Prospect Winter 2011-2012

prospect the magazine of elmhurst college winter 2011–2012

A LONG WAY HOME In 1942, the federal government sent Himeo Tsumori and Seiji Aizawa to a “relocation center” in the American West. The next year, Elmhurst College liberated them.

the magazine of elmhurst college winter 2011–2012 volume 11, number 1

12

18 30

50

32

Why

We

Asked A new optional question on the College’s admission application about student identity gained wide attention in the fall. Here, Elmhurst’s president outlines the thinking behind the question.

By S. Alan Ray

36

26

prospect Features 18 A Long Way Home In 1942, without due process, the federal government sent Seiji Aizawa and Himeo Tsumori to a “relocation center” in a desolate part of the American West. The following year, Elmhurst College rescued them. By Don Terry 26 Why We Asked A new optional question on the College’s admission application, about student identity, gained wide attention in the fall. Here, Elmhurst’s president outlines the thinking behind the question. By S. Alan Ray 32 Falling in Love with Science Venkatesh Gopal gives his physics students research challenges normally reserved for graduate students at big universities. By Andrew Santella

40 Unyielding Dreams Eight graduates of Elmhurst’s adult programs tell how they made their second acts the best.

By Margaret Currie

50 Nothing Wasted As a youngster, Illinois State Representative Anthony DeLuca ’92 hauled waste for the family business.

It was grueling, mucky work, and good preparation for Springfield. By Andrew Santella

Departments 02 News A record-setting first-year class, Fulbright Scholar Lauren Williams, a philosophy professor blazes a trail in neuroscience and the law, computer software brings new sophistication to the campus arboretum, and more.

38 Behind the Scenes Echoes from the Clock Tower: Generations of students have left their signatures on the fragile walls atop Old Main. By Rita Colorito

54 The Last Word A 1967 graduate provided a 2011 graduate with a scholarship, and a great deal more. By Andrew Santella

Editor Jim Winters Managing Editor Judith Crown Contributing Editor Andrew Santella Copy Editing and Research Margaret Currie, Linda Reiselt, Sara Ramseth Art Direction Matthew Stone, Marcel Maas Design and Production Anilou Price­, Sandbox Studio, Chicago

news enrollment

A Record-Setting First-Year Class The College is getting to know the largest and most diverse group of first-year students in its history, with one-third coming from underrepresented groups.

4

First-Year Students

Transfer Students

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

608

586 584 472 366 321

482

538

507

332

385 264

309

339

317

319

309

267

257

231

New Students of Color

All Students of Color

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

318

701

194 179 160 124 Photo: Emily Mohney, Graphic: Sandbox Studio, Chicago

278

298

174

197

546

187 146

135

398

114

Total Enrollment 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

3430 3315 2920 2681 2593

2540 2490

3107

3184

3362

3455

411

430 422

484

562

588 573

512

Other statistics: The average high school GPA of the first-year class is 3.41, up from 3.39 last year. The average transfer GPA is 3.31, up from 3.20. Among first-year students, the most commonly cited religion is Roman Catholic (39%), followed by Lutheran (8.7%) and United Church of Christ (4.8%). The second most common response to this optional question is “prefer not to answer” (19.2%). The first-year class is 62.2% female; 37.8% male. The students hail from 23 states, including California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Hawaii.

For information on admission to the College, go to www.elmhurst.edu/admission

“We strive to create a vibrant campus enriched by and comparable to the complexity of the real world,” said President Ray. 5

I

n August, when the 608 members of the first-year class began their Elmhurst academic careers, they already were setting records. This is the largest class in the College’s history, as well as the most diverse.

The 2011 entering class is 13 percent larger than the 2010 entering class. (The previous enrollment record, of 586 students, was set in 2008.) What’s more, students from traditionally underrepresented groups, such as Hispanics and African Americans, make up 33 percent of the class, up from 15 percent last year. The mix will contribute to a campus that better reflects the cultures and complexity of the wider world.

This year’s enrollment figure is the latest indicator of dramatic enrollment growth over the last decade, despite the downturn in the economy over the last three years. In 2001, the College had 321 first-years; between then and now, the number has grown by about 90 percent.

In addition, 309 full-time transfer students enrolled this year, exceeding the goal of 300.

The size of this group has grown as well, by 24 percent over the last decade. Enrollment also has benefited from a steadily rising number of returning students—1,983 this year, compared with 1,960 in 2010 and 1,890 in 2009.

Altogether, 2,900 full-time undergraduates are on campus, representing the largest population of full-time students in the 140-year history of the College.

The first-years also are an academically robust group, with an average act score of 24.1. The score is well above the average statewide act score, which for the last couple of years has hovered around 20.8; and also above the national average of 21.1. The most popular majors among the students are nursing and biology, followed Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

closely by business, education and music.

The fact that fully one-third of the firstyear class comes from underrepresented groups demonstrates significant progress toward meeting the goals of the College’s 2009–2014 Strategic Plan. The plan calls for the entering class of 2013 to be 25 percent minority, so the College is on its way to meeting or even exceeding that objective. The biggest gain is among Hispanic students, who make up 18 percent of the first-year class. A little more than 5 percent of the class is African American, 4 percent is Asian American and 1 percent is Native American.

“We will continue to strive to create a vibrant campus enriched by and comparable to the complexity of the real world,” said President S. Alan Ray. “That complexity can encompass ideas, aspirations, religious and philosophical views, sexual orientations, and racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds.”

The growth in interest by minority students is due in large part to increased outreach to Chicago-area high schools by the O≈ce of Admission. Admission counselors also have worked to strengthen their relationship with members of community-based organizations, such as Chicago Scholars and Upward Bound, that use mentors and sponsors to help students make the transition from high school to college. “They are all looking for a good place that will take care of their kids, as well as a place where those kids will see other students who look like them,” said Gary Rold, dean of admission. “Creating a positive, welcoming environment for all students is a central part of our mission.”

Twenty-three states are represented in the entering class, including Texas, California, Pennsylvania, New York and Hawaii. Sixteen

percent of entering first-year students come from states other than Illinois.

About 39 percent of the first-years are Roman Catholic. About 25 percent are Protestant; 4.6 percent belong to the United Church of Christ, the College’s a≈liated denomination. The number of Muslim students this year has doubled over last year, to 18 students from 9.

Nearly all of the first-year students—92 percent—are receiving some form of financial aid. The average award is $14,500 in scholarships and grants per student. About 60 percent of all incoming students are receiving scholarships of various kinds, the overwhelming majority for academic achievement.

“Our scholarship program continues to provide the support needed for highly qualified students who bring a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives and talents to join and enrich our College community,” said James Kulich, vice president and chief information o≈cer. “At the same time, the amount and variety of financial aid that the College provides to so many of our students demonstrates our commitment to keeping Elmhurst accessible and aΩordable.”

by Desiree Chen

news student achievement

A Person of Action Meet Lauren Williams, a future doctor and Elmhurst’s fifth Fulbright Scholar. She’s in Thailand teaching English and creating artwork to promote hiv prevention.

6

Photo: Roark Johnson

E

Lauren Williams

ven as a kindergartner, Lauren Williams wanted to be a doctor. She showed up at a career day event wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope. At the same time, she had inklings that she might become an artist, so she also wore a black beret and brought along a palette.

Williams continued to straddle the sciences and the arts as an outstanding undergraduate at Elmhurst College. She majored in biology with minors in chemistry and art. She produced provocative paintings that hang in faculty o≈ces in the Schaible Science Center and elsewhere on campus.

She graduated in May, and in October she flew to Bangkok, where she will receive four weeks of intensive language training and cultural orientation before she begins teaching English to secondary school students and completes a yearlong art project in Thailand as a Fulbright Scholar. Her Fulbright Teaching Assistant award includes funding to spend 20 hours a week creating paintings that will highlight hiv prevention for teenagers, the group at highest risk for the disease in Thailand. The paintings will be donated to unaids, a group that promotes hiv prevention and care.

Administered by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright program is one of the nation’s most prestigious academic honors. Established to promote cultural understanding, it awards grants for graduate study, advanced research and teaching abroad. Williams is the fifth Elmhurst student to receive a Fulbright award, and the third in the past four years. The College’s recent success is the result of a concentrated eΩort to oΩer dedicated advising to help top honors students compete for nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships,

art. She’s a very strong person. If she keeps according to Professor Mary Kay Mulvaney, going down this path, she’s going to be a director of the Honors Program.

While at Elmhurst, Williams visited Europe great physician.”

For two years, Williams worked with her for an in-depth look at health systems there. academic advisor, Stacey Raimondi, an She also spent a term doing field work in assistant professor of biology, on Raimondi’s Australia that included living in the bush among research that focuses on what triggers the Aborigines. Upon her return from Thailand, she plans to attend medical school, then practice aggressive growth of breast cancer cells. medicine in her hometown of Fairfield, Illinois, “What she has been doing here is what she would do at a major research institution,” about 275 miles south of Elmhurst.

Fairfield Memorial Hospital, a 54-bed facility Raimondi said. The professor, who has a Williams painting in her o≈ce, predicts the serving a farm region, oΩered to pay her Fulbright award and her previous internamedical school costs if she would return to tional travel will sharpen Williams’ skills as a practice there. Williams said she looks forward doctor. “Those experiences will help her relate to serving the town, which has a population to her patients,” Raimondi said. “She’ll have of about 5,000. “I think that it is a career in to deal with diΩerent kinds of people with which I could utilize my creativity and innovadiΩerent backgrounds.” tion rooted in the arts, but at the same time Mittermeyer’s assessment went further. “I stay focused in a field I love, the sciences,” she said. “I’d also be giving back to the community think she could be a leader in health care, someone who is innovative in the delivery of that played such an instrumental role in my development. I really like the small-town culture health care service. I think people like her will help us get out of the mess we’re in now and the people.”

Williams took her first art class at Elmhurst, and improve health care in our country.”

Williams herself projects a more modest and didn’t start painting until she was a sophoutlook. “I just want to be in a career that omore. One of her paintings hangs in the is constantly evolving and thus forcing me to campus o≈ce of Katrina SiΩerd, an assistant adapt,” she said. “I’m not concerned with professor of philosophy. SiΩerd recalled that leaving my mark on mankind. I just want to be Williams sparked spirited discussion in her in a job that I love and that positively impacts introductory philosophy class while respecting the community around me.” the opinions of others. “She has a friendly, unassuming, yet sharp-as-a-tack demeanor,

by Rick Popely which is what you would want in a medical professional,” said SiΩerd. “She is easy to talk with and gives very straight answers.”

Early on at Elmhurst, Williams’ drive and ambition impressed Frank Mittermeyer, a professor of biology and the director of the Patterson Center for the Health Professions.

As a freshman, Williams talked her way into Mittermeyer’s junior-level course on comparative health care systems, which enabled her to travel with the class to Europe during the summer of 2008. “She’s not just a thinker or a dreamer. She’s a person of action,” Mittermeyer said. “Lauren wanted to go to Europe, and it took gumption for her to make it happen. She’s got passion not only for medicine but also for Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

7

Libby Glass ’10

Elmhurst’s Fulbright Scholars 1981 Oksana Didyk Grant for research and study of international economics in Germany

2000 Jacquelyn L. Jancious Research grants to study emigration patterns in Hungary.

2008 Scott Morris Teaching assistantship grant to teach English to German high school students.

2010 Libby Glass Teaching assistantship grant to teach English in Panama.

2011 Lauren Williams Teaching assistantship grant to teach English in Thailand.

news points of interest

The Brain on Trial As scientists learn to peer into the brain, Philosopher Katrina SiΩerd is helping to define a new field, which stands at the busy intersection of neuroscience and the law.

Photo: Roark Johnson

8

An assistant professor of philosophy, Katrina Sifferd holds degrees in both philosophy and law. She says new brain scanning technologies “give us insight into who we are,” but also pose thorny challenges for the legal system.

I

n a Hammerschmidt Chapel classroom last spring, Katrina SiΩerd was leading the seven students in her Philosophy of Law class through a discussion of Roper v.

Simmons, the 2005 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed by a person under the age of 18.

SiΩerd, an assistant professor of philosophy, called her students’ attention to one particular kind of evidence considered by the court: neuroscientific studies about the development of the adolescent brain that account for the juvenile tendency to act recklessly, dangerously and on impulse.

“There’s science in there again, isn’t there?”

SiΩerd asked from the front of the room, as her students worked through the court’s ruling.

Over the last decade or so, the intersection of law and neuroscience has become a very busy place. Armed with new brain-scanning and visualization technologies that seem lifted from science fiction, scientists are peering into the working brain and unraveling our very decisionmaking processes. What they learn from those scans is heavy with implications for courts and for scholars like SiΩerd. For better or worse, brain science promises to alter legal notions about when defendants are culpable for the things they do and how they should be punished or treated.

“These technologies give us insight into who we are,” SiΩerd said in her faculty o≈ce after class. But they also pose thorny challenges for the legal system. When can brain scans be introduced as evidence? Do judicial applications of brain science violate personal privacy? Do they violate protections against self-incrimination? Should neurological “enhancements” or involuntary rehabilitations that aim to change an oΩender’s character be considered among the menu of sentencing options? “We’re reconceptualizing what it means to be human and responsible for our actions,” SiΩerd said.

Neuroscience already is creating new kinds of evidence. A technology called “brain fingerprinting,” based on electroencephalogram readings, is said to oΩer a new and improved version of lie detection by revealing “guilty knowledge,” memories that only a culpable person could possess.

Some of the possible applications of brain science evoke a future out of Minority Report.

Consider neural implant devices that would permanently alter oΩenders’ desire structures, freeing the homicidal, for example, from their

Photo: Roark Johnson

When can brain scans be used as evidence? Do judicial applications of brain science violate protections against self-incrimination? And what if courts can force the alteration of offenders themselves?

Fashion as History As the nation marked 150 years since the start of the Civil War, Elmhurst students decided

most violent impulses. SiΩerd argues that appli- DePaul University). Before coming to Elmhurst cations like these “pose such a risk to personal she was a Rockefeller Fellow in Law and Public Policy at Dartmouth College. autonomy that they can’t be justified.”

“I’m lucky to be working right next door At a conference on new technologies and to someone who knows neuroscience so well,” the law in June, at the University of Pavia in SiΩerd said. Her next-door neighbor in the Italy, SiΩerd presented a paper that looked at suite of basement o≈ces in the chapel is William how emerging neurotechnologies might change criminal sentencing. Traditionally, criminal law Hirstein, the chair of the philosophy department, who has written extensively on brain science. incapacitates oΩenders by altering their envi(His 2009 book Confabulation, from Oxford ronment—that is, placing them in prison or under house arrest. But what if courts could alter University Press, was named one of the year’s best books by The New Scientist magazine.) oΩenders themselves: for example, through In an article published in the journal Conscious“neural castration” for convicted pedophiles?

