Magazine of Elon Summer 2016 by University Communications

SUMMER 2016

CONTENTS The Magazine of Elon | summer 2016

BY KIM WALKER

Watch the full story at

www.elon.edu/magazine

UNBROKEN SPIRIT BY ERIC TOWNSEND

After surviving a brutal attack, Deborah Moy L’16 refuses to let the experience define her and has focused on advocating for others.

SERVICE YEAR BY NATALIE ALLISON JANICELLO ’13

Elon advances a growing national movement, engaging recent graduates in a year of community service following graduation.

COVER STORY

THE VILLAGE APPROACH BY KEREN RIVAS ’04

What started eight years ago as a program for struggling young readers has evolved into a comprehensive literacy development project.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: WHEN UNIFORMS RULED BY MADISON MACKENZIE ’18

There was a time when Elon enforced strict dress codes “for economy and to avoid unpleasant distinctions in dress.”

ON THE DEFENSE

KYRA GEMBERLING ’14

For more than a decade, John Marshall ’01 has channeled his Elon experience to protect the United States from cyber attacks.

A BUG’S TALE BY KATIE DEGRAFF

Insects may be small and crunchy, but they demonstrate behaviors that are just as relatable to humans as the cute and cuddly animals that more often fascinate us.

2 Under the Oaks 10 Long Live Elon 13 Phoenix Sports

I AM ELON

15 Point of View 31 Alumni Action 35 Class Notes

On the cover: Mallory Hinzman ’12 works with an elementary school student during the Summer in the Village program.

In his first physics class, Christopher Greene participated in a field trip to a ski slope. Aside from spending an enjoyable day skiing, Christopher discovered that he really enjoyed physics and finds it “very relatable to the real world.” Christopher, now a senior double majoring in physics and music, is an Elon College Fellow. He is researching ways to increase the complexity of galaxy modeling schemes with Assistant Professor of Physics Christopher Richardson. He hopes to continue to work in astrophysics, eventually ending up at NASA or SpaceX. “The more I learn about astronomy and the universe, the more interested I become and the more I want to know,” he says. “Space is where my heart lies.” Christopher’s second love is music. He began taking piano lessons in second grade and now enjoys playing and studying saxophone. He plays with Elon’s Jazz Ensemble and spent

two weeks performing with the Elon Jazz Ambassadors throughout Italy this summer. “There’s nothing quite like playing a show at 11 p.m. in front of a crowd of at least 200 people who give you a standing ovation and chant ‘Bravi!’ when you finish.” Christopher says he finds performing to be liberating, allowing him to shed some of his inhibitions and connect with people, even if it’s not through a typical conversation. He’s grateful for the inspiration Elon’s music program provides. “I’ve grown a lot, not only as a musician but as a person. This year it’s like the inner musician in me was brought out.” Christopher is Elon. Visit www.elon.edu/magazine to see more of his story, part of our “I Am Elon” multimedia series featuring Elon students in their own words.

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▶ from the PRESIDENT

Leadership for Today’s World:

facebook.com/leomlambert twitter.com/headphoenix

this has been a difficult and painful summer for our nation, and as I write this, we are not yet through July. The deadliest mass shooting in our nation’s history, a massacre of 49 people—mostly LGBT and many college-aged—shocked the nation and fanned the flames of fear of domestic terrorism by ISIS-influenced radicals. The tragic shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile—brought to us graphically through social media—reignited charges of deadly policing tactics against black citizens, and took away from many of those close to us even a basic sense of safety and security. Immediately afterwards, Dallas police officers were ambushed in another massacre while trying to protect citizens at a Black Lives Matter protest. Then we learned about a horrific act of terrorism in Nice, immediately followed by the murder of more police officers in Baton Rouge. The violence is incomprehensible. The backdrop for heartache is a political climate that is harshly polarized and has left unsolved many of the most pressing issues of our day. We are about to begin the political convention season, and I think it is a fair bet to say that a great many American voters are experiencing emotions ranging from disillusionment to outrage, many having lost trust in political leadership. And yet, as we plan for a new academic year, I echo Winston Churchill: “… I am an optimist—it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” Indeed, optimism is the only possible course for those responsible for preparing the next generation of leaders the world badly needs right now. How does Elon’s culture provide the next generation with a foundation for leadership in order to create constructive change for our nation and our world?

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We seek to prepare leaders who are equipped to manage complexity. Elon’s great liberal arts tradition prepares our students with the analytical and critical-thinking skills required for the many complex issues that confront our nation and the globe. We want them to push back on the simplistic, unexamined rhetoric that dominates much of the public square today and create reasoned, informed viewpoints they can express with courage and conviction.

We seek to develop leaders with compassionate and generous hearts. Elon’s values

are rooted in a Judeo-Christian tradition. Leaders should be motivated by love, mercy, forgiveness and concern for the most vulnerable. Today we honor many religious and spiritual traditions on campus, but remain centered on an ethic of service to others that should be at the center of a leader’s heart. It

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Cultivating Thinkers, Compassionate Hearts and Bridge Builders would be nice if books on leadership devoted as much attention to the subject of kindness as vision.

We seek to develop leaders who listen to the viewpoints of others and are committed to civil discourse in the public square. I am convinced that the capacity to listen is one of the most important attributes of effective leadership, and one too infrequently exercised. Regularly engaging with individuals of varying viewpoints, learning to thoughtfully come to define points of consensus and disagreement, and showing respect are civic arts that must be cultivated in leaders. A university campus should be a place where these skills are tested regularly and rigorously.

We seek to develop leaders who are respectful of difference. In broad terms, I believe the current generation

of university students shows a great deal of promise for working across differences of gender, race, intellectual or political viewpoints, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, etc., like no generation before them. We want Elon students to develop the confidence to thrive in diverse environments all over the globe and then to use their experiences to practice inclusion and mutual respect, which are assuredly necessary qualities of leadership in the 21st century.

A GREAT PLACE TO WORK The Chronicle of Higher Education named Elon one of the nation’s “Great Colleges to Work For” in its 2016 ranking of top work environments for faculty and staff members. Elon was recognized as an “honor roll” university for providing an outstanding work environment for faculty and staff members, and was named for excellence in five categories of workplace environment: collaborative governance, teaching environment, professional/ career-development programs, job satisfaction and support and confidence in senior leadership. This is Elon’s fourth recognition in The Chronicle’s ranking of great college work environments. “This recognition is based on the opinions of our dedicated faculty and staff, who demonstrate their commitment every day to Elon’s student-centered mission,” said Elon University President Leo M. Lambert. “These community members, who contribute an amazing array of talents and leadership, are Elon’s most important resource. We are gratified at the pride they express in their careers and for their common commitment to shaping an extraordinary learning environment.” Elon faculty and staff gave the highest positive marks to their pride in the university, with 92 percent saying they understand how their job contributes to the institution’s mission. Ninety percent agreed that Elon supports faculty/staff efforts devoted to mentoring students, 87 percent said Elon actively contributes to the community and the same number said the university provides a safe and secure environment for the campus.

Our great nation—with all of its wonders and flaws—has always prepared new generations to assume leadership in shaping a civil society based on principles of freedom, democracy, opportunity, justice and equality. But at this moment, the stakes seem especially high for universities to cultivate leaders equipped to build bridges across the chasms that separate us, to lead informed and reasonable dialogue about the course corrections we must make together, and to have kindness as the lamp that will light their paths. Leo M. Lambert President

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The Magazine of Elon summer 2016 | Vol. 78, No. 3 The Magazine of Elon is published quarterly for alumni, parents and friends by the Office of University Communications. © 2016, Elon University ED I TO R

Keren Rivas ’04 D E SI G N ER S

Garry Graham Bryan Huffman PH OTO G R A PH Y

Kim Walker ED I TO R I A L S TA FF

Holley Berry Katie DeGraff Roselee Papandrea Eric Townsend CO N T R I B U TO R S

Belk Library Archives and Special Collections Kyle Lubinsky ’17 Madison MacKenzie ’18

NIH grant to support study on aging Amy Overman, associate professor of psychology, recently received $343,866 from the National Institutes of Health to fund a three-year study of age-related changes in memory. The grant is funded under NIH’s Academic Research Enhancement Award program; the objective is to provide support for meritorious research and strengthen the research environment of schools that have not been major recipients of NIH support. This is the first NIH grant awarded to Elon University. “This is a significant accomplishment for Professor Overman and a watershed moment for the university,” said Steven House, provost and executive vice president. “Such a prestigious award opens doors for future major grant proposals and serves as a motivating model for other Elon faculty.” Overman is a co-founder of Elon’s neuroscience minor and serves as a member of the Neuroscience Advisory Committee and faculty adviser of the Elon University Neuroscience Club. She is the principal

investigator of the research and will collaborate with Nancy Dennis, associate professor of psychology at Penn State University. The grant will enable several Elon undergraduate students to conduct neuroscience research over a period of three years, and will include summer experiences at a neuroimaging facility at Penn State. “Memory impairment is one of the most frequent complaints of healthy aging, is one of the initial indicators of age-related dementia and can be a cause of both emotional distress and negative health outcomes, especially in cases where individuals fail to remember important health or safety information,” Overman said. The study is expected to provide information to be used to develop strategies that can help overcome memory difficulties experienced by healthy older adults and also be key to identifying the earliest signs associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other memory-related disorders. Overman’s application was rated highly by the panel of NIH grant reviewers. “Given the growing numbers of adults older than age 65 in the population, understanding cognitive decline and its relationship to associated neural structures is a significant scientific contribution to society,” one reviewer said in the summary statement of the application. { Associate Professor of Psychology Amy Overman, center, has received an NIH grant. }

V I C E PR E SI D EN T, U N I V ER SI T Y CO M M U N I C AT I O NS

Daniel J. Anderson ED I TO R I A L O FFI C E S

The Magazine of Elon 2030 Campus Box Elon, NC 27244-2020 (336) 278-7415 elon.edu/magazine B OA R D O F T R US T EE S, C H A I R

Dr. William N.P. Herbert ’68

Charlottesville, Va.

ELO N A LU M N I B OA R D, PR E SI D EN T

Walter “Cam” Tims ’00 Raleigh, N.C.

YO U N G A LU M N I CO U N C I L , PR E SI D EN T

Scott Leighty ’09

Charlotte, N.C.

PA R EN T S CO U N C I L , CO - PR E SI D EN T S

Andy & Muffy Fox P’14 P’15 P’17 Greenwich, Conn.

SCHO OL OF L AW ADV ISORY BOARD, CHAIR

David Gergen

Cambridge, Mass.

S C H O O L O F CO M M U N I C AT I O NS A D V IS O RY B OA R D, C H A I R

Michael Radutzky P’12 P’17 Summit, N.J.

M A R T H A A N D SPEN C ER LO V E S C H O O L O F B USI N E SS A D V IS O RY B OA R D, C H A I R

William S. Creekmuir p’09 p’10

Atlanta, Ga.

PH O EN I X C LU B A D V IS O RY B OA R D, C H A I R

Mike Cross

Burlington, N.C.

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PROMOTING RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

lon has been awarded a $100,000 grant from The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to support the establishment of a Multi-faith Scholars Program. The program will involve students in a rigorous two-year experience that will prepare them to be leaders in promoting inter-religious dialogue and understanding. “This generous support will allow Elon to expand one of the most distinctive multi-faith programs in higher education,” said Elon University President Leo M. Lambert. “Through international experiences, internships, research and close mentoring relationships, our students will graduate with the skills and understanding they need to become emissaries for greater world peace in an era of religious conflict.” As part of the program, students will enroll in Elon’s Sages multi-faith engagement program during their sophomore

year and also take courses in a newly designed inter-religious studies minor. The Sages program engages students in multifaith work, including conflict negotiation, public speaking and spiritual autobiographical writing. Courses in the minor focus on historical and current encounters among religious communities and traditions. Each year, five rising juniors will be selected for the Multifaith Scholars Program and granted a total of $5,000 each in funding for their research projects. Working with mentors, they will study abroad, do internships and conduct research to develop skills as multi-faith leaders. During their senior year, the scholars will present their research and become campus leaders, working with faculty and coordinating events in residential neighborhoods, Elon’s Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, and the university’s Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society. Over the past five years, many colleges and universities have developed programs dedicated to interfaith education and leadership. Elon has been recognized nationally for its pioneering multi-faith work and has recently completed a fiveyear strategic plan for programs in this area.

CAMPUS

UNCOMMONS

UNDER THE OAKS

BY ROSELEE PAPANDREA

Immersed in her mother’s love of Hollywood musicals and the sounds of her father’s eclectic record collection, Christina Benson says she developed her love of vintage jazz and blues through osmosis. “It’s in my DNA,” says Benson, an associate professor of business law in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. But despite all the influences from childhood, it took awhile for Benson to find her way to the stage. In between earning an undergraduate and two graduate degrees—a law degree and a master’s degree in business administration—Benson won a karaoke contest. Her prize: a weeklong trip to Miami and confirmation that she can sing. Still, she put the music on hold and opted to first earn the joint graduate degrees. Then she spent 10 years practicing law in Washington, D.C., and started a family before joining Elon’s faculty in 2007. It wasn’t until five years later that Benson decided to commit to the music. It was a search for a guitar teacher that led her to Tea Cup Gin, a guitar-based jazz band looking for a vocalist. It was a roundabout journey but a perfect fit, and when she isn’t conducting research or teaching business law, Benson finds herself front and center on some notable stages in Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Durham singing sultry jazz that she describes as “romantic with a fun, speakeasy edgy side.” “My sister used to say, ‘Christy, you can be anything you want to be. You just can’t be everything you want to be,’” Benson says, “and I’ve spent my entire life trying to prove her wrong.” In addition to performing with talented musicians, Benson, who always enjoyed writing poetry, has unearthed her talent for song writing. Tea Cup Gin is focused on creating original indie-jazz songs with a vintage sound, which gives Benson great opportunities for collaborating on songwriting. Performing has recharged her batteries, reduced her stress and, in many ways, has been the only thing missing from what she considers to be a full life. “It just makes me happy and makes me feel more whole as a human being,” she says. “Maybe you can’t be all you want to be all at one time, but you can over a lifetime.” What faculty or staff member do you think is uncommon? Send a suggestion to themagazineofelon@gmail.com.

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FACULTY/STAFF SPOTLIGHT

{ From left: Eric Hall, Liz Bailey & Tony Crider }

{ From left: John Barnhill ’92, Brenda Crutchfield & Dawn Hensley }

{ From left: Garry Graham, Eric Biebel & Evan Small }

Four faculty members were honored May 11 for excellence in teaching and scholarship and superior service to Elon. Tony Crider, associate professor of physics, received the Daniels-Danieley Award for Excellence in Teaching. Eric Hall, professor of exercise science, received the Distinguished Scholar Award, while Liz Bailey, lecturer in health and human performance, received the Periclean Award for Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility. Professor of Geography Heidi Frontani, who died from a sudden illness on Feb. 26, was honored posthumously with the Ward Family Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Six Elon staff members were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the university at an annual awards program on May 27. Brenda Crutchfield, program assistant in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, was named Office Staff Member of the Year; Dawn Hensley, landscape supervisor, was named Physical Plant Staff Member of the Year; John Barnhill ’92, assistant vice president for University Advancement, was named Administrative Staff Member of the Year; Eric Biebel, plumber and mechanic in Elon’s Physical Plant, received the Phoenix Community Engagement Award; Garry Graham, associate

director of design in University Communications, received the Phoenix Innovation Award; and Evan Small, assistant director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement, received the Phoenix Rising Award.

SYLLABUZZ

t is scientifically proven that laugher makes you live longer, but are there other aspects of life that increase your happiness level? And does increasing your happiness level help your overall well-being? Assistant Professor of Sociology Alexis Franzese answers these and other questions in her “The Science of Happiness” class. “The topic of happiness is really important because as human beings we strive

BY MADISON MACKENZIE ’18

Mark Elliston, director of Elon’s track and field and cross country programs, has been named the 2016 Colonial Athletic Association Women’s Track and Field Coach of the Year. The honor marks the second consecutive CAA Coach of the Year award for Elliston, who helped the Phoenix successfully defend its CAA conference title in the spring.

