Dickinson Magazine Winter 2013

winter 2013 volume 90

|

Number

3

dickinson magazine

winter 2013

volume 90

number 3

[ contents ] Dickinson

6 Dickinson’s 28th President: Meet Nancy Roseman, former dean of

Published by the Division of Enrollment, Marketing & Communications

Williams College, who will become Dickinson’s first woman

Publisher and Vice President Stephanie Balmer

president in July.

Editor Michelle Simmons Assistant Editor Lauren Davidson

18 Chasing Art: Generations of artists have

sacrificed much for their art. Meet two professors who willingly put

Contributing Writers Matt Getty MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson Tony Moore

themselves—and their rental cars—in harm’s way for inspiration.

24 LGBTQ&A: Since his arrival in August, Brian Patchcoski has

Student Assistants Carson Koser ’15 Sasha Shapiro ’15 Staff Photographer Carl Socolow ’77

been spotted all over campus on behalf of Dickinson’s new Office of

Multimedia Specialist Sarah Sheriff Designers Amy Wells Landesberg Design

LGBTQ Services. Editor Michelle Simmons recently managed to get

Magazine Advisory Group Christina Van Buskirk Gail Birch Huganir ’80 David Richeson Adrienne Su Jim Gerencser ’93 Paula Lima-Jones

the peripatetic director to sit down long enough for a Q&A interview.

28 GenX—Turns 40ish: From the moment you were born, you

Web site www.dickinson.edu/magazine E-mail Address dsonmag@dickinson.edu Telephone 717-245-1289 Facebook www.facebook.com/DickinsonMagazine © Dickinson College 2013. Dickinson Magazine is published four times a year, in January, April, July and October, by Dickinson College, P.O. Box 1773, Carlisle, Cumberland County, PA 17013-1773.

Printed with soy-based inks.

Please recycle after reading.

d i c k i n so n magazin e Fall 2012

2

were steeped in mass media. You were among the first to utter—let alone pretend to understand—the term “postmodernism.” What happens when a generation raised on pop culture grows up.

up front

32 24

2

your view

4

from these grounds

6

college & west high

7

ask the archivist

14

in the game

in back

38 fine print 40 beyond the

limestone walls 42 our Dickinson 54 obituaries 56 closing thoughts

18

on the cover

8

Rococo Cell by Ward Davenny, 2011

1

[ your view ] Book lovers unite As an avid reader, buyer and collector of books, I appreciated “Closing Thoughts”

by Christopher Maier ’99 in the fall issue. Over the years I’ve given away or donated many more books than I currently have. Moving from my New York City apartment with its built-in wall of bookshelves, several more cross- and around-the-country moves and leaving my Santa Fe house with its bookshelf-lined study for a contemporary condominium, I had to let go of many books I’ve read and enjoyed. During the last year I began re-reading dozens of the books in my library, discovering wonderful work that I had read decades ago. I can’t live without books: I am always looking up something from a biography, history or current-affairs book or checking out a book of fiction that has reference to something I’m currently reading. One recent example is Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, which includes a discussion and pullout reproduction of Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa.

That painting made a big impression on me in an art class when I was a Dickinson freshman many years ago.

Brian Looker ’63 Santa Fe, N.M.

Readers respond to new look

I’m a former Dickinsonian reporter who worked for UPI, Intelligencer Journal and the Baltimore Sun. I love the revised Dickinson Magazine. The layout and graphics are terrific with little bits popping up here and there to draw you in and enhance the experience. I also enjoyed “Shift Work,” especially since I was a reporter and still love to read print versions.

Whit Smyth ’63 Kingston Springs, Tenn.

Via Facebook: Just checked out the fall issue. Much of it is exciting and beautifully designed. My reservation: a lot of powerful design—relentless, at times overpowering. But better all that than boring.

Keep up the good work.

Via Facebook: I liked it very much in most regards: very interesting articles and great pictures. Major complaint: font size! A lot of alums are not 30 anymore, and reading the small font on many pages was not easy. Scale down the pictures a bit and increase the font, please.

M a r k B i r d s a ll ’ 6 9 Phoenixville, Pa.

Nice work with the redesign and content of the magazine. Great cover shot, and Carl Socolow ’77 certainly is gifted in his imagery. I just missed Carl and had the good fortune of matriculating during the Rick Smolan ’72 era. Nice fresh look: the black-and-white images, always a favorite, make a good mix.

Rande Styger ’73 Norristown, Pa.

John Langdon ’68 Philadelphia

I received my paper copy of Dickinson Magazine and found it to be the best I have seen in my 35 years looking at them. It was really different and superbly edited.

Craig Weeks ’77 Upper Montclair, N.J.

I have read the magazine cover to cover, and the new version is just fantastic. I especially enjoyed the marriage of the images and corresponding articles.

My only recommendation is to incorporate QR codes, so that readers who want to enjoy relevant online links that feature bonus editorial content may do so easily. Furthermore, QR codes can allow for increased traffic to Dickinson’s Web site for alumni who are curious as to how the men’s and women’s soccer teams did this fall season (guilty as charged!). By now the majority of alumni and friends should have access to a smartphone device, so why not provide them an opportunity to further rummage through our rich moments both big and small?

Andrew Lee ’11 West Harrison, N.Y.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

2

I was recently browsing through my wife’s [Robin Wagner ’76] copy of the magazine and was pleased to see “Shift Work,” the article about Dickinsonians in the newspaper business and how they’re faring.

As a former journalist (I was chief editorial writer for the Concord Monitor in the 1980s), I’m naturally saddened by the state of print journalism today and skeptical that digital news is going to be as rich and in-depth as traditional fare.

Michael J. Birkner Professor of history and Benjamin Franklin Professor of Liberal Arts, Gettysburg College

Engaging the Liberal Arts

Reading my fall 2012 copy of Dickinson Magazine, I paused for a while over “Liberal Direction.” Having pursued a career in market research, I found that the study conducted by Hardwick Day really spoke to me numbers wise. But it was one simple word that echoed in my mind as I read the story: engagement.

When I think about what the Dickinson experience offered me, it was the wealth of opportunities to open my mind to different experiences. This grew my understanding of the world and reinforced how critical my participation is in it. I choose to live in a small town like Carlisle, but it’s my liberal-arts education that has helped instill in me a broad appreciation for what is going on beyond the local, state or even national level. Now, as an “official” adult and parent, I appreciate how complex things are in life. And it’s that liberal-arts spirit that makes me embrace that complexity.

When you’re [a student] on the beautiful campus, you really think of it as Dickinson “College,” but after you leave, you realize that you still have that engagement with the community of Dickinson, and it becomes so much more. You’re proud of what the college has accomplished, having been part of it, but you’re even more excited about what it’s going to become.

Unearthing alternative history

In regard to the “Alternative Ink” article in the fall issue, it must be stated that no discussion of Dickinson’s underground newspaper history would be complete without mention of The Glimpse. This iconic underground newspaper comprised 56 issues. It ran through four academic years, 1970-73, a period marked by the turbulent era of hippies, free love, psychedelic drugs and the Vietnam War. The paper was conceived to consistently reflect the hypocrisies of Dickinson campus life and provide an alternative artistic outlet for its students.

The Glimpse was supported by a $25 annual operating budget granted by the Student Senate.

During its existence The Glimpse relied on the creative talents of a large cadre of contributors. It sported a relatively lavish four-color mimeographed cover, weekly crossword puzzles and cartoons starring a series of beloved and oft-quoted characters such as The Old Dog, Captain Redeemer and Willy the Weed.

Regular features included “Captain Mark’s Intrepid Tales of the Sea” and the wildly popular “Dear Rodney” advice column. Most remarkable was the behind-the-scenes inspirational genius of the fabled anarchist Harry Norton. The FBI never apprehended Norton. This legendary figure is memorialized by The Glimpse annual humanitarian award that bears his name.

S t e v e n P. C o o k ’ 7 3 , Wilmington, Del. J o h n P a i g e ’ 7 3 , kensington, md.

J o h n B a n c r o f t ’ 7 3 , Hyattsville, Md. M a t t h e w F r a n k e l ’ 7 3 , Philadelphia R o b e r t Kl u g e r ’ 7 3 , Nashua, N.H. R o g e r M y e r b e r g ’ 7 3 , Drayden, Md. D a r b y N y e ’ 7 3 , Arlington, Va. M i c h a e l S n y d e r ’ 7 2 , San Francisco H o w a r d G r e b e r ’ 7 2 , Sarasota, Fla.

Editor’s Note: When Steven Cook ’73 contacted Dickinson Magazine about missing The Glimpse in its roundup of alternative newspapers, we asked College Archivist Jim Gerencser ’93 to dig into the mystery of the lost publication. Here is his response: “We have found the issues of The Glimpse, and we may have a nearly complete run. This alternative newspaper had been treated like a traditional college publication and was cataloged and shelved among other publications, such as student handbooks, college catalogs and the various iterations of the alumni magazine. That’s why we weren’t aware of it. We will be re-cataloging it so that it is more easily discoverable among all the other alternative newspapers that were created by different groups of students through the years. I’m very happy that Mr. Cook contacted you; otherwise we may never have been aware of this one.”

Tina Sanders Pragoff ’00 Kennett Square, Pa.

3

[ from these grounds ]

Engage everyone William G. Durden ’71, president

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

4

S

ome within the academy might consider an issue of Dickinson Magazine highlighting popular culture and celebrity to be trivial and wasteful. Yet, is not a healthy and broad-based intellectual curiosity encompassed in a useful liberal education? My position is enforced strongly

by Dickinson’s founder, Benjamin Rush, who, in a letter to a young man preparing to study medicine abroad, urged him to seek the company not just of the intellectually serious but also the wisdom of all the characters within society, including the cobbler and street sweeper.

As a Dickinsonian, I have taken such advice to heart. My life of “indiscriminate, yet disciplined outreach” was reinforced by a mentor, the esteemed 20th-century English literature scholar Hugh Kenner, while I was at Johns Hopkins University.

Kenner urged my wife and me to approach people whom we might otherwise hesitate to bring into conversation, observing that you will be surprised how much insight and opportunity they can offer. He gave us the example of his trip to Paris as a graduate student hoping to interact with a radical dramatist to complete his dissertation. Night after night he sent a message to this gentleman’s flat seeking a meeting. No answer. Then on the night that he was to sail back to the U.S., he received a note: “Dear Mr. Kenner, of course, I would be delighted to meet.

Please come over now. Bring some wine, bread or cheese and we can talk. Samuel Beckett.” That meeting was formative in Kenner’s career, leading him to meet Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden and others who defined 20th-century literature.

