scarafile learned about the program through her recovering son and his friend Steve Pulley, who’s been working behind the scenes to help the College launch it.

When Pulley mapped out the concept, it went straight to Scarafile’s heart: “When Steve told me about the plans, my first words were, ‘How can I help?’”

Scarafile’s contribution has been a game-changer. Along with making a personal donation to the program, she hosted a networking event at her home that inspired many others to rally around the program as well. What’s more, Scarafile championed the program in her role as CEO of Carolina One Real Estate, recommending it for a donation from its Michael O’Shaughnessy Foundation. The foundation’s support has also been instrumental in helping to launch the program.

The potential of this program has just begun, both for arriving students and for those who are graduating. “Kids who have been using have less than a stellar résumé,” says Scarafile. “But after they have achieved sobriety, and fought that tough fight, they often become better, smarter and more mature. And, they will go out into the world and help others overcome their battles.”

And, with encouragement from a community leader like Scarafile, the impact of such a program is quickly extending beyond the confines of campus.

“The support has been incredible and will change the lives of the students in the program,” says Caudill. “They are also changing the lives of those in our greater community, including me, whom these students touch with their stories of courage, intellect and success.”

This great cycle of giving illuminates just what it is that we all need to heal: the right help from the right people.

PHILANTHROPY

THROUGH THE FINISH LINE It’s so close, you can almost feel it. What was once a leap of faith is now a defining moment. With a few sure strides, the College will power through a long-anticipated finish line.

June 30 marks the culmination of BOUNDLESS: The Campaign for the College of Charleston. In November 2014, BOUNDLESS shifted from its “quiet leadership phase” into the public domain, thereby inviting the entire College community to join in a new era of philanthropic distinction. The top-line goal was set at $125 million (the highest campaign dollar figure in the institution’s history). The key to reaching that goal hinged upon one important belief: The level of commitment of the College’s alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends would be deep and enthusiastic.

When the campaign flew past the original goal in fall 2015, a significant milestone was met, marking a historic new high for the College’s fundraising campaigns. To date, BOUNDLESS has inspired a record-breaking number of donors – nearly 24,000 – whose collective support signifies a vote of confidence that will propel the College forward tomorrow and for future generations.

Building on this momentum, the College then set another stretch goal: to reach at least 10,000 alumni donors by the end of the campaign, rallying them all with “Now Is Our Time.” In the coming weeks, the results of that goal will be shared, as well as the facts and figures that tell the full story of the campaign’s success and impact.

As the College nears the campaign’s end, BOUNDLESS has already demonstrated what can happen when an entire campus community comes together in support of an important cause. And through the success of the campaign, the College is primed to continue to mine its limitless – better yet, boundless – potential.

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | 65 |

CLASS NOTES 1942 Jack and Fay Cohen Brickman ’43

celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in March along with their six children and their extended families.

1943 Fay Cohen Brickman (see Jack Brickman ’42)

1970 Alex Moore retired from his

editorial position with the University of South Carolina Press. He spent 17 years with USC Press and 20-plus years as a documentary editor and historian with two other state institutions: the USC history department and the S.C. Department of Archives and History.

1974 Deborah Lipman Cochelin

is an adjunct faculty member at Seattle University, teaching art and the law in its arts management program. Deborah, who is also an attorney, taught a class at the College this past spring, which helped her prepare for this new role in the classroom.

1977 Kenneth Riley is the president of the International Longshoremen Association (1422) in Charleston, and he serves on the Maritime Association of S.C. Board of Directors.

Harold Thibodeaux is a medical research scientist with in vivo pharmacological experiences in both academia and the biopharmaceutical industry. His research efforts have focused on the efficacy of cardiovascular drugs and topical antibiotics. Harold is a member of the Safety Pharmacology Society.

1978 Deborah Deas is the dean of the

School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside. Deborah was the interim dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and a psychiatry professor.

1979 Elizabeth Colbert-Busch

participated in the Principal for a Day program hosted by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. Elizabeth was paired with Principal Pamela Jubar of Lincoln Middle High School in McClellanville, S.C. Elizabeth is the director of business development for Clemson University’s Restoration Institute.

Paul Ferri is a member of the Maritime Association of S.C. Board of Directors and is a general superintendent with SSA Cooper in Charleston.

1981 Darrell and Peggy Gunter Boykin

are the grandparents of two grandsons, Camden Wood and Wyatt Smolka. Peggy is a member of the College of Charleston Foundation Board.

Tony Gianoukos and Andy Gianoukos ’94 are the founders and owners of ATS Logistics Inc. (along with their brother, Jimmie Gianoukos).

ATS Logistics, one of Charleston’s largest warehousing, trucking and 3PL companies, celebrated its 30th anniversary.

| 66 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

1982 Ron Cooper released his third novel,

The Gospel of the Twin (Bancroft Press). Ron teaches at the College of Central Florida in Ocala, where he lives with his wife, Sandra, and their children.

Kitty Shertzer Robinson is the president and CEO of Historic Charleston Foundation. Kitty has been at the forefront of preservation on both the national and local levels for more than three decades.

1983 Sylleste Helms Davis is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. She recently retired from Santee Cooper and lives in Moncks Corner, S.C.

Trade Certified food from around the world into the United States.

1990 Julie Allan (M.A.T. ’92) has been an

educator in Charleston County schools for 23 years. She has launched her second career as a writer with her debut novel, The Eyes Have It: A Lowcountry Novel.

Mary Bergstrom is the registrar for the College and its component graduate programs, the University of Charleston, S.C. Jamie Moon is president of the Institute for Child Success in Greenville, S.C. Jamie earned his master’s in international affairs from American University in Washington, D.C.

1984 Scott Helms is the senior vice

1992 Penny Smoak Rosner (M.A.) is a new

1986 Swain Banks Marion (see Robby

1993 Ryan Kurtz was named the Honorary

president and regional director at IDI Gazeley/Brookfield Logistics Properties in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Marion ’87) Heidi VanDerveer is the head coach of the women’s basketball team at the University of California, San Diego and was honored as the California Collegiate Athletic Association Coach of the Year.

Frank Wells is the executive director at Renew IV Spa in Charleston.

1987 Devon Wray Hanahan is a member

of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. Devon is a Spanish faculty member at the College. She and her husband, Bill, have two sons: Will and Thomas. Will is a student at the College.

Robby Marion is the vice president of human resources and information technology at Southern Diversified Distributors and their three subsidiary companies: Willam Bird, Transouth Logistics and Southern Tile Distributors. Robby and his wife, Swain Banks Marion ’86, live in Charleston.

Brian Rutenberg will have his next solo show in November 2016 at the Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College. In April 2017, he will have his sixth solo show with Forum Gallery, New York, to be followed by the Tew Gallery in Atlanta in October 2017. He also has a solo museum show at Saginaw (Mich.) Art Museum, opening October 2017.

1988 Bob Barrineau was a CB Richard

Ellis top producer of 2015 in Charleston. Bob is a senior vice president with CBRE and specializes in industrial real estate with a focus on port and logistics-related properties.

1989 Danny Croghan is the director

of business development at Soil Consultants Inc., a Charleston-based geotechnical engineering firm.

