DePauw M A G A Z I N E
IN THIS ISSUE: Adventure! / Bold & Gold 2027 / Posse at 25 / and more
Summer 2022
Adventure!
Searching for Shackleton
MESSAGE FROM DR. WHITE
Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University in St. Louis
A
fter two years of travel restrictions due to COVID I am now finally able to get out on the road to start more personally meeting with alumni and friends who are keenly interested in DePauw’s future and the DePauw Bold & Gold 2027 strategic plan, which sets out an exciting and very bold pathway to ensure our future as a model 21st-century liberal arts and sciences university. Of course, with an alumni base 36,000 strong, it will take a while for me to meet each of you! So we present to you in this issue a summary of the strategic plan that outlines the direction in which your alma mater is heading. I hope you will keep this issue to remind you of our goals. Leave it on your coffee table, take it to your office or share it with friends to entice others – especially prospective students and their families – to learn more about DePauw. And visit our website, www.depauw.edu/ about/president/planning/, to track our progress toward meeting our goals. Prospective students are already telling us they are excited about our strategic plan, particularly our new curricular initiatives. Some alumni have asked me how they can best support DePauw and our future. I have responded that I hope they will give their time – volunteering on one of our many alumni committees, talking with prospective students and/or mentoring current students; their talents – contributing their expertise to areas of the plan where their career, professional and community experience will be most helpful; their treasure – investing financially in the plan’s initiatives and the university; and their testimony – telling classmates, friends and family about DePauw. You may recall the theme of my inauguration last October was “And still I rise.” In my inaugural speech, I asked those in attendance how we can ensure that DePauw in its 200th year fulfills its mission of igniting an educational passion in its students and preparing them for lives of promise and uncommon success. I ventured that “the answer lies before me, in the hearts and in the spirit of those gathered.” Today I add that the answer also lies in the hearts and spirits of all of our alumni and friends who support DePauw and our plan for DePauw’s illustrious future. And, as I said that day and each day I have served as DePauw’s president, I have every faith that, working together, we will rise to even greater heights.
Lori S. White President, DePauw University
DePauw
M A G A Z I N E
Summer 2022 / Vol. 85 / Issue 1 depauw.edu/offices/communicationsmarketing/depauw-magazine/ STAFF Mary Dieter University editorial director/director of media relations marydieter@depauw.edu 765-658-4286 Kelly A. Graves Director of creative and marketing services kgraves@depauw.edu Donna Grooms Gold Nuggets editor dgrooms@depauw.edu Contributor: Kate Robertson, executive assistant EDITORIAL BOARD Joel Bottom, university videographer; Emily Chew ’99, development communications writer; Anne Cunningham, vice president for development and alumni engagement; Sarah McAdams, internal communications manager; Leslie Williams Smith ’03, executive director of alumni engagement; Sarah Steinkamp, chief of staff and interim vice president for communications and marketing; Brittany Way, university photographer; and Chris Wolfe, director of content and digital strategy.
IN THIS ISSUE Message from the President 2
DePauw Digest
4
Letters to the Editor
6
Book Nook
8
Adventure!
34
DePauw Bold & Gold 2027
42
Posse at 25
49 First Person by Roland T. Rust ’74 50
Inspiration from DePauw’s new vice presidents
52
Gold Nuggets/In Memoriam
The Bo(u)lder Question by Pedar Foss
The Class of 2022 gathered with family members in Stewart Plaza for DePauw Under the Stars, part of commencement weekend activities. Photo: Timothy D. Sofranko Back cover photo: Timothy D. Sofranko
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DEPAUW DIGEST
Four DePauw students won competitive scholarships from the U.S. State Department’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program, enabling them to study abroad. Michell-Lee Graham ’24 of Bronx, New York, is studying in Italy this summer. She majors in philosophy and minors in world literature and is an honor scholar and Posse scholar. Marie Gurnon ’23 of Venice, Florida, will study in Japan next fall. She double-majors in English writing and Asian studies. DeCaria Monroe ’23 of Columbia, South Carolina, is studying in Italy this summer. She majors in communication and minors in sociology. Solomon Alhakeem ’23 of Houston, Texas, will defer his award, which will enable him to participate in the Trasimeno Archaeology Field Program in Umbria, Italy. He double-majors in music performance and archaeology.
Golden alumni Joyce Taglauer Green ’75 has been awarded the university’s most prestigious alumni award for 2022, the Old Gold Goblet. Megan Casey Glover ’04 received the Young Alumni Award, and citations for outstanding professional achievement were awarded to AnnClore Jones Duncan ’89 and Joshua A. Thompson ’04 and posthumously to Steven R. Linville ’06.
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Photo: Timothy D. Sofranko
Golden futures
Golden graduation The ranks of DePauw alumni grew by 440 May 22, as the Class of ’22 graduated. Jon Fortt ’98, an anchor at CNBC and a veteran journalist covering technology, delivered the keynote address, exhorting the graduates to go from Greencastle and, “with love, pursue truth and make an impact. It’s your time.” While the graduates were leaving DePauw, Fortt said, “the best of DePauw does not have to leave you.” Christine Bourantas of Wilmington, Delaware, who won the Walker Cup as the senior who contributed the most to DePauw over her four years, offered greetings. The university awarded three honorary degrees. Elgan L. Baker Jr. ’71, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of Meridian Psychological Associates, and William F. Carroll Jr. ’73, an executive and consultant in the chemical and plastics industry, were awarded honorary doctor of science degrees. Kelsey Kaufman, a former parttime university studies professor who has dedicated her life to improving the lot of prison inmates, was awarded an honorary doctor of public service degree. Graduating seniors Hannah and Holly Buchanan of Rockville, Indiana, who are of Native American descent, read the land acknowledgement. James Foxworthy, who died March 12, was graduated posthumously.
Shiny new gold
Golden achievement
With classes set to begin next month, it’s looking like the Class of ’26 will be the largest in four years. “We’re up 6% in enrollment deposits year over year, and we expect more than 525 to arrive on campus in the fall,” said Mary Beth Petrie, vice president for enrollment management. “That will be our largest class since 2018. Much of the growth is due to an increase in students from Indiana and international students. “Consistent with previous years, the Class of 2026 is academically high achieving, and I expect they will do great things on campus and beyond.” Indeed. The class boasts 16 valedictorians, nine salutatorians and 10 Rector, 12 Lilly, two Prindle, four Servicio, nine Bonner and 22 Posse scholars. It includes 73 honor scholars, 66 management fellows, 17 media fellows and 14 environmental fellows. The class is 53.8% female and 46.2% male; 10.6% legacy; 18.6% firstgeneration college students; and 17% students of color. Students are coming from 33 states and 27 countries. A third of the class are athletes – 187 in total and three state champions.
The scholarly achievements of new graduate Nina Štular were recognized in April when the international student from Slovenia won the Ferid Murad Medal. The medal is named for Nobel Prize winner Ferid Murad ’58, a physician and Ph.D. pharmacologist whose work has saved the lives of premature babies and cancer and heart patients and inspired 160,000 publications that build on his discoveries. Štular double majored in philosophy and English literature; competed in the Ethics Bowl on regional and national levels; tutored writing at the Academic Resource Center; and conducted research with professors. For her honor scholar thesis, she integrated philosophy, psychology and neuroscience to discuss the historical development of freedom of expression.
Gold herein Like what you see? We hope so. Two organizations do too. The Collegiate Advertising Awards recognized your DePauw Magazine with a gold award in March for our three 2021 issues and the Educational Advertising Awards awarded us a bronze.
Gold medal-worthy DePauw athletics earned some recent accolades: • Erin Pasch ’22 placed fourth in the NCAA Division III heptathlon championship in late May. She secured All-American honors to complement her award as North Coast Athletic Conference Field Athlete of the Year and selection by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association as the Great Lakes Region’s Women’s Field Athlete of the Year. • First-year student Bennett DeCoursey ’25 finished ninth in discus in the NCAA Division III Championship. • The women’s basketball team led NCAA Division III with a rebound margin of +15.7 per game. That was second on all three levels of NCAA play. • The men’s basketball team made a school-record 83.4% percent of its free throws, the best in Division III this year and the highest percentage on all three levels. • Kris Huffman, women’s basketball head coach, was named North Coast Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year for the fifth time since the Tigers began conference play in 2011-12. • Stevie Baker-Watson, associate vice president for student wellness and Theodore Katula director of athletics and recreational sports, was named Cushman & Wakefield Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. • Peter Crary, assistant men's and women's track and field coach, received the inaugural Spirit of Tim Hreha Award, which celebrates those who embody Hreha's tenacity, integrity and modesty.
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LETTERS Finding peace in play Sixteen DePauw students spent their May term on a service trip to participate in PeacePlayers/Belfast, a program aimed at bridging divides in the longstanding conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Bill Fenlon, retired head basketball coach, and Gigi Jennewein, professor emerita of communication and theatre, led the group. The program is based on the idea that children who play together can learn to live together. DePauw students worked with the staff in Belfast to encourage children who come from opposing communities to play basketball together and participate in the annual Spring Jam, a citywide basketball tournament. The DePauw volunteers attended a retreat on the north coast with PeacePlayers coaches to introduce the program’s theory and practice and visited the U.S. Consulate in Belfast, where they met with the consulate general and staff members. Fenlon has led a DePauw group for seven years, and Jennewein has participated for six. They skipped 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. “Since this is a service course, we engage in frequent reflection sessions,” Jennewein said. “Bill and I are regularly blown away by how deeply the students consider the history and current status of the Troubles and the connections they make to conflict in their own communities.”
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DePauw M A G A Z I N E
Spring 2022
IN THIS ISSUE: DePauw’s expansive contribution to book publishing / Student newspaper’s profound effect on journalism / and more
From Inkling to Ink How a book becomes a book
TO THE EDITOR: Kudos to everyone behind the excellent spring 2022 DePauw Magazine. A wonderful example of good journalism. – Elaine Larkin ’61 I love the spring issue of the DePauw Magazine. So very interesting. – Stanley Warren, education professor emeritus and retired dean of academic affairs The spring issue is outstanding. What a fabulous job you have done, interviewing the various writers. Besides the content, featured articles, the texture/feel of the magazine when you hold it is divine. Thank you and you are a “treasure” to DePauw! – Laurie Hamilton ’58 I enjoyed this most recent issue of the DePauw Magazine more than any other issue I can remember. … From bookshop owners, to nonfiction and
fiction writers, to an agent’s point of view, you covered the waterfront, and did it so well. These DePauw graduates of various ages make me proud of this school I loved so dearly back in the ’50s. I ended up spending most of my time in the sciences as I was preparing to be a physical therapist, but have always been an avid reader. Thank you for giving me this much joy during these later years. – Katherine “Kay” Suydam Hall ’56 The spring 2022 issue was the best ever – all those writers and editors. Congratulations! I actually read every person. I read every word about every person. It was such good reading. … I am a writer lifelong (and) have done informal editing, written jacket blurbs, etc., so your spring edition naturally captivated me. Swept me away. – Paula Boyer Rougny ’57 What a LOVELY issue! Y’all have outdone yourselves. And I’m not just saying that because it’s about books and I’m in it. I will treasure this one forever. – Cori Cusker ’95 Applause for the editors of the DePauw Magazine for what appears to be a revised format and a new emphasis on stories about people. I particularly enjoyed the features on graduates whose experience on the student newspaper led to successful careers in journalism. So many of us benefited from the time we spent holed up in the pub building, working
on stories and columns, meeting deadlines and tolerating editing as staffers at The DePauw. It paid off. – Jim Force ’61 I was disappointed that the contributions librarians make to authors and book publishing were not part of (“From Inkling to Ink”). Librarians and libraries, both public and academic, are often at the start of an author’s writing project – whether it be fiction or nonfiction – by providing access to research materials and local background information. Even more important to me, as someone whose career was in public libraries, is the role librarians play in connecting readers of all ages to books and the joys of reading. … We do this in person and online, through word-of-mouth, book clubs, displays, bibliographies, blogs and author events. We do this by buying the books that writers write and buying them in multiple formats. And then, of course, letting you borrow them. … Libraries are the great equalizers in any community. They make reading and learning available to you no matter your station in life. There’s no admission charge to the building, no charge to borrow books, no matter how many your reading habit requires, and, even if you have no home, you are free to sit and read. – Eileen D. Simmons ’72 I enjoyed the lead article, “From Inkling to Ink.” DePauw graduates include many well-known and distinguished authors. … Robert
Burleigh, a DPU ’57 classmate of mine, is also one. Bob is a New York Times bestselling author. As his website states, he has published more than 50 children’s books. His books have won numerous awards. – Maynard D. Poland ’57 I really enjoyed the cover article “From Inkling to Ink,” as well as the article about the school newspaper. Personally, I worked on the yearbook staff, which as I recall was a lot of fun. DePauw is lucky to have so many talented students and alumni. I think this was one of your most interesting magazines. Keep up the good work! – Jane Conklin Magrady ’70 I was disappointed that your article titled “From Inkling to Ink” lacked any mention of the celebrated DePauw ’56 alumnus and benefactor, Richard W. Peck, who before his death in 2018 authored 35 books for children and young adults. Peck received an honorary DePauw doctorate in 1999, and was recipient of various literary awards for fiction, including the Newbery Award. He was the first author of children’s books to receive a National Humanities Medal and twice was nominated for a National Book Award. – John M. Burgett ’59 I appreciated the interviews with DPU people in varied aspects of publishing, many of whom had reporting careers as part of their
background. I did want to give a shout out to the late Jack McWethy ’69, a Sigma Chi brother who was deeply involved in journalism and The DePauw. His love for the printed word launched him into decades of high-profile positions. … He went from reporting for U.S. News and World Report to being recruited by Roone Arledge as an ABC reporter on national security, a role he filled for decades. One of his beats was the Pentagon, and he was there in the building on the 9/11 attack. Winner of five Emmy Awards and other honors, he died in a skiing accident in 2008. … I very much liked the inclusive theme of our DPU folks who are active in the book field today. It was an interesting connecting message. It was also fun to see Mickey Snell ’67… in one of your well-written features. Mickey and I were in the Tusitala literary society and also we worked together on publishing a few campus literary magazines together. – Lafayette H. “Larry” Mayfield ’67 I would like to extend to you and your other team members the highest form of congratulations! I am a 1964 DePauw graduate and have read every issue of the magazine since graduation. This issue deserves every conceivable positive, descriptive adjective to describe how welldeveloped and executed the entire subject was presented. Thank you for your excellent work. – Thomas Edward Atkinson ’64
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BOOK NOOK Is a recent read occupying your thoughts? Has a book indelibly imprinted your life? We want to hear from you. Send your recommendation to marydieter@depauw.edu.
What We’re Reading By Barbara Perdue Osterling ’65
Looking at Book Nook brought to mind a book that will most likely indelibly imprint my thoughts for a good long time. It’s Mitch Albom’s recent book, “The Stranger in the Lifeboat.” It’s a quick read, but keeps popping into my thoughts, even though I first read it before Christmas. I recommended it to my book club, and our discussion was lively and deep. This is a group of ladies who come from all points along the spiritual spectrum – from non-believers all the way to devout Catholics – and this book had something to say to each of us! If you haven’t read it yet, put it on your list and see what you think. I (Barbara) wrote this and it was my book club. But when my husband Dean saw how engrossed I was in it, he read it immediately after I finished it. I was “on deadline” to return it to the library!
The President’s Bookshelf Nine alumni gathered June 6 for The President’s Book Club, where they discussed “Leadership in Turbulent Times” in a Zoom conversation moderated by President Lori White. Author Doris Kearns Goodwin explores four presidents’ leadership and asks: Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader? Roberta “Robin” Barnes ’70 said both could be true, especially for these leaders who shared “incredible energy, a strive to do something to leave a mark in a good way, to do something for others.” The four were “skilled at building coalitions, and getting people to look at issues rather than personalities and find their shared ground,” said Mary
The Book Nook features notable, professionally published books written by DePauw alumni and faculty. Self-published books will be included in the Gold Nuggets section.
Angela Castañeda ’98, anthropology professor Editor “Obstetric Violence”
Scott H. Decker ’72 “On Gangs”
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Pedar W. Foss, professor and chair, classical studies “Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius”
David N. Gellman, history professor “Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York”
Hudelson Dunkle ’71. “… One thing that worries me a bit about the time we live in now is that it seems that skill may not be as highly valued as it was.” Noting that Abraham Lincoln filled posts with former rivals, Jo Ankeny Lindamood ’62 said that, “today, (politicians) are more likely to pick everybody who’s going to totally agree with them.” Rick Ferrell ’65 said that “all of them were shaped by adversity.” Each turned difficult circumstances to their advantage, said Rick Born ’83, who wondered if they would have shone as leaders had they not faced adversity. Added David Tanner ’75: “All four had a vision of what they wanted to do, what they wanted to accomplish and what they wanted to become.” They also were empathetic, even Teddy Roosevelt, who was “selfabsorbed and bombastic” but learned
Glen David Kuecker, history professor “Disrupted Governance/Towards a New Policy Science”
empathy, said Shirley Unruh Herrick ’64. “That’s so important, no matter what your start was in life, that they learned that.” Greg Padgett ’81 noted that Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson became president after their predecessor was assassinated, “yet somehow they’re perfect for the problems of the times. And so you think, is that the hand of providence that they were ready when their opportunity came along?” David Carr ’75 turned the tables and asked White what she learned from the book. “The ways in which they led really resonated with how I hope, when all is said and done, people say the same thing about me,” she said. The pandemic “enabled me to utilize that moment to bring the community together to develop what I think is a really bold and transformative strategic
Duane Nickell ’80 “Scientific Kentucky”
plan for DePauw. And I don’t know that without the pandemic and the urgency of change if I would have been able to” do that.
Kyle Smitley ’07, contributor “My Moment/106 Women on Fighting for Themselves”
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GOLD WITHIN
Adventure!
When Tim Jacob ’03 alerted us that he was participating in the expedition in search of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship, Endurance, we enthusiastically took him up on his offer to share his story with DePauw Magazine readers. His tale of adventure inspired us to ask other DePauw alumni to tell us about their exploits and explorations too. Their stories follow.