SiΩerd finds the prospect ethically troubling. ness and Cognition, SiΩerd and Hirstein argued that an area of the prefrontal lobe can be “The use of these technologies in sentencing identified as “the legal self,” the part of the brain can be seen as starting down a slippery slope that makes us responsible in the legal sense. that will ultimately lead to serious violations of oΩenders’ agency,” she argued, “which trans- SiΩerd also is developing a course in neuroethics, with Assistant Professor of Psychology lates into nothing less than treating oΩenders Patrick Ackles, that will be oΩered for the first as though they are less than human.” time in spring 2012.

Indeed, each technological advance seems Philosophy always has reached across tradito bring with it fresh ethical dilemmas. The pace tional academic boundaries. But the emerging of change is rapid enough to keep philosodebate on neuroethics is remarkable for the phers busy; all the activity even has spawned a way it draws on the work of psychologists, physnew academic subdiscipline called neuroethics.

SiΩerd is helping to define the field. Her article iologists, lawyers and philosophers. “Everyone wants to be interdisciplinary now,” SiΩerd said, on neuroethics appears in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (Elsevier, 2011). “but this really is one of the best examples of interdisciplinary cooperation in the modern age.”

“The point of ethics is to think about these issues in advance,” she said. “Philosophers would

by Andrew Santella like to think that they’re way out ahead, but actually we’re running in lockstep with science.”

SiΩerd’s training provides her a unique perspective on neuroscience’s growing presence in the courts. She holds degrees in both philosophy and law (her philosophy Ph.D. is from the University of London and her J.D. from Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

it was time to reconsider a vexing question from the era: Did Mary Todd Lincoln really need 300 pairs of gloves?

The question bothered Nicole Boylan for much of her senior year. Boylan was part of a team of student costumers who recreated 19thcentury fashions for a Mill Theatre production of the historical drama Abraham Lincoln. In all, the team produced 40 sets of costumes: soldiers' uniforms, ladies’ dresses, even corsets and pantaloons. They aimed for historical accuracy and attention to detail. Researching their work took the costumers to archives and museums from Washington to Springfield.

It was at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in the state capital that Boylan began to understand Mrs. Lincoln’s particular fashion sense.

“She thought it was her patriotic duty to wear the very best clothes and to spend money on the very best silks,” Boylan said.

The First Lady’s spending really bothered Washington insiders at the time. “They thought buying 300 pairs of gloves during a war might have been a little excessive,” Boylan noted. For Mrs. Lincoln, though, compulsive shopping was part of the First Lady’s job description. She justified her spending on showy outfits as a kind of one-woman stimulus plan for the nation’s clothiers.

When it came time for Boylan to design and produce fashions for the stage version of Mrs. Lincoln, she aimed to appeal to the First Lady’s taste for finery, even if it meant occasionally going over the top. “We wanted accuracy,” she said, “not necessarily a pretty picture.”

news civic engagement

A Good First Step A new Illinois law, backed by the College, will provide private funds to help undocumented students who came to the U.S. as children attend schools like Elmhurst.

Photo: Storer H. Rowley

10

Photo: Chicago Tribune

Elmhurst students and the state’s political leadership, including Speaker Mike Madigan, attended a rally in support of the Illinois DREAM Act at Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Church on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

L

get a college loan and is ineligible for most uisa was 8 years old when she and her mom left their home in Peru, travelled federal financial aid. Moreover, as she approaches graduation, Luisa knows that her degree will to a remote site on the U.S.–Mexico border and made the “scary” crossing only take her so far. Her undocumented status will prevent her from accepting almost any job into America. They walked for four days through the desert, rejoined her father and started a new oΩer appropriate to her skills.

By getting as far as she has, Luisa (not her life in Chicago. real name) is the exception. For most undocuThat was 13 years ago. Luisa grew up in the mented students in her situation, the barriers American heartland. Her strong grades at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park qualified prove too high. Of the 65,000 undocumented high school students who graduate each year, her for an academic merit scholarship to Elmhurst College, where she is a 21-year-old “only a fraction” go on to college, according to a 2009 report issued by the College Board. senior, majoring in biology. Throughout her college career, she has faced daunting financial Contradictions in U.S. policy, the report adds, hurdles that native-born students never encoun- “have created a vulnerable subset in our populater. As an undocumented immigrant, she can’t tion—children who have been raised to dream,

yet are cut oΩ from the very mechanisms that allow them to achieve their dreams.”

In Illinois at least, the situation may be getting better. Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed and the governor signed the Illinois DREAM Act, designed to ease the path to college for some undocumented students.

(DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors). Elmhurst College and other colleges and universities around the state threw their support behind the legislation, which establishes a panel to raise private donations to fund scholarships for immigrant children (rather than rely on taxpayer dollars). The act also opens the state’s college savings plan to non-citizen savers for

Keep up with campus news at www.elmhurst.edu/news

the first time, and requires high school guidance counselors to be aware of college options for undocumented students. “We should be opening, not shutting, the doors of opportunity for young students regardless of how or why they are living in Illinois,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, Senate President John Cullerton.

“My dad always says, ‘Your education is yours.

No one can take it away from you,’” Luisa says.

But even as she nears the academic achievement her family has sacrificed for her to attain, legal restrictions cloud her future. Despite her demonstrated academic ability and personal determination, she can’t go to medical school, where she would like to specialize in women’s health or pediatrics. Without a Social Security number, “I know I can’t even apply,” she says.

“You need those nine digits.”

“Dreamers” like Luisa were brought into this country as children, by parents who stayed without legal authority. Their parents, mostly from Latin America or Asia, often perform oΩ-the-books chores in the informal economy, or work in industries where jobs are so unpleasant and di≈cult to fill that employers don’t look too closely at work documents.

Meanwhile, the immigrants’ children have grown up in conventional American fashion, speaking English, attending the required primary and secondary schools, playing baseball and soccer and performing in music and theater groups. Many have younger siblings who are U.S. citizens because they were born in this country.

The assimilation of the immigrant children is so complete, in fact, that unless their parents tell them, many Dreamers are unaware that they’re in the country without permission. Many came here as infants; it’s the only country they’ve ever known.

But even though they had no say in their parents’ decision to cross the border, federal law says the Dreamers are subject to deportation. To many people, the situation seems not only unfair but also wasteful, since it deprives the nation of the contributions of so many promising young people, educated in American schools.

“The students are being penalized for a decision their parents made,” says Storer H. Rowley, Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

Elmhurst’s executive director of government and community relations, who spoke with several state legislators before the passage of the DREAM Act. As Dreamers grow towards adulthood, the limits they face come into focus. At her high school, for example, Luisa took driver’s education with her friends; but without legal residency documents, she can’t get a driver’s license. Since she was 15, Luisa has helped pay her way through school, starting with a high-decibel gig at the local Chuck E. Cheese. But as she enters the adult world, better jobs, particularly those that require certification—such as teaching, medicine or the law—are oΩ limits.

High school also is the time when many ambitious Dreamers discover just how seriously the deck is stacked against them if they want to attend college. While they have the legal right to attend any college they want, that right isn’t worth much without access to funding, particularly since many Dreamers come from lower-income families.

Some private colleges, including Elmhurst, oΩer scholarships based strictly on merit and academic performance. But undocumented students aren’t eligible for the federal studentaid programs so crucial to helping students cover the cost of higher education. That rules out Pell Grants for low-income students and access to federally funded work-study programs.

Mainstream lenders won’t make loans to undocumented students, either. So Luisa and her parents scrimped and borrowed from family and friends to pay the costs her scholarship doesn’t cover.

Elmhurst receives five or six applications from undocumented students each year, says Dean of Admission Gary Rold. The College accepts many such students, and sometimes is able to oΩer them up to $20,000 a year in merit and other scholarships. Despite such aid, Rold says, most of these students still can’t aΩord to attend Elmhurst or any other college because they can’t access the additional funds they need.

A number of federal lawmakers—including the senior senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin— have sought for a decade to pass legislation

designed to establish a path to citizenship for high-achieving Dreamers. The federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would grant citizenship to persons brought into the United States as children if they attend college or serve in the U.S. military. Despite majority support, the federal proposal has been blocked repeatedly, most recently in December 2010. (It needs 60 votes in the Senate.) Opponents argue that passage would amount to a reward for behavior outside the law, and encourage more unauthorized immigration.

Backers of the federal DREAM Act aren’t giving up. Dreamers “are Americans in their hearts,” who have been locked in a “legal twilight zone through no fault of their own,” Senator Durbin said last summer when he opened hearings on a new version of the federal DREAM bill.

Only the federal government, of course, can grant citizenship rights and open the tap for federal student aid. A number of states recently have worked on less-sweeping measures. Illinois was the first state to pass such a bill. Dean Rold calls the Illinois bill “a good first step,” but says only federal legislation can provide a full remedy.

Elmhurst supported the bill in public statements and private discussions with state legislators, including Senate President Cullerton, House Speaker Michael J. Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross (all of whom ultimately supported the bill). When President S. Alan Ray announced to faculty and students that he was joining the leaders of a number of Illinois colleges and universities in backing the proposal, he noted that Elmhurst “was founded by immigrants, to educate immigrants and their children.” Backing the Illinois bill, he said, reflects the school’s longstanding commitment to respect for human diversity, compassion and social justice.

The landmark Illinois law is “no panacea for the problems undocumented students face,” Rowley acknowledges. “But it oΩers Elmhurst a chance to help them on their journey.”

by James Miller

11

news student engagement

You Have to Do Something Good Elmhurst students marked the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks by passing out food to some of the neediest residents of Chicago’s West Side.

Illustration: Gluekit

12

Through the Partners for Peace program of the Niebuhr Center, Elmhurst students have traveled to churches on the West Side to do service work for three years now.

J

aclyn Pearson was in her second hour of work in the basement of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church on Chicago’s West Side, and she had long since lost count of how many shopping bags she had stuΩed with green beans and apples and sweet corn.

Pearson, a first-year from Freeport, Illinois, was one of about a hundred Elmhurst students who had made the bus ride from campus on a September Sunday to pass out produce to some of the neediest residents of West Garfield Park.

On long folding tables set up in the lower level of the church sat piles of carrots, peppers and greens. The display of plenty belied the fact that on most other days in the neighborhood, it’s not so easy to find decent produce. The mom-

and-pop corner stores that line Madison Street and Cicero Avenue are bulging with snacks and sodas, but fruits and vegetables are scarce.

Down in the church basement, Pearson filled another bag with a representative array of produce and twisted it closed. A neighborhood woman made her way to the table next to Pearson’s and thanked the volunteers for the food. One of the students thanked the woman for coming. “I think we get as much out of this as they do,” Pearson explained.

As part of the Partners for Peace program of the Niebuhr Center for Faith and Action, Elmhurst students have been traveling to churches on the West Side in September to do service work for three years now. In previous years, the students focused on gun violence,

hunger and other problems facing the urban neighborhood. This year, the emphasis was on providing needed goods and services. Volunteers from the Compassionate Care Network, a health care charity, provided free health screenings at the church. Students from the Islamic Foundation in Villa Park worked with Elmhurst students to distribute fresh produce, trucked in from farms around Plainfield.

“It’s sad to say, but you don’t have to go far from home to find hunger and need,” said Jazmine Martinez, a junior from West Chicago, who was distributing food at the church. “People here lack access to health care and fresh food.

Those are things no one should be denied.”

The project also marked the kickoΩ of Elmhurst’s participation in the President’s

“It’s sad to say, but you don’t have to go far from home to find hunger and need. People here lack access to health care and fresh food.”

Interfaith and Community Service Challenge, a national program started by President Barack Obama. With 250 other colleges and universities, Elmhurst has committed to service that, in the words of a White House document, builds “understanding between diΩerent communities and contributes to the common good.” Later this year, Elmhurst students will work with DuPage County pads to provide shelter for the homeless and with Habitat for Humanity on home-construction projects. “Elmhurst has been a leader in this kind of service for a long time,” said the Reverend Dr. Ron Beauchamp, director of the Niebuhr Center. “This President’s Challenge just helps us take it to the next level.”

For some of the students working at New Mount Pilgrim Church, that meant heading out into the neighborhood to actively invite residents to the church. They walked up and down the streets in small groups, starting conversations with the parents and children sitting on front stoops, extending invitations to the groups of young men hanging out on street corners.

The day’s work coincided with the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Back at the church, an interfaith service marked the day, along with a concert featuring the Elmhurst College Jazz Band.

“Today, you have to do something good,” said Rachel Lapp, a student from Park Ridge.

“There’s been a lot of loss, a lot of grief on this day. It’s time for something good to happen.”

by Andrew Santella

Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

William J. McCarter 1929–2011 Bill McCarter was an unusual combination: an exacting, no-nonsense, visionary builder who earned and kept the love and respect of his colleagues through a long and singular career. He created what by several measures is the most successful public television station in the United States, and served for 15 years as a deeply respected, quietly eΩective trustee of Elmhurst College. Mr. McCarter died on April 21 of cancer. He was 81.

“Bill McCarter was a wonderful person for a college to have on its side,” said Elmhurst President S. Alan Ray. “He thought the small college was one of the great inventions of Western civilization, and he challenged Elmhurst College to raise its sights and realize its enormous potential as an educational and cultural resource. He was a clear and persuasive counselor and a steadfast friend, and we will sorely miss him.”

A Philadelphia native, Mr. McCarter graduated from Lafayette College and served with distinction as a first lieutenant with the 45th Infantry Division in the Korean War. He began his television career on wfil in Philadelphia, where he worked with Dick Clark on American Bandstand. He covered the Army-McCarthy hearings for abc News and served in leadership positions at public television stations in New York and Washington. In 1971, he came to Chicago as president and ceo of Window to the World Communications, the parent company of wttw-Channel 11 and wfmt-fm, the leading classical music station.

Mr. McCarter led the stations for 27 years. Channel 11 quickly shed a stodgy, complacent reputation to become the most-watched and best-financed public television station in the United States, with a reputation for innovative local programming. Mr. McCarter developed the station’s flagship public aΩairs program, Chicago Tonight, as well as the Siskel and Ebert movie show and an array of jazzy showcases for local music, videography, art, flora and fauna. He had a decisive hand in the creation of the Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching. At the national level, he shaped the way television covers public aΩairs by developing pioneering and widely divergent news-and-opinion programs, including Washington Week in Review and The McLaughlin Group.

During Mr. McCarter’s tenure, wttw and wfmt received 12 George Foster Peabody Awards, five DuPont Columbia Journalism Awards, and 150 regional Emmy Awards. wfmt won the Marconi Award as the nation’s best classical music station. Mr. McCarter received the Board of Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He served on the board of advisors of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, in addition to his service on Elmhurst’s board.