COR 438: The Science of Happiness

to understand what will bring us joy and contentment, or at a minimum reduce discomfort or suffering,” says Franzese. “There has been an increase in the amount of energy that has been put into this topic in recent years, resulting in a large body of scholarship.” Most people don’t believe that happiness can really be measured— instead, they think it is just based on things such as socioeconomic standing, relationship status and job security. Franzese’s interdisciplinary class sets out to disprove this concept. “We are looking at literature from psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics,

biological research and taking a holistic approach to understanding what contributes to experiences of human happiness and what might get in the way of that,” she adds. The class teaches students that chasing happiness may not be what actually makes you happy; striving for contentment or satisfaction may ultimately be more productive. For instance, serving your community and giving to others and having a sense of purpose in life are factors associated with increased levels of happiness and well-being. The readings take students back to Ancient Greece to explore what early philosophers said about happiness. This allows them to analyze the topic through historical and societal/ cultural lenses with the more recent research from psychology and sociology journals. For their capstone project, students write either about a topic in a historical/

SUSTAINABILITY AND AFFORDABILITY RECOGNIZED

lon received national recognition in the spring for its academic excellence, affordability and sustainability efforts. The university ranked among the nation’s top “best buy” private universities by the Fiske Guide to Colleges, one of the oldest and most influential higher education guides. Fiske Guide identifies schools that offer high academic quality and affordable cost. All of the schools on the list fall into the inexpensive or moderate price category, and most have four- or five-star academic ratings. This is the 33rd annual edition of the guide, which includes about 300 of the “best and most interesting” colleges and universities out of the nation’s 2,200 four-year schools. Elon was also one of only 11 colleges and universities in the nation to be recognized as a 2016 Green Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education for its commitment to sustainability. As a result of many campus initiatives, Elon’s energy consumption per square foot has decreased 30 percent in 13 years, and overall health and wellness has improved thanks to RN Ellington Center for Health and Wellness and campus recreation programming. The university also promotes effective environmental and sustainability education through the Sustainability Faculty Scholars Program.

DIMENSIONS OF

OUR DATA DEVICES

It takes an amazing amount of technology to support modern higher education. Elon supports a highly complex campus data network, thousands of software programs (and menacing viruses), miles of cables, a wireless system that handles signals from a growing number of online devices, and a vast inventory of computers, cameras, microphones and other sophisticated electronic equipment available for checkout. Here are some of the stats that illustrate Elon’s hi-tech ecosystem:

18,000

The number of unique wireless devices connected to the Elon network on a typical day.

4,266 comparative context, random acts of kindness or a proposed public policy intervention based on happiness research. “I want students to remember the idea that a sense of purpose is key in contributing to well-being,” says Franzese. “So it is an experiential paper in which students actually get to engage in giving and see if it affects their sense of purpose and how that in turn contributes to well-being.” Her overall goal, she adds, is for students to recognize that their preconceived notions about happiness might not be correct and to expose them to research that may allow them to uncover strategies to increase their personal well-being. “I want students to recognize the discrepancies between what they think will yield happiness in life and what the research actually backs up,” she says.

ABOUT THE PROFESSOR Alexis Franzese joined Elon’s faculty in 2011. She is an associate professor of sociology and is the faculty adviser for Alpha Kappa Delta, Elon’s Sociology Honors Society. Her research is a combination of medical sociology and social psychology. It focuses on identity and whether people can be authentic in their lives.

RECOMMENDED MATERIALS • Positive Psychology by Steve Baumgardner and Marie Crothers • Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth by Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener

The number of university-owned computers supported by Elon’s technology staff.

The number of computer labs on campus.

42,165

The annual number of equipment checkouts handled by Teaching and Learning Technologies.

30,545

The annual number of requests for assistance to Elon’s Technology Service Desk.

Source: Elon Instructional and Campus Technologies

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“Embrace the fact that change is hard. But know this: If you pour your heart and soul into rebuilding a better state and nation, you will look back one day and find an inner satisfaction—a pride that knows no bounds—that you answered the call to service and leadership.” —CNN political analyst and Elon University School of Law’s Advisory Board chair David Gergen during the Commencement address to the Class of 2016 on May 21.

“Treat people the way that you would like for them to treat you. I’ve tried it, and I declare unto you, it works. It takes a little practice, but most anything that is worth doing on a daily basis is worth taking the time to practice.” —Advice from the Hon. Henry E. Frye, former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, during Elon’s Baccalaureate service in Alumni Gymnasium on May 20.

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT during the past three decades. The organization has provided more than $40 million in unrestricted seed-staged funding and foundational support for those who are working to bring about positive social change.

Tony Weaver Jr. ’16 has been named a 2016 Echoing Green Fellow in recognition of his work to create positive media images of black men and other minority groups. The theatre arts and strategic communications double major is among nearly 700 Echoing Green Fellows selected by the international organization 8 the MAGAZINE of ELON

Four graduating seniors and an alumna received Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships in the spring. Katherine Shafer ’15 will spend 11 months teaching in Taiwan; Christina Daniels-Freeman ’16 will spend nine months teaching in Turkey; Morgan Goldstein ’16 will spend nine months teaching in Spain; Erin Luther ’16 will spend a year teaching in Argentina; and Jenna Mason ’16 will spend a

year teaching in Thailand. The federal program promotes mutual understanding and good will between the U.S. and other nations. Kathleen Hupfeld ’16 received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which will provide three years of financial support for her graduate studies in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Michigan. Hupfeld, an exercise science major with a neuroscience minor, is among 2,000 NSF fellows chosen from among 17,000 applicants for the program. In addition, she was one of six students nationwide to receive a $15,000 Marcus L. Urann

Fellowship by The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. She intends to earn her doctorate and become a professor, conducting research and teaching young scientists. Students and alumni in the School of Communications earned several awards in May. Elon’s “30 Minutes” show captured first place in the 37th College Television Awards’ magazine category. Ryan Kathleen Greene ’15 accepted the award, informally known as the College Emmy Awards, on behalf of the show. Other contributors included Jonathan Black ’15, Libby Gormley ’15, Eric Halperin ’15, Brennan McGovern ’15, Matt Mintzer ’15,

Jasmine Turner ’15, Preston Willett ’15, Jennie Hook ’16 and Amory Parks ’16. For the third consecutive year, the school earned a Top 20 national finish in the 2015-16 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. Students and alumni who finished in the top 20 of individual competitions include Kate Murphy ’15, Michelle Alfini ’16,Michael Bodley ’16, Lauren Cook ’16, Danielle Deavens ’16, Kaitlin Dunn ’16, Megan Foard ’16, Gary Grumbach ’16, Conor McKoy ’16, Tatum Pederson ’16, Corey Shegda ’16, Cam Ciesielski ’17, Tommy Hamzik ’17, Emma Haslun ’17, Alyssa Potter ’17, Miranda Siwak ’17 and Blythe Tokar ’17.

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Celebrated investigative journalist Bob Woodward will be the featured speaker at Fall Convocation while columnist Kathleen Parker will give the Baird Pulitzer Prize Lecture. Two renowned authors and Pulitzer Prize winners will headline fall cultural events. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and journalist Bob Woodward will be the featured speaker at Fall Convocation on Sept. 29 in Alumni Memorial Gymnasium. Woodward is associate editor of The Washington Post, a best-selling author and one of the nation’s most famous investigative reporters. He has been a journalist at the newspaper since 1971, winning his first Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for joint coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and his second in 2002 as the lead reporter covering the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He has authored or co-authored 18 non-fiction books, all of which have been national best sellers. His latest book, “The Last of the President’s Men,” provides the missing pieces of the Nixon puzzle. Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist and popular commentator on news shows,

ELON HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES ANNOUNCED Four outstanding alumni athletes will be inducted into Elon’s Sports Hall of Fame during a Sept. 17 ceremony. The 46th class of inductees includes men’s golfer Tim Clark ’92, men’s cross country standout Brian Keller ’97, former football player Chad Nkang ’07 and women’s soccer star Kam Radford ’96. Clark earned four letters as a men’s golfer between 1989-92, capturing all-conference and all-district accolades, among others. A four-year letter-winner and member of the men’s cross country team from 199396, Keller helped Elon to South Atlantic Conference titles in 1993, 1994 and 1995, as well as a N.C. Collegiate Team Championship in 1996. The second all-time tackler in the history of the Elon football program, Nkang lettered for the Phoenix from 2003-06. He was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2007, playing two seasons with the team. Radford was a member of Elon women’s soccer program from 1991-95, earning letters in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1995. She is the program’s all-time goal scorer. The ceremony at Whitley Auditorium is free and open to the public.

will give the Baird Pulitzer Prize Lecture on Oct. 4 in McCrary Theatre. Parker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, writes on politics and culture. Her essays appear in more than 450 newspapers across the country, which translates to about 80 million print readers and millions online. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2010. A popular commentator on news shows, in 2010 she launched and was co-anchor of CNN’s prime time news show, “Parker Spitzer.” Tickets for Fall Convocation will go on sale Sept. 8, while tickets for the Baird Pulitzer Prize Lecture will be available starting Sept. 13.

Alumnus named Elon Youth Trustee The Elon University Board of Trustees has elected Douglas Spencer Jr. ’16 to a two-year term as a youth trustee on the board. A native of Washington, D.C., Spencer earned a degree in business administration with a management concentration and a minor in leadership studies. He is a member of the Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honors Society and served as an Isabella Cannon Leadership Fellow. As a student, Spencer coordinated two programs, Men of Character, a mentoring program at Grove Park Elementary School in Burlington, N.C.; and the Alamance Youth Academy Summit, a program in which more than 60 local middle school students learn the importance of leadership through hands-on activities. He also completed two off-campus internships.

CULTURAL CALENDAR

FALL

Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winners to highlight fall events

PREVIEW For a complete list of events, check the E-net calendar at www.elon.edu/e-net/calendar.

THURSDAY & FRIDAY, SEPT. 1-2

The Second City Chicago’s premier improvisation company returns to Elon with two new shows packed with social and political satire. THURSDAY, SEPT. 29

Elon University Fall Convocation with Bob Woodward One of the most famous investigative reporters of our time and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Woodward provides a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of government, politics and the role of leadership. FRIDAY, SEPT. 30

Vint Cerf, “The Internet of Things” Credited as the co-creator of the internet’s key networking technology (TCP/IP), Cerf helped shape the revolutionary impact of the internet on billions of users. TUESDAY, OCT. 2

An Evening with Kathleen Parker The Baird Pulitzer Prize Lecture In her columns in The Washington Post, Parker addresses politics, culture and contemporary issues with both common sense and humor. THURSDAY-SATURDAY, OCT. 27-29 THURSDAY-SATURDAY, NOV. 3-5

Department of Performing Arts presents “Parade” Amid religious intolerance, political injustice and racial tension, the stirring Tony Award-winning “Parade” explores the endurance of love and hope against all the odds.

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LONG LIVE ELON

{ Chris and Fran Teter P’13 P’18 }

{ An interior rendering of Schar Center }

Jennings family gift supports Schar Center O BY JALEH HAGIGH

ne of elon’s most generous families has made a major gift to support the Schar Center and help provide a preeminent facility for Phoenix athletics and university events. To date, alumni, parents and friends have contributed $20 million

{ Dina & Burney Jennings ’87 } 10 the MAGAZINE of ELON

toward the $24 million goal for the convocation center. Elon is grateful to members of the Jennings family, including Trustee Emeritus Maurice Jennings Sr. ’57, Trustee Maurice “Burney” Jennings Jr. ’87 and his wife, Dina Blake Jennings ’87, and Fran Jennings Teter and her husband, Chris Teter, for their loyal support of the university. The Teters are parents of Tricia ’13 and Gordon, an Elon junior. “The Jennings family has been a vital part of the Elon community for more than 50 years,” said President Leo M. Lambert. “Their support of premier facilities like the Schar Center will add vibrancy to the student experience and help propel Elon to new levels of national distinction.” Burney Jennings, chief executive officer of the North Carolina-based Biscuitville restaurant chain, said his family was honored to support the

Schar Center. Dina is a member of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business Board of Advisors. The couple’s daughter, Bailey, is an Elon student. “This is a facility that Elon has needed for many years, and we wanted to come together as a family and support it,” Jennings said. “I think Elon is a positive force for the students, the community and all stakeholders. I feel really good about the progress we’ve made and that our future is very, very bright.” “I know how important it is to have a place like the Schar Center where the entire Elon community can gather indoors,” Fran Teter said. “It is going to benefit the entire student body and the surrounding community and give Elon even more exposure.” The 160,000-square-foot Schar Center will meet a longstanding need for a large gathering space to host convocations, national and international performers, and athletic events. The more than 5,000-seat arena will serve as the new home for Elon’s basketball and volleyball programs. The Schar Center will be located on approximately 20 acres adjacent to Elon’s athletics facilities. In recognition of their gift, one of the two video boards in the Schar Center will be named in honor of the Jennings family, whose Elon roots run deep. Clyde W. Gordon Sr., grandfather of Burney Jennings and Fran Teter, graduated from Elon in 1926 and served as a trustee at the institution. Maurice Jennings Sr. also served as an Elon trustee and helped lead important campus initiatives, including fundraising campaigns for the Center for the Arts and the Elon University School of Law. He founded Biscuitville Inc. in 1975 and led the company for more than 20 years before turning over leadership to his son, Burney Jennings. Maurice

LONG LIVE ELON and his late wife, Linda, along with Burney and Dina Jennings were founding donors to the School of Law and early advocates for its location in Greensboro. Together they made a gift to endow the Jennings Professor of Law to support the school’s mission of enhancing civic engagement and leadership in the legal profession. Fran and Chris Teter have endowed the Teter Family Scholarship to assist students with financial need.

founding in 2006 through 2014. Leggett-Frank passed away in early May following a brief illness. The Eugenia H. Leggett-Frank Endowed Scholarship will support students enrolled in Elon Law’s innovative legal residency program, which combines full-time legal apprenticeships with course work directly tied to the residency. “Eugenia had a great love for Elon’s School of Law,” Frank said. { The Anderson family from left: Britton, Steve P’16, Dayna P’16 & Brandon ’16 } “She particularly enjoyed working with students on how to excel, and The Philadelphia-based MKM Foundation, which very happy,” said Tedeschi, whose son, Ralph, then to really become the very best not only in is an Elon junior studying finance. “I think is associated with an Elon family and contribtheir professional careers but in their public and the Love School of Business can get even betutes to higher education among other initiatives, ter, and I thought I’d contribute and help push private lives.” has made a generous gift to support Richard W. Barry and Eugenia have been longtime that along.” Sankey Hall, another of Elon’s top capital projsupporters of Elon Law, establishing the dean’s “Elon had a huge impact on our son’s life,” ects. The new 30,000-square-foot building will discretionary fund in 2014 to honor former said Steve Anderson. “He flourished at Elon and provide additional space for the fast-growing Elon Law Dean George Johnson. They also Love School of Business. The foundation gift will received a terrific education in the Love School made gifts along with the Stanley and Dorothy of Business with some terrific faculty members also support the Elon Academy and “It Takes Frank Family Foundation and Barry Frank’s and students. He developed confidence in his A Village” project, programs that work with brother, William Frank, to establish the Carole abilities to compete and succeed in a competistudents from pre-K tive world. We think Elon is a real treasure.” The W. Bruce Endowed Scholarship in 2010. The through college, and scholarship recognizes a prominent local couple’s son, Brandon, is a 2016 alumnus. the Odyssey Scholars attorney and member of the Elon University program, one of the School of Law Advisory Board. Eugenia university’s largest Leggett-Frank’s daughter, Lydia Leggett, is a and most prestigious 2015 Elon alumna. scholarship programs. Barry Frank, a devoted Elon Parents supporter of the Elon Council member University School of Kevin Tedeschi of Law, has endowed Duxbury, Mass., { Kevin Tedeschi P’18 } a scholarship to and former Parents celebrate the life and Cam Tims ’00, president of the Elon Alumni Council members Steven C. and Dayna M. legacy of his late wife, Board, has increased his longtime support of Anderson, of Great Falls, Va., have also stepped Eugenia Leggettscholarships by making a generous gift to endow forward to support the Sankey Hall project and Frank, who served as the Tims Access Scholarship. Tims said he hopes the continued growth of Elon’s top-50 Love the associate dean of the scholarship will help Elon recruit more stuSchool of Business. development at Elon dents from his home state of Mississippi or the { Eugenia Leggett-Frank P’15 } “I’m very happy with Elon, and my son is Law from the school’s surrounding region. “I love what Elon has given me, and I want to give someone else that same great experience,” he said. “I am concerned that higher education is out of reach for many people, and that’s not unique to Elon. I still feel like { Cam Tims ’00 } the investment in an Elon education is so worthwhile, and I feel fortunate to be able to share some of my resources with others.” Tims is the past president of the Young Alumni Council and is a member of the Order of the Oak planned giving society after placing { An exterior rendering of Sankey Hall } the university in his estate plans.