Searching for Shackleton Alum endures violent seas, frigid cold to witness history By Timothy Jacob ’03
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O
n May 5, 2022, the place to be aboard the South African icebreaker S.A. Agulhas II was the closet-sized shipping container on the ship’s aft deck. Outside of the container, early winter gusts of Antarctic air sent wisps of snow swirling in and among heavy machinery and then off into the great white emptiness of the frozen-over Weddell Sea. I watched orange fiber-optic tether pay out slowly from a nearby winch, rising up and through a pulley before plunging down into the sea below. The other end of the tether led straight to the shipping container. When its door opened, I caught the eye of one of the marine robotics specialists, who beckoned me closer with a look of frenzied excitement. Inside, all eyes were glued to a bank of glowing computer monitors projecting live images from the seabed 10,000 feet below. Live images of the most famous undiscovered shipwreck in the world – undiscovered no more. My journey to the aft deck of an expedition ship in one of the harshest and most remote corners of the planet began in Greencastle, Indiana, when my English professors preached the joy of writing about what you know. I didn’t know much of anything at the time, so after graduation from DePauw in 2003, I moved to the wilds of New York City and began collecting experiences. I spent my days editing articles for a travel magazine, and my favorite weekday diversions were the Monday night public lectures at The Explorers Club on East 70th Street. As I sat in the Jacobian headquarters, surrounded by leather-bound journals, narwhal tusks, globes, ships’ bells and oil portraits of larger-than-life explorers, I felt a connection to a bygone age of pure
wonder and larger-than-life adventures. And inevitably, as soon as the lectures began, I was reminded that exploration is not a romantic relic, but rather a state of relentless curiosity. Becoming an explorer didn’t feel like an actual career path, but I finally knew what I wanted to know well enough to write about it. My next adventure was a move to South Bend, Indiana, where I got my teaching license and saw firsthand how the life-changing benefits of travel and global exposure are not accessible to everyone. Many of my sixth-grade students were amazed to see a Google Earth photo of their neighborhood, take a field trip to Chicago or consider what life is like in another country. I wanted to share the world with them, inspire them to feel the same sense of wonder and possibility that I felt. We joined a Reach the World virtual exchange with a college student who shared her study-abroad experiences in Italy with my students through weekly written articles and Skype calls. I could see the boundaries of my students’ mental maps expanding by the week. Fast-forward to February 2022, where after several years of classroom teaching and many more years working for Reach the World as an editor, I found myself aboard the S.A. Agulhas II in Cape Town harbor, watching the sun set over Table Mountain during my last night in port for almost two months. I joined the Endurance22 Expedition as Reach the World’s onboard educator/explorer, tasked with leading a virtual exchange program that allowed K-12 students around the world to join the search for Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary lost ship, Endurance, in real time. That night, I hosted a livestream event for 30,000 students in 26 countries from the topmost observation deck of the ship, during
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which I talked about ice-breaking ships, the geography of Cape Town, the difference between sea ice and icebergs and how it felt to be on the cusp of a great adventure. I referred to myself as an explorer for the first time, and invited everyone on the call to think of themselves as explorers, too. The story of Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was perhaps the best story I could have hoped to share with young people, especially in parallel with a modern international expedition to find the ship Shackleton was forced to leave behind. He hoped to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent by land via the South Pole, but Endurance became “nipped” in the Weddell Sea’s swirling gyre of sea ice and swept far away from the expedition’s intended landing place. Nine months later, Endurance’s captain, Frank Worsley, used a sextant to calculate the approximate coordinates where Endurance succumbed to the relentless sea ice, slipping below the surface and beginning its 10,000foot descent to the cold, dark depths of the seabed below. Shackleton, Worsley and the rest of the expedition team lived on the sea ice until it began to break up, and then used Endurance’s lifeboats to complete a series of stunning open-ocean journeys that ultimately led to their rescue by Norwegian whalers on South Georgia Island. Remarkably, every person under Shackleton’s direct command survived – some minus a few toes. I’m leaving out a slew of unbelievable, harrowing moments that happened along the way, and I highly recommend reading a fuller account of the expedition (Alfred Lansing’s “Endurance” is a great place to begin) so you can decide for yourself at what point you might have tapped out. I’m not sure I would have survived the first winter.
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The story of the modern-day expedition is similarly compelling. After a herculean effort to bring helicopter pilots, sea ice scientists, marine robotics experts, marine archeologists, ship’s crew and other experts (plus tons of specialized equipment) to Cape Town from all over the world in the midst of a global pandemic, the Endurance22 Expedition was likely the last and best opportunity to locate Shackleton’s shipwreck for the foreseeable future. Departing Cape Town harbor felt like a now-or-never moment, laden with both great possibility and a stifling historical weight. We were, in essence, attempting to write the final chapter of Shackleton’s story. After a 3,000-mile, 10-day journey from Cape Town to the edge of the Weddell Sea ice pack, across the “Roaring 40s” and
“Furious 50s” – some of the most perilous parallels on the globe – I learned very quickly that 100 years of technological advancement weren’t necessarily enough to ensure our success. There are many good reasons why Shackleton’s Endurance is considered the most challenging shipwreck in the world, most of which have to do with the sea ice. More than 107 years after the Weddell Sea caught and claimed Endurance, the sea ice remains incredibly dynamic and powerful, often crashing into itself and creating double-thick pressure ridges that could rebuff many modern icebreaking ships. I loved to stand on the bow of the S.A. Agulhas II – Titanic-style – as the bowl-shaped hull rose up onto a massive ice floe and, using the weight of the ship to its advantage, parted the frozen landscape to reveal the water below. The
The Endurance crew
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
ship left car-sized ice chunks bobbing in its wake and Adélie penguins scuttling to keep their distance. We had the advantage of a team of remote sensing specialists who used daily satellite images of sea ice conditions to help the bridge determine the path of least resistance. One particularly advantageous section of light ice that led directly to Worsley’s coordinates was affectionately dubbed “Neptune’s Finger.” Just arriving at the last-known location of Endurance felt like a significant accomplishment. Fewer than five ships have ever been to that particular place on the planet. As soon as we entered the search area, the race began to survey as much of the seabed below as possible. The sub-sea team switched to around-the-clock operations, launching, monitoring, retrieving, charging/repairing and re-launching the marine robotics on repeat as the ship tried to anticipate and outmaneuver the very conditions that bested Endurance 107
years prior. The journey south had been a physical rollercoaster, and the day-to-day search for Endurance was an emotional one. Would we have enough time? Would all of the sensitive technology work in such extreme conditions? Were we looking in the right spot? As a veteran expedition member told me, when you find a shipwreck, you either find it right away, or you find it at the last possible moment. We didn’t find it right away. Thankfully, there was no shortage of diversionary work to do both on and off the ship during my three weeks in the Weddell Sea. I joined the sea ice scientists on the ice floes around the ship every chance I got, traveling in a basket carried by the ship’s crane from the deck to the sea ice below. I enjoyed watching the scientists collect ice core samples, analyze ice crystal structure and measure the average thickness of miles-wide ice floes using sleds equipped with electro-magnetic sensors.
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I spent a wonderful afternoon pulling one such sled more than a mile away from the S.A. Agulhas II with the expedition’s chief scientist, learning all about his research along the way. We walked far enough to reduce the 440-foot vessel to a spot of red on the blindingly white horizon. I didn’t even have to squint my eyes to imagine how Shackleton might have felt as his ship – his lifeline – disappeared beneath the ice. The silence was intoxicating. I made a mental note of everything I felt and saw and hurried back to the ship so I could tell students all about it during that evening’s livestream event. Oftentimes, before I could fully process a remarkable experience myself (minke whales surfacing alongside the ship; a helicopter flight around an iceberg; a midday parhelion, with a perfect circle of light around the sun), I was on Zoom, telling the story to young students and seeing it more clearly through their eyes and questions. Together, we explored every corner of the S.A. Agulhas
Photo: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and National Geographic
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II, met the crew and learned their stories, crossed paths with emperor penguins and crabeater seals and, ultimately, experienced every twist in this journey to the Weddell Sea together. I’m 99.9% sure that I made the first-ever Zoom call from atop the Weddell Sea ice, which should absolutely not go down in the annals of exploration as a life-changing achievement, but the thrill I felt being the first to do anything in this day and age gave me a taste of what kept Shackleton coming back to the Antarctic. We were all living Shackleton’s story while writing one of our own. As the days ticked by, I could feel the students leaning in from thousands of miles away, itching for the perfect ending to both stories. The perfect ending came – as predicted – at the last possible moment. A hundred years to the day after Shackleton was buried on South Georgia Island, I was standing on a ship floating directly above his beloved Endurance, watching live as a marine robot flew slowly around the deck, reclaiming in
4K detail all the wreck’s secrets for the world to see. I felt pure joy and relief and a sense of history being made, all at the same time. I couldn’t wait to share this incredible news and these images with students. When we finally met on Zoom on the day the media embargo was lifted, the students’ questions for world-renowned marine archeologist Mensun Bound and marine robotics specialist Chad Bonin did not disappoint. “Did you take anything from the wreck?” No, the treasure is the images, videos and survey data we have collected. “Did you find any new marine species?” I’m not sure, but maybe… there are some funky creatures living on this ship! We’ll have to ask a marine biologist. “How does it feel to be a part of history?” You tell me! We are living this moment together. From the bottom of the world, I could feel the world reacting to the news of the discovery. I felt extraordinarily proud of the inclusive, engaged learning community my
colleagues at Reach the World and I had built. All students had the chance to see themselves reflected in the diverse cast of expedition characters. It was one of those rare opportunities as an educator to see the impact of your work. Before we left the Weddell Sea, the ship’s crew extended a walkway out the side of the ship into a stable ice floe so all 100+ people aboard the S.A. Agulhas II could celebrate with a slippery game of soccer, a floating dinner and one final promenade with the penguins. We then broke through nearly 50 nautical miles of sea ice to reach the open ocean, racing the cold breath of a rapidly approaching winter beneath the Antarctic Circle. I will never forget leaving the Weddell Sea ice behind, gathering with the entire expedition team on the helipad for a South African braai (barbeque), and watching the sun set in the South Atlantic while surrounded by dozens of humpback and fin whales. We stopped at the former Norwegian whaling port of Grytviken on South Georgia Island to read one of Shackleton’s favorite poems at his gravesite and reunite him in spirit with a color photo of his Endurance. While the ink was drying on the final chapter in Shackleton’s story, I joined the Endurance22 Expedition team on the uppermost deck of the ship as we left the mist-covered peaks and glaciers of South Georgia in our wake and began the 3,000mile ocean journey back to Cape Town. Through the power of virtual exchange, these dream-like places were now more real than ever to a new generation of explorers, historians, scientists and conservationists. Forging my own personal connections with Shackleton and the Weddell Sea allowed me to write and speak about what I knew and, with luck, those words will inspire young people everywhere to pursue journeys of their own.
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Jacob is the director of the traveler program at Reach the World, a New York City-based global education nonprofit that makes the benefits of travel accessible to K-12 classrooms. Reach the World’s mission is to inspire the next generation of curious, confident and compassionate global citizens through the power of virtual exchange. Since 1998, Reach the World has connected thousands of college-age travelers (including DePauw students on study-abroad adventures!) with K-12 classrooms, helping young students form positive, personal connections with the world. To learn more, visit about. reachtheworld.org. Reach the World’s full Endurance22 virtual exchange program is supported by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and is available on demand (and at no cost) to K-12 educators around the world. Visit explore.reachtheworld.org to learn more.
Photo: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and National Geographic
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Photo: Vicente Gonzalez
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Alum dives into uncharted waters of Cuba for tourism business By Mary Dieter
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arly in her senior year at DePauw, Amy Houghton Warren ’98 was dismayed that “I didn’t know what to do with my life.” She turned to her father, Bill Houghton, who “was very adventurous. He would introduce me to women who were not the norm,” she said. “… He was always trying to teach me to do things, to follow my passion. … His proposal was to take something that you’re good at and try to match it with something that you like.” She had majored in Spanish, so she could speak the language, and she liked to scuba dive, something she and her father did together since she was 10. She was certified during a DePauw winter-term trip to Cozumel. “Why not look into diving areas that haven’t been documented, that speak Spanish?” he suggested. Maybe she could write a diving guide. Warren quickly focused on Cuba and, while her dad was leery, “he didn’t want to burst my bubble. So he’s like, all right, if you find a legal way to do it, I will go with you.” A career was born. During her senior year, she spent hours at the library, researching ways to travel to Cuba, a Communist country that prohibited American travelers and that had been struggling economically since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The U.S. maintained an embargo that prevented American businesses from trading with Cuba. But Warren “was raised to just take the risk. Go for it,” she said. “What’s the worst that can happen? If you don’t succeed, you’re going to learn something from that.” A socialist organization based at the University of Iowa planned an educational expedition, and Warren and her father signed on to travel about a month after she graduated from DePauw. “I did have some fear, but to me the fear felt like adventure,” she said. “… We definitely had trepidation that first landing because we didn’t know what to expect. Everything that I had read in my research and the news was very polarizing. It was either super repressive and awful or a great place to vacation for Canadians.” She and her father went off exploring on their own a few times, and “it became this exciting thing because you finally get to see for yourself,” she said. “… It’s just fascinating to learn this completely different way of life and philosophical upbringing 90 miles away from us, and we tried to make sense of it from an American lens. After a couple of days, we weren’t so scared.”
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Photo: Vicente Gonzalez
Photo: Stan Fuhr
Houghton and her father Bill, who died in 2018.
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Photo: Vicente Gonzalez
Warren brought along a letter she wrote in Spanish and English, describing her plans for the diving guide, and gave it to a host from the University of Havana. That letter proved critical, because the woman connected her with María Elena Ibarra Martín, the director of the university’s Center for Marine Research, who did not speak English but was sufficiently impressed to introduce Warren to the island and its marine protected areas. Over the next five years, Warren traveled to Cuba about 10 times and “built this relationship with her and the marine biologists on her team. And we were able to dive from their marine research boat and basically map the island out.” Back in the states, she got the notion to sell advertising to finance the guide’s publication, so she attended a couple of conferences, including one hosted by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, where she tried to persuade a marketing honcho to buy ad space. “He didn’t go for that, but we spent probably 45 minutes talking … About three months later, I got a call from him asking, ‘Would you be interested in a marketing job here?’” She worked for the organization for about 12 years, first in California and then remotely from Fort Wayne, where she grew up. Meanwhile, Warren found a publisher interested in launching a series of travel guides, starting with her “Cuba Scuba” in 2003. Around 2015, when relations between the U.S. and Cuba had thawed somewhat, Warren developed Cuba Ecology, a tour business that since has taken almost 600 divers, in groups of 12 to 30, on excursions of seven to 12 days to Cuba, with the goals of exposing them to fabulous underwater experiences and indelible connections with the Cuban people. Warren reached an agreement with the Center for Marine Research that smoothed the way. Clients, who book a year in advance, are exclusively divers, though their itineraries include many experiences on land. They are exposed to marine professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, teachers and pastors as they explore daily living, art and small businesses. Warren scrupulously avoids politics, and warns her clients early on to expect changes in their itinerary because of political or local circumstances. Most are flexible about that, she said. She wants her company to improve the lives of individual Cubans, and thus directs business to them. Those connections pay off for both sides; her Cuban business partners nimbly adjust when circumstances require it and, when COVID-19 hit, Warren’s customers donated money to buy food and have it distributed to “our trusted circle in Havana.” She also is involved in other humanitarian projects. Her business took a hit from COVID-19. Her primary source of income is a digital marketing job; diving tourism “is really kind of a side business for me now,” she said. However, she visited Cuba in March and secured an agreement that will allow American travelers to engage in underwater ecology trips independently, not only with groups, and she plans to schedule both group and individual tours. “I don’t think that I’ll ever not be involved in Cuba in some form or fashion. It has just become a part of me,” she said. Her journey from indecisive senior to adventuresome businesswoman “validates those who don’t know exactly what they want to do with their life,” she said. “I felt lost. And then I realized that is part of the adventure. Being an adventurer is not knowing your next step, but being confident enough to know that, whatever it is, I’ve got what it takes to get there. And the right people will be brought to my path.”
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Voyage to the center of Earth gives caver the thrill of discovery By Mary Dieter
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t’s dark and it’s cold, just a few degrees above freezing. And it feels as if a garden hose has been turned on you. You’re alert to your body’s messages, mindful of the deadly consequences if hypothermia sets in. Oh, and you’re caked in mud and, depending on the expedition, you may not have showered in three weeks. You’re ravenous and exhausted, having expended your food supply and your energy during your 30-mile hike just to reach the vertical cave, where you’re descending hundreds of feet into the earth, sometimes navigating narrow passages, sometimes searching for holds, sometimes rappelling, sometimes toeing your way through rubble. Sometimes people die. The bottoms of the caves “are terrible places. They’re horrible,” said Philip Rykwalder ’01. “They’re great memories for me.” This is nirvana for Rykwalder, whose passion for caving was ignited at age 14 when he and a friend summoned the nerve to crawl into a 55-foot horizontal cave in his suburban Nashville, Tennessee, neighborhood, carrying a BB gun, a candle and a flashlight. That led to nearly 30 years of cave exploration, first in the 80 Nashville-area caves, and then on to caves in at least 18 American states and at least 10 other countries: Canada, China, Ecuador, Greece, Guam, Guatemala (eight times), Mexico (at least 40 times), the Philippines, Russia and Ukraine. “Caving is all about discovery. That’s the goal: Discovery, like going to the moon, something new,” said Rykwalder. “… Caving for me is not a thrill thing like skydiving or whatever. It’s the thrill of the unknown. What’s around the next corner?” For a while, caving defined Rykwalder’s lifestyle. After graduating from DePauw with a degree in geology and earning a master’s in the same subject at the University of Texas at San Antonio, “I got a job for a hot minute,” he said.
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“And I was like, I just want to go caving. And so honestly, I moved into a van and I drove around the country going caving for years.” He would do $15-an-hour manual labor for half the year, usually sleeping in his van or on a friend’s floor, so he could afford to cave for the other half, often in faraway lands. He escorted photo and video crews for National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, the Weather Channel and the U.S. Army into caves, and worked on the film “No Place on Earth,” a documentary about 39 Jews who survived World War II by living in a Ukraine cave for 544 days. His goal was to be internationally known as the best American caver. “My strategy was to find the deepest cave in the U.S. and I could hang my hat on that,” he said. “At the same time, I knew it is probably impossible. There are, ballpark, 100,000 caves in the U.S., and what are your chances of finding the single deepest one?” Turns out his chances were pretty good. Among the many caves that Rykwalder and his caving partner have found is the deepest known limestone cave in America, the 1,863-foot Tears of the Turtle, which they discovered in 2006. “Tears is terrible,” he said. “It’s well named. It’s terrible. The whole thing is just a crack, an 18-hundred-foot-deep crack.” They also discovered the third-deepest cave in America, Virgil the Turtle’s Great House, at 1,586 feet, and the 13th deepest, Tickle Me Turtle, at 1,027 feet. All are in Flathead County, Montana.