An example from my own life: On my many flights about the world, I would read all magazines provided on the airplane, including People and US Weekly. You might think that as a purported scholar, I would avoid such reading. Oh, no! After one such flight I arrived in London to give a keynote speech at a conference. At the banquet I was seated between the CEO of EMI Recordings and the head of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Domestic Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street. The gregarious CEO asked if I had heard of the Spice Girls (he signed them). I said I had. He was astonished, asking, “Can you name them?” I said, of course, and proceeded to do so, as I had read an article about them in People the night before on my flight. He was so tickled that I as an academic appreciated his entertainment

Never belittle any area of knowledge or experience.

You never know when it will come in handy.

world that he facilitated my conversation with Blair’s policy head. At the dinner’s conclusion, Blair’s representative asked if my wife and I would like to come by 10 Downing Street the next day for tea and conversation about American and English culture.

After a quick but profoundly deliberate scan of our agenda, we said we were indeed free (actually, we had nothing on the schedule that day!) and would love to have tea. That meeting led to an introduction to Blair and the beginnings of an advising role for me.

Also, decades ago I read an op-ed in The New York Times on education by Adm. Hyman Rickover, founder of the nuclear Navy, and wrote to him commenting upon the piece. I heard nothing for months but then received an invitation to the admiral’s 80th birthday party hosted by presidents Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The invitation was marked by the words “Compliments of the Admiral.”

My wife and I attended and met an array of Washington notables, including the presidents. The admiral followed by asking that I arrange a lunch at Johns Hopkins (where I was then working in my late 20s) with his old friend Milton S. Eisenhower, former president of the university, and the then president, Steven Muller. What an incredible experience listening to Rickover and Eisenhower talk about working for President Dwight Eisenhower, the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. I remained connected with Rickover and his work in education reform and had the pleasure of being mentored by Milton Eisenhower (who also was president of Penn State and Kansas State universities) in higher-education leadership.

Finally, my pop-culture curiosity led to one of the most sentimental moments in my life. Always interested in baseball and growing up in upstate New York and born in the city, I cheered for the Yankees as a child and read everything about them

and their historical giants. One evening many decades later I was taking a red-eye flight from San Francisco to New York City. At midnight the lounge area was somewhat dark and oddly empty. I was looking down reading and saw traces of formal dark shoes and elegant black pants appear across from me. Most folks then did not travel on a red-eye in such a formal way. We were the only presence in the waiting area. The person was quiet—not a sound— but I perceived a formidable but gentle person across from me. Gradually I raised my eyes and saw who was sitting there looking right at me. It was one of those Yankee giants—one from an earlier generation, but who was without question a massive celebrity as a ballplayer and as a husband to Marilyn Monroe— Joe DiMaggio. I did not speak, but merely nodded in appreciation for all that he had done for baseball and as a hero for me growing up. He simply nodded.

I shall never forget that encounter. I saw before me the elegance and graciousness of a person truly accomplished in his field. I experienced the power of not speaking, yet profoundly communicating. Were it not for my youthful obsession with baseball, I would not have recognized Mr. DiMaggio.

As detailed in my “Notes to a 21st-century Student,” never belittle any area of knowledge or experience. You never know when it will come in handy. I rest my case. Engage the world—all of it.

Read “Notes to a 21st-century Student” at go.dickinson.edu/notes.

5

[ college & west high ] Meet Nancy A. Roseman Dickinson’s Board of Trustees announces choice for 28th president

O

n Oct. 27, Dickinson’s Board of Trustees selected Nancy A. Roseman, former dean of Williams College and former director of the Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford University, to be Dickinson’s 28th president. Roseman will officially become the college’s first woman president on July 1, succeeding President William G. Durden ’71, who will retire June 30 after 14 years as president.

“It’s always rewarding and energizing to work for an institution whose goals align with your passions,” Roseman said. “Dickinson’s focus on global education, sustainability studies and shaping engaged citizen leaders through the useful liberal arts resonates strongly with me, as these are ideals I’ve pursued and upheld throughout my career. I look forward to guiding the college through this next chapter as we capitalize on the impressive accomplishments of the last decade and push forward to take Dickinson to the next level.”

Roseman’s accomplishments at Williams include launching a new residential-life program; participating in the fundraising, architectural development and opening of the college’s new student center; creating an Academic Resource Center; and guiding significant renovations to residence halls. Accompanying Roseman to Carlisle will be her spouse, Lori K. van Handel, and their beloved dog, Archer, and two cats, Cholly and Lola.

Roseman and van Handel introduced themselves to the campus community during a Nov. 1 visit to the college. “I am humbled, but I am also inspired by the energy and sense of promise that pervades this community,” Roseman said to a packed house in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium. “To me, that is what Dickinson represents: what is possible when a community comes together with a common purpose: to sustain and nourish a great educational institution.”

The announcement of Dickinson’s 28th president came after an eight-month, international search that netted a deep and diverse pool of more than 200 highly competitive candidates. The process was steered by a search committee comprising 17 alumni, faculty members and students and chaired by Thomas Kalaris ’76, Board of Trustees vice chair.

“The college community can be proud that this search attracted so many exceptionally talented candidates,” said Jennifer Ward Reynolds ’77, Board of Trustees chair. “I’d like to thank Tom and all the members of the search committee for the fine work they did in attracting a candidate whose experience and values align so well with the goals we’ve outlined in the strategic plan.”

Roseman is steeped in the liberal arts and sciences—from her undergraduate education at Smith College to her 21-year career at Williams, beginning in 1991 as a professor of biology. Since 2000 she has served in senior administrative positions, including dean of the college for seven years, assistant to the president for special projects and director of the Williams-Exeter Programme. In these roles she was closely involved with management of the college, budget development and management, policy decisions and implementation of institutional initiatives, including developing and implementing a strategic plan. As a biology professor, her research is supported by the National Science Foundation and focuses on an enzyme required for DNA precursor metabolism. She has been published in the esteemed journals the Journal of Virology, Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences and The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

“I congratulate Dickinson on selecting a president who can lead the college to yet another level of accomplishment,” said Durden, who plans to work with Roseman during the next six months to ensure a smooth transition. “I look forward as an alumnus to seeing Dr. Roseman’s accomplishments advance the college in every way.” —Matt Getty

Learn more or send a welcome message at www.dickinson.edu/28thpresident.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

6

[ ask the archivist ]

What’s the story behind Denny Hall?

—Scott Blum ’81

D

espite the construction of Bosler and Tome halls and a gymnasium in the 1880s, the college’s trustees found that continued growth demanded yet another building. The property at the northeast corner of High and West streets was owned by two sisters, Miss Matilda Denny and Mrs. Mary Spring, from Pittsburgh. Their father, Harmar Denny, class of 1813, was a successful lawyer, politician and railroad entrepreneur. Mary and Matilda agreed to sell the property to the college for a mere $100 on the condition that any edifice constructed on the site should serve as a memorial to the Denny family.

Philadelphia architect Thomas P. Lonsdale designed the building, in college president George Reed’s words, “of the Elizabethan order of architecture.” Hummelstown brownstone, quarried just across the Susquehanna River, graced the façade. Bosler Hall had been similarly adorned a decade earlier, and these two rather romantic red-sandstone structures seemed now to frame the otherwise gray, colonial Dickinson campus.

Upon completion in 1896, Denny Memorial Hall housed eight classrooms, 12 offices for faculty members and college administrators, and large rooms for the college literary societies. Less than eight years later, on March 3, 1904, problems with electrical wiring in the attic started a fire that consumed the entire building in an hour.

Vowing that “Denny Hall will rise again,” President Reed gave a stirring talk during chapel services the following day, and plans to rebuild began immediately.

Architect Miller I. Kast of Harrisburg designed the new structure, which was about 30 percent larger than its predecessor. A clock and bell tower were added, and stone from the earlier building was reused for the façade. The new Denny Hall was dedicated on June 6, 1905.

Although Bosler Hall was remodeled in 1940, altering the façade from its original red sandstone to the more common gray limestone, I am not aware that any consideration has ever been given to remodeling Denny in a similar manner. It stands apart on the campus today for its unique appearance, which perhaps is one of its most enduring charms.

—Jim Gerencser ’93

Send your questions for Ask the Archivist to dsonmag@dickinson.edu.

7

“For most in the audience, the symposium was a journey into the past— a return to sacred ground, which includes experiencing the impact that the Carlisle Industrial Indian School had on the indigenous people in our nation. … Not only did this experiment fail, it caused disruption to countless Indian nations for untold generations. The symposium helped move this story forward and into the future.”

—Angie Karas ’16

d i c k i n so n magazin e Fall 2012

8

in their own words

M

ore than 100 Native Americans from 25 states came to campus Oct. 5-6 to attend Carlisle, PA: Site of Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations Symposium. Sponsored by Dickinson’s Community Studies Center (CSC), the Central Pennsylvania Consortium of Colleges and the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, the symposium was held just a few miles from the Carlisle Industrial Indian School, a landmark in Native American history.

Among the participants were students in a First-Year Seminar taught by Susan Rose ’77, director of the CSC and professor of sociology, who invited them to share their experiences with Dickinson Magazine.

“One woman who fully embodies the fighting spirit of a warrior is Margo Tamez, who from 2001 to 2005 spent her time in different courts fighting for the rights of the indigenous people and is presently fighting for her people, the Nde’ on the border between Mexico and the United States. … Leaning forward, she gripped the podium and thrust her hand outward, pushing for us, the non-Native Americans, to grasp her people’s struggle. Choking back tears, she stated her answer for why she fights so hard for her people. That answer was love.”

—Stephanie Read ’16

“I was captivated by the voice of N. Scott Momaday, sharing tales and emotion and time-ripened thoughts. He talked about culture, creation stories and the Indian spirit. … When he finished, everyone sat in silence. No one moved: The words spoken had transformed the auditorium into a sacred space. So we lingered.”

—Katie Wenger ’16

For more on the symposium, visit blogs.dickinson.edu/ciis.

9

[ college & west high ] Out of Context Who: Claire Bowen, assistant professor of English Where: HUB Dance Studio What: In addition to working on her book project on mid-20thcentury literature and teaching courses such as Modern Women Writing War, Bowen leads a yoga class for faculty and staff. Bowen began her yoga practice eight years ago during an “especially rainy, dreary winter in San Francisco.” Shortly after filing her dissertation at Stanford University, she completed two Vinyasa Yoga teacher trainings with her primary teachers, Stephanie Snyder and Jason Crandell. “By that point, yoga was in my bones,” she said. “An evolving, mindful practice had gotten me through graduate school. I wanted to make sure I brought that practice with me to Dickinson.”