Christy Loftin owns an event-planning business that caters to both corporate events as well as destination weddings. In her free time, she can be found on the tennis courts or cycling.

Kate Tierney is the president of Alter Eco, a food company in San Francisco that brings Fair

member of the College’s Board of Trustees. She taught English for 22 years, most recently, at Coastal Carolina University.

Consul General of Italy in Atlanta by the Italian Republic. Ryan is an attorney with Miller & Martin and has worked closely with the Italian consular office in Atlanta for a number of years. Ryan earned his J.D. from the University of Tennessee College of Law. Julie Odle Parrish is the executive director of finance and administration for the Medical University of South Carolina’s College of Health Professions.

Will Sherrod was named a Realtor of Distinction for 2015 (which recognizes the top 10 percent of sales-producing Realtors in Charleston). Will works in commercial real estate with Lee & Associates in Charleston.

Elizabeth Combs Shirley received a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices President’s Circle Award for 2015. Elizabeth is a Realtor with Carolina Sun Real Estate.

1994 Paul Day is an account manager at the Bulleit Group, a boutique public relations firm in San Francisco.

Andy Gianoukos (see Tony Gianoukos ’81)

1995 Amy Kirkpatrick Orr is the director of business and auxillary services at the College. She has been with the College for almost 20 years and has served in a variety of roles across campus.

1996 Greg Guy is the CEO of Air Force

One Inc., which was recently named by Forbes magazine as one of the top 25 small businesses in the United States. Additionally, Forbes did a follow-up story on Greg that was featured in the April edition. Greg is based in Columbus, Ohio.

Carmen Sessions Scott is on the board of directors for Make-A-Wish South Carolina. She plays the role of a Wish Granter, in which every other month she sits down with a family who has a child with a life-threatening medical condition to make his or her dreams come true.

Carmen is an attorney with Motley Rice and serves on the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

CLASS NOTES

[ alumni profile ]

Grappling with Words fans around the world. He started his own fan club and was soon submitting articles for publication in wrestling magazines.

In a scene reminiscent of Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical movie Almost Famous, in which a 15-year-old boy who loves rock music is hired to write an article for Rolling Stone magazine, Mooneyham earned his first byline in a national wrestling magazine in 1965. The editors had no idea the enterprising stringer was all of 11 years old.

Following his graduation with a degree in political science in 1976, he began his first full-time reporting gig with the Times and Democrat newspaper in Orangeburg, S.C. Three years later, he became the sports editor for Charleston’s News and Courier, relishing the opportunity to return home. Better yet, this new role enabled him to occasionally get wrestling stories into the paper.

“Wrestling back then was a very secretive society – it was almost like a mafia-type thing. The outcome of most of the matches was predetermined,” he says.

“But most of the fans were true believers and came to see a fight.”

By maintaining the facade of reality that pro wrestling promoted to its fans, Mooneyham gained access and trust from a wide network of sources. By the time pro wrestling exploded into mainstream culture in the ’80s and ’90s, Mooneyham was well positioned to cover an industry that would help define the sports entertainment genre.

The reputation he built ultimately produced the New York Times–best-seller Sex, Lies and Headlocks, which he co-wrote in 2002. He was also inducted into both the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and the S.C. Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.

And there’s nothing fake about that.

– Ron Menchaca ’98

| Photo by Kip Bulwinkle ’04 |

IF YOU MAPPED OUT THE HIGHLIGHTS OF his life, you’d have a tight cluster confined to Charleston, S.C. But who says you have to leave home to live out your dream.

Growing up in the Riverland Terrace neighborhood on James Island in the 1950s and ’60s as the grandson of a Greek immigrant, Mike Mooneyham ’76 depended on his bicycle to take him wherever he needed to go. He could pedal from his home to the nearby Psaras Grocery Store his grandparents owned, to school and to the baseball field where he and the other “Terrace boys” played little league and traded baseball cards.

The College, where he enrolled in 1972, wasn’t much farther. And from there, it was just a short trip up King Street to The Post and Courier, where Mooneyham spent the better part of 40 years writing about sports and gained an international following writing about professional wrestling. Though he retired from the newspaper earlier this year, he continues to crank out his popular weekly column, which has been published continuously in the sports section since 1989 and is the longest-running wrestling column in the country.

The roots of Mooneyham’s journalism career can be traced directly to a Saturday afternoon in the early ’60s.

He and two friends were watching a black-and-white television when a pro wrestling show came on the air. The spectacle – the over-the-top theatrics and the enthusiasm of the fans – was a clarion call to Mooneyham. There was 600-pound farm boy Haystacks Calhoun and his baby-faced partner Johnny Weaver. A crazy, cane-wielding Kentucky Colonel named Homer O’Dell managed their opponents, two foreign menaces from Argentina and Yugoslavia.

“It was crazy stuff,” Mooneyham recalls of his introduction to pro wrestling. “It was sports, but it was these larger-thanlife characters.”

He knew he had to see more. The following Friday night, he was in the stands of Charleston’s former County Hall, transfixed as he watched his first live pro-wrestling event. After that, he began devouring wrestling magazines and corresponding with other wrestling

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 67 |

1997 William Applegate is a member of

the Historic Charleston Foundation Board of Trustees and is an attorney with Yarborough Applegate in Charleston. William is a plaintiff’s attorney with experience ranging from oil pollution to personal injury to unsafe consumer products to pharmaceuticals.

Michael Campbell is the vice president of distribution at Quincy Compressor in Greenville, S.C. Anthony Constantine is the sales manager at Fox Audio Visual in Charleston, S.C. Donna Limbaker Peagler is an administrative assistant at Moody & O’Neal CPAs in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

1998 Randy Adkins (M.S. ’04) is a

member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. Randy is a senior consultant with Modus21 in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., and is the assistant pastor at Canaan Missionary Baptist Church. He and his wife, Sherlonda Peake Adkins ’99 (M.S. ’03) have three children and live in North Charleston.

1999 Sherlonda Peake Adkins (M.S. ’03) Randy Adkins ’98 [M.S. ’04]) (see Kerry Brady-Stritch is a pain sales specialist at Pernix Therapeutics in Mt. Pleasant. Kerry and Drew Stritch ’00 have a daughter and twin sons.

Scott Carrington lives in California and leads digital and social media marketing at Patagonia.

Todd Warrick is a new member of the College’s Board of Trustees. Todd is a physician and leads the Tuomey Palmetto Health Pain Treatment Center in Sumter, S.C.

2000 Kate Arnold is a development officer

for the Lamar Dodd School of Arts at the University of Georgia.

Ryan Beasley is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. Ryan received his J.D. from Tulane University and is an attorney in New Orleans. He and his wife, Laura, have four children.

Bree Grossman received her nutrition training and certification from Bauman College. Bree is the founder of bakedbree.com. She was named a Top 100 Food Blogger and is a regular contributor to Simple As That. Her work has been featured on Oprah.com, Pinhole Press, Martha Stewart Weddings, Apartment Therapy, Parents.com, Yogalife, Philadelphia Magazine, Babble and Huffington Post.

Lance Malone is the project manager for the 787 Boeing South Carolina program at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Drew Stritch (see Kerry Brady-Stritch ’99)

2001 Stacy Haynes is the supervisor for

the circulation department in the College’s Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library.