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(Three lava tubes in Hawaii are considerably deeper, but Rykwalder said that “there are snobs among us; we want limestone. That’s the classic.”) “Literally our life plan was to spend our whole lives looking for the deepest cave in the U.S.,” Rykwalder said. “We found it when I was 27.” That was a problem. “I was content turning old and not having accomplished that goal,” he said. “I figured it would take me into my old age in caving, just the search. So at 27 I found that, and … my drive dissolved, because I accomplished my life goal a little early. … “Nothing worked anymore. I didn’t like living in my van. I didn’t like living on, sleeping on floors. I didn’t like not having any money. I didn’t like not going out to eat. I had no luxuries. And, you get older and I (thought) I would like a person.” Oh, he still loves caving. In fact, he’s thinking of going to Crete in the fall and last March he spent several weeks in Mexico, exploring the Chevé Cave, which, at 5,039 feet, is the world’s 11th deepest. (An Indiana caver died there in 1991.) Last year, Rykwalder helped establish the second of five camps in Chevé on a flat spot that emanates from the vertical shaft. He lived 10 days at the camp. “I realized I needed a new goal, so I set the goal on business,” he said. He moved in with his parents and started companies that did mobile car detailing; caving tours; roofing; and insurance adjusting. All failed. He landed on real estate wholesaling, in which he bought a house and then sold it on contract for a profit. He began flipping houses. And he bought one rental house, then more. The Nashville market was pricey, so he moved to Chattanooga, where he has expanded his rental portfolio. When
he had problems with contractors, he started a construction company. When he suspected a property management company of fraud, he started his own management company, which now manages almost 1,000 properties – his and others’. He joined the Hamilton County Cave and Cliff Rescue group, with which he has been involved in about eight rescues in two years. And he found his person; she caves too. When the businesses get to be too much, Rykwalder goes caving; his business partners understand that. “My happiness is way more important than a little bit more money,” he said. “If I had to give up 95% of my life, there’d be no hesitation: I’d keep caving,” he said. “I would give up my real estate, my businesses or whatever, and I would retain caving. I could build the businesses back up. The cavers and the caving are my people.”
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Fascination with exploration spurs alum to visit 7 continents By Mary Dieter
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amir “Sam” Patel ’95 has plunged into the frigid waters off Antarctica, hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and negotiated the ferocious whitewater rapids of the Zambezi River. He backpacked across Europe for a DePauw winter-term experience, dove into shark-infested waters off Mexico, went kayaking in search of bears in Vancouver and honeymooned in Australia. In 2020, he and his wife took off on a threemonth, 22-state road trip while much of the country was shut down because of COVID-19. They visited both sets of parents, ate at drive-through restaurants and disinfected hotel rooms as they went. “Ever since I was a young kid, I just had a fascination with exploring the world,” said Patel, an angel and real estate investor in San Diego. That fascination has taken him to all seven continents despite the gradual deterioration of his eyesight. Six years ago, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare disease that affects the retina, and he is at risk of going blind. Patel was born in Germany to Indian expatriates who departed their native country as teenagers. After his father became a physician, the family moved to the United States, and “traveling was just a part of life. … My dad always said, you learn more from traveling than you will in a book, which I think is true.” Patel said travel enables him to learn, satisfy his curiosity, explore and witness the beauty of the world. It also has taught him that “everyone’s the same.” He did not intentionally set out to visit all seven continents; “it just happened … as the opportunities would come up.” The
opportunity to visit his third continent – after his birthplace of Europe and his adopted home of North America – came when he was 11, when he and his family visited India. He has not been back, having had a planned trip thwarted by COVID. In the meantime, he has visited numerous countries across the globe. On one of several trips to South America, he and a friend traveled to Ushuaia in Argentina’s southern tip, from where they embarked on a trip to Antarctica aboard the Professor Malchanov, a Russian research-turned-tourist boat that was strengthened to navigate sea ice. It was February 2007 – summer in the southern hemisphere – and those in the know told him the seas were relatively mild. Relatively. Everyone strapped themselves into their bunks at night and sometimes the ship listed at a 45-degree angle. They crossed the Antarctic Circle, going farther south than any other commercial boat had done at that time. They traveled from the boat to the mainland by Zodiac, a rigid inflatable craft, where they saw penguins and sea lions and explored abandoned whaling and research stations as well as an active station where Poles who were studying the ozone layer treated the visitors to homemade hooch. He and six other stouthearted travelers were initiated into the Antarctica Ice Tub Club after they stepped off the Professor’s gang plank into iceberg-cooled waters, Patel wearing only board shorts and sneakers. He has gone on wildlife safaris in Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia, where he went whitewater rafting, for the first time ever, on the Zambezi River below Victoria Falls. He was told the
rapids were Class V, and thought that, on a scale of one to 10, five didn’t seem too bad. But he soon learned that the scale is one to five, and Class V, the most intense, is generally recommended only for expert rafters. What’s more, crocodiles frequent the river. “Sometimes not knowing is better,” Patel said. “And anyways, we did it. It was super fun.” He also has gone “shark diving” – that is, he entered a cage that was submerged in the waters off Guadalupe Island in Mexico, a premiere spot to see great whites. Most of the sharks that circled the cage – hundreds of them – were interested only in gulping the chum the expedition organizers used to attract them, but he has footage of an especially large female called Lucy crashing into the cage. Patel said he will continue traveling, though he has no specific plans at the moment. He acknowledged that his diagnosis has dampened some of his enthusiasm, since much of the joy of traveling is experienced by sight. Doctors cannot say if his eyesight will freeze at some point or if the disease will progress until he cannot see at all. For now, he has lost his peripheral vision; he also experiences cloudy flashes and cannot see in the dark. “Some days you could have clearer vision,” he said. “Some days you wake up and you’re like, ah, my eyes aren’t going to work today.” People often point to his many adventures and tell him “at least you got to do that.” But that rings hollow, he said, and he has abandoned the wanderlust refrain that guided his life for so long: “What’s the next one?” That question, he said, “is kind of gone.”
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Yo Ho! Yo Ho! A sailor’s life for Stotesbery By Mary Dieter
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an Stotesbery ’02 was sailing his new boat a couple hundred miles off the Canary Islands, on the first leg of a 2,500-mile, trans-Atlantic crossing to Grenada, when it hit him: “You’re really alone. You’re really on your own to fix things and to make it, and there’s nobody coming to help you.” He and his hired crew of four saw only one boat and spotted three others on radar during their 17-day trip. They previously sailed across the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey, where he had picked up the boat he had just bought, to Majorca, Spain, but “I didn’t have that feeling because you’d always have land around or there’s always a bailout option somewhere. But there’s no bailout option in the Atlantic. It was very emotional and psychologically demanding.” Stotesbery had faith in the boat, a 50-ton, 64-by-17-foot vessel that he had spruced up in Spain, and also in his ability to use modern tools, such as digital weather forecasts and two satellite tracking systems, to make the trip as safe as possible. He texted his wife Kacey frequently. But he already had encountered five days of “big, big seas and big winds” between Gibraltar and the Canaries. Said Stotesbery: “When you come up on deck, and you see the wind driving the water off the top of the waves, and they’re towering on top of you, and then you go up one side and you’re looking down into
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this huge crevasse, it’s absolutely terrifying.” His biggest worry was that Kacey and their two sons, now 9 and 7, would always wonder what happened if he failed to arrive safely. That made him question: “Did we make the right decision to do this?” Let’s rewind. Earlier in life, Stotesbery already had had adventures of a different sort. He traded commodities at the Chicago Board of Trade, before digital trading displaced the pit’s pandemonium. After the board shut down for the day in the early afternoon, he taught sailing on Lake Michigan. Then, when his father asked him to handle national sales for the family business, Ladera Vineyards in St. Helena, California, Stotesbery traveled the country 300 days a year. After Kacey became pregnant, Stotesbery stepped away from the sales job, concerned that so much travel would mean “I’ll never know my kids.” In 2016 his family of four moved to Colorado, where he took over as chief executive officer of another family business that made plastic containers. And then COVID-19 hit, and everybody was frantically searching for hand sanitizer, which, of course, comes in plastic bottles. “We suddenly got approached by a big
business to buy us out because they needed more machine time and more capacity,” Stotesbery said. “We thought it was probably a good idea to sell, a good deal, and so I came to a transition point in my life, essentially firing myself.” With the pandemic-induced lockdown, Stotesbery had time to contemplate his next step. “I thought back about everything, just about my whole life and where I was the happiest, and I was always the happiest on the water,” he said.
He and Kacey mulled the idea of moving onto a boat and sailing indefinitely. They hired consultants to help them “decide if it’s the right thing for you, help you go through the transition.” The decision made, they sold their house and all their belongings. And they bought the “Polar Bear,” which they renamed “Hindsight.” Kacey and the boys climbed aboard early last year, shortly after Stotesbery arrived in Grenada, and the family – along with
a rotating volunteer crew of friends and relatives – headed north to Portland, Maine, then south again, when Stotesbery crossed 10,000 nautical miles in a year. Since then, “it’s been a lot of sailing and a lot of moving around,” in ports on the U.S. east coast, the Bahamas and Caribbean Islands, where they recently spent the winter months. Then they headed north again, required by insurance to be north of Cape Hatteras before hurricane season started. Though the family has had amazing
experiences, “it’s a lot more work than people think it is,” Stotesbery said. “The boat needs constant maintenance and you always have to be trying to keep ahead of that. My wife put it best: Imagine taking your house and putting it through an earthquake every week and seeing what breaks.” Though he and Kacey have discussed circumnavigating the globe, that dream poses risks, such as pirates, that they’re not willing to take. They also have postponed a planned but expensive trip to the Mediterranean, as they consider whether the nomad life is right for their children, whom they’ve been homeschooling. They’ve become worried that the boys aren’t exposed to enough other children, so they’re considering docking near other families throughout the summer “so that they can have a little more socialization.” They’re also considering ending the adventure because, as much as he and Kacey love it, “it’s becoming more clear that (the boys’) needs are a little different from our wants.” Stotesbery has been asked if he is crazy. “Some people would say that,” he said. “I mean, it’s definitely a different lifestyle. … You’re constantly changing. And a lot of people are change-averse. They like to have their routine and there’s no routine on a boat and moving around. But I like change, and my wife likes change. And I think it’s good to teach the kids to be able to adapt and change and see new stuff all the time.”
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Alum discovers adventure during Camino pilgrimages By Mary Dieter
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. David Cook ’66, a retired “county-seat lawyer” and avid runner, had “really never been an athlete” and was decidedly not adventurous. But his life changed when he accepted a friend’s 2012 invitation to walk part of the French Way, one of the routes of the famed Camino de Santiago, a network of footpaths in France, Spain and Portugal that culminate at the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Two years earlier, the friend had
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attempted the 500-mile journey that starts near St. Jean-Pied-du-Port in France, but foot problems caused him to miss the penultimate 100-mile stretch between Leon and Sarria, Spain. He asked Cook to walk that stretch and continue through the final leg into Santiago. Cook readily agreed. He felt in good physical shape, having been a runner since 1978, when he and his Indianapolis church friends formed the Meridian Street Striders to compete in the second 13.1-mile OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon. He subsequently competed 16 more times, through 1994; a month later, moments after he completed a 6.2-mile fitness run, he collapsed from sudden cardiac death. Bystanders revived him; he spent 12 days in the hospital and underwent surgery to remove an arterial blockage. But he came back strong and, after laying off a year – doctor’s orders – he since has run the last 27 minis, including the virtual events in 2020 and 2021 and the back-to-normal event in May. Still, “there’s a big difference between going out and running for an hour or an hour and a half and walking for eight hours,” Cook said. He got shin splits – a first for him – and walked more slowly than his friend, so they often split up, enabling Cook to meet other pilgrims
or spend time by himself. For two weeks, he walked six or eight hours a day, covering about 15 miles, to complete the last 200 miles of the French Way. “I thought there might be time for some introspection and some deep thoughts, but I was just worried about where I was walking,” he said. “… You just keep going and going. When you’re on the camino, you have one thing to do, and that is to walk to the place that you’re going to sleep that night.” Like many pilgrims, he slept at albergues, or hostels, where he also could eat, shower and wash his clothes. By finishing the last leg, he received a certificate that said he had completed the camino, despite not traversing the entire 500 miles. Several years later, in 2016, another friend who had attempted the camino a decade earlier asked Cook to join her and her granddaughter on another pilgrimage. She likewise wanted to cover just part of the route, so they started in Roncevalles, Spain, just over the Pyrenees Mountains from the traditional starting point in France. He again walked for two weeks, covering the first 200 miles of the French Way. A lot had changed in the 10 years since the friend attempted the camino, so it “was really a nice opportunity for me to experience … helping someone along the way,” he said. The journeys have been so meaningful that Cook said he’d return to the camino
Zimbabwean student lives dream, heads to Greencastle again, possibly to complete the 100mile gap midway on the route that he did not cover on either previous foray or to repeat his 2017 service in Nájera, Spain, as a “hospitalerio,” or host, who stamps pilgrims’ camino passports to prove they’ve passed designated checkpoints. He is active in the organization American Pilgrims on the Camino, whose conference he attended in March, and started a chapter in Indiana, Hoosiers on the Camino. “Now I have friends all over the United States, all over, and in a fashion, all over the world,” he said. The camino changes “just about everybody,” including him. “I think I learned something about myself after I got over there,” he said. “… I’d say I’m more open to having adventures now.”
By Mary Dieter
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t wasn’t easy for 14-year-old Nokutenda “Noku” Mukukula to decide to travel almost halfway around the world to attend high school near San Francisco. But “coming here was always my dream growing up,” said the Zimbabwe native, and “the drive and the excitement of wanting to be here” firmed her resolve. Now, at 18, she is embarking on still another adventure, moving in August to Greencastle, Indiana, some 8,400 miles from home, where – sight unseen – she will become a member of DePauw University’s Class of 2026. “It definitely was super hard on me, mentally and everything, just being away from home,” she said. “I was definitely super homesick. It was a lot to process. But I’m glad I did it because it allowed me to grow more as a person. I became more independent; I could make my own decisions. I feel like it brought a little bit of toughness, because I was always a mom-and-daddy’s little girl.” Her high school counselor suggested several colleges that might appeal to Mukukula, and she chose DePauw for its size. “I’m one of those people who is super overwhelmed by big crowds,” she said. “So I wanted a school that I could potentially grow in, but still find myself in the school and not be really overwhelmed.” She also saw “a lot of opportunities” at DePauw. One may be to play basketball, though Mukukula is unsure if she wants to make the “huge commitment” needed to play college ball. She played center for San Domenico School and was captain her senior year, when her team won the Division 5 California state championship and she was named to the D5 all-league first team and all-state second team. Mike Fulton, director of basketball operations and the girls’ coach at San Domenico, said Mukukula has become a “mature, confident woman” with “the work ethic of a champion. … A great word to describe her now is ‘fearless.’” Mukukula, who is considering a major in psychology, allowed that her decisions to attend high school and college so far from home may mean she is adventurous. “I like trying new things,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t work out. But I think it’s just fun to be open to new ideas and things.” So far, things have worked out. “I definitely built resilience by coming here when I was 14,” she said. “It was something that changed my life completely, because now I am the best version that I could possibly wish for.” SUMMER 2022 DEPAUW MAGAZINE I 29
‘Accidental nomad’ responds to whisper and whim By Mary Dieter
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he was a high-powered executive, having built national volunteer-management infrastructures for leading charitable organizations. But there was that whisper. “I always knew that there was more, and something just kept pulling at me about the idea of taking a leap and doing something bold and different,” said Nadia Mitchem ’98. She lept into a “slomad” lifestyle – a slow-moving, nomadic existence that has taken her on nine solo U.S. road trips covering 5,000 miles and, so far, on long visits to 12 countries in Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East. She is careful to say she is not on vacation, packing in every conceivable experience; she is living a lifestyle with the attitude that she will return to each destination someday. “The world has been opened up in some of the most enchanting ways,” she said. She spent an afternoon with a master violin maker, who demonstrated how he coaxed melodies from a block of wood. She departed with a sore back and reddened fingers – but also an appreciation for women’s contributions and “the painstaking labor that is put into the artistry” – after
Photo: Devin Kessler
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Photo: AG Photography
learning to weave a rug from a woman in mountainous Turkey. She was struck by the dignity Rembrandt depicted in “Two African Men,” a 1661 painting, and the irony that it hangs in The Mauritshuis, a museum that used to be the living quarters of a Dutch sugar farmer who enslaved people. She marveled at her freedom while traveling the Harriet Tubman Byway in Maryland, and contemplated how women in the past, especially Black women, “did
not have the agency to decide when and where and for how long” they could move. She toured Southern plantation homes to “claim my place in American history.” Mitchem said she is “an accidental nomad in the sense that this wasn’t my intent. Initially, I thought I’d travel and then return and go back into a traditional environment.” Instead, “I had to give myself permission to color outside the lines because this was a bit unconventional.”
That took time. It was 2014 when the whisper was “loudest in my ear, but I didn’t take any concrete steps.” She was working for the American Red Cross, where she created the infrastructure to support 272,000 volunteers across more than 100 local chapters. She was deployed for six months to advise the international affiliate in Geneva, Switzerland, where “the pace was so palpably different” from the hectic American workplace and “the wheels started turning.”
Nadia’s travels: far lower left: Qasar Al Wantan Palace, Abu Dhabi; far lower right: Strahov Monastery, Prague; left: Weaving in Gokpinar, Turkey; below: Budapest Skyline; bottom left: Charles Bridge, Prague; bottom right: Louvre Abu Dhabi; next page left: Popic Winery, Lumbarda, Croatia; next page right: Prague Metronome.
Photo: Bulent Dogan
Photo: Monica Shaw
Photo: Devin Kessler
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Photo: Sandy Berman
She had just determined that she should find something new when St. Jude Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, recruited her to create its volunteer infrastructure. “That job was fine, but I still didn’t quell that whisper,” she said. “In fact, it probably got louder.” That, and “the universe was just conspiring in my favor,” positioning ideas and people in front of her and inspiring her to set March 29, 2020, as the date she would resign. Then COVID happened. She postponed but didn’t cancel her plans and in August 2020 she stored her belongings, identified her hometown of St. Louis as a base and headed out across the U.S. for six months. “It probably took me three months to unwind from that sense of ‘do, do, do’ and to recognize that I had complete control over my day,” Mitchem said. “I was really exploring. I was really able to subject myself to whim and give in to whim. And that was amazing and refreshing and delightful and delicious.” The whisper, though, still nagged. “I
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Photo: Robert Wesley
realized the power in asking myself ‘Why not?’” she said. “I couldn’t come up with any good reason.” And so, in June 2021, she lept still farther, this time to a monthlong program in Croatia curated for professionals who need a timeout. Though she was a veteran international traveler before this experience, “I wanted a degree of structure because of the uncertainty in
the world at the time.” After that, “I’ve been solo and nomadic all around the world.” Mitchem heeds U.S. State Department travel warnings and listens to other travelers – especially Black women also traveling alone – as she chooses each destination. Sometimes she merely mulls a map. When she spoke with DePauw Magazine, she was newly arrived in Marrakech, Morocco, where she planned to stay five weeks, then head to Milan, Italy. “I don’t know what I’m doing after that,” she said. She has formed many friendships, often with other solo travelers whom she seeks out on Facebook and Meetup as she moves from place to place, and thus she never feels lonely. “I enjoy my own company, and I seek community when I feel like I want community,” she said. She is recording her experiences – and encouragement to would-be solo nomads, especially Gen Xers (born 1965-80) and Xennials (a microgeneration born in the late 1970s and early 1980s) – on a website, globalchroniclesofnadia.com, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. She has no plans to end her travels. “I don’t know that I will go back to a desk because I’ve realized you don’t have to,” she said. She has done some consulting but “90% of my time is still mine” and “I would engage only in things that bring me joy. I protect my peace in ways that I had never considered protecting my peace before. I embrace the fact that ‘no’ is a complete sentence. “I want to be able to dream.”