Richard W. Sankey Hall

Elon University School of Law

Enhancing scholarship support

summer 2016 11

LONG LIVE ELON

making a difference

{ Sandra and Tom Harper continue the legacy of philanthropy her father, W. Clifton “Cliff” Elder ’25, began nearly a century ago. The Elder Clock, pictured here, was donated by his family to honor him as well as his wife, Elizabeth. }

Generosity runs in the family BY MEGAN MCCLURE

quick tour around Sandra and Tom Harper’s Alamance County home reveals an extensive collection of Elon memories and keepsakes. In one room, Sandra points out the inaugural Elon College Outstanding Alumnus of the Year award, which was presented to her father, W. Clifton “Cliff ” Elder ’25, in 1941. In another room, the couple proudly displays a grandmother clock Elder received from a classmate in honor of their friendship during college. Just around the corner, Tom keeps a copy of an email from an Elon alumnus he met through his role on the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business Board of Advisors, on which he served for nearly two decades. The email expresses the young man’s gratitude to Tom, a retired U.S. Navy captain, for helping him pursue a fulfilling career with the organization. All of these items symbolize the tremendous bond between the family and Elon—one that was set into motion nearly a century ago when Elder enrolled as a student at the college. After growing up on a farm in the nearby village of Alamance, Elder came to Elon in the early 1920s and dove into campus life headfirst, playing football and helping found a

12 the MAGAZINE of ELON

new fraternity on campus among many other activities. Quickly, his love for Elon became a defining part of his larger-than-life persona. In return, the mark that Elder and his family have made on Elon is just as indelible. Elder faithfully served his alma mater as a trustee for nearly 40 years. A leader in the textile industry who ran two hosiery mills in the area, Elder also played a role in Elon’s physical expansion by encouraging nearby landowners to contact the college when they were ready to sell property that bordered campus. Elder’s legacy of support is one that his family has proudly maintained by making a series of generous philanthropic commitments to Elon. Sandra and Tom, who frequently attend campus cultural events and Life@Elon, a lifelong learning institute, most recently worked with the university to designate a planned gift to Elon in their will. Their commitment will benefit Elon’s Greatest Needs, a fund that addresses pressing needs at Elon ranging from student scholarships and faculty development to learning experiences like study abroad, undergraduate research and internships. “We have watched Elon become a top-ranked institution and a leader in all kinds

of educational categories,” Tom says. “We want that to continue.” In the late 1990s, the couple joined with Sandra’s sisters, Elizabeth Warder and Gail Harden, to donate the Elder Clock in memory of both their father and mother, Elizabeth Elder. The clock stands just outside of Belk Library and has become a campus landmark. The family also created the W. Clifton Elder Scholarship after his death in 1979. While initially designed to benefit the children of mill workers who lived in Alamance County, the scholarship has since been adapted to benefit veterans. In all, the gifts will continue to create opportunities for students forging their futures and allow them to experience an education they can take pride in—just as Elder would have wanted it.

Learn more about how you can make a difference at Elon with a planned gift by contacting Carolyn DeFrancesco, director of planned giving, at (336) 278-7454 or cdefrancesco@elon.edu. You can also visit elonlegacy.org.

PHOENIX SPORTS

▶ elonphoenix.com

PHOTO: JACK PRIOR/NEWTON SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE

Sprinter Sydney Griffin ’16 overcame injuries early in her career and helped lead the Elon track and field team to back-to-back championship titles. BY MADISON MACKENZIE ’18

fter numerous injuries threatened her chances to compete at the collegiate level, sprinter Sydney Griffin ’16 doubted she would ever run again. But support from her Elon family and her own determination resulted in a remarkable college career. Besides setting 11 school records and receiving a long list of awards, Griffin played a vital role in helping the women’s track and field team win consecutive Colonial Athletic Association outdoor track and field titles. At this year’s championships, she scored individual event wins in the 100-meter hurdles and the 200-meter dash, and was a member of the 4x100-meter relay team that won a CAA title with a new school-record time. “To win a championship my senior year was the cherry on top of an amazing Elon experience,” Griffin says. “She led the way and was voted the meet’s most valuable athlete,” says Elon Coach Mark Elliston. “Sydney wholeheartedly took on the role of team captain and reached out to the team not only with words but with actions. She truly led by example and her determination and work ethic were contagious.”

The pathway to all this success was not always smooth for the Georgia native. She began running on the varsity track and field team her first year in high school and by the end of her sophomore year, she started to attract the attention of coaches nationwide. But multiple stress fractures during her junior and senior years threatened her collegiate running career. “I thought my life was over because all I knew was track,” Griffin recalls. “It was a good learning experience for me to learn who I was and what I wanted.” As the big schools lost interest, Coach Elliston never stopped believing in her. “Mark Elliston sent me a handwritten letter saying how much he wanted me to take a visit,” says Griffin. “I did not know much about Elon but I thought I should at least visit the campus. Once I saw the school, it was love at first sight.” Track is more of an individual sport and Griffin’s parents were usually the only ones cheering for her in the stands. It was not until the Southern Conference Championships her first year at Elon that she understood the team dynamic. “It was my first championship, the final of the 60-meter

hurdles; I looked up and saw all the people in maroon jackets cheering my name. That’s why I won the championship that day— because I got so much love and support from my team,” Griffin says. At this year’s athletics awards banquet, she received the Elon Athletics Basnight Award, which is given to the top male and female athletes. “I heard them say hurdles and thought ‘uh-oh’ and just burst into tears,” she says. As she was walking off stage she began to cry even more when she saw her parents waiting with a bouquet of roses. It was a perfect way to end her Elon career. Griffin graduated in May with a degree in psychology. While she says she is going to miss Elon, she is also thankful for all the experiences the school provided. She is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and also had the opportunity to study abroad in South Africa. “I was an athlete, in a sorority and studied abroad,” she says. “At other schools that would be unheard of for a student-athlete and that’s what makes Elon so special to me.” summer 2016 13

PHOENIX SPORTS

▶ elonphoenix.com

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT LIAM O’REGAN BY MADISON MACKENZIE ’18

Throughout his life, Liam O’Regan has been involved in numerous sports. But the sport that has stuck with him the most—and what brought him to Elon last fall—was baseball. A sophomore from Middletown, R.I., O’Regan had an impressive rookie season: he set Elon’s NCAA Division I first-year record with nine home runs, hitting .260 with 32 runs scored, 10 doubles and 28 RBI in 47 contests. In CAA play, O’Regan hit .271 with seven home runs, 14 runs scored and 19 RBI. These accomplishments earned him a spot on the CAA All-Rookie team. He spent a few minutes this summer talking to The Magazine of Elon about his life on and off the diamond. His favorite position is shortstop. Although O’Regan is listed as an outfielder, if he could pick a position, it would be shortstop. There is more action at short than in the outfield, plus the shortstop is generally the captain of the infield and carries a lot of responsibility.

14 the MAGAZINE of ELON

His guilty pleasure is watching cop shows. When he is taking a break from the field, you can find him watching his favorite kind of television: cop dramas. Whether it is “CSI” or “Law and Order,” O’Regan enjoys watching them all as a means of distraction.

His dream is to play for the Red Sox. Although his favorite player is Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels, his hometown allegiance makes him a Red Sox fan. If he had the opportunity, he says he would love to play for his home team at some point in his career.

He used to be a competitive surfer. O’Regan grew up two minutes from the beach, so he has been surfing his entire life. In high school he began surfing competitively. He was named to the US/ESA All-Star team and had the opportunity to travel to many countries to compete, including a junior men’s division championship in Nicaragua, which he won.

Bring on the pies. When he is in need of some comfort food, he doesn’t want mac n’ cheese or ice cream but rather buffalo chicken pizza. Pandora’s Pies keeps him quite happy with its Buffalo Chicken Pie while he is at Elon, his home away from home.

On threats, national security and what lies ahead

uring his 39-year career with the U.S. Navy, Adm. William “Bill” E. Gortney ’77 has held numerous leadership positions, including commanding forces in the U.S. Central Command area of operations on three different occasions. He has also served as director of the joint staff and as commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Most recently, Gortney served as commander of North American Aerospace Defense and U.S. Northern Command. Before he left those posts in May (read more about his retirement on page 37), he shared some thoughts about security challenges facing the nation, both domestic and foreign. What is the purpose of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command? NORAD was created in response to the Cold War, while U.S. Northern Command was born in the aftermath of 9/11. In both instances, our main task is to defend the homelands. For NORAD, the only binational command in the world, we defend Canada and the U.S. from the air. Northern Command provides support to civil authorities in the event of disasters or attacks. We also work with our regional partners—Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas—and advocate for the Arctic on behalf of the Department of Defense. How have national security threats evolved over time? Our nation was founded by having two secure borders and two moats: the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The U.S. is isolationist in that respect, which allowed us to flourish. But the threats are now moving closer. In the interconnected world we are living in, we cannot rely on geography to be our first line of defense. We have returned to great power competition, such as the reemergence of Russia and the rise of China. They are both fielding some very capable forces, far more than the Soviet military ever was. And that capability can reach the homeland like never before.

What are some of the threats the U.S. now faces? From Russia, the threat is new cruise missiles. They have read our playbook and have developed those capabilities. They employed them in Syria to send a message to us. That is the big game-changer accompanied by their doctrine—the perception that the country is being threatened by a coordinated Western effort to erode its sovereignty, weaken its economy and undermine its regime. From China, it’s the third leg of its nuclear defense system that will launch from the sea. North Korea has a very unstable, unpredictable leader who has engaged in a rush of ballistic missile tests. Through failure you learn and improve, and he has done several in the past months, which is a little disconcerting. They will eventually figure it out. Iran’s continuing pursuit of long-range missile capabilities, ballistic missile and space launch programs also remains a serious concern. On the home front, we face a terrorist threat from the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which I choose to refer to as Daesh (Arabic language acronym). They operate in darkness and have sophisticated and robust social media campaigns that feed homegrown violent extremists and radicalize citizens to do harm. I’m not too concerned with those who are communicating back to Daesh because we have intelligence in place to identify and intercept those messages. What causes me to pause are those who are self-radicalized but are not communicating back. I worry more about the people who enter the country legally but were radicalized before they came in. The tragic attacks in Chattanooga and San Bernardino underscore the difficulty intelligence and law enforcement face in detecting homegrown violent extremists who do not show outward, reported signs of radicalization prior to an attack. What needs to happen next? We need to continue to evolve to determine how to defend against the traditional military threats to all domains. We’re working with the Canadian military on that approach. Our ballistic missile defense architecture is designed primarily to defend against limited long-range ballistic missile attacks from North Korea and Iran, but we must make the necessary investments in order to continue to outpace ongoing and future threats. We also need to invest in technologies that reduce the cost of our defenses. For instance, we are prepared to shoot very expensive interceptors at threat missiles that cost much less. Investments that get us to the “correct side of the cost curve” are necessary. The threat of advanced long-range cruise missiles from Russia and other actors is real and we need to continue developing effective response options to outpace the threat and enhance our deterrence. As far as Daesh, we are working with Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to assist with countering their narrative at the grassroots level and break their cycle of radicalization. summer 2016 15

Unbroken

BY ERIC TOWNSEND

ollowing a quick burst of applause when her name was called over the loudspeaker, the only sound to be heard in Alumni Gym as Deborah Moy crossed the stage at Elon Law’s Commencement in May were the muffled “thumps” of her crutches. Moy didn’t want unique accommodations at the ceremony. She had already processed into the gym with members of her class using crutches and prosthetic legs. At this point, she certainly didn’t want Elon University President Leo M. Lambert to move from where he stood to hand her a diploma, though the option had been offered. No. Moy was determined to cross the stage on her own, without help, the latest steps in a saga that started when she was the victim of a brutal attack eight years ago. When she awoke from a coma following that attack, she was in the intensive care unit of a regional hospital, with her legs amputated and burns covering more than 70 percent of her body. As the sole survivor, she considers herself to be the “lucky” one. A friend who was also attacked didn’t survive. Since then, following many months recovering in the ICU, more than 100 surgical procedures and skin grafts, and years of physical therapy, Moy has regained the ability to walk with help from prosthetic legs, and she now is determined to serve as an advocate for other victims of crime, abuse, negligence and harm, including veterans. “I had to decide whether I was going to let my situation define who I was, or whether I would let it direct where I should go,” she says. “I knew that if I took the ‘poor me’ approach, it would end up destroying me. Besides, I refuse to allow someone else to determine who I am.”

16 the MAGAZINE of ELON

PIRIT After surviving a brutal attack, Deborah Moy L’16 refuses to let the experience define her and has focused on advocating for others.

❋ ❋ ❋

Moy had moved around the country as a child before settling in Greensboro, N.C., once her father retired from the Air Force. She attended Grimsley High School and majored in English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Following graduation, Moy worked in the service industry, saving money to travel across the country by train twice, hike the Grand Canyon and backpack throughout Europe. Then, in predawn hours of Sept. 13, 2008, her life changed forever following a night with friends when she was beaten, doused in an accelerant and left for dead in her burning Greensboro apartment. What makes Moy’s story even more compelling to those who know her is the way she didn’t let the criminal justice system break her spirit. In 2012 the police arrested the man who they believed attacked her. He was indicted by a grand jury, spent one year in jail awaiting trial, but was ultimately released. From what Moy has gathered, there may have been problems with the collection and preservation of evidence at the crime scene, which first responders treated at first as a fire to extinguish. Nevertheless, Moy has opted not to focus on this, preferring instead to focus on her goal of becoming an attorney. “I witnessed, firsthand, how the justice system can disappoint someone,” she says. “I decided to use that to figure out how to help others who find themselves in such situations.” She credits her upbringing in a military family and her service experience for pointing her toward law school. As she lay in bed at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, she saw how she’d become “stuck” feeling sorry for herself, but realized that the tragedy maybe, just maybe, could

have a silver lining. Law school was always in the back of her mind, so she decided to apply to Elon Law, where she began taking classes in 2013.

{ Deborah Moy L’16 was motivated to attend law school after surviving a brutal attack eight years ago. } that kind of consistent and genuine interest in her learning that quickly propelled her to the top of the class.”

❋ ❋ ❋

Moy’s attitude and approach to her legal education has caught the attention of faculty and classmates. Betsy Lamb L’16 befriended Moy shortly after they arrived together at Elon Law in the summer of 2013 and has often witnessed Moy’s humor diffusing awkward conversations. Moy also reminds Lamb that life, as well as the law, isn’t always fair, but that how someone responds to their circumstances reflects character. “She’s been an inspiration to me,” Lamb says. “She never complains. Never. If she can do this, I need to stop complaining about my own problems. To have gone through what she has gone through and be where she is, it’s nothing short of amazing.” Her professors agree. “All tragedies have ironies,” says Catherine Ross Dunham, who taught Moy in three classes, including trial practice. “In hers, she’s probably going to end up more successful in life for having gone through this.” Assistant Professor Antonette Barilla, director of academic support and bar preparation at Elon Law, says Moy exemplifies the famous saying: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” “After one of our first in-class written assignments, Deborah asked if she could come and chat with me about what she perceived to be a less-than-quality submission, but was actually a very impressive work product,” Barilla says. “She dissected the assignment in my office, carefully scrutinizing every nuance of the applicable rules, every variant in the analysis, and every detail related to the answer’s form and structure. It was

Moy spent the summer preparing for the bar exam and hopes to practice disability law with a focus on veterans. North Carolina is a military-friendly state with Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune and Seymour Johnson among the most prominent installations for tens of thousands of active duty military personnel. That also means there’s a sizable veteran presence in the state. Moy’s interest in veterans was born of her personal experience. Her hospital recovery proved that some health care providers and hospital volunteers understand the emotional and physical needs of burn victims. Others understand the emotional and physical needs of amputees. But there are very few people who understand what it’s like to survive both types of injuries—the exception, of course, being service members who live through horrific attacks while serving overseas on the front lines. The law is there for those men and women, too, who need help claiming benefits due to them from their service. Moy already has interned for the legal departments of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Winston-Salem and the Wounded Warrior Project in Jacksonville, Fla. She is now ready for her future courtroom battles. “The law isn’t constrictive. It was not put into place just to punish wrongdoers, but to protect us. It’s our security blanket,” Moy says. “Being an attorney, first and foremost, is entering into the service industry, and I know that my experience will allow me to be an effective advocate.”