Jon Holt is a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty Charleston/Mt. Pleasant.

Rivers Pearce is the director of marketing for BoomTown in Charleston, S.C. Rivers and his wife, Leigh Ann Kennedy Pearce ’03, have two children and live on the Isle of Palms. Rivers is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Ryan Holmes Small is the assistant director of annual leadership and reunion gifts in the College’s annual giving office.

2002 Jonathan Brilliant and Amanda

McCavour created two site-specific installations of their art exploring organized

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chaos called Eye of the Needle for the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Va. This exhibition will be on display through August 2016 in Taubman’s Medical Facilities of America Gallery and Temporary Exhibition Gallery.

Andrea Pyatt is an educator in Orangeburg County (S.C.) Consolidated District 5 and is also a graduate student at the University of West Florida.

Marysa Raymond was named Direct Member of the Year at the 2016 Annual Diamond event organized by the Charleston Apartment Association. Marysa is a director for Greystar, where she is responsible for overseeing operations of 9,400 apartment homes in South Carolina (Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Columbia and Spartanburg) and Georgia (Savannah and Augusta).

Heather Richie is the digital editor for Covey Rise magazine, and her first book is due from LSU Press in 2017.

Jessica Sawin Sage serves as the treasurer of the 2016 Maritime Association of S.C. Executive Committee. Jessica is the CFO of Charleston’s Rigging and Marine Hardware.

2003 Cuyler Applegate is a Realtor and

owner of Applegate Real Estate on Charleston’s upper King Street. Cuyler’s company currently employs four CofC grads.

Matt Bartolotta is the sales manager of inertial navigation systems and integrated cockpit display systems at Sagem Avionics in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Angharad Chester-Jones is the director of public relations and marketing at the southern branch of Regan Communications Group.

George Davis’ artwork has been included in the Prince Street Gallery 2016 Eighth National Juried Exhibition in New York.

Ryan DeAntonio is an enterprise account executive at Benefitfocus on Daniel Island, S.C. Seth Gadsden is the managing director of the Indie Grits Film Festival in Columbia, S.C., which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The festival gives South Carolina filmmakers an outlet to launch careers in the film industry.

Michael Grueneberger launched Tidehaven Wealth, an independent registered investment advisory firm based in Mt. Pleasant.

Culver Kidd ’04 and Erica Lanford Kidd announce the birth of their son, E. Culver “Elan” Kidd, born in June 2014. Culver is an attorney with the 9th Circuit Solicitor’s Office in Charleston, and Erica is a sales analyst with Coca-Cola Bottling Company.

Leigh Ann Kennedy Pearce (see Rivers Pearce ’01) Jermel President is the head basketball coach of Oceanside Collegiate Academy, a public charter high school in Mt. Pleasant. Oceanside aims to prepare student-athletes for college through a class curriculum balanced with an emphasis on athletics.

Kevin and Bridget Bettelli Price announce the birth of their second child, Margaret Hennessy, born in December 2015. The Price family lives on Sullivan’s Island.

Sean Seabrook is a solution consultant at NetSuite, an Atlanta-based company providing cloud-based business management software.

Laura Zagby-Dye was presented with the Presidential Award for Excellence by the American Red Cross in March. Laura is the account manager for donor recruitment for the South Carolina Blood Services Region. Her efforts helped the South Carolina organization exceed collection goals each month of the 2015 fiscal year, placing her in the top 3 percent of her peers nationally.

2004 Jessica Barton and Mike Gerel were

married in August 2013 and live in Portland, Ore., where Jessica owns a pet service business called EAT.PLAY.LOVE. Matthew Brockbank is a real estate agent and relocation professional at the Dunes Properties downtown Charleston office.

Bernard Coaxum is the head basketball coach for the boys’ varsity team at Palmetto Scholars Academy in North Charleston.

Denee Daniel is an independent consultant and recruiter at Palmetto Senior Benefits.

Bob Flynn is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. Bob is a virtual sales account manager for Cisco Systems in Raleigh, N.C. David Fraser (see Biz Mitchell Fraser ’06) Chris Gilpatrick (see Ana Emelianoff ’07) Jennifer Hayes is the accounts payable manager at United Infrastructure Group in Great Falls, S.C. Jennifer and Steve Larson were married in September 2012 and live in Rock Hill, S.C. Culver Kidd (see Erica Lanford Kidd ’03) James and Allison Ruggles Lutz announce the birth of their son, Zander Plunkett, born in August 2015. The Lutz family lives in Charleston.

Michael Olander founded O2 Fitness in 2002 with one center in Raleigh, N.C., and has now expanded to 12 North Carolina locations, including Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, FuquayVarina, Wake Forest and Wilmington. Olander has also opened three locations in Charleston.

Lauren and Brandon Pierce announce the birth of their daughter, Isla Lilliana, born in November 2015. The Pierce family lives in Baltimore, Md. Matt and Taylor Thomasino Rautenbach live in Seattle with their twins. Matt is an account executive at Workday, a provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources.

Tori Hinde Schallot is the director of the software engineering division at CodeLynx in Charleston. Tori received her M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jay Whitt is the field sales manager for Alliqua BioMedical and lives in Charleston, S.C. Karey Sanders Wilson is the assistant vice president and branch support manager of Southcoast Community Bank in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

2005 Aaron Ballard is an actor,

improvisor and sketch comedy writer in New York City. She has been with Phoenix Artists since 2011. Aaron received her M.F.A. from Rutgers University – New Brunswick in 2010.

Christopher Beckham (see Kristen Munsey Beckham ’07) Magie Boyle and Kevin Gray were married in December 2014. They have two children, Edie Elizabeth and Margaret Lane. Magie is a clinical research director for Clinical Research of West Florida. She worked as an RN at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa before getting her master’s in nursing from the University of Tampa and becoming a licensed nurse practitioner.

Thomas Bullington is living in Georgia and working on his doctorate in British literature through the University of Mississippi.

Aaryne Elias is the College’s campus planning manager. Aaryne received her M.P.A. from Clemson University in 2012.

Graham Ervin is the director of special events at the Cedar Room in Charleston. She is also an adjunct faculty member in the College’s hospitality and tourism department.

Lance Hagaman is the vice president of leasing at Brixmor in Atlanta.

CLASS NOTES

[ alumni profile ]

Worth Her Salt SHE WAS RELAXING IN HER KAYAK ON A creek cutting through Edisto Island, trying to spy a bald eagle who had built a nest nearby. Bertha Booker ’87 was planning to spend the night sleeping on her kayak so she could rise early on the water and begin a full morning of birdwatching. But before tucking in for the evening, Booker needed to eat the burger she had packed for dinner. It sure would taste better with a little salt, she thought, knowing she had forgotten to bring any.

Floating along, Booker soon had a revelation: she was absolutely surrounded by salt – all she had to do was boil some seawater. So she did. The result not only produced seasoning for her supper, but ultimately a path to a new livelihood.

Feeling self-sufficient, Booker, an aspiring farmer recently laid off from a corporate job, thought to herself: Why couldn’t I do this?