Risk-taking entrepreneur seeks everyday adventure By Mary Dieter
S
he was audacious and energetic, nervy enough to launch an organic children’s clothing line at age 23, despite having zero business experience, and driven enough to do it simultaneously with starting law school. Then Kyle Smitley ’07, inspired by service trips to Haiti in high school and El Salvador and Belize in college, earmarked half her profits for charitable causes, and the world went crazy. Mom bloggers raved, and celebrity mothers outfitted their children in Barley & Birch attire. Inc. magazine listed her among its 30 “coolest entrepreneurs under 30.” Forbes called her a top 10 entrepreneur to watch. Huffington Post named her its “Greatest Person of the Day.” She lunched with President Obama and had dinner with Steve Jobs. It wasn’t enough. “I wanted to feel so enthusiastic to be alive every single morning,” she said. “And it wasn’t there in the strictly for-profit. … At the time, I was like, it doesn’t feel good. I don’t feel excited.” Smitley said that work with a story coach – “almost more of a therapist” – caused her to realize that “my entire life is about the next adventure. … I’m not summiting Everest, right? It means, to me, more like every single day being a very exciting adventure.” She sold the company, mindful that “I had some dues to pay. I wanted to do
my part to give back to a world that I felt had given a lot to me.” Then living in San Francisco, Smitley determined that she should move to Detroit – just 90 minutes from her hometown of Defiance, Ohio – and volunteer at a public school. Unable to identify one where she might fit in and buoyed by her public persona, she decided she’d open a charter school. She got a rude awakening. A comeuppance, really. “Over the next three months, I proceeded to get nine rejection letters,” Smitley said. “… Give Michigan a little bit of credit because, at the time, I (said) I’ll open a school and Michigan was like, ‘you’re not qualified to teach a bunch of our kids. Good try.’” She buckled down, researched, talked to people who had started schools, recruited veteran educators, learned “how to play the game a little bit better” and finally secured approval from the state to open nonprofit Detroit Achievement Academy, a K-8 charter school, in 2013. Detroit Prep, which serves K-6 pupils and where the older of Smitley’s two daughters attends, followed, opening in a 100-year-old renovated school building where whimsy met historic preservation sufficiently to merit a story in Architectural Digest. The schools focus on helping students decide “what kind of a person do you want to be? And what kind of person are you? We have habits of character and they drive every single thing we do,” she said. Teaching soft skills such as self-awareness, self-reflection, compassion, cooperation and grit “can lead to more productive and successful people.”
She handles external matters – budgets, partnerships, fundraising and public relations – and leaves the education to the educators. And she has found contentment. “A couple of years ago, I would have said I’m really good at starting something but I don’t have the tenacity and attention span to really stay in the details and focus,” she said. “Now I’ve been doing the same job for nine years. So maybe I’m better at it. But I think it’s because I have a really good team that does a lot of that here. So I’m essentially still in the startup and entrepreneur mode. And I have a lot of people who clean up my mess behind me, who button things up.” Not that contentment equates to slowing down. With time on her hands during the pandemic, when the school buildings were vacated, Smitley – in what she called “a pandemic, nervous-energy project” – designed a cookware line, started a company called Louis (pronounced LOU ee) and has begun to sell the cookware nationwide in popup stores. “Capitalism is only exciting to me if I can be proving that it can be done in a more unique way,” she said. “It takes a deep well of confidence and a sense of adventure.” And earlier this year, she applied to become a volunteer police officer in Detroit. “I want to see if I’m strong enough,” she said. “I want to see what it’s like. I want to see what I can do. I want to see if I have any value to add,” she said. “I haven’t ever really fallen on my face in a big way, and I think that I’m a better person for trying new things and pushing myself.” SUMMER 2022 DEPAUW MAGAZINE I 33
DEPAUW BOLD & GOLD 2027 Five-Year Strategic Plan
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n October 2020, the DePauw community gathered for the first time to begin a process that would, 18 months later, launch a new strategic plan to create a renewed liberal arts university for the 21st century. We invited trustees, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of the university to share their ideas, hopes, and dreams for DePauw in an inclusive, in-depth process led by a Strategic Planning Steering Committee. More than 15 smaller working groups identified, explored, and prioritized the strategic questions, themes, and aspirations as they emerged. In shaping and reshaping ideas through discussion, debate, and critical inquiry, this process reflected the best of the liberal arts tradition that is always the foundation for DePauw. “DePauw will be a new model for a From those roots now arises, as we approach our bicentennial 21st Century Liberal Arts and Sciences year, a bold new vision, conceived in the spirit of our founders, who University – one steadfast in its belief in brought this university to life in a frontier village. The 21st century the power of the liberal arts and sciences calls for renewal – for DePauw to rise to further greatness, bringing to prepare students for lives of leadership, new energy and purpose to the liberal arts. Our first president, creativity and service. Matthew Simpson, charged us with using “the utmost exertion for the amelioration of the conditions of mankind;” as those conditions To cement our status as a world class have changed, so too must we. This new liberal arts education must liberal arts college, we will cultivate the extend not only to scholarship and the professions, but also to skills and competencies employers want from careers not previously imagined; it must embrace the full, marvelous our graduates with the intellectual rigor and varieties of leadership and creativity. Just as DePauw cultivates profound experiences families demand.” humanity among students who have different perspectives, identities and purposes, we must cultivate equity, inclusion, and – Lori S. White, President, DePauw University ethics throughout the fabric of the institution. Emerging from this collective work – aspirations, agreements, disputes, debates, and resolutions – is our strategic plan for 2022-2027. We have anchored it with four overarching goals: academic renewal, exemplary student experience, institutional equity and flourishing university. This plan reflects the collective wisdom of trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alumni; it demonstrates our community spirit. Writing it clarified our strategic direction and forged new connections among people across the campus. Its success rests on our commitment to find the human and fiscal resources needed to bring it to life, the agency of our leadership team, and the conviction of each member of our community to work together to realize our vision.
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Overarching goals ACADEMIC RENEWAL We will revitalize our academic programs – centering and strengthening our College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, establishing a School of Business and Leadership, and reimagining the School of Music to become the Creative School.
EXEMPLARY STUDENT EXPERIENCE To make students’ experiences richer and more connected, we will reinvest in the residential experience, better support student organizations and activities, build an inclusive and valuescentered fraternity and sorority life model, and sharpen our focus on students’ well-being.
INSTITUTIONAL EQUITY To become a more fully inclusive university, we will appoint a cabinet-level vice president to lead our expanding efforts to ensure that all aspects of the student, employee and alumni experience are fully aligned with our values of diversity, equity and inclusion.
FLOURISHING UNIVERSITY We will combine operational excellence, careful fiscal stewardship, investments in our exceptional workforce, and deepen connections with alumni and with Greencastle, to make DePauw a flourishing institution and a preferred employer.
“DePauw’s Bold & Gold 2027 plan is about accelerating our renewal of academic programs by building on our strengths, which have always been the liberal arts and sciences and a strong School of Music … We’re striving to use those strengths as a springboard to new disciplinary areas, specifically business, leadership and programs that focus on creativity and innovation.”
– DAVE BERQUE, Vice President for Academic Affairs
“When students find places to belong, engage in meaningful endeavors, and successfully navigate their well-being, they set themselves up for a lifetime of substance. Focusing on the Exemplary Student Experience allows us to partner with our students as they realize the full potential of a DePauw education.”
– JOHN MARK DAY, Vice President for Academic Affairs
“The Bold & Gold 2027 strategic plan weaves institutional equity into the fabric of the DePauw community by intentionally approaching our policies, processes and resources through a lens of what is fair and just, eliminating obstacles that hinder access to and opportunity from the DePauw experience.”
– DIONNE B. JACKSON, Vice President for Institutional Equity
“A tenet of the Flourishing University goal is to make strategic investments in a strong workforce and employee excellence.” – CAROL SMITH ’85, Chief Information Officer
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A CA D E M I C R E N E WA L GOAL STATEMENT DePauw will renew and revitalize its academic programs, deepening its longstanding commitment to the liberal arts while creating new and distinctive programs that reflect advances in academic disciplines, respond to students’ changing priorities and the demands of a rapidly evolving marketplace. OBJECTIVES • Deepen DePauw’s commitment to the liberal arts and strengthen research and scholarship in the humanities, arts and sciences through an enhanced and renamed College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. • Extend liberal arts methods and philosophy to business education and establish a new School of Business and Leadership to build on our historic success preparing ethical leaders the world needs in a range of disciplines and for business and non-profit organizations. • Create a new school with the working name, The Creative School, that encourages new disciplinary connections and develops new career tracks in the creative and performative arts. • Reimagine the Centers, Honor Scholar and Fellows Programs to better leverage their roles in supporting interdisciplinary pursuits and in creating strong connections among the curriculum and co-curriculum. • More clearly communicate the High Impact Educational Practices we already do well and expand and integrate others into every student’s academic and co-curricular plans.
“To be prepared for decades of a life and career, you need to be able to think broadly, to position yourself to continue to learn and be able to take on new challenges that we can’t even imagine yet …” – DAVE BERQUE, Vice President for Academic Affairs
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COLLEGE OF
Liberal Arts and Sciences THE HEART OF DEPAUW DePauw will deepen its commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, strengthening research and scholarship around them and centering them in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Liberal Arts Strengths Extended to Business, Creativity and Innovation Our DePauw Bold & Gold 2027 Strategic Plan will come to life through the Academic Renewal goal, especially when we announce the new three-school academic model in spring 2022. Guided by data about evolving student preferences, we know that many of today’s students are drawn to businessrelated majors, but also are becoming more interested in expressing themselves creatively and combining programs in non-traditional and synergist ways. They do not define themselves by one interest or in one way, but in myriad ways – and they want to explore all of them! The professional and personal success of our Gold Within alumni throughout their lives proves that our liberal arts-based education prepares our students for a life of meaning and means. This new model leverages that historical success and evolves it to interconnect creativity, business, humanities and sciences for our hyperconnected and continually changing global society.
n All students invited to attend DePauw will take courses in an enhanced liberal arts and sciences general education curriculum during their first two years, regardless of their eventual major. n Students will be accepted to DePauw University – not individual schools – and will have ample time to explore many courses and before declaring a major at the end of their second year. n For decades, our graduates have told us that DePauw’s comprehensive general education ignited their curiosity and transformed their lives; alumni attribute their professional success to an education that stresses breadth, problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, communication and teamwork. n The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will continue to prepare graduates to pursue a multitude of careers and to address the most critical problems of our times. n DePauw is positioned through its study-abroad program, ranked No. 3 nationally, to encourage immersive learning in global contexts to benefit students in any major.
“My liberal arts education at DePauw taught me to adapt quickly, analyze thoughtfully and engage broadly with my peers.” – JON FORTT ’98, CNBC Anchor
Photo: Brittney Way
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SCHOOL OF
THE
Business and Leadership
Creative School
BUSINESS EDUCATION GROUNDED IN THE LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES
CENTERING CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN CREATIVE, PERFORMING AND MEDIA ARTS
DePauw will extend liberal arts and sciences methods and philosophy to business education and establish a new School of Business and Leadership to build on our historic success preparing ethical leaders the world needs in a range of disciplines and for business and non-profit organizations. n The SBL will leverage 60 years of DePauw’s steadily growing reputation in business. n DePauw will be the only top 50-ranked national liberal arts university in the Midwest with a business school, and one of only four in the nation. n New programs will allow students to combine businessfocused courses with traditional liberal arts studies. n The SBL will house: • The Sanger Leadership Initiative: provides cocurricular leadership programming for all three schools and funds the Sanger Professor of Leadership and Sanger Scholars students. • The Management Fellows Program, which connected students’ academic and cocurricular experience for four decades, is open by application to students from across the university. n For students interested in business combined with the liberal arts experience, DePauw will be THE choice.
“The world around us is changing and DePauw needs to continue to evolve. I am so excited about the School of Business and Leadership combined with a liberal arts education. Very few schools in the entire world can do those two things well at one time. DePauw’s been doing it well for a long time. Now, we’re formalizing it.” – JEFF HARMENING ’89, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, General Mills
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DePauw will create a new school with that encourages new disciplinary connections and develops career tracks in the creative and performing arts. n The Creative School will center creativity and innovation for students interested in careers in arts, design, creative writing, theatre, film and media arts and who want to combine creative pursuits with other programs to blaze their own trails. n Increasingly, the creative arts are the access points to culture for students from every part of the world, aligning the new school with DePauw’s mission to attract, retain and serve a diverse student population. n The new school will offer a variety of cocurricular opportunities in innovative design spaces and labs. n By tapping opportunities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Business and Leadership, students will be able to craft new career paths and exciting collaboration opportunities, such as merging arts with business, entrepreneurship, health sciences, data analytics and sports marketing. n Music programs will be housed in the School’s Division of Music.
“We’re joining together not just music, but visual arts, film, technology, theater, creative writing (and more) – and all of these genres enhance the word ‘creativity.’” – JOYCE TAGLAUER GREEN ’75, Benefactor of the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts at DePauw
EXEMP L A RY S TUDENT EXP ER I E NCE GOAL STATEMENT DePauw will enhance the vibrancy and quality of the student experience in ways that bring our diverse community of students together while facilitating opportunities that support individual student interests and identities, motivate students to expand their horizons, develop skills for engaging in dialogue, provide healthy outlets for student stress reduction, and create a strong bond of belonging at the university. OBJECTIVES • Revitalize the residential experience as a core component of a DePauw education through robust programs that support all students equitably. • Enhance student engagement and develop strong systems of support, advising, and leadership development that increase the vibrancy of the campus and enable students and organizations to thrive. • Build on our more than 170-year history of fraternity and sorority life at DePauw to develop an inclusive, equitable, and valuescentered 21st century liberal arts college model for fraternity and sorority life. • Exemplify a culture of care at DePauw that ensures students have access to resources, opportunities, and services that prioritize student wellness and well-being and can help students to thrive.
“DePauw has given me two things: leadership opportunities and a lot of confidence. I have been involved in so much and been a leader in a lot of spaces, and DePauw just enables you to do that. I’ve grown so much in these four years, and I wish I had another four ahead of me.”
Photo: Brittney Way
– CHRISTINA BOURANTAS ’22
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INSTITUTIONAL EQUITY GOAL STATEMENT DePauw will become a more inclusive and equitable institution by ensuring all aspects of the student, employee and alumni experience fully align with our values of diversity, equity and inclusion. OBJECTIVES • Centralize and elevate an institutionallevel strategic focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion at DePauw to be led by a senior cabinet officer. • Institute systems, policies, and practices that strengthen DePauw’s ability to recruit, retain, and support a diverse community to ensure that all of the students, staff, and faculty can pursue their interests, follow their passions, and feel they belong at DePauw. • Partner with university departments to support a comprehensive review of all programs to ensure that they are broadly accessible, inclusive, and equitably delivered. • Develop, sustain and uphold a clear set of community values, standards, and expectations.
Photo: Timothy D. Sofranko
“Institutional equity is our commitment to making sure that every member of our campus community can take full advantage of all of the wonderful resources that our institution has to offer.” – LORI S. WHITE, President, DePauw University
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FLOURISHING UNIVERSITY “DePauw is a place that at its heart has always been about relationships and community. When DePauw thrives, our people thrive, and this plan prioritizes investment in our people to help them to do their best work and contribute fully to the student experience.” – CAROL SMITH, Chief Information Officer
GOAL STATEMENT DePauw will flourish as a community, an educational institution, and an employer through strategic investments in our academic core mission, a strong workforce, operational excellence, and fiscal stewardship. OBJECTIVES • Ensure that compensation, benefits, and workplace policies, culture and climate make DePauw a preferred employer. • Adjust to changing institutional priorities and needs by shifting the responsibilities of current employees and/or by helping them develop the skills that align with these new priorities and needs. • Invest in training, professional development, and career advancement to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of staff and faculty. • Encourage and support employees’ living in, and actively engaging with, the DePauw/Greencastle Community. • Develop robust alumni engagement opportunities that strengthen a meaningful and lifelong relationship between current students, alumni, and the University. • Build the foundation for continued philanthropic investments to increase our endowment and build on our legacy. • Clearly articulate institutional priorities and align all procedural, organizational, and operational functions to maximize productivity towards these priorities. • Align the University’s resources with strategic priorities; identify what to stop doing, and reallocate resources where necessary to effectively steward our endowment.