Newton Minow, a legendary Chicago lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recruited Mr. McCarter to wttw, which Minow served as a trustee. “One of the keys to his success is his exquisite balance and judgment,” Minow once observed. “He is everything you could want in a person.”

Mr. McCarter was preceded in death by his wife, Linda Warner McCarter, and their son, Michael. He is survived by his daughter Amy McCarter and her husband, Jim Costello; his daughter Juli McCarter; his son Max McCarter; and his grandchildren, Emma, Ben and Charlie.

13

news living green at Elmhurst

An Unlikely Science Project The sustainable design of West Hall and its surroundings provides Professor of Chemistry Gene Losey with a lot of teachable moments.

Illustration: Gracia Lam

14

G

ene Losey’s new chemistry lab is in an unlikely location. Every so often, especially after a heavy rain, or what Losey likes to call “a real gullywhumper,” you might find him at work in the parking lot just west of West Hall. In an unremarkable-looking white utility box there, tucked among the prairie plantings that border the student parking spaces, Losey, a professor and chair of the chemistry department, collects samples of storm-water runoΩ. For the last two years, he has been analyzing the water he collects there, looking for insights into the workings of the innovative storm-water-control system the College installed around West Hall before the state-of-the-art “green” residence hall opened in 2008.

“This is a natural laboratory,” Losey said one afternoon as he was crossing the parking lot.

“It gives us a chance to collect storm water and see what we can learn from it.”

The professor’s interest in the site springs from its remarkable design. West Hall opened as the College’s greenest building ever, one that put principles of sustainable design to work in the daily lives of students. It’s loaded with environmentally friendly features, including energy-saving, motion-sensitive lighting; 42 rooftop solar panels that reduce water-heating costs; even dual-flush toilets with separate settings for solid and liquid waste that allow students to limit the water used each time they flush. The U.S. Green Building Council awarded West Hall a gold rating in its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (leed) rating system.

The green design extends to the parking lot that flanks the residence hall. Its surface is covered with interlocking permeable concrete pavers separated by granite pebbles that allow

Learn more about living green at Elmhurst at www.elmhurst.edu/sustainability. Read about research, events, personalities and daily life on the Elmhurst campus at ecquickstudies.com.

West Hall is the College’s greenest building ever, one that puts the principles of sustainability to work in the daily lives of students. rainwater to seep through the surface and percolate down through layers of gravel and rock. Most rainwater that falls at the site is absorbed into the soil deep below the parking lot to replenish the local water table, instead of being channeled into Elmhurst’s overtaxed storm water sewers.

Occasionally, though, a storm will dump more rain than Elmhurst’s compacted, clay-heavy soil can handle. The excess water then flows through a series of perforated pipes below the parking lot and eventually makes its way to Losey’s collection box, filling a carousel of plastic 200-milliliter flasks that can be removed for analysis. “We can compare the water we collect here with the runoΩ from regular, bituminous parking lots,” Losey said. “It ought to be a lot cleaner.”

RunoΩ from blacktop parking lots tends to be laced with oil, detergents and bits of heavy metal from car parts. In conventional stormwater systems, runoΩ flows—contaminants and all—through sewers and into rivers and streams.

Losey’s analysis promises to oΩer hard data about the eΩectiveness of the green storm-water system around West Hall. The professor and his students measure the water’s temperature and pH and test for the presence of heavy metals such as zinc and cadmium.

The system at West Hall is eΩective enough that collecting runoΩ samples can be a challenge.

Only storms that produce around an inch of rain in a short period end up generating enough runoΩ for Losey to collect. At the collection site in the parking lot one recent afternoon, he consulted his log of rain-gauge and samplecollection data. It showed that at the end of September—following a four-day period of steady rainfalls punctuated by one truly fierce downpour--excess rainwater flowed through Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

Green= Nature+Money Dr. Paul Anastas, the Yale scholar who coined the term “green chemistry,” presented the fall Quest Lecture on October 10 in Hammerschmidt Chapel. Anastas said the science and technology needed to produce environmentally friendly, sustainable products already exists, but first people need to reject the notion that hazardous materials are an inevitable part of modern life.

“Some of the substances we accept in our daily lives can affect not only this generation but future generations as well,” said Anastas, an administrator and science advisor at the Gene Losey, chair and professor of chemistry

Environmental Protection Agency. The accumulation of harmful materials in consumer

the perforated pipes beneath the parking lot and into Losey’s collection basin. He was able to collect three small flasks of storm water for analysis before the flow of water stopped and the collection system shut itself down.

What Losey learns will interest DuPage County’s storm-water management division, which helped fund the system with a $116,000 grant. He would also like to get students from area schools to West Hall for a lesson in water management.

For Losey, the parking lot is more than just a place for students to stash their cars. It’s a teaching tool. “Even when West Hall was being built, we knew that the building would give us a chance to educate people about sustainability,” he said. “We talked about what a great science project this would be.”

products damages the environment and has the potential to alter the future reproductive capability of human beings. “The fact that we accept this absurdity when we have the power to change it is something we need to reflect on,” he said.

Anastas opened his lecture by showing images of what appeared to be abstract art.

It turned out to be piles of waste generated from consumer products. Americans alone, he noted, throw away 60,000 plastic bags every five seconds, 106,000 aluminum cans every 30 seconds, 426,000 cell phones every day and 2 million plastic bottles every five minutes.

Anastas coined the term “green chemistry” because green is the color of both nature and money. Businesses, he said, can benefit by embracing the economic benefits of reducing waste. “We can meet environmental and eco-

by Andrew Santella

nomic goals simultaneously,” he said. “The myth we’re confronting today is that the products of life can’t be achieved without using toxic substances. We have to raise the awareness of what is possible.”

15

news campus arboretum

Beautiful and High Tech, Too Computer software brings new sophistication to the care and maintenance of the arboretum and its 150 species.

Photo: Tom Lindfors

16

Learn more at elmhurst.edu/collections/arboretum

17

State-of-the-art software contains specific, detailed, crucial data on the hundreds of trees on Elmhurst’s arboretum campus. The new technology helped the College earn a prestigious designation from the Arbor Day Foundation, and also saves money.

P

aul Hack, the College’s grounds supervisor, calls himself “a hands-on guy” who would rather be working outside than sorting data on his o≈ce computer. “It kills me to sit here,” he said in his o≈ce late one morning when warm, sunny weather made the great outdoors all the more inviting.

Still, o≈ce time can be productive for Hack, especially now that he has access to state-ofthe-art computer software containing specific, detailed, crucial data on the hundreds of trees around the arboretum campus. With a few keystrokes, he can pinpoint the location of every oak or maple or gingko on campus. What’s more, he can readily identify individual trees that need pruning, spraying or a shot of water during a dry spell.

“This means we can treat a specific species exactly at the right time,” said Hack. “In the spring, for example, we treat crabapple trees.

We spray them with a fungicide to prevent apple scab, a leaf fungus. If we don’t treat them at the proper time, they won’t have any leaves

by August.”

Hack’s new digital green thumb enabled Elmhurst this year to earn the prestigious Tree Campus USA designation from the Arbor Day Foundation. It also is helping the College save some of the money it used to spend maintaining its forty-eight-acre campus arboretum. For example, the institution previously hired an outside firm to apply fungicide to the 22 campus crabapple trees—usually three times a year, at Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

an annual cost of $2,400. The task is now done

by College staΩ; the annual cost is down to $200.

Hack’s database contains information gathered in the fall of 2010 by arborists from Bartlett Tree Experts, who used GPS devices and geographic information system (GIS) technology to assemble an inventory of campus trees. The electronic mapping initially counted and logged about 500 trees south of Alexander Boulevard. The area north of Alexander was mapped this past fall, adding another 300 trees to the inventory.

When a tree is entered into the database, it is assigned a number, and a blue metal tag with the number is attached to the trunk. The database lets Hack sort the trees by species and scientific name, and estimates the tree’s replacement cost, based on type, size and age. A black walnut with a thirty-six-inch diameter trunk tops the list at $28,625. A thirty-three-inch sugar maple is valued at $27,825.

Elmhurst is one of about 150 colleges and universities in the nation to earn Tree Campus USA status. The honor requires each institution to fund an annual tree-care program, to adopt a plan for planting and maintaining trees, and to involve students in related servicelearning projects. Most of this program was in place before Elmhurst even applied for the award. Hack said having a database of trees at his fingertips helps him to document the institution’s eΩorts.

He can enter the dates when a tree is planted, pruned, treated for insects or disease; and

The software allows the grounds crew to know exactly when a tree needs pruning or water. schedule when it will need attention again. Previously, plantings were recorded on handwritten notes, inserted into a three-ring binder. The pruning schedules weren’t so precise. “The campus was broken into sections, and we would do one section per year,” Hack said. “That meant we might be doing trees that really didn’t need pruning.”

A certified arborist, Hack earned an associate degree in horticulture from Joliet Junior College and worked 10 years for a tree-care service before joining the Elmhurst staΩ in 2008. He works with two additional full-time employees; one is a certified arborist like himself, and the other is studying to become one. His o≈ce employs 12 students during the summer.

Even with the sophisticated GIS map and computer program, Hack said there is no substitute for keeping personal tabs on trees and shrubs the old-fashioned way: by walking the campus. “You still have to do some visual inspection,” he said. “We’re always outside looking around, making a list of things that need doing.”

by Rick Popely

news bluejay athletics

New Game in Town With the first head coach for the men’s lacrosse team in place, Elmhurst is poised to begin competition in 2013.

O

Photo: Steve Woltmann

18

Men’s Lacrosse Coach Andrew Geison

ne of the fastest growing sports in the nation will soon have a home at Elmhurst College. The institution is expanding its roster of varsity teams to 20, with the start of men’s lacrosse in 2013 and women’s lacrosse in 2015.

Popular in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, lacrosse recently has seen tremendous growth across the Midwest. The Illinois High School Association recently recognized boys’ and girls’ lacrosse as emerging varsity sports.

Nationwide, more than 175 ncaa Division iii institutions sponsor men’s lacrosse, and more than 200 institutions oΩer women’s programs.

President S. Alan Ray took a leadership role in bringing lacrosse to the College. “Our Strategic Plan calls for us to enhance our athletic oΩerings and increase the geographic diversity of our incoming class,” Ray said. “The addition of lacrosse advances both goals. It will help us to recruit more students from around the country, particularly the Northeast. We’re thrilled to add a sport that will resonate with prospective students and generate new excitement among our current students and alumni.”

The decision to add lacrosse was the product of a painstaking review process, said Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Paul Krohn. “President Ray approached me about doing some research on the costs and benefits of adding lacrosse shortly after he came to Elmhurst College,” said Krohn. “At the time, there weren’t a lot of Midwest colleges oΩering lacrosse, but as time passed, we began to see lacrosse gaining ground at both the high school and collegiate levels throughout the region.”

After a national search, the athletic department hired Andrew Geison from DeSales University in Pennsylvania as the first head coach of the men’s lacrosse squad. Geison

The College has launched three new ways to follow the Bluejays’ 18 athletic teams. Live video streaming of selected athletic contests is available at www.bluejaytv.com.

The Bluejays also have rolled out social media sites at both Facebook.com and Twitter.com.

For details, visit www.elmhurstbluejays.com.

Photo: Steve Woltmann

“We’ll have a chance for freshmen to start playing right off the bat. Not a lot of schools can guarantee that kind of opportunity.”

19

and, most important, recruit student-athletes spent four seasons as head coach at DeSales, to fill the squad’s roster. “The biggest obstacle where his players garnered seven all-conference and two all-region awards. His teams there to building a new program is marketing it to the right people—student-athletes and high hold five single-season institutional records. school and club coaches,” he said. “We will In his second season, Coach Geison guided the need to be proactive in our approach and let Bulldogs to their first Middle Atlantic Conferthe lacrosse world know about this wonderful ence playoΩs. opportunity.”

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be The coach said that a first-year sport will the first head coach in the history of the oΩer distinctive opportunities for recruiting.

Elmhurst program,” Geison said. “I know “We’ll have a chance for freshmen to start the excitement I feel is shared by the College playing right oΩ the bat,” he said. “Not a lot of community, a fact that will make this an other schools can guarantee that kind of easy transition.” opportunity. Moreover, a first-year program Krohn knew that the College had to find opponents and make improvements to Langhorst oΩers the chance to build a tradition. Everything we do in the first year will be the first time it Field before the lacrosse team could play a has ever been done. Freshmen will have a chance varsity contest. The College was quick to act, to set the standard, which will help determine as state-of-the-art FieldTurf and permanent the future of the lacrosse program at Elmhurst. lighting were installed at Langhorst Field over That’s a special opportunity.” the summer.

The qualities that attracted Geison to the The Bluejays have accepted an invitation head coaching position at Elmhurst, he said, to compete in the Midwest Lacrosse League in will also attract prospective students to the 2013. The MLC is comprised of nine schools new varsity sport. “Going to a place that has a from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio blank slate and all the potential in the world and Wisconsin. It will expand to 14 members is attractive,” he said. “This is a college where in the 2013 season.

“President Ray and the administration made the student’s personal development is the highest priority. When you combine that with an investment to improve the facilities we all the cultural and career opportunities that have at Langhorst Field,” Krohn said. “Having a new playing surface was critical to the addition are right around the corner, Elmhurst has the potential to be a premier locale for lacrosse of lacrosse, but it also is a big benefit to all of players looking for an option in the Midwest.” our current athletic teams. Being a part of an established conference will give us quality

by Kevin Juday competition in our program’s first year, and it’s very possible that the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin could sponsor a lacrosse championship down the road.”

In addition to familiarizing support staΩ on the sport and hiring assistant coaches, Geison also will need to purchase the team’s equipment Prospect/Winter 2011–2012

Lights On at Langhorst The installation of permanent lights at Langhorst Field has allowed the football and soccer teams to add night games to their schedules.

Along with new field turf, the lights also pave the way for the start of varsity men’s and women’s lacrosse over the next few years.

The four new permanent light banks replaced portable temporary lights. The new lights were a gift of the late Hal Pendexter, a longtime member of the Board of Trustees. The old artificial playing surface, which dated to 2002, was replaced with state-of-the-art FieldTurf, which is used by 21 NFL teams for games, practices or both. The new turf is expected to last 10 years.

“The permanent lights and new playing surface make Langhorst Field an even greater asset to our athletic teams,” said Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Paul Krohn. “We have a lot of opportunities to accommodate our teams at new times, and we have a field ready for the start of lacrosse.”

Elmhurst teams were quick to take advantage of the new lights. Rain and dark skies forced the use of the lights in the football team’s season-opening 50-24 win over Loras College on September 3. The football team went on to defeat Olivet College 64-14 in the team’s first-ever “official” home night game the following week. The women’s soccer team made its debut under the lights on September 22 by shutting out Alverno College 4-0.