Five years later, Booker is the owner of Botany Bay Sea Salt, South Carolina’s first modern sea salt company. Just like that evening aboard the kayak, Booker still travels into Ocella Creek behind Edisto Island, close to Botany Bay Plantation, a state wildlife management area. But she’s not scooping mere spoonfuls of seawater up into a kayak anymore.

Instead, she’s now using a pump and hoses to suck up hundreds of gallons of water into plastic barrels stacked aboard a boat. From there the seawater is motored across the North Edisto River to a dock in Rockville, S.C., where it is transferred via more hoses to a large container inside a trailer hitched to Booker’s Subaru. She drives this seawater across Wadmalaw Island to a plantation, where the saltwater is fed into long, shallow ponds beneath greenhouses.

As the water evaporates, sea salt is left behind, ready to be gathered, processed and packaged.

It might seem like a lot of logistics, but the labor involved in moving the 400-pound barrels is only half the battle.

Years ago, Booker’s plan to make sea salt took state and federal regulators completely by surprise. It was not just the unknown food safety considerations which created concern, but the question of whether it was even permissible to harvest the state’s waters for that

purpose. South Carolina health officials scoured the books and concluded, “Well, there’s nothing that says you can’t do it.

But there’s nothing that says you can do it, either,” Booker recalled. In 2012, Booker finally received a green light to make and sell sea salt. As she succinctly puts it: “It was a long process for the world’s oldest product.”

Few people, perhaps, are headstrong and determined enough to persevere through the regulatory process of bringing an unusual new food product to market. Few, too, are capable of making the tidy, sea salt harvesting operation and farm that Booker has created on Wadmalaw. It took considerable effort and craftsmanship to level the salt ponds and construct the greenhouse-like tents that cover the ponds. Booker used a pipe bender to create the framing of the tents, twisting each pipe into the “gothic arch” shape necessary to shed condensation.

She also mans the smoker when burning locally harvested live oak and pecan wood to flavor some of her salt. When it comes to sea salt, Booker does it all, ultimately selling her products at the Charleston Farmers Market, among other locations.

As Booker continually seeks to inform and improve her saltmaking, she’s also

been delving into the local history of the craft. To her delight, Booker discovered the amazing coincidence that French Huguenot immigrant William Mellichamp started the Southeast’s very first commercial salt works at Botany Bay Island in 1724.

In fact, the creek where Booker first made sea salt is known to locals as Mellichamp Creek.

There are other coincidences, too, including Mellichamp’s long-running interactions with colonial officials to secure the right to make sea salt.

Eventually, his business was up and running, reportedly producing 16,000 bushels of salt by 1731. Four years later, Mellichamp’s son was entangled in a counterfeiting scheme, however, and the entire Mellichamp family fled to Georgia after the son escaped capture by leaping from a balcony in Charles Towne (Booker notes that Thomas Mellichamp later redeemed the family name by inventing an important new method of processing indigo).

The saltworks may have been shuttered until, almost 300 years later, Booker kayaked behind Edisto Island one evening and revived a Carolina tradition by seasoning her hamburger.

– Jason Ryan S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 69 |

| Photo by Kip Bulwinkle ’04 |

CLASS NOTES

TIME STAMPED CISTERN YARD, April 30, 7:00 p.m.

A Charleston Affair 2016

Emily Brown Leonard is an analyst of learning and organizational development at Ingevity in North Charleston, a performance chemicals and materials company advancing technologies in oilfield, pavement, carbon and industrial markets. She and Chris Leonard were married in November 2013.

Tom Loutrel is the senior vice president of business development at SIB Fixed Cost Reduction in Charleston.

Helen Stathakis Michael (M.S. ’11) is a CPA and controller at Southeastern Management Group.

She is the treasurer of the Charleston Women in International Trade.

Reid Price is the director of business development at Entrusted Restoration in Tequesta, Fla. Reid and his wife, Lyndsey, have two sons.

Erin Rogers Randall (M.P.A. ’07) is the co-owner of Reach Ventures, a home investment company specializing in acquisition, renovation and resell of neglected properties in Charleston.

J. DeVeaux Stockton is an associate attorney with Uricchio Howe Krell Jacobson Toporek Theos & Keith PA. His practice consists of trial work, primarily in civil litigation and criminal defense. DeVeaux earned his J.D. from the Charleston School of Law. Eric Toepperwein is the operations manager for Charleston Bike Taxi.

2006 Ashley Bowman is an industrial

price field economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She plans, schedules and conducts data collection from assigned enterprises for the Producer Price Index. Ashley earned her M.P.A. from Ohio State University in 2015.

Julia Deckman is a Charleston artist. The Real Estate Studio hosted “Garden Party” featuring Julia’s works in February and March.

David Fraser ’04 and Biz Mitchell Fraser announce the birth of their daughter, Lillian “Lilly” Mitchell, born in January. The Fraser family lives in Fredericksburg, Va. Suzanne Lipscomb is the national digital sales specialist (college) for Gannet Publishing Services in Washington, D.C. Griffin Morrow is a client advisor at Mappus Insurance Agency in Charleston.

Andrew Muller is a member of the board of directors for the Charleston World Heritage Coalition, an initiative to make Charleston the next World Heritage site through UNESCO. Megan Stephens was re-elected to the Young Lawyers Section of the Birmingham Bar Association Executive Board. Megan is an attorney with Burr & Forman in Birmingham, Ala. Brian Stern is a new member of the College’s Board of Trustees. He works with his family’s commercial real estate business, Stern & Stern, in Columbia.

Clay Willis is the director at Huron Consulting Group in Atlanta.

2007 Kate Battle earned her M.B.A. from

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2014. She is a manager at Collective Insights, a management and technology consulting company in Atlanta.

Adam Batchelor (see Meghann Stubel Batchelor ’09) Kristen Munsey Beckham is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. She works for Dominion Resources, one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy. Kristen helps lead the company’s external affairs initiatives in South Carolina. She received her M.B.A. from the University of Georgia’s Terry School of Business. Kristen and her husband, | 72 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

Christopher ’05, live in Columbia, S.C. Christopher is a senior manager of health care consulting for Pershing Yoakley & Associates.

Megan and Daniel Bell announce the birth of their daughter, Georgia Louise, born in January. Daniel has his own general contracting business and focuses on residential renovations in New Orleans, including their own 1830s home.

Priscilla and Will Brown announce the birth of their son, William “Liam” Glen Brown IV, born in February.

Ashly Harrell Chirayil is a senior student associate at the University of Texas at Austin. Ashly is completing her master’s in architecture and plans to focus on civic and cultural institutions and infrastructure.

Monica Correa is the business development and office administrative associate at Concentric Management Systems Inc., a supply chain management and support company based in Charleston.

Ana Emelianoff and Chris Gilpatrick ’04 were married in April 2013. They announce the birth of their son, Everett Christopher, born in November 2014. Ana works in the College’s Division of Academic Affairs, and Chris is an enterprise product support lead at Blackbaud.

Emmanuel Ferguson is an associate attorney at Cleveland & Conley in Charleston. His practice focuses on employment law defense. Emmanuel earned his J.D. from the Charleston School of Law and previously worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Cameron Harder Handel studied jazz at the College and is a professional trumpeter. She toured with Michael Bolton for five years before returning to Mt. Pleasant, where she has started her own band called Cameron and the Funk Dumplins.