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

10

Why: “I’d assumed that yoga had to remain separate from my intellectual life, or that knowing too much about yoga would somehow corrupt it for me. Wow, was I wrong! I enjoy yoga only more as I learn more about it.”

How: Bowen’s yoga class meets on Wednesdays at noon. “I’m inspired by all of my colleagues who commit to this practice at, appropriately enough for a centering practice, the exact center of the week. Sharing yoga helps keep me connected to how and why I practice. You don’t just go through the motions in yoga; you figure out how to move—in the fullest sense of the word ‘move’—with grace, patience and a sense of ease and humor.

Then you share it.”

Learn more about Bowen at go.dickinson.edu/FocusBowen.

WINTER

Events theatre music lectures

Jan. 22

Orchestral Residency David Kim, Philadelphia Orchestra Jan. 29

Clarke Forum Program Planetary Boundaries Michael Shellenberger, The Breakthrough Institute Jan. 29 - Feb. 23

Goodyear Gallery Ellen Durkan: Accessories for an Iron Maiden Feb. 4

Artists in Residence: NOVUS Trombone Quartet

Upgrade update

Feb. 4 - March 1

Gallery 204 Sana Musasama: The Unspeakable Series March 23

Artists in Residence: The Serafin String Quartet April 5-9

Mermaid Players The Conference of the Birds

T

his fall, exciting progress was made on the six-project campus-enhancement effort that was launched in April. The men’s soccer team played (and won) its inaugural game on the Phyllis Joan Miller Memorial Field at Dickinson Park on Oct. 13. The field includes a natural-grass playing surface, bleacher seating for 500 spectators, energy-efficient lights, a new scoreboard and team shelters. The main field of the new complex also is enclosed by fencing with a gated entry, which enables the college to sell tickets to games—a requirement to host NCAA tournaments.

The Dr. Inge P. Stafford Greenhouse for Teaching and Research at Kaufman Hall (shown above) will be open for use beginning in the spring semester. This state-ofthe-art space already has transformed the campus visually, and it is expected to have a similar effect on sustainability education, interdisciplinary learning and the college’s science curriculum.

A short walk down Louther Street, construction on the third wing of the Rector Science Complex is well under way, and the 20,000-square-foot addition is projected to open this fall.

As steel beams are balanced and finishing touches are added to the first three projects, the campus community anticipates work to begin on the other three: The Durden Athletic Training Center, the Kline Center expansion and the new residence hall. —Lauren Davidson

Learn more at go.dickinson.edu/facilities.

11

d i c k i n so n magazin e Fall 2012

12

voting fever hits campus

A

sk any student at Dickinson what a successful Saturday morning is like, and overwhelmingly the answer would be catching up on sleep and enjoying a good brunch in the Caf. In the weeks leading up to the Oct. 9 voter-registration deadline, however, some students chose to spend their time trekking across campus and knocking on doors. On Saturday, Oct. 6, a Dickinson Magazine writer tagged along with Brooke Serra ’15 and Brett Porter ’15 as they went door to door registering voters.

Both are members of the organization Students for Obama, but because young voters make up almost 19 percent of all voters in the United States, “our goal is to register as many people as we possibly can—with no regard to political party,” said Serra. “This is an important election for our future, and we need everyone to have a say.”

Serra and Porter registered 16 new voters that morning and happily discovered that most first-year students already were registered. Previous efforts, including voter-registration tables at hightraffic areas such as Britton Plaza and the Holland Union Building, had already paid off. On days like National Voter Registration Day, more than 100 students stopped by to register.

“Voter-registration turnout this year has been terrific,” said Alex Egner ’12, president of the College Republicans, noting that turnout was largely due to the collaboration of the College Republicans and College Democrats clubs. “Overall, the effort has been a combination of work between both clubs and a large help from the campus community. The Voter Registration Committee and College Democrats and Republicans really did an excellent job at getting past politics and focusing on getting students registered.”

Because Pennsylvania is considered a swing state, many students chose to register in Carlisle instead of sending in absentee ballots to their home state.

“Massachusetts doesn’t need my help going blue,” said Brendan Murtha ’14.

On Tuesday, Nov. 6, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., shuttles ran back and forth from campus to the polls so that students wouldn’t miss the opportunity to use their newfound registration. At the Carlisle precinct where most Dickinson students voted, numbers increased by 500 since 2010. Those numbers may have been aided by the first-time use of “celebrity” shuttle drivers, including President William G. Durden ’71; admissions counselors Greg Moyer ’06 and Molly Boegel; and Stephanie Balmer, vice president for enrollment, marketing and communications and dean of admissions.

First-time voter Peter Shapiro ’14, while riding with Balmer, noted the energy on campus that day. “Dean Balmer was as fired up about driving the students as we were about exercising our voting rights,” he said. “There were no long lines, and the whole process was very easy—but also quite meaningful.”

—Carson Koser ’15

19

percentage of

college-age voters

in 2012

13

[ in the game ]

Fall season at a glance

Cross country

NCAA Nationals: 19th (men’s); 23rd (women’s) NCAA Mideast: 4th (men’s); 3rd (women’s) James Rasp

Centennial Conference (CC): 2nd (men’s); 3rd (women’s) Team MVPs: Andrew Fine ’13 and Sara Patterson ’14

Field hockey MVP: Marybeth McCarthy ’13

Record: 4-6 (includes a win over Gettysburg and possession of the Little Brown Bucket)

Pictured: Goaltender Katy Schlechtweg ’14

Schuyler Simpson ’13

Team Stars and Stripes: Carl Socolow ’77

Record: 7-11

Football

Pictured: Wide receiver Matt Wood ’13

Soccer

Record: 13-5-2 (men’s); 12-5 (women’s) First Team All-CC: Marissa Kunkle ’13 James Rasp

CC Player of the Year: Javier Mena ’14 (pictured) James Rasp

Volleyball Record: 7-14

James Rasp

All-CC Honorable Mention: Emily Smith ’16 (pictured)

Need more Red Devil sports? Check out all the stats, scores, schedules and highlights at www.dickinsonathletics.com.

Information about live-streaming and radio broadcasts is available on a game-by-game basis, so check the Web site regularly or follow @DsonRedDevils on Twitter for the latest updates.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

14

Sticking with Success

Caroline Karwel ’16 traces a standout rookie season

C

lick through the Dickinson field-hockey news feed and you’ll start to pick up on a pattern—the name Caroline Karwel ’16 comes up continually: In her first year at Dickinson, she dished off key assists, made tough defensive stops and led the Red Devils in scoring, with seven of the team’s record-setting 44 goals.

The capper came on Nov. 6, when Karwel, at center back, was named to the 2012 All-Centennial Conference field hockey team and earned an honorable mention for defense.

“Caroline’s high-school coach promised me that she was the type of player who would give everything to her team, on and off the field,” says Caitlin Williams, Dickinson’s head field-hockey coach. “She proved that instantly upon arriving here.”

It was a great first year as a Red Devil, but Karwel didn’t become the player she is overnight. “I started playing in eighth grade,” she says. “All my friends were playing, and from then on I just loved it. I was not very good when I started, but somehow … things changed.”

Karwel’s skills grew as she played throughout high school, and she soon realized that she wanted to continue to play in college. “That’s why I came to Dickinson,” she says. “I knew I could play for four more years, get a great education and be able to be successful with the rest of my life.”

As if being the team’s leading scorer, making All-CC and earning accolades from her coach weren’t enough, Karwel also was named Rookie of the Year by her teammates.

“I was surprised,” Karwel says. “Coming in, [Williams] told me, ‘You’ll probably play,’ and I thought, ‘Great! I’ll get some playing time, some experience.’ And then I ended up playing all the time, and I feel like I really contributed to the team. My teammates all helped me become successful, and I helped them, which is what teamwork is all about.”

“This year, Caroline was the only player on our team to play every minute of every game,” says Williams. “She’s the type of player and young leader that every coach wants on their team—poised in pressure situations, with great vision and timing.”

In a season of both accomplishment and disappointment, the team finished 2012 at 7-11 but set new school season records for goals and points (116) and combined for 28 assists, five short of the record. With the 2013 season approaching, Karwel thinks it could be one to remember.

“I’m looking forward to meeting our recruits,” Karwel says. “We have a strong incoming class, and I’m hoping that with them and our current talent, we’ll be able to increase our wins and become an overall better team.”

Also keeping her eye on the future, Williams says, “We’re looking forward to watching Caroline develop and grow over her next few years at Dickinson—and to the continued development of our program.” —Tony Moore

15

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

16

In Season Silent Poets alumni and ExiLed students joined forces for the 10th anniversary of the Diversity Monologues Contest, held Nov. 30 in the Rector Science Complex atrium. Back row, from left: Ashley Peel ’11, Patrick Schlee ’15, Tiffany Mane ’10 and Tynesha Wright ’08. Middle row, from left: David Cruz ’13, Gregory Boles ’16, Jenna Forte ’15, Yazmin Watkins ’09 and Flosha Tejada ’11. Front row, from left: Frieda Adu-Brembong ’16, Fabian Hernandez ’15, Richard Robinson ’08 and Tiffany Hwang ’11.

Learn more at go.dickinson.edu/ Powerful-Voices.

17

CHASIN

[ cover ]

G

A RT

Art meets science in Tornado Alley, and the r e s u lt s a r e remarkable.

B y L a u r e n D a v i ds o n

P

ummeled by hail, tossed about by unrelenting wind, a rent-a-car that is guaranteed not to emerge unscathed zooms along dirt roads going any direction but northeast. The impending tornado billows and whirls, and the wind whistles as loudly as the siren declaring danger.

The driver presses hard on the gas pedal, simultaneously snapping photos of the ominous sky ahead.

The passenger dangles precariously into the back seat, peering through the viewfinder of a video camera, capturing every breath-stopping second of the force of nature they came here to find and are now attempting to evade. All in the name of art.

Those artists are Ward Davenny, professor of art, and Todd Arsenault ’99, assistant professor of art, who teamed up for their first tornado chase in 1999. The results include an atmospheric addiction, inspired artwork, entrée into an intriguing subculture and so much more.

Revelation in the heartland Growing up in the Midwest, some of Davenny’s earliest memories are of big storms coming off Lake Erie, which inspired an interest in movement and light. In the late ’90s, he decided to re-examine those interests up close. He connected with Joshua Wurman, formerly with the University of Oklahoma and now with the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colo. The venerable leader in tornado research was willing to let Davenny tag along on the next storm-chasing trip. When a colleague of Davenny’s who was supposed to assist cancelled at the last minute, Davenny reached out to a student who he knew would be up for the challenge.