Summer 2016 17

Servic Year BY NATALIE ALLISON JANICELLO ’13

Elon advances a growing national movement, engaging recent graduates in a year of community service following graduation.

{ Maria Restuccio ’15 } 18 the MAGAZINE of ELON

ce A

s she looked around the buzzing farmer’s market on an early spring afternoon, Catherine Palmer ’15 finally breathed a sigh of relief. For months, she had been planning for that date, April 5, with anticipation and also a bit of anxiety. Her goal was to provide residents in an east Burlington, N.C., neighborhood with a source of fresh produce to supplement their limited grocery options at nearby dollar stores and mini-marts. Palmer, from Winchester, Mass., had spent months forming and meeting with a steering committee to launch a farmer’s market from scratch to address problems of obesity and other chronic health conditions in a low-income neighborhood. She set up a system to allow patrons to pay with their governmentprovided nutrition assistance cards, knocked on neighborhood doors passing out fliers and hoped that the farmers she coaxed into joining a brand new market would show up. And they did, some even selling out of food that first day. Week after week, Palmer saw a dozen or more of the same faces. She celebrated with the woman who lost 16 pounds after finally being able to shop for and prepare vegetables. She got to know the vendors she recruited, people who were successfully turning a profit at the market. What Palmer saw unfold at the North Park Farmers Market served as a guiding principle throughout her year of service as one of the four inaugural Graduate Fellows in the ElonAlamance Health Partners program. “It sounds really cliché, but my health and well-being depend on your health and well-being, and

{ From left: ElonAlamance Health Partners Graduate Fellows Catherine Palmer ’15, Maria Restuccio ’15, Hannah Allen ’15 and Shelby Smith ’15. }

that all depends on the health and well-being of our community,” Palmer says. “I think it’s really important for people [of privilege] to understand that their life experiences are not the norm, and doing a year of service will expose you to that.” The Health Partners program is a key initiative in Elon’s efforts to encourage recent graduates to put their education into practice in real-world situations through a year of community service. “The service-year model has impact and can strengthen our communities and provide challenging, meaningful work to young people,” Elon President Leo M. Lambert says. “We are excited to join this work at Elon, building on a long campus tradition of community engagement and service learning.”

Setting the wheels in motion The idea for the Elon-Alamance Health Partners program was inspired in part by retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who chairs the Service Year Alliance and previously led the Aspen Institute’s Franklin Project. He shared his vision with President Lambert in 2013 and visited Elon in fall 2015 for the North Carolina Campus Compact Presidents Forum to promote voluntary civilian service to the United States, with the ultimate aim of creating one million civilian service opportunities for young people. During his address at the forum, McChrystal challenged college and university leaders to expand service year opportunities. At Elon, work was already underway. Provost Steven House and Preston Hammock,

president of Alamance Regional Medical Center (ARMC), had created the Health Partners program to support four health and wellness organizations in Alamance County. Four 2015 Elon graduates were selected to work on community health initiatives with ARMC, which provides comprehensive health services to local residents; the Alamance County Health Department, which addresses maternal and child health, communicable disease prevention and environmental health; Healthy Alamance, which brings together community residents and leaders to address health needs and improve well-being; and Impact Alamance, a foundation that invests in community health projects with a focus on children. Elon provided a modest stipend, health insurance and housing while ARMC provided additional program funding. “This program prepares our students to be global citizens, helps them find placement after Elon and benefits the community,” House says. “It just seemed like a perfect fit for Elon and demonstrates our commitment to give back to Alamance County. This is where we work and where many of our employees live. We are committed to making Alamance County an outstanding and very special place to live.”

Working in the community Shelby Smith entered Elon as a business major but later made the switch to public health studies. After volunteering at the Open Door Clinic, a medical facility in Burlington for the uninsured and underserved, Smith realized her true passion was related to maternal and Summer 2016 19

Service child health. Her placement at the Alamance County Health Department provided Smith the opportunity to manage $114,000 in state funding to enhance infant mortality reduction programs and $20,000 for local efforts to improve the health of women and their children in Alamance County. Among other things, she started several workgroups and revitalized a decade-old program—Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies—which was still active but dwindling in numbers. She helped local women become trained as lactation consultants and held focus groups to hear about the needs of mothers and children in the county. After the initial grant funding ran out, Smith says, the mothers continued showing up and asked her to hold more meetings. “Building those connections with community members was the most rewarding part about Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies,” says Smith, a native of La Plata, Md. Seeing people empowered when they were able to speak out helped Smith shape her own philosophy of leadership in public health. She learned about the importance of listening carefully to the specific needs of those being served by an organization. Because of her experience, Smith decided to continue her work at the health department for another year before entering an accelerated bachelor of science and a master’s program in nursing at Emory University in 2017. “As the year went on, I started to reflect on how I felt so much a part of the community here,” says Smith, who is now working to start a community-based volunteer doula program, training women to assist with childbirth and 20 the MAGAZINE of ELON

“As the year went on, I started to reflect on how I felt so much a part of the community here. I felt those connections with people and wasn’t ready to give that up so quickly.” —Shelby Smith ’15 provide support after the baby is born. “I felt those connections with people and wasn’t ready to give that up so quickly.” Like the other fellows, Hannah Allen felt it wasn’t her time to leave Alamance County when she graduated. A public health studies major from Cordova, Tenn., Allen planned to spend a year in a service program before training to become a doctor, and had looked into AmeriCorps, City Year and a couple of programs abroad. “I wanted to focus more on real-world experience before I went on to medical school,” she says. “I just wanted to do a little more working with people.” With existing relationships built through her volunteer work at the Open Door Clinic, Allen dove into work at ARMC’s community outreach department. “Instead of going off to a big city I didn’t know, I chose to stay in a community I already felt comfortable with,” Allen says. Kathy Colville, ARMC’s community outreach director and co-chair of the Health Partners steering committee, praised Allen’s work in facilitating a coalition of local safety net providers, organizations working to expand health care access to the uninsured and those with Medicare or Medicaid. Those agencies often operated independently from one another, but thanks to

Allen’s work are now meeting regularly to discuss what they can accomplish together. For example, Allen worked with them to establish local bus routes to allow those without transportation to access their services. She also facilitated longawaited grant funding to establish dental services for uninsured adults, Colville says. Allen was inspired by working alongside others who support people who can’t afford health care. “What I learned this year is there are so many people out there doing exactly what I want to do: volunteering at free clinics,” Allen says. “It’s one thing to meet them briefly. But to work side by side with them and hear about their day-to-day experiences and the struggles of their job, made me feel like I am going down the right path. This is what I need to be doing, and I can do it and make a difference.” Economics major Maria Restuccio, of Westerville, Ohio, plans to make a career working at the intersection of international health, business and finance. She discovered her passion during her sophomore year when she studied abroad in Senegal and lived in a rural SouthSaharan village with a Peace Corps volunteer. “I saw a lot of inefficiency with international health care aid economics,” she says. She came back to Elon and conducted her senior thesis research on

{ Catherine Palmer ’15 }

SERVICE YEAR

{ Hannah Allen ’15 }

the impact of aid allocation on disease prevalence and outcomes. As an Elon-Alamance Health Partners fellow, Restuccio worked as a junior program officer for Impact Alamance. There she developed an evaluation plan and logic model for each of the organization’s funding priorities, conducted community-based research and developed relationships with the nonprofit organizations the foundation funds. “I knew I wanted to take more of a systems view,” Restuccio says. “That’s just my personality type. I work better on the research side than one-on-one with clients, and I knew that about myself.” Restuccio is amazed at the opportunities she had in the workplace this past year. She met with health care leaders, was taken by mentors Tracey Grayzer and Marcy Green to hospital board meetings, and met people in a wide range of jobs in health care settings. At Impact Alamance’s community launch party for the organization’s first annual report, Restuccio realized all of her day-to-day interactions with community leaders and agency heads had resulted in a network of new contacts. “I was in a room full of 80 community leaders and I knew every single person on a first-name basis,” she says. “It wasn’t exactly your traditional boss/entry-level employee relationship. It was very much also a mentorship, and they’ve taken the extra time and effort to figure out what I want to do and help me along in that process.” Building on those great experiences, Restuccio will enroll this fall at the London School of Economics and the London School

of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in a master’s program in health care policy, planning and financing.

Growing service opportunities Tom Brinkley, executive director of Elon’s Student Professional Development Center and co-chair of the Elon-Alamance Health Partners steering committee, says there is a growing number of students interested in providing a year of service after graduation. Popular programs include Teach For America, City Year, AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps. He says the committee has assessed Elon’s homegrown program and made some adjustments as it continues with a new cohort of 2016 Elon graduates who are now on the job. Instead of living on campus, for instance, this year’s fellows were awarded a stipend for off-campus housing so they can better assimilate into the local community. The new fellows are Olivia Murray (ARMC), Maggie Bailey (Healthy Alamance), Zachary Fisher (Alamance County Health Department) and Anna Patterson (Impact Alamance). Meanwhile, Elon has launched a second service year initiative with support from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust. The Community Impact Fellows program is placing four 2016 graduates into high-need elementary schools in Alamance County, working on literacy and numeracy with preschool children and parents. Kimberly Beale, Takeva Mitchell, Kanthima Pumhirun and Keeyatta Russell spent their senior year at Elon doing research and preparing for full-time work at Newlin,

Eastlawn, Andrews and Haw River elementary schools. “By working with parents and children to help prepare 4-year-olds for kindergarten, supervising current Elon students who volunteer as tutors and preparing the next four Community Impact Fellows,” Lambert says, “these graduates will have a tremendous impact on the crucial role of getting children ready to read.” The benefits of Elon’s two pilot service year programs are already apparent to many in the local community. “When Dr. House spoke at our signing ceremony, one of the things he mentioned was that the world needs Elon graduates, and I absolutely agree,” Colville says. “We need them, and we didn’t even know how much we needed them until we had them. We get a chance again to see the world through their eyes— through learning eyes, and eyes that maybe don’t take for granted some of the things we’ve come to think always have to be that way.” The fellows are equally grateful for the service year opportunities they have enjoyed. Reflecting on the professional growth she experienced while in the program, Smith says the greatest asset was the mentoring she received from Stacie Saunders, executive director of the Alamance County Health Department. “I can’t imagine my first year out of school in a job without that guided mentorship, now that I’ve had it,” she says. “The Elon-Alamance Health Partners helped me develop skills for communication, facilitation, problem-solving and critical thinking that will be useful no matter what chosen career path I take.” Summer 2016 21

COVER STORY

22â&#x20AC;&#x192; the MAGAZINE of ELON

Village approach

The

What started eight years ago as a program for struggling young readers has evolved into a comprehensive literacy development project. BY KEREN RIVAS ’04

{ Left: Melvin Marin at the Summer in the Village program. Above: “It Takes a Village” project founder and director Jean RattiganRohr works with a parent during an English as a Second Language class. }

melvin marin was in second grade when his mother, Luz Maria Avelino, enrolled him in the “It Takes a Village” project at Elon University. A bright but shy young boy, Melvin was struggling with reading, and Avelino wasn’t sure what to do. Then a letter about a free program at Elon that helps struggling readers arrived with Melvin’s older brother, Milton Marin, who was in fourth grade at the time. Milton was doing just fine in that area, but still his mother took that opportunity to enlist both boys in the program. “I figured he could always improve,” she says of Milton. Five years later, the brothers are still active in the Village project and the results couldn’t be better. Thanks to the encouragement he received in the program, Milton was tested and identified as Academically and Intellectually Gifted; he is attending Alamance-Burlington Middle College in the fall. Melvin, who is now in eighth grade, scored a Level 5 in his latest standardized reading test, the highest score a student can achieve. He lights up when you ask him about his reading skills. “I read much better than others in my class,”

he says with pride. “I’m more fluid and read at a good pace—not too fast, not too slow.” Results such as these are not uncommon for those who take part in the Village project. They are also what inspire project founder and director Jean Rattigan-Rohr to continue improving the program she started in 2008. The Village project is now a multi-faceted literacy development project focused on community needs. “It has just been fantastic,” Rattigan-Rohr says. She also serves as Elon’s executive director of community partnerships, director of the Center for Access and Success and associate professor of education. “The title is ‘It Takes a Village’ and that’s exactly what we are seeing unfolding here: the whole Elon village embracing the project and really working hard with children and the community.”

Starting the Village

he idea for the program was born of a recurrent question Rattigan-Rohr kept hearing in her “Teaching Struggling Readers” class, which she teaches to preservice teachers in Elon’s School of Education: How do you teach reading when children are struggling and don’t seem to get it? To find the answer, and in addition to teaching her students the theoretical underpinnings of reading, Rattigan-Rohr decided to pair them with area school children who were struggling with reading.

summer 2016 23

“

Elon is good at creating community, and at the heart, that’s what this is: one community reaching out to another to create a dynamic partnership. –Patrick Rudd, Village project volunteer

The idea was for the Elon students to meet once a week for two hours to teach and get to know the children and find ways to offer one-on-one assistance. They also shared recommendations with parents so they could continue the work at home and, when needed, they visited classroom teachers to ensure there was consistency across the board. Kara Cowdrick ’10, who took part in the program the fall of her senior year, remembers how daunting it all seemed at first. She was paired with a fourth grader whose first language was Spanish. “I really went in kind of blind,” she says, adding she didn’t know how well she could relate to the parents. “It was intimidating at first. I went in with a plan and I quickly learned to be flexible and adjust my plan based on what he needed.” Cowdrick soon developed a relationship with the boy and his family and started to see the improvements not only in his reading but also his confidence. That’s when she discovered that besides offering a practical way to bring book knowledge into a real-world setting, the program got to the essence of effective teaching. “What I learned the most from my time with the Village is that education is more than helping

students learn to read or write,” says Cowdrick, who teaches fifth grade in a low-income school in Atlanta. “It’s about bringing a community together, because it takes a whole community to support children.” There is much evidence that shows early literacy is linked with later scholastic achievement, higher graduation rates, reduced incidences of juvenile delinquency and overall well-being. Most experts agree children begin to develop pre-reading skills when they are 4-5 years old. Students who cannot read proficiently by the end of third grade rarely catch up with their peers academically. “Helping children learn to read is the single most important factor in their early education,” Elon President Leo M. Lambert says. “Our society must not fail to address this most basic issue, because the preservation of a democratic society and our future prosperity as a nation both depend on every child having a chance to flourish.” Rattigan-Rohr says there is not one single approach that can be applied to all children who are struggling with reading, adding that, in order to be successful, one needs to look at each child who is struggling and find out why that child, at

”

that moment, has problems reading. For Melvin, his reading difficulties seemed to be related to fluency. “It was as if he was out of breath, as if he didn’t know how to breathe while reading,” Avelino recalls. The tutor who first worked with him discovered he liked soccer, so she tied a soccer ball to his waist and had him bounce the ball on his knee while he was sounding out words. The distraction seemed to allow Melvin to focus on the words without disturbing his breathing. Avelino says every tutor who has worked with her children has actively tried new things to keep them engaged and motivated. While tutors play an integral role, the program wouldn’t be complete without parental involvement. “From the beginning, they told us we had to work with our children and practice what we had learned at home,” Avelino says, adding that being involved in the process has been important for her as well because it has allowed her to see her children’s progress every step of the way. In fact, her experience has been so positive, she has become an ambassador for the program in the Latino community. She has referred many families and even brings them to the tutoring sessions when needed.

{ Jenn Grimmett, media services assistant with Elon’s Teaching and Learning Technologies, works with Village students to create their own newscast using green screen technology. } 24 the MAGAZINE of ELON

THE VILLAGE APPROACH

Rattigan-Rohr knew from the start that participation from parents was key in order for the program to succeed. She takes issue with people who say children are struggling because their parents don’t care. “When parents see their children succeeding, they’ll do all they can to ensure that they do succeed, and this is a message that I’ve been trying to tell folks all along,” RattiganRohr says.