The men’s soccer team toppled Wheaton College 4-2 on October 22 in its nighttime debut at Langhorst.

A Long Way Home In 1942, without due process, the federal government sent Himeo Tsumori and Seiji Aizawa to a “relocation center� in a desolate part of the American West. The following year, Elmhurst College rescued them. This is their story. By Don Terry

N 20

o fiery locker room speeches were necessary that autumn afternoon. Every Elmhurst College Bluejay already knew that the Homecoming game of 1946 was special. The stands would be packed for the 2:00 p.m. kickoΩ, even though the football Bluejays were 0 and 4 and had not notched a Homecoming victory in years. But the war was over and the College was celebrating its Diamond Jubilee. Alumni from around the country would be at the game along with most of the students, many of them former GIs who had poured onto campus in the 14 months since the end of the war, hoping to have a little fun, finish their education and leave the ghosts behind.

One of the former soldier-scholars was on the team. He was suiting up as Coach Pete Langhorst went over the plan for the game against Concordia one last time. His name was Himeo Tsumori, a speedy running back who wore Number 35 and was aΩectionately known around campus as “Little Mo.’’ At a wispy 5-feet-4, with shiny black hair and what the student newspaper called “friendly eyes,” Tsumori was likely to be the smallest man on either team any time he stepped onto the gridiron. But Little Mo played big. He played both sides of the ball, oΩense and defense, with a chip on his shoulder. “He successfully outplayed and outfought his

opponents, who outweighed him 25 to 30 pounds,’’ a writer for The Elm Bark reported. “He always had ‘fight.’’’

His fight was fueled by hurt, anger and gratitude. Little Mo was one of more than 110,000 persons of Japanese descent—two-thirds of them American citizens—who were uprooted and forcibly removed from their homes, farms and businesses on the West Coast in the early days of World War ii and sent to 10 government “relocation centers’’ in desolate regions of the American West. They received no trials or hearings, and they faced no charges: just guards and guns, panic and prejudice.

In the fall of 1942, Himeo Tsumori was 16 years old and a junior in high school when he and his family were forced to leave their home in San Francisco and go to a windswept desert in central Utah, near Mount Topaz. He would know long nights in freezing emptiness when he thought he’d never “get to return home to America.’’

It was Elmhurst College that saved him. In a moment that now stands among the proudest in its history, the institution faced derision and controversy to do what it thought was right, and brought Himeo Tsumori out of exile. For that, he said, “I will always be grateful.’’

Tsumori wasn’t the only one rescued from the desert. As part of a movement to right the ongoing wrong of the relocation camps, Elmhurst and scores of other colleges and universities throughout the nation’s

Elmhurst College brought Seiji Aizawa, left, and Himeo Tsumori out of exile in Utah in 1943. Today, the men are in their mid-80s and live in Northern California. Tsumori is a retired pediatrician. Aizawa worked for the U.S. government in Japan before retiring.

interior opened their doors to Nisei students in the early years of the war.

Nisei were American citizens of Japanese descent, born in the United States. Most of their parents were born in Japan and were called Issei. Under a racially informed immigration law of 1924, Issei were not eligible for U.S. citizenship.

The government agreed that the Nisei could enroll in the participating schools provided they passed an fbi background check. The students’ parents and younger siblings, however, usually remained behind barbed wire for the war’s duration.

Tsumori came from the nearly treeless Topaz Relocation Center to the leafy Elmhurst campus in 1943. He was accompanied by his buddy, Seiji Aizawa, who was in the stands for that October Homecoming game, along with two female students, Martha Abe and Yuriko Okazaki. They were the original Elmhurst Nisei; others would follow.

The Elmhurst Four were members of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the successor of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, whose members had founded the College in 1871. A campus organization, the Student Refugee Committee, and President Timothy Lehmann brought them to Elmhurst over the vocal and bitter opposition of a small band of local citizens, including members of the American Legion. The Elmhurst Press ran a front-page editorial with the headline, NO ROOM FOR JAP STUDENTS IN THIS TOWN. But on the campus, support for the Nisei was “practically 100 percent,’’ President Lehmann noted at the time.

“Democracy is on trial here as elsewhere,” Paul Jans, the chairman of Elmhurst’s Board of Trustees, wrote in a letter to his colleagues.

“The local community must be willing to accept the challenge for itself which the nation has thrown to the rest of the world…We must make our contribution so that a majority of local American people will insist on fair treatment of these Japanese and not succumb to race baiters.’’

Today, two of the Elmhurst Four, Martha Abe and Yuriko Okazaki, are deceased. Himeo Tsumori and Seiji Aizawa are in their mid-80s and live in Northern California. Tsumori is a retired pediatrician in San Francisco. Aizawa resides in Salinas, known as the hometown of the writer John Steinbeck.

After graduating in 1947 from Elmhurst, where he played on the basketball and baseball teams, Aizawa briefly attended Eden Theological Seminary before he realized that the clerical life “was not for me,” and withdrew. He served in the U.S. Army, and after his discharge in 1953, he spent 35 years in Japan working for the U.S. government as a civilian in military intelligence.

The two old Elmhurst lettermen said they believe that what happened to them and their fellow Japanese Americans could happen again in the United States. “Not to us,” Aizawa said, “but to the Muslims, the Arab Americans. I worry about them, knowing the American penchant for disregarding the Constitution. That’s why I think it’s very important that this thing that happened to us be taught to the American public.”

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

21

Their memories of Elmhurst are much stronger than their memories of the camp.

T 22

he day of infamy, December 7, 1941, was a Sunday.

Seiji Aizawa, 15 years old, was attending church with his family in San Francisco when Japanese torpedo and bomber planes swooped out of the clouds above the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet. It was just before 8:00 a.m. in Hawaii, almost 11:00 a.m. in California. “We came home from church and heard about it on the radio,’’ he recalled, 70 years later. “Like everyone else, we were stunned.’’

The attack left 18 American fighting ships on the bottom of the harbor or listing in flames on the fuel- and blood-soaked waters. More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen were killed. The nation was at war once again.

Aizawa’s father gathered his two teenage sons and his young daughter around the kitchen table, with the grim news from Hawaii crackling over the radio. Aizawa’s parents were born in Japan, but Seiji and his siblings were U.S. citizens, born in San Francisco. Anticipating dark days to come, the senior Aizawa told his children to never forget that they were 100 percent American. “There was really no question where our loyalty was,’’ Aizawa said.

A few blocks away, Aizawa’s buddy, Himeo Tsumori, 16 years old, was playing basketball at the ymca not far from where he was born in Japantown, the segregated San Francisco ghetto where most Nisei and Issei were forced to live before the war. “That’s where my life was for my first 16 years,” Tsumori recalled. “I felt safe there.’’

Tsumori’s priorities were red-blooded, American and clear, at least to him: sports, girls and, a distant third, academics. Short but fast, he was a star on his high school track team. He remembers being nervous, even scared, as he walked into San Francisco’s Poly Tech High School on the Monday morning of December 8.

“It was a kind of funny feeling,’’ he said. What would his classmates and teachers say? Would they blame him? Would they call him names?

The principal convened a school-wide assembly to explain as best he

could what had happened at Pearl Harbor. “The kids in my class were pretty good,’’ Tsumori recalled. “They didn’t harass me at all. They treated me like they always did, like I was one of them. Which I was.’’

Aizawa also was “one of them,” an American boy with immigrant parents, a story as old as the nation. “Our parents didn’t speak English very well,’’ he said. “We were somewhat isolated from our parents because of the problem of communication. After kindergarten, our language was English.’’

His parents, though, wanted him to learn about the family’s native land and culture, so young Seiji attended a Japanese language school after going to public school all day. Several Japanese schools were in the neighborhood. “I went to a lousy one,’’ he recalled. “I didn’t learn much Japanese.’’

Aizawa’s father had emigrated to San Francisco around the time of the great earthquake in 1906. A few years later he returned to Japan to marry the girl who would become Seiji’s mother, and the couple returned to the United States. Like nearly all of the 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States before World War ii, Aizawa’s parents settled on the West Coast. (Only about 300 people of Japanese descent lived in Chicago before the war.)

Aizawa’s father was highly respected in Japantown. He ran a Japaneselanguage bookstore; the family lived above the shop. His neighbors sought him out for advice. Three days after Pearl Harbor, two fbi agents sought him out for arrest. “They didn’t even have a warrant,’’ Aizawa said. “As far as I can tell, it was completely illegal.’’

In the hours and days after the attack, hundreds of Japanese Americans and immigrants, as well as German and Italian nationals, were rounded up by the authorities whether or not they had committed a crime. Within 48 hours, nearly 1,300 Issei were in custody.

“My father had done nothing wrong,’’ Aizawa said. “He sold books.’’

The rounded-up were the intellectuals, the business leaders, the foreign-language newspaper editors, the movers and shakers of their

The Topaz Relocation Center was located in Utah, 140 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. At its peak, about 8,200 people lived there, sleeping on Army-issued cots in rooms heated by potbelly stoves. Outside, a layer of dust covered the ground until the wind kicked it up and the dust covered everything, including people.

23

The site of the relocation camp now includes a museum. In the 1940s, the camp had two elementary schools and a high school. Aizawa and Tsumori were members of the high school’s first graduating class. Aizawa worked on the yearbook; Tsumori, above, was voted best athlete.

communities with the strongest perceived ties to the country now at war with the United States. The authorities saw them as potential spies and saboteurs. Most of them were held without formal charges in enemy alien internment camps run by the Justice Department for the duration of the war.

Overseas, meanwhile, the Japanese military scored several early and unsettling victories. At home, racist sentiment broke out like a disease, especially on the West Coast. “The country was scared stiΩ,’’ recalled Herb Muenstermann, an Elmhurst alumnus who befriended both Aizawa and Tsumori during their years together at the College. “Everybody called the Japanese ‘Japs’—it was ‘Jap this’ and ‘Jap that.’ They looked diΩerent. They stood out. It was a racial thing. It was disgraceful.’’

In cities from northern Washington to southern California, signs were a≈xed to light posts announcing a curfew for people of Japanese descent. “We were supposed to be oΩ the streets by eight,’’ Tsumori said. The military declared huge tracts of San Francisco o≈cially oΩlimits to the Japanese. They were ordered to turn in their cameras and short-wave radios.

Other Asian Americans, Aizawa recalled, tried to distance themselves from his people. Some wore buttons proclaiming, “I am Chinese.’’

One day, after visiting a friend, Aizawa was walking home when he was approached on the street by an African American. Even the start of the Civil Rights Movement was more than a decade away; the armed forces that were fighting the Japanese and the Nazis were segregated.

As the man passed, he told Aizawa, “Hang tough.’’

“I really appreciated that,’’ Aizawa said.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

T

hen came another day of infamy­—February 19, 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced removal and confinement of Japanese Americans.

“We knew something bad was coming,’’ Tsumori said, “but we had no idea we would be sent to concentration camps.’’

The loss of freedom came quickly. “One Saturday afternoon, I ran in the finals of a track meet,’’ Tsumori said. The race was the 100yard dash; he broke the tape at 10.3 seconds. “It made me feel good,” he said. “At least I went out a winner. The next Saturday I was behind barbed wire.’’

The government called the camps “relocation centers.’’ They included schools, libraries, hospitals and churches, crammed into low-slung military barracks with tar-paper sidings. “They weren’t as bad” as the camps in Germany, Tsumori acknowledged, “but we couldn’t go anywhere we wanted. We had to carry passes. And the guns were pointed in—at us.’’ One day, a Japanese man, 62 years old, was shot and killed by a soldier for wandering too close to the fence.

The War Relocation Authority, or wra, was created to oversee the mass evacuation. Each family was assigned a number. The Aizawa family’s number was 22406; the Tsumori family’s was 22505. Family members were ordered to pin their numbers to their clothing for the journey to the camps, and to tag their belongings. That was not di≈cult, since they were allowed to carry only what each person could pack in a suitcase. Tsumori packed clothes, a few books and his track shoes.

“I was just a kid,” he said. “I didn’t really have anything. But our parents lost everything.’’

The permanent relocation centers were built to handle up to 10,000 inmates each. Before they were ready, the people were held in temporary “assembly centers’’—makeshift prison camps hastily erected at race tracks

24

and county fairgrounds, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by armed soldiers. Tsumori, his parents, sister and two brothers—along with Aizawa, his mother, sister and brother—spent their first months of internment just south of San Francisco at the Tanforan Race Track, the former home of Seabiscuit, the superstar race horse. The government built scores of barracks on the track’s infield, but it could not keep up with the influx of thousands of citizen-internees. Many people were forced to live in converted horse stables. “No matter how hard people cleaned,” Aizawa said, “they couldn’t get rid of the smell of manure and urine.’’

In late September 1942, Aizawa, Tsumori and their families, along with thousands of others, boarded trains for what turned out to be the Topaz Relocation Center. They did not know where they were going at the time. “No one told us anything,’’ Aizawa said. The shades were drawn during the trip into the desert, and armed soldiers walked the aisles. The normally day-long journey lasted three days as the train was repeatedly sidetracked for troop transports and freight trains.

Tsumori’s father and his sister, May, did not make the trip to Topaz.

They had tuberculosis and stayed behind in a sanatorium near the race track. Tsumori’s father recovered and eventually rejoined the family.

His sister never left the sanatorium. She died two years later, “all alone,’’ Tsumori said. “That was the saddest part.’’

May Tsumori was 21 years old.

T

he Topaz Relocation Center was located 16 miles outside the small town of Delta, about 140 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. At its peak, about 8,200 people lived there, making it the fifth largest city in the state. All told, about 11,000 men, women and children passed through the gates of Topaz between the day it opened, September 11, 1942, and the day it closed, October 31, 1945. The city-camp

Tsumori and Aizawa left the Topaz Relocation Center for Elmhurst College in 1943, along with two female students, Martha Abe and Yuriko Okazaki. They were called the “Elmhurst Four.” Only the two men survive.

was surrounded by peaks: Mount Topaz, Mount Hinckley and Drum Mountain (so called, according to a camp guidebook given to arriving inmates, “because mysterious drum-like noises emanate from [it] at night”).

When Tsumori first arrived at the camp, he and a group of friends set out on foot to explore the mountains. “The barbed wire wasn’t up yet,’’ he said. Two soldiers with machine guns caught up with them and returned them to the camp in a jeep.

Temperatures at Topaz could drop to 20 below zero in the winter and soar to 120 above in the summer. Trees had to be shipped in from other parts of the state. A layer of dust covered the ground like grass until the wind kicked up and the dust covered everything, including people. When it rained, according to the guidebook, the dust was “quickly transformed’’ into a muddy “gum-like mixture that has no equal.’’