Photo: Timothy D. Sofranko
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GOLD WITHIN
For 25 years, program has produced leaders the world needs By Mary Dieter
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eaders at DePauw University had been striving for a decade to diversify the campus by attracting more students of color as well as students from cities and states not well represented on campus. “It was not rocket science to understand that we couldn’t equip our students to live in a world in which they would be working if they didn’t have exposure to people from different races and different backgrounds,” said former President Robert Bottoms, who ignited the diversity initiative soon after taking office in 1986. So when DePauw alumnus Timothy Collins ’78, an investment banker, introduced Bottoms to a new foundation that sought to connect colleges with top New York City students overlooked by traditional recruitment – and even agreed to pay the $10,000 membership fee – Bottoms signed DePauw up. Twenty-five years ago this fall, the university welcomed the first cohort of New York students, who joined the Class of 2001 and received full-ride scholarships. They had been recruited via the Posse Foundation and, as a group, were intended to support one another as fellow members of their posse. Those students, and the nearly 400 who have followed since, endured a stringent application process to be offered admission at DePauw and, during their senior year of high school, were coached for months on study skills, conflict resolution and other issues to ease their transition to college. They also become acquainted with the peers who would be joining them at DePauw. When they arrived on campus, they met regularly as a group and individually with their mentor, a faculty or staff member who remained with the group all four years. DePauw was one of the first schools to sign on with Posse; 64 institutions now participate. The late Timothy Ubben ’58 was so impressed by Posse’s early success at DePauw that he rounded up friends to finance a program in Chicago and fund scholarships for the 2001-02 academic year. Since then, DePauw has accepted about 10 students each from New York and Chicago every year and has graduated about 83% of its Posse students, a smidge off Posse’s overall rate of 90%. “It’s a leadership organization,” Ubben said in an interview shortly before his death Dec. 13. Students “are selected based on what leadership they’ve shown,” he said. “The purpose of Posse is to produce leaders in the country, whether they’re a firefighter or whether they’re a board member at Goldman Sachs. Doesn’t matter. We’re producing leaders.” That sentiment is echoed by Posse’s founder, Deborah Bial, who was inspired to create the program in 1989 while working for a youth organization in New York City. An advisee told her he would not have quit the prestigious university he was attending had he had his “posse” with him. “Posse is a national diversity, college success and leadership program. It’s a merit-based program,” not a program “that’s based on any kind
Photo: Brittney Way
of deficit,” Bial said. That’s a critical distinction, she said; if programs for at-risk and underprivileged students – as important as they are – are the only programs created to address diversity and inclusion, “then we underscore a stereotype.” Bial said that “people who think of us as a college success program are only getting half the story. Really, our goal is to build a national leadership network for the United States of America, one that reflects the demographics of the American population. … If we can get those Posse graduates into leadership positions, so that they become CEOs, senators, college presidents, then we’re going to begin to see a different kind of decision-making happen – one that’s more inclusive, one that believes that we need to consider all voices when we make decisions.” Those involved with Posse at DePauw hail it for its effect on not only its graduates – who have gone on to success in business, medicine, science, the arts, journalism and more – but also the university. Posse taught DePauw how to assess untraditional students who apply for admission, Bottoms said. DePauw emulated Posse’s pre-college training when the university created its first-year mentor program, which lasts an entire year and delves into deeper topics than orientation sessions at many other schools, said Cindy Babington, former vice president for student services and for admission and financial aid. Meanwhile, Posse students “bring their unique traits and skills and academic drive to DePauw,” said JC Lopez who, as dean of student success, oversees the Posse program. Babington recalled that
Posse students were “the impetus for social justice, social change on our campus. They brought up a lot of different issues. The first one I can remember was LGBTQ rights.” Hillary Kelleher, an assistant English professor who has been the faculty mentor to three cohorts, including New York City students who just completed their first year at DePauw, said “the program is transformational, and not only to the Posse scholars” but to “the DePauw community, students, faculty, staff and administrators.” Mentoring the Chicago Posse members in the Class of 2017 was “transformative for my teaching and advising,” said Dana Dudle, the Winona H. Welch professor of biology. “The scholars made me re-examine my relationship with students. For me, much of the joy of the mentor-student relationship was that I got to work closely with these talented, driven students who I didn’t have to grade, so we could just focus on their individual and collective pathways.” And Jeanette Johnson-Licon, who has been a Posse mentor for two cohorts, including the Class of ’22 New York City posse, said that being a mentor “has been life-changing for me.” She is associate dean of experiential learning and has been involved with Posse students in several previous roles, an experience that has “frustrated, challenged and delighted me. It wasn’t always easy, but I feel very lucky to
have been part of their lives at DePauw.” The university likewise has had a few challenging moments. Early on, “we had to have a conversation with the Posse office because our students from New York were coming and then withdrawing at too high of a rate,” Babington said. “It wasn’t good for them, and it wasn’t good for DePauw. And so we needed them to find students who were really OK with being in the middle of Indiana.” Posse “worked to better portray what DePauw was all about, what Greencastle was all about, and found students who were coming in with their eyes more wide open,” she said. The university brought students to campus for admitted student open houses, enabling them to experience campus and meet people connected to the university. Since then, Posse students have been more likely to persist through graduation, enjoying the benefits of an education offered to any DePauw student and earning a degree from a prestigious university. “We did the same thing for Posse students that we did for all of our students, and that is provide a quality liberal arts education, provide internships, chances to be involved in international study,” Bottoms said. “These were opportunities that a lot of students didn’t have, and the students wouldn’t have had if (DePauw) hadn’t been part of the Posse program.”
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Posse prepared alums to promote positive change By Emily Chew When Anisah Miley ’01 and Tiffany Schiffner ’02 describe how their Posse and DePauw experiences shaped them, common themes of self-confidence, social change and a sense of purpose emerge from the first-generation college graduates. Both women came to DePauw expecting to effect social change on campus – and feeling sufficiently prepared by the Anisah Miley Posse Foundation to do so. Both women say the DePauw Posse experience was instrumental in their college and career success. And both women entered the mental health field, where helping clients to facilitate positive change is their driving force. “Posse and DePauw reinforced my own values, the messages I received from my family and other amazing adults around social change – that you could use your beliefs, hopes and optimism to connect with other like-minded people to create change in your own life and the lives of other people and in the world,” said Miley, a member of the first Posse class at DePauw. “Those are the values that kept being reinforced in the way that I navigated my Posse experience and the way people supported me through it.” Throughout her academic and
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professional career, Miley, a licensed clinical social worker, has explored change. She focuses her New York City practice on Black and Indigenous people, people of color, women and people of diverse sexual orientation and gender experiences. She was an activist at DePauw, motivated by the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay university student who was beaten, tortured and left to die in rural Wyoming in 1998. She traveled with other students to protest a World Trade Organization meeting in Washington D.C. and to Mexico with history professor Glen Kuecker to study the Zapatistas, experiences that “helped me define who I wanted to be in the world.” Miley said she learned that “I could combine Tiffany Schiffner my interest in feminist studies, which provided me with a framework for conceptualizing personal change and conflict, with my interest in political science to create my own degree in peace
and conflict studies.” While earning a master’s degree in public administration, she explored how organizations effect change, and then, while earning a master’s in social work, delved into how individuals or groups do so. Schiffner is a psychologist who treats patients, including disabled veterans, in rehabilitation and nursing care facilities. She offers services, such as crisis counseling, in English and Spanish to patients from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. She also is an adjunct professor at the University of Central Florida and Rollins College. She had known she wanted to study psychology since high school and fondly remembers DePauw professors, especially Pam Propsom, professor emerita of psychology and neuroscience, and the late Karin Ahlm. “I was their only Latina student in psychology, and they understood the challenges I faced,” she said. “They responded in advocacy and worked with my strengths.” Schiffner was president of the Committee for Latina/o Concerns, “a great learning experience in terms of leadership development to make cultural spaces and enrich the campus community,” she said. “We brought the first salsa band to
DePauw. We connected it to Dia de los Muertos (the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead), and it became a tradition and was a great experience for us and for the larger community.” And even as a student, she regularly promoted wellness and “the importance of considering diversity when
implementing wellness programs.” Being part of Posse, Schiffner said, “was the best thing that happened to me and my ability to see it through. We loved each other, fought with each other, but even when we disagreed we were loyal and that sustains you, helps you see the bigger
picture. It would have been really difficult without the posse. In that connection, you’re finding a piece of your way back home and you stay on a path moving forward.”
Posse alum demonstrates leadership in film world By Mary Dieter Chanelle Aponte Pearson ’05 has long held the goal of “making radical transformational change” in the lives of individuals and communities. She has done it in her own life. She had double majored in Spanish and women’s studies at DePauw and spent two summers as an intern at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. But even then, she envisioned a career in nonprofits and harbored a quiet wish to be a filmmaker. It was only after she earned a master of public administration degree from New York University – while holding a series of jobs that demonstrated her acumen for data analysis, research and organization – that “I met a bunch of other filmmakers at NYU and saw that this could be a viable profession,” she said. Meanwhile, Pearson connected with an old friend who was working on his filmmaking thesis at NYU, and “I could just sense that he needed support in organizing and really managing all the moving parts,” she said. She loves spreadsheets, she said, and she was invigorated by the opportunity to blend “being good at something and being really interested and passionate about what’s being said on screen.” So she joined
MVMT Films as chief operating officer and senior producer. Her job as producer was “like wrangling cats,” juggling talent, crew, investors and, in the case of the film “An Oversimplification of Her Beauty,” animators and illustrators. “My career really, really took off ” when the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, she said. She went on to write, produce, edit and direct several other projects at MVMT, including the narrative web series “195 Lewis.” In 2018, she joined the New Negresses Film Society, a collective whose founders “saw the need for a very intentional space to focus on the work of Black women directors.” The collective sponsored the Black Women’s Film Conference in 2019 and hopes to reprise it in the near future. In addition, the group “has grown to a point where not only do we exhibit work,
but we also are producing each other’s work,” Pearson said. To that end, she is developing her own scripted anthology series and is executive producer on another member’s film. Her leadership comes as no surprise, given that Pearson secured a Posse scholarship that enabled her to attend DePauw. The program prepared her and her posse members for college, including the move to rural Indiana, she said, but “that definitely was some culture shock. … I was just really glad I was there with my posse and that I was not alone.” She started at DePauw in the same year that the first posse from Chicago came to campus, and she became friends with those students too. And because “there’s something about going away to a new school where you feel like you can just start a new chapter,” she joined the step and dance team, “a huge part of my experience on campus.”
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DePauw education, Posse experience prepare ’03 alum for career By Mary Dieter Edmond Krasniqi ’03 directs a team that analyzes complicated data to target clients’ advertising strategies. And he’s comfortable doing so, he said, because of what he learned from being a Posse scholar at DePauw University. As unlikely as his evolution from history major to a project director in advertising may seem, Krasniqi easily connects his academic and professional experiences. Posse’s precollegiate training, coupled with his experiences at DePauw, enables him to “take information better, more comfortably, (and) analyze the information as it comes to me,” he said. “… I don’t feel scared or overwhelmed when I see a lot of new information. … I continue to apply a lot of those things that I learned and experienced.” Krasniqi was about 10 when his parents, wary of political unrest and media suppression occurring in their native Kosovo, fled with their three children and spent several years staying with friends and family around Europe. They immigrated to New York City around 1995, avoiding the 16-month Kosovo conflict that ensued in 1998.
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While he attended Manhattan International High School, a counselor mentioned the Posse program to him. At the time, Krasniqi thought of little outside of soccer, but his younger sister pushed him, and he was intrigued within moments of entering – while still wearing a sweaty soccer uniform – the first mass gathering of students competing for Posse’s promise of a full-ride scholarship to a prestigious college. DePauw accepted him and, upon his first visit, he had “the sensation of being here by myself. Incredibly intimidating. Middle of nowhere.” He was a “Muslim from Europe (who) doesn’t fit anywhere.” Then it struck him that his posse members were “going through the exact same experience (and) I realized I was actually not alone.” When he returned to Greencastle to start classes, “I didn’t think of it as being as intimidating anymore.” Early in his DePauw career, he leaned a lot on his posse, an experience that “gave me that courage” to venture out – enough so that he was elected student body president for his junior year, with a goal of involving students who represented every
faction or organization on campus. Meanwhile, Krasniqi studied history at DePauw with a goal of moving into international affairs, the subject in which he later pursued a master’s degree. But he became disillusioned during an internship during his master’s program, when he witnessed the slow pace at which bureaucracies address urgent issues. “That really just catapulted me to seek technology, the other part of what I was interested in,” he said. He also was interested in global cultures, graphics, photography and technology, and realized they melded in advertising. And his Posse experience, which has “become part of me now,” coupled with his DePauw education, prepared him for the field, he said. He has held several project management positions at media companies, including Publicis Health Media, where he is a project management director. “DePauw was such a beautiful bubble,” he said. “… Posse gave me the courage to reach out. But DePauw was really the place to do that.”
Posse and DePauw partner to prepare promising professionals By Mary Dieter Aaniyah Childs ’23 plans a career as a pediatric neurosurgeon who uses Eastern medicine to treat some conditions. New graduate Tsian DeFour’s appreciation for “weird things, … the abstract or the avant garde” will guide him as a producer and director of films, especially romantic and dramatic ones. Cesar Mendoza, also a member of the Class of ’22, will spend two years in an Orr Fellowship, rotating through three health-related experiences at Indiana University Health before beginning his studies to become a dermatologist who treats underserved communities. And Lauren Lillis ’22 wants to become a documentary filmmaker focusing on social justice. These are the sort of graduates DePauw University sends out into the world. They found their place in the world at DePauw because of the Posse Foundation. They also found the support they needed to excel at DePauw, the very purpose of the Posse program. The idea is that students will stay in school if they have a support system, a posse, on whom they can rely. The 10 or so students who make up each Posse – DePauw has accepted 11 from Chicago and 11 from New York for its incoming class – generally don’t know one another beforehand. Posse offers a pre-collegiate training program to facilitate the members’ relationships and ease their transition to college. “It’s definitely a part of the plan to get
us, when we get here, to want to be a part of the community, even though we are, in a way, injected into somewhere totally foreign,” DeFour said. “I definitely wouldn’t have made it through without them. We actually haven’t always been very close but, no matter what, we’ve always known that we were there for one another,” he said. “… We have these very complicated relationships with one another, and they teach you about the world and then you learn a lot about yourself, because you figure out how you’re going to deal with these people.” Childs said she and her fellow posse members sought other friends on campus, but “to this day, I’m still really close to people in my posse … and I would definitely go to them first when I need things. I’ll go to my community and reach out to them.” One’s posse provides “a way to hold each other accountable, to be honest and make sure that we’re all doing well,” Mendoza said. “Not only do we catch up with each other, but we also check in to make sure that we’re all okay. … I see myself in them sometimes in the way we like to go above and beyond to achieve success. And so being in a community with them also helped me grow as a person.” Posse staffers, Lillis said, “tell us when we come here that we’re leaders and we’re chosen for a reason. And I think that encourages a lot of us to make change on campus and be a leader in different communities, whatever we see fit.”
Here’s a little more about the three new graduates and the rising senior:
AANIYAH CHILDS ’23
From Chicago. Neuroscience major. Science research fellow who investigated problematic use of social media. Bonner scholar. Cheerleader. Will study in Hong Kong in the fall. Interesting fact: Her young cousin, who has autism, inspired Childs to pursue medicine with a twist – combining science with Eastern techniques. Comment from Robert West, psychology professor and chair, with whom she has conducted research during two terms: “Aaniyah embraces every new opportunity with a positive attitude that has been apparent in our work together on research projects and in my course on Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.”
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LAUREN LILLIS ’22
TSIAN DEFOUR ’22
From Brooklyn, New York. Film studies major. Media fellow who landed three internships through the New York Arts Program and even earned a mention on IMDb. Presidential ambassador. Vice president of allocations for DePauw Student Government. Intramural sports social media intern. Interesting fact: DeFour did not play football in high school but liked the game, so he walked on to DePauw’s team and played four years as an outside linebacker. He said he wasn’t very good, but “I didn’t quit” and “it taught me a lot.” Comment from Jeannette JohnsonLicon, associate dean of student success and his Posse mentor: “‘This semester, I only want to work on creative projects,’ Tsi tells me at the start of his final spring semester at DePauw. He laughs at my raised eyebrow and rueful look, but he knows that I appreciate his dedication to his filmmaking. I remind him that sometimes we have to work on projects that we are less passionate about, but I think to myself, maybe it’s okay that he is so focused. He’s going to make beautiful things.”
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From Queens, New York. Sociology major; film studies minor. First-generation college student. La Fuerza treasurer. Member of DePauw Student Government’s Board of Allocations. Vice president and planning committee member of ¡Feminista! Vice president of Enlightened Voices Poetry Club. Planned events as a Posse intern at DePauw Campus Life for two years. Interesting fact: Lillis’s father died, without warning, of a heart attack when she was 16, making her question her plans to go away to college. “The next year,” she said, “this opportunity of Posse was presented to me and I just kind of felt like that was a sign in some ways, like that was him telling me that it’s going to be okay,” she said. Her mother told her “‘your dad would want you to do this. And I’m okay with you going.’ And I think that was all I needed to be able to come to DePauw and to be able to accept Posse as this opportunity to maybe change my life.” Comment from JC Lopez, dean of student success and Lillis’s supervisor when she was a Posse intern: “I have seen her succeed as a Posse scholar and bring her leadership, experiences and knowledge into the DePauw community. Her academic and cocurricular impact has fostered lasting relationships among our community.”
CESAR MENDOZA ’22
From Berwyn, a Chicago suburb. Biochemistry major; minors in computer science and Hispanic studies. First-generation college student. Science research fellow. STEM guide. Presidential and Admission ambassador. Residential adviser for three years. Vice president of programming for DePauw Student Government. Did eight weeks of cancer research at the University of Chicago, focusing on immunotherapy. Volunteers at Putnam County Hospital. Interesting fact: Mendoza’s high school counselor discouraged him from pursuing a Posse scholarship, saying the program was for extroverts, not a “reserved” student like him. He participated in an enrichment program at the University of Illinois Chicago, Medicina Academy Apprentice Program, and an instructor there nominated him for Posse. Comment from Jacqueline Roberts, Howard C. and Mary Ellen Black professor of chemistry and biochemistry and Mendoza’s academic adviser: “Cesar is an amazing student, going above and beyond in the classroom. He has served as a STEM guide for the Enzyme Mechanism class in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Students speak highly of Cesar’s ability to help all students navigate this challenging course.”
FIRST PERSON
By Roland Rust ’74
M
y book, “The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy,” co-written with MingHui Huang, discusses how artificial intelligence will change the nature of business and society. AI is not just science fiction anymore. It permeates our daily lives, changing how we seek and use information and taking over many tasks. When we use Google or ask Alexa a question, we are interacting with AI. Ironically, as AI becomes more able to think, human intelligence is deemphasizing thinking in favor of feeling and interpersonal relationships. The result is a “feeling economy,” in which AI and human intelligence collaborate. To understand why this is happening, we need to consider the three levels of AI – mechanical, thinking and feeling. Mechanical AI refers to repetitive tasks that can be mechanized and standardized, such as car-making robots. Mechanical is the “easiest” level, and many analysts still wrongly assume that AI’s potential is limited to repetitive tasks. Before AI, we were in a “physical economy,” with most humans doing physical labor. This economy dominated through most of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution brought primitive AI into the workplace, and began its uneasy relationship with human intelligence. As AI assumed more mechanical tasks, factory workers, farm workers, miners and other bluecollar workers were displaced, their skills obsolete.