Growing the Village

t first the tutoring sessions took place on Elon’s campus and were only available to 16 elementary school children. The program soon outgrew the space and moved to May Memorial Library in downtown Burlington, N.C. As it expanded to include K-8 students, the program moved again, this time to a space that had once been occupied by a private elementary school. Then in February, the program began providing after-school tutoring services to K-12 students at five local schools: Newlin, Haw River, Eastlawn and Andrews elementary schools, as well as Graham Middle School, which serves as a one-stop shop for parents with multiple children in the program. This latest expansion into the schools is being funded by a $1 million grant from Oak Foundation. The philanthropic organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, has supported the project’s early development and the replication of the Village model nationally at three other U.S. colleges (the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Winston-Salem State University and Concordia University in Oregon) and internationally at the East Queen Street Baptist Church Evening Institute in Kingston, Jamaica. Rattigan-Rohr says the funding will allow Elon to deepen and broaden the services the Village already provides to approximately 200 children and their families in Alamance County. “We have aggressive goals to increase reading proficiency for children and expand parents’ understanding of ways to support their children’s academic development and also increase their own English language skills,” she adds. Over the years, the project has gradually added learning opportunities as needs arose. Programs such as Science in the Village, which provides hands-on opportunities to help students be problem-solvers in a scientific and technological world; Music in the Village, where students learn the basics of music by using their voice and learning to play an instrument; and Summer in the Village, which provides struggling readers with activities aimed at

{ As part of the Village program, Elon volunteers meet once a week with area children for two hours. } strengthening their writing and creative expression. The latter has been made possible by a gift from the Wells Fargo Foundation. The project also addresses academic enhancements for K-9 students who are already part of the Village project and are now performing above grade level, as well as early childhood literacy for children ages 3 to 5. The project has also worked with Alamance Community College and Elon’s Centro de Español to support Village parents and families who wish to improve their English language skills. As the number of students and families served and course offerings has increased, the university involvement has also widened. At first, education majors accounted for the bulk of volunteers. Now faculty, staff and students from different majors are working with the project throughout the year. Jenn Grimmett, media services assistant with Elon’s Teaching and Learning Technologies, started tutoring in spring 2015 and later got involved with the technology component of the

Summer in the Village program. She assembled a team with her TLT co-workers and used Elon’s Maker Hub to conduct exploratory activities to teach students how electric circuits work while also explaining the forces behind it. “It was a very rewarding experience,” she says, particularly when she saw the transformation in students who gained confidence in their knowledge and used it to help others. Partnering with the project also provided Grimmett and her co-workers with an “out-of-the-box opportunity to contribute to the bigger picture.” “Folks who might have been hesitant at first, who felt out of their comfort zone, were rewarded when they saw the look on the kids’ faces,” she says. This summer Grimmett worked with about 20 faculty and staff from different departments across campus to teach the students how to create their own newscast using green screen technology. “It’s a cool way to really take great advantage of all the massive talent we have on campus and be able to integrate the lessons from the first grade up,” she says. summer 2016 25

Raghu Tadepalli, dean of the Martha and noneducation majors create plans for their stuWitnessing this comprehensive approach to Spencer Love School of Business, taught an dents. She has also mentored education majors help readers succeed helped solidify Cowdrick’s entrepreneurship and sales class as part of this and participated in the summer program. path after graduation. She obtained a master’s summer’s program. He characterizes the Village She currently supervises the Village program degree in language literacy and culture and is project as “unique.” In his experience, he says, at Eastlawn Elementary, where she teaches now pursuing a doctorate in curriculum and most private universities prefer to leave it to the fourth grade. instruction. Her research focuses on supporting state to deal with issues facing K-12 education. Hinzman says the program provides a true English language learning and the impact com“Recognizing that as a private university, we solution for a problem that is affecting children munity can have on the process. “I’ve always have a social responsibility with the commuacross the nation by filling the gaps left by been interested in the Spanish language but it nity,” he says, “and that it is up to us, being a often-overwhelmed school systems. Children, wasn’t until my experience with the Village that nationally known university, to do whatever we particularly those in poverty, she adds, need I realized how much language learners and their can to serve the needs of the people around us, individual attention; for them to get those families needed advocates and other people— is remarkable.” moments of direct instruction is very valuable, teachers and community members—to help Patrick Rudd, coordinator of library both emotionally and academically. “For these them navigate through a new culture,” she says. instruction and outreach services, first started students, this is their moment,” she says. “For a Her Village experience also spurred a comvolunteering with the Village project in fall munity bookmobile project she started last year, 2012, after a personal loss made him reexamine which allows her to bring literacy to children in his priorities. Since then, and with the support her community during the summer months. “If of Dean and University Librarian Joan Ruelle, I didn’t have that experience of the Village, of he has recruited other library staff into the seeing the impact of bringing the community program. “I didn’t know how to teach reading together, I’d have never had that idea,” she says, but I do love to read and I know how to build adding she credits Rattigan-Rohr for much of relationships,” Rudd says. “Getting to know her motivation. “When I think about Elon, and students, what they like, what’s happening at some of my most transformative moments, school, it opens all kinds of doors. It’s a very I think of the Village and Dr. Rohr. It takes rewarding relationship-building experience.” someone with a lot of determination and a lot of Rudd marvels at how students such as heart to turn that dream into a reality. She is an Melvin, with whom he worked in the past, inspiration for me.” blossom when given the opportunity to grow. She is not the only one who has reached that “There is an incredible thing that happens when conclusion. “Jean is such a visionary,” Rudd you read with a child,” he says. “Sometimes I says. “She’s always thinking six months, a year don’t know who is teaching who.” Working with out. She just knows how to put people together. the program, he says, has dispelled some of the … Elon is good at creating community, and at { Students learn the basics of music in the Music in misconceptions that surround struggling readthe heart, that’s what this is: one community the Village program. } ers. “Parents really care,” Rudd says. “They have reaching out to another to create a dynamic created a community and have taken ownership partnership.” of the program. And that commitment seeps lot of them, reading is one of the things they are Rattigan-Rohr shies away from taking through the larger community and spreads to most self-conscious about. When they learn to any credit for the project’s success and points others.” do it, they are on the mountaintop. It’s a beautiinstead to all the different components that He has worked with students one-on-one ful experience for them.” make it all possible. “It makes me feel very and in a group setting and also works with the For the tutors, she says, the biggest reward encouraged and humbled to see the sheer summer program. As a nonteaching profesis the knowledge they are making a difference. outpouring of support from the Elon comsional, he enjoys getting to know each student “The greatest gift you can give to someone is munity—staff, faculty, friends, students,” says to determine their individual needs and, with the ability to read,” Hinzman says. She was Rattigan-Rohr. “Never in my wildest dreams did the help of education students, develop a plan particularly glad to see students from different I imagine when I started the project eight years that works. “There are a lot of Melvins out there,” disciplines and interests getting involved in the ago that it would grow by leaps and bounds he says. “Smart students who need someone spring—from sorority and fraternity members with such support from the Elon community.” who has the time to interact with them and to student-athletes. “It was truly a village from Looking to the future, Hinzman hopes challenge them and just get to know them.” all areas and interests from Elon that came,” the Village continues its work in the five local she adds. “It was really exciting.” For parents, schools and grows in North Carolina and Hinzman says, the program is a source of relief beyond. “I hope that every state can have it, that The impact of the Village and excitement. “I don’t think I’ve seen so much it becomes a world endeavor,” she says. “It’s so eyond impacting hundreds of support from parents as I’ve seen in the Village,” adaptable: all you need is someone who knows Alamance County students and their she says. “They are there, involved, listening how to read to teach someone who is strugfamilies throughout the years, the and working with their students on-site and at gling. I hope people learn about it so other kids Village project has also left a mark on home. It’s good for them to see where their kids can experience what I’ve seen the students here those who have served as volunteers. are and what they can do for them.” experience.” Mallory Hinzman ’12 is one of them. She first started working with the program as a junior in college and never left. In one way or another, the classroom teacher has been involved in all aspects of the program. As a student teacher, she tutored children one-on-one and in groups. She later served as a group facilitator helping

26 the MAGAZINE of ELON

From the ARCHIVES

When uniforms ruled There was a time when Elon enforced strict dress codes “ for economy and to avoid unpleasant distinctions in dress.” BY MADISON MACKENZIE ’18

hen students think of dress codes, they might picture a private high school filled with plaid skirts and khakis. Most colleges today do not have dress codes; after all, they are a place where students grapple with individuality and self-discovery. But that was not always the case. Elon was one of many colleges that at one point had a heavily enforced dress code to go along with societal norms. Starting in the 1890-91 school year, the uniform policy was printed in the Bulletin of Elon College catalog to make students aware of the rules. “For economy and to avoid unpleasant distinctions in dress, young ladies will be required to wear a black uniform. The trimmings and scarfs to be determined by the individual’s taste. It is desired that the quality shall not be expensive, but heavy enough to hold the { Elon students from 1900 to 1919 color and last through the donning their uniforms. } winter,” the rule stated. “Young men need plain and substantial, but not expensive clothing. As a general rule, the more money a student spends on dress the less time is given to study.” The uniforms were to be worn at any public occasion, which included going to class, to a dining hall and to school-sanctioned events. This was decided in 1890 but there were three changes made to the dress code before it was abolished in 1912. Beginning in 1901-02, the uniforms were determined by the seasons. The Bulletin explained that, “each girl is required to wear for a winter uniform a suit of plain black goods; for the spring white pique skirt and white waist of any kind. The Oxford caps are

worn all the year.” Five years later, the women’s uniforms were adjusted yet again. During the fall and spring, they were to wear waists of inexpensive material and plain black or blue-black woolen skirts. During the winter, they were required to wear jackets and skirts made out of the same material. A lot of these changes were made because the college thought they were making it easier on the students if their clothes were inexpensive and looked the same so they could spend more time studying than focusing on appearances. Then in 1911-12, the official uniform requirements were eliminated. The school asked students for “simplicity in dress, both for young men and women,” but continued to provide specific dress regulations. Décolleté dresses, for instance, were not permitted. “On all public and evening occasions, except at Commencement, simple white dresses shall be worn,” the rule read. Parents and guardians were asked not to let their daughters spend too much on clothing, noting that the faculty reserved the right to refuse a dress to be worn that they believed to be too expensive or too elaborately made. As societal norms continued to change so did the dress codes. By 1920-21, students were asked to dress simply, and women were allowed to wear evening dresses to formal school occasions. An offer was also extended to parents to have the Dean of Women help them determine “suitable wardrobes for young women” if needed. It wasn’t until the 1935-36 catalog that a dress code was not mentioned at all, giving students the freedom to dress as simple or as complicated as they want to. summer 2016 27

On the DEFENSE BY KYRA GEMBERLING ’14

t’s estimated U.S. military, intelligence, defense contractors and related networks are targeted for hacking hundreds of thousands of times every day. A quick look at the top headlines from the past few months shows just how much cyber threats are on the rise—from a malware attack that resulted in the theft of more than $100 million from the Bangladeshi central bank to the breach into the Democratic National Committee’s computer network by suspected Russian hackers seeking information on the U.S. presidential campaign. While these might just be blips in the news cycle for most Americans, for Elon alumnus John Marshall ’01, these reports are an everyday concern. “Cyber threats are growing; easy-touse tools can now inflict more damage with fewer resources,” says Marshall, who has worked for the National Security Agency since 2004. “Millions of times every day cyber adversaries approach our perimeters and test our defenses. The NSA partners with other U.S. government agencies, computer emergency response teams and industry leaders to detect, defend and ultimately prevent those attacks that can inflict severe damage to U.S. national security.” Since joining the agency, Marshall, a double major in computer science and mathematics, has ascended in rank from a computer systems researcher to software developer to now head of product strategy and manager of software products. The details of his work are as secretive as they are important to the nation’s well-being. Though he’s prohibited from giving specifics, Marshall’s work has involved creating and monitoring cyber defense against foes looking to attack military networks. Despite having a resume that boasts a variety of international accomplishments, Marshall is most proud of his internal successes within the NSA. But when he looks back, Marshall counts his time at Elon as one of the most important stepping-stones to his long-term career success.

28 the MAGAZINE of ELON

Carving out a path After attending high school in Minnesota, Marshall wanted to go to a university on the East Coast in order to be closer to family. He was attracted to Elon because he could play Division I golf, graduate in no more than four years and have one-on-one access to professors due to the small class sizes. Computer science wasn’t always his first choice. He started his first year thinking he would major in either psychology or philosophy. He took a computer science class his first semester, and after being the first person to finish the course’s final exam, former Elon professor Jonathan Berry pulled him aside to ask if he was interested in pursuing computer science instead. Berry soon became Marshall’s adviser, mapping out each semester with course recommendations and providing practical advice. The pair also worked together as a research team in the early years of Elon’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience program. “I am so proud of John’s accomplishments and service in national security,” says Berry, who is now a principal member of technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories. “When we were both at Elon, he told me he wanted a career doing difficult things that require a high level of competence. This confidence and vision distinguished him as an undergraduate and has made him a top professional.” After graduating from Elon, Marshall attended Florida State University to pursue a master’s degree in computer science. He was offered a scholarship for a graduate program funded by leading technology innovator Harris Corporation, where Marshall interned for a summer and worked for a year following his graduation from Florida State in 2003. But Marshall had his eye on bigger opportunities—at the time, his graduate program was one of only 10 in the nation formally recognized by the NSA. So from the time he started graduate

school, Marshall’s intent was to start making connections and make himself competitive for a position within the NSA. Eventually, his hard work paid off. While he was interning for Harris, NSA recruiters made a site visit, at which time Marshall’s graduate adviser introduced him as one of his best students. Soon, Marshall started receiving calls from NSA hiring managers to come in for an interview. Several months later, while Marshall was working full-time for Harris, he received a job offer. He stayed on at Harris for another four months to finish a final project, and then transitioned into his new role at the NSA in July 2004.

Pursuing new experiences In his first position at the NSA, Marshall worked for three years in the research directorate as a computer systems researcher, applying his findings to operational groups that defend military cyber networks from attacks. But Marshall developed an interest in working more directly with customers, and in his next role served six years overseas as a software developer and software technical lead, designing and developing solutions for operational networks. After returning to the U.S. in fall 2013, Marshall transitioned to his current role, where he oversees different software product teams. Tony Kurc, a technical director in mission capabilities at the NSA, has worked with Marshall for more than 10 years on many projects. Since both come from an academic background, Kurc says they have always meshed well. He adds that Marshall’s strong commitment to his work shined through when he first met him at a workshop focused on network defense—Marshall brought a powerful, yet hilariously named, tool called “NOSEHAIR” with him and trained attendees to use the program to achieve their own goals using various network defense techniques. “It was impressive that he was able to synthesize the knowledge and be a keystone for the

workshop activity,” Kurc says. “The end of the workshop had briefings from all participants, and largely due to John’s relentless knowledge sharing, almost every project had been influenced in some way by him. I’ve made it a point to work with John ever since.” While Marshall has accomplished a great deal in his 12 years with the NSA, he sees much opportunity for him in the future. He aims to continue his efforts to help teams keep up with and adopt industry best practices. “In the technology arena, there are times when we can be so focused on what’s going on currently that we can lose sight of important trends within the industry,” Marshall says. “We’re working to really keep track of these changes and adopt new ideas in product management.” For instance, he is interested in learning from industry-tested approaches to anticipate customer needs and using those insights to inform the development of new products. It’s a cross-disciplinary approach Marshall was first exposed to at Elon. “We work with people in a variety of different areas, so being able to understand those differences and work across those teams is something I learned how to do at Elon and continued to build on here.” Marshall says he would love to someday return to North Carolina. He adds he would like to grow into a senior technical lead position where he’s heading larger organizations of technical talent. “My focus is on building partnerships that are necessary for our organization to succeed,” he says. “Those partnerships may certainly exist beyond the grounds of the NSA—they exist throughout the U.S. at various government, academic and research organizations. “The key is in understanding the bigger picture and working with others to meet the needs of our customers and the nation to provide security, no matter where it takes me.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

For more than a decade, John Marshall ’01 has channeled his Elon experience to protect the United States from cyber attacks.