Delta, with a population of about 1,500, has always been “a tough place to farm and make a living,’’ said Jane Beckwith, a former high school English teacher and lifelong resident who founded the town’s Topaz Relocation Camp Museum. “My mom said people in Delta didn’t notice the Depression because they had been in it so much longer than the rest of the country.’’ When government o≈cials went looking for cheap land for a camp, they found plenty around Delta. “That’s the reason the camp came here,’’ Beckwith said. “People were so poor they would overlook any type of injustice.’’

The Tsumoris lived in a 20-by-9-foot room, heated by a potbelly stove. They had Army-issued cots but little else when it came to furniture, until the father rejoined the family and built chairs, a desk and bookshelves with wood scavenged from around the site.

The camp had two elementary schools and one high school. In June 1943, Tsumori and Aizawa were members of the first graduating class of Topaz High School. Tsumori was voted best athlete. Aizawa worked on the yearbook; but for a long time, he recalled, he stopped “thinking about the future.’’

Then the Reverend W. Carl Nugent told him about Elmhurst College in Illinois. “I had never heard of the place before,’’ Aizawa said, but he knew that participating in a new program might get him out of the camp. Suddenly, thinking about the future started to make sense again.

Nugent was the pastor of the Evangelical and Reformed Church back in Japantown. When his congregation was sent to Topaz, Nugent and his family followed. With the help of the National Japanese Student Relocation Council, operated by a Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee, Nugent got the four Nisei students enrolled in Elmhurst College.

“My memories of Elmhurst are much stronger than my memories of the camp,’’ Aizawa said. In his first semester, Aizawa received three Bs, two Cs and an A, in general chemistry. Tsumori received four Bs, one C and an A, in general zoology. Aizawa was a pre-theology student; Tsumori was pre-med.

Aizawa spent Christmas 1943 at the home of his classmate, Herb Muenstermann, near St. Louis. They hitchhiked south along Route 66 and caught a ride with a trucker for practically the entire way. About 100 miles outside Chicago, they passed Tsumori and another classmate, who also were hitching to St. Louis for the holiday. “They just waved and we kept going,’’ Tsumori said.

In 1945, during his junior year at Elmhurst, Tsumori was drafted into the Army. His classmates threw a going-away party for him. It made the pages of The Elm Bark, under the headline FRIENDS GIVE ‘MO’ A SURPRISE SEND OFF. Amid cake and punch, Tsumori received several gifts. “The presentation of an identification bracelet, a New Testament, and a fountain pen, given by all Mo’s friends on the campus,” the paper reported, “was made by Seiji Aizawa.’’

Before shipping oΩ to Europe, Tsumori, in uniform, visited his parents, still living behind barbed wire at the Topaz Relocation Center. By the time he reached his post in Germany, the war was over. Tsumori spent his short time in the military as an administrator in a medical unit. Then he returned to Elmhurst to finish college and play in the Homecoming game of 1946.

The stadium was rocking that day. “Blue and white, fight-fight-fight,’’ the crowd chanted as the Bluejays took control of the game early, scoring two touchdowns, including one by Little Mo, who caught a pass on the five-yard line and ran to “pay dirt.’’ In the stands, Aizawa was cheering his old buddy on.

At halftime, the Homecoming queen, Marie Hoefer, and her court were presented to the school. After the crowning, the crowd stood as taps were played for the 14 Elmhurst alumni lost in the war. Elmhurst went on to defeat Concordia, 18-0.

“I scored two touchdowns that day,’’ said Tsumori. “I felt like a hero.’’

25

A

izawa plans to attend his 65th class reunion next year. “I’m not sure how many of us are left,’’ he said. “But I enjoy going back to see how the place has changed. Elmhurst means a lot to me.’’

Tsumori is not sure when he will return. He does not like to dwell on the past.

So it took some convincing by his curious daughter and grandson to get him to visit the site of the Topaz Relocation Center last spring. He had not seen it since 1945, when he kissed his mother goodbye and went oΩ to fight for his country. “I didn’t want to go back, but they wanted to see it,’’ he said.

There is little left to see. The buildings and guard towers are gone.

There is a cement slab—the remnants of the women’s latrine—and several nests of rusted wire, lying on the ground like rattlesnakes. Most of the old camp is buried in greasewood.

The camp museum’s founder, Jane Beckwith, walked the site with Tsumori and his family. She led him to the block where he once lived.

“I have some good memories of this place,’’ he said. “I had my friends all around. Everyone was here. It was easier on me than on the kids behind me. I only stayed a year. Some of the younger kids had to stay for years. I can’t imagine that.’’

He stood in front of what used to be his barracks, located at Block 36, Room 3E. “Over there my friend and I put in a pole-vault pit,’’ he said. “Over there we built a track. We made the best of it.’’

He looked oΩ at the distant mountains, shaking his head. “I don’t think they needed the barbed wire,’’ he sighed. “Where were we going to go if we got out?’’

Then a sly smile spread across his face.

“I went to Elmhurst,’’ he said.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

The two old friends fear what happened to them could happen again in America.

Why

We

Asked A new optional question on the College’s admission application about student identity gained wide attention in the fall. Here, Elmhurst’s president outlines the thinking behind the question.

By S. Alan Ray

T 28

his fall, Elmhurst College made a small change to its admission process that came to the attention of a national audience. As The Chronicle of Higher Education, which broke the story, reported in September, “Elmhurst College has become the first institution to include a question about sexual orientation and gender identity on its undergraduate admission application.”

Our application now includes the question: “Would you consider yourself a member of the lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community?” It joins several other questions—related to religious a≈liation, language spoken at home and other factors—that are presented to prospective students as optional; that is, they can choose whether or not to answer them.

As we note on the application itself, we ask these optional questions because we are “committed to diversity and connecting underrepresented students with valuable resources on campus.” When a student chooses to answer an optional question, he or she helps us to advance our diversity goals and to connect prospective students with the specific resources—including scholarships and campus organizations—that the College makes available to students from historically underrepresented groups.

We took this step in an eΩort to better serve each of our students as unique persons. It also allows us to live out our commitments to cultural diversity, social justice, mutual respect among all persons and the dignity of every individual. These are among the core values of Elmhurst College. They were forthrightly articulated in our Strategic Plan and appear in our admission materials and on the home page of our web site. What’s more, they provide the foundation for all of our academic, student and community programs.

While the College did not seek publicity for this step, it did receive it. A national organization, Campus Pride, issued a press release noting the pioneering aspect of Elmhurst’s move. It was the Campus Pride release that led to the Chronicle article, which in turn inspired coverage in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Inside Higher Ed, on Chicago Public Radio, on the web sites of cnn, Time and The New York Times, on nbc-Channel 5 and elsewhere.

Overall, the news coverage was highly favorable to the College. In an editorial, for example, the Sun-Times called the move “a strong signal that the school will embrace lgbt students and will do its best to support them.” The paper quoted our Dean of Admission, Gary Rold: “We try really hard to take good care of students, have them graduate and be successful citizens in the world. The only way you do that is to meet people where they really are.” It concluded: “As society has grown more accepting, life for lgbt teens has gotten easier. But a recent rash of suicides among gay teens and college students shows just how much work remains to be done. Anything a college can do to roll out the welcome mat will help ease the way.”

In addition to such favorable notices, our decision inspired a great deal of commentary, both for and against this administrative step.

Along the way, we heard a number of legitimate concerns expressed by our own most valued constituents, including our alumni and friends.

I spoke and corresponded personally with a number of concerned

friends, and I know that many more have questions that, for one reason or another, we never got to hear. Now that the dust has settled, I thought I’d reach out to our alumni and friends with some thoughts on “frequently asked questions” inspired by last fall’s news coverage.

The most frequently asked question was the simplest.

Why did you do this?

Quite naturally, the decision originated in the O≈ce of Admission.

Each year, Gary Rold and his team evaluate the eΩectiveness of the admission application, adding some questions and retiring others. The process is well grounded in a clear understanding of what constitutes current best practice in undergraduate admissions.

“Elmhurst works very hard to find ways to help students transition to college life,” Gary told me and the cabinet. “Key to that transition is the identification of students with particular qualities who are looking for a friendly, supportive campus environment. For many years, we have sought information about ethnicity, race, faith tradition, national origin and language spoken at home, with the intent of facilitating the transition of the applicant to full membership in our campus community. We ask students about their interests, high school activities and the like so that they can be put in touch with valuable campus resources and programming, and to gauge their eligibility for certain scholarships.

This year, we simply decided that the time had come for our campus to include self-identified lgbt students in this process. Creating a positive, welcoming environment for all of our students is part of our mission. It’s reflected in our core values.”

What about this scholarship money?

Every year, we oΩer prospective students a wide range of scholarships— Presidential, Dean’s, Founders, ucc, Music, Art and Theatre and others. For many years, we’ve oΩered what we call Enrichment Scholarships to members of groups that have been traditionally underrepresented on campus. As we note in our admission materials, this scholarship “is not limited by race or ethnicity,” though it often is informed by those attributes. We’ve awarded Enrichment Scholarships to a wide range of qualified students whose presence in our community would add to the diversity and richness of campus life, including students who have unusual talents or who are African American, Hispanic, Asian, Mixed Race, Muslim, Hindu and so forth. This year, we also will oΩer this scholarship to academically qualified, selfidentified lgbt students.

Will giving scholarships to lgbt students disadvantage other students?

No. Scholarships are oΩered as a discount oΩ of a student’s tuition and do not take money away from other students. We oΩer scholarships to all qualifying admitted students. We do not have a fixed number of scholarships. Thus one student’s gain is not another student’s loss.

Moreover, at one-third tuition, the Enrichment Scholarship serves as a meaningful but relatively modest incentive for enrollment. As is true at many institutions, the average scholarship at Elmhurst is over 40 percent of tuition. This year, we oΩered scholarships to 1,800 admitted students. Only 12 percent were Enrichment Scholarships. We oΩer

the overwhelming majority of scholarships solely on academic criteria.

Many students who were eligible for an Enrichment Scholarship actually qualified for an academic scholarship that superseded the Enrichment award.

Won’t prospective students lie on their applications just to get an Enrichment Scholarship?

That is always a possibility. Students might misrepresent themselves as gay or lesbian on applications solely to qualify for a scholarship, just as a white person might try to pass as a light-skinned Native American.

However, I think it is highly unlikely. The application process has always aΩorded opportunities for fraud, but I have seen no evidence it happens much, at Elmhurst or elsewhere. Young people tend to take college applications seriously; they tend not to see them as opportunities for mischief.

But why are you reaching out to lgbt students in the first place?

How will they enrich campus life?

A self-identified lgbt student brings distinct perspectives and experiences to campus, which add significantly to our cultural diversity and thus to our entire academic enterprise. It is becoming ever more clear to educators that students learn best when they engage with a wide spectrum of individuals, both like and unlike themselves—that is, if they are part of a campus community that resembles the society and the world they are called to serve. That’s why Elmhurst and many other colleges and universities make an extra eΩort to recruit students of color, international students, firstgeneration students and many others. Encouraging talented, selfidentified gay and transgender students to come to Elmhurst enhances the education of every one of our students.

How will asking this question on the application actually help lgbt students?

In practical terms, we invite applicants to identify themselves as members of the lgbt community in order to provide them with better student services when they arrive on campus. As for all students from underrepresented groups, the sooner we know how many such students to expect, the better we can plan appropriate co-curricular programming, as well as link up those students with their particular campus a≈nity groups—such as the Black Student Union, hablamos or equal, the organization for lgbt students.

Our basic premise is this: We want lgbt students, like all of our students, to succeed at Elmhurst. We want them to learn and grow within a safe community, where they will find abundant resources to support them. We want them to know from the start that they will not feel isolated here because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We want them to know that they will not be merely “tolerated” in this community. On the contrary: we clearly, openly, emphatically want them here.

It’s important to note that lgbt students still experience hostility and discrimination in many high schools and on more than a few college campuses. Studies show that they are at significantly higher risk for harassment compared with their heterosexual peers. Many report Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

29

“We took this step in an eΩort to serve each of our students as unique persons.”

experiencing an unfriendly or antagonistic campus climate. A recent national survey found that 13 percent of gay and lesbian students said they feared for their physical safety. The number rises to 43 percent for transgender students. When you take all this into account, and you factor in our own values and tradition, a more apt question would be, “How can Elmhurst College not act in a way that supports and nurtures the individual formation of each of its students?”

30

“We’ve entered a national discussion in progress, one that continues to stir passions.”

How does this action align with the values and traditions of the College?

Elmhurst has a proud tradition of leadership on issues of social justice.

In the fall of 1942, for example, a new campus organization, the Student Refugee Committee, sought to bring to the College four students from California: American citizens of Japanese descent. The Committee’s eΩorts came in response to an attempt by the federal government to soften the plight of Japanese Americans—interned by the War Relocation Authority—by placing some of them in colleges willing to welcome them. According to the College’s president at the time, Timothy Lehmann, the support of Elmhurst students for the committee’s work was “practically 100 percent.” However, despite the program’s federal pedigree—and the fact that the Nisei students were subjected to fbi investigations—the committee’s eΩorts created what the local newspapers called a “storm” of oΩ-campus controversy. You can read the full story of this proud moment in our history elsewhere in this issue of Prospect.

To cite a second example: in the summer of 1966, the College welcomed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the podium of Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel during Dr. King’s historic, yearlong eΩort to racially desegregate city and suburban neighborhoods in the Chicago area.

Understood within the context of its own time and place, this move took courage. It now is commemorated by a bronze plaque in the chapel’s narthex, and by our annual Martin Luther King Jr. Guestship, which examines issues and ideas related to Dr. King’s work.

Of course, we recognize that our new admission question may signal to applicants that Elmhurst is “walking the walk” of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. This is a source of pride for us. It is entirely consistent with our mission and vision to prepare students to “understand and respect the diversity of the world’s cultures and peoples.”

Did the College’s a≈liation with the United Church of Christ play a part in this decision?

Yes. Our a≈liation with the ucc plays a part in all of our eΩorts to serve our students and live out our institutional values. The ucc has its own long and proud history of shattering our society’s color and gender barriers. It frequently has been at the forefront of ecclesiastical eΩorts to embrace the whole of humanity. In the eighteenth century, the church was the first in the United States to ordain an African American to the Christian ministry. In the nineteenth century, it was the first to ordain a woman. In the twentieth century, it was the first to ordain an openly gay person, William R. Johnson, a graduate of Elmhurst College, who became a ucc minister in 1972. That tradition resonates with our own tradition. The church describes itself as “extravagantly welcoming.” We are, too.