“I knew nothing about tornadoes,” Arsenault admits. “But we left the morning after I graduated—six in the morning, still on the graduation high—and heading out to track one of the worst tornadoes in history. The week before, it had one of the highest wind speeds on record—” “312 miles an hour,” Davenny adds.

“Yeah. That was the week before we went out there, and it went right through Norman [Okla.].”

“Just north of Norman.”

Post storm by Ward Davenny, 2010.

19

312

miles an hour

Tornado wind speed clocked in Norman, Okla.

“North of Norman, right. And we flew over the path of the tornado as we came in, and so looking down, we saw this, like— ” “Swath of destruction.”

“My throat sank to my stomach. You know, I grew up in Connecticut, so there wasn’t that sense of space, and the weather didn’t have that same presence.”

Thinking back to that first trip in 1999—the one with no cell phones, no GPS—made both men smile and shudder, recalling the excitement and terror as they trailed a group of scientists and a mobile Doppler radar van heading directly into the storm.

“Visually, it was a revelation,” Davenny says. “We didn’t see any tornadoes, but we got to see just massive storms. The scientists would go to the point at which the storm was beginning to build, and in essence we would watch the thing evolve and grow.”

The pair returned to Pennsylvania with hundreds of images (back then, they were on film), hours of video footage and an appetite for more.

Expect the unexpected “We definitely became kind of addicted,” Arsenault recalls.

“During that first trip, we were trying to figure everything out.

The second time we were out there, we were really prepared— better equipment, safety things like lights for the car, even a Dickinson logo for the car.”

And while they could always count on needing insurance to cover the damage to the rental cars each trip, they soon discovered that was about the only thing they were prepared for.

No two trips were alike, no two tornadoes look or act the same and no amount of preparation could provide a complete sense of security.

“Going back multiple times teaches you what to look for, where there might be fruitful visual experiences,” Davenny says.

“As you experience it more, the impact on you is greater.”

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

20

With six chases together under their belts, Davenny and Arsenault can look at an image in their archive and recall the exact date, location and intensity of that particular instant.

“We’re looking for that very specific moment or experience where it’s just unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” Arsenault says.

“That’s what kept us going for it. Can we see something better?”

“Or something that will make your jaw drop—and that’s almost always the case,” Davenny adds. “Every time it’s something different and surprising.”

A whole new world As the intrepid artists became regulars in Tornado Alley, they discovered a physical and a sociological world they never knew existed. Logging an average of 6,000 miles per trip, they would zig and zag through tiny towns and no-man’s-lands from the

21

“It’s sort of the explosion of things, the outward sense of something flying, barely contained chaos.”

—Ward Davenny

Deep South to Canada and back again.

“When you’re driving from Texas up to the Dakotas, just seeing how the land changes—at times it’s like you’re on another planet,” Arsenault says.

And the people seemed otherworldly as well, from the quirky inhabitants of these remote, storm-ravaged locales and thrill-seekers embedded in the tornado-chasing sphere to psychologists studying fear reactions, poets and writers attempting to tell the stories and scientists studying the phenomena amidst the chaos.

“This subculture of tornado chasing was something we had no idea about,” Arsenault explains. “There’s this whole subset of people who are obsessed with these storms. A lot of people can’t even verbalize why they’re drawn to it: It’s a quasireligious experience for them, and they leave work and travel in convoys or caravans. And it’s interesting how they can clash with the scientists sometimes—it’s what they call a convergence when everyone descends on the same storm at the same time, and it gets dangerous. And this was before reality TV, so after that started, it just got totally out of hand.”

Davenny nods and adds, “What’s interesting about the subculture is that we then became part of it. People would see us and say, ‘Oh, those guys are the artists.’ ”

What the artists saw

Ranch Romance, graphite and spray paint on paper by Todd Arsenault ’99, 2012.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

22

Setting aside all the scary moments, the unconventional characters and the scientific lexicon, the goal of these trips was always about gaining inspiration to create art. And while neither Davenny nor Arsenault produce literal representations of tornadoes, their work has manifested in different ways.

“As artists we are really interested in communicating the experience,” Davenny says. “So when you’re in a situation like that, the experience of it is so overwhelming and profound that it really gives you a sense of intensity, and then wanting to communicate that somehow.

“If I were to characterize Todd’s art, his is a bit more metaphoric,” Davenny continues. “It’s sort of the explosion of things, the outward sense of something flying, barely contained chaos.

For me, it’s much more about atmosphere, movement, light.”

Arsenault agrees, adding, “What’s interesting for me is I started doing this at a very formative time. So for a long time I was figuring out my artistic identity through all this. I was initially drawn to the atmosphere and the light, and I grappled with how to represent it. I started to have different interests visually and got into things like chaos theory and entropy.”

They also explore a variety of mediums, from charcoal and paint to photography and video.

“The video really embodies the trips because there’s the visual components of the storm, but then you feel the tension

Observers, charcoal on paper

by Ward Davenny, 2010.

of the chase and there are great moments where we’re yelling at one another,” Arsenault says. “It isn’t just about the storms.”

They also are collecting images and artifacts of other discoveries they make on their travels.

“Some of the roadside art is absolutely phenomenal—it’s outsider art,” Davenny begins. “People would, for no monetary gain, create crazy constructions on their property, out of stones, out of old cars, out of scrap metal … everything you could imagine, really. Everything from aliens to Biblical—” “And both together! Aliens with Jesus in these huge sculptures.”

“We have a whole folder of roadside art for the slide library here.”

“Yeah, we got a lot of ideas for subprojects. I started collecting record albums, and I’m working on a book of these religious record covers. I’ve accumulated like 1,200 of them now. But that’s a different story.”

Beyond the canvas “Anything we do in research comes back into the classroom in strong ways,” Davenny says. “This was why I started regaining an interest in photography, learning Photoshop. And we have to critique all kinds of work—our students are working in ceramics, in sculpture, photography, video.”

“I think it made me more aware of the landscape around here,” adds Arsenault. “It’s got me to take students to different locations—Adams County, where the apple orchards are, where there’s this intrinsic connection between land and sky.”

“That outsider art too, bringing that back to the students,” Davenny continues. “That someone would use cars or scrap metal to create some kind of experience or environment out

there gives you an impetus to convey that possibility to students—that the imagination doesn’t end at the canvas.”

They also admit to having become addicted to the Weather Channel and online weather radar, tracking storms as they move into the area, including the recent Hurricane Sandy.

“We have a much greater understanding of the science and why, in the Northeast quadrant, if there’s a hurricane, there are often tornadoes too,” Davenny explains.

“We spent a lot of time locked in hotel rooms watching the Weather Channel or just looking at the Internet and tracking storms, so whenever there’s a big weather event, you feel like you’re right out there,” Arsenault says. “Also how you’re interpreting the information the media is putting out there, because we’ve been in that interesting position of hearing what the scientists are saying versus what the media puts out here, so we’ve become critical and often skeptical.”

“We can look at a storm and pretty much know what the structure is, what is likely to come, what the struggles are that are going on in the storm, that most move from southwest to northeast,” Davenny says. “We can see rotation, the hook, the wall cloud, the wind shear, the whole structure.”

So until their next chase, likely in 2014, you may find the artists huddled over a computer monitoring weather radar or pulled over on the side of the road photographing some looming clouds. While Davenny notes that they don’t need tornadoes to find awesome visuals, they do enjoy the chase.

“It’s a waiting game,” Arsenault explains. “You could wait hours and hours to see a few minutes of something amazing. It’s all about the journey.”

Learn more at www.dickinson.edu/magazine.

23

GEN

X 40

turns

ish

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

24

[ feature ]

You

fell asleep watching Happy Days. You woke up to cradle that Atari joystick, destroy hordes of 8-bit spaceships on the same TV where you later saw the Challenger space shuttle explode. Judy Blume taught you how to be an adolescent before you knew what “adolescent” meant. You watched the Berlin Wall crumble but can only remember how it looked in that Jesus Jones video. Yes, you watched MTV when they still played videos.

You came of age during the first Gulf War, Whitney Houston wearing a white bandana and singing the national anthem, CNN shoving Desert Storm into your living room. Then came the Rodney King riots—Los Angeles turned into a horrifying wonderland of violence. Or was that a Gangsta rap video? Or Pulp Fiction?

You are Generation X, and your memories of growing up are tangled in mass media.

But what happens when that’s also your chosen field? What happens when you find out how much work it takes to make days look happy on TV, that making sense of the Internet isn’t as easy as blasting space invaders, that writing Forever takes a mighty long time, that even hip-hop stars need to know a little copyright law or that overnight success doesn’t come as quickly as it seemed to come for Quentin Tarantino?

Dickinson Magazine caught up with five Gen-X Dickinsonians to find out what it takes to succeed in a landscape strewn with pop culture.

—Matt Getty

25

Eric Garcia ’90 Pittsburgh’s 31st Street Studios are housed in a massive warehouse under the 31st Street Bridge on the Allegheny River. Eric Garcia ’90 is sitting in a canvas director’s chair, his gaze glued to two ultra-high-def monitors displaying the scene being filmed 20 feet away on the other side of a temporary wall.

“It’s like making a mini-movie every week,” he whispers. “We write it like that, with a three-act structure.

A haiku version of a movie.” The show at hand is called Supah Ninjas, and it has a cinematic quality not seen in most TV shows, let alone kids’ programming—a rich, textured look that’s more Kill Bill than Hannah Montana.

Garcia created the live-action show with longtime friend and creative partner Leo Chu, and it centers on three teenagers who team up to become, as the Nickelodeon Web site puts it, “crime-fighting, butt-kicking, and villain-battling” ninjas (and who attend Benjamin Rush High School, which Garcia named after Dickinson’s founder). Also in the mix is George Takei—the recently larger-than-life Internet presence and original Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu—who guides the ninjas from beyond the grave as a hologram.

“You always want to give the audience something they haven’t seen before,” Garcia says of his approach to the show. And the viewing audience hasn’t seen this before: a mixture of comedy and action, steeped in Japanese culture, sporting a multiracial cast and aimed at teens. “Action-comedy like this is a niche thing in the TV market,” he says, noting that there are plenty of movies that dive headfirst into that mix of genres each year. “It’s been a historical struggle [making TV shows like this work], since the early Batman with Adam West, which is part of our inspiration.”

Garcia, who hails from Pittsburgh, was a fine-arts major at Dickinson and focused on painting. “I was always stoking my creativity, painting a lot, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says. “But after college I started writing whatever I felt like getting on paper. I was following my creative impulse but not my professional impulse.”

Garcia began to engage his professional impulse after getting his foot in the door at Walt Disney Studios, where he met Chu. The assistant spot he landed was on the hit show Recess, and it kept him close to the writers and other creative forces behind the program.