This led to today’s “thinking economy,” in which workers perform more thinking tasks than physical labor. It is assumed, then, that the purpose of education is to teach people how to think effectively. At the same time, thinking AI products such as IBM’s Watson augment workers by taking over more thinking tasks. This will displace thinking workers, leaving human intelligence to focus on feeling and interpersonal relationships. When those feeling tasks become more important than thinking tasks, we will have entered the feeling economy. We estimate the feeling economy will begin to dominate in 2036, although the shift already is underway. The nature of jobs will change in the feeling economy. A seemingly thinkingintensive job such as financial analyst will, in fact, become more feeling-oriented. One financial analyst told us he leaves the technical stuff to AI now, and focuses instead on client relationships, hand-holding and reassurance. This shift is happening across the economy. A customer service representative used to answer the telephone, but today routine questions are handled by an AI chatbot. Though customer service reps handle non-routine matters, fewer are needed and those remaining focus on tasks that involve judgment, creativity, intuition, emotion, empathy and people skills – the things AI has trouble doing.
One likely outcome of the feeling economy is that women will become more important in the economy. Women, on average, have better empathy and people skills. This is not to say that men can’t have good people skills (just as women can be good factory workers). On average, though, we can expect women to have an advantage. This can result in societal displacement. When thinking AI ended the physical economy, many men were displaced, leaving many unemployed men in factory towns, coal country and farm country. Now, as the thinking economy gives way to the feeling economy, women may have the edge over men. Rust is a distinguished university professor, David Bruce Smith chair in marketing and the executive director of the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.
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The new VPs: Exploring new vistas at DePauw Three more new vice presidents have recently joined DePauw. To get a glimpse of their personal and professional philosophy and values, we asked them to provide a quote that speaks to them, as well as a personal statement about their motivation to work at DePauw. DIONNE JACKSON was named DePauw’s vice president for institutional equity. She most recently was the chief equity officer for the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, and previously was vice president for diversity and inclusion, chief diversity officer and a tenured associate professor of education at her undergraduate alma mater, Hendrix College.
INSPIRATION
IN HER OWN WORDS
“What I really would like said about me is that I dared to love. By love, I mean that condition in the human spirit so profound it encourages us to develop courage and build bridges, and then to trust those bridges and cross the bridges in attempts to reach other human beings.”
“As a graduate of a liberal arts institution, I know the significant impact a liberal arts education can have on the life of an individual. This, coupled with DePauw’s values of collaboration, freedom of expression and diversity and inclusion, is the reason why I am excited to join the DePauw University community. I look forward to engaging in our strategic efforts around institutional equity to bridge access and opportunity through our policies, procedures and programs.”
– Maya Angelou, poet, memoirist and civil rights activist
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JOHN MARK DAY is DePauw’s new vice president for student affairs and dean of students. He comes from Oklahoma State University, where he was director of leadership and campus life for seven years.
ANDREA YOUNG was appointed vice president for finance and administration. She most recently was interim president of Ripon College and previously was vice president for finance and director of strategic initiatives.
INSPIRATION “A university is not about results in the next quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage of millennia, learning that shapes the future.”
INSPIRATION “If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.” – Marian Wright Edelman
IN HIS OWN WORDS “When students find places to belong, engage in meaningful endeavors and successfully navigate their well-being, they set themselves up for a lifetime of substance. Focusing on the exemplary student experience allows us to partner with our students as they realize the full potential of a DePauw education.”
– Drew Gilpin Faust, president emerita of Harvard University
IN HER OWN WORDS “The power of a DePauw education lies in its deep tradition of the liberal arts in the context of an innovative and personalized experience for students. There is palpable excitement from students, faculty, staff, alumni and trustees about DePauw’s future as we implement the Bold & Gold strategic plan. As the vice president for finance and administration, I look forward to working with all campus constituencies to set strategic funding priorities and frameworks for measuring success while continuing to be thoughtful stewards of DePauw’s resources. I am eager to engage the community in transparent conversation about our institutional data and financial health as we make decisions that will allow DePauw to be a thriving university for generations to come.”
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GOLD NUGGETS GOLD NUGGETS publishes submitted updates about DePauw alumni’s careers, milestones, activities and whereabouts. Send your news to DePauw Magazine, P.O. Box 37, Greencastle, IN 46135-0037 or dgrooms@depauw.edu. Faxes may be sent to 765-658-4625. Space considerations limit our ability to publish photos. Group photos will be considered if you include each person’s name (first, maiden and last), year of graduation and information about the gathering or wedding. Digital photos must be high-quality jpegs of at least 300 dpi. Submitted hard copies cannot be returned.
the Nashville (Tennessee) Convention & Visitors Corp. The award recognizes an individual who has worked to connect the hospitality industry to the community at large or to a particular group in order to make Nashville a more appealing, open and successful destination. It is one of two annual awards given by Nashville’s hospitality industry.
1980 Margaret G. Rush was named a 2022 Women of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal.
1985 Matthew D. Jordan retired as chief executive officer of Covercraft industries. He will remain on the board of directors for Covercraft, Pertronix Brands, CJ Pony Parts and Extra Mile Brands. Matt is proud of his many cycling adventures, including a trip from London to Kathmandu in 1992 and from St. Petersburg to Istanbul in 1997. He is looking forward to a trip from London to Lisbon this summer, followed by an extended family trip to Portugal with wife, Sabine, and daughters, Katie, 17, and Jessica, 16.
Questions? Contact Mary Dieter at marydieter@depauw.edu or 765-658-4286.
1967
1952
1961
Jane E. Buikstra was noted as an influential scholar in the field of bioarchaeology by Academic Influence.
L. Penfield Faber was recently honored by his fraternity brother Jim Hollensteiner ’53 and Rush University Medical Center. Through his philanthropic giving over the years, Hollensteiner helped establish the Arthur E. Diggs M.D. and L. Penfield Faber M.D. chair in surgical sciences at Rush. Faber specialized in cardiovascular thoracic surgery and is highly regarded for his pioneering accomplishments in the surgical therapy of lung cancer. He wrote more than 300 articles and book chapters and produced instructional videos related to his practice. He was named Outstanding Specialty Surgical Faculty Member at Rush several times.
Two members of the DePauw Athletics Hall of Fame and Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers got together in late May when tennis player Tom Brunkow participated in Men’s 80+ doubles category of the National Hard Court Championships and Tom Blake, who swam, ran cross country and pole vaulted, was in the gallery to cheer him on. Since turning 60, Brunkow, who lives in Altadena, California, has won 14 national titles. Blake tells us he hasn’t had a vaulting pole in his hands since he set a record in 1961, so he stays fit by doing standup paddle boarding in Dana Point Harbor three times a week. He also writes a column for newspapers in Dana Point, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.
1970
1977
1988
Hathaway Harvey was given a lifetime achievement award by the 2021 Champions of Health Care, a recognition made by the Chattanooga Times Free Press; EDGE, a Chattanooga business magazine; and the Chattanooga Medical Society. Harvey, who retired from his otolaryngology practice after more than 50 years as a head and neck surgeon, still assists frequently with ear, nose and throat surgeries. The award honors a health care leader who has left a legacy on the quality and delivery of health care. Harvey was profiled in EDGE magazine last September.
Bruce W. Van Natta is the president of the Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation. He is a plastic surgeon practicing in Indianapolis.
Kristin Thorne Sherman is chair of the board of directors of Community Health Network in Indiana.
1953 Jim Hollensteiner helped establish the Arthur E. Diggs M.D. and L. Penfield Faber M.D. chair in surgical sciences at Rush University Medical Center, which honors Pen Faber ’52, Hollensteiner’s Beta Theta Pi brother at DePauw.
1959 Willis “Bing” Davis curated an art exhibition called “Black Life as Subject Matter II,” which opened at his EbonNia Gallery in Dayton last year and ran from April 30 through July 8 at the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery in Columbus. The Springfield Museum of Art was given the Best Exhibition award in the state of Ohio for its 2021 display of the art. The exhibition featured 59 works of art by 32 African American artists from across Ohio.
1963 Bayard “Bud” Walters, owner of Cromwell Media, was presented the Francis S. Guess “Connector” Award by
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Jo Ann Hackett was noted as an influential scholar in Biblical Hebrew and Semitic languages by Academic Influence.
1976 Mark P. Gadson, a drummer, percussionist and songwriter, released the jazz-fusion single “Elewana.” The title is the Swahili word for “harmony,” and the song was inspired by Mark’s 2021 trip to Tanzania and Kenya. Mark says he wants his work to create an uplifting feeling of hope and peace for the listener.
1979 Mark R. Kelley, a research scientist and professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, reports that Ocuphire Pharma Inc., which licensed Kelley’s patented potential drug for the eye, has completed enrollment for a Phase II clinical trial of 103 diabetic patients to determine the drug’s efficacy and safety to treat diabetic retinopathy. Kelley was recently elected by his peers as a science fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in recognition of his entire career.
1987 Brian L. Harmon is the superintendent of Loogootee, Indiana, schools. Mark J. Sifferlen was promoted to vice president - chief risk officer and leader of environmental, social governance strategy for Cummins Inc.
1989 Brett M. Hickman is the chief commercial officer for Modivcare, a technology-enabled health care company that focuses on improving patient outcomes. Timothy J. Skelton, a financial adviser with UBS Wealth Management USA in Indianapolis, has been promoted to managing director.
1991 C. Matthew Fox was promoted to senior vice president at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Indianapolis.
Members of the Class of ’86 celebrated their 35th reunion at Tiger Point June 11-13, 2021. They enjoyed a street party Friday night in front of Moore’s Bar and Grill, a golf outing Saturday morning, a reception at Tiger Point Saturday night and a late-night party at Beta Theta Pi. He has been with Morgan Stanley for 27 years. He lives in Greenwood with his wife Natalie and three children. Sheila M. Samaddar was recognized over the last several years on Washingtonian Magazine’s Top Dentists list and DC Magazine’s Top Healthcare Providers list. Her work has been recognized yearly since 2017 by Invisalign and she was the only general dentist in the Washington region to have her cases published in 2021. She mentors young dentists through the Academy of General Dentistry, for which she has been D.C. chapter president and a national spokesperson. For fun, she is still channeling her DePauw college life by performing with the Washington Wizards NBA senior dance team. (See photo.) Dennis A. Trinkle is the executive vice president of talent pathways and programs for TechPoint.
1992 Stephanie Grieser Braming, global head of investment management at William Blair, was named to Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance 2022 list. American Banker named her one of the Most Powerful Women in Finance. Blake E. Johnson is the chief financial officer for Devil’s Thumb Ranch Resort & Spa and the chief financial officer for Marker Hill Capital. Rodney E. Lasley is the chief operating officer for Indiana Bankers Association.
Sheila M. Samaddar ’91
Vijay Rao ’96
1994
1999
Gaurav Bathija has been hired by the French bank BNP Paribas SA to be managing director and senior relationship manager for the Southeast Asia market. He previously worked for Citi Private Bank in Singapore, heading its private capital group in South Asia.
Olivia Castellini Roscoe, a physicist and senior exhibit developer at the Museum of Science and Industry, was among 120 contemporary women whose 3-D printed statues were displayed in the #IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit during March at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibit honored women innovators in science, technology, engineering and math and featured the most statues of real women ever assembled.
Wandini Dixon-Fyle Riggins is a member of the Bose McKinney & Evans LLP labor and employment group.
1996 Vijay Rao, a cardiologist with Franciscan Physician Network Indiana Heart Physicians, has been named a fellow of the International Cardio-Oncology Society. He is the first in Indiana to be selected and among fewer than 15 worldwide. He received international accolades for his work, in which he treats patients who may develop heart complications as a result of chemotherapy. (See photo.)
Nichole Nicholson Wilson was elected vice chair of the advisory board for Women’s Fund of Central Indiana.
2000
Benjamin D. Goad is the news director of The Tennessean, overseeing the dayto-day news operations.
Michael J. O’Rourke was promoted to full professor at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine. He is an anesthesiologist and works at Loyola University Medical Center and the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Administration Hospital. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.
1998
2001
Jeffrey S. Martin, who lived with his wife and three children in Prague since 2000, took in a family of Ukrainian refugees – two women and one of the women’s two daughters – in the early days of the Russian invasion.
Bridget Chase Yuhas was recently named executive director of the Institute for Well-being at Butler University. She is the primary investigator for the Student Well-being Institutional Support Survey, a national study about student perceptions of their institutions’ support for their well-being.
1997
Joseph W. Schoen was named general manager of the New York Giants, an NFL team.
2002 Scott C. Franson has joined Calfee, Halter & Griswold.
2004 Brittany R. Hizer is the co-founder of Pluie, which was featured in the Indianapolis Business Journal.
2005 Abbie Raderstorf Bush, director of grant programs for the Indiana Bar Foundation, is a member of the 2022 class of the Mutz Philanthropic Leadership Institute, which trains professionals to serve board and executive roles at foundations, corporations and social impact organizations across Indiana. She lives in Carmel with her husband, Shawn Bush ’04, and sons Simon and Austin. William S. Slama is the vice president of private sector services for the Indianapolis-based technology and analytics consulting firm Resultant.
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GOLD NUGGETS 2006 Katherine T. LaBeau was promoted to partner in the law firm Elias Law Group LLP in Washington D.C. Sarah E. Masterson, a pianist and an associate professor of music at Newberry College, released her album, “Philippa Duke Schuyler’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” April 1. It is the first-ever recording of some of Schuyler’s last works, which have been largely unheard since the African American concert pianist died 55 years ago.
2009
Second Lt. Nicholas J.M. Redwine ’20
Alexander P. Breitinger is a principal with the accounting firm KCoe Isom. He is the firm’s innovation leader, guiding the future of the firm’s services through the combination of software development, technology implementation, human process improvement and data science. He is based in Florida.
to receive software and train with digital forensic examiners for a year.
Leah L. Seigel joined Lilly Endowment as program director in community development.
2014 Frances M. Jones and Samuel M. Winkler were married Sept. 18. (See photo.)
2015
Lauren A. Wendling earned a doctorate in higher education from Indiana University.
Tiara L. Winston and Connor R. Hollensteiner were married Dec. 18 at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. Peter E. Kralovec-Kirchherr ’15 officiated. (See photo.)
2010
2016
Anajah L. Roberts is the executive director of Teach For America Greater Chicago-Northwest Indiana.
Dana E. Hart completed a Master of Business Administration in marketing at the University of Saint Francis-Fort Wayne. She is employed at the Vera Bradley Design Center in Roanoke, Indiana, and works in social media.
2012 Lily J. Bonwich has earned a certified fund raising executive credential and was promoted to philanthropy director for BCT Management Inc., which manages the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington, Indiana. She has worked there since March 2020.
2013 Caroline C. Torie is deputy director of the St. Joseph County (Indiana) Cyber Crimes Unit. She recently won a scholarship from Magnet Forensics, a developer of software for police agencies,
Frances M. Jones ’14 and Samuel M. Winkler ’14 wedding. DePauw alumni attending the wedding included (back row) Matthew C. Coffin ’13, Douglas S. Dove ’89, Nicholas C. Nunley ’15, Katherine S. Spataro ’15, Andrew J. Herrmann ’14, Donald “Chip” W. Potter III ’14, Tyler D. Witherspoon ’13, Drew M. Rohm-Ensing ’14, (middle row) David C. Jones Jr. ’19, Christine Webster Wright ’14, Emily Curnow Krauter ’14, Suzanne Spencer Mpistolarides ’14, Paul R. Mpistolarides ’14, (front row) Madeline T. Lovell ’14, Jillian C. Balser ’14, Christine T. Crowe ’14, Judith Yi ’14, Karen Block Thomas ’13 and Stuart M. Newstat ’14.
Allison M. Hunt is an account manager for the creative agency Bradley & Montgomery.
2017 Mallory E. Hasty, a professional astrologer and tarot reader, was a speaker at the i-Astrologer online conference in April.
2018 Samuel R. Showalter won a National
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Tiara L. Winston ’15 and Connor R. Hollensteiner ’15 wedding. DePauw alumni attending the wedding included James A. Hollensteiner ’53, John V. Hollensteiner ’89, Terry L. Winston Jr. ’19, Haruaki S. Smith ’13, Adam G. Johnson ’14, Foster M. Whitlock Jr. ’17, Marissa A. Doherty ’15, Karen Tan ’15, Dylan B. Sheldon ’15, Samantha Mullennax Sheldon ’15, Morgan A. Sears ’15, Joseph J. Hennessy III ’15, Enrico R. Lumanlan ’15, Tyler M. Frost ’15, Rene Varela Saladrigas ’15, Douglas J. Tipsword ’15, Jordan C. Bantista ’15, Matthew W. Owen ’15 and Anna E. Muckerman ’15. Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
2020 Second Lt. Nicholas J.M. Redwine was commissioned from the ROTC Wabash Battalion into the U. S. Army Infantry May 22, 2020. He successfully completed Infantry Basic Officers’ Leadership Course in May 2021 and Ranger School in November 2021 at Fort Benning, Georgia. His parents, Gina Pagano Redwine ’87 and retired Lt. Col. James D. Redwine, attended
graduation. Nick is stationed at Fort Drum, New York, assigned to 2-14 Infantry Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, and lives in Sackets Harbor, New York. (See photo.)
2021 Durin M. Hendricks won first place in a competition sponsored by the Indiana Association of School Broadcasters for his documentary “Vernon Jordan, Change Maker.”
DePauw Magazine marks the death of alumni, faculty and staff members and friends. Obituaries do not include memorial gifts. When reporting a death, please send as much information as you have about the person and his/her affiliation with DePauw to Alumni Records, DePauw University, P.O. Box 37, Greencastle, Ind. 46135-0037 or to jamahostetler@depauw.edu.
IN MEMORIAM 1940 Ruth Ritz Rusie, 103, Martinsville, Indiana, Dec. 31. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta. DePauw honored her with a Distinguished Alumni Award. She was a teacher and head of reading instruction for the elementary schools in Martinsville. She enjoyed travel, golf and volunteer activities. Survivors include a granddaughter, Allison C. Rusie ’09; a grandson, Kevin D. Rusie ’12; and a nephew, Peter E. Ritz ’76. She was preceded in death by her husband, H. Robert Rusie ’39; sisters, Esther Ritz Collyer ’28 and Faith Ritz Hippensteel ’30; a brother, V. Eugene Ritz ’36; and a sister-in-law, Muriel Peterson Ritz ’36.
1945 Ruth Swift Wilcox, 97, Greensboro, North Carolina, March 13. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. She worked in Christian education and was a community volunteer. Survivors include a nephew, Timothy W. Swift ’79. She was preceded in death by a brother, Theodore W. Swift ’50.
1946 Marilyn Richards Watson, 96, Pewaukee, Wisconsin, Jan. 5. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi. She was an educator and teacher for more than 33 years. She was a community activist and volunteer. She was preceded in death by her husband, Rayman D. Watson ’47.