By the way, when the President and General Minister of the ucc, the Reverend Dr. GeoΩrey Black, received word of the change in our application, he sent me an email. “This is good news!” he said. “I might add that it is yet another ucc first.”

How else is the College planning to support lgbt students?

As with all students, we are always looking for new ways to meet and understand lgbt students as they really are. After all, one of the great aims of higher education is to help students to attain—as Elmhurst’s sixth president, the theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, put it—an “eΩective individuality.” That can only happen if educators are willing to take on the deepest matters of identity with understanding and honesty. Our Student AΩairs staΩ is especially active in this area.

This fall, a group of faculty approached Alzada Tipton, our vice president for academic aΩairs and dean of the faculty, to request funds to support the creation of additional lgbt components to our curriculum. The dean was happy to support this initiative. It was announced in October, when we inaugurated the annual William R. Johnson Guestship, which will bring distinguished historians and other scholars to campus to discuss issues related to the lgbt experience. Our own Bill Johnson joined a panel discussion on “Christian Theology and the lgbt Person,” in which I also was honored to participate. In the same space the following afternoon, the historian Michael Schiavi gave an inspiring account of the life of Vito Russo, a pioneering film scholar and lgbt activist. And our admission o≈ce will continue to reach out to lgbt students in new and creative ways.

Why weren’t alumni and friends of the College informed in advance of this move?

In candor, it did not occur to us to make a wide announcement about an administrative decision of this type. Adding a single, optional question to our application is the sort of routine thing we do on campus every day. It didn’t constitute a change in College policy; it simply represented an application of existing admission policies to an additional subset of prospective students. At the time we made the move, we had no way of knowing that we were the first institution in the nation to ask this particular question on its admission application. Given the fact that there are 4,000 institutions of higher learning in the United States, it seemed unlikely that we were the first to make the move.

(It’s even less likely that we’ll be the last; already, Duke University and the Yale School of Law are considering following our lead in this regard.)

What was your strategy for dealing with the news media?

As noted, we did not make this move for the publicity. Once our administrative decision entered the public realm, however, our O≈ce of Communications and Public AΩairs worked eΩectively with the news media to ensure that reporters reached the right campus contacts and clearly heard the way that the institution understands its decision.

This careful framing of the story appeared on the College’s home page and is reflected in much of the media coverage. In short, we understood this action as a principled institution seeking to do right by its students.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

What has the mail been like?

Predictably, it’s been mixed. For decades now, our society has been in flux on lgbt issues. We understand that we’ve entered a national discussion in progress, about diversity and sexual identity—one that continues to stir passions and challenge established beliefs. We’re determined to state our own beliefs as fully, respectfully and thoughtfully as we can.

One of the unanticipated benefits of this episode is the opportunity it has given us to clearly communicate two of the College’s core values— its unyielding commitment to diversity and profound respect for individuals—to people who previously were unfamiliar with us. We hope that the discussion that resulted from our action encourages many colleges and universities to follow our lead.

For me, one piece of mail on this issue in particular stood out. It came from a woman I’ve never met, who lives in Pennsylvania.

“Dr. Ray—bravo!” it began. “I congratulate you on the inclusive nature of your [institution]. As the mother of a young man who came out shortly before his senior year in high school, I only wish the universities and colleges to which he applied would have asked that question. He ended up attending Bowling Green State University in Ohio and found his way, but there were many bumps along the road. I wonder how much smoother his road would have been at Elmhurst. Many, many thanks to you for your progressive, sensitive and open-minded attitude. Best wishes for a great academic year.”

S. Alan Ray is professor of religion and society and the thirteenth president of Elmhurst College.

31

Falling in Love with Science Venkatesh Gopal gives his physics students research challenges normally reserved for graduate students at big universities. “I give them the big picture,” he says.

“In a month they’re ahead of me.”

By Andrew Santella

34

N

ot every scientist would admit to drawing inspiration from When Harry Met Sally. But when I met Venkatesh Gopal last spring on the sidewalk in front of the Schaible Science Center, the Billy Crystal/Meg Ryan movie from 1989 was the first thing he wanted to talk about.

“Remember that scene where all the older couples talk about the first time they met and how they fell in love?” he asked. “It gave me an idea for a project. I’d like to interview scientists about the moment they fell in love with science.”

For Gopal, the moment came early. When he was growing up in New Delhi, his father used to bring home Dynam science kits. Venkatesh would spend hours conducting tabletop experiments from the kits, then write up the results in a series of notebooks he kept with painstaking earnestness. Something in the problem solving—the trial and error, the writing it all down—appealed to the boy. It became his idea of fun.

An assistant professor of physics at Elmhurst, Gopal likes to say that he’s still an experimentalist. Today he works at the intersection of physics, neuroscience and biology. He and his team of undergraduate researchers are developing imaging techniques they hope will help them better understand the sensory processes of animals. They want to know more about how animals use the sense of smell to survive.

Venkatesh Gopal and students Alex Grabenhofer and Bob Morton use computer imaging to study the way insects track odors. At right, a page from one of the professor’s meticulous notebooks in which he jots down ideas that pop into his head.

Gopal treats his students like colleagues.

“They thrive in the research environment.”

It’s a topic that, at first glance, might seem arcane. For animals, though, odor is a matter of life and death. They depend on a precise and reliable sense of smell to find food and alert themselves to predators. In the competition for scant resources, an animal with a slow or imprecise smeller won’t last long. For scientists like Gopal, understanding an animal’s finely honed ability to track odors oΩers a window into the evolution and workings of the brain.

A thorny problem for the researchers involves visualizing smells.

Some studies use visual markers like dye or smoke to create a plume that the researchers can follow with the eye. But if the researchers can visualize the smell, presumably the animals can, too. The visual markers muddle the experiment: Are the animals reacting to the smell or to the plume?

Gopal and his student researchers found an innovative solution.

Instead of using visual markers, they employ Schlieren imaging, a technology used by engineers to visualize air flow in wind tunnels.

Deep in the warren of research labs they share in the basement of the Schaible Science Center, Gopal’s students built a black-curtained enclosure that looks like an ultra-sophisticated version of a carnival photo booth. It’s home to a small community of fruit-fly larvae. At one end of the enclosure is a video camera; at the other, a backdrop of finely patterned vertical lines. Gopal’s students have designed a system of pumps and tubes through which they release a blast of scent. (On one of my visits they worked with amyl acetate, an organic compound that smells like bananas.) The released gas creates slight distortions, invisible to the eye, in the lines of the backdrop, not unlike the waves that rise from hot pavement and seem to distort objects on the horizon. The students capture these minute distortions with cameras and specially designed software to create a visual record of the plume, and of the fruit flies’ response to the odor.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

35

Like most investigations, this one involves a lot of trouble-shooting.

Computer code needs tweaking. Cameras need adjusting. One of Gopal’s students, Alex Grabenhofer, created the control software that runs the experiments; Gopal calls it “a truly impressive feat” for a self-taught programmer. The process is more than a little like the table-top experiments Gopal learned to love as a kid; except now it is his students who are falling in love with science.

“Venkatesh is really excellent at giving students the research bug,” said Mitra Hartmann, a biomedical engineer who has known Gopal since his days as a postdoctoral student at Northwestern University.

“He’s a brilliant teacher.”

Hartmann runs Northwestern’s Sensory and Neurosystems Engineering lab. In Hartmann’s lab, Gopal pondered the mysteries of rat whiskers.

He studied the array of 30 or so whiskers on each side of a rat’s face and helped devise a mathematical model that simulates how the animals use their whiskers to sense objects around them.

Four years ago, when Gopal visited Elmhurst as a candidate for a faculty position, he presented some of this research to curious students as a kind of audition for the teaching job. Grabenhofer, now an alumnus, was a first-year student at the time. “I was thinking, ‘Wow, this would be a really cool topic to research,’” he said. Grabenhofer spent the next three years doing just that, as an undergraduate researcher under Gopal’s direction.

Grabenhofer and his fellow student-researchers modified the odorimaging system they developed to provide more quantitative, timely data. Last year, Grabenhofer developed software that provides images of gas plumes in real time. Gopal demonstrated the system by positioning himself in profile in front of a video camera and exhaling through his nose. On a computer screen, the cloud of Gopal’s breath appeared as clearly as if he had been smoking a cigar. Grabenhofer’s software worked.

36

To Gopal, a small, hands-on college like Elmhurst is a great place to train future scientists.

Gopal kept his father’s notebooks from an engineering course in electrical power generation. At right, the professor with students working on research projects.

They are (from left), Robert Morton, Alex Grabenhofer, Anthony Paparo, Anthony Ramirez, Michael Wydra and Nathaniel Kabat.

“I have very talented students,” Gopal said. “I give them the big picture. I tell them, ‘Here’s what I know, and here’s what we want to do.’ In a month, they’re ahead of me.”

According to Grabenhofer, getting ahead is largely the result of persistent tinkering in the lab. Over the summer, when the campus is quiet, Gopal’s undergraduate researchers can be found in their basement lab, trying out solutions until they hit on the one that works, in the time-honored method of problem solving.

Gopal’s o≈ce is just across the hall from the lab, and his door is always open to students who run into research roadblocks. Just as often, though, the students turn to one another for help. On Fridays last summer they met for pot-luck lunches in a blue-walled conference room in the science center. With cardboard pizza boxes and halfempty pop bottles spread across the table, they brainstormed solutions to queries they had scrawled on a whiteboard. Then they headed back to the lab to see if any of the ideas worked.

“I have friends at Northwestern and the University of Chicago, and none of them get this kind of experience, this chance to interact and innovate in the lab,” said Grabenhofer. “It’s a matter of taking the time to explore.”

In his four years on the Elmhurst faculty, Gopal has devoted himself unstintingly to introducing undergraduates to research. The best students, he says, now get the kinds of research challenges normally reserved for second-year graduate students at major universities.

Some of Gopal’s students fall in love with the process, the way the professor did as a boy, and decide to pursue their own lives of scientific inquiry. Matthew GraΩ, for example, now works in Hartmann’s Northwestern lab as a graduate student. Michael Meaden began work last fall in the University of Arizona’s highly regarded applied math program. Still another, Charles Poole, is now at Case Western Reserve University completing a doctorate in physics.

“I like to treat my students like graduate students,” Gopal said. “They like problem solving, and they thrive in the research environment.

Listen, I’ve seen people fall asleep in class, but I’ve never seen anyone fall asleep in the lab.”

G

opal’s faith in the power of problem solving comes from personal experience. Growing up in New Delhi, he was rarely without some book of science experiments he had borrowed from the school library.

From his father, M. S. Gopal, an engineer, Venkatesh learned to keep meticulous notebooks filled with the results of his investigations. The boy came to believe that if something hadn’t been recorded in the notebook, it hadn’t happened.

He still maintains the habit. In his current notebook, he neatly tracks the progress of his students’ investigations along with his own.

His penmanship is fastidious, his sketches precise. “That notebook is immaculate,” Meaden said one day in the lab. Like students everywhere, Meaden has developed an eye for his teacher’s quirks. “You

37

should see him when he writes on the board in class. If everything isn’t perfect, he’ll erase it and start over.”

Gopal’s perfectionism does not exclude playfulness. In his notebook, among the graphs and diagrams and technical notes, he has scattered drawings of toy trucks, at the urging of his son, a preschooler.

The professor will tell you that what is too often lacking from science is a spirit of adventure and play. “This should be a kind of play,” he said. “That’s how we learn. Things get very hard and boring when it’s called work.”

Gopal’s colleagues say the playful spirit he cultivates in the lab helps explain some of the success his students have had. “His students have made a community, an environment for solving problems together,” said Scott Kreher, a biologist at Dominican University who does collaborative research with Gopal. “It’s hard to provide that in a classroom, but it’s so useful. It’s what makes scientists. If you could build a whole curriculum around a spirit of playfulness, it would be amazing.”

A little more than a decade ago, as a newly minted Ph.D. working happily at the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India, Gopal was oΩered a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He agonized over whether to accept, finally decided it was an oΩer too good to refuse, and headed to the United States for the first time. He ended up being deeply disappointed by his time at mit, turned oΩ by what he saw as the lack of cooperation and collaboration among researchers—its paucity, in a word, of playfulness.

He soon found his way to Hartmann’s lab at Northwestern, where he spent three happy years. The experience had a profound eΩect on him as a scientist and a teacher. “Barely a week goes by when I don’t Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

think, ‘This is something I learned from Mitra,’” he said. What Gopal most appreciated was the way Hartmann treated her postdocs not merely as trained pairs of hands but as emerging scientists.

Gopal tries to create the same atmosphere at Elmhurst. It’s a challenge to create a serious (if playful) research culture with a group of undergraduates in a small department at a small college. Most academic scientists could quickly produce a list of reasons why good science is the preserve of graduate students at research universities.

The teaching load at a liberal arts college is too heavy, the big grants too hard to find. But to Gopal, a college like Elmhurst is a great place to train future scientists. At an institution that prides itself on the quality of its teaching, the chance to do undergraduate research can be the best teaching tool of all.

Gopal reaches across disciplinary and even institutional boundaries to launch collaborations with other faculty, and he serves as a tireless promoter of his students. Their aspirations remind him of his own dreams at their age.

As it turns out, Gopal’s investigations of sensory processes are ideally suited to the small-college setting. They invite the kind of tabletop experimentation that the professor champions, and they don’t require a bottomless budget. “A huge field of problems are on the front line of science but don’t require megabucks to look at,” he said. “It’s a matter of finding the right problems.”

His mentor Hartmann says that if anyone can make major research work at a small college, it’s Gopal; and he’s determined to prove her right. “My motto is, ‘small college, big science,’” he said. “I want my students to go to good graduate schools and have innovative careers.”

behind the scenes around campus

Photos: Roark Johnson

38

Echoes from the Clock Tower

A

t one time or another, every student traipses the halls of Old Main. But only a few get the privilege of ascending the steps of the historic building’s clock tower to sign his or her name for posterity.

The oldest signatures still visible date to 1899. They are signed in pencil and blend in with the dark-gray plaster covering the old Chicago pink bricks. An eye-squinting inspection of the top west wall reveals 20 signatures from the class of 1900.

For the past century, students, faculty and staΩ have left their marks on the tower walls. At first, it was whoever was so inclined. For the past 30 years or so, student leaders and others were asked to add their names to a piece of campus history.

In 1976, when Old Main was vacated temporarily for an interior renovation, the tower remained locked to protect its fragile interior walls and historic signatures. Despite precautions, damage from water flowing through an open window caused the plaster to buckle and crumble, taking some signatures with it. Time has reduced other areas of the clock tower to bare brick and turned the once polished wooden stairs to creaky, worn slats. These days, access to the tower is by invitation only.