Summer 2016 29

A Bug’s Tale

Insects may be small and crunchy, but they demonstrate behaviors that are just as relatable to humans as the cute and cuddly animals that more often fascinate us. BY KATIE DEGRAFF

irds chirp. Chimpanzees groom. Baby bears scamper up trees. We’re fascinated by their songs, behaviors and first steps, as is apparent by the thousands of YouTube videos often shared on social media. But what about beetles? Grasshoppers? Caterpillars? Like all living creatures, insects are motivated by the basics: food, safety, reproduction and resources. And they represent more than half of all described animal species. “They’re small and crunchy, but they have the same fundamental behaviors as other animals,” says Jen Hamel, assistant professor of biology. So why so little fanfare for the more than one million different species of insects? “Up until about fifth grade, kids generally connect really easily with bugs, but insects become less relatable as we age. We see them more as pests,” says Hamel, whose research is focused on the behavior, ecology and evolution of insects. Yet those “pests” demonstrate behaviors that are just as relatable to humans as the cute and cuddly animals that are more often the subject of human interest. Take, for example, oak treehoppers, commonly found on oak trees like those on Elon’s campus. These charismatic bugs are about a centimeter long, hang out on the ends of branches and exhibit maternal care. Mothers remain steadfastly at their kids’ side (about 50 babies hatch at a time) and defend them from spiders and other predators with the only means at her disposal: a roundhouse kick. The baby insects alert their mother to an approaching predator by doing the wave, just like rowdy baseball fans. And it all happens in plain sight. You just have to know to look for it. When fireflies flash on summer evenings, they’re signaling to potential

30 the MAGAZINE of ELON

mates who are below in the grass. If the presumptive mate is receptive, the signal is returned. When bees take a deep dive under the leaf litter, they’ve bringing provisions to their nest. And much like humans in different regions of the country, katydids exhibit different dialects from mountaintop to mountaintop. But insect behavior is about so much more than reproduction. A single insect species doesn’t exist in isolation. Hamel’s research explores how community members, such as predators and parasites, shape behavior. Outside of her academic interests, Hamel is focused on sharing her appreciation of insects with the wider world. She joined Elon in 2014 because she knew the university encouraged undergraduate students to work on multi-year research projects that typically aren’t attempted until the graduate level. She is guiding four students through the process of data collection, analysis and professional presentations of their findings. The students are all studying the same insect, the squash bug, and they’re learning from each other as part of the process. Hamel is also in the final stages of co-authoring a children’s book, “Bug Camp: Where Every Day Is An Adventure,” focused on insects and science. It will be available in September. The book is based on a summer earlier in Hamel’s career when she worked as a counselor for Bug Camp, an experiential learning science camp for rising fifth through seventh graders. The book, targeted to third- through sixthgrade readers, is a snapshot of that experience. “We provide a lot of information about insects, but we also explicitly include content about what science is and how it works, and there are hands-on activities in each section—many of which are experiments that anyone can do at home,” she says. Whether at home, at work or out for a walk, Hamel says it’s very likely you’re in close contact with any number of insects. And just maybe observing their behavior can teach you something about your own.

ALUMNI ACTION

A culture of volunteerism and leadership Dear Elon alumni,

itting at my desk in the Martin Alumni Center for the first time two years ago, I remember taking a deep breath and sketching out a SWOT analysis. I was trying to internalize the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats our alumni engagement team should be thinking about as we aim to serve our 30,000 alumni. I recently pulled out that piece of paper and noticed under the opportunity heading I wrote, “empower a culture of volunteerism and alumni leadership.” While I believe we still have untapped potential for more diverse and impactful leadership within our alumni community, I no longer consider the aforementioned statement as an opportunity but rather a great strength of our alumni body. The number of alumni serving in a wide range of volunteer capacities grew to nearly 2,000 in 2015-16, 10 times the number at the start of the Elon Commitment strategic plan. Volunteer roles vary, as do the many contributions—thought leadership, peer-to-peer outreach, mentorship, etc.—but they all selflessly gave their time in service to Elon. This kind of volunteerism doesn’t just happen by accident; it takes exemplary leadership. I’m proud so many alumni are represented on the board of trustees, including Kerrii Brown Anderson ’79, who serves

as chair. Members of the Young Alumni Council and other boards and councils contribute to countless initiatives and exemplify what it means to be an Elon partner, advocate and investor. Since this column is typically reserved for the Elon Alumni Board president, I would be remiss if I didn’t especially highlight that important volunteer board, which engages with the Office of Alumni Engagement and other senior administrators to represent the alumni body to the university on a range of important issues. The board also partners with staff to make recommendations concerning alumni programs, benefits and services. Leading the EAB in the year ahead will be Cam Tims ’00. Cam’s thoughtful (and funny!) leadership has been invaluable in all of his volunteer roles with Elon. He works effectively to bring alumni together to meet ambitious goals and to strengthen the Elon network. Alumni leaders like Cam give me, and the rest of the staff, renewed purpose every day. In the year ahead, please consider doing your part to build our culture of volunteerism by serving on a reunion committee, serving as an Elon Day champion, leading an affinity network, providing perspective and expertise to students, taking part in the new Alumni 360 program (see page 33), or one of the many other ways to volunteer. I look forward to seeing you all at one of our regional events or on campus Oct. 21-23 at Homecoming. Brian Feeley ’03 Director of Alumni Engagement

ALUMNI EXCELLENCE CELEBRATED Alumni representing many disciplines were honored this spring for their professional accomplishments and upholding Elon’s values in their communities and the world. { Elon College, the College of Arts & Sciences }

E lon College, the College of Arts and Sciences recognized: ՔՔ Maurice “Don” Owens ’95, deputy director of communications at Public Citizen, with the Elon College Distinguished Alumnus Award in Social Sciences

{ School of Communications }

{ Elon University School of Law }

ՔՔ David L. Wyrick ’94, an associate professor of public health education and director of the Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with the Elon College Distinguished Alumnus Award in the Natural, Mathematical & Computing Sciences ՔՔ Stuart E.Y. Richie ’10, stage manager with Cirque du Soleil, with the Elon College Distinguished Alumna Award in the Arts & Humanities.

T he School of Communications awarded

the 2016 Outstanding Alumnus Award to Troy Senkiewicz ’98, chief executive officer of DigiMax Consulting in Los Angeles.

The Elon University School of Law recognized four distinguished alumni:

ՔՔ Alvaro De La Calle L’12 received the Young Alumnus Award ՔՔ Jennifer L. Reutter L’10 received the Distinguished Service to Elon Law School Award ՔՔ David L. Morrow II ’07 L’10 received the George R. Johnson Professional Achievement Award ՔՔ Elizabeth M. Klein L’12 received the Leary F. Davis Service and Leadership in the Community Award.

summer 2016 31

on the town

ALUMNI ACTION

8th ANNUAL Welcome to the City Series launches in August

ach year Elon’s alumni chapters host events in August and September as a part of the Welcome to the City event series. Hosted in restaurants, at baseball games, in parks or your city’s newest hot spot, these events connect new graduates and relocated alumni to the Elon network wherever they live. If you are new to an area where we have an alumni chapter, this is the perfect opportunity to get to know others in your city and learn more about how Elon will continue to serve you in your new home. { Boston }

More information about dates and locations for the entire event series, as well as other regional programs, can be found at www.elon.edu/alumni. We hope to see you at the events in your area!

{ Charlotte } { Orlando }

WELCOME TO THE ALUMNI FAMILY, CLASS OF 2016!

hile you are no longer on campus, Elon continues to serve you in many ways—through job opportunities from fellow alumni, chapter events in your area, Homecoming and professional development opportunities. Help Elon keep you informed and involved by updating your information. Visit www.elon.edu/alumniupdate to ensure you receive information relevant to you!

32 the MAGAZINE of ELON

ALUMNI ACTION

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

nnouncing the Alumni 360 program, a new survey opportunity that will allow you to share your feedback and opinions quarterly on topics such as Homecoming, alumni communications, regional events and potential new alumni programming. We’ll take your ideas, share the survey results and use them as we plan ways to enhance the alumni experience. Take advantage of this new opportunity and help shape the future of your Elon alumni experience! Join today at www.elon.edu/alumni360.

GET READY TO CHEER ON THE

PHOENIX!

{ Denver }

Miss seeing the Phoenix in action? The Phoenix Club and Elon’s alumni chapters are planning events to help you cheer on Elon where you live. Below are some of the tailgates you can attend: Sept. 10 – vs. UNC-Charlotte Sept. 24 – College of William & Mary Nov. 5 – Towson University Nov. 19 – James Madison University To register for one of these events, go to connect.elon.edu/caa-tailgates. Watch for emails this fall to learn about additional opportunities to support the Phoenix in your own backyard.

TO FIND A CHAPTER NEAR YOU, GO TO www.elon.edu/alumni.

You can also follow us on Facebook (Elon Alumni) and Twitter (@ElonAlumni) for news and event updates.

summer 2016 33

ALUMNI ACTION

HOMECOMING 2016 OCT. 21-23

CELEBRATING OUR PAST, SHAPING OUR FUTURE with a new alumni experience

Elon is reinventing the Homecoming experience for 2016! All alumni will be welcomed back to campus at a huge block community party on Haggard Avenue on Friday afternoon. This #ElonHome celebration will be a family-friendly event, including delicious foods from a variety of food trucks and live music on the main stage. Join your friends in the beer garden or play with your children at one of the many inflatables and activities just for kids. On Saturday cheer on the Phoenix at the Homecoming football game vs. the Richmond Spiders at 3:30 p.m. and the men’s soccer match vs. Delaware at 8 p.m. OTHER SIGNATURE EVENTS INCLUDE: ✪✪

Classes without Quizzes: Mini-sessions for alumni to explore a variety of topics.

✪✪

Game Day Experience: BBQ lunch and lawn games await at the All Alumni Tailgate Village.

Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony: Join us for this annual ceremony as we honor Howard Arner ’64, Beverly Arner ’66, John Hill ’76, Samuel Barefoot ’79, Kelli Palmer ’98, Geoffrey Lynn ’07 and Samantha Gilman ’08 L’11.

✪✪

Homecoming 5K Brick Run: Hit the bricks on Saturday morning for a run through campus.

✪✪

Homecoming Concert: All are welcome to this fun and free outdoor concert.

NPHC Step Show: Watch our NPHC groups showcase their talents at this annual event.

✪✪

Class and Affinity Reunion events and more!

Registration opens in August at www.elon.edu/homecoming. Have questions or want to volunteer? Contact Jill Hollis ’13, assistant director of alumni engagement and special events, at jhollis@elon.edu. 34 the MAGAZINE of ELON

Did you know? Your graduating class now has a Facebook group. Go to Facebook.com and search for your class using “Elon Class of ________.” Join the new group to stay in touch with classmates and keep updated on class news. And don’t forget to follow Elon Alumni for all things Elon!

CLASS NOTES

CLASS 61| NOTES

REUNION Members of the Class of 1960 and 1961 will reunite on campus for Homecoming, Oct. 21-23, to commemorate their 55th reunion, a new tradition Elon will celebrate this fall. Reunion committee members Don Blalock ’60, Jim Humphrey ’60, Glenda Isley Blalock and Faye Gordon Humphrey look forward to seeing classmates at this significant reunion. If you have any questions, please contact reunions@elon.edu.

66|

REUNIOn Reunion committee chairs Eileen Cobb and Mary Benson Daniels, along with committee members Bob Gwaltney ’64, Beverley Powell Blondell ’65, Jerry Cameron, Jack DeVito, Ken Faw, Sally Maurer Koch, Alice Mitchell Rose, Bill Ruth, Mary Coolidge Ruth, Tom Bass ’67 and Betsy Jones Beals ’68 encourage all Class of 1966 members to attend the 50th class reunion during Homecoming weekend, Oct. 21-23. Charlesana Briggs Bureau Members of the class will receive was recently recognized their Golden Alumni Medallions by Senior Life of Florida at the Reunion Brunch and Class for staying active as a senior. Besides of 1966 Induction on Saturday, walking for 40 minutes twice a day, Oct. 22. If you have any questions, she swims an hour a day up to four please contact reunions@elon.edu. times a week. She says she started • Mary Coolidge Ruth and Bill swimming when she was 65 and it Ruth celebrated their 50th wedding took her a year to get to her weekly anniversary this summer by taking routine. “The first 20 minutes are a train trip through the Rocky the hardest,” she says. “By the last 20 Mountains and making stops at minutes I’m so relaxed, I don’t want National Parks—Grand Teton, to stop.” • Charlie Frye claimed five Yellowstone, Badlands, Mount gold medals (bocce, cornhole, croquet, Rushmore and more. They fondly remember their wedding ceremony football throw and softball throw) in 1966, which was attended by Joe and two silver medals (basketball shoot and shuffleboard) at the Greater Cote ’65, Sally Maurer Koch, Carol Lupinacci Brown ’68 and Bob Greensboro (N.C.) Senior Games Sutherland ’69. in the spring. This is his third time participating in the games. He will be Paul H. Amundsen has competing in the State Senior Games recently been promoted to in September. assistant general counsel for regulatory affairs at Philadelphia ALUMNI ALBUM Energy Solutions. The complex is the largest petroleum refinery on the Eastern Seaboard. He lives in Philadelphia with wife Jean. • After being retired for 11 years, John Papa returned to school administration to serve as interim vice principal at Seltzer Elementary/Middle School in Dumont, N.J., from May 1 to June 21. Paul says the level of professionalism in the school system was beyond compare and after his 47 years in the profession, the experience was positive. He and his wife, Sandra Kay Charlie Frye ’63 Thomas Papa, live in Montvale.

63|

69|

Charlesana Briggs Bureau ’63

71|

Bill Ruth ’66 & Mary Coolidge Ruth ’66

Matt Reid ’87 & Michael Nixon ’90

REUNION The Class of 1971 will be celebrating its 45th reunion at Homecoming, Oct. 21-23. Reunion committee members Lynne Marie Schwartz Davis, Ted Nelson and Harold Smith look forward to seeing the rest of the class on campus to help celebrate this milestone. If you have any questions, please contact reunions@elon.edu.

83|

Ralph Muller was appointed the inaugural vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost for Purdue University Northwest. A higher education professional with almost 30 years of administrative experience, Ralph served as dean of the University of Hartford’s College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions in West Hartford, Conn., since 2009. In his new role, Ralph will oversee an institution of six colleges and more than 70 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

76|

REUNION Reunion committee members Buddy Bolton, Fabin Covington, Zane Fearing and Tom McDermott invite classmates back on campus Oct. 21-23 to help celebrate their 40th reunion. Be sure to make plans to attend. If you have any questions, please contact reunions@elon.edu. • Tom McPherson recently retired after spending 20 years with at&t and 12 years with the Alamance-Burlington (N.C.) School System, where he served as the child nutrition accounting manager. He and wife Vicki live in Elon.

79|

Betsy Fowler Idol

attended Elon’s 2016 Commencement ceremony to see her daughter, Julia Idol ’16, graduate. Betsy was very excited to know Julia was the 11th member of her family to graduate from Elon. She lives in Winston-Salem, N.C.

81|

REUNION Join the Class of 1981’s 35th reunion committee members Dave DeClark, Linda Kent Duckworth and Lynn Moore Stewart on Oct. 21-23 to participate in class reunion activities and reminisce about their days at Elon during Homecoming weekend. If you summer 2016 35

CLASS NOTES have any questions, please contact reunions@elon.edu.

83|

Vic Vickers recently became

the director of medical staff services at Cone Health’s Alamance Regional Medical Center. He and wife Pam live in Burlington, N.C.

86|

REUNION It’s time to celebrate the Class of 1986’s 30th reunion with committee chair John Rhoades and committee members Ray Covington, Jeff Downs, Bertha Thomas Johnson, Elizabeth Younger Lewis, John McFadyen and Jim Saunders. They hope their classmates make plans to head back to campus Oct. 21-23 to celebrate this milestone. If you have any questions, please contact reunions@elon.edu.

87|

Matt Reid and Michael Nixon ’90 reconnected at a

Van Halen concert last fall after they found through Facebook they were at the same event. The old Barney dorm suitemates reminisced about their Elon days during intermission.