Heather Jashienski is a graduate student in the University of Stirling’s international human resource management program in Scotland.

William McMillan is the enterprise account executive at Salesforce, a customer relationship management company in Dallas, Texas.

Hunter Stunzi is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Hunter is the CEO and founder of Snap Capital in Charleston.

Lauren Whiteside Mann is the assistant director of alumni and campus engagement in the College’s annual giving office.

She was previously the stewardship and communications coordinator at the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center. Lauren is an officer in the Lowcountry Alumni Chapter.

Ami Ziff is the director of national retail at Time Equities Inc., based in New York City.

He is responsible for retail acquisitions, dispositions, asset management and leasing of a $500 million portfolio of 55 properties in 22 states.

2008 Bucky Buchanan is the assistant

director of the College’s campus recreation services and fitness.

Susan Kamenar is the founder of Coppr, a Los Angeles–based creative agency specializing in branding, content development, influencer marketing, and business and product development. Her clients include the Scott Brothers (of HGTV’s Property Brothers), a Mt. Everest expedition and Coachella Music.

Garrick Klaybor is a psychiatry resident at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. Garrick completed medical school at MUSC. Jessica McConnell is the marketing manager at World Duty Free Group in Bethesda, Md.

Allisyn Miller Morgan is the assistant to the dean in the College’s Graduate School. Allisyn is married to Austin Morgan ’10, the College’s assistant baseball coach.

Caroline Giles Pineau is the owner of the Yoga Tree, a yoga studio in Haverhill, Mass.

Brady Quirk-Garvan is a member of the College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Brady is a business development associate and chief collaborative officer with Money With a Mission. He is also the chairman of the Charleston County Democrats and serves on the Board of Directors at Palmetto Project. He and his wife, Angie, live in North Charleston.

Annalise Rahman and Michael Filipiak were married in September 2012. Annalise earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with concentrations in neuropsychology and geropsychology from Wayne State University in December 2015. Her postdoctoral residency in clinical neuropsychology is with the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration/University of Michigan Training Consortium, which specializes in traumatic brain injury and geriatrics. Annalise and Michael live in Detroit, Mich.

Toni Rossi is a senior tax associate with Mt. Pleasant–based Moody & O’Neal CPAs. Toni has a master’s in accounting from Wake Forest University.

David Wilson is a quality–control lab technician at Oskar Blues Brewing Company in Brevard, N.C. Derek Wragge is the creator of the app #SelfieStrike A Pose, which is a recent winner of a Designli.com competition.

2009 Adam Batchelor ’07 and Meghann announce the birth of a son,

Stubel Batchelor Colin William, born in February. Meghann works with Charlotte’s NPR station WFAE, and Adam is a senior analyst with LPL Financial.

He received his M.B.A. from UNC-Charlotte in December 2014.

Toan Dao is the owner of Crafted Travel, Charleston Black Cab Company and An Executive Travel, offering transportation and travel services in Charleston.

Hannah Voth Gallagher is an associate attorney with the Finkel Law Firm in Charleston.

Austin Huff is the marketing project manager at ScanSource in Greenville, S.C. Stephanie Kozersky and Justin Lee were married in November 2015. She is the alumni/ development coordinator for the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Medicine.

Kora Phillips is a reservations agent at Cheval Residences Serviced Apartments in London.

Sam Sfirri is the project digitization and metadata specialist in the College’s Addlestone Library. Sam earned his master’s in library and information studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Alan Strozier is the director of sales and marketing at the North Charleston Marriott.

Katherine Varn (see Thomas Fleming ’10) Megan Williams is a site planner for Boeing South Carolina in North Charleston.

2010 Amanda Helton Baldwin (M.P.A.)

is a major gifts officer for the American Red Cross in Charleston.

Thomas Fleming and Katherine Varn ’09 were married in March. Thomas earned his master’s in health care administration from the University of North Carolina in May and will be a surgery administrator for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

CLASS NOTES

[ alumni profile ]

A Calculated Risk WHAT IMAGES COME TO MIND WHEN YOU think of the New York financial sector, Wall Street or corporate finance?

Maybe you think of the cutthroat, money-hungry world of the infamous Gordon Gekko in the 1987 classic film Wall Street. Or perhaps you conjure a more recent archetype like Jordan Belfort in 2013’s Wolf of Wall Street, where making money and living the high life was the driving factor behind Leonardo DiCaprio’s alter ego.

But Stephen Boyd ’99 says the world of high-powered finance is a little more down to earth than what Hollywood sometimes portrays.

“I think there’s a perception that everybody in finance makes a lot of money or is pursuing making a lot of money, when in reality a lot of people are just working very hard to do a job,” he says.

And Boyd should know. He’s spent his

career climbing the Wall Street ladder where he currently works as senior director at Fitch Ratings, one of the three big international credit ratings and research firms in the United States (Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s are the other two).

While stereotypical images of the New York financial scene bring to mind harried traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange feverishly watching the ticker and shouting “buy” or “sell” into their headsets, Boyd’s work in credit ratings is a bit more subdued. In his plane of existence, it’s more about research than rushing. Decisions are made through meticulous calculations assessing risk of default, not the torrent rise and fall of the NASDAQ or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

That fits perfectly with Boyd’s steadfast personality. From the start of his college

education – even before that really – he had settled on pursuing a career in finance and investments.

“My father loves his family, the stock market and golf,” he quips, “so I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that I work on Wall Street and my brother is a professional golf instructor.”

The Maryland native started his journey into the world of business at the College after a good friend “raved” about the school: “When I visited during high school, I just fell in love with Charleston – the atmosphere, the architecture, the weather.”

Boyd, a business administration major, credits the College with providing the “building blocks of a solid business education.” But more importantly, he says it was the experiences the school provided – specifically, two summer semesters abroad in Spain and northern Europe – that gave him the gumption to jump head-first into such a challenging career.

“That really gave me a lot of confidence in myself that I could be out in the world and survive,” he says. “I was determined to find a job researching stocks after graduating and ultimately pursuing a money-management career.”

And he did. Just three months after receiving his diploma, the newly minted CofC graduate moved to New York City to begin his first job.

Today, Boyd, who is a chartered financial analyst, manages around 10 people in Fitch’s real estate and leisure group. As part of his work, Boyd and his team rate the fixed income obligations of real estate investment trusts or REITs (think mutual funds for commercial real estate).

Credit ratings for those REITs are important because they help facilitate efficient capital markets and spur business growth. The industry of credit ratings is poised to expand as international and emerging markets shift more toward public bonds and away from traditional bank lending.

That’s why Boyd is pursuing his master’s in real estate from New York University – so that he can be ready for the next phase in his career. And just like in 1999, he’s eager to explore the financial world’s latest frontier.

– Amanda Kerr

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 73 |

Jennifer Arnold Maxwell is a sales manager for the Hilton Garden Inn in Mt. Pleasant. She was named one of the country’s top 50 group sales managers for 2015 by HotelPlanner.com and Meetings.com.