“I spoke that writer language,” he explains, “and I pitched stories, and when they had opportunities to write

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

26

some I ended up getting them. Then Leo and I started dreaming up shows together.” They sold their first show to Spike TV and another to Disney. Then came Afro Samurai, featuring the vocal talents of Samuel L. Jackson in the title role, which they also sold to Spike. “Some stuff wasn’t produced, but I was able to survive the process,” Garcia says. “After that, we wanted to develop a genre show for boys—action-comedy—so Supah Ninjas was born.”

In the Supah Ninjas wardrobe room, there are racks and racks of clothes—from sports uniforms to ninja garb to Benjamin Rush school uniforms. Seamstresses pick away with needles and hunch over sewing machines as Garcia walks through. In the design building, there is a lightweight manhole cover that looks 100-percent real, a book being designed for an actor to read in one scene, the details falling into place right down to the text on the pages within.

A world within a world is created, and as creator, executive producer and showrunner, it’s Garcia’s job to make sure it all comes together. Supah Ninjas walks the fine line between action and violence, a key distinction in a show involving the martial arts, weapons, fighting and an impressionable teen audience.

“It’s a fantasy, and you don’t want to destroy that with something serious,” Garcia says. “To tell any kind of story that means anything, there has to be something at stake, but no one [on the show] is getting killed. They can have swords and throwing stars and other weapons, but we’re not showing blood, so it’s how we use it. Standards and Practices tell us what we can do, but on this particular show—they’re ninjas! So maybe we’ve eroded their standards a little bit,” he says with a laugh. His laugh, apparently, was a little too loud, as the next sound carrying through the set is a disembodied voice: “Let’s lose all the white noise, people!”

Having attended his 20th Dickinson reunion just before they shot the Supah Ninjas pilot episode (for which he and Chu won a 2012 Writer’s Guild Award for “Outstanding Writing in Children’s Episodic and Specials”), Garcia says he never considered naming the show’s school anything but Benjamin Rush High.

“I saw my entire freshman floor and had a really great time,” Garcia says. “And Dickinson was an amazing time for me. I was able to dabble in so many things, which really shaped my creativity. That foundation helped me transform from a personal artist into a content creator thinking about broader things. And now I get to do what I love.”

—Tony Moore

Tony Moore

To Jennifer Haigh ’90, asking someone when they decided to become a writer are two separate and distinct questions.

Haigh says that she’s been a writer her entire life, but it was only about a decade ago that she decided to make her passion her profession.

Not many people get to do what they love for a living, she says. And not many people get the chance to write more than one book, either. For Haigh, the writing gods have been nothing short of kind, beginning with her debut novel, Mrs. Kimble, which garnered the PEN/ Hemingway Award for new fiction.

Last year, her most recent novel, Faith, was released to critical acclaim, and one of her short stories was included in the Best American Short Stories 2012, alongside fiction greats like Alice Munro and Mary Gaitskill.

This month will see the release of her latest, News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories, an interconnected collection of short stories that hearkens back to her second novel, Baker Towers. The collection already is widely lauded, with Pulitzer Prize-winner (and 2011 Stellfox recipient) Richard Russo comparing Haigh’s fictional Bakerton, Pa., to Sherwood Anderson’s legendary Winesburg, Ohio.

A native of western Pennsylvania coal town Barnesboro—which served as inspiration for Bakerton— Haigh was primed to be a writer since childhood. Growing up, Haigh “was always in love with books,” she says, citing William Faulkner and Richard Yates among her influences.

Yet it wasn’t until after her college days when Haigh, who now makes her home on the South Shore of Massachusetts, made the choice to write professionally.

“While I was at Dickinson, I was starting to write, but it was very childish and showed no promise at all,” says Haigh, who majored in French. “It was like I was learning to crawl at that point, which was unlike some of my classmates who had been writing short stories for years.”

Haigh credits her time at Dickinson for helping push her toward her pursuit of writing professionally, though.

“If you wanted to do something, you could a find a way to end up doing it there,” she says. “You didn’t need to be fine-arts major to take a photography class, and you didn’t need to be an English major to take a creative-writing workshop.”

And in her work, Haigh tackles myriad themes and topics. She’s done everything from painting a portrait of Rust Belt Americana to exploring the world of Turner’s

Sharona Jacobs

Jennifer Haigh ’90

27

Michael Lanz ’91 syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality that affects females. And in Faith, which is set in Massachusetts, Haigh delved into the sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church during the last decade.

Haigh also takes on multiple projects at a time, including a film adaption of Faith. “Writing a script is nothing at all like writing a novel, even when you’re telling a story that you know very well,” she says of her latest challenge. “It’s very difficult to trim a 400-page novel into two hours of screen time. The best you can do is to compose a slide show, of sorts. The hardest thing is that, as writers, we are very attached to the language of our work. A script actually contains very little dialogue.”

But even though she’s constantly writing, Haigh—who is also an MFA graduate of the venerable Iowa Writers Workshop—says that there is no specific muse she goes to for inspiration. She starts writing first thing in the morning, and during the early stages of a manuscript, she typically spends three or four hours on a draft each day.

“I don’t really get inspired,” she explains. “There’s no moment where Saint Paul falls off his horse for me.

Instead, coming up with a novel is a slow and gradual process.”

Haigh is now working on her sixth book.

“It’s a hard thing to do well and to continue to do well,” she says. “Most writers never publish another novel. The challenging part is to keep finding new stories and to keep inventing.”

—Andrew Clark

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

28

Google’s San Francisco office complex has one of those views. You know the kind: Yerba Buena and Treasure islands are planted out in San Francisco Bay. The Bay Bridge spans the sun-glazed water, stretching over to Oakland. But if you’re lucky enough to call this office your home away from home, to see this view every day, you might not even notice it after a while. In such a boat is Michael Lanz ’91, as he takes in the view yet again.

Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin famously said, “We want Google to be the third half of your brain,” and in part it’s Lanz’s job as industry director to make it happen. “A big part of Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” he says. “So my team’s job is to partner with various companies and help them market better.”

Since 2001, Google has acquired more than 100 companies, many of them household names, such as Picasa, Android and YouTube. What Lanz does is use the companies living under the Google umbrella to help clients get more exposure to the consumer public.

“We take our products, like search and mobile and YouTube, and help make them more relevant and useful for a marketer to go out and engage with customers,” he explains. This often involves search options and tactical ad placement, features anyone who has ever uttered the phrase “Google it” knows well. But what most people surfing the Internet may not think about is the use of YouTube beyond watching “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time” and movie trailers—its strategic use. “If a client wants to get a brand message out about who they are as a company and what their brand stands for, they might want to get a message out there on YouTube,” Lanz says, and he and his teams swoop in with possibilities.

Lanz graduated from Dickinson with a B.A. in policy & management studies, and before Google he put that degree to use with such companies as Nielsen Online, Jupiter Media Metrix and Bechtel before becoming head of industry at Google in 2008 and industry director in 2012. And he likes it here.

“Google is an amazing company with an incredible culture,” he says. “The caliber of people you get to work with is outstanding, and Google gets to hire amazing, talented people who are really good team players. That combination makes going to work every day a really great experience.”

One of the other elements of Lanz’s position that makes going to work such a joy is the travel, a pastime he has enjoyed since his first trip overseas, while at Dickinson.

“Flying to Italy for my junior year abroad was my first time out of the country,” he says. “I remember landing at the Rome airport and meeting [physics] professor Neil Wolf and the rest of my Bologna colleagues, and we took a bus through Italy up to the Bologna Center.

That began my year abroad, and I’ll never forget it.”

In 2012, Lanz trekked across the world as part of an Olympics-related assignment during the Summer Games, seeing Paris, London, São Paulo and Sydney, where he helped Olympic sponsors use Google technology to advance their sponsorships. He also recently took an international vacation, visiting Stockholm, Majorca and Paris. And while Lanz’s study-abroad experience paved the way for his love of travel, the education he received at Dickinson paved his professional path in general.

“It was incredible having the experience of the liberal-arts curriculum,” he says, “being exposed to different topics

Lianne Milton

Deborah Evans ’91

and courses, really learning how to think analytically and write, looking at things from different perspectives. It’s all helped me a great deal throughout my career in working with ambiguity.” The ambiguity he mentions comes into play when companies with which Google partners develop cutting-edge technology and the unprecedented suddenly becomes something he and his teams need to define and wrangle.

“You need to be comfortable with there not being a rulebook and just think critically about what might make the most sense moving forward,” Lanz says.

“A liberal-arts education helps you see all the dimensions of a problem and how

you might want to fix things and develop a plan.”

That usually involves thinking beyond the U.S. borders, as many if not most of Google’s clients—among them the world’s fastest-growing, most talkedabout companies—want to expand their reach worldwide.

“If you think about a lot of the social networks out there, a lot of them have real global ambitions,” Lanz says, “and we help them expand their footprints around the planet. And that’s exciting, focusing on the international angle, especially given my Dickinson experience.”

—Tony Moore

A Bach cantata is orderly and opulent, and to most ears, it bears little resemblance to pop. So it may seem odd that Deborah Evans ’91, a classical harpsichordist, owns a music-publishing company that’s heavy on hip-hop, rap and R&B. But Evans is dedicated to pursuing her passions, wherever they lead. And she didn’t stop until she’d discovered a way to carve out an inclusive musicindustry career.

Evans’ journey began in the fall of her senior year at Dickinson, where she majored in English and took piano lessons on the side.

She had begun lessons in childhood, and like all Bach junkies, she harbored a right-brain passion for beauty and a left-brain appreciation for structural complexity—a cognitive ambidexterity that served her well as a musician but made it tough to select a major in college. She loved strategizing and problemsolving, but she also loved working with people, so she considered majoring in business, law and the social sciences. And her love of the arts drew her to music and literature.

In the end, her inner bookworm won out, and she planned to teach English. “But as graduation grew nearer, I realized that my heart just wasn’t in teaching,” she says. “I just couldn’t identify what [my passion] was.”

Then one day, searching for a quiet place to practice piano, Evans discovered a harpsichord in one of the practice rooms on the third floor of the Weiss Center. For this longtime Baroque fan, it was love at first listen. Her path was suddenly clear.

Evans signed up for harpsichord lessons through the music department; soon, she was practicing for hours each day. By graduation, she had enough

29

credits for a music minor, and with help from harpsichord instructor Amy Rosser, she went on to earn a master’s in harpsichord performance from Montclair State University.

She launched a professional music career, teaching music and performing.

For many, this would be the end of the story. But while the artist in Evans was satisfied, her analytical talents remained untapped. And before long, she pined for a career that was as multifaceted as the music she performed.