88|

Army. As an intelligence officer, his responsibilities include providing intelligence operations, training, integration into the intelligence community and language oversight for 58,000 intelligence professionals across the U.S. Army. John lives in Lorton, Va., with wife Tanya.

90|

Stephanie Dawkins was named city administrator for Geneva, Ill. Prior to this position, she served as the city’s assistant city administrator/director of administrative services for eight years. Stephanie and husband Bob Palmer live in Geneva.

91|

REUNION Exciting plans are underway for the Class of 1991’s 25th reunion during Homecoming weekend, Oct. 2123. Reunion committee members Elizabeth Baker, Jim Bush, Marybeth Smokovich Caulfield, Rob Caulfield and Matt Wright hope to see all their classmates on campus to mark this special milestone. For

Col. John Bradsher was

more information, please contact reunions@elon.edu.

92|

Kelly Adkins-Leach has

completed her medical billing and coding program from Penn Foster, while also obtaining her veterinary support assistant and pet nutrition certifications. Kelly and husband Kyle live in Bumpass, Va. • Kim Soter Clark was named account manager for the neurology division at Lundbeck. She lives with husband Tripp in Richmond, Va.

93|

Rocky Mazzeo and Caroline Newnam were married 6/11/16. He earned his master’s degree in physical education from East Carolina University in the spring of 2015. They live in Wendell, N.C.

95|

In May, Linda Kozlowski assumed the position of chief operation officer for Etsy. In that role, she manages business lines, marketing, communications, support and global health. She lives in New York. • Michele Dicso Sherrod received the

named deputy director of plans and integrations at Headquarters, Department of the ALUMNI ALBUM

Michele Dicso Sherrod ’95

Andrea Norris & Tricia Norris ’97

Janell Niebuhr ’02

Katie Sherman ’04 & Will Hughes

36 the MAGAZINE of ELON

99|

Brittney Dewey and Amanda Ballengee Fox were among

a group of Elon alumni who came together in March to support the Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome Foundation at Park Bench in Atlanta. The event raised money for Timothy Syndrome, a rare genetic condition, in honor of Mary Ann Rogers-Witte Ciciarelli’s 5-year-old Lee Samuel Ciciarelli, who died 11/24/15 from the disease. Lee was diagnosed with the condition shortly after his first birthday and was given a life expectancy of two and a half years. Additional alumni who attended the event included Wayne Dewey ’70, Linda Dewey ’71, Angela Long Carter ’97, Anji Roe Wood ’97, Amanda Gardner Jones ’98, Stacy Kirk ’98, Katie Miller Smollon ’98, Jennifer James Terry ’98, Natalie Bradley, Sarah Collins Cross, Samantha Segal English, Kerri Woltmann Keefe, Meg Van Metre Stallard, Cresta Whitmer, Brian Wiltsey, Rachel Zendt and Nichole Hrenko Sumner ’00. Mary Ann is the co-founder of the Timothy Syndrome Alliance, a charity focused on supporting research about and bringing awareness to the issues that affect people suffering from the condition. Since Lee’s passing, the organization has raised more than $25,000.

PHOTO: U.S. Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Gary A. Prill

CLASS NOTES

A DISTINGUISHED Career BY KEREN RIVAS ’04

{ Above: Adm. William “Bill” E. Gortney ’77 and wife Sherry are piped ashore following his retirement ceremony in June. Below: Elon alumni and Kappa Sigma Fraternity brothers celebrate along with the Gortneys aboard the USS George Washington at Naval Station Norfolk. }

p until recently, Adm. William “Bill” E. Gortney ’77 had the distinction of being the most senior aviator in the U.S. Navy, which carries the title of “Gray Eagle.” On June 13, when he retired aboard the USS George Washington at Naval Station Norfolk surrounded by family, colleagues and friends, many of whom were Elon alumni and Kappa Sigma Fraternity brothers, Gortney passed that honor to someone else. “I must open with a deep ‘thank you’ to the crew of the USS George Washington and their captain,” said Gortney. “To be able to conduct this time-honored ceremony on the deck of a warship in which I spent most of my career means so much, not just to me, but to my Navy family.” The ceremony capped a distinguished career that spanned 39 years. Throughout that time, Gortney completed numerous command tours, and overseas and shore assignments. Besides serving as commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command from September 2012 through November 2014, he had most recently led North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command. He retired from those posts in May. In addition, he has flown more than 5,360 mishap-free flight hours and completed 1,265 carrier-arrested landings. Along the way, he has received the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Navy Distinguished Service Medal (twice), Defense Superior Service Medal and Bronze Star, among others. Not bad for someone the Navy turned down twice and who wasn’t looking for a career in the military. A second generation Navy aviator, Gortney enrolled at Elon with the intention of eventually becoming a lawyer. Halfway through his college career, he started to question his professional choice and decided to apply to the Navy’s aviation officer program instead. “They kept turning me down,” he recalls. “I was not a technical or math major, so it took them a while to give me a chance.” The history and political science double major was accepted on his third attempt. At the time, he says, he had no intention of staying in, but soon, he and his wife, Sherry, fell in love with life in the Navy. “Sherry and I kept

having fun with every tour,” he says. “Thirty-nine years have gone by pretty darn quick. I never thought of it as a job.” Besides supporting her husband, Sherry was also an active supporter of other military families and wounded warriors, which earned her the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor the service gives to civilians. “Sherry, like Bill, you too have made a life of public service,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson during the ceremony. “This is a celebration for all of us, but no one more than you. You have made a tremendous impact on our sailors and our families.” Though Gortney is looking forward to spending more time with family, he says, he will always miss the people who made his journey unforgettable: the soldiers, marines, sailors, airmen, members of the Coast Guard and civilians with whom he had the privilege to serve. “We love working for the people who have volunteered to serve their nation,” he says. “It’s an honorable profession. We like being part of an organization that is larger than oneself.” summer 2016 37

CLASS NOTES 2016 Echo Lake Elementary School PTA Volunteer of the Year award. She was recognized for her involvement with the PTA, which included planning fundraising events and activities for all families and students. The stay-at-home mom lives in Glen Allen, Va., with husband Michael and their children.

96|

REUNION It’s time for the Class of 1996’s 20th reunion. Make plans to mark this milestone with reunion committee members Taylor Durham, Annie Dirickson Divers, Corey Hatchell, Josh Klaff, Laura Lyerly Milliken, Robin Draughn Narehood, Brian Rose, Brian Scales, Russ Smith, Brian Spangler, Shannon Prater Warden, Dana Redmon Watson and Stanley Zeigler at Homecoming weekend, Oct. 2123. For more information, contact reunions@elon.edu.

97|

Melissa Clawson and Andy Anglin were married 7/25/15. Alumni in attendance included Teresa Carr Kunkel ’96, Tara Vassallo, Amanda Sherman Davis ’98, Heather Worrall ’98 and Kristen Tozer ’99. She and her husband live in Hagerstown, Md., where she works in private practice as an individual and family therapist. • Tricia Norris ALUMNI ALBUM

and Andrea Norris were married 12/19/15. They live in Richmond, Va., where Tricia recently opened her first business, Norris Consulting LLC, a marketing consultancy offering marketing insight, strategy and execution for small- to medium-sized businesses in the Richmond area.

98|

Heather Coffey was

recently promoted to the rank of associate professor with permanent tenure in the Department of Middle, Secondary and K-12 Education in the College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She lives in Harrisburg.

01|

REUNION

Janetta Tolliver Randolph and Marianne Smith

Stern have teamed up to chair the Class of 2001’s 15th reunion committee. They want to encourage all classmates to come back for Homecoming weekend, Oct. 21-23, to celebrate. For more information, contact reunions@elon.edu. • Emily MacDonnell Grdic was named director of business development for Vox Optima, LLC, a communications and public relations company that works with both federal and commercial clients across the country. Her responsibilities include overseeing sales, marketing, proposal development and client interactions. Emily lives in Alexandria, Va., with husband Jeff and son Christopher. • Shawn Weatherford was recently awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor of physics at Saint Leo University in Florida. He lives in Lake Panasoffkee.

02| Lori Cuadrado ’05, Rachel Della Valle ’05 & friends

Brian Hensen ’05, Michelle Mastaler Hensen ’06 & daughter Genevieve

In April, Janell Niebuhr joined Charlotte, N.C.-based investment firm Summit Park as administrative operations manager. The company focuses on the lower middle market. She lives in Charlotte.

04| Kevin Tonkin ’05 G’11, Amanda Tauber Tonkin ’08 G’11 & friends 38 the MAGAZINE of ELON

Kimberly Atwater Moore ’06, Gregory Moore & friends

Sarah Chesser and husband Chris welcomed twins Cecilia and Evan on 4/20/16. The family lives in Chicago, where Sarah is an events manager for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. • Katie Sherman and Will Hughes were married 5/17/16 in Montauk, N.Y. Katie is a writer based in Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband and their daughter.

05|

Lori Cuadrado and Rachel Della Valle were married

4/9/16 in Durham, N.C. Alumni in attendance included Cortney Berben ’01, Stephanie Wheeler ’01, John Bagwell ’04, Christy Crutchfield, Meg Fanney, Meg Goodrich, Jenn Gough, Amanda Kloer, Kelly Moore, Adam Smith, Brett Tolley, Danielle Tolley and Leah Jardine ’06. Lori is a nurse at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center at UNC Health Care while Rachel is a sustainability consultant and project manager at Southern Energy Management. They live in Durham. • Brian Hensen and Michelle Mastaler Hensen ’06 welcomed daughter Genevieve on 3/18/16. Genevieve joins big brother Colin. The family lives in Charlotte, N.C. • Kevin Tonkin {Law ’11} and Amanda Tauber ’08 {Law ’11} were married 10/10/15 in Asheville, N.C. Alumni in attendance included Alexander “Buff ” Burnette ’66, Zalene “Zee” Newell Burnette ’67, William Monahan ’91, April Burnette Tonkin ’94, Dusty Tonkin ’95, Sean Branson ’03, Erika Larson Branson ’04, Boone Dixon ’04, Sarah Hickman Dixon ’04, Elizabeth Schrauder Ermis ’04, Brendan Gleason, Rachael Campbell Gleason, Daniel Hawkins, Laura Murtha Hawkins, Christopher Litchfield, Bryce Teale, Gillian Stagg Teale, Carlie Devaney ’07, David Morrow ’07 {Law ’10}, Benjamin Vellani ’07, Samantha Gilman ’08 {Law ’11}, Meggan Thompson ’08, Tamaya Davis Franks {Law ’11}, Justin Hinote ’11, Tara Moore Hinote ’11, Carrie Oxendine Kiger {Law ’11}, Manisha Patel {Law ’11}. Also in

attendance was Associate Professor of Political Science Betty Morgan. During the reception, the bride and groom honored Matthew Ford ’04, a friend who passed away in 2008. Kevin is an attorney with The Adams Law Firm while Amanda is an administrative judge for the State of Tennessee’s Department of Human Services, Knox County Division of Appeals and Hearings. They live in Knoxville. • Steven Voshell recently obtained a master’s degree in technology with a major in environmental management from the School of Chemical Technology at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland.

CLASS NOTES

CHARITABLE GIFT ANNUITIES CAN PROVIDE INCOME FOR LIFE a charitable gift annuity of $10,000 or more to Elon will guarantee a fixed income for the rest of your life. With market interest rates near historic lows, a gift annuity is an attractive way to increase your income and make a gift to Elon at the same time. You will receive immediate tax benefits and can defer capital gains. The payment rate of a charitable gift annuity depends on your age at the time of the gift—the older you are, the higher the rate.

RETHINKING WORKSPACES BY KYLE LUBINSKY ’17

{ Cory Lovett and Tim Dobson ’06, founders of KOR. }

or many entering the business world, starting a company is a pipe dream. While being your own boss is appealing, the real-world challenges are quite difficult. For Tim Dobson ’06, though, the dream became a reality in January of 2015, when he founded KOR, a standing desk company. “I’m inspired by big, ethical business opportunities,” the economics graduate says. “I’ve always been an entrepreneurial thinker with the propensity to spot gaps in markets.” With his eye on new opportunities, Dobson recognized the growing market for sit-stand desks—those adjustable desks that allow a person to work while standing or sitting in an effort to boost health and fitness. He teamed up with businessman Cory Lovett, whom he had worked with on other projects, and the two decided to jump into the standing desk market. “After seeing other products, I knew I could build better options,” he says. “It was a trend too big for me to ignore.” The result was KOR, which focuses on high-quality, American-made desks. Started in Scottsdale, Ariz., the company uses sustainable materials to build its desks—the wood is sourced from American forests. Aside from being environmentally conscious, Dobson and Lovett are always adding new components to their desks to stay ahead of the competition. Standard features include memory position controls and KOR Chase, a wire concealment system. While the company has been a success, it expects to sell 3,000 to 5,000 desks this year, Dobson is the first to admit that starting a new company is difficult. In KOR’s case, much of the struggle revolved around securing funding and the costs associated with starting the business. “Ideas are easy, it’s the execution that matters,” he says. “Executing a plan, pushing through the obstacles to bring a great idea to market with a viable business model, is the challenge.” Dobson says Elon provided him with the skills he needed to be a successful business owner. As a student, he was part of the economics club, and also studied abroad in Italy. “That’s the thing about Elon, it’s a small school that has a massive, far-reaching impact with a powerful alumni network,” he says. For him, the relationships built through Elon have also led to the development of KOR. Case in point: he connected with Garrett McKnight ’94 in Phoenix, who introduced him to a multitude of business professionals, something that helped him widen his reach. “The true value of my Elon experience is immeasurable,” Dobson says. “My Elon education in economics impacts every decision that I make. Its greatest gift to me has been the relationships that I developed through my connection with the school.”

rates as of april 17, 2015 ONE BENEFICIARY

T WO BENEFICIARIE S

AG E

ANNUIT Y R ATE

AG E

ANNUIT Y R ATE

60 65 70

4.4% 4.7% 5.1%

60/65 67/67 71/73

4.0% 4.4% 4.7%

Annuity rates are subject to change. The annuity rate remains fixed once your gift is made.

To calculate a gift annuity for you, your spouse or a family member, visit elon.plannedgiving.org.

Talk with us today about how you may benefit from a life income gift to Elon and other gift planning opportunities. please contact: Carolyn DeFrancesco, Director of Planned Giving 336-278-7454 ■ cdefrancesco@elon.edu ■ elon.plannedgiving.org

{ Elon’s Emanons jazz ensemble performing in the 1980s. }

For more information on Dobson’s business, visit kordesk.com. summer 2016 39

CLASS NOTES

06|

REUNION Join Class of 2006’s 10th reunion chairs Brian Hooper and Matt Lardie and 23 planning committee members on Oct. 21-23 to participate in class reunion activities during Homecoming weekend. For more information, contact reunions@elon.edu. • Kimberly Atwater and Gregory Moore were married 9/12/15 in Santa Monica, Calif. Alumni in attendance included Brian Conley ’04, Laura Wulf Conley ’05, Christina DiBiagio Davidson ’05, Zoe

Maas ’05, Meghan Harahan, Kyle James and Sarah Klein Weidner.

Kimberly is supply/demand lead at Accenture. They live in Seal Beach. • Michelle Sarnie Clancy recently joined the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services as a public health preparedness and response strategic national response planner. She is in charge of developing plans for preparedness, response, recovery and hazard mitigation as related to emergency and disaster events, as well as

providing training/education to staff and partners. She lives in Raleigh. • David Douglas has joined NBC News as a producer for all platforms, including “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt,” “TODAY” and MSNBC. He previously worked as senior producer for Al Jazeera America. He lives in Los Angeles. • Bethany Boyd Reeves and husband Jared welcomed daughter Naomi Rose Lee on 3/22/16. The family lives in Garner, N.C.