Bretticca Moody is an academic advisor and firstyear experience coordinator at Missouri State University in Springfield.

Elizabeth McDonald Moore is an occupational therapist at Gentiva Health Services in Chattanooga, Tenn. She earned her master’s in occupational therapy at the University of Tennessee’s Health Science Center.

Austin Morgan (see Allisyn Miller Morgan ’08) Bella Slagsvol has started the nonprofit rEvent in Charleston, which provides a free pick up and delivery service that repurposes reusable event materials (e.g., flowers, vases and table linens) to charitable organizations within the community.

Rachel Spagnolo is the new business and office operations coordinator at Rawle Murdy, a fullservice communications firm in Charleston.

Kaitlyn Swicegood is an attorney at Max Sparwasser Law Firm and a yoga instructor at Eco Fitness in Charleston.

Daniel Walker is the account executive at IBM Watson Health - Explorys in Atlanta.

2011 Elizabeth Adams is the social

service director at Hallmark Healthcare Center in Summerville, S.C. Liz is a licensed social worker and received her M.S.W. from the University of South Carolina.

Katie Butler and EJ DeGraef were married in December 2014 and live in Chapel Hill, N.C. Katie is a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill’s medical school.

Andrew Goudelock played for the Houston Rockets this past season. Drew also played for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers of the China Basketball Association.

Andrew Meggs earned a master’s in international affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University in 2014. He lives in Minneapolis, Minn., where he works as a data analyst with VUSION. Ashley Moore and Derek Fronabarger ’12 were married in April and live in Washington, D.C. Jan Gambardella Morris is the marketing project manager at the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority.

Sydney Pratt is the marketing manager at Kellen in New York City.

Dillard Salmons and William Stevens III were married in December. Dillard is in business development with Salmons Dredging Corporation in Charleston.

Samantha Sammis is the executive director of Loving America Street, a nonprofit focused on asset-based community development in Charleston’s Eastside neighborhood.

2012 Hannah Ashe is a copywriter at

SquareTrade in San Francisco.

Christian Bailey (M.P.A. ’15, M.A. ’15) is the associate director for recruitment and marketing of the Honors College at the College.

James Cargile is a staff accountant at Legare Bailey Hinske. James earned his master’s in accountancy from Auburn University.

Emily Smith Evans works in the group sales department at The Biltmore Company in Asheville, N.C. Derek Fronabarger (see Ashley Moore ’11) Chloe Gilstrap is the account manager and production coordinator at Nube9, a casual athletic company based in Seattle, Wash.

Hannah Herman and Eric Porter were married in October 2015 and live in San Francisco, Calif. | 74 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

Courtney James is an integration support analyst at Benefitfocus in Charleston.

Emily Arp Jordan is an associate attorney with Turner Padget Graham & Laney, P.A. in Florence, S.C. Emily earned her J.D. from the Charleston School of Law. Alex Keith is a copywriter for Nike in Beaverton, Ore. Alex creates content for Nike SB and Nike Women’s Training lines.

Jennifer Kist is a senior hydrographic survey technician for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston District.

Margaret Meredith is an account executive at SnapCap in Charleston, S.C. Katreena Mitchell is the priority access supervisor at Emory Healthcare, Brain Health Center in Atlanta. Katreena earned her master’s in public health from Georgia Southern University.

Annie O’Brien (M.P.A. ’16) is the strategic initiatives coordinator at Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach on Johns Island, S.C. Sydney Ramsey is a second-year medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Elyse Chubb Welch was one of the top 2015 brokerage associates at Colliers International South Carolina. Elyse is based in Charleston.

Ashley Brooks and Annaliese Hughes are the owners of Pounce Cat Cafe + Wine Bar in downtown Charleston. Their café is a place where people can grab tea or coffee and hang out with adoptable cats.

Isabel Cahill (M.B.A. ’15) is the membership director at Cross Campus, a hub of the Los Angeles, Calif., start-up community providing shared workspaces and private offices.

Zachariah Johnson is a consultant at Benefitfocus on Daniel Island, S.C. Dylan Judson is an investment associate at Kabbage Inc., a financial services data and technology company assisting small businesses.

Trey Kizer is a real estate broker at Charleston Saltwater Realty in Summerville, S.C. Elizabeth Miller is a sales associate at Condé Nast and lives in Marblehead, Mass.

Joe Quinn owns and operates two Jimmy John’s restaurants in Lowell, Mass.

Megan Severn is the special events coordinator for The ARK, Alzheimer’s Family Support Services, based in Summerville, S.C. Hannah Yarborough lives in Atlanta and is a workplace strategy consultant at CBRE, a global commercial real estate firm.

2013 Adam Bloomberg is an investment

2015 Seth Able is a marine scientist

2014 Lia Alberti is a marketing manager

2016 Ryan Forbes is the maintenance and

advisor representative and Princor-registered representative for Principal Financial Group in Charleston.

Lindsay Holler is a singer-songwriter and helped organize the Women & Waits concert (which tackled the music of Tom Waits) and the Women & Young tribute to the music of Neil Young at the Charleston Music Hall.

Jake Keller is the senior program coordinator at Operation Smile, a nonprofit that conducts surgeries on patients with cleft lips and cleft palates in more than 60 countries.

Alison Massari is a gallery associate at the Audubon Gallery in Charleston. She is also the front-of-house manager for the Gaillard Center and the College’s Sottile Theatre.

Molly Moore is the vice president of marketing at Ridge Media in Greenville, S.C. Alex Pappas is the coordinator of student engagement and development for the College’s School of Business.

Alyssa Maute Smith works for Vestige Communications and is the secretary of Lowcountry Local First’s board of directors.

Christian Smith is the director of theater and an adjunct history faculty member at Wilson Hall School in Sumter, S.C. Dyanne Vaught is a staff associate in the Program for Economic Research at Columbia University.

Emily Claire White and David Piekut were married in May 2015 and live in Corpus Christi, Texas. Emily is the advocacy manager at Fight Colorectal Cancer.

Matthew Williams (M.B.A. ’14) is the talent coordinator at Allied Reliability Group in Charleston. at Uber in Washington, D.C. Erica Arbetter is the digital director for the Committee on Ways and Means, the oldest committee of the U.S. Congress and the chief tax-writing committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Sarah Baumgarten and her husband, Nicholas Pilch, announce the birth of their daughter, Chandler Amory, born in November 2015.

Miles Boardman is a consultant at Knowledge Capital Group in Charleston. He has been with the company since 2013, when he worked there as an intern.

for RPS Evans-Hamilton and is working on projects in the Outer Banks, N.C. Lauren Adderley (M.A.T.) was honored for her thesis on the subjects of color consciousness and the history of black Charlestonians at Academic Magnet High School Foundation’s “Power of a Mentor” event. In 2015, she was awarded a “Most Outstanding” designation from her graduate program.

Lundy Davis is a patient care technician in the digestive disease unit at the Medical University of South Carolina. She began the Physician Assistant Program at MUSC this May. Ben Hintz is an account executive at Teamphoria, an employee engagement software company that builds and measures an engaged workforce and company culture. Ben is also the founder and CEO of Yawper, the first real-time social GPS app that finds the best social events in your area.