The names and years inscribed on the walls cover much of the College’s 140-year history. In the 1960s, several ambitious students managed to sign their names, in chalk, on the tower’s ceiling—a nearly ten-and-a-half-foot drop to the top floor landing. When he took o≈ce in 2008, Dr. S. Alan Ray became the first president of the College to add his John Hancock to the tower walls.

Dedicated in October 1878, Old Main is the oldest building on campus, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has functioned as a dining hall and a dormitory, and now houses classrooms and faculty o≈ces. The entrance to the tower serves as part of the art department’s photography dark room.

In the 1940s, for understandable reasons, administrators wanted to downplay the College’s German heritage. The inscription on the north side of Old Main’s clock tower, “Pro Seminar Der Deutschen Ev Synode von N.A.,” was crudely plastered over. (It translates as “PreSeminary German Evangelical Synod of North America.”)

An exterior restoration in 1985 uncovered the original inscription.

Windows also were added to the openings where a bell once tolled the hour. The bell, removed earlier, now sits by Langhorst Field and is used to herald victories at home football games.

The original clock face rests in the Rudolf G. Schade Archives in the lower level of the A.C. Buehler Library. The clock hands are on display on the first floor of Old Main.

These days, students and others invited to sign do so with black permanent marker. They try to be respectful of the names already there. Although the clock tower no longer announces the time of day, the signatures inside will echo for years to come.

by Rita Colorito

39

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

40

Unyielding

Dreams Eight graduates of Elmhurst’s adult programs tell how they made their second acts the best.

Interviews by Margaret Currie Photos by Roark Johnson

Adult students have played an important role at Elmhurst College since 1949, when the College offered its first evening programs designed specifically for adults. Today, about one in five Elmhurst undergraduates is 24 or older.

Adult students bring a rich array of experiences and perspectives to campus.

Some completed a few college credits before taking a break to raise children; others started working or launched a new business directly after high school.

For some, enrolling at Elmhurst is an important step toward getting the credentials required for career advancement.

For many, it’s the fulfillment of a longheld dream. And when they graduate, our adult students emerge with enhanced credentials, new opportunities and a renewed confidence in their own abilities.

We spoke recently with several graduates of the College’s adult programs to find out more about their Elmhurst Experiences. Here are their stories.

41

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

42

I Invested My Severance Pay Donna Curin BS ’96, MA ’02 Assistant Vice President to the President & Chairman, Loyola University of Chicago

Only One Way to Do It John Fiore ’78 CEO, Motorola Credit Union I didn’t have the opportunity to attend college right away after high school, because finances were an issue and I had a lot going on. I found a job, and I had a military requirement to serve a couple of years in the Navy.

Still, I knew I had to further my education eventually, and there was only one way to do it—through night school. I signed up for classes at Wright College, and graduated with an associate’s degree in 1975.

That was a busy time for me. I had gotten married, and of course I was working. But my wife said to me, “I know we’ve got a lot going on, but a two-year degree is not going to get you where you want to go.” So I started looking for a college where I could get a good education without disrupting my life too much. I started at Elmhurst the same year I graduated from Wright, going to class at night and on Saturdays.

My Elmhurst degree definitely opened doors for me. At the time I was working as a loan o≈cer in Motorola’s Employee Credit Union.

Earning a four-year degree put me in position to start doing something.

In a short amount of time, I became assistant loan manager, then loan manager. Over the years I worked my way up to assistant general manager of the credit union and finally ceo.

When I started at Motorola, the credit union had $7 million in assets.

Today, we have $800 million. I feel good about where we are today, but most of all I enjoy helping our members achieve their financial goals and live better lives.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

I completed two years of college at Loyola University Chicago before getting married and having children.

For 14 years, I worked part time at a publishing firm in Oak Brook. It was not really a career, but I had wonderful benefits and I saw myself working there all my life. Then the firm was sold, and the staΩ was reduced by 50 percent.

At that point, the youngest of my four children was in school, so I was ready to work full time. McDonald’s corporate o≈ce was interviewing for temporary workers, and I was hired. But my skills from working in publishing were not transferable. That resulted in a cut in pay, and I was starting at the bottom.

I promised myself that would never happen to me again.

I knew the education piece was critical, so I invested my severance pay in completing my education. I started at Elmhurst College two months after I began working at McDonald’s.

My education went quickly, and I was able to graduate with honors in 18 months with a degree in business administration. By that time, I realized that I love school, so I kept going and earned a master’s degree in professional writing.

My career at McDonald’s moved quickly as well. I started as a temporary worker. Three years later I was the executive assistant to Michael Quinlan, the chairman and ceo. Six years after that, I was a communications manager, specializing in executive communication and speechwriting. Mr. Quinlan was the chairman of the board of trustees of Loyola University Chicago. When Loyola had an opening in the president’s o≈ce, he recommended me. I never thought I’d leave McDonald’s, but as I discovered during my years at Elmhurst, I love the academic environment. I have a terrific job with a lot of variety working with interesting people in an organization, like Elmhurst, that has a rich mission of serving students.

I’m sure I wouldn’t be where I am today without my Elmhurst degrees. Going back to school gave me more than a degree—it also gave me confidence that I could do what it takes.

Going back to school gave me more than a degree.

It gave me confidence.

43

I Knew It Was Time Tina Smith ’05 Benefits Coordinator, Elmhurst College

44

After high school I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I decided to go to a community college and work part time. At that age I was thinking more about making money than about education, so I quit school after only a year.

I started working as a secretary at Elmhurst College in 1997. Every year in my performance review, I was encouraged to go back to school.

Eventually, I got a position that required a degree—even though I didn’t have one yet. I knew it was time to earn my degree, so in 2000 I enrolled in the Elmhurst Management Program. I later enrolled in the Managerial Communications Program too, graduating with a double major in 2005.

As a single mom, going to school while working full time was sometimes overwhelming. It helped that classes met one night a week here on site, and that they didn’t start until 6:00 p.m. My daughter was old enough at the time to be encouraging. When I had homework to do, she let me get my work done.

Part of the reason I went back to school was so my daughter could say with pride, “My mother is a college graduate.” I wanted to set a good example for her, too. She’s seen how hard it is to go back to school as a single mom, so she wanted to continue her studies right after high school and do something fulfilling with her life. She finished her bachelor’s at Elmhurst, took oΩ a year, and went back to school for a master’s in social work. She plans to finish in May 2012. Recently she asked me, “Are you going to get your master’s?”

Right now I don’t have plans for graduate study, but I would like to in the future. For now, I’m just proud to have my bachelor’s degree.

One reason I went back to school was so my daughter could say with pride, “My mother is a college graduate.”

Those Classes Broadened Me as a Person Adam Warner ’99 President and Chief Operating Officer, Key Equipment Finance My education was sporadic after high school. I took a few classes here and a few classes there, so altogether I had about two years of college credit from a couple of diΩerent community colleges. By the time I thought seriously about earning a degree, I had been out of high school for 15 years.

At the time, I was working for the equipment finance unit of Mellon Bank.

There was a lot of discussion at the company about selling the division, and a light bulb went on in my head: I had progressed in the company because of my experience, and I’d been successful—but there was a gaping hole in my résumé because I had no college degree. A new company that didn’t know me might not take a chance on me. I knew it was time to get on the ball and advance my education.

When I started at Elmhurst, I was fairly advanced in my career; my goal was to earn a degree as quickly as possible. But then I took classes in theology, ethics and English composition, and I saw the benefits of a liberal arts education. Those classes broadened me as a person and made me more aware of other cultures and perspectives. In the end, I graduated with a lot more than a piece of paper.

Earning the degree allowed me to progress in my career without interruption.

When Mellon sold its equipment financing unit to GE, I moved to New York to join Key Bank as a division president of its equipment finance unit. Today I run the entire company’s $9 billion business, financing equipment purchases ranging from computer systems to corporate jets across North America and Europe.

If I hadn’t had a degree, and my broader outlook, there’s just no way the company’s board would have felt comfortable placing me at this level of responsibility.

45

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

46

A Mode of Continuous Learning Patricia Denman ’93 Executive Compensation Manager, Allstate Insurance (retired)

In a Position to Do Amazing Things Matthew Fuchsen ’03, MPA ’05 Tax Manager, DeLoitte For my initial go through college, I went to Iowa State to study science and play hockey. I was a semester short of a degree when I found myself working as an area supervisor for a restaurant franchise, making quite a bit more money than most college graduates.

But after a while, I decided the restaurant industry wasn’t for me. I came home to Elmhurst and started my own landscaping and snowplowing business. The company grew quite significantly, but I wanted to learn more about business and develop a career. To do that, of course, I needed a degree.

I started with an associate’s degree at College of DuPage. Then I chose Elmhurst for my bachelor’s, partly because I needed a program with evening classes and a lot of flexibility. I was still running my own company, my wife worked full time, and we were raising a child.

At first I took maybe two courses each semester, but when I started working on my master’s degree I was going to class every night of the week. It wasn’t easy, but it was time to get it done. Sometimes the power of the mind puts you in a position to do amazing things.

Having completed my master’s at the age of 33, I wasn’t on the traditional path for a position at a Big Four accounting firm. Instead, I chose a path of aggressive selling. I had met a senior manager at Deloitte, and I called him for 32 days straight, saying I’d love the opportunity to come in and meet with him. It was a pretty aggressive sales pitch. Once I got in the door, they made me an oΩer—and I’ve been here ever since.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

I started college after high school with the intention of teaching business at the high school level. During my sophomore year, though, it occurred to me that I had never worked in a business environment. How was I going to teach young people about working in an o≈ce?

Much to the consternation of one of my professors, I decided to take a break from college. I earned an associate’s degree in an executive secretarial program and got a job at Allstate, thinking I would work for a couple of years and then go back to school. Eighteen years later, I was still there.

Over the years, I had progressed from a secretarial position to a financial analyst position, then lower-level management. By that time, I thought maybe I didn’t need a degree. But one day my manager said to me, “At some point you’re going to get stopped in your career path because someone will look at your file and realize that you don’t have a degree.” Something in the way she said that made me think she was right, so I started looking into educational options.

I saw an ad for the Elmhurst Management Program and was intrigued by the accelerated nature of it and by the fact that you didn’t have to start at square one. I had been in business for 18 years by then, and I understood day-to-day work life. In emp we were all adults; we all brought work experience to the classroom. We learned from one another.

Going back to school as an adult put me in a mode of continuous learning. After graduating from Elmhurst, I earned two professional certifications that helped me in my career. Even now, I’m taking classes in subjects like Photoshop, classical music and classic films. And my urban studies minor stimulated my interest in traveling.

Since retiring five years ago, I’ve been to South Africa, the Galapagos Islands, Egypt, Italy and the Amazon. I have even fulfilled my original desire to teach by tutoring in an adult literacy program.

We were all adults; we all brought work experience to the classroom. We learned from one another.

47

It Was Fun, and It Was Different Carol White ’85 Advanced Practice Nurse, University of Chicago Medical Center

48

I started my career as a high school English teacher, then took some time oΩ to raise my three children. When it came time for me to go back to work, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend all day with other people’s kids anymore.

Nursing looked like a great profession, so I started looking into schools.

I had already gone through college, and I didn’t want to sit through English 101 again—so it made a big diΩerence when Elmhurst accepted every single one of my credits. Also, the College was starting a preschool on campus at the time, and my youngest child was ready to start preschool. Altogether it seemed like the right fit.

Going back to school as an adult was fun—and diΩerent.

When I started I was in my late 30s, and I was taking inorganic chemistry with 18- and 19-year-olds. When the professor made a reference to the first man on the moon, I was the only one in the room who had been alive at that time! I think the teachers felt they could relate to me and the other adult students.

I got an excellent education at Elmhurst. It was not an easy program; but I felt it really prepared me for what I was going to face as a nurse.

I’m in my 26th year of nursing now, and I’ve had a wonderful career. In my current job I work mostly with leukemia and lymphoma patients and their families—supporting them through very stressful times. These are the bravest people in the world. Every day I give it my all, because they’re giving me their trust; they’re handing me their hope and saying, “help me.” I get back so much more than I could ever give.

I got an excellent education at Elmhurst. It was not an easy program. But I’m in my 26th year of nursing now, and I’ve had a wonderful career.

I'm Still Using What I Learned Lori Manly-Hart ’03, MBA ’05 Demand Planning Manager, Watlow Richmond In 1994, I moved my three children from Florida to the family farm in Wisconsin where I grew up. At the time I had been a single mom for quite a while. When my kids talked about what they missed about Florida, it was not our pool or the ocean. It was the black beans. At that time you could not buy black beans in Wisconsin.

So I decided to grow black beans on our farm. People said they wouldn’t grow in Wisconsin, but I won a state grant for $10,000 and was successful.

I formed a company and started packaging the beans to sell to stores. I won the Chicago Fancy Food Competition, and I was the first person to put Louisiana Dirty Rice into a bag. In a few years the product went national, selling at places like Neiman Marcus. I also wrote a cookbook and continued to win food awards.

My company got pretty big, and other companies started copying my recipes. I didn’t have a business background or education, so I sold the company and started looking for a job.

With all my experience, I thought it would be easy to get a job, but it wasn’t. I had two associate’s degrees, but I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree.

My experience did not match my education, so I decided to go back to college. Elmhurst College awarded me credit for life experience, so I finished my bachelor’s in three years and returned the next fall to enter the mba program.

I graduated on a Saturday. Two days later I started working for Miller Brewing Company, helping to implement enterprise software and advanced manufacturing processes. Once the project was completed, I moved to Case New Holland, a large-equipment manufacturer owned by Fiat, where I worked in the construction equipment division, managing orders into five plants, and overseeing forecasting and production requirements.

Today I work for Watlow Richmond, a manufacturer of heaters and controllers. I oversee planning and purchasing for 18 production lines.

For my mba, I focused on supply chain management. I’m still using what I learned.

49

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

Photo: Roark Johnson

50

Nothing Wasted As a youngster, State Representative Anthony DeLuca ’92 hauled waste for the family business. It was grueling, mucky work, and good preparation for Springfield. By Andrew Santella

T

he day after Anthony DeLuca graduated from Elmhurst College, he showed up for work as scheduled at Skyline Disposal, the waste-hauling business his family has owned and operated in Chicago Heights since 1954. His workday, a full eight-hour shift spent muscling the contents of garbage cans into the open maw of his truck, began at 6:00 a.m. Waiting for him that morning at the front door of the Skyline garage was one of the company’s longtime employees. “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life,” the old-timer growled.

DeLuca grew up working in the family firm. He started at 12, and throughout his teenage years, any long breaks from school meant a stint on a Skyline truck. He still puts in a full day at Skyline—he’s now the chief operating o≈cer—though for long stretches he can be found in Springfield, where he represents the 80th district in the Illinois House of Representatives. It’s a job that has DeLuca applying some of the lessons he has learned over the years in the gritty family business to one of the more intractable problems in Illinois politics: how to keep, or rather make, the state solvent.