THE WORLD

FOR YOUR OFFICE BY MADISON MACKENZIE ’18

rowing up in a family that enjoyed travel, Casey Hekker ’11 developed a love for exploring the world at an early age. That passion deepened when she came to Elon. “I did two Winter Terms and a full semester abroad,” says Hekker. “I was obsessed with it. I got the travel bug and took advantage of everything Elon had to offer.” After graduation, Hekker, a strategic communications major, couldn’t shake her desire for traveling and moved to Paris for a year to serve as an au pair before moving to New York City to begin working in advertising and advertising technology. Although she hoped to one day go abroad again, she was not sure when or how. That’s when she stumbled upon a Facebook ad for a program called Remote Year that simply read, “Get paid to travel the world!” “It just seemed too good to be true,” Hekker recalls. “I applied not thinking it was real and never planned on hearing back from them.” To her surprise, she was selected from among 30,000 applicants from all over the world for one of the 75 spots available. Remote Year was launched in 2014 to provide a training ground for digital nomads—that growing number of professionals who prefer to use technology to work from anywhere. It equips participants to work remotely for a year while visiting dozens of locations. More and more companies are adopting programs that allow employees to choose when and where they work in efforts to improve productivity and retention—two

40 the MAGAZINE of ELON

of the main benefits attributed to this work shift. According to a report by technology market research company Forrester, it’s expected that 63 million U.S. adults will work remotely in 2016 as technology continues to make it easier for people to stay connected. As part of Remote Year, participants travel the world as a group, learning and experiencing as many cultures as possible. For a fee, the company takes care of all the logistics: arranging transportation, living accommodations, working spaces, activities and other amenities needed to live and work comfortably abroad. All Hekker needed to do was make sure her employer was going to allow her to work remotely for a year. She made a presentation to her boss explaining what Remote Year is and how it would help the company with global expansion and networking, while allowing her to become a better businesswoman with wider global perspectives. “My company loved the idea and they gave me the go-ahead,” says Hekker. Her contingent left in March and spent the first

few months in South America. They then headed to Europe before finishing the year in Asia. The constant travel and change of scenery makes Remote Year a very appealing opportunity for anyone who is willing to go with the flow and experience the world, Hekker says. “We felt like it was the start of freshman year because none of us knew each other and we were so excited to get to know everyone, see all the amazing experiences we were going to have and how we were going to grow as people,” she says. Hekker still works her New York office hours, so while in South America—with a time difference of only one hour—her schedule has not been difficult. But as she heads to Europe and Asia she knows it is going to be much more of a challenge. Still, she wouldn’t change a thing. “Being able to keep the job I have with a company I love in New York while being able to travel the world and have a paycheck is the best case scenario,” she says. “As I am sitting in my Cuzco apartment [in Peru] with my roommates, it does not feel like reality.” Follow Hekker’s progress at caseyhekker.com.

CLASS NOTES

07|

Erin Rash and Jesse Tarr were married 1/2/16. Alumni who participated in the wedding party included Grant Rash ’04, Stacee Lutz Rash ’05, Jozi Snowberger and Cally Stanford ’08. Other alumni also in attendance included Marilyn Crawford Hargrave ’71, Willie Hargrave ’71, Joanna Zanetto, Whitney Foxworth Simpson ’08 and Danny Cormier ’09 {Law ’12}. Erin is a senior property accountant for Lincoln Harris. They live in Charlotte, N.C. • Andrew Rushton {Interactive Media ’10}

and Patricia Rushton were married 8/15/15. Alumni in attendance included Steve Earley ’04 {Interactive Media ’10}, Andrew Rollins ’04, Justin Townsley ’06, Kristen Laramie Tremblay, Robin Buzby ’08 and Cassandra McClellan ’13. Andrew is a health insurance specialist with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Center. They live in Pikesville, Md.

08|

Mary Cunningham

recently received her master’s of professional studies in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University. She works in communications at the Georgetown

Visitation Preparatory School. • Lourdes Arias and husband Ricardo Endara welcomed son Daniel Andres on 8/13/14. The family lives in San Francisco, Panama.

09|

Christopher Briggs

and Kaitlin Schlosser were married 5/20/16 at Monday Night Brewing in Atlanta. Alumni in attendance included Zaire McCoy ’02, Cameron Davis ’06, Anita Alston ’07, Jamar Whitfield ’07, Tracy Corpening ’08, Jessica Goshen ’08, Michael De Boer, Aaron Dial, William Hairston, Andy Sadler, Jason Stafstrom, Emily Stallings, Brandon Helton ’10, Kristen McDonald ’10, Lochlin Rosen ’11 and Jonathan Smith ’13. Christopher works as assistant director of undergraduate admissions at Duke University. They live in Durham, N.C. • Dana Funk and Jason Green were married 4/30/16. Dana works in marketing at Brasfield & Gorrie, LLC. They live in Raleigh, N.C. • John Lottes and Meghan Goetz were married 4/32/16. Alumni in attendance included Michael Boisvert and Christopher Adams ’10. John is a physical therapist for First Step Physical Therapy. They live in Westbury, N.Y. • Kelly Murtagh won a Best Actress award at FestivalSouth

12|

Eight alumni were part of a group of Elon Law volunteers who fielded phone calls from residents of Wilmington, N.C., and nearby communities as part of a June televised program that offered answers to viewers unsure of where to turn for help with their legal questions. The participating attorneys, who collectively answered more than 200 viewer phone calls in the Elon Law & WECT-TV “Ask A Lawyer” call-in program, included Pamela L. Carter, Chris Bell {Law ’13}, Janison Dillon {Law ’13}, Gwendolyn Lewis {Law ’13}, Andrew Penny {Law ’13}, Tim Dugan {Law ’15}, Patrick Keeley {Law ’15} and Nick Leger {Law ’15}.The event was an example of the law school’s commitment to service in the community, innovation in the ways it partners with alumni and the value to students who work alongside practicing attorneys.

ALUMNI ALBUM

Bethany Boyd Reeves ’06 & daughter Naomi Rose Lee

Andrew Rushton ’07 G’10, Patricia Rushton & friends

Erin Rash Tarr ’07, Jesse Tarr & friends

Dana Funk Green ’09 & Jason Green

John Lottes ’09, Meghan Goetz & friends

Kelly Murtagh ’09

Lourdes Arias ’08 & son Daniel Andres

Megan Cunningham Bergman ’10 & Joshua Bergman summer 2016 41

CLASS NOTES in Mississippi for her role in her film, “Seagulls.” She wrote the movie based on her one-act play, which she performed in Los Angeles. Kelly lives in New Orleans.

10|

Megan Cunningham and Joshua Bergman were married 3/5/16 at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Alumni in attendance included Bobby Hidy ’09, Heather Laskin, Chelsea Moir Massa, Nick Massa and Tristan Milder. Department of World Languages and Cultures Professors Sarah Glasco, who played the cello at the ceremony, and Sophie Adamson were also in attendance. The couple moved to Germany at the end of April. • Michael Hesch and Catherine FitzGerald ’11 were married 8/20/15 in the West Indies. Alumni in attendance included Zachary Lose ’09, Brandon Odenath ’09, Alex Litoff, Marie Jarvis ’11 and Matthew Smith ’11. They live in Raleigh, N.C.

11|

REUNION Mike Nowak, Nick Ochsner and Stephanie White teamed up to chair the Class of 2011’s fifth reunion committee. They encourage the entire class to return for Homecoming weekend, Oct. 21-23,

to celebrate. For more information, contact reunions@elon.edu. • Alesandra Abramoski and Kevin Woolley ’12 were married 9/5/15 in Raleigh, N.C. Their wedding was featured in Southern Bride & Groom magazine. Elon alumni who took part in the wedding party included Jennifer Colvard Jackson ’10, Nicole Deering Dressel and Charlie Smith ’12. Alesandra is an account supervisor for CRISP and Kevin is a senior software developer at Prometheus Group. They live in Raleigh. • Richard Blount Jr. recently became a CPA in the state of Tennessee. He lives in Memphis. • Andrew Cordisco and Kelly Thompson were married 5/7/16 in Washington, D.C. There were more than 35 alumni present spanning 10 years. Kelly and Andrew live in Raleigh, N.C. • Tara Hinote and husband Justin welcomed daughter Cameron Mackenzie on 5/7/16. The family lives in Fairfax, Va. • Madeline Royston {DPT ’15} is working as a physical therapist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She lives in Baltimore. • Stephanie White recently graduated from Mercer University College of Pharmacy in Atlanta. Her pharmacy training took her to Japan, where she met up with

Makaila McKinley Mason ’10. They

spent the day together in Tokyo and Makaila, whose husband is stationed in Japan with the U.S. Navy, showed Stephanie around. Stephanie lives in Jacksonville, Fla.

12|

This summer Molly Jackson played the lead female role in “The Fantasticks” at Winter Park Playhouse in Florida. This was her second production at the theater. She lives in Orlando. • Lamar and Shakinah Lee welcomed daughter Naomi Olivia on 12/23/15. The family lives in Greensboro, N.C. • Kathryn Milizio recently earned a master’s degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Physician Assistant Program. She lives in Merrick. • Kristin Rice {Law ’12} was promoted to attorney in the Legal Affairs Division of the North Carolina Office of the Commissioner of Banks. She is responsible for advising on legal matters relating to North Carolina chartered trust companies, banks and money transmitters. Kristin lives with husband James in Southern Pines. • Crystal Sumner {Law ’12} and Matt Mann were married 5/21/16. Crystal is an attorney at the Law Office of Charles M. Slade, Jr. They live in Lasker, N.C. • Brian Zaldivar ALUMNI ALBUM

Michael Hesch ’10, Catherine FitzGerald Hesch ’11 & friends

Andrew Cordisco ’11, Kelly Thompson Cordisco ’11 & friends

Alesandra Abramoski Woolley ’11 & Kevin Woolley ’12

Molly Jackson ’12

42 the MAGAZINE of ELON

Madeline Royston ’11 G’15 (right)

Lamar Lee ’12, Shakinah Lee ’12 & daughter Naomi Olivia

Brian Zaldivar ’12

Stephanie White ’11

John Burke Batten G’15 & Wendeline Shea Batten G’15

CLASS NOTES was named associate at Danna McKitrick, P.C., in St. Louis. As a member of the firm’s transactional law team, he assists clients in matters relating to business transactions and estate planning.

13|

Hannah Tripp was promoted

to junior assistant editor at Outpost Digital. She is currently working on season two of Netflix’s “Chef ’s Table.” Hannah lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

15|

In March, Whitney Ballbach visited Vaughn Vreeland in Thailand, where Vaughn was teaching English at Eastern Technological College in the Chonburi province. The pair traveled around Thailand and Cambodia, including an excursion to Angkor Wat, considered to be the largest religious monument in the world. Whitney lives in Philadelphia, where she works at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Vaughn lives in Raleigh, N.C., but plans to move to New York in the fall. • John Burke Batten {Law ’15} and Wendeline Shea {Law ’15) were married 11/7/15 in Cary, N.C. The couple met while studying at Elon’s School of Law and in January opened their own law firm, Batten & Batten, LLC, in

Savannah, Ga. • Christine Fortner and Laura Sturdivant met up at Everest Base Camp and hiked the trail together. Christine is a Fulbright scholar studying in Thailand and Laura is a Princeton in Asia scholar studying in Myanmar. • Tanya Ghandour and Alivia Mattioli took a vacation together in Paris and Rome to reconnect after being apart since graduation. Alivia lives in Indianapolis and Tanya lives in London.

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REUNION The Class of 2016 will be celebrating Reunion Zero this year during Homecoming weekend, Oct. 21-23. Join committee chair Mac McCann and all of the Reunion Zero volunteers in returning to campus for this milestone. For more information, contact reunions@elon.edu. • Julia David and Abbie Crane recently did a cross-country road trip from Elon to Atherton, Calif. The two lived together in Sloan dormitory their first year at Elon and grew very close over their four years. They are very thankful for everything Elon has given them and are so happy they got to finish their experience just as it started—together.

ALUMNI ALBUM

Christine Fortner ’15 & Laura Sturdivant ’15

Tanya Ghandour ’15 & Alivia Mattioli ’15

TURN YOURSELF IN! www.elon.edu/classnotes Vaughn Vreeland ’15 & Whitney Ballbach ’15

IN MEMORIAM Agnes Walker Boggus ’43, Virginia Beach, Va., 4/8/16. Lillian “Lil” Dyer Meredith ’44 GP’06, Rockingham, N.C.,

5/28/16.

Carolyn Foushee Parrish ’45, Sanford, N.C., 2/18/16. Mary Ruth Beckom Durham ’46, Greenville, S.C., 5/1/16. Thomas “Tom” B. DeLoache Jr. ’51 P’88, Burlington, N.C.,

2/21/16.

Dr. Robert “Bob” Whitmore ’51 P’77 GP’08, Norfolk, Va.,

5/23/16.

Vivian Callahan Estep ’52, Hickory, N.C., 5/10/16. Reita Durham Gaither ’52, Burlington, N.C., 5/22/16. Charles Mugler Gibson ’52, Matthews, Va., 1/10/16. Beverly Madison “Matt” Currin ’53, Pensacola, Fla., 1/7/16. Jack Lee Musten ’53, Kernersville, N.C., 5/14/16. Marie Williamson Tomlinson ’56, Wilson, N.C., 1/31/16. Lorine Joyner Sutton ’57 P’69, Salisbury, N.C., 5/26/16. Sylvia Grady Hobgood ’58, Jacksonville, N.C., 3/8/16. William Harvey Shelley ’58, Greensboro, N.C., 1/8/16. Harrell Woodrow Baker ’63, Burlington, N.C., 3/26/16. Gene R. Stokes ’64, Darlington, S.C., 1/16/16. Sarah Thomas “Tommie” King Griffin ’65, Burlington, N.C.,

4/29/16.

Lowell Lawrence Thomas ’65, Blowing Rock, N.C., 4/6/16. Nell Marie Harviel ’66, Burlington, N.C., 2/18/16. Dan G. “Willie” Williamson ’69, Burlington, N.C., 2/21/16. A

tennis court at Joe C. Davidson Park was named in Willie’s honor for his contributions to Elon’s tennis program. Vernon Douglas Barber ’72, Charlotte, N.C., 1/12/16. Sarah Jane Draper Baselici ’72, Austin, Texas, 2/3/16. Wayne Dalton Williamson ’73, Chapel Hill, N.C., 4/4/16. Diane E. Zimmerman Hinz ’75, Virginia Beach, Va., 2/13/16. Barbara Terry Hall ’77, Roxboro, N.C., 5/14/16. Marjorie Tennant Smith ’78, Georgetown, S.C., 4/9/16. John Thomas Carter ’79, Martinsville, Va., 2/4/16. Teresa Mann Harris ’79, Burlington, N.C., 4/6/16. Mark Coles ’80, Roanoke, Va., 1/11/16. Barry Douglas Crawford ’85, King, N.C., 4/18/16. Jeffrey V. Broadbridge ’86 P’18, Wilmington, N.C., 5/24/16. Jennifer Huddle Edwards ’93, Mount Airy, N.C., 5/11/16. Alison Luscombe Swift ’95, Red Bank, N.J., 4/6/16. James Weston Goswick ’02, Graham, N.C., 1/21/16.

friends Paul J. Amash, retired foreign languages professor, died April

20, 2016.

Eugenia Leggett-Frank P ’15, who served as the associate dean

of development at the Elon University School of Law from its 2006 founding through 2014, died from a sudden illness on May 7, 2016. Peter L. Tourtellot, a longtime member and former chair of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business Board of Advisors, died July 16, 2016. The Peter L. Tourtellot Scholarship was established in 2010 in honor of his dedicated service. Kathleen W. Rao, widow of former biology professor R. D. Rao, died March 24, 2016. Rosella Rodgers Wilson, friend and former Board of Visitors member, died June 8, 2016. summer 2016 43

COMMENCEMENT

2016

CELEBRATING ELON’S GRADUATES

There were many special moments during Elon’s undergraduate and graduate Commencement ceremonies in May. Here are some images from that memorable week.

Office of Alumni Engagement PO Box 398 Elon, NC 27244 Toll Free: (877) 784-3566 www.elon.edu/alumni Change Service Requested

{ High school student Brenda Gonzalez captured this photo of Veronica Armas during a summer photography class as part of the Elon Academy, the university’s college access and success program that brings area high school students to campus for three consecutive summers. Armas and Gonzalez were among nine scholars (pictured below) who learned from university staff photographer Kim Walker how to make successful images while exploring the power of photography to represent ourselves, create social change and portray our communities. “I have learned to properly take a picture with insight and message rather than just taking quick snapshots that would go on social media,” Gonzalez says. “Fingers trigger a camera, the photo triggers emotion.” To see more examples of the scholars’ work, go to www.elon.edu/magazine. }

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