1949 Betty Ballhorn Sultzer, 94, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, Jan. 26. She was a bookkeeper and tax consultant, an avid bowler, gardener and bridge player. In later life she traveled worldwide. Survivors included a niece, Pamela Phillips Gaseor ’71. She was preceded in death by her husband, Robert L. Sultzer ’50. Joanne Hackett Guggenheim, 94, Cincinnati, Jan. 4. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta who enjoyed entertaining, sewing, knitting, gardening, reading, jazz music and dancing. James R. Hill, 94, San Clemente, California, Jan. 1. He was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha and a Rector scholar. He was a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University who had a passion for travel and music. Georgia Smith Kalman, 94, Minnetonka, Minnesota, June 23, 2021. She was a member of Delta Zeta. She was a librarian and controller at Temple Israel. She enjoyed reading, gardening and sewing.
1950 Thomas H. Carline, 93, Bentonville, Arkansas, Nov. 18. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta, a business owner and a compensation consultant. Donna Dahlen Kerr, 93, Knoxville, Tennessee, Jan. 16. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. She was a self-employed real estate agent and an antiques dealer and a community volunteer who served on various boards. Survivors include a sister, Mary Dahlen Naylor ’58. Jane Messing Kleinschmidt, 92, Indianapolis, March 26, 2021. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta. She was a teacher and artist who created tapestry and painted furniture masterpieces. She loved history and could tell you the succession of English monarchs. She was quicker than Google
for background information on many topics. She was preceded in death by her husband, Kenneth R. Kleinschmidt ’50, her son, James N. Kleinschmidt ’76, and a brother, Joseph B. Messing ’53. Lois Nash Harbert, 93, Rockingham, Virginia, Aug. 29. She was a member of Alpha Chi Omega. She was a preschool director and teacher; a drafter; and a community volunteer. She enjoyed sewing, cooking, crafting and homemaking.
1951 Wanda Beebe Hamilton, 93, Muncie, Indiana, April 16. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi. She was an elementary school teacher who loved to travel over the globe. Survivors include a son, James A. Hall ’79; a daughter, Jill Hall Cleaves ’87; a grandson, Samuel E. Swafford ’12; a son-in-law, Douglas V. Cleaves ’87; and a niece, Margaret Beebe Kirby ’88. She was preceded in death by a brother, Warren E. Beebe ’55, and a sister-inlaw, Margaret Montgomery Beebe ’60. Donna Crisler Forbes, 92, Vonore, Tennessee, Dec. 17. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. She was one of the first women to work in IBM’s management development program. She loved tennis and played until she was 89. She was preceded in death by her mother, Jeannette Kostanzer Crisler ’27, and a sister, Shirley Crisler Williams ’50. Survivors include a niece, Leslie Williams ’76. John W. Davies Jr., 93, Toledo, Feb. 18. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega and a Rector scholar. He was cofounder of Findley Davies Management Consultants, where he was principal of marketing and the health and welfare practice. He concluded his career as the executive director of the Sight Center. He was involved in numerous community nonprofit organizations. He enjoyed travel, music and time with his family. Survivors include a brother, Robert N. Davies ’58. Anne Harvey Dabbs, 92, Indianapolis,
Jan. 23. She was a member of Alpha Chi Omega. She was a business partner with her husband and a community volunteer. Survivors include a sister, Sarah Harvey Royse ’47. She was preceded in death by her father, Orth Harvey 1915. C. Salen Herke, 92, Indianapolis, March 2. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi and the Washington C. DePauw Society; a Rector scholar; and a former member of DePauw’s Board of Visitors. He was a business owner. Survivors include a son, Neil Herke ’92. James E. Liebig, 93, Tucson, March 6. He was a member of the Men’s Hall Association. He was a businessman for more than 30 years, holding management and executive positions. He was an active volunteer supporting local, state and national causes seeking to improve human conditions. He wrote two books on exemplary business practices and wrote humorous poetry. He had many interests including business ethics and leadership, classical music, jazz, hiking, faith traditions and the evolution of human consciousness. Barbara Little Butler, 93, Pella, Iowa, March 12. She taught sixth grade and was the director of alumni and special instructor in education at Central College in Pella. She was a community volunteer who enjoyed travel, golf, bridge and swimming. Barbara Peters Pfaff, 92, Park Ridge, Illinois, March 13. She was a member of Delta Gamma. She was a chart maker for the U.S. Gypsum Co. and later a first grade teacher. She volunteered in the community and enjoyed horseback riding, tennis, ice skating, swimming, scuba diving, bike riding, cross-country skiing and gardening as well as playing the piano, painting and playing bridge with friends. Carl S. Sorenson III, 91, Naples, Florida, March 7. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He was part-owner and founded numerous companies with his business partner. He served four terms as an at-large member of the Canton City
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GOLD NUGGETS Council; was a trustee of the Wilderness Center and Canton Country Day School; and was a member of the Western Reserve Academy Board of Visitors. He enjoyed racquetball, tennis, golf and worldwide travel. Kenneth B. Welliver, 92, Silver Spring, Maryland, Jan. 21. He was a member of the Men’s Hall Association and Phi Beta Kappa and a Rector scholar. He had a long career at West Virginia Wesleyan College, where he was a professor of Bible and religion, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college. Survivors include his wife, Mary Hickman Welliver ’51; a son, Timothy K. Welliver ’77; a brotherin-law, Cleveland P. Hickman ’50; a sister-in-law, B. Jeanne Hickman Logan ’58; and a nephew, Jeffery A. Logan ’78. He was preceded in death by his mother-in-law, Frances Miller Hickman ’27; sisters-in-law, Rae Rickenbacher Hickman ’49 and Janice J. Hickman ’66; and a nephew, Andrew R. Hickman ’81.
1952 Suzanne Auble Reif, 91, Oxford, Ohio, Feb. 16. She was a member of Alpha Chi Omega and chapter president in 1952. She was an elementary school teacher in Milwaukee for 20 years and an association administrator in Alexandria, Virginia, for 10 years. She traveled both in the United States and internationally. She was a community volunteer. She enjoyed sewing, gardening, reading, wildlife charities, genealogy, creating glass projects and the Green Bay Packers. She was preceded in death by her mother, Mildred Donnell Auble 1923.
member of the Men’s Hall Association and Phi Beta Kappa and a Rector scholar. He was a clinical psychologist and director of training. After retirement he maintained a private psychotherapy practice. He was an accomplished pianist and enjoyed duet piano music. He was preceded in death by his brother, David P. Rablen ’56. Ned A. Smith, 93, Savannah, Georgia, May 12. He was a member of Delta Upsilon. He served in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II before attending DePauw and Northwestern School of Law. He worked for Ford Motor Co. for 37 years, starting as staff attorney and later holding management positions, including CEO of several subsidiaries. He was a founding member and national president of the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals. He had an interesting story for every occasion. Survivors include his son, W. Wade Smith ’82. James M. Stutz, 91, Fishers, Indiana, April 9. He was a member of Sigma Nu. He was a teacher and coach and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. He retired as assistant superintendent for athletics and health education for the Indianapolis Public Schools. Survivors include his wife, Patricia Warner Stutz ’54; a son, Jon S. Stutz ’91; a granddaughter, Sophia F. Stutz ’26; a grandson, Jaxon K. Stutz ’23; a sister, Marjorie Stutz Carr ’55; and brothersin-law Louis O. Carr ’53 and Robert S. Goyer ’48. He was preceded in death by a sister, Patricia Stutz Goyer ’48.
1953
Fern Hilton Davis, 91, Warrenville, Illinois, Jan. 3. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi and the Washington C. DePauw Society. She worked in the medical field as a bookkeeper, office manager and a hospital volunteer. She enjoyed reading, gardening, swimming, traveling and listening to jazz.
Beverly Byram Anderson, 90, Martinsville, Indiana, March 15. She was a member of Alpha Phi and the Washington C. DePauw Society. She was a church volunteer and a children’s swimming coach. She was preceded in death by her parents, Stanley Byram ’28 and Edith Funston Byram ’28, and a sister, Barbara Byram Jordan ’53.
Richard A. Rablen, 91, Norwich, Connecticut, March 27. He was a
William H. Hoag, 90, Tucson, Feb. 3. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He
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was a pediatrician and a guest lecturer at Stanford and Santa Clara universities. He was an avid cyclist, runner, skier and golfer. He was preceded in death by his brother, Philip M. Hoag ’57. Robert C. Jones, 91, Jocotepec, Jalisco, Mexico, Feb. 1. He was a member of the Men’s Hall Association and The Collegians, a choral group. He was a professor emeritus at Upper Iowa University, and taught music for many years. He loved jazz and played woodwinds in many city jazz and big band ensembles. He also composed music and had several published works. Survivors include sons, Barry A. Jones ’82 and Todd A. Jones ’79, and a brother-in-law, Paul R. Julian ’51. He was preceded in death by his wife, Esther Julian Jones ’53, and his in-laws, Forbes Julian ’24 and Dorothy Esther Julian ’24. Betty Soukup Boyd, 88, Arlington Heights, Illinois, Dec. 4, 2019. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta and a library director who enjoyed volunteering, reading, gardening and time with her family. Survivors include a son, Michael K. Boyd ’77. She was preceded in death by her husband, Max L. Boyd ’51, and a brother, Henry L. Soukup ’52.
1954 Richard M. Sharp, 89, Green Valley, Arizona, Oct. 10. He was a member of Delta Chi and the football team. An ROTC participant, he was an enlisted pilot and colonel in the U.S. Air Force and later served in the reserves. He held several positions over 30 years at Sears, Roebuck and Co. He enjoyed travel, good food and wine, sports, exercise and spending time with family. Survivors include his wife, Martha Brubaker Sharp ’54, and a brother, Robert A. Sharp ’60. Jerry L. Williams, 89, Tampa, April 10. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta and the Washington C. DePauw Society, and a former member of the DePauw Alumni Board of Directors. He had a career in the investment business and incorporated his own business, Jerry Williams & Co., in 1957, the predecessor of Williams Securities Group. He enjoyed water skiing and boating. He and his wife enjoyed trips from Florida to the Bahamas, Mexico, Bermuda and Maine on their boats as well as family snow skiing vacations, whitewater canoeing and transatlantic crossings. He enjoyed playing his trumpet and singing and had the honor to play with jazz greats. He donated much time to the Tampa community as
Kenrad Nelson ’54, 89, an infectious disease specialist whose work revolutionized AIDS research, died April 21 in Baltimore. He was a retired professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was a graduate of Northwestern Medical School, who went on to work for the U.S. Public Health Service and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, later moving to the University of Illinois School of Medicine and the Chiang Mai University Medical Center in Thailand, where his interest in infectious diseases blossomed. He received an honorary doctor of public health degree from Thailand’s king in recognition of his work. Nelson published 481 scientific papers and was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was an editor of a textbook on infectious disease epidemiology, which is still widely used. He was a past president of the American Epidemiologic Society and received a medal from the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation for being an “effective spokesperson for the power of international collaboration.” And he was a founding board member of Tumaini Global Health Foundation with other DePauw alumni. Nelson was a civil rights advocate, having marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Cicero, Illinois, and was a past member of the Oak Park (Illinois) Citizens’ Committee for Human Rights and an advocate for gay men during the early years of HIV/AIDS.
a board member and chair of numerous organizations. Survivors include his wife, Jane Jones Williams ’57; a daughter, Brynne Williams Shaner ’83; a granddaughter, Morgan M. Shaner ’16; and a sister, Sharon Williams Ubben ’57. He was preceded in death by his father, Rollin L. Williams ’27, and his brother-in-law, Timothy H. Ubben ’58. Marilyn Wray Feagler, 88, Albuquerque, Jan. 6. She was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta and Phi Beta Kappa. She was an elementary school teacher and a community volunteer. She was preceded in death by her husband, Steven H. Feagler ’53.
1955 John H. Munson, 88, Concord, New Hampshire, Feb. 8. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega and the Washington C. DePauw Society and a Rector Scholar. He was a teacher, a technical writer and a business owner who enjoyed community activities, boating and musicals. Jim Totman, 88, Scottsdale, Arizona, Dec. 18. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta and a track athlete. An ROTC participant, he became an Air Force officer who specialized in Soviet military and economic affairs. He flew more than 1,400 sorties in Vietnam and was an instructor in the Strategic Air Command. He completed his M.A. in economics from Auburn University and MBA in international management from Thunderbird. He later was a commercial adviser for aeronautics. He enjoyed competitive running throughout his life, with recent awards in Senior Olympic competitions. He also enjoyed traveling, gardening and good food and wine. He was preceded in death by his wife Janis Campbell Totman ’55. Survivors include daughter, Julie Totman Springer ’84.
1956 Nancy Cain Matheny, 87, Huntington, Indiana, April 2. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi; an elementary
school teacher; and a community volunteer. She was preceded in death by a sister, A. Janet Cain Ducommun ’52. Shirley Champion Nusbaum, 87, Carmel, Indiana, Feb. 10. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She worked for Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis for 30 years, retiring as an assistant to the dean of faculties. She enjoyed spending time with her family and friends. Robert I. Johnson, 87, Oregon, Illinois, Jan. 17. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He worked in insurance and as a real estate broker. He enjoyed fishing, traveling, golf and gardening. Charles M. Lewis, 87, Butler Township. Ohio, Dec. 19. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega and Phi Beta Kappa and a Rector scholar. He was a businessman and a public servant who enjoyed chess, history, dogs and fishing. Linda Speer Bloss, 88, Indianapolis, April 17. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma at DePauw. She was a leader, holding several state offices in the P.E.O. Sisterhood, an international women’s organization focused on education of female students. She enjoyed traveling and horseback riding. Survivors include a son, William R. Bloss ’78. She was preceded in death by her husband, Robert W. Bloss ’54.
1957 Nancy Ade DeLong, 87, Exeter, New Hampshire, March 14. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She and her husband traveled throughout the world for medical research and service, studying iodine deficiency. She enjoyed travel, reading, music and textiles. She was preceded in death by her husband, George R. DeLong ’57. J. Patrick “Pat” Aikman, 86, Greencastle, March 9. He was the sports editor and editor-in-chief of The DePauw and president of Sigma Delta Chi. He also was a member of the union board, Phi Delta Theta and KTK, the
Barbara Maier Gustern ’56, a renowned voice coach, died March 15 in New York City. She was 87. She was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta. The New York Times said Gustern “exerted an improbable and little-known influence over New York’s overlapping music scenes, guiding cabaret performers, stage actors and rock stars to get the most out of their voices.” Her famed students, whom she taught in the bedroom of her Manhattan apartment, included Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry; MacArthur genius grant recipient and performance artist Taylor Mac; jazz singer Roseanna Vitro; and the cast of the “Oklahoma!” Broadway revival. She “had a gift for unusual metaphors that made her teachings stick,” the Times said. She attended many of her students’ performances and was on her way to one March 10 when a woman shoved her to the sidewalk and Gustern sustained a fatal injury.
interfraternity council. He taught high school for three years, then returned to DePauw, where he was director of the News Bureau and sports information, director of public relations and editor of DePauw Magazine; he also coordinated the establishment of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. He later was director of the Indiana-Kentucky AllStar Basketball series and the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association, which created the Pat Aikman Character and Leadership Award for students who excel on and off the basketball court and plan a career in journalism or sports management. He was inducted into the DePauw Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998 for sports administration and into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. Indiana Gov. Frank O’Bannon named him a Sagamore of the Wabash in 2002. He had a gifted wordsmith, a poet and a gentle soul who had a quick wit and terrific sense of humor. He loved to read, travel, shoot photos, garden, dance and meet and talk with people wherever he went. Survivors include his former wife, Judy Folk Aikman ’57, and his son, J. Kevin Aikman ’82. Patricia Metzdorf Heldt, 86, Chassell, Michigan, April 9. She was a librarian who was passionate about literature and reading. She had a wide range of interests and hobbies, including musical theater, college sports and numerous crafts. Survivors include her husband, Lloyd A. Heldt ’56, and nieces Katherine Heldt Falace ’99 and Amanda Heldt Donovan ’00. She was preceded in death by a brother-in-law, Leroy V. Heldt ’67.
1958 David F. Burg, 85, Lexington, Kentucky, Nov. 6. He was a member of Delta Chi and a Rector Scholar. He was a history professor, a freelance writer, an editor and an author, as well as a community volunteer. He enjoyed travel, art and architecture, good food and spirited debate. He was preceded in death by his wife, Helen Rendlesham Burg ’59. Robert L. Goss, 86, Hilton Head Island, March 21. He was a member of Sigma Nu. He had a career in institutional sales. He enjoyed doing projects around the house and spending time with friends and family. Joseph M. Lawlor, 86, Columbus, Wisconsin, Dec. 8. He was a member of Sigma Nu and worked in sales and banking. Survivors include his wife, Mary Dyson Lawlor ’58. He was preceded in death by his twin brother, Matthew C. Lawlor ’59; a sister-in-law, Nancy Dyson Stark ’53; and a brotherin-law, Edward H. Stark ’52. W. Thomas McGhee, St. Louis, Jan. 27. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and an attorney. During retirement, he volunteered his time with Mended Hearts for 15 years and tried his hand at sculpting, wine making and boating. Patrick E. Sharp, 85, Naples, Florida, March 22. He was a member of the Men’s Hall Association and Phi Beta Kappa and a Rector scholar. He was a Ford Fellow at Carnegie Mellon
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GOLD NUGGETS University, where he earned a master’s degree, then went to work for Ford Motor Co. 1960-95 in financial management and strategic planning positions in the United States and overseas; he retired as assistant treasurer. He was an avid sports fan, golfer, reader and traveler. H. Bruce Throckmorton, 86, Cookeville, Tennessee, Jan. 5. He was a Rector scholar and a professor of economics for 47 years at Tennessee Technological University. He was an avid sports fan and a community volunteer.