Asha Langton is a community health outreach specialist for the Peace Corps in Mozambique.

Michael Maracich is the marketing media coordinator at TrackingPoint, a mechanical and industrial engineering company based in Austin, Texas.

Thea Sigal is a special education teacher at Five Keys Charter Schools and Programs in San Francisco.

Sara Vaughn (M.S.) and Justin Carper were married in March. Sara is an environmental scientist for GEL Engineering, where she is responsible for conducting phase I environmental site assessments, industrial hygiene sampling activities and field sampling for soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment. property management liaison for Southern Shores Real Estate Group in Charleston.

Kristi Kerrigan (M.S.) is the reef resiliency coordinator for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection within its Coral Reef Conservation Program.

Daniel Lenahan is an M.B.A. student, with a concentration in sports management, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

Check out more stories and information about the College at today.cofc.edu.

CLASS NOTES

[ alumni profile ]

A World of Good THEY SAY WHEN YOU’RE WHERE YOU’RE supposed to be, you just know. It just feels right. Kome Oboh ’06 knows that feeling – she always knows where she belongs.

And, if there was any doubt she was in the right place when she took the United Nations employment exam, it was gone by her first day on the job. No question about it: Oboh had found her place.

But it wasn’t an overnight journey. The hiring process at the U.N. took a year and included a placement exam, which was well worth the wait.

“I really enjoy what I do,” says Oboh, who now works in the Corporate Division of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. OCHA is responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies.

For Oboh, the diverse and fast-paced culture at her previous jobs at DC Comics and Warner Bros. in New York City prepared her for her current role at the U.N.

“I am inspired by the mission statement of the United Nations, and the people that I work with,” Oboh observes. “And you can’t beat that.”

A GOOD PLACE TO LEARN Something else you can’t beat: the “postcard-perfect backdrop” of the College. The minute she saw the CofC campus, Oboh knew she was in the right place.

“I immediately fell in love with it,” she says with a smile. “I thought the grounds were great, there was so much culture, so much history, and the architecture was beautiful.”

And, pretty soon, she had fallen in love with the academics, too.

“I majored in communication because I thought it was an umbrella for all other subjects: There was media law, business law, gender and culture studies, mathematics, philosophy, English – all incorporated in the communication curriculum,” she says, noting that

communication faculty members Tom Heeney, Robert Westerfelhaus and Celeste Lacroix had particularly strong impacts on her. “Those professors have this democratic way of teaching – everybody in a circle for a debate of minds, all opinions were welcomed. I’m not the kind of person that learns from someone just standing in front of a chalkboard, so their incorporating us into the conversation and the lessons just made me enjoy it so much more.”

Feeling welcomed and included in a place, of course, does a lot for that sense of belonging. Oboh, a Nigerian native, feels very grateful to now call America her home in addition to Nigeria.

“Nigeria is my homeland,” Oboh says. “It will always be home to me. But I have also made a home for myself here in America and the United Nations, too.”

And – no matter where you are in life – there’s no place like home.

– Alicia Lutz ’98 S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 75 |

In Memoriam: Conseula Francis The College community lost a beloved friend and colleague when Conseula Francis passed away on May 9, 2016, after battling acute leukemia.

A professor of English and African American studies, she came to the College in 2002, and most recently served as associate provost for curriculum and institutional resources in the Division of Academic Affairs, a post she assumed in 2015.

She was highly regarded for her intellect, scholarship and kindness. She possessed an innate ability to connect with her students and to engage their minds by approaching classroom instruction with joy and passion. She was honored with the College’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2011.

Francis, who earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, began teaching in the College’s Department of English in 2002. In 2007, she was appointed founding director of the African American Studies Program and was instrumental in the development and launch of the African American studies major in 2014. In addition to writing numerous journal articles and book chapters, she also authored The Critical Reception of James Baldwin and was the editor of Conversations with Octavia Butler.

Among her passions was Star Wars. She loved science fiction, romance, comic books and pop culture – appreciating them for their sheer entertainment value, but also always extracting deeper lessons and meanings relevant to her research and teaching.

[ passages ] Elizabeth Simmons Cantey ’36

Stanley Toporek ’61

Laura Perrine Maumus ’04

Frances Robinson Frampton ’41

Demal Mattson Jr. ’64

Paige Tibbetts ’08

Marjorie Smith O’Brien ’41

Sherron Ann Rhodes Hull ’66

Lindsey Bates Motley ’09

Constan Kanellos ’43

Thomas Worthington ’70

Chase Mabe ’12

Arnolda DuBose Quin Roode ’44

Deborah Toporek ’75

Kelly Smith ’12

Martha Ann Riggs Wilson ’44

Phillip Yates ’79

Ginny Summerford ’12

Harold Mouzon ’50

Marsha Gross Browder ’80

Andrew Farr ’13

Joseph Beasley Jr. ’51

Daun Hand Stuart ’81

Robert Shore Jr. ’13

Lesesne Bell Forchheimer ’51

Gary Shealy ’82

James Solomon, student

Joyce Duncan Hilton ’54

Margaret Peters Ketchen ’90

Sol Blatt Jr., honorary degree recipient

Julia Achurch Adams ’55

Dianne Marchbanks Toy ’93

Louise Guenveur Streat, honorary degree recipient

Carolyn Miller ’59

Martin Worsencroft ’94

Thomas McCaulley ’60

Kathryn Taylor Hamilton ’00

Alvin Wells ’60

Edward Hays Reynolds IV ’00

March 2, 2016; Florence, S.C.

April 20, 2016; Charleston, S.C.

March 19, 2016; Charleston, S.C. February 17, 2016; Alexandria, Va. May 18, 2016; Pompano Beach, Fla. April 9, 2016; Columbia, S.C.

December 15, 2015; Arlington, Va. March 28, 2016; Spartanburg, S.C. January 19, 2016; York, Pa.

March 9, 2016; Charleston, S.C. February 28, 2016; Mt. Pleasant, S.C. April 16, 2016; Reston, Va. February 5, 2016; Charleston, S.C. January 29, 2016; Charleston, S.C.

| 76 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

March 10, 2016; Charleston S.C. April 30, 2016; Mt. Pleasant, S.C. February 5, 2016; Charleston, S.C. January 6, 2016; Sparta, N.C.

February 2, 2016; Charleston, S.C. January 30, 2016; Charleston, S.C. April 5, 2016; Beaufort, S.C.

April 7, 2016; Summerville, S.C. February 23, 2016; Johnson City, Tenn.

January 4, 2009; Winston-Salem, N.C. July 24, 2010; Harlem, Ga.

May 5, 2016; Alpharetta, Ga. December 15, 2015; Blairsville, Ala. March 30, 2016; Greenville, S.C.

August 8, 2013; Kalamazoo, Mich.

March 22, 2016; Brooklyn, N.Y. February 23, 2016; Greenville, S.C. October 23, 2014; Santa Barbara, Calif.

April 15, 2016; Rising Fawn, Ga. April 25, 2016; Charleston, S.C. March 25, 2016; Irmo, S.C. February 26, 2013; Mt. Pleasant, S.C. April 13, 2016; Las Vegas, Nev. April 20, 2016; Charleston, S.C.