Talk to DeLuca and it’s di≈cult to separate his work at Skyline Disposal and his work representing Chicago’s far south suburbs in Springfield.

Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

51

“Once you’ve met a payroll, your view of government changes,” says DeLuca.

“Governments like to spend more money than they take in. Businesses can’t.”

52

“It was always understood when I was growing up that I would learn the business from the bottom up,” he said recently during a midmorning break at Skyline. The bottom of the business could be a nasty place.

In those days, the company’s vehicles didn’t have the fancy automated arms that allow drivers to pick up and empty cans from the comfort of the driver’s seat. Hauling waste was a grueling, mucky business.

What DeLuca really hated was when the garbage got so tightly compacted in a dumpster that it could not be budged. The only thing to do then was to climb in with a shovel and dig away.

The temptation is to suggest that this might have been outstanding preparation for a career in Illinois politics, where things can get pretty dirty. It’s both an easy line and a correct assumption.

From his first days in public service, DeLuca made an explicit connection between his experiences in the family business and his philosophy of government. Back in 2003, he ran for mayor of Chicago Heights, promising to run the city like a business. He won, took o≈ce and angered many in the suburb by daring to follow through on his campaign promises. He cut the number of salaried employees by 20 percent and restructured the remaining city workers’ health plan, producing around $2 million a year in savings.

“Once you’ve experienced what it’s like to meet a payroll, your view of government changes,” DeLuca explained. “Governments like to spend more money than they take in. Businesses can’t do that. I said that I would run the city like a business. I said I would balance the budget. I meant it.”

His flinty fiscal conservatism, and his original party a≈liation, made DeLuca an unlikely choice to fill the house seat he holds today. It was traditionally a Democratic seat, vacated in 2009 when Representative George Scully became a judge in the Cook County Circuit Court.

DeLuca was a Republican. That didn’t stop him from putting his name forward for consideration for the vacancy. Nor did it stop the leaders of the Democratic Party from choosing him to fill the seat. Not every Democrat was thrilled by the choice. The Democratic Party treasurer of Will County, Tom Brislane, called DeLuca’s appointment “a travesty.”

Thomas Planera ii, DeLuca’s mayoral chief of staΩ, said he wasn’t all that surprised when his boss turned out to be the pick of the committee filling the legislative seat. “I always told Anthony he was really a conservative Democrat anyway,” Planera said. “And I don’t care what party you belong to—when a guy like Anthony comes into the room, you want him on your team. He’s got a natural charisma.”

DeLuca became a Democrat and soon won over many members of his new party. Last year, when he ran for election to the seat, he was unopposed in both the primary and the general election.

One of the Democrats DeLuca seems to have impressed occupies the governor’s o≈ce. In a budget address earlier this year, Pat Quinn praised Representative DeLuca for advancing a plan for a bipartisan commission to find and eliminate wasteful spending in state government. DeLuca’s colleagues in the state house noticed the nod. “I had people coming up to me and saying, ‘I’ve been here 20 years and I’ve never had a governor mention me,’” he said.

DeLuca formed what a local daily, the Southtown Star, called his “strange alliance” with Quinn by supporting the governor on a particularly

thorny issue, the 2011 increase in state income taxes. According to Capitol Fax, a newsletter about Illinois politics, DeLuca’s was the 60th and decisive vote in favor of Quinn’s tax hike. In return, DeLuca won the governor’s support for House Bill 1512, creating the commission to cut wasteful state spending. “They’ve been very supportive of me,” DeLuca says of his colleagues in Springfield.

W

hen I visited DeLuca at his Skyline o≈ce in Chicago Heights, it didn’t take him long to volunteer, unprompted, a rough outline of his work schedule at the company. He opens the o≈ce as early as 5:00 a.m. and sometimes makes a few runs, transporting yard waste to the local collection center. When I met him on one of the summer’s unspeakably muggy mornings, he looked unbothered in a Skyline golf shirt, jeans and work boots. By 9:00 a.m. he’d already put in half a workday and was ready for breakfast.

On our way across town in DeLuca’s van, bound for a diner called The Egg and I, we crossed paths with Skyline trucks on their regular circuit around Chicago Heights. DeLuca grew up in the famously sports-crazy suburb and in Homewood, where he excelled in basketball and boxing. (Undefeated in seven amateur bouts, he said, “I learned to keep my hands up.”) But his real love was golf. He was a member of a Homewood-Flossmoor High School golf team that earned a trip to the state tournament in 1988, and was recruited to play at Elmhurst by longtime coach Al Hanke.

DeLuca is still an avid golfer, and his family’s Chicago Heights home backs onto a public course. “Garbage trucks and golf courses,” DeLuca said: the two constants of his life.

His aide, Planera, said that to golf with DeLuca is to understand his success in politics. “You don’t want to compete against Anthony on a golf course,” he said. “He’s intense and calculating, always thinking.

He’s like that at work, too.”

We passed the landmark Bloom High School on our rounds in the van. DeLuca’s first elective o≈ce was on the board of Bloom Township High School District 206, where he served from 1995 to 2003. “That’s where I cut my political teeth,” he said.

He decided to run for mayor of Chicago Heights because “I was unhappy with the direction the city was going,” he said. “We were losing more businesses than we were attracting.” DeLuca’s mayoral campaign focused on his experience running the family company. He promised to apply bottom-line business sense to the job of running the city. The biography on his Illinois House web site proudly trumpets the cost-cutting that marked his six years in the mayor’s chair. But his measures alienated many constituents, including city employees. “I received a lot of pushback,” he said. “People had di≈culty understanding that I was going to do what I had campaigned on.”

DeLuca was named to represent the 80th legislative district on a Friday morning, and told to report to Springfield the following Tuesday.

On his first day in the capital, his new staΩ escorted him to get his House identification badge, then walked him to the House chamber Prospect/ Winter 2011–2012

and wished him luck. “I said, ‘Wait, isn’t there some kind of orientation?’”

DeLuca remembered. “They said, ‘You missed it.’”

DeLuca was a quick study. His first bill provided for the electronic display of consumer recall notices. When he was getting ready to present it on the floor, a fellow legislator told him that it was a House tradition for freshman lawmakers to wear a red jacket when presenting a first bill. This was not exactly true, but DeLuca played along anyway.

He asked Representative Lisa Dugan, who was standing nearby, if he could borrow her jacket: a red blazer with a leopard-trim collar. He thus made his House debut in style. The wearing of red blazers now really is a tradition for freshman legislators introducing their first bills in the Illinois House.

Springfield politics isn’t all good-natured hazing. The spring legislative session was an especially tense one, with a number of contentious pieces of legislation debated almost up to the hour of adjournment.

Near the end of the session, a minor fistfight broke out between lawmakers on the senate floor.

One of the most hotly debated bills of the session went DeLuca’s way. Legislators agreed to add five new casinos around the state, including one that could land in DeLuca’s district. The plan had drawn fire from some who argue that casinos prey on the more vulnerable members of society and end up working as a tax on the poor. But for DeLuca, the upside of the new casinos is clear. “It’s going to mean jobs,” he said. “People are going to gamble anyway. It’s just a question of whether they do it here or in Indiana. The positives outweigh the negatives.” DeLuca also has taken an interest in the state’s relationship with municipal governments, and chairs the House Democratic caucus for local government relations. He’s wary of Governor Quinn’s proposal to reduce the percentage of tax revenue the state shares with local communities, a cut that DeLuca said would compromise vital services like police, fire protection and snow removal.

When DeLuca runs for reelection in 2012, it will be in a newly remapped district. Under the redistricting plan adopted last spring, the 80th district will extend from Chicago Heights to rural Manhattan, Illinois, and nearly as far west as Interstate 55. It will be a diverse district, home to farmland and blue-collar suburbs, pockets of poverty and enclaves of pricey McMansions. For a politician who has managed to eΩortlessly navigate the boundaries between antagonistic political parties, it is the sort of place that could feel like home for years to come.

DeLuca says he’s not thinking too much about his electoral future.

“I’m concentrating on my job and trying to do it the best I can,” he said.

Welcome to the first day of the rest of his life.

Andrew Santella is the contributing editor of Prospect.

53

the last word generations

‘It Was Humbling to Learn from Him’ Richard Nyako ’67 provided Amy Du ’11 with a scholarship to an American college, and a great deal more.

54

I

like Doctors Without Borders. Hearing Nyako’s story made her want t began with a thank you.

Three years ago, Amy Du learned that she had earned a scholar- to take action. She got back in touch with the doctor, who invited her to join him at his clinic. She spent two weeks in Ghana in the summer ship for international students to attend Elmhurst College. A of 2010, assisting with health screenings at the clinic and accompanying native of South Africa, Du had come to the United States from Nyako on a visit to his home village, where patients lined up for consulJohannesburg and had worked as an au pair in Chicago’s far northwest suburbs while attending Elgin Community College. She learned that tations. The visiting physician ended up extending his stay so he could see every patient.

Richard Nyako, a physician, a native of Ghana and a 1967 Elmhurst “It was humbling to learn from him,” Du said. “I know he’s been graduate, had funded her scholarship. She decided to write her benefactor to thank him for his generosity. And she didn’t stop there. Curious, through so many hurdles to build his clinic. But he’s always so patient and hopeful. This is his mission.”

Du asked Nyako to tell her about his work. What she learned would When she returned to campus, Du was determined to get more shape the way she spent her next three years as a biology major and students involved in Nyako’s cause. She put together a presentation pre-med student at Elmhurst. about the Ghana Neurological Foundation and began making the “His story just blew me away,” Du said. rounds of student groups, urging them to help. “I felt a little like a This is his story: Nyako grew up in the village of Apesokubi. salesperson,” she said. Her pitch worked. The result was Project Ghana, Stricken with polio when he was four years old, unable to walk on his a fundraising consortium that pooled the energies and resources of own, he depended on a pair of crutches his father personally had about a dozen student organizations. The Global Poverty Club, the fashioned for him. The disability didn’t stop Nyako from distinguishing Black Student Union, the student radio station and others signed on. himself as a student and earning admission to one of Ghana’s top “When I told them about Dr. Nyako and his work,” Du said, “people secondary schools. Later, the school’s headmaster arranged for him to study in the United States. In 1963 he came to Elmhurst, where he found a wanted to help.” The groups ran art auctions, bake sales and ra√es, and raised more than $2,500 for the Ghana Neurological Foundation. small, tight-knit community of international students. He also at long After graduating from Elmhurst last May, Du entered the master’s last found the medical care he needed—a harrowing series of surgeries program in epidemiology and biostatistics at Northwestern University. that repaired his atrophied leg and allowed him to walk on his own.

Next, she plans to earn her medical degree at Pennsylvania State Decades later, after a long career in American medicine, Nyako realized University’s College of Medicine, where she already has been accepted. a longstanding dream: to return to his native land to help people who On her last day of classes at Elmhurst back in May, in a strangely lacked access to health care. He established the Ghana Neurological quiet student lounge in the biology department, Du found herself Foundation and a clinic called the Center for Neurology, Medicine thinking about the transition she was about to make from Elmhurst and Surgery to provide rehabilitation for stroke victims and care for student to Elmhurst graduate. In her presentations to student groups, the neck and back injuries that plague so many manual workers in Ghana. she said, she always pointed out that Richard Nyako had once been Du felt a personal connection to Nyako’s story. She had endured an undergraduate just like them—one who would go on from the her own medical ordeal, undergoing surgeries while she was a toddler campus to do remarkable things. “That’s going to be us one day,” she said. to repair a hip joint damaged by malaria. The experience had inspired her to pursue a career in medicine. She had come to Elmhurst thinking about working in international health, possibly with an organization by Andrew Santella

GIVE THE GIFT OF

KNOWLEDGE

Generous donors support Jordan Morgan and other deserving Elmhurst students through the Light of Knowledge Scholarship program. Please join them. A gift of $2,500 establishes a Light of Knowledge Scholarship for a year and is renewable. You may direct your scholarship to students in a particular academic major, and to either a traditional-age or adult student. All scholarships go to students who are academically eligible and demonstrate financial need.

To give by phone, call (630) 617-3453 or (866) 794-1075. To donate online, go to www.elmhurst.edu/giving.

Or, you can mail your gift to Elmhurst College, Office of Development, 190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst, Illinois 60126.

Thank you for your generosity.

“My savings, combined with a Light of Knowledge Scholarship, have enabled me not to have to work this year. It’s a blessing because I’m taking my clinical classes at Hines Veterans Administration Hospital. Not having to take outside jobs has relieved so much stress that I’m able to live a healthier life and take care of myself so I can take care of other people.”

Jordan Morgan ’13 Nursing Major Light of Knowledge Scholarship recipient

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID

Chicago, Illinois Permit Number 5525

O≈ce of Communications and Public AΩairs 190 Prospect Avenue Elmhurst, Illinois 60126-3296

events spring lectures on campus

Mark Your Calendar Evangelizing the Culture Wednesday, February 8 Father Robert Barron, the acclaimed theologian and host of the pbs series Catholicism, speaks on becoming a person.

Founders Lounge, 7:30 p.m.

For a full list, visit us at www.elmhurst.edu/events.

You also can follow us on facebook.com/elmcol or twitter.com/elmhurstcollege

The Story of Cancer Sunday, February 19 Siddhartha Mukherjee won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his monumental book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.

The Marketplace of Ideas Thursday, March 15 Louis Menand, the public intellectual and Pulitzer Prize winner, discusses reform and resistance in the American university.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.

Religion, Democracy and Civic Engagement Thursday, February 9 Robert Putnam of Harvard has been hailed as “the most influential academic in the world today” by the Times of London.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.

The Future of Weather Thursday, March 1 Heidi Cullen is a climate expert and researcher for Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that monitors climate change.

Founders Lounge, 7:00 p.m.

In the Garden of Beasts Sunday, April 15 The historian Erik Larson discusses his best-selling chronicle of an American family living in Berlin as Hitler came to power.

Founders Lounge, 7:00 p.m.

The Art and Science of Remembering Everything Thursday, February 16 The science journalist Joshua Foer is the 2006 “USA Memory Champion” and the author of the bestseller Moonwalking with Einstein.

Founders Lounge, 7:00 p.m.

H. Richard Niebuhr: An Appreciation Tuesday, March 6 Professor Martin Marty of the University of Chicago considers the great Elmhurst graduate’s seminal work Christ and Culture.

Founders Lounge, 7:30 p.m.

Truth and Justice in America Thursday, May 17 The reporter Bob Woodward and the Honorable William J. Bauer ’49 compare notes on the essentials of American democracy.

Hammerschmidt Chapel, 7:00 p.m.