Music publishing—with its blend of business, law and the arts—seemed promising. Music publishers work closely with songwriters, drawing up licenses and contracts, clearing rights for film and television, administering copyrights and collecting royalties. It’s a career that requires a grasp of the creative process and product while also tapping the business-savvy hemisphere of the brain.

Evans began in 1998 at a New York City publishing agency and freelanced for an

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

30

industry veteran in rap-music clearances.

Soon, the harpsichordist was working for a rap-music publishing concern. “I’ve really learned to appreciate the meditative aspect of hip-hop,” she says, likening the genre’s bass-and-drum lines to those found in compositions by Philip Glass.

She went on to direct copyright and publishing operations at two New York firms.

Evans loved the legal and accounting aspects of the business. She also relished the chance to learn new things daily in the face of evolving digital-media copyright laws and industry trends, such as the growing influences of YouTube, social media and television commercials.

Her true advantage was in client relations, however. “I like to help songwriters navigate the laws,” she says. “I think being a musician helps me, because I do understand music, and I can truly appreciate what the songwriters are doing.”

Still, the commute to Brooklyn from her New Jersey home wasn’t ideal, particularly after Evans and husband Joseph Furnari, a theatre director, had daughter Gianna in 2007. So Evans took another leap of faith and established Della Publishing. Most of her clients work in hip-hop and R&B, though she also represents Broadway, jazz and country artists, including Faith Hill.

Today, Evans works out of her home in New Orleans, and she and Furnari enjoy being part of that thriving arts community. The business, named for Evans’ great-grandmother, continues to grow and establishes Evans as one of the industry’s few female leaders. She named a sub-company, Cady, after a distant relative, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Occasionally, Evans makes time for harpsichord recitals. “There’s a lot of music in the house, and my five-year-old sings constantly,” she says with pride.

When the time comes for that five-year-old to choose a path, Evans will encourage Gianna to dream. “I’ve always been one to follow my heart. The goal was not to get a job—it was to pursue what I loved,” she says. “I’m thankful every day that I’m able to stay in the field of music and love what I do, and I want Gianna to know that she can follow her dream too.” —MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

John Creston Dubois

Edward Ricourt ’95 Edward Ricourt ’95 pulled his rental car to a stop along Bourbon Street, just outside a ring of trailers glowing under a halo of light. Throngs of people milled about, assembling more lights, moving cameras, positioning crowds.

Among them, Ricourt knew, were Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson, Michael Caine, people he’d grown up watching in movies he dreamed he’d one day write. People who’d inspired him to become a screenwriter, move to Los Angeles, write script after script, selling enough to make a living but not yet seeing anything climb from “development hell” to production.

Until now.

“That was the moment,” says Ricourt, recalling his visit to the set of Now You See Me, which will bring his words to the screen for the first time this summer. “I had the goose-bumps, the tears in my eyes. I just thought, ‘This is real.’ Hundreds of people uprooted their lives to be here, all because of something I wrote on my MacBook in the middle of the night. It felt like the completion of a very long journey.”

That journey began at Dickinson, where Ricourt majored in political science but discovered a passion for writing in fiction and theatre classes. By his senior year, he felt ready to tackle something substantial. A friend suggested he write a screenplay, so Ricourt approached Professor of Theatre Todd Wronski, who helped him design an independent study on screenwriting and write his first script.

“It was a great experience,” Ricourt recalls. “It was life-changing.”

Ricourt left Dickinson having found his calling, but it would be another decade before Hollywood beckoned.

He found work in New York City as a

production assistant and then associate producer for The Ricki Lake Show and spent his nights poring over every great screenplay he could find while plugging away at his laptop.

He shared that first script with his friend, screenwriter and director Boaz Yakim.

Yakim, who soon would have his own major breakthrough directing Remember the Titans, loved Ricourt’s writing, and the two launched a partnership.

When Yakim formed a production company after his success with Remember the Titans, he tapped Ricourt to pen its first film. Ricourt turned out the horror flick, Dead

by Daylight, which was optioned and landed him an agent. Yet to be produced, however, the script also taught Ricourt a valuable lesson.

“The more successful I’ve gotten, the more I’ve learned how hard it is to see your screenplay become a movie,” he says.

“When I sold my first script, I thought, ‘Great, they’re going to make my movie,’ but the truth is, you’re almost just as far from making a movie as you were before you sold it.”

After receiving pages of notes on proposed changes, Ricourt learned that even successful screenwriters must wait until the studio attracts the right talent to a script.

The longer that development process takes, the less likely that glowing late-night laptop vision will ever make it to the big screen.

Still, Ricourt refused to be discouraged.

He earned an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU in 2005 and made a leap of faith the day after graduating, flying to L.A. with only two months’ rent to his name.

Ricourt found his footing quickly in Hollywood. He captured studios’ imaginations—and paychecks—with tales ranging from a post-alien-invasion human uprising (Year 12) to a widow plagued by visions of murdered children (Abraham’s Daughter), but none made the leap from meeting

rooms to celluloid. He was living half the dream, making a living without actually making movies—until his most recent collaboration with Yakim, the story of a team of bank-robbing magicians, found a buyer and a little bit of luck.

“We sold Now You See Me, but Jim Carey had passed, Sacha Baron Cohen had passed, and we were getting a little worried,” he explains. “But then Jessie Eisenberg said yes, and the dominos started to fall. Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson—one after another, people started signing on. That was a huge relief.”

Last spring Ricourt arrived in New Orleans to ponder the next step in his journey. He didn’t bask for long in the glow of those lights, the circle of trailers, the crowds of people seemingly conjured by his late-night typing. He’d arranged to spend a month on set so that he could learn enough to try his hand at directing and producing future projects, and it was time to get to work. With a career always teetering between triumph and frustration, he strode toward those trailers quickly, having learned long ago to keep moving forward.

“You have to realize it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Ricourt says. “You can’t worry about rejections or frustrations.

I’ve got files filled with rejection letters.

I’ve sold scripts where the first meeting was about who was going to replace me as a writer. But I always knew I just needed to work harder than the next guy.

I knew when I was working at two in the morning, my competition was sleeping. I always knew I just had to keep going.”

—Matt Getty

View a trailer of Now You See Me at www.dickinson.edu/magazine.

31

[ profile ]

LGBTQ & A Brian Patchcoski envisions an inclusive campus.

By Michelle Simmons

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

32

33

In October, Editor Michelle Simmons visited Brian Patchcoski, director of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) services, in Landis House. Patchcoski had arrived in August to launch the new Office of LGBTQ Services, and amid still-unpacked boxes, they discussed his plans for the college. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.

How long have you been doing this type of work?

During the last five years at Penn State I was engaged in this, and before that I worked with University Misericordia in Dallas, Pa. That was a broader scope of diversity work: It wasn’t LGBTQ focused; I worked with businesses, colleges and nonprofits around making or forming inclusive environments. Penn State is where I completed my graduate work and really refined my skills at the LGBTA [allies] Student Resource Center.

What are the primary challenges or needs facing LGBTQ students in general and, more specifically, at Dickinson?

There are more than 5,000 colleges and universities in the U.S., but only 192 LGBTQ centers. During the last year there’ve been 12 new centers created, and Dickinson is one of those—which is exciting. There’s a new momentum, which reflects some of the changing pieces in our society: It’s a recognition that there’s a need for students to have a supportive resource; there is a need for education and outreach on college campuses around these issues.

Visibility about LGBTQ issues across the country has really increased, and we are recognizing bullying in our schools and communities. We see statistics like nine out of 10 LGBTQ students in high school experience some sort of bullying related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Can you tell me a little bit about the campus climate in general?

Campus climate nationally is not as ideal as we think it is, especially for students coming from marginalized identities. If we look at the 2010 national campus-climate survey—which I participated in with [education professor] Sue Rankin at Penn State—that study highlighted tremendous inequities for LGBTQ-identified individuals, not only for students but also for faculty and staff.

You’re based in Landis House, with the Women’s Center and the Office of Diversity Initiatives (ODI). How do you see the Office of LGBTQ Services fitting within the larger diversity rubric and initiatives at Dickinson?

I think it’s tremendously valuable to be located in this space. A lot of my work is focused on intersectionality, or the intersections of identities. We need to look at our identities, not just as LGBTQ, but what it is like to be an LGBTQ person and identify as a person of color or identify with different religious or spiritual backgrounds. What does it look like to be from varying social classes with this identity? What’s really important for me is that not just one person is doing this work; the entire campus needs to be doing this work in some form. I think that’s where it’s really wonderful to be in this space in Landis and interacting with the other offices and doing really collaborative programming.

Tell me more about that.

We’ve been coordinating gender-discussion groups with the women’s and wellness centers and really challenging gender and what gender looks like on campus. It’s an opportunity to talk about issues, from transgender or gender nonconforming identities to images in society that represent sexual orientation and how that connects with gender.

With the Office of Diversity Initiatives, we’re definitely working very closely in planning the GSA Leadership Summit.

We’ve also been working with Pride@Dickinson, recognizing the history of the initiatives and where this office has come from.

Paula [Lima-Jones, director of ODI] and I have really had close connections working on the Pride Reception, which was during Homecoming & Family Weekend. We also co-sponsored Out on Britton this year (see facing page).

Earlier, you mentioned religious identities, so have you been working with the Office of Religious Life or with the Asbell Center?

Spirituality and religion are part of my own personal work and research interests. Before I started my undergraduate work, I was in the seminary to be a Roman Catholic priest, so this religious and spiritual piece, along with sexual identity, has been really important to me.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013 34

Out on Britton

I’ve seen wonderful progress around these issues, and I’ve seen wonderful conversations about these issues, so in the spring, I plan to work more intentionally with the Asbell Center and the Office of Religious Life to really build a foundation. At Penn State, we created wonderful community resources, so I want to engage our community partners and have partners who are doing this work in Harrisburg and Carlisle.

Right now you’re obviously focused on students and programming, but you’re also interested in engaging faculty, staff and the larger community.

One of the most exciting things that has happened so far has been the launching of the new Web site for the office. On the site are faculty and staff sections, an ally section. There’s a section for resources and parents and families, alumni and friends.

Those are the constituents that I believe, from my experience, this office needs to engage.

As the office grows, there are two main programs that will launch in the spring and will engage several of these groups.

The first is an LGBTQ mentorship program, which will pair prospective students with current students and current students with alumni. I’ve been building an alumni base since I’ve arrived, and I would love to continue growing and fostering that and finding out what our alumni are doing, where they are and how they can continue to be a part of Dickinson and engage with our students.

O

n Oct. 9, Dickinson hosted its annual Out on Britton Plaza event to commemorate National LGBTQ History Month. Members of the Dickinson community gathered to mingle, converse with representatives of community-resource organizations such as Equality PA and Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition and show support for one another by listening to personal stories of fear, courage and love.