March 6, 2016; Greensboro, N.C.

DeWitt Williams, honorary degree recipient

January 27, 2016; St. Stephen, S.C.

James Shumate, former staff April 28, 2016; Charleston, S.C.

CLASS NOTES

[ alumni profile ]

Ahead of the Game WHAT IF YOUR DAY WAS SHAPED BY TALK of batting averages, player trades or World Series updates? What if your colleagues involved heavy hitters from the world of Major League Baseball, from the megastars on the diamond to the power brokers behind the scenes? What if last night’s doubleheader was no longer left to “water cooler” conversation, but the main topic of your department meeting?

It may sound like a season of fantasy baseball, but for Becca Shaw ’06, it’s another action-packed day at the office. As vice president of business development at MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), she’s in the business of growing the sport’s digital reach through licensing and syndication of baseball rights.

Though baseball may be a primary driver of her team’s activities, Shaw juggles a lot more than just what happens on the baseball field. Her purview goes beyond the ballpark to handle third-party business for MLBAM’s nonbaseball clients, such as HBO Now, live streaming of March Madness, WWE Network, the PGA tour, and MLBAM’s recent digital media rights partnership with the NHL, among others. Shaw is responsible for developing partnerships that allow baseball fans to access game action when they aren’t in the ballpark.

She works with partners like AppleTV, Xbox and Roku to ensure that baseball fans can access MLB.TV on their Internetconnected devices. She also handles licensing agreements with partners, such as Yahoo and YouTube.

It’s no fluke that Shaw can talk shop with seasoned pros spanning athletic disciplines, and does so around a conference table flanked by far more neckties than high heels. Growing up in Omaha, Neb., Shaw established an athletic mindset at a very young age: “I asked my mom to sign me up for any sport that the YMCA offered. It didn’t matter the sport, I just loved being part of a team.”

Her love of competitive sports deepened when she was recruited in high school for the College’s volleyball team.

Time on the squad offered a vantage point of the game, including a freshmanyear opportunity to play in the first

round of the NCAA tournament. But it was time off the court while involved in Red Bull’s marketing program, WIN for KC (an organization providing opportunities for girls and women in sports) and her internship at the Family Circle Cup tennis tournament on Daniel Island (secured through the College’s physical education program) that gave her a new perspective on the business side of sports.

“The College volleyball team was my family for four years,” she fondly recalls.

“We learned to depend on each other both on and off the court. Trusting your team and elevating your skills to meet any opponent are critical for success – both in sports and in business.”

In the College’s classrooms, Shaw was able to galvanize her sports devotion with other interests, expanding upon the studies for her degree in physical education with coursework in psychology and media studies. “Psychology and physical education really offered me a

unique combination, because I wanted to learn about the mindset of what motivates people. That really excites me,” she says.

As fate would have it, her love of sports is a two-way street. In fact, baseball has been very good to Shaw. It has powered an enviable career, earning her a spot on Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list and a seat on the board of WISE (Women in Sports and Events). The love of sport at all levels also propelled the native Midwesterner to the big leagues of New York City.

“I never thought I’d end up in NYC working for one of the most premier sports leagues in the world, but I’ve loved every step of my journey and look forward to whatever the future holds,” Shaw says.

From baseball to hockey to the next Game of Thrones episode on HBO Now, Becca Shaw has landed her dream job and continues to hit the ground running.

– Maura Hogan ’87

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 77 |

[ faces and places ]

1 3 2

4

5

6 7

8

There’s always something going on at the College: 1 April Board of Trustees meeting: Greg Padgett ’79, School of Professional Studies students Linda Meehan and Chanel Mariette with President Glenn McConnell ’69 2 Board of Trustees recognition for Lee Mikell ’84 (board service: 2004–16): President McConnell, Mikell and Chair Padgett 3 Board of Trustees recognition for Renee Bodie Goldfinch ’06 (board service: 2013–16): Chair Padgett, Goldfinch and President McConnell 4 Bully Pulpit event (Stern Student Center): Chelsea Clinton 5 Star Wars celebration in the Cistern Yard 6 Retirement reception for Priscilla Burbage (business affairs): Steve Osborne ’73, Burbage and Sam Jones 7 Yes, I’m a Feminist event: Amy Brennan (Center for Women) and Alison Piepmeier (women’s and gender studies) 8 Race and Social Justice Initiative (Sottile Theatre): civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman | 78 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

CLASS NOTES

10

9

12

14 11

13

17

15

16

Cast and crew of theatre department’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark: Kayla Robbins, Joel Watson, Donald Clark ’16, Tyler Brockington ’16, Haydn Haring, Lydia Brown and David Soyka ’16 10 Spring commencement speaker: Secretary Deborah Lee James (U.S. Air Force) 11 Spring commencement speaker: Mike Couick (Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina) 12 Cougarpalooza in the Cistern Yard: singer David Boyd of the New Politics 13 Race and Social Justice Initiative (Sottile Theatre): Bryan Stevenson (Equal Justice Initiative) 14 Spring commencement honorary degree recipient: Senator and President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman (South Carolina Senate) 15 Spring commencement honorary degree recipient: Judge Richard Fields 16 Spring commencement speaker: Judge Michael Luttig (The Boeing Co.) 17 Celebrating Women Entrepreneurs Summit (Sottile Theatre): Allison Gilmore ’81 (DuMore Improv) 9

S U M M E R 2 0 1 6 | 79 |

MY SPACE

Scene Shop, Emmett Robinson Theatre AS AN ENTERING FRESHMAN, THE WAY IT was put to me three years ago was that only about 20 percent of your time is spent in class – the rest of the time is up to you.

I remember thinking, That’s cool. But what no one told me, or could have even foreseen, was how much of “the rest of the time” I would spend in the Emmett Robinson Theatre and adjoining Scene Shop. I feel like it’s probably unhealthy for me to say exactly how much time I’ve spent there. I’ll just leave it at a lot.

Theater has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and I have always | 80 | C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e

been drawn to the production side of the stage. The College happened to be the first larger-scale theater production group I have worked with. And as a shop student employee, I dove headfirst into sawdust and Emmett Robinson Theatre grime.

What I really love about the Shop is how everyone comes together in the spirit of collaboration with an endless amount of positive energy to build these unbelievably beautiful sets. At the end of the day, I really think it’s that good spirit that keeps me around. From the

Stagecraft lab students to our Technical Director Christian Crum, it’s always their creative, exuberant energy that makes it a joy to work with everyone.

I have another year to look forward to until I have to leave my second home; it’s going to be hard to find a better atmosphere than that of the Scene Shop here at CofC. – Price Long Price is a senior majoring in theatre with a concentration in scenic and lighting design/technologies.

IS OUR APPETITE MEET US AT MARTY’S PLACE

Come one, come all to Marty’s Place, the College’s new kosher vegetarian/ vegan dining facility that is open during the academic year. Designed as a gathering place for the campus and community, Marty’s Place was made possible by the generous support of donors. It’s a flavorful testament to how philanthropy can foster diversity in all walks of life – even cafeteria lines.

Now is our time to help the College transport its talented students to inspired tomorrows.

Give to the College today.

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