1959 Marilyn Brier Hewitt, 84, Sierra Vista, Arizona, Feb. 6. She was a member of Delta Zeta and a teacher and principal of a Christian school. Faith and church activities were the focus of her life. She enjoyed hiking, biking, swimming, gardening, reading, baking pies and sharing her faith with others. A. Richard Gloor Jr., 84, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, March 23. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. He was a real estate agent; secretary of the Oak Park Development Corp.; and a director of the Oak Park Community Foundation and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. He enjoyed sports, hiking and biking. Survivors include his wife, Patricia Park Gloor ’62, and a nephew, Jacob F. Gloor ’17. George R. Huggins, 84, Tucson, Dec. 30. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. He was an obstetrician-gynecologist who devoted his medical career to caring for poor women in the United States and globally. He served two years in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. He established a family planning program at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, then moved on to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he created a program for drug-addicted pregnant women and their infants. He traveled to bring clinical training in primary gynecological care and family planning services to a number of countries. He published more than
100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and was a co-recipient of six patents. Survivors include a son, George G. Huggins ’86; a brother, Michael R. Huggins ’64; and a daughter-in-law, Caryllon Cummings ’86. Ronald L. Longnecker, 84, Louisville, Feb. 10. He was a member of Sigma Nu and a Rector scholar. He was an engineer, retiring from Procter & Gamble after 33 years. He enjoyed golf and singing in the choir. He was preceded in death by a cousin, Morton F. Longnecker ’58. H. Alan McMahan, 84, Fort Wayne, Jan. 7. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. He sold residential real estate and was a community volunteer. Survivors include a daughter, Laura McMahan Reinking ’94. Barbara Wolf Sovereign, 84, Monterey, California, Dec. 30. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta and an elementary school reading specialist. She enjoyed playing bridge, long walks and volunteering.
1960 Emmy Morris McDaniel, 83, Austin, Texas, Jan. 3. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta. She was an attorney who worked for the federal and state government. She was a musician and enjoyed attending the opera and singing in the church choir.
national and international companies. He later worked as a career consultant and wrote a book. He enjoyed travel, fishing, golf and his dogs. Survivors include his wife, Nancy Hackler McConnell ’61, and his daughter, Melanie McConnell Garnett ’91.
and human development. She was involved in adult Christian faith education and was a consultant to the bishop for the Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church. Survivors include a sister, Kathleen Sceales Weiand ’65.
James T. Winton, 82, Key Largo, April 10. He was a member of Delta Chi. He was a marketing consultant, an avid golfer and a photographer who enjoyed traveling. Survivors include his wife, Musette Ryan Winton ’61; a niece, Linda Winton Sear ’90; and a nephewlaw, Michael P. Sear ’90. He was preceded in death by a brother, David E. Winton ’56, and sister-in-law, Nancy Harrison Winton ’56.
1964
1962 Gernot S. Doetsch, 81, Charlottesville, Virginia, March 23. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta and Phi Beta Kappa and a Rector scholar. He was a Ph.D. psychologist who taught and conducted research at the Medical College of Georgia. He enjoyed traveling extensively in Europe and the Americas. In retirement, he enjoyed photography, writing and fishing.
1961
Marilyn Reynolds Neal, 82, Solvang, California, Feb. 22. She was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta. She was a Spanish language translator and an executive secretary. She enjoyed reading, puzzles, travel, classical music and playing bridge, where she achieved life master status.
Linda Cox Goodson, Valrico, Florida, April 18. She was a member of Delta Gamma. She was a manager and business owner who enjoyed traveling in Europe and the United States. Survivors include a brother, Bruce B. Cox ’53.
Carol Herriott Woloson, 80, Ponte Vedra, Florida, Dec. 28. She was a member of Alpha Phi. She traveled extensively, including many trips to her favorite city, Paris, and took cookingrelated adventures.
Charles W. “Chuck” McConnell, 81, Williamsburg, Virginia, April 14, 2021. He was a member of Delta Chi. After earning an MBA from Northwestern University, he served four years in the U.S. Air Force, then began a career in marketing and advertising, working for
1963
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Barbara Sceales Mahr, 80, Madison, Wisconsin, April 6. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta and the Washington C. DePauw Society. She had a career in economic, community
Thomas E. Mueller, 80, Indianapolis, March 15. He was a member of the Men’s Hall Association. He spent 31 years at the Wisconsin Air National Guard Air Refueling Wing as a master sergeant and was stationed in Egypt during Desert Storm. He enjoyed music and played the piano and organ. He also enjoyed boating, traveling and riding and maintaining motorcycles.
1965 J. Steven Fawley, 80, Louisa, Virginia, March 18, 2021. He was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha and an English teacher. Lloyd E. McHoes, 79, Frisco, Texas, Feb. 25. He was a member of Delta Chi. He was a financial manager for Procter & Gamble. He enjoyed hiking, biking, golf, bridge and gardening. Survivors include his wife, Cynthia Tikya McHoes ’64. He was preceded in death by his mother, Winifred Harshman McHoes ’32, and a brother, L. Neal McHoes ’64. Peter Starn, 78, Honolulu, March 2. He was a member of Sigma Nu and Phi Beta Kappa. He was a captain and naval aviator for the Marine Corps who served in Vietnam. He graduated from Stanford Law School and went to work for a firm before starting his own in 1994. He loved to travel and to tell stories while dining at his favorite restaurant. He loved jazz and never let an opportunity dance go by, especially to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
1966 Cynthia Batts Summers, 77, Bend, Oregon, Jan. 9. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi. She was a volunteer who
served on the board at the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford Hospital for nearly 20 years. Ninetta Diane Ling Boyer, 78, Hartsburg, Missouri, April 15. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi and president of the Panhellenic Council. She worked as a microbiologist for Eli Lilly and Co. and the University of MissouriColumbia School of Medicine and later taught at William Woods University and Columbia College. She was an active community volunteer. She enjoyed all things outdoors, Indiana basketball and horseback riding. Survivors include her husband, Peter A. Boyer ’66; sons Mark C. Boyer ’90 and Gregory T. Boyer ’93; and a brother, John F. Ling ’71.
1967 Joan H. Burger, 76, DeKalb, Illinois, Feb. 26. She worked several jobs, including a residence hall adviser at Northern Illinois University before going to law school at Loyola University Chicago. She worked for a Chicago firm and a partner for 20 years before retiring, after which she served on the boards of several organizations. She was an enthusiastic theater-goer who enjoyed golf and bridge and traveled around the United States and more than 20 countries. John D. Veech, 76, Kalamazoo, April 18. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and businessman. He was an avid reader and a great storyteller who also enjoyed gardening, especially rose bushes.
1968 John Van Meter, 75, Baltimore, Feb. 24. He was a member of the Men’s Hall Association. He was an English teacher and a drama director.
1969 Jan Hoey, 74, West Newton, Massachusetts, Feb. 13. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi and the varsity soccer team. He was an endlessly
curious Renaissance man who loved learning and adventure. He worked on five continents and visited 50 countries. Following graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in management, he worked as a health management consultant and trainer in the U.S., Africa and Asia, including five years in Nepal. He graduated from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and enjoyed mime and clowning in festivals. He became executive director, actor, comedian, dancer, stuntman, producer and president of the board of the Manatee Players Theater. He played the ukulele, keyboards, the Indian bamboo flute and the Argentinian pan flute. Survivors include a brother Vin Hoey ’65. He was preceded in death by his parents, Charles V. Hoey ’36 and Pauline Hoey ’37; an aunt, Kathlene Megenity Myers ’35; and his grandfather, Ernest B. Megenity 1917.
1970 Barry G. Charlton, 74, New Bedford, Massachusetts, April 5. He mastered acoustic guitar, mandolin, dulcimer and autoharp. He formed the Rosehip String Band in Chicago. He was a Boston sports fan and a talented carpenter and home craftsman. Susan Marshall Reck, 73, Hinsdale, Illinois, April 4. She was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta. She worked as a software developer. She loved playing the piano, clarinet and alto sax and performed in the DePauw pep and marching bands. She took up tap dancing and painting, producing oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings that decorate her home. Survivors include her husband, Richard “Dick” Reck ’71, and her sons, Daniel A. Reck ’03 and Alan C. Reck ’07. Scott W. Shafer, 73, Des Moines, Nov. 6. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi and a three-year letterman in cross country and track. When the cross country coach was on sabbatical, he and the basketball coach coached DePauw’s team to the conference championship.
Timothy J. Hreha '73, died Jan. 27 in Greencastle. He was 70. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta and a three-year starter and letter winner at defensive tackle. He won the football team’s spirit award in 1971 and was captain in his senior year. He was a graduate assistant coach at DePauw, then left briefly to work at Shenandoah High School before rejoining the DePauw football coaching staff, where he stayed for more than 40 seasons. He coached men’s track and field for 14 seasons and women’s track and field for seven. He and other coaches and players of the 1981 football team were inducted into DePauw’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016. That same year, he was given the Spirit of the Monon Bell Award to honor his contributions to DePauw and the Monon Bell rivalry. After retiring in 2019, he continued as a volunteer coach in football and track.
He qualified for the national NCAA meet and finished second in the Mid-East regional. He was inducted into DePauw’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011. He was a psychologist who worked more than 30 years at the Des Moines Child & Adolescent Guidance Center. He was president of the Iowa Psychological Association and chairman of the Iowa Board of Psychology Examiners and the Iowa Mental Health Planning Council. He enjoyed traveling to France, cross-country skiing and bike riding. Survivors include his wife, Nancy Brady Shafer ’70.
1971 Trace S. Christenson III, 72, Battle Creek, Michigan, Jan. 10. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He was a columnist and reporter for the Battle Creek Enquirer. He won numerous Gannett, Associated Press and Michigan Press Association awards for reporting and news photography, and his work was featured in publications around the globe. He enjoyed crewing for hot air balloon teams and was a kayaker and cyclist. He was preceded in death by his mother, Genevieve Abney Christenson ’38. Joseph S. Northrop, 72, Fort Wayne, May 15. He managed DePauw’s baseball team. During law school at Indiana University Bloomington, he served in the U.S. Air Force R.O.T.C. and upon graduation was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He became a judge advocate general during active duty and in the Air Force Reserve, retiring as a lieutenant colonel after 29
years. He was Huntington County’s chief deputy prosecutor for three years before settling into private practice. He was a director of Pike Lumber Co., a position that inspired him and his wife to plant more than 40,000 trees. He served on numerous other boards and was a member of many organizations. He donated to many philanthropic causes, including the Northrop, Mote and Satterlee Family Tiger Sculpture at the entrance to Blackstock Football Stadium. He enjoyed traveling, genealogy, working the family farms, tinkering on his MG cars and hunting. Survivors include his wife, Lynne Utter Northrop ’71, whom he met at DePauw; his son, Charles A. Northrop ’02; his daughter Elizabeth Northrop Thornsbury ’97; his sister, Eleanor Northrop Hall ’61; his nephew, Thomas R. Mote ’74; and a grandnephew, Jackson R. Mote ’16. He was predeceased by his mother, Florence Satterlee Northrop ’29, and his sister, Florence Northrop Mote ’50.
1973 Robert K. Schott Jr., 71, Danville, Kentucky, Feb. 18. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He was a former employee of R. R. Donnelley Corp. Survivors include his wife, Susan Thornally Schott ’73. Gary Wright, 71, Pittsboro, Indiana, Jan. 22. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi and a Rector Scholar. He practiced medicine for nearly 40 years. Survivors include a son, Devon F. Wright ’01.
SUMMER 2022 DEPAUW MAGAZINE I 59
1974
1981
Wendy L. Werner, 69, St. Louis, Jan. 3. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi. She was an acclaimed photographer, a career strategist and a social justice advocate. She was a founding board chair with the nonprofit civil rights law firm, ArchCity Defenders. Survivors include a brother, Thomas C. Werner ’72.
Elizabeth Dowd Thornberry, 63, Mount Sterling, Kentucky, Feb. 3. She was a registered nurse. She was an accomplished rock climber, mountain climber, bicyclist, weight lifter, scuba diver and horseback rider. She taught her English bulldog to understand more than 50 words and phrases.
1976
1982
Daniel A. Saver, 67, Nicholasville, Kentucky, April 14. He was a member of Sigma Chi and a business owner. He loved the Ohio State Buckeyes, his 1966 Jaguar, playing his drums and dabbling in real estate. Survivors include wife, Sara Francis Saver ’76.
Terence E. Ryan, 62, Michigan City, Indiana, Feb. 12. He had various jobs that took him around the country. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of sports, music, films, TV shows and world history and was noted for his extensive vocabulary and mellifluous singing voice.
1977 Scott W. Pandorf, 66, Lake Leelanau, Michigan, Jan. 22. He was a member of Delta Chi. He had a career in information technology. He enjoyed cards, computer and video games and sports, and was an avid model railroader and rail fan. Survivors include his wife, Susan Noling Pandorf ’78.
1978 Debby Busch Cooper, 66, Cincinnati, April 12. She was a member of Alpha Chi Omega and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from DePauw’s nursing program. She worked many years as a nurse in newborn intensive care units in several hospitals. Survivors include her husband, Gary K. Cooper ’77, and her sisters, Susan Busch Marsico ’76 and Nancy Busch Laterza ’84. She was preceded in death by her twin sister, Darby Busch ’78. Carol Rivers Wesseler, 70, Mount Juliet, Tennessee, Feb. 24. She was a teacher and a school aide. She started a preschool at Plainfield (Indiana) Christian Church. She enjoyed gardening, crafts and travel.
1983 Robert R. Allen, 61, Springdale, Ohio, March 15. He was a dentist at his Springdale Dental Arts Centre. He was a licensed private pilot.
member of Delta Gamma and a former employee of 21st Century Insurance and Financial Services.
James W. Foxworthy, 22, Indianapolis, March 12. He found a home at his fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega. He was a senior communication major and Hispanic studies minor. He excelled at golf, sailing and tennis.
Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, which recognizes individuals who have a lasting national or world impact that benefits freshwater fishing. He enjoyed fishing, hunting, wood carving, bird watching and having coffee with friends. Survivors include daughter Shannon Garner Rotvold ’90 and sons Clifford W. Gammon ’90 and Bradley A. Garner ’93. He was preceded in death by his wife, Sharon Sanders Gammon ’77, and his father-in-law, Frederick A. Sanders ’54.
Faculty
Friends
James R. Gammon, 91, Greencastle, March 15. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1957, completing his master’s and doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1961. He was an aquatic ecologist who spent his career at DePauw teaching and conducting research on water quality of Midwest freshwater streams. The biological index that he developed is still used by many public and private organizations to evaluate the health of aquatic systems. He was inducted in 2009 into the
Joyce M. Rust, 84, Roachdale, Indiana, Feb. 24. She worked for DePauw University for 28 years. Survivors include her grandsons, Jeremy M. Rust ’03 and Jackson L. Rust ’04; a granddaughter, Krista Rust Lewis ’09; and a grandsonin-law, Eric R. Lewis ’07.
2022
Lois E. Underwood, 97, Greencastle, Feb. 26. She was a librarian at DePauw for 24 years. She was a Tri Kappa member for 55 years and a proud Purdue fan.
1984 Philip M. Hellmich, 60, Greensburg, Indiana, April 1. He was a member of Alpha Tau Omega. He was the director of Peace at The Shift Network. He dedicated most of his life to global and local peacebuilding initiatives, including 14 years with Search for Common Ground and four years as a Peace Corps volunteer. He was a published writer. Survivors include his brothers, David M. Hellmich ’81, Thomas R. Hellmich ’80 and Richard L. Hellmich II ’77.
1988 Mark P. Quigley, 56, South Bend, Feb. 10. He was a member of Sigma Chi. He was an IMPD police officer and detective for 30 years.
2000 Kelly A. Spencer, 43, Santa Ana, California, March 20. She was a
60 I DEPAUW MAGAZINE SUMMER 2022
Ken Bode, a former national political correspondent who directed DePauw’s Eugene S. Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media, died June 2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was 83. He left NBC News to work at DePauw from 1989-97, where he also oversaw the creation of and directed the Media Fellows Program, directed the university’s public affairs lecture series and taught as the John Hughes professor of politics and the media. In 1994, he was tapped to moderate PBS’s “Washington Week in Review,” and he juggled that assignment with the DePauw post for several years. He then went to Northwestern University, where he was dean of the Medill School of Journalism for three years. He returned to DePauw as a visiting distinguished professor of journalism from 2003-08. During both stints in Greencastle, he brought national attention to the university by writing articles and op eds for prestigious publications. DePauw awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1998. Bode, who held a Ph.D. in political science from University of North Carolina, started his career in academia, moved into politics and then headed to news reporting, where he worked for NBC, CNN and the New Republic and made four documentaries for CNN.
THE BO(U)LDER QUESTION
By Pedar Foss, professor of classical studies Archaeologists have dated the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius to AD 79, but opinions have differed on the exact date on which the people of Pompeii met their fate. That is, until Pedar Foss, classical studies professor and chair at DePauw, figured it out. We asked him:
When exactly did Mount Vesuvius erupt?
I
n AD 79, at the height of the Roman empire, Mount Vesuvius erupted, obliterating towns, farms and seaside villas in the Bay of Naples. Lost until the 18th century, the well-preserved ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum and other sites have since captivated generations of archaeologists and visitors. The eruption is one of the few historical events that might be dated precisely, but literary and archaeological sources have seemed to provide divergent dates. Recently, the find of a charcoal inscription at Pompeii with “17 October” suggested an eruption of Oct. 24, challenging the traditional Aug. 24 date recorded in the oldest writings by Pliny the Younger, a Roman senator who witnessed the eruption when he was a boy of 17. Scholarly opinion over the last 20 years has split over which date is correct. Now, after a nine-year study of all the ancient, medieval and modern evidence, I have clarified what Pliny actually wrote. I had to gather all surviving manuscripts of Pliny’s “Letters.” Previous studies employed about 25, but I examined 79. I recorded all variants among the Latin texts and used both traditional methods of
side-by-side comparison, called “collation,” and modern statistical analysis of some 170,000 data points of different readings, with the help of Bryan Hanson, emeritus professor of chemistry and biochemistry at DePauw. This led to a new “family tree” of manuscripts that mapped out how the errors were propagated over the nearly 1,400 years between Pliny’s original and the first printed editions. A simple scribal mistake, made sometime in the 1420s, of switching a “u” for an “n” for the Roman date resulted in an incorrect date of “1 November.” This error grew in a key branch of texts that was used for the second print edition in 1474. Once that November date came into the novel and fast-growing circulation of printed books, it proliferated – and, like false claims on social media today – spawned further misreadings, misunderstandings and misuses. By the 20th century, seven different possibilities were in circulation (eight, if you count Mark Twain’s “9th of November”). Those many options gave the appearance of doubt concerning what Pliny actually wrote but, upon examination, I was able
to explain away each of the mistaken alternatives. Advances in scientific archaeology continue to offer new techniques for dating the past, but so far, studies of fish, pomegranates, grapes, figs, nuts, pinecones, pollen, clothes, coins and wind patterns have not proven sufficiently precise to confirm any particular date. I provide details of my investigation in my new book, “Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius,” which includes new translations and commentaries for Pliny’s letters about the disaster. The data I used are publicly available on the Routledge website, where readers may see the evidence for themselves. I took this step to demonstrate that, even in an age when every claim seems to be contested, careful research process and presentation can produce results with a high degree of certainty. Settling on a date of Aug. 24 should now make it possible to use the Vesuvian eruption as a reliable chronological measuring stick for future investigations of the past.
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