As ABBA, Madonna and Lady Gaga songs blasted from the speakers, students took turns signing a door placed on Britton Plaza that represents the oppressive life of the closet. Many wrote personal stories, while others penned words of inspiration and support for classmates. At the end of the event, there was scarcely room on the closet door for more comments.

“The event was a tremendous success,” says Director of LGBTQ Services Brian Patchcoski. “It brought together many members of the Dickinson community in the shared movement for equality.”

Out on Britton was the first of many LGBTQ events planned for the academic year. “I’m really excited about our events,” says Fabian Hernandez ’15, Spectrum’s chair of the Activist Committee. “They are meant to get Spectrum members and the Dickinson community more politically and socially involved on campus.”

Students, faculty and staff took turns sharing their personal comingout stories and anecdotes of support. Among the stories were chronicles of abuse, rejection and unbearable loneliness, yet their accounts highlighted each person’s bravery, resilience and strength. “Many people ask why I stay at Dickinson,” said Molly Boegel, associate director of admissions. “This is why— to experience this overwhelming support and strength.” —Sasha Shapiro ’15

35

Whether it’s, “This is how I am out at the workplace, this is the place I’m in and this is what it’s like,” or “This is the country I’m in, and this is the climate and this is the negotiation process you have to do with your identities,” this is the conversation I want to see between alumni and current students, and with current students and prospective students.

We need to have good conversations about what it’s like to be “out” at Dickinson. We need to have that message for our prospective students that they can make change right now at Dickinson. This is the time to be involved in this brand-new office. They get to be a part and make this what they want it to be. The mentorship program is really exciting, because there are very few other programs nationally that are about these connections.

Let’s talk about someone who might be skeptical and say, “Why do we need an LGBTQ office?”

In mentioning students or alumni studying or working outside the U.S., you bring up a really good point: Dickinson is a global community. Talk a little bit about that.

What can allies do?

We are this global community and global entity. We send students around the world. There are still five countries that punish homosexuality or perceived homosexuality by death—such as Saudi Arabia. I’ve worked with students in these countries. We at Dickinson should be well versed in having these conversations with students, like “if you’re going there, and this is who you are, how will you go forward? How will you negotiate your identity in different circles? How will you be safe?” What are Dickinson’s resources to support that student while they are there? These types of conversations are critical, and institutions are just beginning to have them.

“We at Dickinson should be well versed in having these conversations with students, like ‘if you’re going [abroad], and this is who you are, how will you go forward?

How will you negotiate your identity in different circles?

How will you be safe?’ ”

This office is not just for the LGBTQ community. This office is for the entire Dickinson community, our Carlisle community partners, our alumni, parents and families and friends of Dickinson. If we look at Strategic Plan III and where we want to be, we’re this global institution that wants to promote a culture of inclusivity and respect. Part of that respect is understanding the identities that make up that diversity sphere/umbrella. And LGBTQ identities are part of that. I tell students that, yes, my title is director of LGBTQ services, and yes, I do LGBTQ work and my research is here, but what I’m really doing is human work. It’s really engaging with humanity and our identities as a whole.

Oh, I have lots planned. Along with the mentorship program, we’re launching the Pride @ Dickinson Safe Zone Program: Creating an Inclusive Community, which begins with a threehour baseline training for everyone who wants to be recognized as a supportive individual on this campus. Faculty and staff can go through it, as well as students. There also will be continuous education sessions—ones around transgender and gender nonconforming identities will be hugely important.

In almost any educational or training setting that I’m in, I always say, “Whatever your idea is leaving here, just because you’ve been here doesn’t mean that you should go out into the community and say to the next gay person that you run into, ‘I just had this conversation with Brian and I know how you act as a gay person and I know how to treat you now.’ ” That’s never what I want to do. And it’s comical, but it happens.

There are really good intentions behind that, but we need to continuously educate and challenge ourselves. Just because we went to one training session doesn’t mean we’re the expert.

Just because you’ve been in this field for 10 years doesn’t mean you’re the expert. Things change, our communities change, the issues change.

Dickinson has tremendous potential for national impact in how we support the LGBTQ community. There are no words to explain the energy here, but I’m excited about it, and I’m excited about where this office will go. I want Dickinson to be visible; I want us not to be afraid to embrace these things but also to ask questions if we don’t understand. That takes courage, but we as an institution are there. We just have to continue building on that.

—Brian Patchcoski

Learn more at go.dickinson.edu/lgbtq.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

36

Future Dickinsonian Luke Webster, son of Dave Webster ’88, assistant director of athletics and men’s lacrosse head coach, gets into the spirit of Run for Steph during Homecoming & Family Weekend. For more coverage of the weekend, visit go.dickinson.edu/ homecoming.

37

[  fine print ]

101

blank vases

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

38

Kudos The Carlisle Area Health and Wellness Foundation awarded Joyce Bylander, special assistant to the president for diversity initiatives, a $2,000 grant for her program CONNECT, which offers fullday programming for at-risk, low-income middleschool youth. The mini-grant will support a summer program that focuses on healthy lifestyles.

CONNECT is a partnership between Dickinson College, the Carlisle Arts Learning Center, the YWCA, the Carlisle Area School District and the United Way of Carlisle & Cumberland County.

The Department of German received $12,000 from the Max Kade Foundation to support a writer-inresidence during spring 2013.

The Vase Project celebrates the art of copying and the role of the usually anonymous artist in Jingdezhen, China. —Barbara Diduk Nearly 70 photographs from Archives & Special Collections were in Augenblicke für die Ewigkeit: GieBen im Sommer 1890, an exhibit at the Stadtarchiv in Giessen, Germany, that featured the photography of Charles Francis Himes, class of 1855 and Dickinson faculty member. The photos are part of archives’ Charles Francis Himes Family Papers collection.

The Vase Project: Made in China – Landscape in Blue at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto was co-curated by Barbara Diduk, Charles A. Dana Professor of Art, and Zhao Yu, Assistant Professor at the Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China. Running Oct. 11-Jan. 13, The Vase Project celebrates the art of copying and the role of the usually anonymous artist in Jingdezhen, China.

Working with 101 blank vases, the curators created a visual chain letter selecting factory workers and painters from independent workshops around the city to copy and hand paint a blue-and-white contemporary landscape based on their original sketch of the smoke stacks of Jingdezhen.

Douglas Stuart, professor of political science and

international studies; J. William Stuart and Helen D. Stuart Chair in International Studies, Business & Management; and adjunct professor, U.S. Army War College (USAWC), co-edited Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO with Jeff McCausland, visiting professor of international studies, and Tom Nichols, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. Last June Stuart published “Leading from Behind: Toward an Obama Doctrine for the Asia-Pacific” in The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis. His article “San Francisco 2.0: Military Aspects of the U.S. Pivot Toward Asia” was published in the December issue of Asian Affairs.

Stephen Weinberger, Robert Coleman Professor of

History, published “Austin Stoneman: The Birth of a Nation’s American Tragic Hero” in Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 10, issue 3.

Professor of Music Blake Wilson recently published two essays: “Poliziano and the Language of Lament from Isaac to Layolle” in Sleuthing the Muse: Essays in Honor of William F. Prizer by Pendragon Press and “If Monuments Could Sing: Music and the Origins of Civic Devotion Inside Orsanmichele” in Orsanmichele and the History and Preservation of Civic Monument by Yale University Press. The second essay is the published version of an invited conference talk that Wilson gave at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the historic exhibition of early Renaissance Orsanmichele statuary.

The USAWC Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) Academic Engagement Program awarded $35,000 to Michael Fratantuono, associate professor of international studies, business & management, and David Sarcone, associate professor of business & management, for their workshop, The United States-India Relationship in the 21st Century: Challenges for Strategic Leaders; Opportunities for Cross-Sector Collaboration to Promote Sustainable Development.

Karen Kirkham, associate professor of theatre &

dance, was named the executive director/artistic director of Pendragon Theatre. Based in the Adirondacks, Pendragon is an ensemble of artists dedicated to preserving the vitality and enhancing the quality of professional theatre through yearround performance and educational programs.

Associate Professor of Art & Art History Crispin Sartwell recently presented two lectures—Holding

on for Dear Life: The Value of Realism in Art and Constriction and Creativity: Tradition and Innovation in Bluegrass Music at the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts at Eastern Tennessee State University.

The American Association of University Women awarded Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sarah St. Angelo a $30,000 postdoctoral research leave fellowship to continue her work on “Bioreduced Nanoparticles: Green Synthesis and Characterization of Nanoparticles and Platelets.”

Nicola Tynan, associate professor of economics, received a $4,000 fellowship research grant from the Earhart Foundation. The award provides funding for travel to London to conduct archival research for her book project, “An Economic History of London’s Water Supply, 1582-1904.”

Routledge recently published Assistant Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies Stephanie Gilmore’s Groundswell: Grassroots Feminist Activism in Postwar America. The book offers an essential perspective on the post-1960 movement for women’s equality and liberation. Tracing the histories of feminist activism through the National Organization for Women chapters in three different locations—Memphis, Tenn.; Columbus, Ohio; and San Francisco— Gilmore explores how feminist identity, strategies and goals were shaped by geographic location.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Chauncey Maher published The Pittsburgh School of Philosophy as part of the series Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy.

El Museo de Barrio in New York City recently hosted Jerry Philogene, assistant professor of American studies, and Miami-based artist Edouard Duval Carrie as part of its program Caribbean: Crossroads of the World.

David Strand, Charles A. Dana Professor of

Political Science, and Ann Hill, professor of anthropology, received a $400,000 Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) Implementation Grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Building on the achievements of a successful LIASE Exploration Grant in 2011-12, this new four-year grant will further infuse the study of Asia through the lens of the environment and sustainability across the Dickinson curriculum.

The project will expose more faculty and students from a variety of disciplines to Asia through projects involving pedagogical collaboration and direct contact with the region as a human and natural environment.

39

[ beyond the limestone walls ] Building the Future of Dickinson Athletics

D

ickinson Athletics Hall of Famer Doug Pauls ’80 played basketball as an undergraduate, but his home court wasn’t in the Kline Center. The basketball court was on the second floor of what is now the Weiss Center for the Arts, and his memories are not exactly what the college would have advertised at the time: The pool was on the first floor, and Pauls’ roommate, a diver, had to be careful or he’d hit his head on the low-slung ceiling as he came off the diving board.

A member of the Board of Trustees, Pauls is now setting his sights on making sure that every student-athlete has only fond memories of time spent competing in a Red Devils uniform as he chairs the newly formed Athletics Advancement Council.

“Given the impact that Dickinson has had on my life, the college has always been one of my priorities,” he says, “and I believe that athletics can play an important role in helping to define Dickinson as an institution.”

The Athletics Advancement Council is charged with strengthening relationships between the college and members of the Dickinson community who can help advance the college’s athletic opportunities.

Pauls says, “I think the best way to get people involved, both athletically and academically, is to get them to connect, or reconnect, with the college and what’s going on now, because it’s certainly going to be different from when they were here.”

And that is clearly the case. With the Inge P. Stafford Greenhouse for Teaching and Research and the Rector Science Complex expansion in progress, and the Phyllis Joan Miller Memorial Field all but complete, the campus landscape is ever-evolving. Add to these projects the new Durden Athletic Training Center, the Kline Center expansion and a new residence hall on the horizon, and students and alumni have a lot to be excited about.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

40

The council’s efforts have begun with personal, one-onone outreach and will begin coordinating events as the group’s mission advances, with council meetings coinciding with Board of Trustees meetings. Pauls says, “The hope is to have as many council members and alumni as possible back on campus to see and appreciate what their efforts are helping to build.”

Pauls and his wife, Terri, already have established the DTP ’80 Internship Fund, which funds internships for Dickinson students, and his involvement with the Athletics Advancement Council is just another way of giving back to an institution in which he truly believes—a belief rekindled when he met with President William G. Durden ’71 in 2004.

“That conversation helped me to re-engage with the college in a more intense way,” Pauls says, noting that Durden focused on the steps he and his administration were taking to develop the college. “For me, it is a lot easier to support a cause or institution when you truly believe in what that institution is trying to accomplish, and the more I learned about what was really going on at Dickinson, the easier it was to increase my level of giving.”

Pauls hopes that the Athletics Advancement Council’s message makes that decision an easy one for a whole new network of Dickinson supporters. As chair of the council—which will eventually comprise 15 to 20 alumni and parent members—Pauls is leading the funding drive for athletic projects, but as a trustee, he’s interested in all things Dickinson.

“There will be people who want to fund athletics specifically, and there will be people who would rather help us fund other things,” he says. “So this council may expand in different directions, as need or opportunity arises.”

But the group, while still in its infancy, is already making strides in its core area of focus. “A classmate of mine, Gary Knechtel ’80, unfortunately passed away almost three years ago,” Pauls says. “He was a great friend and inspiration to all of us, so we’ve raised money to fund a scholarship in his memory—more than $100,000 so far. We have now set our sights on raising the funds to have the new football locker room named in his memory.” —Tony Moore

Meet Your Alumni Council Jennifer L. Blanck ’92, Alumni Council President

Alumni Council

I

just returned from the Alumni Council executive-committee retreat and am so excited about the upcoming year! Joining me on the executive committee this year is another dedicated team of talented alumni and staff (some of whom also are alumni):

Development Committee

• Jason Watkins ’03, chair • Danielle Vigilante Webb ’03, staff liaison and associate director, alumni & parent engagement Leadership Committee

Officers

• Michael Donnelly ’02, vice president • Wil Scott ’72, secretary/treasurer • Kathy Schriner Marcello ’80, P’13, interim staff liaison and executive director, alumni & parent engagement • Dot Lehotsky, coordinator, alumni & parent engagement Alumni & Student Engagement Committee

• Will Pollins ’88, chair • Liz Glynn ’06, staff liaison and associate director, alumni & parent engagement • Alyssa Windholz, staff liaison and assistant director, alumni & parent engagement Communications Committee

• Matthew Fahnestock ’02, chair • Matt Getty, staff liaison and director of editorial services • Connie McNamara, staff liaison and executive director of marketing and communications

• Ty Saini ’93, chair • Kathy Schriner Marcello ’80, P’13, interim staff liaison and executive director, alumni & parent engagement In recent years, we’ve made a lot of structural changes to the Alumni Council. I’ve mentioned many of the changes in past columns, so I won’t repeat myself. But there is one major change that’s so new, I haven’t discussed it yet: We’ve added a career committee. We will be working with Philip Jones, dean of career development and assistant vice president of student development, to help advance his team’s goals and objectives and aid students and alumni in their career goals. I can’t wait!

So now it’s time to reap the benefits of all of our changes. One huge benefit is the roster of new and returning members. Check out the names of the current members. While you can’t see the full range of diversity they bring, you can see the span of years they represent.

I am so proud to work with these alumni.

They have been involved with the college for years and are bringing their talents and wisdom to the Alumni Council. It’s going to be a great year!

Robert C. Paull ’62 Eric P. Evans ’68 Wil W. Scott ’72 Susan Rebuck Otway ’75 Catherine Erviti Rebhun ’80 Sandra Achenbach Sellers ’80 Julie A. Strauss ’81 Lisa Gutenstein Silvershein ’84 Colleen Sweeney Superko ’84 Joseph B. Kleine ’85 Will Pollins ’88 David E. Lee ’91 Jennifer L. Blanck ’92 Pamela Byron ’93 Ty Saini ’93 Julie Wise McClure ’94 David W. Carlson ’99 Michael W. Donnelly ’02 Matthew A. Fahnestock ’02 Jonathan I. McEvoy ’02 Jason G. Watkins ’03 Sarah Bitting Mier ’04 Michael A. Henry ’06 Sarah D. Lapicki ’08 Elizabeth A. Grazioli ’09 Andrew C. Heist ’10 Rachel F. Warzala ’11

For more information about the Alumni Council and its committees, e-mail jlblanck@yahoo.com.

41

[ closing thoughts ]

I

B y F ay r u z B e n y o u s e f ’ 9 4

t never occurred to me how much we live with fear and worries—ones that we may never verbalize to others—until I was asked to write this column and began thinking about how much danger is a part of life. My family left an oppressive regime in Libya in 1980 because of the dangerous circumstances they came to experience. They had grown up with an almost idyllic childhood of peace and opportunity, and they knew people from other cultures, traditions and faiths. But when my parents, who earned their master’s degrees in the U.S., returned to Tripoli, they quickly realized that their homeland was a foreign place.

We came back to the U.S. seeking political asylum from the place that was our home.

Within six months came another blow. My father, at 35 years old, was diagnosed with leukemia. From political danger we now were thrown into a life-and-death medical diagnosis for the head of our household. And after his trying experience with the disease, it was my turn, at age 16, to discover that I had two tumors and a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s disease. I kept thinking, where is this cancer coming from?

Less than a year after my treatment, my father had a vengeful recurrence of leukemia, and despite a bone-marrow transplant, he died my senior year of high school. We had no financial support from the Libyan government and were left without any foreseeable means to take care of ourselves. Those months after his death were some of the most isolating and scary times that I can remember, as I watched my mother try to figure out how she was going to make things work. Although she had just earned her Ph.D., she had no job, no savings, and felt trapped. My father’s family in Libya proclaimed that they had to “return their granddaughter home no matter what.” I recall going into hiding with the family of a high-school

friend, for fear of being kidnapped. Thankfully, the plan to forcibly take me back to Libya did not pan out.

As an adult, living in danger took a different form. As a LibyanAmerican and Muslim woman, I never dared in my professional life to profess where I was born or my religious affiliation. Whenever I shared with people that I was from Libya, I would immediately be labeled a terrorist or a member of the Gadhafi family—sometimes in jest, but usually with that “look.” I vividly recall one year, while working a temp job during a college winter break, my supervisors talking about the Gulf War. One man said, “You know, we just need to bomb the hell out of all those Arabs.” A little later, the same man asked me, “Fayruz, where did you say you are from?” I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach and knew I had to lie. I was used to deflecting this question and saying either “North Africa” or “Where do you think I’m from?” This time, I said, “I’m from Hawaii.” Most of the time people are not clued in enough to know the source of my name, so they would nod their head and say, “Oh, that’s cool.”

Since the Feb. 17, 2011, revolution in Libya and the Arab Spring last year, I at last no longer feel that my identity puts me in danger. It’s as if a veil has been removed from my soul. Still, somewhere in the back of my mind I worry and fear for myself and family. Whether it’s the possibility of a cancer relapse or even being the target of a hate crime, those “what ifs” are just part of life.

Despite the concerns that come and go at odd times of my day, it’s my firm belief that, ultimately, we are not in control of that which happens to us. It is how we react to and handle life’s challenges that dictates the kind of life we can have. Despite the hardships of serious illnesses and a life away from “home,” there have always been people at my side providing gracious support and love.

Hadi Farahani

Danger

Fayruz Benyousef ’94 majored in history, French and Arabic at Dickinson and is founder and principal of Fayruz Benyousef Consulting.

She also co-founded Libyan Hearts, a nonprofit organization that helps remove land mines throughout the country and provides orthopedic care to those injured in the war.

dickinson magazine

Winter 2013

56

X marks the spot!

Rediscover Dickinson at your reunion.

14-16

JUNE

Alumni Weekend 2013

Look for registration materials in March, but start making your plans today!

P. O . B o x 1 7 7 3 C a r l i s l e , P A 1 7 0 1 3 - 2 8 9 6 Periodical

w w w. d i c k i n s o n . e d u / m a g a z i n e

P o s ta g e p a i d at C a r l i s l e , P A and additional mailing office

[

well-stated

]

Women’s freedom is scary for any organization that wants to keep things the way they are.

N o o r ja h an A k b a r ’ 1 4 ,

“Sisters in Arms: Young Afghan Activist Continues Malala’s Fight, The Daily Beast.

I’m not saying that I want radical leftists dominating the op-ed page of The New York Times. I can go to my living room for those discussions. I want precisely the opposite: people who challenge me and my way of in The Square. thinking.

Farming is hard work, but it is work of integrity.

J enn Ha l p i n , d i r e c t o r o f t h e C o l l e g e Fa r m , a t Fa r m A i d 2 0 1 2 i n He r s h e y , Pa .

M a x W e y l an d t ’ 1 3

The floor is dope. The arena is dope. It’s a cool place to play.

Washington Wizards’ Trevor Ariza

Learn more at go.dickinson.edu/Sharples.

on Barclays Center, the new home of the Brooklyn Nets, designed by Chris Sharples ’87’s ShoP Architects.

It’s like highschool theatre, but we have more toys.

E r i c Ga r c i a ’ 9 2

(See Page 27.)

Major in what you’re passionate about. …

Pursue whatever that is with all your power, and if you learn the liberal-arts way, the Dickinson way, you’ll be preparing for a rich life, not just a good career.

J e f f F i g u r e l l i ’ 8 3 , English major and former global chief executive officer at Financial Institutions Group at BlackRock, during Major Debate. Learn more at go.dickinson.edu/ MajorDebate.